Oh, I love that essay, obisgirl! It says a lot of what I’ve been thinking when I wander into various other threads/comments (on this site and others). Because yeah, I’m rather sick of the misogynist claim (I’m sorry, but if Emma didn’t want him around we’ve seen that she’s fully capable of getting that message across instead of say, entrusting him with her son) and then the hypocrisy of following that particular argument with saying how awful it was that Hook “stole” Milah when she obviously wanted to go with him.
I’m sorry, but what’s misogynistic and anti-feminist about that whole thing is forcing a woman to remain in a loveless, unhappy marriage. Was it right for her to abandon her son? No, of course not–she regretted it immensely, but it wouldn’t exactly have been nice for Baelfire to grow up in a toxic environment where his mother deeply resented his father either and probably drank herself silly every night in an effort to forget that. And she even tried to make a last-ditch effort before leaving when she asked the night before if they could just move to some other village where her husband wouldn’t be known as the village coward. But Rumpel was unwilling to make even that small sacrifice, so she left. And just as it says in that essay, Rumpel was quite obviously the villain in that particular situation. He murdered his wife because she had the audacity to think for herself and live the life she wanted.
Hmm…that rant was a bit longer than I intended, sorry about that! But I think I might be able to enjoy the finale more having gotten it out. 🙂 Less than an hour to go!