Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24674051-20151117184714/@comment-27603417-20151118082546

Zocux wrote: ChocolatEyes613 wrote: We also do not know if Merlin did not need sleep, and Hook's darkness stems from Merlin's. Remember, Merlin had the gift of foresight, while the Dark One did not. Also, the three-weeks-ago thing, could have a couple of days before everyone returned. Hook might still be in transition, which explains the lack of skin-condition. Or maybe it's the dark curse. After the first curse Rumplstiltsking didn't had the skin-condition either. Rumple didn't have the skin condition because he is in his cursed body: Gold's. Remember that when they resurrected him, he turned out to be sparkly again.

I believe that the skin sparkling characteristic just comes when they continue to use dark magic over time. It's like the more they use dark magic, the more they will sparkle. Hook hasn't done anything magical yet, so he's not yet sparkly. Rumple's skin in "Desperate Souls" is not yet that sparkly compared to his skin before the casting of the curse. Nimue, I think, is an exception because she is the first one; she directly drank from the Holy Grail and was transformed instantly when she killed Vortigan.