Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-25926288-20160723224038/@comment-25926288-20160809200255

I'll bring it back around (so the discussion doesn't go tangential).

The Author mythos was the answer to the question we've always had: "Who wrote the Book?". However, it came with a poor basis of "Regina's sad. Better find the Author of the Book who is in no way involved!" It didn't make much sense in the set-up and it made even less sense in the pay-off.

4x01: Regina's sad. The Author wrote past true love, heroes, and villains, so maybe he can explain why? (Even if he never showed any involvement thus far).

4x17ish: Isaac never affected Regina or anyone for that matter (except some minor squabbles with eggnapping). Just reality warping powers given by a deity-like Sorcerer.

Which goes straight into the bigger lackluster issue: The Dark One mythos. Merlin and Nimue were awesome. The source was awesome. But there were several issues with it.

1. God-like Sorcerer didn't match the Dark Wizard we've seen for so many seasons. Powerscale-wise, Merlin outmatches anything we've seen anyone do with little to no casual intent. Come on, Merlin warped an entire desert without any effort! So, Rumple shouldn't be weaker than a boy hopped up on fairy dust.

2. The Dark One was just the Dark Lord archetype and sort of was nice with mystery. It seemed like something that effects the user greatly with it's parasitic skin disorder and all the other changes involved. Season 5a tossed all that away for no reason. "OMG, we can't let Emma or Killypoo turn ugly golden-green! Let's just make them a little pale." Then there was the whole, "Emma's been compromised. So has Hook. But Rumple....he's just evil just because I said so!"

So, now we come to the Savior mythos. Unlike DO or Author, I haven't ever seen someone ask if there were others. Cool to approach this situation. I'm intrigued to find out, but I'm worried that it'll just end up being another word for "Hero". Unless Aladdin is some prophesied hero that might be a product of true love and that might be responsible for stopping darkness, I can't see any connection that excludes Snow, Aurora, or even Henry from being one.