Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[Phee]

I’m mourning the loss of a friend (and the show)

It’s like if you’ve been in a relationship with someone for 3 years, and suddenly things start to go wrong, and you have a foreboding sense that it’s gonna be the end, even though that’s not something you want to happen. This isn’t just about being pissed over a fave character dying, it’s the realisation that the entire show isn’t about what you thought it was about, that you’ve been duped, and you feel like a fool for having believed in it. THAT is why this is affecting so many people so deeply and drastically. If the rest of the fandom can’t understand that, then I guess they’ve been watching a different show to the one I have been.

[Phee]

There was no evidence this was pre-planned whatsoever. In fact the evidence point the opposite direction: Emma went home to NYC, Neal’s home, woke up at 8:15 to “Charley’s Girl” and ended up in Neal’s home city because of a “fire” as in Baelfire.

And they were even discussing that right before he died, that Emma and Henry ended up living in his old town. It’s like that conversation was the writers saying, “See all the beautiful connections this pair have, don’t they fit together so perfectly, look how happy and familiar they are with each other.” Then NOPE.

[Josephine]

Right now this is my song for the show and Adam and Eddy.  Sums up my feelings exactly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2U0Ivkn2Ds

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

[lunatiger]

Agree, that is how me and some friends feel to. that is why i can even see the show anymore, the previous seasons, the story between rumple and bae, the reason why the show exist , died in a OC way, is like the whole 2.5 seasons were lie and on 312 they start writing a new show diferent without connection to previous seasons, not even with S3A

Agreed! They jumped all over the place in terms of the motivations with everyone.

I couldn’t agree more. I think a lot of us Neal fans feels CHEATED by the way Neal was just written out so quickly, like an afterthought. There was no evidence this was pre-planned whatsoever. In fact the evidence point the opposite direction: Emma went home to NYC, Neal’s home, woke up at 8:15 to “Charley’s Girl” and ended up in Neal’s home city because of a “fire” as in Baelfire.

Totally! I wouldn’t mind Neal’s death if it had REAL PURPOSE. It was have still been devestating but the reason why it hurt so bad was his unresolved character arc. No one can convince me otherwise that it made perfect sense. I’ve seen good death scenes and they always have a pattern of trying to find some closure to the character’s storylines. Even Red Queen before she kicked the bucket had 3 episodes devoted to her redemption. It made her death shocking, devesting but impactful all at the same time

What could potentially salvage this storyline, which should have been deep and emotional but instead just got brushed over, is if over the rest of S3B, Hook comes to realise exactly how much Neal really did mean to Emma, and accepts that she loves him, he’s not just some guy who left her years ago and she doesn’t give a crap. I want to see Hook witnessing some real grief from Emma over losing Neal, some real fire lit inside her to avenge his death, and then maybe Hook will finally get it through his skull how much Emma and Neal loved each other. And maybe seeing Henry without his memories of his father will get to Hook and make him sad, and make him realise that that’s how Bae grew up as well, when his mother wasn’t around and he’d been so young when she left, he probably had no real memory of her. And all of that coming together for Hook could then inspire him to help if they did find that there was a way to bring Neal back, and even though it was dangerous, he’d still do it, for the sake of saving Neal, to make up for having let him down all those years ago. And if that situation resulted in Hook’s death, then THAT would be a death that had reason, made sense, and had allowed a character to grow, which is the total opposite of what Neal’s death was, which was them making him regress to the point of being OOC for the sake of a plot device.

OH I WOULD LOVE FOR THIS TO HAPPEN. But I doubt it, thought I’d be shocked and jump right back aboard OUAT if they did. I’ve lost faith in A&E’s ability. It was dropping ever so slightly throughout season 3. Neal’s death was what severed my faith completely. But it’s a lovely thought. I can dream that it happens.

