I've been reading a lot of criticism of Once Upon a Time's season 5 episode 6 "The Bear and the Bow," and I wanted to take a deeper look into what happened in that episode that has fans so riled up and confused. So here's a quick recap, and then a review/analysis of what OUAT seems to be doing with this tricky episode.
Recap: (Spoiler Alert) In "The Bear and the Bow," Emma pushed Merida to take the next step in her plan to turn Gold into a hero by forcing him to learn to be brave (or at least to start being brave). In the previous episode, Merida found what Gold would fight for: Belle. In this episode, she used that as motivation. Allowed to escape by using the chipped tea cup, Gold fled to the library where he was reunited with Belle, revealed the above information to her as he figured it out, and then the two of them headed to his shop to get some protective magic. Merida discovered them there, having been tipped off by Emma, and attempted to take Belle out, but Belle's quick thinking in tugging the rug out from under her temporarily stopped Merida and allowed Gold and Belle to escape. They drove (I suppose it was already late evening because the rest of the present day story takes place at night) to the town line, where Belle finally realized that Gold intended for both of them to leave Storybrooke for good, protected by some magic dust of transformation that would keep them safe from the effects of crossing the town line (turning into a tree).
***NOTE: As many have already wondered, how long has Gold had this incredibly useful magical dust? We must hope that it was a recent acquisition, otherwise the plot hole seems a bit staggering considering how much fuss has been made in the story about crossing the town line over successive seasons. ****
Back to it: Belle refused to leave her friends behind and left Rumple with the choice of following her to face down Merida and Emma, or to save himself. Merida transformed into a giant bear via the vial of potion Belle had made for her six weeks earlier and chased Belle, meaning to kill her. She eventually cornered her but was prevented from killing Belle when Gold threw (with quite an arm and excellent aim considering how far away he was) a large rock at the bear, then improvised with the magical dust, which, luckily, turned Merida back into her normal self. With Merida bested, and Gold now having taken a brave action, the three went to Emma's basement and Gold agreed to pull forth Excalibur, risking sudden death if he did not succeed in being the purest hero. It worked, Emma got her sword and the dagger, and Gold warned Emma to watch out since he was now a hero.
Meanwhile, in the six-weeks-ago-land, Belle helped Merida (after being kidnapped by her) to save her brothers by ensuring she would be given a choice to be brave (saving them with her own strength vs. saving them with a magic potion) as it would be the only way to truly prove herself as a powerful queen and cement her legitimacy. Merida succeeded and Belle returned to Camelot for further adventures in researching magic.
Review:
First of all, I want to say that there is often so much packed into one episode that it is very easy to miss some of the truly good things that happen in terms of storytelling. I'm not saying they always happen...there are some episodes of the show that still baffle me...but most of the time, and especially in this season, the writing is surprisingly strong, and if a viewer isn't paying close attention, it's easy to miss this fact in the rush of color and noise and heroics.
The number one problem most viewers seem to have with this episode was how Gold, of all people, became the purest hero in a matter of a few hours. Pure hero enough to pull Excalibur from the stone without turning into smoke or dust. It's a fair question considering Gold's track record. It's a weird plot twist, but one that I think works on a few different levels of storytelling.
First, there was some really neat misdirection going on in the Charming centered episode "Siege Perilous," wherein Arthur pretty much says that Siege Perilous is reserved for one of the purest heroes/bravest knights of the Round Table. Charming is set up all through this episode to be that hero and this is dovetailed with Emma and Dark One explaining their plan to have a hero pull Excalibur from the stone, ending with Dark One Rumple saying, "And we both know who that is." Everything points to Charming. In the next episode we find that it's Rumple! Added to this is the hero/villain plot line of season four, especially the finale "Operation Mongoose" (btw, Mongoose and Cobra are nice little bookend references to Kipling's Rikki Tikki Tavi) in which Rumpelstiltskin struggled with wanting to be a hero and even when he was written to be one, he still couldn't do it! So lots of foreshadowing that we were going to see Rumple/Gold dealing with heroism and what it means to be chosen/made into a hero. And yet the writers played around with the very notion of Gold being a pure hero when there are so many seemingly better choices (like Charming or Belle or even Regina).
