Nathan Petrelli: Saving or Enslaving the World?
I should really know better than to fall for another morally ambiguous character on an in-progress TV show, but here I am obsessed with Nathan Petrelli, stuck worrying about his fate. Why do I do this to myself? In any case, I'm sure most of my thoughts have been discussed innumerable times elsewhere, but I need to purge them.
My problem is not with Nathan himself. Based on the aired episodes, I firmly believe that Nathan is basically a good person who wants to do right. My worry is that the Heroes PTB have laid the groundwork for Nathan's ambiguity well enough that they could choose to make him a "villain" and be somewhat justified in it. This would go against everything I read in his character, and it would be sloppy writing, but it could happen.
In his darker moments, I do believe that Nathan could have had flashes of blind ambition during which he's tempted to just fall in line with Linderman's plans and take what's being offered. But fundamentally, I can't believe that he's hard-hearted enough to stay on that path. In my view, there would be two main reasons a person would enthusiastically embrace Linderman's plan to let the bomb take out half of NYC:
1) Ambition at all costs. Linderman's rhetoric may make the idea of a united population sound beautiful, but anybody with a passing familiarity with world history will know that a society united by fear will be far from a utopia. For Nathan to choose to buy into Linderman's plan based only on what we've seen on screen, he would need to be ambitious enough to be seduced by the idea of enormous power.
1a) As an addendum to #1, I guess he could be operating from a belief that Linderman is infallible. If he thought that Linderman would succeed in his plans no matter what, he might feel that he, Nathan, would be make a better, less despotic leader than whomever Linderman would replace him with. However, Nathan does keep trying to take Linderman down, so I'd be surprised if he's already arrived at the point of giving up. Hmm. Unless maybe Nathan suspects that Linderman had something to do with Petrelli Sr.'s death on top of Heidi's accident, and he's trying to protect Peter and the rest of his family by going along. Okay, now my spec is just raging out of control. Moving on.
Nathan has been shown to have ambition. His announcement to the world about Peter's suicide attempt was a calculated political move. He was definitely the "busy politician" in the first few episodes, too preoccupied with his campaign to be there for his shoplifting mom or his betrayed younger brother. But his deep love and concern for Peter has really humanized him since then. Also humanizing him are his brotherly interactions with Hiro. Well, "brotherly" as in interaction between normal brothers. Not brotherly in the "Petrelli Brothers School of Overt Sexual Awareness" tradition.
While he chooses not to see Claire when first given the opportunity, he seems conflicted over it rather than cold toward the idea of an inconveniently reappearing daughter. Though he's unfaithful to Heidi, he seems genuinely caring toward and protective of her in their scenes together. And then there's Peter. Nathan swoops to Peter's rescue time and again partly out of Big Brotherly Duty, but mostly because Peter is so important to him.
We've been told by both Mrs. Petrelli and Hiro that Nathan actually cares too much about people. I have a hard time resolving the portrait of the caring family man with that of a man so ambitious that he'd be willing to allow half the families in New York be killed or ripped apart in order to achieve the power Linderman has promised him.
2) The other main reason for which I could imagine a person embracing Linderman's plan would be if the current climate were catastrophically bad, and nothing has worked to fix things. But things would have to be REALLY bad, with violence raging out of control, anarchy, daily casualties well above the current crime rate, economic chaos. The show hasn't spent any time establishing what's so wrong with the status quo in this U.S.A. they're living in, though, so I don't see this as likely. Nathan seems to live in more or less the same world that I do, and my world seems okay. You know, aside from the fact that a group of people conspired to use an act of violence in NYC as a rallying point behind which to establish a less democratic, more "united" government.
Er. Anyway. Before I ramble for too many pages further on down that road, I'll talk about a few specific scenes.
First: Nathan's reaction to his mother in "The Hard Part"
Some have said that they think Angela has most likely convinced Nathan to go along with Linderman's plan when she tells him to act "presidential". I, however, see in Nathan's reaction not acquiescence, but shock. While a part of him may be feeling compelled to listen to her and consider what she's saying (she's his MOTHER), part of him is resisting. This is the first time he's been confronted with the fact that his mother is in cahoots with Linderman, and that she wants Nathan to allow hundreds of thousands of people to die without a fight. We're seeing his shock at realizing that everything he thought he'd known about this whole apocalyptic mess is, if not wrong, at least way more complicated than he'd realized, and that his family is very deeply involved.
