Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[Phee]

I honestly don’t feel like Neal’s gotten the shaft as much as people talk about. Yes there’s much more to tell with him, but I really don’t feel like he’s been ignored by the writers. I think they’re writing the character with a deliberate slow burn, (which I think MRJ is aware of, which is why he plays him in a more reserved manner a lot of the time, because the character and the story aren’t supposed to be big, in your face, go go go, loud and fast paced), because he’s gonna be around until show’s end, so they don’t want to resolve everything with him immediately.

As for promo, yeah they have promoted the wazoo out of Hook and CS, and Colin is undoubtedly a big draw for many viewers. But has that excessive promo seen ratings sky rocket? Nope. Ratings haven’t had a massive decline, they’re holding relatively steady, but all that Hook/CS promo hasn’t exactly drawn in more viewers. If people are staying away because they’re not super fussed about Hook, the ep of his death could likely see a ratings spike, and while they might lose some viewers after the fact, they might well win some others back.

[heatherc1275]

A&E don’t do the promotion for the show, they tell us that all the time, but IIRC, the ratings rarely went up or down much depending on the amount of CS stuff or Hook screen time that aired during this first part of the season. The show has pretty much settled into one set area ratings wise and doesn’t fluctuate much from it (though the DVR numbers do add to the number) so if they’re letting ABC dictate story for their show now just to bump up the ratings (which aren’t horrible for the network overall), that’s pretty crappy to do since they preach all the time about how much they want this to be their vision. I know there’s the whole business side to things but why set up SO MUCH STUFF for SwanFire and then say, “Oops, wait, too bad…your guy gets nothing after all because we need to prop up our golden boy to please the networks and bump up our ratings. Neal doesn’t get a happy ending anymore”. They didn’t do that with Lost and I have a hard time thinking they would do it with OUAT either. Yes, people got killed off on Lost but the deaths mostly made sense. The only characters who were hated and killed off because of that were Nikki and Paulo and MRJ is not even remotely in the category of those two nitwits (I refuse to believe that MRJ is unhappy on OUAT…he just doesn’t come across that way at all in anything I’ve ever read from him or on Twitter and he’s normally pretty brutal with his honesty). That is just LAZY WRITING and it will cause me to stop watching the show because I can’t fathom any scenario where Neal dying makes any sort of sense with where the story is on the show right now. Maybe they try to make it work somehow but that will probably cause me to leave too because they’ve given us too many breadcrumbs to follow to just take it away without warning and then claim it was all storyline. Neal dying takes away part of Rumple, Henry, and Emma’s potential happy endings and I seriously have doubts that they would ruin three other people’s happiness in one fell swoop. Plus it’s lazy and they just did this last season…did I mentionit was lazy?!?

And I still think that the person mentioned by the PA (who should be fired yesterday) and the comments about a trashed trailer or an unhappy actor/actress were just second hand gossip that didn’t need to be posted on social media. I don’t even think it’s true. That’s my main reason for hoping this person loses their job. All that stuff did was rile up the fandom and it’s not kosher to let behind the scenes stuff like that leak out about your work place.

Just my opinion on things and on that note, I need to go to bed so I can get up before the crack of dawn and try to get to work in the snow tomorrow. 🙁

#MoreBOOMLessGloom

[RumplesGirl]

Heather, Phee, and Slurpeez get major cookies.

Sorry for my constant down-ness.

I have hope and faith but I’m very very very scared.

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

[Slurpeez]

Phee wrote:  my first thought was Colin being disillusioned over how he didn’t get to play iconic Hook vs Pan stuff, which I’m sure he’d been expecting when he knew they were headed to NL. He was also really excited pre-season to get to act with MRJ and explore their characters’ relationship.  

Perhaps. Colin was an untapped talent prior to the show. He’s probably grateful for the publicity, but frustrated by the lack of real character development and interactions with Peter Pan. Once has given Colin an international platform to go on and have a successful acting career in the UK or elsewhere.  

Phee wrote: All the Hook promo would make more sense if they’re building up to his death. Give him a heroic send off, like his promo poster suggest.

That is very interesting food for thought, which I hadn’t even considered before, but which makes complete sense! I remember before Cora’s “death” they did a lot of promoting of her and Rumple, since it was uncertain which character would die. (Well, we knew Rumple would survive, but the example still stands). This could be Hook’s “send-off” to launch Colin O’Donoghue on a big career.

Phee wrote:  I don’t like that they’d use a character death to shut down the triangle, (it’d feel like a cop out), but as far as the wider scope of the show goes, there’s more logic to Hook dying than Neal

It may seem like a cop out now, but it really depends how it’s handled. I’ve long thought that Captain Hook might be a Sydney Carton-type of figure from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Out of unrequited love for the wife of Charles Darnay, Sydney gives his life to spare Charles Darnay. Sydney’s final sacrifice is anything but a “cop out” because he dies to give the woman he loves a happy ending, even though it’s without him. Famously, Sydney’s final words are “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”  

"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

[Josephine]

Me and Slurpeez on the Sidney Carton train. I’ve long thought he’d make a terrific Sidney character, much like Snape did. Storywise it would make sense although my heart still says it’s Neal.

Keeper of Rumplestiltskin's and Neal's spears and war paint and crystal ball.

