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No Hook doesn’t rely on drink with Milah but he does rely on aggression: he literally decks a guy, saving Milah from her situation.
Let’s not blame Hook for protecting who he felt was a woman about to be in a dangerous situation. The guy he decked may have tried to rape Milah for all we know. To say he relied on aggression there is so unfair. He helped her, and he didn’t even know her. And then he backed off when she said she was married. In my eyes, Hook did absolutely nothing wrong in this scene.
No you’re right. I should have said this more carefully. He is shown to be a better man, in Milah’s eyes, through his (granted, warranted) aggressive acts which were designed to be a contrast to quivering, scared Rumple, unable to even look at the dagger to do “what had to be done” to save his family (which is a whole other basket of worms that I tried to discuss in the latest podcast…). Whereas Hook doesn’t really hesitate. I have issues with how I feel it changes formerly established canon of the motivations of characters but not necessarily his actions in their context.
But it does speak to something that OUAT has been harping on a bit lately; that proper manhood is defined through aggression, violence and fighting. Rumple had to become a true hero by learning to fight with Merida and then fighting a bear for Belle as an example.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"No Hook doesn’t rely on drink with Milah but he does rely on aggression: he literally decks a guy, saving Milah from her situation. It’s supposed to be a stark contrast to Rumple moments before, who is scared of the dagger and can’t “be a man” and defend his family. It’s still a part of that rape culture we’re talking about. It’s part of Hook’s swagger which, yes, you are right about. That’s a big part of his character. No one is actually disagreeing with you. But rape culture isn’t just about getting someone drunk and taking advantage–that, to me, is just actual rape. Rape culture is about the power dynamics between men and women and our conditioned responses to them based on perpetuated stereotypes and beliefs on everything from power, gender performance and roles for each gender as they relate to one another.
Also, you cannot absolve A and E of all guilt and place on the shoulders of “some horny little teens” (which is some truly startling language. Not all CSers are teenagers; in fact a great many of the ones who were here, for example, were older than I am, married,and with children. Just like there are SFers who are younger than I am. So let’s not generalize, okay?) ABC is a business and their job is to sell their product. The product they wanted to sell was the one that was getting the most buzz which happened to be CS and that goes back to what men and women are conditioned to expect from media and gender dynamics in media. A and E did have say, they did decide to kill Neal instead of just putting CS together and letting Neal stay alive as a father and a son. A and E did choose to write the CS relationship as it is currently being portrayed (even if it’s getting side eye from me right now, it’s still being sold for the moment as an epic love story). This is to say nothing off all the other horrifying storylines that have rape/wonky consent/problematic elements that have NOTHING to do with Hook. They are perpetuating those same tropes and storylines from past movies and TV shows cause it’s simply “how you told a story” for the longest time. They didn’t invent the mold but they fell, face first, gleefully into it, when ABC likely told them to push CS over the original plans.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"In the traditional sense, Hook never raped anyone. But they did establish, in canon, that Hook got women drunk, as–in his words–“a tactic”, to take them back to the JR for sex. We can quibble, until the cows come home, over what to call it.
There’s another aspect to this as well though. If Hook was getting these women drunk on the sly aka they didn’t know they were drinking alcohol and Hook was slipping some into their non-alcoholic drink, then that is clearly wonky consent and shame on Hook for doing so. But if these women are willingly consuming alcohol and then drunkenly make the choice to go back to a guy’s place for sex but then regret it in the morning, where does that fall on the consent scale?
It’s a good question, and no lies, I have very little in the way of an answer. I think it’s a case by case basis. Different people react to level of alcohol differently (which is why this sort of storytelling shouldn’t be inserted into the show willy nilly without exploring what it means)
From my, admittedly bias reading, Hook is getting these women drunk for the deliberate end of sex. He knows that he is charming, charismatic, and handsome. He believes that women will be flattered by his attention, drinking alongside him and then going back to the JR for sex. The women may even agree to go with him–but how much of that agreement is based on lowed inhibitions and poor decision making because of the alcohol Hook is giving them? Then who is really to blame? You can say Hook in which he might be labeled a rapist, even if not in the most traditional and limited sense. But if you say the woman then it can be seen as victim blaming. For me, the blame is placed on the former not the latter. Our culture teaches women “don’t get raped” instead of teaching men “don’t rape.” It shouldn’t matter how much women drink and what they say/do while drunk, you shouldn’t take advantage of that; if your intention is to get them drunk enough so that they “consent” (quotation marks very much deliberate) to sex, then you’re guilty of a crime.
