Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26159109-20160201202653/@comment-25926288-20160201205153

ItachiIshtar wrote: Ah, but Rumple's arc for Season 4 would have likely been entirely different had Neal remained alive. "Killing" Zelena to avenge Neal's death was what started the whole lying to Belle about the dagger thing. Rumple would have already had his happily ever after with both Belle and Neal in his life. Though I guess he still would have wanted to free himself of the dagger's control, if given the chance. Yeah, somehow the mark is moved to Zelena (who tries to prevent it with magic wumbo) and Rumple kills her anyway for trying to kill his son. Rumple hurts and kills people for a scrath on Bae, so I don't you need to kill him to get the same result. Plus, he could kill her out of revenge for what she did to him.