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That, right there, was a totally bizarre moment. Why precisely did Emma feel the need to suddenly make out with Hook? Also, unsolicited advances are only Ok when perpetrated by the wish fulfillment character, but not OK when it’s the now “tainted” heroine. Because, Dark One cooties, and all that.
Yes it was a straight up weird moment.
But OUAT claims to be all about strong female characters, but it just seems that the writers feel deeply ambivalent about what that might look like.
It’s absolutely our culture because OUAT isn’t the only one doing this rather (yes, I like perfidious) misogyny. But OUAT is doing it in spades. Regina goes “Evil Queen” and starts raping Graham and using the promise of love and sex against the genie to get him to do her bidding. Cora wants to advance in the world so she openly flirts with the young prince. Zelena is delving into dark magic and she starts feeling sexual thoughts to Rumple. Belle becomes Lacey and makes out with Keith in an alleyway. And now, Emma becomes the Dark One and suddenly she’s way more hypersexual.
(you touched on most of this in your second reply. I just hadn’t read it yet before I typed out the above)
On the one hand, Hook actually surprised me in his ability to turn her down. Maybe he has come a long way. However, his total rejection of Emma sorta contrasts with Belle’s acceptance and unconditional love of dark one Rumple S1-S3a. As Belle warned Hook “it’s a lot easier to hate a dark one than it is to love one.” I get why he’s taken aback, why he doesn’t want her that way. But it does make it seem like Emma with sexual appetite = fallen woman.
I wasn’t surprised that Hook turned her down but I don’t think it has anything to do with him having come a long way. I think it’s more that the writers want to show that Hook is a “hero” and that he thinks her choice matters. He says something like “that’s not who I am.” and all I could do was laugh because that’s all he’s ever been. Both Lily Sparks and Bnaz in her snapchat review called the writers on this, saying something like “yeah, it’s not “hot” when Emma forces the Pirate. Only the other way ’round” which is what I think the writers were going for. Had it been Hook who grabbed Emma to kiss her, the kiss would have gone on much longer and been considered sexy and steamy instead of the ravings of the new Dark One.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Okay, one more passing thought on Hook. But I need to discuss his selfishness. It’s rather selfish of the Pirate to waltz into Rumple’s shop and demand to know things from Belle, no? I mean, he’s curious about why TLK wouldn’t work, I understand that and in this case going to Belle is a natural idea. But…but…he doesn’t even inquire after Rumple or how Belle is doing. Instead he insults the love of Belle’s life to her face (bloody crocodile) and doesn’t even ask how she’s coping all while her *husband* is laying there at death’s door! It’s all about him and his needs and his desires and his agenda. It makes their drinking at Granny’s together hollow and not resonate because once again, it’s about Hook’s man pain but at no point does he turn to her and inquire after how she’s doing.
I guess I should be fair that no one in SB, apart from Grumpy at the ball, is asking after Belle, but no one is seeking her out either.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Okay, one more passing thought on Hook. But I need to discuss his selfishness. It’s rather selfish of the Pirate to waltz into Rumple’s shop and demand to know things from Belle, no? I mean, he’s curious about why TLK wouldn’t work, I understand that and in this case going to Belle is a natural idea. But…but…he doesn’t even inquire after Rumple or how Belle is doing. Instead he insults the love of Belle’s life to her face (bloody crocodile) and doesn’t even ask how she’s coping all while her *husband* is laying there at death’s door! It’s all about him and his needs and his desires and his agenda. It makes their drinking at Granny’s together hollow and not resonate because once again, it’s about Hook’s man pain but at no point does he turn to her and inquire after how she’s doing.
I guess I should be fair that no one in SB, apart from Grumpy at the ball, is asking after Belle, but no one is seeking her out either.
I admit when I was watching it, I didn’t notice it, but now that you mention it, you are absolutely right. I’m not against a friendship between Hook and Belle, but I do think that Hook needs to show some compassion and regret over his actions towards Belle rather than it just being ignored and forgotten. At the moment the friendship seems one side in Hook’s favour with Belle being forgiving yet Hook has done nothing to earn that forgiveness.
All magic comes with a price!
Keeper of FelixIt’s always about hook and his needs so I say that is probably in complete character for him to remain egocentric. Why would he show concern for Belle or inquire how she is holding up. That is of no consequence to him.
I probably used consequence wrong in that statement. Lol
"I will be kind but I will speak my mind."
This may be the wrong place to post about Hook, but I don’t want to do so outside of the thread. You know I’m no fan of him, but I did want to look closely at how his character is presently being portrayed in the story. He is neither full villain nor redeemed hero: he’s somewhere in the middle. As Colin said of Hook at CC this summer,
“Even in the last season when he was trying to be good he still had that little bit of darkness,” O’Donoghue reasons. “He’s a pirate so he’ll do whatever he has to do to protect the people that he loves.”
