he was misunderstood and had horrible abusive parents.
Having horrible and abusive parents is definitely a factor to elicit sympathy but I don’t know how comfortable I am in erasing all Rumple did because “hey, traumatic past!” We aren’t doomed to repeat these cycles of violence. There does come a point when you (well, Rumple) have to accept responsibility for your actions as YOUR actions. Rumple taking that darkness back in the first place was a big indicator, for me, that his past traumas aren’t playing as major a part as the writers maybe wanted in the beginning.
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"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"