Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-24894881-20180818085051/@comment-25375217-20180820182023

It's worth noting again that we've seen very little of Zelena's reign as the Wicked Witch, especially when compared to Regina. We don't know how many villages she may or may not have wiped out. I mean, we didn't even meet the Munchkins until Season 5. We've only seen one tiny part of Zelena's first time travel attempt; we don't know how that was stopped. We also don't know when or how she was banished from Oz, but I would imagine this was probably a pretty intense battle -- Zelena had endless flying monkeys, there's no way Dorothy could have handled them alone (not to mention Dorothy's whole thing was "the love of the people", so presumably the epic final showdown would include "the people" supporting her). And then we have the fact that Zelena had utterly terrified the residents of the Enchanted Forest by the time the heroes showed up -- how? Probably by doing some pretty awful things.

It's possible that Zelena preferred transforming people into flying monkeys instead of killing them, but is that really less evil? The flying monkey transformation alone was rather intense and terrifying, but then they lose all free will? I feel like that's a fate worse than death.

And, as mentioned above, Zelena killed Boq without a second thought, as well as attempting to just poof Dorothy's head off (which hit the guard instead). She pretty clearly had no qualms about murder, so there's a good chance she had murdered many before.

As for her showing mercy to Ivo, Hansel, and Gretel, Regina did the same. Actually, almost literally the same. She spared her own version of Hansel, Gretel, and their father.