@Phee wrote:
Even as a SF shipper, I don’t believe that that ILY was cut and dried. I just happen to have faith that their initial falling in love all those years ago is enough of a basis for them to build on. It’s not really either of their fault that their time together was interrupted. They were in a bizarre, unique, magically influenced situation, it wasn’t just a standard breakup where someone in the relationship screws it up and it ends. Their relationship was manipulated by outside forces, (which I’m now thinking ties back to THO, (and therfore to PP’s plans to get Henry), because I think they’re the ones who sent August to break them up), so I can’t apply real life breakup rules to their situation. IRL, if a guy allows his girlfriend to go to jail for him, I’d think he was an A grade irredeemable douchebag, but this situation is entirely different IMO.
I look at it more as though they were put on pause, and only now is the time drawing near where they’ll be able to move forward again. They won’t be able to pick up directly where they left off, because they have baggage galore, but given the uniqueness of their situation and their breakup, I believe they’ll be able to reconcile what happened, understand that it was unavoidable, and finally fully explore the possibilites of their love, moving forward.
Agreed. And I’d like to say that most rational SF’ers did not see the ILY coming. I almost fell out of my chair. I was like, “what? already? what?” I was excited but confused because I’ve long been predicting that Hook would be the one to help heal Emma.
I think he undoubtedly knew that he’d damaged her, and feared that if they made contact again, it would only serve to damage her more, which is the last thing he wanted to have happen. Maybe when he found that pic of Milah back on Hook’s ship, it ripped that wound right open for him and hurt like hell as though it had only just happened, and he was trying to spare Emma that same pain. Easier to leave wounds like that scabbed over and in the past.
Neal’s biggest fear is that he will become his father and when he sees what he did to Emma (and then add in Henry) he probably thinks that he is turning into Rumple. Rumple said “there is no greater pain than regret” to which Nealfire replied, “try abandonment.” Everything Neal does goes back to his feelings of abandonment. People who are abandoned at some point in their lives never stop thinking that everyone is going to abandon them again and it colors every decision they make. Faced with the possibility that Tamara is not who Neal thought she was, he gets defensive because he can’t believe that he is going to be hurt and abandoned all over again. People who are abandoned also have a tendency to think that they don’t deserve love because there is something wrong with them and coming up against the reality of it is quite terrible. I know some people think that Neal was making fun of Emma’s abilities in SSTR but to me, he wasn’t. His walls instantly went up because he was faced with all that pain over again.
And considering that one of the few things he remembers about his father is him saying, “Everything that happens, happens by design, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Forces greater than us conspire to make it happen. Fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it,” maybe after all this time, he believes he’s doomed to always end up alone and it’s squeezed almost all of the hope out of him.
Yup. Abandonment issues = “I will always be alone because people will always leave me.” Emma has them too. That’s why she keeps running.
If she’s big on people who make tough choices…well, Nealfire did that. Granted, his choice complicated her life greatly, but he did have the balls to make the impossible choice and follow through with it, for the greater good of everyone in SB.
IMO Nealfire made the hardest decision we’ve seen on this show so far: his personal happiness and the happiness of the woman he loves, after years of both of them being abandoned and alone OR the lives of everyone from FTL. It would be easy to run from that responsibility but then he really would be Rumple and he couldn’t live with that.