Belle gave Rumple an ultimatum before: her or the dagger. Belle said it best, “your true love is power.” Rumple basically echoed this sentiment when he said he “loves the dagger” (or rather, what it represents, I gather). By refusing to give up the dagger (despite being free of it) he rejected her ultimatum. On top of that, he countered with his own ultimatum: take it or leave it. I don’t see how Belle can honestly live with that without sacrificing her self-dignity. Rumple is basically manipulating her.
@Slurpeez, I agree with much of what you’re saying, but I think there’s an issue with the ultimatum logic. I think they are both engaged in manipulating each other, through different means. Ultimatums of any variety, on the part of either party, are not a good basis for a healthy (scratch that, even just a merely functional) relationship. Combine that with the yo-yo effect of on again-off again, and I actually think that what Belle and Rumple are doing is a variant of co-dependency. Either way, they are both participating and perpetuating an unhealthy dynamic, where they are both attempting to control the other, albeit through very different means (Rumple mostly through deceit and trying to cover his butt, and Belle by threatening to end the relationship, which, one might argue, is additionally effective against Rumple since at the core of his personality is an abandonment complex, so she’s partially playing off on that).
Either way, threatening to leave unless your partner changes — or, the reverse move, which is “take me as I am, or scoot” are both variants of the same thing, a kind of “my way or the highway” refusal to meet half way. Belle’s “Hero or Bust” is, in some senses, the mirror image of Rumple’s “Beast or Bust”.
Minimally, what they are both doing doesn’t solve anything. There’s actually quite a bit of evidence to suggest that discipline and/or punishment isn’t effective at changing human behavior. (Here’s an example, albeit related to child development rather than adult relationships, though I think the insights are meant to be portable to adults too.) So far, neither Belle nor Rumple have moved towards breaking out of the dysfunctional cycle — but as @Keb said, this is a new phase of their story, and it’s not over yet. (Either way, those two need some serious couples therapy, if nothing else, in order to help them model positive relationship behavior). I actually think that Rumple’s admission of his love for power can be a good thing. In the same way that an alcoholic must first admit he’s an alcoholic to get any sort of help.
I suppose this ought to be viewed as a cautionary tale that love isn’t always enough and that it doesn’t always help someone to become free of addiction/love of power/whatever issue
Can I just point out how profoundly bizarre the idea that you either love a person OR you love a particular state of being (which is what addiction is, in some sense) is? I think this is a logical fallacy. Addiction can certainly be inimical to a relationship and unhealthy for both the addict and his loved ones, but conflating these two very different affective states — love for a person, and the psychological and physical dependency on the thing one is addicted to — gets us into an ethical and intellectual dead-end.