Killian Jones/Captain Hook: One Handed Pirate With A Drinking Problem

[profdanglais]

I was also torn between teacher and librarian. It'd be great to see him give recommendations for books you wouldn't imagine that he'd have read, then make another "many nights on the lonely seas" remark to explain it. I kinda suspect though that this character they've created--the widely travelled, well-read, multilingual polymath--is almost too smart for the writers to actually know what to do with him. He doesn't fit neatly into a slot. 

[pezgirl7]

I picked deputy, because I want to see him working with David or Emma, and just generally being bad ass. I guess I just like, and miss, seeing him in an action hero role. I also think he could be super snarky while handing out tickets and reprimanding people. :)

[justmythoughts]

I lean towards teacher. I think it is a lovely profession (mine!), also after 28 years of the same old day, Storybrooke kids need a good reason to go to school and get excited. Whst better than a pirate, young and clever, as the teacher? And because I think Killian could be a great balance to Snow, it would be nice: Emma and David work together, Snow and Killian do it as well. It could give them great space to warm as mother and son in-law.

[Dianthus]

Guess what, Kids, story time at the library just got a hell of a lot more interesting!

I very much doubt we'll ever see Killian with a J O B. I like to think he's spending his off hours learning all he can about his adopted home. It helps explain how he's comfortable with concepts like dating and such.

[YaddaYadda]

Hook will go wherever Emma is, end of story. I'll be shocked if he's not with her at the station. Plus with everything that happened to him, I have a difficult time thinking that Emma will want him out of her sight for extended periods of time. But we've seen weirder stuff happen, especially in season 4.

I'll settle for them having him go to the bank with a chest of gold and opening a checking account, where he tells them he got tired of digging every time he ran out of dobloons, and he'd rather bills because they're much easier to carry.

Your piracy days made you a very rich man, Mr. Jones.

I was very good at it!

[Curio]

9 minutes ago, YaddaYadda said:

Plus with everything that happened to him, I have a difficult time thinking that Emma will want him out of her sight for extended periods of time. But we've seen weirder stuff happen, especially in season 4.

Ah, I see you've already blocked out your memories of the finale where Emma ditched a newly-alive-again Killian to go on a road trip with Regina. ;) (Hey, I'm all for forgetting that finale ever happened, too.)

[YaddaYadda]

10 minutes ago, Curio said:

Ah, I see you've already blocked out your memories of the finale where Emma ditched a newly-alive-again Killian to go on a road trip with Regina. ;) (Hey, I'm all for forgetting that finale ever happened, too.)

It's all about self-preservation at this point. Doesn't mean I've forgiven. Of course, no one will ever address anything that Henry did. Instead, he got a pat on the shoulder, and a girlfriend. This is exactly how you discipline a child. I hate Henry so damn much!

[Shanna Marie]

Working for the sheriff's department or not having a defined job so that he's always available to jump when Emma calls probably makes more sense in the structure of the show, since they only seem to be shown at "work," but the image of Hook as librarian or teacher is delightfully unexpected (even though it makes sense if you think about it).

I figure that a century or more as captain of a pirate ship and a century or so in Neverland dealing with Lost Boys would make Hook uniquely qualified to teach junior high boys, aside from his likely math skills. The potential there is so amusing -- the girls playing out something like in Raiders of the Lost Ark, sighing wistfully at him, and then him never missing a beat in catching the boys in their shenanigans. But it would be hard to show those kinds of scenes while going plot, plot, plot, unless a villain came into the classroom.

[Mari]

I don't expect him to get a real job, but picked Librarian, because he's familiar with the library, and I have the impossible dream that Belle will stay boxed until the last-ever 15 minutes of OUaT.

[Dianthus]

On another tangent...someone had referred to Killian as a "bottom" on a different thread (don't remember which). It kinda makes sense, if you think about it. For a period of 7 years or so after Brennan's duplicity, he had little to no contact with women. I can imagine that, despite being interested, he'd be almost painfully shy and awkward around them, and uncertain how to behave. Any woman/girl who was interested in him would have to be the aggressor. Even if the crew liked him well enough to buy him the services of a woman for his first time, he'd be so clueless she'd pretty much have to take the lead.

[Curio]

There's a stark contrast between the fish-guts-cleaning-Killian who primarily worked with grimy, poor-mannered men on Silver's ship, and the current Hook who is well-educated, confident around women, and cultured. A large chunk of his life between his days at the Royal Navy and becoming a suave pirate who wears a giant black jacket and gaudy jewelry is unaccounted for, and I doubt we'll ever get an onscreen explanation for the transition. I'm a huge advocate for getting rid of all flashbacks, but if it's a flashback of Killian learning fencing and foreign languages at the Royal Navy (I doubt he would have learned that on Silver's ship as a deckhand) or how he learned to become a successful pirate, I'm all for it.