[Phee]

If they were to write it in a way that Hook has a realisation that Emma doesn’t love him in return, and he makes peace with that, and then dies in a sacrificial way, that would be fine. I just wouldn’t want them to have him still clinging to hope of being with her, and then die in some tragic/accidental way just to get rid of him. That kind of ending for the character wouldn’t be fair on either ship. It would make it feel like they just swept him aside to make way for Neal, and the fandom debate would rage on forever about if Emma could have actually ended up with him or not.

If he dies in a sacrificial way, I’d prefer it to be as a means of saving Neal’s life, rather than saving Emma’s. It’d be some consolation for us not having had the deep and meaningful CaptainFire stuff we were hoping for. We’ve seen Hook hand Bae over to a “demon” in 222, so perhaps in 322 they can show him saving Neal’s life (maybe from WW, another green villain, just like Pan was) by giving his own life. The season finales would mirror each other nicely if they did that.

[RumplesGirl]

If he dies in a sacrificial way, I’d prefer it to be as a means of saving Neal’s life, rather than saving Emma’s. It’d be some consolation for us not having had the deep and meaningful CaptainFire stuff we were hoping for. We’ve seen Hook hand Bae over to a “demon” in 222, so perhaps in 322 they can show him saving Neal’s life (maybe from WW, another green villain, just like Pan was) by giving his own life. The season finales would mirror each other nicely if they did that.

I agree. If it is Hook, let him die dying for Neal not Emma. He dies for Emma and we’ll never hear the end of it, how that clearly means they were true love

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

[Slurpeez]

Phee wrote: I honestly don’t feel like Neal’s gotten the shaft as much as people talk about. Yes there’s much more to tell with him, but I really don’t feel like he’s been ignored by the writers. I think they’re writing the character with a deliberate slow burn, (which I think MRJ is aware of, which is why he plays him in a more reserved manner a lot of the time, because the character and the story aren’t supposed to be big, in your face, go go go, loud and fast paced), because he’s gonna be around until show’s end, so they don’t want to resolve everything with him immediately.

I tend to agree with Phee on this one. Even though it feels frustrating sometimes like Neal keeps drawing the short stick, I tend to think it’s because the writers are eventually planning to do a 180 with him. He’s so used to being on his own, to sacrificing his own happiness for the sake of others, and he just went through a near-death experience in 2×21. He woke up in 3×1 with renewed clarity about his mission to get to Emma. In 3×3, he said Emma and Henry are the most important people in his life, that he needs them, and that they’re his second chance. I see Neal’s character as being developed with real, consistent character growth. He’s admitted his error in leaving Emma as his biggest regret and apologized to Emma. He’s made real strides towards forgiving his own father, who then scarified himself to hive his son another chance at happiness. I really think this slow build-up has been intentional. Like Phee said, the writers have held off on showing too much of Neal’s backstory or interactions with Hook, probably because when we finally get there, we’ll see that Neal (which means “champion”) will get his second chance with Emma. Neal isn’t going anywhere. Honestly, I’m not worried about it.

"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

[lunatiger]

WOW I come back into OUAT fandom and I hear talk about a major character dying?!?! It’s all over Tumblr and the forums. *Sigh I’m sure this is repeated but…* I don’t believe it’s Neal. It just doesn’t make sense from a writing standpoint. He already “died” last season and made everyone a mess because of it, especially Rumple and Emma and Henry. To have him die again would be soooo redundant. We’ve already explored all the characters emotions when he supposedly “died”, it doesn’t add anything new to the story to have him die again. It would just be a rehash of the beginning of season 3. Also there is much to be explored with his character. I still have hope that it will be explored in the later episodes of the season. It took over a year to get an Emma backstory. I’m not surprised that it might take that long to get Neal’s. Emma and Neal’s backstory in our world isn’t quite as thrilling as seeing magical EF stuff. But Nealfire’s conception was from the beginning of the show. I can’t see them killing off such a major character after so much happened.

If I had to pick who’s going to die, it would most likely be Hook. It’s not because I ship SF. From a storytelling standpoint he is the one that has the least ties to any character or any storyline for that matter, saved Emma. Also his “romance” with Emma is a one sided-one that hasn’t even been acknowledged by the other party for half of the season. It’s telling to see that Hook has no other story other then Emma and to me that is not a strong enough to hold his character especially when it’s only him doing the romancing. The Neverland arc is pretty much done, which his character wasn’t even fully integrated in. We didn’t get any background on his time there, or his relationship with Pan, or anything related on Hook and Neverland. I don’t think Neverland is going to be explored again anytime soon. At least with Neal we can explore his relationship with Henry and Rumple. His background in both EF, Neverland, and our world.

If this was because an member of the cast is unhappy and wants to leave then I’ll be sad. If it comes out that it was because of difficulties with the fandom then I have to say I can’t support the show anymore. But I can’t see that being the reason. I’m sure every actor on the show has there fair share of haters out there. So have hope fellow SFers! Our ship is always about hope!

[Phee]

Luna, I completely agree with you, they’ve already been there, done that with the rest reacting to Neal’s (apparent) death, and it would be completely redundant to go through all of that again, and the emotional punch of his loss would be lacking because we’ve seen everyone reacting to it before, so I really can’t see them doing that.

[Author]

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