I read this on tumblr and thought I would post it here.
Captain Swanservation: The Echo Caves yaytessamae: So something struck me as I was rewatching Ariel (WHICH I WAS DOING FOR REASONS OK). Hook gives Emma his confession in the Echo Cave: “It’s what the kiss exposed. I never thought that I’d be capable of letting go of my first love, of my Milah. That is, until I met you.” And Emma absorbs this. Accepts it even. Then when it’s her turn to confess, homegirl literally goes and LETS GO OF HER FIRST LOVE. (*cough*You jump, I Jump, Jack*cough*)
Because no matter what the haters say, that is exactly what Emma did in that scene. By confessing that she loved Neal and probably always would, but had hoped he was dead, she is telling him she won’t go back. She can’t. That’s she’s moving on, much like he did with Tamara. She even reinforces this outside the caves, saying she wished she could change the way she felt, but she just can’t. She’s letting him as her first love go. After that, you notice the “love triangle” from her POV is officially dead. She is only ever platonic with Neal. She doesn’t go on the date with him. Their goodbye at the town line is familial at best. She is carefully neutral every time they talk, as to not encourage his romantic affections, because we all know Emma does not give false hope. Yet after the Echo Caves, she does go on to give hope to another certain someone. Someone who had been surprising her and supporting her and challenging her and making her smile and kissing her senseless and pouring his heart out to her. Someone who let go of his first love for her. Someone that I suspect helped her finally let go of her first love as well. I just can’t see this as coincidence. That both Emma and Hook had very significant first loves before they found each other. And that both of those first loves ended badly, altering them forever. They both took years to move on, building ridiculously high walls against love. But then they met each other, and immediately were able to ferret out the cracks in each other’s walls. To connect in a frighteningly intimate way quite quickly, because they were such kindred spirits emotionally. They recognized the rawest part of themselves mirrored in the other, saw that here was someone who got it when so many people don’t. And that’s why there’s no question in my mind that these two are destined. Because a connection like this is rare and precious. The show went through a lot of trouble to canonically establish it. Because it gives their love a strong root, a root that is anchored in the deepest parts of their characters, born from their deepest insecurities and fears, but growing into something strong and beautiful, something that heals them both and makes them into better people.
So it’s all been analyzed, and re-analyzed and analyzed again (because we wouldn’t be hardcore OUATers if we didn’t! 🙂 ), but that might be one of the best essays about our couple I’ve read. Concise and simple, but beautiful – and totally nails it. Thanks, @Vanessa!