One of my favourite parts of Desperate Souls (aside from other bits that I’ll talk about in my recap) is Rumple becoming The Dark One.
He had no idea that the action of killing Zoso (side-note: he’s one of my favourite parts too, hehe) would result in him becoming the Dark One. He was basically tricked into becoming The Dark One.
Looks like you made a deal you didn’t understand. I don’t think you gonna do that again.
That is BRILLIANT storytelling! How easy could it have been to just write this origin story as “oh, he’s power-hungry and he wanted the power himself so he intentionally took that power”? Yeah, it might have worked (…not so much in season 1-3 but that weird phase in season 4-6… yeah, I’m not a fan of those seasons for him) but that’s nowhere near as interesting or tragic as “it was a mistake”.
It’s one thing to be cursed because it’s a punishment, or being burdened with power because you feel you have no other choice but to turn to it… it’s a whole other burden to literally be tricked into having that power.
And I love that scene when he saves Baelfire… but you can tell he’s already being seduced by the power.
It’s so brilliant.
The disparity between the innovative twists on classic fairytale tropes in season one versus the gratuitous Disney plugs in later seasons is literally staggering to me.
@rush-keating Too busy drooling over Hook and swallowing the garbage they wrote for him (dashing pirate vs cuckolded coward husband), which stuck in their memories better than the excellent character written for Bobby in season 1 … the character which Damon Lindelhof probably wrote, anyway.
You see, what you don’t understand is, I am the strongest version of us. Because I…I’ve evolved.
#Rumpelstiltskin #not a coward #i don’t understand why they kept trying to hammer this into the audience season after season #it’s not true #it’s never been true #he was manipulated by Zoso number one #and he ended up the Dark One because he was trying like all hell to PROTECT HIS SON
He didn’t even ‘end up’ the dark one. He literally walked through FIRE to get to the dagger that would give him the power to save his son. That’s not cowardice.
I think, and I’m aware I’m giving benefit of the doubt here, that Rumple thinks he was a coward, he’s never lost that inner hatred, it’s twisted him to beyond the point of recognizable at times. But here, pointing at the part of himself he hates and saying no more, not one step more, that is what is happening here.
Even though we know he was never a coward. Afraid, yes. Desperate, yes. But not a coward.
Self-hatred feeds itself, and lies to its host, and Rumple, to his dying moment, believed he was a coward, but one who overcame that. He found a way to love himself which, for someone who has experienced such a potent self-hatred, is truly remarkable.
Heart eyes
@theoneandonlylittlebird I understand that from a characterization perspective but from a meta perspective I can’t help but think that A&E didn’t really know what they were writing (and the sort of character Bobby was acting) when they wrote Desperate Souls and have been spending six years not really getting it in a way that seems to defy all common sense.
Rush's tumblr archive 