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And in this sense, by making Rumple into the DO again, however flat-footedly and awfully, the show leaves open that possibility. In fact, it leaves open the possibility that both Rumple and Emma might finally have the opportunity to actively confront and work through their issues, and eventually overcome the central cosmic antagonist of the OUAT-verse (the DO curse), which is essentially, the dark part of one’s personality (magically enhanced to blow up all existing insecurities). No more “Hat-us” Ex Machina. No more unexplainably clueless DarkOne boyfriends who act like the textbook version of a gaslighting sociopath. And no more Groundhog Day-style failure at character development for Emma.
All of this, yes. Now that Emma is free of the DO, I suspect she will not be “weak” as many on here have portrayed her (even though she was battling the greatest darkness ever in her soul). I expect her to return to her bad self once again, and as long as that happens, I’ll be fine. I would like her to have to make a difficult choice or sacrifice (like maybe she can only save one person in the UW or something) since she didn’t sacrifice anything in 5a.
[adrotate group="5"]This bothers me because not saying NO does not mean saying YES. And this is such a large part of rape culture–that just because a woman hasn’t said NO explicitly, she’s automatically saying yes. And, of course, even when she does say NO, she doesn’t really mean it; she’s conflicted and unsure of her feelings and if she just gave the guy a shot, she’d really like him.
Oh geez, she never said no because she was ok with it. Her body language said so. Nowhere do I remember seeing her try and resist his help. If I was Hook, I wouldn’t have thought that. But maybe I missed something.
A case in point is a scene from 5×3 in which Emma, still the Dark Swan, intentionally puts on the very pink, very feminine dress to appeal to Hook, as he finds her new masculine-looking dark one appearance off putting. This is a classic example in which Emma feels like she must “soften” her appearance so as not to offend her masculine, hunky boyfriend. (“Like me better now?”). There she is trying to get through to him, to let him know she’s still the same Emma on the inside, but that she’s better even, because she’s no longer afraid, that she’s an open book.
I feel like we are overthinking this a bit. If I was in a relationship, and my gf liked me better with a beard, I would likely do it for her. In fact, my friend has done this recently. I think she just wants to make Hook happy and she knows what he likes. It was her reaching out to him and letting him know she cares what he thinks. I don’t think she’s going to change everything all of a sudden. Just this one time, she dressed up a bit.
It’s that, going back to Emma’s character analysis, this sort of gender configuration depends, structurally, on Emma being weaker than the show was originally trying to sell to us.
I think this is fair. The idea that they are bringing Emma down a bit to balance them out is definitely a fair argument. I guess I was just ok with it because of the circumstances at play, the fact that she was fighting evil incarnate and needed help. If going forward, Emma without the darkness, continue to need help and Hook keeps saving the day and what not, then I will not be pleased. I just don’t think that’s going to happen. I think Hook’s agency if you will, was circumstantial and very much plot driven.
I don’t want to get into Hook discussion too much, but it always seemed like Hook was nice to Emma because he wanted her. He tolerated her family because that would put him in her good graces. However, we have seen how unkind he can be to people that aren’t going to affect his standing with Emma as recently as season 4 eg using Belle to blackmail Rumple, roughing up Will for accidentally spilling water on Emma. If Hook being horrible is the reason why his actions as the dark one are so bad, then why should the audience root for Emma’s relationship with a horrible guy? Just because Hook is nice to Emma and her family because it gets him what he wants doesn’t make him a good person. In fact I think I think it’s quite telling that the moment Hook feels that Emma has betrayed him/displeased him, he turns on her quite viciously.
Not that I’m rooting for Hook, because I don’t think I am, but I will say this: I think why I’m willing to see it through between these two is because although he was so horrible and that’s why he was a horrible DO, I think that just means how difficult it is for him to turn over a new leaf, and that we have seen he has tried to do so. They are still some buried things, that he keeps buried because he wants to be better, and for me, it was a little unfortunate that the darkness was able to magnify all those deep issues he still has and has been trying to fight. It made me almost feel sorry for him…..I know I know…but that’s just how I felt.
