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While the SF fan in my would like to see this happen for the sake of showing Hook’s true colors, I see a potential hole in this theory. True Love’s kiss with Emma should work even in A Land Without Magic. When Graham kissed Emma in “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” he remembered his true identity, not because he and Emma had true love, but because Emma embodies it! There was no magic in Storybrooke at that point, so the fact that Emma was able to restore Graham’s rightful memories meant that the magic was emanating from within her. Likewise, when Emma awoke Henry from the sleeping curse, that magic was powerful enough not just to wake up Henry, but everybody in the entire town, despite the fact that Mr. Gold still had yet to bring magic to the entire town. That means that it was Emma’s magic, combined with her true love for Henry, which was emanated from her kiss, and this was done all without he presence of added magic (Mr. Gold hadn’t dropped the love potion in the well yet). That tells me a True Love kiss, especially one with Emma, ought to be powerful enough to awaken her, even in New York City. The fact that it didn’t work, could just mean Hook has yet to make cursed Emma to fall for him.
Look at all that lovely logic!
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Slurpeez108 wrote: Besides the fact that Emma has said three times that she loves Neal, always has, and always will ever since “Second Star to the Right,”
Three times in the space of eight episodes (SSTTR – Ariel), which spanned a time frame of about a week. That’s a pretty good average, considering they’re not even a couple at the moment. Just sayin’.
Yep! Why bother repeating this message unless the writers really want to hit home the fact that Emma loves Neal? CS fans say it’s just because Emma isn’t really in love with Neal. Really? If the writers wanted to show Emma moving on with Hook, they would have just left it with Emma saying she loves Neal in 2×21 and that being that. There would be no reason to drive home the point by continuing to have Emma repeat it in S3.
Absolutely. And the fact that she said it in front of others, which is a thing that does not come easy to Ms. Swan! She said it in front of her parents, two people who understand better than anyone those bumps on the road to true love and happily ever after.
I think it’s clear that the writers have shown the Charmings trying to impart parental wisdom to Emma and her continuing to reject it. She told her parents in 3×1 that they have equal amounts of wisdom because they have they’re the same age. Ummm, technically, no they’ve still been alive 28 years longer than Emma; they were just frozen for nearly 3 decades. Also, Snow and Charming hail from a land where happy endings are more common and true love more obvious. They are trying to give their daughter sage advice that happy endings start with hope. In 3×6 and in 3×10, Snow repeatedly said that Emma owes it to herself to see if she could work it out with Neal. In 3×4, Charming and Snow had just heard Emma bemoaning the fact that she’d lost Neal after realizing she’d always loved him and that she was angry she’d never ever have the chance to tell him again. So Snow calls her daughter on it and says she realizes Emma was pushing down the hope that Neal could be alive, but that Emma ought to have hope that Neal could still be alive. Snow recognizes that Neal is Emma’s second chance at happiness, just as Rumple realizes it and said so to Neal in 3×11. The big themes of 3×10 is that it’s important to look for the good moments amongst the bad, and Snow and Charming think having lunch is an important first step for Emma to take in not letting fear of losing Neal stand in her way at happiness. Emma was going to take her parents’ advice by meeting Neal for lunch when Peter Pan’s curse got in the way. That seemed to confirm in Emma’s mind belief that as the savior, she doesn’t even get a day off, much less a happy ending. So she tells Snow and Charming they’re flat-out wrong to have hope.
Emma’s experience of growing up in this world has taught her not to expect a normal happy life or to dream of being with Neal. The last time she dared to hope that she and Neal would have a home together, her destiny got in the way by separating them. In 3×11, Emma openly rejected her parents’ advice because she said bad things keep happening to her, and then they did in the form of Emma once again having to surpress her dream of being with her family, which includes Charming, Snow and Neal. After the sacrifice that Neal had made to get Emma home to her parents, she was again faced with making a sacrifice of her own for her son’s sake. Emma could have in theory gone back to the Enchanted Forest with her family, but then Henry would’ve been alone. So Emma made the self-sacrifice of saying goodbye to the people she loves for the sake of another person she loves, her son. Sound familiar? It’s a direct parallel to the self-sacrifice Neal made when he said goodbye to the woman he loves for the sake of her finding and saving her parents. I think this is deliberate, intuitional, and the way the writers are showing that extent to which Emma and Neal are both selfless characters, but they can’t keep them from their happy ending forever. Despite the trials, the separations, and the pain, Emma and Neal will find a way to be together in the end. Yet, Neal has already learned this lesson the hard way, because he had the chance to go after Emma when the curse broke, but didn’t. He told Mulan in 3×1 it’s the biggest regret of his life. He said when you find the person you love, you don’t hold it in. You say it! You fight for it. That is what Neal is doing, and why he imparts hope to Emma that their story isn’t over. He will see her and Henry again.
