[Slurpeez]

The moment Hook looks like he’s making progress, he takes two steps back. Does he get called out on this behaviour? Nope! Emma turns a blind eye. That the problem. The Emma we knew in the early seasons would’ve taken Hook down several pegs instead of pandering after him and ignoring any of his misdeeds. Emma is no longer Emma. Add in the bizarre costume choices and Emma looks ill, she’s lost that bright spark she had in the early seasons. Hook is now the more sympathetic character in the CS relationship because he’s inadvertently got himself attached to a clingy, needy woman.

This is pretty much spot on. Before anyone says we’re biased or embittered, need I remind you that Liam flat out said that Hook was too good for Emma because of how selfishly she treated Hook in S5a?

Liam: Emma, can we talk?
Emma: (Sighs) Is this like a protective big brother talk where you want to make sure I’m good enough for Killian?
Liam: No, because I already know you’re not good enough.
Emma: (Shocked) What?
Liam: Killian blames himself for ending up here, but he told me what happened. Sounds to me like it’s not his fault. It’s yours.
Emma: I think we both made mistakes.
Liam: Killian’s been fighting darkness his entire life, and you pushed him off the cliff.
Emma: I was trying to save his life.
Liam: (In a sharp tone) And it was a bloody selfish thing to do. He had a chance to die a hero, to move on, and you took it from him.
Emma: That’s not fair. I’m down here risking everything to save him.
Liam: And is that really what he needs… or what you need?
Emma: Were you this self-righteous when you were alive?
Liam: When it came to my brother, yes. If he defeats Hades today, he’ll forgive himself and he’ll have another chance to move on. When that happens, stop thinking about your own desires and let him go.

Liam was, of course, sticking up for his little brother. At first, I thought it was strange that Liam would say Hook was too good for Emma seeing how Hook is a pirate, but Liam has a point. It was Emma’s fault that Hook became a dark one because of her own selfish insecurity.  Only a few characters like Liam and Regina seem to get that neither Hook nor Emma bring out the best in each other.

Also, I don’t see how anyone who is or was a real fan of Emma could be unconcerned for her internalized victim blaming and codependency. (Please, see my list a couple of pages back for my complete assessment). Emma is so codependent with Hook that she chose to use the pixie dust to find him rather than wake up her parents — despite not knowing if there were another way to wake them up. Yes, Emma had Snow’s blessing, but what about Emma’s little brother? Should she have even risked making him grow up without their parents the way she had to?

[Slurpeez]

Bar Farer wrote: They could have gone to Emma, could have told her that they are her parents, prepared her for her destiny and brought her back to storybrooke on her 28th birthday.
So they wouldn’t have tried to raise her, just told her about her destiny and come back for her on her 28th Birthday? Would she have believed it though? And if they tried to raise her, how would that have worked logistically with her being in the foster system? They would let Snow and Charming just “kidnap” her.

I think little 10-year-old Emma wouldn’t have had any problem believing in magic had her parents magically popped out of her closet when there was no real explantation (i.e. no trap doors). Seeing is believing. Plus, kids often believe in magic. As to her parents’ claim, they had DNA tests in 1993.

"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

[Slurpeez]

Bar Farer wrote: “It’s okay. I didn’t exactly make it easy for you to tell me the truth” – Emma blaming herself about Hook lying to her.
But is that not just Emma rationalising Hook’s flaws because she has this idealised view of him therefore Hook is not allowed to fail in any way?

It’s not just that Emma has an idealized view of Hook (though she does have that). Emma has the number one characteristic of a codependent person: “an exaggerated sense of responsibility for the actions of others.” I think she is making excuses for Hook left, right, and center in part because she feels the need to take responsibility for his actions in order to rescue him. This is what people so often do when they’re in a codependent relationship. Remember when Hook lied about getting rid of the shears of destiny and only confessed because Henry caught him? Emma again excused Hook’s misbehavior. From 6×6:

Emma: It’s okay. I get it.
Hook: You do?
Emma: I would’ve done the exact same thing.

And then she made a face like she was really sad.

It’s almost as if the writers, and the actors, were subtly trying to tell us something is off. Beneath the surface of seeming happiness, Emma is deeply unhappy. He keeps lying to her time and time again, and she keeps making excuses. As Emma said to Archie, “this happiness is an illusion” because Hook might lose his happiness.

When Emma gave back the ring in 6×14, she said:

You come to me, Hook, and you lean on me and you trust me! We have to stop hiding things from each other.

