Six Feet Under (Rolling Season Five Thread w/ SPOILERS)[now also NSFW]

nate's whole "man, i am so fucking wise and in touch"

He was being honest with his feelings. You must be the most uptight motherfucker around.

well, at least he died the way he lived. being a selfish, smug asshole.

And Nate a selfish asshole? Take a look at who he's been with. They were all much worse, including Brenda. I looked at my gf when Nate told Brenda he was done with her and we both went, "Yay!" with big smiles on our faces.

I don't disagree that Brenda was awful, but I think my aggravation with Nate stems from the way he goes about things. I feel like he has a pattern of getting something he thinks will make him happy, then becoming almost immediately dissatisfied with that one thing and convincing himself something better is out there without ever trying to work to improve the situation he's in. His pattern is that when things get tough, he bolts. I don't get the sense that his character has any understanding of the idea that life is difficult, relationships take work, and the godlike "peace" ideal isn't something you discover, it's something you work to create.

He gave his marriage all of 1.5 episodes before he decided it wasn't working out, and the only reason he came to that conclusion was because he decided that if only he was with Maggie, then surely he would be happy. I get aggravated because I know so many 'Nate's -- always convinced that their unhappiness is caused by someone else, always bailing at the first sign of trouble, and always leaping with their full soul at the next shiny thing they're convinced is going to make them happy -- whether it's marriage, or Quakerism, or living on an organic food commune.

I can't determine if this is intentional -- if the character is deliberately written this way -- or if everyone involved with the show is also this myopic, onanistic and self-centered.

He was being honest with his feelings. You must be the most uptight motherfucker around.

sounds like something nate would say, actually.

Nate's first wife was having an affair with her brother-in-law and was murdered... You don't think that would be a head trip to live with, as you raise the daughter of that union. After you've had your head explode and disoriented for a while? Sucked back into your hometown doing a job you never wanted?

No, Nate was confused and getting better by being honest with his feelings. He made the mistake of trusting and caring for selfish people. And in the end, he decided it was important to put himself and his daughter's happiness first. Good for him.

There isn't anyone on Six Feet Under who isn't flawed, and interestingly, not a single central character who hasn't cheated. But in terms of relativity, Nate is the one who rarely had moments of maturity, much less selflessness, and everyone else has. He's by far the most selfish and immature character.

xpost haha he who can't be named is pretty funny

(Agreed that Nate was the center of the show and agreed that he was more likeable than not, but he really was all about himself in a way that not even Claire could match.)

"Agreed that Nate was the center of the show and agreed that he was more likeable than not, but he really was all about himself in a way that not even Claire could match."

Cite some points about why Nate was so much worse than everyone else. I've cited my reasons. All you've done is reaffirm your opinion. Lisa, Brenda, Claire, Brenda's bro (name escapes me at the moment), her mom, her lovers, Claire's friends, Claire's teacher, George, Ricoh (especially this season) have all shown themselves to be just as bad or much worse than Nate. Nate never tricked woman after woman into marrying him knowing full well he was schizophrenic. Nate never fucked David's wife. Nate never acted like half the selfish twat Claire has shown her to be, although perhaps when he was her age he was worse, it's hard to know for sure. Nate got involved with some very fucked up people who were very trying to deal with.

Nice safe datapoint there.

Nice safe datapoint, eh? I'm still waiting for one datapoint from you.

Nate's total self-involvement with having to move back from Seattle to help with the family business helps isolate Brenda, which feeds into her loneliness and sex addiction.

All throughout the series, Nate is a complete and total tool to Frederico whenever the subject of partnership in the business comes up, even though Rico's been there working his ass off to keep the business afloat longer than Nate has.

Billy is completely totally nuts, so okay Nate can't be more self-involved than him. YOU WIN.

Paragraph 2: typical family shit, yet here he's trying to "do the right thing" and yet it's used against him in paragraph 1 and also from another angle here. I guess he should've not tried to help the family (but then you would've called him selfish).

Paragraph 3: Nate was protecting the family business, which is not a complete and total tool move. Rico was being a tool as well.

typoh

Projection:

Psychology.

The attribution of one's own attitudes, feelings, or suppositions to others: “Even trained anthropologists have been guilty of unconscious projection of clothing the subjects of their research in theories brought with them into the field” (Alex Shoumatoff).

The attribution of one's own attitudes, feelings, or desires to someone or something as a naive or unconscious defense against anxiety or guilt.

Or, in the spirit of another ILXor:

Oh boy, a dictionary!

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This is such bullshit! Rico can be buffoonish, but his first interest is consistently to help his family and his business. The guy is intensely loyal, and had his whole family life fucked by the one time he wasn't. Unlike Nate, however, he was genuinely guilty about what he did, and has worked very hard to earn the forgiveness of Vanessa. Rico's not a perfect guy, but he's definitely a good person for the most part, full of love for his family and friends. If anything, he's the total opposite of Nate - he has a very specific morality and lives for the benefit of others, often at his own expense. (He's more like David and Ruth in this way.)