Once Upon a Time on Twitter
Dear OUAT/Rumbelle/Rumple/Belle/Robert Carlyle/Emilie de Ravin fans,
(WARNING: SPOILERS as of Season 4, Episode 13: "Unforgiven," first aired March 8, 2015. If you're not caught up, please skip down to the last five paragraphs--if you count the P.S. as a paragraph--which contain my main point. I have marked the one spoiler in that section.)
I watch Once Upon a Time because I still think Lost is one of the most brilliant TV shows ever, and ABC originally and continually references OUAT as being "from the writers of Lost." They even frequently re-employ actors from the Lost cast on the show and throw in Lost "Easter eggs," despite the two shows' bearing almost no resemblance to one another. Far from being THE writers of Lost, as ABC tries to mislead us to believe, OUAT showrunners Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis wrote only 21 out of the 121 scripts for Lost; Lost was created by J.J. Abrams, and the head writers were Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (generally referred to by fans of the show as "Darlton," and "A&E," as fans of OUAT have taken to calling "Adam and Eddie" for short, seem all to happy to try to follow in their footsteps by talking about the show, giving interviews and letting out little hints of things to come while keeping others secret, but also going to great pains to explain the inconsistencies in the show and placate unhappy "shippers" whose fan-fiction ships fail to become canon; however, with the back and forth of Twitter now prevalent, they are receiving what appears to be an unwelcome amount of unwanted feedback from disgruntled fans, and Eddie Kitsis in particular seems to be defensive and disgusted by the viewers' lack of appreciation for his vision).
Why I've lost patience with Rumbelle
After all that build-up prior to the show, I was hoping this was going to be another show similar to Lost, with lots of mysteries for fans to theorize about and intensive character development. On watching the pilot, I was initially disappointed and was ready to quit watching past the first episode until Robert Carlyle's first scene in Regina's dungeon about halfway in. I'd seen him in a few movies before and thought he was cute in The Full Monty, but then I'd seen him as some really off-putting characters, especially Begbie in Trainspotting, as well as Frank McCourt's irresponsible father in Angela's Ashes. I have a sort of unconscious rule that I don't number an actor among my favorites until I've seen him in at least two great performances and find out that he's at least a fairly decent person in real life, and, while I had a friend who was a fan and I too wanted to like him, Robert Carlyle hadn't quite met that criterion, and I wasn't really going out of my way to find one; I already had enough obsessions in my actor "pantheon" (see masthead above). However, the moment he sprang out of the darkness of Regina's dungeon with that unforgettable cackle, I finally found that second performance that completely eclipsed the first. I'm a sucker for delectable hammy villains and was instantly smitten by Carlyle's over-the-top but perfectly appropriate fairytale interpretation of Rumplestiltskin and hooked on OUAT from that scene on. Over the course of Season 1, he was developed into an intriguing character with a back story (mostly penned by scriptwriter Jane Espenson) that epitomized his refrain: "Evil isn't born, dearie, it's made." Espenson even scripted a love interest from his past who had brought out the best in him, and he took on the added role of Belle's "Beast" for 2012's Valentine's Day episode. I, along with many other fans fell in love with him and "Rumbelle" and wanted them to be reunited, which didn't seem to sit well with A&E.
Beginning with Episode 5 of Season 2, just after he was also revealed to be the "Crocodile" who cut off Captain Hook's hand, Rumple's promising character development took a sudden dive, and for several episodes thereafter he was only shown in brief scenes where a villainous and/or magical plot device was needed with seemingly little regard to the way he had previously been portrayed. Currently, many OUAT viewers on Twitter (some of whom don't seem to have watched the show from the beginning) delight in seeing him as completely evil (the type of character Robert Carlyle has played all too often, in my opinion), while others, like me, feel that the writers have dropped the ball on his character--and his promising relationship with Belle. In fact, I was a "Rumbelle" fan until the writers got bogged down promoting the recent Disney blockbuster Frozen in the first half of Season 4, just in time to promote the DVD for the holidays, to the utter detriment of the development of the Rumbelle story at the beginning of the season.
Rumple and Belle went from their beautiful wedding scene at the end of Season 3 to their honeymoon at the start of Season 4. On the way to an abandoned mansion Belle discovered on one of her walks that had mysteriously and suddenly appeared on the edge of town, she decided that she and Rumple should use the house for their honeymoon, something Rumple questioned the ethics of but allowed Belle to convince him that no one would mind their staying there. (I don't remember any explanation as to what happened to Rumple's own comfortable Victorian mansion, but I think we saw it only once, during Season 1. Since her release from Regina's basement cell, Belle has been residing in the back of his shop. Prior to Season 4, I thought it was for decorum's sake since they weren't married, and OUAT, being shown in The Wonderful World of Disney's old time slot of 8 p.m. on Sunday nights, is apparenty intended to be a family show.)
On their way to their honeymoon, Rumple stops at his son's grave and gives an emotional, heartfelt speech to his deceased son--whose disappearance to "a land without magic" was the entire reason Rumple spent 300 years seeking a way to get back to him as a result of the Blue Fairy's (Reul Ghorm's) insinuation to him in his desperation that a curse was the only way. Without the loss of Rumple's son and his unflagging efforts to be reunited with him, the village of Storybrooke that the characters now inhabit in "our world"--even though we can't get to it--wouldn't exist. Rumple's reward for all his efforts, however, which came much sooner than expected in Season 2, was the initial and perfunctory rejection by his son, a brief reconciliation, and then giving his own life as the only means to rid himself of the Dark One curse that is the source of the evil within him and which he took on unwittingly in a misguided attempt to protect his 14-year-old son and countless other children from being drafted into the Ogre Wars.
