This article is about the character from Once Upon a Time. For other articles, see Queen of Hearts (disambiguation).
- “Love is weakness.”
- ―Cora's catchphrase
Cora Mills (also known as the Queen of Hearts) is a character featured in the ABC series Once Upon a Time, and its spinoff Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. She is the main antagonist of the first half of season two, and is the mother to both Queen Regina and Zelena, the wicked witch.
After framing her daughter Regina for Archie Hopper's death, Cora tries to rule Storybrooke and bonds with her daughter. Although temporally successful, Cora is later killed by Mary Margret in exchange for Mr. Gold's life, who has been struck by Dreamshade by Captain Hook.
Cora's soul then resides in the Underworld for a couple of years until Regina travels there with Snow, Emma, David, Rumple and Henry Mills, to rescue Hook. When Cora learns Regina is there as well as Zelena, who has fallen in love with Hades, the lord of the underworld. Together Regina and Cora try to stop Zelena's romance with Hades and after some struggle bonding with her estranged daughter, Cora is able to restore Regina and Zelena's memories, to help remember the one time they felt like sisters. With her unfinished business - bringing the sisters together - now complete, Cora is able to leave the underworld and go to a better place.
Background[]
The Queen of Hearts is played by Jennifer Koenig as an adult and Barbara Hershley as a young adult. In Season Two, it was revealed that she is really the Evil Queen Regina Mills' mother Cora (played by Barbara Hershey) as well. She is also the mother of Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West.
Personality[]
When being the miller's daughter, Cora was shown to be easily irritated by her father and not like the idea of being used and caring about income for herself and her father, who was seen as being fairly lazy. Cora was also seen as a stubborn woman, established by her former lover Jonathan, who labelled her as someone who was very gullible.
After having her daughter Regina, who she did not give up, Cora was shown to be a very self-centered woman who loved power and didn't care for her daughter's happiness in the slightest. This has been seen many times, but the first true time was when Cora cared more about Regina marrying someone from royalty instead of the the man she truly loved. Cora's desire for power and wealth made her resentful and nasty towards other people, who feared her, but tried to assure Regina she was only ever trying to make Regina's life better by forcing her to marry the king, in a way to make her daughter have a better life than what Cora had. Cora's forcefulness towards Regina made her fearful to those around her, especially Snow White, who even considered Cora to be scarier and far more evil than her daughter.
That said, when Cora's soul is sent to the underworld, she shows some sort of remorse and appears to be trying to do better as she tries to let Regina, who has joined her friends in saving Hook, leave with ease. Despite Zelena not being brought up by Cora, she is aware that her mother was someone people feared and Cora is able to accept that the way she treated Regina and Zelena was wrong, making amends with her daughters.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Ghostly Physiology: As a ghost; Cora has special supernatural powers.
- Possession: She has the ability to possess other living creatures.
- Flight: She is able to hover above the ground.
- Intangibility: She can pass through anything and everything.
- Magic: Being taught by Dark One himself, Cora quickly became one of the most powerful sorceress in the entire Enchanted Forest and, years later, Wonderland too. She display a great knowledge about all the dark forbidden aspects of magic and shows a large arsenal of spells, curses, and magical traps.
- Telekinesis: As a classic witch, Cora was capable of manipulating objects or people without physically touching them.
- Teleportation: Cora could move from one place to another at will, disappearing into what looks like a purple smoke formation.
- Summoning: Cora was able to summon objects or beings through the magic, often materializing it in one hand via a purple smoke.
- Alchemy: Cora was able to turn straw into gold thanks to Rumple.
- Chlorokinesis: Cora could manipulate plant life. She was able to summon vines that are strong enough to immobilize her daughter.
- Pyrokinesis: Cora was able to create and manipulate fire, often in the form of a fireball, effectively using it as a weapon against her enemies.
- Geokinesis: Cora can manipulate some earth elements, like rocks and walls, such as creating rock handles to anchor Hook to the wall or creating a hole in the ground.
