I have a rant… can I post? It’s really just a cathartic Facebook rant I made about Neal getting the short end of the stick… so here goes… copying and pasting from Facebook:
You know what bothers me? Everyone says Neal left Emma to go to prison and pregnant and that’s why he failed her. Neal left her to go to prison for a petty crime for which he knew she would not spend a lot of time in prison… he did NOT know she was pregnant and she never bothered to tell him either. Emma never tried to look him up or find him. She didn’t put his name as Henry’s father even though she knew so she never gave Neal a chance to come back and help her with Henry. Had Neal known she was pregnant, I highly doubt he would have abandoned her. Once she took the fall for the watches, there was nothing he could do really, but he might’ve stuck around for them to have their Tallahassee despite the possibility of his dad finding him if he’d known he was going to be a father. It just irks me that Neal’s big “fault” was his leaving her pregnant when he never knew. To me, Neal leaving is August’s fault due to the Blue Fairy telling August to keep an eye on Emma so she could break the curse, which makes it Regina’s fault for casting the curse, which makes it Cora’s fault for killing Daniel, which makes it Snow’s fault for getting Daniel killed and makes it Rumple’s fault because he created the curse to find Neal which makes it Neal’s fault for using the bean but Rumple’s fault for letting go of Bae and still yet the Blue Fairy’s fault for giving Bae the bean which makes it Rumple’s fault for the Dark One curse which makes it Malcolm’s fault for abandoning Rumple which makes it the shadow’s fault for giving Malcolm the choice, which makes it Neverland’s fault for being host to the shadow which makes it every child on Earth’s fault for dreaming up such a place to begin with. So… yeah… that was rambling, but in the end, without Neal leaving Emma to go to jail, there would be no story now because Emma would be in Tallahassee raising Henry with Neal and Storybrooke would still be cursed and on an endless loop of boringness. Blah, rant over. My point is that Neal did NOT leave her pregnant knowingly.
Their original reasons for letting their son go (even though Neal didn’t know, Rumple knowingly let his son go) were polar opposites though. Neal let his go so Emma could do what she had to do. Rumple let his go to retain his power. At the end, they BOTH sacrificed their lives to save their son, so while Neal died a hero, his death was convoluted and forced. Rumple’s was this big huge lead up and big grand finale of the first half of the season. Neal’s death was a plot device to move the story along to bring Rumple back and it was just a little side act in an episode in the middle, whereas his almost death was a huge part of the season 2 finale. It just seems like Baelfire deserved better. His entire life was tragic – his father was a coward and then became even worse – the Dark One, his mother abandoned him, his father abandoned him, his father murdered his mother, he sacrificed himself for Wendy and her brothers and lost the only real family he’d ever known, Hook abandoned him, he spent countless years as a lost boy, he escaped to our world and had to steal to survive, he met Emma and then there was a bright spot in his life… and then August came along and destroyed it (at the time, Emma was his girlfriend and didn’t even know she was pregnant, so he was technically leaving his girlfriend)… then Neal was found (my ONLY beef with him, but I understand his fear of her being seriously pissed off 10 years later) by Emma and he found out about Henry and then he came to Storybrooke for his son. He sure as hell didn’t go for his papa. (Yes, he was engaged to Tamara, but it had been 10 years and Emma moved on too. There was at least Graham that we know of, then she got flirty with Hook after Neal “died” and in the “lost” year she nearly got engaged again.) Then Cora tries to kill his papa, his papa tries to kill his son, his son is abducted by his grandfather’s minions (one of whom happens to be his damn fiancee) and his fiancee tries to kill him. He goes back to Neverland willingly, knowing full well what awaits him in Pan. He helps to rescue his son, brings him home and then watches his father sacrifice his life only to set off ANOTHER curse and he is ripped away from son knowing his son will never remember him. Then he goes to Snowing and is determined to get back to Emma and Henry, but is told NO, so he finds a way to get back. And he was tricked. Should he have known better? Sure… anything to do with the Dark One is a trap in the end. He brings his father back only to find out AFTER that he himself is going to die. He gets back to see Emma (through Rumple) and demands they be separated, knowing full well it means he will die. But he did it so Emma could stop the wicked witch. He died to save his son who doesn’t remember him and thinks he never cared. Baelfire’s life was beyond tragic. Unfair doesn’t even begin to cover it.