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New post building on the Neal Cassady identity – https://oncepodcast.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1738

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(I’ve just modified this post into a new thread found here – https://oncepodcast.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1738&p=21974#p21974

I’m getting ready to go out of town…wish I more time as there is SO much more I’d like to post.

I’m going to throw something out there that I think is a possibility…it may or may not prove true…but if it does it could make for an incredibly layered, complex and interesting story.

I think that it is very possible that the Mystery Man/Neal Cassady, who we believe to be Baelfire and Peter Pan…could also be the Wizard of Oz.

We do not know how many worlds Baelfire passed through before he ended up in New York City with the identity of Neal Cassady. He could very well have passed through multiple worlds…thus having taken on multiple identities. We have a very long time period to work with that would be conducive to this. In one of my posts I mentioned some of the Wizard of Oz nods related to the Mystery Man…these may or may not lead to anything…they could be coincidence. But if they are accurate nods, I think they lead to the possibility of Baelfire going through multiple worlds…following the bean wherever it leads.

Here is what we already know…

Known – Primary identity – Baelfire

Possible – hinted identity – Jack and the Beanstalk because of the Magic Bean

Possible – Nods to the Wizard of Oz ( remember that in the movie the Wizard of Oz played multiple parts)

Confident – Peter Pan (very obvious connections to Neal Cassady and the clue trail left in the apartment)

Known – Neal Cassady (although we know this must be an assumed identity)

One of the clues in the Mystery Man scene leads to a place on the upper West Side called The Radio Foundation – who produced Fireside Theater (remember the fire at the City Hall that houses the theater). Fireside Theater (that ties in with the Beat Generation) was highly praised for their comedy albums…here is a quote from a review by Rolling Stone: http://www.benway.com/firesign/fst-reviews/wftelec.htm

The Firesign Theatre leans heavily on sound effects, using stereo to create a sense of space just like these old Sports Cars in Hi-Fi Stereo records, and using over dubbing and electronic effects to create a galaxy of character voices and background sounds. Layer upon layer of dialog and sound effects are present throughout most of the productions. One listen is hardly enough to begin to grasp what is going on, and six or seven tries later you’re still unearthing juicy tidbits. Their timing is dynamite, their dialog kaleidoscopic, and their satire is, so to speak, acidic.

I think this is going to be the Mystery Man’s story….layer upon layer, galaxy of character voices, Imagine the possibilities. I think we are going to go on an adventure with Baelfire that leads us to many places…and ultimately leads back to Emma and a little boy named Henry who needs a daddy as much as he needs his mom.

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@Phee wrote:

@fairy dust wrote:

Sorry for the confusion Nonnie…I don’t think Morraine is actually Wendy…just that she could be a nod to Wendy thus giving us a clue to Baelfire’s identity as Peter Pan. 🙂

Yes, I’ve wondered the same thing. That’s interesting that there’s a similarity between her name and Wendy’s. Love all the other little Pan connections you picked up too. You’ve become a master at finding the connections between the Mystery Man and these theories! 😉

Regarding the Wendy thing, assuming that Bae does end up being Pan, perhaps we could get a flashback ep for him at some point that shows him coming and going from our world, and finding his actual Wendy, (and also maybe her brothers), maybe she was someone who reminded him of Morraine. The Darling kids could exist at any point on the timeline from 300-odd years ago when Bae left FTL. (I’m ruling out a young Emma being the actual Wendy, because the real world timeline wouldn’t fit for the story to have made it to our world if she filled the role of Wendy.)

Thanks Phee 🙂 I agree about the flash backs and with young Emma not being a literal Wendy. The writers have so many options because of the flexible timeline.

I found this today and it really opens up a lot of possibilities.

Dr. Dan Kiley popularized the Peter Pan syndrome (puer aeternus) in his 1983 book, The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up,[5] about individuals (usually male[6]) with underdeveloped maturity; his next book, The Wendy Dilemma (1984), advises women romantically involved with “Peter Pans” how to improve their relationships.[7] Patricia Craine’s book, Wendy’s Club: …for women hooked on “Peter Pans” and how to break the addiction (2006), addresses the same target audience as Kiley’s 1984 book.[8]

We could have an actual Wendy…or we could have a figurative “Wendy” who is hooked on “Peter Pan”…or we could have both…a Wendy from the past…and Emma as a figurative Wendy. If Baelfire is the Mystery Man/Neal Cassady/Peter Pan…who is the father of Henry, then Emma could be a figurative Wendy.

It will be interesting to see how close they stay to the original Peter Pan character…especially because the Mystery Man, if he is Baelfire, is very different from Snow White or Charming or Red as their primary identities are their Enchanted Forest/Fairy Tale characters while Baelfire’s primary identity is Baelfire. Peter Pan would be a secondary identity, something that happened to him after having lived in the Enchanted Forest with his dad. This really opens up a lot more flexibility as to how figurative they write his story…will we get a “real” Wendy…or a figurative Wendy???

I love the mystery man story line…there are so many layers.

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I can sure see why the beanstalk would point to Jack…but I really think that the reveal will be Peter Pan. I posted a lot of quotes from books, movie reviews and book reviews where Neal Cassady is referred to as Peter Pan. That fits really well with the post on this thread…the Mystery Man is Baelfire who became Peter Pan when he was lost in the vortex to another world, and in the new world he called himself Neal Cassady because Neal had a Peter Pan nature. Here is the link. https://oncepodcast.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1462&start=20#p21922

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That would make for an interesting story.

