Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4519633-20141022032431/@comment-25926288-20161018005405

DracoWombat wrote: This mess, in my opinion, started with the introduction of Zelena, or was at least aggravated by her arrival. Until then, there was a sort-of-clearness in that magic users could learn how to do magic, and Emma particularly was born with it because she is the product of True Love and was made into the Saviour. After her, we were introduced to various magic users who were born with it, and we haven't seen anyone who learned how to do it since. Which royally screwed my theories that magic was a force of nature, a fifth element of sorts. One that the LWM lacked, but that Rumpel brought back.

IMO, everyone can learn magic with the right amount of effort and/or being taught by a magical being, or using magical objects. But people born with it (Emma, Zelena, Ingrid) are naturally more powerful than those who learn it. But even those who are born with their internal magic need to be in a magical environment for it to work. Yeah, that's the show for you. I think Zelena aggravated the system (she was naturally born with it) and then started the weird powerscaling (not by much as she was amped and it was explained). Frozen was when the powerscales broke because Frozen's magic is inherently broken and doesn't really match Once's magic at all. I'll give a delightful example:

Before season 4

Rumple

Zelena (amped and unamped)

Cora and Regina

Jafar (staff) and Amara

Then everyone else

But then we had people easily doing town-sized spells which had never been done before and magic had to be re-evaluated because poor magicbuilding. If you asked me if I thought Rumple had the power to create a forest with a mere thought, I'd laugh. But apparently clueless Merlin could!

Back to the mechanics, even before 4 it was iffy, but decent. It was:

1) Magic was learned and they channeled their power from the atmospheric magic. Cora learned it. Regina was born with it....as was Zelena, but Emma was all natural.

2) Innate magic was internal and they could possibly even use it in LWM (before we learned that land had magic).

3) Magic did mostly parlor tricks, had a vague price which was never specific, and had laws that clearly were broken many times. (Wow, the show never stood a chance XD)

Now after 4, it's:

1) Wrong! It's all internal and who knows how it works! Elsa had magic but it skipped a few sisters and everything in-between.

2) Wrong again! All magic is internal, but can't be accessed without atmospheric magic...magic don't work because no magic. The show never went into any detail separating atmospheric magic and innate magic. It would be better if they just had an internal flame and that magic cloud thingy was just the propane.

3) No more parlor tricks, like poofing things places, and transfiguration, and glamours. Let's make giant ice walls and town size sleeping curses happen.

So, by nature of feats around season 4, it would have went.

"Feats" (Statements) [Plot Implications]

Ingrid (Rumple) [Rumple]

Elsa (Zelena) [Regina]

Rumple (Ingrid) [Zelena]

Zelena (Cora) [Cora]

Regina (Regina) [Ingrid]

Cora (Elsa) [Elsa]