Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1962215-20140317132636/@comment-24780348-20140502000039

Without a doubt: King Midas.

1. First and foremost, there aren't a lot of actual dragons in and of the realms any more. The one in Midas's kingdom is the only real one shown. Maleficent isn't actually a dragon (that we know of). So what does Midas do? He becomes Hell-bent on wiping it out, with the flimsy excuse that it's taking livestock, which I don't even believe. Flight in an exhausting excercise, especially for something so big, and the poor thing's lair is way up in the mountains. It's trying to stay AWAY from people. It's trying NOT to get slain. The poor sweet thing is scared to death! Yet Midas wants nothing so much as that dragon gone. This isn't even the worst part.

2. We see a shot of the gold-petrified dragon head (and let's be honest, if his touch is powerful enough to work on a dragon, he should have been out there slaying it himself - I kind of get the idea that he gets some perverse thrill out of sending people to their deaths and that getting a husband for his daughter was the ONLY object of this game, played at the expense of the poor innocent dragon's life, but this is just an aside) and we hear Midas talking about where in his collection it's going to go.

3. SO HOLD ON A TICK! He has a whole collection??!! He does this for FUN?! Apparently! Apparently he pays Regina for the use of her mirror, too. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, show me the RAREST of them all. ...Ah, an ivory-billed woodpecker with chicks! Last in the land! Spledid! And it's in the forest just one kingdom over. Servants, fetch my ladder and carriage; we're going hunting." This is not an exaggeration, unless we are to believe the king is content to populate his ROYAL collection of petrified species with common grey squirrels and rock doves.

4. All this is saying little of the INTENTIONAL practice of petrification of animals to begin with. Think about it; it's a curse. You can be brought back afterwards, by magic water, and as we all know, magic cannot restore life. So the poor innocent critters Midas keeps (unless he does kill them first) are caught in a horrible limbo between life and death, frozen in hideous mockeries of their own forms. And he does this to amuse himself. There is no question. The most evil ruler in the Enchanted Forest is the one skipping happily through the trees, tagging all the life he sees with his vile cursed hand, and picking over the remains. How many "golden" eagles do you suppose he tagged before he got one in just the right pose to look perfect in his collection?