[Camera One]

More like how he screwed over some random character from The Land of Untold Stories, and now he feels really bad about it.

[Curio]

8 minutes ago, Camera One said:

More like how he screwed over some random character from The Land of Untold Stories, and now he feels really bad about it.

Damn it, this is how they're going to introduce Liam 2.0 into the current plot, isn't it?

[Camera One]

We also need the flashback about how he got his leather jacket from his mentor Captain Neo.

Edited July 5, 2016 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

I do wish they would address Liam 2.0 in S6. But with these writers...

[Shanna Marie]

As much as I'd love to see the gaps in Hook's backstory filled in, given their track record in how they do this, I'm kind of okay with leaving it to my imagination and not making anything canon by showing it onscreen, since my mental versions are invariably far more interesting than what they really do. It would be one thing if they had a story of Hook's life already planned and picked out elements of it to show when appropriate, but it's increasingly clear that they're just making up stuff to fit the plot or theme of the present-day story, and who cares whether it actually fits the characters or even makes any sense at all in the overall story of Hook's life.

[Curio]

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

It would be one thing if they had a story of Hook's life already planned and picked out elements of it to show when appropriate, but it's increasingly clear that they're just making up stuff to fit the plot or theme of the present-day story, and who cares whether it actually fits the characters or even makes any sense at all in the overall story of Hook's life.

Maybe this belongs in the Writers Thread, but this bugs me to no end. If I were the creator of a show, I'd have an unofficial bible of each character's past history, and then when it's time to explore that history, I'd go to that document and see how it can fit in. If some details need to be tweaked because certain things have been introduced to the show's canon that contradicts or changes the bible, then it can be altered slightly. But I agree, I get the impression they only think about these flashbacks until they have to write the episode at the last second, and then it turns into a square peg/round hole situation. 

Edited July 5, 2016 by Curio

[RadioGirl27]

16 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

I do wish they would address Liam 2.0 in S6. But with these writers...

I hope Liam 2.0 is never mentioned again. The possibilities for contrived angst and drama are endless and terrifying.

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, Curio said:

But I agree, I get the impression they only think about these flashbacks until they have to write the episode at the last second, and then it turns into a square peg/round hold situation.

It's not even the retcons I mind so much as that they seem to go for the least interesting, most straightforward option every time, and yet they seem to think they're giving us big surprise twists that are mostly surprising because they come out of nowhere. Like the transition between kids sold into slavery and young men who are high-ranking naval officers being given special missions directly from the king. We had all kinds of theories about that -- did they escape as kids and find their way into the navy later, did the ship they were on run afoul of the navy and a naval officer discovered the kids on board and took them in, did they do something heroic that got them noticed by the navy? I don't think anyone would have come up with "presented a naval officer with a rare gem they got after Liam made a deal with Hades." So, basically, they bought their way in without experience or credentials and managed to rise that high, that fast? They didn't really do anything interesting to earn it. It was contrived in so many ways to shoehorn it into the present plot, and it didn't even really fit the present plot all that well, while still being not a very interesting story.

Though I guess since they're taking the road less interesting, that means I can use all my various Hook theories in my own stories without there being any sign that I'm copying the show. They'll be so far from what was seen onscreen that no one will realize the origin, unless they were on this thread and saw the discussions.

[YaddaYadda]

24 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

So, basically, they bought their way in without experience or credentials and managed to rise that high, that fast? They didn't really do anything interesting to earn it. It was contrived in so many ways to shoehorn it into the present plot, and it didn't even really fit the present plot all that well, while still being not a very interesting story.

While I agree that it was contrived, and I personally absolutely hated that flashback, I don't know that its fair to say they didn't earn their ranks in the navy, especially when Killian has a line about the things they teach at the royal navy. I think they made their way through the ranks like everyone else. What they needed was the opportunity which they might have had sooner in the day.

They already had the skills. Hook was already a good/probably great navigator, and Liam was a disciplined guy who apparently knew his way around a map, which you know, who taught them these things? Did they just pick that stuff up along the way? I'm assuming their father might have taught them how to write and read, but otherwise it didn't seem like anyone looked at those two, and was like oh they have potential, let's teach them stuff.

Aside from that, Hook is someone who just goes into things 100%. He loves a woman? 100% loves her. He wants revenge? Throws himself into it a 100%. Wants to get drunk? Gamble? 100% in it. Promises he will make the best of the opportunity he's given? Probably worked his ass off to prove that he wasn't a screw up. The fact that he stopped drinking at all after Silver called him a drunk is an achievement in its own.

Edited July 5, 2016 by YaddaYadda

[Shanna Marie]

5 minutes ago, YaddaYadda said:

While I agree that it was contrived, and I personally absolutely hated that flashback, I don't know that its fair to say they didn't earn their ranks in the navy, especially when Killian has a line about the things they teach at the royal navy. I think they made their way through the ranks like everyone else.

