#I'm too lazy rn to really UNPACK this. And honestly a lot of people are talking about Sean so I trust you all Know The Self-Loathing Deal.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

a thing about Nathaniel is that he has some of the same issues and problems as Sean, except Nathaniel successfully compartmentalized (a revolver locked tidily into a mahogany box) and is more controlled about his own descent. sharing in a different degree in it, but sharing in it nonetheless.

and there's many reasons why Nathaniel is coping significantly better—among the most important of which is he hasn't shot children, as far as we know—but I think, just as much as Sean is, Nathaniel is afraid of the person he can be. he hates himself, for many reasons going back to his childhood. I think he hates and is afraid of Lt. Trapp too, at least a little. he hides the revolver in that box and is hesitant to take it, and it is a dark place, and one he has to slowly get himself used to even thinking about over multiple days.

to use Beatrix's hole metaphor, Nathaniel has just as much a hole as Sean does. Nathaniel's may not be as deep and dark, and Nathaniel has managed to claw his way back up out of it, but it is there, and he is trying to climb a little ways down it on purpose without falling back to the bottom. and it's voluntary, and he has more control over it than Sean does in his rapidly deteriorating state, but there is always a risk against what it may to do Nathaniel to walk back into a place and state that has and can ruin and harm him as a person.

I think it's why Sean and Nathaniel seem to intuitively understand one another sometimes, when it comes to these things. even if they don't materially grasp their circumstances all the time. it's why their relationship is so easy and automatic. they have share this thing where they hate and are afraid of themselves, of that man who came back from the war.

unfortunately, that man of them both is useful for the task at hand.

#I'm too lazy rn to really UNPACK this. And honestly a lot of people are talking about Sean so I trust you all Know The Self-Loathing Deal. #But my point is that I think Nathaniel and Sean are the same to very different degrees but DO have an overlap. #Nathaniel Trapp #Sean Finnerty #Candela Obscura #Candela spoilers #Critical Role #Candela things #Circle of Needle and Thread