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Let me guess. Regina sees Robin Hood in a vision the way Emma saw Neal in a vision. Somehow Robin projects himself to Regina but she thinks she’s dreaming (even though she’s not).

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No, they won’t kill off Emma. Not only is she the show’s protagonist and audience insert, but the time to kill Emma already came and went. Emma dying to save her family in Swan Song and then her family getting her back from the UW would have made perfect narrative and mythical sense (since saviors have been known to die and be resurrected).  However, they chose to go with making Hook into a dark one and then getting him back instead (which didn’t make sense). I predict Emma won’t die since Regina will save her from the Evil Queen. Regina defeating her own evil self will be Emma’s loophole to defeat her villain (aka the Evil Queen).

"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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The scenes between Hyde and Emma were well done, and well-written. Also, the actor who plays Hyde has kind of an amazing voice. Just me?

I did like that scene in the jail cell for the insight it gave into the fate of saviors, but I thought the dialogue was a bit clunky. Are we really supposed to believe that Hyde knew Emma had been in jail because of her caged look? I just thought that was a bit too convenient for the sake of plot. The actor who plays Hyde does have an interesting voice, but I still fail to see what Hyde’s motivation is. Why did he really bring the characters from the Land of Untold Stories to SB? Does he really want to see their stories play out for some benevolent reason like he’s their savior? Mr. Hyde strikes me has having more malevolent motives but he wouldn’t be the first “misunderstood” villain on this show either.

"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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What made me take note about The Savior were (1) Emma’s vision of her own death and conversation with Mr. Hyde and (2) Regina’s conversation with Snow. Did anyone else get major SQ vibes from when Regina’s monologue was overlaid on top of Emma struggling to contain her shaking hands?

I’m thinking specifically of the part when Regina said:

To others, I’m… a hero. [screen flashes to Emma]. They’ve seen my strength, my ability to do the hard things, even when I thought I couldn’t. I want to start a new story. One where the Evil Queen doesn’t get a part. And I choose to believe that this story… will have a better ending than my last.

Emma sees Regina as a hero now. Emma said earlier in the episode that it wasn’t Regina’s evil side that made her strong — the implication being that Emma sees Regina’s inner strength. Regina’s inner strength is being contrasted with Emma’s growing weakness and inability to deal with her own savior status. As Emma falls, Regina will pick up the slack and save Emma.

Mr. Hyde said, “Wherever there’s a Savior, there’s a villain who brings them down. That’s how the Savior’s story always goes.”

The Evil Queen is clearly Emma’s villain, and it’s not just my opinion . Eddy Kitsis said something very similar, which seems to give away a lot.

“We’ve seen in the past that Emma’s Jafar was always the Evil Queen. Now that she’s out there somewhere, I would be worried about that,” Kitsis teases. (source)

Emma is being paralleled to Aladdin, another savior, and the Evil Queen is being paralleled to Jafar. The Evil Queen isn’t just going to target Snow White but also Snow’s family. Regina saw Emma as her biggest threat in season one, the person who could take away Regina’s happiness. Regina’s inner fear since season one wasn’t just that Emma would break the dark curse but that Emma would take away Henry from her. I’m also thinking it’ll be Regina who saves Emma by dying at the hands of her own evil alter ego. However, Regina won’t actually die since there’ll be some loophole like if a person gets “killed” by her evil doppelganger then she won’t die but simply gets reabsorbed or something like that. It’ll be Regina’s way of paying back Emma for saving her from the dark one curse back in the season four finale.

There will be no denying the obvert SQ ultimate sacrifice. It seems like major foreshadowing when Regina said, “And I choose to believe that this story… will have a better ending than my last.” Clearly, Emma and Regina are the stars of the show. They won’t really die. Regina “dying” at the hands of her own evil side might be the loophole for Emma to escape the doomed fate of all saviors that Mr. Hyde spoke of to Emma. The former villain dying to save the savior out of love seems like Emma’s way to escape her otherwise all-but-certain downfall.

