In the official podcast for SOTM A and E said that he’s always loved Regina, he’s just doesn’t like her sometimes, which makes total sense in my head. She is his mother and like real families, we may not like what they do sometimes but we still love them.
I don’t need Henry to say I love you to Regina every time she almost does something really stupid and is stopped at the last second. She needs that, but I–as a viewer who can clearly see that Henry has always loved Regina–don’t. Remember in Broken, Henry begged Emma to prevent the town from killing Regina because “she’s still my mom!” But I’ve never been on board with hating Henry; I think he’s a very sweet child who really just wants a family and it’s hard for me to fault him for that. And like many 11yr olds, he often does drastic outlandish things because 11yr olds don’t see gray, they see black and white and take extreme measures. Would I have taken dynamite to blow up the well? No, but I’m 26 and see the world in a more nuanced way. Henry does not: he exists in extremes. Sometimes the writers put lines in his mouth that are just not worthy of a show like Once (like that horrible pizza line) but I don’t fault Henry for that.
The major problem that I hear is that people conflate Henry and Jared. My own best friend does this. After Welcome to Storybrooke, he told me that he hated Henry because he couldn’t stand the actor and I tried to explain to him why that didn’t make any sense. Jared has room to grow but I think it’s wrong to hate on a character just because of the actor.