I guess my issue with that was the fact that because they used the adult actors, it looked like they were about the same age as they were when we saw them next, so it seems like they barely had time to learn all that stuff and move up the ranks. If they'd used teen actors or otherwise indicated that they were much younger, then it would have been easier to believe them going in as midshipmen and working their way up. As it was, they seemed to already be fully grown men, and then somehow in what couldn't have been more than a few years, Killian learned to read Greek, to fight with a sword, and dance at a royal ball, when, as you mentioned, their chances of education up to that point would have been slim. If they'd been teens when going in as midshipmen, they would have had more of an education, and they were talented and driven enough to leapfrog even the peers that got a head start.

Though them just getting handed commissions because they found a gem was a little farfetched. They hadn't done anything at that point that would have shown they were good navy material. Two random people wash ashore after surviving a shipwreck, and just because they've got some coveted gem, let's commission them into the navy, right away! I think that would have made more sense if they'd actually done something that the officer had seen. They weren't commissioned on the basis of demonstrating talent or courage. That's what I meant by not earning it. They likely earned their advancement. It was getting commissioned in the first place that seemed too easy. There it would have made more sense if the actual commission had been part of the deal with Hades, and not just getting the gem.

[Curio]

22 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I guess my issue with that was the fact that because they used the adult actors, it looked like they were about the same age as they were when we saw them next, so it seems like they barely had time to learn all that stuff and move up the ranks. If they'd used teen actors or otherwise indicated that they were much younger, then it would have been easier to believe them going in as midshipmen and working their way up.

I bought Killian as 17 or 18 in the flashback. If we're supposed to accept that Jennifer's Emma was 18 in her flashback with Neal, and Lana's Regina was early-twenties in her flashbacks, then I can buy Colin's Killian as 18. When physical labor and life was harder, people physically grew up a lot faster back in the day. I feel like that gives him enough time to rise up in the ranks over a few years, so essentially the Royal Navy was his mandatory four years of college education, and then when he was around 21 or 22, Liam died. Then we get Captain Killian Jones—the mid-twenties pirate/party animal—who liked to get drunk and slept around with many a man's wife. The timeline in my head goes:

• 8–18: Slave on Silver's ship scrubbing fish guts
• 18–22: Royal Navy Years (fencing, foreign languages, balls, navigation, etc.)
• 22–late-twenties/early-thirites: Drunken Frat Boy Pirate Years
• Late-twenties/early-thirties–Current Age (probably close to Colin's real age...so 35): Neverland and Storybook's Current Timeline

[profdanglais]

Killian's got to be more like 14-16 in the flashback for that scenario to really work though, given that midshipmen tended to be in their early-mid teens. I'd have felt a lot more kindly towards that episode if they'd had younger actors. 

[Curio]

10 minutes ago, profdanglais said:

Killian's got to be more like 14-16 in the flashback for that scenario to really work though, given that midshipmen tended to be in their early-mid teens. I'd have felt a lot more kindly towards that episode if they'd had younger actors. 

That's also assuming the land Killian and Liam grew up in (How do we not have a name for it yet? Are we just supposed to assume it's yet another state of Mysthaven?) uses the same rules as our "Real World" rankings. It could very well be that Mysthaven men worked until an older age like 17 or 18. By making the world-builing rules on the show so loosey-goosey, A&E can pretty much make up whatever they want on the spot and say, "Well, that's just how things work in Mysthaven! It's a different realm, so different rules!"

[profdanglais]

Fair enough but my head canon can't allow it. I'm a language teacher, I know how long it takes to learn a language and how much work needs to be put in. Factor in the different alphabet and there's just no way it could be accomplished in that short space of time especially given how much else he had to learn. He was so young when his dad left he can't have had much education at all and he certainly didn't get any on the ship. So he has to either learn or brush up on reading and writing his native language plus learn others and mathematics and navigation and ballroom dancing and who even knows what else in four years? I'm willing to buy that Killian is extremely intelligent but even smart people need time to study things. Plus Liam had to learn and advance at the same or greater rate, and he's no great genius. The writers can come up with all the spurious nonsense that they like but the timeline doesn't track. 

[Curio]

32 minutes ago, profdanglais said:

I'm a language teacher, I know how long it takes to learn a language and how much work needs to be put in. Factor in the different alphabet and there's just no way it could be accomplished in that short space of time especially given how much else he had to learn.

I know a few Peace Corps members who managed to become fairly fluent in a new language in a few months after intensive language courses (and sometimes had to learn a new alphabet like Cyrillic), so it can be done. But these people were also educated and went to high schools and universities, so we'd have to assume Killian was self-teaching himself how to read while he was on Silver's ship during his childhood and adolescent years. I could see Liam being educated enough before their dad left to know how to teach his younger brother the basics of grammar and spelling, and maybe Killian just took off with it and was a naturally-gifted reader. 

