Cruella de Vil's (Victoria Smurfit) ability to have influence over magical creatures will be put to the test on upcoming episodes of ABC's Once Upon a Time.

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The midseason premiere of Once Upon a Time displayed Cruella's ability to control animals just through her breath. But how strong are her abilities and is she able to also control humans who have a little bit of animal in them?

"We are actually going to test that theory -- whether or not she can control magical creatures -- in the second half of the season," Once Upon a Time co-creator Edward Kitsis told TVGuide.com this week.

As the TVGuide report observed, Ursula (Merrin Dungey) is part octopus and Maleficent (Kristin Bauer van Straten) has the ability to turn into a dragon, so it's certainly possible that Cruella could take control of them.

Kitsis discussed their vision of Cruella in a new report by The Hollywood Reporter, saying that they imagined her as Zelda Fitzgerald.

"[She has] the power of persuasion, [which] unfortunately for her, only seems to work with animals," he explained. "When we reimagined Cruella, we wanted her to be Zelda Fitzgerald. We wanted her to be more jazz age than '50s England. And we thought she should have a power so she feels part of the show. We loved the idea that she can speak to animals - not like Dr. Dolittle, but in a more cruel way. And her back story is coming up toward the middle of the second half, and that's probably our favorite one."

He explained that they wanted to respect Anna (Elizabeth Lail) and Elsa's (Georgina Haig) story in Frozen during the first half of the season, but with Cruella they are putting "a whole new spin on it."

Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

Watch the promo for the next episode of Once Upon a Time here:

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Once Upon A Time, Television, ABC