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It’s all guesswork on all sides right now. And it’s gonna remain that way for aaaaaaages. By the time season 3 gets here and we actually start getting answers, we’ll have made ourselves sick over it all. 😆

[Phee]

@KFChimera wrote:

I know some people feel like the sooner they’re gone the better, but I would prefer some of the plot holes get fixed with some more story-spackle.

Story-spackle! 😆

I also kind of want Greg to have that chance to redeem himself–

I wouldn’t mind Greg getting some redemption. Definitely more sympathetic towards him than Tamara, but that’s really just because we have his backstory.

but it is possible they knew that the fail safe wouldn’t actually go off.
Weren’t they busy trying to destroy all their files? Why bother if the whole town would be pulverized by trees and shrubs spouting up.

Fair point about why were they destroying stuff when everything was gonna be destroyed anyway. Just to be doubly sure nothing got left behind, perhaps? I think that by that time they were aware that their mission had morphed into a kidnap mission. They wanted the failsafe to go off, because everyone not born in that world would die. That would leave them, and Henry, and no one to stop them or come after them. Kidnapping accomplished.

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@RumplesGirl wrote:

If AdultDarkOneRumple went to NL, on the one hand, they could play it up as being completely sad and tragic that he was in the same world as Bae, but had no idea. On the other hand, it might be hard to believe that Rumple would have gone there, done business there, and left without discovering any hint that Bae was there. Unless PP went to great lengths to make sure Bae’s presence remained secret, of course.

It would be very sad but Rumple seems to believe that Bae has been running from his Papa for a very long time. I think that was a hint from the writers that while Rumple hasn’t seen his son in 250+ years, Bae might have seen Rumple.

Ah, hadn’t considered the comment that way, but I can see where you’re going with that.

Are you assuming that said mermaid would be Ariel? My headcanon has her as a human in present day NL, so this part of the theory wouldn’t really work with what’s currently in my head. I do love the idea that the merfolk want the curse of PP eradicated from NL though, and that the quest of Charmingstiltskins&Co will help achieve that.

I am. In my head the Ariel story we know hasn’t taken place yet but rather Ariel is a lonely sad mermaid who is also an outcast because she alone like human kind and doesn’t want them to suffer. The other mermaids, while not liking Peter Pan, are more or less content to keep to themselves. Ariel wants to be part of their world (sorry I had to) but not under the cruel rule of Peter.

Firstly: (I love that you did.) The fact that they’ve already made mermaids out to be potentially dangerous with only a couple of brief mentions of them definitely makes me think that it’s a setup to show us that Ariel is a unique case, who has no desire to hurt humans because she finds them wonderful and fascinating. I think that most mermaids do actually drown/devour/destroy any human they catch in the water, because PP and his troops screwed up NL, so the merfolk hate them.

Secondly: Gotcha! My headcanon, (which is Hookriel biased), is that she already became human at some point in the past, during Hook’s previous stint in NL, sometime after Bae was taken captive by PP. Years of unrequited love followed, (in keeping with the theme of her prince having given his heart to someone else, in this case, Milah), then the object of her affection left NL. But now he’s back in present day. Hans Christian Anderson didn’t give his mermaid the happily ever after twu wuv like Disney did, and like I assume Once will. So I cooked up this headcanon that allows for a little of column A in the past and a little of column B in the future.

@AngieBelle wrote:

I think maybe I just really like the idea of Belle finding out about Bae first and trying to get word to Rumple rather than the other way around.

I do love the idea of a scene where Belle and Nealfire show up to rescue Rumple, who is stunned and overwhelmed to see his son alive, and working closely with the love of his life. Awwww. <3

[Phee]

The glitch I see with it being someone inside SB is that GOAT (at the very least Tamara) were already on this specific mission before the curse was broken, because Tamara met Nealfire when he was talking to August who was on his way to SB.

Now, of course, if BF had kept her memories, and was nefarious, she’d be an option, but, well, yeah.

Regina had her memories, but she was quite obviously not GOAT’s boss.

Rumple had only just got his memories back when Emma showed up, so he can’t have been running THO for the duration of the curse.

So I think it has to be someone from outside SB, but still in our world.

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Excellent thoughts…here are some of my own, just to confuse matters. 😛

@RumplesGirl wrote:

Also, something else we learned in the finale is that Rumple has been to Neverland before. Now why would he have gone to NL? I believe the answer lies in the episode Into The Deep. Rumple tells Henry:

Mr. Gold: Yes, indeed a quill. And yet, it wasn’t the quill itself, but the ink that captured the Dark One – harvested from the rarest species of squid, from the bottom of a bottomless ocean. Impossible to find, unless, you’re a mermaid… Or me. I happen to have a private supply. In my jail cell… That is where they will find it.

I believe in Rumple went to NL to find squid ink and he used a certain Little Mermaid to do it.

I still haven’t settled on the how and when I think Rumple was in NL, so this does sound like a plausible option to me. However, I’m also pondering the possibility that he was only ever in NL when he was taken there as a child, just like Bae was.

If AdultDarkOneRumple went to NL, on the one hand, they could play it up as being completely sad and tragic that he was in the same world as Bae, but had no idea. On the other hand, it might be hard to believe that Rumple would have gone there, done business there, and left without discovering any hint that Bae was there. Unless PP went to great lengths to make sure Bae’s presence remained secret, of course.

