Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-23906605-20131017110136/@comment-23906605-20131029220659

TNOandXadric wrote: "Neal staying with Emma would've been an equally viable plot if they'd chosen to take that route."

Would it really? Because the only person I see arguing in favor of that here is you. Had Neal stayed with Emma -- in my personal opinion -- it would have sucked, plot-wise. Emma wouldn't have done nearly half the growing she did as a character. She wouldn't be broken, hence she wouldn't have "the wall", which is one of her main and most interesting characteristics. She probably wouldn't have given Henry up for adoption and that would ruin so many many things.

Plus, the episode "Manhattan", one of my favorite episodes, wouldn't even exist. Rumple would have never turned to Emma to find his son and if they had stayed together, it wouldn't have been half as fun when we found out that Neal was Bealfire.

Had they stayed together, we wouldn't have seen her interesting interactions with Graham or Hook.

I don't think I need to go on. To sum up: it would have sucked. It would have been boring. It wouldn't have been nearly as good or creative as what actually happened.