[Keb]

And Rumple! He called them the Charmings in 221 and I was like SQUEE!

[Keb]

Well, I dunno if my tracking is all that accurate…I think my deathcount is as accurate as possible save for the “how much is a village” question, but the attempted killings are harder since motivation matters so much there. Like, do you count Emma and Snow against Rumple there when he wanted to seal the well? He seemed convinced that they wouldn’t be the ones to come through, so at best he probably saw them as unlikely collateral damage…so does that count or not?

It’s also worth pointing out that almost all the “good” guys have killed at this point, too, save for Belle, Henry, and Neal. (So everyone on the ship? Yup, they’ve killed someone. Emma killed Maleficent–okay, a dragon, in self-defense, but it was still Mal, David’s killed plenty of guards, Hook killed two guards just to get to Belle, and Snow bears the primary guilt for Cora. And we’ve already talked about Rumple and Regina.) And all of them have threatened to kill more people than they actually have killed–Emma threatened Regina, David’s threatened Hook and George, Hook’s attempted to kill lots of people including Rumple, Regina (remember Cora’s counter plan?), Cora, and Belle, and even Snow attempted/threatened to kill Regina a few times in the EF.

Most of them have spent some time behind bars, too, though not all justly (like Belle, who’s got the longest record of imprisonment for pretty much the crime of Liking Rumple). Um. Yes. I might have a spreadsheet for that, too.

Point is…the good guys aren’t all so good, the bad guys aren’t all so bad, and everyone’s got the chance to redeem himself if he really wants to. I think Regina and Rumple do and will ultimately. Same with Hook.

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

[Keb]

Possibly both, but I think mainly Regina. “You” can be plural or singular in standard modern English. So it works either way you want to interpret it.

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

[Keb]

Mm, I think all four have a hand in killing Cora, and of the four, Regina is the least culpable because she was manipulated (by Snow, though only because Snow got caught red handed) and didn’t know she was killing Cora when she put the heart back. Cora’s definitely got a share, because she introduced (made?) the candle and must have allowed it to get to Rumple somehow, and also was being so evil that for Snow it was almost but not quite self-defense. (Rumple sees it as absolutely self-defense for both him and the Charmings, but Snow reasonably disagrees with that perception–she did it out of vengeance and motive matters.) Rumple gave the candle to Snow and told her how to use it, though ultimately the choice was hers (which is why he tells Regina honestly (Rumple honesty at least) that he did nothing–but at the same time I think he does feel a bit of sympathy for Regina at least, and perhaps some guilt for his part in her pain).

And then there is Regina who had, at that point, TWICE attempted to kill Cora. She hired Hook to kill her outright, and then she intended to kill her at the well rather than have her get to Storybrooke. She didn’t know she was killing Cora when she actually died, of course, but her understandable sorrow and justifiable anger at how things went down in the end are a little muted against the fact that she already tried to kill this woman–who hurt a lot of people to ruin Regina’s life–twice before. The only person Regina’s spent more time and energy trying to kill is Snow, I think.

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

[Keb]

Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait. Cora is SO not blameless, and nor is her evilness Rumple’s fault. Why should we assume that he put her in poverty? Or manipulated her to love him so she’d rip out her heart? Or had no control over her actions after she removed it? Whoa.

Yes, I’m certain that Rumple’s hurt more people over the course of his life than we’ve seen on screen. My list of murders/attempteds is limited ONLY to what’s been shown on the screen. But that doesn’t mean that we should assume something for which there is absolutely no evidence. If he’d twisted things to get Cora where she was, several things about 216 don’t make any sense at all.

First of all, it makes Xavier and Eva blameless, and they shouldn’t be. They were jerks, and they didn’t need Rumple’s help to get that way. (I’m still hoping we’ll see more of the Eva/Cora relationship over time.)

Secondly, Cora surprised Rumple several times in their initial meeting, and he didn’t even know her name yet. All he had to go on was that her daughter would be quite important, and the circumstances she was immediately in–and he didn’t seem to care who the father of that daughter was, since he was perfectly happy for it to be himself a while later when she suggested it to his mind.

