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I suppose you could say this is all for story, but, just like some people were upset that Hook and Emma were going to move in together without getting married I’m upset that for a minute there I felt like OUAT was romanticizing an abusive relationship.
I actually don’t think Rumbelle are particularly romanticized, especially in the later seasons, but I think OUAT is often consciously written in a divisive way, so to that different audiences see different things. Either way, since S3B, Rumbelle writing has been both repetitive and inconsistent — which I think reinforces the sense that the relationship is a cycle of abuse: it’s because the same set of events/tropes repeat over and over and over, and there is no real progress. I don’t know if that’s conscious effort on the part of the writers or just laziness and the inability to develop that relationship, as @Josephine suggested. I suspect the latter. RC and EdR manage (most of the time) to pull off the clunky crazypants disaster that is the Rumbelle script through sheer acting talent and good screen chemistry.
Case in point, none of the couples on the show are particularly likable anymore. Snowing fluctuate between self-centered and imbecilic. CS has just upped the ante, and went to a whole new level of toxic. The fact that Outlaw Green Queen is the least offensive relationship is saying a lot. Even the minor couples, like Arhur and Guinevere, are all kinds of wrong.
[adrotate group="5"]Likewise, if Rumple is held responsible, Hook should be too.
This discrepancy bugs me too — it’s, among other things, inconsistent worlbuilding. I’ll try to speak to both CS and Rumbelle, but it’s really about how I think the Darkness is portrayed on the show so feel free to skip if this isn’t up your alley. I think one way to make it make sense is to assume that the Darkness is a sentient parasitic entity that binds with the worst aspect of a person’s character, amplifies it to the exclusion of all other traits, and then twists it into an obsession that then creates a stable symbiotic relationship with the parasite, such that the host actually furthers the goals of the Darkness, while protecting it from potential attack.
If so, then DO! Rumple and DO!Emma are a lot more similar to each other than either is to DO!Hook or DO!Nimue. Both Rumple and Emma are motivated by similar things — love and the fear of abandonment/loss. In both of their cases, the Darkness amplifies and “twists” it, to use Emma’s expression, to the point of an obsessive desire to be with the object of their affection (respectively, parental love and romantic love), and to try to cover their butt when things go off rails. I think the Darkness’s contribution here is primarily that this love becomes selfish, or at least myopic, and that the fear to lose the loved one overwhelms all morals and reasoning, because ultimately that’s how the Darkness stays in control, and furthers its own goals. At the same time, I think the Darkness can’t create emotions out of nothing — it has to work with what it’s got, perverting or amplifying the pre-existing psychological structure.
Now, CS vs Rumbelle. I think from the Darkness’s point of view, Rumple and Emma are both disastrously bad DOs. Rumple wasted 200 years of the collective DOs’ time looking for his son. Then he went and met Belle, and fell in love, and almost got the DO curse TLKed away. We could actually re-imagine the whole S4 Rumple character fiasco as the Darkness trying to do a course correction, or minimally pass into a more appropriate host — and from that perspective, it succeeded quite well. Of course, then it got stuck with Emma, who is arguably even worse (from the Darkness’s perspective) than Rumple. Now, the fact that it picked Regina at first should be telling. Anyway, Emma came pretty darn close to getting rid of the DO curse altogether, and was quite set on that path, voices or not.
Rumbelle would have always been a threat. But, again, if the only thing that the Darkness has to work with is a couple of Rumple’s core emotions (love/fear), then the only strategy available to it is to use Rumple’s fear to sabotage his relationships. Which is actually quite consistent with Rumple’s behavior towards both Nealfire and Belle — the biggest problem Rumbelle was that he was compulsively lying to her, and always out of fear. We’re seeing something similar happening with Emma and Hook, with the major difference that Belle is actually a good person.
By contrast, again, if we assume that the Darkness can’t create something out of nothing, and that it has to strategize to get what it wants, CS is perfect for it because it’s already, as many here have pointed out, deeply toxic. So it makes sense for the Darkness to twist Emma’s feelings of love/fear into an irrational, overwhelming obsession with Hook once it saw an opportunity to pass to a potentially more effective host.
A side note. If the Darkness works with core character weaknesses, then what drives Hook as a character isn’t actually the desire for revenge — that’s just the self-righteous glitter he sprinkles on it — but a really cruel, sadistic desire to harm others. Sure, Hook’s cruelty focuses on those who he perceives to have slighted him, but that’s still pretty classic psychopathic behavior. If before the Darkness some other aspects of his character were perhaps keeping this in check — say, the desire to overcome the “challenge” that is Emma — now he’s just that sociopathic aspect, well on its way to turning into a homicidal maniac.