It’s like if you’ve been in a relationship with someone for 3 years, and suddenly things start to go wrong, and you have a foreboding sense that it’s gonna be the end, even though that’s not something you want to happen. This isn’t just about being pissed over a fave character dying, it’s the realisation that the entire show isn’t about what you thought it was about, that you’ve been duped, and you feel like a fool for having believed in it. THAT is why this is affecting so many people so deeply and drastically. If the rest of the fandom can’t understand that, then I guess they’ve been watching a different show to the one I have been.

Yep. It felt like I just broke up a 3 year relationship. I was devastated, sad, angry, frustrated. My heart weighted like a ton of bricks. I didn’t understand why, how, what happened. But it happend and you’re just picking up the pieces of your broken heart.

[kfchimera]

I wanted to stop by and give a great big hug to everyone in this forum.
I was prepared for some time now for the writers to kill Neal, but I’d held out hope they would write it with more grace and style.

Like August said, that’s my problem, hoping.  I’m not sure why I did hope for more, because this was far from the first huge plot contrivance and bit of shoddy writing on this show.
Watching the end of How I Met Your Mother, I know that my problem here isn’t about shipping.  It’s about the writing and the hope I had for something better.  I liked Robin and Barney and Ted and the Mother as couples, but the way the show told the story made me feel the ending made sense and fit the character’s progression  (aside from a little Barney whiplash for humor, but it is a comedy, not a drama.)  So this comedy show was more heartfelt and hit that bittersweet note, and I didn’t feel the way I do about OUAT.

I don’t think Rumple’s sacrifice set up Neal’s because of the way they wrote it.  I could have handled it if Neal finally realized that much as he loved Henry and Emma, he also dearly loved his Papa and that his Papa deserved a second chance to live as the good man he once was, not to die as a villain.  If he’d come to see that Belle and Rumple deserved that chance, and felt that he himself had in some ways, had his second chance and felt fulfilled just knowing he had a son and that he’d tried to do everything he could to be a good father to his son.

That isn’t the way it went down.  Out of nowhere, Neal suddenly forgets all his scruples about magic, dark magic in particular, and is in a hot rush to resurrect his father, not because he loves him but because he wants to use the Dark Magic to get to his family.  Then, he doesn’t care about the price, which does play as stupid even as Lumiere tries to say he’s just emotional and desperate.  It erodes sympathy for Neal, because instead of this being some sort of tragic thing (like Graham) it played more like a Darwin award moment.  Increasingly though, that’s the way they write good characters–they only survive so long as their plot armor holds up.  Neal’s runs out, not because he really made a purposeful sacrifice either.  Telling Emma to separate them because Rumple needs to help them figure out the witch?    As Zelena herself says, it doesn’t matter anyway if they know who she is, and guess what? Without Neal blocking the dagger, Zelena actually gained an advantage as she has full control of the Dark One, all sane rather than bonkers.

In any case, Neal’s love for Henry was not given full weight, then there was all the silliness of Neal saying he learned the value of sacrifice.  A&E themselves said Neal sacrificed, their words, and suddenly they’re saying it was fan interpretation? At this point, I think Adam “I didn’t say that.  I was misquoted” Horowitz and Eddy “Oops I said it” Kitsis seem to think they should say whatever the majority of their current audience want them to say, then if it isn’t well received, they twist their words the other way.    That line was awful, and doesn’t deserve to be defended.

I do think it gives Rumple a chance to show growth, from his “I don’t care anymore” attitude the first time Neal died, to his relatively calm and composed response this time, wanting to help fight the Witch, but it was a long way to go, at very great expense in terms of redundancy, plot contrivance and just character-whiplash for them to have this play out this way.   And these are all things that have nothing to do with wanting to see Neal get back together with Emma!

I shouldn’t have been surprised, after how they handled the whole “mystery box” and August “reboot” storyline.  Then there was the adoption story, potion of forgetting and all that.  At least with that, I thought, ok, they are still nodding to Regina’s darker side, so not entirely trying to whitewash her. Now the OQ stuff tells me they’re leaping into Operation White Wash.  The Evil Queen no longer, just the “bold and audacious” queen and we’ll just forget all the storytelling about how she ever hurt anyone just because you know,  it was only a reputation thing, she never actually did anything bad to anyone!  The OQ thing is a cute romance but that line just put me off it–I much preferred the trajectory in the EF where Robin is seeing her inner pain and yet still sees her coldness and excitement at having someone to destroy, rather than a sort of false impression that her bark was worse than her bite.  Her bite is plenty strong, always was–wanted him to see that, and still fall for her.  I’m not even going to touch the whole thing with Hook and Neal, because my eyes would hurt from the rolling necessary to even think about how poorly they executed that.