Thirdly, Rumple wound up screwing himself out of the deal because when Cora suggested love and running away together, he fell for it FAST. You notice it’s not him wanting to break up, it’s her ultimately choosing–and she HAD to do that before she took out her heart because taking out her heart was MAKING that choice–power over his love. She might well have been emotionally torn between her goals and loving Rumple, but she made that choice–and he was crushed by it. He totally did NOT force her to make that choice–he wanted her to choose him, though initially he didn’t think she could or would–and seemed outright shocked that she was capable of such an act.

And while, again, I expect to see more of what unfolded between them after that, she betrayed him in that moment in a way that makes me suspect they were never more than frenemies afterwards (much like his relationship in Storybrooke with Regina–he may well have taught her more or worked with her on occasion, but what little we’ve gotten about their relationship suggests love turned to hate pretty quickly). That means that every choice she made after that was likely outside of Rumple’s influence. Cora’s an independent operator. She chose to abuse Regina and Henry until the former sought out Rumple and the latter became a cowering shell of a man. She chose to kill Daniel (and had to get the info from Snow, so she wasn’t seeking Rumple’s help on this, either), and force Regina into marrying Leopold (and in the latter case, Regina ultimately decided to go through with that marriage on her own–Cora was through the looking glass by then, and all Rumple did was offer to teach her more magic, he didn’t force her to go back).

I’m not denying that Rumple’s done some terrible stuff, and that there’s certainly more terrible stuff we haven’t seen on screen. I do think that Regina is redeemable and that she was heavily manipulated by both Cora and Rumple at various points in her life–I just think that she made a lot of her own choices, too, and that matters. But to absolve Cora and blame her on Rumple? No. After 216 I don’t think we can do that at all.

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

[Keb]

I tried to work out which person had killed the most at one point. Cora and Regina both have “A whole village” on screen at this point, though, which is really hard to count; I put down 30 though I think that might be low in both cases.

At any rate, that gives Cora about 35 shown killings, Regina 38, and Rumple 13 (and I gave Rumple and Snow credit for Cora’s death–it was complicated–but not Regina since she didn’t intend it that time). Rumple’s also attempted 10 more times to kill someone (though I’m counting transformations and sleeping curses in this category), and Regina’s also got 10 attempts (though I think this may be low).

I also looked at whether these things happened pre or post curse, since I think that character development is important to factor in here. Cora’s the only person that Rumple has successfully killed post-curse; Regina’s killed Graham and Kurt since casting the curse. (Though she presumably killed Kurt about a week after killing her own father pre-curse…)

Rumple’s attempts post curse: Moe (don’t think he intended to kill him but easily could have), August (who he only let live because he might get Emma to break the curse), Regina (via wraith), Cora (with possible collateral damage of Emma & Snow), Smee (ratted but allowed to live), Hook, Keith (again, don’t think he intended to kill him, but cane of feels…), and possibly Henry (I think he was toying with the idea but wouldn’t have let Henry die in the end). Of these, he definitely intended for Regina, Hook, and Cora to perish; the others were more complicated (as most things are with him). (And with Hook and Regina, as with August and Smee, I think it’s really really important that he -chose- to let them live ultimately.)

Regina’s post-curse attempts include Emma & Henry (the latter accidental) via the sleeping curse; Snow via sending her outside the town line in S1 and taking her heart in S2; Kathryn (which is an interesting case where Rumple thwarted her–choosing to let Kathryn live and even saying that killing was easier in the EF); David in their battle in 201; and Cora (and collateral damage of Emma & Snow) at the well (though her choice to turn it off mitigates this slightly). Could possibly include the whole town when she gets the beans and the failsafe, and the random townspeople she’s happy to fling magic at when she tries to get Henry in 202.

Though killing people isn’t necessarily the worst of either of their crimes (I think that Rumple’s manipulations to get Regina to cast the curse were particularly wicked at times, though what Cora did to Regina is, in the balance, worse to my mind, and Regina’s decisions to tear apart families like Hansel & Gretel, Kurt & Owen, and Jefferson & Grace, stand out as particularly awful on her part), it seems like a relevant factor.

Honestly, in the balance of things, I find Regina to be more evil because her motivations feel more petty to me and she isn’t being controlled by an evil curse. However, I can totally see the argument that Rumple is partially responsible for turning her to evil (I still give Cora more blame here–Rumple several times offered Regina a choice, while Cora never did), and thus more evil himself. She also shows more disregard for the feelings of anyone who isn’t her or Henry than we’ve seen from Rumple (most of the time–and the three times post-curse I most wanted to shake some sense into him for just throwing everyone else under the bus, he was legitimately suffering fresh grief–losing Belle to the line, losing her to Lacey, and then losing Bae altogether), who even expressed some sympathy to Regina for Cora’s death (as ineffective as it was coming from him).

