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Neal was ready to leave her the moment he knew he could end up in jail, it took Emma to argue and to tell him she loved him to make him stay.
I think it’s important to note that Neal wanted to go to Canada alone not because he didn’t love Emma but he was worried that if they were caught together, she’d be in as much trouble as he was.
Neal: I got to go to Canada alone.
Emma: Why?
Neal: If I get caught and you’re with me, you’re in trouble-
And yet Neal took the deal August proposed him, he left her high and dry in her happiness bubble, Neal offered her a home, he promised her Tallahassee.
There is nothing worse, than giving someone high expectation, high hopes and then shatter them to pieces. Neal broke Emma, he crushed her heart.
I agree that Neal did break Emma’s heart and his promises of Tallahassee fell through, but that was in the wake of finding out who she was. He always intended for Tallahassee to happen. I think it bears saying that in a show built on magical constructs where fate and destiny are obviously real (if gently manipulated) Tallahassee couldn’t happen. He had to leave her in order for her to fulfill his destiny. What was his other option? Telling her that he’s from another land and so is she and that she needs to go break a curse so fairy tale characters can remember who they are? That’s a journey Emma had to make alone. She had to believe on her own, through Henry.
When he received that postcard from August, he could have gone to SB, and tried to apologize to Emma. But Neal never came back. He was happily engaged to Tamara and it was all he wanted: He didn’t want Emma, he didn’t need her.
I disagree. I don’t think Neal ever really loved Tamara, not the way he loved Emma. Tamara was the easy path. Like his father, when Neal got scared and turned to something easier than dealing with the pain of maybe really having lost her forever. If he had really love Tamara, he would have told Emma upfront about her, not waffled about it. He was terrified of seeing her again because he knew she would be hurt and upset. And yes, she should be. Neal made an impossible choice to let her go because she is the savior and the savior had a role to fulfill and she had to do it alone or she never would have done it at all.
When Neal met his son, it was cute, okay, but when Emma warned him about not breaking his heart the way he had broken hers, Neal’s reaction was to laugh at her. Okay it could be because he was nervous and yet, at the bar, Neal could have apologized but he didn’t.
That’s not what Neal said. Neal owned up to it. Neal knows he hurt Emma, but he thought he was doing right by her, and in many ways, he was. Being abandoned is horrible and no one knows that better than Nealfire, but Emma had a destiny. We have to keep that in mind. Her destiny overlays this entire show.
Emma: Great. Go talk to him, then. But… Don’t break his heart.
Neal: Trust me – I’m not going do to him what he did to me.
Emma: Or what you did to me.
Neal: Okay. I get it. We’re all messed up. What do you say we try to avoid that with him? Alright?
Emma: Alright.
All that time together and Neal never sat Henry down and explained to him that Emma was trying to protect him and never meant to lie and hurt him? ‘Cause that would have been the fatherly thing to do, to call him out on his rudeness towards his mom. It never happened.
Not Neal’s fault, that’s on the writers for trying to push plot not character the second half of the season. And we don’t know what was going on off camera.
Neal keeps mocking her, trying to get a jealous reaction from Emma. It’s not only childish, it’s really mean. Emma is wounded because he found Tallahassee with someone else, because he moved on and it’s like Neal is trying to prove to her that he’s over her now. It’s mean, rude and unacceptable.
I never once saw this. Neal acknowledged several times that Tamara was a surprise and that he knew it was awkward for her to be there. It was EMMA who kept telling him she didn’t care about Tamara being there or their relationship. And that hurt him, you can see that he’s hurt when it appears that Emma is perfectly fine that he’s moved on. And we both know they haven’t.
He never believed her, in her aptitudes, her skills, everything that makes her Emma. He doubts her, he never believes her and treats her like a child. Yes, Emma’s super power doesn’t work sometimes but come on, she was spot on about Tamara the whole time and it wasn’t jealousy or had nothing to do with wanting to get back together with her ex
He believed she was the savior, he believed in her destiny that only she could bring back the happy endings. He believed it so much, he let her go. And he jokingly says her power never worked, but Emma reminds him that yes he did believe in it. He’s scared. He doesn’t want to be betrayed AGAIN, like he was by Rumple and then later Hook. He doesn’t want to think that he trusted someone again only to have them manipulate him.