We’ll see where the writers take it from here. I’m not sure they’re thinking it through — so this is really a rationalization of what I think the show is showing, rather than what it’s necessarily intending. Either way, they’re going to need a lot of bleach to whitewash Hook again, is all I’m sayin’
In my analogy, the dark force is the one practicing abuser behavior, in order to manipulate and control Hook.
I agree with what you’re saying in terms of the mechanics of Hook’s ‘endarkenment.’ The problem is that the DO curse has been a running metaphor for a number of really different issues. In the first part of this season, it was a stand in for mental illness (Emma hearing voices). With Nimue, it an ‘evil’ trait (vengefulness) made (magical) flesh. With Rumple, it was a metaphor for addiction. With Hook, it appears to be about a flawed man being slowly overtaken by an alien entity that’s eclipsing his original personality and eventually “puppeteering” him. It’s, literally, a “third” character.
But that’s not how OUAT has taught us to approach the DO curse over the last 4 seasons — since we never had access to Rumple’s internal monologue, just to what he said to others and what he did, he was easy to blame. But now with this new twist, we are apparently asked to feel sympathetic for Hook, when 1) there’s nothing redeeming about Hook’s DO persona and 2) the show has consistently portrayed the only DO we have known up until this season (Rumple) not as the victim, but as someone who brought it on themselves. Sure, unlike Rumple, Hook didn’t choose this, it was Emma’s doing. But if we’ve learned anything, it’s that once you’re the DO, you get really good at coming up with excuses for why you should act in ways that seem to further the darkness’s goals. But as @PriceofMagic wrote above, what’s good for the goose…
The other thing that I don’t understand is if these Head!DOs are so darn motivated to get the “light snuffing” show on the road, how did Rumple manage to “stall” them for so long? Two hundred or so years of nagging DOs is a long time.
Spoilers for Jessica Jones lies ahead, but here ya go…for anyone interested.
Yay! In the middle of a Jessica Jones binge here too. Also, loved your post, spot on.
Also, so… Storybrooke is on a Hellmouth?
Without reading the other responses:
I’d give this maybe a 6.5/10. I liked some of the dialogues, it was snappy and entertaining, and the plot moved along. I have a lot more problems with character development though (or its lack)
Liked:
Clippy! Rumple. Just fabulous.
Evil!Hook is a hoot. Seriously, what a waste of a perfectly good villain. Though, arguably, a bit too good. More of that in dislikes.
Regina/Zelena/Robin: So nice to see a glimmer of reconciliation and a genuine effort to move into a different dynamic. I’m glad that Regina’s calling out the “toxicity” of the established relationship and trying to make inroads towards some kind of arrangement. On the other hand, redemption through motherhood? *eyeroll* Yes yes.
Rumple’s fight with Hook. Actually, Rumple in general — I didn’t think I’d like the way they’d write him post-curse, but they are doing something a bit new/different with him, and it’s neat and intelligent. There’s still a bit of a dark edge/self-awareness of the darkness there, and it makes him more interesting than simply a whitewashed ‘hero’. I appreciate the re-centering of Baelfire to Rumple’s character too, however briefly mentioned.
Disliked:
So, Hook as the DO is a vicious jerk. Alright. But in order to make him that much more vicious and that much more of a jerk, the writers are also completely de-clawing Emma, making her into Hook’s emotional punching bag. And she sits there and takes it. That’s not the Emma we’ve come to know. Essentially, we are meant to believe that Emma’s character hasn’t grown at all — an has actually regressed — since Season 1. I vehemently dislike this — it’s offensively bad story telling.
The Rumbelle breakup. I don’t necessarily mind the break up itself — they do need to take some time to reflect on who they are now. And arguably Rumple needs to actually “fight” to get Belle back — so far she’s been the one doing most of the fighting for him. But the writing of it, and especially Belle’s lines, were a bit weird.
Also, the writers just love to do Woobie Rumple, don’t they? I mean S4 was Woobie Destroyer of Worlds Rumple, and now I think it’s going to be Woobie Savior of Worlds (or something) Rumple. I wish they’d ease off the Woobie pedal, there’s gotta be other ways to tell this character’s story.
How, pray tell, did Emma’s family fail her? Wut?
The Flowers of Doom. I now firmly believe that the prop department made and expensive bulk purchase of them and is now sticking them into every scene possible to get their money’s worth.
Merlin’s death. Oh, but enough already with the killing of all the POC characters! Ughh!!!! I can’t say in polite English how much this frustrates me.
On the other hand, Elliot Knight probably has better things to do than OUAT, but was it really necessary to kill his character, and especially in that sort of nonsensical way?
For the writers to suddenly say to Emilie “you’re pregnant so we’re going to write you out of the show until after you’ve had the kid but we’ll still let Ginny take part even though she’s in the exact same situation as you” is wrong.
