Board Thread:Show-Related Questions and Answers/@comment-9902988-20130522225113/@comment-4839682-20130522232202

FairyTailFreak13 wrote:

How did they get affected by the curse then? Have they told us yet?

It hasn't been explained inshow yet. We also haven't seen another magical realm (like Wonderland, or the Land Without Color, etc) in the present, so we don't even know for sure if they exist. However, the fact that everyone travelled to Neverland in the finale certainly indicates that that world exists in some form, but we simply don't know if it was decimated like the EF was. And we don't know how it is that certain people (Whale, for example) are in Storybrooke, but others from the LWC are apparently not.

A popular theory that makes sense with the evidence we have is that the Curse simply took Regina's allies. This explains the presence of Whale and Jefferson, people she knew, who she may find useful.