At the sight of Rumple's death at the end of Season 3A (OUAT has taken to writing its story arcs in half-seasons since Season 3, bringing the characters from a different children's story to Storybrooke and resolving their story arc within each one instead of calling the two- to three-month hiatus starting in early December a "hiatus"), Belle was overcome with grief, while his son watched Rumple kill himself with seeming detachment. Rumple sacrificed himself along with Peter Pan (who turned out to be Rumple's "cowardly" father who had held his son prisoner in Neverland for years before that), saying that the two of them were villains, "and villains don't get happy endings." He said this hugging his father, now restored to his original adult form; kissing him sadly on the cheek; and thrusting the long dagger that had made him into the Dark One through both of their chests in yet another brilliant piece of acting by Robert Carlyle that will never be recognized with a much-deserved Emmy award in such a carelessly and inconsistently written network TV series. It seemed as though this sacrifice meant nothing to his son, nor did he even seem to notice as Belle crumpled to the ground in tears right beside him.
In the second half of Season 3, however, Belle resurrected Rumple. (His son, originally named Baelfire--Bae, for short--but who, sometime after leaping into the magical vortex that led to his sought-after "land without magic" thinking it would cure Rumple's Dark One curse, changed his name to Neal Cassady, turned out to be the show's heroine Emma's baby-daddy, the biological father of former-but-now-redeemed "Evil Queen" Regina's adopted son Henry, which therefore made Henry Rumple's grandson.) Unfortunately for the writers who were determined to hook Emma up with Rumple's arch-enemy for whom Rumple's hateful wife left him, the villain-turned-roguishly-handsome-leading-man Captain Hook), Emma's now-permanent connection to the returned Neal was getting in the way. So in order for Belle to bring her "True Love" Rumple back, Neal had to sacrifice his life, merging in a glob of special FX I still don't comprehend into Rumple, yet still dead. I and many other fans I've communicated with had hoped for a more meaningful reunion and relationship between Bae and Rumple after all the years they had been separated.
Their reunion, however, turned out to be unwelcome to Bae until he found out he had a son (Henry, whom Rumple had just told not to believe in prophecies yet simultaneously believed Henry was going to kill him due to a prophecy he was given that "the boy [who would lead him to Bae] would be your undoing." He still seems to take this literally without questioning the meaning of the word "undoing" or even contemplating the rather obvious possibility that it could be the undoing of his Dark One curse. In fact, upon being reunited with Bae-turned-Neal, Rumple's IQ and intuition seem to have dropped hundreds of points as he responds to Bae's offer of two minutes to explain himself by offering to make him 14 again--IMO, a theretofore low in the show's writing quality since he had already had a very believable "practice" reunion Season 1 with August, who went to great effort to mislead Rumple into believing he might be Bae--with emphasis on the word "might." Even Rumple was suspicious (although he shouldn't have been deceived at all considering August had blue eyes while Bae's and his own were brown) and was cautious in his acceptance of August's insinuation as well as quite aware that Bae might not forgive him. Neal, however, wanted nothing to do with his father, blaming him for letting go of him at the vortex and taking no responsibility whatsoever for his defiance of his father's warning not to trust fairies, especially the Reul Ghorm; dragging Rumple into the forest against Rumple's better judgement; opening the vortex with the last magic bean in existence (according to the Reul Ghorm at least--she seems to know a lot of "last" things in existence, including the magic tree that transported Emma and Pinocchio to the same world that both Bae and Storybrooke landed in); and, when Rumple told Bae he was afraid and didn't want to go through the vortex, jumped into it anyway expecting Rumple to follow immediately, despite knowing that Rumple was still under a curse--and later forgetting that Rumple actually did try to catch him by the hand and pull him back but let go for a split second before the vortex closed up and Rumple was left sobbing and desperately scraping around the forest floor on his hands and knees trying to get back to Bae and saying he wanted to go with him, then begging the Reul Ghorm for help. Apparently, Rumple never told any of this to Neal, and Neal continued to avoid him and nurse his self-righteous anger until he witnessed the genuine love his father had for Belle during what Rumple thought were his dying words to her. By the end of Season 3 after Bae/Neal's death, even Snow White and Prince Charming named their new baby Neal, in a heartwarming tribute that they purposely waited to reveal until Rumple and Belle were present.
During Rumple's private speech at Bae's gravesite, which even Belle could not hear (therefore making it obvious that he meant every touching word), he told Bae that he wanted to change and that Bae had made him "want to be a better man." Then, upon their arrival at the mysterious mansion, Belle and Rumple have their first dance, to the theme music from "Beauty and the Beast," complete with costumes from the classic Disney film. It finally seemed like the writers were going to develop Rumple's character and his relationship with Belle, and Rumbelle fans couldn't be happier!
However, "Frozen" characters and their problems dominated the rest of the season, and we rarely saw Rumple and Belle together after that. In fact, the very night of their honeymoon (in the bedroom while Belle slept beside him, Rumple crept out of bed, took the dagger that had turned him into the Dark One and enabled its possessor to control him from her purse, and waved it over a mysterious circular box, causing the box to transform into the Sorcerer's hat from "Fantasia." However, instead of using this as an opportunity to develop the relationship between Rumple and Belle, the writers chose to have the sudden appearance of the Sorcerer's Hat (in the mansion that Belle insisted they squat in) cause Rumple to do a 180 and forget every one of his words at Bae's gravesite that same day, as well as his wedding vows, and turn completely evil. He had poignantly entrusted the dagger to Belle as a sign of his trust and love for her (the extremely dangerous and powerful dagger he'd always kept carefully hidden and locked away that she then carelessly dropped into her open purse so it could easily have fallen out or been snatched by a passing pickpocket or this half-season's special guest villain) and at some point secretly switched it for a fake one.
