I agree with Schmacky, there is nothing that links Neal with Bae but people’s thoughts. (with all my respect, I’m not saying those thoughts are wrong, just a bit hasty 😉 )
As I see it, -and I insist, it is an opinion- Neal is too broken and lost to be Bae. I actually think that he is not a FairytaleLand character at all, and that all those references in his apartment and so on are there just because after knowing who Emma really was, he started to collect them. And if he turns out to be some fairy tale character, then a lost boy… let me even say Peter Pan, but cautiously.
As for why he was so easily persuaded about Emma’s destiny, the expresion on his face while looking into the box is more a surprise expresion than one of realization, so the great mistery is in that box… but honestly, I think Neal was a dreamer, eager for something magical to happen, eager for a “happy ending” and a good live. It is easy to persuade a person who is inclined to believe.
I’ve written that Neal is too broken, and I can even heard voices saying: ” didn’t Bae suffer enough to be broken?” XDD Well, yes, he did. But not from the very beginning, he had a childhood, parents who loved him, and took care of him -ok, his mother left him, but he thought she died, so… as far as he was concerned, Milah loved him-. He was not starved of affection, or with a lack of control, guideness and so on as the children who grow up without that do.
The Bae who traveled to a world without magic was already a teenager. His personality was almost completely -or completely- developed already. The quiet child we see in “The crocodrile” is a strong boy in “Desperate souls”, brave, ready to fight in the wars, ready to confront the knights, and even to openly ask his father about the truth on his mother’s death, etc… in “The Stranger”, Bae is, as Mr. Gold told August taken him for his son “the grown man”: he was determined to save his father, he negotiated with the Blue Fairy -even after Morraine spoke about her in quite dark terms- without hesitation. And then his father failed him.
Ok, he arrived to an unknown land, hurt by his father, thinking that his mother is dead and really sad, frustrated, whatever you want.
But I can’t see him losing his personality til grow up to be Neal Cassady, whose personality, manners and so on are sooooo different. Neal is more like, yep, like a “lost child”.
If Neal turns out to be Bae, then it should be a really, really good explanation of what happened to him after leave FairyTaleLand.
PS: “You” is general you. AND just an opinion.
PS2: SwanThief sounds perfect ^^