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They had to pitch the entire season before shooting for 3A started though. The writers constantly meet through the season, but all the major stuff gets plotted out in their writers’ camp pre-season, and a massive thing like killing a character, that can’t be something you just make up on the fly. We may have had a long hiatus, but they haven’t had a big break in writing between the half seasons in order to brain(fart)storm this sort of thing.
But the thing is, if this was planned from 301 then all of S3 makes ZERO sense. ESPECIALLY that line in 311 “I’ll see both of you again” (oooooooh that line….that freaking line)
There are a lot of similiarites between Philip and Neal and this whole thing. But right now I think it’s lazy writing and now a big clue.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I feel the need to re-post just these two gifs on their own, because seriously, if they weren’t actually shot in the exact same location, they still set up the 315 scene to look almost identical.
Check the log across the top left corner. The tree in the bottom right corner. The position of the people. The angle it’s been shot at. I CALL SHENANIGANS.I don’t know what to say except that nothing about any of this right. Neal is & will remain my favorite character & SwanFire my favorite couple. I am determined to not lose sight of that when watching the rest of the season. I can’t watch Once the same as I did before I don’t have the same enthusiasm about the show as I once did because I feel as though Adam & Eddy changed their story. Now whether it was because ABC Brass or Fan Service I don’t know and I don’t think we will ever really know the full story from their end. But I do applaud MRJ for coming out breaking radio silence on twitter and setting the record straight on everything regarding the rumors surrounding his exit from the show. He is a real class act. He is the real deal as far actors go because he is so down to earth, laid back and easy going. He is an actor with integrity and despite is success has been able to stay honest and true to himself and his fans while at the same time keeping his private life to himself and away from the media. I will continue to support MRJ in his career.
Neal right now in the present may be gone and we may only see him in flashbacks like Graham. But I don’t believe that anything is ever really over and that dead is dead and that done is done especially in the world of television & film so I’m going to continue living by the mandate of Never Say Never and Anything Is Possible and continue to believe in Neal & Emma’s beautiful dream of TallahasseeDo I trust Adam & Eddy anymore ? The answer to that is no. Do I believe their vision for the show changed ? Absolutely. I would very much like to hold on to the vision from Seasons 1, 2 & 3A because that is when they held true the vision of what Fairy Tales actually represent which is Believing in Second Chances, Hope, Home, Redemption, True Love & Happy Endings. Where as in 3B I feel that everything about the show that made it magical and enchanting and at times spellbinding has changed very dramatically.
As said before I will continue to watch the rest of the season to see if any of what they have done has any merit in regards to destroying Neal’s character and then having him die a hero. I see no rhyme & reason to it at this juncture, but I believe my view of the show is now more jaded then anything else.
I will continue to pay homage to SwanFire here and post pics and fanfic and videos.
I consider all of you my friends and hope that no matter what the future holds that we can continue to believe in SwanFire’s dream of Tallahassee, Second Chances, True Love, Home, Family, Hope and Happy Endings.
Keeper of Neal/BaelFire's Blood Magic, Neverland Crossbow, FTL Clothes,Room at Granny’s, Charming & Emma’s Father/Daughter Hugs, Henry's Neverland Crossbow, Rumplestlitskin/Mr.Gold's FTL Walking StickI feel the need to re-post just these two gifs on their own, because seriously, if they weren’t actually shot in the exact same location, they still set up the 315 scene to look almost identical.
Check the log across the top left corner. The tree in the bottom right corner. The position of the people. The angle it’s been shot at. I CALL SHENANIGANS.Quoting my own post to add a thing.
Because of that tree in the top right of 315, it does seem to be a different location, which makes the logs on the ground all the more suspicious to me. In the MAP scene, the patch of grass has clearly defined right angle edges, with one of those edges being a log. In 315, that same log is there, but there are also others which, given their position, create that same right angle effect as in the MAP scene. Of ALL the forest they have to shoot in…I don’t see how that could be coincidence that they’d randomly shoot in a spot for 315 that looks virtually identical, even though it’s not the exact same place. That’s more than just a storyline parallel, that’s going out of their way to get the eerily similar shot…for reasons?If there are similarities, I don’t know what it might mean. I don’t think it means “we can get Neal back” like with Philip when SleepingWarrior went after him. Maybe it’s just two different directors have a similar vision.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"My first (and probably last, because it’s hard to browse through here, though amazing and emotional) post in this thread. Here it goes.