This is why rape and wonky consent is such a problematic conversation that has to be discussed with great respect because it’s so hard to approach a situation like this as purely one thing or not.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"It is also interesting that some people are drawn to humble men in real life even though in movies it’s the cocky men who get the girl.
That’s rape culture. Men, to get the girl who doesn’t know her own mind and resists the guy, must be aggressive and in the end, the woman is grateful because she simply didn’t know what she wanted and the relationship was “inevitable” all along.
So, no, Killypoo would NEVER rape a woman, he is too Umazing to ever have to FORCE himself on anyone. Women are supposed to flock towards him by the droves, it’s beneath him to EVA have the need to *force* anyone to do anything with him
What you’re describing—that’s rape in the very limited and traditional sense. There are different types but because it’s so sensitive and so polarizing, it often gets softened so that the non-traditional forms of rape are called something else. For example, we talk about wonky consent here at the forums. In the traditional sense, Hook never raped anyone. But they did establish, in canon, that Hook got women drunk, as–in his words–“a tactic”, to take them back to the JR for sex. We can quibble, until the cows come home, over what to call it.
The problem is that the writers don’t realize that these “wonky consent” problems are just different forms of rape. Arthur and Guinevere is an example of a roofie–a literal mind altering drug that makes her more pliable. Zelena and Robin, Graham and Regina are examples of “magical” rape because the victims (Robin, Graham) aren’t in their right mind or don’t know the whole story or had their choices taken away from them.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"@POM it’s a nice thought but it’s one of those times when we–the audience–think about the show on a deeper level than the actual writers.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"t’s not the Dark One that Belle objects to, though she certainly would have objected to his nullifying Hook’s sacrifice in the way he did. She fell in love with Rumple as the Dark One and married him as the Dark One. His being the Dark One was not why she left him (though it did influence the behavior that caused her to leave). Mainly she objected to not being chosen over power and being lied to. Very reasonable. So yes, she probably would not have slept with him immediately given full disclosure in this case
I agree with this. And that’s what makes 5×11 so damning. He was free from all that darkness, all power, and he chose it again. If he had been the Dark One all along, and still sent her away, and she came back without the in-between nature of the pure-hearted hero, then it’s a whole different ballgame. She knows who he is in that situation.
I think that they may yet make it work IF Rumple comes clean to her (and we don’t know everything he told her before leaving yet–there could be more),
*Highly* doubtful. When Rumple can get away with lying, he will. I doubt very much,that having just awoken from a night with his true love after thinking he’d never see her again, he told her that he was the Dark One again through his own actions and decisions, plotted from the moment Emma walked into the shop.
And that doesn’t make the baby less precious or important. Nor does it make the story less interesting, though it does fit into a trend of A&E presenting serious consent issues without really addressing what’s going on, starting with Graham in S1.
Well, no of course it doesn’t reflect on the baby. No one’s implying that. But it does mean that not only are A and E once again playing with serious consent issues without addressing them, but given where we think the story will likely go (baby heals Rumple for good because love) it means the baby is nothing more than a plot point to explore Rumple’s character because in A and E’s world babies magically fix everything (unless the baby is Nealfire, and that’s a whole other issue that I won’t get into here). It’s the hat suck but with a human face.
Otherwise even Snowing would be problematic.
They are problematic though. And the longer the show goes on, the more problematic their “together or not at all” and random abandonment of their child attitude gets. Remember the Love and Romance thread we had a few years ago? One of the biggest takeaways was that everyone who participated found Snowing more troubling than we wanted to admit initially.
