Malcolm and Peter Pan

[kfchimera]

I think Malcom is far worse than Milah.   I think you have to include everything Mal did as PP, and his choices as PP go way beyond anything Milah ever did.  She was miserable because of Rumple’s actions but before he ran out on his duty to the army, she was responsible and nice.  She asked him to move but he would not, though now we understand better his fear of moving for a fresh start.  It sounded like something she repeatedly asked. She appeared mad the moment he got home from the war but really she stuck around for 5 more years.  It would seem plausible she developed her drinking and gambling habit then.  We have no idea if Malcom picked that up after Rumple’s mother died, or if he was simply always that way.

Either way, Milah chose to leave Bae behind with a loving (though disabled and unpopular to the society)  father.  (Aside from Hook’s threat to kill him to take her back which we don’t know how much was Milah’s doing/ploy).    Malcolm chose to leave Rumple with strangers.  They may have been kind women, who treated Rumple well and provided him with the potential for a good life but it is not like Malcolm knew they would LOVE him.  At least Milah knew that, and the way she left, at least it seemed at first (because of the challenge/duel) like she hadn’t chosen romantic love over her son.  It WAS harsh to Rumple, but he was an adult who partially caused her misery by his actions.

It is something that comes up that  parent and romantic relationships are different.  So Mal as a father is expected to do more than perhaps a wife with husband where there’s more of a two-way street.  We also can examine her to Bae of course, which is why I still say she was selfish and cruel too, but if we’re looking overall, she didn’t come off AS bad even without the PP stuff, but you add it in and Malcom is downright beyond messed up.

Malcom surpasses Cora now in all time twisted creepy.  Milah was still irresponsible and selfish, like Malcom, but she did not maliciously seek Rumple or Bae out or set a trap for them.  She did not spend centuries torturing his son, then try to kill his grandson.  He caught her lover, and rather than letting it go and taking the bean in a fair trade Rumple pushed and asked her why she left and she was telling him how she felt.   He was threatening her.  He had all the power and he killed her for being blunt.  Should she have said that? No, but she did not say it to crush his self-esteem and he was an adult.  Mal said what  he did to his son, at such a young age.  Later on though, he definitely was trying to crush Rumple and insult him so he could become immortal by taking his greatgrandson’s heart!

 

[RumplesGirl]

I think Malcom is far worse than Milah. I think you have to include everything Mal did as PP, and his choices as PP go way beyond anything Milah ever did.

I tend to agree. We have a tendency to, when a character as a radical name change, to say that those two people are separate. Malcolm wasn’t a good father but PP is; but Malcolm = PP and PP =Malcolm. This isn’t a case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde. When Malcolm became PP he just became powerful and it heightened his worst qualities.

She asked him to move but he would not, though now we understand better his fear of moving for a fresh start.

While I don’t think that moving would have done anything for Rumple/Milah, at least Milah *did* say they could try. When Malcolm went out to try and find a job, he just fell back into his nasty habits of drinking away any money he got. That is one of the final things Malcolm said to Baby!Rumple was “anywhere we go, I’ll jut go back to my old ways” (paraphrasing). If Malcolm couldn’t have the life he wanted-youth, the ability to fly–then he didnt even want to try.

Malcolm chose to leave Rumple with strangers. They may have been kind women, who treated Rumple well and provided him with the potential for a good life but it is not like Malcolm knew they would LOVE him.

We don’t even know for sure what Malcolm thought the Shadow was going to do with Rumple. We don’t know that Malcolm knew the shadow would be taking him back to the spinsters.

 

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

[sharon]

The way OUAT mutilated the story of Peter Pan really, really bothered me for the majority of this season.  I wasn’t sure if I could get past it.  I mean – Peter Pan is supposed to be a good guy.  Last season they had set everything up for Neal to be Peter Pan.  Bae arrived in London in Kensington Garden.  Wendy said the shadow showed up shortly after Bae showed up at their house.  She wanted to take care of him like a mom.  Etc.  It was totally the Peter Pan story.  I suppose the only thing that didn’t fit was that Bae never said he never wanted to grow up or be on his own.  Quite the opposite.  All he has ever wanted was a family.

