@Midnight Dreary wrote:
Actually, if you surf the entire fandom, you’ll find that Rumpel and Belle are EXTREMELY popular. Robert Carlyle even commented on it in a recent interview. He talks about the fan’s response towards the end of the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9YvGdzPCd4
The only people who don’t seem to like it are those who ship Rumpel with Emma or those who never really liked Rumpel to begin with. It’s kind of difficult to estimate the level of popularity of certain characters with just one site.
I think it’s more than that actually. I read on a separate forum that one of the primary reasons they didn’t like the pairing goes back to the Stockholme syndrome. But Belle explained that, if she’s never going to be able to know anyone else, why not him? That was even addressed in the episode when Regina met Belle on the road. So I can understand why some people might have been irked by the pairing.
But thank goodness OUAT is the type of fandom where 😈 ‘shipper wars DON’T exist. I hope it stays that way for a long time. 😀