"All he does is lies."

[obisgirl]

I couldn’t help but be surprised by our heroes’ shocked revelation that Rumple had been lying the whole time.

Like Rumple’s never lied or misled them before. (Rolls eyes). I still remember that time in the season finale where he duped both Emma and Regina, just to get his hands on that potion.

He’s a master manipulator — I don’t know why it was so shocking to the Charmings that he had been lying about what he was doing.

[TheWatcher]

Today I rewatched the last episode and had the exact opposite thought. If I am not mistaken, in the eyes of everyone else, Rump has been doing fairly well. He was very heroic in NL, sacrificed his life to save them all from Pan, and was under the witch’s control for the majority of 3B so most of that was not his fault. He lost his son, married, Belle, gave Henry a job. I mean, from their perspective Rump really has turned over a new leaf and I see no reason why they’d be distrustful of him at this stage in the game. A lot of the shady things he HAS done (killing Zelena, the Hook and and Ingrid situations) were all kept under wraps up until that point. Even Regina said it in the car conversation. She thought he had changed. I think everyone else did too. So to me, its not surprising they were shocked. What is surpisjg to me was the conversation between Hook (being compelled by Rump) and Emma where Emma basically says something similar to how Rump can’t be trusted or that he changed or something. It just didn’t feel right because of after all that had gone on in the last season or so. She’s acting like Rump has been maniacally evil when he has been good for awhile. If this were season 1 or 2, id understand. But Rumpel has changed, well HAD changed at one point.

"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGIC

[Keb]

I’m bothered by the fact that he’s been outright lying so much this season, actually, because Rumple USED to believe that he didn’t lie (granted, a lot happened after he made that claim, so maybe that’s part of his character development–PS, development doesn’t have to be positive). He manipulated and took advantage of desperate people, sure, but he told them some version of the truth while he was doing it. It had been part of his personal code with the deals, which I still believe were partly his way of controlling his own darkness while still working towards his goals. It put the responsibility for what happened on his victims, along with the price of his magic use.

I am NOT saying he was ever HONEST. As Charming pointed out in The Crocodile, there’s a difference between literal truth (which Rumple stuck to out of a legalistic principle) and honesty of the heart, which is what Belle always wanted from him. That’s part of why his lies against her this season were so heartbreaking–she’d told him ages ago (in show time anyway, but at least a year before their marriage anyway) what she really wanted from him for their relationship to work–trust. And he violated that knowingly and directly to do things she never would have accepted (she was friends with the fairies, she’d saved Hook’s life before, and while she might have been okay with his being free of the dagger with power intact she certainly wouldn’t have appreciated his condemning a town full of people she liked in the process). Even if he deluded himself into believing he was doing it all for her, he knew it was wrong–that’s why his excuses were so thin and weak at the town line. And that moment when he starts to say “I can have everything” and then switches to “we” is the moment he realizes (and she does too, sob) that his goals were more selfish than he thought.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[obisgirl]

Wow @keb, I’m impressed.

[Hook’s Girl]

I agree, Keb. I’ve thought of Rumple not as a lier but someone who can manipulate the truth to his advantage. The art of a legal deal. The truth is much more fun then telling lies. Since he’s come back from the dead, he seems to lie all the time now, but maybe that’s part of what is going on. He’s lost part of himself and is slowly getting desperate to change things to get what he wants.

We’ll probably never know if Belle or anyone else figures out that Rumple killed Zelena. We’ll probably never find out if Killian’s hand was really cursed or not. Or if that VCR tape of the Appentice’s home was real or fake.

Nothing is impossible on OUAT. Everything has a way of repeating itself. Keeper of the Keeper tread: https://oncepodcast.com/forums/topic/official-keeper-thread-3/#post-217924

[Keb]

I think we can trust that Rumple was honest to Killian about the tape and the hand (after he took it back). We saw him use magic on the tape and it paralleled what he did with the tape of Zelena’s death.

While obviously this show likes to upset our expectations sometimes, it’s just too confusing to assume nothing we’re seeing is as presented. So I think Rumple’s “confession” about lying to Hook about the hand was truth, even if things he said earlier in the episode were manipulations/lies. It explained things neatly and made sense for his goals at that point in his plans.

The only reason not to accept that confession as truth is if you don’t want to believe that Hook would hit a guy who was interrupting his date, or would be scared of his past tendencies still being there. But we’ve seen that Hook, while working towards some kind of redemption for Emma, was quick to return to rather vicious piracy when he was tested in The Jolly Roger. Without hope of Emma to spur him on, he was perfectly willing to kill and in the process condemn an innocent man if that’s what it took to get his ship and keep his reputation.

