Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-25926288-20151211170125/@comment-27885419-20160614141833

Eskaver wrote: Okay, the title is a bit dramatic, or perhaps not dramatic enough.

Hook's relationship with Emma is one of the many polarizing things in fandom lore; however, I could care less about who you ship Emma with. This is about Henry.

From the Swan Song thread:

"I have my problems with Hook. I have my problems with the show's sense of morality, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out and shouldn't take long to figure out that he shouldn't be trying to kill off his love's family. Say what you want about their relationship, but look underneath all the pretty and you see the ugly. He sat there happily condemning the beloved's family of people that he befriended to death, but then saw his beloved choking to change. That may not bother you, but let's recap:

Hook is "killing"  or allowing the killing of:

- Emma's parents, whom she worked hard to love and to find.

- Emma's friends

- But more importantly, Emma's son

(Wasn't too impressed with 5x11 either, I agree on this point)

I may often hearken back to season 3 being the good old days, but nothing stood between Emma and her son. Not Regina, not her parents, and not love interest # 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Now, there's this pesky puppy love that pushing between Emma's love for her son and herself. Pretty much her romance with Hook is like the dagger to Rumple and Baelfire. Nothing ever stood between Rumple and Bae. Rumple crippled himself to see his son. Rumple became the dark One to save his son. But then the dagger came and risked the wellbeing of his son. Rumple's a bad, bad man. But replace Rumple with Emma, Bae with Henry and the dagger with Hook. Alter some of the situations and it's pretty much similar

I like Hook a bit and it's understandable that Emma has a love interest. It's even passable with the extreme levels of forgiveness, but at this point her relationship with Hook is hurting and has hurted relationship with Henry."

(Can't find this anywhere. True, we got less Emma-Henry scenes, but that's the creative team behind and not the characters. We get to see less of Henry-Emma doesn't necessarily imply there isn't much Henry-Emma. Maybe the writers felt they had explored enough of the mother-son dynamic in the previous seasons and decided to focus more on romance. Saying this mainly in context of s4.)

Now many have complained that Regina dumping Henry for a while because of forest man was uncalled for, but this beat that by a mile. Emma has tarnished her son's first love, sucumbed to darkness, memory-wiped her family and friends for the love of this man she should have let die. (Emma took Violet's heart in order to free Merlin, to rid herself of the darkness. Can't see where Hook comes in as the "reason". Succumbing to darkness, I admit, was because of Hook, but it was more about Emma's feelings. She had been alone and lost people too many times, and she feared losing him as was made clear since s4. It was her weakness in that moment and not Hook per se that made her succumb to the darkness, and I'm not wrong in saying she would have done the same if it was Henry or either of her parents instead of Hook. Memory-wiping was an effort to easily damp the situation without starting a damn Dark One war. It was more to stop Hook than for Hook, and because she couldn't take Hook turning dark. It was the easy way out, shown to her by the darkness, not by Hook.) Emma of old (aka before season 4 and onwards) didn't let anything stand in her way and her son's happiness because of her love for her son. Even Emma's annoying "Go back to NYC" was reasonable because she just wanted Henry to be happy. But now, she's devolved into someone else. This new Emma threatens her son's livelihood because of reasons. She ends of failing, not because of her parents or son, but because of a man that wandered into her life. (Again, I don't see how it's because of Hook. She simply wants everything, not just her family but her love interest as well. She is not choosing Hook over family, but trying to find a middle way to have both.) But this isn't some feminist's verbage or something, it's just a clear observation.

Emma never cred to pursue any relationship unless it ws good for her son and if it was best. During Neverland, she dismissed ThingOne and ThingTwo because her son was in danger. In season 3, she dismissed another start and what home was for her son's potential happiness. Even in seaosn 4, she's saved everyone. But now in 5a, she's seemingly not doing that anymore. She's trying to balance many types of love and where her love for her son usually won, it didn't. (See, till season 3 she had never had the sense of having romantic relations in addition to family. When she was with Neal, he was everything and she was totally emotionally dependent on him. With Graham, it barely started. Walsh we never really got to see much, but to me it appeared that he was the normal, stable person that could fit in and sort of complete their family, but even that blew away into a witch's pet flying monkey.  She was apprehensive, and it had less to do with Henry and more to her own fears. Then came season 4 and she got a taste of having so many types of love, having a family, friends, and a lover. It was the time filled with quiet moments and fluff, despite the villains and fallouts. It should be fairly obvious to any human that after that she can't just return to being the Emma of season 3 or season 1 overnight just because of one incident, especially when she could see a way out and her judgement wasn't at its best.) 

Emma's a grown woman and she did make her own decisions, but so in recent events Hook and Emma's relationship has taken a turn for the worse. Revisiting this thread after a long time, wanted to have a fresh go at "defending my ship". My reactions in brackets and bold.

I'd like to add a basic fact that nothing is perfect, no person and no relationship. You can't say it's bad because it doesn't meet perfection in your perception, and yes perception is a big factor here. In my perception, many people are just looking for excuses to justify their dislike for this ship, many of which I do not find valid.

Don't like it, it's your opinion, but taking any and everything and making it Hook's fault is taking it to a new level. I find many of the "justifications" and "reasons" by people here ridiculous and more of a desperate attempt to prove themselves right than anything. At the same time, maybe some will describe my explanations as the same. That's where perception comes in.