32 minutes ago, profdanglais said:

So he has to either learn or brush up on reading and writing his native language plus learn others and mathematics and navigation and ballroom dancing and who even knows what else in four years?

"I'm surprisingly good at research." Here's another scenario: Hook didn't necessarily read all of his mathematic, Greek, and navigation textbooks during his Royal Navy days, but he kept all those textbooks on the Jolly Roger even after he became a pirate. With hundreds of years to kill in Neverland with only Tinkerbelle as an occasional distraction, he had a lot of time to become an expert on those textbook topics. So maybe Hook didn't master Greek/ballroom etiquette/mathematics in the navy, but he mastered it in Neverland.

This is the part where we just throw up our hands and say forget it because we've clearly put more thought into this than the writers have.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Curio

[Rumsy4]

I am fluent in three languages, and have varying degrees of reading/listening comprehension skills in a couple more (different language families and scripts). So, Killian's capacity to read Greek doesn't surprise me. :-) Besides, he didn't have to be an expert in the language to read a sentence in Greek. 

Quote

With hundreds of years to kill in Neverland with only Tinkerbelle as an occasional distraction, he had a lot of time to become an expert on those textbook topics. So maybe Hook didn't master Greek/ballroom etiquette/mathematics in the navy, but he mastered it in Neverland.

It is definitely my headcanon that he had a habit of picking up books during his travels and spend a lot of time in Neverland reading them. I put that in my Neverland/Milian fic (that no one reads). ;-) 

[YaddaYadda]

13 hours ago, profdanglais said:

So he has to either learn or brush up on reading and writing his native language plus learn others and mathematics and navigation and ballroom dancing and who even knows what else in four years?

At least in terms of navigation and math, it's something that we can wave off because they threw in that line in 5x15 where he seemed to just have mentally calculated/estimated how far off course they were, so he seems to have picked up things living on a ship practically his whole life, and that would likely put him ahead of some people who have no ship experience. His navigation skills at least seemed to be up there.

I look at this as being an undergraduate program. You have 4-5 classes per semester. Choose wisely! 

[Shanna Marie]

I don't have a huge problem with believing that Killian could have made it from midshipman (basically, the on-the-job equivalent of the naval academy) to lieutenant in 4ish years. That's not outside the realm of possibility, given how bright and driven he is and with him coming into it with a fair amount of maritime experience. A fast rise is even more likely in wartime, when people need to be promoted to replace casualties, and when brilliant and impulsive will either get you killed or leave you covered in glory.

I have more of a problem with Liam going all the way to captain -- and captain of a prestigious ship who gets special mission orders directly from the king -- in the same timeframe. Liam might be older, but they were coming into this on a fairly even footing. Liam might have had slightly more formal education, depending on what their lives were like pre-abandonment, but they'd had the same amount of shipboard experience and were starting in the navy at the same time. Liam might have got a bit of a boost from being the one with the gem, but three grades of rank worth? And was he in the same league as his brother?

That's where I thought the "Brothers Jones" flashbacks really muddied things because I can't quite tell how they wanted us to read things. Was Liam actually as great as his brother thought he was, aside from that one glitch of taking Hades' offer and letting the crew die? Or was Killian so blinded by his hero worship that he never noticed that his brother wasn't so great? In this episode, it looked like Killian was the one who noticed the threat and the one who was able to incite the crew to follow Liam's lead (interesting, given that he was otherwise portrayed as a useless drunk), then was the one keeping the crew going and even might have been able to save them all. Then in "Good Form," Killian was able to get an entire navy crew to desert and turn pirate, in spite of him having been a bit of a hardass as an officer (you'd think an officer who forbids rum wouldn't be the most popular guy). That makes it look like Killian was the real talent and natural leader, so why did his brother rise higher and faster? Or was that unintended by the writers and just a case of them giving their regular cast member the big scenes?

If it was intended, was it unintentional/unaware on Liam's part, where Killian was using his talents to prop his brother and Liam didn't realize this, or do we get darker, and was Liam using his brother to get ahead while encouraging the hero worship so Killian wouldn't want his own recognition?

And that's why I think that flashback was a disaster. The continuity is iffy, and they probably took the least interesting possibility for the backstory. Meanwhile, the message is also iffy -- hey, my brother wasn't perfect, so I guess it's okay that I've done bad things. And then it really muddies the waters about the brothers and their relationship. This is where it would have made more sense in continuity if the brothers had been younger and had been discovered by the navy doing something heroic enough to get attention and get them taken out of servitude. Then Liam, of an age to actually be in the navy, might have gone in as a midshipman, with Killian taken on as a cabin boy because the brothers didn't want to be separated, then later joining on himself when he was old enough. That would explain the difference in status. But I guess that didn't fit the present-day narrative they wanted to work with.

