Category Archives: Uncategorized

Behind Every Story is a Kernel of Truth

The desire to own a part of history is probably as old as man himself. Reality television is replete with shows—Canadian/American Pickers, Pawn Stars, American Restoration and the like—that attest to this. The Victorians were obsessed with all things Egyptian. It wasn’t uncommon for the wealthy to purchase and display mummies in their own homes or host mummy unwrapping parties (History), the craze for which continues and was documented in the short-lived television series Treasure Trader. Anything ancient, it seems, is worth collecting, even fossilized dinosaur feces, which was recently sold at auction on Auction Kings (discovery).

The problem with procuring artifacts such as these (though technically, the dinosaur poop cannot be called an artifact as it was not manufactured or modified by people—unless you call the turning of the fossil into a commodity a modification) is that it is regulated. There are laws in place regarding who may legally excavate these materials. And make no mistake about it, picking an artifact up from the ground knowing it is from a potential archaeological (or paleontological) site is considered excavation, even if it the item lay on the surface when you found it.

I can remember in the early days of the Internet finding a bottle collector’s website. Though he posted some amazing diagnostic tools, his site read, primarily, like a how-to for bottle hunters. As a practicing archaeologist, I engaged the man in a digital debate that I had no expectation of winning. Though I tried to educate him on the evil of his way, the man relied on his pot hunting to make a living. One has to look no further than SpikeTV’s American Digger to see how to do this for a living.

I was an archaeologist for about a decade of my life, and though I can say that in those ten years I never worked on a site that had been vandalized, I was sickened at the stories I heard from my colleagues. Most of my work was on public archaeological sites. This meant the sites were open to the public with the intent to educate them on the importance of the archaeological record. Unfortunately, most people didn’t get the lesson we were trying to teach. In PHASE SHIFT, the main character, archaeologist and university professor Molly McBride laments,

On archaeological sites someone always comes around and asks if you’ve found any gold yet.  It’s inevitable.  Tell me something, I’ve always been dying to say, when you move house how much gold do you leave behind?  Instead I smile, and try to educate them on the fact that archaeology is not about the money.  What’s more valuable is the information artifacts give us about what went on while the site was occupied all those years ago, regardless of their material of manufacture. 

An observation that’s altogether too true. When I worked on The Trinity Bellwoods/Gore Vale Site in downtown Toronto, almost once a day someone would come by and ask if I’d found anything valuable yet. My own grandfather used to tease me about this each and every time he saw me, something which exasperated me to no end. In case you’re wondering, I never did find any gold and any of the coins I found were too old and too damaged to have been worth much of anything.

The nugget for this blog was mined from an article published on the LiveScience website about a fossil dealer who was prosecuted for smuggling dinosaur remains. The article reminded me of the stories I’d heard regarding plundered Ontario archaeological sites and how powerless archaeologists felt to do anything about it but to hire round-the-clock security guards on an already stretched budget (something Molly does to protect the TTC site in the as yet unpublished THE NEXT COMING RACE). Prosecuting looters is a difficult task as it is tough to prove in court as it often happens under the cover of night and without witness. In 1985 the July/August issue of ArchNotes carried an article by William A. Fox documenting the first case of the successful prosecution of looters to a site, but that case involved witnesses and police involvement. Had the looting been carried out by a stranger rather than a neighbour of the property owner, the case might have ended differently.

When I read the LiveScience article, I thought of the first chapter of THE NEXT COMING RACE, the book to follow the recently published PHASE SHIFT.   In it, protagonist Dr. Molly McBride enlists local archaeologists to participate in cyber-stalking to determine when local bands of pot-hunters will loot abandoned sites in order to conduct raids to scare them off in an attempt to protect the archaeological record. As this is the first chapter in the novel, it sets into motion the main plot and the threads of two sub-plots that (I promise) eventually come together and make sense in the long run. The main plot supposes an archaeological site is found during the excavation for expansion of Toronto’s subway system. The sub-plots are the raids on the looters and Palmer’s involvement in a case of forensics with the police department. Please click on the link to read, and enjoy.

