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Girl’s coming undone and trying to prevent it cause she sees it as a weakness when she needs to be strong.
I was thinking about this just before, how JMo has implied that she’s portraying Emma as being a little bit unhinged while she’s in NL. You can see it already, that she’s trying to keep it together and keep going, but then things happen that mess with her head and she’s gotta deal with all these different emotions and expectations all at once, and it’s eating away at her bit by bit. Even the little things, like having Tinker Bell walking around their campsite is throwing her off mentally. So if something major and positive happens, I can imagine her having a rush that causes her to kiss the guy that made it possible in the heat of the moment. With so much doubt eating away at her 24/7, if there’s suddenly a moment of progress, a sure bet, it’ll be her instinct to (literally) grab onto it.
[adrotate group="5"]With so much doubt eating away at her 24/7, if there’s suddenly a moment of progress, a sure bet, it’ll be her instinct to (literally) grab onto it.
Agreed. Emma really only started being Henry’s full time mom as of “The Cricket Game” and for our characters that was maybe a few weeks ago. So in the course of a few weeks, Emma declares herself mother, saves a town of magical creatures (for the second time!) and then LOOSES said son! It would mess with her head a bit. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point starts questioning the kind of mother she is, especially if she realizes Henry is starting to trust the lost boys, partaking in their games, and carving up faces
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I think the kiss will be legit but that it won’t carry as much weight or meaning as most CSers probably see in it. The kiss is probably a spur-of-the moment victory kiss born of adrenaline and lowered inhibitions from being in NL. I think Emma’s emotional confession that she never stopped loving Neal was intentionally put in the episode before Emma kisses Killian to show where her heart truly is. The woman clearly hasn’t moved on from Neal even after 11 years, so no way has she moved on in the few days since she has thought him dead. While she may have some feelings for Killian I think they come from the fact that he reminds her of Neal (J-Mo’s words).
"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
Side note: if we call IT “the thing” then there is no need to spoil it out. I know I’ve been rather lax about it the past few days but I did ask the CSers to help me out a bit and start putting in spoiler tags so fair is fair.
I just wanna see what happens after the thing.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Completely agreed, slurpeez.
I think the thing will be genuine in the sense that it’s a real need she has in that moment, and he’s there for her in a way no one else can be. But as for it being the beginning of an epic romance? I just don’t see how that would make any sense. And I’m not even really saying that from a shipper perspective, I’m just talking about what we’ve seen of Emma so far this season. We’re watching her come undone. We’ve just seen her admitting that she never stopped loving the guy she saw die only a few days beforehand, and she hates that for 11 years she thought he didn’t love her too, and now it’s too late to even talk to him about it, (little does she know). So it simply would not fit for her character right now to have a properly considered, fully, purely romantic thing with Hook, (or anyone for that matter, but like Colin said in that interview the other day, Emma doesn’t have many options right now coz the only other guy with them is her dad).
With the 11 ep structure this season, they’re able to be more calculated and concise with the story telling, and it’s absolutely a calculated move that in one ep we see her confess her love for Neal, and in the next ep we’re gonna see the thing with Hook. It’s such a 180 turnaround, and it’ll only have been a few hours for her since saying the stuff about Neal. They’re doing this to illustrate how erratic her emotions are right now.
PS. RG, I dunno how you do it, moderating that other thread right now. Here, have a pretty set of pics to keep you going…
SwanFire & Maps & Home
http://sailsonthisvessel.tumblr.com/post/64753652008/swanfire-maps-homeI’m behind in my watching of interview but I just got a glimpse of the GMA one with JMo and this quote stuck out to me:
Neverland makes it you can’t really have your guard up, you return to your feelings of your childhood so everyone’s operating out of a more raw place. We’re all much more emotional, volatile and intense.” – Jmo
I think it confirms a bit of what we’re saying as to Emma’s psychological makeup at present. Poor Emma
Phee: Pretty pictures are wonderful. You get cookies.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I think what is driving a lot of fans is marketing more than interpretation, and as for the marketing, well the show preceeding Once is Revenge, which had a promo that started off “The Hampton’s hottest Love Rhombus…..” It’s a good question in my mind how much that kind of thing drives the marketing team and in turn network brass drive the writers to play with whatever “malleability” they have in their vision.
I really dislike the whole “everything is planned, and even tiny insignificant details were obviously intentional as a sign to the audience, along with heavy ironic foreshadowing” as a way to figure out what the writers want an average viewer to understand is going on. That’s bad storytelling if you have to look at everything upside down and backwards to the normal way you would in the context of a scene,to interpret how a character is feeling.
