Emma Swan Character Analysis

[RumplesGirl]

The discussion on Rumple seems to be wrapping up for the most part, so I thought we could move on to another character who is fraught with different opinions–somewhat startling given that, no matter where you stood romance wise, everyone at the beginning mostly really liked Emma Swan and agreed that she was a strong woman who was at the center a highly complex story about selfhood and family.

I’m going to start us off with a basic question, but one with a precursor.

1) How do you define “strong women,” particularly in media?

2) Is Emma, as she stands right now post episode 5×11, an example of a strong woman?

[thedarkonedearie]

Absolutely.  Falling for a man and shifting some of your efforts to trying to make that work does not mean you aren’t a strong woman.  I have some strong opinions on this, so I’ll just leave it pretty general for the moment and I’ll chime in after I see what people say.

[RumplesGirl]

I’ll tackle my own questions

1) How do you define “strong women,” particularly in media?

There is a general misunderstanding that when people talk about strong women they mean “single” and that having a romantic partner–male or female–means losing your status as a strong woman. This is pretty definitely false. Having a significant other does not deter from your strong woman-hood. It can even add to it, if presented right. The reason why romantic relationships are brought up almost in a detraction-like-manner for discussions of strong women is because in media, often times, the romantic relationship becomes the entire center of the woman in question story. This romance becomes everything she is, not just one part of her. The romance drives her story more than her, her very self. That’s why when people talk about Emma as not being an example of a strong woman anymore, invariably, her romantic pursuits come up.

It’s not that Emma having a boyfriend means she is not a strong woman anymore, it means that Emma having a boyfriend is all her story is, means she’s not a strong woman.

Let me give an example of another character I think is a strong woman in media. One of my current favorites: Abbie Mills of Sleepy Hollow. Abbie has a lot of the hallmarks we associate with strong woman in media; she’s tough–she can hold her own in a fight; she’s pragmatic and just–she’s concerned with the well being of those around her, both physically and emotionally. Her partnership with a man (Ichabod) is one of equals; she is not the damsel in distress to his white knight and in fact Sleepy Hollow usually lets the team take turns saving each other. Abbie has romances, but they are not her defining attribute. If the cosmic forces of evil are knocking at the door, Abbie Mills does not have time for her boyfriend’s man pain. She has a sister who is the thing she loves most in this world and what matters to her–her sister, the universe, the fight for good–comes before any sort of boyfriend worries. This isn’t to say that she doesn’t want a love life. She had one and could again at any time she chooses to, but she recognizes that what is more important to her is stopping the various evils that visit her little hamlet.

Before I bring this back to Emma, it’s important to note something about the heroes journey. I’ve discussed this so much recently that I’ll be brief: the heroes journey is ultimately about self discovery for the hero. Yes, yes, they go on some wonderful adventure and defeat some sort of cosmic evil and are usually lauded as the Best Hero Ever but it’s about discovering their own inner power. While their journey includes other people–friends, family, loved one–it’s about their inner selves and discovering what kind of man/woman they are.

This brings us to Emma in s5A. S5A could have been a really empowering season for Emma and for the idea of strong women. It’s her hero journey after all. It could have been about accepting the darkness as being something that the light needs for balance. That light and dark are two sides of the same coin and the Savior is capable of of using/having both because the Savior knows herself well enough to know when light is necessary and when darkness is necessary. Emma recognizes that darkness cannot exist without the light and that the light needs the darkness in order to know what light even is. This, in my own head, meant that in the end, Emma breaks her own curse by accepting all the parts of herself–good and dark. She doesn’t have to give up the darkness so much as make it a part of her power. She can use light and she can use dark and in accepting that dual nature, she breaks the singular hold the darkness had on her and becomes Vintage! Emma again.

This is not what happened. Not even close. Instead it became all about a boy. Emma’s entire plan and journey in S5A was about Hook. It was about Hook’s pain, Hook’s anger, and Hook’s bloodlust but disguised as being about Emma. When the veil is finally lifted and see the whole story of the season, we realize it was never about Emma: it was about Hook. This is a problem because of how the story was framed by the writers…Emma’s journey into the darkness (something all heroes must do) and how she deals with it. But she doesn’t deal with it; she doesn’t even break her the darkness’s hold on her, Hook does with his sacrifice.

