Board Thread:Rant and Rave/@comment-34657163-20180302022146/@comment-1826156-20180603160015

At least with Rumple, he is self aware of why no one likes him or trusts him. He knows he still has darkness and selfish motives. Even Rumple in the last season is selfishly motivated, no matter how nice it seemed. Sure, in the end he gambled everything to save the others, but what was his alternative? Also, Rumple isn't stupid, I'm sure he was thinking a sacrifice of that magnitude was enough to earn him a reward. I mean, if Cora can just say: "Oops, I'm sorry I got caught (and made into a servant by Hades) even though I just tried to cast a good man into Hell, can you forgive me?" and earn a spot in Heaven, his chances were pretty good.

Regina just expected everyone should not only forgive her but accept her into the group because reasons and she loved Henry. She didn't want to put any real effort into it. The whole Serum Queen business was immature and pointless. She was trying to say: "I'm not the character who did those horrible things, she was! And now that we're split, yay! I'm a good guy." That's not how redemption works.

I agree with Xena doing it better. Xena spent six seasons righting the wrongs she'd done, struggling with her darkness, overcoming it and sadly, in the end, losing it all to make right a wrong (freeing a village she'd trapped in a purgatory when she was evil.) I'm not saying Regina should have died, and yes, she lost Robin Hood, but she did things arguably as bad as Xena, maybe on a smaller scale, but she selfishly claimed to be doing the right thing, even then. We got to see Xena suffer mentally, physically and spiritually and in the end make a sacrifice. Even losing her own son along the way.

We got to see Regina whine constantly about how she'd been made a villain and everyone else was being mean for not understanding her and letting it all go or for not trusting her to have custody of Henry just because she brainwashed him, manipulated him, gaslighted him and tortured his whole family. I am glad Regina had a happy ending, because I believe she did turn over a new leaf even if she didn't really repent that we saw, but I would have liked to seen her work a bit harder. Sadly, the show was too focused on other things due to the ensemble cast and the ridiculous amount of filler past season 3a.