thisisevenharderthannamingablog:
And why he won’t be getting it back.
It’s not “oh, he lost a hand, that sucks.” If that was the case, the narrative might well include him getting back. However, that’s not how it went, and the context in which it was lost is in this case the most important thing. That context is defined by Rumplestiltskin.
Rumplestiltskin cut off Killian’s hand under the assumption that the main thing Killian had going for him in life was physical strength, that Milah’s real reason for ditching Rumple was related to his disability, to him being in his own estimation unmanly.
(Note, if you will, that Milah herself never suggested any such thing. She referred to herself as being “lashed to the town coward,” but never that I can recall to Rumple’s limp.)
Cutting off that hand, in Rumple’s view, put Killian at the same level as Rumple himself had been all those years before. His intent was to doom his foe to that same life of perpetual victimhood and mockery, powerless and unwanted. That was supposed to be Rumple’s true victory, his way of reassuring himself that he didn’t really do anything wrong that first time, that it wasn’t a failure of courage, that it was all down to the body.
Living well is the best revenge, though. Killian went on with his life with barely a pause. He continued to fight, continued to lead, and continued to win the admiration of women. Rumple didn’t win a damn thing. His crisis of masculinity led to him cheating himself out of the bean and failed utterly in affecting his enemy, because for all of his often acute insight, when it comes to this particular subject he is 100% wrong.
Killian’s going to get his happy ending with that hook in place, because a missing hand doesn’t define him any more than having two did. Because it’s just not important – not to him, not to Emma, not to anyone who cares about him.
cshappybeginning 