"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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Emma is the one keeping the secret from Hook, not the other way around (though he does have many skeletons in his closet still). Her secret is probably having shaking hands like Aladdin and fearing she’s cursed to live alone due to being the savior.

"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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A song by The Velvet Underground & Nico

We’ve got Sydney, the looking glass from Alice and Wonderland, and some other literary options.

 

"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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For example, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when we want to look at Emma’s internal struggle and emotional journey, a lot of the quotes come from JMo–not A and E–a person who, at the end of the day, has no knowledge of where the show is headed nor has any contribution to her character’s story

I just wanted to address this one point for now. A&E did speak about Emma’s internal struggle in a manner that I believe is very similar to the way JMo did.

After sacrificing herself in last season’s finale to save Regina (Lana Parrilla) and her family, Emma is now trapped with the powers of an ancient evil. “Every part of her is fighting her dark urges,” executive producer Edward Kitsis says. “What happens when [the darkness] mixes with the lightest magic of all, and will Emma have the strength to fight it?”

The real question is how the powers of the Dark Swan — yes, that’s what they’re calling her! — will differ from Rumplestiltskin’s (Robert Carlyle). “How a Dark One manifests is specific to each person who takes on the mantle,” says EP Adam Horowitz. “Emma will have her own unique spin on what it means to be a Dark One.”

Becoming the Dark One “allows you to have the freedom to have no inhibitions,” Kitsis adds, which could play a role in exactly how Emma uses her powers. “We are going to be exploring love and what happens when you use it as a weapon and what are the things that it makes you do. In the past, we’ve said love is the most powerful magic of all. It makes you do many things you normally wouldn’t think you would.” Entertainment Weekly

Emma not having any inhibitions as the dark one is the same language JMo used. Emma no longer being constrained as the savior and using love as a weapon were things I touched on in my earlier analysis. Everyone is free to her opinion; I just thought I’d share in case anyone were interested.

"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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I understand that and I knew you’d bring up Eddy’s quote (it’s your go-to one, even 4 years later). But the problem is that was S2. That was before Neal died. That was before ABC pushed the living daylights out of CS and Hook because they think that’s where their profit lies.That was before A and E had to run a show that wasn’t based off ten years worth of planning and work. I don’t believe A and E remember even half of what they said prior to the reset button of 3×11, nor do I think they care to remember.

I know the quotation is several years old, but I don’t think it’s totally irrelevant either since it seems evident that Hook is still being written as the person who is wrong for Emma. Season five was especially damning for Hook and Emma since it had all the text-book signs of a toxic romance. Despite Neal’s death in season three, I think the season-two quotation remains the narrative framework that the writers are applying to Emma and Hook’s relationship, which has been long and drawn out for ratings (despite them going down each half season). You say the writers are either oblivious or too proud to see CS as being toxic, but I don’t see it that way. ABC promotes CS for fans of Hook to watch and for “drama” reasons. Having a controversial figure like Hook at the show’s center gets people talking (or arguing); even negative publicity is still publicity.

If you don’t believe me, then that is absolutely fine. I don’t need other people to agree with me, and it’s fine for people to have different opinions. I’m just providing my own take. But here’s another, more recent quotation from last year that I think lends credence to the idea of Hook hindering Emma on her own hero’s journey:

“We also love the notion that two of the people that she has expectedly and unexpected grown closest to over the years, Regina and Hook, are both people who’ve battled darkness themselves,” Once Upon a Time co-creator Adam Horowitz added. “The fact that she is facing darkness — and they’ve faced it — [we can explore] how their experiences can inform what she’s going through and either help or hinder her. [It] is something that we want to explore this half of the season and beyond.” x

I think the writers are exploring the differences between Emma’s relationship with Regina (which helps Emma) versus Emma’s relationship with Hook (which hinders her). To me, Hook and Regina are literary foils. I’ve got another analysis on that very issue, but I think I’ll save it for later.

