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Was their relationship common knowledge? Or even uncommon knowledge? She was going ahead with wedding preparations etc, do you think anyone in the kingdom was wise to the fact that she was involved with the Dark One? (Not like anyone was going to say anything due to their own fears, but still.) I question whether they even knew that it was his influence that granted her power. (There’s a good chance they might have had a “Thanks, but no thanks” attitude if they knew early enough- better not to get tangled up in dealings even remotely related to Rumplestiltskin even if your kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy.)
This doesn’t really change the fact that they would likely have been too afraid of Cora’s power to say anything at the time of her announcement, but it’s just interesting for me to think about. I wonder if Henry might have made a, “Uh, dear- what you said back there…” comment when they were alone. He clearly grew to fear her over time.
[adrotate group="5"]"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
@RumplesGirl wrote:
This is actually very astute. I wonder if the two of them had stayed together his hear would eventually have been corrupted to the point where he didn’t care about Bae any more. That’s sort of dreadful to imagine. That core is what makes the character likable. With Cora I think he would have descended into true and irredeemable darkness, and the two of them would have eventually have grown apart and some sort of awful magical war would have ravaged the land. Yikes.
I think this is exactly what would have happened. So thank you Cora, for ripping out your own heart. *golly, I’m glad that woman is dead*
Let’s raise a glass to Cora’s uncertainty!
Actually, something that bothered me about “The Miller’s Daughter”- why does nobody bat an eyelash when Cora announces that her daughter will one day be Queen? Isn’t that exceptionally poor form? If Cora herself was 6th in line then Regina would be even further from the crown by the time she was of age (assuming the 1-5 placeholders all had children themselves). Granted all of my throne-usurping knowledge comes from Richard III, but I always thought saying those sorts of things were enough to get you accused of treason.
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
@RumplesGirl wrote:
“grew accustomed to her face
He was so used to hear her say, good morning everyday.
^_^ You’re great.
That’s one of the things I love most about Rumple. You would think that has the Dark One he wouldn’t know how to love, but he loves very deeply. Even when it’s a dark sadistic love like Cora (I maintain that if Belle made him want to go back to the best version of himself, Cora made him want to be the worst version)
This is actually very astute. I wonder if the two of them had stayed together his heart would eventually have been corrupted to the point where he didn’t care about Bae any more. That’s sort of dreadful to imagine. That core is what makes the character likable. With Cora I think he would have descended into true and irredeemable darkness, and the two of them would have eventually have grown apart and some sort of awful magical war would have ravaged the land. Yikes.
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
Ah, like I’ve said I’m no expert. Is there a title given to the children of a Knight who has inherited the Knighthood?
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
@Keb wrote:
Part of me wonders if that’s part of why he sent Belle away–fear that if he actually did give in and let himself love her completely, he’d destroy her.
Oh. Oh my. That brings a delicious new meaning to the line “No one could ever love me!”, now doesn’t it. Kinnnnnda want to play with that idea now.
But then, he had groomed Regina with the explicit purpose of having her be the one to carry out the curse, so at this point I don’t think he was planning on doing it himself. Still, not good to have that vulnerability.
Of course there’s the complication of what he ultimately did to Cora, but love can turn to hate pretty quickly under some circumstances. (And it wasn’t true love, even if neither was playing the other.)
It’s really interesting to me that this show has shown us a wide spectrum of love with a single character. I don’t doubt for a minute that Rumplestiltskin loved Milah when they were married. She says she never really loved him, but I have to think that surely, if only for a short time she must have. They seemed happy enough before he returned from the Ogre Wars. Did she just marry him because there weren’t any hot pirates around that day?
And then Cora and Rumple. Both confess to loving one another- enough so that they are already thinking about the child they’ll have in the future. Again, he seems genuine, but her faith in her ability to carry out their plans is what’s shaken. So her love wasn’t true because she wasn’t willing to fight for it? Or perhaps because it wasn’t as strong as her fears? (Both are qualities Belle exhibits in spades.)
It’s interesting that Belle is possibly the woman he knows for the shortest period of time, and one that he did not consider a romantic interest until- well, almost til the end. (He cared for her, was fond of her, “grew accustomed to her face” but I don’t think he realized true feelings until the day he let her go and eventually sent her away.) Of course by this time he’s dealing with so much rejection that it’s no wonder thinks he’s being used.
I don’t think we’ve seen another character be genuinely invested in as many romantic relationships as Rumple, even if they all seem to go poorly. (Well, surely Belle will turn out just fine, but it’s been a bumpy road to say the least.) He definitely wasn’t lying when he said he was “full of love”. XD
Edit: Regarding Blue Fairy, I vote- like Henry that she’s become a plot device. Such are the pitfalls with a large cast of characters who all have double lives. It’s twice the story to cover!
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
That’s an excellent question.
I think this is where the idea of the limitations on what BF’s magic can and can’t do comes up. I don’t think it’s in her power to directly hurt another person so she couldn’t just blast Rumple with fire and say, “Oh no you don’t.” Her powers (and I guess fairy magic in general) is very much about wishes and wish granting, so I imagine the best she could do to try and stop him would have been to try and encourage wish-makers and those she was able to give aid to to use the magic she granted them in such a way that could possibly detract from Rumple’s success.
This doesn’t work for a variety of reasons. She doesn’t have any idea how a curse might be concocted, so it’s difficult to pinpoint which of Rumple’s plans she should keep an eye on. (And heck, maybe that’s why he spent time making deals that had nothing to do with the curse, to throw off anyone that might be watching him over the centuries!) There’s also no guarantee that she people she aids will end up using her gifts in a way that do anything to prevent the curse from being created. Of course, for all we know, maybe she did thwart a crucial plan here and there. Maybe that’s why it took 250 years.
