Emma Swan Character Analysis

[PriceofMagic]

Simply put, we have this long-standing convention in our (lets call it Euro-American) culture that goes something like this: “man = strong, manly, and dangerous / woman = weak, pliable, and gentle / man active (RARRGH!), woman passive (*swooon*)”

I agree. I think whilst society has changed the way it views women, the way society still views men is somewhat stuck. As you said, our culture dictates that men are supposed to be “strong” “manly” “brave” etc, basically men get belittled by other men and women if they don’t fit that stereotype.

Men get told to “be a man” or “man up” if they are perceived to be weak in some way yet women don’t get told to “woman up”.

To refer this back to Once, Rumple is that guy that everyone looks down on because he doesn’t fit the view of what men should be like. In fact Milah even uses the “Be a man” phrase to belittle Rumple. Contrast this to Hook who is meant to be the epitome of masculinity: He’s strong, sexually confident, charismatic, brave, etc etc.

To refer this back to Emma, Emma started as an independent woman who made her own choices in life, she went against the traditional stereotype of what a woman should be like (a stereotype that continues to this day since a character who doesn’t fit into the “little woman” stereotype is considered ground breaking. We are now seeing a similar sort of thing with depicting LGBT in the media). CS wouldn’t have worked with season 1 Emma because she wouldn’t have folded to the “masculinity” of Hook. However, the audience/fans/abc (not all but a vocal some at least) demanded CS so CS had to happen. However, Hook was in danger of being emasculated if he was paired with season 1 Emma, and that couldn’t happen because so much of his character was built around how much of a “man” he was. Therefore, Emma had to fill that traditional woman role so Hook could come and save her because that’s what a “man” does.

[Marty McFly]

So i just watched season 5 promo and realized that when the voice over tells Emma to “step into the light” she is about to enter the room with the hat where Gold wanted her to give up her magic.

I knew this was significant

And i knew that she made the wrong choice when she listened to Elsa

He told her “you make the right choice. Always”

But she didnt because she was lured by darkness.

Because she suffered loss. Neal. It traumatised her, i think, especially because she is partially responsible for his death. She and Gold, both. They feel responsible, and Gold believed that this responsibility did NOT currupt the savior but it did.

[Slurpeez]

Simply put, we have this long-standing convention in our (lets call it Euro-American) culture that goes something like this: “man = strong, manly, and dangerous / woman = weak, pliable, and gentle / man active (RARRGH!), woman passive (*swooon*)”

A case in point is a scene from 5×3 in which Emma, still the Dark Swan, intentionally puts on the very pink, very feminine dress to appeal to Hook, as he finds her new masculine-looking dark one appearance off putting.  Emma must “soften” her appearance so as not to offend her masculine, hunky boyfriend. (“Like me better now?”). There she is trying to get through to him, to let him know she’s still the same Emma on the inside, but that she’s better even, because she’s no longer afraid, that she’s an open book. Yet, Hook says he liked her better when her walls were up, because he liked being the one to tear them down. Hook’s an 18th-century man, so it’s not really surprising that this is his view of romance. He likes being made to feel like he’s the powerful hero of the tale, the strong man who scales the broken girl’s proverbial walls. He’s not so pleased to find her walls already lowered.

"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

[Marty McFly]

POM your post is really good! I agree that Emma as the kickass character would never realistically pair up with a guy like hook. Show WOULD pair up nicely with a guy like Rumple, or rather Neal, who is alot LIKE Gold in all the important ways.

And, yes, Rumple is alot like a woman in many ways – a very anti-traditional “man” he is submissive to Belle while Belle is tougher and doesnt forgive as easily as he does.

[RumplesGirl]

I honestly don’t want to belabor this because obviously there are a lot of different opinions and paths here. But I do need to point out a few things

She never told him not to intervene either.

This bothers me because not saying NO does not mean saying YES.

And this is such a large part of rape culture–that just because a woman hasn’t said NO explicitly, she’s automatically saying yes. And, of course, even when she does say NO, she doesn’t really mean it; she’s conflicted and unsure of her feelings and if she just gave the guy a shot, she’d really like him.

This is much larger than Hook and CS. This is much larger than OUAT. This is even much larger than media. This is the world we live in. So because this is so all encompassing, I’ll leave it with what I said above.

(If you want, here’s a really thoughtful recent article on the difference between “rape culture” and “nurturance culture,” written by a guy as a matter of fact, and it’s really insightful)

Thank you for that

There’s a famous feminist statement, I think by Catherine MacKinnon, which I will PG for the sake of this forum. It goes like this “Man takes woman.” Subject verb object.

Yes. Read local newpapers the next time you have a few lying around. 10-1 odds that any rape story line will be headlined as follows:

“Local Man (subject) Accused of Raping Local Woman (object)”

It’s rare (unless the writer and editor is very conscious of gender politics and language politics) that it’s the other way.

 

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

[RumplesGirl]

Thanks everyone for a lively and fun debate. Obviously when it comes to Emma–and by extension the people that surround her–there are a lot of opinions.

