Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-11464223-20151109020125/@comment-1894786-20151109231757

GothicNarcissus wrote: Btw, if we think about that, taking 500 years before as the right count, Rumple is supposedly the longest-lasting Dark One ever. He's been around for 200 years, so ALL the others came and went within 300 years. Everyone else probably didn't have any reason to stay the Dark One that long. If (presumably) all others were fueled by vengeance like Nimue was, after their vengeance was sated, they were still dark, but also human. So they probably let themselves be killed like Zoso was.

Rumple was the first to go dark for a good reason. To save his son (though he still committed murder to become the Dark One). Since that was his goal, and not revenge, the Darkness didn't consume him into self-destructing. No, we saw THAT after Neal's death, once his goal was met. Like Nimue's and all the others were.

So his longevity was probably due to his goal. If Emma remains the Dark One (very likely since they now hinted that there could be someone strong enough to control the Darkness), she will probably be more long-lived than Rumple due to her goal being to protect everyone from the Darkness.