Along with this, Emma was given almost no screentime with other characters that were part of her strong woman make up. Henry appears only when the plot needs him to be there–and the one episode (505)  that focused on Emma and Henry (and Regain) felt like the most organic of the show in a long time because it removed Emma’s love interest for a significant amount of time and focused on Emma as Savior (the return of Operation Cobra with the horse), a friend (encouraging and being encouraged by Regina), and mother (her adventure with Henry both in Camelot and SB).

Along with disconnecting Emma from her son, the show never let her talk with her parents until the very end. They were snubbed, forced to stand on the sidelines and just be sad people without doing anything to try and reach their daughter. This felt like a lie especially after the SDCC promo was Snow’s voice over trying to explain how she would not let the Darkness take her daughter.

This brings us to the end of the arc in which Emma can’t see beyond losing her boyfriend. She’s not even able to think complexly about the fact that while Hook died in an effort to rid the world (and her) of darkness (something Emma calls heroic), he did it by trying to send her entire family, including her son, to Hell. He also killed Merlin and enacted the Dark Curse. Emma doesn’t even bother to ruminate on any this; it’s simply that she cannot live without her boyfriend. In other words, Hook’s life has more value to her than any sense of justice. The same can be said when she locked up Will for “interrupting her date” or refused to chase after him in the first place because she wanted an evening with Hook.

Along with this is the declawing of Emma. There is really one instance I am going to talk about. In 5×10, DO Hook really lays into Emma with a lot of nasty things. The nastiest being that Emma will always be an orphan. What bothers me most about this is that Emma just stands there and lets herself be an emotional punching bag. She doesn’t retaliate with the knowledge that her family loves her–so much that they are trying to save her, even in the present day, and that they crossed realms for her. Not only her family, but the entire town that adopted Emma as not only the Savior but also a friend and part of their wonky, weird family. She’s not an Orphan. Snow told her so back in NVL. While what Hook said really drove home the fact that he, as the DO, is really horrible, it totally robbed Emma of her character. Emma who said in S1 that everyone tries to tell you who you are, but you have to fight back and say “no this is who I am!”

THAT was a strong woman. Someone who refused to let anyone but herself define who she was. Now she lets her boyfriend do it, forgiving him because “oh, darkness!” and then decides that her life is worth more than her self-respect.

So, in sum: no, Emma is not a strong woman anymore. Not because she has a boyfriend but because she lets that fact define her entire existence.

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

[thedarkonedearie]

This is not what happened. Not even close. Instead it became all about a boy. Emma’s entire plan and journey in S5A was about Hook. It was about Hook’s pain, Hook’s anger, and Hook’s bloodlust. When the veil is finally lifted and see the whole story of the season, we realize it was never about Emma: it was about Hook. This is a problem because of how the story was framed by the writers…Emma’s journey into the darkness (something all heroes must do) and how she deals with it. But she doesn’t deal with it; she doesn’t even break her the darkness’s hold on her, Hook does with his sacrifice. Along with this, Emma was given almost no screentime with other characters that were part of her strong woman make up. Henry appears only when the plot needs him to be there–and the one episode (505)  that focused on Emma and Henry (and Regain) felt like the most organic of the show in a long time because it removed Emma’s love interest for a significant amount of time and focused on Emma as Savior (the return of Operation Cobra with the horse), a friend (encouraging and being encouraged by Regina), and mother (her adventure with Henry both in Camelot and SB). Along with disconnecting Emma from her son, the show never let her talk with her parents until the very end. They were snubbed, forced to stand on the sidelines and just be sad people without doing anything to try and reach their daughter. This felt like a lie especially after the SDCC promo was Snow’s voice over trying to explain how she would not let the Darkness take her daughter.

Let’s not confuse horrible writing and plot with Emma as to whether she is a strong character anymore.  That’s all I’ll say on the above quote I picked out.