This isn’t a novel that is written and rewritten before being published. It is a television show that, while dreamed of for many years by two of its creators, is being written by a tag team of writers. One of whom, Jane Eppenson has a specialty on “ships” (her twitter says if you ship it I write it) and really hearing her in various interviews what she is good at doing is character development and dialog. She leaves the big plot stuff to the action writers and visionaries of Adam and Eddy. So to the extent we feel some discrepancy or rough edges between one episode and the next, the obvious answer is that is down to the way television series are created. She has said she learns new things all the time in the writers room. They get fan input on a delayed basis to where the writers are in terms of mapping out the next bits of the story, so they can’t just turn on a dime.
Yet they can turn, so sometimes pieces of the old vision dangle as loose ends. So some fans get upset and feel used when things don’t go exactly as they thought they would because the clues they saw didn’t play out the way they saw them. THen others get a little too happy when one part of the story fits with what they expected. Yes, I am happy that I can occasionally get a correct guess, one dart to hit the board as opposed to the wall Hook’s father isn’t Liam, and he is a brother, and they were both in the navy as I guessed off spoilers, but it isn’t like I think that means I was right about most of my guesses either . I try to remind myself that does not mean I know what will happen next!
I come back to the video cues, the audio cues, the dialog cues, all of it very consistent with thinking Emma never moved on from Neal because she loved him and wanted another chance to be together, not because she was so hurt, damaged and utterly destroyed by the abuse he heaped on her! I do understand where people get the impression that Neal was not good to Emma when they were together. We were conditioned to think Henry’s father would be shady. There’s a lot of cultural stereotypes that guys who wear tank tops and hoodies and don’t speak in the Queen’s English are low-life scumbags, likely to use and abuse women. Yet a lot of people forget that before we ever met Neal, as Emma’s boyfriend in the car, we saw him in a 3 pc suit wandering around a rich part of NY, then going back to a reasonable (for NY) apartment. He didn’t look all that happy, but he had come a long way from a guy living in a car on the street.
The way they introduced Neal called back to LOST spoiler for another show— the whole Desmond storyline and way he was introduced , but it also echoed Emma’s introduction in the real world, in her snazzy red dress. Both were dressed up, and both alone. Both didn’t look that happy, a little lost and broken, until someone came for Emma, and something came for Neal. The difference for Neal, of course, was that he’d lost faith and hope under the oceans of guilt he had over leaving Emma the way he did. He still knows why he did (being in the way of the curse and who knows what else that might have to do with Pan), but he will always regret that because he all he really wanted was to be with her, and for her to be happy. He meant what he said about wanting to reunite her with her parents, and get her home. He thought that mattered to her. He thought helping all the other cursed people mattered. It was, for Neal, a decision that could not have come easy, not after what he had been through in his life.
Yet for many viewers, they pick up on these stereotypical assumptions of “street voice, street clothes, bad guy” and especially “son of Rumple, yeah, he’s going to be just like dad” and not realize that they’re ignoring the character’s actual actions and intentions. The choice to cast MRJ, dress the character a certain way, and also present him as a fellow thief, these were things designed to keep the audience at a distance, to explain Emma’s reluctance and assumptions that he’d played her. Yet the reveal that he was actually Bae, the things we saw Bae do, the echoes of Bae we saw in present day Storebrooke in Neal, are intentional too. Neal saved Whale from Rumple, Neal followed Emma to get her back even though he didn’t want to believe her. I find it incredible because so far, all he knew was a guy who stole 20k from him had “died” and a woman who’d tried to kill him and kidnap his son was missing. Maybe he knew she was Henry’s adopted mother (I think he did), but even then, that he didn’t say “Emma, if Regina’s gone, that’s good for us.” He could have done that but he jumped right in there to help, even facing down his fiance at gunpoint. Then when shot, despite the pain he got himself up to help Emma avoid getting sucked down the portal.
I will admit, he was stupid to stand with his back towards it, but well, Neal’s imperfections show he is a real character and not some cardboard hero without much thought the writers are pushing on everyone. They weren’t afraid to make Neal unlikeable at times (not that the fanbase needs reason, when in general, villains who do horrible horrible things need only cry a tear or at least look down at the ground somewhat sad, to be loved with a fierceness that’s unmatched by the devotion to the “heroes” in the show.) RG, I do adore Rumple too, but I give you a lot of credit for not being one of THOSE Rumple fans who get angry at Neal for not forgiving Rumple fast enough (like the Regina ones who come down on Henry). The most important bit to me though is why Neal does the things he does, and how when he does do wrong or cause pain, even inadvertently, he tries to do the right thing or apologize for having done the wrong thing.
I don’t want Emma forgiving Neal right away either. I do expect she’s going to hang onto her anger for a bit, but I want it to play out on screen, not in fan’s headcannons. I don’t want the audience guessing so much why he left, or more importantly, what Emma thinks about why he left. I want that in dialog and on the screen, just like she has had conversations with Henry and Snow and Charming. They may end up saying they can never go back to what they had, and that might be the end of it. I’m hoping though, that what the writers do is show they do not need to go back, but they want to go forward together because they truly love each other.
