Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1962215-20140317132636/@comment-1894786-20151107222328

TrumpetofTheSwan wrote: TrumpetofTheSwan wrote: I agree. He really wasn't evil until the DO got its hands on him. If we're going to say tha he's an evil person for succumbing to the darkness, then we shouldn't ever be able to fully view Emma as a good person again either. I could be wrong here, but haven't people been pretty understanding about how Emma has been acting, because they know that she's under the influence of the DO? It's like someone who is heavily intoxicated; you don't expect them to behave as well as they normally would because they're under the influence of something which has a powerful effect on their judgment. You know that's not what they're truly like when fully in control of their thoughts. And now Belle agrees with me. :D Honestly, it's because Rumple was portrayed as having made every decision himself. Yes, we now know retroactively that he wasn't himself, the Darkness was manipulating him, but it hardly matters.

It's like if we saw Cora being Mother Theresa before her encounter with Jonathan making her a power-hungry crone. It still wouldn't change how we view her.