[kfchimera]

It could be another pocket world I guess maybe?  Sort of weird as then you have different versions of characters that Sora met but…oh well.  If you’re not going to draw a line of weird at Donald Duck Octo-mermaid or whatever that’s called, why stop anywhere!

Wasn’t there that whole storyline of a copy-world? I sort of zoned out on that game.

[kfchimera]

Hm….I love that speculation, if only they could be so creative.  Yvette Nicole Brown is awesome so more of her would be good even if we just get her voice on Bad CGI again.  Maybe the younger girl is showing how she became that goddess?

“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

[kfchimera]

That would be cool Nonnie!

“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

[kfchimera]

PoM: that’s what Emma said but doesn’t mean the writers couldn’t add to it, since it was obviously a simplification as it left out her relationship with Neal.    She wasn’t going to open up at that moment and say “A few years after the guy who was Henry’s father that I thought was the love of my life left me, I met this guy who [….]so after that one night stands are as far as I ever go.”

She never mentioned Neal then so stands to reason she could have left out other things.  She still has not on screen told the story of how he left, and he has not fully explained his side either.  He was sort of going into it but Emma cut him off and said it did not matter now in an angry “don’t want to hear it” way.  She might be more willing to listen now that she knows he loved her along, and after seeing the long reach of “fate” that meddled in their lives.  She did not still quite believe in “that stuff” at that point.

Substitute whatever tragic end to the potential in-between hypothetical relationship– he proposed and she said no, he turned out to be married, he played for the wrong team, whatever.  She could have had a relationship that went bust in there and we never knew until it was relevant to the story.

Red: I hope it changes the flavor of the fandom a bit and calms down the people who keep trying to read into what Adam says in order to “prove” which way the writers are leaning on this Emma ship or in general other sub-plots.  Probably not! But it is good to see Adam realizing how intently his words are taken.

“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

[kfchimera]

She was in jail for 11 months. He could be someone in the bail bond business, a guy she strung along as a friend who moved on, or she could be in didguise with Cora’d potion (OUAT polyjuice if you know harry potter), like peasant Regina.  So maybe  it is not someone from her life at all.

 

“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

[kfchimera]

Aw thanks RG–did you see Adam’s last tweet about hope?
Maybe we got through to him!  As great as it was to hear “hope” it just felt meaningless when he’d say it for all kinds of mutually exclusive ships.

Saying hope you enjoy the story, now, that’s sensible and we should all just sit back and do that. (But we wont’ lol). Hopefully he’ll stop encouraging the “twitter trolls” to think they can bully some sign of what ship he favors out of him, because really, that WOULD be a spoiler, and he’s not supposed to be doing that.  Even if it means he won’t be saying “Yes go go SF!” or anything, I’d rather see it come out in the writing most of all.  Interviews/tweets and all that are well and good but the proof is in the pudding as the saying goes.

https://twitter.com/KFChimera/status/404089735947096064

 

“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

[kfchimera]

I never saw it–any guess on the personality of this guy from previous roles? Not a great method of prediction but hey time to grasp at straws!

“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

[kfchimera]

I still think BroSwan could work because what Emma thought she knew and what happened might be different.  Maybe Bro Swan is from another home later on too, if not the boy who she thought replaced her.  Maybe this is not the first time he tried to contact her but before she was not ready to let him in, to listen  to a story that sounds incredible until you believe in magic.

I wonder if Emma was viewed a bit as a scary child, like in a Stephen King novel?   Did her magic freak out potential parents?  Did she run at some point thinking a family would not want her but they did?  There was somethin in the newspaper about her criminal past but we could not quite see it, just tragic set of events if anyone remembers.  I always thought she first got on the criminal path trying to protect someone, maybe this guy.

Or maybe he is the one who taught her how to steal cars.  Endless possibilities and months to speculate.

“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

[kfchimera]

There are people on both sides who would probably quit watching the show just because of the ship winning or losing, but might warm to a third option with the best of both and none of the flaws.  There are also people who care about neither ship and are sick of the focus on Emma’s love life problems and don’t like either guy much (Myrill and Happy Endings for example miss the S1 feel, even if the root of their concerns may be different).  I’m in between as I like  Hook and Neal as characters.  I am not indifferent to one story versus the other obviously, but not as diametrically opposed to say never.  Everything depends on how they write the story and do they butcher the characters to get to a fan pleasing result?
Triangles can result in badly written characters as the indecisiveness needed on the part of of the pivotal person in the situation undermines that character, then usually one side or the other gets revealed to be “the wrong one” all along with backward character growth.  In a movie, usually you don’t see the perspective of the third person at all, so that’s not an issue.Here we’ve seen both how Neal and Hook feel, and as well Emma that she is devoted to Henry, but her reactions are murkier with Neal and Hook.   Yet she loves Neal so a new guy is less a threat to SF. Right now all Hook has with Emma is the sense of relating to her and she found him attractive enough to kiss the way they did.  That is not too hard to imagine another character surpassing that light level of bond. It is possible that a guy from her past surfaces that she had a multi-year relationship with but just chose not to mention it to MM, preferring to imply nothing about her past.  Who knows?  It is a story and they can add and embroider and change meaning.  It is not as satisfying sometimes but we have to see their approach.I think Neal and Emma still have a more unique connection with the real world and fairytale mixing for them (not just fake SB memories), devotion to Henry and being forced to survive after being abandoned. Perhaps there were also some “Darlings” in Emma’s life who took her in and gave her some love, but PP ruined it.
I wonder if the writers might explore whether Emma really thinks the real world was nothing but cruel or is that as false as Neal thinking EF was nothing but bad.  Another parallel for both I think is to evaluate the truth of their assessments of the worlds they are from.

