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Gaultheria's fanvids: http://youtube.com/sagethrasher
I love how no one jumps down Gaultheria’s throat, but God for bid I say anything negative about Neal, I get the ax. I happen to agree with Gaultheria. I didn’t like how Neal died, but at the time, I remember thinking it was his time, especially since the main story line of Rumple getting back to his son, had ended, as did the science vs magic story line. Obviously he has connections to other characters, but how long were they going to just have Neal interact with his son on the sidelines? Some scenes would have been nice with Emma, and Rumple, and Henry, but the writers felt they had a good ending for him and they went with it. Not saying it landed, but like I said, I was fine with it at the time. It’s just a shame now that they botched the CS relationship a bit, and it’s easy to look back and say bring back Neal! I do miss him, but he reminds me of Robin Hood now. The man couldn’t fight. He had no magic. The episode where Cora and Regina storm into Gold’s shop in season 2….Neal with the sword was a little laughable. I just don’t think he would survive, and if he did, he would just be a secondary character to serve as Henry’s father and Rumple’s son. I can’t stand Robin Hood right now. He has no story and he’s only there to serve as Regina’s love and Roland’s father. I wouldn’t have wanted that for Neal.
See is what people dont understand, is called good writing and having ideas, a good writer knows how to come out with stories, im good writer at all i would have to say yes, Neal would fit into the arcs, if not being killed, the Oz arc, seing his father being against them, at the hands on Zelena and then finale going with emma to time travel, Frozen arc that one all main characters were pushed aside, Queen of darkness, that was one of that also fit neal, i mean u have several EF characters in NY, city where Neal lived he could have run into them, they could have made Cruella, Neal boss, they could have made ursula some how connected to tamara wanting revenge on him, bc she thought he was the one killing her, then S5A, another fit for Neal. The thing is, is easy to say Neal didnt had any story, but so did Hook, and Robin, in fact all of them after s3A, have no longer stories to say, bc they were all retcon and if everyone bought the storylines that characters got, Neal could have been the same, if they were brave enough to stick with their story to begin. So yeah, Neal had many possibilities, the thing is, the writers were weak and had no ideas, they could have even made CS and still having Neal around, that idea that Neal had no story to tell is wrong, and only people that dont like Neal say it, but the thing is if Neal had no story, then the same apply to all characters.
"I offended you with my opinion? Ha, you should hear the ones I keep to myself".
that idea that Neal had no story to tell is wrong, and only people that dont like Neal say it, but the thing is if Neal had no story, then the same apply to all characters.
Didn’t mean there wasn’t a story. Just not the story I would have wanted for Neal. And I quite enjoyed Neal, a lot.
The problem with the point is that the removal of Neal is what caused him to not be part of those stories. They did not properly end the series like story of Rumpel finding and reuniting with his son. That was never properly resolved. Neither was Emma’s anger with him and their history, what Neal did to her, that was never properly resolved on the show. Also, Henry never got to know Neal. Neal never discussed his mother with Belle. He never properly discussed his time on Neverland and what Hook did to him with everyone. Neal knows Mulan and Mulan is coming back for the one off LGBT episode. Neal’s father was the dark one and so was Henry’s mother. They went further into Emma’s past in the queen’s of darkness arc and Neal was the only person that knew her back then and knew about what she did and her past in any detail. Neal would actually know how Emma was feeling and why she was upset with Snow and Charming for setting her apart, because something very similar happen to him when Rumpel became the dark one and set Bae apart by threatening anyone who came near him. That was why Bae was separated from Rumpel, there could have been a very nice scene where Neal brought up what happened in his past to Snow and Charming and said don’t push her away. There is seriously so much depth that will forever be left untapped because Neal is gone. Neal who knows everyone and is connected to everyone and is the character to have known Emma, the main character, when she was young, and who has a very similar story arc just his father was dark and Emma’s was light and yet they both made similar choices. It just doesn’t make sense to me to suggest that the story isn’t there. It just writes itself when i think about it for two seconds.
Honestly I had more of an issue with how he died than him actually dying. There are plenty of shows where you don’t get a nice little bow on the character’s story arc. Just look at every character who has been killed off on Game of Thrones. Plenty of more story there to be told with many characters. But they were killed off to advance a different plot going forward. It is likely that the plot going forward here was the CS ship. And they didn’t feel they could keep Neal around and still develop CS because perhaps Emma would always be tied to Neal and unable to move on. But as I said, plenty of shows move on from characters prematurely to help serve the plot going forward (or for shock value). I think if the plot was strong after Neal’s death, and the resulting actions and behaviors and plot points and whatever may the fallout had been, was actually done well, I don’t think people would have been as angry with Neal’s death. But because the rest of season 3b was not so great, and the seasons going forward for many have been disappointing, it’s easier to look at Neal’s death as many missed opportunities.
This isn’t Game of Thrones, though. We were told and promised that this was a story about hope and family, and for a lot of us, Neal was the lynchpin that helped make this show about family. He filled in the piece that connected Henry to everyone–he even gave Hook cause to care for Henry, if you remember back to season 2 when it wasn’t just about Hook trying to impress Emma.
