Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24892318-20140523071906/@comment-24938134-20140526012029

"True Love" means that two people truly, honest to God love each other. It does not have to be romantic, we have seen it between a parent and child twice - Emma and Henry, and Regina and Henry. It could probably work between two friends who love each other platonically. Rumple honestly, really and truly loves Belle but he's made some (pretty awful) mistakes and I don't think really knows how to show her he loves her or how to trust her. Bear in mind that he died to save his family, was brought back to life at the expense of his own son and was then held captive for a year by that lunatic.

Regina has also made some mistakes ie. taking Henry from David in the beginning of season 2, but we can't say that she never truly loved Henry. She cottoned on, figured out how she was messing up her own life, fixed the problem and is now associated with the heroes. It's Rumple's turn for a kick in the pants. Apparently we can only get one proper redemption arc at a time.

Hook truly loves Emma but what was he supposed to do when they returned to the EF, hang out with his crush's parents?? Being a pirate was his livelihood, he's a self described "dashing rapscalion", what else should he have done?? Got a job in a corner shop?? He just said goodbye forever, he went off to lick his wounds and drown them in rum. Healthy? No... His way of coping? Yes! Their realtionship just started, give it a chance.

Bottom line, if you truly love someone - parent, child, friend, lover, whoever! - then you have true love. It might not be the freaky, nuclear powered True Love that Snowing have, but then again they seem a little too co-dependent to me (Snow was willing to stay in Neverland at the expense of her daughter who is in possession of phenomenal abondonment issues, the split heart thing...). Regardless, any of the above could probably break a measly little sleeping curse. Henry might have been able to wake up Charming.

And the TL kiss between Belle and Rumple did work at first before Rumple stopped it. You can see his skin start to change back. He stopped it because he didn't think she could possibly love him, not because he was choosing power over her. That's just what he told her and himself.

Anyone else think Emma and Rumple should start a support group for abondonment issues??