Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-25536775-20160805213611/@comment-24674051-20160809134850

actually, for all of the complaints about lack of consistency (and I contribute as much as anyone on this subject), the writers do a decent job. Not perfect, but they do better than we sometimes give them credit for. For example, going back to "And Straight on til Morning" (Season 2 Finale), Hook shared the story of how his dad abandoned him as a child (while teaching a young Bae to steer the Jolly Roger). Flash forward to season 5, "Swan Song", And we get to see the story of how Hook's dad abandoned him, and what we saw was consistent with what was told in Season 2. That's 2 1/2 seasons later.

Killian's Hook is somewhat of an enigma, I'll agree. But taking away someone's heart was not always taking away their emotions, but it was about lessening the intensity of them, and really only affecting Love. And we really only have 4 examples to review. With Graham, he did say he couldn't feel anything. With Will, removing his heart eased the pain of losing Ana, which was a result of how deeply he loved her. With Cora, it was more about love being weakness and getting in the way of her pursuit of power, and what we saw of Cora in the EF, she still seems to be able to love (at least Regina), just not as fully as she might have been able to with her heart. With Regina, she specifically stated that not having her heart made her love less intense (this was in a conversation with Robin). We can't be really sure about anyone else, because they generally don't much beyond that (since the heart ripper tends to be crush happy).

The dark curse did need to be broken by the Savior, and it was. (the first time). and maybe, just maybe, Emma is not the true Savior, but just a Savior. In "Lost Boy", Pan comments to Henry about what it could mean to be descended from True Love and Darkness, and that he could be the savior of magic. Admittedly, that was partially a ruse to try and trick Henry into giving up his heart, but who's to say that there wasn't also some truth in it. Because Henry was involved in breaking the first and second curse, and also involved with bringing magic to NYC.

Final comment: I don't doubt that there will be a little retcon action going on.