Day 3:
In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.This is hard - so many choices!
But I'm going to go with a pivotal moment in Haven: the first ep in season four. It tears down alllll the walls between Nathan and Duke, and it makes me incredibly happy.
I actually have a post mostly written up from, uh, 2013 that I never got around to wrapping up or posting (it was meant to be a post-YT reveals post, and I just never went back to it in January), so am just going to plunk that in here to 'splain. There are going to be spoilers for most of the show here: caveat lector.
Begin old post:
~~~
Things about Duke and Nathan I sorted out in my head (read: turned into headcanon) while rewatching (most of) Haven:
Duke is a romantic pragmatist. He likes being in love, he doesn't seem to really stop being in love (he never trusted Evi again after whatever happened between them, but I never got the feeling he'd stopped loving her, at least a bit). But the heart of him is about pragmatism and practicality, and using the tools at hand even when those tools are people (within some limits -- I suspect Evi's limits on that were different than his, and hence the breakup). Within those limits, he just doesn't take things personally, and he doesn't understand why other people do -- especially Nathan.
Nathan is a romantic idealist. He likes being in love, also doesn't really seem to stop being in love (he was still very fond of his HS gf, etc.). He's not a pragmatist at heart; he will use people if he has to but he doesn't like it, and he's bad at it (like, say, Jordan -- Duke could have charmed his way out of that reveal, because he would have played it lighter and looser out of sheer pragmatism, but Nathan doesn't know how to do that, and wound up hurting her badly as a result).
But they're both romantics; they both genuinely believe in relationships, genuinely value relationships - genuinely value
each other. So they get pulled together along the planes where they align, and then something happens -- usually Duke doing something that to him is utterly normal, that reads to Nathan as something a user would do, something you just don't bring into a relationship you value. So Nathan shoves Duke away, in a move that seems
utterly random to Duke, because why would anyone get that mad over [thing]? [Thing] is just... [thing]! It's no big deal!
But it's a huge deal to Nathan, who feels like all his trust has been thrown back in his face, because how could someone do [thing]?
And then they have a period where both of them feel like the other one has randomly and for no reason blown up their friendship, and they can't trust each other. And with every cycle of that, the barriers between them get a little bit stronger, because they're both Charlie Brown, trusting Lucy not to pull the football away, and crashing down harder every time she does.
And here's the other sticky part of all that, amplifying it: Duke's pragmatic approach to affection and relationships is almost identical to Garland Wournos's. So Nathan is super-primed to feel like the people he loves and wants to trust most just can't be trusted to put him first, ever. While meanwhile they're just baffled, because of course they put him first! It's just this other thing that has to get done right now, so what's the big deal?
(The day I figured out that Garland and Duke approached Nathan almost identically, I think I actually squeaked.)
So, anyway, back to Duke and Nathan and their push-pull relationship. We know that Duke came back specifically because of the Troubles; he already knew they were back when he arrived in Haven, because that was his only reason for coming back. Nathan didn't know yet. Duke and Nathan run into each other, Duke makes friendly overtures and invites Nathan to go fishing, Nathan says sure, okay, thinking they're reviving their friendship. Nathan then discovers that Duke asked him because he wants Nathan to flash his badge at the Coast Guard; Nathan is furious, they "beat on each other for an hour", Nathan's Trouble manifests during the fight (implication is that it's the fight that triggers it), Duke "doesn't even care".
All of that is Nathan's version of the story. But here's the thing: Nathan also says, at a different point, that he's never heard of a Trouble manifesting because of physical stress. It's always emotional stress, something huge.
Which means that Duke's "betrayal" is what actually triggers Nathan. Duke's friendship means that much to him.
