The Tallahassee Flashbacks
I believe that the writers were trying to create a tragic romance in Neal and Emma's backstory, a scenario where she would realistically believe that he'd used her but in truth it'd been a sacrifice. However, it didn't fully work, not for me anyway. My main problem with their relationship in the Tallahassee flashbacks is the fact that Neal didn't need to betray Emma to the police. It's implied that the shock of being arrested and imprisoned was required to frighten Emma out of her current criminal lifestyle, but surely Neal could have simply told her that he wanted to change instead. The revelation of her pregnancy a few months later would probably encourage them to do so even without August's interference. Also, Emma didn't need to be law-abiding to break the Curse, though I can understand how August with his own background could wrongly assume this. All she needed was to love her son and to believe. The only aspect of this argument which makes any possible sense at all for me is that Regina might have found it easier to run Emma out of Storybrooke if she had a criminal record as an adult as well as an adolescent.
I've seen some fans claim that Neal needed to betray Emma so that she would give Henry up for adoption, enabling the boy to bring her to Storybrooke ten years later. But I'm not certain that she'd have chosen to keep him even if she were free and Neal was with her. She would still only be 17 years old, and she and Neal would have no positive parental role models or family or friends to help them. The argument also assumes a level of foresight that Neal didn't have. His reaction when he sees Henry makes it perfectly clear that he never even considered the possibility of Emma being pregnant. Additionally, it doesn't consider the chance that Neal or August could have found Storybrooke themselves and brought Emma there on her 28th birthday.
I already had a negative impression of Henry's father from season 1. Emma had claimed that it was better for Henry to believe his father had died than for him to know what she considered to be the truth, and this had me wondering how dark the show could get with this issue. When I saw that the episode involved flashbacks of Emma, I guessed that they would reveal the identity of Henry's father, this being the biggest mystery of her past at that point, and when Neal appeared I guessed that he would be that man. I initially found their opening interactions a bit disturbing, because of the situation and because I found Emma more believable as a teenage girl than Neal as someone in his twenties. Maybe this is because we're more used to seeing slightly older actors portraying teenage characters. It was giving me the impression that the story would be Neal taking advantage of Emma, rather than a more balanced relationship.
However, unlike some other fans, I do believe that Neal's motivations in betraying Emma were noble. He did want her to break the Curse in order for her to reunite with her parents, learn the truth of her origin and the fact that she had been wanted, and to free everyone else from The Curse. I don't believe that he was frightened away by a connection to magic or the possibility of meeting his father again. Those factors influenced him later on when he chose not to travel to Storybrooke once he knew the Curse was broken, but I don't think they influenced him in the flashbacks. I'd also like to point out that he didn't frame her - she was arrested for possession of stolen goods, a crime she had knowingly committed. I suspect her sentence would have been longer than 11 months if she'd been charged with the robbery itself, even taking her age into consideration.
The Neal = Baelfire Revelation
I wasn't part of the fandom when OUAT aired, so I wasn't aware that this plot twist was widely predicted. However, I did randomly think "what if Neal is Baelfire?" about an hour before I watched Manhattan. It was a twist I liked. I find the idea of Henry's crazy family tree one of the most humorous aspects of the series, so most details which add to that appeal to me. It was also done before viewers started guessing that every new character would be related to at least one main character, so it was less predictable and repetitive than similar later developments. Two other theories I've come across is that Neal would be Baelfire's descendant - an alternative I also like - or that Neal would be Baelfire's roommate, colleague or friend - which I feel is weaker.
Neal's Relationships With Emma And Tamara
This is another area where I feel that the writers made a mistake. They claim that Neal had loved Tamara, that he'd truly moved on and wanted to marry her, but his behaviour gives me a different impression. He seems happy, even pleased, at any moment when Emma appears to be jealous or to still have feelings for him. Shouldn't he instead feel sorry for her, or at least be conflicted? Instead he was almost flirting with her. I haven't come across any comments predicting that Neal could have moved on before Tamara was introduced, and I think this is partially because of his behaviour when reunited with Emma.
