All magic comes with a price

[weedith]

“All magic comes with a price.”. We have heard Rumplestiltskin say it a dozen times. Do you think it’s true? Does all magic come with a price (including if it’s done with a wand or fairy dust or some other method) or just Rumplestiltskin’s magic? Rumplestiltskin seems to set the price of his own magic, but it seems a price is paid even if you don’t (ex. Thomas’ disappearance after the quill did its number on R). And the price pretty much always seems too high when they come around to paying it.

I’m interested in people’s thoughts on this.

[mia]

I believe that just as Rumpel says “All magic comes with a price”.
It really comes down to the theory that there’s always a counterpart to everything. There’s always two sides to things. You can use Yin and Yang as an explanation or actio and reactio. You can even use the physics fact that energy isn’t lost, but only transformed into something else (e.g. warmth).
If you have or do one thing it will always have an effect. It can be small, very hard to detect and easy to overlook, or it can be rather large and not always good.
If you think about the fact that magic enables you to get things that may have been out of your reach otherwise, it seems plausible that there’s always a price to pay according to what you’ve gained. Magic, in my believe is like energy. It isn’t created of nothing. It’s power comes from somewhere, may it be losing your husband (Thomas), losing your freedom (Genie) or missing to see your daughter grow up (Snow&James, I believe that is the payment for using the magic tree.). There’s always a price, no matter where the magic comes from, because essentially it is all the same, just used differently.

I hope my thoughts are understandable. If not, just ask. 😀

[nightreader]

But Thomas disappearing was because of Rumple though, wasn’t it? I mean, since Ella got him back when her deal with Rumple was honoured (or at least another deal made instead) I figured it was the fact that she hadn’t honoured the deal that caused him to disappear, not the quill thing.
Also, the fairies get their magic from the dust and I think the dust could be considered already paid for with all the work the dwarves put into it. Work is a form of payment after all.
I do agree though that probably all forms of magic in FTL come at some sort of a price, even Regina had to kill her father in order to make the curse work.

[rumplegoldfankristi]

I always feel like the saying is Rumple’s way of warning the person he is talking to not to make the deal with him. But this is also part of my bias toward feeling like Rumple is genuinely good at heart. I think he greatly regrets turning to the Dark One to try to save his son because in the end it caused him nothing but pain (and he lost him son anyway) so he tries to warn everyone he deals with that ultimately the magic won’t be worth it. The problem is that the Dark Side of Rumple gets in the way from truely allowing him to tell whoever he’s dealing with that it will only cause them problems so instead it just comes out as a quick little warning that over time just became his trademark saying.

[cruel_fortuna]

The fairies still have to pay for their magic. They are only given so much fairy dust per year, which means they can’t be wasteful with it. It’s also my belief that leaders of the fairies & the dwarves have a sort of quid-pro-quo deal in place. The head dwarf promises to spread propaganda about how dwarves don’t [can’t] fall in love to prevent the other dwarves from wanting to leave the mines.

I mean, isn’t it odd that only ‘Grumpy’ seemed to question their ideas on work. “And we like it?” to which the lead dwarf responds, “We love it! We even whistle while we do it.”

Seems interesting also that the Blue Fairy was so adamant about Dreamy/Grumpy leaving Nova otherwise she’s lose her wings; which I think is/was a lie. I mean, in the start of the episode it was hinted that a dwarf never changes; yet Dreamy turns to Grumpy, proving his own theory that he was different. Nova could have been the exception too, if that whole losing her wings bit was true; which like I said, I doubt.

But the end and short of it would be this.
Yes, fairies get their magic from the fairy dust & the price they pay is that they act as overlords of sorts to the dwarves. As Nightreader said, the price is paid with work.

[Snickerdoodle]

However, in episode 4, the Price of Gold, the mines are shut down and have been renovated into a jail for Rumpel. So, do the fairies get their magic from the dust? I thought the beginning of last nights’ show said the dust was “the most precious in all the land, this is what powers the world,” the Blue Fairy said. I didn’t hear anything about them getting their magic from fairy dust.

I just posted a similar topic today under the Price of Gold episodeThread https://oncepodcast.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=226

also wondering about a comment regarding the magic wand made in that episode https://oncepodcast.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=225

[darcyfarrow]

I think the lesson Rumple is trying to teach (and it will be interesting to see if anyone ever listens) is that looking for shortcuts and easy solutions will only create more problems. If you don’t like your life as it is, change it, as he tells Ella (or as the characters of Lost would put it, clean up your own messes.)

[hjbau]

I really don’t believe Rumpel is good. I think we are going to find out what happened to his son this season and i imagine that Rumpel is not going to come off good in that one. Also i have been wondering if Bae is even Rumpel’s son or if he took him from Bae’s mother or killed his mother. Rumpel just seems like he would do anything.

[weedith]

@hjbau wrote:

Also i have been wondering if Bae is even Rumpel’s son or if he took him from Bae’s mother or killed his mother. Rumpel just seems like he would do anything.

Are you talking about pre-curse Rumplestiltskin? I didn’t see anything in that character that would make me think he was a murderer or a babysnatcher. Or do you think the curse didn’t really change his base character, it just gave him the power to accomplish the evil that had been in his heart from the beginning.

I really hope we get more information on what exactly the Dark One curse does. How much of the person’s original character stays intact and how much is it subsumed by the power/curse? Could a good enough person overcome the darkness and use the power for good? Or is the fact that it is call The Dark One a giveaway that whoever gets cursed is going to get buried under the evil?

[hjbau]

Yeah i am talking about pre dark one Rumpel. There was just something about the scene where Bae and Rumpel were talking about his mother that made me think that he might have killed his wife meaning Bae’s mother or that he stole Bae from his mother. I don’t think that the curse changed his base behavior. I think that he was the same a coward and a murderer and he might have been a baby snatcher. We don’t really know though. There was just something about that scene.

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