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I don’t have any new images to add, but this quotation from The Lion King seems to apply well to Emma and Neal’s relationship. When Simba is grown and seeking knowledge about his father, Mufasa, the wise but slightly nutty Rafiki literally slaps him over the head:
Oh yes, the past can hurt. But you can either run from it, or learn from it.”
[adrotate group="5"]"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
She would have just told Neal that all the pain and hurt was too much and that she is moving on and so should he. But she never does. She never tells Neal to move on. Even when he tells her that he’ll fight for her, she doesn’t say, don’t do that. She doesn’t tell him to let their love go and move on. So to me, that means a part of her still wants a future with Neal even though she’s not sure if she can have one with him. She doesn’t want Neal to move on and go on with his life without her. She herself isn’t really sure what she wants or what she can have anymore.
Emma definitely wants a second chance with Neal! Rumple said so to her face in “Manhattan” even though Emma kept saying “Do I look like a jealous ex?” as a defense. Yet, it’s clear she was! She told Neal it hurt her to see him having found “Tallhassee” with someone else. Emma doesn’t want Neal to move on because she still wants to have Tallahassee with him. She just wasn’t sure she was ready in 3×10 to meet Neal for lunch, because she kept expecting something bad to happen and then it did in 3×11. Yet, someday, she will be ready, and when she is, Neal will be waiting for her.
PriceofMagic Participant I like how both Belle and Neal said “I will see you again” to their respective loved ones when both Rumple and Emma believed they wouldn’t.
In my eyes, that is one of the biggest true parallels to Rumbelle. Also the way that Belle reacted to Rumple’s “death” in 3×11 was to say “he’s gone” just like Emma said “he’s gone” when Neal “died” in 2×21. Also, the way that Neal said he’s never going to stop fighting for Emma in 3×6 was a clear and deliberate parallel to “The Outsider” when Belle said she’d never stop fighting for Rumple. “You can’t keep us apart forever!” is the cry of every Rumbeller to this day! *hands tissue to RG*
astrawoid wrote: I really hope that they spend the second half of this season showing us that Neal and Emma are suppose to be together. I agree with everyone else when they have said why drag out all the feelings between Emma and Neal if they aren’t going anywhere with it?
Yes put us our of our misery if they don’t intend to do something
Just shoot us now! Yet, I really think the writers are dragging it out for the sake of 1) TV drams and 2) Emma and Neal getting back together is an end-game type reunion. My hope though is that if OUAT only plans on being around 4 seasons, then end of S3 would be the time to start Emma and Neal towards the road of reconciliation without the need for fake fiancés, road blocks or new curses. Emma and Neal have enough to work through on their own without added drama.
"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
If they wanted to make Neal just a bad guy who used her, they could have made it just about the watches, not complicate matters with the curse. I think they did that to make the situation seem one way to Emma, but another to Neal and that creates the tragedy of it, that for me at least, set me up to root for them to fix it.
Exactly. Emma’s belief is that Neal was a just a bad guy who left her heartbroken for no good reason. That is what the audience was conditioned to think ever since “True North” when Emma told Mary Margaret about the “truth” of Henry’s father. Yet, Emma only saw one segment of the truth. For ten years, she was completely in the dark about the entire truth of fairytales, curses or her role as the savior. Yet in 3×4, Emma tells her parents that actually, she knows better now and realizes that Neal never stopped loving her, just as she never stopped loving him. It doesn’t make it any less painful, but at least her eyes were then opened to the truth until she lost her memories again.
CS fans who claim that Neal could have stayed and helped Emma realize her true destiny are basically the ones with the burden of proof. Yet, August says that Neal staying with Emma would have prevented Emma from saving her parents. According to Adam and Eddy (you know the guys who actually write the show), Neal fell on his sword, gave up his idea of a happy ending with Emma, made the self-sacrifice for the sake of Emma’s family and everybody else from EF. Yet, it had to be the case that Neal left Emma to fulfill her destiny, for Henry to come looking for her, and for Henry to be the one to convince Emma by eating the poisoned apple. The only reason Emma stuck around SB was for Henry, because she was worried about him thinking Regina didn’t love him and that her kid was crazy to believe in fairytales. Emma wouldn’t have believed the truth coming form a grown man; look at how Emma reacted to August, who was turning back into wood for Pete’s sake. Yet, Emma didn’t want to believe the evidence and so she didn’t! It took Henry’s asymptomatic “death” for Emma to believe in magic and that Henry was telling the truth! She had to in the right frame of mind to believe and then emotionally had to be receptive to being a mother. I think Emma never would have embraced her role of the savior if Henry hadn’t thrust it upon her.