He then took control of Hook and forced him to do his bidding, including imprisoning all the fairies (still dressing as nuns despite having their memories restored) of Storybrooke in the Sorcerer's Hat, making sure to reveal to his old arch-enemy first that, not only had he switched the dagger for a false one without Belle's knowledge, but that he intended to take Belle and Henry and leave Storybrooke--after he killed Hook. (He even explained to Hook how he performed the "follow the lady" switcheroo on Belle and thought he could trust him!) Furthermore, he arrogantly declared to Hook that he didn't care if all the other residents of Storybrooke (including Hook's beloved Emma--whom Rumple had previously shown what appeared to be genuine affection for to the point where fans were imagining them as a couple in Season 1) died; " 'Me' comes first." (He also seemed to have a soft spot for Snow White back in Season 1's Fairytale Land--now renamed The Enchanted Forest since a number of other magical realms have appeared along with their respective characters--especially during their verbal exchange when she begged him for a potion to forget Prince Charming and he warned her about the dangers of magic and gave her advice about love that he knew from first-hand experience, unlike his disdain for Cinderella, who wanted to go to the ball so badly that she signed the three-foot-long contract he presented to her without even reading it. That's the only contract I've seen him present to anyone, so I had the impression he liked to test people's morality before making deals with them. Which suggests that he still had a sense of morality himself. He didn't even treat his magical protegé Regina as kindly as he did Snow White. Of course, he could have just been pretending to be "nice"--nice for Rumple, that is--to Snow because she played an important role in his 300-years-in-the-making plan, but that showed he actually still had a brain in Season 1!)
So what more foolish thing could a would-be villain do than tell his secrets and detail his evil plan to his arch-enemy whom he was keeping in his thrall before he killed him? Much less Rumple, the wily, patient, and powerful, yet loving and insecure, character from Season 1 who had devised and succeeded at such a complex plan over the course of three centuries to create Storybrooke just so he could start searching for his son 28 years later and carefully choosing, then grooming someone else to enact the curse so that he wouldn't have to pay the price of magic ... This was the same powerful "wizard" to whom everyone in Fairytale Land went for help as a last resort and who was always devising clever plans to ensure that they owed him favors to be cashed in at the appropriate time in the distant future while also generously dispensing advice to them about subjects that included warnings about both magic AND love, being no stranger to a broken heart himself. He was always ten steps ahead of everyone back then, including Regina, whom he convinced the curse was all her idea and that he was her prisoner, and later used reverse psychology on Emma and the entire town in order to get her elected sheriff instead of Regina's minion, Sidney. This revelation of all his plans to Hook, I thought, was writing at its most amateurish and clichéd, and the outcome was obvious long before it happened: OF COURSE Hook was not going to let his old arch-enemy, the guy who cut off his hand, get away with his plan to kill him and let Emma and everyone else in Storybrooke die while he took Belle with him and kidnapped Emma's son into the bargain! (And what was up with Rumple tricking Hook into thinking that getting his hand back made him revert to his evil ways, then telling him it had all been a mind game, yet Hook still wanted his hook back instead of a hand anyway?!!!) And it couldn't be more predictable that Hook was going to tell Belle that Rumple had tricked her by giving her the fake dagger the first opportunity he got. Not to mention that Rumple had killed Hook's previous love, Rumple's ex-wife. Hook had every reason in the book to get his revenge. How could Rumple be so smart in Season 1 and so stupid by Season 4A???
Unfortunately, we didn't even get to see any of that play out. The minute the Frozen characters are disposed of, Belle, who supposedly saw the goodness in Rumple, even when he exhibited his worst behavior in front of her eyes numerous times, and whom we last saw together for more than a minute during their romantic Beauty and the Beast honeymoon, suddenly barges up to Rumple with the REAL dagger, marches him to the town line, tells him what a complete jerk he is and that he never cared about anyone but himself (even though she has to know that's not true, but she's suddenly gone stupid as well!), and orders him out of Storybrooke forever, ignoring his tears and pleas to reconsider. No discussion, no chance for him to explain, not even marriage counseling with the friendly neighborhood psychiatrist (the depressingly under-utilized Archie/Jiminy Cricket/actor Raphael Sbarge) who performed their marriage ceremony!
The showrunners, Kitsis and Horowitz, recently explained that Belle has never been her own person before--despite other heroic acts we've seen her carry out on her own, including using her book-smarts, courage, and wits to help Sleeping Beauty reunite with her prince; reopening and running the town library; running Gold's Pawn Shop in his absence; not to mention agreeing to go with Rumplestiltskin in order to save her father's kingdom, being freed by him because he loved her enough to let go of her and deciding to return of her own free will and attempt to break his Dark One curse, thanks to information from Regina, using True Love's Kiss. She's already proven herself to be the independent, "strong woman" A&E say she isn't. The ability to see the good in people (which has now been bestowed upon Emma instead so that she can look past all of Hook's prior misdeeds, including physically injuring Belle and landing her in the hospital with amnesia of who she or Rumple were) is one of Belle's strengths and an integral part of her character! (Along with the intelligence she and Rumple used to share.) I identified with and admired Belle more than any of the other female characters, so I take it as a personal insult that Eddie Kitsis considers us to be weak women with no lives of our own unless we're ordering men out of our lives using sharp weapons imbued with strong magical powers. (Real women don't need magic daggers to be strong, thank you very much!)
Which begs the question: Rumple and Belle are married now. We've seen them kiss. If, as was stated many times in Season 1, and which was demonstrated to be true when Emma unexpectedly saved Henry's life and broke the curse that caused everyone to forget who they were with one kiss to his forehead while Regina was backing out of the room, True Love's Kiss can break any curse, why is Rumple still under the Dark One curse? (And if Regina really loved Henry, why didn't she kiss him and break the spell herself? She knew all about the power of True Love's Kiss, yet she chose not to use it because she cared more about keeping Storybrooke under the curse than Henry's life! But that's been forgiven and forgotten now too!)
Unless ... Rumple and Belle's love isn't true?
As of the most recent episode, supposedly six weeks after Rumple's now-wife (i.e., they have knowingly made a commitment to each other after knowing each other, even living together, for all these years for better or for WORSE!) banished him without any discussion about why he had done this sudden about-face following their honeymoon and, after saying it was because he was more in love with magic than with her, Belle has now turned around and started and/or threatened to use the magic she learned from Rumple on others, in addition to being seen kissing another man by her husband, under the guise of what Eddie Kitsis absurdly calls becoming a "strong woman."