Neal never showed any interest about getting back with Emma, never. He took him a long time to apologize, and I think it wasn’t enough, I saw it like a tentative to calm her down, because she was after Tamara.
He waited 10 years. He only moved on at the last second because of fear. Am I saying it was the right thing to do? No, it was cowardly. But he is his father’s son. And he was being manipulated by Tamara.
Neal wanted to marry Tamara all along, it doesn’t matter if she was evil or not, Neal did love her, he did want to marry her and he did find his Tallahassee with her.
Like I said before, I don’t think he did. I think it was fear that drove him to get engaged to her. It wasn’t noble, it was cowardly, I’ll grant that. But when you’ve been abandoned you’re whole life, it’s nice to think that someone finally wants you. You fall for it and you fall for it hard. He fell in love with the feeling of being wanted, not Tamara herself. His heart has always belonged to Emma.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"@obisgirl wrote:
When you love someone you fight for them, no matter what.
Myself, II prefer to see this as a case of “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were.”
But that’s just me. 🙂
@obisgirl wrote:
Neal was ready to leave her the moment he knew he could end up in jail, it took Emma to argue and to tell him she loved him to make him stay.
He didn’t want her to be taken by the police as his accomplice and be jailed with him, I don’t see what’s the problem here. *shrug*
@obisgirl wrote:
And yet Neal took the deal August proposed him, he left her high and dry in her happiness bubble, Neal offered her a home, he promised her Tallahassee.
There is nothing worse, than giving someone high expectation, high hopes and then shatter them to pieces. Neal broke Emma, he crushed her heart.
That sucked, that’s true.
@obisgirl wrote:
“He left her go to jail so she could fulfill her destiny ” this is not a valid argument,
Well, Adam and Eddy said in the Manhattan podcast mentioned this to be the only reason he did that, not any other. Whether people like it or not is another point entirely.
@obisgirl wrote:
Neal was afraid to be reunited with his father, he didn’t want to go back to him. He chose himself over Emma. He didn’t leave her for her greatest goods, but for himself.
But if he was that much obsessed in not being reunited with Rumple, why would he burst through his apartment’s door to stop Rumple from hurting Emma?
@obisgirl wrote:
He even admitted that he ran because he was afraid of his dad. He wasn’t running to allow Emma to fulfill her destiny. He ran because of his dad.
Uh, where was that?
@obisgirl wrote:
How many prisons for ladies exist in Phoenix? If Neal wanted to find Emma he could have found her. Within the ten-eleven years they were apart.
When he received that postcard from August, he could have gone to SB, and tried to apologize to Emma. But Neal never came back. He was happily engaged to Tamara and it was all he wanted: He didn’t want Emma, he didn’t need her.
But that was explained in “Second Star to the Right”. He didn’t try to find Emma again because he was afraid that she would never forgive him because he never forgave himself, regretting his decision to this day. He’s been burned so much in life with his parents’s abandonment of him for selfish reasons and his happy moments being constantly ripped from him by magic that he didn’t want to face another rejection.
Neal is just as much psychologically damaged and closed off emotionally as Emma, if not more. In Emma’s case, her being featured since the Pilot has allowed her enough development to mostly transcend this, as seen by her accepting the role of Henry’s mother and being comfortable to call Snow and Charming Mom and Dad. Neal, on the other hand, has just been reintegrated into the story, his journey is just beginning, he still has a long way to go before he can transcend his issues.
And I wouldn’t call his engagement with Tamara a happy one; he tried to find some semblance of a happy ending with Tamara, that’s true, but notice he never said “I love you” to her. He did it with Emma, not Tamara.
@obisgirl wrote:
In Manhattan, Emma had to run after him to catch him, cause Neal was still running away from her
Pretty sure he didn’t recognize her voice on the intercom, or he wouldn’t be surprised to see her there.
@obisgirl wrote:
he told her that if he had known about her he would never have approached her.