ETA: Here is another pro-Neal OUAT confession from Tumblr
"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
Whole-heartedly agree with all of THIS ^^^^
Adam Horowitz is a huge Rocky fan! Interesting!
“@GBerlanti: @AdamHorowitzLA It's the Empire Strikes Back of Rocky movies.” Yes!!!!
— Adam Horowitz (@AdamHorowitzLA) August 8, 2013
You fight great. But I'm a great fighter. Goodnight Rocky III!
— Adam Horowitz (@AdamHorowitzLA) December 17, 2013
That would explain all of the similarities I see between Neal and Rocky!
Neal was the only person who made it seem as though this wasn’t the end. Everyone else acted as though they’d never see Emma ever again. But Neal knows better. He knows how this has to play out because he has been through it before. This isn’t over.
Yep. The name Neal means “champion” which is interesting, since Rocky’s entire theme was to become a champion fighter.
"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
heatherc1275 wrote: That Neal post is amazing too and I’ve also re-read it a few times. He seriously needs some happiness at the end of S3 and I am hoping really hard that this is something in their plans. He desperately needs to have something good happen for him because IMO, you make a show a lot harder to watch when you have one character who keeps getting the crap beat out of him
He is totally the punching bag of ONCE right now. Cute kid looses mother in an affair. Cute kid looses father to dark curse. Cute kids looses his “real” family in act of heroism. Cute kid is traded by mother’s ex-lover to evil minions on dark island. Cute kid is forced to be 14 for 200 years in a cave. Cute kid meets the love of his life. Adorable guy must give up love of his life cause destiny. Adorable guy is alone for 10 years. Adorable guy makes ONE MISTAKE and is HATED by fandom. Adorable guy finds out he has a son and almost looses father in one week. Adorable guy is shot. Adorable guy has to go back to dark island of mismatched toys. Adorable guy had fight with papa. Adorable guy is put in a cage. Adorable guy is rescued by love of his life who says that the pain they went through is super painful. Adorable guy almost looses son. Adorable guy is stood up. Adorable guy looses father. Adorable guy looses love of his life and his son and is sent back home. Seriously. The heck.
You know who Nealfire reminds me of? Rocky Balboa from the Rocky film franchise! I can’t believe I didn’t put my finger on it earlier, but having read this description of Neal, it hit me. He reminds me of Rocky, the boxer who kept getting knocked down, but who kept on fighting and kept coming back stronger throughout the 4 films! Both Rocky and Neal have an underdog quality about them, both wear hoodies, which suggests they’re both streetwise. Yet, both Rocky and Neal have hearts of gold who try to do right by the women they love, even though the women in their lives don’t always see it that way. Rocky and Neal keep being dismissed by people outside of them, turned down, doubted, and even disparaged, and yet both Rocky and Neal kept their eternal optimism and turned away from self-doubt to self-belief! I think Neal’s story, like Rocky’s, will be one of an underdog who fought back, persevered, overcame internal and external obstacles and won the heart of the girl he loves. There is just something incredibly captivating about the story of overcoming. I have hope!
"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
Slurpeez108 wrote: Besides the fact that Emma has said three times that she loves Neal, always has, and always will ever since “Second Star to the Right,”
Three times in the space of eight episodes (SSTTR – Ariel), which spanned a time frame of about a week. That’s a pretty good average, considering they’re not even a couple at the moment. Just sayin’.
Yep! Why bother repeating this message unless the writers really want to hit home the fact that Emma loves Neal? CS fans say it’s just because Emma isn’t really in love with Neal. Really? If the writers wanted to show Emma moving on with Hook, they would have just left it with Emma saying she loves Neal in 2×21 and that being that. There would be no reason to drive home the point by continuing to have Emma repeat it in S3.
Absolutely. And the fact that she said it in front of others, which is a thing that does not come easy to Ms. Swan! She said it in front of her parents, two people who understand better than anyone those bumps on the road to true love and happily ever after.
