Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-11058666-20150826195114/@comment-24950802-20150827211318

DavidTennantismyAngel wrote: Oh, wow. I love that you love Rumple for being pathetic but hate Belle for the same reason. :/ If you mean me, I don't hate Belle for being pathetic, I hate her (exaggeration) for being dumb. Like, she's supposed to be the smartest of the core group, Belle of the Books, but she is soooooo dumb. Even in episode 4.15, when she was all confused about Hook now claiming that he didn't take the dagger, she couldn't immediately put two and two together and deduced that Rumple had deceived her once more, Emma had to tell her. Belle is just really very slow-witted at times. In 4.06, she second-guessed the dagger that Rumple gave her. Yet, after he magicked them to the pawn shop, she kept screaming at him to let her go, and he wouldn't let go. If she were really holding the dagger, he'd be forced to get his hands off of her. With Belle we have yet another case of "what they tell us, not what they show us", something that's abundant on this show: we are told this or that about certain characters, be it personal traits or feelings they have, but what we actually see is completely contradictory.

And yeah, it's sort of become a pattern how the villains on this show pretty much just turn into what their former bullies were, or made them out to be. :P I'm glad Cruella changed that formula a bit, but they're still peddling the "evil isn't born, it's made" motif going into season 5 when they've actually shown us otherwise with 4.18. Mmmkay OUaT. Consistency, you lack it, go buy some.