- Aerokinesis: Cora can manipulate air, such as putting out Regina and Zelena's fireballs.
- Hydrokinesis: Cora has the power to control water, such as making groundwater erupt from the ground of a hole she has created.
- Transfiguration/Shapeshifting: Cora was able to turning human beings into animals or changing the physical aspect of herself or others.
- Healing Magic: Cora had the ability to heal herself and others from ordinary wounds or diseases.
- Heart Extraction: Cora could remove the hearts of other living beings without killing them and use them to control the owner or kill them by crushing the heart. She becomes the most infamous of all sorceress for her deep knowledge about this ability so far she can even use hearts of her victims to resurrect them as undeads soldiers.
- Enchanting Decapitated Heads: As the Queen of Hearts, Cora demonstrated the uncanny ability to keep those she beheaded alive like severed heads. A skill she effectively passed on to her ward, the Red Queen.
- Mirror Magic: Cora can use mirrors to spy on her targets (or communicate with them) and, if she wants, even transform them into portals to connect two worlds and travel through it.
- Magical Immobilization: Cora could freeze people with just a thought.
- Protection Charm: Cora could protect a place or an object by creating a magic barrier. Her most powerful feat of this magic was when she creates a barrier large enough to cover an entire region and effectively protect it from the Dark Curse cast by her daughter by using a staff as conduct.
- Memory Manipulation: Cora can manipulate memories of others or share hers with them.
- Potioncraft: She has showcased the ability to create liquid substances for various purposes by combining a set of ingredients.
Weaknesses[]
- Laws of Magic: Like any magician or sorceress, Cora was subject to the laws of magic, as a result she was unable to raise the dead, create love and time travel.
- Enchanted Cuffs: As shown (on-screen) cuffs that are enchanted to block magic have the same effect on her as anyone else.
Appearances[]
Once Upon a Time[]
Before the First Curse[]
A young Cora.
As a young woman, Cora (played by Rose McGowan) serves as a popular bar wench and has her hand asked for in marriage by a man named Jonathan claiming to be a Prince. He proposes to her and gives her a straw ring, claiming to give her a real one made of gold in two weeks. When Jonathan tells Cora that he has to leave the next day, Cora decides to give herself and her body to him that night. The two conceived a child though Cora discovers he is really a gardener, and that the whole thing was merely a ploy so that he could bed the naïve young beauty. Hurt and upset at being used she demands that at the very least, Jonathon provides enough for her to raise their child, but he laughs it off and leaves her destitute.
She then meets Prince Leopold and the two formed a bond until Cora learned he was engaged to Princess Eva. Jonathan later blackmails Cora, threatening to reveal her pregnancy, and so she then promises him gold for his silence on the matter. Unbeknownst to her, however, Eva was listening and after Eva learns of Cora's pregnancy, she informs Leopold. Cora is then banished from the kingdom and abandons her daughter, Zelena, in the woods, who is sent to Oz, in order to become royalty.
Rumplestiltskin teaches Cora how to spin straw into gold.
Sometime after she returned to her father's house, Cora finds herself exasperated by his constant drunken misgivings placing their lively hood in danger. After the Miller forgets to deliver flour to King Xavier, she fed up with his foolishness delivers it herself. She is then purposefully tripped by Princess Eva who she insults. The King tells her she will receive no money for her flour and to apologize to Eva. Cora angrily begs her pardon. The same night Cora sneaks into a castle ball with a stolen dress and mask to disguise herself. She unknowingly meets the King's son Prince Henry and criticizes the King's actions to sell off his son Henry to a bride to solve the kingdom's financial problems. When she discovers that the man she is talking to is Prince Henry, she immediately apologizes to him who laughs it off. The two dance but are interrupted by the King who asks to dance with her. He informs her that he knows of her identity and tells her she be nothing more than a miller's daughter. Claiming she is more than the miller's daughter, she tells the King that she has the ability to spin straw into gold. He tells her that if she is able to do so, she will have the Prince's hand in marriage, but if she fails to do so, she will be killed.
