Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4050367-20140717023819/@comment-226878-20140721204015

That's another thing that's vague: Rumple's ability to see the future. He's not able to decipher it all precisely, though he obviously managed to do most everything right. Of course, there were obviously plenty of things he didn't expect to happen like falling in love with Cora or Belle, or finding his wife alive with Hook, or the fact that his own grandson would be his undoing (which was also wrong as it turned out to be Pan). Rumple makes mistakes. But somehow fate has always been more or less on his side.