[Camera One]

Quote

Was Liam actually as great as his brother thought he was, aside from that one glitch of taking Hades' offer and letting the crew die? Or was Killian so blinded by his hero worship that he never noticed that his brother wasn't so great?

It's definitely supposed to be the latter.

Quote

In this episode, it looked like Killian was the one who noticed the threat and the one who was able to incite the crew to follow Liam's lead (interesting, given that he was otherwise portrayed as a useless drunk), then was the one keeping the crew going and even might have been able to save them all. Then in "Good Form," Killian was able to get an entire navy crew to desert and turn pirate, in spite of him having been a bit of a hardass as an officer (you'd think an officer who forbids rum wouldn't be the most popular guy). That makes it look like Killian was the real talent and natural leader, so why did his brother rise higher and faster? Or was that unintended by the writers and just a case of them giving their regular cast member the big scenes?Who's Henry even talking to?  

Incompetent people gain promotions all the time, and Liam wasn't incompetent.  Liam was sure of himself, willing and ready to talk the talk, walk the walk, and apparently do whatever necessary to achieve his goals and protect his family.

To me, the episode was trying to say that Hook had always lacked confidence, not realizing his skills nor potential, needlessly beating himself up when his brother was an immoral and opportunistic murderer who makes deals with the Devil, literally.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Camera One

[profdanglais]

I seem to remember getting shouted down on the episode thread for making similar remarks about Killian's education, so the final comment I'll offer on the subject is that all the mental gymnastics you guys are doing to try to reconcile the discrepancies (Killian is an autodidact extraordinare! He's a languages savant! He taught himself navigation in between bouts of blackout drunkenness! He learned ballroom dancing from a book he taught himself to read!) kinda proves my point. If you have to put that much effort into making something work, it doesn't. 

[Shanna Marie]

21 minutes ago, profdanglais said:

He taught himself navigation in between bouts of blackout drunkenness! He learned ballroom dancing from a book he taught himself to read!) kinda proves my point. If you have to put that much effort into making something work, it doesn't. 

I felt like that particular episode even contradicted itself -- he's a useless blackout drunk, and the way everyone talked, this was an ongoing thing, not just Silver giving a kid his first beer, and then his second, and then his third, in order to take advantage of him. But he was able to eyeball the fact that they were off course, was able to rally the crew into mutiny behind Liam, and had apparently figured out a safe course on his own without charts while Liam was below, looking at charts. I'd be okay with the idea that behind the snarky pirate is the mind of a genuine genius, but I don't feel like that's the way he's been portrayed. He's smart and knows stuff when the plot needs him to, and he has good instincts. I could believe he picked up a lot of stuff while stranded in Neverland, with a hundred or so years to read, but then that would be a lot clearer if he had a tendency to have random bits of esoteric knowledge. About the only thing he's actually done that might fit in that category was being able to translate the Greek, and that he credited to the navy. If I were writing him, I'd have him be the one to do the math in his head and have obscure bits of trivia, just because it does fit with the idea of a navigator in a world without computers and with someone with an inquisitive mind and a lot of time to kill. Plus, it's such a contrast to his first impression physical appearance that it makes the character more interesting. You don't want to overuse stuff like that, but you need to keep it reasonably consistent.

But I think most of this boils down to the fact that there was no plan. Hook can do what he needs to do for the episode in question. He has the background they needed to tell the present-day story of the episode in question. It's not like anyone ever sat down and said "here's what he can do, here's the background that gave him those skills."

I don't even feel like the thematic moral lesson of that episode fit the story they were telling. You're not going to get over having reacted badly to having been made into the Dark One and not wanting to be returned to life after dying just because you found out that your beloved brother wasn't such a saint, after all. If anything, that would make matters worse -- the thing that's kept him going, the center piece of his belief system, has turned out to be a fraud.

[Curio]

Quote

I felt like that particular episode even contradicted itself -- he's a useless blackout drunk, and the way everyone talked, this was an ongoing thing, not just Silver giving a kid his first beer, and then his second, and then his third, in order to take advantage of him. But he was able to eyeball the fact that they were off course, was able to rally the crew into mutiny behind Liam, and had apparently figured out a safe course on his own without charts while Liam was below, looking at charts.

I didn't see this as a contradiction, but maybe that's because I had similar experiences in college. (At night I'd forget which bar I was at or how many drinks I had, but the next morning I'd ace a test.) If we're assuming Killian was a mid-to-late teenager in the flashback, he probably wasn't a blackout drunk for too long. I could see him being the type who used alcohol as an escape from his crappy life and forget about his issues, but not necessarily to the point where it made him useless when he was sober during the day. More like the kid who gets way too wasted at parties and embarrasses himself and has to apologize to people the next day.

26 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

About the only thing he's actually done that might fit in that category was being able to translate the Greek, and that he credited to the navy.