I think it’s clear that the writers have shown the Charmings trying to impart parental wisdom to Emma and her continuing to reject it. She told her parents in 3×1 that they have equal amounts of wisdom because they have they’re the same age. Ummm, technically, no they’ve still been alive 28 years longer than Emma; they were just frozen for nearly 3 decades. Also, Snow and Charming hail from a land where happy endings are more common and true love more obvious. They are trying to give their daughter sage advice that happy endings start with hope. In 3×6 and in 3×10, Snow repeatedly said that Emma owes it to herself to see if she could work it out with Neal. In 3×4, Charming and Snow had just heard Emma bemoaning the fact that she’d lost Neal after realizing she’d always loved him and that she was angry she’d never ever have the chance to tell him again. So Snow calls her daughter on it and says she realizes Emma was pushing down the hope that Neal could be alive, but that Emma ought to have hope that Neal could still be alive. Snow recognizes that Neal is Emma’s second chance at happiness, just as Rumple realizes it and said so to Neal in 3×11. The big themes of 3×10 is that it’s important to look for the good moments amongst the bad, and Snow and Charming think having lunch is an important first step for Emma to take in not letting fear of losing Neal stand in her way at happiness. Emma was going to take her parents’ advice by meeting Neal for lunch when Peter Pan’s curse got in the way. That seemed to confirm in Emma’s mind belief that as the savior, she doesn’t even get a day off, much less a happy ending. So she tells Snow and Charming they’re flat-out wrong to have hope.
Emma’s experience of growing up in this world has taught her not to expect a normal happy life or to dream of being with Neal. The last time she dared to hope that she and Neal would have a home together, her destiny got in the way by separating them. In 3×11, Emma openly rejected her parents’ advice because she said bad things keep happening to her, and then they did in the form of Emma once again having to surpress her dream of being with her family, which includes Charming, Snow and Neal. After the sacrifice that Neal had made to get Emma home to her parents, she was again faced with making a sacrifice of her own for her son’s sake. Emma could have in theory gone back to the Enchanted Forest with her family, but then Henry would’ve been alone. So Emma made the self-sacrifice of saying goodbye to the people she loves for the sake of another person she loves, her son. Sound familiar? It’s a direct parallel to the self-sacrifice Neal made when he said goodbye to the woman he loves for the sake of her finding and saving her parents. I think this is deliberate, intuitional, and the way the writers are showing that extent to which Emma and Neal are both selfless characters, but they can’t keep them from their happy ending forever. Despite the trials, the separations, and the pain, Emma and Neal will find a way to be together in the end. Yet, Neal has already learned this lesson the hard way, because he had the chance to go after Emma when the curse broke, but didn’t. He told Mulan in 3×1 it’s the biggest regret of his life. He said when you find the person you love, you don’t hold it in. You say it! You fight for it. That is what Neal is doing, and why he imparts hope to Emma that their story isn’t over. He will see her and Henry again.
"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
So basically we have the Savior, the Reason, and the Believer! I often wonder if those three are united as a strong front, what type of magic would they produce.
I believe it would be the strongest magic of all: True Love!
kfchimera wrote: Hook is a pirate, and I wonder–what if the reason he is in NYC is similar to why August became the guardian angel–a bit of maneuvering? … I could see him steal the memory potion they make to take to Emma. They might even tell him there’s no way to break the memory curse without it, for example, Belle or BF should know it, even with true love, especially with the limited magic in NY where Emma is. So that would make CS fans happy because it establishes why Hooks kiss did nothing (which all we noncasual fans already know a kiss failing means nothing, only matters if it works) but in general, I don’t think a lot of them would find Hook acting piratey that way as off-putting, because it would be to them “See, he’s fighting for her, and he loves her, and look how Neal gives up.”
While the SF fan in my would like to see this happen for the sake of showing Hook’s true colors, I see a potential hole in this theory. True Love’s kiss with Emma should work even in A Land Without Magic. When Graham kissed Emma in “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” he remembered his true identity, not because he and Emma had true love, but because Emma embodies it! There was no magic in Storybrooke at that point, so the fact that Emma was able to restore Graham’s rightful memories meant that the magic was emanating from within her. Likewise, when Emma awoke Henry from the sleeping curse, that magic was powerful enough not just to wake up Henry, but everybody in the entire town, despite the fact that Mr. Gold still had yet to bring magic to the entire town. That means that it was Emma’s magic, combined with her true love for Henry, which was emanated from her kiss, and this was done all without he presence of added magic (Mr. Gold hadn’t dropped the love potion in the well yet). That tells me a True Love kiss, especially one with Emma, ought to be powerful enough to awaken her, even in New York City. The fact that it didn’t work, could just mean Hook has yet to make cursed Emma to fall for him. Yet, the fact that spoilers reveal Emma will drink a potion (probably from the Blue Fairy), tells me that Hook is unable to successfully cause Emma in her cursed state to fall for him (probably because Emma was never in love with him even prior to losing her memories). If the way that Emma actually remembers her true identity is by seeing the dreamcatcher, in combination with drinking the potion, then it will be pretty clear (at least to us SF fans), that Emma’s true’s love is not Hook, but Neal!
