Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[kfchimera]

I agree Slurpeez. I viewed NL as a bit of a “pause button” on life.  You have no future there, they say, so you face your past and revisit it.  So I feel Hook going there kept Milah alive in his mind, the thirst for revenge growing stronger rather than fading and him moving on.   I have no idea what experiences he had with Tink previously, but he likely was not emotionally ready for anything, but when he met Emma he wasn’t either.  She alone was not enough because A&E said on the podcast that the moment Hook starts to put revenge behind him is when he sees Rumple with Lacey in their drunken stroll.  He’s finally had a taste of it, and while he says he’s sated, ultimately, he realizes that Rumple’s sort of won by moving on and his life is empty.  Yet he doesn’t give GOAT the slip and go court Emma, nope, he’s still trying to get revenge and to that end, he goes after Regina.  Who knows if he would have swapped to her team and let everyone die if she didn’t double-cross him, but she did.  So then he finally gets around to Emma when he’s got a choice between returning to the FTL wasteland alone or who knows where else or what other worlds, or going back to save everyone, maybe to honor Bae, maybe because of Emma’s words.  The writing this season then showed his new goal to be relentless about was his own happy ending, which he defined as winning Emma, trying to reposition himself as a man of honor  in her eyes.  So Hook has to be shown as redefining happiness again, perhaps realizing Emma doesn’t love him?  She hasn’t said she does, nor been all that encouraging.  He seems to enjoy the chase, but if his goal is to have someone that cares for him, perhaps he might consider charting a new course to someone more receptive.  We’ve seen him make some big sweeps in his life goals and attitudes and loyalties given the right circumstances, so I feel it is not out of character entirely.  Neal on the other hand, well, it took him 10 years or so to meet Tamara after Emma, and Tamara wasn’t an ordinary sort of woman, but one pretending to be the perfect girlfriend who  preyed on his insecurities (probably secretly  fed info from Pan, who knows).   The point is, I don’t see Neal falling for someone else the way he did Emma and neither does MRJ so it would require a lot of explanation as to how or why Neal would just suddenly swap out Emma for Tink, having just had this second chance at life realization that Emma is the one he loves.    Why show us that Neal loves Emma with enough substance to it to use a magic crystal ball to find her through that feeling, only to say Hah hah, actually he was just infatuated with her and just cares about her a lot? Makes more sense for that to be Hook’s level of interest given he’s spent less time over all with and thinking about Emma.   Yet it is the writer’s show–so as I say almost anything can make sense given enough new events or revealed past events.    If it is that Bae fell for Tink as a 14 year old boy and she’s been his crush since then and whatever–it just would feel like whiplash to me a bit more so than Hook who’s come off as less-than-genuine to me about his pursuit of Emma.