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thestraggletag:
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The first Dark One, Nimue, was created 1000 years ago. When the group of Dark Ones came to Storybrooke from the Underworld, there were roughly 20 of them. We know Rumpelstiltskin has been alive somewhere between 200-300 years. Which means the other Dark Ones all lived and perished within a 700-800 year time span.
Averaged out, the typical lifespan for a Dark One prior to Rumple was 35-40 FUCKING YEARS.
Rumple’s lifetime is about 6-8 times longer than any of the others. If there were another DO that lived as long as he did, that means there were a lot of DOs that probably only lasted a couple years before they were killed.
I just keep thinking about Zoso and how he practically orchestrated his own demise to rid himself of the darkness. How many of them did the same thing? How many of them just despised themselves so much after becoming this terrible, hateful, angry thing that they’d intentionally find some foolish mortal to trick into stabbing them with the dagger?
It’s pretty telling to me that Rumple has survived this long. He’s, like, the ultimate Dark One, because the reason he’s lasted so long is because unlike many of the others, he spent a long time actually embracing the darkness instead of fearing it. He had a strong will to survive and an even stronger one to keep his power. He was made for this role.
Actually it’s been heavily implied in canon and confirmed outside that it was Baelfire the one to keep Rumple going. As a Dark One he did relatively short amount of damage and focused instead all his attention in his plan to get back to Bae. No voices in his head could distract him from that. It was because he loved Bae and kept that love alive for years in the hope of reuniting that Rumple lasted so long without his heart being consumed by darkness.
Zoso, it’s also heavily implied, spent a lot of time as the DO as a slave and so to escape that fate again he offed himself the only way he could. Other DOs were probably careless, there is no evidence that suicidal tendencies were the cause of their demises.
So to sum up Rumple is the living example of a man with a desire so strong to see his son again that he managed to hold on to his humanity for hundreds of years while being the DO. The show showed us with Hook and Nimue how fast and easy it is to lose yourself entirely to the curse. Yet Rumple is now the ultimate DO and he hasn’t given into the darkness like they did (otherwise SB would be a smoking crater right now). Now it’s Belle and his son who tether him to his humanity.
He’s canonically the only DO to selflessly die for others too. Self-preservation is a big motivator for him but not the ultimate by a long shot.
Also A&E reconned Rumples age, so the entire timeline is off. The show’s a mess.
(The original post wasn’t meant to be anti-rumple, more like… pro-villain-only-rumple? But I do go into a little of anti-rumple here so if you’d prefer not to read, I understand. Don’t mean to offend.)
It’s definitely true, the idea of seeing Bae again pushing him to survive. But if he had this vision, this image of the future where he sees his son again and he knows he’s stuck waiting for that future for a long, long time, I don’t think that meant the darkness couldn’t consume him. Even Nimue, who started it all, had love in her heart for Merlin, but the darkness did consume her anyway. And what would it mean, to have the darkness consume you? Does it mean that you destroy everything? Lay waste to every realm? Kill everyone? Torture them? Or does it just mean that you let your selfish, dark desires take precedence over all else? (If you mean it in the literal sense, as we finally see in S5 when they have to rip the darkness from him, we’ve never seen the hearts of previous DOs, so we can’t be sure that any of them had completely blackened hearts, either.)
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I think there are a lot of assumptions being made here. And I get it. We all have our headcanons, even about the characters we don’t like or we “love to hate”. But those are just that, headcanons. There is, for example, no evidence that Rumple is sadistic. None. The only time he ever shows enjoyment over people’s pain is when those people have wronged him and he’s punishing them or getting revenge (Hook, as a villain, shows the same characteristic, for example). That’s just human nature. We do have examples in the show of villains who outwardly show pleasure when inflicting pain on innocent people (Zelena and Peter Pan come to mind).
Rumplestiltskin showing remorse or guilt is all over the place in OUAT. As a DO we see him drink and look uncomfortable as he goes to look for David to replace his brother as Prince James. We see him remember Belle over and over, when he thinks she’s dead because he threw her out. There was a great scene where Snow asks Rumple how he can live with what he’s done and they have this super meaningful talk about it. As a villain he is the ONLY one to show remorse on a consistent basis and with a true level of depth. As any other character he is more than capable of thinking the end justifies the means and that Bae is worth the misery of others (other people who do this: Gepetto, Snow, Charming, Emma, The Blue Fairy, etc.). But it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel guilt. Far from it.
As the DO there is no evidence he ever left “devastation in his wake”. That’s a bit much. There’s also no evidence he is a mass murderer. Of course the people he’s canonically killed would be enough if this was real life and not a fantasy show but canonically the only characters to be shown or to have confessed to mass murder are Regina and Hook (we can’t even include Zelena or Peter Pan, not canonically). And Rumple is viciously fair. He made a deal he did not understand and has had to pay the price. Likewise he feels other people who willingly make a deal with him, even though he has a reputation for demanding steep prices, are at fault for whatever happens. Besides, magic comes at a price and it’s something people in OUAT forget all the time.
Nevermind the people who actually come out winners in his deals. No one credits Rumple for the lives that were saved in Belle’s village, for example. And they shouldn’t, it was Belle who made the deal and paid the price so it’s completely her accomplishment. But then how is it fair to blame Rumple for the negative side-effects of a deal and not for the positive outcomes?
As for Rumple tormenting people that is shown to be against canon. He torments one guy (I agree, it’s one too many) and then has a conversation with Belle that pretty much reveals he does not have a reputation for torturing, meaning this is not something he’s done enough, if ever before). I mean, my headcanon for example is that Hook is also given to torture, but canon has only given us one instance of him actually torturing someone and one instance of being accessory to torture. So that remains my headcanon.
Rumple lasted hundreds of years as the DO (how many depend on how A&E are feeling) without doing much damage. Emma, with her entire support system, with tons more knowledge about how the DO curse works, with MERLIN on her side trying to help her, lasted a few weeks tops before she created another DO by forcing the darkness into a very unwilling Hook. DO!Hook lasted minutes before he was killing Merlin, cursing everyone to SB and trying to kill Emma and her entire family. By contrast we have Rumple who even with the twisted mindset of the DO strove to protect and love Bae, and when he hurt him it was never on purpose. So clearly Rumple’s got something these other DOs didn’t have.
As for why Rumple takes the curse back at the end of 5A… After hundreds of years Rumple, understandably, finds his life threatened (by Hook’s DO shenanigans) and wants back the one thing that made him feel safe. And in that sense you’re right. For Rumple power is safety, power is strength. Those are two things he’s never had in life before the curse and he’s become addicted to them, that’s true. But if that was the sole extent of Rumple’s relationship to the curse he’d be a different person. Super!dark!Rumple in season 6 does not kill Hook, even though the other man openly defies him. Does not take revenge on Snow for ratting Belle out to Hyde. DO!Emma and DO!Hook could not be ignored like that. It’s very telling that in a season where Rumple has become the Ultra Dark One the villains are Hyde, Jaffar and the Evil Queen.
So long story short Rumple is the only DO who has shown to choose his loved ones over power and the influence of the DO (Emma, Hook and Nimue failed the test…. though in the end Hook tried to pivot, but only when he was done for anyway). And that indeed, I think, proves he IS the best to carry the darkness, but just not the way you might have been implying.