This brings us to the end of the arc in which Emma can’t see beyond losing her boyfriend. She’s not even able to think complexly about the fact that while Hook died in an effort to rid the world (and her) of darkness (something Emma calls heroic), he did it by trying to send her entire family, including her son, to Hell. He also killed Merlin and enacted the Dark Curse. Emma doesn’t even bother to ruminate on any this; it’s simply that she cannot live without her boyfriend. In other words, Hook’s life has more value to her than any sense of justice.

I would also say here, that her love is clouding her judgement.  Or it was rushed.  They just needed to get them to the UW.  I mean they didn’t even show us Emma really asking them to join her.  And they didn’t show the Camelot characters.  It was all rushed.  We may see some of this reflection from Emma in the mid season premiere.

Along with this is the declawing of Emma. There is really one instance I am going to talk about. In 5×10, DO Hook really lays into Emma with a lot of nasty things. The nastiest being that Emma will always be an orphan. What bothers me most about this is that Emma just stands there and lets herself be an emotional punching bag. She doesn’t retaliate with the knowledge that her family loves her–so much that they are trying to save her, even in the present day, and that they crossed realms for her. Not only her family, but the entire town that adopted Emma as not only the Savior but also a friend and part of their wonky, weird family. She’s not an Orphan. Snow told her so back in NVL. While what Hook said really drove home the fact that he, as the DO, is really horrible, it totally robbed Emma of her character. Emma who said in S1 that everyone tries to tell you who you are, but you have to fight back and say “no this is who I am!”

  This was a stab at Emma Swan for sure, and her character suffered for it.  Not going to argue with that.  If anything, this highlights Cora’s belief that love is weakness, because if anybody else had said that to her, she would have fought back.  But honestly, I would make the argument that just because she is showing restraint with Hook, doesn’t mean she is not strong.  I think she knew that the man telling her those things was not the same person, and that in some degree, it was the darkness talking.  Obviously he needs to be held accountable for his actions, but the darkness obviously had an effect on him, and for me, it wasn’t Emma showing weakness, it was showing understanding and restraint knowing that Hook was being somewhat controlled by darkness.  I think if that was just regular Hook, I would guarantee she would fight back.  But that was just how I saw the scene.  A lot of Hook haters out there see Hook being very much in control of himself as the DO, and I definitely get how you could see it that way.  Rumple was never this ruthless.  But as I’ve said before, the darkness brings out the worst in people.  Emma was not that bad so she didn’t do anything that bad as the DO.  Rumple was bad, but mainly manipulative.  So although he was a bad man, he wasn’t as ruthless.  He was in the middle between these two.  And Hook was the worst.  The worst part of Hook, is clearly the worst of the three because he was the worst DO.  And because I see it as the darkness latching on to Hook’s worst characteristics and exploiting them on a massive scale, I certainly don’t blame Hook entirely for what transpired.  And I don’t think Emma does either.  And that’s why I think she shows restraint with him, especially because she feels responsible for not letting him die like he asked her.  He did warn her how he would be….If anything, I think you could argue that you can show strength in a variety of ways, including knowing when to pick your battles and when to show restraint.  I’m sure it took a lot for her not to react to the hurtful things he said.

And I’ll quickly point out that Emma had a “this is who I am” moment in “Nimue” when she refused to let Nimue control her and persuade her.  That was an extremely powerful moment, and it was in that scene that Nimue and the rest of the DO’s knew they could not go through Emma to get what they wanted.  And then Hook got nicked by Excalibur and they saw their pawn…….

Feel free to disagree….even I can see that Emma’s character is up for debate, especially after this last half season where it should have been all about her and ended up ending with Hook.  But Emma showed a lot of strength throughout the half season by simply not giving in to the darkness.  Let’s not only reflect on the final two atrocious episodes, but try to remember how Emma acted throughout the half season, and her struggle right from the premiere.  The darkness was able to take control of Rumple and Hook.  Emma fought it.  THAT is strength.

