I think Rumple’s speech at Neal’s grave was a little exposition heavy, however, it showed a little bit of insight into Rumple’s thinking. As screwball Ninja so eloquently writes:
One of the reasons people love the villains in OUAT so much is that they’re transgressive— men aren’t supposed to show fear and women aren’t supposed to show anger, so when Rumple cringes and Regina snarls it’s incredibly appealing to watch. What’s interesting to me is that Rumple is a textbook case of how patriarchal norms affect men as well as women. Take the touching scene when Rumple talks to his dead son and recalls the time he comforted a scared Baelfire by telling him “don’t be afraid,” everything was going to be alright— and Baelfire believed him.
Rumple associates masculinity with not only with an absence of fear, but being able to REMOVE fear in others; for Rumple, a man is someone who is able to comfort and protect— but protection means having power. And magic is power.
Magic = power = violence = protection = masculinitySo now we have Rumple admitting that lusting after power isn’t strictly necessary as long as you have love … and yet magic is somehow tied into power/violence/masculinity in his mind.
All magic comes with a price!
Keeper of Felix