You kind of are defending his comment because you are making an excuse for him. “he was being portrayed as a villain” is an excuse. That’s like saying Rumple was well within his rights to rip out Milah’s heart and crush it because “he was being portrayed as a villain”. It was okay for Arthur to control Gwen, making her believe she loved him with magic dust because “he was being portrayed as a villain”, it was okay for Pan to emotionally manipulate Henry because “he was being portrayed as a villain” etc etc. If you start excusing one characters actions because of reasons then you have to apply the same logic across the board.
Well yes. Should we just have all characters be nice and perfect. You need bad people to tell a story. These people are bad people. Arthur was a bad person. Pan was a bad person. So their actions make sense to me. It would make less sense if they did something good. I’m not going to get offended by something a “bad” character does.
I’m not defending the comment per say, I’m just defending the writers using it for a bad person. It’s not a good thing to say. That is why Charming didn’t say it. A bad person said it. Like come on guys, Arthur controlling Gwen was terrible. But based on his goals and what he wanted to accomplish, I understood why he did it. Not condoning it, but he was a bad guy. Was not surprised he did that. Rumple was a bad man. And Milah left him. It makes sense that he killed her and ripped her heart out. How are you supposed to write villainous characters if they don’t do villainous things? Am I missing something here? We are supposed to go wow what a jerk, I hate him, not wow I am totally personally offended by this fictional villain’s actions. I must be really missing something here.