[RumplesGirl]

Let’s not confuse horrible writing and plot with Emma as to whether she is a strong character anymore. That’s all I’ll say on the above quote I picked out.

How do you separate the two–Emma and writing/plot? You can’t. Emma isn’t some independent variable in the equation who can freely act without regard to plot and writing. She doesn’t stand outside the plot and writing. She, the fictional character, is affected by both. How she is presented as a character is determined by said horrible writing and plot. She’s not in a vacuum. You can’t separate out character from plot and how the writers literally write both of those.

I have more to say about what you wrote, but that’s going to have suffice for now because I have to peace out for awhile but I really wanted to address your first point.

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

[RumplesGirl]

I think she knew that the man telling her those things was not the same person, and that in some degree, it was the darkness talking

Here’s my problem with this. We don’t see Rumple talking to Belle this way. We don’t see Emma talking to Hook or even Henry this way. With Rumple, he is awkward and even tender at some moments. He even listens to her dreams of adventure and being a hero and admires her for it, not belittle her for it. He goes to save her from the Queens of Darkness. With Emma, we see her trying to seduce Hook and even trying to explain things about how she and this curse work now. At one point she even dresses like she did on his first date and recreates their date. She comes when he calls, she is there when he tries to jump of buildings. There is a problem with saying “the darkness made him do it” because the darkness did not make Rumple or Emma do that. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but excusing violent (verbally or phsyically) behavior as not being the fault of one perpetrator is part of battered wife syndrome.

There’s a lot more we could say about that means for Hook (his character) but since this isn’t the Hook discussion, I’ll pass over it.

The writers more of less gave Hook a free pass to say whatever he wanted to Emma–things that absolutely showed his sociopathic tendencies–but without any recompense. Emma does not call him on it either during the encounter or after, either to him, privately, or to her family. What does this mean for Emma? Well I think we can agree that Emma was a fairly underwhelming and Not-So-Dark Dark One. Meaning that the Vintage! Emma was still in there. That Emma sought justice. Our first meeting of her is tracking down a guy who ran out on his wife. She is particularly touched on guys who do wrong to women (probably stemming from the trauma of Neal)  and makes them pay. For her to disregard what Hook says or to dismiss it is troubling. Love clouds judgement but it shouldn’t change something that was a huge make up of your core, not to the negative. And if it does, then we need to consider what kind of love that is and what kind of person the character is.

I think if that was just regular Hook, I would guarantee she would fight back.

But she doesn’t in past encounters. Past Hook has been mean and condescending. Emma just lets her head be pat like a good little girl and listens to the guy because surely he knows best. This normally comes across as “you don’t have to worry about me, Emma.” He dismisses her fears as unimportant because he sees himself as too important/a survivalist and therefore her emotions are unwarranted. Then there are the things he says without knowing he’s the DO that are pretty disturbing: like the liked her walls, an aspect of Emma that she herself is trying to overcome herself, with the help of her family, friends, and son. Hook can help…but he takes sole responsibility for knocking them down (I liked your walls, I liked that I knocked them down). And she lets him. She doesn’t even voice anything about Henry–the person who should get sole credit, if anyone, for toppling Jericho.

But Emma showed a lot of strength throughout the half season by simply not giving in to the darkness.

She did not give into the darkness. You’re right. EXCEPT that her struggle is always negated by Hook. She spends her time like this:

 

Mute, overwhelmed, distraught, unable to cope with what’s happening to her, not sleeping, making dreamcathcers. And every time, it’s Hook who has to step in and save the “patient” as was once uttered. He is the one who takes her away from her problems and makes her focus on something else. He certainly should play a part in that because being a strong woman doesn’t mean that she can’t have a boyfriend, but when the boyfriend becomes the sole agent in your life, then that’s when I begin to suspect that you are no longer a strong woman character. Henry doesn’t alleviate her pain; Snowing have nothing to do. Regina does (but that’s largely due to another problem)….but it’s Hook. Almost without fault. In other words, Emma doesn’t so much as fight the darkness as she waits for someone (read: Hook) to come rescue her.