“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
*stands up and slowly applauds KFC* You get all the cookies.
A few things that stuck out to me
I think what is driving a lot of fans is marketing more than interpretation, and as for the marketing, well the show preceeding Once is Revenge, which had a promo that started off “The Hampton’s hottest Love Rhombus…..” It’s a good question in my mind how much that kind of thing drives the marketing team and in turn network brass drive the writers to play with whatever “malleability” they have in their vision
I often want to point out that the marketing team at ABC is NOT A and E. The marketing team is a bunch of advertisers who potentially have never even seen the show but know how to market a product. That’s what ONCE is to them: a product. And there are a few tried and true marketing strategies, the biggest one being a sexy angst filled drama. Look at what’s on TV today, a lot of it is some sort of soapy-esque love triangle filled story that they will market to the hilt. Revenge, Scandal, ye olde days of early Grey’s Anatomy. That adage “sex sells” sounds trite but it’s not. ABC knows what they have with Colin/Hook: an unbelievably charismatic and handsome man with fangirls. Lots of them. So when people point out that ABC isn’t marketing or promoting Neal at all and therefore this can play into the interpretation of “endgame” I want to point out that it’s two different departments with two different end goals. A and E’s end goal is a story, the story they planned and want to tell. ABC’s end goal is money. Get the advertisers to cough up big bucks to fund the show and you do that by offering them something worthy of sponsoring. But the two don’t go hand in hand.
I really dislike the whole “everything is planned, and even tiny insignificant details were obviously intentional as a sign to the audience, along with heavy ironic foreshadowing” as a way to figure out what the writers want an average viewer to understand is going on. That’s bad storytelling if you have to look at everything upside down and backwards to the normal way you would in the context of a scene,to interpret how a character is feeling.
I would say that after 6 yrs on LOST, A and E learned not to try this unless they really sat down and sketched out every symbol and idea and have planned out when they will reveal its meaning.
I do understand where people get the impression that Neal was not good to Emma when they were together. We were conditioned to think Henry’s father would be shady.
Exactly. We were given Emma’s perspective which is tainted by her own interpretation of the events. We know now, though Emma is still learning, that her myopic view of what happened between the two of them is really only one part of this story. “I saw what I saw and I heard what I heard but only cause I saw and heard it”
There’s a lot of cultural stereotypes that guys who wear tank tops and hoodies and don’t speak in the Queen’s English are low-life scumbags, likely to use and abuse women.
Not to get into politics, but we can point to the recent Trayvon Martin case in the states and Gearldo Rivera’s comments that the HOODIE was at fault, not the gunman because hoodies are a cultural signifer. (irony: currently wearing a hoodie because it’s freezing and I am a white middle class girl with advanced degrees. The argument is specious)
it also echoed Emma’s introduction in the real world, in her snazzy red dress. Both were dressed up, and both alone. Both didn’t look that happy, a little lost and broken, until someone came for Emma, and something came for Neal. The difference for Neal, of course, was that he’d lost faith and hope under the oceans of guilt he had over leaving Emma the way he did. He still knows why he did (being in the way of the curse and who knows what else that might have to do with Pan), but he will always regret that because he all he really wanted was to be with her, and for her to be happy.
MASSIVE APPLAUSE
He meant what he said about wanting to reunite her with her parents, and get her home. He thought that mattered to her. He thought helping all the other cursed people mattered. It was, for Neal, a decision that could not have come easy, not after what he had been through in his life.
Nealfire understands what it is to be apart from your parents and how that tortures the soul. To me, what he did was heroic and maybe the biggest self sacrifice on the show.
Neal’s imperfections show he is a real character and not some cardboard hero without much thought the writers are pushing on everyone. They weren’t afraid to make Neal unlikeable at times (not that the fanbase needs reason, when in general, villains who do horrible horrible things need only cry a tear or at least look down at the ground somewhat sad, to be loved with a fierceness that’s unmatched by the devotion to the “heroes” in the show.
To me, Emma and Neal are the most human characters on the show. Snow and Charming have a tendency to be overly fairy tale at times, declarations of love and goodness before they perform some task for instance.
RG, I do adore Rumple too, but I give you a lot of credit for not being one of THOSE Rumple fans who get angry at Neal for not forgiving Rumple fast enough (like the Regina ones who come down on Henry).
I was proud of Neal. If he had said, “yeah ok Papa, I believe you” I would have been baffled. Why should Neal choose Rumple right now when Rumple has never chosen him? And when he did “choose” Bae, it was after he had let him go and Bae knows very little about that.
I don’t want Emma forgiving Neal right away either.
This is maybe one of the biggest disconnects in the fandom. There is an assumption that if you’re SF you think Emma and Neal ought to just sweep everything under the rug and be together. I have yet to meet an SF on this site who thinks that. We KNOW they have problems to resolve. We think the meat of the story in the working out of problems.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
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