Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[kfchimera]

I think at times it is easy to lose sight of the things said this season.   The story of Emma and Neal is complex, but it is still beautiful, dramatic and unique.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Emma’s reaction to Neal saying I Love you is just a nod, but I don’t expect them to echo some pop culture couple from another story.  They have their own unique touchstones woven in the story, and that’s what makes them such a special couple.

They aren’t a “spin” on some well-known tale, and I keep hoping the writers don’t throw it away in the interest of pleasing the marketing team or loud, organized fans.  A lot of fans probably don’t care either way, haven’t thought it through so much, they’re just following the story.  It’s like to them, hm that’s odd, Emma just said she never stopped loving Neal, th guy that sent her to jail, now she’s kissing that dude who called her useless when he left her to die in a jail cell when working with the serial killer witch. The story is more complicated of course, but what does a casual fan understand?

They probably don’t understand all those little moments that we fans dissect and discuss.  Last season is a distant memory to them, perhaps even the episode before.

In terms of that, Hook’s backstory episode did actually have some things for the SF shipper.  In it, they showed that Hook’s always spun his moral compass on a dime, when struck with grief.  The source of his loss of happiness was loss of honor, not loss of romantic love.  I believe whatever affection and attraction he has for Emma is far less important to his true happiness than regaining that honor.  In some ways, he sort of latched onto her and she to him because neither of them are in an emotionally stable place now. She did initiate the kiss but only after his coy hints about it.  What exactly she thought, well the actress put it as “human” not “romantic”.  Emma definitely was not smiling or exhibiting that energy of bubbling happiness (that we see so easily in the flashbacks of Emma and Neal or in scenes of the other main couples.)  I just thought it was a sharp contrast to the very joyous  and public PDA of Snowing.  Especially with her comments not to let the others know.  It felt very Vertical Horizon “Dirty little secrets” to me, and I guess he is a pirate so call of booty is another way to put it.  I think on his end he would like much more, but so far I can’t help but wonder at his timing.  He was all about revenge and not Emma, up until he heard Bae died.  So it is only when he is stuck in NL, when he knows she’s valuable to Pan, when Milah’s grandson is held captive, that he really tries to bond with her.
Neal on the other hand, he fell for her without knowing any of that, and despite knowing it, is still trying to win her back, or he would, if he weren’t captured and caged like an animal.I don’t feel that’s supposed to make us feel unsympathetic to Neal really.  If anything, the story is showing us all three points of view, and what a big mess it all is.I don’t know if there’s a “neat” solution to it, but I still feel Hook has less invested in Emma, and she in Hook, than anything that is at stake for Emma and Neal, because for both of them, this love between them has shaped who they are for years, even though they weren’t together.  I hope the story shifts gears a bit to focus on how  Hook and Neal work to establish a friendship, and it to be on screen that Hook does care about Neal too.  That it isn’t “he does not owe him anything” pirate thinking 101 still for Hook, only about his own best interests so narrowly and shallowly defined, but really giving  all three time to think about what truly defines their happiness.  I still do think there are signs that Neal and Emma have a deep love, but every story changes with every chapter.  I just have not seen much so far to make me wish it to change so drastically that Emma and Neal don’t get a second chance together.

[RumplesGirl]

I think at times it is easy to lose sight of the things said this season. The story of Emma and Neal is complex, but it is still beautiful, dramatic and unique. I wouldn’t be surprised if Emma’s reaction to Neal saying I Love you is just a nod, but I don’t expect them to echo some pop culture couple from another story. They have their own unique touchstones woven in the story, and that’s what makes them such a special couple.

Agreed. Especially that last part! Emma and Neal are two unique individuals and in the Onceiverse they aren’t previously known Fairy Tale Characters. They have that in common with each other and only with each other. ONCE takes spins of classic tales but only Emma and Neal came purely from the imagination of Adam and Eddy.

I believe whatever affection and attraction he has for Emma is far less important to his true happiness than regaining that honor.

Yes what matters most for Hook is that he be seen as the man he really believes himself to be. And that’s not a bad thing! I do think he can be a hero if he chooses but I think his own self importance matter more than any attraction he feels for Emma. And then there’s his “son” to consider…

If anything, the story is showing us all three points of view, and what a big mess it all is.I don’t know if there’s a “neat” solution to it, but I still feel Hook has less invested in Emma, and she in Hook, than anything that is at stake for Emma and Neal, because for both of them, this love between them has shaped who they are for years, even though they weren’t together.

