I know I’m going to get flack for saying this, but I’m not so sure Neal *would* be appalled at what Rumple did. Honestly, I think he’d be more upset at Rumple for lying than for killing Zelena. This is not some guy who accidentally nicked him with his cart. This is a women who threatened the lives of everyone Neal loved. No one was opposed to Rumple killing Pan- even Belle stood there and watched as he was about to do it. (I’m talking about when they had the Henry Pan, not the end when everyone was frozen in place.) I think some of you paint Neal as this patron saint when he’s not. Deep down, he is his father’s son. If Henry had been killed, Neal might not be so quick to allow the murderer to live either.
“Killing Lost Boys, we don’t have to do that..” Peter Pan had Neal’s son captive, and still Neal took the path of not murder. He crossed worlds as a young boy trying to get his father back to be not a murderer. He was horrified at Rumple’s murder of the maid and stood in horror as his father killed how many guards when he became the Dark One? He yelled “no papa!” how many times when Rumple turned the man into a slug and crushed him.
I don’t see Neal as a patron saint and I am one of his biggest fans. But he was a good man. And you’re forgetting something: a trial and justice. If Zelena needed to be put to death for murdering someone, there is a process. Rumple took the law into his hands, just like he does in the past when he murders others. I don’t care that Zelena is dead. I care that Rumple takes magic and the law into his own hands. Neal would absolutely have been opposed to brutally killing another person. And that’s not me whitewashing him or saying he’s a saint or some godsend or perfect. Of course he’s not. I recognize his flaws and his weaknesses but I also recognize his strengths. Rumple committing murder against a woman stripped of her powers, alone, in a jail cell…yeah, no. Neal would have been against that.
Anyway, she would probably have tried to get Marian out of the picture no matter what- even if Robin had just told her that he’d chosen Marian.
And we’re applauding this? We’re okay with this? We consider this good character development and reasonable storytelling?