Baby Rumbelle

[Slurpeez]

Belle re-consummated their marriage under the (sadly false) belief that her husband really was the kindhearted, sweet Rumple who awoke in 5a with a pure heart, and she decided to give their marriage a second try. Despite how much he broke her heart when he was the dark one, she decided to put her trust in him again, believing he really had become a new man. Belle thought that, for the first time, he really had chosen her over power, and perhaps she even trusted him enough to start a family with the man she loves. She might have decided that the time was right because, this time, their baby really would be born of true love.

So imagine just how devastated Belle is going to be when she finds out Rumple kept this terrible secret from her again; despite pregnancy usually being a blessing to a happy marriage, just how happy will Belle be to discover that not only did Rumple lie to her by omission again, but that he traded away her baby and never bothered to tell her about it? Why on earth has Rumple never told her about this little deal he made? You’d think he’d have at least brought it up to her once he’d proposed. “Oh by the way dear, there was this deal I made to trade away my second-born child to save my first child. So, do you mind if you never can bear a child of mine?” At the very least, he could have given her a head’s up so that way she could have taken the necessary precautions not to get pregnant. Barring cheating on her, this type of betrayal is the deepest form Rumple could have committed.

*head desk*

[PriceofMagic]

In all fairness to Rumple, a) he made that deal hundreds of years ago and it’s only become relevant now, b) Belle is only pregnant because Emilie de Ravin was pregnant, c) Rumple thought he had nullified the deal by killing the healer and only has just discovered himself that the deal still stands.

I kind of want to see Belle go all dark, and with Rumple, takes on Hades to protect their baby.

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

[RumplesGirl]

c) Rumple thought he had nullified the deal by killing the healer and only has just discovered himself that the deal still stands.

I’m actually surprised by this. Rumple has said before that he has a penchant for deals and it seems that Rumple never stopped to consider that someone else might have taken up the deal/bought the deal. If you listen to the latest podcast, we actually had a lawyer writer in and explain that while human trafficking is pretty illegal (obviously) the mechanics Hades was talking about of the deal belonging to him now are perfectly valid.

(Yes, yes. I know that PLOT is dictating this story line and prior to S5B there was no such thing as a healer, snake bite, ect but….just putting that out there)

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[nevermore]

Ok, I suspect I’m going to be the dissenting voice on this, but… I don’t know. Human fertility is a fickle thing. So I don’t think that the fact that Rumple and Belle re-consummated their marriage, and that this resulted in Belle’s pregnancy under the circumstances is another symptom of how awful Rumple is. Horrid bad luck, in some ways, yes. But I think it’s unfair to pile Belle’s pregnancy into the betrayal as an added bonus. (And yeah, maybe this is because the show clearly wants its audience to see the pregnancy as the last straw/cherry on the cake/especially horrid thing that I find it so manipulative and am resisting the impulse to lump it together with the rest of Rumple’s bad behavior).

Yes, he should have told her. But in-story, one might imagine a spur of the moment thing where neither was thinking too clearly. And I think it needs to be taken in context of a long-standing sexual relationship anyway (I don’t think the show gives us any reason to believe they have/had a platonic marriage). If I were to think about the in-story explanation — and knowing that two people were married, and together for some time, even if the relationship is in hiatus, then you might assume that either (a) they have some long-standing and non-invasive form of contraception going on that on this occasion failed (Storybrooke has a medical facility after all) (b) they don’t, and are hence open to the possibility of pregnancy anyway or (c) they don’t think they’re fertile, so don’t worry about it (which, considering the age difference, Rumple’s DO condition, and the fact that over 300 years he hasn’t fathered anyone as far as we know, seems likely). We have no reason to think of any religious prohibition on either of their sides that would make their sexual relationship only procreative. So really, I think it’s a lot more realistic, story wise, to interpret the pregnancy as the result of bad luck (or bitter irony, maybe), rather than use it as retroactive justification for moral condemnation. It’s a separate issue, in my opinion. *shrug*

[Slurpeez]

I know the real-life pregnancy of Emilie de Ravin drove the story development of the Rumbelle baby and that everything that followed has been a recent invention. What I meant, however, is what is the in-story motivation of the characters? Whether the pregnancy was planned or not, why didn’t Rumple ever tell Belle about this deal he made to trade away his second-born child when it could have huge implications for their marriage and would-be family? Even if they were using birth control, it fails sometimes. At the very least, Rumple ought to have confided in his wife about his past dealing when it concerns any potential future children. Didn’t they ever talk about how many kids, if any, they’d want in marraige? Usually, that is the sort of thing couples discuss before tying the knot.