What about most shocking moment? It could be a good shock, a bad shock, so long as it’s something that made you gasp…. I think mine is Regina killing Graham. I did not expect Regina to have her all those hearts in a vault nor did I expect that she could crush hearts and kill people. The fact that Graham dies seconds after he remembers who he is and in Emma’s arms….so tragically sad. I remember gasping.
Yeah that was pretty shocking. Seeing Katherine in the back alley all bruised up and what not was rather shocking too if I recall.
No offense, but I think your perspective is the one that is inconsistent. You seem to hold Emma and Rumple accountable for their dark deeds but not Hook. Why is that?
Let me clarify here, bc I was sort of playing devil’s advocate and trying to see all sides of the argument. My personal beliefs are as follows:
Hook should be held accountable for his actions, however, because he was a worse person than Rumple, the darkness affected him more. Does not give him a free pass, but also for me, it puts an asterisk next to everything he did as the DO bc he obviously would not have done/said the things he did if he was just himself. Everyone including Rumple and Emma should be held accountable. But I just think that everyone is a fast to not want to save Hook because his actions as the DO were the worst. But I almost feel bad. Here’s a guy who was a horrible man. And clearly still has plenty of issues to be resolved, issues the darkness exploited. So his actions were going to be the worst of any DO. But again, I put an asterisk next them because the show, IMO, has shown us Hook trying to be a better person (despite a couple of hiccups), and showing that he cares for Emma. Clearly Hook still has this addiction to the villainy side of him. And yes, Rumple did bad things and I crucify him for it. But when he saved the town, I wanted them to try and save him (or at least I understood why they would want to.) I wanted him to die there but that’s beside the point. When Hook was able to dig down and overcome the darkness in the end, it showed to me how much the darkness was truly affecting him and that it wasn’t the true Hook doing all those terrible things. And when he lets Emma kill him, it makes me want to save him, bc unlike Zelena and other characters, I do think he is redeemable and I do think he cares for Emma.
But I do hold Emma responsible too. She should have let Hook die. But a part of me almost gives more blame for her selfishness because Hook knew what it would do to him. He tried to tell her. He knew he couldn’t control it. And everything could have been avoided if she had just let him die.
Hopefully that sort of gives you an idea of where I stand on this.
No one ever has the right to take over your story (read: life) because they don’t think that you can handle it. That is not a decision they get to make. If you, your very self, turns to someone and says I can no longer handle the day to day living of this world, please direct me henceforth, then okay. You’ve made that choice–and it would be your choice to back out of that decision as well. But, Emma never did that. She never asked Hook to be her agent/dictator of things/controller/whatever word you want to use here.
I guess I just meant, if he thought she was struggling, he should want to help more. And clearly she was struggling with the voices in her head etc. She never told him not to intervene either. But also, I just didn’t see him as an agent either, at all.
I should note here, before Matt comes in and yells at me, that Adam did release a piece of the script from the finale in which Emma does say that her family doesn’t have to go with her–and they say they will. However, canon is tricky and until it’s on the DVD’s then it’s not canon yet. If it does, we’ll return (I’m sure) to this question. But for now…not in show, not canon. (And here comes @hjbau to explain why even if it’s on the DVD, it’s not canon…) Narrative and canon are….tricky.
Ha well there you go. It is tricky. But like, any sane reasonable person would have asked their parents and friends what to do and tell them they don’t have to go. When all of them just willingly are marching in line to go, you could just tell there was a scene they cut out. Like it didn’t have any bearing on Emma’s character for me bc it literally made zero sense and I thought it was pretty obvious they were strapped for time and had to skip some stuff, including the Camelot characters.
it’s an odd narrative that speaks not only, IMO, of Emma’s shift in character from strong woman to “Hook’s girlfriend” but the entire shift of the show from family to romantic love.
I just think she can be both a strong woman, and Hook’s gf. And I think she showed both sides of that coin throughout the first half.
I mean, did she even stop to ask if her parents were okay about the almost going to Hell thingy? Instead her selfish need to have Hook in her life is driving the story.
Yup, the whole ending was bizarre. Even if she was Hook crazy, she would still stop for one second to ask her parents and everyone else what to do. It was rushed and they needed to end on them going to the UW. I would be very surprised if we do not get some sort of character interaction between Emma and everyone regarding their trip to the UW when it returns.
