Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[kfchimera]

I  think some answers are going to be getting clearer very soon though, based on those spoilers.

If they’re really going to address the situation with Neal leaving and Emma ending up  in jail, and not rewrite it, then that’s good.  If they rewrite so it was “Neal sent her to jail” or “He could have stayed but was a coward and afraid for himself”–which previously they said on twitter was not the case….well, then its going to tell me they’ve flipped completely for CS.   That’s a huge sort of retcon, and it wouldn’t be the first one of the show.

  The scenes of Regina with baby Henry seem like they’re going to forget originally there was supposed to be a hole in her heart from the curse and that she didn’t have real maternal warmth, so much as pride and control over someone, the way Cora was with her.  I don’t know, but I guess I’m going to feel nervous about how they tackle things in this new “villain as heroes” era.

I have some hope that they started off this season with Neal using magic, and saying he loves Emma, doesn’t own her, then telling her she doesn’t have to apologize ever.  Then they had him say he’ll fight for her.  It felt like they were tackling all the troll-standard claims of why SF would be bad and for each one sort of saying, nope.

Yet this is a BIG one, the heart of a lot of the controversy, right next to his relationship with Tamara.    Did he use Emma for selfish reasons?  It’s always been a matter of interpretation, and heated debate.  So if they really go back and revisit, they could swing it whatever suits their current needs in the story.   Everything that happened this season was written months ago, so as fan feedback came in, perhaps they made adjustments, because they did heavily float CS this season.  

I’ve always based my assumptions of  SF working on the notion that  Neal didn’t ever do anything cowardly to hurt Emma on purpose.  He left for what I thought was good reason.  He did it in a way that maybe had flaws but we could understand perhaps was required by the urgency and complicated nature of a magical curse that needed to be broken.  I trusted that Neal trusted August and that it was not obvious to him he shouldn’t believe him.  So I don’t know.  The jail storyline could come up in different ways.  It could just be dialog between Neal and Emma.  I’d rather we have flashbacks though because I want to see that Neal didn’t call the cops, perhaps even that he didn’t know about the jail.  I suppose whatever he did, well, its still all over with now but it does speak to his character back then.

  If Pinocchio does die because all the magic is ripped out of SB, that might be one way to have a new curse.  His “death” might prompt discussion of how Neal knew him and all that.  The other thing is, they actually do the thing a lot of fans want, and bring back August.  If Malcom comes back from Pan, maybe there’s a ripple effect and we get back August so that was why the hat was floating in a spoiler picture.  If they’re listening to fans, then bringing back August was a big one.  If so, August might back up Neal’s story and confess he called the cops or something.  The last way I think is just pure flashbacks with the NY jail story we think they might do.  As we see Neal in present being incarcerated for a crime he didn’t quite commit it would make perfect sense to pair that with who set Emma up for jail–perhaps the same people who helped set her on the path to being a bailbondswoman too!  .