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scribbles-by-kate · 8 years ago

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Thoughts on 6.8 “I’ll Be Your Mirror”

I really liked this episode. All the Swan Queen and Swan Mills family stuff was great, and I love Violet Believer as well. The RumBelle stuff was intense, with things coming to a tricky impasse between them. Definitely set up an even more angsty situation between them.

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Emma refusing to let Regina sacrifice herself to destroy the queen - I like how she says knowing Regina will be there for Henry is the only thing that’s making her ok with her own fate. I also like Regina turning that around on Emma later in the mirror world. I like them facing the Dragon together. This is a great episode for these two working together. My Swan Queen side was very happy with this.

The Snowing montage - aw, so sweet! You could really see the strain of being apart over a number of days, but also how they were trying to make it as good as they could for each other and baby Neal.

Trapping the queen - Regina, shouldn’t you have known that everything you think of, the queen thinks of? She is you! If you want to defeat her, you’re going to need someone else to do it. Of course she was going to turn the tables on you.

Henry’s fear about Violet no longer liking him - aw, poor Henry. I really liked Emma and Regina telling him to just be himself, though.

Using Henry as bait - I know he was ok with it, but I still felt this was kinda mean. I didn’t really like the way the queen was talking to him either, though.

The queen is not Henry’s mother - yes, Regina, she is. She’s part of you, so she’s also his mother. Sooner or later, they’re all going to have to accept the queen and want her to reunite her with Regina, and Regina’s going to have to be ok with that too. This situation can’t go on forever. The queen’s acting out in part because no one will accept her.

The queen pretending to be Regina - seriously, Hook, you couldn’t tell she used magic on Emma’s phone to create that message? And, OUCH, Snow! The queen is a monster? And she’s so glad Regina threw her away? Yeah, the queen was definitely hurt by that. Ok, she was cruel in what she did and she doesn’t know anything about love or empathy, though she wants both, but it’s obviously hard for her being rejected. She does need to realise she can’t hurt people, though: she can’t lash out like she is. No one will ever accept her if she keeps this up.

Belle going to Zelena - I understand this completely from Belle’s point of view. She finds the shop locked, something Rumple never did before, and her paranoia levels are now through the roof. She fears he’s after the baby because he’s given her no reason to think otherwise, and she reacts. Nobody should be going to Zelena for help, but, on a practical level, the way she explained it to her, I get it. Zelena did tell her about Rumple’s shears plan, whether accurate on his intentions or not; she also does know what it’s like to be hurt by someone she loves, and she can open portals with ease, so, yeah, Z’s a good choice for Belle’s requirements. Also, she knows how to appeal to the tiny flicker of humanity in Zelena. She can be deviously manipulative when she wants to be, can our Belle. I’m also firmly of the opinion that she’s being driven by what she believes is best for her son. She tells Z she doesn’t want her son to go through being let down by Rumple, which I accept. She’s all about her son. As for calling Rumple ‘Gold’, she’d definitely do that if she wanted to maintain emotional distance from him, which she does, here. She’s already tearing up when she talks about being hurt by people who let us down, and she doesn’t want to break down in front of Zelena. I also think saying she and Z are somewhat alike is ok. She’s not saying let’s be besties: she’s saying I understand what you feel - she’s manipulating her because she can. Z allows it because she knows it will piss off Rumple and because it’ll get her the Sorcerer’s wand back, or so she thinks.

Belle being a demanding mama bear - for a character who’s so often used by other people, it makes a refreshing and welcome change to see Belle being demanding of people and not apologising for it. Yes, she manipulates Zelena, and she lets Zelena rip Aladdin for giving the shears to Emma and allowing Rumple to get his hands on them. No, it’s not technically Aladdin’s fault that Rumple now has them, but actions have consequences, and Belle’s not above eliciting sympathy for herself and her child. And, the thing is, before anyone says she was a bitch to Aladdin, he does as she asks because he’s a nice guy. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with her being demanding, so why should anyone else? People have taken advantage of Belle for years. Now, when she’s worried for her son, I have no problem with her being tough to get what she wants. I know she’d help Aladdin if it were in her power to because she’s also a good person, and no one would have to persuade her to help the way Aladdin kinda has to be persuaded here.