Of course, that’s what happens when a weaker writer is given the helm, and that in itself tells me, because what episodes that writer had before, what the real purpose here was, and it wasn’t character development or telling a bold story. It was “we write for the fans” which seems lately to be “we write like the fans”–and that’s not really a good thing for writers to be proud of in terms of surprising us with a story that manages to both respect its past and the complications of its characters while hitting unexpected new developments that somehow feel inevitable.   HIMYM did it, but OUAT didn’t.  HIMYM is done with its run, and I’m wistful about that, but I don’t feel that about OUAT even though I’m largely done with it as well.  It’s Heroes all over again for me –Nathan being my 9th favorite character on that show (I counted…Hiro, Ando, Suresh, Parkman, HRG, Peter, Angela “Mama” Petrelli, Claire, Sylar then Nathan).

Character deaths can be meaningful, they can be shocking but rarely do I feel they’re a deal-breaker for me.  BSG killed off a few characters I really liked and rooted for, some even in couples that I “shipped,  but I still watched until the end and loved the show and every minute of it, because I felt it fit in the story they were telling.   Even if the writing didn’t quite make sense, even on shows where it was TOTALLY actor driven, I kept going as usually there was still a narrative heart that stayed true to the original vision despite the attempt to reconfigure the story  for cast changes (like on Smallville or SG-1).

So that leads me to what I feel the most sad about –and that is, the loss of the community here on the forums, particularly in this nice sweet corner of it.  I know it will go on, but I don’t have any desire to watch this show on time.  My DVR is full of other promising series that I”ve yet to watch, and mainly I fast-tracked  OUAT in order to keep up with discussion here.  It became a hobby to speculate, to be silly or serious, to chat, but increasingly, it is a hobby that takes up too much free time.  My son progressed from infant in arms to active toddler, and writing these things (though I type, read and think pretty fast) is still too time consuming for a show that has failed me too many times in terms of realizing its plot potential.  (Remember the whole magic vs science thing & Whale? Red? Oh the dropped plotlines of Hatter and Mirror…it goes on and on.)

Maybe in a few months I will stop by again, my excitement in the show renewed but it is going to take a lot and I really don’t think A&E have it in them to lure me back into their spell.

All the same, I decided to keep my forum account,  probably more because of how much I enjoyed the conversation and camaraderie.    As the line in HIMYM went, to paraphrase, things change, and people move on and it doesn’t have to be a sad thing.   Life would be stagnant if everything stayed the same and while I’ll miss hanging out here, I also know it is better for me personally for many reasons as this gives me the opportunity to find other things to invest my time in that DO make me happy.

 

“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

[Slurpeez]

It’s like if you’ve been in a relationship with someone for 3 years, and suddenly things start to go wrong, and you have a foreboding sense that it’s gonna be the end, even though that’s not something you want to happen. This isn’t just about being pissed over a fave character dying, it’s the realisation that the entire show isn’t about what you thought it was about, that you’ve been duped, and you feel like a fool for having believed in it. THAT is why this is affecting so many people so deeply and drastically. If the rest of the fandom can’t understand that, then I guess they’ve been watching a different show to the one I have been.

