What all do we know about the Ogres War?

[kfchimera]

@thelonebamf wrote:

T
-There has to be more to it, otherwise why didn’t the Duke just tell the Dark One “turn them all in to snails and smoosh them”? If they were fighting a neighboring land that had something they wanted (say an economic benefit of some sort) then the Duke would need the enemy to remain human as to be able to continue to provide it after the fighting had ended

..I um… may have to go amend my first “fact”.

That is a good point. If you control someone like the Dark One–why fight Ogres?
The Duke was probably not very bright, and perhaps he never asked. Maybe Zoso could not do much of anything on his own, without violating whatever magical gais bound him to the Duke.

I also wonder, how has Rumpel expanded the Dark One’s powers? Was Zoso simply not as powerful as we see Rumpel being?

I’m not sure if I buy the propaganda theory–though it is interesting. We do know there are actual Ogres. While I agree with you it is hard to picture the Ogres having a government enough for a truce, what if they are like Orcs from Lord of the Ring or the goblins. So MOST of the Ogres are thuggish brutes with no sense, but there’s an Overlord of Ogres or something with whom one can reason. In fact, maybe someone is creating the Ogres and they are magically pouring into the realm for the exact purpose of some dark sorcerer taking over. Not to mention, it isn’t a question of avoiding the Ogre territory if the Ogres are expanding too fast, you have to fight. You can’t avoid them forever if they are the ones pushing outwards.

Interesting questions though and I think there is plenty of room for more storytelling about how exactly these Ogres keep rampaging.

[RumplesGirl]

I also wonder, how has Rumpel expanded the Dark One’s powers? Was Zoso simply not as powerful as we see Rumpel being?

Zoso was under the power of the Duke. He had his powers but he was under control and so couldn’t exercise them in the same way Rumple could, being a free agent. Also, we know Rumple spent 250+ years expanding his powers in order to make the Curse. In the Return the BF says that Rumple’s powers are no where near proficient enough to cast such a curse and Rumple basically makes it his lifes mission to become that powerful.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[obisgirl]

yup.

[kfchimera]

@RumplesGirl wrote:

I also wonder, how has Rumpel expanded the Dark One’s powers? Was Zoso simply not as powerful as we see Rumpel being?

Zoso was under the power of the Duke. He had his powers but he was under control and so couldn’t exercise them in the same way Rumple could, being a free agent. Also, we know Rumple spent 250+ years expanding his powers in order to make the Curse. In the Return the BF says that Rumple’s powers are no where near proficient enough to cast such a curse and Rumple basically makes it his lifes mission to become that powerful.

I speculated the Duke was simply too dumb to even try to use Zoso that way, and that Zoso couldn’ t act much on his own. Of course, Zoso could act enough to trick Rumpel…..

I definitely do think Rumpel expanded way beyond the original Dark One powers. I’m curious to find out exactly how much–specifically, if Rumpel lost the Dark One status, would he still be a powerful magic user like Regina or Emma (depending on what emotions are more dominant in him?). He said he was full of love.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

[RumplesGirl]

I definitely do think Rumpel expanded way beyond the original Dark One powers. I’m curious to find out exactly how much–specifically, if Rumpel lost the Dark One status, would he still be a powerful magic user like Regina or Emma (depending on what emotions are more dominant in him?). He said he was full of love.

I’m hoping that’s part of S3. Thus far we’ve seen the very beginning of Rumple as the Dark One and the last few years before the Curse. There is a huge span of time where we don’t know what he was doing. Did he travel to other lands? Did he study with someone? Enchanted objects or maybe a Grimmore? I hope we get some more backstory of that time.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[thelonebamf]

We know for a fact that Rumplestiltskin has “added to the skill set” of the Dark One. For example, he, unlike Zoso has the powers of a Seer. This was what allowed him to see what events he should enact or set in to motion in order to make his curse possible. When Blue Fairy said he didn’t have the power to do such a thing, this was before he gained that ability- so she definitely wasn’t thinking that he would be able to plan something of such scope. Actually, I went back and watched the early episodes when Rumple is in the dungeon prison in Snowing’s kingdom. When they ask him about how to break the curse Carlyle does a fantastic bit of acting. When he says “On it’s… 28th…. birthday” he’s pausing with his eyes closed and hesitates as though he’s sifting through the future and plucking out the details. He hadn’t created the loophole so that Emma would come on her 28th birthday, he was just reading the fact that in the future, that’s when it would happen. We were getting hints of the Seer’s ability within him even that early on. Love that sort of continuity!