While locked in a tower left to spin straw into gold for the night, she encounters Rumplestiltskin, who offers to spin straw into gold for her in exchange for her first-born child (not knowing she has already given birth to her first-born). She has him change the deal however so that he teaches her how to do so instead of him simply doing it for her. The two later embark on an affair and the deal is changed so that Rumplestiltskin is promised his own child with Cora. She becomes engaged to Prince Henry and the two plan to run away together, but the King convinces her otherwise. She states to the King that she does not love Henry, which the King agrees is understandable, showing disdain for his own son's lack of a backbone. He does tell her that the Prince can offer her something love cannot provide, power. Taking the King's words to heart, she marries Prince Henry and rips out her own heart leaving an angry Rumplestiltskin behind. She later gives birth to her second daughter Regina.
Years later she is then responsible for the death of Queen Eva by launching an incurable disease by magic. Posing as the Blue Fairy, she gives Eva's daughter, Snow White, an Enchanted Candle that can heal her mother, but the price is by taking the life of another and Snow refuses to do so. Once Eva dies Cora looks at her body and promises to destroy her legacy by turning Snow White's heart to darkness.
Cora crushes Daniel's heart.
Cora watches her daughter ride a horse, with annoyance, telling her that she rides like a man and that a lady must be graceful. Angered at her constant criticisms Regina walks away only for Cora hold her up in the air telekinetically for her insolence. She ties Regina up with a saddle until she complies with her mother's wishes to more lady-like. Manipulating events to make her daughter Queen, she causes Snow White's horse ride away with her stuck on. Regina saves Snow and in turn, the King proposes to Regina. Cora answers on behalf of Regina who is now to be Queen. Cora later converses with a young Snow, telling her that she only wants her daughter to be happy. Believing what she is doing for the best despite being against Regina's wishes, Snow then goes on to tell Cora about her daughter's affair with the stable boy Daniel, and that the two are planning to run away together and get married. She confronts her pair and angrily blasts them with her magic across the room, and then tells Daniel that it is a parent responsibility to do what's best for their children. She then proceeds to rip out his heart and crushes it, telling Regina she knows what's best. Regina is then forced to marry King Leopold and become a mother to Snow White, leading her to become the Evil Queen.
On the wedding day, Cora finds a looking glass, given to Regina by Rumplestiltskin, and tells her daughter about Regina's future role as Queen. Regina once again voices her desire to be nothing like her mother. She lunges to push her mother into the mirror, but Cora is too fast and uses magic to restrain her daughter in place. Cora reminds her she can't get rid of her that easily but is unaware of Rumplestiltskin appearing in the mirror from behind, urging Regina to do what must be done. Gathering strength in anger, Regina breaks free of the binds and uses magic for the first time, causing Cora to fly back towards the looking glass. Cora manages to hang on briefly with a look of surprise and sadness on her face before slipping through the looking glass, which shatters into pieces almost immediately.
Cora as the Queen of Hearts.
At some point, Cora captures Henry, Regina's father. She shrinks him in size, puts him in a box, and seals him in one of her vaults. As he is her husband, he is, presumably, not harmed in any other way. Regina, determined to get her father back, enlisted the help of a magician, Jefferson, and took Henry back. However, as only two people could leave Wonderland through the Looking Glass, she concealed the information about her father from Jefferson, who ended up being left behind. The Queen of Hearts' guards captured Jefferson and brought him to her. The Queen interrogates him on how he got to Wonderland, and he refuses to answer her. As a result, she orders his head to be cut off. Jefferson panics at the loss of his body and tells her the truth. The Queen tells him thought her knave that in order to get out of Wonderland, he must make another hat of magic that will allow him to do so. He is imprisoned in a room filled with hat-making materials, and that is where he becomes the Mad Hatter.
