[Keb]

(Also I may possibly be finally persuaded the curtains are later. Someone argued using the script for Skin Deep…compellingly.)

[Keb]

I agree, RG, but I still want to make it line up in a way that doesn’t hurt my head. I know you were once a fan of the Dark Castle period encompassing Christmas…if I move it back by a couple of months and just headcanon that Ingrid took a while to convince the apprentice it would be a good idea to send her Elsewhere…what do you 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]

1) Where did Emma go?

Either the vault of the dark one or to the sorcerer’s mansion (for safety).

2) What is Merlin’s backstory?

I believe it will somewhat parallel Rumple’s–a poor boy who sought power to overcome his disadvantages.

3) Will we see Arthur/Guienvere/Lancelot?

I hope so! I think we will definitely have a chance to see Lance again. I wonder if Nealflake might be hailed as a new Arthur.

4) Who was the original Dark One?

Either Merlin himself, or else Morgana. (yes, I know that is wonky with the timeline. Don’t care–A&E never do)

5) Who will have control of Emma’s dagger?

Hook. Know how they like to tease something and then do it? “Hook” got the dagger from Belle; now Hook will have the dagger as it’s been passed on to his love instead of hers.

6) Will we see Zelena again? Will we see August again? Will we see Ursula again?

Zelena, definitely. If nothing else, we have to eventually see her baby’s birth. August, probably, but I think for only one episode. Ursula…no, not unless they also bring back Ariel for an ep (I’d like that though).

7) Will we other lands besides the EF and (maybe) Camelot?

I hope so! I’m hoping for another trip to Oz and/or Wonderland. With their exploring authorship and hunting down the sorcerer, I’m hoping we see some new lands as well.

8) Who is Lily’s father?

Merlin…or else Arthur’s nephew.

9) Will Rumple wake up? When?

Yes, and probably in the first episode. My money is on the emptiness in his heart requiring some sort of filling, and possibly his being some kind of monster/zombie thing until that happens.

10) Will Henry get a new quill?

Yes, one with only the power to record.

11) Is the Apprentice dead?

Yes. But we will see him in a flashback with the sorcerer around 520.

12) How will the SB gang find Emma?

I think they’ll find her within the first two episodes, but she will be really struggling with all that power and all the darkness and light. Then the struggle will abate until it’s relevant to the plot, and she’ll be kinda normal for most of the season until they find a way to break her of the darkness.

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]

My point was that his fear explained his actions to me, not that it excused them. And I agree that Belle is VERY different from Milah or Cora, but Rumple hasn’t overcome that yet.

And THAT is relevant here because that’s something that links him very closely to our new Dark One, Emma. The parallels they’ve created between the two are actually surprisingly strong now that I think about it.

So the question of whether one will harm the other is, to me, very up in the air–similarities can bring people together or make them insufferable to each other.

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, while they didn’t spell it out for us entirely, we got some serious clues about Rumple’s S4 motivation from The Apprentice (where he needed the tears of someone who had faced their inner darkness and turned away–something that no Dark One could supply up to then, though now Emma HAS done just that, because to become the DO you had to want the power enough to kill the previous DO) and his answer in the finale to Belle’s question about why it wasn’t good enough.

He did have darkness in his heart before he became the DO. He made some bad choices and had dealt with the bad choices of the people he loved and trusted since childhood. His father’s decision to abandon him–twice–scarred him, and that plus his innate fear drove him to injure himself to escape the battle. We’ve discussed elsewhere why that wasn’t a noble act, no matter how noble his desire to be there for his son. I think, though, that that moment may well have put the first darkness in his heart–he selfishly chose to go home and be with his family instead of fighting to save his kingdom. It wasn’t the choice of a hero. And he couldn’t even have known for certain that he HAD a son coming; he took the word of the seer. While we know he loved his son from the first moment he met him, it was an act of cowardice, not love, to cripple himself, and Milah’s reaction to what he did confirms that position.

Milah’s leaving him only confirmed to him how worthless and unloveable he was. That left room for more darkness to enter…I think we saw in the way he tried to work Emma’s darkness how depression and anger pave the way. And there’s some foreshadowing there in how he spoke to Anna, as well.

For me, however, the answer he gave Belle, that he was afraid nobody could love him…that is the bit that rang most true and explained everything in S4 to me finally. Yeah, he was also scared of losing his own ability to love in 4B and desperate to take the opportunity to escape the DO curse with powers intact in 4A…but this explained to me why. Like Emma, he’s never had a love that didn’t leave him or hurt him horribly.

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]

Well, the DO now seems a lot like the Shadow/Pan relationship, though the DO seems less sentient.

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]

So I had a random thought today: What if Emma or the Dark One (or both) wanted to kill Rumple? He just loopholed out of the DO curse, and he hurt Emma’s family before that.

So maybe we’re asking the wrong question 🙂

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]

Well, Will got the Red treatment. (And Belle’s getting it, too.) They’ve got kids. Someone has to watch the kids. They need a reason to have their Main Character Regulars off-screen when they don’t know what to do with them, and the kids off-screen when they’re inconvenient/can’t film (cuz filming with kids IS slightly more challenging in a number of ways).

Kill two birds with one stone: the Regular you can’t be bothered to include in the plot is the babysitter! Yay!

(TBH, though, Belle as babysitter I’d like if it wasn’t just a convenient way to explain why she’s never there. She and Baby Nealflake are Adorable, and it actually suits her character a bit…Red and Will, less so.)

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 believe that the AU happened–in as much as the last chapter happened as we saw it. The rest of the AU is like a third set of memories (or fourth, some people have a lot going on in their heads now), but never really happened. Like, Belle and Rumple never really had a child, but the author had to do SOMETHING with Nealflake, so he got borrowed and Belle probably remembers having given birth to him but that never happened–but her caring for him in the AU did happen. (My headcanon but I think it’s strongly supported by what we saw and were told.) Same as David remembering that he married Kathryn in S1, which never really happened–but their attempts to revive the “marriage” did happen.

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]

He’s a coward, afraid to be powerless because he’s experienced it and how it can take away everything he loves.

Every time he chose power over those he loved, he repented and was pretty severely punished. And every time he’s done it, it was because he was afraid–afraid of being unable to protect himself and losing his son/Belle, afraid of something worse happening.

It’s not power that drives Rumplestiltskin. It’s fear. Power is what he believes will stop the fear. He’s wrong, and we as the audience recognize that, but the core motivation for just about everything Rumple has done is fear. And his greatest fear is that he is unloveable.

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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