Colin O’Donoghue’s of Hook almost mirrors Rumple’s assessment of Hook in S4,
“This hand is nothing but a lump of flesh. The only thing it did was give you permission, permission to be the man you really are… not some puppy dog chasing after the object of his affection, but a ruthless pirate who will stop at nothing to get what he wants” [i.e. Emma Swan].
Hook is firmly in the anti-hero column right now, rather than the hero column as Emma declared he was last season. But, not even Hook totally sees himself as a hero, as he confessed to Emma his fear of losing her because of his villain status. And now he’s lost her to darkness.
I wasn’t surprised that Hook turned her down but I don’t think it has anything to do with him having come a long way. I think it’s more that the writers want to show that Hook is a “hero” and that he thinks her choice matters. He says something like “that’s not who I am.” and all I could do was laugh because that’s all he’s ever been. Both Lily Sparks and Bnaz in her snapchat review called the writers on this, saying something like “yeah, it’s not “hot” when Emma forces the Pirate.
While I totally see the point Lily Sparks made (i.e. Hook: It’s only ‘hot’ when I coerce you.”), Hook has evolved since S2 (though his redemption arc is far from over). Certainly, past Captain Hook came across as a sexual predator (getting girls drunk to sleep with him, making a jape about gang-raping Milha, saying he’d stick Emma with his sword). He used to hit on every woman, including Emma’s mother, and he certainly coerced Emma into kissing him for the first time by using saving her father as leverage. However, to claim that is all Hook has ever been is inaccurate. There was a time when he was a straight-laced sailor named Killian Jones who did have good form. He’s still morally grey, but I think on some level wishes to reclaim his lost honor, although he doesn’t really know how to do so. He’s lost that sense of integrity, and he scoffed a bit at Henry’s expressed desire to be good in 5×1. He sort of chided Regina for having done “too many good deeds” to use the wand. He led Henry to defy his mother in freeing Zelena, so I think Hook is still morally confused.
Despite this scoff and lack of good judgement, I think on some deep level Hook would like to be heroic, but he doesn’t know how (remember that one conversation Hook had with Pan in 3×5 about how Hook thinks Emma sees him as honorable). The problem is, he’s going about this change the wrong way; as Rumple said, Hook is still a ruthless pirate who’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants: Emma. To Hook, dating Savior Swan represents his chance to reclaim his lost sense of nobility. Now that Emma is the dark one, however, Hook seems to be rethinking his desire to be with her physically as well as emotionally; Hook recoils from dark one Emma. He is getting a taste of his own medicine, but he doesn’t like it! He says, “that is not who I am.” Well, we saw Hook whence at his former scalawag self in 3×21-22. Hook did turn down the whore in 3×17 that his crew paid for (though only after he committed highway robbery and put his ship before a man’s life). So I’d say that while Hook has evolved past his former womanizing ways, but he is not above acting selfishly and immorally towards others. He still has a long way to go to reclaim his lost honor. We’ve yet to see him do the right thing when he has nothing to gain from it and he is not a hero yet.
Only the other way ’round” which is what I think the writers were going for. Had it been Hook who grabbed Emma to kiss her, the kiss would have gone on much longer and been considered sexy and steamy instead of the ravings of the new Dark One.
I agree that is a major shortcoming of the writing of Hook. It’s “hot” when Hook, a bad-boy heart throb, uses any means to purse the “virginal” girl (though Emma is a mother). But it’s not okay for the bad-girl to purse the same boy who recoils at her sexual forwardness. That is a major double standard on behalf of the writers.
"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
Best Way To Describe CaptainSwan Now:
It’s really Grease.
"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor
Okay, one more passing thought on Hook. But I need to discuss his selfishness. It’s rather selfish of the Pirate to waltz into Rumple’s shop and demand to know things from Belle, no? I mean, he’s curious about why TLK wouldn’t work, I understand that and in this case going to Belle is a natural idea. But…but…he doesn’t even inquire after Rumple or how Belle is doing. Instead he insults the love of Belle’s life to her face (bloody crocodile) and doesn’t even ask how she’s coping all while her *husband* is laying there at death’s door! It’s all about him and his needs and his desires and his agenda. It makes their drinking at Granny’s together hollow and not resonate because once again, it’s about Hook’s man pain but at no point does he turn to her and inquire after how she’s doing. I guess I should be fair that no one in SB, apart from Grumpy at the ball, is asking after Belle, but no one is seeking her out either.
Yes! This bothered me so much. And the fact that Belle doesn’t bat an eye at the repeated use of “bloody crocodile” also annoyed me. If someone insults your comatose partner to your face, a natural or logical reaction would be to tell them off. Or smack them upside the head. Certainly not share a drink. The only way this sort of negative comment might work is if Hook and Rumple were some kind of frenemies — rival brothers, for example. This isn’t the case — they are straight up enemies.