Anway, the in-story reason he didn’t tell her is probably a combo of (1) his tendency to conceal all manor of things from her and (2) he thought he’d dealt with it by killing the healer. Yet, that goes back to what @RumplesGirl wrote of why a man who has concerned himself with the fine point of deals and contracts (e.g. Cinderella’s baby-trading deal in Price of Gold) would be so blindsided to think the deal wasn’t transferrable. I find it hard to excuse Rumple not only for not telling Belle about being the dark one again, but also for not telling her that important detail from his past. What kind of marriage is it really when it seems to be built on secrets and lies? Their entire marriage started with a lie, so I guess it ought to come as no surprise their baby will be born amid lies and betrayal.

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[RumplesGirl]

Slurpeez raises a good point and it’s one that people have raised a bit over the years: how much open communication is there between Rumple and Belle about those issues that would give normal people pause at the very least and send them running for the hills at the most? It used to be that people wondered if she knew about Milah’s death or not. It does come down to the fact that any meaningful character development and interaction is usually left off screen because the plot takes center stage (and the fact that Belle is little more than a prop on this show) but now, because of this episode, not only do we have to wonder if Rumple ever told her about his baby-exchange contract but we also have to wonder if Belle knows that Rumple has sent Hades more souls than anyone, including Regina.

And yes, Belle’s stance is that she loves Rumple, even the parts of him that belong to the darkness, but at some point that platitude begins to sound not only empty but incredibly idiotic. Like, say, in this situation with this betrayal.

 

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[nevermore]

Yeah, you guys make an excellent point. The second born deal leads us to conclude that either (a) Rumple is an idiot who, over 300 years, hasn’t learned the first thing about contracts or (b) that he knew all along, and failed to tell Belle — which borders on criminality (in the same way that withholding information about, say, one’s HIV status from a sexual partner does.)

Narrative wise, this second born child thing is a horrible, horrible idea in my opinion. Because so much of the character “development” is subservient to PLOT, and PLOT is subservient to the paradigm of the more scandalous and over-the-top the better, they’ve ended up with a real impasse. They either must rewrite Rumple’s character once and for all as an irredeemable sociopath:  short of making him a genocidal maniac (oh wait, we have one of those) or a child abuser, I don’t know what more they can do to make the audience write him off. Or, alternatively, they take away the arguably only interesting/likeable thing about Rumple that’s left, which is his smarts, and make him into the worst kind of antagonist: evil and stupid. After Snow, this is arguable the worst example of character assassination I’ve ever seen on TV in recent years.

[Bar Farer]

What bothered me is that they disregarded that Rumple broke only one deal – leaving EF with Bae, which was a huge plot point in season 1.

I really don’t care their characters or don’t think about their motivation or what is logical for the characters to do in order to develop them. They just think: “I want this to happen now” and they just make it happen even though it doesn’t make sense. That’s why we get things like Snow and Charming don’t want to fight anymore. Regina suddenly isn’t so sure of her magic (514 delt with a theme that was covered in both 502 and 511. Something that was never shown to be a problem before s5, we get it just because and it’s repetitive and redundant and thrown in there just to be there). Henry coming to the Underworld, and now Rumple doesn’t know about deals so much, even though they were fascinating for him.

OUAT is not character driven since season 3. Characters have become templates for the plot. After 5B is over, they’ll hit the reset button and we’ll start over when everything that happened has little to no effect in the future. I think the only important event 5B will give us that will remain for the arcs to come is that Snow White is not Mary Margaret anymore (I hope).

"All your questions are pointless"

[RumplesGirl]

What bothered me is that they disregarded that Rumple broke only one deal – leaving EF with Bae, which was a huge plot point in season 1.

Wow. I completely forgot about that little bit of line he gave to Regina back in S1.

I guess we could rationalize that Rumple didn’t break the deal so much as give the Healer something else instead of a baby (death….) but even that’s not exactly neat and tidy especially since Rumple himself is of the opinion that the death of the Healer doesn’t fulfill the deal so much as stop it dead (pun!) in its tracks.

 

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Keb]

BTW, it wasn’t 300 years since either part of the deal. Baelfire was probably born less than 200 years ago, and Regina’s life has only been expanded by 28 years from a natural life-span…and while that could be anywhere from mid-30s to early 50s depending on how you estimate her biological age, Rumple’s murder of Fendrake happened concurrently with his relationship with Cora…which had to be within about 2 years preceding Regina’s birth (and at least 9 months before). So we’re looking at a deal that was, I guess in Rumple’s mind, resolved rather than broken, probably 70ish years ago.

Actual date I’ve established on my timeline at present: 1/30/1936.

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

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