YES. EVERYTHING YOU WROTE. I’m not being a cry baby that my favorite character was killed off. I’m mourning the loss of what I thought this show was really about. HOPE. Yet, Neal became the sacrificial lamb, but whose death was utterly pointless, because Snow and David couldn’t see the forest through the trees. Because Neal’s fundamental belief that magic is dangerous and always comes with a price was tossed out the window when he KNOWINGLY chose dark magic even when HE KNEW it’s what the Wicked Witch wanted. This is a show in which protagonists are either blind fools or are rebranded as “villains” and villains get rebranded as “misunderstood” souls who are cunning and clever at getting what they want. While I love a good redemption story, I’ll be had if I’m to stand by and watch a good man, one who has suffered all his life, die an undeserving and gratuitous death. There is enough horror in the real world as it is that I don’t want to watch it in a show about fairytales.

"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

[astrawoid]

There were so many things said here today that I totally agree with but you all said better than I ever could.

I’m a little tired and a bit rambly so I’m going to apologize ahead of time.  And I’m not even close to as eloquent as the rest of you so if you can bear with me.  🙂

 

You all are gems and I still hurt, grieve, and mourn with you.  But I’m still functioning in my normal life and doing things like I always do.  But I’ve always felt this is a safe place to vent and get out our frustrations without being judged. My whole outlook on life didn’t change or anything but I’m disappointed.  I’m disappointed and jaded and bitter about a show that was my escape.  My escape that was suppose to be filled with wonder and enchantment and fairytale stories.  The truth is that the show has evolved into a place that I didn’t think it was going to go.  I didn’t think it would go this dark and mean and cruel.  I loved s1.  I loved the stories and the way the fairytales weaved together to make a story.  And I liked parts of s2.  There were still some good stories and some interesting twists and turns and they meddled together fairly well.  But I haven’t enjoyed s3 that much.  A lot of s3 has felt forced and disjointed.  Sometimes the stories just didn’t mesh well.  And where were all the twisted fairytales that I fell in love with?  There really hasn’t been many in s3 and the ones they do incorporate, they haven’t done particularly well (aka The Tower).  I don’t know.  I guess I have been slowly falling out of love.  Maybe I’m not a true fan or something but I also think it’s because I thought no matter what, the show would be true to its characters.  I’ve always thought of this as a character driven show, not a plot driven show.  I thought character development and finding out who these people were was at the core of this show.  At least s1 felt that way to me and for the most part s2 tried to but at some point, I guess the plot became the focus and more important.  And now that A&E have confirmed that plot and story is more important and is what is driving the episodes, I am less interested.  If plot and story is more important then I suppose it makes sense to forget what your characters have said and done in past episodes and have your characters do things that are out of character to further your plot.  And some people like that.  They like plot and story more than character development and focus and that’s fine.  And they like it going all dark but this isn’t where I thought this show was going to go.  I mean I don’t mind some dark elements but not as the main message and premise of the show.

And of course I am upset over Neal’s death but had it been under different circumstances, stayed completely true to his character, I would have still been sad but would have been able to accept it.  If Neal had slowly started to turn dark because of being away from his family, I could have understood his eventual giving into it.  But the desperation to do anything so quickly was so strange and unnatural.  Belle and Neal didn’t even really research anything.  And that is incredibly strange for both characters.  And there are many more examples of things that happened either way way way too quickly or just completely wrong for many of the characters in this episode.  (start of Snowing rant) Now I love Snowing but I also know that they are naive and like to see the good in everyone sometimes to a fault, but come on, Snow used to be a bandit?!? Does she not have any instincts left in her at all?  Did being pregnant completely kill all her instincts and sense.  sidenote: I personally have been pregnant several times and I will say that it didn’t make me lose all sense (at least I don’t think) and it actually made me more wary of everything since I had not only myself to think about but a whole other life as well.  They couldn’t have asked any other person in SB, if they had ever heard of Zelena before?  Surely if she had been a mid-wife in the EF like she claimed, someone would know of her.  Ask any families with babies for instance.  (end of that rant)  Now that I think more about it, there were things that I did find accurate just maybe not how they got there.  Once, Neal decided to bring Rumple back and found out that it was going to cost his life, he didn’t hesitate to pay that price.  Now that is true to his character.  He has never been afraid to pay for the mistakes that he has made but he’s been alive for centuries, do you think he would suddenly forget that there was a price for using dark magic, dark enough magic to bring the dark one back?  And then for him to enact that without knowing exactly what the price was?  It just doesn’t make sense.  What if the price was Emma or Henry’s life.  He was just going to accept any price without actually figuring it out?  Um, no.  The Neal I know would have never ever done that, even if he was desperate to get back to his family.  And using his father to get back to his son?  Uh, did Neal forget that the only way Rumple could get to him was to curse the entire EF to get to him?  Again, not something Neal would do.  So it was very strange for me to hear him say that he needed to get his father back so that his father could get him back to Emma and Henry.  Weird.  And then once he finds out that the WW wants them to bring his father back and that she’d have control over him, Neal still brings him back?  NO way would the Neal I know, that the show had shown me thus far, have done that.  Just inconsistency after inconsistency. And there was just so many other ways they could have gotten to Neal’s death without it feeling so out of character.  Even if it had to be done in one episode. The WW could have tried to force Belle to push that key down or something and Neal jump in and grab it before she did it. I don’t know.  It just seemed all wrong.  I just really don’t like how they got to Neal’s death.  If they had to do it, fine, but they should have made it mean more and more in line with who Neal was.  🙁