Neal also moved on far too easily from Tamara. As soon as he learned that she didn't love him and had been using him all along, it was as if he'd forgotten that she even existed. He should have been hurt and confused. Maybe he could have questioned his own judgement, or compared his own feeling of betrayal to how Emma would have felt a decade ago when arrested. Instead, Neal jumped immediately to wanting to get back together with Emma. Tamara was basically just a plot device to suggest at Emma's jealousy, to act as a brief foil for Emma and Neal and to bring Henry to Neverland, rather than a fully fledged character in her own right.
There is one criticism of their interactions in season 2 which I don't agree with - Neal trusting Tamara instead of Emma, and claiming that he never believed in her lie detection ability. I'd have found it worse if he had immediately believed Emma's suspicions about his fiancée without any further proof, since it'd be another example of him favouring Emma instead of the woman he's supposedly in love with. It also makes sense for him to have downplayed Emma's lie detection. Since they met in the land without magic and he had no idea of her heritage at first, he must have interpreted her skill as reading body language rather than an infallible magical ability. The writers also later stated that this ability was a non-magical talent and that it could be compromised at times.
I don't ship Swanfire, mostly for the reasons already stated above, and possibly also because Captain Swan is my favourite OUAT couple. To me, Emma and Neal's chemistry in the present day scenes comes across more like two exes reminiscing over how happy they'd been together a decade ago, with near death situations triggering their love confessions.
Neal's Death
I suspect that Neal's death was planned from the moment he was introduced. Michael Raymond-James was always credited as a guest star. I have come across comments predicting that he would be killed at the end of season 2 because Michael Raymond-James was moving on to a new project, but I don't know if those were just rumours, that new project didn't work out or if the timing was simply incorrect. I've also come across similar comments claiming that he'd asked to be written out by the end of season 3, but I've also come across different ones claiming that he was surprised by Neal's death, and again I don't know if any of these are true.
In season 1, Emma claimed that Henry's father was already dead, which could have been foreshadowing his eventual death in the series. His own father's death was also prophesised in the same episode as Neal's return. Rumplestilskin is far too popular and important a character to be killed off permanently, and there would be more emotional impact if it was someone whom he loved who was sacrificed to revive him. The writers weren't going to ruin Rumbelle by killing Belle, so the sacrifice needed to be Neal. It could be argued that losing his son was the price Rumplestilskin paid for everything he had done and all the harm he'd caused in order to find him.
I don't believe that Neal was killed off simply to make way for Captain Swan. There are many other ways to resolve a love triangle, which don't leave the successful pairing open to the accusation of only winning because there was no competition at the end, and several examples of love triangles in other fandoms resolved without a character death. The writers could have made Neal step aside, given him a new love interest or simply made Emma chose from her two suitors. I also felt that Neal and Killian's reconciliation in Quiet Minds was rushed and forced. It was obviously just done because they wanted to give some closure to their history before Neal's death.
I do wish Neal could have survived though. It could have been interesting to explore a darker story-line, where instead of sacrificing himself, Neal had either unknowingly or deliberately sacrificed another to revive his father. I'd have liked to see his relationships with both Rumplestilskin and Henry develop further, and to eventually see him with a new love interest, though I'm not sure if this should have been Tinkerbell or a completely new character (whom I just call Not Tamara). It would have been good to see his reactions to some later events such as Henry becoming the Author or Emma becoming the new Dark One.
Naming Snowing's Child After Him
I have mixed feelings about this idea. It works in theory, and it was somewhat foreshadowed by the earlier suggestion of naming the boy after Leopold (though that did make me wonder why Emma wasn't named after anyone). However, I do question the claim of him being a hero. He did sacrifice Rumplestilskin's attempt at saving him in order to let his father warn the others of Zelena's identity, but I suspect the merger would have been temporary anyway. He was only in that situation in the first place because his desperation to save Rumplestilskin and find a way to reunite with Emma and Henry had led to him foolishly using dark magic without thinking of any consequences. This was not heroism. I think it would have made more sense if he had instead died saving Snow or retrieving the baby, and I wonder if his death had originally been planned for a few episodes later, but had been brought forward due to Michael Raymond-James needing to leave more quickly. I'd also have preferred if it had been made more clear whether Emma's family knew the whole story of how he betrayed her in the past before honouring him in this way.
