Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20151215200142/@comment-5679696-20151217000036

May I just point out that Regina's arc was, although very little, consistent. If you look beyond the "I will become the Saviour of this town" and the "Now I Believe" lines, which out of context seem like they belong to entirely different arcs, Regina's tiny subplot was pushing her character a bit fowards: in The Price, she struggled with being the new Saviour because even though she believed in herself, the town didn't trust her. In the last episode, Regina says a complete line, and people just cut it off to complain about it wihtout hearing it through: (not exact quote) "Now, Now I believe in myself. As does this town."

The whole point of the mini-tiny-subplot introduced in The Price and concluded in Swan Song, was that Regina needed to feel that the gang, in other words, the people around her, trusted her. She knows she is not the Evil Queen... But she wouldn't truly feel comfortable with her new heroic self until everybody else saw it. I guess everything she did to protect the town from the Dark One (I'm not sure if it was much, but anyway) was the final piece for the "town" (again, the town is basically the main characters and the dwarves) to believe in her.

So no, it was not really about being the saviour or believing in herself, it was about feeling untrusted and feeling like the town now believes in her. Quite rushed, sure, but not as bad as many people hurry to point out xD