kfchimera wrote: Then for SF fans, it would be ok, Neal couldn’t go because of Hook being Hook, but come on “the heck”. When is he going to catch a break, and hopefully that happens when Emma sees the dreamcatcher and we get a realization from Emma that she’s still in love with Neal. Now she just has to get him, and then Hook has a realization as well that he’s been going about his happy ending the wrong way. Like Rumple and Regina, he has to give up what he thought it was all season long to find what it really is.”
I agree with this part! I think that Hook has yet to make any real sacrifices of his own, as we saw both Rumple and Regina did in 3×11. It seems like for Hook to get his actual happy ending, he has to be willing to give up his current notion, which is Emma. I think Hook’s actual happy ending entails him regaining a true sense of honor, which would mean him doing a selfless thing and helping his son figure, Neal, to reunite with his family, Emma and Henry.
"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
Anyway. Slurpeez I keep re-reading your post from above. It’s so accurate and spot on.
Awe, thanks everyone! Just calling it as I see it . I think this is the story the writers are portraying based on the subtleties and really obvious declarations of love between Emma and Neal. Besides the fact that Emma has said three times that she loves Neal, always has, and always will ever since “Second Star to the Right,” I’ve also seen hints and glimmers of hope along the way:
- how Emma remembers things Neal taught her, how Emma intuitively understands Neal, the Lost Boy because she was a Lost Girl,
- the way Neal said “Emma” in 3×4 or how Emma said “home” in that episode,
- Rumple’s speech to Belle in 2×16 about how she makes him wan to return to the best version of himself, which is when the camera pans to Emma and Neal.
- how Rumple, Tamara and Snow all recognize the way Neal and Emma look at each other
Why continue to bring up these subtle, and not-so-sublte, hints of love between Neal and Emma only to then rip the rug from underneath them? That is all too common and depressing for couples who really love each other not to even try and give it another go. If Emma and Neal get back together, it will have the added bonus of being Henry’s happy ending, too; but the most compelling reason is that Emma and Neal will finally achieve their mutual dream of Tallahassee together.
Because it would mean he lost his mother and his love to the same person all over, that family unit torn apart yet again.
It would be tragic, but I don’t think this will happen. I think the writers intentionally have set up this awkward family dynamic between Hook and Neal for a reason. Hook’s happy ending may not be with Emma (though that is what he currently believes it to be); Hook’s real happy ending may be regaining a true sense of honor by helping Neal reunite with Emma and Henry. There is a reason that the writers have held off on Emma fully realizing the complicated history between Hook and Neal. The writers hinted at it in 3×4 when Emma and Hook were talking in Baelfire’s cave, and Hook said that Bae got his talent as an artist from his mother; Emma gave Hook a curious glance like, “How do you know about Neal’s mother?” And of course, Hook brushed the truth under the rug by saying he and Neal had spent some time together. Hook was anything but forthcoming with Emma, I think, because he doesn’t want to weird her out with the truth. Hook destroyed Neal’s family as a child by seducing his mother, and it might be hard for her to accept that shortcoming in Hook, because Hook knows Emma loves Neal. I think if/when that piece of information comes to light, it will cause Emma to see truthfully how much Nealfire has suffered because of not only Rumple’s actions, but also because of Hook’s. So, I think this triangle is bigger than just competing for Emma; it’s about Hook and Neal having a long history in which Hook was a lousy father figure to little Baelfire. Rumple and Regina have both scarified their happy endings with their son figures by putting them first: Rumple was willing to die to save his son and Regina was willing to let Emma raise her son without any memory of her. We’ve yet to see Hook make a huge self-sacrifice like Rumple and Regina which is why I don’t think he’s found his true redemption yet; I think that will only come when Hook realizes that doing the selfless thing of not standing in the way of Emma and Neal is good form. Until then, I think Hook is only fooling himself into thinking he’s a man of honor.
"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
How could the Wicked Witch not be of the West from Oz? She’s green for Pete’s sake!
"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
All of them. I would fall out of my chair in amazement. Sorta like how we were surprised at the Black Fairy mention….
My jaw dropped when I realized that Sneaky Fairy is real, but she’s just a fairy separate from Blue Fairy! Also, the sooner August shows up, the better!
"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