That was him saying that their whole past relationship wasn’t something out of a master plan of his. *shrug*
@obisgirl wrote:
When Neal met his son, it was cute, okay, but when Emma warned him about not breaking his heart the way he had broken hers, Neal’s reaction was to laugh at her. Okay it could be because he was nervous and yet, at the bar, Neal could have apologized but he didn’t.
He didn’t laugh when she warned him not to break Henry’s heart, though, he did a humorless laugh when she retorted his “I won’t do to him what you did to me” with a “and what you did to me”. Remember, Emma attempted to hide the fact that he had a son from him, she’s not a saint there either.
ETA: As always, RG said it better than me. 🙂
@Demileto wrote:
@obisgirl wrote:
When you love someone you fight for them, no matter what.
Myself, II prefer to see this as a case of “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were.”
But that’s just me. 🙂
There’s that, yes, but there was nothing wrong with Emma. Like I would understand that argument if there were problems in the relationship, but there weren’t. The only problem was that she had this big destiny to fulfill and Neal was in the way.
@obisgirl wrote:
Neal was ready to leave her the moment he knew he could end up in jail, it took Emma to argue and to tell him she loved him to make him stay.
@Demileto wrote:
He didn’t want her to be taken by the police as his accomplice and be jailed with him, I don’t see what’s the problem here. *shrug*
And yet, Emma still ended up caught and thrown in jail for something that he did.
@obisgirl wrote:
And yet Neal took the deal August proposed him, he left her high and dry in her happiness bubble, Neal offered her a home, he promised her Tallahassee.
There is nothing worse, than giving someone high expectation, high hopes and then shatter them to pieces. Neal broke Emma, he crushed her heart.
That sucked, that’s true.
@Demileto wrote:
@obisgirl wrote:
“He left her go to jail so she could fulfill her destiny ” this is not a valid argument,
Well, Adam and Eddy said in the Manhattan podcast mentioned this to be the only reason he did that, not any other. Whether people like it or not is another point entirely.
Neal also backtracked later in SSTTR, and said he was scared of dad and that was his reason why he left. Not because of the destiny thing. Remember the beach scene?
@obisgirl wrote:
Neal was afraid to be reunited with his father, he didn’t want to go back to him. He chose himself over Emma. He didn’t leave her for her greatest goods, but for himself.
But if he was that much obsessed in not being reunited with Rumple, why would he burst through his apartment’s door to stop Rumple from hurting Emma?
@obisgirl wrote:
He even admitted that he ran because he was afraid of his dad. He wasn’t running to allow Emma to fulfill her destiny. He ran because of his dad.
Uh, where was that?
The beach scene in Second Star to the Right.
@Demileto wrote:
Neal is just as much psychologically damaged and closed off emotionally as Emma, if not more. In Emma’s case, her being featured since the Pilot has allowed her enough development to mostly transcend this, as seen by her accepting the role of Henry’s mother and being comfortable to call Snow and Charming Mom and Dad. Neal, on the other hand, has just been reintegrated into the story, his journey is just beginning, he still has a long way to go before he can transcend his issues
Actually, I would say it’s the very opposite. Emma has abandonment issues. Neal abandoning Emma in Tallahassee caused her to further cement that she can’t trust anyone period.
obisgirl, I know we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree on this topic, so I’m not posting this in an attempt to change your mind, simply to present the opposite viewpoint. 🙂
@obisgirl wrote:
When you love someone you fight for them, no matter what.
Their situation is more complicated than that. The fate of 1000s of people rested on Emma’s shoulders. Neal was considering all of them, before himself. It’s similar to how he sacrificed himself to save the Darling boys.
Neal was ready to leave her the moment he knew he could end up in jail, it took Emma to argue and to tell him she loved him to make him stay.
He didn’t want her to get in trouble, and felt she’d be better off without him. Again, he was thinking of her safety before thinking of his personal wants.
And yet Neal took the deal August proposed him, he left her high and dry in her happiness bubble, Neal offered her a home, he promised her Tallahassee.
There is nothing worse, than giving someone high expectation, high hopes and then shatter them to pieces. Neal broke Emma, he crushed her heart.
