Warning: mentions of murder, a toxic relationship, and spoilers for Once Upon A Time
ABC’s Once Upon A Time is my favorite thing to ever exist. Not just my favorite TV show. My favorite thing ever.
I first watched this show when I was 10 years old, and my brain chemistry has never been the same since. I instantly fell in love with the fantasy elements, the cozy small town setting, and the fun characters. Naturally, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more aware of the show’s flaws. Every OUAT fan will tell you it has many: the atrocious CGI, the plot holes, the entire 7th season, etc. I find that the majority of these flaws (except the 7th season, which I pretend doesn’t exist) add to the show’s charm. Yet, there’s one recurring part of this show that gives me the ick every time it graces my screen: Rumbelle.
This controversial fan-favorite ship is between Rumplestiltskin, an immortal dark wizard called the Dark One or “Scaly Lizard Man,” and Princess Belle French. One day, a king calls to him for help defeating an invading enemy. In return, Rumplestiltskin asks for the king’s daughter, Belle, to live with him forever…as his maid? Why not just hire a maid? Or just magically clean it? Anyway, Belle accepts. Despite being forced to do all the chores in a massive castle by herself for zero pay and with zero time off, Belle claims that Rumplestiltskin is not so bad. Sure.
Despite the horrifying circumstances, the first season actually does do a good job of making you root for them. I still catch myself aww-ing while rewatching their early scenes together. It also helps that Emilie de Ravin and Robert Carlyle are both very charismatic actors that have great chemistry.
But, when you think about it, it’s not actually that dreamy for the 20-something-year-old to fall in love with her centuries-old-captor who, unbeknownst to Belle, murdered her former fiancé by turning him into a rose and giving it to her.
After their first kiss, he suspects her of trying to take away his power. So, like the gentleman that he is, he literally throws her into his dungeon for the night then kicks her out onto the street, leaving her alone and defenseless with no possessions, money, or a place to go. How romantic.
Decades later, when they are reunited, the first thing she does is proclaim her love to him. They get married, Belle wearing the fugliest outfit ever, and have a kid. Despite having “true love” or whatever, Belle and Rumplestilskin are on-again-off-again, even while married, throughout the entire show. At one point, their relationship is so strained that Belle gives her newborn baby to a fairy to take to another dimension (mind you, she has no clue which) just so that their kid is raised away from his evil wizard dad.
It’s the same conflict every time. Rumplestiltskin promises to become a better man, he does, but then he does something really f*cked up and Belle leaves him before the cycle starts over again. He’s a lot like Damon from The Vampire Diaries in the way that the writers want him to get a redemption arc but also want him to be the fun bad guy. Poor Belle must be getting whiplash from this man’s constantly changing character. I know I am.
It can be tempting to blame Belle for always going back to him, but we have to remember that she has been manipulated by this man time and time again. He plays with her feelings then plays in her face every time. Yet, for some reason, this is portrayed as “true love.”
It’s true love when he lies to her face about having his power back after supposedly being freed from the darkness. It’s true love when he wipes her memory so that she doesn’t remember a conversation they had that didn’t go his way. It’s even true love when he magically traps her on a boat so that she doesn’t run off with his kid and she almost ends up getting murdered by one of his enemies because of it. I can’t even name all times he kills someone or makes an evil plan that would hurt countless people, all while not giving a sh*t about how it affects his wife.
Despite all of this, Belle is praised for her fervent belief in the goodness of “the man behind the beast.” Their relationship is romanticized when it should be condemned. If a man constantly manipulates you and murders people, without ever truly changing, maybe we should encourage the audience to leave his ass instead of staying in a potentially dangerous situation.
When you look past the fairytale charm, you can see a fraught age-gap relationship with a very imbalanced power dynamic. Rumplestiltskin always finds comfort in Belle’s presence, but she seems to always be stressed by his. She sees it as her responsibility to stop him from doing violent heinous sh*t, but it is not. That is a centuries-old grown-ass man who can make his own decisions.
If there ever is a reboot of this show, I am begging the writers to axe the “happily ever after” of Rumbelle in the 7th season and instead have her living her best life, traveling the world as a divorcée. She deserves better than some grouchy old guy that jerks her around. And, maybe, seeing her thriving without him will inspire women in real life to drop the men that are weighing them down too.
Maybe have her end up with Ruby…Who said that?