Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

There are people on both sides who would probably quit watching the show just because of the ship winning or losing, but might warm to a third option with the best of both and none of the flaws.  There are also people who care about neither ship and are sick of the focus on Emma’s love life problems and don’t like either guy much (Myrill and Happy Endings for example miss the S1 feel, even if the root of their concerns may be different).  I’m in between as I like  Hook and Neal as characters.  I am not indifferent to one story versus the other obviously, but not as diametrically opposed to say never.  Everything depends on how they write the story and do they butcher the characters to get to a fan pleasing result?
Triangles can result in badly written characters as the indecisiveness needed on the part of of the pivotal person in the situation undermines that character, then usually one side or the other gets revealed to be “the wrong one” all along with backward character growth.  In a movie, usually you don’t see the perspective of the third person at all, so that’s not an issue.Here we’ve seen both how Neal and Hook feel, and as well Emma that she is devoted to Henry, but her reactions are murkier with Neal and Hook.   Yet she loves Neal so a new guy is less a threat to SF. Right now all Hook has with Emma is the sense of relating to her and she found him attractive enough to kiss the way they did.  That is not too hard to imagine another character surpassing that light level of bond. It is possible that a guy from her past surfaces that she had a multi-year relationship with but just chose not to mention it to MM, preferring to imply nothing about her past.  Who knows?  It is a story and they can add and embroider and change meaning.  It is not as satisfying sometimes but we have to see their approach.I think Neal and Emma still have a more unique connection with the real world and fairytale mixing for them (not just fake SB memories), devotion to Henry and being forced to survive after being abandoned. Perhaps there were also some “Darlings” in Emma’s life who took her in and gave her some love, but PP ruined it.
I wonder if the writers might explore whether Emma really thinks the real world was nothing but cruel or is that as false as Neal thinking EF was nothing but bad.  Another parallel for both I think is to evaluate the truth of their assessments of the worlds they are from.