There is also the incredibly problematic issue that whenever the darkness gets too much, Emma goes hyper sexual. But maybe we save that for another time.

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

[nevermore]

I’m going to take stab at this, but I think RG already covered a lot of what I was thinking

So, regarding the question of what makes a strong female character — Emma’s an interesting one. The show starts with Emma embodying the standard 1980-early 90s stereotype of the “strong female:” lets call it the Sarah Connor (Terminator) / Ellen Ripley (Aliens franchise) type. She’s physically strong, she’s a bit masculine, she is outwardly unemotional, she is primarily defined by her relationship with a child, she is single and not looking. Then what we got throughout the first seasons is a commentary on this stereotype. The show is asking — is this strength? Is this enough? What might be missing?

It turns out what’s missing is a community, a family (broadly defined), a place to belong. This doesn’t take away (yet) from Emma’s competence and independence, but it’s an interesting way of subverting the “rugged individual” trope — isolation doesn’t necessarily make you strong, or if it does, it’s a brittle strength. We see this in Regina too. In fact, for all of S1, the show is about these atomized, isolated characters yearning for connection, yet resisting it like crazy. Emma’s connections aren’t about romance at this time. Romance is part of them (Graham, Neal), but not the center — that’s Emma and Henry, and Emma and her parents.

More broadly, I think a “strong character” in fiction — whatever their sex/gender configuration might be — is simply someone whose existence and actions drive the narrative. It’s not about what they do in life — they could be the intergalactic president or a stay at home mom, they could be a mature business woman or a 14-year old social “dropout” — it really doesn’t matter, I think. What matters is that their actions, thoughts, emotions etc are presented as generative. This doesn’t mean that they have to be active all the time — they could be not acting. In fact, they could be sitting on a hill meditating, but as long as the story presents this as itself an expression of their agency, then we have a strong character.

Simply put, Emma’s no longer being presented as a strong female character because she is no longer given much agency. In 4A her entire arc has been a series of try-fail cycles that almost all, inevitably, ended in failure. She has been almost entirely reactive — the whole arc is about her attempt to save Hook, but with every action she’s digging the hole a little deeper. Before that, as the Ailing! Dark One, she is passive — lost in her head, physically weak, unable to cope. Any respite is through Hook’s intervention. And that‘s the problem. It isn’t that it’s unthinkable that Emma might find herself challenged beyond her current capacity — that’s what the DO curse should have done to her as part of what RG calls the hero journey. And it’s not inconceivable that her current romantic partner would lend her support. But the show has isolated Emma, backgrounding all her other relations in favor of her relationship with Hook. And then, the challenge to Emma herself, the thing that should have allowed her to grow as a character (the growth that augments her initial individual self-suficiency by allowing a tapestry of connections to lift her up) is then taken away from her in order to tell Hook’s story. The symbolic camera is no longer on her — it’s on Hook. The stakes of this are only about Hook. For the (projected) audience of the show, Emma no longer matters outside of her romantic entanglement. No other character matters — not Snowing, not Regina, not Henry, not anyone else.

And that, right there, is character assassination, because the show has denied Emma what should’ve been her character’s “birthright” and hard earned truth — her hero journey to the realization that “it takes a village,” as they say, not just to raise a child, but to live  life, period. DO!Emma should have been the moment the village came through — all of them, from Regina to Henry, from Snowing to Rumple, this should have been that moment where OUAT looped back to S1 and said “remember those themes we were exploring? Remember those isolated, self-absorbed, brittle characters —  well, here they are again, and here’s where they come through, because that’s what family does, that’s what community is.”

Instead, Emma’s isolated again, reduced to one relationship that takes precedence over everything else (including her son, whom she is now literally dragging to Hell to save her love interest), and even those moments where she is claiming agency — “I’m doing it for love” or whatever that line was — seem both irritatingly melodramatic and flat.

I suppose my point is simply that by rebooting the show, and by denying Emma her “organic” growth, OUAT has ripped the rug from under its own feet, and is now spectacularly falling on its face. That’s why we’re getting “bad plot/horrible writing”.