"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
Emma could have in theory gone back to the Enchanted Forest with her family, but then Henry would’ve been alone. So Emma made the self-sacrifice of saying goodbye to the people she loves for the sake of another person she loves, her son. Sound familiar? It’s a direct parallel to the self-sacrifice Neal made when he said goodbye to the woman he loves for the sake of her finding and saving her parents
Wholly agree.
Despite the trials, the separations, and the pain, Emma and Neal will find a way to be together in the end.
Time and space haven’t stopped them so far
He said when you find the person you love, you don’t hold it in. You say it! You fight for it. That is what Neal is doing, and why he imparts hope to Emma that their story isn’t over. He will see her and Henry again.
Neal was the only person who made it seem as though this wasn’t the end. Everyone else acted as though they’d never see Emma ever again. But Neal knows better. He knows how this has to play out because he has been through it before.
This isn’t over.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"And we all know All happy endings begin with Hope, the Savior, the Reason, and the Believer will be united once again! Time and Space has yet to keep them apart!
"I will be kind but I will speak my mind."
I see what you mean Slurpeez that Emma being an embodiment of True Love might suggest she could break out of a curse despite it being a memory curse, despite being in the Land without (much) Magic, but at the same time–Rumple’s kiss didnt’ reach Belle and Charming could not wake Snow because of the technicality that the present persona did not remember the love. So there is that–but I feel as I said it is an argument that proves nothing either way, since if Grumpy kissed Emma. Belle or Snow, they wouldn’t have woken up either! So I still feel it was a dodge by the writers to make it seem like something happened when it was kind of a non-event. They did not establish that Emma felt love let alone true love for Hook prior to that moment so I think only CS fans would feel let down by it not working. Besides–Henry is canonically Emma’s true love–she has GOT to have given him a little peck or he her in an entire year! So I feel TLK wasn’t going to work on that particular type of curse–you have to remember that you love the person and they have to remember they love you.
I am doubtful Hook will win Emma over and have her fall in love with him, because I feel like he only got as far as he did with her because she was on an island that made her super-emotional, full of grief and seriously at a lack of options to avoid him as he knew things necessary for survival there. She did appreciate the help quite sincerely. It probably made him go from someone she could barely stand (all her eye rolls, hitting his broken ribs) to someone she has some friendly feelings mixed with attraction as he was very blatant that he desired her and that he wants love. She’s had a very lonely life so it was potent for her to feel so wanted, but at the same time she knows in the back of her mind he plays people and Emma hates that (see pilot, her treatment of Ryan,reaction to August lying, accusation she tossed at Neal), even if he is not playing her. Yet there is more to feeling loved than just feeling wanted, and it remains to be seen if they want the same things out of life in general. Hook’s getting a chance to woo her in NYC far as we can tell but that doesn’t mean the writers have decided to write Neal as moving on or some other thing like that. So we’ll just have to wait and see.
One more random thing…Double Standards is something Im tired of hearing about because look, characters on the show hold Hook accountable at times for the things he did to them, not Emma. Charming punched Hook in the face for hitting him with a lead pipe. Did Neal hit Charming? No. Snow rolled her eyes at Hook because he was making innuendo and holding out on them (and he ran away to go find Cora). I am all for Snow and Charming finding out what Neal did, but only if they hear the whole story of how Emma talked him into helping cover up a crime, how he did not want to let her but believed in her, how he was blindsided and ambushed by August and told he had to leave her, and how she was arrested for possession of a stolen watch. If the story gets condensed to “Neal set Emma for jail and left her because he was a coward that didn’t love her” –that isn’t what I inferred from those scenes, it wasn’t what MRJ thought he was acting out, and it makes no sense that August had to be involved in that either. If they wanted to make Neal just a bad guy who used her, they could have made it just about the watches, not complicate matters with the curse. I think they did that to make the situation seem one way to Emma, but another to Neal and that creates the tragedy of it, that for me at least, set me up to root for them to fix it.
“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
I am so behind in this thread! 😀 But the few pages I’ve caught up on just make me happy. You all are brillant!!! I can’t believe how fast this thread is moving. I go away for a week (last week of school for the kids and all) and I have like 40 pages to read! But you all are amazing.
