Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-26159109-20170115054549/@comment-24674051-20170119155832

Another point to doing without Rumple.. They showed with Fendrake, that there were others out there that were willing to help, for a price. So while Rumple was indeed the most powerful, there were other options available.

Also, there's nothing that would prevent A&E from seeing if Robert was available for the occasional backstory.

However, I do agree that most of the interaction with Rumple in an EF backstory does not need Rumple actually present and could be done by reference.