Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[RumplesGirl]

U guys ever read the early posts from this thread?

I end up doing this a couple times every 6 months or so. A sort of madness overtakes me or something.

[bibliophile]

Re-watching all the seasons you really see how this show could have and yes should have gone with Baelfire and Emma. The two of them being the final happy ending uniting both the dark and light sides of magic would have been the perfect ending.

And I hope it’s not uncouth to mention him in this thread, but I think Hook would’ve made a very entertaining and much more natural relationship fit with Regina. Please nobody throw stones at me… I bruise easily.

[Slurpeez]

I don’t think we were naive about where the story itself was headed. Clearly, Emma and Neal were the two characters who were shown to have true love from the very beginning, as underscored by the actors’ choices as well as the narrative when their swan pendant crossed realms. On a show about the power of true love and family reconciliation, their return journey home to Tallahassee together with Henry was clearly where this story was headed. Their story of reconciliation was underscored by how Once Upon a Time in Wonderland ended when Will Scarlet and Anastasia reconciled. Will said:

“Love isn’t simple. It’s messy. It’s arguing and making up. It’s laughing and crying and struggling and sometimes, it doesn’t seem worth it. But it is. Because when you’re in love, in the end, you forgive each other. I forgive you, Ana, for what you did to me. Because I love you.” Will Scarlet

Will and Ana’s story was one of forgiveness, of healing, and eventual restoration. She came back to life because her story was meant to continue while the red queen’s journey wasn’t. I think the writers gave the story they’d intended for Neal and Emma to Will and Ana, which is why it was so powerful to see on screen and why it still resonates with many of us today. At least we got to see the plot play out, even if it was on the spin-off show.

Perhaps we were naive about how Hollywood actually works and how TV writers often will sell their birthright for a bowl of stew, but I don’t think we fans of Emma and Neal were wrong about predicting where the story was headed. There was a major reset button hit at the end of S3a. Adam and Eddy said as much. Things changed, that’s all, but I don’t think we were wrong about where the story was headed before the reset button got hit.

"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

[Slurpeez]

Re-watching all the seasons you really see how this show could have and yes should have gone with Baelfire and Emma. The two of them being the final happy ending uniting both the dark and light sides of magic would have been the perfect ending.

Agreed.

And I hope it’s not uncouth to mention him in this thread, but I think Hook would’ve made a very entertaining and much more natural relationship fit with Regina. Please nobody throw stones at me… I bruise easily.

In season two, I also thought Hook and Regina would’ve been a good couple. They had mad chemistry in season two. I liked that idea until Hook double crossed Regina, as he did so many people, and gave her over to be tortured by Greg Mendel. Regina has said how much she and Hook are alike. I think that would’ve been a better pairing. We already had a bad boy and good girl couple (Rumple and Belle). Having two recovering villains like Hook and Regina get together would’ve been different and fresh.

"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

[Jiminy’s Journal]

I don’t think we were naive about where the story itself was headed. Clearly, Emma and Neal were the two characters who were shown to have true love from the very beginning, as underscored by the actors’ choices as well as the narrative when their swan pendant crossed realms. On a show about the power of true love and family reconciliation, their return journey home to Tallahassee together with Henry was clearly where this story was headed. Their story of reconciliation was underscored by how Once Upon a Time in Wonderland ended when Will Scarlet and Anastasia reconciled. Will said:

“Love isn’t simple. It’s messy. It’s arguing and making up. It’s laughing and crying and struggling and sometimes, it doesn’t seem worth it. But it is. Because when you’re in love, in the end, you forgive each other. I forgive you, Ana, for what you did to me. Because I love you.” Will Scarlet

Will and Ana’s story was one of forgiveness, of healing, and eventual restoration. She came back to life because her story was meant to continue while the red queen’s journey wasn’t. I think the writers gave the story they’d intended for Neal and Emma to Will and Ana, which is why it was so powerful to see on screen and why it still resonates with many of us today. At least we got to see the plot play out, even if it was on the spin-off show.

