Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-23906605-20131017110136/@comment-23871096-20131028041544

Utter solitude wrote: Free will.

He did what he thought was right so Emma could save the world. When you think of it that way, keeping her with him would be the selfish thing. She needed to be in jail so she'd give up the child so she'd have a reason to go to Storybrooke. August knew this.

I don't see how any of that is cowardly, or dumb. Yes I know there is free will totally.

However as an example only... Adam & Eve. They had free will. They didn't have to choose to eat some fruit. But they did. The devil inched them in that direction. But the devil didn't take over their free will. Could they take a different course? Yup. Same with Noah's ark. Or not to do with religion, its that inkling of wanting to get a lotto ticket when you never play and actually winning. Because something "pushed" your decision to go into the store and buy that ticket.

Thats what I mean by fate or design. Rumple ditched his fate of dying in the battlefield.

But eventually, fate cought up with him and he lost Bae anyway.