Mr. Gold

"Emma! What a lovely name."

- Mr. Gold to Emma Swan

Mr. Gold is a major character in Once Upon a Time. He débuts in the first episode of the first season. He is played by starring cast member Robert Carlyle, and is the Storybrooke counterpart of Rumplestiltskin. Mr. Gold is a middle-aged man who "owns" Storybrooke.

Meeting Emma
Mr. Gold is first seen in Pilot, as Emma Swan is checking into Granny's Bed and Breakfast. He is collecting rent money from Granny and Ruby, and wishes Emma an enjoyable stay. When he leaves, Ruby introduces him to Emma as the man that "owns" Storybrooke.

Mr. Gold is next shown in the mayor's backyard the night after Emma decides to stay in Storybrooke. He congratulates her for being in high spirits for banishing Emma, which Regina in return, replies that she has triumphed, but Gold tells her not to get ahead of herself because he saw Emma and Henry together. He then says that he would have been able to help her... for a price.

He and Regina quickly get into an argument over Emma Swan, but Mr. Gold asks her to let him go with a "please" - a deal that was made between them in Fairytale Land, that he wasn't supposed to know about. Regina lets him go, stunned.

Ashley Boyd
A few nights later, Mr. Gold is locking up his shop. After he's gone, Ashley Boyd breaks in to steal a document. Mr. Gold catches her in the act and confronts her, but she pepper sprays him, knocking him out, and leaves. He then asks Emma Swan to help him find her. She agrees.

She later finds Ashley's car on the side of the road and sees the girl ready to give birth. She is rushed to the hospital and delivers a healthy baby girl. Mr. Gold comes and asks to see Ashley, because he wants Alexandra for himself. Emma intervenes and, after a brief discussion, Gold agrees to leave Ashley in peace. In return, Emma would owe him a favor.

Mr. Gold gives David Nolan directions to the Toll Bridge after he gets lost, thanks to Regina's intervention. He smirks when David remembers his previous life pre-coma in the hospital.

Sheriff Graham
Sheriff Graham finds him "gardening" as he is searching for the wolf that haunts his dreams. Mr. Gold smiles and tells Graham that some believed that dreams were memories of a former life, which does nothing to calm the sheriff's nerves.

After the sheriff's death, he offers Emma some of Graham's old things, which Emma declines. After he learns that the mayor fired her from her position as deputy, he comes into Mary Margaret's apartment and shows her the town charter, which helps her realize that she could run against the mayor's decision to appoint Sidney Glass as the new Storybrooke Sheriff.

When Emma is confronting Regina the next night, the office mysteriously catches on fire. Emma saves them both with a fire extinguisher, and they both are able to exit the building safely. However, it is revealed that Mr. Gold set up the whole thing. At the debate which would determine the winner for the public office, Emma publicly exposes him. Mr. Gold gets up and leaves the town hall. Despite her misgivings, she wins and is elected sheriff.

Mr. Gold visits the station the next day and congratulates her on her victory, telling her that he had to give her a higher form of bravery - the townspeople needed to see her stand up to him, so that they would believe that Emma could stand up to the mayor, too. Emma is shocked and figures out that he had somehow managed to plan the whole event.

When Emma is trying to help out two orphans, Ava and Nicholas, from becoming a part of the foster system in Boston, she goes to his pawnshop in hopes that he would know who bought one of the orphans' belongings. Mr. Gold tells her who their father is without needing his name actually written down.

Moe French
Later, Mr. Gold collects the rent of Moe French and, when he fails to pay the money, takes Moe's flower shop truck. He is confronted by Regina, but he dodges her attempts at a conversation with a well-placed "please." Later in the day, he returns home to see that his house has been robbed.

Emma Swan discovers who the thief was - Moe French - and manages to gather everything that he stole back, but Mr. Gold still insists that something was missing. He leaves the station after making several remarks regarding vigilante justice, which worries Emma.

He buys duct tape and rope, has a brief chat with David Nolan, and leaves the store. He kidnaps Moe French and takes him to an abandoned wooden cabin, where he proceeds to beat him over someone he only refers to as "she." Emma intervenes before he can beat the man to death, and promptly arrests him.