I think from Duke's eyes, that whole thing looked a little different. I think to him, he had to go back to Haven, he ran into an old friend and invited him out fishing, with the added bonus that this friend could even wave off any curious Coast Guard cutters if need be, making for a nice relaxed day for both of them (because why wouldn't Nathan want to do him an easy favor like that? It's not like he was asking Nathan to help him smuggle something specific - just smoothing the way in case anything happened, like flashing a badge at a traffic cop and promising to make sure Duke drove more slowly). Then that old friend loses his temper for no reason, and they get into this ridiculous fistfight and now Duke's angry too, because wtf, this was supposed to be a nice day! Then Nathan's Trouble gets triggered, and Duke, who knows full well the Troubles are back, doesn't really blink; he knows all kinds of Troubles are being triggered, and he's extremely familiar with Nathan's. Also dammit now Nathan *can't feel Duke's punches*, and how is that fair?
Then Nathan stomps off and stays angry at Duke for two years, while Duke decides screw it, he didn't need Nathan as a friend anyway, so there. He doesn't even like cops.
Then Audrey shows up and smacks their heads together a few times, and starts letting them past that point. They start relating to each other on a more grown-up level; they find out things about each other that they don't turn around and use against each other; they start trusting again. Slowly, carefully, and with some backsliding, because their pattern is so well-established now -- but they're breaking it every chance they can.
Except third season, which is the point at which Audrey's been in town a few months and has started to trust Duke as much as she trusts Nathan -- and Nathan is still hugely aware that Duke betrayed him so severely that Nathan's Trouble manifested, so he warns Audrey, explicitly telling her that as best he can, and she... pays no attention, and keeps right on trusting Duke. Nathan's falling more in love with Audrey every day, and sees her setting herself up for a betrayal of some sort, and he's just so angry at both of them -- that Duke is probably setting her up, that she won't trust that he knows what he's talking about (he's known Duke for 30 years; she's known Duke for what, 4 months? 5 months?).
Nathan spends most of third season braced for Duke's next big betrayal -- and Duke doesn't betray him, or Audrey. (Which is because his pragmatism is aligned with their goals, pretty much, but also because he really is more willing to just help now, and Nathan has had to learn something about pragmatism since he became Chief [not to mention how his handling of Jordan was basically him trying to channel both Garland and Duke through himself, with wretched results, but he can't really throw stones about using people now].)
~~~
End old post!
So, yeah - there's just so much history between these two, going back forever. There's the first three seasons of the show, which took 3 years in real time but only about six months in show-universe time (so everything that happens in the first three seasons is still pretty fresh and raw all the way through).
And then at the end of s3, Duke and Audrey vanish into the Barn. *poof*
So s4 starts up, and we find out it's months later. Duke is thrown out of the barn in another state, thinking it's only been a few hours. Things Happen and he makes his way back to Haven, looking for Nathan; the Teague brothers tell him where to look, but warn him that Nathan has changed.
Duke goes off and finds Nathan in the midst of a group of burly men, scruffy and bruised and careless, taking money off these guys by betting them he can take whatever punch they throw at him. The woman Duke has been traveling with is all, "...
that's your friend?" Duke sort of winces and says, "We're... complicated." Then he borrows a $20 and walks up behind Nathan, who's taking a break to have a swig of beer.
And I interrupt myself to say - I love that borrowed $20. They
are complicated, and Duke is a pragmatist, and he's totally prepared to buy a few minutes from Nathan if he has to. <3
Anyway, so Duke says something, and Nathan recognizes his voice, and his eyes go so, so hopeful. He spin around and grabs Duke by the arms, lighting up all over his face, and then pulls Duke into the fiercest, happiest bearhug ever, tightening his arms even more when Duke hugs him back, and making little noises of pure joy.
Here's where I steal
from another post I actually did make that same year:
~~~
This season has been a Duke/Nathan slasher's dream, from the moment Nathan turned around to see Duke and reacted with completely nonverbal sounds and one of the best hugs I've ever seen anywhere. ... I may have watched it a few times since then.
That hug makes sense from Nathan's POV, where he's spent six months thinking Duke was dead and it was his fault, but for Duke, it's been a few hours, maybe a day tops, since he's seen Nathan, at which point they were at their normal levels of semi-grudging trust and working together. But he sees Nathan's face light up at the sight of him, and that triggers an identical reaction in him; he lights up right back, and he may not quite be trying to crawl into Nathan the way Nathan's trying to crawl into him, but he doesn't let go, even though Nathan smells bad.