The queen offering to pretend to be Regina - she really wants Rumple’s affection. Eek, and he’s not even interested. So, she walked into his shop two episodes ago with the intention of initiating a power play, I think, but, yeah, she’s massively underestimated him. He’s definitely turned the tables on her because he’s now the one playing her. He doesn’t want her, not the way she wants him. I wonder when she’ll figure that out. Shouldn’t she know by now that he can manipulate her? How can she think this will end well for her?

Love is weakness, but it can also be a weapon - interesting that it’s Rumple who says love is weakness and to remember her mother’s message. Then the queen says it’s a weapon. Yes, Queenie, a weapon he’s using against you, and you can’t see it.

Of course Henry was going to figure it out - he’s a smart kid, Queenie, did you really think he wouldn’t get it? I love him talking to Violet and getting her to play along. Why can’t the queen see it, though? Is she just that desperate for affection that she’s accepting Henry’s words at face value? It must be that because she’s much smarter than this.

The battle in Regina’s soul was supposed to stay there - thank you, Dragon! Jeez, I said that at the end of season five! She made a huge mistake setting the queen free.

Balancing the dark and the light - again, thank you, Dragon! That’s what needs to happen for all the characters. They need to accept that they have flaws and find a way not to let them rule them. Are you listening, Rumple? This applies especially to you. You need to find balance, pal, and stop giving in to the Darkness, stop going the easy route, because if you keep this up, you really will lose everything, again.

Who was the Dragon’s daughter? - Ooh, I’m so intrigued. Is it Lily? If it’s Lily, they definitely haven’t got the race right. Maybe it’s Mulan, though: that would work better and I want to see Mulan again.

The queen is not really evil, but a leader - well, she has done some pretty evil things too… And she can’t blame Rumple for all of them because he may have manipulated her, but the choice to stop was always hers, always. She could have said enough any time and didn’t, and I think a lot of why she didn’t stop was to do with Snow’s attitude to her. Snow saw her as a monster, so she kept acting like one. I do think the queen has very good leadership qualities, though. She’s certainly the decisive, determined side of Regina, but all those good qualities are hidden under her twisted cruelty.

Wanting to darken Henry’s heart so he’ll understand - oh, no, this is a perfect example of how the queen doesn’t understand love. This is so twisted, and I love how conflicted Henry is for a while. Does he darken his heart to save his moms? If he doesn’t, he’ll never see them again. I love how he says ‘If you are my mom, please don’t make me do this’. He’s so anguished and in pain. It’s a great scene. And I love that he finds a third way. Ok, he probably doesn’t know that smashing the mirror will work in tandem with the dragon fire, and he probably only smashes the mirror out of desperation and denial, but I love that he doesn’t do what the queen wants. I love that he gets Emma and Regina back, but did the Dragon come through as well? I didn’t actually see him, but hopefully he did. And I hope Henry gets his heart back to him.

‘Family makes you stronger than you’ll ever be alone’ - it kinda felt like that was Henry offering an olive branch to the queen. Like, if she comes and says she wants to be a family, and stops trying to hurt people, he’ll let her in his life. I think Emma would too. I don’t know about Snow. I think that’d take more work, and maybe for Regina too, but the queen wanting to change her ways has to be the first step. This show has always gone the route of if you stop doing bad and start doing good, you’re allowed to be part of the family. The queen needs to realise that, and so does Rumple.

The queen wants what’s best for him - but she doesn’t know what that is. Regina and Emma do, but the queen doesn’t, because she has some twisted notion of love.

