Reply To: Adam Answers Twitter Q’s!

[kfchimera]

That’s more or less what I wrote about in the SF thread. I’ll copy the relevant bits over here. I prefaced this by saying I definitely understand why people didn’t interpret August’s “steer clear” as some sign of doom, but then I said, here’s what we know could have happened if Bae had been with Emma when she walked into town, shipping aside:

1) Her name triggered Gold’s memories of being Rumple the moment he heard it, no waiting for the curse to break
2)Regina rolled out the unwelcome mat for strangers, used Graham like a robot, and repaid a boy’s kindness with trying to kidnap him and kill his father.
3)It took Henry dying for Emma to break the curse with her TLK. She believed in the curse before that point and it wasn’t enough.
4) the prophecy that Gold had about a boy leading him to his son but being his undoing, and his vow to kill the boy before that happened

So take your pick of terrible things–Gold turning the clock on Bae, letting Emma and Henry die at the hands of crazy Regina? The curse broke either way if Emma died, and with Bae there what reason did Gold have to care? Without Belle, without knowing she was alive, it could have been a shocking moment like mute maid and Milah all over again. I could see this alternate universe Rumple saying as he turns Bae to 14 and wipes his memory, “I know you love her and the boy but you won’t remember them in a minute and it will all be just like it was before”.

I also added that we can imagine things working out too, but now that Adam’s confirmed that terrible things would have happened, we don’t need to worry about the “what might have been” –this is just for those who could not even begin to imagine anything terrible happening.