This is all a bit random, but I was thinking about a possible connection between the name “Baelfire” and the series “A Wheel of Time.” In that series, baelfire is a kind of weapon or magic. According to A Wheel of Time Wiki:
“Since before the Breaking of the World, the use of balefire has been forbidden. The White Tower forbids us even to learn it. In the War of Power, the Forsaken and the Shadowsworn themselves used it only reluctantly.”
When a target is struck with balefire, its thread in the pattern is destroyed, in an amount proportional to the power of the balefire strike. This translates to the target’s existence being completely erased, chronologically in reverse. For example, should an Aes Sedai use balefire on an attacking bandit, the bandit’s action of attacking the Aes Sedai and anything leading up to the action of the attack would be erased; this would be determined by the power of the balefire attack. The stronger the balefire, the further back in time the object in question will be burned from the pattern. This can have serious consequences on the pattern; the use of an extremely powerful blast of balefire to destroy a great number of lives at once has been shown to produce an effect referred to as a “balescream,” the sound of the Pattern itself groaning under the strain of rearranging itself around such a large gap. An interesting side effect of using balefire is that anyone that causes the “reversal” of time will still remember all the events that were undone as if they had actually happened even if the effects themselves no longer exist.
Perhaps Baelfire will help his dad defeat Peter Pan using the box that Belle holding. Will they try to change the course of time? I’m not sure exactly where I’m going with this or even if Adam and Eddy were inspired by that series to give the son of Rumple a strong name like Baelfire, but it’s very interesting nonetheless. And then RG posted this tweet from Adam Horowitz, which was asked just an hour or so after I’d posted my own theory about the inspiration to use the name Baelfire and a nod to “The Wheel of Time” series:
Baelfire is “a good strong name” according to Rumplestiltskin and as Rumple knows, names carry huge significance. So what is the meaning of Baelfire’s name? Baelfire is Old English for bonfire. What lights the way home? The flame that lights up Baelfire’s constellation map! Also, Baelfire used a match to scare away the Shadow in 2×21 since the shadow fears light. I’m thinking we’ll see Neal, Emma and Hook use fire to fight the shadows in the Dark Hollow according to the promo for 3×7. I’m also thinking that NL is perpetually nighttime because the Shadow has grown so strong that it drowns out daylight in present-day NL. Once the Shadow is defeated, daylight will return.
I’m right on board with the name Baelfire having been taking from Wheel of Time. The interesting thing about the weapon Balefire, used in WOT is that Moraine, wields the weapon. We all remember Morraine, Bae’s childhood friend who told him to seek out Reul Ghorm. I talked about this back in my original Peter Pan theory, a year ago September. Here’s the link. https://oncepodcast.com/forums/topic/i-believe-bae-is-peter-pan-henrys-father/
Adam and Eddy are such fantasy/sci-fi fans, that they like to incorporate bits and pieces of everything in their work. I believe that the Frozen Wheel in LOST was a nod to the books Wheel of Time. Now we’ve got the box with it’s lovely little wheels on it, along with the Alpha & Omega. These guys are so creative!
Slurpeez, wouldn’t it be great if they titled Ep.11 The Sins of the Father? Keeping my fingers crossed. 🙂
Keeper of Pandora's Box & The Yellow Brick Road.