I believe that Belle is no longer the same character who fell in love with and married Rumple with the full knowledge that he was a "monster," and, until I see some evidence that her out-of-character behavior is not by her own choice, it is my personal opinion that the writers have irreparably destroyed the trust and, therefore, the relationship between Rumple and Belle and that, as a result, he should move on instead of (pardon the pun) spinning his wheels. The whole "she loves me/she loves me not" thing between Snow and Charming was tedious in Season 1, and it's even more tedious watching it go on endlessly all over again with Rumple and Belle. In fact, if the writers want to use him as an evil villain, as so many current viewers of the show now perceive him to be according to the tweets I have read, I would like to see him let go of Belle (like he did in "Skin Deep" when he realized he was no good for her and sent her shopping fully expecting her never to return), along with the pain she has caused him, at least for a while until she comes to her senses (if she ever does) and embrace his evil side. I'd love to see him have some fun going over the top again like he did in Regina's dungeon in Season 1, and, at present, I think Kristin Bauer van Straten puts the right amount of attitude into her own fairytale-like interpretation of Maleficent and is up to the task of being a fun "partner in crime" with him and perhaps, while Belle is busy being a "strong woman," Rumple should explore his own options with Maleficent instead of continuing to make a fool of himself over the woman who banished him from her life without hesitation, supposedly forever, and immediately hit it off at the library with Will Scarlet before Season 4A even ended.
All of this inconsistency, as well as other statements they have made in interviews, has caused me to conclude that Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz do not care one whit about believable, well-paced character development (while character development is what Lost was all about!) and are only concerned with cramming as many fantasy characters and excitement into the show as possible. It's like they're saying, "This is our show, and we're going to do what we want because we're sick of all that character-development crap Darlton made us write. We've got ratings, so all those annoying cerebral viewers who want another Lost can go to hell." Or as Jane Espenson tweeted back to me this past Sunday, "Are people interested? Are they engaged? Are they going along for the journey? Yay!" I thought she was one of the good writers, but she's as bad as A&E. It doesn't matter to any of them that the viewers of this "family" show are "engaged" in bullying each other! In fact, the writers seem like bullies themselves to me since they seem to be enjoying fanning the flames of the Twitter and Tumblr fan wars.
Making the characters subservient to the plot like this is the very definition of melodrama and proves that ABC's so-called "writers of Lost" are incompetent and that ABC and Disney are using that phrase and A&E's past employment with a popular and iconic show solely for ratings and promotional purposes without regard to the integrity of the show or even their own brand. Whatever sells, yay!
Therefore, if my disdain for the way Rumplestitskin's character has gone from an intriguing, complex, and even tragic character to a mere plot device, played by an actor who is far and away the show's most valuable asset and does his best to knock every scene he's in out of the park despite the futility and total lack of respect for the audience's intelligence by the show's creators, writers, and producers, being cheated out of the Emmy and recognition he deserves (in fact, many fans have said Robert Carlyle is the only reason they are still watching OUAT and if he left, they would stop watching!) causes YOU to believe I am spreading "hate" towards Belle or Emilie de Ravin or any other actor or character on the show and/or I have followed you because you are a Robert Carlyle or Rumbelle fan, please do not get angry with me. Simply block me and/or tell me politely that you wish me to unfollow or block you, and I will do so so that you won't have to see any of my opinions again. People often follow me without asking me first; sometimes I follow others without asking them too. I didn't know it was bad etiquette to follow someone without permission or to reply to a tweet you thought the other person might agree with. Further, I may respond to comments that someone I'm replying to has been mentioned in. If I don't remove your Twitter address from my reply, either it's an oversight, or I thought you were part of the conversation and didn't want to leave you out. Your disagreement with my opinion doesn't mean I bear any malice towards you. So please leave any false assumptions and attacks at the Troll Bridge.
The bottom line is, Once Upon a Time is a fictional/fantasy TV show. The characters and stories on it are imaginary. The actors are real people, and I would never criticize them directly. There's no reason to criticize people who are just doing their jobs. ABC, on the other hand, cares about the show's ratings, and if it has good ratings, they obviously want the show to be renewed. I am a writer and fiction connoisseur who's taken writing classes and enjoys interesting and well-developed characters. [SPOILER:]Rumplestiltskin was once an intriguingly ambiguous character on the show--originally, according to his back story in Seasons 1 and 2, wanting only to do good and protect his family at all costs, even laming himself in the mistaken belief it would protect his son--only to be presumed to be and falsely labelled a coward because his father was one, including by his own self-centered wife Milah. Now it seems like his romantic history is repeating itself.[END OF SPOILER]
I express my opinions and constructive criticism on Twitter because (1) showrunners are always asking viewers what they think; (2) I want the show to succeed and perhaps even garner an Emmy like it showed the potential for in Season 1; and (3) I want Robert Carlyle, who is locked into a five-year contract on the show, to have the opportunity to portray and help develop the complex character of Rumplestiltskin that garnered him so much talk of an Emmy nomination in Season 1, particularly for my favorite episode, "Skin Deep," the popularity of which (at least among Robert Carlyle fans) I don't think has ever been matched. People even wish him a happy anniversary for that episode on Twitter, and it's clear that he appreciates it and is proud of that episode because when he thanks all the people who remembered, it is one of the very rare times that he tweets nowadays. I and many others believed that his lack of a nomination for Season 1 would be rectified in Season 2, but it wasn't and, at this rate, is unlikely to, which disappoints me very much. I'm disappointed in the writing, but I bear no hatred towards any of the show's actors, characters, crew, fans, or even the writers themselves. In the end, Once Upon a Time is entertainment, not anything serious enough to warrant such an extreme reaction as hatred. However, if I am falsely accused of "hating" and/or being attacked by the people I had previously believed to be my fellow "dearies" (otherwise, I wouldn't have followed you or mentioned you in a tweet), I may possibly lose my temper and react irrationally towards you, just like you probably would if I did it to you.
Thanks for understanding. I welcome friendship and discussion, even if we agree to disagree, with other "Dearies," Robert Carlyle fans, and other people who share my interests.
