Rumpelstiltskin - Not a Monster
Let’s start with the colour choice and style here: we’ve seen him in the gold waistcoat and shirt combi before, with Regina. This is his “attempt to be a gentleman” clothing. With Regina, it was all an act with flourishes, over-the-top voices, and a personality as multi-faceted as an insect’s eye.
But unlike the scenes with Regina, when he dresses around Belle like this, there are few flourishes, few wildly extravagant gestures, and very little suggestiveness. However, the lack of cravat caught my eye this time around.
Despite his best intentions, he’s dressing up as Killian Jones in this ensemble. Jones is the embodiment of a man who can steal women away, and make them love him. So he’s baring his throat, wearing high collars, and generally looking dashing, but incorporating the colour that he is famed for: his beloved gold.
The plan of being Mr Suave goes immediately out the window when his lovely lady falls into his arms. We can tell that this has more of an impact than just pulling down the drapes, because the next time we see him, he’s wearing red. RED RED RED.
If I have not mentioned before, red is the colour of passion, love, desire, heat, sex and all those other wild emotions that make your heart skip a beat and your mouth smile before you can stop it.
So, Rumpel is no longer just winding himself up in threads of gold. He’s wrapped a mantle around him that is a blatant symbol of his mood: this is when he’s starting to love her, even before he’s really realised himself.
However, there is another reading we can take from the colour. Gold is a shade of yellow. Yellow is the colour most often associated with cowardice. And when he dons red, the colour of love, on top of his coward’s clothing? It’s a first glimpse of him trying to be brave like her, showing what lies beneath the surface. The red is a symbol of his love, and I think it’s beautiful that this is the colour he wears when he chooses to let her go. (Though not so much the second time around)
And really, Rumpel is consistent in his use of red: he continues to show his emotions by presenting Belle with a red rose and a red bottle. He is not a subtle little muffin, and he certainly is not the monster he believes. In these scenes, he is more human than he has been in a long time, and his clothing reflects it.
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