Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4519633-20141022032431/@comment-25926288-20161129014740

Truthfully I was trying to find something good from that spar. One of the major issues is just that Once magic is a "Tap On the Head" tv trope. This has been quite inconsistent this season. Jafar tossed the Oracle a few feet moderately into a wall, which left a cut and knocked her out. Jafar violently tossed Jasmine nearly head first into the hard marble wall/column yet she acted as though she was unfazed. I mean Snow was knocked out by Zelena when she was kicked in the gut.

Nevertheless, Generally TV magic and TV fights tend to border on quick, easy knockouts when it isn't like that in real life. Once's magic does that as well. They do quick, simplistic spars to move the plot point along. When Zelena fought Regina in 3b, most of the time it was just that Zelena was just too fast, casting a spell before her. Zelena tossed Emma down in 5b and Emma seemed worn out, but that made sense because Emma was blasting Zelena's protection spell for a minute or so.

In this small moment, EQ did act faster than Regina usually does, but Zelena really didn't do anything and everything points to Zelena prepping to be defeated. She kissed her daughter, says she loves her, takes a deep breath, etc. We see how Zelena is when she actually wants to fight. Now the episode does go on to have Zelena (which I take as flattery) tell Regina that the spar took alot out of her. I mean, Regina gets tossed into a car, but she wasn't out. Regina was tossed into a tree but she wasn't out.

You can tell if she's outsped or stunned, but we saw neither. She was poofed out. Saw the fire, didn't react, got hit, and flinched as she expected death.

Hopefully we'll see them go at it again, but I doubt it as Zelena isn't stupid.