Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20161205051618/@comment-24674051-20161207175405

Crushing Snow's Heart (and David's) was not part of getting what she deserved. I would say that it was again a part of her being placed back in the position of being the Evil Queen and coming face to face with who she was in the environment where she did the most damage. It was part of the price of her wish.

Unfortunately, it was also a "seemingly" necessary part of snapping Emma out of the false memories. I say seemingly, because there may be have been other ways of achieving the same results that would have taken longer, and Regina opted for the expedient route, which is probably going to come back to bite her at some point.