Ok, maybe Neal wouldn’t have agreed with what Rumple did, but I think he would have forgiven him in the long run.
I don’t disagree but that speaks to Neal as a person not Rumple’s actions.
I guess we see Rumple’s actions differently. Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t really see Neal as abused.
I don’t think your naive but I also don’t know you outside of the past 2ish years on an internet forum so what I say next is not against you but a personal truth that help you understand where I’m coming from. As someone who was mentally and emotionally abused by an ex (who screwed me up pretty bad) and abandoned by my dad, I will tell you: I don’t owe either of them crap and any treatment of them by me does not need to be “fair.”
Rumple made some very poor choices, but none that I saw as outright abuse towards Bae.
Abuse is not just fists and punches. Emotional and mental abuse is a thing. Prior to becoming the Dark One, Rumple was a fantastic father. And then he changed. He was keeping Bae locked up (episode 304), being overly protective to the point of possessiveness, murdering people to Bae’s horror. Had social services been a thing, Bealfire would have been whisked away in a heartbeat.
And I say this as someone who has been defending Rumple for years and still considers him to be my favorite character.
Bae felt abandoned because he never knew the whole story.
This comes across as victim blaming, IMO. It’s Rumple’s fault that Bae didn’t know the whole story. Also, abandonment is abandonment is abandonment. I don’t care if Pan shows up in S5 with a sob story of how he was also abandoned, it doesn’t change the fact that Malcolm let go of Rumple, and it doesn’t change the fact that Rumple let go of Bae. It is abandonment in the victims eyes, and that’s what matters.
We also had a big reconciliation at the end of the Neverland arc.
By big reconcillation do you mean a 30 second hug on a dock and the little to no conversation afterwards?
That was a nice moment but that does not in any way shape or form make up for years (200+ years) of feeling abandoned and unloved. Not even remotely.
I would be sad if Neal had backtracked and given up on Rumple again.
But it doesn’t make you sad that Rumple backtraced and killed a woman and then lied to his fiancee/wife/ TL about it?
But all of this is moot anyway- Neal is gone
I don’t consider it moot. A and E told us that Neal was killed for story reasons and that his death will play a part in the emotional development of characters and the story line. Now whether or not I believe anything they say is a different subject altogether. But Neal being gone does not render these conversations moot just like Bae being missing from the action in S1 rendered speculation about Rumple as a character or the mythology of the show moot.
Okay, you’re right, there would have been some guilt there, but it still isn’t quite as bad as actually being the murderer
Ah, moral relativism. so then who is more guilty: the snowman who may or may not have higher brain function? Regina who wanted to walk away? Or Elsa who created the thing in the first place?
I’m curious to see how everything plays out, and my curiosity far out weighs any concerns with Regina’s character.
That’s fine. It’s not that I’m not curious, though my curiosity is more of a morbid “lord, where will this go now,” variety. But, IMO, character on a show like this is always cause for concern. We’re not just invested in the storyline, we’re invested in the characters themselves and that includes any and all progress or regress, hence why we’ve been debating for 6 pages now.