Reply To: Better, But Not Different

[Slurpeez]

I don’t think Rumple was wrong in his observations, at least not completely. Belle DOES like the darkness, and from his perspective, she dumped him again as soon as he was exactly what she SAID she wanted…and took him back when he had the darkness again (even if she didn’t know that). He also knows how the Curse affected people’s personalities/alter egos, having experienced it himself; I think that Lacey represents a part of Belle that a) was always present, if suppressed and b) is almost certainly still in her somewhere, as We Are Both was supposed to suggest. She’s said herself that she loves all of him, including the darkness. But she’s not wrong to want him to stop murdering the peasants, either; I think she’d be happy with his having the power to do so if a) he wasn’t choosing it over her and b) he wasn’t murdering the peasants. Those were the two breaking points for her in 4A.

I just don’t buy Rumple’s lie that she loves the darkness. Belle never said she loved the darkness. What she really said was, “I love him… All of him, even… Even the parts that belong to the darkness.” I think Belle is clearly able to distinguish between the parts of Rumple that are consumed by the darkness and the actual darkness itself. Right before she sent him over the town line, she said, “No! It’s too late. Once I… I saw the man behind the beast. Now there’s only a beast.” The clear implication is that Belle doesn’t like the beast (i.e. the darkness). She really loves the man. Rumple is trying to convince her otherwise, but she doesn’t delight in his cursed state. She has wanted to free him of his curse from the very start! All she wanted from the start was for him to choose her over the power.

Rumple: Falling in love with the man behind the beast… isn’t really what happened to you. You fell in love with me… because there was a man and a beast. Neither exists without the other.
Belle: No. No. I-I can’t condone you being like this. Not again.
Rumple: Yes, you can. You just have to choose to. And if you do… we can have what’s important… Family, happiness. It’s your choice.

That is a clear manipulation of the truth. Belle rejects him being in his current state. She rejects that she fell in love with the beast. That isn’t what happened according to her, even though Rumple clearly is trying to convince her otherwise. That is an attempt to control her or convince her of something that never happened (i.e. gas lighting — a tactic Regina tried on Henry). Red flag number 1. Moreover, he is setting up an ultimatum; he is saying she can have every thing her heart desires (a family with the man she loves) but only if she accepts his giving into his addiction. That is another attempt to control her — red flag number 2.

Even if part of Lacey still lurks inside of Belle, that is her cursed alter-ego (i.e. not her true self). Despite meek and scared Mary Margaret being the cursed persona of Snow, she rejected that alter ego not long ago, declaring she only wanted to be Snow White. I really don’t think the real Belle loves the darkness; in fact, she said she couldn’t condone it. While she might love Rumple the man with all of her heart, she has repeatedly said he must choose between her and power. He chose the dagger. Don’t actions speak louder the words? Hopefully, Rumple will prove her doubts wrong this time, and actually learn to reject the power for himself. However, he’s a true addict. I don’t see how he can truly change for the better without giving up the magic entirely. He may never do so though, since it’s rather telling that even when he was “clean” and mortal, he still freely chose to become the dark one again.

But if I were her, and Rumple said he loved the power and myself equally, but then only used the power for protection and not for evil (plus I’m carrying his child), I would probably accept that and at least see if it could work.

I don’t doubt that there will be some compromise that Rumbelle arrives at where she accepts him bak on the grounds that he’ll only use the magic for good, but I don’t see how she can trust him again after everything he’s done. After all, he just used his dark magic to send Milha into the River of Lost Souls. While Belle doesn’t know that yet, I’m pretty sure that is going to come out at some point. How will she be able to believe him when he says he’s changed for the better after she finds out about re-killing Milha? Moreover, as Rumple’s second wife, doesn’t it concern her even a tiny bit that Rumple is still capable of doing that to his first wife, even after all that time? That is a huge red flag! What woman would really want to commit herself to someone who just proved he doesn’t really only use his power for good?

@Slurpeez, I agree with much of what you’re saying, but I think there’s an issue with the ultimatum logic. I think they are both engaged in manipulating each other, through different means. Ultimatums of any variety, on the part of either party, are not a good basis for a healthy (scratch that, even just a merely functional) relationship. Combine that with the yo-yo effect of on again-off again, and I actually think that what Belle and Rumple are doing is a variant of co-dependency. Either way, they are both participating and perpetuating an unhealthy dynamic, where they are both attempting to control the other, albeit through very different means (Rumple mostly through deceit and trying to cover his butt, and Belle by threatening to end the relationship, which, one might argue, is additionally effective against Rumple since at the core of his personality is an abandonment complex, so she’s partially playing off on that).

I take an ultimatum to be “a final demand or statement of terms, the rejection of which will result in retaliation or a breakdown in relations.” However, I take your point about the co-dependency, since if she takes him back while he’s still the dark one, it could be said she’s only enabling his addiction to magic. The relationship is very dysfunctional and unhealthy, for both parties. Yet, Belle has also set up an ultimatum before. From 4×12: “You’d never give up power for me, Rumple. You never have. You never will.” I take this to be a sort of declaration: choose her over power. When Belle thought he was free of the power (and thus, in her mind, the addiction), she was hesitant, but still willing to take him back and re-consumate the marriage. Then he went and chose to become the dark one again, and she said she couldn’t condone it. However, if she does end up taking him back again while he refuses to give up magic, then an argument could be made that they’re very co-dependent.

Either way, threatening to leave unless your partner changes — or, the reverse move, which is “take me as I am, or scoot” are both variants of the same thing, a kind of “my way or the highway” refusal to meet half way. Belle’s “Hero or Bust” is, in some senses, the mirror image of Rumple’s “Beast or Bust”.

Yeah. It’s the sharp dichotomy of either A or B that makes it sound like they’re setting ultimatums for each other.  They’re certainly trying to control each other by setting up a set of conditions that must be met, otherwise affection and commitment will be withheld.

Can I just point out how profoundly bizarre the idea that you either love a person OR you love a particular state of being (which is what addiction is, in some sense) is? I think this is a logical fallacy. Addiction can certainly be inimical to a relationship and unhealthy for both the addict and his loved ones, but conflating these two very different affective states — love for a person, and the psychological and physical dependency on the thing one is addicted to — gets us into an ethical and intellectual dead-end.

I think it’s certainly possible to love someone who is addicted, especially if one sees the addiction as a brain disease, which it is. It’s an imbalance of neurotransmitters. I think when Rumple says he loves the dagger, what he really means is that he loves the feeling (or the “high” if you will) that comes with being powerful — especially after he spent a lifetime feeling weak.  If we’re going with the metaphor that dark magic is like an actual addiction to alcohol, then Rumple has a disease. In that light, I think it’s possible for a spouse to stand by a partner with an addiction, provided the afflicted person undergoes treatment to get well. However, if left untreated, addiction can pose a real harm to the spouse and the children. In such a case, then I don’t think the spouse is morally obligated to stay; in fact, if the addict just denies there is even an issue or refuses to get help, then I think Belle’s first priority ought to be to herself and her baby, rather than to Rumple. In fact, by staying with him, she might just be enabling his addiction to continue unchecked; that is a recipe for disaster.