Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[Slurpeez]

While I agree this is likely, I also think it will resolve before series end. So the highlighting of how much Emma loved (loves) Neal just sorta hurts (me) even more because I know that they’re going full steam ahead for CS, bumps and hurt and angst and all.

I am preparing myself for this, since that seems to be what popularity demands. However, I’m reminded of the ending of How I Met Your Mother, which everyone expected would end one way only to go the other way, which upset a lot of viewers, but was ultimately true to the vision the creators had had since the beginning. So, again, the writers could take it totally left field. They already hit a reset button at the end of S1 by ending the curse, and again in S3b. Why not hit yet another reset button before the end of S4? At this point CS has almost gotten so predictable such that it would just be well, very predictable to end with Emma and Hook being a couple. Emma and Regina living together and raising Henry in the end really would be a hard left turn, and if it came in the series finale, would avoid any concerns about the social implications of a truly bold choice since the show would conclude then anyway.

Also, I’m looking closely at the role that I think Will Scarlet is playing this season. He was made into a series regular for a reason, something not even Robin Hood, Regina’s current love interest, got. Will Scarlet provides a fresh, perspective and seems to be the voice of the audience now, the way Emma was in S1. Will has an outside perspective on the CS dynamic, compared to the misinformed one Emma currently has. She still does not see the current “darkness that lies beneath” in Hook –as Rumple called it in 4×4. Even Hook has been in self-denial all through S3 and into S4 about the darkness of his nature. Part of him wants to be a man with good form, and for Emma to see him as a man of honor. Yet, part of Hook still craves to be that ruthless, cunning pirate who stops at nothing to get what he wants: Emma. Rumple’s mind trick showed that the hand merely gave Hook the permission he craved to be that dark bad boy pirate. Funny how Hook boldly declared he’d win Emma’s heart without trickery, yet trickery is at the very heart of the tactics he’s using on Emma. Come to think of it, all of Hook’s episodes have shown him to be the very opposite of how Hook wants Emma to see him. Hmmmm. Interesting.