I’m angry. Not just because they ruthlessly killed off Neal, gave the worst writer on the show the means to execute it, and confirmed SF as True Loves (not to offend CSers, but they didn’t do that for them). But their reasoning for it. Their cruel, freaking stupid reasoning.
TVGuide’s wasn’t bad, but TVLine’s was evil. They said OUTRIGHT THAT THEY WERE FOCUSED ON THE STORY AND NOT THE CHARACTER BY NOT LETTING HIM SEE HENRY. Who, in their (I assume, though don’t believe) sober, non-smoker mind would not focus on the character? Neal deserved so much more, and his father, who spent over 250 years looking for him, gave up his life (and then, because it’s obvious that A&E don’t care about their show’s own rules anymore) only to come back to see his son die. Just die. That is low, even for a network drama. You promote this man as having second chances be his arc. HIS ARC WAS NEVER FULFILLED. WHAT ‘EFFIN SECOND CHANCE?
Neal Cassidy deserved more. He deserved a last kiss with Emma. He deserved to live out his life with his Papa. He deserved to raise his son. See him grow up. Go to college or rule a kingdom. He didn’t deserve to die.
Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz proved that they didn’t care about this character from the beginning of Season Three. The character that was the subject of two of the biggest mysteries of the show (Henry’s father and Baelfire). They brought in an incredible actor for the rule then CRUSHED him under the bus. Damn you, A&E, for ruining a character and four other character’s lives. Emma, Henry, Rumple, and Belle deserved much, much more. They deserved a happy ending.
Keeper of Thor’s Hammer, Will Scarlet’s Genie Bottle, Emma’s Gun, Emma and Henry’s Moment at the Castle, Cora, and the infamous Family Tree!
Dear Swanfire Family (Is it ok if I call you all a family of sorts? I know I didn’t post much, but I did love coming to this thread and seeing all the beautiful things everyone said about Emma and Neal and even just all your views on family and hope):
Thank you for being a safe little haven for someone who didn’t even realize she was a Swanfire Shipper until (apparently) it was too late (because it looks like A&E decided to kill Neal around the time I realized how emotionally invested I was in SF). I spent the better half of yesterday either crying or on the verge of tears because of Neal’s death and decided to write down all my feelings about the show once I calmed a bit down this morning. Hope you all don’t mind if I share.
Since its inception, I have watched OUAT, faithfully every Sunday. I fell in love with a show that created these unique and dimensional characters- characters that I grew up watching. I cheered when Snow and Charming were finally reunited and cried when Rumple lost his son (in season one) because he was too afraid to give up power. I bought into the idea of family and hope- that Emma could find her family, Rumple could find his son and in the end they could all have a happy ending. Sunday nights were like a little escape from reality. I never looked for spoilers and never questioned the direction of the show. As a loyal viewer, I was just happy to be a part of the ride.
Season one of the show as phenomenal and in all honesty, I really loved season 2 as well. In season two, we were not only able to meet Rumple’s son in real time, but find out that he is also Henry’s father and the love of Emma’s life. From the moment she saw him again, it was so clear she was not over him and since we knew that he was forced to leave her in Tallahassee I was so excited to see them find a way to fall back in love. The revelation of Tamara was another thing that was hard to swallow. I didn’t like Neal was engaged, but at the same time, I understood how he could be. Here was Baelfire, who had gone through a hard life and had to give up the woman he loved (Emma) and let go to help her find her destiny. Yes, Baelfire deserved to find happiness and move on, even if it wasn’t with Emma because he genuinely believed that we wasn’t going to get a second chance with Emma- he knew Emma too well. When we found out how much he regretted leaving Emma and by then we knew that Tamara was evil, I was excited to watch and see how the two of them could eventually come together. So when he gave his life as a sacrifice in season two and showed Emma how much he not only loved her and Henry my heart broke, but in a way that I could see the parallel A&E were trying to make between Neal and his father. Neal was not afraid to die if it meant that his son would not get abandoned- what a loving father. Again it tore my heart apart knowing that Rumple wasted the time in Storybrooke with his son and now his son was dead. But I never lost faith in the vision that A&E were telling us- I trusted them. And I was rewarded because the next week we found out Neal wasn’t dead, and I was so excited to go on a journey again with A&E for Emma and Regina to find their son in Neverland, for Nealfire to find his way back to the love of his life and back to his son, and for Rumple to finally show Neal that he had changed.
