Your Worst Nightmare In The Flesh!

From the very first description we're given from him, we know he is tall, has brown hair, is a Political Finances student and is in his fifth year, meaning he's seventeen. He also has an American accent, but for some reason I thought he was British. Don't question it.

There are details about him given later on, like the fact that he worked with the Disciples, but at this point in the book, this is all the description we have of him to go off of.

The first interaction we get of him is when he first talks to Otto, and during this conversation we also find out about rumors floating around of why Otto has been missing most of the time, and that if even half of those rumors were true, he'd be expelled by now.

‘Most of them not true, I’m sure,’ Otto replied. There were comparatively few people at H.I.V.E. who really knew the precise details of the incidents that Otto had been involved in since his arrival at H.I.V.E. and so the rumour mill had filled in the blanks with little regard for accuracy. If Otto had actually done half of the things that he was supposed to have done then he would have either been expelled or executed long before now. Although, in fairness, at H.I.V.E. they were often essentially the same thing.

Going off of that, the rumors must be pretty bad.

But Cole just straight up walks to him and starts a conversation, which, I might be bullshiting but at least in my opinion, is a very brave move and I doubt anyone else would've just walked up to him and done that. Because, you know, the rumors.

He starts a conversation with Otto about getting the exam papers, and Otto refuses to work with him, which is understandable, seeing that he knew practically nothing about Cole. Good job Otto. You were smart this once.

Now, things get a bit weird when he threatens Otto after Otto refuses his offer, which is very over-the-top, until you remember that he's a Political Finances student.

Now, I know we don't know much about how other Streams operate, since all the main characters are in the Alpha Stream, but I'd imagine there has to be some sort of classes for the Political Finances Stream about negotiation tactics, and threatening is a negotiation tactic as far as I know. At this point, for all we knew, he could just be a teenager using what he was teached.

It's also worth mentioning the fact that Otto's perception of Cole is ruined by this simple move, which makes him an unreliable narrator when it comes to Cole, but that's not important here.

One thing I find funny about Cole though, is that his threats are fucking weak. Sorry darling, I love you, but 

‘That’s just where you’re wrong,’ Harrington said. ‘There are all sorts of ways that a person’s life at H.I.V.E. can be made easier.’ He paused for a moment, the previous friendly warmth in his expression suddenly vanishing, replaced by something much colder and harder. ‘Just as there are all sorts of ways that a person’s life at H.I.V.E. can be made much, much harder.’

And

‘That’s a shame,’ Harrington said, the smile disappearing. ‘You’re going to regret this. Trust me.’

Don't really work as threats anymore… I know that. I've tried it.

We get another scene with him and Otto, he asks Otto about the offer, Otto declines it and Cole threatens him again. Blah blah blah, same thing as before.

Next scene we get with him is when Otto and Laura have taken the exam questions and HIVEmind's source code and he shows up with our beloved bullies, Block and Tackle. Nothing much to say about those two. We know them all so well.

And that's when he tries to trade Laura's wellbeing for HIVEmind's source code. To which Otto agrees and decides to give him the source code.

Now, let's take a step back.

At this point we still don't know Cole is working with the Disciples, which just makes this look like some sort of dick move and I'm not denying it. But he was probably there to get the exam papers only, seeing that he claimed he overheard Otto and Laura talking about the source code and found it more interesting than the papers, seeing that he could sell the source code in the black market. Still a dick move, but considering the fact that there's a chance he didn't even know the two were going to get the code, he wasn't ready for it and might've just been pulling this out of his ass, seeing that getting the source code was probably a plan of the Disciples, but not one he had been ready for just yet. Am I making any sense? Probably not. Moving on.

Otto gives him the code, and then he commands Block and Tackle to kill them.

That's a dick move, love, even I can't find anything interesting about it.

Wait.

One thing I find interesting, but it's not related to Cole all that much.

Cole commands the two to kill Laura and Otto. But Laura was working for the bad side too, right? I mean, she was forced to do that, but still, her and Cole were on the same side. And even if Cole knew that she's actually unwilling to work with Anastasia and the Disciples, he probably wouldn't have done anything to harm or kill Laura, seeing that that would cause problems and punishments for him.

I don't know about you guys, but at least to me, it alludes to one, if not all of these things:

That the kids doing spy work for the Disciples don't know about each other and most likely think they're the only one doing that.

That there might be more kids at HIVE that were spies for the Disciples, but since they most likely don't know about each other, they're never even mentioned.

The Disciples might have blackmailed, threatened, manipulated or, in Cole's case as we find out later, bribed more kids into working for them.

They're just kids, so thinking that they're completely alone in this mission to take down the entire school they spent a lot of time in and probably made lots of new friends in must be a pretty scary and mentally draining experience, seeing that they might have been doing it unwillingly like Laura.

I have a feeling most of these might all sound the same thing to anyone reading this, but mean different things for me. Which is probably I should give up right about now, not that I'm going to.

Back to the topic, when they're caught, Otto makes up a story about what they were doing, which causes Cole to land in the detention center.

We also get this quote from Raven.

‘Do you get the feeling that we may not have the full story?’ Raven said as she watched Otto and Laura walk away.

Raven had a feeling that this wasn't the whole truth, and if she actually listened to that feeling, things might've gone way differently, but I digress.

And we get to the last scene with Cole, in detention, when Chief Dekker comes to 'question him about what he was doing', but instead, kills him and portrays it as a suicide.

I have very conflicting feelings about this entire scene.

Now, admittedly, the way Cole died might be the reason I even tried to look deeper into his character and even began to sympathise with him, seeing that unfortunately the whole "suicide but actually it's a murder framed as suicide" hits a bit close to home for me.

I also find it… a bit funny (and questionable, mind you) that this series literally had a fake suicide and it's still a kids series. In my experience, at least in out country, books that even allude to suicide will get the equivalent of an R rating.

My point though, and this might be just me is that no one, not even Cole, deserves something like that, for someone to kill them and then have it be written off as a suicide.

Something that interests me more though, is his motives.

It is told, or at least alluded, that he was bribed into working for the Disciples with the promise of power, and he accepted it, seeing that he was only 17 and, at least by the standards in our country, not even an adult and most likely, at least in my opinion, didn't even know the scale of destruction he was causing that way.

What's more is that, beware this might get more bullshit-y here, again, he's a Political Finances student, and I'm pretty sure people in that Stream would be teached ways to get a position of power. It's not that far-fetched to assume that he's doing this with the mentality of doing what he was told.

And don't get me wrong, that doesn't excuse or erase anything he's done. Cole Harrington still threatened Otto, almost killed Otto and Laura and worked with the Disciples, and there's no amount of reasoning I can do to excuse any of it. What he did was wrong either way.

It's just that on one hand I feel like he didn't deserve the death he got, and on the other hand I feel like if he stayed alive he would've either become an obstacle, or got a fate worse than death.

And that was my half-assed essay on Cole Harrington, written at 3 am and by trusting autocorrect and Mort to not be a bitch for once and correct my spelling. Feel free to roast me for it. Thanks for wasting your time.

Cole says Merry Christmas: (Art is by @deadliestassassin credit to him)