I would also include his large vocabulary (compared to the rest of the cast) in that list as well. Emma also made a comment about how he was picking up on 21st-century technology fast in 4x02, so I guess we can say it's canon that he tends to pick up on things quickly. But I agree, the writers have a gold mine with his character to be the guy who spouts random knowledge because of his years of experience, but then he'd be stealing Belle's sole purpose on the show.

[Shanna Marie]

2 minutes ago, Curio said:

I could see him being the type who used alcohol as an escape from his crappy life and forget about his issues, but not necessarily to the point where it made him useless when he was sober during the day. More like the kid who gets way too wasted at parties and embarrasses himself and has to apologize to people the next day.

But would the crew who'd seen him blackout drunk on a regular basis respect him enough to follow his lead?

Then there's the tricky issue of what that means about Liam's decision -- if someone was teaching Killian at least something about navigation along the way and he wasn't just figuring it out for himself from observation (I don't know much about that kind of navigation, so I don't know if it's something you could just observe or if at some point someone would have to teach you something), and if the crew liked and respected him and Liam enough to be willing to mutiny on their say-so, it makes Liam being willing to send them to their deaths really, really terrible. We're talking beyond the boundaries of "Hey, I can forgive you for doing this awful thing, so that means I need to forgive myself for not reacting well when I was possessed by an evil entity I wasn't strong enough to fight." It would still be pretty awful but more understandable if the boys had been mistreated and disregarded, and if the crew had been in on Silver taking advantage of Killian to get their money so they'd have to stay. But if the crew was at all kind to them or even just willing to teach them so they'd have marketable skills for when they were free, and if they were willing to follow either of the Jones brothers, it's a horrendous betrayal. They put their trust in Liam enough to turn against their captain, and he sold them out. That was definitely the eggbaby of this season, dragging a character through the mud for no good story reason. At least the eggbaby had fallout for more than one episode. This likely will never be mentioned again and have zero impact on Hook going forward.

[Mari]

1 hour ago, Curio said:

But I agree, the writers have a gold mine with his character to be the guy who spouts random knowledge because of his years of experience, but then he'd be stealing Belle's sole purpose on the show.

Now, be fair.  Belle also exists to tell Rumple he's got a good heart, and tell others how rotten they are in comparison.  That is not a duty that Hook would likely take up.  (Although, the look on Rumple's face if he did, would be interesting.)

[Shanna Marie]

To be fair, Belle usually has to look things up. She couldn't say something like, "That tactic worked pretty well at the Battle of Whatever, though you have to be sure to account for wind direction." And then when everyone turned to stare, shrug and say, "I was there."

But this is why it's too bad that Team Library didn't become a thing after the 4B premiere. They had an interesting potential vibe going on, where she might have the book knowledge while he had the real-world experience. He was stuck with books while she used "that box" (or however he described the Internet). He's probably read more than she ever could have, just from having been alive longer, but she's the librarian who indexes them. He might be able to name the book the information's in, while she could actually find the book, and then they could argue over the translation because his knowledge of the language might be more idiomatic, based on experience in that place, while she learned languages from books and might not know the nuances. Plus, it gave them both someone to talk to other than their respective love interests.

[Dianthus]

Depending on how many ships they were on, for how long, the make up of the crew(s), and how they were treated, their experience(s) could vary widely. I'd like to think that it wasn't too awful, early on, except maybe they weren't let off the ship while in port (and definitely not without direct supervision). Apprenticeships weren't uncommon either. Killian, especially, may have been deemed too young/small to be a deckhand. He could've been learning the rudiments of navigation fairly early in that case. You can, kinda, make it work without too much effort.

[Camera One]

This likely will never be mentioned again and have zero impact on Hook going forward.

I agree it will probably never be mentioned again, mainly because they will need to have Hook come to the same realization again in future centrics.

[Dianthus]

Killian was passed out drunk (maybe drugged) when Silver made that "cut anchor" comment to Liam, but it's probably not the first time Silver (and others) have made such comments. This suggests that Liam's staying by choice, never mind that slavery doesn't really work that way. So Liam's pretty much staying by default, or else he's seriously failing Killian, by not getting him out too. That's the really implausible part of all this: What's keeping them from jumping ship? They're sailors, have been for most of their lives. They have some freedom of movement. They know when a ship is being readied for departure. All they have to do is be on it! Get yourself free, Li (and you're brother too).

Saying that Killian's a bottom doesn't mean that he can't or won't assert himself. He can and he does. But his whole history argues that he's more of follower in his personal relationships. Being raised in service, being the younger brother, he follows. The Navy was Liam's deal. He cleaned himself up more for Liam's sake than his own. He didn't 'steal' Milah away from Rumple, she went to him. He's been patient with Emma, and willing to follow her lead. When David reluctantly admitted that Hook was growing on him, he responded by saying that's usually how it worked. That's part of his strategy. So is his reliance on his 'pretty face.' Just as many women have relied on their looks to get ahead. It's a power they have over others, even if they aren't otherwise powerful. It would also explain why he's generally good at reading people and situations.