They were both dreamers, who had had a glimpse of happiness for the first time in a long time. Lofty dreams of happy endings aren’t guaranteed. Crap happens that’s beyond your control, and crap happened to the two of them. Crap happens to us all. I was married once and thought it would last forever. But crap happens to mess stuff up. That’s just life. Neal can hardly be held responsible for having hoped for the best during the brief time they were happy together and both felt invincible. He couldn’t predict the future.
“He left her go to jail so she could fulfill her destiny ” this is not a valid argument, Neal was afraid to be reunited with his father, he didn’t want to go back to him. He chose himself over Emma. He didn’t leave her for her greatest goods, but for himself. He even admitted that he ran because he was afraid of his dad. He wasn’t running to allow Emma to fulfill her destiny. He ran because of his dad. Knowing Neal’s background now as Baelfire, he could have stayed and helped her, fought August but he didn’t.
If Emma fulfilled her destiny, then that meant that Rumple would achieve his goal of finding Neal. If Neal was just scared of being reunited with his father, he would have just stayed with Emma, thus screwing up her breaking of the curse. If Emma didn’t achieve that, then Neal could rest easy that Rumple would never find him. Instead, he set her on the path towards getting the job done. Ten years down the track, the moment was finally upon him where his father was coming for him, and yes, he was scared. Given his complicated history with his father, I personally can’t blame him for having been freaking out of his ever loving mind.
How many prisons for ladies exist in Phoenix? If Neal wanted to find Emma he could have found her. Within the ten-eleven years they were apart.
He had already committed to sacrificing being with her for the greater good. Even if he believed that to be the right thing to do, that doesn’t mean he stopped wanting to be with her, and stopped wishing they could be together. But he quite understandably didn’t think he’d have much of a chance of explaining the situation and being forgiven. We’ve seen how much convincing it took for Henry to get Emma to believe. Why on Earth would Neal expect that Emma would believe him if he told her the truth?
Back To The Future III was on here last night, so this parallel is fresh in my mind. When Doc goes to tell Clara that he’s leaving, she demands to know the truth. So he tells her that he’s from the future and built a time machine and has to take it back to the year 1985. Her reaction is to tell him how cruel it was for him to play with her emotions like that and he should have just told her the truth, that he didn’t really love her. Then she slams the door in his face. That’s how it would have gone down if Neal had tried to track Emma down at any point during those 10 years. It would not have worked out, and she’d have just ended up hating him more than he believed she already did.
When he received that postcard from August, he could have gone to SB, and tried to apologize to Emma. But Neal never came back. He was happily engaged to Tamara and it was all he wanted: He didn’t want Emma, he didn’t need her.
Neal was in denial. He’d known for 10 years that the day was coming when he’d have a chance to explain things to Emma and hopefully get back together. Suddenly, that day was about to arrive. He’d convinced himself she wouldn’t forgive him. He was scared to face her, which IMO is a perfectly understandable emotion. Then along came Tamara, and you know that she worked all the moves to manipulate Neal to sink her claws into him, because that was her mission. And being with her was easy for Neal. It meant he had an excuse to not have to try again with Emma, and fail, and hurt her all over again. It was easier this way. I’m not saying that was the right choice for him to make, but I totally understand why he made it, because often in life, we all choose what appears to be the easier path.
In Manhattan, Emma had to run after him to catch him, cause Neal was still running away from her and when she did, Neal yelled at her, (it’s almost if he doesn’t call her names) and he told her that if he had known about her he would never have approached her.
Do you realize how rude it is to say that? Emma needed to be told she did matter to him, that she meant something but Neal laughed at her, broke her heart again.
Why not apologizing back then? Why not telling her she did matter to him?
He didn’t know who she was when they were running, only discovered that once they’d stopped. Then he stopped running, and invited her to sit down and talk. As for telling her he never would have gone near her, he’s just saying that it would have saved both of them a helluva lot of heartbreak if they’d never got together, and that’s a fair statement IMO.
When Neal met his son, it was cute, okay, but when Emma warned him about not breaking his heart the way he had broken hers, Neal’s reaction was to laugh at her. Okay it could be because he was nervous and yet, at the bar, Neal could have apologized but he didn’t.