I believe that the writers were trying to create a tragic romance in Neal and Emma's backstory, a scenario where she would realistically believe that he'd used her but in truth it'd been a sacrifice. However, it didn't fully work, not for me anyway. My main problem with their relationship in the Tallahassee flashbacks is the fact that Neal didn't need to betray Emma to the police. It's implied that the shock of being arrested and imprisoned was required to frighten Emma out of her current criminal lifestyle, but surely Neal could have simply told her that he wanted to change instead. The revelation of her pregnancy a few months later would probably encourage them to do so even without August's interference. Also, Emma didn't need to be law-abiding to break the Curse, though I can understand how August with his own background could wrongly assume this. All she needed was to love her son and to believe. The only aspect of this argument which makes any possible sense at all for me is that Regina might have found it easier to run Emma out of Storybrooke if she had a criminal record as an adult as well as an adolescent.
I've seen some fans claim that Neal needed to betray Emma so that she would give Henry up for adoption, enabling the boy to bring her to Storybrooke ten years later. But I'm not certain that she'd have chosen to keep him even if she were free and Neal was with her. She would still only be 17 years old, and she and Neal would have no positive parental role models or family or friends to help them. The argument also assumes a level of foresight that Neal didn't have. His reaction when he sees Henry makes it perfectly clear that he never even considered the possibility of Emma being pregnant. Additionally, it doesn't consider the chance that Neal or August could have found Storybrooke themselves and brought Emma there on her 28th birthday.
I already had a negative impression of Henry's father from season 1. Emma had claimed that it was better for Henry to believe his father had died than for him to know what she considered to be the truth, and this had me wondering how dark the show could get with this issue. When I saw that the episode involved flashbacks of Emma, I guessed that they would reveal the identity of Henry's father, this being the biggest mystery of her past at that point, and when Neal appeared I guessed that he would be that man. I initially found their opening interactions a bit disturbing, because of the situation and because I found Emma more believable as a teenage girl than Neal as someone in his twenties. Maybe this is because we're more used to seeing slightly older actors portraying teenage characters. It was giving me the impression that the story would be Neal taking advantage of Emma, rather than a more balanced relationship.
However, unlike some other fans, I do believe that Neal's motivations in betraying Emma were noble. He did want her to break the Curse in order for her to reunite with her parents, learn the truth of her origin and the fact that she had been wanted, and to free everyone else from The Curse. I don't believe that he was frightened away by a connection to magic or the possibility of meeting his father again. Those factors influenced him later on when he chose not to travel to Storybrooke once he knew the Curse was broken, but I don't think they influenced him in the flashbacks. I'd also like to point out that he didn't frame her - she was arrested for possession of stolen goods, a crime she had knowingly committed. I suspect her sentence would have been longer than 11 months if she'd been charged with the robbery itself, even taking her age into consideration.
The Neal = Baelfire Revelation
I wasn't part of the fandom when OUAT aired, so I wasn't aware that this plot twist was widely predicted. However, I did randomly think "what if Neal is Baelfire?" about an hour before I watched Manhattan. It was a twist I liked. I find the idea of Henry's crazy family tree one of the most humorous aspects of the series, so most details which add to that appeal to me. It was also done before viewers started guessing that every new character would be related to at least one main character, so it was less predictable and repetitive than similar later developments. Two other theories I've come across is that Neal would be Baelfire's descendant - an alternative I also like - or that Neal would be Baelfire's roommate, colleague or friend - which I feel is weaker.
Neal's Relationships With Emma And Tamara
This is another area where I feel that the writers made a mistake. They claim that Neal had loved Tamara, that he'd truly moved on and wanted to marry her, but his behaviour gives me a different impression. He seems happy, even pleased, at any moment when Emma appears to be jealous or to still have feelings for him. Shouldn't he instead feel sorry for her, or at least be conflicted? Instead he was almost flirting with her. I haven't come across any comments predicting that Neal could have moved on before Tamara was introduced, and I think this is partially because of his behaviour when reunited with Emma.
