Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-11058666-20141228031222/@comment-26116863-20150313035617

Sci100 wrote: ... The only way for him to truly be with Belle is to once and for all, choose love over power, to give up on power and accept a life without magic.

In essence, his real goal should be to try and find a way to not be the Dark One anymore, to destroy the dagger and its power once and for all. Once the dagger and its power are forever gone, he will be "drug-free", will stop his addiction to magic and power, and he'll be able to spend the rest of his mortal life trying to prove his love for Belle, and try to amend for his mistakes. And it will take his entire life to make up for what he's done.

But isn't that what he was trying to do, cleave himself from the dagger? He did go about it the wrong way, but I think he had good intentions. He doesn't want to be controlled by it, or by someone else through it.

The only thing that I can think of that might contradict this, is when Rumple admitted that Storybrook was too small for him. It did sound like he was planning to take over the world, but I don't believe that he ever explicitly stated it.

We really have no idea what he was thinking or planning. It seems hard to believe that he thought he'd be able to keep up the ruse once he, Henry,and Belle were over the line. He may be very clever, but I doubt that he'd be able to do anything aggresive on a large scale without them noticing. He knew that he couldn't keep up the ruse forever; he didn't need to. Once he had his freedom, its purpose would be over.

So, in conclusion, I think that he saw the deception and backsliding as a justifiable means to an end.