Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-6302057-20171216220411/@comment-25926288-20171217023240

NickM98 wrote:We did see the First Curse being broken for certain people with Emma's name, pixie dust and Emma kissing Graham. There are established ways to weaken the DC.

Pixie Dust is really powerful as is TLK, that's why I said it was a mentionable feat. By this I mean that in 102, the concept of enchanted hearts had not been thought up by the writers, hence why heart-ripping killed the victim and why in 102, Regina simply threw the heart into the flames to activate the curse. The concept was created in 107, hence why later castings required the heart to be crushed. In addition, the curse was now prepared in a cauldron instead of tossing ingredients in a fire.

'''I was more along the lines of "semantics". The fire, cauldron, or lighting it a flame or dust, they are like different ways to cook chicken and regardless of which appliance you get cooked chicken. It's very minor and is akin to when they hand wave spells that they also have potions for.''' In Fiona's first attempt, plus Regina's, Pan's and Snow's, they followed the recipe on the curse scroll. In her actual curse, Fiona used dark fairy dust as you say in a "jack of all trades" fashion (a good way of putting it). Hook's seems more unclear. But in all castings other than Fiona's dark fairy dust, a heart is required.

'''It's a balancing act of sorts. In the less traditional way, Fiona created a superstrong dark curse and sacrificed noone. The cost was more mechanical (actually acquiring that much dust) than emotional. I see Gothel/Drizella's as something in between. They have really powerful magic, but they still need a tie-in to the original dark curse because they aren't that powerful. We'd have to get more on the witches.''' Answers in bold.