Baelfire


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 * This article focuses on the character, Baelfire. For his Land Without Magic alias, see here.
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"I won't let magic destroy this family. This is the only way. You have to let me go."

- Baelfire to Wendy

Baelfire is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time. He débuts in the eighth episode of the first season. He is portrayed by guest star Dylan Schmid, and is the Enchanted Forest alias of Neal Cassidy.

Before the Curse
In one of the Enchanted Forest's villages, a couple, Rumplestiltskin and Milah, make their living by spinning wool. Rumplestiltskin is drafted into the ogre war, and Milah, though afraid for her husband's safety, gives her blessings for him to fight on the battlefield. In the months Rumplestiltskin spends in a camp training to be a soldier, he encounters a seer that can predict the future. She uses her abilities to proclaim Milah's impending pregnancy and birth of their son but also forewarns of a greater dark coming in Rumplestiltskin's destiny. The Seer states he will become a father, but also lose his son due to his actions on the battlefield. Rumplestiltskin takes this to mean he will die, and purposely injuries his foot so he can be sent home.

Upon arrival home, Rumplestiltskin sees Milah tending to their infant son in her arms. She says she named him Baelfire as he needs a strong name for a father such as him. Their marriage begins to get rocky from the moment Rumplestiltskin tries to explain about the seer and the prophecy, which Milah thinks is absurd. She is humiliated that her husband is such a coward to run away from war, and firmly believes if he had fought and died, their son could have at least an immortalized image of how brave he was instead of Rumplestiltskin being alive and a deserter.

As the years go by, Milah grows to be quite disinterested in playing housewife to Rumplestiltskin, and spends her days at the tavern bar. Rumplestiltskin returns home one day to find Baelfire all alone without his mother. He goes to the tavern to look for Milah, and finds her having a drink with a pirate, Hook, and his men. Milah refuses to leave, however, when Baelfire calls out, "Mama?" she gets up to leave for home.

Milah is very unhappy with the life she leads, and wishes to explore and see the world. Rumplestiltskin still hopes she will try to be family for Baelfire, at least. She reluctantly agrees to try. The next day, however, she turns up missing, and is kidnapped by Hook. Rumplestiltskin tries to get her back by pleading with Hook, but nothing comes out of it when Rumplestiltskin refuses to sword fight. Before Rumplestiltskin became the powerful sorcerer he is today, Baelfire was his only family and greatest treasure. Just a few days away from Baelfire's fourteenth birthday, all the children in the land are being forcefully drafted to fight in an Ogre War upon turning fourteen.

To prevent his son from being taken, Rumplestiltskin slays Zoso, "The Dark One", taking on his powers in an effort to be able to protect Baelfire. He brutally kills all the soldiers who attempt to recruit Baelfire, an act he relished in, which terrifies his son. Later, his father ends the Ogre Wars and saves thousands of children's lives, but people are afraid of him and Baelfire wants things to go back to the way they were. Rumplestiltskin and Baelfire make a deal: if Baelfire can find a way for Rumplestiltskin to safely give up his powers, Rumplestiltskin will do it. Baelfire's friend Morraine tells him about the Reul Ghorm she heard of during war from eavesdropping on other soldiers. Baelfire goes and finds the Reul Ghorm, which turns out to be the Blue Fairy. She gives him a magic bean to take him and his father to a "land without magic".

Baelfire takes his father into the woods and uses the magic bean, which creates a green, glowing portal. Rumplestiltskin is afraid of going to a place without magic or his powers, and backs out of the deal at the last moment. He lets go of his Baelfire, who calls him a coward before disappearing into the portal.

Rumplestiltskin then calls for the Blue Fairy to help him get to his son, but it is no use as that was the last magic bean and he chose power over his only son. This has caused Rumplestiltskin to hate fairies, especially the Blue Fairy, because he blames her for taking away Baelfire, while she declares he was the one who drove off his own son. After his father lets go of his hand, Baelfire falls through the portal into a land without magic, and is afraid and confused in the new world he is in. He wanders the streets searching for leftover bits of food. When he sees a man has propped a ladder against a wall leading up into a house, he takes the opportunity and climbs in. Inside one room, Baelfire finds a table with bread and proceeds to gorge on it to satisfy his hunger. One of the residents of the a house, a young girl, thinks he is a thief, but then realizes he's starving. Kindly, she offers him to take as much bread as he likes. After an introduction, Baelfire learns her name is Wendy. She takes pity on him and hides him in her nursery room's cubby-hole, and for weeks, sneaks up food for him. One night, her parents learn of the secret. Though Wendy tries to speak up in Baelfire's favor, her mother won't hear of it. Thinking he is going to be thrown out onto the streets, both he and Wendy are surprised when her mother offers him the chance to stay in their house as a guest.

