Half Bad

“And so the trick doesn’t work. It doesn’t work, and you do mind; you mind about it all. You don’t want to be back in that cage, and you don’t want the trick anymore. You don’t want any of it anymore.”

This quote is a rejection of the first trick, uttered many chapters later. Despite Nathan’s early comment that being caged doesn’t bother him, he spends much of his time plotting his escape. The effort puts him in a worse position than if he hadn’t tried at all. However, his frustration at being trapped constitutes a grim sort of progress.

“I do have a secret, though. A secret so dark, so hopeless, so absurd that I can never share it with anyone. It is a secret story that I tell myself when I’m in bed at night. My father is not evil at all; he is powerful and strong. And he cares about me...he loves me.”

Nathan’s language in this quote is telling. He uses words like “dark,” “hopeless,” and “absurd” to describe his belief that Marcus loves him. He makes this statement while still a child and after being subjected to indoctrination from Fairborns designed to teach him how little he matters to his father. Ironically, by the end of the book, Nathan’s fantasy is realized.

“I’m prepared to be teased about being stupid, dirty, or poor, and some idiot is bound to pick on me because I’m small, but I don’t mind too much. They’ll only ever do it once.”

From a young age, Nathan has become inured to abuse. It is so much a part of his life that unkindness seems routine. However, he is unwilling to passively accept the taunts of others and has learned to fight very early. Fortunately, he has become very good at defending himself. Unfortunately, the constant need to fight gives him an antagonistic stance toward the world.

“Arran’s arm is round me as we walk back to the school building. He is holding me tight, pulling me to him, but as we near the entrance he shoves me away. It’s an angry shove. ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask. ‘Why are you laughing?’ Was I laughing? I hadn’t realized.”

Nathan has just beaten the O’Brien brothers after they began picking on Arran. While Arran believes in Nathan’s intrinsic goodness, he seems alarmed not only by his brother’s violence but by the joy he takes in it. These are Blood Witch traits, and Nathan’s reaction suggests that he is quite unaware that he is leaning in that direction.

“I’m happy with Annalise, really happy, looking at how beautiful she is and forgetting who I am for the time she’s with me. That’s pretty special too. But lying on a Welsh mountain is different. Better. That’s the real me. The real me and the real mountain, alive and breathing as one.”

After Nathan travels to Wales, he seems to connect more strongly with his Blood Witch heritage. As stated elsewhere in this guide, Blood Witches have an affinity for nature, and their temperaments tend toward the wild rather than the tame. Even the pull of Annalise’s beauty can’t compare to Nathan’s bliss at being immersed in wild nature.

“‘You should go. You shouldn’t see me.’ She catches me out, turning to look me straight in the eyes, saying, ‘I don’t care what they say. I don’t even care about your father. I care about you.’ I don’t know what to say. What can you say to that? But I do what I have wanted to do forever, and take her hand and kiss it.”

Nathan’s entire life has been a string of rejections based on who his father is. In this quote, Annalise indicates how little Nathan’s family matters to her. In characteristic Blood Witch fashion, Nathan doesn’t express his feelings with flowery words. He’s much more comfortable with physical actions to communicate emotion.

“I wonder about you. Sometimes you seem wild and mad and I think you’ll have the same Gift as your father. But then other times you’re so gentle and I’m not so sure...maybe you’ll be like your mother. It won’t be potions, though.”

Even though Annalise declares her indifference to Nathan’s mixed heritage, she notices that he doesn’t act consistently like a Fairborn Witch. His anger and destructiveness are fundamental to his nature. At the same time, Nathan gravitates toward the gentleness in others, like Annalise and Arran. The letters on Nathan’s back aren’t the only indicators of duality in his temperament.

“It’s how you think and how you behave that shows who you are. You aren’t evil, Nathan. Nothing about you is evil. You will have a powerful Gift—we can all see that—but it’s how you use it that will show you to be good or bad.”

Arran once more declares his belief in Nathan’s fundamental goodness. This conversation takes place when Nathan is still very young and prone to accept the assessment made by Fairborns that all Blood Witches are evil. However, as he will later learn, Blood Witches are capable of goodness, and Fairborns are capable of villainy. Nathan’s obsession with his bloodline won’t solve that problem neatly for him.

“I hadn’t realized how much suffering was inflicted. A month of torture before they let the witch die. I worked for the Council because I believed Fairborn Witches were good, superior, and I was now faced with the fact that they were as bad as Blood Witches, as bad as fains, as bad as them all.”

The elderly witch Mary is telling Nathan why she quit the Council. This is the first point in the book where Nathan is given a fresh perspective on the Fairborns, among whom he’s lived all his life. He will receive many similar warnings from other characters later on. Goodness and evil are matters of perspective. A simple declaration of Fairborn virtue is meaningless. Actions speak louder.

“The new trick is no easier than the old trick. The new trick is to stay in the present...Get lost in the detail of it...Enjoy it!”

Nathan has been returned to the cage after another failed escape attempt. The true extent of his misery is indirectly expressed in this quote. If all one has is a fleeting sensation of pleasure in the moment, how bleak must life be? Nathan describes the motion of his fingers when he does pushups. This hardly seems cause for rejoicing. Apparently, condensing his experience down to isolated moments helps him to keep from despairing over his plight.

“But even with all that suffering and pain and cruelty I think that maybe my ancestors did find happiness, even for a brief time. I think I’m capable of that, and they must have been too. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. ’Cause if I’m going to die in a cell I want to have something first.”