Sometime later, Captain Hook is tasked by the Evil Queen with traveling to Wonderland and killing her mother, Cora. He arrives in Wonderland with a dead body in tow and is brought before the Queen of Hearts. She asks through the Knave of Hearts why Hook is there, and Hook tells her that he is seeking a woman who goes by the name Cora in a native land. She lowers her mask to reveal that she is, in fact, Cora, and immediately dismisses the Knave and the Courtiers so that she can speak with Hook in private. She asks why Hook is here, descending her throne, and Hook lunges forward and plunges his hook into her chest to take her heart. But he is stunned to find that there is no heart there. Cora throws back her head and laughs and states that she is the Queen of Hearts, and she would be a fool to keep her heart where everyone else does, and so easily accessed. She then plunges her hand into Hook's chest, and grabs his heart, forcing him to tell her that he was sent by Regina to kill her. Rather than rip out his heart, Cora leaves it and goes back to sit upon her throne.
During the First Curse[]
Cora instead allies with Hook, traveling to an island, casting a barrier to protect them from the curse, frozen in time for 28 years.
After the First Curse[]
Cora with Aurora's heart.
After the curse on Storybrooke is broken, Mary Margaret (Snow White) and her daughter Emma Swan are transported to the Enchanted Forest, where they encounter Cora in a pit. Emma speaks to Cora and learns that she is Regina's mother. While Mary Margret is knocked out, Cora makes Emma believe that she is very different to Regina, although Snow, who has just woken up, tells Emma not to speak to Cora, commenting that she is far worse than Regina ever has been. Unknown to Emma and Snow, Cora has been posing as Lancelot for quite some time and killed Snow's friend, while learning Mary Margret and Emma are trying to return to Storybrooke, where Regina is and where Henry and David are.
While this is going on, Cora's ally, Hook, tries to trick the group into believing he is an innocent man, until he reveals he is working with Cora to make their way to Storybrooke, but he ends up stuck in a giant's lair by Emma, who worries the pirate is misleading her and won't help her and Mary Margret get home. Hook tricks Aurora into believing he is setting her free, but reveals to Cora that he gained the princess' heart, which allows Cora to control Aurora in any way she may want to. Cora uses the heart to make Aurora say that Hook is on their side and that he may care for Emma. However, Cora and Hook reveal their intensions by making the princess trap Emma, Mary Margret and Mulan in Rumplestiltskin's old cell. Mulan is able to return Aurora's heart to her, some point after this.
When Emma, Mary Margret, Mulan and Aurora find Snow and Charming's old castle, Cora poses as Lancelot to follow them in order to travel back to Storybrooke. However, Cora's fascination with the wardrobe gives her away and Snow realises that Lancelot is not who he says he is because Emma only mentioned Henry's name to one person; Cora. Cora appears and the wardrobe is burnt as Emma insists that she couldn't let Cora get to Henry. Henry has a dream where he is in a firery location (because of the effects of a sleeping curse), where he speaks with Aurora, who informs him that Cora is trying to get there. Henry informs David and Regina, who shows genuine fear of her mother arriving, fearing how bad this will be for everyone if successful.
Cora and Hook arrive in Storybrooke
After Hook is able to escape the beanstalk, he and Cora reunite and continue their task in travelling to Storybrooke, and fight Emma and Mary Margret at Lake Nostos. After Emma and Mary Margret go through the portal to their home, Cora and Hook soon follow on the Jolly Roger and arrive in the town. While in town, Cora tries to reunite with Regina. When Cora arrives in the town, she poses as Regina and frames her daughter for murdering Archie Hopper, turning Regina against her friends, although Regina finds out and asks her mother as to why she did it. Cora claims she did it to show Regina what the townsfolk really think of the former queen, and blackmails Regina into joining forces with her.
