A selfish sociopath.
Sorry, had to smile reading this. Still trying to imagine a selfless sociopath 😉
I bet it was Pan who went back and made sure everyone branded Rumpel as the town coward. I bet all the horrible things that happened to Rumpel stem from Pan
His life is just so tragic, it overwhelms me.
Not shedding tears for all of Rumple’s life, as an adult he made terrible and bad decisions. A tragic, traumatic childhood can explain but it doesn’t excuse / justify behavior IMO. Rumple killed a man just because he yelled at Bae, and he killed their maid because she might haven been able to somehow give away the secret of the dagger. These killings were not tragic for Rumple but for the people he killed and their families. With the magic at his hand Rumple didn’t have to kill these people, but he did, and even seemed to enjoy it for the moment. Rumble might find redemption, but he did terrible things all on his own (and no, the Curse of the Dark One doesn’t excuse it for me either, he still had an idea of right and wrong).
Watching the scenes between Malcolm and young Rumple, think the writers meant Malcolm to have at least a bit of positive affection of some sort for kid Rumple. I might not make all sense to me, but find it hard to read the scenes any other way than that Malcolm somewhat loved Rumple at first, for a while. Malcolm already showed signs of a psychopathic personality (selfishness, a certain charm, glibness, pompous sense of self, lack of shame and remorse, lack of empathy, living on the edge, poor impulse control, unreliability and lying) when Rumple was a child, but there were glimpses of positive affection for his son. It was probably a twisted love, more a love of having a son than love for his son, and it became more and more a desire for Rumple’s love and admiration, but one can say, it was something. Although people with psychopathic personality can make it look like they are feeling love for someone, they might even want to believe it themselves, but that doesn’t mean, they actually are feeling love.
I am not sure, why the Spinsters took Rumple in, though quite sure not for money, but wouldn’t exclude Malcolm selling him to them. Think Malcolm very much lied to Rumple about coming back, but he still might have convinced himself at that point, that it was very much for the sake of the boy. Like Malcolm later in Neverland tried to make himself feel better about what he was doing by rambling about, how he was not the father Rumple needed, that he’s too weak.
Was there anything of the little bit of love left Malcolm once had for Rumple? That I don’t think. After centuries of exploiting others and being able to pretty much do whatever pleased him think there was not the slightest bit of positive affection left in Pan. Now Rumple was just in his way. For the sake of the story and continuity they had to make whatever Pan might have felt for Felix a sort of love, but still doubt that Pan was even the tiny bit of capable of loving anyone at this point, maybe not even himself.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