To me, this kind of tone deaf writing shows who the real “protagonists” are — Belle and increasingly Rumple are there to accessorize Hook’s redemptive plot. Belle’s motivations as a character are completely ignored and even Emma is occasionally sidelined for the sake of showing Hook’s growth as a character. Also, the whole DO thing is so heavily enmeshed with a rhetoric of addiction and madness, and the way CS is being written from that angle is just plain offensive. Not just because of the double standard around their sexuality, but what’s in fact being portrayed is that Emma is “tempting” Hook back to his own “addictions” — the offer of alcohol and the comment about “the way to man’s heart is through his liver,” while kind of funny, seems very heavy handed symbolism. Hook first refuses the drink, then refuses the physical intimacy precisely because he was there on a mission — to break Emma’s curse. When he failed to do that, he rejects Emma. And yet, when it was Hook getting Emma to drink, or coming on to her, it was something to cheer about — the bad boy helping our innocent and uptight heroine loosen up. But then when it’s the reverse, we get this:
Everything Nevermore just wrote. Yup.
ETA: Slurpeez, I read your post but I don’t have a whole lot to say back. While it’s true that Killian Jones was a presented as having a code of some sort, it was so brief (and so vaguely drawn) that I honestly can’t say what his code entailed, didn’t entail, and how honestly he’d adhere to it. I mean, you look at traditional sailors of the era that Hook’s at least dressed in and their history, it’s full of men with a code who do unspeakable things. What I do know is that when he did turn pirate, he embraced it fully (all the icky parts as well) and I’m not 100% that his pre-pirate life wasn’t ever icky. It might not have been fair nor accurate to say “that’s all he’s ever been” it’s also not a total falsehood either.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I mean, you look at traditional sailors of the era that Hook’s at least dressed in and their history, it’s full of men with a code who do unspeakable things.
Young Killian Jones didn’t take alcohol according to 3×5. Prior to his brother’s death, he wasn’t exactly a swearing sailor who drank and whored his way along the coast. I think he adhered strictly to his code of honor.
What I do know is that when he did turn pirate, he embraced it fully (all the icky parts as well) and I’m not 100% that his pre-pirate life wasn’t ever icky.
It might not have been fair nor accurate to say “that’s all he’s ever been” it’s also not a total falsehood either.It is very disturbing how quickly he turned towards piracy. It’s one thing to fight a corrupt king, but it’s another thing entirely to become a menace and a bully to innocent people like crippled, pre-dark-one Rumple. I find his character’s dichotomies interesting, but the commonality I find running through his character is his obsessive nature. He was once obsessed with his moral code. He seems like an all-or-nothing kind of person. As soon as he decided to embrace piracy, he totally took on the nature of a womanizing bully. He no longer cared about a king, and he became a king unto himself who stole everything, including another person’s wife (though it’s important to note Milha willingly abandoned her own family).
"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
There are some things you don’t need a code of honor for, though. He so rapidly turned to “pirate manner” even though some of it is wrong, code or no code (rape). For Killian to say, “hey. I don’t need to follow a code now so I can get women drunk and take advantage of them” to me (and maybe only to me) suggests that there was always a part of him that was drawn to darkness. He was/is absolutely obsessive and it manifests pre-pirate; we also saw him enforcing HIS rules to the sailors that were under him because they didn’t adhere to what he thought was right. What I’m saying is that while he might not have been whoring and drinking his way up and down the coast, there is something in him that was always…not so good–like everyone else on this show. His obsessive nature manifests in both Killian Jones and Captain Hook.
Based purely on the script, it seems to me like Hook is still being portrayed as Emma’s Mr. Wrong.
Yes but the writers don’t recognize that they are portraying him that way. There’s a disconnect. The writers are just following typical storytelling with bad boys who are never 100% reformed but who get the girl anyway simply because 1) they are hot and 2) women are objects who don’t know their own mind and golly if they just gave the guy a chance, they’d see how great he is! and 3) because gosh darn it, he really loves her and that’s all that matters! They are portraying him as Mr. Wrong (because most women would go screaming into the night if they had this sort of attention) but the writers don’t realize they are portraying him as Mr. Wrong. The things you point out that they are throwing in are great in showing us why he’s all wrong for Emma, but the writers aren’t reading them as such…they are just there for plot and never advanced beyond that episode (ie: the hand never came back up nor what Rumple said) (Henry not liking Hook, yet he seems to have no problem with him in the S4 finale or in 501) (Hook teaching Henry how to cheat and scoffing at the idea of honor but no one ever finding out and neither of Henry’s mothers becoming enraged)
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
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