So let me get this straight about Rumple’s decision
The characters and some of the fandom are angry because Rumple tricked Hook and he sacrificed himself for nothing.
The way I see it is that Rumple had nothing to do with Hook’s actions, and it was a side effect of what Rumple had in mind. All that was really taken away was Hook’s chance to die a hero’s death, after having created the problem to begin with. Pretty much like Ingrid last season. The real heroic death that was similar to this was the one that was done first, which was Rumple killing Pan and himself to save his family, and as a result the others in the town as well.
So Rumple gave Belle the means and the choice to go away and see the world. He gave her as many options as he could for her to be happy without him. This is after she broke his heart, and didn’t want to give him a chance, even as a hero, but he let her go. We are shown at this point, that he is also marked. He has no hope.
Immediately after this Emma shows up and they go over what she plans to do.
Rumple then uses the potion on Excalibur to make it a conduit and transfer the magic over to him.
Now, he might do this because he doesn’t want to go to hell, and/or because he has nothing else except this new opportunity to have power.
It could be that, or perhaps it’s something else… or at least a combination of two things.
What Rumple did would have allowed Emma to live. Yes, he would have taken away her sacrifice as well, but she would have been allowed to live. Emma’s plan was to take all the darkness and then have Regina kill her in order to destroy it.
The thing is that Rumple’s actions allowed for that scenario not to happen exactly as they wanted, which an arguably better result.
Hook didn’t die from Emma “killing” him with Excalibur. That’s when the transfer happened. What killed Hook was his mortal wound from Camelot. Hook was a dead man walking the entire time. The only reason he was alive was because Emma put the darkness in him. So Rumple had nothing to do with Hook being dead. What he did would have actually saved Emma, and is very close to being the same thing that Emma did in order to save Regina last season.
Once he took on the darkness again, he didn’t look happy as to how it played out, because Hook got involved, and instead of Regina killing Emma, something Regina had been preparing to do since the beginning of the season, it ended up Emma being crushed because in her mind she was killing the man she loved… except that there is no scenario in which Hook comes out alive here. None. He’s dead. Since Camelot. The only way for him to have come out of this alive would have been for another independent magical macguffin, like Emma’s two hearts plan that she borrowed from her parents. So instead of saving Emma and taking on the darkness himself, and Hook being dead because there was nothing to be done about that, what Rumple did that I think he wasn’t happy about was that Emma heart was broken in the process.
So Rumple IMO did not look happy at the lake, and did not look happy in his shop where he was seen alone drinking.
When Belle appears, he looks like he tries to explain something to her. He’s shaking his head and starts to say something before she kisses him. IMO, this is part of the love chasing the darkness away thing.
Also, he is now the Dark One. If he behaves like a jerk, and lies well he’s the Dark One again. At least he didn’t immediately go nuts and start threatening the town as soon as it happened. Instead, he’s the Dark One again, and through his actions, the Dark Ones stopped threatening everyone, the people weren’t marked anymore, and Emma was alive.
He said he put the darkness in a safe place, and Emma says that he put it in himself. Maybe that will be a safe place. He was a hero with a pure heart when it happened… if his reasons to have done it were potentially noble, or at least born out of a broken heart, then isn’t he close to how Emma took on the darkness last season? She did not have darkness in her heart, and neither did Rumple. Seems like a similar situation to me.
I just don’t see him as a despicable human being. Almost everything he’s done that was truly bad was after he this darkness rolling around inside of him. He was a good man as a human. Flawed, and repeatedly crapped on, but he was a good man. No matter how much they try to retcon, and demonize him, and elevate other characters in the process that is still true for me, I think.
We’ll see how this plays out. I think there is potential for a positive outcome for Rumple and for Rumbelle… eventually.
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