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vigilantewives:

crushingthequeen:

Look… this is the reality, for me. 

Killian had an extremely traumatic childhood. 

We can see that he lost his mother when he was young 

His father sold him and his brother into servitude and left them 

He spent his formative years working as a servant 

He lost his brother in service of a bad king.

The woman that he loved was killed because she loved him and not Rumple 

This sent him on his path to becoming a villain. However let me say this…nothing that he experienced justifies any lives he took. When he chose to commit a crime he was making a decision. It was a decision influenced by his past but that past doesn’t determine his future. Anything that he did as a villain was a choice he made. It was conscious and a sad story doesn’t excuse it. Sorry. It doesn’t. 

What makes the difference for me is that I don’t ever here him brush off that choice. He’s haunted by the things he did as a villain as evidenced by the fact that the meaning of those rings changed from being trophies to reminders. 

When he assisted in getting the fairies out of the hat he didn’t feel like he did anything beyond what he should have done because “they wouldn’t have been in there if it weren’t for me.” 

When he came back to assist in finding Henry he stated that maybe he just needed a reminder that he could do something for someone but himself. 

I believe that the reason that he told Emma about Neal, over and above being a man of honor, was that he had handed Neal over to Pan once before. He wasn’t going to do it again. Not for a girl, not for anything. He wanted to right a wrong he’d made in the past. 

When he sacrificed himself as the dark one he said, “If anyone deserves to go to the Underworld it’s me.” 

At no point has he ever decided that now he’s made up for his past. He doesn’t say, “I was a pirate.” He says I AM a pirate. Because he knows that the choices he’s made will forever determine who he is. He’s not Killian Jones and Captain Hook. He is both. 

I say all this because I don’t want people going “You excuse his past because he’s a pretty face and you like him.” I don’t excuse his past. There’s no justification for it and I don’t care what got him there. I can acknowledge that he had a bad childhood that influenced his choices as an adult and still not absolve him of the responsibility for those choices that he made. If one of his victims were to make an appearance I would have no issue with them confronting him, or even wanting justice. And as a fan of his I can say I don’t think he would either. Why? 

When he was faced with the sorcerer after he was released from the hat he couldn’t look him in the eye. He was ashamed of himself. When he was faced with Ursula he acknowledged that he had done worse than broken her heart. No, he didn’t own up to their past right away but again he was embarrassed and he tried to divert. And at the end of the episode he said, “You have no idea how hard it is not to give in to the darkness. I almost didn’t help her get her happy ending.” He acknowledges that he still struggles with villainy. Not in a way that he feels like “Oh pity me. I have to deal with darkness.” But in a way where you could see that he LOATHES that his first instinct wasn’t to help. That the disgust he felt wasn’t because it was causing a disturbance in him getting his way to do good but because he hates that he didn’t immediately jump to action for the other person. 

I see his reaction to being a villain as being intensely personal. “I hate who I am because this is not who I want to be.” As opposed to “I hate who I am because I am not getting the results in life that I want.” 

He has never asked not to be called/considered a villain. For that reason I can forgive him. Because there’s awareness there and a concentrated effort to do good, whether it benefits him at all or not 

Originally posted by bad-influencex

(via jonathansnowflakes)