404: Sneak Peeks (1 and 2)

I think Rumple was -scared- to move away. There, he at least had a known quantity of work etc to support his son, which had become the most important thing in his life at that point.

And when he killed Milah, it was after he’d abandoned Bae himself. He was angry at her for leaving him, but that he could have let go–he was willing to make the trade of their lives for the bean. But Milah not only cut him harshly by saying she’d never loved him (for a man abandoned by his own father for the same reason, that hurts just a little extra–not that it’s unpainful for anyone), she gave THAT as her reason for abandoning Bae. She shifted the blame onto him. Rumple was in a place where he was already loathing himself for having let Bae go through the portal alone, and now she was making it his fault that she’d abandoned him. He killed Milah because he was directing all the self-loathing and anger at his own failure toward her in that instant (and yes, he was corrupted by the power of the Dark One on top of that–which does not excuse it, but it’s clearly part of the reason). She had committed the worst crime he could think of, abandoning her child, the same crime he hated himself so much for having committed.

I think a lot of people see the murder as a reaction to her not loving him, but I think it’s much more complicated than that. In a twisted way, as when he turned the carter into a snail, he was trying to protect Bae–trying to fix what he’d done to Bae. Obviously, if he’d left well-enough alone, Milah could have lived happily with her pirate, Rumple could have found Baelfire, and much of the story never would have followed. But Rumple’s anger and self-hatred got in the way of all that.

None of that makes it right, and his reluctance to tell Belle what actually happened, even two centuries later, suggests that he knows it was wrong on some level.

I’m using my historical understanding of a medieval setting. You rarely pick up and leave home. He was the village spinner. Every village has one and probably no more. You cannot come in and infringe on another person’s trade because people aren’t going to flock to you when they’ve got Jon Doe who has been spinning for the village for years as did his father before. But “starting over” isn’t actually that easy. You can go to a town and set up shop but that’s incredibly expensive.

Which medieval setting are we talking about? Early middle ages, high, late? Central Europe, south, east, north? A village in the Alps, at the coast of Norway, somewhere in the English Lowlands or German Lüneburg Heath? Village, small town, or a haven setting? Most of the costumes, tech, architecture and even hints of society we get to see on the show are less medieval by the way, but more 16-18th century, and that is early modern period. We’re working here with a highly romanticized and fictionalized picture of alleged medieval times (as courtly love and chivalric romance literature, which had some influence on our fairy tale perception, peaked in the high and late middle ages, and in the Renaissance, later picked up by romantics like the Grimm Brothers as fairy tales and sagas).

Ever wondered why mostly women are shown spinning? Why in mythology spinning is mostly brought in connection with women and goddesses? Why spinster as become at some point in English a synonym for unmarried woman (though it was not an occupation only for unmarried women). Because spinning was mostly women’s work until machines took over. One spinner per village? Good luck with ever getting enough yarn for the village.

But we’re talking fictional setting here, fairy tales and even less our modern versions of it reflect little of the actual situation of peasants in medieval or early modern times. Maybe a fairy village could do with one spinner.

We got to see Milah from Rumple’s point of view, it was his story told, not her story. We were meant to feel sympathy for Rumple and not for Milah. We never get to see Milah from her point of view, not even that much from Hook’s POV. The story is about giving Rumple reason to be angry and hurt and act the ways he did. Of course it would look different, if we were meant to have sympathy with Milah, and would get told her story. We are told Rumple’s reasoning, not Milah’s. As it is often in conflict, both sides are convinced to be right, and that their view is reasonable and the only one, and other people take sides, based on their sympathy, bias, views, own experiences. But there is not one right view, one objective truth in it, there never is, there are different views and interests.

No one is arguing, that Milah was a good person and her doings absolutely justified. Just that there are different point of views, with good and bad reasonings on both sides. Rumple was as much a coward and self-absorbed as was Milah in this.

There is though no good reason for Rumple to kill anyone for saying, she or he doesn’t love him. Rumple murdered his wife for leaving him and his son, for not loving him as she did or should have. However understandable it might be, how Rumple got there, it was a crime, it was no justifiable.

And I agree with @Epona_610. I find it very disturbing when people say, Milah got it coming, deserved what she got. Why is that necessary? To secure the idea, that Rumple was a misunderstood guy and victim before he became a villain? To reason, that he deserves Belle’s love, that it still might be okay to get happy ending? I don’t need a sob story in the past or any once-victim-vibe to believe, that it might be right to give a person, a second, maybe even third chance, and that a person could change and became a better human being, whatever evil they’ve done. I need to see them change in the present time though.