So a few thoughts to add that I’m sure have been said but oh well. 🙂
So I’m still a little mad about the blocking in the scene before the last scene in episode 3×11 where the curse is engulfing everyone at the border. As Emma and Henry get in the bug, the camera pans across Hook, Charming, Snow, and Regina in the foreground. Neal is in the background between Snow and Regina. And the last thing we see of those characters as the curse engulfs them is Hook, Charming, Snow and Regina again. I’m actually irritated by this. Why isn’t Neal in the foreground with the rest of them? I mean at the very least he is Henry’s father and you would think he would want to see them until the very last second unless his emotions were finally too much for him to handle even tho he knows he’ll see them again. I just didn’t like that he isn’t one of the characters being engulfed last by the curse. I don’t think it means that Neal isn’t important or anything like that but it annoys me because why is Hook all up front? Sure he had something for Emma but Neal is losing his son not a woman that may or may not feel something for him. It just irks me because I feel like Hook being there is showing how his feelings are more important than Neal’s or at least as important than Snowing and Regina. I know it’s not his fault but the director or writers of that scene, it just bothers me. It’s off putting for me.
I also watched that scene again and I don’t care that people think the goodbye between Emma and Neal is platonic. Emma actually doesn’t really get emotional until she finds out that she will have no memories of ANYONE except Henry (and maybe Neal but only the bad with her not knowing why he left her) and Snow goes to her and gives her a kiss on the forehead. Neal is doing his best to not show his emotions too much and so is Emma. She says sorry I think for having to leave and Neal losing yet more of his family and his son. And maybe it is an all encompassing apology for not showing up at the diner and so forth but she feels bad at any rate. But then Emma gives Neal a hug and then tells them that it isn’t over and that he’ll see them again. Emma walks away and I think she is on the verge of losing it when Hook comes up to her. I think she is already a bit teary eyed because of her goodbye with Neal but also because she probably does feel something for Hook but (and maybe this is more my shipper googles talking here) I think she is sad more because of the lost opportunity of what might have been with them rather than her necessarily feeling that strongly about Hook. I think Emma is a bit confused when it comes to Hook and Neal. I think she sees potential in a relationship with Hook but she is still in love with and drawn to Neal, but she doesn’t know if she can completely trust him with her heart yet. But now all that doesn’t matter because she has to leave so that Henry isn’t alone.
Okay so why does Hook show up at her door and not Neal or anyone else. I kind of go back and forth on this. On one hand, it does make sense for Hook being sent there by Emma’s family or even Neal because the last memory Emma has of Neal is him leaving her to go jail and she may completely shut him out and not listen to him at all. But then I wonder if Hook didn’t come to get Emma on his own accord. I almost don’t know if they would want to disrupt Emma from her new life and (they think) her new happiness. If it was my kid that I sent to have a good life, I don’t know if I would try to get her from her new life even if I needed her help. So maybe Blue or someone else says they need Emma and have a potion for her and can get to “a land without magic” with this bean or something like that but then Snowing says no we can’t disrupt Emma’s new life and drag her back into all this but then Hook takes the potion and bean (or whatever) and decides that he’s going to get Emma anyway because he thinks that the Emma he knew before being decursed would want to know and would want to help. In my head, that would explain why he decides to try and kiss her in the hopes that it would bring her memories back. If he was sent by Charming and Snow, I think they would have told him that something like that wouldn’t work even if they were TL. But maybe I’m reading too much into all this but I almost feel like that Hook is there without permission so to speak.
I really do think that the dreamcatcher has something to do with Emma regaining her memories. If it doesn’t, I’ll be surprised and annoyed. Why else would she have that look on her face? She was shocked/confused in the promo.
I really hope that they spend the second half of this season showing us that Neal and Emma are suppose to be together. I agree with everyone else when they have said why drag out all the feelings between Emma and Neal if they aren’t going anywhere with it? They could have been done with it in the echo caves. Emma could have said that even tho she still loved Neal and always will, she discovered she was in love with Hook or flat out said that she didn’t want to be with Neal. But that’s not the dialogue. Instead she wished he was dead so that she didn’t have to deal with all her feelings and all the pain and hurt between them. That doesn’t sound like someone who actually wants to move on. And I don’t think she is just trying to let him down easy either. If you want to let someone down easy, you don’t tell them that you wished they were still dead so that you didn’t have to deal with all the emotions. That’s still pretty harsh. If she wanted to move on, she would have flat out said it. Emma isn’t one to just sugar coat everything anyway. She would have just told Neal that all the pain and hurt was too much and that she is moving on and so should he. But she never does. She never tells Neal to move on. Even when he tells her that he’ll fight for her, she doesn’t say, don’t do that. She doesn’t tell him to let their love go and move on. So to me, that means a part of her still wants a future with Neal even though she’s not sure if she can have one with him. She doesn’t want Neal to move on and go on with his life without her. She herself isn’t really sure what she wants or what she can have anymore.
