Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-97.81.193.97-20130315051304/@comment-9232373-20130507170314

YayMona wrote: 76.17.214.172 wrote: Cora is referring to her daughter's love. Regina's love would have stopped Cora using magic. But without her heart, Cora could not feel her love of Regina.

Rumple tricked Cora into removing her own heart. He loved Cora, but his driving force - finding Bae - prevented him from stopping her. I think that is why he looked so torn up when she told him what she did. He loved her, knew what would happen to her, but was too much of a coward to stop her and find a different way to craft Regina into the Dark Curse caster. I don't think that Rumple tricked Cora into anything. Cora chose to remove her heart because she realized that with the kind of power she wanted, her heart would be a weakness.

Yeah, she tells Rumple that her heart would hold her back and keep her from obtaining the power she desired. And for as good a predictor of human behavior as Rumple is, that move by Cora took him totally by surprise. It was the perfect example of why Cora did what she did. Rumple got screwed over by Cora because he had love in his heart which made him vulnerable, the exact thing Cora wanted to prevent from ever happening to her.