Tumblr post that I just fell in love with…
Uniquely Suited – Like a Swan to a Fire
Neal Darling Cassidy and Emma Swan. The most unique and realistic pairing on Once Upon a Time.
Don’t be stupid, some say. Swanfire? Doused. Over, boring. Statutory, a coward’s choice. A threat to our heroine and her own awesomeness.
No. Because more than any other two people on the series, Emma and Neal are ideally suited to one another.
Neal and Emma are the only love relationship (that we’ve been shown) that has happened since the Curse was cast. Everyone else’s relationship statuses have remained the same for the last 28 years (that we’ve been shown: Granny is still widowed, Snowing going strong, Jefferson unattached (at least in this Realm). It doesn’t seem that the Curse allowed new relationships to happen. (Though I would totally be open to a storyline in which two people got thrown together as married by the Curse and when it was broken maybe decided they’d actually like to have it that way.)
But Neal and Emma happened, making them the only romance among displaced Enchanted Foresters in 28 years. I don’t say ‘hook-up’, because clearly what they had and have is more than that. Unique.
Other than a Tumblr gif set showing the similarities between their story and that of Tangled (which I have not heard the show creators confirm), they have no fairytale counterparts. The only two main characters on the show who can say that. They are each purely the creators’ invention.
And the obstacles in their relationship, the things keeping them apart, are very much of this world. Without regard to the inciting factor, Neal abandoned Emma. And Emma can’t forgive him.
No magical potions are at work, no evil queens scheming to subvert their being together. No one turns into a werewolf once a month and eats the other. The problems they face in their relationship are our world problems (all due respect to any Enchanted Foresters reading this, it’s just faster to say ‘our’ world rather than ‘the world without Magic’.) Their core challenge doesn’t arise from Magic, nor can it be fixed by Magic.
The repair to their relationship will take the same work and risk that viewers’ relationships require. Just as the character of Emma began the show as an avatar for an uninitiated audience, so Neal and Emma have to confront and work-through the same shortcomings and evils that the audience must in their romantic lives with partners. Their life is messy, they have a complicated and hurtful past (individually and jointly). They have a child without any longer having a romantic or sexual component to their relationship, and they will have to work at figuring that out. (How very many of us can relate to that? Either as such parents or as such children?)
And yet they are ideally suited to one-another. Emma was raised in our world, and Neal (we presume) spent the better part of a lifetime here—or at least long enough to go well-beyond merely understanding the culture and language—he’s fully assimilated. He knows how to operate a dishwasher. He can pump (or better yet, siphon) his own gas. He knows the systems in this world well enough to swindle and outwit them. He and Emma can share conversations about music, technology, even history.
But always with the added bonus that Neal occupies the rarefied position of being a sort of third (or fourth) – culture kid. He bridges several worlds and cultures (ours, Enchanted Forest of long ago, NeverLand). All these places he can understand and operate in. All these places that Emma is presently having to deal with in her life. Neal can move in and out and through them, and assist her in doing the same.
But can Neal help her navigate the chasm that has opened up in their relationship between the ‘I love you’s and the ‘I want to be with you’s?
I don’t know, that’s why I tune in each Sunday night.
Neal and Emma are unique, and realistic. They’re the pairing to watch, the actual story being written on Once Upon a Time. The only non-mash up/re-interpretation. The sole spot of entirely new content.
In this world, this ‘real life’ we live, in our romantic relationships we cannot truly promise with any certainty that we can ‘always find [our love]’, but we can promise to ‘always fight for [our love]’.
Really, that’s as good as any ‘for better or for worse’ vow I’ve yet to hear. It’s hard work, to be sure, but a person actually can do it.
And that’s a happy ending.