Broken
So it took a little while for all my thoughts to figure themselves out in my head. And here they are!
Thoughts:
1. Very interesting that there is still a broken scrap of FTL left behind! I also like that the 'destroying this world to get to the next one' idea held up. The theory I read went: In The Stranger, right before the curse hit, the Blue Fairy mentioned that she and the other fairies had preparations to make. Perhaps they were able to protect the land Aurora was in, because they'd already sworn to protect her. Makes sense to me.
2. Adding to that, it seems the idea is that Maleficent did the same sleeping curse on Aurora's mother, which matches with ep 2 where Regina said Maleficent was about Snow's age when 'that sleeping beauty got the best of her', although it doesn't explain why Maleficent thought the curse wouldn't be broken THIS time.
3. I want Belle to get character development and I would like Rumbelle to be full of complicatedness and Belle needs to either be cool with some of his awful things or he needs to be forced to change because she's not putting up with that shit.
4. If the man in the beginning is Bae, who sent him the postcard? Couldn't be August; he is a puppet now (unless he's not anymore and they didn't show us for reasons of secrecy). Couldn't be Rumple, he doesn't know where Bae is (unless he wrote some sort of automated message into the curse that would draw Bae to the town or something regardless of where he is). The Blue Fairy? Jefferson? Have we seen anyone's handwriting? Heck, even if he's not Bae this point is valid. Who else could there be who knows about the curse? (Not that there are many reasons Bae should know about the curse... he'd require contact with August or someone else who knows anyway.) Does the book have an author?
5. Tonight we learned that Dr. Whale feels quite personally pissed off at Regina taking 'everything' from him, that he was not or did not consider himself a citizen of the George-Charming kingdom and probably not the Snow kingdom either (or, possibly, he's aware that Charming is not the real Prince James and/or is loyal to King George; let's just say that he does not consider himself under the authority of Charming), that the good guys don't seem to know who he is/was but Regina might, that he was willing to personally strangle Regina (and torture her? To death?) with his bare hands. He is definitely currently anti-Regina but he is also at least morally grey if not actually a black hat/wild card ala Jefferson. Oh, we also learned that he doesn't want people to know about his identity. That's HUGE (or it seems huge to me). It suggests that he is someone notorious or that he is ashamed of who he really is, and IMO is completely knocks Peter Pan out of the running. I could see an adultified Peter Pan being pissed at Regina and wanting to attack her. I could see him being upset/sad at the return of his memories. I could even see him getting dark enough to be perfectly happy murdering Regina with his bare hands, but I CANNOT see him hiding who he was. Once regaining his memory, Peter Pan-the Peter Pan I know-would never shut up about his identity. So unless something phenomenal happened to him between his story and the curse, he is NOT Peter Pan. (That, plus the old-timey doctor bag dude you can see with Regina in the promo has me utterly convinced he is Dr. Frankenstein. And Billy the mechanic is his Igor.)
6. Regina regained her magic after Emma touched her. Emma is kind of the living embodiment of True Love, carefully maneuvered into being by Rumple and the needs of his curse. In The Stable Boy, (and hinted at otherwise), Regina said that True Love is magic. Therefore, Emma creates magic because she is made of true love. It's also why she was able to free Graham with a kiss when it's not clear that they were actually in True Love (they probably weren't. They barely knew each other. Although I feel it could have been, if they had the chance, but yeah. I don't think Emma's kiss would have worked on anyone, but kissing him worked a lot better than it should have.)
7. I sincerely hope that they don't end up insisting that Captain Hook is from FTL. I hope they do it right, which should be along the lines of a. Neverland is another world like the real world and FTL, reachable via portals and things, b. Captain Hook came from the real world originally and was a notorious pirate. Actually, I just had an idea that would be even better: Captain Hook is like the Dread Pirate Roberts in that different guys take on the name and role over the years, because Peter Pan needs someone to fight. That would justify any changes to him starting with 'younger and hotter' and moving on up from there. ...or maybe the crocodile ate his wig :P.
8. Realized the flaw in my logic on the Mulan/Aurora thing: they never met before. And they certainly weren't falling in love there, so that idea's right out. Oh, well. My new hope for their storyline is that they are going for the notion that platonic bro love can be just as True as romantic and family love.
