[Keb]

The “rumors” come from what Robin told Regina during their date at the start of Snow Drifts (I think there’s more somewhere else too, but here:)

Robin: After I lost my wife, I felt like that for a long time. Her death was my fault.
Regina: I’m sorry.
Robin: I would have walked through hell to be with my Marian again. But, when I finally admitted to myself that she was gone and that she was never coming back, I had to let that guilt go.

And you’re assuming that lying to the queen would have worked–and not made the situation worse for Marian. You’re also assuming that Marian didn’t lie at all (we don’t know that either–when we first see her with the queen, she’s already a captive and being paraded as an example to the other villagers). All we know for sure is that Regina intended to kill her for the crime of protecting an innocent woman from her wrath, and if Emma hadn’t saved Marian, Regina would have gone through with it.

No matter how much of a victim Regina was of circumstances, Rumple’s manipulations, and Cora’s abuse, (and though I don’t believe he was abusive beyond marrying a woman who didn’t love him, let’s throw in Leo for good measure, why not?), Regina made her own choices and DEFINITELY abused, tortured, and murdered a LOT of innocent people. I mean, at the point where a man like Rumple (who ENCOURAGES her to murder at times) is telling you that you’re murdering an awful lot lately (as he did in The Evil Queen), some people would reconsider some of their choices. Regina chose to accept that she was evil, and the murder spree continued.

To place the blame for Marian’s almost murder on Marian just doesn’t sit well with me in any way. She was being a hero, and sacrificing for others, including her family. (Also, while the lion tattoo hints at there being a King Richard, has Once ever stated that there was a King John anywhere? Or that Sherwood Forest was not part of Leo/Regina/Snow’s kingdom? Given the proximity to the Dark Castle and the fact that Marian was captured and paraded by Regina, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume it’s either in the same kingdom or bordering it–either way a risk to her family if the Evil Queen continues her rampaging.)

And to deny that Regina went as deep into the darkness as she did is to deny that she has had to work hard for redemption, and to deny her the full appreciation she deserves when she makes GOOD choices at last. Regina has done very evil things (though she’s not the only one). Conquering that is a battle well worth seeing.

[Keb]

An act of true love might not have to be mutual (as defined in Frozen) but TLK in Once does have to be mutual. Otherwise it would have been sufficient to break Snow’s forgetting curse when she took the potion to forget Charming–but it wasn’t. It would have been sufficient when Rumple tried it on Belle after she lost her memory–but it wasn’t, because she didn’t love him back in that state, at that time.

It’s mutual in every case we’ve seen it work, and not mutual in cases where it’s been tried and failed explicitly. (Which doesn’t mean love is not present, just that it’s not Mutual True Love in that moment.)

As for Marian sacrificing herself for her family, let’s go back to the CS Back to the Future Movie a moment:
Black Knights: (riding past Hook and Emma) Hyah. Hyah. (pushing villagers around) Get in line. Get in line. (The Evil Queen descends from her carriage.)
The Evil Queen: Listen to me very carefully. Whatever squalor and despair your pathetic little lives have been able to tolerate until this point is nothing compared to the pain and misery I can inflict if I leave here unhappy.
Emma: That’s Regina.
Hook: Not Regina, love. The Evil Queen.
The Evil Queen: You will help me.
Emma: She’s even worse without the sensible pantsuits.
Geppetto: Please, Your Majesty. We’re a peaceful village. What do you want from us?
Emma: That’s Marco.
The Evil Queen: Justice. If I find out, anyone in this village has helped the bandit Snow White they will suffer dearly. Here’s what helping Snow White looks like. (gestures to her guards. One guard removes a sackcloth hood from a prisoner’s head.)
Prisoner: Help me! She’s gonna kill me.
The Evil Queen: Who wants to be next?
Prisoner: Please. (The Evil Queen laughs. Emma moves in order to interfere. Hook stops her.)