Cue season 3. Again, I followed along as I had previously but found myself much more invested. I had come to love these characters that were created by A&E and so I wanted them to find Henry, find each other and go home together. From the end of season 2, it was so clear to me that Emma and Neal loved each other and deserved a second chance. I was confused by the CS kiss, and I actually remember watching it before the episode aired because it played on many media sites. I genuinely believed that Emma was on some weird Neverland drug to make her have such crazy eyes before the kiss. So around the time of Ariel I started looking for videos about Emma and Neal’s relationship to see what beautiful moments OUAT fans made about them. So that of course was around the time I started lurking here in the SF thread. Here were people who saw the show the way I did AND they post pretty pictures and videos too!
I never crossed into other threads because I still wanted to be surprised when I watched the show so I had no idea that Pan was Rumple’s father and that in “Going Home” Rumple sacrifices his life for his son and his true love. It was poetic and beautiful. I still believed in A&E vision even in “Going Home” but something just wasn’t right. Here was a show about family and we the viewers could not even see a real goodbye seen between Neal and Henry- just the two of them? For the first time, I questioned A&E- why was Neal and Emma/Henry’s goodbye scene so short? But then I reasoned that he was the only one giving them hope. OK I’ll buy it, I’ll wait and see what happens. The hiatus came and was way too long so I started reading spoilers on the forums. As I read I became confused: “What? Someone is going to die and people think it’s Neal? Michael Raymond-James hasn’t been shooting in a while… what does that mean?” I started to become worried that Neal would die, but then when I looked back at the story that I thought A&E were telling, I reasoned that could not be possible, that it was a fake-out. I believed in hope and that happy endings were possible. This was a show about fairytales. Good always wins in fairytales and surely our sweet Baelfire who grew into a brave and selfless man would be able to find his happy ending.
So I guess that leads me to what happened on Sunday. Neal/Baelfire actually dies… in the worst way possible. And he never got to say goodbye to his son. A son, which by the way still thinks he is the jerk that abandoned his mom and sent her to jail. And A&E have confirmed this death is real. What?!! I have spent last night and this morning reading your posts here and posts from other places trying to decide if I can buy into A&E’s vision. I have seen by some in other sites that maybe the reason Neal died was to show the point that you cannot escape your fate because he should have died in the ogre’s war when he was 14. I have seen some say how poetic it was that Neal was not afraid of paying the price for magic (which it is), a lesson his father learned centuries after he let his son go the first time. I genuinely loved the moment in “Quiet Minds” where Rumple gives up his dagger for his son. It does parallel his change to put his son before power. I loved all the Swanfire moments: from the look Emma gets in her eye when she tells Neal how good it is to see him again (that is the look of love) to the laughter and ease the two of them share when talking about their crazy exes. Emma has seriously not laughed like that since she was 17 and stealing food from a convenience store. The fact that Emma can always be open with Neal about everything and how much the two of them just love Henry. How excited Neal was to know that Henry and Emma loved living in New York, a place that he lived in for quite a while (oh no, now the tears are starting again). Those were beautiful moments, but even today I cannot understand why Neal’s death is the permanent one.
Why do the villains get happy endings, but someone who has ALWAYS strived to do the right thing, who has made sacrifices for others and who has owned up to his mistakes, why is his reward death? Yes, in real life this happens, but I don’t watch a show about fairytales to tell me how real life sucks sometimes. I know that life isn’t fair and no matter how hard you try as a person to be a good person, sometimes bad things happen to you. I don’t need to be reminded of that sad truth in a show that promotes hope for a better life, for love, for family and for happiness.
