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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.
*major hugs*
that was a great post. 🙁 I hate that we’re all in pain.
[adrotate group="5"]"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 being a family with his son. Neal lay dying in the arms of the woman he has always loved. Emma’s pained countenance revealed her heartbreak. She’s lost Neal so many times before. This is what it’s like to lose your true love. 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 none other than true love, as confirmed by Belle. 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 kings and queens, of Emma’s own parents. 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, her own true love. Instead, at Neal’s request, her magic actually severed the only connection that was keeping Neal alive. Rumplestiltksin’s mission to protect his son, to give him another chance at finding happiness, failed. 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 Tallahasee 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.
I just sobbed hysterically at this.
As usual, Slurpeez says it better than I ever could.
All of this. All of it.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Excellent post, melbell! It was the perfect summary of the story from the beginning, and why it’s so disheartening now. *sigh*
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.
It was callous of them to show us that moment right before turning around and killing him. Why would they do that?! Show us how happy they can be together, show what a great team they would make, and then BAM. I just find it so hard to believe that they would be that cruel, to the characters and the viewers. It’s one of the things that keeps lingering in my brain, insisting that surely this CAN’T be real,
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.
PREACH!
t was callous of them to show us that moment right before turning around and killing him. Why would they do that?!
It was super callus. There seems to be a lot of that right now on the show. Finally a CaptainFire moment but Hook doens’t actually apologize for selling Bae to the Lost Boys, and somehow it becomes about Emma again.
Henry throwing dirt on a coffin of a man he doesn’t remember
Emma so happy with Neal.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"slurpeez, your post was fantastic! The created such a complex, beautiful love story for these two. The writers put effort into building it up, creating the layers and connections. And then they really chose to just toss all of their previous work out the window? I really don’t get it!!
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.
PREACH!
DEAR LORD PREACH TO ALL THE HEAVENS. This. So much this. This is what we’re saying. This. This. This. I don’t want things to be sad. If I did I’d watch Nicholas Sparks movies. I watched this show for hope, for a twinkle of light that tells me life isn’t always bad to people who try to do good.
Yeah the whole “this what happens in real life” argument bothers me: there are no dragons, magical tasers, talking puppets, or curses in real life. I don’t expect them to follow real life on a mythical fantasy show. Themes of real life? Yes. Actual traumatic no hope real life? Not so much
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"ok
I love Will and his portrayer Michael Socha, but…really? you kill the thief with the heart of gold …to bring in a thief with the heart of gold who currently only have one connection to a non-regular love interest
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"[quote=258043] So as soon as they realized WL was a bust they got distracted with the shiny Will character and dumped MRJ and that whole 3 seasons of build up for him? That’s how it feels. [/quote]
Agreed That is exactly how it feels to me.
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 StickYeah the whole “this what happens in real life” argument bothers me: there are no dragons, magical tasers, talking puppets, or curses in real life. I don’t expect them to follow real life on a mythical fantasy show. Themes of real life? Yes. Actual traumatic no hope real life? Not so much
That is exactly the point I was trying to make. Neal and Emma’s story was supposed to be about how two people who love each other, yet who’ve experienced pain, could possibly come together again. It was going to be a modern-day, realistic fairytale about two lost children finding a home in one another, being separated, yet coming together again. Yet, even their true love was not enough to guarantee their happily ever after together.
"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
I love the Knave he’s one of my favourite characters on WL and I’d love to see him on Once (I’m still holding out considering it is the 1st of April) but I’d rather still have Neal any day of the week, month, year
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