Why Gold? In the show this is very clearly explained, but if you don't slow down and think about it in the context of what happened in the last four seasons, it can be confusing. Emma distinctly says that it has to be Gold because his heart has recently been cleansed of the darkness of the Dark One, and therefore he is a clean slate. It all comes down to hearts (as it so often does). Gold's heart being a blank means that he's the one person who could be pure enough (without Emma having to search all over creation for some kind of Galahad) to pull out the sword.
The idea is meant to be taken literally: He has to be purely hero, 100%, no additives or preservatives. There is no one in the entire current cast of characters, including Belle, Henry, and Snow, who has this much purity. We saw this played with in the second season when Snow killed Cora and her heart, which was considered pure enough at that point, had a very obvious dark spot. Since then Snow has shared her imperfect heart with Charming, so he's polluted too (if he wasn't already). We have to assume that Belle also has some darkness since she betrayed Anna in a selfish way and had her stint as Lacey as well. What's throwing many of us is that Gold has done so much evil -- which the show clearly acknowledged in the finale of season four when it showed us the consequences of Gold's actions: His heart was almost completely dark -- and then, once wiped of darkness, it was thoroughly wiped. This doesn't erase Gold's past actions, but pulling out Excalibur isn't about past actions. It's about the purity and heroism of the heart of the person who pulls it in that moment. Emma just needed Gold to take one heroic action (which, I suspect, will set him on the path to heroism). In other words, Emma ensured that Gold's heart was completely neutral, and since the actions characters take directly affect the state of their hearts, if Gold took a heroic action, his heart would be purely heroic until the next choice/action. But like darkness, once a character starts on a path (light or dark) they tend to continue on it. Gold is starting from zero as far as his heart is concerned, not his past or his memory. I understand the philosophical objections to this as a statement about the nature of good and evil, but from a storytelling point of view the plot twist makes sense.
This brings up the second problem many had, which was, if Gold had to be a hero, how could we count what he did (saving Belle from the Bear Merida) as some kind of phenomenal bravery? First, we should clear up something else: Arthur. Let's not forget that Arthur was the original owner of Excalibur, and according to the T. H. White version of his story (which is the version Disney used), Arthur was very pure and very good hearted as a young man. OUAT's Arthur pulls out the sword a little later in life, but if the rules of Excalibur are fast, then we have to assume that until he became obsessed with making Excalibur whole, Arthur was really one of the purest heroes in the realm. He'd never done a wrong or evil action up to that point. If this is true, it makes his fall ever so much more tragic. It also gives us insight, again, into the weird way that sword works: it's not about the future actions, and only marginally about the past in as much as they affect the current condition of the heart. But here's another point: as far as we know, Arthur hadn't done anything amazingly brave before pulling out Excalibur. He even says this himself in the episode in which he extracts the sword. And yet he was considered worthy. But the thing is, Arthur had been brave. The show exhibited to us his bravery in the flashback of his childhood. He hadn't slain dragons. He'd faced up to bullies and been true to his given quest, his kingdom, and his queen. And that was enough.