Aladdin, Jasmine, and the lamp - well, that lamp is going to come back to bite everyone, I’m sure, but I did love that shout out to Robin Williams. ‘My old pal’s moved on… He’s free now.’ Aw *sniff* I liked Jasmine praising him for helping Belle too.

Belle wanting to get to the Enchanted Forest - ok, sweetie, you didn’t really think this through, did you? This is what I mean about Belle being intelligent smart, but not emotionally smart. Like, it’s not as if Rumple couldn’t have done a locator spell, taken the wand back from Zelena, and then created a portal to go after Belle. This wasn’t a good plan. This was a desperate plan concocted in a hurry. Who knows, maybe she even wanted Rumple to follow her. Also, yes, Belle is acting somewhat the hypocrite and the coward herself here. Heroes don’t run, Belle, remember? Although, in Belle’s defence, I will say that she isn’t thinking of heroism here: she’s thinking as a mother. This is a different situation. She’s not thinking about protecting the town from Dark One Emma, she’s thinking of protecting her son from being hurt by his father. There’s a big difference in the situations here, which can’t be overlooked just because we’re annoyed with Belle.

The magical GPS cuff - *sigh* Rumple, this is a dick move. Come on, pal, you can’t do this and call it love. In fact, Belle calls him out on it with her ‘You call this love?’ comment. This is a shitty thing to do. On the whole, I will say it’s marginally less shitty than trapping her on the ship like a sitting duck because she can at least hide from danger with the cuff on, but you being able to find her wherever she goes isn’t conducive to winning back her trust. Does he even want her to trust him any more? Is he so far gone that he can’t see how badly his behaviour has diminished any remaining good will she may have had towards him? I don’t believe that she’s afraid of him or that she fears he would hurt her physically, because if she was afraid, she wouldn’t stand up to him: she’d run away once he appeared in the room, and she certainly wouldn’t let him close enough to put that cuff on her, but he’s definitely not doing himself any favours with her at all with the way he’s behaving. Now, it is possible that he’s using the cuff as a way to make sure someone can’t take her away and hide her from him, like Regina did all those years ago, but, again, if he has a good reason for what he’s doing, his wife, True Love, and mother of his child deserves to know. He has no right keeping her in the dark if she’s in danger or if he has an actual reasonable reason for doing what he’s doing.

Threatening to stop him ever seeing their child - that’s Belle reacting to the cuff, and Rumple calling her ‘dearie’ is him reacting to her reaction. They are both hurt and angry and bitter, and throwing mean words at each other because they’re hurt and frustrated. I do think Rumple’s scared and I think Belle just doesn’t know what to do about his dark behaviour. They just aren’t seeing eye to eye at all and they’re in a terrible, awful place. They’re being mean to each other. Both of them are harsh here, but I do still believe they can come back from this. Neither one has turned the other into something they don’t want to be and neither one has threatened the other’s family. We’re not at those levels of awfulness, not yet. Yes, Rumple is disrespecting Belle’s agency and Belle is threatening Rumple’s access to their son, but we’re not at the level of crappiness a certain other ship descended to last season. If we ever get there, then, yeah, I don’t think they should come back from it, but we’re not there yet, and I still think there’s hope to fix this. The other good thing is that Belle is still a strong woman who’s refusing to accept his bad behaviour just because she loves him. He’ll need to show her that he really can be better before they can even begin to take steps to get back together. We’re not at CS levels of squickiness or Stepford Emma levels of excusing his bad behaviour, thankfully.

Zelena’s taunt - oh, Zelena, shut up! No one asked for your input. And, of course, this is the first time Belle is hearing about what happened in New York. Does Rumple ever tell her anything? I do like how Belle didn’t give a crap about him choking Zelena, but she did care about his heart attack. And she gave Zelena a very nasty look when she talked about New York. And at this moment, when Belle might be concerned enough about Rumple to be open to listening to him, he’s talking about loopholes and poofing away to plot revenge on Zelena *sigh*

They’ve already raised Henry - aw, Swan Queen are tops at motherhood :) Yeah, Henry’s a good kid. And I love Henry and Violet dancing together in Granny’s.

