If you were ok with Neal sitting back in the background like an Archie character or a dwarf then fine. But the main players are all very strong. Neal is a strong person in his own way. But the ability to defend and fight I feel he was lacking. For me, he felt out of place in a land with magic in storybrooke.
I take your point, but I think you and I are talking at cross-purposes. Within the existing storyline and portrayal, you feel that Neal had run his course. And I was saying, there was no inherent reason for why the storyline and portrayal went the way they did. These are all writing choices after all. I suppose I just resist the sense of retroactive determinism. Most of my critiques of OUAT don’t speak to characters “internal” existence within the show, but to representations and writing choices. For example, nothing precluded the writers from exploring Neal’s street smarts, and using that as his main source of strength. Instead, we were told he was street smart, but it wasn’t incorporated into the plot in any significant way. Honestly, I think this has more to do with the fact that the writers weren’t sure what to do with Neal.