I’m still tuning in to see what happens… but has it bothered anyone else how much of hack job they did on the Peter Pan story? They definitely took some liberties with other fairy tales – but not to this extent.

[Slurpeez]

Nope.  Myself and others noticed too. Here’s another creepy similarity between Rumple and Pan/Malcolm…both of them have contemplated with the idea of killing Henry for the sake of self preservation. Rumple attempted it as a way to cheat faith, and Pan is doing so to keep himself young and immortal. Of course Rumple differs from Pan in that he has put his temptation for self preservation aside for the sake of protecting his grandson and honoring Baelfire. Rumple is showing signs of change and redemption, while his father continues his own “nasty habits.” Only read on if you want to be seriously spoiled.

I think you’ve hit the nail straight on the head. As Rumple said, saving Henry is his chance at redemption, whereas PP just enslaved his own son in Pandora’s Box. Based on spoiler images from 3×10, we also know that Rumple will find his courage to stab PP with his dark one dagger, suggesting that saving Henry really will be his undoing, which could of course just mean the undoing of Rumple’s curse. The other thing those pictures reveal is that PP turns back into Malcolm after Rumple stabs him, and then Rumple is holding his father’s body as if he’s forgiving him for being such a horrible father. That episode is going to be a major page-turner for Rumple, since he’ll finally sacrifice himself and forgive his dad.

"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

[Demileto]

The way OUAT mutilated the story of Peter Pan really, really bothered me for the majority of this season. I wasn’t sure if I could get past it. I mean – Peter Pan is supposed to be a good guy. Last season they had set everything up for Neal to be Peter Pan. Bae arrived in London in Kensington Garden. Wendy said the shadow showed up shortly after Bae showed up at their house. She wanted to take care of him like a mom. Etc. It was totally the Peter Pan story. I suppose the only thing that didn’t fit was that Bae never said he never wanted to grow up or be on his own. Quite the opposite. All he has ever wanted was a family.

I’m still tuning in to see what happens… but has it bothered anyone else how much of hack job they did on the Peter Pan story? They definitely took some liberties with other fairy tales – but not to this extent.

See, while it’s true the Peter Pan story got the most radical changes out of all the ones they touched so far, I don’t think they were all that much off-base. This is how Peter Pan’s personality is described in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_pan):

Peter is mainly an exaggerated stereotype of a boastful and careless boy. He is quick to point out how great he is, even when such claims are questionable (such as when he congratulates himself for Wendy’s successful re-attachment of his shadow). In the book and play, as well as both film adaptations, Peter either symbolises or personifies the selfishness of childhood, shown in Barrie’s work through constant forgetfulness and self-centred behaviour.
Peter has a nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude, and is fearlessly cocky when it comes to putting himself in danger. Barrie writes that when Peter thought he was going to die on Marooners’ Rock, he felt scared, yet he felt only one shudder run through him when any other person would have felt scared up until death. With his blithe attitude towards death, he says, “To die will be an awfully big adventure”. He repeats this line as an adult in the film Hook (1991), during the battle with Hook near the film’s climax. He then inverts the phrase at the film’s very end claiming, “To live will be an awfully big adventure”. This line was actually taken from the end of the last scene in the play, when the unseen and unnamed narrator ponders what might have been if Peter had stayed with Wendy, so that his cry might have become, “To live would be an awfully big adventure!”, “but he can never quite get the hang of it”.
In some variations of the story and some spin-offs, Peter can also be quite selfish and arrogant. In the Disney adaptation (1953), Peter appears very judgemental and pompous (for instance, he calls the Lost Boys “blockheads”, and when the Darling children say they should leave for home at once, he misunderstands their wish and angrily assumes they want to grow up). Nonetheless, he has a strong sense of justice and is always quick to assist those in danger.
In the 2003 live-action film, Peter Pan is sensitive about the subject of “growing up”. When confronted by Hook about Wendy’s growing up, marrying, and eventually “shutting the window” on Peter, he becomes very depressed and finally gives up on Wendy.

