I think that Rumpelstiltskin is Peter Pan all grown up. and the HE is some horrible being that rrrriiippps shadows and makes them his workers who don’t allow boys off the island. I think Peter Pan was also his victim but he somehow got away and grew up but the HE wanted revenge so he went after his kids.
Thete are BIG parallels between Hook the movie and OUAT.
1) Peter pan (the adult) was a lawyer
2)Peter pan the adult) was afraid to fly on the airplane
3)Peter Pan (the adult) wanted to be a father more than anything – it was his only happy thought
4)hook (or the shadow) took PP’s kids so that PP come to neverland
4)the key to hook’s revenge was to make PP’s son hate him and love Hook (THIS is a phenomena: why did Neal spend his life running from his father? this is a BIG change from the Baelfire who loved his father and looked for a way to bring him back UNLESS hook brainwashed him against his father saying that only his mother was great and his father was horrible
hook was depressed that his worthy foe PP was not what he used to be and wanted to kill himself — OUAT hook seemed to have a death wish too – while with Cora and goading Rumpel while Rumpel beat him up and he didn’t even fight back. if not for Belle, he’d have killed Hook
when Rumpel was a coward and refused to fight Hook (we know it was because he didn’t want to die and leave his son parentless but still… if he would have remembered that he was PP he’d fight)