"We were happy."
"Because... it was born out of true love."heatherc1275 wrote: That Neal post is amazing too and I’ve also re-read it a few times. He seriously needs some happiness at the end of S3 and I am hoping really hard that this is something in their plans. He desperately needs to have something good happen for him because IMO, you make a show a lot harder to watch when you have one character who keeps getting the crap beat out of him
He is totally the punching bag of ONCE right now. Cute kid looses mother in an affair. Cute kid looses father to dark curse. Cute kids looses his “real” family in act of heroism. Cute kid is traded by mother’s ex-lover to evil minions on dark island. Cute kid is forced to be 14 for 200 years in a cave. Cute kid meets the love of his life. Adorable guy must give up love of his life cause destiny. Adorable guy is alone for 10 years. Adorable guy makes ONE MISTAKE and is HATED by fandom. Adorable guy finds out he has a son and almost looses father in one week. Adorable guy is shot. Adorable guy has to go back to dark island of mismatched toys. Adorable guy had fight with papa. Adorable guy is put in a cage. Adorable guy is rescued by love of his life who says that the pain they went through is super painful. Adorable guy almost looses son. Adorable guy is stood up. Adorable guy looses father. Adorable guy looses love of his life and his son and is sent back home. Seriously. The heck.
You know who Nealfire reminds me of? Rocky Balboa from the Rocky film franchise! I can’t believe I didn’t put my finger on it earlier, but having read this description of Neal, it hit me. He reminds me of Rocky, the boxer who kept getting knocked down, but who kept on fighting and kept coming back stronger throughout the 4 films! Both Rocky and Neal have an underdog quality about them, both wear hoodies, which suggests they’re both streetwise. Yet, both Rocky and Neal have hearts of gold who try to do right by the women they love, even though the women in their lives don’t always see it that way. Rocky and Neal keep being dismissed by people outside of them, turned down, doubted, and even disparaged, and yet both Rocky and Neal kept their eternal optimism and turned away from self-doubt to self-belief! I think Neal’s story, like Rocky’s, will be one of an underdog who fought back, persevered, overcame internal and external obstacles and won the heart of the girl he loves. There is just something incredibly captivating about the story of overcoming. I have hope!
"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
heatherc1275 wrote: That Neal post is amazing too and I’ve also re-read it a few times. He seriously needs some happiness at the end of S3 and I am hoping really hard that this is something in their plans. He desperately needs to have something good happen for him because IMO, you make a show a lot harder to watch when you have one character who keeps getting the crap beat out of him
He is totally the punching bag of ONCE right now. Cute kid looses mother in an affair. Cute kid looses father to dark curse. Cute kids looses his “real” family in act of heroism. Cute kid is traded by mother’s ex-lover to evil minions on dark island. Cute kid is forced to be 14 for 200 years in a cave. Cute kid meets the love of his life. Adorable guy must give up love of his life cause destiny. Adorable guy is alone for 10 years. Adorable guy makes ONE MISTAKE and is HATED by fandom. Adorable guy finds out he has a son and almost looses father in one week. Adorable guy is shot. Adorable guy has to go back to dark island of mismatched toys. Adorable guy had fight with papa. Adorable guy is put in a cage. Adorable guy is rescued by love of his life who says that the pain they went through is super painful. Adorable guy almost looses son. Adorable guy is stood up. Adorable guy looses father. Adorable guy looses love of his life and his son and is sent back home. Seriously. The heck.
You know who Nealfire reminds me of? Rocky Balboa from the Rocky film franchise! I can’t believe I didn’t put my finger on it earlier, but having read this description of Neal, it hit me. He reminds me of Rocky, the boxer who kept getting knocked down, but who kept on fighting and kept coming back stronger throughout the 4 films! Both Rocky and Neal have an underdog quality about them, both wear hoodies, which suggests they’re both streetwise. Yet, both Rocky and Neal have hearts of gold who try to do right by the women they love, even though the women in their lives don’t always see it that way. Rocky and Neal keep being dismissed by people outside of them, turned down, doubted, and even disparaged, and yet both Rocky and Neal kept their eternal optimism and turned away from self-doubt to self-belief! I think Neal’s story, like Rocky’s, will be one of an underdog who fought back, persevered, overcame internal and external obstacles and won the heart of the girl he loves. There is just something incredibly captivating about the story of overcoming. I have hope!
Whole-heartedly agree with all of THIS ^^^^
"We were happy."
"Because... it was born out of true love."So many posts since I left!!!
I love everything everyone said.
If I may quote a 1990s song that fits Neal: “I get knocked down. But I get up again, you’re never going to keep me down”
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
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