Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[Slurpeez]

*sigh* It was such a nice, quiet hiatus (for me anyway). Then all that deleted scene stuff happened.

At least we got one good one with Head!Rumple remarking to the Dark Swan how painful her date with Hook was and how he never could stand Hook.

HeadRumple: That date was excruciating. Can’t stand him.
Emma: Go away.
HeadRumple: Well, I’m more like a virus than a pet, dearie.

This scene is golden! It probably came from 5×3 since I think it would have followed this scene aboard Hook’s ship when Emma asks Hook if he loves her and he replies that he loved her (past tense). Hook rejected Emma when she was the dark one whereas her family accepted her and said the real Emma was still there.

I’m choosing to believe that Head!Rumple represents Emma’s own darkness and the hard truths that Emma has a difficult time admitting to herself. Namely, she realizes her attempt to soften herself by wearing that pink Sandra Dee dress for him totally failed, that even she really cannot stand him and that Emma never really could make it work with Hook because he outright rejected her when she was the dark one. Also, as Emma told Merlin (you know, before Hook murdered him): From 5×7

Emma: When I was seeing Rumplestiltskin in my head, he said he would only be with me until I embraced my dark powers. So recently, I’ve been thinking maybe not seeing him, maybe that’s a bad thing.

She only stopped seeing or hearing HeadRumple when the lure of darkness was at its strongest (i.e. when she was with Hook in the field full of pink flowers of DOOM). In other words, Hook making HeadRumple leave Emma for a time when Emma was in Camelot actually meant Emma was giving into darkness when she was with Hook. Then Merlin said Emma choosing to save Hook would be the “darkest path” he had forseen her taking.

Merlin: If I die, it means that you lost your battle and the darkness stained your soul. Everything and everyone that you know will be at the mercy of the most powerful dark one ever… Yourself. No pressure.

He said she would stain her soul if she saved Hook. She then indeed embraced the darkness when she saved him instead of getting rid of the dark one curse when she had the chance. Emma embraced the darkness to save Hook and then he thanked her by trying to send her family to hell in retribution.

All the side-eyes from me.

The deleted scene also confirms that the writers aren’t totally oblivious about how wrong Hook is for Emma. I think I understand how to intrepret text. What the text tells me is that Hook is intentionally being written as the man who is wrong for Emma. I think we’re supposed to see Hook as Emma’s Mr. Wrong, but she, like the hard-core CS fans, just doesn’t want to admit it. That’s why she was so desperate to split her heart in half and share it with Hook. That is why she repeated her father’s line “I’ll always find you” regarding Hook. Emma is looking for true love, but Hook has been revealed as Emma’s anti-true love. Hence, the failed-heart split in S5b and the anti-TLK in S3b.

The fact that so many young women (like Emma) fail to see him that way isn’t really down to the writing in the scripts; it’s just down to their own misinterpretation and attraction to Hook’s (Colin’s) good looks. I think the writers are catering to the the ardent fans of Hook for the eyeballs they bring in every week. (Though whether the writers see how many eyeballs Hook and CS drive away is another matter altogether. So A&E are oblivious in that regard). Yes, that scene was deleted, and yes the writers are terrible at PR. They have little-to-no consistency when it comes to knowing whether deleted scenes are ‘canon’ or not, but I see that more as a sign of just wanting to keep ratings up long enough to get that elusive seventh season. The writers rely on these hormone-driven worshipers of Hook, so they cater to them in a misguided attempt to keep up ratings. But, that doesn’t mean the writers are portraying Hook in a positive light. In fact, I’d say just about the only consistent thing on this show is how poorly they keep portraying Hook (which I think is their intention). I think they cut that scene with HeadRumple and Emma because it was too obvert. It revealed too much since I think HeadRumple speaks for Emma’s dark truths and for the writers.