And while we haven’t seen him hurt nearly the numbers of people we’ve seen Rumple, Regina, or someone like Cora hurt, he has killed before and it’s suggested that he’s been quite ruthless as a pirate off screen. He’s sided with baddies (like Cora, Greg & Tamara, Regina…even Rumple when he was being merely blackmailed and not controlled) as often as with the good guys, which means that even when he doesn’t approve of their methods/crimes, he’s complicit.

Hook’s not entirely evil and he’s come a long way since he gave up his revenge motive, but he’s also not the perfect hero he wants to be for Emma (and we’ve only explored a little bit what would happen if the carrot of Emma’s love were taken from him completely…but it doesn’t look like it’d be good). Are you really a hero if you’re only doing it for someone else’s love? I think that’s what Rumple was testing…and Hook hasn’t passed that test quite yet.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[PriceofMagic]

I think Rumple was telling the truth about the hand but bluffing about the tape. Rumple doesn’t tell just truths or lies, he does both, and includes half-truths so if you are on the other end of a deal with him, you can never tell what is genuine and what is false.

I’m a bit annoyed that Emma’s revelation that Rumple has been up to no good came from Anna who met Rumple once over 30 years ago. The information would’ve been 30 years out of date.

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

[MatthewPaul]

I think Rumple was telling the truth about the hand but bluffing about the tape. Rumple doesn’t tell just truths or lies, he does both, and includes half-truths so if you are on the other end of a deal with him, you can never tell what is genuine and what is false.

I’m a bit annoyed that Emma’s revelation that Rumple has been up to no good came from Anna who met Rumple once over 30 years ago. The information would’ve been 30 years out of date.

The revelation still worked coming from Anna because it proved that Rumple lied to all of them when he said he knew nothing about Anna. Even though Anna’s information about Rumple was from 30 years ago, it was still recently that Rumple lied to them about Anna.

[Keb]

Nah, I think he was honest about the tape. His using the same trick as he did with Zelena makes a nice parallel (which this show LOVES and so do we), gives Hook a chance to reveal the truth about Zelena through surmising later if need be, and more importantly, gives Rumple an actual back-up plan should Hook suddenly want reveal the truth to Emma–actually having something on the tape to show Emma means that he can discredit Hook to cover himself.

As for the hand, once he had played his game with it and gotten blackmail material on Hook to balance their powers again, there was no reason for him to lie about what he had done. I think he was honest about playing a mind game on Hook, and I wonder what he would have done if Hook had failed to act as he suspected–perhaps congratulated the pirate for actually doing what he was finding very difficult?

It also points to Rumple’s own character development. He’s struggling to change at that point in the game. He’s got this enormous temptation that’s compelling him to lie to his wife, use her as an alibi, and keep the dagger that he promised his son he would give up to Belle. He knows full well he’s sinking back into his darkness, and here he sees someone he’s never had reason to like sashaying around like change is easy. So he undermines it, tests it, proves to himself that he’s not the only “reformed” villain who isn’t as reformed as everyone thinks. It’s a nasty trick to play, but it’s part of how he’s dealing with his own dissonance between what he wants to be and what he believes he is–it’s easier if you feel like you’re not the only one. It helps him justify what he’s doing to himself in a twisted way. He can’t change any more than the pirate can, so he might as well get the best ending he can out of it for himself.

He doesn’t get the same satisfaction or security out of tricking Hook further on the contents of the tape or on the hand’s ability to affect Hook’s behavior, once he’s done with his game.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[PriceofMagic]

I don’t get why the writers presented Rumple as evil in 4A when in reality, his intentions and motivations themselves were very sympathetic, it was his methods that weren’t above board.

All Rumple wanted to do was get out from under the dagger’s control and keep his power. Considering he was enslaved by Zelena last year and he has such deep seated insecurities that he believes having power is the only way to keep those he loves safe, this is totally understandable. (Desperate souls shows this. Without power, Bae was going to be taken to die in the ogre war, with power, Rumple protected Bae, brought the children home and ended the ogre war. You can see why Rumple thinks Power=Good, No Power=Bad).

Rumple knew his methods weren’t above board, hence why he didn’t tell Belle what he was doing and why he made sure Hook wouldn’t tell Belle what he was doing. Rumple has always been an ends justify the means guy, just like Regina is an ends justify the means girl. Why is one vilified whilst the other isn’t?

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

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