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Sarcasm and bitterness and, horror of horrors, some actual defence of Nathan Wuornos abound in this post, just to warn in advance. As such, I'll put it behind a cut tag. Well, that and the season 5 finale spoilers. Some of this is new thoughts and untested, but please no character bashing in comments if you disagree.
Things I learned from Haven... That Human Sacrifice is OK!. Seriously, fandom at large doesn't even seem to question this. Nathan is the one character in the whole show who canonically digs his heels in against accepting this again and again, enough to establish that it's part of his rigid moral framework, including when it's not Audrey but when it's Duke or in terms of his horror at this as the whole premise of Duke's curse (that an innocent is killed to save the rest of the family and the people around from their family Trouble [falls on hazier ground where there are instances that person isn't an innocent and is willingly causing harm, but it's still the premise of Duke's curse]). The result: Nathan reviled by much of the fandom for his placing himself in opposition to the idea. (Disclaimer for the Duke part that some of this is probably because it seems like he's taking exception to Duke more than the Trouble.)
Similarly, things I learned from Haven fandom... That Sacrificing Yourself For The Cause is Good and Noble... unless you're Nathan Wuornos, in which case it's just stupid and devalued by the fact you want to kill yourself anyway.
So what the fuck. So: now Duke's held up as a beacon of morality for wanting to leap into the void, Audrey's choice in season 3 was always held as sacrosanct, and Nathan's... well, he was just suicidal. Even though he kept going for six months without the hope that what he'd done was fixable when he thought that both Duke and Audrey were gone and he proposes the sacrifice when he knows he has the chance of having them both back, and even though despite clearly having a self-destructive streak in his 6 month break and early season 4 he doesn't display any intent to kill himself at any point when the question of it actually achieving anything leaves the equation. William's madness has him put a gun to his head and directly taunts him to 'finish it' right after he knows his death won't help anymore; he turns it away from himself. I do credit that he has a streak toward self-destruction connected with his guilt that plays into the 'suicide' argument, but it's not that concrete an urge. Without the excuse that it achieves something, he opts to live, not die. Repeatedly. It does NOT invalidate his will to fix things at the cost of his life in season 4.
Now, maybe you could argue the interaction of these two points to build something that strengthens the suicide argument, since if Nathan is morally opposed to the question itself then there should be increased resistance to the idea of that sacrifice which would make it a steeper slope to him getting to that point... I'm not sure how to unpick that one, because we often allow ourselves to be the exceptions to the rule, and Nathan has shown to prefer taking risk or pain (or his curse back) on himself rather than allow others to bear it. He also definitely sees himself as guilty, so maybe he's posing it in part as an execution. But this is speculative.
It's also just as possible to argue the urge to self-destruction with each character as they've embraced self-sacrifice toward their inevitable demise.
Right now I'm seeing Duke's superior morality hailed at the proposal to throw himself into the void like he's any less in a position of depression and guilt at the sheer scale of his fuckup than Nathan was in season 4. And I don't like using the comparisons because I like both characters and I think both characters are essentially good but greatly flawed men, but if folks are already making them then I'm gonna say just, fandom, double standards, okay?
By now we've had the question of sacrificing one to save many through seasons 3, 4 and 5 and it's encompassed all three leads in the role of the sacrifice. It's a staple of the show and that the fandom tends to ignore the face-value on-screen answer to the question frequently makes my stomach turn. There seems to be an assumption that this course of action is OK. Just to thoroughly establish this point if there was still any doubt: I don't find it OK. Nathan's stance against it earns him points with me, whatever else he's guilty of.
And I haven't talked about this in an age because there's been extreme resistance to the idea of anything that seems to try excuse or soften Nathan's actions at the Barn since the end of season 4's reveal of Audrey as a guilty party rather than an innocent victim and a whole section of fandom has just been silenced on it, but that doesn't make a difference to Nathan's actions and the pressures working on him at the time. They didn't know about Mara. Howard was positioned as an enemy (though actually I would like to see that shooting addressed at some point, assuming Howard was a living being. To me that stands as more directly answerable in terms of Nathan's guilt than the consequences of the destruction of the Barn, which weren't knowable). It was posed as the sacrifice of Audrey's life to the Barn|Howard. Everyone assumed Audrey was innocent. (Well. Audrey was innocent, in the way this has unravelled to treat each identity as more-or-less an individual.)
So I'm not saying Nathan gets a free pass from me or that he didn't do damage, or that the long-term consequences of his actions don't keep escalating horrifyingly. But I still think that saying "fuck, no" to human sacrifice is hardly a wrong response -- that it's more a matter of no right choices than The Incredible Scale of Nathan's Wrongness -- and it shouldn't earn the utter condemnation that this character gets from so many.
