Re: Favourite legitimate couples

David screwed up but got his Charming memories back right before leaving town.

When the curse broke and Snow and David were standing together, so it wasn’t really a matter of choice to say Snow would never forgive him—they started kissing right away, didn’t they? Yes, Emma has seen her parents story play out, and it may play out in influencing her somewhat—but at the same time, she’s not a little girl, she’s a grown woman. They may be her parents, but her personality, her wants, her needs are her own. True love is different for everyone in some ways, because people are different. Yes, Emma says the choice is important—but up until the portal she was adamant she was not a choice he could have. So I think we have to wait and see how the rest of it is written. You can’t stop the story in the middle and compare it to a story that finished that romance arc with the wedding.

She’s had her moments of weakness and almost leaving (just like Charming and Hook and Neal) but the difference is that Charming got to the edge of town and Emma got to the edge of town and Hook had his ship almost out of sight but they all came back and fought for Snow and Henry and Hook came back to help save a town full of people who hated and betrayed him (on behalf of Emma and Bae). Neal knew when he could come back and fight for it when Emma would have her family back and everything would be alright and he chose not to – that is a stark difference for me.

Hook only had to “come back” because he helped make the mess that put those lives in danger, and ran away with their only way out in the first place. THAT is a stark difference to me. I give him loads of credit for turning around. I even agree Emma’s words affected him. The thing is, it was too late by the time he did it. If Henry had not been kidnapped, then his turning around wouldn’t have even helped anyone. As I said, it wasn’t clear to me that Neal “knew” when he could come back and fight to be with Emma—since it wasn’t a question of fighting but respecting her wishes if she really did not want to have anything to do with him. I keep going back to Charming in What Happened to Frederick—“You can’t fight for what doesn’t exist.” Love is a two way street. Both sides have to want it, have to fight for it, and absent magic to bolster your own doubts and fears—it’s a little tougher in the real world to be sure.

Charming had no problem waiting 28 years, Hook’s been waiting centuries to avenge the woman he loved and was fine with waiting the 28 years in that dome thing Cora put up, and Neal had to wait what, 12? and chose not to try to make it work.

Time in those 28 years, as well as in NL isn’t the same as in the real world. Cora said time would be frozen there by the way. Yes, that means he lost faith, but as I said above—it happened to other couples too.

Emma’s been fighting for family her whole life and has finally found it and will now fight for them no matter what.

He didn’t know she went looking for him. Emma hasn’t fought for her family her whole life! She even choked when August tried to get her to believe—she said she didn’t ask for it, any of it. She didn’t want to be the savior. She wanted to find her family, she wondered yes—but we don’t see her searching or anything. I realize you want to tie Emma’s personality to that quote of Hook’s that you have to fight for what you want. Yet this quote of his doesn’t really fit what Emma has been about “her whole life”. She’s been about looking out for herself, then with Neal looking out for each other, then after that, not trusting people. She wasn’t receptive when Henry came to find her. She didn’t fight for him at first, until she realized something was off about Regina. Then yes, she dug in a little—but it wasn’t so easy, and part of it I think was just sheer stubbornness. Also remember, she planned to leave, and Henry had left something in the car so she turned back, then her car crashed. Then she tried to leave again at the end of season 1 when she realized the fight itself was causing harm to Henry. Sometimes, fighting isn’t a good idea—but then the turnover happened and she believed, and the curse broke.

Emma fought tooth and nail for Henry to save him.

See above paragraph. Emma is tough, but she has at times expressed doubt and wanted to quit various things—perhaps tied into her moving around so much too. I think she does understand those who feel forced to walk away—since she had to do it too and she has now seen what caused Snow and Charming to leave her. She also knows that some fights are too stacked to win or that too many people get hurt if you keep fighting.

In fact I think it hurts her more because one of the things that really tied her with Neal is the fact that they were both abandoned and wanted to save each other from being alone. To have someone who knows what it feels like do that to her was excruciating and the last straw before her walls went up. It seemed, (from the brief highlight reel that we got in Tallahassee) that she opened up to him fairly quickly and I’m sure that common bond was a huge part of it. That would have been a huge slap in the face, regardless of the reasons, but the reasons would have helped.

Exactly why Neal found it hard to imagine she would forgive him!

That quote to MM from back in S1 about wanting something vs choosing to do something about it speaks volumes to me about Emma’s character which is why I have trouble believing she’d be so OK with this so quickly *at this point.*

See above—those words of “I love you” were ripped out of her thinking she’d never get another chance. Yet they did have offscreen conversations, that perhaps were not dramatic enough or because of other plots and pacing were not shown to us. We have to infer, and when we do that, of course we all infer different things.

My point about being 2nd choice is that I agree on Neal’s side that Emma was his first choice, but he gave up on that first choice, moved on to choice #2 and choice #2 is what Emma is seeing in front of her.

She breaks into his room, and he’s like, ok fine, look. He goes with her to the beach even—he’s giving her leeway. If he were really fighting hard for Tamara, he’d have told her to get the obscenity out of his room and come back only with a warrant. Well, pointless in SB but we know Emma’s original plan wasn’t even to bring any of this up to Neal until she HAD proof. She didn’t intend for him to believe her just on her ability alone, no matter how much she may pride herself on it. I disagree that he was ignoring everything he knew of her, but as others have discussed, he didn’t want to believe what she was saying was true, it didn’t make logical sense, it didn’t make emotional sense to him. Again, this was not about “choosing” between the two of them, as Emma unlike MM and David was not trying to be in a relationship with Neal! She was doing the exact opposite, at every turn, she told him she was over him, told him he didn’t matter, didn’t care he was dating someone. So it was not put to him as a stark choice A or B, who do you believe, me or her? He was looking for other explanations for the things that Emma felt were wrong. Part of her reason for suspicion was the list, and of course, Neal had helped Tamara to write it, but by then, she’d already broken in to look for more evidence.

I realize there wasn’t a lot of time between finding out that Tamara was up to no good and the ILYs since the two events happened back to back thanks to the portal. I do however feel that it rushed everything and there wasn’t a lot of build up to that moment. There was obvious jealousy along the way, but as much as Emma waits til the last second to declare feelings, it still seemed VERY rushed to me for SF given that it was immediately after Neal’s relationship with Tamara ended (and very badly and not by Neal’s choice).

Yes, it was rushed. That is why I feel it was not speaking to intentions for the future or a complete acknowledgement that all was forgiven –and I think I’ve read enough SF posts to say in general people were surprised too.

I didn’t see that coming and felt a lack of build up to make that moment really payoff and seem legitimate for the people they are today and not just the idea of what they once were. If anything it felt more like closure than the start of something, especially since they both basically acknowledged the idea he was about to die. It felt like they were finally BOTH admitting that they felt something for each other once and this was their goodbye, without having to address any of the issues along the way because they did genuinely have feelings and it was nice to finally hear him say that he felt that way too.

There were clues that each still had feelings. She remembers that he hates mayo and points it out to Tamara! There’s all the people thinking they still have torches for each other. There’s the dreamcatcher in his room, and the fact she kept the bug and keychain (though those are ties to Henry, and the betrayal too, so we can discount them a little). There’s other little things too, like the way she seeks out his opinion on going “home” to FTL. Yet I do agree, the ILYs were not an expression of future intention to be together and did come rather fast.