And they never go back from that point. They've had other moments of relative peace and harmony in the past, but they're just moments, and then the protective walls go back up. This time, it's like they both decided oh well, the cards are all on the table now -- they really do mean that much to each other, and they both know it. So they just move forward from there.
I'm tempted to go all gushy and say all they ever needed was one moment like that, of pure trust and love, but I don't actually think that's true. I think they needed the last few years of history to make that moment possible in canon.
And then we get things like Duke backing Nathan's play in a heartbeat, even though he first doesn't believe him, and then thinks Nathan's out of his mind and tries to keep convincing him it's a bad idea. But even then, publicly he's still backing him, even if it means coming up with yet another lunatic plan later, to the point that other people tell him outright they know he's just doing or saying whatever to protect Nathan, which. ♥
We get Nathan trying to stop Duke from risking death to save Nathan, with the weird angry living blood trouble thing; and Duke whapping his arm away and then absorbing all the weird angry blood anyway, because he knows what that blood wants to do to Nathan, and at least he has a shot of surviving it.
We get that fantastic moment on the hill, with all the Guard around wanting to kill Nathan, and Duke absorbing some Troubled blood and yelling "Run!" and Nathan just BOLTING, without a blink, totally trusting Duke to have his back and to know what he's doing.
We get Duke just assuming the role of Nathan's de facto partner in the first part of the season (and again later, when Audrey's out of commission), with both of them accepting it as perfectly normal (and again, not just them, but everyone else; the vibe between them is so relaxed and simpatico at this point it's amazing). He even makes sure that Nathan's coffee can't accidentally scald him before he hands it over.
We get that moment when Duke actually tells Nathan he's good at his job -- not mockingly, not even teasingly, just a straight-up "the thing you're good at is solving cases and finding people" -- and even though the way he does it sounds like it could be a setup, Nathan doesn't think he's being set up, he trusts that this is a genuine conversation. We get Duke and Nathan having a nose-to-nose, heart to heart convo about how Nathan wants Duke to protect "Lexie" when he's gone, while earnestly telling Duke that he *will* stop the Troubles, and Duke quietly and sincerely saying "I know you will". Oh my heart, the
trust, the
belief.
And later, when Duke has killed Wade and is grieving and angry and freaked out and lashes out at Nathan and Audrey, Nathan doesn't go defensive or angry; he acknowledges that Duke's saying some true things, and then when he realizes that Duke's Trouble is gone and figures out that Duke must have killed Wade, he just sort of absorbs it; he doesn't go all cop on Duke, he's just there for him. (... which, okay, is sort of being a terrible cop, but in Troubled Haven terms, makes me kinda melt.)
We get Duke, who for seasons now has been saying he doesn't want to help people, eyerolling at the sky and plaintively wanting to know why everyone always thinks he wants to help, telling Jennifer that when he was a kid, he's the one who carried Nathan to the hospital when he broke his arm -- and even more tellingly, that's how he differentiates himself from Wade, who freaked out and didn't help at all. That childhood moment was
defining for Duke.
And most of that is just the first few eps of the season, as they turned themselves into this tight little unit of two, even with the other people swirling around them, even as they made room for Jennifer and "Lexie", even as Duke's brother showed up trying to reconnect, even as Dwight tried to reintegrate Nathan into Haven PD.
I have been eating this season up with a
spoon, man.
~~~
So, yeah. Haven S4E1, where Duke and Nathan drop their prickly facades and embrace the relationship that'd been lurking under the surface the whole time. Making me an incredibly happy fan in the process, heh.
(... so much for combining days to catch up. I think I'll be doing this thing till February at this rate!)![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trascendenza is hosting a watchathon starting in February, and suddenly I was digging it out. Because who knows! Maybe people will want to go looking for things, and not know where to find them!
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