#rereading bartseq

Up until this point we only see Nat getting mistreated or spoken to harshly to get him to move/do something, but here is Bart, about to die as well, and choosing to spend what could be his last moments taking charge of the situation and being gentle to a terrified kid.

(This was after that car scene where Nat confessed to having been beaten for attacking Lovelace & co., by the way.

See, it's in my overanalytical nature to make a big deal out of things like this because:

1) Bartimaeus absolutely could have thrown Nat under the bus here (Nat himself thinks this is the case, but that's a psychoanalysis for another day), he could have done so repeatedly during these past few chapters and didn't, even when he was so close to dying it was not even funny for him anymore;

2) Jonathan Stroud makes it clear that this is not *just* about self-preservation immediately after, when a girl interrupts them by accidentally kicking a tennis ball over and coming to get it (also, ahem, Kitty parallel anyone?). Faquarl wants to kill her, Bart makes sure he doesn't while escaping.

To me, this is more about establishing Bart's reluctant moral fibre and inability of looking at a human (child) without compassion than his relationship with either Nathaniel or Faquarl, but it's deeply tied to them regardless, because we all know what happens in the end. Neither of the djinn changes, really, but only one gets saved. And both times Bart chooses Nathaniel over Faquarl.

Returning to chapter 29 of AoS—for one thing, we have a three-way confrontation (with Bart hidden and listening to everything) when usually you'd have the hero and villain standing off against each other alone. For another, it's the common 'dark night of the soul' moment. Nat hits his lowest point in the book. But he doesn't win by returning to 'good' as it might appear at first glance. He wins by sinking further down.

Nat is still pretty much on the side of 'good' here—he's motivated by justice, and in spite of his earlier claims to Bart that in case the Amulet was discovered in his master's study he'd be in the clear... Nat cannot follow through with that and takes responsibility for his actions. Even when he might very well die, he stands there and later his one regret is not warning Mrs Underwood in time despite almost getting killed (again) by yelling for her in the middle of the fire.

But that's it, this is the moment that firmly shatters Nathaniel's trust in absolutely everybody with the sometimes exception of Bartimaeus. And it's definitely the moment when he shuts down. Lovelace calls him weak, and explains that coups and violence are how magicians operate overall, which goes entirely against what Nat has grown up believeing from Mrs Underwood's worldview. And his master practically offers him up as a sacrifice to save his skin, something which Nathaniel doesn't even seem to take to heart. His only thought about it later is that he did what he could for Underwood.

From this moment on, Nathaniel has been waiting to die, for relief, dousing himself in gasoline through it all. "I can read your thoughts as if they were my own: you want to go out in a blaze of glory against Lovelace," is what Bartimaeus (Mr I'm not good with psychology(I know he doesn't mean *this* kind of psychology, but the weekly make-fun-of-Bart tax must be paid)) tells him later, in chapter 31. Another bit of foreshadowing/parallel to PG, only then Bart is ready for it too. Nat wants oblivion, not justice.