I thought to myself, oh good for her, progress! At least she seemed to recognize they have a pattern of hiding things from each other. But then she added:

The man I fell in love with would know that. You would know that we would do things together. That is what I agreed to marry. That is what I thought that we were together.

Which man did Emma think she fell in love with exactly? She didn’t fall in love with Prince Charming. She fell in love with Captain Bloody Hook! What did she expect? When they first met, he was lying to her about being a blacksmith and hiding under rotten corpses. What on Earth gave Emma this impression that Hook would know how to behave the way her father does? Yes, he’s made strides in the right direction, but he still has been lying about big and small things for as long as they’ve been dating.  I think @PoM is right, too. Emma has this idea of Mr. Wonderful built up entirely in her head. She has a fantasy of how her future husband ought to behave, but Hook doesn’t measure up. Her parents have a fairytale relationship, and Charming is well, Prince Charming. She craves the kind of relationship her parents have. Yet, Hook keeps falling short, unable to live up to this impossible standard because he’s a former pirate and prone to darkness. What does Emma say to Hook then? She dangles a carrot before Hook and tells him to shape up; only then he can have her love and marry her, his own personal savior.

Then Emma said: “Until you’re ready for that then we can talk.”

That is why Hook drank and burned his memories of murdering Robert in the first place. He didn’t think he could face Emma, knowing he’d killed her father’s father as a cold-blooded pirate. Conerning his relationship with Emma, Hook even said to Nemo:

“I’m not the man Emma needs me to be.”

He doubts himself precisely because Emma has these high standards, and when Hook is being honest with himself, he knows this and tells her so. Recall what Emma said to Hook said when she found him in the UW. He sees himself clearly as being weak and likely to give into darkness while Emma insisted he had acted heroically.

Emma: What’s wrong?
Hook: It’s just, um a lot has happened between us.
Emma: Then what’s the problem?
Hook: I’m the problem. Emma, you were the Dark One for six weeks and only gave in to the darkness out of love. I plunged in headfirst in a second for revenge! I was weak!
Emma: Not in the end.
Hook: You raised the bar very high, Swan. The fact is, I don’t measure up.
Emma: Let me be the judge of that. If you didn’t, would I have come all the way down here to try to save you?
Hook: That’s my point. I’m not sure I deserve saving.

Emma keeps insisting that she should be the judge of Hook’s behavior for herself, but that has led Hook to drinking heavily and lying to avoid being deemed unworthy in her sight. By making herself the judge of Hook’s behavior, the yard stick of measuring when he is “good” and “bad” enough for her to accept his offer of marriage, she has condemned Hook to keep lying to her (i.e. about the shears of destiny and the murder of her grandfather). At least Hook seems to see himself clearly. Emma seems to have these blinders on.

Re: Emma. I’m just totally puzzled by what the audience is supposed to see. If this were a YA story, and therefore didactic, you would expect a cathartic fight with the main female character’s best (preferably male) friend who, after weeks of pouting, finally blows up with a “I don’t like the person you’re becoming!” thereby articulating the audience’s discomfort and suspicion that maybe this isn’t how a healthy relationship should look. But the fact that Charming forgave Hook makes me think the writers are completely oblivious to how Emma is coming across.

I just….don’t really see how any of this could be unintentional or unconsciously done on the part of the writers or the actors, but I’m afraid it really is.

Here’s what I don’t quite get. I can’t get over the fact that Emma the character is supposed to be in her early 30s. She’s a grown up woman, for crying out loud, but her emotional development seems so stunted that what seemed like a charming character flaw in the early seasons — I remember people writing about how she has the emotional maturity of a 12 year old boy — is no longer charming, but really heart-breaking and a little pathetic….At this point, Emma’s had the time and emotional support to grow and develop, but it just seems like she’s gotten worse, not better. So what gives?

