Marty: I don’t have hope, and the reason has nothing to do with the story of CS or SF–but everything to do with the way the writers seem to be catering to fans left and right in the corners of the story.
yes this is right. they DO pander to fans but not on such a large scale. fans want more Belle? fine she gets some story. fans want regina and Hook to apologize to Belle? fine, they do that. it isn’t done very well, but OK. (I happen to find these little scenes annoying, but OK)
they will never completely change the course of the whole story for fan pandering. maybe they are s-t-r-e-a-c-h-I-n-g it a little, you know? maybe this Hook/Emma thing was supposed to last less screentime, but because of the CS explosion they gave it some MORE screen time, but it was never meant to be and it won’t be.
The writers have said a few things that make me think this is not Emma and Henry’s fairytale, but Rumple, Regina and Hook’s, and Emma and Henry are simply the tools to give them their happy endings, rather than characters who are consistently written
I understand that if you may think that this tale is no longer Emma and Henry’s and is now Regina and Hook’s tale, OK, maybe it would make sense, but it can’t ever be Rumple’s fairytale without Baelfire, so I don’t know how you even think that.
anyway, stop listening to the interviews. I can see TONS of loopholes in what they say there.