Swanfire, through and through

Neal Cassidy is So Important Week Day 5: why neal is an important love interest

“But listen, I don’t own Emma, and she doesn’t owe me anything.” –Michael Raymond-James on Neal’s relationship with Emma in season 3.

What I love about this that it sets up Neal’s mindset and approach going forward with Emma– it clearly defines where he’s acknowledged where he’s messed up in that past, what he needs to do differently this time, and, most importantly imo, that this doesn’t entitle him to anything. 

Neal is told by Emma in SSttR how much it hurt that he didn’t look for her. He tells Mulan that this is the greatest regret of his life, and that it happened because he was too scared of rejection. So going forward, he resolves to get back to her, to let her know that he loves her. to get to neverland and save their son and get his family out and support them the way he hasn’t gotten to do before. this is the moment that leads to “i’m going to get my family and go home” and “i’ll never stop fighting for you” and asking her to talk once they’re all safely home.

But it's also the moment we see him acknowledge that recognizing his mistakes and acting accordingly doesn’t entitle him to anything. “I need you, I love you” doesn’t mean we’re going to be together and live happily ever after. Neal knows he’s going to try to do right by her this time, but that it doesn’t mean she’s ready to try again– it doesn’t mean she ever will be. 

And to me, that’s a massive point in Neal’s development as a character and in terms of Emma romantically. The idea that she’d never forgive him is one of his biggest fears. And the thing that fear does to him is fucked up, and it wasn’t fair to Emma, and he’s not going to let it dictate his actions. He’s not going into this expecting it to work out– he knows that he has to step up and be there, in whatever capacity she and their son need, because they all deserve better this time. Emma deserves to know that she is loved, and she deserves the right to say that’s not enough, and the right thing for Neal to do is to give her both those things. 

NEAL CASSIDY APPRECIATION WEEK ↳ day 07: free day

Neal Cassidy/Baelfire Appreciation Week | Day 7 Free Day

Because if you want to stop talking about a crime, you have three options: address the crime, kill the villain, or kill the victim.

On Once Upon a Time the choice has clearly been made some time ago to move Hook into the role of hero (or some poorly-understood definition of anti-hero).

If you kill Neal, a prominent victim of Hook’s villainous life, you never have to bring up the name Milah again (I wouldn’t doubt they’ve even removed her name from Hook’s arm)—you may recall Rumple and Hook gave up their vendetta in last season’s finale quite abruptly. So they’re not going to be talking about her anymore.

With Neal gone, you never have to show Emma learning about Hook’s prior hook-up and the family it decimated (and the possibility that it helped push a fragile Rumple closer toward being the Dark One). You never have to show Belle learning that Hook both ran off with Rumple’s wife and that then Rumple murdered her. You don’t have to deal with the Milah problem. Her name will probably never come up on the show again.

If you kill Neal, you don’t have to ever talk about or explain or try to exonerate Hook for delivering him into the abuse of sociopath Peter Pan. Emma and Henry never have to learn the truth of Hook’s and Neal’s ‘relationship’ in Neverland. It can be whatever Hook wants to sell it as (heck, even Rumple doesn’t know the truth of it).

Hence, two of the more prominent wrongs of Hook’s OUAT-related life never have to be dealt with or brought up again. Two substantial hurdles between his and Emma’s being together poof-ed away. (C’mon. He hurt someone she cared about monumentally, and twice, at that. Emma would be more forgiving toward someone hurting her than hurting someone she cared about—when he was still a BOY. Taking part in things that shaped him FOREVER after.)

Kill Neal, and you don’t have to talk about Rumple (villain) choosing magic and power over his son (victim). You don’t have to talk about the root of the original Curse, engineered by Rumple, ever again.

You don’t have to ever show those other realms and journeys we were teased that Baelfire had gone on.

Kill Neal, and you can ignore those pesky and persistent questions about the ins-and-outs of August convincing Neal to leave Emma, and the hows and whys of Emma’s getting busted. In fact, you never have to address that episode in Emma’s life which clearly proved a larger obstacle to Emma and Neal finding a happily-ever-after together than you, the creators, were ready to dramatize and plot-out.

See, in the Hook story, Neal is a victim. Kill him and you can ‘forget’ Hook’s past wrongs. Or at least stop talking about them and leave them in the past.

Case closed, witness murdered, cannot testify.

But in the Emma story, for many vocal viewers, Neal has remained (as first presented before he was even cast as MRJ) a _villain_. [Aside: I do not agree with this assessment of his character in regards to his actions toward her.] He’s a statutory rapist who took advantage of a minor, impregnated her and then abandoned her to take the fall for his crime and give birth to his child while imprisoned. And a man who said he loved her and never looked for her once he was informed the Curse was broken.

Kill Neal (villain Neal, here) and you don’t have to explain or explore any of those questions or issues. They no longer matter. Emma has apparently blanket-ly forgiven him (per her comments in Quiet Minds). No one needs to investigate the motives/possible manipulations of a corpse.

So, kill Neal and wash Hook largely clean, overlook two solid seasons of Rumple’s Curse, its fall-out and his motivation, never bother to bring up August again, remove the word Milah from your spellcheck, you won’t need it.

After all, when you find yourself buried under a trash heap of convoluted, under-explored writing and ‘themes’, there’s two things you can do: dig your way out methodically, making sense out of the chaos, OR (what they’ve done here) burn it down and start over.

(Let me state in advance that I know this is the crackiest of crackity-crack theories. Kitsowitz are not this self-aware.)

It’s been pointed out that nearly all the villains and ex-villains and semi-villains are on the same quest this season: Find the author to get a happy ending.