Neal’s death marked a shift in the show’s focus from family-centered love to romance-centered love, ie, the ships. Rumple’s motivations had to shift from his son to Belle/Power, and Regina and Emma both lost their focus on caring for their son in favor of their boyfriends. Even the Charmings, who provided the key romance in S1, which again was always family centered because it was about their finding their daughter, are now willing to go off to the Underworld without a second thought for their infant son because Emma and Hook must be together? I feel like this waters down their characters significantly; almost all of them have done something in the last season that feels very unnatural based on the characteristics they were given in previous seasons, without the sort of satisfying dynamic change that would explain their actions–basically, the characters are being forced to fit into the plot instead of following what makes sense for who they are. IE, we need more Rumbelle Drama, let’s have Belle break his heart this ep and go back to him next ep, never mind that she’s not an unstable character who’d want to hurt him that way.
The show works best when the action and drama come out of the characters themselves–how their pasts affect them, how they relate to the other characters, and how they overcome challenges and learn from them. It stops working for me when the needs of the plot force them into positions/actions that don’t make sense for who the characters are. A woman who only a few months ago couldn’t bear to leave her infant son for a single hour out of fear that he’d be taken like her daughter was is not going to go to the Underworld leaving him with the fairies. It’s POSSIBLE to make that make sense, but you have to really twist things to do it, or give a situation where she feels forced to make that difficult choice; as it was portrayed in 511, Snow didn’t give it a second thought. (512 could fix this, but I don’t have much hope for that.)
TL;DR thesis: Neal in S2 and S3 helped keep the show focused on family relationships, as it had been in S1 (Baelfire was part of that too); his death freed the show to focus on romantic ships and plot, to its detriment.
Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing
When Ned died in GoT, it affected the characters, his family, the politics in Westeros. It set up the war of the five kings for two whole seasons, and I will admit that GoT sometimes unnecessarily kill characters without any outcome for the sake of shock (not the case with the books though). Again, it’s not the fact that Neal died, it’s the fact that no one mourned him afterwards (10 seconds funeral does not count), it’s the fact that it didn’t have any impact on the characters. A lot of great stories has tragedies in them (ASOIAF, LOTR, Hunger Games, Harry Potter) or even TV shows (Buffy, Jessica Jones, Grey’s Anatomy) because tragedies build characters, they grow from that. OUAT did something tragic and istead of letting the characters react to it, it just ignored it and went back to normal, so what was the point in killing him?
"All your questions are pointless"
OUAT did something tragic and istead of letting the characters react to it, it just ignored it and went back to normal, so what was the point in killing him?
Well and that’s what I meant when I said I didn’t mind the death. I cared about how the writing afterwards treated it. If they treated it well, and the death moved the plot in a good intriguing direction, then I don’t think people would be as mad at the death itself.
What @Keb said. Isn’t the argument that a character no longer does something for the plot and hence must be eliminated a bit spurious? I think it has more to do with worldbuilding and fresh ideas than it does with any given character.
Comparing GOT and OUAT is like comparing Hobbes’ Leviathan with Gummi Bears. GRRM is famous for randomly bringing down the axe of doom on absolutely any character, however central. He’s sort of unique that way. This isn’t because they are no longer necessary to the plot. It’s because in the SOIAF worldbuilding, all the characters are caught in a large-scale brutal geopolitical and historical meat grinder and their death or survival is largely a matter of random circumstances and luck. Also, the more duplicitous, cunning characters tend to have better odds of surviving (a little longer) than the classic “good guys.”
Anyway, in OUAT there is no sense at all that any of the “cosmic events” are bigger or more powerful than the individual motivations and desires of the main characters. Even the worst “evil” of the show (the DO curse) is itself only as big as the people it had infected. There actually isn’t a cosmology to OUAT except for the characters and their various backstories. It’s why we’re getting a glut of irrelevant and boring flashbacks. That’s the only way the writers seem to know how to “add” to the world, which at this point has become utterly laughable because, with the possible exception of Regina, most of the characters are now largely static, so their backstories add zilch.
I do miss him, but he reminds me of Robin Hood now. The man couldn’t fight. He had no magic. The episode where Cora and Regina storm into Gold’s shop in season 2….Neal with the sword was a little laughable. I just don’t think he would survive, and if he did, he would just be a secondary character to serve as Henry’s father and Rumple’s son.
Maybe I’m getting grumpy with age, but I find myself less and less impressed by a portrayal of masculinity where the guy must kick butt, swing a sword, or “cast magic missiles.” Show me a dude who excels at the kind of labor of care that, on a self-proclaimed feminist show, should really have been tackled in a thoughtful, egalitarian, and reflexive way. That could have been an interesting theme to explore in the magic vs no-magic storyline too — what sort of masculinity is “adaptive” in a world without magic. On the other hand, we don’t get interesting development for the male characters anyway, whether Robin or anyone else. The only marginally interesting male character is Rumple, and I think that’s solely due to Robert Carlyle’s portrayal. There are glimpses of interesting storylines — like with Charming and Arthur — but they’re never followed through. Meh.
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