One last caveat. This isn’t a complaint about Hook. In all fairness, Hook the character is not really to be blamed for this. That relationship, with all its flaws, could have been written in a way that’s intelligent, mature and compelling. But that would have involved not burying it in marshmallow, but giving it a real sober look. It raises important questions. What happens when you have social commitments (a child), but want romantic love? What happens when your partner crosses a line that can’t be uncrossed (DO!Hook talking smack to Emma). What happens when your early stage romantic infatuation isolates you from your other, non-sexual significant others? Perhaps these questions are too mature for the audience OUAT’s trying to appeal to, I don’t know. But either way, Emma’s journey shouldn’t have been recast at the expense of the show’s original premise: the idea of hope mediated through this extremely broad concept of love and community that didn’t fixate of one single manifestation of it. Instead, OUAT reduced Emma’s multiple connections to one very narrow, extremely ethnocentric, extremely ageist version of romantic love.

And I’m sorry to say, but that particular vision of love simply doesn’t leave room for a strong female character, because a strong female character would flatten out the power differential, and that is what’s being romanticized/eroticized in 4A.

[RumplesGirl]

Instead, Emma’s isolated again, reduced to one relationship that takes precedence over everything else (including her son, whom she is now literally dragging to Hell to save her love interest), and even those moments where she is claiming agency — “I’m doing it for love” or whatever that line was — seem both irritatingly melodramatic and flat.

Yes. The line–“I’m choosing love”–makes it seem that until Hook, Emma had never chosen love before. As if it was Hook, and Hook alone, that enables her to finally choose love over–what? Indifference? Hate? Apathy? I don’t know because the line is more or less nonsense firstly because I don’t understand what she’s contrasting it to, and in the second because Emma chooses love all the time. She chose love when she decided to stay in SB for Henry in the Pilot (though she would have had a tough time calling it love), she chose love when she asked MM not to go on the lamb after Katherine’s murder (“I cannot lose that; I cannot lose my family”); she chose love when she literally kissed her son’s forehead, told him that she loved him and–hey what do you know–awoken an entire town; she chose love when she told Rumple that she would save him from Cora/Hook’s poison because “you’re family;” she chose love when she decided to help Regina absorb the Fail Safe diamond’s power; she chose love when she went after Henry to Neverland. But the show recasts Emma so that it appears as if she’s never chosen love before this moment, and this moment is all about Hook.

And that’s really what Nevermore (and myself) were getting at–having a boyfriend does not mean you’re not a strong woman–and no one who claims Emma is no longer a strong character would say that. But when you boyfriend drives your entire story and removes the other important aspects of your support system, your narrative, and your life, then yeah–you’ve stopped being a strong woman character.

Also, a big YES to everything else @Nevermore said.

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

[Slurpeez]

Without going too much into the problematic elements of Emma’s current characterization (being mostly in agreement with everything @RumplesGirl and @Nevermore have already written), I’ll repost my thoughts here and here from a different S4 thread as they relate to female characters more generally and how being in a relationship can either hinder or help heroines’ quests.

"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

[PriceofMagic]

thedarkonedearie wrote:

Let’s not confuse horrible writing and plot with Emma as to whether she is a strong character anymore. That’s all I’ll say on the above quote I picked out.

How do you separate the two–Emma and writing/plot? You can’t. Emma isn’t some independent variable in the equation who can freely act without regard to plot and writing. She doesn’t stand outside the plot and writing. She, the fictional character, is affected by both. How she is presented as a character is determined by said horrible writing and plot. She’s not in a vacuum. You can’t separate out character from plot and how the writers literally write both of those.

I kind of agree and disagree about this. The writing/plot of the first few seasons built up Emma’s character so we take our view of how Emma should be/ what she should do from that. The writing/plot in 3B onwards particularly for Emma has been awful ad we say that Emma is acting OOC.

In order for Emma to be out of character, she would’ve had to become her own independent notion in order for people to be able to say she’s out of character. So whilst obviously plot makes her act a certain way, the character is bigger than the plot in the sense that people would say Emma Swan would not do this.