If you like Molly and Palmer, you can download PHASE SHIFT, my first published novel featuring these characters from my web site, eliseabram.com, for the price of a Facebook post or tweet. Molly and Palmer are also featured in two novellas available at KoboBooks.com or Amazon.com entitled THE MUMMY WORE COMBAT BOOTS (largely about Palmer and DC Michael Crestwood), and THROWAWAY CHILD(featuring Molly, Palmer and Michael). Happy reading.

Note for Once Upon A Time fans: I cast my characters when I write in order to help me imagine the scene as well as to keep my character descriptions consistent throughout a work. As you read this chapter from THE NEXT COMING RACE, try to imagine OUAT‘s Robert Carlyle in the role of Dr. Palmer Richardson and (not an OUAT alumni, but he played Lois Lane’s father on Smallville and has been a favourite Canadian actor of mine since the first V series) Michael Ironside in the role of DC Michael Crestwood.

Works Cited

Discovery. Auction Kings: Dino Poo. 2012. <http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/auction-kings/videos/dino-poo.htm&gt;. 30 December 2012. (Video)

Fox, William A. The Freelton/Misner Site Looting and Prosecution. ArchNotes. July/August 1985. <http://www.ontarioarchaeology.on.ca/publications/AN/an85-4.pdf&gt;. 30 December 2012. (Newsletter)

History. Mummy Unwrapping Parties. 1996-2012. <http://www.history.com/videos/mummies-mummy-unwrapping-parties#mummies-mummy-unwrapping-parties&gt;. 30 December 2012. (Video)

Parry, Wynne. Dealer Pleads Guilty to Smuggling in Largest International Dino Case Ever. LiveScience. 29 December 2012. <http://www.livescience.com/25879-dealer-pleads-guilty-tarbosaur-smuggling.html&gt;. 30 December 2012. (eZine)

A Fan is an Enthusiastic Devotee…

Xmas Rumpy and BelleWhen I was younger I was, admittedly, a fan girl. I can remember having more than 200 pictures of Gregory Harrison posted on my bedroom walls when I was twelve. As a teenager, it was Simon LeBon of Duran Duran. I’ve seen them in concert a total of four times and own every album they’ve ever recorded. Ditto The Human League. But those were the days before the advent of The Internet, when the only fans you connected with were your friends or the people in the audience. Though we argued over whether Simon was hotter than Roger or Nick, there was no debating our love for the music.

I’m also a Star Trek fan. I collect memorabilia, everything from action figures to decorative plates. I’ve watched every television episode and movie multiple times and connected with actors and other “Trekkers” at conventions. We disagree over which Trek is best, which captain is most commanding and whether Romulans or Klingons have the ability to kick the most Federation butt, but the atmosphere at these gatherings is congenial.

My first foray into online fandom occured nearly ten years ago now I joined Nick Mancuso’s Yahoo group, which ultimately led to my meeting the actor, an experience which I will never forget. While I was active in the group, I was surprised at the vehemence many of the fans brought to it. Though we knew the actor tuned in from time to time, some of the members felt no compunctions posting unfavourable criticisms of his work, critiquing his choice of scripts and his acting ability in a voice that could be described as anything but constructive. Other members used the group as a forum to spew racist remarks at which some of the fans (including myself) took umbrage to the point of bowing out of the group. At times I was surprised Mr. Mancuso didn’t do the same.

The idea for this blog post came after a similar experience regarding fans of ABC’s Once Upon a Time in which people who are so passionate about the show they are willing to post artwork, fan fiction, critiques and predictions about it online for the whole world to see, only for some to be shot down for their admiration in the most horrific way.

In planning for this blog, I returned to the dictionary definition of “fan”, which is: “an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity”. Dictionary.com pinpoints the origin of the word to 1885-1890 as an “Americanism; short for fanatic”. Synonyms include “supporter, enthusiast [and] addict”. Another definition it gives is “a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal” (emphasis added).