Emma hasn’t made any lasting or real progress emotionally speaking. Yes, she was closed off and has opened herself up to love, but I think almost too much the other way. That is what codependeny is. It’s when you have issues of intimacy and boundaries. Before, she didn’t have any intimacy. She was closed off and jaded after Neal left and after a lifetime of feeling like an orphan. Yet, she opened her heart to Henry, Mary Margaret, August, the town and it was wonderful to behold. It’s interesting that it was her family who showed her how to have healthy intimacy. Yet, then Hook had to be the one to “knock down her walls.”  Well you know what? Sometimes walls are there for a reason! We wear armor to protect ourselves! Sure, people, especially women, can be vulnerable and let in people whom we know are safe like trusted loved ones, real friends and family, but we shouldn’t let down our guard for just anyone or we risk being hurt! Sadly, there are bad people in the world who would prey upon people, especially broken women who come from a vulnerable population, as Emma does. Hook used to be a sexual predator, too. He said that his tactic for getting women to sleep with him was to get them too drunk to resist his “charms.” He was a sexual predator and she is still an emotionally vulnerable young woman, despite being 30-something.

Heck, honestly, she seems to be regressing. I am not (or I hope I am not) confusing her “walls” with maturity. I don’t mind characters being vulnerable, we have seen that in all the other adult characters on the show, that is normal, and that is healthy. But she seemed more functional in her day to day life in season one/two/three. I don’t mind the odd bought of not being able to function.

She still feels like a lost little girl, despite having found her parents, but Emma needs to learn that armor is there for a reason because it lets in the safe people and keeps out the bad people. Emma has fallen for a man whom she never never  previously would’ve let in had it not been for her lifetime of abandonment issues. Emma feels like an orphan, and as a dark one, Hook used that fact to prey upon her known vulnerability, to attack her emotionally, and then physically to threaten the very family whom she’d spent a lifetime seeking. And now Emma has chosen said former predator over the parents whom she’d been looking for forever and threatened to make her baby brother grow up without their parents.

Now Hook and Emma have been shown to have true love (a la pixie fower, dumbest magical MaGuffin ever), but then again, so have Rumbelle, the other bad-boy/good-girl couple on the show, who’ve also been shown to have an unhealthy power dynamic and similar history of lying, deception, and betrayal. At least Rumple is now being honest with Belle about his addiction. He even straight up said in 3×13 that he’s addicted to dark magic but that he doesn’t want it for his son. At least that shows some progress for their relationship and character growth for Rumple. So what do we really expect? I dunno anymore with these writers.

"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

[Slurpeez]

Like i said, i liked the emotion of the scene a lot, but it is just completely inconsistent with Season 1 and 2 and so their decision makes no sense because of the inconsistency. They changed how the curse worked, how the savior worked, everything to create a different choice then the original choice and then tried to pretend that it was the original choice when it was different.

You’re right. There wasn’t anything stopping Snow and David from getting Emma other than PLOT. In season two, Emma and Snow learned that Snow, rather than Pinocchio, could’ve gone through the wardrobe with Emma. Emma having her mother wouldn’t have prevented Emma from being the savior because Snow would’ve raised Emma to believe in fairytales. Emma would’ve accepted her role as the savior because she would’ve believed. That was the essential part of her accepting her role as the savior, the belief, not her age. In fact, Emma was always the savior since she was born because that is how Rumple had engineered it. Therefore, her age was irrelevant.

"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

[Slurpeez]

After tonight, let’s add to the list of severe codependency, shall we? Emma just used a magical MacGuffin to find Hook rather than wake up her parents. She always puts the pirate before everyone else, including her family. Yes, they found a way to wake up Charming and Snow, but there was no guarantee that would happen. For all Emma knew, she was condemning her parents to eternal slumber and her baby brother to growing up without their parents the way that she had to do! Emma Swan is is a Pod Person. She has become one of most selfish characters I’ve ever had the misfortune to care aboout. Had I known this would be her trajectory, I never would’ve gotten invested in her character or this story.

Is there anyone among the main characters who isn’t either (1) from a single parent household, (2) hasn’t been abandoned or separated from primary caregiver(s) at an early age, (3) didn’t have one or both parents die at an early age and/or (4) didn’t have a narcissistic, manipulative and emotionally unavailable parent?

I don’t think any of the main characters qualify. Only Baby Alexandra (Cinderella’s) kid and maybe Baby Snowflake do, but not if Charming and Snow keep making terrible parenting choices.

"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

[Slurpeez]

This was the mother of all retcons. I didn’t really think the writers would tamper with season one, but of course, they did, and Snow and Charming were awake because of a pixie flower. Are you flipping kidding me? There was no magic in A Land Without Magic, so how on Earth did a pixie flower magically spring out of the ground? Why then? How? I know my questions are utterly pointless. And don’t get me started on how stupid it was for Snow to insist that Emma use the pixie flower to find Hook. Snow already left her infant son to follow Emma to the UW to save the pirate after he tried to kill everyone. Sure, Snow, another great parenting decision. You take that risk of you and your husband being in a coma forever; never mind that you could have left yet another child a de facto orphan. And Emma? Seriously? I know she is severely codependent with Hook now, but she doesn’t seem to care at all about her family anymore. She only seems to care about Hook.

