z-aliada reblogged your post and added: (under the cut because it got a bit long :) )
wierdogal, thank you for one more thought-provoking post! Yes, when Rogers mentioned that the Dark One doesn’t get cold, I was kind of torn between amusement and ‘aww’ :D His 'wallowing’ line was rather harsh but I do understand where it comes from - and you pretty much nailed it. His partner never gives up indeed. His partner. This is making me emotional again, and I don’t mind at all :D
As much as delighted I was to hear that ‘friend’ line (yeah, I know it sounded soppy and stuff but I love it anyway), the implication in it left me a bit confused as well. Like, to which moment exactly does it refer? Because Rumple didn’t look in any way *murderous* when he ran into Wish Hook near Alice’s cottage. Desperate? Yes. Resigned? Yes. Annoyed with Hook interfering? Yes. But I don’t believe he could harm him. The reason for that, though, is more difficult to explain. We just weren’t given enough material to work with. What do we know?
1. Rumple and Wish Hook had exact same history as Rumple and original Killian, the only difference is that the curse wasn’t cast. Given that they’ve lived for a couple of centuries up to this point, I can imagine that Rumple could’ve called WH ‘his oldest friend’ as he did original Killian in s4. So this part of their relationship definitely stays - the part where they hate each other, and yet acknowledge the significance of their past, its impact on their lives, and the fact that their fates are forever interwined (more about that further)
2. Alice. Now they don’t just have a history together - which is definitely stuff of legend, but in no way suggests them becoming fast friends in the near future - thanks to Alice, they got a renewed history, the opportunity to start over with their changed selves. In other words, it was only possible because they changed, BUT this change alone would not have been enough because they just wouldn’t have seen it in one another if it weren’t for Alice who gave both of them unconditional affection and proved to them that they could indeed remain their better versions.
Afterwards, up to the casting of the curse, we don’t have much to work with. We don’t know anything except that Killian came to Rumple for help to prevent the curse from happening and got a white elephant. It may not seem very eloquent - at least in terms of Rumple/Killian relationship because as Rumple says, he’s doing it for Alice. BUT we do have this moment where Killian seriously suggests that Rumple could’ve done it for him (’Are you doing it for me? - I’m doing it for her’). I don’t imagine Killian asking this question if he thought it impossible (like, he could’ve absolutely asked ‘Why are you doing it’ instead) Rumple’s answer isn’t so self-explanatory, etiher. Yes, he does say that Alice is the main reason why he’s doing it (which of course makes sense), but he could’ve potentially said something like ‘No. I’m doing it for her.’ He hadn’t - and it tells us much. At this point, I imagine he mostly thinks of Killian as Alice’s father, someone she loves and someone who can make her happy. And it’s a great start which got a spectacular extension in their cursed version when they were finally able to form their relationship from scratch, to basically follow through that intiial ‘push’ Alice had given them. Their first cursed meeting is very symbolic in that sense. They don’t meet through Tilly. This time it’s Rumple who brings Killian and Alice together. Positions are reversed, and it’s the most beautiful thing ever because it made Rumple painfully aware of the ‘why’ of his initial actions towards Alice. I mean, of course he knew why he did it in the first place, but seeing the results of it, witnessing this touching story, experiencing their uncertainty and pain, helping them to get closer - and all of this while bonding with Killian as his partner who respects and admires him. I have not the words to describe how amazing that is.
It got quite long, but the main point is, I do think that this ‘friend’ line refers to their old history and Rumple’s reluctance to kill Killian because:
1. They had known each other from the beginning and had shaped each other’s life in many ways. This argument is kind of dubious, but I’ll try to expand on it further.
2. Rumple wasn’t feeling particularly threatened by Hook. However, even from that perspective, Hook who can cause trouble (but isn’t capable of anything serious) isn’t much fun, either - I mean, why bother with the possibility of an impending trouble if you can get rid of its source once and for all? Even more so that it’s never been a problem for Rumple who ‘doesn’t like leaving things to chance’ (as he himself once says).
The only explanation I can come up with is that he acknowledges Hook’s right to revenge (we had a similar situation with original Hook in s5 when Rumple does something that endangers the lives of others and responds with ‘acknowledged’ to Hook’s ‘I should kill you.’). Rumple acknowledges the impact of what he’d done. He acknowledges that he’d created himself a mortal enemy, and that very act was one of those permanent things that sealed his fate as the Dark One (while their first meeting, when Rumple was begging to give him his wife back, was the beginning of him becoming the Dark One). I imagine, just remembering all of it evokes *a lot* of emotion.
So it’s not about Rumple being particularly nostalgic. For one, what is there to be nostalgic about? It’s not like it’d been some great adventure (well, in a way it was - psychologially, but considering the amount of emotional pain Rumple must have suffered, I don’t think it was the first thing on his mind). It’s about Rumple entering the greatest stage of self-discovery which basically showed him who he could be. It showed him that he could fight back and punish someone who caused him pain. By his account, the slate is clean. He took his revenge on the pirate, and what that pirate wants now is not his concern. And yet, he of course realizes that Hook has other views on the matter (as bascially do most people he crosses as the Dark One). Hook was the first, though. He was the evidence of what Rumple turned himself into. He was the evidence of Rumple taking the power for the first time in his life. He was the evidence of Rumple’s ability to do the hurting (instead of hurting himself). And that… that must have felt huge. At the same time, this very ablity, this very transformation from ‘weak’ to ‘strong’ was the thing that caused him the biggest pain - and Hook was the evidence to that as well.
Hook knew both versions of Rumple - ‘a good man who was trying to protect his son’ and ‘the Crocodile’ Most people only knew the mask Rumple was presenting to the world. if we put his every relationship into two categories, the simplified version of it would probably look like ‘the overflow of feelings’ and ‘no feelings at all’. Rumple/Hook dynamics definitely belonged to the first one, and seeing as most of Rumple’s relationship (not just encounters) always consisted of the never-ending balancing between ‘this is who I am and I’m proud of it’ and ‘I don’t know who I am’, it’d make sense for him to recognize his relationship with Hook as something that gave him that kind of substance, that moving force that at first turned him (a good man) into a static villain and then did the complete opposite at the end of his journey (well, not directly, but if we leave alone the technicalities the main meaning stays - Rumple did do it for Killian and Alice).
And also, now that I think of it, that ‘friend’ line coincides beautifully with Wish Hook’s initial offering of friendship. Back then, it was his initiative and Rumple just went along, but this line shows us that Rumple had also been thinking in those terms, and of course his relationship with Alice only intensified it and turned it from a rather abstract concept into a real one.
Oh yes, you noticed the 'our Rumple’ line as well! I haven’t seen anyone mentioning it yet! It made my heart melt - like, for real. I actually secretly wanted them to call one another by their given names but never thought it was going to happen. Well, it didn’t quite happen, but we got pretty close to it!
Any ship with Rumple is something to wacth, I agree! And Golden Hook was especially interesting due to the heavy intensity of it. Still, I don’t believe they could’ve developed this kind relationship Rumple developed with Wish Hook, even though I’d be very tempted to see that kind of dynamic.
At first I was very skeptical about the “friend” line also pertaining to Killian but you have me convinced!
I agree though that the material we have for both original Hook and Wish Hook interacting with Rumple is limited. Then again with so many characters, focus on a particular ship or a particular character is very limited in the show unless moving the story along.
Rogers and Weaver, Wish Hook and Rumple or whatever we may call it was again another highlight of S7.
