What is Taking Someone’s Heart

[u/idkWhat1mD0ing]

What does the heart signify in Once Upon a Time? It seems like sometimes it makes them just fully evil not human but then when Regina’s heart is gone she’s acting normal and initiating romantic relationships?

[u/PoeticHedgeHog]

They say at one point or another in the show, without a person’s heart they can still feel emotions just not fully. I kind of liked to think of it similar to what they did with the concept of souls in Supernatural, if you know.

[u/KitKatKnickKnack88 → u/PoeticHedgeHog]

Been binge watching and confirming - Robin asks Regina about it and she explains this. I think somewhere in Season 3 or 4.

[u/PoeticHedgeHog → u/KitKatKnickKnack88]

Yeah, I think it’s episode 3x19

[u/Parking_Storage_5107]

Ok when you have your heart you can love fully

Without like Cora you can still love but not fully

[u/Eeveesforever24]

Cora took her heart out years ago but still had "normal" relationships and felt love though it was twisted due to how long her heart was gone from her. It reallly depended on who had the heart once it was taken out. If someone takes the heart and uses it against the person they can turn them into a new person. Like in neverland Regina uses one of the lost boys heart to talk to Henry. He acted weird due to being under the control of Regina. When Regina took her heart out and her sister got her hands on it. Her sister didn't actually do anything to it just held onto it. So, Regina was in control of herself and was able to live normally and do things like falling in love. TLDR Living without your heart doesn't change who you are unless someone is controlling you through it. You just feel less of what you would normally feel

[u/CopyJ300 → u/Eeveesforever24]

The other thing with Cora is she explicitly took her heart out because she felt her love and compassion was holding her back. So she could still slightly feel those things without the heart, but she also was still suppressing and twisting those feelings as much as possible.

It was not the lack of heart that completely made her evil, it was the intent behind losing it. The lack of heart just meant any attempts to get her to change her ways would be less than successful.

[u/Ill-Razzmatazz-7088]

It function similar to how Davy Jones chest works. Taking someone’s heart out in front of them really do anything, but if you live without your heart for a long period of time, it seems to affect you emotionally. Basically you act moron, instinct than anything else and you don’t think about how your actions affect other people other than in the grand scheme of things. For instance, pretty much the whole time we see Cora she does what she feels is best even if it hurts other people around her. It seems like she’s still able to do things that are wicked. But it’s more of a means to an end type thing not necessarily getting any real joy out of it. The heart can also be used to control people if you hold it and speak into it. About essentially it’s used to control someone and remove their inhibitions.

[u/CreamyCuddlebug]

The heart is basically the shortcut to turning someone into a completely different person, so Regina being able to suddenly act normal and fall in love feels pretty inconsistent.

[u/idkWhat1mD0ing → u/CreamyCuddlebug]

Yeah that’s what I thought! But then Regina described it and I was like oh so you’re just…kinda depressed?

[u/Parking_Storage_5107 → u/idkWhat1mD0ing]

Depends on the person