A crutch to lean on. As magic is a crutch too.
That’s exactly what I meant. We are talking about fairy tales here and fairy tales are designed to teach us lessons through metaphors. It would be completely logical to use the cane in this way: The magic is his crutch, the cane is a crutch, therefor the cane contains magic. Th
And I also completely agree with you, pre-Dark Rumpel saw himself as a bad father, even though he was the most loving father you can imagine, who would have given his life for his son. But people saw him as a coward and therefor he did not see himself as a good role model for his son, and that weighed heavy on him. I think by what the soldier called him: HobbleFoot it was probably a birth defect, clubfoot, for which he was bullied his entire life. The Duke would not have cared, he was not looking for fighters, but for canon fodder. And it could be why young Rumpel ran. If you know you are not gonna make it out, you might think twice about running into battle. Rumpel’s strength is his wits, which he puts to good use always, his intellegence makes him see ahead, but he is also smart enough to run when it is hopeless. Unfortunately, that is seen as cowardice, and not appreciated.
Last season, in Desperate Souls, we saw two sides of the dagger. One with name spelled hilt to tip and the other side with name spelled tip to hilt. This season, in Broken, when he summons the Wraith, dagger has name hilt to tip and on reversed side no name but ornate decoration.
Hey! He did a Voldemort horcrux thingy and split the dagger in two? Possebilities, possebilities. *grins*