The cool thing about OUAT is that, despite all the cheese and the plot holes, the writers have worked the emotional truth of bravery into the ongoing story of Once Upon a Time in some really intricate ways. They have pointed out time and again that bravery isn't about slaying dragons or defeating Ogres and rescuing lots of children. It isn't about vanquishing villains or even dying for a cause. Bravery happens in small and often insignificant moments and is rooted in unselfishness and love, and it is also a very personal thing. In "Skin Deep," when Rumpelstiltskin asks Belle why she took his deal in the first place, she says she "always wanted to be brave," and that if she did "the brave thing, bravery would follow." Here is the point about bravery that the show continues to make: it isn't about being fearless or powerful, it's about making the right, often the most difficult, choice in the moment. For Belle that was to take a bad deal and make the most of it; for Emma, it was to stay in Storybrooke for Henry; for Hook it was to stay in town and help the others instead of saving himself (sound familiar?); for Regina, it was to give up Henry (multiple times) for his own good; for Red, it was to choose to be true to herself, instead of conform; for Snow and Charming, it was to endure suffering without looking for easy answers (which they sometimes did), to keep hoping when they had no reason to. This is why these characters have eventually made their turns to the light.
The difficult choice was a major theme of the first season. As Jefferson summed it up: "Everyone wants a magical solution to their problems," and as Rumpelstiltskin reminded us, "Magic always comes with a price." Magic is the easy fix for all of the characters who use it. And this is neatly bookended in Season 5 when Regina reminds Emma of her own words in past seasons, that "there is always a choice." Later, in the most recent episode, Belle tells Merida that she needed to see there was a choice not to use magic. She gives Gold a choice too.
So the version of bravery we see in the episode is simply that for the first time in his life, Gold makes the right choice. Up to this point, including banishing Belle, not curing her as Lacey, attempting to kill Henry, losing Baelfire, becoming the Dark One, lying to Belle, forcing his pretend happy ending with the Author, he always chooses himself over others. He quickly gives in to despair. This is what makes him a coward, not his fear (which is often justifiable). The fact that Gold obviously equates fear with cowardice shows us that he doesn't understand what bravery is in the first place. This episode was about him understanding it.
So, Gold rescuing Belle from the Bear wasn't about heroic fireworks, nor was it supposed to be. This was an emotional milestone, not a plot milestone. Gold learned what it meant to be brave. This is the culmination of what Belle began asking him to do in season 1. This is why he says, "Actually, I think you saved me." This is what makes this episode so exciting to watch. It's not perfect, but the emotional development of the characters is very good and on spot with what's happened in all previous seasons.
Recap: (Spoiler Alert) In "The Bear and the Bow," Emma pushed Merida to take the next step in her plan to turn Gold into a hero by forcing him to learn to be brave (or at least to start being brave). In the previous episode, Merida found what Gold would fight for: Belle. In this episode, she used that as motivation. Allowed to escape by using the chipped tea cup, Gold fled to the library where he was reunited with Belle, revealed the above information to her as he figured it out, and then the two of them headed to his shop to get some protective magic. Merida discovered them there, having been tipped off by Emma, and attempted to take Belle out, but Belle's quick thinking in tugging the rug out from under her temporarily stopped Merida and allowed Gold and Belle to escape. They drove (I suppose it was already late evening because the rest of the present day story takes place at night) to the town line, where Belle finally realized that Gold intended for both of them to leave Storybrooke for good, protected by some magic dust of transformation that would keep them safe from the effects of crossing the town line (turning into a tree).
***NOTE: As many have already wondered, how long has Gold had this incredibly useful magical dust? We must hope that it was a recent acquisition, otherwise the plot hole seems a bit staggering considering how much fuss has been made in the story about crossing the town line over successive seasons. ****
Back to it: Belle refused to leave her friends behind and left Rumple with the choice of following her to face down Merida and Emma, or to save himself. Merida transformed into a giant bear via the vial of potion Belle had made for her six weeks earlier and chased Belle, meaning to kill her. She eventually cornered her but was prevented from killing Belle when Gold threw (with quite an arm and excellent aim considering how far away he was) a large rock at the bear, then improvised with the magical dust, which, luckily, turned Merida back into her normal self. With Merida bested, and Gold now having taken a brave action, the three went to Emma's basement and Gold agreed to pull forth Excalibur, risking sudden death if he did not succeed in being the purest hero. It worked, Emma got her sword and the dagger, and Gold warned Emma to watch out since he was now a hero.
