308 Flashback details

While I’m not in love with the idea of Rumple having been a Lost Boy once, I don’t think we can entirely rule it out, especially since we’re almost certainly going to have a flashback of young Rumple in 3×8. It’d be very odd for an episode to feature Rumple’s father but not to feature a younger version of Rumple. And since we know Rumple has a history with PP, it could be he was there in NL as a child. This could be an opportune chance to show Rumple’s unhappy home life as motivation for running away and possibly encountering PP for the first time. I was always a bit ambivalent about this theory before, but now that we’ll almost certainly see young Rumple, I have to wonder why now? Why cut out the scene of young Rumple and his dad in 2×16 only to show a different scene now? It’s very odd unless it ties back into the NL myth somehow.

I’m curious. For those of you against the idea of brothers and Rumple being a lost boy, which do you prefer? If one had to be true, which one would you have it be?

At this stage, I’d prefer for Rumple to have been a Lost Boy vs PP’s brother, simply because that would make PP Henry’s great uncle. That would be one too many branches for me.

I prefer neither, but of the two I think brothers. I think the idea that Rumple was a lost boy undercuts Neal’s journey and experience.
“Oh, you were in NL son? I was too! Oh you don’t have to tell me what you went through because I remember. That’s nothing! In my day in NL we had to walk uphill both ways through the snow.”

I suppose Neal still has the Darlings and arrival in modern land without magic, but I think I would prefer if this is where we get the Oz hints. Rumple’s father could be the cowardly Lion, not an actual lion of course. Then it just parallels what PP went through, rather than being connected to it. So Rumple was adopted by the Spinsters, and parallels the fact Regina adopted Henry.

What if Rumple never really appreciated them as much, and he kept thinking of the father who left? Meanwhile PP ran away and stayed young, but Rumple’s past he was given his weaving skills and the chance of a good life?
I also don’t like the Hook and Rumple are brothers theory (or father/son, eep, teenage baby-daddy Rumple, before Milah, leaves a bun in an oven and ….Eeep no. No! ).

Well if they’re doing it, they are 😛 I realize it could be a bridge of experience between Rumple, Bae and Henry it just rubs me the wrong way.

When I think of Rumple having been in NL as a kid, I don’t imagine him having been there for very long. The way it plays out in my head is that his brother, PP, has him brought to NL, but not for the same purpose as the Lost Boys. Maybe he wants to offer his brother a better place to live? Or maybe he just brings him there to torment him a bit? Either way, I don’t really think of Rumple as having been a “Lost Boy” if he was in NL as a kid, he was there for some other, unique purpose. He’s just gotta be there long enough to lose that doll, either by dropping it accidentally, or having PP take it from him, (I prefer the latter, because maybe Rumple never knew he had a brother until PP takes the doll and talks about how their father made him one just like it).