It doesn’t help that natural human lifespans are so short compared to Rumpel’s. The people in his life must seem like badly-behaved pets, and he has to start preparing to lose them to old age from the moment he meets them.
LOL I think this might be my favorite description of Rumple ever 🙂 There is something to be said in assuming that Rumple isn’t actually human. And therefore the scale we’re using to measure him is a bit off.
More generally, to @RG’s prompt — I think Rumple’s character is asked to do two mutually exclusive things. On the one hand, he is asked to fill every plot hole and villain vacuum that shows up on the show, which requires him to literally know every single magical or relevant creature in all the realms, and to tug at all the strings, and embody a kind of realpolitik ethic. At the same time, he serves as a power-up for whoever is the villain of the week, where he’s put in the position of serving someone else’s agenda, until he manages to wiggle himself out of it, because lets face it, none of these villains without Rumple would get anywhere. On the other hand, he is required to be a shortsighted idiot when (1) it comes to protecting the people he loves, and (2) when the plot demands it. As a result he’s occasionally making both morally and intellectually dimwitted decisions (Crystal Gate, Hyde deal). But this results in exactly what we’re discussion here. So there are two readings of Rumple:
1) Rumple’s a clever dude, how can he be such an idiot? He must love power/be evil incarnate.
2) Rumple’s a bit of a social idiot when it comes to his loved ones, and also has a long list of insecurities. It’s a wonder he didn’t do something even more stupid and destructive. He doesn’t mean mean, unless you’re a disposable peasant or the villain of the week who tried to enslave him.
I think the scene is left ambiguous. Nor do I think the toddler vs laptop vs cat analogy holds. We’d have to assume that your toddler is asleep in an indestructible miniature safe, where he/she is more or less frozen in time and can come to no harm. Said toddler is also, for all intents and purposes, in a coma, and depends on you to find a cure to bring them back to life. Your previous efforts to do so with Baby Advil and Tiger Balm have failed. So toddler’s indestructible, but not strictly speaking alive. Imagine that your laptop holds — whatever, your dissertation, your latest novel, the cure for cancer, what have you. What do you grab? (Also, who doesn’t back-up these days???)
If Rumple thought Belle was safe in the box, no matter what realm she was in, and that by having the crystal he’d have access to magic/ability to open portals and go looking, then I can see how he might go for the crystal. Rumple at this point must think like an immortal. Belle’s on ice. He’s in no hurry, as long as he can hold on to his magic. Also, considering Storybrooke is a megalomaniac villain magnet, having magic seems like a good call.