What strikes me as most interesting about this definition is the synonym “addict” and the fact that a fan typically has an “uncritical” zeal. Many people who blog about OUaT are anything but uncritical, both of the show and of their fellow “fans”. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and as an opinion is made with insufficient grounds to produce complete certainty (dictionary.com), an opinion can never be wrong. An opinion can be formulated based on ignorance or misinterpretation of fact, but it can never be wrong because, by definition, it is based on uncertain grounds. What this means is that if I thing Belle and Hook would make a better ship than Belle and Gold, that’s my opinion. You can disagree, but I am not wrong because this is my personal view. (I don’t by the way. I so love seeing Gold thrown off kilter as he tries to figure out how to win and keep Belle’s favour.)

As a mature adult, I may think that someone is off his rocker for even suggesting Belle be shipped with anyone other than Gold, but I must voice my opinion in a way that expounds my personal view without personally attacking anyone whose opinion differs from mine. This all goes back to my previous post which discussed online personas. I can make a name for myself as a diplomat who is willing to engage in an adult discussion of fact without devolving into schoolyard name calling, or I can make a name for myself as a foul-mouthed, narrow-minded dictator who is unwilling to allow for any opinion other than the one I’ve formed for myself. As I told the student who used Twitter as a sounding board which included a lot of unkind epithets directed at my teaching ability, there are ways to express your frustration without resorting to swearing and personal attacks.

I love the online debate that ensues as a result of the twists and turns Kitsis and his staff throw at OUaT’s fan base, but I could do without the swearing, name-calling and personal attacks. And while I’m sure those who see themselves in this blog will no doubt take umbrage in its posting and wind up throwing a few of those epithets my way, I am, like so many of you out there, sticking my neck out to post this nevertheless.

I leave you with the following two quotes, which I think sum this post up nicely:

“Can we all get along?” (Rodney King, I believe) 

“If you can’t say something nice, shh, say nothing.” (Thumper)

abconceuponatimeconfessions:

“Hook will fall in love with Belle. His plan to use her as Rumple’s weak spot will break apart when he gets to know her personality. Just like she made a difference for Rumple, she will will make a difference for him.” 

Hook will _pretend_ to fall in love with Belle and Rumpy may be jealous (which I agree would be fun to see), but ultimately she will see through him. It will be too late, she will already be in danger but Rumpy will save her and it will bring them closer together.

I think it’s brilliant he’s the beast and Hook’s croc. Remember that OUAT is a retelling of the stories, and as such, they are entitled to as much poetic license as they see fit to use.

abconceuponatimeconfessions:

  • “I feel like I’m the only Rumbeller who’s glad Belle broke it off with Gold for now. They need to get better acquainted with each other and take things slow for the relationship to work.”

Here, here.

abconceuponatimeconfessions:

ouattheories:

In the pilot, Emma wished on a cupcake with a blue star. In the movie, Gepetto wished on a blue star so Pinocchio could be real. So August and Emma have been set up since the pilot because of the parallels: how he lies and she can spot lies and how she’s a realist and he’s a dreamer. They complement each other. They’re meant to be together from the moment they were both saved by the magic tree, a true love of “our world”.

*submitted by Anonymous

This pleases me.

Interesting.

419 – Critique

419 by Will Ferguson is this year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize Winner, so I thought I would read it to see the calibre of writing worthy of winning the Giller Prize. I wasn’t disappointed.

419 refers to Nigerian email scams. We’ve all received those emails requesting monetary assistance with the promise of a windfall in return. 419 explores the depths of what might happen when one responds to the emails and gets caught up in the web of deceit, fraud, and blackmail perpetrated by the scam baiters. In 419, a man commits suicide after losing his life savings, including the house. His daughter decides to avenge her father’s death and winds up being scammed herself.