"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

[Slurpeez]

Emma has been controlling Hook since season 5. First she turns him into a dark one against his wishes, then she erases his memories so he doesn’t know what she did to him, then she follows him to the underworld to bring him back despite him telling her to let him go which results in Robin’s death, then in season 6 she rifles through his things until she finds the engagement ring and then pressures Hook into proposing even though he was trying to confess what he did to Charming’s father, then she has a go at him for not telling her what he did despite the fact he was trying to but she was more interested in him popping the question because she knew what her answer was.

*sigh* It’s almost as if the writers were trying to tell us something (i.e. Hook and Emma aren’t right for each other)! There have been some not-so-little setbacks like Hook lying about the sheers of destiny and trying to burn his memories of murdering Charming’s father in cold blood. Hook keeps trying to live up to this high standard in order to be with Emma but falling short while Emma keeps acting co-dependently. She clings to Hook like a drowning woman tries to cling to a life raft. It’s just not pleasant to watch in any shape and form and yet these two are supposed to tie the knot  soon!

Hook has actually been trying hard to change in season six, despite his set backs, as demonstrated by how Hook has kindly treated Belle, helped to save Henry from his brother, and helped prevent Charming from killing King George. In fact, I’d say that Hook has actually been likeable ever since his resurrection and that he really is trying to better himself, but it’s just his relationship with Emma that keeps causing him to stumble. He was so unhappy about how to tell Emma about his past as a pirate that it led him to drink heavily. I’d say that’s a big problem if one’s romantic partner leads him to get drunk.

As PoM wrote, Emma has become the unhealthy partner in this unhealthy relationship! She’s needy, unstable, and can only think about how her foreboding death would affect Hook and not her own son or parents. She talked to Archie about how her vision of her death would mean Hook would lose his happy ending (not even her own life or her own son’s happy ending)! All Emma can think about now is Hook. In fact, I think Emma is suffering from a clear case of codependency. I looked up the symptoms and Emma pretty much ticks all of the boxes:

What is codependency and what are its symptoms? It is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. It is also known as “relationship addiction” because people with codependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive. Source: Mental Health America

According to that source, characteristics of co-dependent people are:

An exaggerated sense of responsibility for the actions of others. This is the Savior Complex!
A tendency to confuse love and pity, with the tendency to “love” people they can pity and rescue. Emma feels the need to rescue Hook because he made her his own personal savior!
A tendency to do more than their share, all of the time. This is Emma! She said she doesn’t get to have a day off because she’s the savior.
A tendency to become hurt when people don’t recognize their efforts. This might be true to Emma to an extent. She’s always reminding people that she’s the savior after all.
An unhealthy dependence on relationships. The co-dependent will do anything to hold on to a relationship; to avoid the feeling of abandonment!! This is Emma to a tee! She’s got huge abandonment issues and clung to Hook after he asked her to let him go, instead making him into the dark one, the thing he hated most. She even risked her son’s life by taking her family to the UW to get back the pirate — after Hook told her not to!
An extreme need for approval and recognition. Emma questioned who she is without the Savior identity. It gives her recognition from others.
A sense of guilt when asserting themselves. Emma hardly ever tells off Hook when he does something wrong. Her giving back the ring wasn’t even about his murdering Robert. It was about his lack of trust in her.
A compelling need to control others. This is so Emma. She literally used the dark one dagger to control Hook. She also uses emotional blackmail to get Hook to be a good boy and keep in line. She tries to soften herself by appealing to his sense of manhood to get him to accept what she wants.
Lack of trust in self and/or others. If one thing has been established it’s that Hook and Emma don’t trust each other. They kept betraying each other’s trust all throughout S5a.
Fear of being abandoned or alone. Yep, this one is definitely Emma. She still feels like an orphan, which Hook knows and uses to keep her in a relationship with him. He emotionally abused her when he called her an orphan and and said she was her own worst enemy.
Difficulty identifying feelings. Yep. Regina, Snow and even Hook know it: Emma isn’t in touch with her true feelings, at all.
Rigidity/difficulty adjusting to change. Emma is certainly rigid. She had a really hard time settling into SB.
Problems with intimacy/boundaries. Yep, we all know that Emma has huge problems with intimacy and boundaries. At first, she kept everyone at a distance because it was her armor. Then she slowly let her son and Mary Margaret into her life. She is friends with Regina now, which is positive, but she has let Hook destroy her walls to such an extent now that he basically has fooled her into thinking she must put his needs and wishes before her own or even Henry’s. (Sounds like Milha and Baelfire all over again).
Chronic anger Yep, Emma just punched Gideon in the face for sending away Hook, despite the fact that Hook was fine!
Lying/dishonesty Yep — Emma took away everyone’s memories and lied to her family about why she was the dark one to keep Hook from finding out what she’d done to him.
Poor communications – Yep, Emma cannot really open up to anyone, even to Hook it seems. Charming even made some comment about how strange it was for Hook and Emma to have so many secrets from each other despite living together.
Difficulty making decisions. Emma had a really hard time making up her mind whether to ask Hook to move in with her or not.