Regina does work with her mother and decides to find a way to gain the Dark One's Dagger. However, while digging for the weapon, Cora and Regina are being watched by Mary Margret, who has just visited her former handmaiden, Johanna. Cora and Regina soon learn that Snow and David are trying to help Rumplestiltskin. Cora captures Johanna and threatens her life if David and Snow don't give them the dagger. Snow White gives in and gives them Rumple's dagger and learns that Cora killed her mother, Queen Eva, when Snow was 8 years old. A heartbroken Snow, asks why Cora killed Eva, to which she reveals she did it to make Regina the queen. Fearing for Johanna's life, Snow gives Cora and Regina the dagger, but Cora kills Johanna regardless before teleporting away with her daughter, leaving Snow devastated, as she has lost the last connection to her mother, and filled with anger, with the desire to kill Cora.
After gaining the Dark One's Dagger, Cora and Regina learn that Rumplestiltskin is dying because of the Dreamshade that Hook stabbed him with. Filled with want for power, Cora is determined to become the new Dark One to have more power than anyone. Although Regina is not sure, her mother tells her that with this power, Regina can have whatever she wants, including Henry's love. Emma, Snow, Neal and David try to protect Rumple in his shop by casting a protection spell, which should stop Regina and Cora from entering. However, Cora's magic allows her to break the seal and enter the shop. Cora speaks with a dying Rumple and reveals she had to rip her own heart out, because he was the only man she ever loved. While this is happening, Mary Margret finds the candle that Cora used on Queen Eva years earlier, and says Cora's name on it 3 times. Mary Margret is found by Regina not long after this and tricks her stepmother into taking the heart, by telling her that Cora doesn't love her like she says, but this is because she does not have her heart in her body.
Cora dies in her daughter's arms.
When Regina takes the heart, she returns it to her mother, who is sitting with a dying Mr. Gold. Cora's heart allows her to show genuine love for her daughter, but suddenly feels pain, collapsing in her daughter's arms. Regina asks Cora what happened, to which she comments she doesn't know, while Gold realises his wound is gone. Cora looks at her heart and realises the poison has transferred from Gold to hers. A dying Cora tells Regina that she would have been enough before passing away in her arms, as Regina cries. Regina then blames Gold for stealing her mother's life, to which he says he didn't actually do anything, just as Mary Margret and David run into the shop. They find a lifeless Cora in Regina's arms, who angrily says that Mary Margret is responsible for this. Cora is then buried in Regina's mausoleum shortly afterwards, where both Regina and Gold pay their respects. Mary Margret's guilt over killing Cora gets too much for her, as she spends days in bed, not wanting to eat and gets attention from David. When Emma calls David out for treating her mother like this, he tells Emma that Mary Margret took Cora's life and is feeling a treemendous amount of guilt for what she did to Regina. Mary Margret's guilt gets to the point where she even asks Regina to crush her heart, to kill her, but Regina refuses and shows Mary Margret that her heart has now darkened.
During the Second Curse[]
Cora in ghost form.
After learning that Zelena is the wicked witch and wants to cast a time travelling spell, Regina gets Hook, Charming, Snow, Emma and David to perform a seance' with her in order to speak to Cora. When Emma asks why people don't talk to the dead as often if it is easy, Regina reveals to do it the person needs the murderer in the room, along with the weapon they used. The group perform the seance' and a portal opens. Regina tries to get Cora to tell her what she did to Zelena, but Cora refuses and the portal closes.
