Home › Forums › Once Upon a Time › Season Six › 6×13 “Ill-Boding Patterns” › Rumple's Boys
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March 19, 2017 at 10:02 pm #334604AKAParticipant
I think we all have the capacity to make wrong decisions when under stressful situations especially when you can feel the power of dark magic and have that power readily available. Do I feel that Bae would normally make this decision? Absolutely not, but he is in a situation where he desperately wants his dad to be seen as a hero and not be the town monster. He has been picked on a bullied and now here is someone else who says they are a “hero” who has killed several people and is going to blame it on his father. I don’t think this has anything to do with leaving towns it has to do with a teenage boy who in a moment has too much power in his hand and makes a wrong decision. His father sees this and understands that once Bae felt the power of the dagger it is addicting so he does the only thing he can think of to prevent his son from darkening his heart he makes him forget the power of the dagger.
[adrotate group="5"]March 19, 2017 at 10:12 pm #334607RumplesGirlKeymasterHe has been picked on a bullied and now here is someone else who says they are a “hero” who has killed several people and is going to blame it on his father. I don’t think this has anything to do with leaving towns
Not sure I buy that, sorry. I get what you’re saying but in a mere few months Baelfire is going to not only push Rumple to leave town but to leave worlds. Rumple is suggesting that they leave town and start over–having resisted killing Beowulf himself having proven that he can resist dark magic–and Bae just “nopes” that idea and orders his father to kill another person. Remember his words in The Return: “you hurt people all the time now.” He was against Rumple hurting anyone–the mute maid, the snail man, anyone who so much as looked at Rumple wrong.
This also completely recasts the Rumple/Bae dynamic. Rumple could have resisted the dark magic but nooooo Bae made him kill someone! It’s feels retroactive and a way to trash a dead character.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"March 19, 2017 at 10:24 pm #334608timespacerParticipantI don’t understand how a memory potion affects darkness in one’s soul. Like not remembering you’ve done something bad completely takes away the impulse to do bad things? It means your soul is turned bright white again? This seems pretty nonsensical to me. Why not just give all the villains memory potions then!
I think it makes sense that the memory potion affects the darkness in a person. We are the sum of our experiences. If a potion could erase ALL of a person’s memories he would become a tabula rasa – he would be as innocent as a newborn. So removing a person’s first step toward darkness should give them a second chance. This is a theme that has been addressed in many works, from John Locke to science fiction stories like Babylon 5 that deal with the “Death of Personality” which consists of wiping a person’s memories as punishment for their crimes.
I have more trouble with the question of whether it was a retcon of Bae’s character to have him want to kill Beowulf to begin with. To be fair, we should remember that we’ve only seen a few minutes of Bae’s character before the events of this episode – when Rumple first became the Dark One in season one’s “Desperate Souls.” Every scene of Bae after that episode would have taken place after he drank the potion.
Despite these questions, I think Rumple’s willingness to sacrifice Bae’s opinion of him in order to protect the boy was the best example of Rumple’s humanity that we have seen since the flashbacks to Rumple crippling himself in “Manhattan” during the second season.
March 19, 2017 at 10:25 pm #334609AKAParticipantYou have to remember according to this episode Bae doesn’t remember any of this happening, he wakes up and knows that Rumple had killed Beowulf. He thinks his dad did it because of the influence of the magic and the power of the dagger. Bae thinks his dad gave in and is the monster that Beowulf said he was. Rumple on the other hand already wanted the power he just didn’t resist after this and therefore becomes the monster that hurts everyone. I don’t like what they did but I understand it and can see how it happened. It doesn’t change how I feel about Bae as a character, he is still the brave outstanding boy who was trying to save his father, and Neal was still the forgiving son who found it in himself to forgive his father’s terrible mistake.
March 19, 2017 at 10:30 pm #334611RumplesGirlKeymasterTo be fair, we should remember that we’ve only seen a few minutes of Bae’s character before the events of this episode – when Rumple first became the Dark One in season one’s “Desperate Souls.” Every scene of Bae after that episode would have taken place after he drank the potion.