The novel follows four storylines: Laura, the daughter of the man who has committed suicide; Winston, the perpetrator of the crime; Amina, a young, pregnant Nigerian girl; and Nnamdi, the young boy who falls for Amina, assumes responsibility for her child, and winds up being killed when he, too, is swept up in the business of 419. Laura and her family’s story is interesting, as is Winston’s and his involvement and cavalier attitude toward the 419 frauds he perpetrates. To him, people like Laura’s dad are rich, stupid Americans, ripe for the picking by anyone with the smarts to outwit them. Nnamdi’s story becomes interesting, too, but only after he joins Ironsi Egobia’s team of thugs and is tasked with getting rid of Laura after she becomes a thorn in his side. But the stories of Laura, Winston and Nnamdi’s demise are parenthesis to a confused middle story which sees the introduction of Amina and Nnamdi with no indication of how they fit into the grand scheme of the story.

I read about half of the novel in one sitting, unable to put down the discovery of Laura’s father’s demise, the family’s reaction, and the police detective who flirts with Laura. I continued reading as I learned the ins and outs of the 419 scams. The reader is gradually introduced to both Amina and Nnamdi as their chapters alternate with Laura’s and Winston’s which are all but lost as Amina and Nnamdi take the forefront. I found it difficult to keep reading after fifty or so pages after that and almost put the novel down because I could not see how the new characters fit in with the old. Trusting that Ferguson wouldn’t leave his readers hanging, I pressed on, and I wasn’t disappointed. Once the stories met up, the book morphed back into a page-turner and the end was worth the wait.

As with many books I’ve read, Ferguson is rewarded with The Giller Prize for doing something others have slapped my wrist for doing—introducing characters with no immediate connection to the story with which the novel was begun. The fact that Ferguson has enjoyed such acclaim with this structure renews my hope that there is nothing wrong with the stories I’ve been writing, and that, with persistence, I may find a publishing house yet.

A quest! A quest! My kingdom for a quest!

The November 25th episode of Once Upon A Time was exciting for many reasons, the least of which was not in watching Robert Carlyle bring yet another facet to the diamond in the rough that is Rumplegold. I was fascinated as he tried to be demure on his date with Belle at Granny’s Place in spite of the dirty looks and evil eyes Storybrookers shot his way. Thoroughly enjoying was the way he continued to protest his power as being greater than both Regina’s and Cora’s though he no longer had the bluster to back it up. But that’s not the subject of this blog. This blog is about The Quest Archetype and the skilful way the writers weave it into the plot of the story.

Just as a tragic hero has a set of parameters that, once satisfied, a character may be classified as such, so, too does a quest. The Quest Archetype (as defined by Joseph Campbell, American mythologist, writer and lecturer (Wiki)) may be defined as:

begin[ning] in the hero’s ordinary world, when he or she receives a call to adventure from a herald. Many heroes initially refuse the call, until a mentor reassures them that they are capable. After this meeting with the mentor, they must enter the world of the quest. They meet allies and enemies along the way and are tested frequently. As they near the source of their quest, they usually face one final ordeal. Upon their success, they take the object of their quest, and make their way home. The way home is not always easy, but eventually they return to their ordinary world with their prize (PBS).

The OUAT quest begins in our world, an ordinary world that normally doesn’t have any magic. Emma Swan is the heroine of the story who is drawn to Storybrooke by her son who assures her she is the key to breaking the curse under which they all live. Emma resists, refusing to believe she is their saviour but eventually is convinced by Snow White/Mary Maragaret, who plays the role of Emma’s birth mother and mentor, who reassures her she is capable. She comes to believe this when she saves Henry from Regina’s sleeping potion and slaughters Maleficent in her dragon form to retrieve the potion that will break the curse. The true quest begins when both Snow and Emma wind up back in Fairytaleland—the world of the quest—and they are tasked with finding a way to get back home.

The secret to getting back to Storybrooke lies in an old compass and the ashes from the tree/wardrobe that originally transported Baby Emma to Storybrooke. Snow and Emma meet allies—Mulan and Aurora—and enemies—Cora and Hook—along the way and are tested frequently. One such test occurs when Hook takes Aurora’s heart and Cora uses it to convince the heroes that Hook wants to help them in their quest and that he may even have a little crush on Emma. Another is when Aurora is taken by Cora and Mulan takes the compass to get her back. Still another happens in the previous episode when Emma has to take the compass from the Giant residing at the top of the beanstalk. It is anyone’s guess what the final ordeal will be or when it will occur, but if the writers remain true to form, the heroes will emerge from the ordeal successful and find their way home to the ordinary world.