An idea I’m toying with regarding the squid ink involves Regina’s “mermaid problem”. Perhaps Rumple said he’d help her, but what he got out of the deal was that she had to bring back the ink for him. This would work if Rumple had been to NL as a kid and was now scared of the place, and PP, and didn’t wanna go back there himself.

Now Rumple implies that he himself got the squid ink, but this Rumple we’re talking about. I think it’s far more likely that he struck a bargain with a mermaid. What could he trade for the ink?

Recall that in the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast there was a magic mirror

This mirror has the power to let the looker see anyone they chose. What if there were two? Rumple traded one mirror to the mermaid for squid ink. Mermaids are often depicted as rather vain creatures, remember the sisters in The Little Mermaid? Constantly doing their hair? I bet a mermaid would like a nice mirror.

If Rumple did play an active role in acquiring the squid ink himself, this is a fun theory for it.

Now, the next part of this theory: how Rumple finds out that Nealfire is alive. We know that people who have undergone sleeping curses travel to the Red Room during nightmares. Thus far Charming, Snow, Henry and Aurora have undergone sleeping curses. How nice that Neal ended up with one of those people! Charming or Snow at some point will have a return trip to the Red Room where they will meet Aurora. She will inform them that Nealfire is with her and Mulan/Philip.

This is highly likely IMO!

This will cause a small dilemma. Rumple will want to go after his son, naturally. But that’s not what Nealfire would want. He would want Rumple to protect his grandson, Henry. BUT how nice that Rumple has his true love back in Storybrooke.

Like so many things in FTL, the other magic mirror ended up in Rumple’s shop. Rumple will remember this and the Jolly Roger crew will set off to make a deal with a mermaid.

What could they offer her? My guess is that she wants her home to be free of Peter Pan, a tyrant who hurts young boys. In exchange for letting Rumple use the mirror, she wants them to promise that they must rid the world of Peter and his Shadow. The other possibility is that there is something on Hook’s ship she wants. Hook’s ship, we have been told, has many wondrous things on it.

Are you assuming that said mermaid would be Ariel? My headcanon has her as a human in present day NL, so this part of the theory wouldn’t really work with what’s currently in my head. I do love the idea that the merfolk want the curse of PP eradicated from NL though, and that the quest of Charmingstiltskins&Co will help achieve that.

The mermaid agrees to the trade and Rumple uses the mirror to contact Belle.

Just to cover the flipside…if there were only one mirror, which Belle finds, and she sees Rumple in it, she wouldn’t recognise the place as NL. But she may have a, “That big rock looks like one I saw in FTL this one time,” ( 😉 ) moment and will assume he’s in FTL, so she’d choose to go there, and that’s how she finds Nealfire.

But how does Belle get to FTL? In my mind there are two options:

1) The Hat. Jefferson’s hat was killed by Charming, but Emma’s hat from Hat Trick is still in her car.
2) The bean plant Regina grew is still very much alive.

I think #2 is more likely. Belle takes two newly grown beans (perhaps magically quickly grown by our favorite Plot Device) and uses the first one to get to FTL. She and Bae spend a day or two in FTL (where she tells him all about what a good man Rumple really is) and then they use the second bean to get to NL.

I vote re-grown beans, for sure.

Reunion. Tear. Cookies.

This will be my fave part.

[Phee]

@Demileto wrote:

An intermediary seems likely. Maybe Felix?

I was thinking more someone in our world, (and that’s the person who communicates with NL). Right before the finale, I wondered if maybe Tamara’s grandmother was involved, but had figured that if she was, we’d get that reveal in the finale, and we got nothin’.

[Phee]

Were GOAT always completely aware of their mission though? Are they aware of exactly why they’ve kidnapped Henry? Or are they just blindly following orders from their boss, who in turn answers to PP? It was established that GOAT are unaware of who they’re really working for, which suggests that they don’t know of PP, or why they were told to take Henry to NL.

I can buy into the idea that THO exists to find Henry. But I think that GOAT are just footsoldiers who don’t know the whole story, so when they spouted all the “destroy magic” stuff, they genuinely believed that that was their mission, and they genuinely do not like magic.

[Phee]

@EastOfTheSun wrote:

Neal´s Landing Site:

This doesn’t explain the mystery of the rock, but I think perhaps that curve in the beach and the distinctly shaped chunk of land at the end is meant to be the Safe Haven. Here’s a screencap from We Are Both:
http://screencapped.net/tv/onceuponatime/displayimage.php?album=255&pid=1637446#top_display_media

Here’s BTS video of MAP finding Nealfire:
http://www.spoilertv.com/2013/05/once-upon-time-season-2-finale-set.html
It certainly looks like the same piece of beach where the NL scene was shot, though in the MAP/Nealfire scene, they shot it in such a way that you didn’t see all the rocks and logs, which are clearly visible in the NL scene. Also, the tide is higher in the NL scene, so the water is actually around the rock.

All up, there are enough little differences that I think they’re meant to be two different places. Though that big rock is rather curious.

@AngieBelle wrote:

plus Adam and Eddy did say that their core cast was in 3 different places.

Yes, thought I remembered hearing something like that said somewhere. In their podcast maybe?

[Phee]

Hook’s history!

And mermaids!

[Phee]

Even if Rumple didn’t say Henry’s name, I’d say it’s safe to assume that he was thinking, “Show me where Henry is,” given that that was the whole purpose of the exercise.

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