Alright, I was quoting too many other posts and it was getting ridiculous. I’ll try to address the main points, but if I miss something feel free to ask me to clarify or whatever.

As for the drinking–yes, I am drawing my own conclusions based on what we see, such as that since it’s a seaside village, there are probably almost always sailors or other strangers at whatever tavern is closest to the docks. But yes, I also think if there hadn’t been anyone there Milah still would’ve wanted to drink in an effort to forget how much she hated her life. It’s obviously not a good thing, and yes she was being a lousy mother in leaving Bae to go drinking, but unfortunately stuff like that happens quite a lot even today. Alcohol has always been a coping mechanism for some people.

The reason I say he was condescending is because I really think it’s the best way to describe how he treats her. Both in the tavern and at their home…he wasn’t exactly angry with her because it was like he thought she didn’t know better, like she was a child he needed to correct instead of a partner whose concerns he should hear out and discuss things with.

As for Rumple resorting to violence in order to take out his own guilt or insecurities on others…personally, the fact that it was just after she said “I never loved you” sure made it seem like murdering her was more about how he felt than about Bae. She never said “You made me so miserable that my judgment was clouded,” she put the responsibility on herself. “I let my misery cloud my judgment.” However, even if that were the case (which I agree it obviously was with Moe in Storybrooke), I don’t see how that’s any kind of defense. He needs to learn to deal with his own guilt and insecurities himself instead of murdering, maiming, or beating other people.

And the reason I have more sympathy for Milah than Rumple is that Milah, as a woman, had no power, no control over her life or what the family did. She was mean to Rumple, sure, but she didn’t have the power to make his life miserable (at least not without leaving completely like she did) like Rumple had done to her. And if he’d wanted to pick up and leave her, he could’ve done so without consequence. And of course, she didn’t kill him, so that’s why I’m being harsher on him than on her, and why I see her as the victim in their story.

And @Myril, those are really good points too, especially that Rumple is the main character and we’re only seeing things from his perspective. Milah was only ever in two episodes after all, and we pretty much only see her through Rumple’s eyes. I know I’m in the minority feeling sympathy for Milah, probably because I’m more sensitive than most about things like women being judged only on their usefulness to whatever man “owns” them, as a wife/homemaker and producer of children or whatever. Ugh.

Rumple was not an abusive husband pre-dark one (and we saw pretty much every second he was with Milah post-dark one). He was lame, meaning Milah had to work harder to keep up the household. He was unwilling to take her suggestion to leave the village. He was a source of shame to her because of his actions in the war.

But Milah -was- verbally abusive to him from the moment he came home from the war. She may well have had her reasons and been/felt oppressed, but she wished him dead. She DID publicly humiliate him and play upon all his insecurities as a man, an abandoned boy, and an infamous coward. His speech at Neal’s grave in 401 points to how helpless he really felt during Bae’s childhood, and Milah definitely contributed to that.

It’s totally fair to criticize Rumple for killing Milah. It was wrong, unnecessary, and, for a person who loves the character, one of the hardest scenes to watch. But while she didn’t deserve to die for the wrongs she committed against her husband and son, she did contribute to Rumple’s development and his choice to become the Dark One, and to many of the things he came to believe about himself later on. Rumple endured 5-7 years of scorn from Milah on a daily basis, a woman he’d once believed to have loved him and whom he once loved too. Even oppressed wives can be abusers, and even abusers can deserve sympathy.

It was a complicated, toxic mess of a marriage from the moment Rumple maimed himself and Milah couldn’t accept that decision. Both of them had valid points, and both were unfair to the other at some point in their relationship–and it’s unlikely we’ll all agree on which points were the most unfair.

Myril wrote:

Which medieval setting are we talking about?

A highly fictionalized one, clearly, that isn’t picking one specific medieval sen fortting over the other but rather setting up one that the audience recognizes as medieval without fleshing out the nuances of what was really going on. I’m not saying they are playing by all the historical rules. But they made Rumple a spinner (cause of the story of Rumplestiltskin) and they aren’t necessarily going to have the town spinner pack up and leave and try to hock his wares elsewhere when other spinners have set up shop in a similar manner because it is a gigantic financial risk when they are clearly quite poor as it is.

Myril wrote:

One spinner per village? Good luck with ever getting enough yarn for the village.

I did say PROBABLY no more. It’s an incredibly small village by the looks of it. Like I just said, obviously a highly fictional one that is incorporating Rumple’s traditional tale as part of it. The fictionalized fantasy world where there is one spinner, the town blacksmith, one ale house, ect.

