Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

There are still some plot elements to play out.   We don’t know if Neal kept the swan key chain and he has yet to try to return it to Emma, and she has yet to turn him down.   There are things she doesn’t know, about Hook and about Neal, and I think it’s mostly positives about Neal and negatives about Hook.

I firmly believe that Hook was introduced not just as a suitor for Emma Swan, but also as the lover of Milha, Rumple’s wife and Bael’s mother, for a distinct reason. What kind of a father figure was/is Hook to Bae? Not a very good one from what we’ve seen. As Milha’s lover, Hook didn’t seem to care too much that she would be leaving a small boy motherless, even though Hook himself knows what it feels like to be abandoned by his dad. Also, even if Hook was in theory willing to be a family to Bae and says he would have fought for him, he didn’t. I was re-reading an older interview from last year in which Edward Kitsis had this to say about the kind of father figure that Hook would make to Henry:

Kitsis once again tackles the subject of Emma’s suitors saying, “I think what’s interesting is the love of Emma’s life last year was Henry and this year we actually met the one person that she has fallen in love with [Neal]. Hook is obviously eye candy. I don’t know if she would stare at him and think he would be a great father to Henry but he might be fun in Vegas.”

I think that Adam and Eddy were setting up this conflict for a distinct reason: Hook was not a good father figure to Bae so that would give Emma serious pause in considering Hook as a potential father-figure to her son. And as Emma said in 3×7, she’ll always choose Henry. A lot of CS fans like to say that Henry is not a very important calculus in Emma’s decision in who she should choose, but Emma just made Henry THE criterion. Henry’s dad will always put his son’s best interests first. Hook, on the other hand, probably would have to do a major shift in priorities if he were ever to be a serious contender in Emma’s eyes. Single mothers are not at liberty to just do whatever fancy comes upon them; they must think of their kids. I think Emma regrets that kiss between her and Hook now because she realizes it was just a diversion from finding Henry.