He didn’t outright laugh at her. It was a half laugh half sigh that said, “Oh snap, you got me there,” right before he commented how they’re all messed up, and they can’t let Henry end up the same way.
Then, there’s looking back to the event post-Manhattan. Remember, how we all hated how Henry treated Emma after he found out that Neal, his bio-dad was alive? All that time together and Neal never sat Henry down and explained to him that Emma was trying to protect him and never meant to lie and hurt him? ‘Cause that would have been the fatherly thing to do, to call him out on his rudeness towards his mom. It never happened.
I personally never hated Henry for how he treated Emma, because I thought it was a natural reaction for the kid to be pissed at being lied to…again…by one of his mothers…the one he’d actually trusted.
We don’t know that a conversation like that didn’t happen off screen, but even if it didn’t, I can’t fault Neal for it, because he’s known Henry for all of a few weeks and is still getting to know him, so is still in, “fun dad” mode as opposed to, “disciplinarian”. I have a close friend, and her four kids call me their Aunty, but I don’t feel like I have the authority to tell them off or correct them on major issues, because it’s not my place, and not having kids myself, I don’t wanna do or say the wrong thing that may unintentionally go against what their parents would say. This is similar to how I see Neal’s position when he was still getting to know Henry.
Neal keeps mocking her, trying to get a jealous reaction from Emma. It’s not only childish, it’s really mean. Emma is wounded because he found Tallahassee with someone else, because he moved on and it’s like Neal is trying to prove to her that he’s over her now. It’s mean, rude and unacceptable.
He never believed her, in her aptitudes, her skills, everything that makes her Emma. He doubts her, he never believes her and treats her like a child. Yes, Emma’s super power doesn’t work sometimes but come on, she was spot on about Tamara the whole time and it wasn’t jealousy or had nothing to do with wanting to get back together with her ex.
I’ve never considered him mocking her as a means to belittle her. Their situation is very emotionally complex, and he’d been thrown for a loop and wasn’t sure how to react, so he was slightly on the defensive, as a means of keeping his true feelings bottled up, because if he didn’t, it’d spell emotional upheaval and heartbreak for everyone involved, including Tamara, who he had no ill will for at that time.
Neal never showed any interest about getting back with Emma, never. He took him a long time to apologize, and I think it wasn’t enough, I saw it like a tentative to calm her down, because she was after Tamara.
IMO, his apology was 100% genuine.
Neal wanted to marry Tamara all along, it doesn’t matter if she was evil or not, Neal did love her, he did want to marry her and he did find his Tallahassee with her.
Neal wanted to believe that he would be happy with Tamara. She was a no magical strings attached, regular, real world girl, and she made him happy. He hasn’t had many chances at happy in is life, and any time he did, magic would intervene to rip it apart. So Tamara was a safe option. But in his heart of hearts, Emma is the one he’s always wanted to be with.
He even admitted that he ran because he was afraid of his dad. He wasn’t running to allow Emma to fulfill her destiny. He ran because of his dad.
Uh, where was that?
The beach scene in Second Star to the Right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C1d7d840NY
“I wanted to look for you. I was too afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That you would never forgive me cause I never forgave myself. there hasn’t been a day that has gone by that I haven’t regretted leaving you. I’m sorry Emma. For everything.”Having read Phee’s response, I second the “not trying to change your mind” It’s perfectly fine if you don’t like Neal. I hope you can maybe one day see what we see. Obviously this is probably the biggest disagreement in the fandom.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"@obisgirl wrote:
I think his argument with his dad after breaking up Gold/Lacey’s bullying of Dr. Whale exemplifies this the best. He doesn’t see the full picture here. Regina cursed Belle, gave her fake memories and when he sees Golden Lacey bullying Whale, he’s like “I knew you haven’t changed.” Storybrooke’s a small town and he doesn’t know that Regina cursed Belle and the only way Gold can be with her is to be bad?
