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I wanted to add more, lol.
So the point Screwball makes that I think is reason numero uno why people don’t like/find it hard to love Neal is that he is so human (I wish she had gone into more detail on this because IMO it’s SUPER IMPORTANT).
People either knew a Neal or are a Neal. I am a Neal. I had to walk away from someone I truly loved because it was the right thing to do. I had to cut out some half dozen people from my life because I thought I was doing the right thing. So when people call Neal an abandon-er I get why Neal thought he was doing the right thing.
On the other hand, people might have known a Neal –someone who hurt them, left them, broke their heart. And so their own personal pasts cloud their judgement when it comes to trying to love/understand Neal (the same can be said with any character on this show, really). But with Neal, he’s not actually a villain but people can’t see him as a hero because–in their eyes–he doesn’t act the way a hero is supposed to act (enter Charming and Snow, the quintessential heroes of ONCE).
Neal exists somewhere in between, dare I say he exists in the human realm. People love the villains because they are mythic–they exist in a mythic universe that is outside my level of understanding. I can empathize the HECK out of Rumple and his abandonment issues and why he feels unworthy to be loved, but I have never murdered or plotted or deceived or manipulated. I’ve never slaughtered an entire village (Regina) or shot a woman in the back or transcended realms for my revenge (Hook). Those actions are on the mythic plane of existence so I can distance myself from their actions while at the same time, feel sympathy/empathy for the character themselves.
People often find Snow and Charming exasperating because they exist at the other end of the mythic spectrum–the constant do gooders who never stop believing and hoping. Their actions are what I should be striving for but am unable to obtain because I am, at the end of the day, human. So they are a constant reminder of my humanity and lack of mythic perfection (we’re all searching for the divine, guys.)
Neal, on the other hand, exists squarely in the middle. He is US. He is almost fully human, despite being from a mythic world. And that’s where the divide for Neal/Bae comes in. Bae was a little hero in his own world and so we expect him to operate by that same system outside of that world (after all, Rumple is still a villain and Snow is still a hero here on Earth) but for many he has fallen short of what they expect because Neal is a creature of a different color. His actions are not mythic–he has never killed, maimed, physically injured, manipulated a situation. All he did was let Emma go. His actions are human. I think I said this a few months ago, so many pages back, but Neal holds up a mirror to the viewer and asks them to look at their own lives. He is a reminder of our own hurt at the hands of others but also how we’ve hurt others. THAT’s why “it’s hard to love Neal.”
Unless you’re us. We love him. But I think we have a greater understanding of his character and what A and E are trying to do with Neal which was introduce a very *human* character into a show that is divided into heroes and villains.