The only question remaining (and I can’t wait to see how it all pans out) is if Cora and Hook will follow.

Works Cited

PBS. In Search of Myths & Heroes. http://www.pbs.org/mythsandheroes/myths_archetypes.html. 28 Nov 2012.

Wiki. Joseph Cambell. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 21 Nov 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell. 28 Nov 2012.

YA Novels

You’d think as a teacher of high school English in a school that requires students to read a young adult (YA) novel and in which I have to listen to presentations and read analysis of said novels, that I’d know quite a bit about YA novels. In reality, I know very little.

Is it folly, then, to take on a YA novel as my Nanowrimo challenge this month? Perhaps. But I’m going full speed ahead with it anyway.

I don’t remember reading many YA novels growing up, besides Judy Blume novels and Nancy Drew mysteries. I remember reading Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea in grade six (no teen issues to be found in that one). In junior high I read the then scandalous Forever and Wifey before a friend’s mother turned me on to Stephen King in high school. I also remember reading quite a few soap-opera-type novels, cast-offs of my mother’s reading, mostly about Jewish immigrants finding their place in the New World, but not many teen novels.

In university I read Bette Greene’s The Summer of My German Soldier, and a number of classics (Winnie The Pooh, Peter Pan, Anne of Green Gables, The Sword in the Stone, Wind in the Willows) in university. I’ve taught Crabbe (William Bell), A Night To Remember (Walter Lord), Dreamspeaker (Cam Hubert), and Monster (Walter Dean Myers). On my own I’ve read Shelley Hrdlitschka’s Sister Wife, Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine, Virals by Kathy Reichs, and Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Prachett. My intention here is to neither brag nor complain about the YA novels I’ve read. It is to establish that I am, by no means, an expert in the field.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that YA novels are those which are published for and market to young adults (i.e., teenagers). The main characters in the novels are young adults. Issues explored are of interest to young adults. Forever is about a young woman losing her virginity. Pooh, Peter and Anne are all coming of age novels.  Crabbe is about a runaway. Ditto Dreamspeaker. The perennial Go Ask Alice (of which I have a still unread copy procured in my own teenage years) is about drug abuse, Monster: crime and punishment—all things you’d expect a YA novel to be about. But wait. Based on what my students report, it is much more than that. The novels my students read are tales of suicide, rape, cancer stricken youth and parents, sexual disorientation and/or ambiguity, terrorism, sexual abuse, self-abuse as in cutting, and murder, quite weighty topics for someone that can’t comprehend the difference between karma and divine retribution, I think.

Which brings me to The Revenant, the YA novel I’m chipping away at this month. Repeating the mantra “hurt your characters” (1), I am doing my best to put my characters through the ropes. Every night I sit down and type away, watching the word count mount to my goal of 1,600 plus words as I watch the story take shape. My characters have to battle with the fact that they’re empaths, seers and the undead. The main character, Zulu the Revenant, fanaticizes about superheroes as he goes about righting wrongs dreamt of by The Seer, his father figure (whom I must eventually kill). He gets stabbed, shot, and has to deal with the fact that the love of his life died a century ago and isn’t ever coming back—or is she? I haven’t yet decided. The empathy feels people’s emotions and sees auras so she is able to pick bad guys out in a crowd. So far the only hurt she experiences is that she may be falling in love with Zulu who she’s pretty sure is a vampire. She also has to deal with a meddling mother. It’s possible she may lose her mother and Malchus, the necromancer, may have to bring her back, though the way things are shaping up, it would only be temporary. Malchus is the long dead brother of The Seer (an old man cursed with longevity) in possession of a teenager’s body. He has raised two from the dead so far (one of which he killed himself), but they keep decomposing. I think the coroner may have to call his childhood friend, now the priest in the girl’s parish for religious advice as to how people who have been dead for some time are able to walk into city centres before they die one last time. Malchus struggles to get his powers back and under control and then he will have to find his brother because he must exact revenge on him for killing him.