"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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Maybe but if they are her inner consciences, they are also the things Emma keeps flat out ignoring. She still did the thing Merlin told her not to do. And she still did the think Neal tried to warn her against. If these are Emma’s inner lights and her own consciences trying to tell her that something is wrong with these plans, with these relationships, with these decisions that she’s making, the writers are having her flat out refuse to acknowledge them or heed them. She keeps barreling through, doing as she wants. Damn the consequences. So how can they be personal revelations if she just ignores them and does she pleases?

Emma chose not to heed the warnings by giving into darkness but that doesn’t mean they weren’t moments of clarity for her. The relationship Emma has with Hook is the embodiment of her choosing darkness, but she still has light magic and is still the savor. Her vision of Neal was a moment of light amidst an ocean of darkness. I think she does sense that something is amiss with Hook, that something isn’t quite right. Their names were engraved side by side on Excalibur: it’s both literal and representative of how love can be a dangerous weapon — the stated theme of the first part of season five– when it’s used in a selfish way. Emma acting in direct defiance of her destiny was the entire point of season five in my estimation. Being the savior meant that Emma has had to put everybody else’s happiness before her own; it meant she lost her true love, Neal.

As a heroine, Emma felt compelled to act unselfishly, and she submerged what she wanted. Emma saved Regina from the darkness without regard for her own welfare. When Emma fully embraced the darkness to save Hook, however, Emma felt its lure and acted in a way where she basically said to heck with the consequences because she was uninhibited. Emma didn’t have to act like the savior when she was also fully the dark one.

“Emotionally it’s interesting because there’s something really fun and free about Emma in the darkness,” said Morrison. “She’s just free of the gravity of what other people think, the gravity of worrying about saving people. There’s a lightness, in a sense, in her darkness because she doesn’t have to do the right thing and she doesn’t have to be the stronger, better person all the time. So there was a little bit of freedom in that that’s really fun.” source

JMo explained that when Emma gave into darkness, she was free for the first time in a long time not to care about other people’s happiness. It’s like Emma told Hook on their “date” aboard his ship (when he rejected her as the dark one). Emma talked about not being scared any more. Emma shed her role as the savior because she embraced the darkness to save Hook.

From 5×3 – Emma: I used to be scarred and judgmental and closed off. Took me forever to see the magic in this place. And now I… I see things clearly. I’m not scared anymore. Honestly, I’m an open book, if you’re willing to take that trust step.

Emma’s decision to take the final step into the darkness and thether Hook to that sword was a rejection of her being “the savior” because she was attempting to throw off that label. Emma being the dark one meant Emma was free to act, not as the savior, but for her own interests as the dark one. It was selfishness that was at the center of Emma’s darkness.

JMO: She’s incredibly different in the sense that everything that the good Emma has always done has been motivated by wanting to do the right thing and being willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. That’s been the core of her worldview for her whole life, even in scenes that we haven’t seen on screen. There was always this fight within her to be able to overcome things and try to be a stronger, better person, and now that she has this Darkness within her, her instincts are to be selfish, which has never been her instincts as good Emma. That immediately changes every decision, and it immediately changes the way that she is capable of being manipulative, and conniving, and vindictive. All of those things were things that she was constantly pushing down and not dealing with as good Emma and overcoming and making the good, positive choice. And now, because she has that Darkness fueling her, when she’s faced with decisions, unfortunately, the selfishness is what’s pushing forward first. source

She’s been trying to defy her destiny to be responsible for everyone else’s happiness. Emma grew up in the real world where there are no fairy godmothers. While Neal certainly believed in fate, I’m not sure Emma has ever really wanted to embrace her destiny — not if it meant she’ll forever be doomed to go through life alone without even the hope of a happy ending. She’s been a reluctant savior since day one, and she only took on that role to save Henry in season one. Emma didn’t want to give up her happy memories with Henry in NYC either, but she did so because she thought it’s want Henry would have wanted her to do: to be the hero and save her family.