The potion took him back to pre-Beowulf, back to who he before the daggers apparent influence (if we go with @AKA) so I think it’s safe to say we have a handle of Bae’s character. It was largely established in Desperate Souls and the Return. At every turn he was a boy who believed in his papa, a kind boy, a loving boy, and not someone who was given to moments of violence like this.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"March 19, 2017 at 10:42 pm #334616timespacerParticipantThe potion took him back to pre-Beowulf, back to who he before the daggers apparent influence (if we go with @AKA) so I think it’s safe to say we have a handle of Bae’s character. It was largely established in Desperate Souls and the Return. At every turn he was a boy who believed in his papa, a kind boy, a loving boy, and not someone who was given to moments of violence like this.
But that’s exactly my point (and, I think, also AKA’s); the Bae in “The Return” was a Bae who had no memory of ordering Beowulf’s death. He might have developed into a very different person over those months (not to mention a different adult in later years) if he had lived with those memories. That one bad decision might (or might not) have influenced his later life. But Rumple wanted to ensure that it couldn’t affect him.March 19, 2017 at 10:47 pm #334618RumplesGirlKeymasterBut that’s exactly my point (and, I think, also AKA’s); the Bae in “The Return” was a Bae who had no memory of ordering Beowulf’s death. He might have developed into a very different person over those months (not to mention a different adult in later years) if he had lived with those memories. That one bad decision might (or might not) have influenced his later life. But Rumple wanted to ensure that it couldn’t affect him.
Ehh….
I still don’t think Bae would have done it in the first place. I don’t buy that he was under duress (no physical threat since Beowulf was literally walking away and Rumple’s solution is one that Baelfire will propose and follow through on in a very short time from these events) or the that dagger was influencing him (he held it for a mere few seconds and it’s never corrupted anyone else who has come into contact with it without them already being poor of soul).
And I stand by the fact that this recasts the Rumple story because he had just proved that he could live without giving into the darkness (he didn’t kill Beowulf, he was going to let him go, he was willing to move to a different town) but because of Bae, he was forced to do something he wouldn’t have normally done and that caused his fall of the wagon, so to speak.
To me, this was some seriously OOC for Bae.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"March 19, 2017 at 10:58 pm #334623AKAParticipantI think there is no doubt that Rumple would have eventually given into the darkness. He resisted at that moment because he wanted his son to think of him as a hero and he wanted to be that hero for him. Rumple only resisted because he didn’t have control of the dagger, that is why he gave it to Bae in the first place, because he knew he couldn’t resist the power.
March 19, 2017 at 11:01 pm #334624nevermoreParticipantTo me, this was some seriously OOC for Bae.
We are literally debating whether it was more OOC for Bae or more OOC for the Dagger. This is what the show has come to.
To be fair, the people who have wielded the dagger — except for Belle — have most been real stinkers. And Belle always makes catastrophic decisions, dagger or no, so she makes for a poor litmus test. Unless I’m misremembering something?
I think the only thing that holds fairly tightly is that in-universe magic can “reset” your personality to ignore that you are “inherently evil” (or good, for that matter). This makes sense, it has to with the ideology of the show, which at least says that there is no such thing as “evil born” (whether it is actually consistent on this point is another issue). The questions this begs are:
– a. Why did no one ever think of putting Rumple under some sort of memory spell? So many problems would be solved — he’d have no clue he’s the DO, and next thing you know, he’s paying his taxes and volunteering on the school board.
-b. Shouldn’t the memory potion have “worn off” once Neal reached the world without magic?
March 19, 2017 at 11:04 pm #334625RumplesGirlKeymasterb. Shouldn’t the memory potion have “worn off” once Neal reached the world without magic?
Which would have been when he first landed in Real!London and met the Darlings. And we saw how he was still kind, loving, and self-sacrificing.
I don’t know. My objections and questions are probably pointless and this little moment will be forgotten and it’s not like Neal can respond or explain.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love" -
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