[Shanna Marie]

8 hours ago, Dianthus said:

This suggests that Liam's staying by choice, never mind that slavery doesn't really work that way.

The way they talked, it sounded more like it was indentured servitude -- where it was for a certain amount of time or a certain amount of money. When the term was up, they were free, or if they were somehow able to raise enough money, they could buy their way free. There must have been at least some kind of salary or payment, since they had money for Killian to have gambled away. The plan seemed to be that the money they got for signing up for the navy, added to the money they had saved, would be enough to buy their freedom.

8 hours ago, Dianthus said:

What's keeping them from jumping ship? They're sailors, have been for most of their lives. They have some freedom of movement. They know when a ship is being readied for departure. All they have to do is be on it! Get yourself free, Li (and you're brother too).

There is that, though there could be really harsh penalties for that sort of thing if they were ever caught, like death or more servitude. They'd have to be sure that the captain of whatever ship they tried to jump to wasn't a crony of Silver's and that they never ran into one of his buddies in the future, and possibly they'd have had to avoid the authorities. They'd have spent the rest of their lives on the run, and they'd have been really vulnerable to whatever ship they served on next, since the captain would have known that they couldn't complain about their treatment, unfair pay, or anything like that without possibly being turned in. They had a chance for a much better future if they did things aboveboard.

9 hours ago, Dianthus said:

It would also explain why he's generally good at reading people and situations.

That's a fairly common trait of people who've grown up in abusive situations -- it's a survival skill. They have to be able to read when the next outburst will come and know when to take cover or get out of the way, and they have to be able to defuse a situation. Silver came across as pretty volatile, so growing up with him in charge of their lives would have been kind of like having an abusive parent who had absolutely no affection for the kids. That makes Hook's background awfully similar to Emma's, since it's his world's equivalent of foster care, in a way, having an adult in authority over him who didn't really care about him (not saying that about all foster parents because I have friends who are foster parents and are amazing, but it did seem like Emma had some foster homes where she wasn't cared about) as a person and only saw him as a means to an end.

[Dianthus]

It's hard to say definitively whether or not Silver was their first captain. I was under the impression it was the old man who dragged kid Killian from the cabin. I haven't re-watched the ep, so I'm not sure if it was made clear or not.

Indentured servitude gives you a little more leeway, but I doubt Brennan Jones wanted to hang about and haggle over terms. This isn't something the boys agreed to, and we don't really know what their status was, or if it changed somewhere in the missing years.

They were vulnerable to the captain of whatever ship they were on. Leaving Killian behind was a really bad move on Liam's part lazy move on the writers' part.

[KingOfHearts]

Hook's death should have held a lot of weight. It was setup for a while, the gang almost literally had to go to hell and back to resurrect him, and it was the catalyst for most of S5's events. Yet, all things considered, it's as if he never died. There was no sense of loss since we saw him in the very next episode. It doesn't help either that he has "died" in the past. His true death is important, however, because it means he's "safe" for the remainder of the series. There's almost no chance he's going to die again. In all honesty, the ordeal better served Emma's character than his.

[Camera One]

I don't think Emma's character got much out of it either.  She already told Hook she loved him.  Hook at least came to a realization he hadn't had before when he found out not to be too hard on himself since his moralistic older brother was a million times worse.

But you're right much of the death was just no big deal.  Someone who skipped the end of the Season 4 finale with the vortex of darkness and the entirety of Season 5, could watch the first episode of Season 6 and not know that Emma was the Dark One, or that Hook "died", or that Rumple stopped being the Dark One and then regained the Dark One mantle, etc.  

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

But you're right much of the death was just no big deal.  Someone who skipped the end of the Season 4 finale with the vortex of darkness and the entirety of Season 5, could watch the first episode of Season 6 and not know that Emma was the Dark One, or that Hook "died", or that Rumple stopped being the Dark One and then regained the Dark One mantle, etc.  

Hook's death played out more like a kidnapping. It never felt like he was really dead or that he was in extreme peril. The torture porn was just disturbing and gross. Other than that aspect, it was just #SaveHook al a 3A. 

Quote

I don't think Emma's character got much out of it either.

It didn't do that much for her, but it did give her new determination. It put any argument that Captain Swan was one-sided to rest. 

Edited July 13, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

On 7/13/2016 at 11:55 AM, KingOfHearts said:

Hook's death played out more like a kidnapping. It never felt like he was really dead or that he was in extreme peril.

