Board Thread:Wiki-Related Discussion/@comment-25375217-20170205022236

I have yet to find the discussion where people came to a consensus on this in the past, so if anyone could send that link to me, that would be great ^.^

**Note that Peter Pan's curse is not being included in this message for simplicity. All mentions of the second/third curse refer to the curses cast by Snow White and Hook, respectively.**

As I have been told by Lady Junky, the current consensus by the wiki's users is to not consider anyone carried over by the Dark Curse cast by Dark Hook/Emma in Season Five cursed, the reason (as far as I can tell) being that the Dark Curse was not used to give them false identities like the first two were; instead, it was used just to travel realms from Camelot to the Land Without Magic. So that raises an interesting question: what exactly makes the Dark Curse a curse?

When we're first introduced to the Dark Curse in Season One, it is used by Regina to punish Snow White and Prince Charming (and many other people who were either friends with Snow and Charming or wronged Regina). Specifically, it turns Charming into a man in a coma while Snow White becomes a single and unhappy school teacher. They do not remember their past lives. When the Savior breaks the curse with True Love's Kiss (on Henry), they get their memories back. So the implication of the story is that the "curse" is that they do not remember who they used to be since this is what is undone by the curse breaking.

Similarly, when the curse reappears in Season Three, Regina is actually the one to break the curse (once again with True Love's Kiss on Henry) and it once again returns memories to everyone who was affected (although this time they only forgot the previous year, not their entire lives). This further reinforces that the "curse" is that they forget something.

However, even though this is what is presented by the story, it is not what is presented by the characters. This is the first description of the curse we're given in the series:

"Your prison, all of our prisons, will be time. Time will stop, and we will be trapped. Someplace horrible, where everything we hold dear, everything we love, will be ripped from us while we suffer for all eternity. While the Queen celebrates, victorious at last. No more happy endings."

- Rumplestiltskin to Snow White and Prince Charming

This description refers to the curse as a prison in time and a certain horrible place. While Rumplestiltskin's statement that everything the affected people loved would be ripped away from them could be taken as referring to their loss of memories, this is never explicitly stated and is not the focus of the quote. In fact, the loss of everything they love is attributed to the location. "Someplace horrible where everything we hold dear, everything we love, will be ripped from us[...]" This goes against what the storytelling presents: instead of the curse being their loss of their identities so they can't be happy, the curse is the relocation to a place where they can't be happy.

This also fits with not only the casting of the third curse but also the casting of the second curse. Prior to Zelena throwing in an extra ingredient, Snow White cast the second curse with the sole intention of reaching the Land Without Magic where Emma could defeat Zelena. The curse, at its core, is a "taxi", as Lady Junky put it - and yet, it's still called a curse.

But what about True Love's Kiss? When implemented by Emma and Regina to break the curse, all it did was return their memories. Clearly, this means that the curse is simply memory removal, as otherwise it being broken would send them back to the Enchanted Forest, right?

Well, the show covers that, too. Listen to the discussion just minutes (probably?) after the curse is broken:

"Henry: She did it. She saved you. Snow: She saved all of us. Emma: I... well... Leroy: Uh... then why are we still here? David: That, my friend, is an excellent question."

- Henry, Snow, Emma, Leroy, and David discussing the aftermath of the curse.

Everyone affected by the curse was also under the impression that the curse was being taken to the Land Without Magic. Unfortunately, the only reason we're given as to why breaking it didn't take them back...

"Because there's nothing to go back to."

- Regina's excuse.

...isn't true.

But wait, there's more: the curse being broken may not have returned everyone to where they came from... but as we all know, something did - that's the whole plot of the second half of Season Three. And what exactly would that something be?

"Regina: I have to undo what I started. Snow: The curse that brought us to Storybrooke. Regina: That created Storybrooke. It doesn't belong here. And neither do any of us. David: Breaking the curse destroys the town."

- The price of stopping Peter Pan's curse.

Breaking the curse.

Well, reversing the curse. At least, that's the terminology we came up with. Emma broke the curse with True Love, but Regina undoes the curse with its scroll. And undoing the curse sends everyone back to where they came from.

So the opposite of the Dark Curse, its reverse, is returning to where you came from. Which means that its main usage, the opposite of its opposite, is to take you away from where you belong - specifically, to the Land Without Magic.

Even ignoring all of that and defining the Dark Curse as something that takes one's memories, though, the claim that the residents of Camelot (and all others affected by the third curse) were not cursed is flawed. In Broken Heart, when Hook casts the Dark Curse, Emma uses Dreamcatchers to remove everyone's memories so that they cannot remember that Hook is the Dark One. However, when she does this, the only people that she actually uses a Dreamcatcher on are the main characters. King Arthur, Guinevere, Merida, and all of the other residents of Camelot are seen elsewhere as the curse approaches. Their memories are removed because Emma added the Dreamcatcher to the Dark Curse, much like when Zelena added a potion to Snow's curse. Therefore, Hook's curse erased their memories as much as Zelena's did. Violet, Arthur, and Merida have cursed identities as much as Robin Hood, Aurora, and Zelena - actually, given that Zelena kept her memories, Violet, Arthur, and Merida are more deserving of the "cursed" title than Zelena is.

So there you go. In my opinion, this is more than enough evidence that Violet, Arthur, Merida, Guinevere, Grif, and all of the others brought over by the third Dark Curse (including, I suppose, Henry and Hook) should be given the "cursed" infobox currently in use on pages such as Robin Hood's, Zelena's, and Maleficent's. This could also be considered an argument for the inclusion of a section titled "During Third Curse"; however, given that the curse was never formally "broken" (Emma simply returned some, possibly all, of the memories using the Dreamcatchers), I don't think it's necessary. 