Rumple and the queen - oh, Queenie, why aren’t the alarm bells ringing? Or are they and you’re just ignoring them? Seriously, when someone tells you to do something bad and says then they they’ll give you something you want, it should be a big red flag that they don’t really care about you. He’s just using her to get Zelena killed. I wonder if this was always his plan or if he just came to it when he realised she felt something for him/wanted his affection. I don’t know, but he’s definitely turned the tables on her now. She got in way over her head with him. He did say he’s not fond of forgiveness and I wonder if he was referring to Zelena AND her in that. He’s definitely setting her up for a fall, and part of me wonders if he’s trying to teach her a lesson about how far she should go. That would be something he would do: he’s done it with her before, after all. Will she be strong enough to resist this time? It’s her choice at the end of the day. He isn’t forcing her, though holding himself up as a reward is further than he’s ever gone in his manipulation of her. Deep down, though, she should know he’s not serious about being with her. She does look shocked when she hears what he wants from her, but is she going to do it in hopes he actually means what he says? It is her choice anyway. It’ll be interesting to see whether she’s strong enough to resist or not. Does love for her sister mean more than her desire for love from Rumple?

#ouat #scribbles-by-kate's episode reviews #6.8 i'll be your mirror #rumbelle #anti-captain swan

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scribbles-by-kate · 8 years ago

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RumBelle: a chain reaction of bad reactions

There are some excellent theories doing the rounds to explain Rumple and Belle’s behaviour. There certainly could be some magical explanation for his bizarre behaviour and her need to ‘protect’ the baby from him. It’s also possible, however, that there is no magical explanation, that what we’re seeing is the result of their recent experiences with each other.

In the premiere, Belle was reacting to him being the Dark One again, the contract on their baby, the general upset that went on in the Underworld, and, likely, all the ups and downs from the end of season three. She was unaware of her father refusing to wake her, Hyde taking her as a result of Snow telling him of her and her pregnancy, or Rumple’s attempts to find her and wake her. She remains unaware of those things, and this lack of awareness also influences her current behaviour. Personally, I find it illogical to be angry with her for things she is unaware of. What sealed the deal for her with regard to keeping herself apart from Rumple was ‘Morpheus’’ warning not to let him destroy them. She told Rumple she was going to listen to ‘our son’. Whether that truly was their son has not been confirmed in canon as yet, but Belle believes it was, and this is also influencing her current behaviour: she is intent on their son’s welfare over everything else and believes it’s her duty to keep him from being hurt by his father, while also expressing that she would like father and son to have a good relationship.

Episode four was where tensions really began to heighten, and where we really began to see their reactions to each other worsen the resulting behaviour from both of them. Rumple showed up unannounced on the ship and Belle got defensive, stating that the only one they needed protecting from was him. That was certainly harsh, but can be read as Belle putting up a front against her feelings for him (we saw her obviously missing him in the lullaby scene and Belle does tend to get defensive to try to hide her feelings - the well scene, for example). When she asked Rumple what he’d done to Hyde, his refusal to explain made her angry - yet another secret kept from her: yet another refusal to do the one thing she’s always wanted from him - let her in. She lashed out, saying she had friends who could protect her - indicating Hook - so he could leave. His response to that was somewhat vindictive: he trapped her on the ship. Undoubtedly, he was hurt by her preferring Hook’s - his enemy’s - protection to his. She reacted badly to yet another secret and he reacted badly to her preferring his enemy as a protector.

