Emma could still be a person to root for, but it means recentering her story so that it includes other things BESIDES her romantic entanglements.
I agree with this. I used to fight you on this because I really didn’t feel like just because she wanted to keep her relationship with Hook alive, meant that she wasn’t still the hero I wanted to root for. She still cared about everyone else as a savior should. She was just fighting darkness and then Hook got it and it really was just the arc of the season. But now, everything she has done, even in this back half, has been about Hook. Everything she says or talks about has been about Hook. HOOK HOOK HOOK. Which I get it, he’s stuck in the UW. And she allegedly loves the guy so yeah, when you’re in love, that’s kind of all you think about. However, it has been too much. And I’m simply going to blame the arc of the season on this, which really focused on her inner struggle with darkness and then Hook becoming the DO and then saving Hook. Now that we are out of the UW, and we got her red jacket origin story, and once Hook eventually comes back and all is right with them, I think they can recenter the story and go back to Savior Emma. They took a season to try and develop her relationship with Hook (whether they did that is not what I want to get in to), and as a result, her saviorness got pushed aside because the writers are incapable of doing both apparently.
She certainly is not lost forever. It wouldn’t take much for everyone to like her gusto again. They just need to bury the save Hook story and her emotional walls we always hear about, and get back to what makes her great.