Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[Slurpeez]

runaroundmacy wrote: And when you put it like that, should we really be surprised that Miss Emma “feeling nothing is an attractive option when what you’re feeling sucks” Swan, wants to leave Storybrooke as fast as she can (with or without Henry’s memories)? Just the fact that she hasn’t broken down makes it pretty obvious to me maybe she just hasn’t YET, because right now she doesn’t want to deal with it and in her mind, she might not have to. Leaving Storybrooke means she never has to be reminded of Neal again, she won’t have to deal with that pain, she won’t have to talk to him about her feelings, good and bad, for him. And I don’t doubt for a second that she feels guilty and responsible for his death, especially after the speech from the Echo Caves. Because now he is dead at her hands, and you know what? She doesn’t have to deal with those feelings at all! She can push them all down inside her, and laugh and giggle, but honestly, once I put it all together it seems so forced to me now. In my eyes, she’s trying so hard to be ok, to not deal with how she’s feeling, when it’s now so obvious she is scared, and lost and hopeless. She doesn’t believe anymore, which is exactly why she couldn’t see the book!

This is the single best explanation I’ve read yet about why Emma is acting the way she is, and it totally makes sense of why Emma couldn’t see the storybook! Of course, Emma would act the way she is as a coping mechanism. She buries her feelings rather than dealing with them. No wonder she’s “tired of living in the past” because her way of dealing is not to deal. She buries her head in the sand and/or runs away like she tried to do in S1 when she wanted to leave town. It’s so Emma! I was projecting a lot of the way I’d react to the loss of someone I loved onto Emma, but then I was blessed to be raised by a loving family. Emma doesn’t really know what a loving family looks like.