Does that make sense? I’ve had a long day and am running on only 4 hours of sleep.

thedarkonedearie wrote:

I think she knew that the man telling her those things was not the same person, and that in some degree, it was the darkness talking

Here’s my problem with this. We don’t see Rumple talking to Belle this way. We don’t see Emma talking to Hook or even Henry this way. With Rumple, he is awkward and even tender at some moments. He even listens to her dreams of adventure and being a hero and admires her for it, not belittle her for it. He goes to save her from the Queens of Darkness. With Emma, we see her trying to seduce Hook and even trying to explain things about how she and this curse work now. At one point she even dresses like she did on his first date and recreates their date. She comes when he calls, she is there when he tries to jump of buildings. There is a problem with saying “the darkness made him do it” because the darkness did not make Rumple or Emma do that.

I agree with this and think that is one of the problems with the show at the moment. The writers can’t excuse Hook for his actions as the dark one yet hold Rumple responsible for his actions as the dark one and label him as a villain because of it. Either Hook knew exactly what he was doing or Rumple wasn’t in control and it was the dark one that did all those things. To hold one accountable and not the other is hypocritical and this cascades down on to the “heroes” which presents the danger of making them unlikeable because of “their” hypocrisy.

The writers more of less gave Hook a free pass to say whatever he wanted to Emma–things that absolutely showed his sociopathic tendencies–but without any recompense. Emma does not call him on it either during the encounter or after, either to him, privately, or to her family. What does this mean for Emma? Well I think we can agree that Emma was a fairly underwhelming and Not-So-Dark Dark One. Meaning that the Vintage! Emma was still in there. That Emma sought justice. Our first meeting of her is tracking down a guy who ran out on his wife. She is particularly touched on guys who do wrong to women (probably stemming from the trauma of Neal) and makes them pay. For her to disregard what Hook says or to dismiss it is troubling. Love clouds judgement but it shouldn’t change something that was a huge make up of your core, not to the negative. And if it does, then we need to consider what kind of love that is and what kind of person the character is.

I agree. I think Belle is a “strong woman” compared to Emma because Belle actually stands up for what she believes in and calls Rumple out when he crosses the line. Belle banished Rumple over the town line for the good of the town even though it was hard for her to do so. Whilst Belle’s scenes are now predominantly based around Rumple, it’s based around the fact that Rumple has to lie to Belle because he knows that, no matter how much she loves him, she won’t stand for his nonsense.

Emma doesn’t stand up what she believes in, she doesn’t call Hook out when he crosses the line. Hook just tells Emma not to worry her pretty little head and Emma goes along with it. In real life, that sort of relationship would throw up a lot of red flags. Emma has become a lot less connected to her family, Hook has literally become her world. She feels she has to march into the UW to bring him back because she can’t continue living without him. She is even dragging her son to the UW with her when earlier on in the very same episode she told Rumple to stop talking about it because it was “scaring Henry”. Emma has become blinded to everything going on around her because all she can see is Hook and nothing else.

Then there are the things he says without knowing he’s the DO that are pretty disturbing: like the liked her walls, an aspect of Emma that she herself is trying to overcome herself, with the help of her family, friends, and son. Hook can help…but he takes sole responsibility for knocking them down (I liked your walls, I liked that I knocked them down). And she lets him. She doesn’t even voice anything about Henry–the person who should get sole credit, if anyone, for toppling Jericho.

Again I agree. The thing is CS could’ve been a golden opportunity for the writers to show that even “strong” women can find themselves in an unhealthy relationship rather than reverting to the “helpless victim” stereotype. That could’ve been a positive message that that sort of thing can happen to anybody rather than just a particular type of person. Instead the writers choose to play CS as true love which is concerning.

There is also the incredibly problematic issue that whenever the darkness gets too much, Emma goes hyper sexual. But maybe we save that for another time.

I think this is just the obvious use of the trope “Evil is sexy”
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilIsSexy

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Keeper of Felix

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