agatha's basement

In the case of Nicholas, this is both guarding it, keeping him and his history close to her for no one else to have access to (including his other parent, Rio Vidal), as well as an inability to show vulnerability. It is not too far a step to add on: she also may feel guilt regarding Nicholas, from multiple angles.

So! Let’s break down Nicholas Scratch, the lies, the truths, and how Agatha parented him.

Nicholas Scratch was born to Agatha Harkness in 1750. Agatha, at this point, would have been around seventy-five years old. The pregnancy seems to give her minor difficulty, and, we learn, that Nicholas was not meant to come into the world alive. He was stillborn. However, Agatha, who according to Kathryn Hahn felt cracked open by having carried him, begs for his life from his other parent, Rio Vidal (The Green Witch, Death).

And in this singular moment in history, Death acquiesces and offers more time. She denies herself, her nature and her role in the universe, to allow Nicholas to live. She does not give Agatha a timeframe for how long that may be, but here Nicky is given a reprieve. For a woman who was raised by a mother who believes she was born evil and should have been killed out of the womb: Agatha shows incredible care for her son. Against all odds, the only woman in history to sway Death herself to not collect upon a soul at its given time: Agatha Harkness.

Agatha cares about Nicholas. She loves him. However, the next scene to follow complicates the story, not her love for him, but how she chooses to raise and care take her son. Finding a coven of witches in the woods, like a hunter Agatha approaches, wiles her way in, and then kills all of the other witches. All while swaddling her still infant son. And this will become the pattern they will fall into for Nicholas’s short life.

We know from Jac that the killing of witches not to throw Rio off or to keep Nicholas alive, but simply Agatha continuing a pattern she had already set for herself in life (that would get worse once Nicholas dies). Agatha is actively choosing to continue down a path to empower herself, whether this is because she hoped she would one day have enough power to fight off Death (something she eventually 250 years later realizes is futile) or, likely in part: Agatha is always hungry, always empty and trying to fill that void in herself.

Again, we have to remember, Agatha is the victim of abuse and cruelty by her mother and her coven. And she continuously acts out one of the worst moments in her life: the moment her coven attempted to have her killed. She continually recreates that situation for herself, because while it is painful, it also fills her magic (something she is obsessed with and finds safety in/being in).

When it comes to having a child, a literal infant, it is not a jump for some people to find that behaviour unacceptable. Agatha is quite literally putting him in a potential line of fire, in a dangerous situation. As we move into the year 1756, we also see that Nicholas, as far as we are shown on screen, is not a magical child. He was a mortal boy who was used as bait in his mother cons and grifts.

And there, we see the point that it has come to: Nicholas acting as a thief to draw witches back to his mother. He is bait. Though Agatha is not far from him at this point, it is still technically a dangerous thing to ask of and expect of a child.

At six years old, Nicholas is far enough along in his development to begin asking questions of the world around him, and the reasons that they live the way they do. And he asks directly of Agatha: why do we kill witches? And this is where Agatha passes on her own trauma and cycle of abuse, the worldview she inherited from her mother and coven: because they will kill us.

And he has to get used to this feeling, a sentiment she later echoes to Billy.

Whether Nicky fully accepts his mother’s answer (or still questions it)—what he does next is important: he begins to sing. He senses his mother’s distress and tries to draw her into a song, into something better. Agatha is not a mature or grown up person in this moment, and Nicholas acts as the one who de-escalates his mother’s heightened feelings. Agatha does not want to be questioned on killing witches (does not want to stop or have to reevaluate the ways by which she has allowed her trauma and history to shape her).

That said, Agatha does rise to the situation not long after when Nicholas has run from one of their cons (his mother needs him home)—and he tells her they will kill more witches tomorrow. Despite her history of abuse, Agatha smiles at him and encourages him to sing and dance and play, instead of berating him for his choice.

(It is also important to note that as a non-magical child, Agatha did also rise to the occasion of encouraging the thing that Nicholas was good at: singing. She shares her magic and abilities with him, while also singing along with him. She makes room for what Nicholas came naturally to.)

Agatha tried hard and loved her son; however, it does not absolve her of what she passed onto and down to Nicholas, nor how she used him. And it is something she herself is aware of, the reason she cannot face him in the afterlife. She kept him on the move, kept him in grifts and cons, and then… She took the thing he made to comfort her, and she turned it into a lure to kill more witches. Something Nicholas did not approve of. As Jac said in The Wrap for the finale: “I think she knows Nicky was always on the side of life, and didn’t want to kill witches.”

Nicholas does not entirely escape the cycle of abuse that his mother attempted to keep him from, tried to love him through. We see this quite literally as his hair is kept in Evanora’s locket, tucked away in all of that history and pain.

And that is where Billy comes in. Both as Agatha’s next case study in attempting parenthood/mentorship and her need to do better by Nicky’s memory than what she has up to that point (along with her hope for getting her body back).

Agatha desperately wants to prove to herself she can succeed where she did not get a chance to with Nicholas because of his shortened lifespan.

So, she tries again to pass on her knowledge, her core belief: you have to get used to this feeling. Because to her, this is how she has survived. Because survival is more important than anything else.

And Billy, like Nicholas likely would have eventually if he’d continued to live and be on “the side of life,” refutes that. He refuses that lesson, because he too values the lives that were lost on The Road, which Agatha is absolutely nonchalant about (because for her it is always her versus everyone else).

And that is the interesting part of her relationship with Billy, because he is older (physically and thrust into the life of an older person while still being three)—he isn’t going to simply roll over and accept her skewed worldview.

And yet she continues to push her personal line, because it is what she knows (despite also being aware it is something neither son figure likes). Her personal history has informed that, but personal history does not make it right. Nor does it make Nicholas’ history somehow less fraught as it was. Good or bad should not be the measure by which we look at Agatha as a parent, but a consideration of the complexity, and a recognition of the fact that while she tried: she did fail in some aspects and it does not change the outcome that if Nicholas had grown older he may not have agreed with her trajectory and life choices.