I think that is what Emma’s semi-prophetic dream of a wolf nearly eating her mother was all about in season five. As Regina pointed out, that dream was about Emma working out some deep-seated issues (which I think center on her fear of being an orphan because she’s the savior). She fears that being the savior will cost her not just her boyfriend but also her family. It was the dream that Regina said was about Emma facing her issues — the issues that Regina recognizes that Emma still keeps hidden. I don’t think she’s really dealt with her issues of still feeling like an orphan and not having a happy ending of her own. The closest Emma ever got to her happy ending was when Regina blessed Emma and Henry with good memories. Emma put that on the back burner when she went back to NYC with Hook in 3×12 to save her family from the Wicked Witch.

Emma probably tried to defy her fate by making Hook into another dark one. As Hook said, Emma didn’t need some villain sweeping in and ruining her life because Emma was perfectly capable of doing that on her own. While unkindly said, there was some hard truth to that notion; it was her selfishness to turn Hook into another dark one that nearly got her family all killed. She could have eventually been happy again with her family if she had let Hook die; to his credit, Hook said he would have been happy just knowing she just had a future. The dark one curse would been gone from the world since Emma would have put an end to it. The truly loving thing to do would have been to let Hook die when he asked her to let him go, but she acted with selfish ambition, understandably, in protest towards always having to put others’ happiness before her own. Too bad it backfired and really seemed to confirm the notion that happiness doesn’t seem to be in the cards for the savior.

I’m not trying to give false hope to anyone nor give A&E too much credit. At the same time, I’m analyzing it the way I’ve been trying to all along. I go back to something Eddy said in season two:

The pairing of Emma and Hook has gotten Once viewers talking, and Hook might not represent the ideal person for Emma to be engaged with. “I think that in all life, there are the people who are right for you and there are the people who are wrong for you, and then there are the people you just choose,” Kitsis said, before adding later, “I don’t know if she would stare at [Hook] and think he’d be a great father for Henry but he might be fun in Vegas.”The Hollywood Reporter

I think we’re still seeing the long and drawn out “some people are wrong for you” phase of Emma Swan’s journey.  But we probably won’t see the person that Emma just chooses until the very last segment of the story.

"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]

So, what do you guys think the signs in Emma’s true “dream”/vision with Neal means?

While it is probably a biblical allusion, I tend to think that Neal appearing to Emma in a vision was meant to be a personal revelation for Emma since the word isn’t limited to the divine. Neal was and always will be the one who is Emma’s idea of a real happy ending. Also, Neal represents everything that is good and noble to Emma. He was and always will be her true love. In other words, she was having her own epiphany just how right Neal was for her and how he really had her best interests at heart. Also, Neal’s warning to Emma clearly parallels Merlin’s warning to young Emma from 5×1:

When you do something that you’re not supposed to do, even if you do it for the right reasons, bad things will happen, Emma. Bad things.

Neal’s warning to Emma in 5×12:

Emma: Is this the Underworld? I was on my way to the Underworld.
Neal: Yeah, I know that’s where you’re headed. That’s kind of why I’m here. Don’t go, Emma. Once you get there, it is not an easy place to get out of. I know you’re trying to save Hook. But trust me on this. This won’t end the way you think it will.

Both Merlin and Neal appeared to Emma because they also represent her inner conscience, her inner light and also her sense of right and wrong. Merlin harnessed good magic and Neal was Emma’s true love. By contrast, Hook is all wrong for Emma. Emma embraced the darkness the moment she decided not to listen to Merlin’s warning. She did the wrong thing by trying to tether Hook to the sword, even if she thought she did it for the right reason like trying to save Hook. She still acted out of selfish ambition though, and it cost her the lives of two really good and honorable men: Merlin and Robin Hood, respectively. Her giving into darkness almost cost her her family except that Hook literally fell on his own sword in a last-minute choice not to mass murder everyone (thanks to Regina). Emma warning Henry never to darken his soul sounded to me a lot like Emma speaking from her own direct experience. She stained her soul when she selfishly clung to Hook.