Hmmm…..sounds like Emma ticks most, if not all, of those boxes, doesn’t it? She has so many issues! Emma doesn’t really care about helping Gideon defeat the Dark Fairy or saving the children that she kidnapped and took to the Dark Realm. At present, Emma doesn’t even seem to care that the Dark Fairy may have a doomsday plan for SB. Emma only seems to care about getting “her pirate” back (ick). Why isn’t she really concerned about Gideon’s warning that the Dark Fairy may have something much darker than the dark curse planned? Emma declared that Gideon was unsavable after he tried to kill her again (under the control the Dark Fairy), but she doesn’t care one bit that Hook tried to send her son, her parents, and the entire town to hell last season. *head desk*

"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

[Slurpeez]

Re-watching all the seasons you really see how this show could have and yes should have gone with Baelfire and Emma. The two of them being the final happy ending uniting both the dark and light sides of magic would have been the perfect ending.

Agreed.

And I hope it’s not uncouth to mention him in this thread, but I think Hook would’ve made a very entertaining and much more natural relationship fit with Regina. Please nobody throw stones at me… I bruise easily.

In season two, I also thought Hook and Regina would’ve been a good couple. They had mad chemistry in season two. I liked that idea until Hook double crossed Regina, as he did so many people, and gave her over to be tortured by Greg Mendel. Regina has said how much she and Hook are alike. I think that would’ve been a better pairing. We already had a bad boy and good girl couple (Rumple and Belle). Having two recovering villains like Hook and Regina get together would’ve been different and fresh.

"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

[Slurpeez]

Agreed. The show now isn’t ending how it was conceived at the very start. Adam and Eddy have said on record that they hit a reset button after 3×11. While season six will end the way they planned at the end of season five, the series itself won’t end the way they’d previously intended before they switched course. Eddy evaded answering the original question, giving a different reply, and Adam was more forthcoming and honest.

"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

[Slurpeez]

I don’t think we were naive about where the story itself was headed. Clearly, Emma and Neal were the two characters who were shown to have true love from the very beginning, as underscored by the actors’ choices as well as the narrative when their swan pendant crossed realms. On a show about the power of true love and family reconciliation, their return journey home to Tallahassee together with Henry was clearly where this story was headed. Their story of reconciliation was underscored by how Once Upon a Time in Wonderland ended when Will Scarlet and Anastasia reconciled. Will said:

“Love isn’t simple. It’s messy. It’s arguing and making up. It’s laughing and crying and struggling and sometimes, it doesn’t seem worth it. But it is. Because when you’re in love, in the end, you forgive each other. I forgive you, Ana, for what you did to me. Because I love you.” Will Scarlet

Will and Ana’s story was one of forgiveness, of healing, and eventual restoration. She came back to life because her story was meant to continue while the red queen’s journey wasn’t. I think the writers gave the story they’d intended for Neal and Emma to Will and Ana, which is why it was so powerful to see on screen and why it still resonates with many of us today. At least we got to see the plot play out, even if it was on the spin-off show.

Perhaps we were naive about how Hollywood actually works and how TV writers often will sell their birthright for a bowl of stew, but I don’t think we fans of Emma and Neal were wrong about predicting where the story was headed. There was a major reset button hit at the end of S3a. Adam and Eddy said as much. Things changed, that’s all, but I don’t think we were wrong about where the story was headed before the reset button got hit.

"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

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