This meta on Hook vs the modern world and trying to fit in is from http://vickyvicarious.tumblr.com/post/99402383051/modern-man-hook
I’ll have to block some of it out for upcoming spoilers.
<h3>Modern Man Hook</h3>
Hey, let’s talk about this.
It’s no secret that I, and many others, love the man out of time trope; and for OUAT, Killian has been just that. Most of the other characters have been brought over by one iteration of the Dark Curse or another, and as such have had the necessary knowledge of modern technology plopped into their heads. And as Happy in particular showed us last night, some folks have taken to them more than others.
Killian’s always been different. There’s a lot to love in how he managed to evade not just one, but both Dark Curses – there are some great parallels to Emma there, for starters. And of course, the ‘man out of time’ trope – with the exception of the stray moment like Cora destroying the phone tap because she doesn’t like what the “magic box” is saying, we don’t get a lot of fairy tale characters being startled by our world. It’s generally shown the other way around with Emma (which is a pretty strong CS parallel right there).<!– more –>
Killian, on the other hand, has been: run over by a car, led to believe jello is a medicinal substance, confused over perms, ‘force-fed’ bologna, and perplexed by mentions of Photoshop, GPS, Marty McFly, and Netflix, just to name a few. He continues to use turns of phrase that show this distance, while other characters adopt more modern lingo. He keeps wearing his pirate clothes… In so many ways, it’s been driven home to us again and again that he is new to this world, that this doesn’t come naturally to him.
This was no accident.
I saw a meta a long time ago talking about how meaningful it was that Emma met Hook in the Enchanted Forest, the land of true love itself, and I’ve commented before about how Killian is the only one of her romantic interests whose true identity she knew from the beginning (as opposed to some alias). That’s exactly what’s happening here: just like Emma has always been pretty firmly grounded in the attitudes and culture of the LWM, so too has Hook always been a fairytale character. There is no “we are both” for these people – or at least there wasn’t, for a long time.
Their integration is happening at the same time, together. We’ve all seen and talked about how Killian helped Emma accept her magic, and that Storybrooke was her home. In fact, it’s only during everything that’s happened since meeting him that she’s accepted her role as Savior, even if she admits that she’s still not really sure what that means. Still, these are the parts of herself that harken back to her roots in the EF; that’s why showing up in the book was such a big deal for her. She finally feels like she has a place here with all of these fairytale characters – and that is in large part thanks to Killian’s presence and help.
But now we’ve come back to Storybrooke, and suddenly he’s the odd man out. He’s still the guy running around in full pirate regalia while everyone else has jeans. He was sitting outside the diner in the finale until Emma brought him in. The only reason he’s here in this world is Emma; she’s the one bringing him in this time, helping him integrate. But she’s got a lot on her plate, and let’s be honest: there’s a lot more immediate stuff he’s got to learn than she ever did.
In fact, Killian even lampshades the issue himself during his ‘talk’ with Charming about Emma in last night’s episode:
He’s clearly well aware of his own disconnect with the rest of town.
But this is where it gets great: he’s actively trying to fit in and learn more. Killian’s always proven that he can adapt well to strange situations; navigating New York twice was proof enough of that. But just getting by and fitting in are as different and surviving and living – and Killian wants to live here. Storybrooke is Emma’s home, and Emma is his home; he knows he’s here for the long haul so he wants to stop living on the outside.
Even since he brought Emma back from New York, we’ve seen these signs. He was finally invited into the Snowing loft, he was called Killian… for Henry’s sake, sure, but that’s where it really started. The first moment I can remember seeing a clear example of him trying to learn about this world was when Zelena kidnapped him:
He pulled out some hilarious sass about Zelena not keeping up with the times in Storybrooke, but it’s more than just that. Killian has heard of a telephone. He’s seen people using them, no doubt, and he’s taken enough of an interest to learn their purpose and what they’re called. Sure, you could say he just happened to observe this, but the fact that he used the word “telephone” instead of the more common “phone” sounds to me like he actually asked someone and they explained it to him. Either that or he looked it up somehow.
Of course, he’s smart, he picks up on things quickly and intuitively (as we saw last night when he snatched the walkie-talkie from Charming and was able to operate it for the rest of the episode with no problem). You could certainly argue that ‘telephone’ was just something he picked up along the way. Sure.
But what about when he got Emma the radiator?
