Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31564770-20170707045454

Full disclosure- this is a really old thing, and something totally irrelevant to current events on the show, but it's been nagging at me for a while and I don't really know the answer so I'd like some help which is why I'm posting it.

Ok, so before the first curse, the EQ went to Rumple because her first attempt to cast it failed. In exchange for telling her what she needed to do (she couldn't use Rocinante's heart- he's a horse and she needed something more precious, i.e. the heart of the thing she love most, her father) he demands a good life in the LWM and that she would do whatever he asked as long as he said please. She agrees under the logic that he won't remember the deal, so he won't know the difference and therefore won't use the please part intentionally or strategically and it won't hurt her.

We see Gold cash in on that second part of the deal several times in season 1, after he wakes up upon hearing Emma's name. Every time he uses it, Regina does what he wants. There are a couple times, for instance, when she wants information, and he uses the deal to have her let him leave and avoid talking about it, such as when Regina asks who Emma really is and when she stops him on the street. Here then is my real question: is the fact that Regina must obey when he says please built into the curse, or is she actually trying to abide by the deal?

There's a decent case for each, so though I am inclined to choose the former option I really do want some help here.

If it's built in, that would explain why whenever Gold uses the deal Regina doesn't just look like she's been very inconvenienced, she looks like she's being somehow restrained in a way. It explains why she doesn't just screw it and break the deal. While it is entirely true that Regina knows of and knows to respect Rumple's reputation regarding deals, the fact is they're in the LWM and she's the mayor while he's just a powerful landlord. If they got into it, Regina would have a far better chance than in the EF where he was hands down more powerful than her. She might actually win in SB, who knows? Furthermore, a case could be made that the information she gained from, say, not letting Gold leave before he tells her who Emma really is, outweighs the cost. There's also the fact that shortly after the curse breaks Gold tries to use the deal to make Regina leave him alone and get out of his shop. Regina responds by holding her ground for a few moments, as if she's waiting for something, before she comments that his "pleases have lost their punch." After that the deal is never used again. If the deal was built into the curse and Regina had no choice but to obey while the curse was active, then that scene was her testing the waters to see if the effect remained after the curse was gone. Since it didn't and she didn't obey, that's strong evidence for it being built in.

Conversely, there's a case to be made for her doing it out of respect for the deal. It's possible that the first time he used the deal, when he asked her to let him go after she demanded to know who Emma really was, she saw how he placed such emphasis on it and how he was acting in general and pretty much suspected he was awake right off the bat. Thus she avoided what would be a nasty fight that could cost her dearly in her battle for Henry and held up her end of the deal. This is what she did all the way up until her defiance at the start of season 2 because he priorities somewhat shifted. There's also the fact that I can't see Regina conciously and willingly giving Rumple essentially unchecked power over her under any circumstances, and having it built into the curse is clearly a violation of that.

Now, I tend to lean towards it being built in. What I think might have happened is that she sort of subconsciously built it in out of an ingrained desire to respect a deal with Rumple because she knows full well the terrifying consequences of breaking one. Subconscious doesn't really follow logic, so it could happen. The curse was, after all, meant to serve her wishes. When she cast it, she couldn't have more than a vague idea of what would happen. Her conscious desires of what she wanted out of the curse were that she would be in charge, everyone else would forget everything and be miserable, and Rumple gets an estate per their deal. She'd never seen the LWM and didn't know any of the details about it, nor did she have exact plans for everyone's new identities. So when she cast the curse, she sort of created a program, entered in a few basic details, and let it do its thing and make it happen. Of course, this was magic. Magic runs on emotions and emotions run on subconscious for the most part. Thus it's reasonable that the curse included her subconscious desire to not break her deal into its makeup, and since it took care of all the details, its solution was to force her to abide by her deal. I mean, it's not like the curse didn't affect her, right? It transported her, stopped her in time, and gave her knowledge of how the LWM works and such so she could function. I have a massive amount of headcanon theories about what exactly the curse did to Regina, but that's another post. It's not inconceivable that the deal could have been built in.

Anyways, I need some input! Despite how it looks, I do have a lot of doubt if I'm right or not. 