Meanwhile, in the six-weeks-ago-land, Belle helped Merida (after being kidnapped by her) to save her brothers by ensuring she would be given a choice to be brave (saving them with her own strength vs. saving them with a magic potion) as it would be the only way to truly prove herself as a powerful queen and cement her legitimacy. Merida succeeded and Belle returned to Camelot for further adventures in researching magic.
Review:
First of all, I want to say that there is often so much packed into one episode that it is very easy to miss some of the truly good things that happen in terms of storytelling. I'm not saying they always happen...there are some episodes of the show that still baffle me...but most of the time, and especially in this season, the writing is surprisingly strong, and if a viewer isn't paying close attention, it's easy to miss this fact in the rush of color and noise and heroics.
The number one problem most viewers seem to have with this episode was how Gold, of all people, became the purest hero in a matter of a few hours. Pure hero enough to pull Excalibur from the stone without turning into smoke or dust. It's a fair question considering Gold's track record. It's a weird plot twist, but one that I think works on a few different levels of storytelling.
First, there was some really neat misdirection going on in the Charming centered episode "Siege Perilous," wherein Arthur pretty much says that Siege Perilous is reserved for one of the purest heroes/bravest knights of the Round Table. Charming is set up all through this episode to be that hero and this is dovetailed with Emma and Dark One explaining their plan to have a hero pull Excalibur from the stone, ending with Dark One Rumple saying, "And we both know who that is." Everything points to Charming. In the next episode we find that it's Rumple! Added to this is the hero/villain plot line of season four, especially the finale "Operation Mongoose" (btw, Mongoose and Cobra are nice little bookend references to Kipling's Rikki Tikki Tavi) in which Rumpelstiltskin struggled with wanting to be a hero and even when he was written to be one, he still couldn't do it! So lots of foreshadowing that we were going to see Rumple/Gold dealing with heroism and what it means to be chosen/made into a hero. And yet the writers played around with the very notion of Gold being a pure hero when there are so many seemingly better choices (like Charming or Belle or even Regina).
Why Gold? In the show this is very clearly explained, but if you don't slow down and think about it in the context of what happened in the last four seasons, it can be confusing. Emma distinctly says that it has to be Gold because his heart has recently been cleansed of the darkness of the Dark One, and therefore he is a clean slate. It all comes down to hearts (as it so often does). Gold's heart being a blank means that he's the one person who could be pure enough (without Emma having to search all over creation for some kind of Galahad) to pull out the sword.
The idea is meant to be taken literally: He has to be purely hero, 100%, no additives or preservatives. There is no one in the entire current cast of characters, including Belle, Henry, and Snow, who has this much purity. We saw this played with in the second season when Snow killed Cora and her heart, which was considered pure enough at that point, had a very obvious dark spot. Since then Snow has shared her imperfect heart with Charming, so he's polluted too (if he wasn't already). We have to assume that Belle also has some darkness since she betrayed Anna in a selfish way and had her stint as Lacey as well. What's throwing many of us is that Gold has done so much evil -- which the show clearly acknowledged in the finale of season four when it showed us the consequences of Gold's actions: His heart was almost completely dark -- and then, once wiped of darkness, it was thoroughly wiped. This doesn't erase Gold's past actions, but pulling out Excalibur isn't about past actions. It's about the purity and heroism of the heart of the person who pulls it in that moment. Emma just needed Gold to take one heroic action (which, I suspect, will set him on the path to heroism). In other words, Emma ensured that Gold's heart was completely neutral, and since the actions characters take directly affect the state of their hearts, if Gold took a heroic action, his heart would be purely heroic until the next choice/action. But like darkness, once a character starts on a path (light or dark) they tend to continue on it. Gold is starting from zero as far as his heart is concerned, not his past or his memory. I understand the philosophical objections to this as a statement about the nature of good and evil, but from a storytelling point of view the plot twist makes sense.
