Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1475805-20150331011255/@comment-26259483-20150406043717

Maybe Rumple is dying because you can only be the Dark One for a certain amount of time until the power becomes too much and kills you and so you have to pass on the torch to a new 'desperate soul' so that he can become the next Dark One kind of what Zoso did to Rumple in the flashback of 1X08. He wanted a way out of the burden, maybe he was actually dying!! Cause as we learnt in episode 4X04 "The Apprentice" there were multiple Dark Ones, Zoso was not the first.

Or maybe his curse works differently in Storybrooke. It also explains why Rumple says that the something else is changing and he needs to change the rules QUICKLY!! and the way he's holding on to his chest has me very worried! I feel that it's like the magical rose from Beauty and the Beast and Belle's love will save him in the end and break his curse, turning him human.

SPOLIER: It did say in the season 4 page that a major character's death MIGHT happen. Again, MIGHT.