Neal also moved on far too easily from Tamara. As soon as he learned that she didn't love him and had been using him all along, it was as if he'd forgotten that she even existed. He should have been hurt and confused. Maybe he could have questioned his own judgement, or compared his own feeling of betrayal to how Emma would have felt a decade ago when arrested. Instead, Neal jumped immediately to wanting to get back together with Emma. Tamara was basically just a plot device to suggest at Emma's jealousy, to act as a brief foil for Emma and Neal and to bring Henry to Neverland, rather than a fully fledged character in her own right.
There is one criticism of their interactions in season 2 which I don't agree with - Neal trusting Tamara instead of Emma, and claiming that he never believed in her lie detection ability. I'd have found it worse if he had immediately believed Emma's suspicions about his fiancée without any further proof, since it'd be another example of him favouring Emma instead of the woman he's supposedly in love with. It also makes sense for him to have downplayed Emma's lie detection. Since they met in the land without magic and he had no idea of her heritage at first, he must have interpreted her skill as reading body language rather than an infallible magical ability. The writers also later stated that this ability was a non-magical talent and that it could be compromised at times.
I don't ship Swanfire, mostly for the reasons already stated above, and possibly also because Captain Swan is my favourite OUAT couple. To me, Emma and Neal's chemistry in the present day scenes comes across more like two exes reminiscing over how happy they'd been together a decade ago, with near death situations triggering their love confessions.
Neal's Death
I suspect that Neal's death was planned from the moment he was introduced. Michael Raymond-James was always credited as a guest star. I have come across comments predicting that he would be killed at the end of season 2 because Michael Raymond-James was moving on to a new project, but I don't know if those were just rumours, that new project didn't work out or if the timing was simply incorrect. I've also come across similar comments claiming that he'd asked to be written out by the end of season 3, but I've also come across different ones claiming that he was surprised by Neal's death, and again I don't know if any of these are true.
In season 1, Emma claimed that Henry's father was already dead, which could have been foreshadowing his eventual death in the series. His own father's death was also prophesised in the same episode as Neal's return. Rumplestilskin is far too popular and important a character to be killed off permanently, and there would be more emotional impact if it was someone whom he loved who was sacrificed to revive him. The writers weren't going to ruin Rumbelle by killing Belle, so the sacrifice needed to be Neal. It could be argued that losing his son was the price Rumplestilskin paid for everything he had done and all the harm he'd caused in order to find him.
I don't believe that Neal was killed off simply to make way for Captain Swan. There are many other ways to resolve a love triangle, which don't leave the successful pairing open to the accusation of only winning because there was no competition at the end, and several examples of love triangles in other fandoms resolved without a character death. The writers could have made Neal step aside, given him a new love interest or simply made Emma chose from her two suitors. I also felt that Neal and Killian's reconciliation in Quiet Minds was rushed and forced. It was obviously just done because they wanted to give some closure to their history before Neal's death.
I do wish Neal could have survived though. It could have been interesting to explore a darker story-line, where instead of sacrificing himself, Neal had either unknowingly or deliberately sacrificed another to revive his father. I'd have liked to see his relationships with both Rumplestilskin and Henry develop further, and to eventually see him with a new love interest, though I'm not sure if this should have been Tinkerbell or a completely new character (whom I just call Not Tamara). It would have been good to see his reactions to some later events such as Henry becoming the Author or Emma becoming the new Dark One.
Naming Snowing's Child After Him
I have mixed feelings about this idea. It works in theory, and it was somewhat foreshadowed by the earlier suggestion of naming the boy after Leopold (though that did make me wonder why Emma wasn't named after anyone). However, I do question the claim of him being a hero. He did sacrifice Rumplestilskin's attempt at saving him in order to let his father warn the others of Zelena's identity, but I suspect the merger would have been temporary anyway. He was only in that situation in the first place because his desperation to save Rumplestilskin and find a way to reunite with Emma and Henry had led to him foolishly using dark magic without thinking of any consequences. This was not heroism. I think it would have made more sense if he had instead died saving Snow or retrieving the baby, and I wonder if his death had originally been planned for a few episodes later, but had been brought forward due to Michael Raymond-James needing to leave more quickly. I'd also have preferred if it had been made more clear whether Emma's family knew the whole story of how he betrayed her in the past before honouring him in this way.
The Best Character on the Show