I think part of that was that we didn't spend hardly any time when he was actually dead to the other characters. There was maybe a minute or two between his death and Emma and the others heading to the Underworld. The only reaction to his being dead that we saw was the one shot of Emma lying on the sofa, looking at his ring. There wasn't even a mourning montage of the other characters. Then after he was left behind in the Underworld and the characters believed he was dead for good, we had the one moment of Emma telling her mother that he didn't make it, and then it was rushing around to deal with Hades, the one shot of Emma looking at the book, then Emma's tearful scene at his grave, and then he was back. It was a case of "how can we miss you when you won't go away?" When he was back, aside from Emma's enthusiastic greeting, no one really reacted to the fact that he was back from the dead. It was maybe more like he'd left town for another job and then changed his mind and came back.

Even if the audience was pretty sure he was going to be back, they could have done more to make us doubt and worry (and not by making Colin do a Kit Harington and do interviews talking about being off the show). They could have made us feel his loss, or at least made us feel his loss to the other characters. Emma got about 30 seconds to mourn, but nobody else even reacted. This is the second would-be father figure Henry has had die. How was he reacting? We barely even got to see Emma's parents consoling her. A funeral for the guy that most of them spent most of the time disliking could have been interesting (especially if he returned during it and got to hear what they had to say about him). Part of the problem was that they threw in Robin's death at a very bad time, which took away from the impact of Hook's death, but I guess they needed to get him out of the way before the end of the season and needed to motivate Regina to take that potion. Or they could have delayed the trip to the Underworld long enough to feel some loss, but there I guess they needed to end the half-season on a slightly more hopeful note. The ratings for the spring half might really have tanked if the mid-season finale had made it look like he was just plain dead for good. Then again, that worked for Game of Thrones ...

[Camera One]

I'm surprised there was so little blowback for that blatant lie on "Game of Thrones".  It might make other shows attempt that stunt in the future.

The ratings for the spring half might really have tanked if the mid-season finale had made it look like he was just plain dead for good. Then again, that worked for Game of Thrones ...

I'm sure there would have been a ton of handwringing and petitions and angry tweets to Adam.  It would have been too risky, though, since that fandom is enormous.

Even though Hook didn't feel "dead", that cliffhanger with everyone going to the Underworld was a hell of a lot more intriguing than the 5B cliffhanger.  At least, it was new.  Only this show could raise the question of "how dead is dead" because clearly, there's a hundred and one levels of existence.

[Kktjones]

Okay - this is total and complete speculation, but based on this interview, I predict we will learn that Hook has something to do with the death of Charming's father. They totally gave away the fact that whatever Hook's secret was would impact his relationship with Charming. Sounded like it was something pretty bad that will cause Hook to have to look inside at what kind of man he was and try to forgive himself. Anyway, just throwing that out there since we got very few spoilers about Hook (and Charming for that matter) at Comic Con...

Edited July 24, 2016 by Kktjones

[Rumsy4]

This sounds like such a boring retread of S4, with Killian keeping secrets from Emma. So, even after he's back from the UW, Hook continues to be insecure and keep secrets? I can't believe it!

And why are the Charmings so quick to overlook Regina's past crimes, but so reluctant to do the same with Hook? He was a pirate for centuries. At this point, his "past" should not come as a surprise to anyone. 

As to the "secrets" I hope it's about Liam 2.0. I disliked that episode with a passion, but Killian basically orphaned his half-brother, and that needs to be addressed. But knowing A&E, they'd rather go off on another tangent than deal with dangling plot threads.

Spoiler

I mean, they're bringing back Ashley 4 seasons after she stopped being relevant. So...

[Camera One]

And why are the Charmings so quick to overlook Regina's past crimes, but so reluctant to do the same with Hook? He was a pirate for centuries. At this point, his "past" should not come as a surprise to anyone.

People are always toughest on the ones they "love" (or in this case probably more willing to love).  Plus Emma is romantically involved with Hook, whereas Regina is just there, they know her entire history and they know she was horrible. 

[Curio]

12 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

This sounds like such a boring retread of S4, with Killian keeping secrets from Emma.

It's also a retread of Season 5, where Killian didn't think he was worth saving and couldn't forgive himself for the terrible things he did as the Dark One. I'm all for Hook flashbacks, but can they not: A) Be weird retcons that shove Regina into the mix to fill an Evil Queen quota, B) Kill more Jones family members, and C) Be something totally made up on the spot to fit the episodic theme du jour? I guess that leaves Killian dealing with the guilt of what he did to Liam 2.0, which could potentially be interesting if they make it a significant part of his present-day struggle with becoming more of a father figure to Henry. If Emma and Hook are really serious and are basically living together as a family unit in Season 5, I could see Hook starting to freak out that he might not be proper father material to Henry if he killed his own father and left a boy close to Henry's age orphaned in the past. He might even have a talk with Emma that even though they're confirmed True Love, does that necessarily mean he's the best fit to officially join the Emmy/Henry family? Of course, this would all be going on simultaneously as half of Regina 's personality is off trying to murder Henry's grandparents and mother, but everyone still believes Regina is fit to be Henry's mother.

If it's anything beyond that, we're sailing into Retcon City again.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Curio