I think this sort of comes back to Snow’s “Good will always win” mantra. In this show, it’s rarely because good brings out the “big guns” but more because people make appeals to the intrinsic goodness in others. Good wins small victories over the course of time that end up adding up to more than Evil’s big showy ones.
And of course if there hadn’t been a curse things would have been so less interesting. 😉
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
I think this could really depend on how you look at it. There are plenty of characters who have chosen their agenda over literally the rest of the world’s.
So yes, she told him that knowing very well what choice he was going to make because she knew what kind of person he was but that’s not the same as forcing someone. And I think if she was telling Grumpy that Nova could be a great fairy godmother after her disparaging remarks to Nova that was meant for us to see that BF actually really does care for Nova and isn’t as dismissive of her as we first thought. I read that moment as more of a teacher who has come to care for a struggling student because they have overcome so much and they know they have hidden potential that others may not. We don’t know a lot about what it takes to be a FGM, but it could be that having a difficult journey and knowing a lot about having your own wishes makes for greatness in that job. Maybe BF really did see something special in Nova and was afraid those qualities would be lost if she simply left for the “easy way” out. (I’m not saying that I think Nova and Dreamy’s path would have been easy, but it’s possible that BF might have seen it that way.) In this light, it’s easy to see BF as the sort of “cruel sensei” who cares a lot about their pupil but can’t show it because the struggle is what will bring them greatness. I don’t think she was baiting Dreamy with false words, I think she really believed this about Nova.
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
So he’s a knight, then? Or something like it? Looks like since knighthoods are given (rather than hereditary) she doesn’t really get a title, except for maybe ‘Dame’. But it would make sense that a knight would be working on military strategies during the war and would have expected his daughter to marry a knight in turn.
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
I think that holds true to her rigidness. Nova had a duty, and it was BF’s job to see that she fulfilled it. I also think that just because true love is the most powerful, that doesn’t necessarily make it- hmm… I don’t want to say “good”, but I don’t know what other word to use. Gold used true love to unleash magic in Storybrooke, and that had dire consequences, not all of which were good. I think the BF knows that true love is powerful, and power has to be handled responsibly.
It wasn’t kind of her to deal with the situation that way, and perhaps it wasn’t even fair- but I think it falls in line with her being a “lawful” character. I don’t distrust BF (even if I don’t like her) because she is such a rigid character. You can always trust her to behave a certain way, following a certain code. Other characters (many of whom are far more likable!) aren’t always trustworthy because it’s difficult to discern how far they’ll go to accomplish something. A great example is Snow and Cora’s heart. Regina didn’t think for a moment that Snow had done anything to the heart because up until that point Snow had never done anything of the sort and she believed she could trust Snow to behave a certain way. When she didn’t there was a huge amount of fallout, especially concerning the darkening of Snow’s heart. (Again, this is not unlike the Paladin losing his powers.)
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
The Blue Fairy has never really sat well with me. It’s not that I don’t think she’s trustworthy. I do really think that she is a force for good and wants others to use magic responsibly (if they use it at all) and to be mindful of the costs associated with such power. But I don’t think a character has to be bad to be unlikable (nor does the reverse have to be true, ahem…). There are plenty of “character alignment” charts floating around for OUAT and I think the one that I found to be most accurate put the Blue Fairy in the spot of “Lawful Good”. This made the most sense out of any of the other options I’d seen (Henry, for example) for a variety of reasons. When I think about that class, I think of the classic example of that class, the Paladin.
Paladins are powered by goodness and virtue, so much so that if their actions are repeatedly not good (evil) and not lawful (chaotic) it will detract from their abilities. This is mirrored a bit with the Blue Fairy, who is incapable of using her powers unless certain stringent conditions are in place. As much as she and everyone around her wanted to save Pinocchio, she couldn’t do so unless his actions had met the requirements of being “selfless, brave, and true”. It is a power set that comes with a very strict set of conditions, and as such it means that her magic can’t be counted on 100% of the time.
That, coupled with the often overlooked “lawful” part of her character’s nature means that other characters are going to avoid her or leave her out of the picture from time to time. There have been several cases where a character has pursued a “good” course of action that wasn’t “lawful”. (Breaking the law to enforce the law- Emma does this a lot.) That is the sort of action that the Blue Fairy can’t abide. Henry has difficulty with this concept as well, but in his case it’s because he’s a young idealist. The Blue Fairy has lived long enough to know that sometimes things don’t always work out that way. For her, this is more of a self imposed limitation, not one that she has yet to grow out of. Because of this, she’s often not involved in the actions of the main set of characters, because they often deal in shades of grey. (This happens a lot in roleplaying games as well. It’s really common to have to hide your chaotic or evil actions from a Paladin in the group. Often the Paladin ends up having to make changes to the character. It can be a difficult class to play in many groups for this reason.)
The one time we’ve seen the Blue Fairy stray from this course was during the FTL sequence with Gepetto. She told a direct lie in order to make the deal with him and send Pinocchio through the portal, but this is the only case we’ve seen such an action from her. It was also probably the most interesting of her plotlines and the time I personally found her the most interesting and likable. It’s not a hidden agenda that makes her unlikable, it’s her general inflexibility.
Regarding Sydney- I think it is safe to say that even if he’d had his memories while in Storybrooke his actions wouldn’t have changed at all. His love for Regina was the sad sort that accepts even abuse from his loved one, because that is still a form of attention. Even if he’d been able to remember how she’d used him in the past I think he would have still found himself working for her. After all, even after he saw how she used him and framed him for the King’s death, his wish was still to be at her side. He knew then that she didn’t love him, but he still wanted to be with her.
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