First of all, that shows a familiarity with the loft that I love: he knew it would be right there. But he also knew what it was, what it did and how to operate it. Sure, that radiator’s nothing like as complicated as what Snow was dealing with, or anything, but it’s small. It was tucked away. But as soon as the power comes on, Killian jumps up to get it, aim it at Emma, and turn it on. That is not something that would occur to him unless he was already familiar with it, and the only way for that to happen would be for him to observe it and decide to figure out what it was/did. Maybe he had one in his room at Granny’s and recognized that this was the same thing, or maybe he spotted it here – it doesn’t really matter, what does matter is that Killian is adapting. He came up with a modern-world solution to warming Emma up, without pause.
If that’s still not enough for you, then how about this entire conversation, but this moment most of all:
Our second date, he says. This guy does not come from a time or a place where romantic outings were referred to as ‘dates’. To him, a date is a fruit. Or at least, it should be. But he’s talking here about going on dates with Emma, with complete ease. Based on this conversation, it’s clear that Emma hasn’t broached the subject with him. Nor would Charming, or pretty much anyone else really – you could speculate that a side character like Ruby or someone mentioned it to him after the finale kiss, perhaps. But just as, or even more, likely to me is that Killian is actively looking for this information. He is trying to learn about this world in order to fit in, because he recognizes that this is his home now, and he can’t afford to stay on the outside.
And this brings me to spoiler territory… please skip the rest if you don’t want to see them.
When asked in a TVLine interview what role Emma played in Hook’s upcoming makeover, Jennifer Morrison said: “Oh, he does that all on his own.”
Killian giving up his pirate clothing is very symbolic, and the fact that he chooses to do so himself, without any apparent prompting, is all the more so. His clothes, particularly his coat, have been consistent ever since he gave up the Navy life and became a pirate – there are hundreds of years’ worth of identity steeped in those clothes. In getting a new outfit and leaving his old coat behind, Killian is essentially choosing life with Emma in Storybrooke over being a pirate all over again (last time being when he traded in the Jolly Roger).
Of course, it can’t be all or nothing. Every other character has had to learn that – for most, all it took was that one speech of Charming’s. Emma’s had a much longer and more difficult struggle to get to a place of acceptance – and here again the CS parallels continue, because Killian’s going to struggle too.
I, and a whole bunch of other meta writers, have been predicting an identity crisis for Hook this season, almost certainly coming to a head during the episode(s?) when he gets his hand back. He’s going to try a little too hard to adopt this world at the cost of his ‘pirate’ self, and he’ll learn that isn’t possible. Especially not in this town. As David says:
And just like Killian helped Emma accept her magic, I think Emma will help Killian accept that he can make this world his home without ever truly losing the pirate part of himself. (She’s already acknowledged that he is both a pirate and a hero; this is just reminding him of that.) She will help him find a true balance and settle in to his home in Storybrooke.
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Oh, thank you so much for sharing that, I cant wait to read the whole thing later tonight!
I appreciate how Snow and Charming talked about baby Neal, that maybe they should have gone with Baelfire. So happy that was addressed; maybe Bae can be Neal’s nickname.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo*pauses for breath*oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!! Calling the baby Baelfire would be worse than calling the baby Neal. Imagine poor Rumple having to hear Charming say the words “This is my son Baelfire”. Rumple should be the only one with a son named Baelfire. Snowing can come up with their own name for their child rather than stealing what Rumple called his.
Okay, but that kid definitely needs a nickname of some sort. Just not sure what kind of nickname is appropriate for him.
Nemo- sooner or later Charming is going to end up finding him.
LOL- perfect name for a Snowing son – Nemo it is 😀
The hand holding thing just gets me with every rewatch and gifset! I love how they purposely did a close of up that action – that’s how important it was. You didn’t even need to see Hook’s face to know when Emma first moved her hand that he thought she was going to drop it, pull away – but she didn’t, she grabbed on tighter. The looks of utter adoration he gives her from then on just reinforce how that one little action on Emma’s part means the world to him. Feeeeeels!
I’m totally with you! This ep was AMAZING! No kissing required to see how perfect CS is *passes out of epic CS feels*
(And wow. Not entirely sure what happened to that post. The last bit’s me anyway, not sure why it quoted it… *shrug* :p )
I think there is something wonky going on with the site- for some reason yesterday I couldnt get some of the images to show in my post, I spent almost 3hrs trying to figure out what was going wrong- I’d fix the problem (the site stuffing up part of the image coding upon loading the post, but every time I edited & corrected the code, it’d screw it back up as soon as I posted it… or screw up coding that had been fine before editing, so I went & found different sources for the images I was using- but it didnt work, some gifs started working, but then some of the others that hadnt been affected the 1st time, stopped working, so I gave it up as a bad job).