Emma Swan Character Analysis

[thedarkonedearie]

I don’t want to get into Hook discussion too much, but it always seemed like Hook was nice to Emma because he wanted her. He tolerated her family because that would put him in her good graces. However, we have seen how unkind he can be to people that aren’t going to affect his standing with Emma as recently as season 4 eg using Belle to blackmail Rumple, roughing up Will for accidentally spilling water on Emma. If Hook being horrible is the reason why his actions as the dark one are so bad, then why should the audience root for Emma’s relationship with a horrible guy? Just because Hook is nice to Emma and her family because it gets him what he wants doesn’t make him a good person. In fact I think I think it’s quite telling that the moment Hook feels that Emma has betrayed him/displeased him, he turns on her quite viciously.

Not that I’m rooting for Hook, because I don’t think I am, but I will say this: I think why I’m willing to see it through between these two is because although he was so horrible and that’s why he was a horrible DO, I think that just means how difficult it is for him to turn over a new leaf, and that we have seen he has tried to do so.  They are still some buried things, that he keeps buried because he wants to be better, and for me, it was a little unfortunate that the darkness was able to magnify all those deep issues he still has and has been trying to fight.  It made me almost feel sorry for him…..I know I know…but that’s just how I felt.

[thedarkonedearie]

It’s that, going back to Emma’s character analysis, this sort of gender configuration depends, structurally, on Emma being weaker than the show was originally trying to sell to us.

I think this is fair.  The idea that they are bringing Emma down a bit to balance them out is definitely a fair argument.  I guess I was just ok with it because of the circumstances at play, the fact that she was fighting evil incarnate and needed help.  If going forward, Emma without the darkness, continue to need help and Hook keeps saving the day and what not, then I will not be pleased.  I just don’t think that’s going to happen.  I think Hook’s agency if you will, was circumstantial and very much plot driven.

[thedarkonedearie]

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.  This is a classic example in which Emma feels like she 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.

I feel like we are overthinking this a bit.  If I was in a relationship, and my gf liked me better with a beard, I would likely do it for her.  In fact, my friend has done this recently.  I think she just wants to make Hook happy and she knows what he likes.  It was her reaching out to him and letting him know she cares what he thinks.  I don’t think she’s going to change everything all of a sudden.  Just this one time, she dressed up a bit.

[thedarkonedearie]

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.

Oh geez, she never said no because she was ok with it.  Her body language said so.  Nowhere do I remember seeing her try and resist his help.  If I was Hook, I wouldn’t have thought that.  But maybe I missed something.

[thedarkonedearie]

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.

All of this, yes.  Now that Emma is free of the DO, I suspect she will not be “weak” as many on here have portrayed her (even though she was battling the greatest darkness ever in her soul).  I expect her to return to her bad self once again, and as long as that happens, I’ll be fine.  I would like her to have to make a difficult choice or sacrifice (like maybe she can only save one person in the UW or something) since she didn’t sacrifice anything in 5a.

[thedarkonedearie]

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.

This would go a long way for Emma’s character.  Like I said, I’m hoping now that she isn’t the DO anymore, she will go back to being the Emma we love, and hopefully that involves interacting withe family who went along with you in the UW.

[Slurpeez]

I feel like we are overthinking this a bit. If I was in a relationship, and my gf liked me better with a beard, I would likely do it for her. In fact, my friend has done this recently. I think she just wants to make Hook happy and she knows what he likes. It was her reaching out to him and letting him know she cares what he thinks. I don’t think she’s going to change everything all of a sudden. Just this one time, she dressed up a bit.

I don’t think I’m over analyzing things. I’m not saying it’s always wrong to do nice things for the person you’re in a relationship with, but I don’t think think a person should change so much that she starts to lose her original identity either. It’s not the dress that is the problem (though it is ugly). The pink dress is merely an external representation of Emma’s core character changing since she’s been in a relationship with Hook. Yet, changing excessively for a person never works. Emma’s dress shows how being in a relationship with Hook has caused her to become much more traditional, softer, demure (i.e. “feminine”)–which wouldn’t be as big an issue if she’d actually been depicted that way all along. The problem is, however, that is just not how Emma was depicted for the first 3 seasons. It’s not progressive; it’s regressive. See the images below:

Emma Swan season 2 promotional photos

Emma Swan was never depicted as a girly girl in the first first two seasons. In fact, she was a modern-day princess who was always depicted as being more of a tomboy who was more comfortable wearing leather jackets and jeans than high-heeled shoes and a dress. In fact, her red leather jacket is her savior power symbol. The writers used to understand this about her, and she was marketed this way: she always took more after her father than her mother, as depicted in the S2 photos of Emma in which she’s wearing her father’s armor, wielding her father’s sword while ignoring her mother’s frilly dresses. The few times we’ve really seen her dress up (excluding her trips to the Enchanted Forest/Camelot), she was wearing short, edgy, modern dresses, which seems more in keeping with her more masculine sensibiliities. But Emma in a pale pink satin prom dress from the 1950s just makes her look like Greece’s Sandra Dee — whom Emma Swan certainly is not.

I find Emma changing for Hook to be very ironic. Emma told Henry in 5×5 that “changing so someone likes you never works.” She then said she liked Henry’s dad because he was always himself. But then Emma proceeded to not be herself with Hook on the boat when she changed her clothes to get him to like her again. I don’t think that Emma is being true to herself when she’s with Hook, which is what I think that pink dress really symbolizes and why Emma and Hook just don’t work together, on so so many levels.

"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

[thedarkonedearie]

But it was one dress, one time.

[Slurpeez]

But it was one dress, one time.

It wasn’t a one-off. There was the first time on her date with Hook in 4×4 and again in 5×3 aboard his ship. The first time I might have written it off as the influence of Emma’s mom and Elsa helping her get ready for her date by selecting a dress Emma wouldn’t normally have chosen herself. However, the second time Emma deliberately chose to don the frou-frou dress. She did so because Hook was rejecting her as the dark one dressed all in black. And Emma desperately tried to soften herself to get him to see she was still the same Emma on the inside. But he still ended up rejecting her. That is why I go back to what Emma told Henry, “changing so someone likes you never works.” She was changing herself to get Hook to like her even as she was as the dark one, but it didn’t really work. Emma was saying she wasn’t weak as the dark one. In fact, she said she was stronger than ever because her walls were down and she no longer was afraid. Yet, Hook fundamentally rejected that version of Emma and said he liked her better with her walls up so he could be the one to tear them down. This goes back to something @nevermore wrote: “It’s that, going back to Emma’s character analysis, this sort of gender configuration depends, structurally, on Emma being weaker than the show was originally trying to sell to us.” I find this new branding not to be in keeping with the version of Emma Swan that the show was originally trying to sell us.

"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

[thedarkonedearie]

She did so because Hook was rejecting her as the dark one dressed all in black. And Emma desperately tried to soften herself to get him to see she was still the same Emma on the inside. But he still ended up rejecting her.

Right, but the DO outfit with the weird hair and glitter wasn’t her either.  I think she was trying to let him know Emma (without the DO influence) was still there.  That she could be the DO, but still be the Emma he knew.

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