That doesn’t make sense to me. That was not the only way Gold could have behaved. It was how Gold chose to behave. Yes, he fell into a trap, set by Regina, but that was her point in setting it in the first place. She wanted to prove he had not changed, and could not resist the darkness inside himself. Rumpel proved Regina right a bit, and disappointed many of us. We had people thinking “Oh, he’ll be the one to turn Lacey back to Belle by refusing to be a dark person” We hoped, but it turned out he wasn’t just playing along, he really was going on a bender with Lacey, letting his darkness run amok. Maybe Neal heard Gold saying he was stepping on Whale’s neck just for looking at Lacey. Just because Neal doesn’t see the full picture does not mean he is seeing things in black and white.
As for not knowing the whole story, his reaction might have been even worse, since that “whole story” would have to include the facts that Rumpel was conflicted about Henry. Remember, Gold was still thinking about that prophecy and what to do, even before Neal made his speech. We don’t know exactly when Gold decided to kill Henry, but we do know he was not in fluffy Grandpastilskin mode right from Manhattan. So while Gold had changed some, from his power hungry-full-on-Dark-One days, there was still a lot of truth to what Neal was saying. Despite that kernel of good, the one Belle sees, there was still a lot of dark and that was what Neal probably meant had not changed about Rumpel.
Neal was also upset that since he had been in town, Rumpel had not made any effort to meet Tamara, find out about his life, and such. When Neal comments on that, Rumpel’s response is pretty disdainful. Rumpel probably was right in what he said, but how he said it did nothing to change Neal’s view that Rumpel was an angry, cowardly, man who would cause a lot of pain for those around him. Remember, when Rumpel and Neal met, part of Rumpel’s reconcilliation was to offer to turn Neal to 14. This after of course knowing that Neal now had a son. What the pick your obscenity was that?
@obisgirl wrote:
In Manhattan, Emma had to run after him to catch him, cause Neal was still running away from her and when she did, Neal yelled at her, (it’s almost if he doesn’t call her names) and he told her that if he had known about her he would never have approached her.
Neal ran when he didn’t know who it was. When he knew it was Emma, he didn’t run away, but he walked to the bar to help calm things down. Plus, he didn’t want to be out in the street discussing “all that” magic stuff. Probably a wise move.
@obisgirl wrote:
Do you realize how rude it is to say that? Emma needed to be told she did matter to him, that she meant something but Neal laughed at her. It could be because he was nervous and yet, at the bar, Neal could have apologized but he didn’t.
He could have done a better apology, but that statement was NOT rude. She was accusing him of having planned their meeting in the first place, that all their experiences were just some big con he ran on her. THAT could be taken as rude, but he doesn’t take it that way. He can see how hurt she is, and he is trying to convince her by telling her the literal truth. He’s saying not only did he NOT plan it–the last thing he would have wanted was to meet someone from FTL. That’s different than saying having met her, he cared nothing for her and regretted meeting her. He should have been more tactful, yes, but for both of them, it was really emotional and a surprise.
@obisgirl wrote:
Why not apologizing back then? Why not telling her she did matter to him?
It is not easy sometimes to find the words when caught off guard. That was how he was in the bar scene. He doesn’t want to hear his father’s apologies, and he thinks Emma doesn’t really want to hear his, because he knows how crazy everything will sound to her. He’s very halting in how he speaks. He’s feeling a lot of guilt, and also, he’s realized that this moment he never thought would happen is happening. And it is happening after he’s gone and gotten engaged to Tamara. He is in a world of mixed, muddled emotions. He’s not trying to be rude,insult her, or undermine what she meant to him. He asks about her necklace, asks if anything good came out of their relationship, and she is the one who shuts him down.
He was looking for a sign of hope and she was not in the frame of mind then to give it to him. He doesn’t tell her to stop yelling at him, or contradict that she is the only one with a right to be angry. He is upset about his father finding him, yes, but he quickly puts it out to her that she never has to see him again, if she lies to his father. It’s a test, I think, because he does follow her back to the apartment, ready to rescue her from his father. He comes back for her at his apartment, even though he’d made this deal.
@obisgirl wrote:
Then, there’s looking back to the event post-Manhattan. Remember, how we all hated how Henry treated Emma after he found out that Neal, his bio-dad was alive? All that time together and Neal never sat Henry down and explained to him that Emma was trying to protect him and never meant to lie and hurt him? ‘Cause that would have been the fatherly thing to do, to call him out on his rudeness towards his mom. It never happened.
