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This is a really good question. I think in the fictional world of OUAT, where magic exists, magic is a form of science, in the sense that it is the method which investigates how the world works. Magic users then apply that knowledge to manipulate objects (levitate a rock, cast a sleeping curse,…) just as doctors and engineers in our world apply scientific knowledge to manipulate objects (build an airplane, cure a disease,…) Objects in that world have magical properties and the study of magic consists of learning the properties of those objects, just as objects in our world have physical properties and science consists of learning about those properties. We don’t know a lot about how magic is practiced in the OUAT universe, but one big difference seems to be that the knowledge of it is somewhat restricted to a few who have great power, while science has to be shared. Research doesn’t become “science” unless it is published openly so that anyone else can test it and verify it, but it seems many magic spells in OUAT are known only to a few.

Even here, as Myril points out, investigations of nature in medieval times were considered “magic” and chemistry eventually developed from alchemy just as astronomy developed from astrology.

Here’s a more long-winded discussion of the topic which I posted elsewhere in discussing the possible significance of Henry’s name:
The name Henry has a strong connection to the history of magical themes when expressed in its German form, Heinrich. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (Sometimes given in Latinized form as “Henricus”) was a sixteenth century German theologian who wrote several influential works on magic (Coincidently for a show which features such strong female characters as Emma, Regina, and Snow White, he also wrote a book which argued for the moral and theological superiority of women, entitled Declamatio De Nobilitate Et Praecellentia Foeminei Sexus, or in English Declaration on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex). His book De Incertitudine Et Vanitate Scientiarum Atque Artium Declamatio Invectiva (Declaration Attacking the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences and the Arts ) revived some of the ancient Greek ideas of skepticism toward unverifiable claims of “ultimate truth” presented by authorities and prefigured later thinkers such as David Hume. Henry’s skepticism toward Regina’s claims of truth seems to echoe these ideas. Agrippa’s most famous work, De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres ( Three Books of Occult Philosophy ) was an important stepping stone from the magical worldview of medieval times to the scientific view that began to take shape in the Renaissance. Although he was writing in a pre-scientific age and describing a worldview that was based upon magic, he would have an influence on later ideas because Agrippa argued that the world had been endowed by God with “natural magic.” Disease, for example, could be treated by herbal medicines which were seen as having magical properties. This was in contrast to the medieval view that illness was a punishment sent by God which could only be cured by prayer. Much of our modern understanding of the world would evolve from such contemplations of “magic”; botany would evolve from studies attempting to determine the magical properties of plants, astronomy would emerge from the superstition of astrology, and chemistry from the magical quests of alchemy. The flowering of the sciences would eventually grow from the key idea of the Scientific Method: that ideas must be tested by independent experiment and open debate. But at first there was still a strong sense of the medieval idea that mysteries of the world could be explained by magical knowledge that was only available to a few. The human tendency to attribute the unfamiliar to “magic” was stated by novelist Arthur C. Clarke as Clarke’s Third Law:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

More than a century after the death of Agrippa, Isaac Newton would be born and would become the Enlightenment symbol of a rational understanding of the world when his famous work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) created the foundation of the science of physics which persists to this day. But Newton actually spent more time working on alchemy than he did on physics and he devoted more time to studies of theology than he did to alchemy. John Maynard Keynes said
“Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians…”

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@ceege wrote:

@TheTrickster wrote:

@Gaultheria wrote:

But as I said, I don’t think so. It was more like the hero getting an amulet from the old wizard. You know, as Sigrud got the magic ring from the evil dwarf wizard before go to kill Fafnir and rescue the “sleeping beauty” that was Brinhild from her punishment -that was sleeping into a circle of flames until a hero could arrive til her.

Sorry for my ignorance, but what story does that refer to?

Sigurd is a character from old Norse mythology. Sigurd was the basis for the character Siegfried in Richard Wagner’s opera, Siegfried, which is part of the four opera cycle Der Ring des Nibulungen. I think TheTrickster is right that there are a lot of great parallels between that classic story and OUAT.

(By the way, I never apologize for my ignorance – I just remember Mark Twain’s comment: “Everyone is ignorant; just on different subjects.”)

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@Gaultheria wrote:

But as I said, I don’t think so. It was more like the hero getting an amulet from the old wizard. You know, as Sigrud got the magic ring from the evil dwarf wizard before go to kill Fafnir and rescue the “sleeping beauty” that was Brinhild from her punishment -that was sleeping into a circle of flames until a hero could arrive til her.

I love your idea of this connection between OUAT and Wagner’s great set of operas, Der Ring Des Nibelungen! OUAT draws on so many universal themes that run through classical works of mythology that we can have great fun in finding parallels with other stories, whether it’s Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings, but I hadn’t thought of making the connection to Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Now that you’ve pointed it out though, I agree the imagery of Henry going through the flames to Aurora is very reminiscent of Siegfried going through the ring of fire to Brunhilde in Siegfried, as well as the fact that both Snow White and Brunhilde were under a sleeping curse..

Furthermore, Wagner’s whole theme of the world of the gods being destroyed, which comes to a climax in Gotterdammerung certainly reminds us of the near-total destruction of the Enchanted Forest in OUAT and the way the characters in Storybrooke have to adjust to life in a different world. We could start a whole new topic just to discuss these parallels. Maybe I’ll do that.

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@medchen wrote:

I think Rumple chose power because he was scared. But I dont think it makes him worse. Its not important who is worse then the other. I think its more important if either can change or not.

I really like this idea; I think it is the key to understanding their characters. Rumple’s deeds stem from fear, while Regina’s deeds stem from anger.

