Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[Slurpeez]

I was thinking about how Baelfire might react to using good magic in order to contact Emma and Henry from the EF in S3. He may have to use a magic mirror in Rumple’s dark castle. It would be ironic given how much Baelfire has disliked dark magic ever since magic destroyed his family and caused him to sacrifice himself for the Darlings. Let’s look back at his complicated history with magic. In 1×19, there was this conversation:

Baelfire: You’re different now. You see it, don’t you? You hurt people all the time.

Rumpelstiltskin: I created a truce in the Ogres War, Bae. I walked into the field of battle, and I made it stop. I led the children home. Surely, a man who’s saved a thousand lives-

Baelfire: Is done. A man who’s saved a thousand lives can be done with it. You can stop doing things.

Rumpelstiltskin: I can’t. I need more power so I can protect you.

Baelfire: I wouldn’t need protecting if you didn’t have power.

Baelfire wishes his father would be done with magic, despite having saved a thousand lives, and he just wants his papa back.Yet, Bae wasn’t completely opposed to using all magic, since he clearly sought the Blue Fairy, who gave him a magical bean. It was a type of “light magic” that Bae was willing to try to save his Papa.

The next time we see Bae confront magic was in 2×21 when he warned Wendy Darling against the allure of magic, because magic had ripped his family apart. Bae then sacrificed himself for Wendy’s brothers so that they wouldn’t have to pay the price of magic. He did it to spare Wendy from having her family torn apart by magic.

How will Baelfire act to Emma, who is True Love Magic incarnate? He sacrificed his relationship with her in 2×6 because he knew it was her destiny to break a curse. The curse his father created to find him. Yet, he did it because he wanted Emma to have her parents, so that her family wouldn’t forever be torn asunder by dark magic like his was.

Then, we caught a brief look glimpse of this question of Emma’s magic in 2×16:

(At the front of the shop, Emma draws a line with the invisible chalk in front of the door. Neal watches her.)

Neal: Missed a spot.

Emma: You’re hilarious.

Neal: I didn’t know you were magical.

Emma: Oh, my. Are you getting judgey about this? Cause you’re not allowed to have opinions about surprises, Mr. Son-of-Rumpelstiltskin.Neal: Oh…

Emma: What ‘oh’?

Neal: I didn’t mean for Tamara to be a surprise.

Emma: You think I care that a guy I dated a decade ago is engaged?

Neal wasn’t visibly concerned that Emma was using magic chalk to help protect his father. The issue about Emma being magical intrigued him more than anything. Emma’s magic comes from a place of doing good. Instead, he picked up on Emma’s being upset about Tamara. He even looks amused by Emma using light magic and her sass that comes with it.

In 2×18, Neal witnessed the Blue Fairy use her fairy magic to turn Pinocchio back into a real boy again. He looked happy to see Pinocchio and Geppetto reunited. Again, Baelfire was unopposed to light magic.

All in all, I think Neal would have been proud of Emma in 2×22 if he’d been around to see her save the town of SB using her True Love Magic. So, seems like Neal isn’t opposed to all forms of magic–just the use of dark magic and the price it carries.

Here is a really good video character study of Bae called ‘Magic Destroyed my Family:”