That’s a harsh assessment. Neal just found out he was a father, and he wasn’t sure how to handle anything. Kids don’t always respond well to parenting from people who don’t have an existing relationship with them. If Neal had said anything to point out Henry was not respecting his mother, all he might have accomplished was Henry shutting him out too. He could have been more on the ball there, but it was definitely a complicated situation.
@obisgirl wrote:
Neal keeps mocking Emma, trying to get a jealous reaction from her. This is very childish and mean behavior. Emma is wounded because he found Tallahassee with someone else, because he moved on and it’s like Neal is trying to prove to her that he’s over her now. It’s mean, rude and unacceptable.
Maybe he isn’t being as mature as he could, but again, it’s a difficult situation. He knows he hurt Emma, but he doesn’t want to hurt Tamara either. He still isn’t sure of what he feels, and what Emma feels. I don’t think he was being rude or mean.
@obisgirl wrote:
He never believed her, in her aptitudes and skills, everything that makes her Emma. He doubts her, he never believes her and treats her like a child. Yes, Emma’s super power doesn’t work sometimes but come on, she was spot on about Tamara the whole time and it wasn’t jealousy or had nothing to do with wanting to get back together with her ex.
I don’t see him treating her like a child, nor any evidence that he “never” believed in her. They seemed to be pretty equal partners back in their thief days. She was right about Tamara, but she did also have feelings she was repressing. A&E meant for her to be repressing her feelings, so that was their intention in how they had the scenes acted, directed and written. She didn’t want to get back together, per se, but she wasn’t totally over it either. So there was a lot of emotional turmoil for both of them charging their interactions. His guilt about leaving her, her hurt over having been left, their unresolved connection and love for each other, combined with his commitment to Tamara. Then on the face of it–“come on” as you say, if we the audience hadn’t seen the scenes of Tamara being evil and sneaky, what would you have thought? Remember when everyone was ragging on Tamara being evil from just a snippet in Manhattan? It seemed ridiculous to think this NY girl would have anything to do with FTL. We were supposed to think that. That’s how Neal was thinking of it–so it isn’t that he didn’t believe her even in the face of solid evidence. It was a pretty out-there thing to think, and he didn’t want to believe it could be true on top of that. She was even pretty quick to think it was “just” Greg Mendel when Charming and Snow told her they found Regina, until Tamara walked around the corner.
*edit to fix quote format
“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
@Phee wrote:
obisgirl, I know we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree on this topic, so I’m not posting this in an attempt to change your mind, simply to present the opposite viewpoint. 🙂
Probably so. I wouldn’t mind moving onto a different topic at this point, since yuka chan and I are a minority in this thread.
I wrote most of my response while running a bit late for something, so I didn’t see Demi and RG’s posts. I also messed up some formatting, with quotes running into my responses! Sorry about that!
I am genuinely interested in what people see as Neal’s flaws–it isn’t about changing someone’s mind. We know all the characters are written as having some flaws, that is what makes them interesting. So I appreciate it when someone can articulate why they don’t like something just like when they can explain why they do like it. Sometimes people can’t as it is more of a visceral thing. Sometimes though we can get into an interesting discussion of what assumptions people are making about those ambiguous or misleading scenes that are in the show.
Besides assumptions we all make about scenes, I also see a difference between results and intentions affecting people’s opinions. The way I see it, a character is responsible for his /her intentions–but the plot controls the results. Sometimes you have to infer the intentions from the results, but sometimes it is revealed through dialog. When Cora tries to take Emma’s heart, it is the plot that dictates that she cannot do it, not any reluctance or goodness on Cora’s part. She WOULD have killed Emma, but the plot required that she not be able to do it. Similarly, Rumpel WOULD have killed Henry, but Snow & Co show up to tell him the bad news. That speaks to the darkness in Rumpel’s character at that point in time. Some people will take the opposite view–if Rumpel were really so bad, he would have finished Henry off or something like that.
