Charmings: They always find each other. They believe in hope and faith. They believe in love as sacrifice.
Headcanon regarding Charming’s father: a brave knight who gave up his reputation and place beside the King in order to marry Ruth, a poor common peasant. I do hope we see that someday.
Stiltskins: A string of absentee fathers…though not entirely by choice. They value power (yes, even you Bae), deals, and family even if they keep losing it. They also believe in destiny/fate.
They abandon because they were abandoned. Endless cycle of abusive, lies and lost. This family is probably the most tragic of all the families on our show. But I think they only mentioned Malcolm’s childhood in passing for a reason, they didn’t want us to feel too much sympathy for him. They are really pushing the whole “baddie” thing with him.
Mills: Really Cora and Regina here, as far as it goes. They value power, believe love is weakness as much as they desire it and think they can force others to give it, and run from chances at love. Oh, and the two of them are quite vengeful. Henry Sr. is the outlier; like Bae he’d fit in better with the Charmings in a lot of ways.
I agree with Phee. Regina wasn’t always like that. She was molded by Cora and Rumple and her simmering rage. She’s a victim of circumstances and her own poor decision making.
Henry definitely shows traits of all the family trends, and I think we see all of them converge in his decision to give his heart to Pan: He’s being a self-sacrificing hero like a Charming, he’s embracing the power of Magic like a Stiltskin or a Mills, and in doing so he’s ironically simultaneously finding family (Hi great-grandpa), pushing family away (rejecting the advice of all three parents!), and losing family (losing his life, which would tear that temporarily joined family to shreds).
Brilliant point. He really is the product of his collective family. That was really well thought out.