Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26901329-20150728204029/@comment-24674051-20150729145321

Good eval regarding the differences between the Dark One and the Darkness. I think that is an important distinction.

So far as we've seen, Only Rumple has broken away from the darkness, and that took the power of the Apprentice and the Hat. ANd we saw that the hat could not contain the darkness, so I am of the oppinion that the Darkness itself is probably unstoppable.

So breaking the Dark One Curse most likely just releases the Darkness until someone else tethers it using the dagger.

Side thought. We know that Rumple loved power more than anything, but could there also maybe have been a bit of altruism when he pushed Belle away in Skin Deep. We saw that True Love's kiss was working to free Rumple, but Rumple knew that freeing the darkness would not be a good thing. He even reminded us of that towards the end of Season 4 (when he said that the Dark ONe can not die, but Rumplestiltskin can, and that you did not want to be around when that happened).