100% agree with you there — if it isn’t her decision, then that’s plain old discrimination and if that’s what happening I am going to drop this show like the radioactive misogynist tuber it is. Grrr. >:-[
Out of curiosity, do we KNOW she’s being written out, or is this speculation based on her pregnancy announcement? There are a million ways of writing the pregnancy into the story — if there’s a will, there’s a way, especially with something as crackfic-y as OUAT, and as you yourself said, there are also perfectly reasonable in-story explanations. But of course, it could also be Emilie’s decision, and all sorts of things might be going on for her personally that have nothing to do with OUAT itself, and that make her want to take a break. If so, then the more power to her. I’m just curious if we actually know that she’s taking time off or not.
While I don’t necessarily mind the break-up, I am not thrilled about the dialogue. It was a bit sloppy, at least on Belle’s side. If this is to be the end of Rumbelle – and I think A&E will throw at least one ship under the bus (ugh, bad metaphor, sorry), and if Emily needs to take maternity leave, then I would have expected an ending that would have been less… I don’t know. Cold? Ditzy? Lets say, OOC.
Either EdR’s deliver was seriously off — to the point where people feel that maybe Belle is being remote-controlled — or the writing of her lines was really bizarre. I mean, I sympathize with Rumple’s question — why break up now that he’s “cured”? It made it sounds like it’s either the oldest line in the book (the ‘we need a break, it’s not you it’s me’ because she’s doesn’t want to admit that she’s out of love with Rumple) or she’s essentially blaming Rumple for her own decision to stick with him while he was a DO. The more they are presenting the DO curse as a kind of physical/psychological affliction that changes a person’s entire personality — say, like a brain tumor — the more I find the writing of the break-up uncomfortable and problematic for how I understand Belle’s character.
On the other hand, if Rumbelle is to reunite at the end (again, I don’t think it will, but I’m a pessimist), here’s a gratuitous theory. (I’m usually wrong so take it with a grain of salt) Belle will die at the end of this half-arc and be dragged into the underworld. I think RG’s idea that the Dark Ones are going to try to come back to life by trading themselves for other “souls” is right. So Rumple’s journey then might be to go to the Underworld with Emma to get Belle back, thus echoing Emma’s search for Hook. For an extra bad ending, Rumple will then take Belle’s place, so she can have a chance at life, especially since this Underworld is really Hell, and Belle doesn’t deserve to be there. Rumple, on the other hand, might make the argument that he does. This, then, will complete his character’s arc. I suppose it all depends on RC’s availability with the upcoming Trainspotting 2, whether there is a S6 and whether he’ll be in it
Here’s a question. If Milah and Nealfire magically came back to life as their human selves, do you think CaptainSwan would stick together (as it currently stands) or do you think they would split and reunite with their respective first loves since the relationships ended through death rather than relationship breakdown where neither wanted to see the other again?
Do you mean the show, or the characters as we understand them? If the show, then no, I think CS is endgame come hell or high water. If we’re talking about the characters, and how they might unfold organically if the writers weren’t shoving them into plot, I honestly don’t know anymore. Emma seems to have an emotional reset every season, so I’m not even sure she and Neal would be properly matched anymore, were he to suddenly come back to life.
I’m assuming we’re limiting it to fiction? If so, in no particular order:
1. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
2. Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
3. Stephen King, The Dark Tower series
4. Charlotte Bronte, Jayne Eyre
5. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
6. Grimm’s Fairytales
7. Mark Danielewski’s The House of Leaves
8. Jorge Luis Borges, (can’t pick a specific one, pretty much all his writing)
9. Neil Gaiman, The American Gods
10. David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks
[quote=313056]his season wasn’t really about Emma at all, not her her individual self as she stands on her own, but really it’s about her boyfriend’s man pain[/quote]
That’s because, as you and others here have said before, Hook just might be a wish-fulfillment fantasy for at least the male writers of the show (I honestly can’t imagine what Jane Espenson thinks of this character, especially since Hook the Villain was originally her creation). What gets me is how blatantly misogynist that fantasy seems to be. Emma’s story is being reconfigured into one about Hook’s salvation through, essentially, Emma’s psychological, emotional — and I think we’re going to see soon, physical if she ends up going to the Underworld to retrieve him — dismantling. Sure, she’ll come out fine in the end, but it’s the principle of the thing, i.e. it’s not a story about Emma’s hero journey, but one about a man’s self-affirmation through the (symbolic or otherwise) destruction of his female partner. If it looks sadistic, that’s because it is.
Hello, Dr. Freud.
If the Hookers try to absolve Hook of his actions as the dark one because “the darkness made him do it” then Rumple should be absolved of his deeds as the dark one too, including his actions against Hook in the past such as killing Milah and cutting off Hook’s hand.
I agree with you in principle. The problem, though, is that you’re assuming Hook fans are going to undertake a reasoned analysis of their champion character, and a clear-headed and objective comparison with Rumple — and therefore come to the conclusions you just drew. I’m not sure I have your faith 😉