**Here start spoilers for the next unaired episode.**
Promotional clips from 1x22, 'Landslide' below, followed by reactions to those clips and speculation for the next two episodes
And now on to the clips from "Landslide," the upcoming episode. I kind of hate these for what they're insinuating about Nathan's role in the story, even as I'm looking forward to seeing the scenes in context and learning more about Nathan through his actions in the next couple of episodes.
Linderman talks to Nathan about Nathan's father.
Hiro approaches Nathan on the street and tells him they need to stop the bomb.
Reactions:
The juxtaposition of these two clips is interesting. Linderman tells Nathan his father was weak, that he just gave up at the end; and then in Hiro's scene, Nathan seems to have given up, just resigned himself to going along with the "adults"' plans for him/the world.
Are we supposed to accept at face value based on all this "evidence" that Nathan is now participating in Linderman's/his mother's plan? That doesn't seem logical given that they've already given us one Nathan "gotcha" by revealing that he'd been working with the FBI the entire time that Linderman was wooing him with exorbitant campaign contributions. Shouldn't we expect another twist here? It seems, based on the blog and media reactions I've run across, that a lot of people aren't ACTIVELY expecting Nathan to turn the Linderman plan around in some way, but why wouldn't we expect that given how hard they've been working on showing us how complicit Nathan is in the bomb plot since "Five Years Gone".
Rather than the above possibilities, I find it a lot more likely that a big part of Nathan's arc has been him quietly coming to terms with the fact that he would rather do good than be powerful, and that he'll do whatever he can to stop the bomb. I can't imagine that TPTB would be foolish enough to get rid of Adrian Pasdar, but I don't feel confident enough in that to rest easy. I'm deeply worried that Nathan will die saving the world, and I'll have to mourn him since I'm unhealthily invested in his character. ;-)
This is a lot less linear and coherent than I'd like it to be, but I do have to work for a living, so I probably shouldn't spend much more time trying to untangled the chaotic mess that is my brain.
Thoughts? Rebuttals? Taking my ramblings and running in another direction with them? Reassurances that Nathan won't be a bad guy, and that he'll also survive helping save the world?
My problem is not with Nathan himself. Based on the aired episodes, I firmly believe that Nathan is basically a good person who wants to do right. My worry is that the Heroes PTB have laid the groundwork for Nathan's ambiguity well enough that they could choose to make him a "villain" and be somewhat justified in it. This would go against everything I read in his character, and it would be sloppy writing, but it could happen.
In his darker moments, I do believe that Nathan could have had flashes of blind ambition during which he's tempted to just fall in line with Linderman's plans and take what's being offered. But fundamentally, I can't believe that he's hard-hearted enough to stay on that path. In my view, there would be two main reasons a person would enthusiastically embrace Linderman's plan to let the bomb take out half of NYC:
1) Ambition at all costs. Linderman's rhetoric may make the idea of a united population sound beautiful, but anybody with a passing familiarity with world history will know that a society united by fear will be far from a utopia. For Nathan to choose to buy into Linderman's plan based only on what we've seen on screen, he would need to be ambitious enough to be seduced by the idea of enormous power.
1a) As an addendum to #1, I guess he could be operating from a belief that Linderman is infallible. If he thought that Linderman would succeed in his plans no matter what, he might feel that he, Nathan, would be make a better, less despotic leader than whomever Linderman would replace him with. However, Nathan does keep trying to take Linderman down, so I'd be surprised if he's already arrived at the point of giving up. Hmm. Unless maybe Nathan suspects that Linderman had something to do with Petrelli Sr.'s death on top of Heidi's accident, and he's trying to protect Peter and the rest of his family by going along. Okay, now my spec is just raging out of control. Moving on.
Nathan has been shown to have ambition. His announcement to the world about Peter's suicide attempt was a calculated political move. He was definitely the "busy politician" in the first few episodes, too preoccupied with his campaign to be there for his shoplifting mom or his betrayed younger brother. But his deep love and concern for Peter has really humanized him since then. Also humanizing him are his brotherly interactions with Hiro. Well, "brotherly" as in interaction between normal brothers. Not brotherly in the "Petrelli Brothers School of Overt Sexual Awareness" tradition.
