Thanks City_Gal! Inwas like, freaking out because I thought Inhad to remake the whole post

Sorry, once again, I prove I don't know how to say things quickly and briefly

Just going to toss out a theory (and I may have already tossed this out here before. If so, apologies):

I'm not a big Stephen King fan, although he does have a certain thing with supernatural stuff happening in Maine that makes me think I should read more of him in relation to Once. However, in his book Pet Sematary, there's a bit about the burial ground that makes me think of the Dark Curse.

Towards the beginning of the story, the little boy nearly gets killed (almost run over by a car, I think? Hope I'm remembering this stuff right). As the story goes on, it becomes clear that the force in the burial ground is drawing people in and pushing them to make bad choices. At first, it seems it can only nudge things. But, each nudge makes it stronger. The cat being brought back may be what makes it possible for the burial ground to lure the little boy out into traffic. That death may help push the father to ignore the danger signs and bring his son back to life as a demon. The deaths the boy causes make it so the father can be drawn in to bring his wife back. When this happens, it's very clear he's not thinking rationally, and the burial ground has enough power that a man who sees him carrying his wife's dead body responds with horror before just forgetting about it.

OK, bringing this over to Rumple's curse.

In Neverland, the other characters are practically irrational in the way they turn on Gold. Neal has heard his father state his determination to die to save Henry. He also knows he said this when he thought Neal was an illusion trying to talk him out of it. Yet, in next to no time, Pan has him convinced Rumple is a bigger threat to Henry than he is.

Even after that blows up in Neal's face, resulting in Pan recapturing Henry and imprisoning Neal, Neal continues to believe this. Within seconds, he has the whole rescue party convinced that's why Rumple came. This despite the fact that Emma has seen what Rumple is willing to do to reunite with his son. Regina, at this point, knows the curse and everything--Rumple being imprisoned, the years he spent training her, even her own birth--were just a means to reaching Neal. David's seen how far Rumple will go for the woman he loves (and I assume Snow is aware of some of that).

In short, they all have reasons to know how far Rumple will go for family and for the people he loves. They also may know something about how protective Rumple can sometimes get around children who aren't related to him.

And, yet, they all almost immediately jump on the we-don't-trust-Rumple bandwagon. In fact, they make choices that increase the odds of everything going wrong (which it does. Way to go, guys).

But, later on, we see this repeat--and we see it repeat in creepy ways.

The characters are most likely to distrust Rumple when he isn't doing something evil--or when he's close to freeing himself from the dagger.

Anna's brief statement about Rumple hardly seems like reason enough for the heroes to go running off to find him as if he's involved in something evil (OK, he was, but that doesn't mean they didn't have enough reason to think that).

Then, we see Belle, of all people, turn on Rumple with insufficient cause. The gauntlet showed a person's greatest weakness, something Belle knew. She knew Rumple said that was almost always the thing a person loved most, but that wasn't what he told her it did.

Even if it had been correct, Belle's treatment of Rumple was brutal as was her lack of desire to find out what had happened to him afterwards when she should have realized he was in a desperate situation (without even his cane!).

I'm just going to throw this out here: What if the Dark Curse could mess with people around Rumple? As it came closer to destroying him, its power increased. In the beginning, Belle was immune. Towards the end, it was able to push her into doing something horrible.

During Neverland, it needed a fairly good story to get the others to turn on Rumple. Yes, they didn't think about whether it made sense and, yes, they turned on him far too quickly--but the story was based on truth. They only had to assume the worst about Gold.

By the time Anna and Elsa were going home, it was strong enough that a very little nudge was all that was needed to make the heroes act like a torch bearing mob pointed towards the mad scientist's castle in the last ten minutes of the movie.

And Belle herself could be made to turn on Rumple when she should have known better.

I'd also like to use this as an excuse to explain why Belle gave "Hook" the dagger. The Dark Side of the Force can really cloud the minds around it.

OK, the last may be stretching it.

In contrast to this, when Gold is being sneaky and evil, the opposite happens. Emma dismisses Ingrid's warning about Gold. Hook's ego cranks up to a power of ten, and he believes he can blackmail the Dark One.

Heck, characters remain oblivious to the Dark Curse when it's practically dancing in front of them. Emma and Hook discuss murdering Rumple and dismiss the idea that this would just switch the Dark Curse to someone else--or that the person it's switched to might handle it worse than Rumple. When Both Regina and Hook are flat-out told that Rumple will be dead but the Dark One will live on--and there will be no more Mr. Nice Guy standing between them and it--their response is to abuse and mock Rumple.

This is not intelligent behavior. But, it is behavior that makes sense if something is clouding their brains.

No worries. I've got you covered. That's what I'm here for.

(though it would be fun to see you freak out! )