Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20160821231147

From another thread,

"The important thing to take from here or anywhere is that I believe that the main message about True Love is that "Love is sacrifice".

Thus Belle and Rumple could have TLK, but Rumple resists sacrificing power for love, thus it ending. Since then, he has never been able to perform True Love. I believe that he Truly Loved Baelfire (loved him more than his power) at the season 3 midseason finale and onwards until the end. He was willing to give up his life to destroy his father. It was Love that destroyed Peter Pan. He was willing to give up his sense of self to save Baelfire. It was an act of Love that merged Bae and Rumple, which forced the dagger from him."

To reiterate, a common question was why did Rumple have to "die" in order to kill Pan? I believe that it had to be an act of selflessness and sacrifice (True Love) that could counteract fully the selfish act of Malcolm when he desired eternal youth.

Likewise, Rumple and Bae merged mostly because Rumple wanted to save him, though whycould he not keep both? It was because the Dark-tainted magic was formed on selfishness, hatred, and vengeance, not on love or sacrifice.

Emma as the Dark One was consumed by her selfish desires to save Hook, by exacting vengeance agaisnt Zelena (who "killed" Neal), and could not escape the Darkness. Hook, likewise, was easily consumed by his need for vengeance.

This explains why Rumple and Belle never broke the curse, ever. Rumple loves power more than Belle and has since that first attempt. Pretty sad when you think about it. It's not that he doesn't love her, but he is not willing to ever give up power, that security, for Belle's love.

Hades and Zelena managed True Love. Quickly and ended in death, but it was true for that moment. True Love isn't a "Once in Love, always True" sort of thing with one or two others. Regina didn't fully  love Henry until post-season 1, when she was willing to sacrifice something over her love for him. Hades was willing to give up power over Rumple to save Zelena, thus leading to that woosh. Of course, it goes both ways, but we knew about Zelena's side. This is also why Zelena and Hades' ending scene wasn't discounting True Love. Hades was willing to sacrifice....at that point. But that was just a blimp in his ego streak in which he valued his power and control over her desires and porjected his onto hers.

I'm sure there are more instances of this. Feel free to share thoughts and other instances of acts of True Love and more! 