Perhaps we were naive about how Hollywood actually works and how TV writers often will sell their birthright for a bowl of stew, but I don’t think we fans of Emma and Neal were wrong about predicting where the story was headed. There was a major reset button hit at the end of S3a. Adam and Eddy said as much. Things changed, that’s all, but I don’t think we were wrong about where the story was headed before the reset button got hit.

Quote

I see it every time a post something. I also think Cylice had some parallels. How they met, for instance. Just look at the epilogue: I have no doubt that THAT was the intended ending for Once-Proper.

[hjbau]

Yeah, i agree. It was not naive to think that the logical, consistent, well written, connected story arc, that which would lead to complete narrative sense, was Emma and Neal being together as a family unit, within the greater unit of Emma with her parents and Neal with his father and Belle. That was what was going to happen.

It might have been naive to think that Eddy and Adam, who had never been show runners before, had the skill to write such a story. But with the possibility that they had help in the constructing of Season 1, i think there was no way for us to know how bad they would end up being. With how well the arc of Season 1 was constructed, even with a few mistakes in there, i really thought the show would continue where it began, but it really went off the rails very early in Season 2.

[RumplesGirl]

Perhaps we were naive about how Hollywood actually works and how TV writers often will sell their birthright for a bowl of stew, but I don’t think we fans of Emma and Neal were wrong about predicting where the story was headed

Yes, that’s it.

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

[Bar Farer]

Of course Emma and Neal were ment to end up together. They had thematic connection which Emma and Hook lack.
Emma and Hook’s was born out of Hook’s growing popularity and because some fans wanted to see them together, which was a huge mistake because it changed the entire dynamic of the characters.
They had no build up and no foreshadowing at all. And no, Tallahasse doesn’t count, it wasn’t about Hook and Emma, it was about Emma’s trust issues and how she is able or unable to trust other people including Snow, Mulan, Anton and Hook. She had interaction with each that involves her trusting or not trusting them.

"All your questions are pointless"

[TheWatcher]

There was a time I supported Hook and Emma being a thing but only as a brief fling. No show has the two romantic leads instantly get together and stay together and remain. It takes time. For some shows it takes the entire run of the series only to have them get together at the very end. I expected Emma and Neal to be that way. They may go through whatever trials and tribulations,it wasn’t going to be a simple walk in the park. But by the end they’d be driving that yellow bug through SB, their son in the backseat, the heroes of a brand new original fairytale all their own. What a shame.

The show just stuck Emma with hook to appease fans. The CS fandom has always been very vocal so I’m sure the execs overestimated how much people wanted to see them be endgame. I believe they would always have given them something together (love triangles and all that) but I would have put my money on Hook/Regina during season 2.

"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGIC

[hjbau]

It is weird because i don’t remember there being any captain swan fans in Season 2. I mean i am sure they existed, but i never saw them anywhere i was at. I remember there being vocal reporters, which i still think is a part of why they did it, and i remember A&E making fun of that and saying that the ABC execs wanted Hook to be in scenes that he shouldn’t be in. I don’t remember people actually thinking Emma and Hook were going to be a couple. There might have been people that shipped them, but not people who thought it was actually a thing in the show.

I remember that all happening in Season 3 when the writers changed things and started lying about the meaning of things that happened in Season 2. I do remember people saying that Neal wasn’t attractive enough a lot which is so ridiculous.

I, also, imagined a long game with Emma and Neal and seeing them go back and forth and having to work on things right up til the end. Though, i also thought that Emma would have issues with her parents throughout the entire show as well, but that didn’t happen either. It was really like at some point the writers just quit writing for their characters and just started writing side plots like oh let’s see if we can just do all the fairytale, disney characters and completely forgot about their original new fairytale family which was Emma, Neal, and Henry.

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