Yes, Rumple chose power over Bae when he didn’t follow Bae into the vortex, but it wasn’t a case of choosing power purely for the sake of power (as say, King George, might have). Rather, we saw in that scene that Rumple was terrified and wanted his power to keep himself and Bae safe. We also saw how much he regretted that moment of weakness – immediately afterward and ever since. Furthermore, we saw in “The Return” last year that he was now willing to give up his power when he thought August was Bae (“I chose it once. Now I choose you”). But until he finds Bae, his guilt will continue to drive him to whatever amoral action he finds necessary to effect that reunion.

Just as Rumple’s course was set by that one moment in which he lost Bae, Regina’s was set by the moment in which she saw Cora kill Daniel. It’s pretty clear something in Regina snapped at that moment and she couldn’t deal with such a terrible shock in a fully rational way. She loved Daniel, but she also loved her mother despite Cora’s evil. As much as she hated Cora’s actions, she couldn’t bring herself to hate her mother, so she wound up focusing all of that pain and anger on the innocent Snow White.

So Rumple needs to learn courage and Regina needs to learn forgiveness. Whether or not either can succeed in their quest should be fascinating to watch.

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@Elle wrote:

🙂 I don’t think it he has any ulterior motive for helping Henry. 🙂

I agree. Sometimes we get so caught up in anticipating the intricate plot twists that might be hidden behind a character’s actions that we forget this is primarily a character-driven, not a plot driven, show. I think Gold’s willingness to help for free was just to remind us he does have a soft spot even though he can also be ruthless in pursuit of his own agenda.

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I thought of the Fringe, Breaking Bad, and Star Wars parallels also. Another one might be Neal Stephenson’s novel Anathem. It’s not as close a parallel as the others, but it does feature threats from alternate universes and a rich description of the habits and customs of an alternate universe which has some similarities to the medieval world, just as does the Enchanted Forest.

With all these alternate universe themes cropping up in OUAT and other works, I keep hoping to see a character named Hugh! (Hugh Everett developed the many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics which has served as the inspiration for many fictional accounts of parallel universes.)

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@Marilou wrote:

I’ve been thinking since the episode aired, we all know that magic comes with a price and in this case, no price was paid for said magic, therefore, maybe no magic happened or was used. what Gold gave to henry was a mere placebo (I don’t think it was done with bad intentions, maybe Gold just did this to give Henry the courage he needed)

Gold did say “This one’s on me”, so whatever the price, he is willing to pay it.

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@medchen wrote:

Why doesnt the quote thing work the same way when I do it as when you guys do it ????

I don’t know; the command string for a quote is clearly showing up in your post but not being interpreted for some reason. Have you tried any of the other functions that insert formatting commands, like Bold, Italic, or Underline? Do they have the same problem?

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@PriceofMagic wrote:

The reaction to Rumple’s murder of Milah could have been worse because it wasn’t expected of Rumple to be that evil whereas when Regina’s murder of Leopold aired, Stable Boy hadn’t aired so the audience only knew Regina to be evil so it was kind of expected of her. Rumple was kind of a fun villain.

That’s a great point! I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. Before “The Stable Boy” we had only seen the evil side of Regina, with just some vague hints that she had suffered some terrible loss in her past.

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@beautyistruth wrote:

There was quite a noticeable reaction of general horror when Rumple killed Milah in the Crocodile. Fair enough. Killing your ex-wife in a fit of anger is really, really bad. Now, I wasn’t part of the online fandom when “Forbidden Fruit” came out, but retrospectively, it doesn’t seem like there was near the amount of horror when Regina emotionally manipulated the genie to murder Leopold.

I think that is a great insight. I didn’t tally any statistics, but it did seem to me that there were more online expressions of shock over Rumple’s murder of Milah than there were over Regina’s murder of Leopold. And while neither crime was justified, I personally found Leopold a somewhat more sympathetic character than Milah.

I agree that both Rumple and Regina are evil and that both have the potential for rehabilitation and redemption, but I can’t really rank one as worse than the other. I was tempted to tally up a body count for each villain, but that’s really irrelevant and it leads to questions of who counts as a “victim”. Personally, I wouldn’t count Hodor and his soldiers whom Rumple killed in “Desperate Souls” as victims. They were heavily armed soldiers whom Rumple killed in order to protect Bae, much as Snow and Charming have killed many of the soldiers from Regina’s and George’s armies.

Just as I have enjoyed seeing Regina begin to try to reform, I enjoyed seeing Rumple’s act of kindness in giving the amulet to Henry in “Child of the Moon.” Like his love for Belle, it shows Rumple still has traces of the good that was in him before he became the Dark One. I found it especially significant that despite Regina’s imprisonment of Belle and Rumple’s attempt to send the wraith after Regina, Regina was willing to ask Rumple for help with Henry’s affliction and Rumple was willing to give it. Both were willing to put aside their anger toward the other for Henry’s sake. I love the fact that we have such complex and tragic villains. And while both are ultimately responsible for their actions, it’s worth remembering that both are examples of the fact that “Evil isn’t born, it’s made.” Rumple was corrupted by Zoso and Regina was corrupted by Rumple and Cora. Of course, I don’t think either should try to use the Nuremberg defense, “I was just following orders.”

Also, as I’ve said before, if someone (Cora? King George?) tries to harm Henry, I think we will see Regina’s “no more magic” rule go out the window in a heartbeat. Her reaction in that case could be pretty bloodthirsty while still maintaining some sympathy from the audience.

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