I think that is what Emma’s real issue is: she fears that as the savior the cost of her magic isn’t getting to have a happy ending, which I think has always included Neal — something Snow and David recognized because they understand that Emma and Neal shared true love. I think that has been hinted ever since season three just before Emma and Henry had to flee to NYC to avoid Pan’s dark curse:

Emma: But bad things do keep happening.
David: So do good things. But if you think like that, you’ll miss out. There’s more to life than living for the next fight. You know, you gotta look for the moments.
Emma: Moments?
David: Yes, life is made up of moments. Good ones, bad ones, but they’re all worth living.
Emma: Well, I seem to be a magnet for the bad ones.
David: Well, all the more reason to look for the good moments in between the bad ones.
Emma: And you think having lunch with Neal is a good moment?
David: I don’t know. Does he eat with his mouth open?
Emma: I’m not sure I’m ready.

David and Snow were both right in their own way. They recognized in Neverland that Emma clearly still loved Neal. Emma told her parents that she never stopped loving him for eleven years, even after he let her go. However, I think Emma doubted that she could have what she always wanted — to find Tallahassee with Neal precisely because of her savior status. With Neal, she never had to be “the savior” since she was just Emma with him. They both just wanted the same thing: a home together. But she didn’t get to keep him precisely because of her status as the savior. He had to let her go because he was trying to get her home. Emma’s real issue is that she fears she’ll never get to have her real happy ending with the man she really loved. She fears she’ll never get to take a day off and just be Emma without bad things always happening to her due to the cost of her savior status.

That is basically what she told her parents in “The New Neverland” when they tried to encourage her to seize the good moments by having a date with Neal.

David: Yes, and because of you, you were right about Pan just like your mother was about Regina all those years ago. We’ll stop him and then you can—
Emma: Live my moments even though there’s still terrible things out there?
David and Mary Margaret: Exactly.
Emma: You’re great parents, but you’re wrong. I’m the… savior. I don’t have the luxury of having moments. It’s just not my life. Every time I think I’m going to sit back and enjoy myself, I can’t because it’s never going to stop.
Mary Margaret: I used to think the same way.
Emma: It’s different. My magic has a price. The price of being the savior is… I don’t get a day off.

That is the real reason I think Emma told her dad she “wasn’t ready” to have lunch with Neal. She feared that as soon as she went and had lunch with Neal that she would lose him again, and it turned out that she was right to fear it. She did lose Neal again, not just temporarily, but forever. She feared Neal would be ripped away from her again, that she was somehow cursed as the savior never to find happiness with the man she loved.

That is what Emma meant when she said it would have been easier if Neal had died in season two than to go through the pain of losing him all over again. Emma feared opening her heart to him again only to have him ripped away again. Emma being the savior is the entire reason Neal let her go in the first place — so that she could break the curse and find her family. He didn’t want to stand in the way of her destiny or finding her home. But Emma never asked for any of it. As she told August, she didn’t want any of it and that it was crap. She was just trying to save Henry. She wasn’t trying to be the savior of Storybooke.

Her fears were well founded and probably confirmed when Graham, Neal, and even Walsh died. That is what she said to Hook in season four:

Emma: That’s what you think this is about? That I don’t trust you?
Hook: Is that not what it’s about?
Emma: Of course I trust you.
Hook: Then why do you keep pulling away from me?
Emma: Because everyone I’ve ever been with is dead. Neal and Graham. Even Walsh. I lost everyone. I… I can’t lose you, too.
Hook: Well, love, you don’t have to worry about me. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s surviving.

Emma clung to Hook because he was the last man standing and probably a distraction from the real loss of Neal. After Neal died Emma transferred all of her real feelings for Neal onto Hook. I think that is why Emma basically cracked when Hook was about to die from the wound by Excalibur; it wasn’t so much that she couldn’t live without Hook, but she couldn’t loose him too after she lost so many other men. Hook’s death was basically a confirmation for Emma that, as the savior, she isn’t going to get a happy ending. She probably fears she’s doomed to be a black widow and live out her days without romantic love.