Woman: Are you alright?
Emma: Yeah, I think so. Thanks. I’m Leia.
Woman: I wish I could say, it was nice to meet you.
Emma: Yeah, but under the circumstances, I get it. What’s your name?
Woman: I dare not speak in here. The Queen doesn’t know who I am. My silence is the only thing keeping my family safe.
Emma: She’s pretty ruthless, huh? Here. (Through the bars Emma hands the prisoner a roll.) Are you hungry? I swiped it of a food tray on my way down. (The prisoner stands up and takes the roll. The woman notices Emma’s surprised look.)
Woman: What? What is it?
Emma: I saw you in the village. With the Queen. I wanted to help but-
Woman: It’s alright. If you had tried to free me you’d just ended up in here a day sooner.
Emma: What did she put you in here for?
Woman: I knew where Snow White was hiding. But I refused to tell the Queen.
Emma: You gave up your freedom to ensure Snow White’s?
Woman: (nods) Yeah. I believe her to be innocent.
Emma: How long are you in for?
Woman: Same as you. Just one more night.
Emma: Really? One night? Why? Is Regina going soft?
Woman: No. One night, because tomorrow everyone in here is to be executed.

Woman: What’s that?
Emma: It’s my parents’. I guess you could call it their wedding ring.
Woman: And they entrusted you with it?
Emma: Sort of. I need to get it back to them.
Woman: Being away from family is a terrible, terrible thing.
Emma: Yeah, it is.
Woman: The longer I’m separated from them. the pain doesn’t dull. It worsens. Maybe, cause I know I’ll never see them again.
Emma: If my mom was here she would tell me to have hope. Maybe, you should, too. Who knows, maybe you will end up with them again.
Woman: I don’t think so. I’m fairly certain, they already think that I’m dead. And soon that’ ll be true. (Emma notices a spoon lying on the ground in her cell.)
Emma: Maybe not. Give me your spoon. (Emma entwines a wire around both spoons shaping it to a tool)
Woman: What are you doing?
Emma: It’s all about the tumblers. (Using the wire Emma opens her cell door.)
Woman: You did it. (Emma leaves her cell and hesitates for a moment.) What are you waiting for? Go! Get out of here! Go!
(transcripts from http://onceuponatime.wikia.com/wiki/Snow_Drifts/Transcript and http://onceuponatime.wikia.com/wiki/There%27s_No_Place_Like_Home/Transcript)

This is not a woman who willingly left her family. She is protecting them, probably because she knows Robin would risk his own life to save hers if he knew where she was. She believes Snow is innocent, but she also knows what the alternative to Snow White is–The Evil Queen who threatens and kills entire villages (remember, this happens after the village massacre in The Evil Queen) because, in her own words, she isn’t happy. How could Marian not try to save Roland from living under that kind of ruler?

And honestly, twisting Marian’s actions into a rejection of her family so that it’s less horrible for Robin to want to leave her for Regina takes away from how Regina’s grown as a character. Marian never rejected her family. The clues we have (little as they are) suggest that she got into trouble doing a mission that Robin set for her–she was helping her beloved husband, protecting her son, and trying heroically to give her kingdom a chance. Marian is not a bad person, and completely deserves our sympathy–whether or not we want Robin with her.

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[Keb]

Roland should be 5. And yeah, he got his mom back for all of two days maybe before she was frozen–not enough time to build a relationship. S1 lasted for approximately six months, during which Emma and Henry were falling in love with each other to the point where they were willing to sacrifice themselves for the other (Henry ate the poisoned apple turnover, sacrificing himself for Emma, and Emma was willing to fight a dragon to save Henry). That’s why TLK worked.

Roland, at 5, might be willing to do that, but we haven’t seen that; we know Marian would and DID (in one timeline) sacrifice her own life to save her family, so on her side it’s definitely true love but harder to say for Roland and definitely more complicated for Robin 4 years down the line (in time that he’s perceived, anyway). I would argue that Robin & Marian at the time of Roland’s birth HAD to be True Love though, because both showed that willingness to sacrifice for the other.

(This theory of Love Is Sacrifice goes for all the TLKs we’ve seen…and some of the failures we’ve seen, too–both parties have to be willing to sacrifice for the other. I think in Skin Deep we saw a Rumple willing to give up his maid for her own good, and a Belle willing to give up her freedom to save Rumple from his curse–that’s why it almost worked–but as soon as Rumple wasn’t willing to sacrifice for her, it stopped working…and maybe that’s why it’s never worked in Storybrooke, because there have only been a few moments when he was truly ready to give up his power/life for her. Charming/Snow we’ve seen frequently willing to sacrifice for the other, same with Philora, and Regina & Henry have also both put themselves at risk/given up a lot for the other’s happiness. I’d argue both Neal and Hook have demonstrated True Love for Emma because of what they were willing to sacrifice for her, too, even though we haven’t seen a TLK between either–though we have seen an object cross realms “borne of true love” and a curse that required the name of one’s true love to be spoken…and we KNOW Neal gave up everything for Emma, multiple times, and Hook gave up his ship and his revenge and has demonstrated a willingness to put himself in serious jeopardy for her sake).

