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This could explain why Rump wanted Belle as his maid, maybe. Perhaps he figured she would be the new author. If she is the new author, he could manipulate her into writing the story his way because she made a deal with him to be his slave forever. Or whatever it was.
I would be severely ticked off if they did that to Rumbelle. What they’ve done to them so far is bad enough…
*Sigh* And yet, not unlikely. Although seriously, a choice between Maurice and the Author? Oof. Choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea, as they used to say. And I’m still going to hold out for the possibility that, for once, the plot won’t hinge on the epic conflict over kinship charts, though I won’t hold my breath.
This is probably just me, but did anyone else think “Oh, Walt!”
http://cdn.seriable.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ouat-sleepy.jpg
[adrotate group="5"]Yes I think that’s exactly what happens. Though we have no confirmation. When Rumple killed Pan and himself, the DO power didn’t seek out anyone else, though possibly because Rumple took the dagger with him?
I think it’s because Rumple was never stripped of his curse when he sacrificed himself. The dagger was still attached to him when he died, and he remained the Dark One when he was brought back. I guess because nobody else stabbed him and became the new Dark One in his place.
That makes sense. Although if a “nameless” dagger would essentially cause some kind of apocalyptic event, then it seems that the logical thing to do would be to sic the sorcerer’s hat on it, and voilà, excess magic absorbed, problem solved…no?
Emma is like “it doesn’t work like that. We have to do what the apprentice said. The dagger needs to be attached to someone”
So some way, Rumple’s finally gonna cl – clea – *twitch* – separate himself from the Dagger, but it won’t be by someone stabbing him with it if it’s currently unconnected to anyone. And Emma’s willing to step up and take on the responsibility. The Saviour being willing to sacrifice themselves to protect others from the burden of darkness/sin. Yup, sounds about right. (And I’ve gotta laugh that they’re filming it right before Easter.)
Alright, this is probably a ridiculous question, so please bear with me. I realize that TLK is OUAT canon for breaking Rumple’s curse. But do we actually know what happens if his curse gets broken that way? I mean, technically the curse is on/in/by way of the dagger, so it should simply “retract” into its vessel. (I suppose unless someone has an inordinate fondness for the dagger itself in addition to whoever the current DO is, but I’m not sure I am willing to contemplate that possibility). So I suppose that a TLK might cl– ahem, unmoor Rumple from the dagger and its power, but the dagger’s magic will presumably remain in the dagger, which will then start looking for a new “host,” since nature abhors a vacuum and all that. (Oh, and incidentally, what would happen to the Sarlacc Pit, I mean Exxon spill, I mean Vault of the DO from which Rumple emerged?)
The question is (in light of the above spoilers) does Rumple know what would happen if he were to separate himself from the dagger by way of TLK? I.e. that the dagger turns into a vortex of doom until it attaches itself to someone else? Just a thought…
Hm. Interesting parallel. I definitely get what you’re saying, though Tywin cares less about his actual offspring (with the minor exception of Jaime and only when Jaime plays by Tywin’s rules…) than Rumple does. Rumple actually loved and cared for Bae and did not see him as a pawn to extend the family power. However, Rumple’s 300 year long machination to corrupt Regina and manipulate all the things to get to his child, whatever consequences arise from that, does have a certain “let’s set the Riverlands on fire!” theme to it. If Rumple were to reveal that his S4 arc has been in service of Bae then his Tywin-esque escapades would at least make a decent amount of sense. I think this is why we call a lot of S4 Rumple OOC. It’s not that he hasn’t been desirous of power, but that they’ve removed the crux of his story without any emotional resolution or follow through. I could more easily swallow Rumple’s S4 arc if he said, “I’m just trying to get my son back!” because that would absolutely be in line with his character and his main, as I see it, archetype harkening back to the very beginning.
Yes, I think you’re right, the parallel is tenuous, but insofar as both characters (at least at specific points) appear to be driven by a kind of “categorical imperative” that goes beyond pure selfishness, there might be a temporary similarity. However unsympathetic because he doesn’t seem to care about his children, Tywin still cares about the Lannister name/honor/status, in the long run, presumably for his descendents, not just himself — which doesn’t make him particularly likeable, but it’s also not purely self-centered. What’s so frustrating about Rumple’s transformation is that, as a character, he came full circle, and the writers have seemingly decided to annul any growth he might have done: all his problems started with his drive for self-preservation (not wanting to fight in the troll wars; not wanting his son to fight in the troll wars = “cowardice”), although he was, all in all, a fairly well-intentioned, kind man. And now it looks like his ultimate “undoing” will also be the result of an attempt at self-preservation, except now he’s been moved into the evil spectrum, so we presumably should cheer. One might argue that this is the character’s “natural” evolution, but it feels orchestrated, or maybe made subservient to a predetermined plot point A&E wanted to get to. As a side-effect, I think the fans’ frustration (well, mine at least) is that A&E are not delivering on their “promises to their audience:” most OUAT characters have “grown” and transformed over time (which is sort of the point, no?), and the promise with Rumple was that he too would have a transformative arc. It seemed that they were going to make it redemptive, but even if they don’t, bringing him back to square one and then killing him off is… Well. A waste of an interesting character?
