BTW, I am still suspicious about Emma’s motives – I find it really hard to believe she wants to snuff out the light with the sword+dagger. I suspect and hope she is trying to fool the darkness inside her and I think she wants to do the right thing, but is just using (manipulating?) the darkness to get it done.
I am too. I’m thinking along the same path. I think there is still a strong internal fight inside her and we’re only seeing one side of it. There are just some things she says that if she is just blindly obeying the Darkness kind of doesn’t make much sense. It feels like she’s pushing the ‘heroes’ to really work out what happened in Camelot and that she needs them to work it out. All that stuff with Excalibur and the dagger is sating the Darkness, keeping it happy. If Emma didn’t want them to know, why would she be so adamant that Regina can’t be the Saviour, and why say ‘are you worried Henry will really find out what happened?’ Also with DarkSwan’s first appearance, why make such a bold statement ‘you will all be punished’, if she didn’t want them to find out what happened? It feels like a reverse psychology, pushing them into acting by saying they can’t do it. Now to what end, I have no idea, but I’m hoping, hoping (!!) there is more to DarkSwan that what we’re seeing.
On the Jolly Roger scene, there was a moment in one of the times when Emma said ‘trust me’ that I almost believed her. Not to trust her right in that moment, b/c she was obviously there for the cutlass. It felt like a “I know things look bad now, but I’m doing something that will help us all in the long run. I can’t tell you everything b/c that will put you in danger, but if deep down you really do trust me, everything will work out” (I may be reading too much into this 😉 )
Emma looked so distraught at the ‘loved’, but I agree that it was definitely the right thing to do. It doesn’t mean Hook is going to give up on her, but it may also help Emma fight the Darkness. If she really wants to be with him, she needs to fight against the thing keeping them apart. It’s the whole love vs power thing. It didn’t work for Rumple and Hook saw it not working. So he definitely knew what he was doing. There’s still hope in his statement.
If one is to engage with the primordial forces of darkness, one must expect a little social awkwardness