I’ve been doing some thinking on Nick Kay since I read a post about how inconsistent Nick is and how he will always suggest abandoning everyone.
Let’s ignore the bad writing arguments and play from a Watsonian perspective.
A convo about Nick that stands out to me:
Salim: Your friend. I like him. He was good to me.
Jason: Circumstance. Another day, he’d put a bullet between your eyes.
Now we know Nick knows Jason well. It stands to reason Jason also knows Nick well. What if this wasn’t just a comment about the circumstances they are in, but a comment on Nick?
We see in the scene with the injured Merwin that Nick is someone who is prone to panic when he has to make a decision in survival situations. He can smother Merwin, his fellow Marine and presumably friend, because of it, even with Jason yelling at him to lay off. Jason does not believe Nick that Joey is dead, because it was a tense situation and Jason does not trust that Nick processed the situation correctly.
We see Nick in general has a good heart. He is cutup about the checkpoint. He argues that the shepherds are just that. He can save Eric. He allies with Salim and can protect Salim from the other Americans. He clearly cares about Rachel a lot. And, notably, if he has the medical kit, in the calm situation where he can use it, he always uses it on someone else (including Eric) before himself.
So what if Nick’s fatal flaw is that he panics? That he does end up being untrustworthy on the field, not because he does not care or is inherently bad, but because his survival instinct overrides every moral he has?
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
annaxmalina
romaincrisis
turnnoffyourmind