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Thanks for the kind words…when I put this together with all the stuff you all already have about Peter Pan it just fits so well.

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Thanks for pointing the way to the Peter Pan theory…I’d say it is right on the money.

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@Gypsy wrote:

Wow! All that, on top of all the connections in TheGoldenKeys theory from February, that she posted on here a coupla weeks ago, it sure is looking like Peter Pan 😉

It is Golden Keys theories that got me to looking into this because it hadn’t really crossed my mind that the Mystery Man could be Peter Pan. I’ve been looking more into the Mystery Man being Baelfire connection…but the truth is that they all fit together really well. The Mystery Man is Baelfire who became “Peter Pan” when Rumple sacrificed him to save his magic. In the “real” world he uses the name, “Neal Cassady,” who has a Peter Pan reputation. It all fits well.

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I just posted this https://oncepodcast.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1462&p=21917#p21922

It is multiple references to books, book reviews and music reviews, all having nothing to do with Once Upon a Time, What do all these reviews have in common? They all relate Neal Cassady to Peter Pan.

So, that solves alot of “time” issues if the Mystery Man/Neal Cassady/Peter Pan is also Baelfire. I believe all the clues point to this being true. 😀

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@TheGoldenKey wrote:

Good stuff Fairy Dust 🙂 Yes, I thought about the bird as well as The Little White Bird was J.M. Barrie’s first book about Peter. Would love to hear about Neal & the Beats in reference to Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. I did immediately see the connection between Neal’s search for his “lost” father vs Rumple’s search for his “lost” son. I feel Bae isn’t searching, rather, he is running and does not want to be found by Rumple. Thus the postcard, warning him of the curse being broken and Rumple on the move.

Not sure what you meant though about double checking, but hey, if I said something that helped, happy to have obliged 🙂

Here are some of the references I found: I’m pretty darn sure now that our Mystery Man/Neal Cassady IS Peter Pan

Back to the Miracle Factory: Rock Etc. 1990’s By Paul Williams

Layers of irony interweave the layers of music, and you are free to hear whatever you need to. For example, is there something in the way she says his voice that suggests that she – the narrator – is still a food for this Peter Pan/Neal Cassady rip-off artist?

The American Book of the Dead by Oliver Trager

The second verse, which materializes out of the plastic elastic instrumental, references both the Merry Pranksters’ magic bus and its hipster-shaman driver, “Cowboy NEAL” Cassady, who permanently takes the singer away through the looking glass. It is with these Peter Pan-like allusions that the son’g timeless mood is forever set.

The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics annotations by David Dodd
Skippin through the lily fields I came across an empty space,
It trembled and exploded, left a bus stop in it’s place.
The bus came by and I got on, that’s when it all began,
There was cowboy Neal at the wheel of the bus to never ever land.

(The notes below, 7 and 8 are actual quotes from the book)
7 Neal – “ A reference to Neal Cassady………”
8 A more-or-less direct reference to Never-Never-Land from Sir James Matthew Barrie’s 1901 play, Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. Peter Pan, who says he ran away on the day he was born, and who never ages, takes visitors to Never-Never-Land (also called Neverland).

Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America by Jay Parini

Exactaly what he thinks of Dean (Neal Cassady) we shall never know. But the fun has gone out of the game for him. The road no longer beckons with quite the same urgency. Perhaps Peter Pan has to grow up now?

Kansas City Public Library Classic Review: On the Road by Jack Kerouac – Book Reviews

Kerouac began work on the book in 1951; the novel tells the story of three years (1947-1950) in the life of Sal Paradise, the story’s narrator, and his sometimes stormy, but always interesting, relationship with Dean Moriarty(Neal Cassady), a rambling free spirit – something of a beat Peter Pan.

The novel is semi-autobiographical. Sal is a thinly veiled rendition of Kerouac himself, while Dean is based, a little more loosely, on Neal Cassady…. If Dean is somewhat like Peter Pan, then Sal is perhaps more like Wendy, enjoying the journey, but very much aware that the journey must end, and that each of us has some responsibilities to which we must tend.

Review of On the Road –

And Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) is an amazing character – spontaneous, charming, absolutely unhinged and absolutely resistant to responsibility, maturity and probably also good sense. Peter Pan for the age of drugs and casual sex.

From Movie review: Scene a lot of Films – On the Road

Garrett Hedlund’s performance as Dean provides the bedrock; his exuberance engages the audience just as Dean’s affects his fellow travellers. They are fascinated by his Peter Pan-like nature; however, the boy who will not grow up ultimately burns out instead.

From blogs –

Generation Y-er’s are considered a transient generation. Not subject to inscription, homeland wars, famine, or any great depression bar the financial meltdown of 2008, Generation Y has generally been regarded as freer and less responsible than generations before. Perhaps a path paved by the parents who came of age in the ’60s in the wake of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, this generation has been raised by the ideology of freedom from responsibility. This position is inherently derogatory and it refrains from considering the social context of this Peter Pan-labeled generation, and the pressures placed upon it by an aging society.

It may be stupid, but Dean is sort of like a grown up, drugged out Peter Pan who just doesn’t want to act like he has grown up.

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