Heroes get “plot” armor a lot, and sometimes that might make us judge villains less harshly than their intentions might otherwise push us to hate them. The opposite happens with Heroes too–their good intentions might have horrible results, and some people might point to all the trouble they caused or could have caused. Like someone said, Snow risking all the lives of SB to save Regina, was kind of selfish. She wanted to take that risk because of the darkness in her heart. She wasn’t even really that sorry to see Regina go, or that sure this other plan would work, but she felt she had to try for the noble, good, heroic thing despite all that. The plot worked in her favor, but the writers could easily have written it the other way (and it would be a tragedy). Sometimes the hero fails, because that is what leads to more complications for continuing adventures. So they save Regina, but because of their being distracted, Henry gets taken.
What is worse then, a character who intends to hurt but gets saved by the plot or a character who wants to do something good, but the plot swerves to make something bad happen? 😈 😆
“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
Wow. That was a lot to read…
Rather than repeating what’s already been said… I’ll just keep it brief. I used to ship Swanfire and even though he bugged me a little even then, I had a bit of a soft spot for Neal. I kinda understood why he left her with the whole watch incident with August but at the same time, it felt like he also left her in order to avoid getting involved in the magic of his past. It’s since he’s been appearing in the present though that I’ve really started to not like him. When he and Emma argue, the tone he takes with her makes me feel like he’s talking down to her (like obisgirl said, he never shows any belief in her and I feel like he always uses the “lol i know you’re in love with me but…” line. Obviously, not to that extent but you can see what I mean here).
@RumplesGirl wrote:
Interesting. Sometimes I’m also annoyed by the good guys (like Snow and Charming) because their goodness is so often in your face. […] I don’t hate them at all, but glad they made Snow the one who tricked Regina, because her character needs to be more nuanced lest she become a cliche or boring.
I’m glad Snow was essentially responsible for Cora’s death to some extent but I hate the whole “woe is me” thing she has going on as a consequence. Am I the only one who feels like her “selfless”, “good” acts following this aren’t quite so selfless and are probably strongly motivated by her hopes to “purify her blackening heart”? I think it’s because they constantly mention it whenever they’re about to do something to help/save someone and that really annoys me. They also make it sound like it’s something that can only be stopped by a redemption through her actions as opposed to her own belief/will. Of course, one action doesn’t define a person, which is a shallow perception to have anyway.
With heroes in general, for me, it’s similar to the Euthyphro dilemma. Is an act good because God commands it or is there a higher law saying this act is essentially good, which is why God commands it. In this case, of course, we’re “replacing” God with the heroes of whichever story. When an action is presented as “evil” because one person does it yet the hero is justified (which I feel like has happened once or twice on the show) and when I feel about “heroes” the way I do about Snow above, then I start to question their heroism… And I’m going a little off-topic maybe and on a complete tangent and far too philosophical here, hahaha. I’m sure you can see what I mean. 😉
I have a feeling you were writing that while I was writing Yuka-Chan, because we sort of talked about the same thing far as Snow doing what she did to purify her heart, so no you aren’t the only one to feel that way. I agree that I get a little irked at Snow and the “goody-two shoes” attitude sometimes, but it is a good contrast to the more practical Emma. They’re both good, but sometimes Snow and Charming seem idealistic–but that is where they get to prove their fairy-tale heroics, that they have faith that good will come out in the end.
That is an interesting thought about an act being good because God (or our heroes) do it.
I don’t think in the show we quite have that kind of morality by authority (Xavier seemed to think that way, and may have influenced Cora and Regina’s thinking). Yet those characters are not portrayed as heroes. Our heroes are shown to worry about whether they are making the right call, and don’t seem to think that whatever they do will be the good choice, just because they are the ones making that choice. They had that whole conference on saving Greg Mendel when he was just the random stranger in a car accident. They decided that they would try to save his life, despite the potential risk to the town. I think the hero characters are shown as struggling to choose the right action, while the villains are often acting out of impulse/sadness/anger. Unless we’re talking about GOAT–and we don’t really know what is driving them! We only think it’s this anti-magic thing, but I half think we’ll get another twist on that.“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
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