PC calls Rumplestiltskin a “scourge” in PofG. Why a scourge? Why not just a menace? I looked up the meaning of scourge and there were 3 definitions — 1) like a whip; causing pain and inflicting punishment
2) an instrument of punishment or criticism, or 3) a cause of wide or great affliction.
It is hard for me to understand how Rumplestiltskin was a scourge, given what I have seen so far. He is one to take advantage of a desperate soul when he has opportunity, although he wasn’t so eager in the beginning with Cinderella, but rather warmed up to the idea given the situation and then took total advantage with an open-ended deal on her part. I wonder if she had known he would ask for her first child if she would have gone through with it. I think she would, much like the miller’s daughter in the story of Rumplestiltskin — she was desperate.
However, a scourge, seems much more widespread than what I have seen so far of Rumplestiltskin. Although, by the time of Belle, he was apparently widely known about. (sidenote: anyone else find it interesting that his price for helping Belle’s father was her, his child?) He was perhaps a bit of a scourge in the village where he and Bae lived, and everyone else lived in fear of something happening to Bae and the repercussions of that possibility.
Just an interesting and seemingly bitter choice of words, after the shared moment we saw between PC and Rumple in ALWM, I agree. I am interested as to why these writers chose that particular word to describe him, then.