So yes, we could treat the relationship on this show as allegorical and completely disconnected from the real world, but there are a few problems with that. First, it’s not where this show started. It began as very human, very real. It had the fairy tale elements but everything about it felt grounded in a reality that we could understand and touch because the stories, legends, myths, and fables are supposed to speak to the human condition and connect with us across time and space. Second, simply saying it’s all allegorical or that we can’t apply real world logic means that the writers have free licence to do as they will without facing the music (like the never ending consent issues, even if the Rumple/Belle situation here is, as @thedarkonedearie put it, really hard to process. There are others that aren’t so hard to process). And third, it means that the show is getting further and further from anything real and character-driven because everything is about the plot and big dramaz which begs the question of why anyone should be invested in characters that act outside the parameters of humanity.
I agree with @thedarkonedearie that it’s so hard to process but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing if the show gave these complex issues room to breathe and be explored in their narrative. But plot always comes first and I sincerely doubt we’re going to get much in the way of human exploration for these issues in the upcoming episodes. This isn’t something that can be solved in one centric. It should take time. But it most likely won’t and that makes me deeply uncomfortable.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I just had a morbid thought considering all the death rumors out there about Robin Hood. If Robin dies, they could name the baby Robin since it can be a girl’s name too. *shudder* I REALLY hope they don’t go that route… I’m also still hoping Robin does not die
Oooh. That’s morbid. And now it’s something I can 100% see the writers doing.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"If Daniel was trapped until Regina let him go back in S2, then doesn’t that mean there’d be evidence of a soul leaving in Underbrooke–like the clock in the arc premiere? And surely other souls have left as well. We’re expected to believe that souls from everywhere are coming to this Underworld (right?) which means that it should be vastly more crowded but it’s a bit of ghost town (pun!) which means that people have moved on, they’ve completed their business. So there should be more evidence of Hades’ domain crumbling. Unless it’s not really souls moving on that is the key, but rather the appearance of Emma/hope.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"The baby’s conception was no crime.
A crime in the traditional sense, no. But there is an emotional crime here and while I’ll concede that “wonky consent” might not be the best turn of phrase for it, there is still a deep betrayal here. One that need more than a “I’m sorry, sweetie” from the offender and more than just an acknowledgement of some suckyness. Because the real question is: had Belle know who Rumple was when she came back (the newly instated Dark One) would she still have slept with him? That’s your litmus test.
Belle believes she is sleeping with pure-hearted, hero Rumple. She’s not. She’s sleeping with the man who had that status, apparently learned something during that time, and then consciously and readily gave it all up to become the man who is not pure hearted and not a hero but, instead, the man who stands in opposition to all those things, who is still a man who “takes what he wants.” The same person whom, last time, Belle kicked out of town and magically divorced. In other words, Belle is now sleeping with a man with whom she did not wish to engage in any romantic liaisons last time. The answer to the above litmus test then: no. That’s a problem. That’s a big problem and more than just a lie of omission.
So yes, she’s sleeping with Rumple in the broad sense of his identity. This isn’t thinking your sleeping Marian, but really it’s Zelena territory. But in a less broad definition of Rumple’s character, Belle did not consent to sleep with the man Rumple is now. She consented to sleep with the man she thought he was–and while it’s absolutely possible that Rumple could become that man again (via plot device hat suck or otherwise)–in that moment, that single moment in time, Belle doesn’t really *know* who she is having relations with.
ETA: this is why I’m actually leaning heavily toward the Persephone theory. At least more so than I was when it was brought up here and more so than when I suggested it in podcast. For all the reasons @Gloriadrewthis says above, it would be a pretty fitting ending for Rumple and Rumbelle at this stage in their relationship.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"You need the magical mushroom to talk to the tree, tho! *twitch*
In addition, Merlin who was trapped in that tree was able to connect with Emma, Arthur and the apprentice without a mushroom, but “it doesn’t matter”.
Of course it doesn’t matter because your questions are pointless.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