9. The deal with Belle, I believe, is that at the end of Skin Deep she figured Rumple's problem was that he couldn't believe anyone could love him. She probably figures that a. she let him chase her away, she should have tried to stay and prove she loved him, and b. now he wants her there and is uncursed and very clearly regrets what happened between them, that's a huge improvement, but c. she needs to prove to him that she loves him if there is any hope of helping him not be a monster anymore. Not saying it's not still kind of a messed-up relationship-Beauty and the Beast always is-but it's pretty logical, and he's never been particularly awful to her. The worst he has done to her is lock her away for a while (which, yes, is still abusive, but this is a guy who murdered his maid because she might have overheard something and murdered a guy on the street for being there when his son scraped his knee); he still set her free. I hope to see her spending time with other characters, though. (in my head it would be neat if she makes friends amongst the good guys but doesn't tell them who she's involved with. Complications!)
Actually, I read a very good analysis that is way better than mine:
"Also, regarding Rumbelle, Rumple made a good (though incredibly ill-conceived and head-bang worthy) point-- he hasn't changed, and why would he? Belle's death was just more proof that nothing good could last in his life because he allowed his fears to destroy all the things he loved. So, he retreated even further into the Rumple he was before. Belle's return changes the game because all of a sudden he has someone he's accountable to, someone who's shown that she loves him, but is also willing to leave him if he doesn't clean up his act.
On the flip side, I took Belle's coming back as her realizing the same thing: Rumple still thinks, and will continue to think that he's a monster because there's no one to tell him otherwise. She could walk out forever and let him spiral to his doom, or she could stay and hope that he'll realize he's been given a second chance that is both incredible and fragile, and whether or not it works out rests entirely on his shoulders. There will be rough patches and missteps to be sure-- we're talking about a guy who's been set in his ways for several centuries, after all-- but I don't think it's impossible for them to work things out if Rumple is willing to. And if he isn't, she will leave-- forever, this time, and never look back. Because Belle might be generous and hopeful, but she isn't dumb.
Edit #2: Heck, she'd have probably stayed away forever in FTL too if Regina hadn't captured her. I'm guessing all the time she had to think over the months (possibly years) she spent in Regina's custody made her decide that she'd give Rumple one last shot if they ever met again."
Ok, Simpsons is drowning out my thoughts now. More later maybe.
Thoughts:
1. Very interesting that there is still a broken scrap of FTL left behind! I also like that the 'destroying this world to get to the next one' idea held up. The theory I read went: In The Stranger, right before the curse hit, the Blue Fairy mentioned that she and the other fairies had preparations to make. Perhaps they were able to protect the land Aurora was in, because they'd already sworn to protect her. Makes sense to me.
2. Adding to that, it seems the idea is that Maleficent did the same sleeping curse on Aurora's mother, which matches with ep 2 where Regina said Maleficent was about Snow's age when 'that sleeping beauty got the best of her', although it doesn't explain why Maleficent thought the curse wouldn't be broken THIS time.
3. I want Belle to get character development and I would like Rumbelle to be full of complicatedness and Belle needs to either be cool with some of his awful things or he needs to be forced to change because she's not putting up with that shit.
4. If the man in the beginning is Bae, who sent him the postcard? Couldn't be August; he is a puppet now (unless he's not anymore and they didn't show us for reasons of secrecy). Couldn't be Rumple, he doesn't know where Bae is (unless he wrote some sort of automated message into the curse that would draw Bae to the town or something regardless of where he is). The Blue Fairy? Jefferson? Have we seen anyone's handwriting? Heck, even if he's not Bae this point is valid. Who else could there be who knows about the curse? (Not that there are many reasons Bae should know about the curse... he'd require contact with August or someone else who knows anyway.) Does the book have an author?
5. Tonight we learned that Dr. Whale feels quite personally pissed off at Regina taking 'everything' from him, that he was not or did not consider himself a citizen of the George-Charming kingdom and probably not the Snow kingdom either (or, possibly, he's aware that Charming is not the real Prince James and/or is loyal to King George; let's just say that he does not consider himself under the authority of Charming), that the good guys don't seem to know who he is/was but Regina might, that he was willing to personally strangle Regina (and torture her? To death?) with his bare hands. He is definitely currently anti-Regina but he is also at least morally grey if not actually a black hat/wild card ala Jefferson. Oh, we also learned that he doesn't want people to know about his identity. That's HUGE (or it seems huge to me). It suggests that he is someone notorious or that he is ashamed of who he really is, and IMO is completely knocks Peter Pan out of the running. I could see an adultified Peter Pan being pissed at Regina and wanting to attack her. I could see him being upset/sad at the return of his memories. I could even see him getting dark enough to be perfectly happy murdering Regina with his bare hands, but I CANNOT see him hiding who he was. Once regaining his memory, Peter Pan-the Peter Pan I know-would never shut up about his identity. So unless something phenomenal happened to him between his story and the curse, he is NOT Peter Pan. (That, plus the old-timey doctor bag dude you can see with Regina in the promo has me utterly convinced he is Dr. Frankenstein. And Billy the mechanic is his Igor.)