This is the next question, just because I think we’ve covered a significant amount of ground with question #1 and question #2

Question the third: If you believe that Emma is NOT a strong character anymore and that she has either not progressed or regressed, what can the show do–if anything–to make Emma more palatable.

OR, conversely, if you believe that Emma is STILL a strong character and that she has made great progresses, where should the show go next in her character development? What would you like to see?

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

[Slurpeez]

If you believe that Emma is NOT a strong character anymore and that she has either not progressed or regressed, what can the show do–if anything–to make Emma more palatable.

Emma being the one to make a willing sacrifice would have kept her as an active character with a central role that wasn’t focused only on a guy, and her sacrifice would have further solidified her role as “the savior” of the tale. Instead of spending her effort trying to resurrect Hook in a way that might not work, it’d be better if she really would battle the darkness and win, perhaps even freeing people who’d been victimized or killed by dark ones past (rather than saving the villains). If Emma ends up doing this in the second part of S5b, it will go a way to restoring her status in my view.

"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

[Marty McFly]

I think losing Neal affected her tremendously

[nevermore]

Question the third: If you believe that Emma is NOT a strong character anymore and that she has either not progressed or regressed, what can the show do–if anything–to make Emma more palatable.

 

 

I think one place to start with Emma would be to make her journey — from the “darkness (abandonment, isolation) into the “light” (community, light magic, love), with the detour through the DO course — Emma’s legacy again. And in this sense, by making Rumple into the DO again, however flat-footedly and awfully, the show leaves open that possibility. In fact, it leaves open the possibility that both Rumple and Emma might finally have the opportunity to actively confront and work through their issues, and eventually overcome the central cosmic antagonist of the OUAT-verse (the DO curse), which is essentially, the dark part of one’s personality (magically enhanced to blow up all existing insecurities). No more “Hat-us” Ex Machina. No more unexplainably clueless DarkOne boyfriends who act like the textbook version of a gaslighting sociopath. And no more Groundhog Day-style failure at character development for Emma.

I have this tiny hope that the trip to the Underworld to retrieve Hook might get us back on track — back to the question of what it might mean for Emma (the presumed stand-in for the audience) to potentially “wield both dark and light magic,” or, in other words, if we translate the symbolism, to accept her own flaws with lucidity and compassion in a way that turns them into a strength. I haven’t seen anything on this show to suggest that the writers are capable of getting us to that place by focusing on Emma’s relationship with Hook. If they actually manage to pull it off, the more power to them, but I’m not going to hold my breath. However, I think the material is still there, in the worldbuilding and characters of the show, to enable them to do it, if they restore Emma — and her many other significant relationships — to the center of the story.

[RumplesGirl]

Question the third: If you believe that Emma is NOT a strong character anymore and that she has either not progressed or regressed, what can the show do–if anything–to make Emma more palatable.

I wanted to sleep on this question before I tried to answer it. It would be, I think, too easy to say that the solution is for Emma to simply break up with Hook. While I am certainly no fan of the relationship, I am not naive and understand that TV is a business, specifically that ABC thinks CS is selling their product. And, like @thedarkonedearie said, Emma could be a strong woman and Hook’s girlfriend, I just happen to think she’s not right now.

I think the first and most important thing is basically what @nevermore said: the show needs to realign Emma’s story so that it’s about finding her community–the large, extended, unwieldy at time community. Her story needs to refocus on Emma’s relationship with Snow, Charming, Henry, the town of SB, her role in the cosmic universe. I expect that Emma will have a romantic love story, that she’ll date and fall in love and probably even get married before the series ends. But I don’t want her story to just be that romantic love story–that’s not how any of this started and it shouldn’t be how it ends. I think Emma really needs to take a long hard look at her past, the things that have happened to her and the things that she herself has done and examine her interpersonal relationships and question if they are healthy, mutually beneifical, and ask if there isn’t room for improvement. Girl needs a self-evaluation cycle into her life, in other words in which you look honestly at your life choices and their outcomes and try to figure out what you could do better. How else do human beings learn anything?

I also think the show needs to do a radical realignment of the power dynamics between Hook and Emma. The story can’t be about him anymore. Yes, he can have centrics and plot and development, absolutely. But I think that while Emma’s story focuses back on her community, Hook’s story needs to focus inwards and really and truly redeem the pirate but without the magical use of some Emma Swan lovin’. He has to be a good man for the sake of goodness, not the sake of not-losing-his-girlfriend.

More than anything, I think the show needs to pull Henry back into the story as more than a prop for (both, really) his moms. You can complicate the mother and son dynamic and still have it be powerful. Think back to S1, the relationship between Henry and Emma was actually really complicated with Henry loving and believing in Emma from the start and Emma trying to not fall for her kid. It was sweet, frustrating at times, beautiful. Henry’s now a teenager and during what should be an even more complicated time in their lives, has been reduced down to  really simplistic terms. I promise you, A and E, your audience can handle complexity.

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

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