I like Nick too. I think he is truly a good person, and that shows through his immense loyalty to his daughters.
Well, I don't like to make distinctions like "good" and "bad", because when it comes down to it, that's impossible. Human nature's not clearcut like that. When it comes to Nick (and most of the Constantine Family), it's not that he's a bad guy, but he's not a good guy either. Does he love his family? Yes, very much so. Not his ex-wife so much (but that's only understandable), but he wants very badly to find his daughters. Is he a criminal? Yes. While he wasn't guilty of the crime he did thirty years for (murder), he was a thief and he was a conman and he was very good at what he did.
I think it suggests how prison has influenced his feelings towards power and control - he might have been lacking that power over others in jail, and so maybe that's why it's such a rush to feel it now. Or maybe it's just a part of who he is, as frightening as that is. And by the way that he draws away so quickly, that suggests to me that he doesn't like this side of his personality, that he finds it as frightening, and perhaps out of place, as the reader does.
Well, prison's a tough place. Nick's not, by nature, a violent guy, but he was forced to be. The rules of the outside world are different from the rules inside, and at this point in time, he's only been out of prison for a few hours. He's still adjusting, and he's going to look at everything from the eyes of a con. Kill or be killed. An automatic calculation of another's weaknesses, just in case they come for him. It's - he kind of has to step back and realize with Mary Ann, that's he not in danger, that she's not a threat. And he may know that consciously, but thirty years of instinct is pretty hard to break.
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Date: 2005-06-18 11:55 pm (UTC)Well, I don't like to make distinctions like "good" and "bad", because when it comes down to it, that's impossible. Human nature's not clearcut like that. When it comes to Nick (and most of the Constantine Family), it's not that he's a bad guy, but he's not a good guy either. Does he love his family? Yes, very much so. Not his ex-wife so much (but that's only understandable), but he wants very badly to find his daughters. Is he a criminal? Yes. While he wasn't guilty of the crime he did thirty years for (murder), he was a thief and he was a conman and he was very good at what he did.
I think it suggests how prison has influenced his feelings towards power and control - he might have been lacking that power over others in jail, and so maybe that's why it's such a rush to feel it now. Or maybe it's just a part of who he is, as frightening as that is. And by the way that he draws away so quickly, that suggests to me that he doesn't like this side of his personality, that he finds it as frightening, and perhaps out of place, as the reader does.
Well, prison's a tough place. Nick's not, by nature, a violent guy, but he was forced to be. The rules of the outside world are different from the rules inside, and at this point in time, he's only been out of prison for a few hours. He's still adjusting, and he's going to look at everything from the eyes of a con. Kill or be killed. An automatic calculation of another's weaknesses, just in case they come for him. It's - he kind of has to step back and realize with Mary Ann, that's he not in danger, that she's not a threat. And he may know that consciously, but thirty years of instinct is pretty hard to break.