In conclusion, I feel as all of you do in this thread that there was nothing good that came out from Neal’s death. How can Rumple get his happy ending? The death of child never goes away from a person and how he does not even have the hope to see his son again like he did the first time he lost Baelfire. For the first time, I don’t trust this show. For the first time, I question its premise. This permanent death was planned by A&E? Then what in the world did I spend 2.5 years watching and hoping for?
I made the mistake last night to re-watch “The Return” from season 1 to see the parallel with Rumple in “Quiet Minds” vs. the old Rumple. It made me cry even more now that I know this terrible ending. When blue fairy told sweet Baelfire that he was the little light inside Rumple that still glows, my heart broke in a completely different way than it did years ago when I first watched Rumple let his son fall through the portal. I fear that even when I want to re-watch my favorite episodes I will not be able to watch them with the same eyes of hope.
Today, I find myself uninterested in where to story goes from here. Am I curious about the wicked witch? Maybe. Do I care about her backstory? not really. Will I be happy at her eventual defeat? Why should I? Most of the characters will still be broken. Does it really matter in the end? That is how I am viewing the show. How sad is it that a show I was so excited about turned into this. Will I still watch? Yes, but mostly because I purchased the full season on I-tunes in my excitement for season 3 so it would be a waste not to finish the season.
But on Sunday, when Neal/Baelfire died, a part of my love for Once Upon a Time died as well. I can no longer get lost in this show the way I used to so thank A&E for creating a show and characters that I fell in love with then subsequently breaking my heart.
A huge, genuine thank you to all of you here, for just being so lovely. I’ve never been one to join forums, but you all made me feel comfortable to share my thoughts on a show that I used to love and a couple (Swanfire) and family (Rumple, Baelfire & Henry) that I will never stop fighting for, never.
Thanks for taking us #Oncers on a stellar ride tonight as always @MRaymondJames :0) #ShinySideUp pic.twitter.com/SnICWkE9kQ
— Gabriel Forest (@gabekhouth) March 31, 2014
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"In Memory of Neal (Baelfire) Cassidy
Tears were glistening on his cheeks. He knew he’d never get to have his second chance at a family. Neal lay dying in the arms of the woman he has always loved, pained that he’d never get to say goodbye to his son. Emma’s countenance revealed her heartbreak. She’s lost Neal so many times before. She knows all too well what it feels like to lose one’s true love. Yet the pain never got any easier. This is the price of Emma’s being the savior, having to part forever with the man she has always loved. Their mutual illusive dream of Tallahassee is now ended.
What Emma and Neal had was nothing less than true love. Belle confirmed that the swan necklace that Neal gave Emma all those years ago was able to cross worlds because it was born of their true love. True love is the stuff of fairytales, of Emma’s own parents and Neal’s father and Belle. True love has inspired countless tales of heroes overcoming adversity to find their beloved and to live happily ever after. You’d think that as the savior, Emma, who embodies the most powerful magic of all, could have saved Neal, the man she loves. Instead, at Neal’s request, her magic actually severed the only connection to his father that was keeping Neal alive. Rumplestiltksin’s mission to protect his son, to give him another chance at finding happiness, failed. Emma’s desire to save Neal came to nothing. Neal’s hope of a second chance ended. Henry’s only chance to know his father disappeared.
And why did Neal have to die? So that Rumplestiltksin could identify the Wicked Witch. Yet, the inability of David and Snow White to suspect Zelena when she was literally right under their noses putting her hands all over Snow’s pregnant belly makes them look extremely gullible, at best. The way the protagonists are being portrayed as dimwitted is irksome. Snow especially seems to have been crippled by her Mary Margaret persona, meek and mild and blinded by her unsuspecting, sweet nature. It makes good look weak and incapable though, while the so-called villains seem to be cunning, clever and ever capable.