But they’re such different people that although it’s natural to want to draw comparisons between them, weighing their evilness is tricky tricky stuff. Looking at how they’ve hurt each other isn’t even easy (yeah, I did a chart for that, too; I’m crazy). As I stated before, Rumple manipulated Regina rather cruelly to get her to cast the curse (fake-reviving Daniel, nudging her to embrace her evil queen identity–mitigated in my mind by the fact she had just killed an entire village, which he pointed out, protecting Snow from her and then goading her about not getting an invite to the wedding, requiring her to kill the thing she loves most to get the curse to work, and so on…), but Regina managed to use Belle in pretty cruel ways to get back at him (and as a Belle/Rumbelle fan, I find some of that hard to forgive). I tend to think that losing Belle is what made Rumple go a little insane as it got closer to the curse, and losing her again certainly didn’t help him be his best self in Storybrooke.

In the end, though both are motivated by love and have a goal of being with the people they love, they do have different approaches–Regina’s more of a hothead who does things as inspiration hits, while Gold manipulates people over the long term and is a lot cooler about it until someone hits his emotional triggers. Regina also tends to assume that everyone -should- love her while Gold is convinced nobody should love him, which means that Regina operates from the assumption that what she wants is right while Gold operates from the perspective that convincing people they’re getting what they want will get him what he wants. (The logic being that since Regina believes everyone should want her happy, it doesn’t matter if they are as long as she is, while Gold believes he can get his way by figuring out what other people think will make them happy as he doesn’t expect them to care if he’s happy or not, save for his ability to destroy them.)

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

[Keb]

I think, too, that for Rumple, the Mr. Gold side helped him deal with not having magic. I think that’s why he approached August slightly more sanely than Neal–once he had magic back, he leaned more toward his Rumple side again.

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

[Keb]

Fanfics. Fanart. Roleplaying. (There are quite a large number of groups on Tumblr for all of the above.) Read through my timelines and debate various points with me. (Please! Believe it or not, I get a kick out of the debate as long as it’s civil.) Work on your Once-themed cosplay/Halloween costumes.

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

[Keb]

An interesting question with splitting up is whom each party would trust to do whatever needs doing. I mean, Regina and Emma have their son on the line, and barely trust each other with Henry. (Emma’s taken Henry from Regina plenty of times, and Emma knows Regina’s happy to take Henry and kill the rest of them and even use magic on Henry…) So do they need to be together to make sure the other doesn’t do something stupid or not? All of them rightfully see Gold and Hook as loose canons who switch alliances regularly, though only Belle knows about the prophecy with Gold that makes him a potential threat to Henry. And even though she’s been saved by them OVER and OVER despite trying to kill them all the time, Regina doesn’t trust the Charmings one bit more than they trust her. Hook doesn’t have much reason to trust them or Emma either, considering that David just told him he’d shoot him in the face and Emma’s double crossed him before.

And David and MM aren’t going to want to be apart if it can be helped. Nor are they going to be happy about letting Emma out of their sight along with any of the “villains.”

From our perspective it would make sense to pair up one “good” guy and one “bad” guy if they needed three groups…and of course the various ships would have LOTS to say about that. (And personally I’d love to see more David + Gold teamwork cuz of reasons. But if you did that, and gave the CaptainSwan crew their bliss, poor Snow would be stuck with Regina…)

I am really really really looking forward to seeing how this crew deals with finding Henry. And hoping that Neal and Belle truly aren’t forgotten (Adam keeps promising they won’t be) but instead have awesome adventures getting back to Gold. Whatever stuff they’ve done that’s annoying…they have, as always, set up stuff that can go in really awesome directions.

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

[Keb]

Oh, I don’t think it will be -easy- to get Henry back, but they do have the deck stacked in their favor atm as far as -finding- him goes, which is why I don’t think it’s going to be the super long boat voyage that we fans all have in our heads atm. I’m amused by the fan experience of this show (as much as I’ve been traumatized by it, too).

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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