“Every year I always remind our fans that he warned us in ‘Skin Deep’ he was a difficult man to love,” Kitsis says. “Every year people fall for him. When he reminds you of that, they get upset. This year will be no different.”
Yeah, but here’s the thing. You never actually let them have a break or make any kind of significant long lasting development. Like with Emma, you seem to be stuck in a pattern of writing that isn’t serving your characters or your narrative anymore. It’s nothing but push/pull with these two these days. It’s like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel because you refuse to evolve Rumple to his next obvious stage (redemption and no longer the Dark One–and even that one time you did, you undid by arc end!) Your pattern to writing some of these once complicated and vibrant characters is to reset them every season so that they’re undergoing the same issues just with different plot points. The lyrics change but the songs remain the same, in other words. People fall for Rumple because 1) you proved to us during S1-3A that he was a nuanced, complex character with extraordinary ability for love, self destruction, and selfish myopic gain all in one tiny scaly body and 2) every year you edge him a little bit closer to the tipping point of true character evolution only to dash it against the wall and have him return to sum zero because you find the concept of a good, trying to redeem himself, humble, heroic Rumple either confusing, baffling, impossible, boring or any combination thereof!
Stop blaming your audience.