Morals and Points of View

[Keb]

Belle has always been an idealist, and I think that’s the thing they’ve most consistently characterized her with. It comes out in her insecurities as we saw in Family Business–she’s so hard on herself for having let Anna fall that she can’t even believe Rumplestiltskin could understand what she did. She idolizes her mother’s heroism and the characteristics of the heroes from her stories are, to her, attainable traits for everyone. That’s part of why she’s able to see the best in others, because she believes it can be there, but it also makes it hard for her to accept anything less than her ideals from herself or those she loves.

It’s also why it’s hard for her to accept that she loves Rumple in part because of his flaws, that she is attracted to his dark side as well as his inner goodness. It’s not what you’re SUPPOSED to like, so it winds up being a “failing” of hers instead of just how it is, you know, reality. Sometimes she can see it (it’s easier in the abstract, when he’s not there, when she’s missing him), but other times she struggles with it because it flies in the face of the standards she holds herself, and him, to.

Her ultimatums come from this idealism, as well as her anxieties. And I don’t think she was proved wrong, but it’s easy to see how she would immediately jump to despair over what she did to Gaston. It was exactly the thing she was trying to prevent; while her defensive move to stop Gaston’s attack was entirely justifiable, she never meant to doom him to an eternity of being lost. For an idealist, middle ground is hard to see. It’s all or nothing, especially in the worst moments…

But this does go along with what I was saying last week about how both Rumple and Belle are going to have to compromise. We aren’t quite yet seeing it from his side, but maybe this will help Belle come to terms with a reality that just won’t fit her idealism–though I hope she doesn’t lose it entirely. That is, as someone said, what makes her a flicker of light; it gives her the ability to be heroic and optimistic and see the best in people. She needs to temper it with the ability to accept that not everything can be perfect.

Rumple meanwhile needs to find a way to be the better man he keeps promising her, someone she can be with without compromising her core principles (murder is bad is a pretty good start, and he’s obviously not there yet).

[Marty McFly]

@RG, I think you kinda said it all. But here are a few thoughts:

Rumple’s claim seems to be that one protects one’s loved ones by “all means necessary.” This is the Machiavellian position, I guess. We’ve seen something similar with Snowing and Lily, but unlike Snowing, Rumple’s statement that he is dark — incorporating this into his identity — allows him to forego the sort of mental gymnastics we saw from Snow White where she had to literally dehumanize Maleficient’s child to justify her actions. But that’s not surprising — the Machiavellian position if actually a quite “honest” one.

For what it’s worth, I think Rumple is digging in his heels to counteract what he perceives as Belle’s intransigence, but they will need to find a middle-ground if this is to work. Belle’s a bit black/white on things. So when Rumple counters Belle’s (over-)statement that “darkness always wins” with “I’m sorry this happened to you” — this I think speaks more to something like “I’m sorry you had to stumble into the gray area in this particular

Quote

I don’t think it’s necessarily “machiavallian” since no one is looking to dominate the world, only to protect family. However, yes, Rumple is certainly alot more honest about “saying it like it is” instead of dehumanizing a baby in order to save their own, he was honest about the darkness of sending Hades Zelena’s innocent baby to save his own. Let’s call kidnapping, murder, etc by the right name and not pretend like we are still heroes while doing this.

I will not even get into the ooc-ness and inconsistancies of his character (the Gold I knew from a season back would NEVER hurt a child no matt what – even Emma admitted to that while demonizing him about August)

But when a person realizes that he is endagering innocent children’s lives by starting a war, for example, in order to protect his own children, he will not call himself a “hero” but understand that he is doing evil, (even though it might be a nessesary evil)

At the same time, this “warrior” doesn’t want his family (the family he is trying to protect from death/pain/whatever) to be as evil as him and use these means to protect themselves.

The comment of “I didn’t want this to happen to you” is pretty much similar to Snow not wanting to steal a boy’s heart and comntrol him with dark magic in order to find and save Henry. That’s why Regina did it instead of Emma, because Regina is already tainted by darkness and won’t be as traumatized by doing the evil thing.

There is a reason that soldiers are never the same after a war. Their morals had to be compermised. They killed in order to save themselves/their fellow soldiers/ their country etc.

I am glad I was never put in the position of a soldier or a policeman, but in order to really understand them I must take a step back and think about how I would behave in their situation. Would I have pulled the trigger? Before demonizing policemen or soldiers for killing their victims, one must think honestly about his own split-second decisions before sitting on the couch (in his safe home) and judging them for thiers. This is why police and soldier misconduct is judged by the courts and the jury rather than by the media

Wow, I am bringing politics into this, this was totally not my intentions when I started to post lol

[RumplesGirl]

I don’t think it’s necessarily “machiavallian” since no one is looking to dominate the world, only to protect family

When used in its more adjectival form, “Machiavellian” simply mean something along the lines of…using great cunning in general conduct to achieve some sort of self-interested goal. It references the “The Prince” while taking a broader meaning.

 

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

[Author]

Posts