PS: Grr, I'm having trouble replying to comments and keep getting an error message. Sorry! Hope the problem will be fixed soon.
(WARNING: SPOILERS as of Season 4, Episode 13: "Unforgiven," first aired March 8, 2015. If you're not caught up, please skip down to the last five paragraphs--if you count the P.S. as a paragraph--which contain my main point. I have marked the one spoiler in that section.)
I watch Once Upon a Time because I still think Lost is one of the most brilliant TV shows ever, and ABC originally and continually references OUAT as being "from the writers of Lost." They even frequently re-employ actors from the Lost cast on the show and throw in Lost "Easter eggs," despite the two shows' bearing almost no resemblance to one another. Far from being THE writers of Lost, as ABC tries to mislead us to believe, OUAT showrunners Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis wrote only 21 out of the 121 scripts for Lost; Lost was created by J.J. Abrams, and the head writers were Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (generally referred to by fans of the show as "Darlton," and "A&E," as fans of OUAT have taken to calling "Adam and Eddie" for short, seem all to happy to try to follow in their footsteps by talking about the show, giving interviews and letting out little hints of things to come while keeping others secret, but also going to great pains to explain the inconsistencies in the show and placate unhappy "shippers" whose fan-fiction ships fail to become canon; however, with the back and forth of Twitter now prevalent, they are receiving what appears to be an unwelcome amount of unwanted feedback from disgruntled fans, and Eddie Kitsis in particular seems to be defensive and disgusted by the viewers' lack of appreciation for his vision).
Why I've lost patience with Rumbelle
After all that build-up prior to the show, I was hoping this was going to be another show similar to Lost, with lots of mysteries for fans to theorize about and intensive character development. On watching the pilot, I was initially disappointed and was ready to quit watching past the first episode until Robert Carlyle's first scene in Regina's dungeon about halfway in. I'd seen him in a few movies before and thought he was cute in The Full Monty, but then I'd seen him as some really off-putting characters, especially Begbie in Trainspotting, as well as Frank McCourt's irresponsible father in Angela's Ashes. I have a sort of unconscious rule that I don't number an actor among my favorites until I've seen him in at least two great performances and find out that he's at least a fairly decent person in real life, and, while I had a friend who was a fan and I too wanted to like him, Robert Carlyle hadn't quite met that criterion, and I wasn't really going out of my way to find one; I already had enough obsessions in my actor "pantheon" (see masthead above). However, the moment he sprang out of the darkness of Regina's dungeon with that unforgettable cackle, I finally found that second performance that completely eclipsed the first. I'm a sucker for delectable hammy villains and was instantly smitten by Carlyle's over-the-top but perfectly appropriate fairytale interpretation of Rumplestiltskin and hooked on OUAT from that scene on. Over the course of Season 1, he was developed into an intriguing character with a back story (mostly penned by scriptwriter Jane Espenson) that epitomized his refrain: "Evil isn't born, dearie, it's made." Espenson even scripted a love interest from his past who had brought out the best in him, and he took on the added role of Belle's "Beast" for 2012's Valentine's Day episode. I, along with many other fans fell in love with him and "Rumbelle" and wanted them to be reunited, which didn't seem to sit well with A&E.
Beginning with Episode 5 of Season 2, just after he was also revealed to be the "Crocodile" who cut off Captain Hook's hand, Rumple's promising character development took a sudden dive, and for several episodes thereafter he was only shown in brief scenes where a villainous and/or magical plot device was needed with seemingly little regard to the way he had previously been portrayed. Currently, many OUAT viewers on Twitter (some of whom don't seem to have watched the show from the beginning) delight in seeing him as completely evil (the type of character Robert Carlyle has played all too often, in my opinion), while others, like me, feel that the writers have dropped the ball on his character--and his promising relationship with Belle. In fact, I was a "Rumbelle" fan until the writers got bogged down promoting the recent Disney blockbuster Frozen in the first half of Season 4, just in time to promote the DVD for the holidays, to the utter detriment of the development of the Rumbelle story at the beginning of the season.
Rumple and Belle went from their beautiful wedding scene at the end of Season 3 to their honeymoon at the start of Season 4. On the way to an abandoned mansion Belle discovered on one of her walks that had mysteriously and suddenly appeared on the edge of town, she decided that she and Rumple should use the house for their honeymoon, something Rumple questioned the ethics of but allowed Belle to convince him that no one would mind their staying there. (I don't remember any explanation as to what happened to Rumple's own comfortable Victorian mansion, but I think we saw it only once, during Season 1. Since her release from Regina's basement cell, Belle has been residing in the back of his shop. Prior to Season 4, I thought it was for decorum's sake since they weren't married, and OUAT, being shown in The Wonderful World of Disney's old time slot of 8 p.m. on Sunday nights, is apparenty intended to be a family show.)
On their way to their honeymoon, Rumple stops at his son's grave and gives an emotional, heartfelt speech to his deceased son--whose disappearance to "a land without magic" was the entire reason Rumple spent 300 years seeking a way to get back to him as a result of the Blue Fairy's (Reul Ghorm's) insinuation to him in his desperation that a curse was the only way. Without the loss of Rumple's son and his unflagging efforts to be reunited with him, the village of Storybrooke that the characters now inhabit in "our world"--even though we can't get to it--wouldn't exist. Rumple's reward for all his efforts, however, which came much sooner than expected in Season 2, was the initial and perfunctory rejection by his son, a brief reconciliation, and then giving his own life as the only means to rid himself of the Dark One curse that is the source of the evil within him and which he took on unwittingly in a misguided attempt to protect his 14-year-old son and countless other children from being drafted into the Ogre Wars.
