Please ignore my terrible title for this post. The names fit too well together for me to ignore it.

Anyway, I've been reading Lord of the Rings recently and was struck with some similarities between Mr. Gold and Smeagol.

• Started out as normal kind-hearted beings.
• Fell prey to the corrupting influence of a power belonging to the ultimate evil (power of the Dark One and Sauron's Ring)
• Killed/Lost the one they once loved by choosing the power (Rumple killed Milah and lost Bae and Smeagol killed Deagol over the ring)
• Lived extraordinarily long lives thanks to the power becoming entirely different from their former self
• Lost the power by some means (Bilbo took it unknowingly, and Mr. Gold by exorcising the Darkness)
• Ultimately torn between the good former self (new hero Rumple and Smeagol reasserting itself) and the power (Gollum constantly looking for a reason to steal the Ring back and Rumple stealing the Darkness back at the first chance he saw)

This may be a bit of a stretch but the similarities seem to be there. The last logical step then would be Rumple sacrificing himself in the destruction of the Darkness as Gollum eventually did.

edit - I just realized that I forgot to delete the second half of the post title when I found the pun. Whoops