OUAT Week Day 5: Favorite parallel(s)
Once upon a time, there was a man. A father, to be precise, who loved his child with all his heart. The child's mother had left, so the father was the only parent the child had left. One day the father met a man, a pirate, who mocked him for his softness and weakness, for that is what the pirate thought being a loving father was: soft and weak. But the pirate was not unreasonable; he gave the father the chance to prove him wrong. He challenged the father to a duel. But, of course, such a venture was risky, as the father's child was waiting for him back home, and needed him to come home safe.
What did the father say? Did he say no?
When we first meet Killian Jones in 2.04 "The Crocodile," he takes on the role of the pirate in the story above: the tormentor who believes that putting your child first is worthy of scorn. "A man unwilling to fight for what he wants," he declares, "deserves what he gets" -- an impressive bit of rhetorical theatre that erases the very personhood of Milah and Baelfire both, instead constructing a world that revolves around the figure of the "man" and his success or failure to live up to a hyper-individualist and violent ideal of masculinity. No one else figures into the equation -- not women and certainly not children. To even consider putting fatherhood before being "a man," in Killian's worldview, is nothing but weakness.
By the time 7.13 "Knightfall" rolls around, Killian is now in the role of the father in the story, faced with the choice to duel a pirate and affirm his masculinity through meaningless violence or to go straight home to Alice and free her from the tower without risking his life first. It is no accident that he finds himself in the same situation he once put Rumpelstiltskin in so many years ago. Rather, it is a necessary step in his journey of redemption, growth, and healing.
Like so many other villains and former villains on Once Upon a Time, Killian was once a victim of other people's actions, but over time he has become his own worst enemy. Therefore, it is himself and his own false ideology that he must defeat in order to progress on his journey. So while Captain Ahab is not literally Killian, the way the Split Evil Queen is literally half of Regina or Wish Rumple is literally a version of Rumple, he is metaphorically Killian, and specifically Killian from "The Crocodile."
Captain Ahab makes metatextual sense as a mirror-Killian. Melville's Ahab was a direct inspiration for Barrie's Captain Hook -- in their source texts, both captains lose limbs to sea creatures and dedicate their lives to pursuing revenge against the ones they blame for this loss. And Captain Ahab's name is practically synonymous with obsession and revenge in popular culture. Ahab is revenge made flesh, the originator of the legacy of vengeance and violence that all Captain Hooks are heir to, here to tempt Killian into undoing the work he did in 7.07 "Eloise Gardener" to give up his revenge and his old pirate life behind for the sake of his child.
"Eloise Gardener" is a major turning point for Killian, arguably the biggest one possible. It is the moment where he chooses Alice over his quest for revenge, and in doing so rejects the version of himself who sold Baelfire to Pan, who orphaned and abandoned Liam II, who hated his father and Rumpelstiltskin so much that (as Bae put it) he didn't even realize he had become just like them. In this moment, he chooses not to continue down the path of becoming like his father, instead choosing to identify himself with his mother, who stayed with him "as long as she could." He names his daughter after her; he sings the same lullaby to his infant child that she used to sing to him; he promises to follow her example in staying with his child. He breaks the cycle he's been trapped in for literal centuries.
But that is not the end of the story. Just as Regina choosing Henry over the curse in the 3.09 "Save Henry" flashbacks was not the end of her story. She still had a lot to learn. And so, at this point, does Killian.
Thus, when faced with the same choice Rumple was faced with all those years ago, Killian chooses wrong. Unlike Rumple, he does not swallow his pride and go home to his child, even as Wish Rumple begs and cajoles him to do just that. Wish Rumple has his own self-serving reasons for not wanting Killian to accept the duel, but it is hard not to see him as an echo of the past, urging Killian to make the same choice he himself once made. But Killian doesn't listen. He accepts the duel, choosing the path set for him by Ahab -- his mirror-self, the reflection of the man he once was, his own false ideology that he has yet to truly reckon with. And it costs him everything.
Although he does not die in the duel, the way Rumple surely would have if he'd accepted Killian's challenge, Alice still loses him. A tiny graze from Ahab's bullet permanently poisons his heart and makes it impossible for Killian to stay with his daughter the way he once promised to. It is a profound cruelty on Gothel's part, but perhaps the cruelest part of it is that Killian, like all great tragic heroes, did it to himself. He chose to risk never coming home to his daughter, and that choice in itself ensured he never would. His own twisted ideology has failed him, and he has been forced to confront just how wrong and empty it truly is.
But this is not the end of the story, either. Indeed, in its own way, it is a kind of new beginning. For all that the curse of the poisoned heart is an awful thing for Killian and Alice to endure, Killian's experience with the duel does ultimately change him for the better. Not instantly, for it is hard to change without a support system, especially when you are suffering; but once he has people who have his back, he is able to take the lesson he's learned to heart. What is that lesson? That there is nothing in the world that matters more than one's child; that cleaving children from good parents who love them is nothing but petty cruelty; that being a good father is more important than being "a man" who is willing to "fight for what he wants"; that what he did to Rumple centuries ago was wrong.
Once Killian has learned this lesson, he can overcome his own previous failings as a sort of anti-father figure (or in other words, a Captain Hook -- George Darling's other face, a man whom "no little children love"). Instead of separating families and orphaning children, Killian helps keep families together. He abandons his plan to replace expectant father Storybrooke Hook in 7.02 "A Pirate's Life"; he helps reunite Zelena with Robin Jr. in 7.11 "Secret Garden"; he defends Regina's decision to cast the curse to save Henry in 7.10 "The Eighth Witch"; and, perhaps most touchingly, he gives Jacinda the white elephant to keep her and Lucy together in that same episode, sacrificing his own chance at a life with Alice to do so.
He becomes a living embodiment of loving fatherhood, surpassing not just his past self and his own father but Rumpelstiltskin as well. Indeed, in 7.22 "Leaving Storybrooke", he dies redeeming Rumpelstiltskin's greatest betrayal of Baelfire -- Killian keeps hold of Alice's hand while a portal threatens to separate them even as her very touch kills him, in sharp contrast to Rumple's series-defining moment in 1.19 "The Return" when he lets go of Bae's hand for fear of losing his power. Rumple, in turn, dies redeeming Killian's greatest transgression against Alice -- he gives Killian his heart to replace the one Killian poisoned with his choice to duel Ahab. Rumple, whom Killian taunted when they first met for choosing to get home safe to his son rather than risk his life, gives his life so that Killian can get home safe to his daughter, and in doing so finally heals the wound Killian inflicted on himself all those years ago when he made the opposite choice.
It is a powerful and beautiful ending for Killian and Rumpelstiltskin both: an ending where they redeem themselves by redeeming and healing each other, where they do for Alice what neither could do for Baelfire, where they defeat the ghosts of their past selves for good and pave the way for a better future. And it was all set in motion a long, long time ago -- with a father, a pirate, and an offer to duel.