At the sight of Rumple's death at the end of Season 3A (OUAT has taken to writing its story arcs in half-seasons since Season 3, bringing the characters from a different children's story to Storybrooke and resolving their story arc within each one instead of calling the two- to three-month hiatus starting in early December a "hiatus"), Belle was overcome with grief, while his son watched Rumple kill himself with seeming detachment. Rumple sacrificed himself along with Peter Pan (who turned out to be Rumple's "cowardly" father who had held his son prisoner in Neverland for years before that), saying that the two of them were villains, "and villains don't get happy endings." He said this hugging his father, now restored to his original adult form; kissing him sadly on the cheek; and thrusting the long dagger that had made him into the Dark One through both of their chests in yet another brilliant piece of acting by Robert Carlyle that will never be recognized with a much-deserved Emmy award in such a carelessly and inconsistently written network TV series. It seemed as though this sacrifice meant nothing to his son, nor did he even seem to notice as Belle crumpled to the ground in tears right beside him.
In the second half of Season 3, however, Belle resurrected Rumple. (His son, originally named Baelfire--Bae, for short--but who, sometime after leaping into the magical vortex that led to his sought-after "land without magic" thinking it would cure Rumple's Dark One curse, changed his name to Neal Cassady, turned out to be the show's heroine Emma's baby-daddy, the biological father of former-but-now-redeemed "Evil Queen" Regina's adopted son Henry, which therefore made Henry Rumple's grandson.) Unfortunately for the writers who were determined to hook Emma up with Rumple's arch-enemy for whom Rumple's hateful wife left him, the villain-turned-roguishly-handsome-leading-man Captain Hook), Emma's now-permanent connection to the returned Neal was getting in the way. So in order for Belle to bring her "True Love" Rumple back, Neal had to sacrifice his life, merging in a glob of special FX I still don't comprehend into Rumple, yet still dead. I and many other fans I've communicated with had hoped for a more meaningful reunion and relationship between Bae and Rumple after all the years they had been separated.
Their reunion, however, turned out to be unwelcome to Bae until he found out he had a son (Henry, whom Rumple had just told not to believe in prophecies yet simultaneously believed Henry was going to kill him due to a prophecy he was given that "the boy [who would lead him to Bae] would be your undoing." He still seems to take this literally without questioning the meaning of the word "undoing" or even contemplating the rather obvious possibility that it could be the undoing of his Dark One curse. In fact, upon being reunited with Bae-turned-Neal, Rumple's IQ and intuition seem to have dropped hundreds of points as he responds to Bae's offer of two minutes to explain himself by offering to make him 14 again--IMO, a theretofore low in the show's writing quality since he had already had a very believable "practice" reunion Season 1 with August, who went to great effort to mislead Rumple into believing he might be Bae--with emphasis on the word "might." Even Rumple was suspicious (although he shouldn't have been deceived at all considering August had blue eyes while Bae's and his own were brown) and was cautious in his acceptance of August's insinuation as well as quite aware that Bae might not forgive him. Neal, however, wanted nothing to do with his father, blaming him for letting go of him at the vortex and taking no responsibility whatsoever for his defiance of his father's warning not to trust fairies, especially the Reul Ghorm; dragging Rumple into the forest against Rumple's better judgement; opening the vortex with the last magic bean in existence (according to the Reul Ghorm at least--she seems to know a lot of "last" things in existence, including the magic tree that transported Emma and Pinocchio to the same world that both Bae and Storybrooke landed in); and, when Rumple told Bae he was afraid and didn't want to go through the vortex, jumped into it anyway expecting Rumple to follow immediately, despite knowing that Rumple was still under a curse--and later forgetting that Rumple actually did try to catch him by the hand and pull him back but let go for a split second before the vortex closed up and Rumple was left sobbing and desperately scraping around the forest floor on his hands and knees trying to get back to Bae and saying he wanted to go with him, then begging the Reul Ghorm for help. Apparently, Rumple never told any of this to Neal, and Neal continued to avoid him and nurse his self-righteous anger until he witnessed the genuine love his father had for Belle during what Rumple thought were his dying words to her. By the end of Season 3 after Bae/Neal's death, even Snow White and Prince Charming named their new baby Neal, in a heartwarming tribute that they purposely waited to reveal until Rumple and Belle were present.
During Rumple's private speech at Bae's gravesite, which even Belle could not hear (therefore making it obvious that he meant every touching word), he told Bae that he wanted to change and that Bae had made him "want to be a better man." Then, upon their arrival at the mysterious mansion, Belle and Rumple have their first dance, to the theme music from "Beauty and the Beast," complete with costumes from the classic Disney film. It finally seemed like the writers were going to develop Rumple's character and his relationship with Belle, and Rumbelle fans couldn't be happier!
However, "Frozen" characters and their problems dominated the rest of the season, and we rarely saw Rumple and Belle together after that. In fact, the very night of their honeymoon (in the bedroom while Belle slept beside him, Rumple crept out of bed, took the dagger that had turned him into the Dark One and enabled its possessor to control him from her purse, and waved it over a mysterious circular box, causing the box to transform into the Sorcerer's hat from "Fantasia." However, instead of using this as an opportunity to develop the relationship between Rumple and Belle, the writers chose to have the sudden appearance of the Sorcerer's Hat (in the mansion that Belle insisted they squat in) cause Rumple to do a 180 and forget every one of his words at Bae's gravesite that same day, as well as his wedding vows, and turn completely evil. He had poignantly entrusted the dagger to Belle as a sign of his trust and love for her (the extremely dangerous and powerful dagger he'd always kept carefully hidden and locked away that she then carelessly dropped into her open purse so it could easily have fallen out or been snatched by a passing pickpocket or this half-season's special guest villain) and at some point secretly switched it for a fake one.