This.

I hope the story shifts gears a bit to focus on how Hook and Neal work to establish a friendship, and it to be on screen that Hook does care about Neal too.

Oh gods yes. I need to see some CaptainFire scenes.

 

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Slurpeez]

In terms of that, Hook’s backstory episode did actually have some things for the SF shipper.  In it, they showed that Hook’s always spun his moral compass on a dime, when struck with grief.  The source of his loss of happiness was loss of honor, not loss of romantic love.  I believe whatever affection and attraction he has for Emma is far less important to his true happiness than regaining that honor.

This is a very valid point you raise. Hook told PP he believes Emma sees him as a man of honor. Sometimes a man would rather be able to respect himself for doing the right thing than have an empty sense of honor which is really dishonor. For example, stealing another man’s life, while fulfilling Hook’s code of fighting for what he wanted, really left him dissatisfied deep down I think. He probably felt guilty about taking Milha from her boy, as evidenced by the fact that Hook wanted young Bae to stay on his ship and be like a son. He said that they could be like a family, even though Baelfire was vindicated in rejecting that offer because it rung hollow to him after Hook seduced his mother.

I think on his end he would like much more, but so far I can’t help but wonder at his timing.  He was all about revenge and not Emma, up until he heard Bae died.  So it is only when he is stuck in NL, when he knows she’s valuable to Pan, when Milah’s grandson is held captive, that he really tries to bond with her.

I agree. Up until very recently, Hook had no real honor. Just last season, Hook was comparing Emma to a useless dried up bean and leaving her for dead so she couldn’t’ get home to her son. He was so consumed by wanting to enact revenge on Rumple that he lost site of his own sense honor or goal in life apart from revenge. It was only when he learned that Baelfire was dead that Hook joined the effort to help save Henry. Even though Charming accused Hook of only being in NL for Emma, Hook never actually confirmed that. What Hook said is that he wasn’t doing it for Charming, but I think Hook couldn’t just let a fellow man die the way his brother died. I also think he’s helping to save Henry as a way to honor the memories of Baelfire and Milha. Now I think he’s going to help save Neal out of fatherly feelings for the boy who is his only living connection to Milha (other than Rumple, his sworn enemy).

Before he became a pirate, Killian Jones was all about “good form” to the point of never even having a sip of alcohol. Within only a few years, Captain Jones transformed into a man who lived by his own code, a pirate with a drinking problem who seduced another man’s wife, thereby taking her from her young child, and jeered at her husband for being a coward and a cripple and therefore unable to fight. When Emma first met Captain Hook, his “code” revealed him to be vengeful to the point he would’ve left Emma for dead for doubting him, despite the fact that Emma was scared by his alliance with Cora. How did Captain Jones fall so far from grace? Even when he gave up being a member of the royal navy, at least his principle was solid in not wanting to serve a corrupt king. Yet, the transformation from a justified swashbuckler to a plundering pirate seemed to have happened int the span of just a few years.

If Hook is going to stand by his assertion that he is a man of honor, then he is going to have to rise to the challenge which PP has set before him. Hook is a man who for so long has only served his self interests that it’s now hard to change those old nasty habits after a few centuries. While I’m sure Hook is developing feelings for Emma, I think he’s going to do battle internally to determine whether it’s right to act on those feelings now that he is on the path to redemption. Is he in NL just for Emma or is he there to be a hero for everyone, including his son figure, Baelfire? If he’s there purely for Emma, then he would try to drown out his own conscience telling him to save Neal. If, however, Killian is learning to put the interests of others first, he might even sacrifice his own shot with Emma in order to help secure the happiness of his de facto son, Neal (at least for now). I think more than anything, Killian wants to recapture that man he used to be, a man of honor, his true self. To  do that, he’s going to need to weigh any romantic inclinations for the woman whom Neal also loves. Sometimes not fighting for what you think you want can also be the honorable thing, and if Emma really loves Hook (as CSers like to claim), then she would still choose Killian, despite Neal being back in the picture. (Of course, as a SF fan, I see Emma’s heart is spoken for by Neal. As long as Neal walked the earth, she’d never truly be able to give her whole heart to another man.)

