i get that. My issue is that his character doesn’t extend far beyond that. When he does its always shortlived or makes it way to being about romance and emma. I disliked the dark Swan arc near the end for this reason. They took an amazing plotline (emma becoming evil, Hook becoming a dark one, the very thing he hates) and made it into CS centered plot. Snowing often has this issue as well where they do the majority of things in stories that center around their relationship. But Snowing still has many more connections to other other characters outside of each other and have for many seasons.
I think that’s fair. One question though. How exactly did they turn the dark swan/dark Hook plotline into CS centric? I mean they were together as a couple when all that went down. So like if you make both of them DO’s, it’s going to affect the relationship. But it wasn’t just that. Emma ended up being able to fight it. Hook couldn’t fight it and turned into a monster and tried to kill the whole town. It was’t necessarily just about the CS ship. At least that’s not how I felt.
To give an example: Let Hook find out his ship was actually cursed by Ursula and now Davy Jones will come to claim his soul. And he has to do something about that. Let Hook find out that not being in Neverland anymore will cause him to age rapidly and die, and he has to get Rumpel to help him despite them hating eachother. I mean, these all sound stupid, but they can make it work. Let Hook do something. Emma can be there for support, sure, but let the dude have a goal again!
All of this sounds amazing honestly. I think you proved they could certainly write a story around Hook that doesn’t have to do with Emma.
The entire episode where Henry and Hook went down to the sub was pretty much Henry disliking Hook. They were better off at the end then the beginning, but they still weren’t friends. Charming has never been Hook’s friend. He just in this half said something like he just wants Emma to be happy, which is the party line for the group. They just want Emma to be happy. They are not friends with Hook. Belle has no one and is barely a character in her own right, so her talking to Hook is meaningless. They are never going to be friends in any real sense. They have conversations. They are not friends.
Oh man it seems there is a strong bias against this character from you. Henry didn’t love Hook, but he certainly didn’t despise him. And when the EQ twisted the shears situation and put Hook in a dark light to create chaos and to make Henry hate Hook, Henry fell for it. That’s why he was upset with Hook in that episode in the beginning. And by the end of it, he understood why Hook kept the shears and even basically said he accepted him as part of the family…oh and you know saved his life after Hook sacrificed his own so Henry could escape. To boil it down and say the whole episode was Henry disliking Hook is so ridiculous to me. It’s like you don’t even want to see the character progression.
And as far as Charming goes. Even if they aren’t friends, I think it’s say to say that if you’ve watched the last couple seasons, you can see that Charming no longer dislikes Hook. It’s not just because he wants Emma to be happy so he accepts it. He has grown to like him. You can grow to like somebody and still not be friends with them. Again, there has been character progression here as well that you simply are choosing to ignore.
And to say Belle is barely a character to begin with is….well that’s just silly. She has her father Maurice, she has Rumple, she has Snowing, she has Mother Superior, she even has bonded with Zelena. And to once again boil there interactions down to just having conversations is also ridiculous. Have you forgotten he let her stay at his place (his boat) so she could be safe from Rumple? You chalk that up to just conversation? What about when Rumple’s plan backfired and Hook saved Belle and Gideons life (and Rumple’s) by killing Jekyll and thus killing Mr. Hyde? Is that just conversation too? You are ignoring all of it bc it fits your anti-Hook agenda. It’s really quite remarkable.
He is not only just Emma’s boyfriend and completely unconnected from all the other characters, he is a terrible boyfriend. He has treated Emma like crap and on multiple occasions almost been responsible for her death and the death of her family. Also, he is sleazy and a rapist and characters don’t come back from that on a tv show. They don’t come back from that and then date and marry the protagonist. He is a terrible character and should have died a long time ago.
And without going into this, because I could, I would like to know what he ahs done to Emma that was bad other than when he was a DO. When he was a DO, everything that he did and said is under everyone’s own interpretation. I happen to think the darkness grabs the worst part of you and then your hatred comes out. And since Hook had more darkness from his past, he was a much meaner DO than Emma was. Also Hook was just plain weak and enjoyed the tasty darkness as if it were a drug. But my point is I don’t blame him for anything he did as the DO. That wasn’t him. The darkness took over him. But again, that is up for interpretation, but what else has Hook done, other than when he was the DO, within the last few years that was in poor taste towards Emma? I just think you hold how he was before he started dating Emma (a womanizer) and still hold it against him. But it seems you give other characters a pass (like Regina’s old self and how she used to be, or Rumple). And that’s the double standard that really rubs me the wrong way. If other characters can be redeemed, why can’t Hook?