While in jail, Regina arrives with Henry as a bribe for keeping Emma away from them for thirty minutes. She and Henry go off to the ice cream parlor and Regina sits down in front of Mr. Gold at his request. She reveals that she convinced Moe to rob him and that she has the item he had been searching for so desperately. He asks her what she wants in return for his lost item, and she tells him that she wants his name.

At first, he tries to put up a fight, and gives in, saying, "Rumplestiltskin," as proof that he remembers everything about Fairytale Land, its inhabitants, and the Dark Curse. In return, Regina gives him a chipped teacup and walks away.

A few days later, he manages to get out of jail and roam free again. The nuns of Storybrooke's rental is coming up, and Mr. Gold is led out onto the docks by Leroy in an attempt to get money. Mr. Gold is unimpressed by Leroy's boat and offers him three thousand for it, when Leroy really needs five thousand to pay the nuns' rent. Once Mr. Gold realizes that the money will go to the nuns, he says that he doesn't like them very much and walks away, to Leroy's disappointment.

When Mary Margaret is arrested for the suspected murder of Kathryn Nolan, Mr. Gold offers to be her attorney. Emma is skeptical and doesn't trust him, but Mary Margaret knows that she will need all the help that she can get. When she tells him that she wouldn't be able to pay him, Mr. Gold simply claims that he is invested in her future.

Later, Emma goes to Mr. Gold for help, because she believes that Regina is framing Mary Margaret for Kathryn's murder. Mr. Gold agrees to help her, and concedes that fighting Regina and winning will be tough—but he also adds that he believes Emma is more powerful than she realizes.

The morning of Mary Margaret's arraignment, Regina goes to the Sheriff's station and, to her astonishment, finds her still in her jail cell. She pulls aside Gold and asks him why is Mary Margaret still there to which he states it was all thanks to Emma.

Regina says that the only reason she made a deal with Gold was to "get results" - he assures her that she will, as Mary Margaret is still a murder suspect. It is later revealed that the deal they made consisted of Regina getting the District Attorney to drop all charges against Gold (from when he had attacked Moe French) as he didn't "relish the thought of spending anymore time in a cage."

Meanwhile, he gave Regina the idea of something tragic to happening to Kathryn, framing Mary Margaret for it, avoid a trial (which always left the chance that she was found innocent) by getting her to escape using one of Regina's skeleton keys (placed under the bed of her jail cell) and once she tried to leave Storybrooke she would inevitably die.

Later on, after a failed attempt at gaining the District Attorney's sympathy, Mary Margaret is carried away to the trial and Emma blames Gold of not trying harder to defend her, to which he replies to not lose faith as it was time for him to "work a little magic." Immediately afterwards Kathryn is found unconscious behind Granny's Diner by a terrified Ruby.

August Booth
In The Return, August (using Henry as a distraction) tries to infiltrate Gold’s office in the pawn shop looking for something. Once he’s caught he feigns innocence but Gold gets suspicious. Later, a panicked Regina visits him and, seeing that all evidence points to her as the cause of the mess around Kathryn’s disappearance, she blames Gold of not keeping his end of the deal.

He replies that he only broke one single deal in his life and that “it sadly wasn’t this one”. As the terms of their deal only mention that something “tragic” was to happen to her, not necessarily death as Regina hoped, abduction qualified just as well.

During Mary Margaret’s Welcome Home party Emma asks Gold if he had anything to do with Kathryn’s abduction and he asks her if she thinks that he’s working with or against Regina. He then asks about August to which she doesn’t reply satisfactory, other than him being a writer.

After leaving the party he proceeds to break into his room at Granny’s Bed and Breakfast to find an accurate drawing of Rumplestiltskin’s magic dagger, which shocks him. Later he finds the Mother Superior talking with August, and once he leaves he threatens her into telling him what they spoke of. She says he sought advice and counsel on how to approach his estranged father, who he hadn’t seen or spoken to in years.

Afterwards, it is Gold himself who seeks advice with Dr. Hopper and asks to how to approach the man he now believes to be his son to which the doctor replies that, despite everything that may have happened between them, honesty was his best solution. Gold resignedly agrees.