Emma clearly wants to have the truest of true love that her parents have. She wants to “give into love” the way they were able to and know without a shadow of a doubt that their love would save the day. They have the fairytale love that Emma deeply desires and wants to believe in. That is why she repeated her father’s line about always finding Hook, but she doesn’t have true love with Hook. That is why Hook’s cursed lips drained Emma of her true love magic. That is why she has never shared true love’s kiss with Hook. It’s why she nearly had a heart attack when she tried to split her heart with him. Hook and Emma have anti-true love because the kind of love they have is selfish. Hook’s selfish plea was the reason Zelena was able to curse his lips in the first place, and Emma’s selfish choice to defy Hook’s dying wish was the reason she succumbed to darkness. It was the darkest path she could have taken, according to Merlin.

By contrast, I think Emma’s dark one curse would have easily been broken had she and Neal kissed because they earnestly loved one another. That is why their swan pendant crossed realms not once but twice, as Belle explained. Emma really could have shared her heart with Neal because they did share that honest-to-goodness true love. She said she would have tried to split her heart with him had she known she could do that, but at the time, she didn’t know because Snow and Charming were still cursed to forget the missing year and didn’t remember they had been the ones to cast the second dark curse.

Basically, I think Emma’s issues are rooted in her fear that a happy ending just isn’t in store for her because of her savior status but that she clings to Hook out of a misguided notion that somehow she might be able to have it with him because he told her she’s his happy ending. I think the writers have been building to that conclusion ever since season three. That is the real reason why she desperately and selfishly made him into another dark one, even though Hook pleaded with her not to do that to him. After all, Hook confessed that Emma is his happy ending, and as the savior, she is supposed to give everyone his or her happy ending. Maybe Emma thought that if she could give Hook his happy ending then that would mean she could have one too. That is why she seemed so listless and empty when he died because his death again confirmed her fear that she’ll never get to have lasting love with any man — even the man who said he was so good at surviving.

From 3×12:

Hook: Swan! What the blazes was that?
Emma: A reminder that I was never save. All that I wanted, that I thought I could have was not in the cards for the savior. We leave in the morning.

Emma thinks that long-term happiness in the form of romance just ins’t in the cards for her as the savior. Walsh’s, Neal’s and then Hook’s death all seemed to confirm that for her. Even when Emma tried to take her own fate into her own hands and keep Hook by forcing him to be another dark one, it majorly backfired. It came back to haunt her because now she is responsible for the death of two really good men.

Emma’s real issue stem not only from fear of abandonment but also from being the savior. I think those are the real issues that she keeps buried deep inside, the ones that the show directly referenced in season five. It’s been building to season six. Regina tried to use the dark one dagger to help Emma see the real issues Emma keeps hidden. However, you’ll all recall that Regina and Emma got interrupted by Snow, David, and Hook before Emma could get to the real heart of the matter. The real issue isn’t just that Emma was afraid of moving in with Hook as she told him since we all know Emma has commitment issues after a lifetime of abandonment from her parents and later Neal. Her real issues are thinking that saviors don’t get happy endings, as she told Hook as far back as season three in “New York City Serenade.”

Hook: Alas, you’re the savior, not me.
Emma: You know what I was yesterday? A mother. Till you showed up and started pocking holes in everything I thought was real. When I drank that potion it was like waking up from a dream. A really good dream.

Hook himself isn’t really the man of Emma’s dreams. Being a mother and normal person is Emma’s idea of happiness. She doesn’t want to be trapped as “the savior” — which Hook clearly sees her as. He always calls her the savior and marvels at her immaculate status. In fact, I think Hook sees Emma as being his personal savior when he cast her as being his idea of a happy ending. Hook has secretly always wanted to a hero but he knows deep down that he’s weak, as he said when he pleaded with Emma not to make him into a dark one. To his credit, he said he wouldn’t be able to fight the darkness the way that she could. I also think that was why Hook rejected Emma when she embraced being the dark one in a desperate and selfish attempt to save him.

"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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