Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1916997-20150312220054/@comment-25926288-20150422031721

Utter solitude wrote: maybe using the item he draws power from would weaken him in the Land Without Magic? Or he's just not willing to try it?

I mean, Gold has extensive skills even without magic. He managed that whole plot with Belle contacting "a professor at Oxford" sans magic. I guess it's because the dagger is connected to magical being (which can't exist in a world without magic). So, the dagger is just a well focus and source of power since it possesses the magical Dark One or rather the Dark One's curse. So, I assume Rumple was trying to cleave himself of the dagger to get rid of the dagger dependence but keep the Dark One's curse/ magic. It would have been cool if he was trying to cleave to stop the darkness, but plot points seem to drop like flies from arc to arc.