Evil Queen/Regina Mills

Regina grows up wealthy with a weak but loving father, Henry, and a strong, overbearing, and magical mother, Cora. She falls in love with the stable boy, Daniel, and they plan to elope. Before they can carry out their plan, Regina saves a young Snow White from a runaway horse. In thanks King Leopold asks Regina to marry him and Cora accepts for her. After Cora tricks Young Snow into telling her that Regina and Daniel still intend to elope, Cora kills Daniel in front of Regina. One night shortly before the wedding, Rumplestiltskin visits a distraught Regina and leaves her a present - a looking glass that will send her mother to another world. At first Regina is reluctant push her mother through, but Cora again tries to assert control over Regina with her magic. Regina shoves her mother through the mirror. As she's leaving the castle, Rumplestiltskin appears and convinces her that through magic she can find the happiness she craves. He presents her with an ornate book adorned with a heart, the same book her mother used to conjure her spells. Regina marries King Leopold all the while her soul slowly grows black with sadness and anger. She seduces the Genie into murdering King Leopold, and hires The Huntsman to kill Snow White. The Huntsman deems Snow White innocent and refuses to kill her. As punishment, Regina, who is now the Evil Queen, takes him as her pet. She labels Snow a wanted fugitive. She uses Charming to make Snow eat a poisoned apple, but Charming escapes and foils her plan. She crashes Snow's and Charming's wedding vowing to curse them and all who live in Fairy Tale Land. At some point she travels to Wonderland with Jefferson to retrieve her father from the Queen of Hearts, leaving Jefferson (aka Mad Hatter) in the clutches of the red queen. After sacrificing her father, she makes good on her promise with a curse originally gotten from Rumplestiltskin and sends everyone to Storybrooke, Maine.

In Storybrooke, Regina sets herself as Mayor. She adopts a baby boy and names him Henry. She believes she has won, that the only happy ending will be her own. But Emma, Henry's birth mother arrives in town and her curse begins to unravel. She battles with Emma for Henry's affections, however Henry is convinced she is the Evil Queen and always turns to Emma. Finally, Regina tries to poison Emma, but poisons Henry instead. Emma kisses Henry and breaks the curse. Regina runs home heartbroken again, but then smiles as she sees Storybrooke engulfed by a purple cloud. Magic has come to Storybrooke.

With the curse broken and magic back in Storybrooke, Regina tries to reassert herself as the Evil Queen. Magic fails her though, it works differently in Storybrooke. To regain control of her powers she needs the book Rumplestiltskin gave her so long ago - to literally smell the printed word. However, all this backfires when Henry blames her for Emma's and Snow's disappearance into the hat and refuses to stay with her. She tries to use magic to force him to stay, but soon realizes she is becoming the person she hated most, her mother. She lets Henry go with Charming, locking away the book seemingly starting down a path of redemption.