His attempt to protect her and the baby backfiring badly created yet more tension between them. She claimed to not need his protection because it always cost her, while he reminded her of the fact that the Dark One’s child will always be a target. Neither of them was wrong. His protection did almost get her killed and there will always be someone who wants to hurt their son because of who his father is. The very real danger in which Belle and the baby had been put because of Rumple’s misfired attempt to protect them created a much deeper rift between them. They reacted to each other based on their fear and anger over what happened on the ship. They both said harsh things, issuing threats and withholding love.

By episode seven, we learned that Rumple was voluntarily working with and romantically involved with the Evil Queen. Undoubtedly, that information influenced Belle’s behaviour. She revealed that Zelena had told her about him and the queen and about the shears. All we saw of Zelena’s knowledge of the shears was the Evil Queen saying she’d made a deal to give them to Rumple in exchange for his help with getting Snow’s heart. We don’t know what else Zelena knew for sure or what she surmised or what she made up, but we do know that Belle believed that Rumple intended to use the shears on their son to keep him from hating him. She took Zelena’s word for it, rightly or wrongly. The fact that Rumple didn’t contradict her and looked like he’d been found out indicates that he had planned to use the shears on the baby for some purpose, but it’s not clear whether it was to keep him from hating him or for some other reason that’s yet to be revealed. If he has another idea for their use other than what Belle believes, he hasn’t revealed it yet, and, again, I don’t think Belle can be blamed for what she doesn’t know: we know more than she does. If he had a good reason, I have to question why he didn’t tell Belle. She was reacting to what she’d been led to believe, without any contradiction or explanation from Rumple. There may yet be a good reason why he kept his silence on the matter, but until we get that, I see Belle’s fearful and mistrusting behaviour as understandable.

Rumple locking up the shop and spending days holed up there added to Belle’s fear and mistrust. He had never locked the shop before (the shop wasn’t locked when she showed up at the end of season four, despite them filming a scene where her key didn’t work). In the past, she’d always been able to go to the shop to speak to/confront him, but now we saw him deliberately shutting her out. Not only that, but he hadn’t even left. What conclusion could she come to other than he was planning something? Normally, she would confront him, as I said, but locking the shop was the equivalent of cutting off the lines of communication he’d always previously left open. Given that he was working with the queen and the information about the shears, it’s not unreasonable that she feared he was planning something to do with the baby, and it’s not unreasonable that she might have feared he was planning to take him from her. We don’t know whether her fears were well founded or not, but given that he appeared with the tracking cuff and knew she was planning to escape, it appears she was right to have some suspicion about him, though we can’t say he planned to take the baby. Her desire to flee to the Enchanted Forest may have been an overreaction on her part, but given who he was keeping company with and given that he didn’t contradict her about the shears, I can see why she wanted to get away, though I’m not saying I condone it. Again, Belle was reacting in a way that made sense to her given what she felt she knew or had been led to believe. I don’t say that Belle’s actions are rational or correct: I’m just trying to get into her mindset. And, again, she doesn’t know as much as we do about the lengths Rumple has gone to to rescue her, and, again, that’s not something she should be blamed for, though, like most people, I want her to find out.

With regard to her escape plan and his magical GPS plan, we don’t know which action came first, whether he’d been working on the cuff all that time he was in the shop or whether he only started work on it when he realised the Sorcerer’s wand was missing, but we do know he was spinning from earlier that day at least. He was possibly spinning during the entire time the shop was locked. He was possibly working on the magic for the cuff before Belle went to Zelena. We simply don’t know which came first. We do know that Belle reacted to him locking up the shop and he appeared with a way to track her movements just in the nick of time. Again, Belle reacted to his secrecy and her perception that he was ‘after my baby’, and he reacted to her attempt to take the baby away. Calling her dearie and reminding her that Rumplestiltskin takes babies was certainly part of his reaction to her behaviour - a reaction based on anger rather than one he meant, I think. Neither of them is behaving very well. Much of the problem with all of this is lack of communication, as usual with these two. He’s not explaining what he’s doing, so she’s reacting, which is making him react badly. It’s a chain reaction of bad reactions.

