I just don’t see any difference between the pre dark one Rumpel then the one after. He was a coward, he was willing to burn down the count’s house, he was willing to murder the dark one and he did not listen to his son who said that he would go with the men and fight. The difference is that he couldn’t kill those men before he became the dark one. I think he wanted to which is why he killed them right after he became the dark one. I don’t think it seems to have made him a different man just more powerful and more confident.
And i think that it is all guess work that the war was not a good war or that it was not necessary to take every solider possible. And the episode is badly written so that doesn’t help the situation. Like why not take the parents instead of the children? And there was also slight suggestions that Rumpel may have done something to Bae’s mother and that Rumpel may have stolen Bae.
I just don’t see what is good there. There may be a sympathetic character in Rumpel and i think we saw that more after he became the dark one. He seemed much more sympathetic in Skin Deep where you do feel sorry that he is such a mess and just doesn’t know how to act around people and is so paranoid about Queen that he treats Belle terribly. Though those were all his choices. I haven’t really seen Rumpel do anything good so far.
I think that i just have a difference of opinion. It seems that a lot of people see Rumpel wanting to burn down the count’s castle and kill the dark one as an appropriate response to his son being sent to the war. I just don’t think it was. I don’t think Regina’s response was appropriate either towards Snow or what killing her father to do the curse or sending Hansel and Gretel into the blind witch’s house for the apple or using the Genie to kill Snow’s father.
I just think that the difference is that we don’t have any clue what Rumpel is playing at whereas we know the Queen’s motivation. Rumpel just seems like a rabid dog that is doing evil for the sake of doing evil with no purpose at all possibly because he is bored. And i think a lot of people don’t really think what Snow did was enough for Regina to go off the deep end though i think there is still more to their story then what we have seen so far.
What exactly is good about Rumpel? I just think he is an evil character. That doesn’t mean there aren’t shades of gray, but i would consider him just as evil as Regina.