Will Rumple, Emma, Henry, and Belle find happiness and should they? Yes, but it would bitter sweet, for Rumple the most because honestly who ever gets over the lost of a child.
Agreed. Whatever happiness they do find, there will be a Neal shaped hole in it for all of them. Emma will always live with the knowledge that she effectively assisted in the death of the man she loved. Henry will never get to properly know his father. And while Rumple said that everything he went through to find his son WAS worth it despite how it ended, he’ll never get to truly achieve what he’s dreamed of for centuries, living happily with his son as a family. And this should not be a thing that these characters need to live with on the show that’s supposed to be about hope and the getting their happy endings.
I was talking to @AstraWoid last night. She has kids, as I do not I am going to believe her. Loosing your child is the worst possible thing that can ever ever ever ever ever happen. Ever. EVER. Astra said she didn’t even know how she would be able to cope with anything.
It doesn’t matter how much time passes, how happy Rumple and Belle are, Nealfire was his WORLD. His entire universe revolved around his son. If the writers brush it off as, “well now he gets to try and have another life…” that might actually be the final straw for me. THAT”S what we mean we say no happy endings. Rumple’s happy ending from here to eternity, is incomplete. There is a Neal shaped void in Rumple’s life, meaning there will be a void in Belle’s. There is Neal shaped void in Henry and Emma’s lives, meaning there will be one in Regina’s as well–would you want your child to suffer like that?
Parents are not supposed to bury their children. Their happy endings are incomplete because of messy, illogical, non realistic, OOC “bold” storytelling.