He then took control of Hook and forced him to do his bidding, including imprisoning all the fairies (still dressing as nuns despite having their memories restored) of Storybrooke in the Sorcerer's Hat, making sure to reveal to his old arch-enemy first that, not only had he switched the dagger for a false one without Belle's knowledge, but that he intended to take Belle and Henry and leave Storybrooke--after he killed Hook. (He even explained to Hook how he performed the "follow the lady" switcheroo on Belle and thought he could trust him!) Furthermore, he arrogantly declared to Hook that he didn't care if all the other residents of Storybrooke (including Hook's beloved Emma--whom Rumple had previously shown what appeared to be genuine affection for to the point where fans were imagining them as a couple in Season 1) died; " 'Me' comes first." (He also seemed to have a soft spot for Snow White back in Season 1's Fairytale Land--now renamed The Enchanted Forest since a number of other magical realms have appeared along with their respective characters--especially during their verbal exchange when she begged him for a potion to forget Prince Charming and he warned her about the dangers of magic and gave her advice about love that he knew from first-hand experience, unlike his disdain for Cinderella, who wanted to go to the ball so badly that she signed the three-foot-long contract he presented to her without even reading it. That's the only contract I've seen him present to anyone, so I had the impression he liked to test people's morality before making deals with them. Which suggests that he still had a sense of morality himself. He didn't even treat his magical protegé Regina as kindly as he did Snow White. Of course, he could have just been pretending to be "nice"--nice for Rumple, that is--to Snow because she played an important role in his 300-years-in-the-making plan, but that showed he actually still had a brain in Season 1!)
So what more foolish thing could a would-be villain do than tell his secrets and detail his evil plan to his arch-enemy whom he was keeping in his thrall before he killed him? Much less Rumple, the wily, patient, and powerful, yet loving and insecure, character from Season 1 who had devised and succeeded at such a complex plan over the course of three centuries to create Storybrooke just so he could start searching for his son 28 years later and carefully choosing, then grooming someone else to enact the curse so that he wouldn't have to pay the price of magic ... This was the same powerful "wizard" to whom everyone in Fairytale Land went for help as a last resort and who was always devising clever plans to ensure that they owed him favors to be cashed in at the appropriate time in the distant future while also generously dispensing advice to them about subjects that included warnings about both magic AND love, being no stranger to a broken heart himself. He was always ten steps ahead of everyone back then, including Regina, whom he convinced the curse was all her idea and that he was her prisoner, and later used reverse psychology on Emma and the entire town in order to get her elected sheriff instead of Regina's minion, Sidney. This revelation of all his plans to Hook, I thought, was writing at its most amateurish and clichéd, and the outcome was obvious long before it happened: OF COURSE Hook was not going to let his old arch-enemy, the guy who cut off his hand, get away with his plan to kill him and let Emma and everyone else in Storybrooke die while he took Belle with him and kidnapped Emma's son into the bargain! (And what was up with Rumple tricking Hook into thinking that getting his hand back made him revert to his evil ways, then telling him it had all been a mind game, yet Hook still wanted his hook back instead of a hand anyway?!!!) And it couldn't be more predictable that Hook was going to tell Belle that Rumple had tricked her by giving her the fake dagger the first opportunity he got. Not to mention that Rumple had killed Hook's previous love, Rumple's ex-wife. Hook had every reason in the book to get his revenge. How could Rumple be so smart in Season 1 and so stupid by Season 4A???
Unfortunately, we didn't even get to see any of that play out. The minute the Frozen characters are disposed of, Belle, who supposedly saw the goodness in Rumple, even when he exhibited his worst behavior in front of her eyes numerous times, and whom we last saw together for more than a minute during their romantic Beauty and the Beast honeymoon, suddenly barges up to Rumple with the REAL dagger, marches him to the town line, tells him what a complete jerk he is and that he never cared about anyone but himself (even though she has to know that's not true, but she's suddenly gone stupid as well!), and orders him out of Storybrooke forever, ignoring his tears and pleas to reconsider. No discussion, no chance for him to explain, not even marriage counseling with the friendly neighborhood psychiatrist (the depressingly under-utilized Archie/Jiminy Cricket/actor Raphael Sbarge) who performed their marriage ceremony!
The showrunners, Kitsis and Horowitz, recently explained that Belle has never been her own person before--despite other heroic acts we've seen her carry out on her own, including using her book-smarts, courage, and wits to help Sleeping Beauty reunite with her prince; reopening and running the town library; running Gold's Pawn Shop in his absence; not to mention agreeing to go with Rumplestiltskin in order to save her father's kingdom, being freed by him because he loved her enough to let go of her and deciding to return of her own free will and attempt to break his Dark One curse, thanks to information from Regina, using True Love's Kiss. She's already proven herself to be the independent, "strong woman" A&E say she isn't. The ability to see the good in people (which has now been bestowed upon Emma instead so that she can look past all of Hook's prior misdeeds, including physically injuring Belle and landing her in the hospital with amnesia of who she or Rumple were) is one of Belle's strengths and an integral part of her character! (Along with the intelligence she and Rumple used to share.) I identified with and admired Belle more than any of the other female characters, so I take it as a personal insult that Eddie Kitsis considers us to be weak women with no lives of our own unless we're ordering men out of our lives using sharp weapons imbued with strong magical powers. (Real women don't need magic daggers to be strong, thank you very much!)
Which begs the question: Rumple and Belle are married now. We've seen them kiss. If, as was stated many times in Season 1, and which was demonstrated to be true when Emma unexpectedly saved Henry's life and broke the curse that caused everyone to forget who they were with one kiss to his forehead while Regina was backing out of the room, True Love's Kiss can break any curse, why is Rumple still under the Dark One curse? (And if Regina really loved Henry, why didn't she kiss him and break the spell herself? She knew all about the power of True Love's Kiss, yet she chose not to use it because she cared more about keeping Storybrooke under the curse than Henry's life! But that's been forgiven and forgotten now too!)
Unless ... Rumple and Belle's love isn't true?
As of the most recent episode, supposedly six weeks after Rumple's now-wife (i.e., they have knowingly made a commitment to each other after knowing each other, even living together, for all these years for better or for WORSE!) banished him without any discussion about why he had done this sudden about-face following their honeymoon and, after saying it was because he was more in love with magic than with her, Belle has now turned around and started and/or threatened to use the magic she learned from Rumple on others, in addition to being seen kissing another man by her husband, under the guise of what Eddie Kitsis absurdly calls becoming a "strong woman."