Baelfire joins Wendy and her two brothers, John and Michael, in the nursery and gets his own bed. One night, he awakens and notices Wendy at the windowsill. She tells him about "The Shadow" she always sees outside the window, and how it moves akin to a puppet in shadow; like magic. Baelfire doesn't like hearing about magic, and explains how magic destroyed his whole life, and he won't have it destroying her family, too. He makes her promise that if the Shadow comes again, she won't open the window for it.

Despite his warning to Wendy, she cannot contain her curiosity and opens the window. The Shadow flies down close to the window, and Baelfire urges Wendy to get away from it. Unafraid, Wendy takes the Shadow's hand and together they fly off into the sky while Baelfire can only watch in horror. He stays by the windowsill and eventually falls asleep. In the morning, Wendy is brought back by the Shadow. She tells him of her adventures in a place called Neverland, and though it's a beautiful and fun place to be, there is one catch. She is disturbed by how, when night falls in Neverland, the other children begin to miss their parents and want to go home, but the Shadow won't let anyone leave. When Baelfire wonders why the Shadow allowed her to return home, Wendy mournfully explains it's because the Shadow wants a boy, not a girl, to bring to Neverland, and is coming back to get one of her brothers. Baelfire vows to her that he will put a stop to it.

The next night, Baelfire, Wendy, John and Michael arm themselves with kitchen utensils as alternative weapons against the Shadow. They move their plan into action when the Shadow breaks open the window. All of them run into the cubby-hole to hide, but Michael gets left behind and is within reach of the Shadow's grasp. Baelfire hurries to protect Michael, and insists to the Shadow he take him instead. He willingly accepts the Shadow's hand, and is pulled up and out the window by it as Wendy and her brothers can only watch as he disappears into the sky.

The Shadow flies Baelfire over the sea, and they are quickly approaching the island of Neverland. Baelfire stubbornly refuses to accept it, and lights a match to ward the Shadow off with fire. As a result, the Shadow lets him go and he falls into the ocean. The Shadow attempts to search for him, but cannot see where Baelfire fell, and eventually flies off back to Neverland. A ship approaches, and accidentally shines its light on where Baelfire is floating face down in the water. The crew throw a rope and reel him in aboard. Sputtering and confused, Baelfire wakes up to meet the ship's captain, Hook, and one of his crew mates, William Smee. Later that night, Hook and Smee are contemplating on what to do with Baelfire and decide to turn him in to the Shadow, in order to please Peter Pan. However when Hook learns he is Milah's son, he quickly changes his mind and protects him from the Lost Ones, who came looking for him. Hook then tries to befriend Baelfire and even starts acting like a father, partially to find out more about Rumplestiltskin, but also because he is Milah's son. Baelfire eventually tells Hook his father is The Dark One, and that he can only be killed by his dagger, finally giving Hook a way to exact his revenge.

A few days later Baelfire finds the drawing Hook kept of Milah. Angered, Baelfire attacks Hook and blames him for killing his mother, but Hook then explains how Rumplestiltskin killed her himself by crushing her heart in front of him. Hook tries to convince Baelfire that his mother regretted leaving him and that they had talked about going back for him so they could be a family, and insisted they still could be one. But Baelfire realised Hook had been using him in order to kill his father and blames him for tearing his family apart and his mother's death. He then demands to be taken back to his real family, the Darlings. But when that seemed impossible, Baelfire just wanted to get off the ship. However, Hook then called the Lost Ones and that night, when Baelfire was ready to leave, they took him to the main island. Once there they sent him of to the other boys, because he was not the boy in the drawing. Rumplestiltskin's maid, Belle, mentions finding children's old clothes in one of the rooms she was cleaning in the castle, which Rumplestiltskin says belong to his son.

After the Curse
In order to be able to go to the same place Baelfire went, Rumplestiltskin created the Dark Curse. Even though the curse succeeded in transporting him to "a land without magic," he has made no progress, having been trapped in Storybrooke for the last 28 years. Because the inhabitants of Storybrooke cannot leave the town without losing their memories, Mr. Gold has still been unable to mount his expedition to find Baelfire. Baelfire is still a driving force for Mr. Gold, as he confesses to Belle he is using magic to try and find a loophole around not losing his memories when he leaves town. In this aspect, he can travel outside of Storybrooke and still look for his son. Using a magical globe Cora brought him, and a drop of his own blood, Mr. Gold finds out Baelfire's current location: New York City. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Gold calls on Emma to use the favor she owes him. The next day, she and Henry join him when he leaves for New York. For the events that follow, see Baelfire's alias.

Trivia

 * The name "Baelfire" (Old English spelling) or "Balefire" (modern spelling) means "great (or "fatal" or "evil") fire" which is ironic considering the name of his only friend contains the word "rain", and means "star of the seas" in Latin.
 * He is the only person who his father has broken a deal with.
 * Finding Baelfire has been Rumplestiltskin's motivation for centuries - the dark curse and all his schemes to enact it have been purely for that purpose.
 * According to the Blue Fairy, he is the light that kept his father human at his core.