“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

[kfchimera]

I think Hook’s character has been growing, but the problem really is that some fans are racing ahead and declaring him “redeemed” as they do with Regina.  Maybe they’re right, and both Hook and Regina are just good now, all their former selfishness forgotten.  On the other hand, with both it seems to me an open question how nice they’ll be to people beyond the person they see as instrumental to their happy ending, particularly if that person does not want to choose them and only them in their life.

Milah did that for Hook, essentially and we all agree on one thing about Emma.  She would never do the same.  Henry is part and parcel of her, but it goes beyond Henry.  She also loves her parents, and it has been said many times: She loves Neal.

People keep qualifying that love, saying it isn’t true, or it is platonic and all these things but ignoring the fact that she doesn’t view him in the same negative and super-distrustful light THEY do.

Emma is not someone who has had a lot of love in her life, so those she feels this for are likely very important to her.  Neal may not have risked his life in getting her father’s cure, but he did risk his life at the fight with Tamara.  Even if he didn’t believe her going in, he thought there might be some danger when he says “I’m not leaving you alone in this place” because the empty cannery itself had an eerie feel to it.

Then when shot, he didn’t stay huddling there despite the pain and risk of exerting himself causing the blood to flow more.  He gets up and helps Emma down from the beam where she’s clinging.  Pulling your body weight up like that is tough and he saved her from falling in the portal.  I will never overlook the plot stupid reason he puts his back to the portal, but he was making sure she was alright.  Then he lets go of her despite knowing it means he might die alone, that his chances of being helped wherever he does end up are that much less without her.

Last season, people tried to argue Emma didn’t care much about Neal because she didn’t break down much.  Never mind we saw her sobbing on the floor, saying not just that she loves him, but she needs him, next to the portal.  Never mind we saw her shut down and grim, nor that we didn’t hear how she sounded telling Henry to judge, but we could see she was upset.

This season we had her on the boat blaming Snow and David for his death!  Then we see her reactions to his cave, and the speech where she admits she was angry she found out he loved her when it was (she thought) too late for them to be together and work through everything.  We saw the way she asserted that Neal taught her certain things with pride, the way it made Regina back down.

I wonder if Regina will feel jealous/angry that Emma potentially gets this second chance when she didn’t, but not sure how they will write that.  Despite Regina’s scene with Tinkerbell, not sure Regina would be sensitive enough to offer that type of “girlfriend” advice.  Having friends is something that Regina struggles with too (just look how she reacted to Katherine in S1!).   Yet to a Regina fan, these kind of doubts about her growth come off as “hate” perhaps, because if they see everything as justified reactions to Snow’s selfishness, well then, apparently Regina’s never been anything but loving and generous!

I just don’t think I can agree with that interpretation of Regina, anymore than I can with Hook’s character (though I don’t put them in the same category of self-absorption. He never tried to destroy everyone’s happiness as a goal in itself).

So I think there’s been growth for Hook, but the fans who argued he never did anything “really” wrong, who wanted to say all along he was just a good guy in overwhelming circumstances where everyone else was evil–this is a bit much for me.

Neal stood up to Cora, despite limited odds of success, but Hook chose not to do that.  He had his reasons for turning on her, when he said Emma and friends were safer, but that’s not the same as saying “This person is pure evil and I won’t help them because I saw her murder an entire village of people.”  He wanted that compass to complete his revenge.  When Emma didn’t trust him, that angered him enough to go back to Cora a woman he thought unsafe and dangerous.  Even if he did as has been argued and debated change his mind at the well portal, and throw the fight, the problem for me is he kept on helping Cora when they got to town.

