Had to laugh when I saw the results of the poll. Poor Regina. 😛
@hjbau wrote:
Even if Rumpel’s goal is to get back his son, the way he is going about it is wrong. You can’t just harm everyone else to get what you want and then call it good.
I’m not so sure he sees the curse as harming anyone…except eventually Regina. Of course, it wasn’t a particularly friendly gesture to dump everyone in a new world without their memories, but up until this point in time, what they don’t know hasn’t really hurt them. And if he’s planned it so that eventually the curse will break and everyone will remember, and they will rekindle their relationships, then there wasn’t necessarily any harm done during those years they spent in limbo.
The only one who gets the raw end of the deal, (not including the likes of Graham of course, but his death is on Regina’s hands, not Rumple’s), when the curse breaks and everyone remembers, will be Regina. She’ll be stuck in a land without magic to protect her, where everyone in town is out for her blood.
So yeah, I think that ultimately part of his plan is to beat her, and this whole curse business has been a long con on his part. And I think the turning point in their relationship was what happened with Belle.
Up until then, I think they’d probably had a freinemy type of relationship, using each other if need be, but for the most part co-existing peacefully, and there was an understanding that Rumple was top dog with the dark magic and that’s how it was gonna stay. But then Belle came along and Regina told her to kiss him and next thing you know he’s yelling, “You think you can make me weak?! You think you can defeat me?!” into the mirror. Translation: “Game on *bleep*!!” 👿