Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26159109-20170417104929/@comment-5679696-20170417183432

'''The Dark Curse has been used 3 times though. And the flower didn't appear in 3B or 5A.''' Except the first time it had been active for a decade, everyone was miserable, frozen in time, with no real memories of who they were and with no hope whatsoever at a better life. Meanwhile, the second and third curses were only used for transportation and limited memory loss. Clearly, the first one was much, much darker.

'''Also, Snow and Charming kissed and that should have broken the Dark Curse, right? I mean Regina/Henry broke it in 3B with a kiss, and Regina was cursed at that point and she is not a savior''' No, that is not how True Love's Kiss work, nor how the Dark Curse does. Only the offspring of Snow and Charming could break the curse, not them, not anybody else.

Not only was the second curse much weaker than the first one, but Henry is technically the product of Snow and Charming's True Love to a lesser extent than Emma, so the True Love he shared with Regina was still originating at least partially from Snow and Charming's blood.

Each time, the TLK that broke the curse involved at least one person who wasn't cursed and which was a product of Snow and Charming's True Love. Both Mary Margaret and David were cursed when they kissed in Storybrooke. That's like two sleeping curse victims trying to wake each other, or two Dark Ones kissing the darkness away from one other. The curse's Saviour was meant to come to Storybrooke when it was time for the curse to be broken.

Another possible explanation is that Henry (or his very forehead for that matter) was marked by the breaking of the first curse, and that the way to break later enactments of the curse would be to kiss the same forehead true love.