At any rate, I have about 24 hours to percolate the next idea before I must force it to gel.

16,095 words and counting.

Viva Nanowrimo!

(1) Chartand, James. Fiction Writing: Hurt Your Characters. Men With Pens. 2006-2012. < http://menwithpens.ca/fiction-writing-hurt-your-characters/>. 10 Nov 2012.

Rumplestiltskin as a Tragic Hero

The classic definition of a tragic hero according to Arisotle is that he must be of noble birth, has a tragic flaw which leads to his downfall, suffers a reversal of fortune, his actions bring about an increased sense of self-awareness and self-knowledge and the audience must feel pity and fear for the character(1).  I submit that Rumplestiltskin, aka Mr. Gold on ABC’s Once Upon A Time (OUAT) is a tragic figure. While he is not of noble birth, he does have a tragic flaw (cowardess) which leads to his downfall, he suffers numerous reversals of fortune (the loss of his son, wife, and lover), his actions bring about an ongoing increased sense of self-awareness (recent confessions made by the character), and the audience feels both pity and fear for the character.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with OUAT, the show is about storybook characters coming from their familiar storybook existence in Fairytaleland (FTL) to our world and settling in Storybrooke, Maine (SB).  Robert Carlyle plays Rumplestiltskin in FTL and Mr. Gold in SB with menacing relish. In the original tale, Rumplestiltskin is an impish character that is able to spin straw to gold. He agrees to teach the miller’s daughter the trick, provided she pay the sum of her first born to him. The miller’s daughter marries the king and has a child but does not want to give it up. Unable to resist a deal, Rumplestiltskin agrees to let her keep the child, provided the (now) queen can guess his name. After the second try, certain that he would receive the child, he was praising himself by the fire when someone heard and reported his name to the queen. Upon hearing  his name come from the queen’s lips,  Rumple got so angry he tore himself in two (2). In OUAT’s version, Rumple is the village coward. Shunned by others in his village because he ran when the ogres attacked rather than fight, his wife (Milha) has run off with Killian Jones (aka Captain Hook). Determined to become powerful and earn the trust of everyone including his son, he kills The Dark One and assumes his powers. Shunned by others because they fear him, he saves his son from fighting in The Ogre Wars only to lose him when he falls into a portal to another land and closes before he can follow. Alone, he finds his wife and kills her by literally taking and destroying her heart. Lonely, he makes a deal with a king to save his subjects from the ogres in exchange for his daughter, Belle, with whom he falls in love. Believing himself unworthy of being loved, he banishes Belle from his castle and Regina, The Evil Queen, convinces him she returned to her village despondent and  ostracized for her involvement with him and she kills herself. After Regina enacts The Curse causing FTL characters to be transported to SB, he finds Belle when the curse is more changed than broken and reunites with her, but finds it hard to shake his beastly ways.

The Tragic Hero is of Noble Birth

Granted, Rumple himself is not of noble birth, but he does become elevated to the status of nobles when he becomes The Dark One. He has the same powers and wields them to his advantage as do the other royals in FTL. Take, for example, King George, who takes a peasant boy to replace his son when he dies only to threaten his mother and his twin brother’s life if he does not do the same when the replacement dies. Or Belle’s father, Sir Maurice, who is willing to trade his daughter for peace in his kingdom (granted Belle decides to go on her own, but in the long run, Maurice remains passive when his daughter leaved). Then there’s Regina who pushed her mother into a portal and has made her life’s mission to wreak havoc in Snow White’s life for a transgression occurring in her childhood. Like the other royals, Rumple is feared for his power and revered by those who come in contact with him by people who offer (as Macbeth, another royal and tragic hero laments) “mouth-honour”. As the owner and benefactor of SB, Rumple, aka Gold, maintains his power over the characters and seems to enjoy that they fear him. He is the proprietor of the local pawn shop which houses many of the character’s prized possessions with which they made deals with Rumple back in FTL.