Neal’s death could have been so much more meaningful. Falling through the portal in 2×21 to make sure Henry didn’t grow up like he and Emma did would have been an honorable, sacrificial death. All Neal ever did was sacrifice for others. Yet, for Neal to die in the manner he did in 3×15 was rushed and pointless. His death resulted in his father’s enslavement and played right into Zelena’s plan, therefore putting everyone else in danger. What’s worse is that Neal, who’d spent a lifetime paying the price of abandonment for his father’s choice, rushed to use dark magic when he knew it’s what Zelena wanted. That was not heroic and is completely out of character. Neal knew better than anyone the price of magic. Neal’s ending could have been a beautiful, meaningful sacrifice that came about at the end of the season. After Neal helped his son to remember him. After he and Emma got a chance to talk so she developed as a character. After Neal had saved his father. Instead, his death was completely gratuitous.
Is this Emma’s curse though? Emma said in season one that “Not having a happy ending is painful enough, but giving someone unrealistic hope is far worse.” Was she correct in thinking that not getting what she wants is the price of her magic of being the savior? Is her destiny always to lose Neal? She never seems to get what she’s dared to dream she could have. Even when cursed, Emma’s subconscious led her and Henry to move to New York City, Neal’s hometown, because of a fire (as in Baelfire). Emma’s dream of home and family matched Baelfire’s dream. Emma said they were happy once. I maintain that they could’ve been happy again. All they had to do to find their Tallahassee was to look in one another’s eyes and they’d be home.
What we had with Neal and Emma was an utterly unique story, unlike any other on the show, about how two people who love each other, yet who’ve experienced so much pain as a result of impossible personal choices, could ever possibly come together again. Those were the words Adam and Eddy used almost a year ago in their official podcast to describe SwanFire. Yet, it seems like the answer to that hypothetical situation is no, there’s no hope of reconciliation, or of even just hoping for a second chance. Neal dreamed of a second chance of having a family, something he’d been denied ever since his father let him go to A Land Without Magic. He said in 3×3 that his boy and Emma were all he had left, that they were his second chance. Just two episodes ago, Robin Hood had told Regina in 3×13 that everyone gets a second chance, including the Evil Queen. Everyone seems to get another go at life, everyone that is, except for Neal. Neal lived a hard, lonely life, and then he died and even more horrible death. That’s the opposite of hope for happy ending.
In 3×6, Snow White told Emma to have hope that Neal could be alive, because all happy endings start with hope, and that Emma deserves one. Emma said in 3×6 that she she should have been happy that Neal surivived, because it would have been easier for her to lose him than and to put it all behind her than to go through all that pain again. His near-death in 2×21 brought up feelings of deep love for Neal, but also of deep fear of dread in her. She was speaking out of fear that as the savior, the price of her magic is not having Neal. She’d lost him once before because she had a destiny to break the first curse. She lost him again when he fell through the portal. Well, Neal’s death in 3×15 just solidified that belief in Emma.
I maintain that it would have been good for Emma’s character growth and Neal’s to face that again, just to talk about the past, they never even got the chance. Yet, that isn’t forward growth. That’s stagnation and just not dealing with one’s issues. Emma forgave Neal in the end. She realized it was the curse and her destiny which kept them apart. Before Emma could even catch her breath though, she lost Neal again, but this time forever. I can understand now more fully why Emma chose to put up a wall. It seems like Emma’s destiny constantly to lose Neal, her true love, her hope at a happy ending, her dream of Tallahassee. Neal wished her happiness and made her promise to keep looking for home, even though it would be without him. I hope she finds it; I really do. I just don’t think it’s ever going to be Emma’s first choice. I feel like her growth is now going to be stunted because she and Neal never even got a chance just to talk.
Her walls are about to go up again even higher. She doesn’t want to lose anyone else, especially not her son. The poor woman just wants to take Henry and return to New York where it’s safe. Her idea of a happy life isn’t some pie-in-the-sky fairytale ending. Her idea of a happy life is a normal one in which she makes her son breakfast, goes to her normal, sometimes boring job, and plays video games with Henry. That was Neal’s idea of a happy life, too, settling down and being a family guy. His home was already in New York City. He and Emma truly loved one another. They could have had a realistic, modern-day fairytale in Manhattan. Yet, in the real world even finding true love does automatically result in getting a happy ending. It seems like not everyone gets a second chance. And That is why my faith in the story has simply ceased to exist.
"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
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