…rambling sorry.

tl;dr: True Love requires a mutual willingness to sacrifice for the other in Once’s world.

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[Keb]

She’s saved his life TWICE now. Which is the same as her count for how often he’s tried to kill her. (I’d argue three times but two were the same day.)

Hook owes Belle BIG.

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[Keb]

I’m bothered by the fact that he’s been outright lying so much this season, actually, because Rumple USED to believe that he didn’t lie (granted, a lot happened after he made that claim, so maybe that’s part of his character development–PS, development doesn’t have to be positive). He manipulated and took advantage of desperate people, sure, but he told them some version of the truth while he was doing it. It had been part of his personal code with the deals, which I still believe were partly his way of controlling his own darkness while still working towards his goals. It put the responsibility for what happened on his victims, along with the price of his magic use.

I am NOT saying he was ever HONEST. As Charming pointed out in The Crocodile, there’s a difference between literal truth (which Rumple stuck to out of a legalistic principle) and honesty of the heart, which is what Belle always wanted from him. That’s part of why his lies against her this season were so heartbreaking–she’d told him ages ago (in show time anyway, but at least a year before their marriage anyway) what she really wanted from him for their relationship to work–trust. And he violated that knowingly and directly to do things she never would have accepted (she was friends with the fairies, she’d saved Hook’s life before, and while she might have been okay with his being free of the dagger with power intact she certainly wouldn’t have appreciated his condemning a town full of people she liked in the process). Even if he deluded himself into believing he was doing it all for her, he knew it was wrong–that’s why his excuses were so thin and weak at the town line. And that moment when he starts to say “I can have everything” and then switches to “we” is the moment he realizes (and she does too, sob) that his goals were more selfish than he thought.

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[Keb]

First theory, he takes over Neal’s apartment (which we saw had lasted a year untouched when Emma went back to it on Hook’s suggestion).

Second theory, he sells off bits of whatever he had on him. He may even be able to draw from his Storybrooke ATM account, though he was looking pretty scruffy. (Which further supports the idea he’s been selling off cuff links etc to survive.)

Third theory, he’s been broke before and survived…he could do it again. He had soldier training, he’s smart, and he has knowledge from at least a couple hundred years’ living in multiple realms to support himself with.

Fourth theory…he’s up to his trading games with people in the Land Without Magic. He’s good at that…so maybe he traded his cuff links for some money, and then a bit of knowledge overheard for some information, etc etc until he found Ursula…

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[Keb]

Well, we’ve touched on Camelot multiple times now, and had Lancelot actually in a couple episodes.

I would not be shocked to see Camelot come up again, though I don’t know if we’ll ever actually go there.

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[Keb]

We’ve seen that Belle, as strong as she is, has very human insecurities. She tends to be quiet until she hits a breaking point and then calls people out on things–but she’s genuinely nice and doesn’t want to hurt people, even those who have hurt her. (Except when she’s Lacey…which is an interesting aspect they really haven’t explored enough.)

I think though that she IS going to doubt whether she did the right thing. Unless Hook fills her in on the details (which I’m hoping we’ll get some indication he does), she made an extreme decision (not the first time with her) based on incomplete data. She’s going to question whether she should have given him another chance, whether he’s okay outside of Storybrooke (she still loves him, after all), whether there was any other way to deal with his lies and murder attempts, whether there was some better explanation. She’s going to question whether she could have stopped him earlier–and this is where there’s some rich character exploration they could do–or if she was somehow enabling him to get worse (the line about “I lost myself trying help you find yourself” points that way). She IS going to blame herself for not believing the truth sooner, and she’s going to blame herself for anything negative that comes of the decision she made (including her own shattered heart).

It took a lot of strength for her to give up her happy ending to stop Rumple, and she deserves all the praise for that. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to be confident or happy about the choice she made. She’s not a doormat, but her strength comes from her ability to care for and sacrifice for others. Her insecurities will still be there even without Rumple in the picture, and possibly amplified by her grief.

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[Keb]

Or we’ll discover there’s some connection between the two. And maybe it’ll link back up to Pan and how on earth Ursula (and presumably our other queens of darkness) are in the Land Without Magic.

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[Keb]

This -has- to be a flashback sequence…but…I AM excited we’ll get to see him again! There was so much that was left unsaid between him and Neal and Emma and maybe the flashbacks will at least shed some more light on that.

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