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Rumplestiltskin is the Dark One again on Once Upon a Time, just in time to guide Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) and the rest of the gang down to the Underworld to try to save Hook (Colin O’Donoghue). It’s a bit of a backslide for Robert Carlyle’s character, who fought hard to be a hero after he lost his Dark One powers only to once again reclaim the full might of his magic.
Is there anything that can be done to redeem the character again? While on the red carpet for Once Upon a Time’s 100th episode party, showrunners Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz promised that this storyline will play out differently
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/02/24/once-upon-a-time-is-there-redeeming-rumplestiltskin-again
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"When Merlin said one day, someone will be able to harness the darkness and be able to wield it’s power for good (or something along those lines), I think everyone thought that could be Emma. But maybe that person is Rumple?
When Merlin said one day, someone will be able to harness the darkness and be able to wield it’s power for good (or something along those lines), I think everyone thought that could be Emma. But maybe that person is Rumple?
Quite possibly, but I just don’t know how the writers can get to that sort of space emotionally and narrative wise over the course of 12 episodes.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Rumple was able to harness it for over a century and, while he hurt a lot of people in pursuit of his goals, he hung onto his humanity until after he lost Baelfire. He also used the system of deals to restrain his power slightly; even though they hinted that all Dark Ones can’t resist making deals, I still believe what I believed in S1 and S2–that Rumple used it to keep himself from going too far, as well as to protect himself from the price of magic.
So I could see his being the one who could wield it for good…just not for long. His story has to end with his giving up the power willingly somehow, because he is an addict whose arc has always revolved around choosing power or love.
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
About the deals… every new dark one gets something from the old dark one, so Emma’s inability to resist deals could very well be the addition Rumple gave to the darkness.
About the one prophaciesed to turn darkness for good, it is obvious to me that person is Rumple.
I love Lana’s commentary on Regina and Rumple. Delightfully thoughtful and articulate. Good for her.
But seriously, I’m all for “seeing something new” with how this story plays out because I think we are all, collectively, utterly and profoundly sick of the Rumple yo-yo effect.
No matter what they do, I’m pretty sure somewhere down the line we’ll be told that “they were planning this all along.”
I just don’t know what seeing something new is, and that’s the problem. The “new” thing might actually be having him go all black hat for absolute, no taksies-backsies and be the ultimate villain. I wouldn’t be surprised to be honest. Or it could be that he redeems himself but it’s too late for a life with Belle, and he’s forced to live his life alone in penacne. The problem is that the thing most people want–happily ever after–isn’t something new, we’ve seen it plenty with other former villains.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"It is tricky. If the metaphor is addiction, then this becomes an especially polarizing issue. This is where JMo’s commentary is interesting — if that person isn’t simply going to go away, how do you deal with them? Can you help them? Can you live with them AS addicts? What if you cant just sever ties?
Rumple is divisive and there will always be that section of fans that are like “I am so done with Rumple, they just need to kill him already”. But with all my criticisms of the show, I actually don’t think A&E would go there, at least not straightforwardly so. Ultimately even they must realize that the impulse to wave Rumple (or really, what he stands for) away — which is to say, a character who tends to systematically struggle with and yet more often than not lose the battle against his own dark side — is at best naive, and at worst juvenile. Again for all the flaws of the writing, I don’t think turning Rumple into a Hans Gruber-esque villain would be narratively convincing either.
But yeah, I might be giving them too much credit here. If the shiny shiny plot demands it… sigh.
I very much doubt they’d kill him. It doesn’t fit into their “happy endings” thurst, which–let’s face it–whether you ship the ships or not, is where every character is going to end up. They’d never live it down from the fans if Rumple, and really Rumbelle, don’t get their happy ending. And they cater too much to the fans as is to not give them the Beauty and the Beast ending.
But then I’m still confused on how that’s something new since OQ (villan, good guy) and CS (good girl, villain) are going to get the same shiny ending.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I very much doubt they’d kill him. It doesn’t fit into their “happy endings” thurst, which–let’s face it–whether you ship the ships or not, is where every character is going to end up.
I see what you’re saying about the audience response and fan pandering. I think I’m just trying to play out the logic of the claim that Rumple=addict. I’m curious what the writers’ theory of addiction is. This might impact the plot in different ways:
Option 1: OUAT equates addiction to failure of individual morality and will (the “pull yourself out by the bootstrap, whelp” logic). Then I think it’s likely that Rumple’s arc will be “terminal.” In this scenario, either the (metaphorical) overdose or incarceration are the inevitable conclusions of making “bad choices.”
Option 2: OUAT takes a more community-based approach (ie. addiction is an illness, beating addiction requires a support network — whether a family intervention or an “AA” type organization or whatever — because “bootstrapping” out of it doesn’t work). Then Rumple might be “redeemed” in the sense that he will get “clean.” This would certainly fit more with the initial idea of the show, including the focus on family. However, it’s worth noting that the heroes so far have a “bootstraps” model of Rumple (i.e. they have been willing to throw him under the bus because “he’s been given plenty of opportunities to reform”). Outside of Belle, and in the absence of Neal, no support community really exists for Rumple, so changing this will require some different type of writing.
Option 3: OUAT decides to try its hand at moral relativism. In this scenario, addiction is not inherently evil in and of itself, and everyone is already “addicted” to something anyway. If so, Rumple stays the Dark One provided he doesn’t actively cause harm to others, and is straight up about his “using” with his loved ones.
Did I miss any other scenarios?
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