Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4519633-20141022032431/@comment-25536775-20161025013439

Also, no evidence in the "Zelena is more powerful because she was a better student" one. In fact, there's evidence of the contrary. I'm not denying that it's Zelena's inherent intellectuality that allowed her to even create the time travel spell in the first place, but she was established as being more powerful than Regina from birth. The latter took years to even do a summoning spell whereas Zelena already did it instinctively.

And Rumpel's brain wasn't his knowledge, she needed him because his brain was a token of Wisdom, which Glinda represented back at Oz. One token for each Witch of Oz. Love, courage, wisdom, and innocence.

Zelena also needed Snowing's baby. Does this mean the show is reduced to a baby fight? Nope. Rumpel's and Zelena's manipulativeness is ultimately what allows them to continuously succeed in their plans because, as exemplified by Emma, having power and not knowing how to use it is useless. but raw power is relevant. Emma could create a protection spell that took Cora and Regina's combined fireball power to break. Blue, despite being far older and thus supposedly more knowledgeable than Rumpel, couldn't break the spell at his shop in Selfless, Brave and True. Pan's manipulativeness could only get him so far and ultimately the decaying state of Neverland's magic allowed Regina to beat him on power alone. Zelena continuously has to be cuffed to avoid being a danger even to people who are far older and thus supposedly more knowledgeable than her in magic. Hades' power level is what made it so Rumpel didn't dare work against him. And the DO as an entity is as old as the Sorcerer, but the latter could still beat the hell out of the first.

Once's magic is not an intellectual endeavour, or at the very least, not primarily so. That is specifically said back in season two.

'Power levels matter. '