Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[Slurpeez]

Regina: “I moved on.”

Emma: “Moving on and being over someone are two very different things. Maybe that’s what is holding you back. That you did move on. When we were on our way to the Underworld, I saw Neal.”

Regina: “What?”

Emma: “When I passed out, it was a vision or…a visitor…I don’t know what it was. But I saw him. My first love and I suddenly felt this immense guilt that I was coming down here to save my new love.”

Regina: “What did he do?”

Emma: “He gave me the greatest gift I could ask for….he said it was okay. Maybe being this close to Daniel is what is blocking you.”

The “okay” is NOT about going to the Underworld. It’s about loving again. It’s reassurance not permission. There is a lot of context around the scene. AGAIN…this anger is not about one scene. It’s the principle.

So I finally watched this deleted scene between Emma & Regina. I like that Emma clarified that there’s a difference between moving on and being over someone since, clearly, Emma isn’t over Neal. She’s just had to move on from him just to cope. On the one hand, I do partially agree with RG’s interpretation: Neal has given Emma his blessing to move on in a general sense… just not to pursue Hook in the UW. That is what Neal meant in 3×15 when he told Emma to find Tallahassee and that he just wanted her to be happy, even if it wasn’t with him. Yet, Emma isn’t over Neal; she said she would have tried to come for him too if she had known she could do this. Emma feels guilty  that she still has feelings for Neal, even though she also has developed feelings for Hook. I think she just transferred her real feelings for Neal onto Hook when she lost Neal, but she has never gotten over Neal nor will she ever. She said she would always love him. She just clung to the last man standing (i.e. Hook) out of fear of being alone, but she’ll always really love Neal. She clearly wanted to kiss Neal in the vision in 5×12.

Where I think Emma is really confused and mistaken is exactly what Neal meant when he appeared to her in the vision in 5×12. Clearly, he never gave Emma his blessing to get Hook from the UW nor even to be with Hook in particular. Neal wants Emma to be happy even without him, but I doubt he would ever wish her to end up with the pirate who helped ruin Neal’s life. In fact, Neal directly warned her at least twice not to pursue Hook in the UW. He said he knew she wouldn’t listen but that he had to at least try since he somehow knew it wouldn’t end as she thought it would (namely the death of his friend Robin). Neal also somehow knew that Emma was going to the UW to get Hook, but Neal never offered to help Emma find him when Emma asked. Neal just said he himself wasn’t in the UW; ergo, he couldn’t be saved nor haved helped her find Hook, even if had wanted to (which Neal wouldn’t want. He wouldn’t ever help Emma get back the man who sold him into slavery and ran off with his mother).

Given that Neal tried to STOP Emma from going to the UW to resurrect Hook, I think Emma was just misremembering what Neal actually said to try and assuage herself of her own sense of guilt. We, the audience, are meant to be questioning her sanity at this point. She isn’t in her right mind, remember? She tarnished her soul (Merlin’s words) when she chose to make Hook another dark one and pursued the darkest possible path. I think Emma is acting under a delusion; despite all the evidence to the contrary (e.g. anti-TL kisses, Hook’s failure to break her dark-one curse, and the failure to share her heart with Hook), Emma still is operating under the false belief that she has to make it work with Hook at all costs. Emma has become an unreliable narrator where Hook is concerned (kind of like Sansa Stark’s fake memory about the Hound and the ‘UnKiss’ from SOIAF).

I don’t think it’s just the writers’ failure to remember what they wrote just a few episodes before in 5×12. I think maybe we’re supposed to question Emma’s sanity, memory and wonder about her grip on reality. Who in her right mind would try and save the man who nearly sent her entire family to the UW? No one. Is Emma losing her grip on reality the longer she’s with Hook? Also, she hasn’t been herself in a really long time. Her issues were mentioned clarly in S5b. We were also shown that her friends and family are concerned about her mental health as indicated by the glances they shared Emma claimed she didn’t have any issues. Based on the looks that Emma’s parents, Regina, and ven Hook shared, they think Emma has issues she hasn’t even admitted to herself yet.

Emma’s family also shared looks of doubt when Emma claimed in 5×11 that she would share her heart with Hook:

They all share looks of doubt again, despite Regina saying otherwise. They all doubt Emma yet go with her anyway to the UW for Emma’s sake (rather than for Hook’s sake). Of course, the heart-sharing thing was a total bust:

Emma has a near heart attack, and Regina is the one who has to put the pieces of Emma’s heart back together. (As many SQ fans have pointed out, that could be highly metaphorical and full of meaning). Despite how much Regina supported Emma in her quest to go to the UW to get Hook, Regina was only doing it for Emma’s sake. But she doesn’t think Hook is  worthy of Emma. I think Regina just wants Emma to be happy the way Neal did. Regina remains in the UW for Emma though, even though she tells Emma that she’s too good for Hook.

Regina doesn’t think the pirate is good enough for Emma, even though Regina hated to admit there were similarities between herself and Hook. The difference is that Regina has had a clear redemption arc whereas Hook really hasn’t. I’ve talked about Hook and Rumple being a foil for one another, but now I’m thinking Regina and Hook are more foils for one another. Regina has clearly undergone major inner transformation, as she revaled to Emma in Only You, and as the Charmings have accepted and realized.

So how deluded must Emma be? She knows that both Ruby/Dorothy and Hades/Zelena have shared TLK despite knowing so little about each other, and yet she and Hook have had what, 5 or 6 failed attempts at TLK? She witnessed the Zades TLK in the same episode that she failed to share her heart with Hook and also doubted openly whether she and Hook shared TL. I think that the only thing the CS “true love shove” showed in Firebird is that Emma’s heart is full of true love because she is the product of true love.

We also know Gwen did things she wouldn’t have otherwise done when was operating under the influence of Arthur’s Sands-of-Avalon mind-control. Just saying. Maybe Emma is to? Neal never gave his blessing for her to try and save Hook from the UW. That isn’t what happened. Neal actively tried to thwart Emma’s plan, warning her that it would come with a big cost. I think only now has Emma started to realize just what her own selfishness has cost others she cares about (i.e. Regina). Regina may be the one Emma chooses in the end, but Emma still is operating under false pretenses where Hook is concerned. I think the story about Gwen and Lancelot was set up but left unresolved for a reason. Maybe there is something to the idea that their story was left untold on purpose and will come back into play towards the latter half of season six as more untold stories gets told. Maybe there’s a reason why…I know people will probably say I’m giving the writers too much credit, and maybe I am. Still, we’ve seen certain things that we thought were dangling threads or plot holes come back into play in later seasons (e.g. Emma not finding out that Hook had been involved romantically with Neal’s mom until season 5 when Emma actually met Milha).

We already know her being the savior and its cost is going to be explored a lot in season 6, what with the parallels to her and Aladdin and her therapy session with Archie Hopper….