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Another OUAT What-If
Oct. 5th, 2017 08:43 pm I don’t know why it is that I keep making what-if fixit meta with Captain Swan. Maybe because if I’m going to do an SQ version, I’d rather write the fic.
Note: this takes into account vague spoilers from the upcoming seventh season, so you have been warned if that’s not something you want to see.
What if Hook sacrifices himself and everyone goes to the Underworld but they can’t get him back? What if death can’t be overridden? What if Hook stays dead and Emma mourns him at the end of the season and then the next season a duplicate version of him shows up? What if he and Emma have that connection but it’s not the same and it takes them the rest of the season to start to overcome this massive problem–that Emma loved him, tried to save him from death, that they went through all these things together but this Hook is not the same person, just similar enough that it’s sometimes wonderful and sometimes awful?
What if they overcome all that (in a meaningful way) and then Emma, who is fated to die, makes the hero’s choice and dies to save Gideon and defeat the Black Fairy?
Instead of breaking death on the show, you make it mean something. You’ve given the audience sympathy for Emma because her love is dead and gone and she’s dealing with that–and you’ve still managed to keep Hook. Not only that but suddenly Emma doesn’t look selfish–she looks like someone who has grown, who has learned that loving is worth it, that laying down her life is worth it for her family. You have made her death meaningful, important, and you have solved the problem of why she isn’t in the next season–again without coming up with some awful contrivance and without making her selfish.
To top it all off, you don’t have to introduce a new Hook, just continue on with the version of Hook people already know from the last season. And this one, while he loved and lost Emma, too, isn’t as tied to her, is better served by moving on.
That’s my high-level idea about how to fix this show in retrospect while keeping the Captain Swan ship. It sure is easier to think of ways to fix shows in retrospect…
Note: this takes into account vague spoilers from the upcoming seventh season, so you have been warned if that’s not something you want to see.
What if Hook sacrifices himself and everyone goes to the Underworld but they can’t get him back? What if death can’t be overridden? What if Hook stays dead and Emma mourns him at the end of the season and then the next season a duplicate version of him shows up? What if he and Emma have that connection but it’s not the same and it takes them the rest of the season to start to overcome this massive problem–that Emma loved him, tried to save him from death, that they went through all these things together but this Hook is not the same person, just similar enough that it’s sometimes wonderful and sometimes awful?
What if they overcome all that (in a meaningful way) and then Emma, who is fated to die, makes the hero’s choice and dies to save Gideon and defeat the Black Fairy?
Instead of breaking death on the show, you make it mean something. You’ve given the audience sympathy for Emma because her love is dead and gone and she’s dealing with that–and you’ve still managed to keep Hook. Not only that but suddenly Emma doesn’t look selfish–she looks like someone who has grown, who has learned that loving is worth it, that laying down her life is worth it for her family. You have made her death meaningful, important, and you have solved the problem of why she isn’t in the next season–again without coming up with some awful contrivance and without making her selfish.
To top it all off, you don’t have to introduce a new Hook, just continue on with the version of Hook people already know from the last season. And this one, while he loved and lost Emma, too, isn’t as tied to her, is better served by moving on.
That’s my high-level idea about how to fix this show in retrospect while keeping the Captain Swan ship. It sure is easier to think of ways to fix shows in retrospect…