J’adore Eliade!!! I like you. I thought about throwing some Eliade and Jung into this mix, but maybe at another date.
Heheh! Now we just need Robert Graves, and we’ll have our early-mid 20th century literary analysis/ folklorist bases covered 😉
I agree that Rumple began as the Trickster (ie: episodes 101-107). What made him so fascinating to watch was that ultimate truth was that under both the Trickster (and the Wizard gets his fair share in there as well) was really The Father. What drove the Trickster and The Wizard was really the Father. The big issue for me stems from the fact that they’ve removed his center, the Son that informed the Father, but they haven’t seen it through to its logical conclusion: the Father becoming this “dirtbag” (new archetype! lol) because of the loss of the son. They haven’t really explored what it means for Rumple to be The Father but post-Son. This is why his season 4 arc is so frustrating as a viewer (and someone who went around calling themselves RUMPLEsgirl for 3 years now…). This descent into the Chaotic Evil (and yes, I’d agree he’s there) has an easy answer to the question of “why” but it’s never expressed on screen; just mad grabs for power. (side note: I wrote an entire essay on Archetypes in SF one day. I may have to dig it out. I only have over 30,000 posts of my own to find….)
Yes, that’s it. If the idea was to explore the different possibilities of the Father archetype (which, admittedly, can be both light and dark), they didn’t do it in a way that felt organic or translated to the screen particularly well. I could MAYBE get on board with Rumple’s Tywin Lannister phase (the ends justify the means, everything I do is for family etc…) But as far as the show’s internal mythos goes, if evil is something that’s “made,” then I’m entirely unclear about the process of how exactly Rumple got to a Chaotic Evil “watch the world burn” alignment, if that’s indeed where he’s at.
They seem to have some fundamental principles in place like magic = energy and cannot be destroyed and they’ve explored sympathetic magic with hearts and the idea that with a piece of someone you can control/manipulate them. A and E and the rest of the team more or less seem to insert their laws and concepts of magic more willy nilly than we’d like and thus why it feels like we’re running into contradictions or retcons, as we like to call it in TV land.
lol! This. Though… if evil isn’t born, it’s made, across the board, why on earth is dark magic apparently abstractly evil? Unless dark =/= evil?
RG, of all the things I would have expected from the OUAT forum, it wasn’t for someone to casually bust out Joseph Campbell! *jumps up and down in delight* Now, if we just could throw in Mircea Eliade, my life would be complete!!! ^-^
I think the theory is absolutely sound, and I wouldn’t be surprised if A&E end up following the pattern, because, after all, one of the points of this narrative structure is that it works, and is recognizable and hence satisfying on some level.
The one gripe I have with this theory doesn’t contradict it at all. It’s that the show (re: Adam and Eddy) made such a big deal about Rumple redeeming himself to the point of sacrification only for him to turn out to be “the Devil himself.”
So I think if we were to revert this back to the sort of meta-structure question that RG is talking about, it depends on whether A&E decide to do a good vs evil story where good/evil are absolute, or whether they think of it as contextual. I think they’re constantly moving between the two, making it hard to figure out what side of the divide they fall on. Is Rumple pure evil? Well, over time he moves from a trickster archetype to a Machiavellian ruthless dirtbag to essentially, an apparently irredeemable character.
If I may, if we were to map him on a standard alignment system he goes from Chaotic Neutral to Lawful Evil to Chaotic Evil. And it’s a testament to Robert Carlyle’s acting ability that he can pull off SOME sense of continuity between the three, but seriously, that’s a bit excessive, even for OUAT.
The other option is that the endgame is actually a battle between absolute good and evil but “incarnated” in specific people. In which case, Rumple the man has been consumed by the DO magic, and his personality no longer mediates how the dark magic works itself out in the world. I think that depends on their theory of magic. Is magic just an abstract force (we get this sense with this whole conservation of magic in the universe thermodynamic theory they got going), “colored” by the essence of those who touch it, or is magic dark or light, and hence colors the essence of those whom it touches?
Grace, then, is “the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it” It’s very possible that Emma will give everyone–villains and heroes–happy endings by bestowing a type of grace (love and mercy) on each of them after she defeats Rumple/temptation-Devil. Something she could only do once she “dies” and is “reborn” (rewritten into the story) as comes into her full Savior potential.
