Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-9178389-20150326163259/@comment-25701646-20150328045257

Jackbenimble wrote: I seen that in an upcoming episode Barbara Hershey is reprising Cora.

And that got me thinking about Cora.....how strong was she?(Ragina and Zelena are both powerful they had to get it from somewhere)

When Cora was coming to SB Ragina made it sound as if when Rumple and Cora had fought in the past Cora came close to winning(i think rumple even responded with "but i still won")..So that made me think in compared to the Dark One how strong was Cora?

And on a side not....rewatching some old Episodes made me think that the events of the series(and Ragina casting the dark curse) could all be traced back to Eva being a jeleous, childesh, snob, who thought she was better then Cora souly because she was a Royal and Cora was a pesent,(and in my opinion Cora had every right to take revenge on Eva)

I think that Cora's definitley rivals Rumple in strength. I think the thing that might have set Rumple back was that he had loved her and  she had ripped out her heart, leaving her uncapable of feeling anything. Were they do face each other again, I think it could go either way.

As for it all being traced back to Eva....I agree she played an important part in the events and she was pretty selfish. However, Cora was by no means some innocent young peasent who had her life completely ruined by a cruel princess. She was slept with a gardener who she thought was  a prince and got pregnant. When she found out and couldn't get him to pay child support, she tried to trick a real prince (who happened to be Eva's fiancee) into marrying her so that Cora'd still have a shot at becoming royalty. She fully intended to let Leopold believe the child was his and have him support her and her baby. She decieved him just as she herself was deceived and, while he seems to genuinely love her, Cora seems to mostly care about being a Princess. Then, Eva finds out and reveals the truth. Now, it seems her motives are selfish. However, all she did was tell the truth whereas Cora lied and schemed. At this point, while Cora was certainly much lower than her lies had brought her up to, she still could have returned to the mill, gotten a job as a barmaid, mended clothes, or any other number of things to help support herself and her child. And she does return to the mill. After leaving a helpless baby under a tree to be taken up by a cyclone so that Cora could "have her best chance". She could have gone home with the child. She could have played ding-dong-ditch and left Zelena on a doorstep. There were churches in Storybrooke. She could have left Zelena there. But no. Under a tree is fine.

Then, time passes and Cora runs into Eva again and Eva trips and humiliates her. That was malicious and unjustifiable. However, the ensuing events are Cora's fault. After sneaking into the ball and getting caught by the King, Cora claims she can spin straw to gold. She was angry at the time and most likely spoke without thinking, but Eva's fault? Hardly. Then she is able to convince Rumplestiltskin to help her and I believe their little dark romance was genuine. But, Cora ultimately decided that she cared more about being Queen, ripped out her heart, and broke Rumple's. Again, she doesn't care about Henry so much as being Queen. Then, she becomes an abusive wife and mother. Then, Cora murders Eva. The only wrong thing Eva did was humiliate Cora. That was bad but a capital crime? Not really. Eva was deserving of punishment but in this case the punishment didn't fit the crime. Then, Cora takes her anger out on an innocent Snow and tries to get her to murder someone to get back at Eva. Afterwards, Cora murders her daughter's boyfriend forces Regina into an unhappy marriage all to get back at Eva and to hold a position of power.

On being pushed into Wonderland, she quickly becomes Queen, where she kills more innocent people, rips some hearts out, and grooms Anastasia into becoming just as evil or almost as evil as she is.

Yes, Eva did wrong Cora in tripping and humiliating her. However, Cora continually chose to manipulate and hurt other people so she could gain more power. That's not all because of Eva. That has more to do with Cora being sociopathic and self-centered.