#continuity is hard

Continuity with his backstory is lacking to say the least.  Case in point:

1x10:  I watched my dad get dragged off to prison when I was eleven for murder.

2x20:  Like, if somebody had given me action figures when they interrogated me about my dad when I was ten, like, I would... I would've sung like a canary.

We can’t even decide how old Winn was when his dad was arrested, which I think sets the tone nicely for the confusing but nonetheless tragic additions to Winn’s backstory in 3x16 regarding when his mother left:

Do you [Winn] remember when I took you to Disneyland when you were nine? [...] You sat dazed in the backseat with a concussion, and he and I had it out on the shoulder of the interstate. That's the night that he threatened to kill you, his only son, just to hurt me.

Earlier in that episode we get:

Leaving you, it gutted me. And I've carried that with me every day of my life, but I had to, Winn, because your father [threatened your life]. He told me that if I went near you, ever, that he would kill you.

So did she leave after the accident (Winn age 9), or the night Senior snapped (Winn age 10/11)? Note: Winn was home alone the night Senior was arrested (thus contradicting his statement in 1x10 but that’s not the focus here):

When the police came and picked me up from home, I was asleep. Remember? In bed. Alone.

And then we get

I'm waiting for my mom to pick me up. 'Cause they said that they called you.

This was the early/mid 90s (ish), right? Cell phones weren’t widespread yet. So why would they call Mary instead of just waiting at the house for her to return? Gets me wondering if she’d left before that and they’re calling the other number they had for her, in case of emergency.

Also, if Mary didn’t leave right after the accident, did she just not interact with her son from the Disney trip until she decided to leave, in case Senior chose to be serious about his threat? Which would just make an already horrible thing worse.

Counterpoint to that theory though is Winn saying this in 3x16:

What haunts me is you. You, who left me, when I needed you the most. With no explanation, no goodbye.

Which makes more sense if he’s referring to the night Senior snapped, not the night of the accident.

What we really needed was a Supernatural-style flashback or a nightmare montage to show how this all went down, but since I didn’t get that, I’m trying to piece it together from the scraps we were thrown.

Now that you’ve read everything I remember in canon about the night Senior snapped and its potential relation to when Mary left, I’ll ask you again, Tumblr, when did Mary leave?

epona610 replied to your post “I know that the darkness in any given heart varies according to the...”

And I'm not positive, but didn't Regina herself have a dark heart in whatever episode it was that she saved Zelena by threatening to crush it and kill them both?