In some ways, he sort of latched onto her and she to him because neither of them are in an emotionally stable place now. She did initiate the kiss but only after his coy hints about it.  What exactly she thought, well the actress put it as “human” not “romantic”.  Emma definitely was not smiling or exhibiting that energy of bubbling happiness (that we see so easily in the flashbacks of Emma and Neal or in scenes of the other main couples.)  I just thought it was a sharp contrast to the very joyous  and public PDA of Snowing.  Especially with her comments not to let the others know. It felt very Vertical Horizon “Dirty little secrets” to me, and I guess he is a pirate so call of booty is another way to put it.

I think that kiss took both Emma and Hook by surprise. Being a red-blooded man, Hook obviously is into Emma and into the kiss. He is developing feelings for her, whether he expected to or not. Emma, on the other hand, just lost Neal days before, and so she is still grief-stricken, and NL is throwing her for a major loop. Her kissing Hook was cathartic and was really about missing Neal, in my opinion. She’s starting to accept that Neal is gone forever, but she is no where near ready to think about striking up a new romance. Anyone who’s ever lost a loved one to death or even to heartbreak knows it’s not something you just get over in a matter of days, much less months or even years. A person might try to casually date or hook up in the aftermath, but it’s almost always as a rebound or as as way to make onself feel better. Drinking and kissing are a way to forget one’s own pain. Emma really laid into that kiss, but it wasn’t a true love kiss. It was an I-need-to-feel-better kiss, which was born of her gratitude for Killian saving her father, and from a need for catharsis from her grief. To Emma, I think Hook so reminds her of Neal so that she’s relying on him not just as a guide to find Henry but as her only  living connection to the love of her life, Neal.

If anything, the story is showing us all three points of view, and what a big mess it all is.I don’t know if there’s a “neat” solution to it, but I still feel Hook has less invested in Emma, and she in Hook, than anything that is at stake for Emma and Neal, because for both of them, this love between them has shaped who they are for years, even though they weren’t together.  I hope the story shifts gears a bit to focus on how  Hook and Neal work to establish a friendship, and it to be on screen that Hook does care about Neal too.  That it isn’t “he does not owe him anything” pirate thinking 101 still for Hook, only about his own best interests so narrowly and shallowly defined, but really giving  all three time to think about what truly defines their happiness.  I still do think there are signs that Neal and Emma have a deep love, but every story changes with every chapter.  I just have not seen much so far to make me wish it to change so drastically that Emma and Neal don’t get a second chance together.

I completely agree that Hook isn’t just going to be in it for himself anymore but that he’s hopefully going to step up to the plate and be a father/brother figure to Neal. It would be a great bromance, in spite of their common interest in the same woman. Also, it’s a delicious drama in the sense that Hook being a like a father figure to Nealfire would cut Rumple to the quick because his happy ending is reconciling with his son. To witness Neal and Hook being chummy would be emotionally wrought for Rumplestiltskin. I’m not saying that Hook would be close to Neal just to get back at his old enemy but it would be a bonus for Hook since he still hates Rumple for killing Milha. Poor Rumple. (Hopefully, Rumple and Neal will start to make amends by 3×11).

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[kfchimera]

@RG wrote:

Yes what matters most for Hook is that he be seen as the man he really believes himself to be. And that’s not a bad thing! I do think he can be a hero if he chooses but I think his own self importance matter more than any attraction he feels for Emma. And then there’s his “son” to consider…

The writers create these wonderfully duplicitous characters.  They may lie to each other, but also to themselves, through omissions and half-truths.  They hold internal conflict and that fuels the hopes of wildly different outcomes.

I think it may not be until 3×16 that Neal and Emma have any sort of movement.  If Wendy is in the cage, it is going to throw a wrinkle into things.  I do not think with how young they cast her that they are seriously going to suggest romance between them.  It is possible something happened in the past with young Bae.  I hope it does not throw Neal off his goal of expressing his love to Emma, but Wendy being around divides his attention as I think he would want to take care of her as a big brother.  Of course there is the conundrum we all asked, how could Wendy Darling be a real person, in real London?Will Emma react about that onscreen?  She has hit a lot of weird.  I do think Wendy might tell her things about Neal like how he sacrificed himself for her and her brothers. 

