Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[Slurpeez]

There is a new TV Guide article which mentions J-Mo’s and MRJ’s perspective on SF as they stand currently:

“I love what [executive producers] Adam [Horowitz] and Eddy [Kitsis] did with her for that because I think it’s a very human reaction to him being back,” Morrison says. “You can fantasize that someone will say, ‘Oh, I love you, it’s great, it’s wonderful, it’s all fine now.’ But in reality, she spent 10 years thinking that he not only abandoned her in some way, but it seemed like he maliciously set her up. Ten years is a long time to suffer through that belief. Also, he found out that the curse was broken and could have come after her and still didn’t, so that’s the second betrayal she’s aware of. There’s so much for them to work through and so much that hasn’t been dealt with. There’s a tremendous amount of baggage there.”

I think Jennifer Morrison is saying pretty much what we’ve been saying that while Emma loves Neal, she has a lot to deal with right now: saving Henry, helping find a way to get Charming home, getting everyone home, defeating PP and now dealing with two men who’ve made their intetions be known. The poor girl is in a mess and emtionally fragile from NL playing mind-games. She feels like an unloved orophan whose mother jsut said she wants a replacement baby. Talk about struggling with her own abandoment issues from what her parents did to her. She has a lot to work through about her own past to realize she has a lot of false beliefs about Neal: she thought he left her becasue he didn’t love her, only now to relazie he never wanted to leave her in the first place and that he never stopped loving her. That is a lot to unpack, all while being hounded by a malevolent munchkin who wants to tear her family apart and kidnap her son.

For now, the duo will be focused on the mission at hand, pushing their feelings aside for the greater good of saving Henry. “We’re both aware that there’s work to be done,” Raymond-James says. “But there’s also the mission that needs to be accomplished. That supersedes everything.” But there could be jealousy in store once Neal does find out about Hook’s true feelings for Emma. “No one wants to hear that,” he says. “But listen, I don’t own Emma, and she doesn’t owe me anything. There’s not really time to process all of it because there’s so much happening.”

I think MRJ really understands the mindset of Neal and where he is coming from. Neal has acknowledge he messed up by not going after Emma, and he’s admitted that’s his biggest regret. So, as Neal told Emma in 3×6, she doesn’t ever need to apologize to him for feeling hurt after what he did to her. Nevertheless, Emma realizes she is not the only one who was hurt by the curse keeping them apart. She said “after all the pain we’ve been through,” thereby acknowledging Neal was just as much a vicimt of his father’s curse as she was. I suspect the more they spend time together, the more this will come to light.