I believe that Belle is no longer the same character who fell in love with and married Rumple with the full knowledge that he was a "monster," and, until I see some evidence that her out-of-character behavior is not by her own choice, it is my personal opinion that the writers have irreparably destroyed the trust and, therefore, the relationship between Rumple and Belle and that, as a result, he should move on instead of (pardon the pun) spinning his wheels. The whole "she loves me/she loves me not" thing between Snow and Charming was tedious in Season 1, and it's even more tedious watching it go on endlessly all over again with Rumple and Belle. In fact, if the writers want to use him as an evil villain, as so many current viewers of the show now perceive him to be according to the tweets I have read, I would like to see him let go of Belle (like he did in "Skin Deep" when he realized he was no good for her and sent her shopping fully expecting her never to return), along with the pain she has caused him, at least for a while until she comes to her senses (if she ever does) and embrace his evil side. I'd love to see him have some fun going over the top again like he did in Regina's dungeon in Season 1, and, at present, I think Kristin Bauer van Straten puts the right amount of attitude into her own fairytale-like interpretation of Maleficent and is up to the task of being a fun "partner in crime" with him and perhaps, while Belle is busy being a "strong woman," Rumple should explore his own options with Maleficent instead of continuing to make a fool of himself over the woman who banished him from her life without hesitation, supposedly forever, and immediately hit it off at the library with Will Scarlet before Season 4A even ended.
All of this inconsistency, as well as other statements they have made in interviews, has caused me to conclude that Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz do not care one whit about believable, well-paced character development (while character development is what Lost was all about!) and are only concerned with cramming as many fantasy characters and excitement into the show as possible. It's like they're saying, "This is our show, and we're going to do what we want because we're sick of all that character-development crap Darlton made us write. We've got ratings, so all those annoying cerebral viewers who want another Lost can go to hell." Or as Jane Espenson tweeted back to me this past Sunday, "Are people interested? Are they engaged? Are they going along for the journey? Yay!" I thought she was one of the good writers, but she's as bad as A&E. It doesn't matter to any of them that the viewers of this "family" show are "engaged" in bullying each other! In fact, the writers seem like bullies themselves to me since they seem to be enjoying fanning the flames of the Twitter and Tumblr fan wars.
Making the characters subservient to the plot like this is the very definition of melodrama and proves that ABC's so-called "writers of Lost" are incompetent and that ABC and Disney are using that phrase and A&E's past employment with a popular and iconic show solely for ratings and promotional purposes without regard to the integrity of the show or even their own brand. Whatever sells, yay!
Therefore, if my disdain for the way Rumplestitskin's character has gone from an intriguing, complex, and even tragic character to a mere plot device, played by an actor who is far and away the show's most valuable asset and does his best to knock every scene he's in out of the park despite the futility and total lack of respect for the audience's intelligence by the show's creators, writers, and producers, being cheated out of the Emmy and recognition he deserves (in fact, many fans have said Robert Carlyle is the only reason they are still watching OUAT and if he left, they would stop watching!) causes YOU to believe I am spreading "hate" towards Belle or Emilie de Ravin or any other actor or character on the show and/or I have followed you because you are a Robert Carlyle or Rumbelle fan, please do not get angry with me. Simply block me and/or tell me politely that you wish me to unfollow or block you, and I will do so so that you won't have to see any of my opinions again. People often follow me without asking me first; sometimes I follow others without asking them too. I didn't know it was bad etiquette to follow someone without permission or to reply to a tweet you thought the other person might agree with. Further, I may respond to comments that someone I'm replying to has been mentioned in. If I don't remove your Twitter address from my reply, either it's an oversight, or I thought you were part of the conversation and didn't want to leave you out. Your disagreement with my opinion doesn't mean I bear any malice towards you. So please leave any false assumptions and attacks at the Troll Bridge.
The bottom line is, Once Upon a Time is a fictional/fantasy TV show. The characters and stories on it are imaginary. The actors are real people, and I would never criticize them directly. There's no reason to criticize people who are just doing their jobs. ABC, on the other hand, cares about the show's ratings, and if it has good ratings, they obviously want the show to be renewed. I am a writer and fiction connoisseur who's taken writing classes and enjoys interesting and well-developed characters. [SPOILER:]Rumplestiltskin was once an intriguingly ambiguous character on the show--originally, according to his back story in Seasons 1 and 2, wanting only to do good and protect his family at all costs, even laming himself in the mistaken belief it would protect his son--only to be presumed to be and falsely labelled a coward because his father was one, including by his own self-centered wife Milah. Now it seems like his romantic history is repeating itself.[END OF SPOILER]
I express my opinions and constructive criticism on Twitter because (1) showrunners are always asking viewers what they think; (2) I want the show to succeed and perhaps even garner an Emmy like it showed the potential for in Season 1; and (3) I want Robert Carlyle, who is locked into a five-year contract on the show, to have the opportunity to portray and help develop the complex character of Rumplestiltskin that garnered him so much talk of an Emmy nomination in Season 1, particularly for my favorite episode, "Skin Deep," the popularity of which (at least among Robert Carlyle fans) I don't think has ever been matched. People even wish him a happy anniversary for that episode on Twitter, and it's clear that he appreciates it and is proud of that episode because when he thanks all the people who remembered, it is one of the very rare times that he tweets nowadays. I and many others believed that his lack of a nomination for Season 1 would be rectified in Season 2, but it wasn't and, at this rate, is unlikely to, which disappoints me very much. I'm disappointed in the writing, but I bear no hatred towards any of the show's actors, characters, crew, fans, or even the writers themselves. In the end, Once Upon a Time is entertainment, not anything serious enough to warrant such an extreme reaction as hatred. However, if I am falsely accused of "hating" and/or being attacked by the people I had previously believed to be my fellow "dearies" (otherwise, I wouldn't have followed you or mentioned you in a tweet), I may possibly lose my temper and react irrationally towards you, just like you probably would if I did it to you.
Thanks for understanding. I welcome friendship and discussion, even if we agree to disagree, with other "Dearies," Robert Carlyle fans, and other people who share my interests.
PS: Grr, I'm having trouble replying to comments and keep getting an error message. Sorry! Hope the problem will be fixed soon.