However, after the failed attempt, Cora's ghost appears to Regina and Mary Margret. Cora's ghost appraches Mary Margret, who realizes her deceased step-grandmother is after her because Mary Margret was the one who killed Cora. Regina tries to get Cora to back down from Mary Margret, but she possesses her and reveals the difficult family backstory to Mary Margret this way. Regina is able to release Cora from Mary Margret just as Emma, Hook and David walk back in. The effects of Cora possessing Mary Margret make her feel tired and she struggles to get out the information she has learnt. When Mary Margret is able to, she informs everyone that Cora didn't want to give up Zelena, but she was forced to by Snow's mother, Princess Eva, who overheard Cora reveal to the gardener, Johnathan, that she was pregnant with his baby after learning he tricked her into thinking he was a prince. Mary Margret informs everyone that Cora was going to marry Prince Leopold, but he broke the engagement off upon learning she was pregnant with another mam's child. which led to him marrying princess Eva and casting Cora out, who went onto marry Prince Henry Mills. From this information, the group realize that Zelena plans on time travelling back to this point in time, to kill Snow's mother, which would mean Snow White would never be born, leading to Emma never being born, and finally the same for Henry.
After the Second Curse[]
Cora is later mentioned again when the Snow Queen casts the spell of shattered sight. When the spell makes everyone in Storybrooke hate each other, Regina reverts back to what she was like as the Evil Queen and wants to kill both Mary Margret and David. David comments that it was Snow, not him, that told Cora about Regina's secret boyfriend, Daniel, to which Snow asks him if he is selling her out, before Regina starts to fight her.
After the Third Curse[]
Cora in the Underworld.
Cora returns in the second half of the fifth season in the episode "Souls of the Departed", when the heroes travel to the Underworld. Originally, she does everything she can to make Regina leave the Underworld even trying to send her father to a place of eternal suffering. When this fails, it is revealed that she made a deal with Hades and because she did not succeed, he makes a miller's daughter once again and she is forced to work for him for all eternity. She is later rescued by the heroes in order to stop Hades. It is then revealed that she had both of her daughters meet each other during their childhood years, but she took away their memories because Zelena would have interfered with Regina becoming the next queen and sends the former back to Oz. When her daughters are fighting Cora restores their memories and apologizes for how she raised both of them and for also abandoning Zelena. With Cora making everything right, she is able to go on to a better place in the afterlife.
Cora is mentioned years later by Rumplestiltskin. He compares Lady Tramaine's teaching methods with Drizella to how Cora treated Regina for years, and how Cora believed she was doing what she thought was best for Regina.
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland[]
After being sent to Wonderland, Cora eventually becomes the Queen of Hearts.
Cora meets the new Red Queen, Anastasia.
After receiving an invitation to the upcoming wedding of the Red King, she shows up at the royal castle to greet the soon-to-be Red Queen, Anastasia. As they casually talk, Cora manifests vases of roses hall, despite that she knows the Red King dislikes magic since he believes it separates them from their subjects. Seeing Anastasia's likeness to herself, as Cora came from humble beginnings as well, she offers to teach her magic without the Red King's knowledge. Anastasia declines, not wishing to start a marriage with a secret, to which Cora departs, or so it appears. She eavesdrops on a conversation the future Queen has with a former beau, Will Scarlet, who pleads for Anastasia to meet him at their old wagon and run away together. The next morning, Cora sabotages any reconciliation between the two lovers by telling Will that Anastasia decided to marry the Red King.
As he expresses a longing hope that his beloved, in time, would've changed her mind and returned to him, she gently pushes him to give up. Cora consoles him, stating that he helped Anastasia realize her calling as a Queen, and now is the time to move on. When prompted with a request to take out his heart, she warns him of the consequences, but he insists. Once the task is done, she sends him off from the wagon and pockets the heart in a bag. Later, Cora stops Anastasia from leaving the castle for her sweetheart by giving the girl a glimpse at the wagon where Will is nowhere in sight. She manipulates a heartbroken Anastasia into believing all hope of regaining Will's trust and love is forever lost and that her place is a Queen. Eventually, Cora teaches her how to conjure fire by channeling all the unworthiness she feels like a person into power, to which Anastasia successfully uses magic.
Gallery[]
See also[]
- Queen of Hearts
- Bridget (Descendants)
- Red Queen (Adventures in Wonderland)
- Red Queen (Alice in Wonderland)