 

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

[Slurpeez]

kfchimera wrote: I think it may not be until 3×16 that Neal and Emma have any sort of movement.  If Wendy is in the cage, it is going to throw a wrinkle into things.  I do not think with how young they cast her that they are seriously going to suggest romance between them.  It is possible something happened in the past with young Bae.  I hope it does not throw Neal off his goal of expressing his love to Emma, but Wendy being around divides his attention as I think he would want to take care of her as a big brother.  Of course there is the conundrum we all asked, how could Wendy Darling be a real person, in real London?Will Emma react about that onscreen?  She has hit a lot of weird.  I do think Wendy might tell her things about Neal like how he sacrificed himself for her and her brothers.

The reason I’m not worried about Wendy getting in the way romantically of Emma and Neal is that she looks to be no older than a girl of 19 (Feya Tingley’s actual age). As you say, Neal is going to be more like a big brother than a potential suitor for Wendy. Also, the reason I don’t see Neal having to take care of Wendy once they get back to SB is because Wendy already has two biological brothers of her own, John and Michael, who have grown older than her and are now in their 20s and know how the modern world works. Even though they’ve been hardened by years of servitude to PP, I think they really are good guys underneath, and now that they have Wendy back, will revet back to the loving brothers they are deep down. They are more than capable of looking after their sister, Wendy. Also, I don’t think Freya Tingley, the actress, is going to become a regular guest star. I think her arc will pretty much come to a close when she reaches SB and is reunited with her biological brothers. So, as far as Neal’s responsibility to her, he might look in on her from time to time, but it’s not like he has to provide for her or anything. I think Neal will have enough on his plate figuring out how to be a dad to Henry and to co-parent with Emma going forward. Plus, I predict the writers are going to take us to Oz in the second half of S3, as has been heavily hinted at since S2.

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[RumplesGirl]

Yeah I’m not all worried about Wendy Darling. In fact I think Wendy will be a big helper in making sure SwanFire sets sail. She wants her older brother, Bae, who sacrificed so much for her to be with his true love. She knows what a hard life he’s had, both on the London streets and then in NL. AND if some people are right that Hook is the one who brought Wendy to NL, then that’s not going to sit well.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[kfchimera]

Slurpeez, that is a good point.

It is not likely a long term damper, but in NL it will be difficult with all these people around for Emma to have the privacy to say what she wants.  There is also still some scene where apparently Neal finds out about the kiss.

I wonder if Hook would tell him? Like some guilt thing, because he does not want Neal to find out from someone else? “I thought you were dead”, sort of the way MM says “we were cursed!” Emma telling him would be expected but I do not think she would feel guilty as she and Neal were not together, plus he was with Tamara.  Hook on the other hand, well he is the one who knows he kissed his lover’s son’s ex.  Still not clear Emma knows about that little detail between Hook, Rumple and Nealfire.  My other crack thought is he finds a picture of Hook/Emma kissing or Pan gives it to him.  Pan loves to  turn the screw. 

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

[Phee]

I think it may not be until 3×16 that Neal and Emma have any sort of movement.

My money is on 314, just for the sake of matchy-ness with Manhattan, the ep where they met again, having been 214. Putting off an Emma centric until 314 is probably within the realm of possibility. They could show flashbacks of her getting out of jail and still having hope of finding him again, and over the course of a couple of flashbacks we could see that hope dwindling. And they could parallel that with hope for them being rekindled, (this will be the ep titled Phoenix, of course ;-)), in the present day.

And I really hope they’re reunited in 306. It may not be matchy to 206 with a city name title, but it is the first (and only that we know of so far) S3 ep with a 1 word title, and that 1 word is still a name, even if not the name of a city. (I know that’s a stretch, but I’m feeling overly analytical at the moment, so just go with it. :lol:)

[RumplesGirl]

I also think the actual triangle will be dragged until some mid point of the second half, which will be exhausting for all sides. 314 sounds like a nice little parallel to me (and Manhattan was my favorite episode of S2 so yay more paralleling). I do think they’re going to be reunited in 306. Again, parallels to 206 when she lost him without knowing the reason why. And now they’re in NL and about to discover just how much PP has been behind most everything.

One more day!

 

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[kfchimera]

oops I meant 314 too, was thinking of Manhattan, and yes Phee to all that.

I think the writers compare and contrast with their structure, and it is interesting that this next title though it is a person’s name is actually a city also.  It is an Israeli city that is  in contention.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_%28city%29

 

 

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

[Author]

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