#truly though Elfangor's and Neal's situations are super similar

[theoriginalnikegirl]

In light of a recent conversation and the fact im rewatching once upon a time, im revisiting my opinion re: hating Elfangor thinking especially of the last two interactions Tobias has interacting with the idea of Elfangor in the series.

To lay it out, Tobias has a total of three interactions with Elfangor in the series: meeting him in book 1, having his will read in 23, and a hallucination in 43. I've tended to take to the hallucination as real-ish, real-like, since Tobias has so few interactions with his father and I've long hated the implications of that interaction. Duringst the recent conversation however, I argued myself into thinking it was wholly Tobias' subconscious. Basically what happens in that interaction (why I hate it) is it boils down to a hallucination of Elfangor telling Tobias to suck it up. Tobias has just been tortured for a hundred pages, and here is an image of his absent father saying: "yeah too bad, now suck it up. Get over it. You shouldn't feel as hurt as you do and you shouldn't go and make it anyone else's problem". It's dressed up in prettier language but that's the sentiment. Now I, as the reader, don't really know Elfangor that well. I don't know if he would say that to Tobias. I do know Tobias though and I know that Tobias would absolutely say that to himself

I'm also revisiting the reading of the will in 23 which I have always appreciated. I appreciated that in that will Elfangor said: I wanted to love you. Not that he did, but that he wanted to. I have long had a bit of stick up my ass thinking it's too little to say he wished he hadn't abandoned Tobias' because the fact of the matter is Tobias was abandoned whether Elfangor wanted to or not, but I am also rewatching once upon a time.

For those not in the know, once upon a time is a tv show about fairy tale characters processing generational trauma, and how that trauma follows the generations even as each new generation tries so hard to avoid the mistakes of their parents, to the point where several generations literally abandon their children hoping that will break the cycle of generational trauma (it works exactly once) Anyway long story short Neal, a character who at this point has pretty much processed the trauma his father had inflicted on him (good job btw) just died while his own son (Henry) had completely forgotten him due to a magic thing and thought he'd merely abandoned him and his mother in jail. In his dying breath, Neal told Emma (Henry's mom) that she didn't need to restore Henry's memory if he was happy without it, if it would cause him more pain to remember his father only knowing he'd died. But he asked her to tell Henry that he'd wanted to be a good father and dammit if that didn't mean something!

The crucial difference here between Elfangor and Neal is that Neal explicitly doesn't put responsibility onto Henry in exchange for his wanting to be a good father (if it would hurt him more to remember, he shouldn't) while Elfangor does saddle Tobias with a) fighting the war that he couldn't anymore and b) there's the fact that Elfangor's will was only read to Tobias to motivate him to continue to fight that war. Which is on the Ellimist but what else did Elfangor think it was gonna do when he wrote it??

Point is I am on better terms with Elfangor now but out of the two of them Neal is the better dad.