Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26580042-20160826010854/@comment-24674051-20160827140742

Nice post, and well thought out.

One consideration to remember, though, is that Excalibur, and by extension the Kris Dagger, are still the Holy Grail. Merlin simply reforged the Grail to create Excalibur. And Merlin did not just randomly pick the dagger as the tethering means for the Dark One. I think that the ability to tether the HG magic within the Dark One (and later tethering Merlin himself to the other half of Excalibur) required the use of the HG or something created from the HG (Excalibur, or the blade broken from it). The point being, while I won't discount the possibility that the new DO Dagger could be the fake one Gold previously used,  it is my opinion that the Dagger in Gold's possession is the original DO Dagger.

Another point is regarding what was said about Emma learning magic. She is not like Regina, Cora, or Anastasia. Emma did not have to learn magic. She was born with Magic. She grew up in a land without magic, which masked her magical potential, though not completely, as we saw in situations like the arcade with Ingrid, or with the power surge when Henry was born. It took spending time in a land with magic to expose that hidden quality, and then it took training (and confidence) in order to control it.

Another thing to consider about Emma's magic is that it does not appear to suffer the instability that Regina and the rest seem to when they enter realms with different magical rules. For example, when they went to the UW, both Regina and Zelena temporarily lost the ability to control their magic. Emma had no issues at all with maintaining control of her magic.

Now, it is possible that Emma's ability to maintain control in the UW could be a result of HG magic in her, as Gold also had no problems with magic, and the trip to the UW occurred after Emma had been the DO and been freed from the darkness. Which brings up the point that Emma is the first person to have had HG magic, appeared to give it up (when she killed Killian and had the darkness removed), and live to tell the tale. My theory is that Emma maintains some HG magic within her, she just does not have the darkness any longer, which would put her in the same position as Merlin. Emma may very well be the new Merlin (HG magic, but no darkness)