Such fictional images of medieval times have very little to naught to do with history.
Early Middel Ages might be what comes closes to the fictionalized common picture of the “Dark Ages”, decline of population, decay of infrastructure like roads, sewer system, water supply, some migration waves, isolated villages, robber baron, a kind of anarchy all over Europe, but knowledge about that period is scarce because of lack of sources. But with 10th century, begin of High Middle Ages, things began to lighten up.

Spinning was quite a normal work peasant women did beside all their housework duties, it was no special skill. It took more than one spinner though to supply a weaver. With increasing population in Europe and demand for more and better cloth, textile manufacture became increasingly specialized and experienced a first form of industrialization in the High Middles Ages already. Flanders became a center of broadcloth production and trade of cloth in 13th century, Bruges had a population of about 40.000 at that time (London 35.000, Paris 150.000) . England was an important trade partner for quality wool for the flemish textile production, a trade severly harmed by the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453). Hand spinning provided for the yarn until the spinning jenny was invented in 18th century – the hand spinners couldn’t keep up anymore providing enough yarn. To give a sense of literature timeline: Wolfram Eschenbach’s romance Parzival is dated likely in the first quarter of 13th century, Nibelungenlied is thought to have been written about the same time, Le Morte d’Arthur, a compilation of Sir Thomas Malory with tales about King Arther was published first in 1485.

Agree though if taking historical knowledge into account, in medieval like setting it should not be easy to move somewhere else just because people called you a coward in your place, but I agree because out of different reasons. Rural peasants were not all free to leave, they were often dependent (serf or villein, nope no wrong spelling) of the their land lord. Manorialism was wide spread in medieval Europe, part of the feudal system. Even for a free peasant it was not that easy to move and find a new place, land lord or town accepting them to stay (you think immigration is now a problem with nations and their administrations? you have no idea about medieval towns, their administration and the power of guilds if the town was not ruled by some lord).

I am getting into this, because I find it constantly frustrating that common fictionalized pictures of so called medieval times are way too often mistaken as anywhere close to be historical accurate, which they are not. Not to mention Middle ages, medieval cultures span a time period of nearly a thousand years. Being a nag here, and though I love playing with historical cultures and events in fiction, I like to make clear, that it is nothing but fiction any time.

It’s a very romantic and fictional idea though to think, that one spinner could make an important enough production even for a small village.

I don’t know if the writers were aware of it, but while Rumple’s father was sold to a blacksmith as kid, he sold Rumple as kid to some spinsters, which was further degression in social status, blacksmithing being a craft while spinning was simple housework, women’s work. Not just a son of a trickster and coward but sold to some old spinsters teaching him a woman’s skill. What a humilation and demasculisation of his own son by Malcom.

Milah and Rumple were both victims in their marriage. So their marriage broke apart, Milah left finally to end their shared misery and did so in cowardly, crappy way, but it could have ended there. But nope, Dark Rumple has some feelings of hurt pride, months, years later when crossing ways accidentally again with Hooks, he provokes Hook, duels with him (to revenge Milah’s death maybe, as he was told by Hook she was dead), only stopped by Milah intervening and thus revealing she wasn’t dead. And the next day Rumple murders his (ex-) wife for telling him, she never loved him (yes, he got increasingly angry when they talked about Bae, but he lost his temper the moment Milah told Rumple, she’d never loved him) That is when Rumple turns to be the evil, bad guy in the story, and there is no excuse for the murder. I am not damning Rumple for being hurt and angry but for murdering a person for not being what he expected and wanted her to be, a good mother to his son, a loving wife to him.

One can debate if Rumple was an abuser, I would say, Milah and Rumple were abusing each other shortly before she left him. Yes, that is possible, and not even that seldom, that both show abusive behavior at some point. But the women are the ones getting more often killed by their ex-partner, and not out of self-defense but mere revenge, punishment. Sometimes cold blooded planned even, sometimes happening in the moment. Exactly what Rumple did. Milah might have done morally questionable things, but Rumple committed the crime. That is the problem I have with all the Milah was no understanding, loving wife to Rumple but treating him terrible talk and damnation based on it, while being all understanding of Rumple. It can come across like looking away, while Rumple no doubt committed a crime.

Milah was a bit of a dreamer, Rumple was a realist.

Rumple maimed himself trusting the vague telling of a fishy seer. Don’t see that much of a realist in Rumple, he is more of a fatalist.