Okay, I grant that this is... a bit angry, and scattered, but I'm just sick and tired of the character bashing in this fandom and the lack of compassion, and the willingness to do a total write-off where this character is concerned.
Things I learned from Haven... That Human Sacrifice is OK!. Seriously, fandom at large doesn't even seem to question this. Nathan is the one character in the whole show who canonically digs his heels in against accepting this again and again, enough to establish that it's part of his rigid moral framework, including when it's not Audrey but when it's Duke or in terms of his horror at this as the whole premise of Duke's curse (that an innocent is killed to save the rest of the family and the people around from their family Trouble [falls on hazier ground where there are instances that person isn't an innocent and is willingly causing harm, but it's still the premise of Duke's curse]). The result: Nathan reviled by much of the fandom for his placing himself in opposition to the idea. (Disclaimer for the Duke part that some of this is probably because it seems like he's taking exception to Duke more than the Trouble.)
Similarly, things I learned from Haven fandom... That Sacrificing Yourself For The Cause is Good and Noble... unless you're Nathan Wuornos, in which case it's just stupid and devalued by the fact you want to kill yourself anyway.
So what the fuck. So: now Duke's held up as a beacon of morality for wanting to leap into the void, Audrey's choice in season 3 was always held as sacrosanct, and Nathan's... well, he was just suicidal. Even though he kept going for six months without the hope that what he'd done was fixable when he thought that both Duke and Audrey were gone and he proposes the sacrifice when he knows he has the chance of having them both back, and even though despite clearly having a self-destructive streak in his 6 month break and early season 4 he doesn't display any intent to kill himself at any point when the question of it actually achieving anything leaves the equation. William's madness has him put a gun to his head and directly taunts him to 'finish it' right after he knows his death won't help anymore; he turns it away from himself. I do credit that he has a streak toward self-destruction connected with his guilt that plays into the 'suicide' argument, but it's not that concrete an urge. Without the excuse that it achieves something, he opts to live, not die. Repeatedly. It does NOT invalidate his will to fix things at the cost of his life in season 4.
Now, maybe you could argue the interaction of these two points to build something that strengthens the suicide argument, since if Nathan is morally opposed to the question itself then there should be increased resistance to the idea of that sacrifice which would make it a steeper slope to him getting to that point... I'm not sure how to unpick that one, because we often allow ourselves to be the exceptions to the rule, and Nathan has shown to prefer taking risk or pain (or his curse back) on himself rather than allow others to bear it. He also definitely sees himself as guilty, so maybe he's posing it in part as an execution. But this is speculative.
It's also just as possible to argue the urge to self-destruction with each character as they've embraced self-sacrifice toward their inevitable demise.
Right now I'm seeing Duke's superior morality hailed at the proposal to throw himself into the void like he's any less in a position of depression and guilt at the sheer scale of his fuckup than Nathan was in season 4. And I don't like using the comparisons because I like both characters and I think both characters are essentially good but greatly flawed men, but if folks are already making them then I'm gonna say just, fandom, double standards, okay?
By now we've had the question of sacrificing one to save many through seasons 3, 4 and 5 and it's encompassed all three leads in the role of the sacrifice. It's a staple of the show and that the fandom tends to ignore the face-value on-screen answer to the question frequently makes my stomach turn. There seems to be an assumption that this course of action is OK. Just to thoroughly establish this point if there was still any doubt: I don't find it OK. Nathan's stance against it earns him points with me, whatever else he's guilty of.
And I haven't talked about this in an age because there's been extreme resistance to the idea of anything that seems to try excuse or soften Nathan's actions at the Barn since the end of season 4's reveal of Audrey as a guilty party rather than an innocent victim and a whole section of fandom has just been silenced on it, but that doesn't make a difference to Nathan's actions and the pressures working on him at the time. They didn't know about Mara. Howard was positioned as an enemy (though actually I would like to see that shooting addressed at some point, assuming Howard was a living being. To me that stands as more directly answerable in terms of Nathan's guilt than the consequences of the destruction of the Barn, which weren't knowable). It was posed as the sacrifice of Audrey's life to the Barn|Howard. Everyone assumed Audrey was innocent. (Well. Audrey was innocent, in the way this has unravelled to treat each identity as more-or-less an individual.)
So I'm not saying Nathan gets a free pass from me or that he didn't do damage, or that the long-term consequences of his actions don't keep escalating horrifyingly. But I still think that saying "fuck, no" to human sacrifice is hardly a wrong response -- that it's more a matter of no right choices than The Incredible Scale of Nathan's Wrongness -- and it shouldn't earn the utter condemnation that this character gets from so many.
Okay, I grant that this is... a bit angry, and scattered, but I'm just sick and tired of the character bashing in this fandom and the lack of compassion, and the willingness to do a total write-off where this character is concerned.
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