Oops! A friend pointed out that in The Miller's Daughter ep, Cora says to Rumpel that she is fifth in line for the throne. And fine, she wants revenge against Eva. But at the end of the episode, she is the queen. The question seems to be - queen of what?
I have no idea how lines of asenscion or territories work in the Enchanted Forest, but there seem to be four established kingdoms:
King Leopold/Queen Eva/Snow White
King Henry/Queen Cora/Regina
King George/wife deceased/Prince James
King Midas/wife unknown/Princess Abigail
Since Eva is introduced as princess of the Northern Kingdom, it's possible that the kingdoms are named for cardinal directions. It's also possible that Leopold gained his kingship through his marriage to Eva. These are very egalitarian kingdoms...I won't say they're matrilineal - but notice who power would go to in three out of four cases?
Remember also, that Cinderella and Thomas are somehow related to George's family*, and may be in line for his throne.
Every monarchy has its own rules on who's eligible to be king or queen and how they get there. But generally, there can only be one king and one queen in a kingdom. Pretty straightforward.
So why is Cora so hung up on Regina being Queen instead of Snow White? This seems like an outsize reaction to public humiliation. Which, admittedly , stings. But now Cora is a queen in her own right. Her daughter stands to inherit her throne. We don't know who they are fifth in line to - unless Leopold and Eva are somehow High King and Queen (which has never been mentioned!) and the other kings and queens are actually just in line somehow. Which is dumb, because then they shouldn't be calling them kings or queens - rather princes or princesses or dukes or dutchesses.
Furthermore, they HAVE to be separate kingdoms because George's kingdom - with it's many money woes is trying to ally itself with Midas' kingdom through James (Well, David's) marriage to Abigail. If George's kingdom was having financial trouble - then it should have been Leopold and Cora's issue too, if they were the High King and Queen. It seemed like King Xavier (Henry's father) was trying to do something similar with his son and Princess Eva.
The structure of the kingdoms as it stands right now - doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and maybe because they're fairy tales they don't have to. But if the goal of OUAT is to tell the part of the stories we *don't* know, then things like motives and structure should be clearer and more consistent. I'm prepared to believe in magic. I'm not prepared to believe that Cora is fifth in line, when she is very clearly calling herself Queen.
*In "The Price of Gold" Rumpelstiltskin kills Cinderella's fairy godmother for her wand. In "The Shepherd" we find out that Rumpel traded information to King George for information on her whereabouts, since she was patron to George's family. Which actually might make her Thomas's fairy godmother, and not Cinderella's - strictly speaking. Or it means that Cinderella and King George are related somehow.
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