Board Thread:Rant and Rave/@comment-31937823-20180102211252/@comment-28162607-20180103235312

You seem to be missing my point. My point is that with this new angle on the Darkness Curse the show paints Rumple as "aww he was just being manipulated and was too weak to handle it" (despite the fact he was a cold blooded murderer pre-Darkness). He is painted as a victim.

And it worked which is the most frightening part. I have seen posts about "wow Rumple had to deal with that voice in his head for years" and the like.

Or let me put this another way; from episodes 1-7 Emma fans said "Don't worry, remember it's not really Emma" and from episode 8-11 Hook fans said "it's not really Hook". But then following this logic, Rumple from seasons 1-7 wasn't really Rumple.