Heather, WORD to your post from a few pages back. If it IS Hook that’s dying, I can believe that they had always planned for him to die at some point. Don’t have to suspend disbelief in order to be able to believe that that’s just a natural progression of and conclusion to his story line that they’d already had as his endgame, even if they’ve tweaked a couple of things along the way for him. Also agreed that I think (hope) Emma’s choice to not be with him will have been made clear before his death, so it won’t be a situation where the death of one side of the triangle allows for the other to happen, making it seem like Emma’s choice was taken away from her. No one wants that, because the fandom debate will NEVER end if that’s how the triangle gets resolved. For the sake of the characters themselves, I think Adam and Eddy would construct the story to show her very definitely having no deep romantic interest in Hook (frankly I think they’ve shown that pretty conclusively already) and have him accept that and have it change him as a person before he dies.
Read this on Tumblr:
MEAN THERE’S NO OTHER REASON WHY ELSE EMMA WOULD LITERALLY *SHUT* HER HEART OFF TO ANY AND ALL SORTS OF LOVE FOR 10 YEARS IF SHE HADN’T LOVED NEAL DEEPY AND WITH ALL HER HEART. THAT’S THE POINT. SHE GAVE HER HER WHOLE, ENTIRE HEART. SO WHEN HE LEFT AND SHE DIDN’T KNOW WHY, OBVIOUSLY IT WOULD AFFECT FOR 10 YEARS INTO THE FUTURE.
THAT is why I think Hook’s kiss ultimately won’t work on Emma Swan! She gave her heart to another along time ago and never really got it back.
THIS!!! Taking what Emma actually said in the show, she never stopped loving him after he left her. That means that in that scene at the end of 311, she still loves Neal. Maybe she hasn’t had that moment that caused her to consciously realise it yet, but as in the real timeline of her life that we saw play out in S1/S2, her love for Neal is still in there. So is it any wonder that the kiss didn’t work?