The Tragic Hero has a Tragic Flaw Which Leads to His Downfall

As far as personality flaws go, Rumple has many. The story begins with him as a coward, then becoming addicted to and drunk with power as The Dark One. He clings to this power, valuing it even over the love he seeks. This is demonstrated when, after his magic seems threatened by Belle’s love for him, he sends her away rather than explore his heart’s deepest desire.  Betrayed by many including his wife, his apprentice (Regina) and many of the townspeople when they try to get out of the bargains he strikes, Rumple trusts no one. Rumple’s biggest flaw is his desire for acceptance and love. He places himself in a vulnerable position when he allows himself to mistake August (aka Pinocchio) for his son, and again when he prostrates himself to Belle in the library after admitting to her he is still a coward.  It is this flaw more than the others that will ultimately lead to his downfall, as a man as powerful as RumpleGold cannot afford to wear his hat on his sleeve in such a manner.

The Tragic Hero Suffers a Reversal of Fortune

When Rumple agrees to kill The Dark One in order to release him from his misery and gain his power, he thinks life can only get better. Rather than ostracize and ridicule him as being the village coward, the villagers will be forced to revere him or he will turn them into a snail and crush them like the bugs they are. Instead, people ostracize him further. Instead of their disgust, he garners their fear. If he is The Dark One, he surmises, his wife will beg to come back to him and he will win back his son’s respect. Instead, he loses them both. Perhaps worse, he loses himself in the bargain. As we have seen with Regina, magic is addictive. In a brilliant turn of events, Regina runs to psychiatrist Archie Hopper (aka Jiminy Cricket) when she falls off the magic wagon. Like Regina, Rumple is addicted to magic. He does not know how to interact with others without offering them some sort of magical deal and, as previously stated, he chooses magic over securing his deepest heart’s desire. It seems to me that there is no lower ground to which a man who kisses a soldier’s boot in front of his son can stoop, but Rumple seems to do it. At times I am left to wonder, which is better—being ridiculed for cowardess but still having my son, or having all the power in the world at my fingertips and being utterly alone in, not one, but two, worlds.

The Tragic Hero’s Actions Bring About an Increased Sense of Self-awareness and Self-knowledge and the Audience Must Feel Pity and Fear for the Character

As writers continue to flesh out Rumple’s character, we learn he is very much self aware. The mystery in season one questioned who, out of all of the characters, remembered their FTL past. I love the scenes in which Rumple and Regina verbally spar. In one of these scenes, Rumple is in SB’s jail and Regina is compelled to sit and talk to him (she must do whatever Rumple says when he says “please” as a part of the original curse). The moment where he reveals he remembers his FTL name is an incredible step toward his admitting he is still The Dark One and the audience can’t help but fear what will happen to him if the others regain their memory and learn of his name. In season two, the Rumbelle ship continues to sail on very choppy waters. As they battled a wave that threatened to sink their ship, Rumple admitted to Belle that he is still a coward. What a brilliant moment toward Rumple’s self-awareness of the man behind the beast. At that moment, I felt nothing but pity for the character played to expertly by Robert Carlyle. He still loves her. And in admitting that he needed her, he revealed a vulnerability that instilled fear in audience members such as myself who watch the show primarily for this character. Many in the blogosphere believe that Hook will seek revenge for Rumple’s killing Milha on Belle. Having begun his descent out of the pit that is his addiction to magic, I can’t help but fear that without Belle he will fall back to magic to seek his own retribution, and thus descend into madness as well.

Time, of course, will tell, and I don’t mean time on the clock swallowed by the crocodile in the original Peter Pan tale because in OUAT’s version, Rumple is the famed crock as well. As I write this, Hook and Emma, still trapped in the ruined FTL are about to discover Jack’s beanstalk in their quest to find a portal to SB so Emma and Snow can be reunited with their family and Hook can “skin” the crock that took his hand and his love. My hope for Rumple is that he remains intact for the balance of the series, however long that may be, and not fall prey to the death visited on most other  tragic heroes at the end of the tale.

(1)    http://shakespeare.nuvvo.com/lesson/4435-elements-of-a-tragic-hero-in-literature

(2)    http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Rum.shtml