Oooh, great point! (And it helps clarify that dialogue, which felt like a bit of a non sequitur with its heavily theological overtones. But if it’s actually foreshadowing, then it makes a whole lot more sense).
Oh absolutely. But here in the Western world we are more informed by Christian ideas just because it’s our cultural landscape. Everyone might read the Greek myths and find them interesting but you’re rarely see someone ascribing any meaning to them in terms of belief and how they might play out in the modern world. The Greek myths are less “solid” in terms of canon too. The example you gave is a good one–everyone knows the story of Prometheus, or so they think. The basic story is true…but there are different elements depending on who you read. Zeus: tyrant/despot or just? Prometheus: bad guy or just trying to be helpful. Even though there exists thousands of other gospels written by early Christians, the big 4 made it into the Bible and have become the accepted story for believer and for anyone who wants to pick up those theme and run with them in standard reinterpretations, (ie: TV writers who want to play with archetypes). The archetype of Savior is insanely old (Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Aeneas) but as we live in the place we live in (the western world) we automatically jump to Christ, whether you believe or not. The story A and E are telling–light vs dark–is probably the oldest story, archetypically speaking, known to man.
You’re absolutely right. At the same time, as far as cultural archetypes go, there are some that mainstream pop culture (sorry OUAT) is more comfortable “playing with” than others. The interesting thing about fairytales (or ancient Greek myths for that matter) is actually their original ambiguity, which lends itself to pretty radical retelling, in accordance with the mores of the time (so villains become heroes and vice versa etc… I mean, a lot of Shakespeare’s stuff for example is a retelling of these older stories). By contrast, the Christian canon is probably not going to be “re-imagined” too radically, for the obvious reason that you are pointing out.
Now, on another note, Emma’s story, if you look at its elements, is also your typical shamanic origin myth, of the skeptic who, through eventually accepting one’s legacy, and through death and rebirth, comes into one’s power and saves the tribe. This certainly isn’t limited to the Western world, or to the Christian canon — it’s kind of a proto narrative. An interesting corollary of this is that a failure to accept one’s calling in these narratives results in one’s destruction. Which works nicely with Emma’s occasional comment that she doesn’t seem to have much of a choice.
I think the devil in this case would be whatever the original Dark One power is, and the people whose names are on the dagger are just those who have believed the lies of that dark power. The devil himself doesn’t become a prisoner until the very end of the book. (Just to put my cards on the table face-up, I’m from a quiet fundamentalist denomination. I don’t want to annoy anyone.)
That’s not a bad idea! Destroy the power, without destroying the man. Rumple is left human again, I suppose, and his S5 arc is really about finding his way back after so much darkness. It would still be a “death” but not a literal human dying–just Emma vanquishing darkness. My only qualm is Belle’s role in all this since her TLK (and her status as the Beauty to the Beast) is supposed to do that particular deed. Belle would help him redefine his humanity post-destruction of DO’s power, but I could see some…people…*cough* shippers *cough* being pretty upset that Belle didn’t break his curse with TLK. Not that A and E necessarily have to play to their shippers.
As tangential support for this possibility, Rumple says in the episode in S1 where he’s turned into the DO something to the effect of “but imagine if one could use these powers for good, I would save ALL the orphans in the kingdom” or something like that. We know how that works out for him (absolute power corrupts absolutely), of course, but it might be different for Emma. After all, human Rumple was well-intentioned, but all in all he was an average Joe, not the Savior.
I was always under the impression that for it to work, TLK had to be, ahem, between two consenting participants (even when one is asleep)? As in, both have to be on board with whatever transformation TL might bring — whether it is parent/child love which presupposes letting the child become their own person, or between lovers or husband/wife where one has to be open to one’s own, or one’s partner’s potential for change. (In the original B&B story, the Beast wasn’t holding back on being in love, he had actually made himself pretty vulnerable). E&A’s retelling of the BB story is closer to a standard contemporary romance novel structure: the whole notion of the woman saving the man from himself DESPITE his best efforts and turning him into a prince charming. Which, in my humble, is pretty fraught, to put it mildly (again, free will, personal choices and all that).
Another thought — the Savior thing is also quite important outside of the Christian tradition. A lot of the fairy tales are actually based on ancient Greek myths. So just as an example, the Prometheus story is a Savior story of sorts — for Prometheus, appropriating the power of the gods (fire) for the benefit of the humans (who are otherwise miserable, cold, and hungry) results in Zeus’s punishing him through eternal torture by way of eagle — until Hercules comes along and frees him. Not sure how that relates to Emma, safe for the fact that death/rebirth isn’t the only scenario.