He didn’t reveal his presence to Emma, or tip her off that Cora planned her son’s adopted mother harm.  His revenge meant more to him.  He could have helped Emma even the odds by telling her Cora had “things” on his ship, but he didn’t.  Even after Cora betrayed him by flooring him, he could have gone to the Charmings, Emma’s parents, and warned them and then gone after Rumple.  Even leave a note next to the knocked out Charming, perhaps.   “Sorry mate, off to kill the Dark one, but be warned, Cora and Regina are after the dagger to control him to kill you all, so Henry won’t blame Regina.  XXXOOO Hook”.

He just didn’t care that much about what would happen to Emma then.  Then he had a taste of life after revenge and he started to realize he was going about life the wrong way.  His moment in the tower with GOAT made him think, but he did not express until in the mines with Regina.  Then again in SOTM, when he realizes he wants to change.

So he has had growth, but how far along this path is he? The people who never saw him as unjustified in anything he did, who looked to limit his agency or never considered what other actions he might have done if a more honorable man, are now doing the same thing.

He is a man of honor when giving him credit for good things (saving Neal and Charming), but a pirate with low standards to surpass if he says or does something less than honorable (hinting for a kiss, flirting constantly with a woman on a mission to save her son who just lost someone she loves, not apologizing for starting a silly fight over a lighter).

I feel like Pan’s tests of character were soft-ball pitches.  He does not trust Pan, so why kill Charming and hope he keeps his word?  He’d be in worse shape to return to camp and face an angry Snow and Emma.  Regina might be annoyed to the extent she thought Charming was useful to help get Henry, or that it might make Henry blame her.  Or she might go volatile and feel no one should hurt them but her!  So not a good deal versus saving Charming, impressing him and Emma.  He did not go out of his way to bring it to her attention, but when she came to him to confirm the story (maybe sensing there was something he was not telling about it), he hints for more than a thank you.  Emma chose to respond the way she did so he did not force, but still, he was not honorable enough to refuse knowing her father’s life was not as saved as she thought.

Then the next soft ball, is the reveal that Neal is alive.  If we stick with Hook does not trust Pan, it makes sense he wanted to confirm the secret, but why not tell Emma and let her choose?  This idea of sparing her false hope rings false for me after he is doing that very thing with Charming’s life not fully saved.  Whatever his reasons though, at the end he is still revealing a secret that at worst gives him a way off the island, makes him look good for helping a guy he has been claiming as a friend, and gives him a rival for Emma.  Given his confidence in himself and love of challenges, not sure why that would be the same as choosing friend over love as for Ariel, who much more selflessly helped Snow even knowing she might not get a second chance at love at all.  She thought she’d miss her window to be with Eric at all, not have to compete for his love with others.  Eric didn’t know or care about Snow, so she wasn’t helping him by helping Snow.  All she had was risk from helping Snow.  Risk that she couldn’t save Snow, risk that Regina would kill her, risk that she’d be too late for meeting Eric, and finally, risk that he wouldn’t understand her being late even if she caught him somehow, because again, Eric has no love for Snow like Emma has for Neal.

So while the two situations were playing out in parallel, as happens in the show, they sometimes show contrasts, a dramatic parallel, rather than trying to say two situations are equivalent in other moral ways.

I do think Hook did good things of course in NL, that he is trying to be, as Molly said, honorable but it is still in his own concept of honor that might be sort of warped by the life he’s led.

So I ‘m not as confident that Emma sees everything in as positive a light as the fans who excused his sooting Belle in the back, after she spared his life, might do.  All that stuff he did before hasn’t really been on Emma’s mind lately, because she wasn’t thinking about a relationship and what type of person is he.  She was thinking about how to get Henry, how not to feel unhappy in this horrible place.

If I tune out all the fan noise, and the media and the spoilers out of context, and just concentrate on the story, everything looks much better.  And as to the spoilers, well, it helps to come up with SF-centered context too if we can, because obviously, people who want something else to happen will  only suggest other outcomes.
As RG mentioned–we’re usually way off no matter what we come up with, even if we get the occasional right guess or partially right guess.

No one is ever “right at every turn” as some claim.   Looking back, there were CSers who claimed Tamara was Neal’s real love, and he’d ride off into the sunset with her, that she wasn’t evil or on a mission.  Then they claimed Emma didn’t really care about Neal, didn’t still love him.  Then that his death didn’t mean much to her–she wasn’t affected much.  Then we are shown how devastated she was.

While there are issues with Neal, the show isn’t running from them.  They are showing how much Neal means to Emma, and how far he will go to ensure her happiness even at risk to his own.  The Tamara storyline showed us they don’t think they need to be together for Henry’s sake.  The Hook storyline is showing us they don’t need to be together because Emma has no one else who’d want her.  It’s showing us Neal doesn’t view Emma as property, or as someone who ought to be with him just because of how strongly he feels about her.  He isn’t telling her she’s his “Happy Ending” but just wanting so far to see her be happy, to get her to that home, whether she will allow him to be part of that in her life in a romantic way or not.

“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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