This brings up the second problem many had, which was, if Gold had to be a hero, how could we count what he did (saving Belle from the Bear Merida) as some kind of phenomenal bravery? First, we should clear up something else: Arthur. Let's not forget that Arthur was the original owner of Excalibur, and according to the T. H. White version of his story (which is the version Disney used), Arthur was very pure and very good hearted as a young man. OUAT's Arthur pulls out the sword a little later in life, but if the rules of Excalibur are fast, then we have to assume that until he became obsessed with making Excalibur whole, Arthur was really one of the purest heroes in the realm. He'd never done a wrong or evil action up to that point. If this is true, it makes his fall ever so much more tragic. It also gives us insight, again, into the weird way that sword works: it's not about the future actions, and only marginally about the past in as much as they affect the current condition of the heart. But here's another point: as far as we know, Arthur hadn't done anything amazingly brave before pulling out Excalibur. He even says this himself in the episode in which he extracts the sword. And yet he was considered worthy. But the thing is, Arthur had been brave. The show exhibited to us his bravery in the flashback of his childhood. He hadn't slain dragons. He'd faced up to bullies and been true to his given quest, his kingdom, and his queen. And that was enough.
The cool thing about OUAT is that, despite all the cheese and the plot holes, the writers have worked the emotional truth of bravery into the ongoing story of Once Upon a Time in some really intricate ways. They have pointed out time and again that bravery isn't about slaying dragons or defeating Ogres and rescuing lots of children. It isn't about vanquishing villains or even dying for a cause. Bravery happens in small and often insignificant moments and is rooted in unselfishness and love, and it is also a very personal thing. In "Skin Deep," when Rumpelstiltskin asks Belle why she took his deal in the first place, she says she "always wanted to be brave," and that if she did "the brave thing, bravery would follow." Here is the point about bravery that the show continues to make: it isn't about being fearless or powerful, it's about making the right, often the most difficult, choice in the moment. For Belle that was to take a bad deal and make the most of it; for Emma, it was to stay in Storybrooke for Henry; for Hook it was to stay in town and help the others instead of saving himself (sound familiar?); for Regina, it was to give up Henry (multiple times) for his own good; for Red, it was to choose to be true to herself, instead of conform; for Snow and Charming, it was to endure suffering without looking for easy answers (which they sometimes did), to keep hoping when they had no reason to. This is why these characters have eventually made their turns to the light.
The difficult choice was a major theme of the first season. As Jefferson summed it up: "Everyone wants a magical solution to their problems," and as Rumpelstiltskin reminded us, "Magic always comes with a price." Magic is the easy fix for all of the characters who use it. And this is neatly bookended in Season 5 when Regina reminds Emma of her own words in past seasons, that "there is always a choice." Later, in the most recent episode, Belle tells Merida that she needed to see there was a choice not to use magic. She gives Gold a choice too.
So the version of bravery we see in the episode is simply that for the first time in his life, Gold makes the right choice. Up to this point, including banishing Belle, not curing her as Lacey, attempting to kill Henry, losing Baelfire, becoming the Dark One, lying to Belle, forcing his pretend happy ending with the Author, he always chooses himself over others. He quickly gives in to despair. This is what makes him a coward, not his fear (which is often justifiable). The fact that Gold obviously equates fear with cowardice shows us that he doesn't understand what bravery is in the first place. This episode was about him understanding it.
So, Gold rescuing Belle from the Bear wasn't about heroic fireworks, nor was it supposed to be. This was an emotional milestone, not a plot milestone. Gold learned what it meant to be brave. This is the culmination of what Belle began asking him to do in season 1. This is why he says, "Actually, I think you saved me." This is what makes this episode so exciting to watch. It's not perfect, but the emotional development of the characters is very good and on spot with what's happened in all previous seasons.
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