Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20161031005929/@comment-24674051-20161103170702

Ok, further discussion on the mechanics of the Dark Curse need to continue in a different thread. It is a great conversation, and given recent events bears some thought and discussion, but not on this thread. Theory is that the flashback took place concurrent to Season 1, when the Dark Curse was broken by Emma staying in Storybrooke, but before Emma completely broke the curse and restored everyone's memories (since it was only a matter of a week or so until Emma met Killian after that event).

Liam, though, is an interesting case. My guess is that he was around somewhere between 6 and 8 when Killian killed Brennan. (Hard to tell with the child tucked in bed). And I would wager that he was meant to be portrayed as a young man in his late teens (18 or 19), or even early 20's during the flashback. If these are even close to right, then he would have needed to age at least 10, and possibly more like 15,  years during the time of the Dark Curse.

However, it does seem possible that some people were not affected by the anti-aging aspect. Henry was born outside of Storybrooke, yet he aged normally once even after he was brought in. and Ingrid pointed out that she did not age further once she entered Storybrooke. So there was something special about Henry that allowed him to age normally (possibly just being born in the LWM, but that's not confirmed). Perhaps there was/is something special about Liam that also left him untouched by the curses anti-aging aspect.

as a side note, I hope this is not the last we've seen of Liam.