With regard to fact that Belle is trusting others to help her rather than Rumple, I refuse to be angry with her. From her point of view, from what she’s seeing and hearing, she can’t trust Rumple. I’m not saying she’s right to trust Zelena, but Zelena can open portals, which was what Belle wanted. She’s never seen Regina open a portal, remember, though we, the audience, know she did once. Of course, Belle could have sought help from the fairies, but her response to why Zelena should help - you told me about the shears, we both know what it’s like to love someone who hurts us, you can open portals - is acceptable to me. Zelena is convenient and she knows how to convince her. She was manipulating her. The attempt to run away can certainly be criticised, but fearful people don’t do rational things. Is she being a hypocrite and a coward by running away? Yes. Is she supposed to be perfect and always react well? No. Belle was using people in this episode to get what she wanted - protection for her son - and for a character who is so often used by other people, it makes a welcome change to see her making demands of her own and not apologising for them.

As for Rumple’s involvement with the Evil Queen, his desire to kill Zelena, and his decision to track Belle’s whereabouts, there’s a lot at play in his behaviour, and much of it is reactions to Belle, but not all. Getting involved with the Evil Queen probably comes from a feeling that Belle no longer loves him. She told him threats wouldn’t make her love him again: harsh words spoken after a traumatic experience, but words he appeared to take to heart. His dalliance with the Evil Queen is almost certainly related to her suggestion that he’d want someone who accepted him for who he was - dark. He was lonely and wallowing in darkness. He’s been wallowing in darkness and denying he can be better since “Devil’s Due”. We also saw that he’s using the queen’s affection/desire for him to get what he wants: Zelena killed. Going after Zelena is likely related to her murder of his first son and what he perceives as her coming between him and Belle and him and his second child. We can question why he’s not turning his energy towards trying to reconcile with Belle, but that’s a question only Rumple can answer. He appears to want Zelena dead more than he wants to mend things with Belle, and the why of that is something that will hopefully be explained. His renewed animosity towards Zelena is certainly driving him right now, so hopefully there’s an explanation coming.

Trapping Belle on the ship and putting the magical tracker on her are actions that Rumple has never stooped to before, and they are, to my mind, misguided and extreme. Instead of trying to talk to her and win back her trust, he’s using magical means to keep her where he wants her. Trapping her on the ship backfired and almost got her and the baby killed, so it’s unclear why he would use magical means to track her movements when magic backfired before, and all it’s doing now is making her question his love - ‘You call this love?’ - and trust him even less. His actions come across as unloving, despite what he says. His actions are making her mistrust him even more, and I’m not clear on why he can’t see he’s courting her mistrust and making her want to run and keep their baby from him. I also think the magical tracker is extreme since he’d be clever enough to figure out where she’d gone or at least do a locator spell, get the wand back from Zelena, and go after Belle. With the wand, he too can make portals easily, so it wouldn’t be impossible to find her. He overreacted to Belle’s fear instead of trying to soothe it. Again, it’s a case of lack of communication followed by bad reaction followed by bad reaction followed by worse reaction. Both of these two idiots are at fault in this: they’re both reacting badly out of fear and anger.

If there is no magical explanation - such as Belle/the baby being possessed by the Darkness and/or Rumple being overpowered by the Darkness, or some other magical explanation, then what we’re seeing from each of them reactions and behaviour-wise is enough for me to understand how they’ve gotten to this broken and mistrustful and uncommunicative place. They’re in a shitty place, but I get why and I’m not going to blame either one of them without the show giving me a clear reason to. Right now, I see both of them as making mistakes. Canon seems to be indicating that both of them are wrong, so I see no sense in the Rumple Versus Belle factions: this is on both of them. What remains to be seen is how they get past this, because I know they can.

#rumbelle #belle french #rumplestiltskin #6.8 i'll be your mirror #rumbelle meta

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