Later August and Gold meet in the woods; Gold apologizes, August forgives him and they both embrace each other. August asks about the dagger, the only proof he had that his father hadn’t changed, Gold tells him he buried it in the woods shortly after Emma arrived to avoid Regina finding it, as “things were changing”.

Once they dig it out August tries to control him with it but fails. Gold immediately realizes he cannot be Baelfire, as his son would never try to control him and much less with a dagger that he knew to be useless in a world where it could not harness magic from. Gold threatens August and finds out he was trying to control him so that Rumplestiltskin's magic could cure him from an unmentioned disease which he is dying from.

A "little fairy" told him that getting Rumplestiltskin's magic was one of his two hopes for survival – his only other option was to get the savior (Emma) to believe in the fairytales behind Storybrooke but he didn’t think he was going to live long enough to see that happen. Gold lets him go, as he’s going to die either way and as such, if August succeeds in making Emma believe, Gold will “get something out of it."

Trivia

 * He brought Henry to Regina when Henry was a baby. It isn't clear if he chose Henry on purpose, but it is likely that Mr. Gold knew exactly who Emma Swan was, and deliberately chose her child for Regina.
 * His name, Mr. Gold, is a reference to his original fairytale in which he was able to spin gold from straw.
 * He has some gold teeth.
 * He has a noticeable limp and walks with a cane, much like he did before he was cursed with the Dark One's abilities (this is likely because magic cannot exist or isn't as powerful within Storybrooke, and thus, Gold is not able to use it to placate his disability). This may be because he was returned to his human form because of the dark curse, at least partially, as he still seems to be all-knowing and may have access to some of his magic.
 * Like his alter ego, Rumplestiltskin, Mr. Gold treats names as important. In many cultures and some beliefs about magic, to know someone or something's "true name" gives you power over that person or thing.
 * Mr. Gold in his former life as Rumplestiltskin promised to make a deal with Regina on how to get the Dark Curse to work based on two conditions he wanted from her. First, once they were brought to the new world, he wanted to have riches. Secondly, he wished to have a magical enchantment in which whenever he says "please", then Regina would have to do what he asks without question. Thus, that is why Mr. Gold has some power over Regina in Storybrooke and she is forced to obey him whenever he ends a command with the word "please".
 * The girl in the original Rumplestiltskin fairytale could not guess his name (until luckily she was told by a messenger at the end of her three day deadline). Similarly, both Henry and Emma have trouble figuring out Mr. Gold's "true name".
 * He buried the Dark One's dagger in the woods to hide it from Regina. When he was caught by Sheriff Graham, Gold claimed he was "gardening". (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter) The dagger is later dug back up by Gold and August. (The Return)
 * He owns and operates Mr. Gold Pawnbroker & Antiquities Dealer, a pawn shop that serves as a legitimite business where Mr. Gold holds a number of magical objects from their original Fairytale Land origins. So far the only characters to still have possessions from their true personas are Mary Margaret (Snow White) - her engagement ring from Prince Charming; Regina (the Evil Queen) - her collection of human hearts and wedding ring from Daniel; and Mr. Gold - his chipped teacup.
 * He still harbors feelings for Belle, but remains unaware of her existence in Storybrooke.
 * He greatly dislikes nuns. Two of the nuns so far have been confirmed as having been fairies originally (Mother Superior/Blue Fairy and Astrid/Nova) so it possible all of the nuns in Storybrooke were originally fairies. Rumplestiltskin blaims fairies for the disappearance of his son because the Blue Fairy gave his son a magic bean which created a vortex to "a land without magic" in which his son disappeared into. (The Return)
 * He claims to be a licensed lawyer, a quality which allows him to broker most of his Storybrooke deals, and alludes to having enough legal experience to represent Mary-Margaret in a criminal trial. (Heart of Darkness)
 * When Emma asks him how he knew she would be at the mayor's house to save her he replies: "Perhaps Regina is not the only one with eyes and ears on this town or perhaps I'm just intuitive"; but this may be a hint to his at least partially have kept the ability to foretell the future as seen in the pilot. (Desperate Souls)
 * For the first time, in The Return, he is seen driving his car as a means of transportation rather than just walking.
 * In the episode An Apple Red as Blood, it is revealed that Mr. Gold wants the curse broken so he can find his son. He also claims in this episode that his curse will break if Emma dies.