Bolded the relevant excerpts. As you can see, Peter was hardly intended to be the goody two-shoes we’re used to; he embodies the bad aspects of youth just as much as the good ones, and it just happens that Adam and Eddy chose to emphasize those for their take of the character.

[TheGoldenKey]

I was totally against it and clinging to TeamBrothers, but they did it very well. My heart hurt when Young Rumple was sitting there giving the same speech that Bae gave to him. Just imagine what was going through his head as Bae was pleading with him to go through the beanhole. Is that why he hesitated…because he knew what had happened in his own childhood? Oh, so many feels.

Jo, what a great perspective on that scene from the return!  Never even crossed my mind but makes absolute sense after you bringing it up.  Great stuff!  🙂

Keeper of Pandora's Box & The Yellow Brick Road.

[TheGoldenKey]

The twist was interesting, and they did a great job pulling it off. I am intrigued when Adam and Eddy changed their plans for Malcolm, as they had written an alternate story showing Malcolm abandoning Rumple and getting killed that was cut from “Manhattan.” That also means they might have had different plans for Pan initially, but then decided add the twist. Maybe the original plan for Malcolm just wasn’t dramatic enough for them, so they changed it up. I did love all of the parallels between Malcolm/Rumple’s story to Rumple/Bae’s. You had the bean portal, both dads being frowned upon by society, both dads chosing something selfish over their own son, and both dads saying “I will find a way.” No wonder Rumple was so scared to go with Bae into the portal, as the last time resulted in losing his father. I will say Rumple was still overall a better dad to Bae, as he regretted letting go of him the second he left and he made it his mission in life to seek him out. Malcolm on the other hand intentionally let Rumple go because he viewed him as nothing but an anchor to his selfish dreams. Knowing this backstory really makes Rumple much more of a sympathetic character, and this episode really showed him being noble for the sake of saving his grandson.

I theorized that Malcolm was still beaten, almost to the point of death but somehow ended up in NL and used the healing waters.  However, I really loved how they turned it around with the bean.  As Josephine so brilliantly pointed out, brings a whole new perspective on why Rumple was so very frightened to follow Bae down that vortex.  He was reliving his own nightmare.  I do hope Neal finds out about this and forgives Rumple.  Poor young Rumple to have such a miserable piece of dung as a father.  To hear him cry out Papa! just as young Bae was heartwrenching.  Such great casting as I could see a young Rumple resemble his own young son Bae and yet Malcolm shared the features of the evil imp Dark One.  You could so hear Rumplestiltskin’s impish voice in Malcolm.  Uncanny!

 

Keeper of Pandora's Box & The Yellow Brick Road.

[TheGoldenKey]

Am I the only person who realized that Rumpelstiltskin might have gotten his high pitched giggle from his father?

LOL!  I just responded to Matthew from Page 2 on that very same subject.  Absolutely agree with you!  I could hear Rumple’s evil impish voice in Malcolm.  Casting did a phenomenal job last night!

Keeper of Pandora's Box & The Yellow Brick Road.

[TheGoldenKey]

Am I the only person who realized that Rumpelstiltskin might have gotten his high pitched giggle from his father?

LOL!  I just responded to Matthew from Page 2 on that very same subject.  Absolutely agree with you!  I could hear Rumple’s evil impish voice in Malcolm.  Casting did a phenomenal job last night!

Keeper of Pandora's Box & The Yellow Brick Road.

[Keb]

Names matter. They matter very much to Rumple. They have power. Does he believe this because his father taught him this with the doll, or is there more to it?

…and dangit it’s hard to spreadsheet or consistently timeline a show where every single dang character has at least two names even if s/he wasn’t cursed.

But I still love you, Once.

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

[Author]

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