While he chooses not to see Claire when first given the opportunity, he seems conflicted over it rather than cold toward the idea of an inconveniently reappearing daughter. Though he's unfaithful to Heidi, he seems genuinely caring toward and protective of her in their scenes together. And then there's Peter. Nathan swoops to Peter's rescue time and again partly out of Big Brotherly Duty, but mostly because Peter is so important to him.
We've been told by both Mrs. Petrelli and Hiro that Nathan actually cares too much about people. I have a hard time resolving the portrait of the caring family man with that of a man so ambitious that he'd be willing to allow half the families in New York be killed or ripped apart in order to achieve the power Linderman has promised him.
2) The other main reason for which I could imagine a person embracing Linderman's plan would be if the current climate were catastrophically bad, and nothing has worked to fix things. But things would have to be REALLY bad, with violence raging out of control, anarchy, daily casualties well above the current crime rate, economic chaos. The show hasn't spent any time establishing what's so wrong with the status quo in this U.S.A. they're living in, though, so I don't see this as likely. Nathan seems to live in more or less the same world that I do, and my world seems okay. You know, aside from the fact that a group of people conspired to use an act of violence in NYC as a rallying point behind which to establish a less democratic, more "united" government.
Er. Anyway. Before I ramble for too many pages further on down that road, I'll talk about a few specific scenes.
First: Nathan's reaction to his mother in "The Hard Part"
Some have said that they think Angela has most likely convinced Nathan to go along with Linderman's plan when she tells him to act "presidential". I, however, see in Nathan's reaction not acquiescence, but shock. While a part of him may be feeling compelled to listen to her and consider what she's saying (she's his MOTHER), part of him is resisting. This is the first time he's been confronted with the fact that his mother is in cahoots with Linderman, and that she wants Nathan to allow hundreds of thousands of people to die without a fight. We're seeing his shock at realizing that everything he thought he'd known about this whole apocalyptic mess is, if not wrong, at least way more complicated than he'd realized, and that his family is very deeply involved.
**Here start spoilers for the next unaired episode.**
Promotional clips from 1x22, 'Landslide' below, followed by reactions to those clips and speculation for the next two episodes
And now on to the clips from "Landslide," the upcoming episode. I kind of hate these for what they're insinuating about Nathan's role in the story, even as I'm looking forward to seeing the scenes in context and learning more about Nathan through his actions in the next couple of episodes.
Linderman talks to Nathan about Nathan's father.
Click to viewHiro approaches Nathan on the street and tells him they need to stop the bomb.
Reactions:
The juxtaposition of these two clips is interesting. Linderman tells Nathan his father was weak, that he just gave up at the end; and then in Hiro's scene, Nathan seems to have given up, just resigned himself to going along with the "adults"' plans for him/the world.
Are we supposed to accept at face value based on all this "evidence" that Nathan is now participating in Linderman's/his mother's plan? That doesn't seem logical given that they've already given us one Nathan "gotcha" by revealing that he'd been working with the FBI the entire time that Linderman was wooing him with exorbitant campaign contributions. Shouldn't we expect another twist here? It seems, based on the blog and media reactions I've run across, that a lot of people aren't ACTIVELY expecting Nathan to turn the Linderman plan around in some way, but why wouldn't we expect that given how hard they've been working on showing us how complicit Nathan is in the bomb plot since "Five Years Gone".
Rather than the above possibilities, I find it a lot more likely that a big part of Nathan's arc has been him quietly coming to terms with the fact that he would rather do good than be powerful, and that he'll do whatever he can to stop the bomb. I can't imagine that TPTB would be foolish enough to get rid of Adrian Pasdar, but I don't feel confident enough in that to rest easy. I'm deeply worried that Nathan will die saving the world, and I'll have to mourn him since I'm unhealthily invested in his character. ;-)
This is a lot less linear and coherent than I'd like it to be, but I do have to work for a living, so I probably shouldn't spend much more time trying to untangled the chaotic mess that is my brain.
Thoughts? Rebuttals? Taking my ramblings and running in another direction with them? Reassurances that Nathan won't be a bad guy, and that he'll also survive helping save the world?