"We were happy."
"Because... it was born out of true love."

[Phee]

astrawoid, what you say about how completely OOC it was for Neal is so spot on. It was so ridiculous the way they assassinated his character.

KFC, good to see you posting, sad that you won’t be posting much any more, but I totally understand your reasons. *HUGS*

[angiebelle]

*sigh*

I know I’m in the minority (especially here), but even though I really didn’t want Neal to die and stated many reasons why I thought it was a terrible idea, I actually ended up quite liking the story that they told in Quiet Minds and didn’t take it nearly as hard as I thought I would.  When all the hints pointed to him being the casualty, I feared he would just be offed by Zelena in a typical heart crushing, but what they did was far more interesting and (to me, I know most of you disagree) satisfying.  I liked how Neal almost followed in his father’s footsteps but in the end allowed himself to pay the price so they could go after Zelena. Everything came full circle.  Rumple sacrificed for Neal, and then Neal had the chance to do it for Rumple.  He had closure with everyone- Hook, Emma, Rumple (just sadly, not Henry.) I thought it was beautiful.  I didn’t find Neal to be out of character- desperation makes people behave differently than they might otherwise.  They don’t always behave the way you’d expect them to. We’ve seen this again and again- especially with Rumple and Regina, both of whom did not want to practice the dark arts until they were pushed into it by circumstance- desperation.

Don’t get me wrong- I was rooting for Swanfire’s happy ending too, very much so- I believed completely that they were endgame, and I’m mourning the stories we lost when he died, but I don’t think his death will be in vain.  The gang now has a personal vendetta against Zelena.  The stakes are up.  Until this point, the only thing she’d done as far as they remember is turned people into monkeys.

Please don’t be upset with me.  I know all the reasons you all disagree, having had several discussions about it on Twitter. I’m exhausted trying to show people an alternative way to think of things when no one wants to budge.  What’s really upsetting for me is that this is the first time that people I can usually count on to agree with my perspective are absolutely livid over an episode.  It doesn’t feel good to clash with friends, and I’m seeing Oncers I’m fond of chatting with angry at the show and wanting to leave it.  Honestly, I’m taking that harder than I’m taking the episode itself.  It makes me want to cry.

[astrawoid]

What’s really upsetting for me is that this is the first time that people I can usually count on to agree with my perspective are absolutely livid over an episode. It doesn’t feel good to clash with friends, and I’m seeing Oncers I’m fond of chatting with angry at the show and wanting to leave it. Honestly, I’m taking that harder than I’m taking the episode itself. It makes me want to cry.

It was bound to happen.  We can’t always see eye to eye.  But just give it time.  Some of us just need a break or a chance to just process all of this.  Most people aren’t leaving the show.  But some of us are disillusioned now.  I’m glad that you liked the episode and enjoyed it, I personally just didn’t.

"We were happy."
"Because... it was born out of true love."

[Author]

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