It would be interesting to imagine what (if any) other powers he has collected along the way. Obviously he has a castle full of magical bric-a-brac, but has he absorbed the magical powers of any other beings like the Seer? Over the course of 300 years, it’s a definite possibility!

Returning to the Duke and whether there were literal Ogres involved- I don’t think it takes too much brainpower to think “These ogres are destroying us, make them disappear” so there really had to be another reason why he didn’t use Zoso’s ability for something other than frightening the population. (Honestly, we have no actual indication that Zoso ever went to the battlefield. We only see him with the ‘recruitment team’.)

The idea of a “king” ogre is totally a plausible one- at least “the biggest and strongest” ogre. I think however that the idea of ogres expanding their reach too quickly for humans to react is unlikely. Humans are great at adapting. That’s what we do. However when we’re talking about creatures as large as ogres, a few things are usually standard. There are generally fewer of them than smaller creatures (humans, animals in this case). This is because it takes a lot more resources to power a giant creature than a medium or small one. Also, large creatures tend to reproduce at *much* slower rate. This is why small, quick mammals ended up inheriting the earth from the dinosaurs. XD Okay, okay, maybe getting a little too “because, science” in a discussion about a fantasy show- for all I know, ogres come from rotten magic bean pods and sprout like there’s no tomorrow. Still, we tend to see this sort of concept of balance between “large, strong, and slow” and “quick, clever and small” in a lot of fiction etc so it’s something to consider.

It’s also possible that if this is a battle between men and men, the other side is using ogres, sort of like Voldemort and the giants? 🙂

"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."

[kfchimera]

So possibilities for the wars:

1)They were not originally fighting Ogres but a spell transformed the human enemy into the brutish creatures we saw.

2)They are not as dumb or unreasonable as they appear–or they are not all so dumb, perhaps there is a Queen Bee Ogre. Along with this, is the idea they breed the dumb ones pretty fast to create hordes of the creatures and this pushes them to constantly expand their territory. This expansion happens so fast, that humans cannot resettle elsewhere quick enough (does take time to build towns and crops and not every bit of land is equally desirable).

3)There is a person with a dark power controlling them, a dark sorcerer or whatever using them as minions to fight and claim territory.

4) some combination of the above.

As for why the Duke of the frontlands did not use Zoso to better effect possible explanations are:
1) Zoso did not have the power
2) The Duke had to ask and never did
3)The Duke wanted people to fight so he could gain more power

I don’t think it is 1 simply because there wasn’t a long period of time before Rumpel claimed the powers and ended the wars. I agree Rump has vastly expanded his powers beyond what Zoso had, but that took time. He eventually became far more clever than he was at that time in the story as well.

2 also seems a stretch, could the Duke have been that shortsighted?

So 3 makes the most sense. He could have stopped it, but he actually wanted the war or did not want to pay the price it would take to have Zoso stop it.

There is also 4–the writers did not think it too important and there is no real reason storywise.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

[thelonebamf]

4) Impossible! Everything is important!
(Pay no attention to the man behind the curtains!)

"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."

[Myril]

Possible the Duke wanted the war to go on. Possible the Duke asked the Dark One to make him win the war, but that was not doable even with the darkest powerful magic in this world, and only a truce was the way out, but that was something not coming to the mind of the Duke, so he never asked for it. Rumple as The Dark One didn’t care what the Duke wanted, so he ended the fightings by making a truce.

Wars are always coming with propaganda. Maybe the ogres originally were men, maybe not. One way or the other the common image, the image spread among humans about ogres was influenced by war propaganda. We know pretty much nothing about them, their way of living, their culture, their abilities, we know only what has been told by humans. Remember what has been said about the giants. Think the ogres could be the “savages” of the Enchanted Forest, no one knows much about them and no one knows how to communicate with them, but everybody fears them because they are physically stronger than humans. Or they are just bad guys like the trolls (although we only met these bridge trolls, bandits, who knows if all trolls are like that).

¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯

[PriceofMagic]

When Regina was collecting the hair of “the darkest souls” in order to enact the curse, one of them looked like an ogre but doesn’t match the ogre seen in season 2. Could this just be a change of design or are they meant to be two different creatures?

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

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