6. Regina regained her magic after Emma touched her. Emma is kind of the living embodiment of True Love, carefully maneuvered into being by Rumple and the needs of his curse. In The Stable Boy, (and hinted at otherwise), Regina said that True Love is magic. Therefore, Emma creates magic because she is made of true love. It's also why she was able to free Graham with a kiss when it's not clear that they were actually in True Love (they probably weren't. They barely knew each other. Although I feel it could have been, if they had the chance, but yeah. I don't think Emma's kiss would have worked on anyone, but kissing him worked a lot better than it should have.)
7. I sincerely hope that they don't end up insisting that Captain Hook is from FTL. I hope they do it right, which should be along the lines of a. Neverland is another world like the real world and FTL, reachable via portals and things, b. Captain Hook came from the real world originally and was a notorious pirate. Actually, I just had an idea that would be even better: Captain Hook is like the Dread Pirate Roberts in that different guys take on the name and role over the years, because Peter Pan needs someone to fight. That would justify any changes to him starting with 'younger and hotter' and moving on up from there. ...or maybe the crocodile ate his wig :P.
8. Realized the flaw in my logic on the Mulan/Aurora thing: they never met before. And they certainly weren't falling in love there, so that idea's right out. Oh, well. My new hope for their storyline is that they are going for the notion that platonic bro love can be just as True as romantic and family love.
9. The deal with Belle, I believe, is that at the end of Skin Deep she figured Rumple's problem was that he couldn't believe anyone could love him. She probably figures that a. she let him chase her away, she should have tried to stay and prove she loved him, and b. now he wants her there and is uncursed and very clearly regrets what happened between them, that's a huge improvement, but c. she needs to prove to him that she loves him if there is any hope of helping him not be a monster anymore. Not saying it's not still kind of a messed-up relationship-Beauty and the Beast always is-but it's pretty logical, and he's never been particularly awful to her. The worst he has done to her is lock her away for a while (which, yes, is still abusive, but this is a guy who murdered his maid because she might have overheard something and murdered a guy on the street for being there when his son scraped his knee); he still set her free. I hope to see her spending time with other characters, though. (in my head it would be neat if she makes friends amongst the good guys but doesn't tell them who she's involved with. Complications!)
Actually, I read a very good analysis that is way better than mine:
"Also, regarding Rumbelle, Rumple made a good (though incredibly ill-conceived and head-bang worthy) point-- he hasn't changed, and why would he? Belle's death was just more proof that nothing good could last in his life because he allowed his fears to destroy all the things he loved. So, he retreated even further into the Rumple he was before. Belle's return changes the game because all of a sudden he has someone he's accountable to, someone who's shown that she loves him, but is also willing to leave him if he doesn't clean up his act.
On the flip side, I took Belle's coming back as her realizing the same thing: Rumple still thinks, and will continue to think that he's a monster because there's no one to tell him otherwise. She could walk out forever and let him spiral to his doom, or she could stay and hope that he'll realize he's been given a second chance that is both incredible and fragile, and whether or not it works out rests entirely on his shoulders. There will be rough patches and missteps to be sure-- we're talking about a guy who's been set in his ways for several centuries, after all-- but I don't think it's impossible for them to work things out if Rumple is willing to. And if he isn't, she will leave-- forever, this time, and never look back. Because Belle might be generous and hopeful, but she isn't dumb.
Edit #2: Heck, she'd have probably stayed away forever in FTL too if Regina hadn't captured her. I'm guessing all the time she had to think over the months (possibly years) she spent in Regina's custody made her decide that she'd give Rumple one last shot if they ever met again."
Ok, Simpsons is drowning out my thoughts now. More later maybe.