@Elle wrote:
She made him feel like he was crazy. She may never have hit him, but she hurt him emotionally. That is emotional abuse. And he himself one believed she did not love him–the Pilot episode. She also forced him to come with her with the threat that if he did not, she would kill others–We Are Both.
In addition to the gaslighting and her forcing Henry to come live with her, or she’d start killing people, there was also how scared he was of her killing Emma right after Graham is murdered. He knows that Regina was the murderer and had good cause to fear for Emma’s life to the point where he becomes very depressed and afraid to do anything to Regina for fear she might do something to Emma.
She made a choice. She had gotten rid of her mother like she wanted. She did not want anything to do with magic before. She chose to learn. That is all on her. Rumpelstiltskin may have shown her the path, but he didn’t force her to walk it. She had a choice to refuse.
Yes, I loved The Cricket Game because it showed that time and again, Regina has been given many choices to do the right thing by the people she’s wronged, but instead she almost always chooses to do evil against them.
As sad as her circumstances are, she has to be held responsbile for her actions. And so far, she hasn’t really. She has never shown remorse and never once even tried to apolgoize.
Yes, Rumple needs to work on this too eventually, but that was definitely one of the reasons I was had serious doubts about Regina turning over a whole new leaf story line because she was doing it just to get Henry back and not because it was just the right thing to do. I mean it’s fine to have a goal in mind to keep her on the right path, but at the same time, if she doesn’t take full responsibility for everything that she chose to do, she’ll never learn.