Nathan has just been indoctrinated by Celia with more Fairborn propaganda. She has told him about his male ancestors, and how many of them died violently. Aside from the bleakness of the cage itself, Nathan can look forward to a life marked by tragedy and pain. He fights this dim prospect the only way he can, with hope.

“The great thing about hate is that it takes away everything else so that nothing else matters. So then the old trick is easy. I don’t mind about having my arms ripped off, about pain, about anything.”

Kieran O’Brien is attempting to take Nathan into custody and transport him to the Council. Nathan’s words convey the rage and hostility that have been building in him after two years of imprisonment. He doesn’t care how Kieran threatens. Of course, the real irony is that Nathan is now resisting being removed from his cage rather than being placed back in it. 

“His next joke he says quietly, just sharing it with me. ‘What’s the difference between a Half Code and an onion?’ He lifts my shirt up. I feel his fingers scratch over the lower part of my scars, his scars, as he says, ‘Cutting up an onion makes you cry.’”

Nathan has now been loaded into the van, and his hands are cuffed. He is once again a helpless victim of Kieran’s cruelty since Kieran gave him the scars on his back in the first place. The Hunter’s grim joke is an indicator that he views Nathan as a lower life form that doesn’t deserve sympathy or respect. This view makes it easy for Fairborns to torture Blood Witches without any twinges of remorse getting in the way.

“‘I’ve been kept in a cage for nearly two years. I’ve been beaten and tortured and kept from my family, my family of Fairborn Witches. Tell me which bit of that is “good.”’ ‘We are concerned for the good of Fairborn Witches.’”

During Nathan’s conversation with Soul O’Brien, the council member tries to point out the virtues and advantages of being identified as a Fairborn. Once again, Nathan places no value on words. In part, he never learned to read properly because words don’t matter as much as physical images and actions. Nathan rightly points out that the actions of Fairborns are at odds with their verbal claims to virtue. 

“I thought that exile meant you had to leave your country and you could go anywhere […]. But exile doesn’t mean that […]. It’s some cold, miserable place like Siberia, where you don’t know anyone and you can barely survive. It’s another prison.”

Now that Nathan has escaped from the Council, he doesn’t feel any freer than he did while in custody. He is feeling a profound loss of connection to anyone else. He can’t see his family or Annalise and doesn’t know who he can trust to help him. His mental and emotional exile is worse than the cage in some ways. At least, he had Celia as a companion to hate and appreciate by turns.

“I like thinking of my father, and I know I’d think of my son if I had one. I’d think of my son a lot. So I know Marcus is thinking of me.”

After his escape, Nathan is more isolated than he has ever been in his life. The Fairborns tried to brainwash him into believing that his father is evil as a way of alienating his affections. As this quote indicates, indoctrination didn’t work. Even though Nathan is completely alone, he still maintains an emotional connection to someone he’s never met. As was true during his time in the cage, he chooses hope over despair.

“‘To force me to do things for them?’ ‘That’s what I’ve been wondering. Not sure how it would work. They could inflict so much pain you’d want to comply.’ ‘Comply or die.’ ‘Comply or suffer. Suffering is their speciality.’”

Trev has just figured out the reason for Nathan’s tattoos. They will be used with a witch’s bottle to control his actions. Nathan automatically assumes that the Council would kill him if he refused to obey. Trev makes an important distinction by saying that the Council excels at causing suffering. This comment corroborates Mary’s earlier observation about torturing Blood Witches before killing them. Causing suffering is an end in itself to the Council.

“He hopes I’m well, really well, not just physically but inside myself too, and says he’s always believed in me and knows I’m a good person, and he hopes I can get away.”

Nathan is paraphrasing the short video that Arran gave to him because they can’t meet in person. Arran isn’t only worried about Nathan’s physical safety. From their earliest years together, Arran has understood the emotional toll of the abuse heaped on Nathan. Being well inside matters more than outer health. Arran also reaffirms his faith in Nathan’s goodness when nobody else in the family would.

“‘I should explain that it was self-defense; my grandmother was attacking my father. It’s complicated...She blamed him for my mother’s death.’ He swirls his empty coffee cup. ‘Anyway, they are not famous.’ ‘Violent, though.’ ‘In both violence and fame, your bloodline outdoes mine.’”

Gabriel is talking about his own family history. As a Blood Witch, he is already complacent about the emotional turmoil within Blood families. Killing one’s kin seems to be an acceptable pattern of behavior. However, he is quick to note that the atrocities committed within his own bloodline are nothing compared to Marcus Edge and his forbears.

“‘I’ve never seen eyes like yours before.’ Looking into her eyes is like looking into hollowed-out sockets, completely black but with distant lightning flashing occasionally. ‘You haven’t met many Bloods?’”

Nathan has the ability to see the glints in witches’ eyes. However, he has had limited contact with Blood Witches. Seeing Mercury’s eyes seems to unnerve him. However, in prior chapters, he described his own dark eyes using somewhat similar language. Nathan is, in fact, a Blood Witch who doesn’t recognize his own kind even when staring them in the face.

“I look in her eyes and I see Kieran on his knees in front of me, a gun in my hand. I blink and look away but I’ve already felt my finger pull the trigger. She screeches her laugh again. ‘Killing is in your blood, Nathan. It’s what you are made for.’ I shake my head at her. Besides, if I’m going to kill people, I’ll choose who they are.”

Mercury has just demanded that Nathan kill his father. Given the volatility of Blood Witch family relations, this might not be such an outrageous request. Nathan would certainly like to kill Kieran for revenge. However, he realizes that both factions want to use his violent streak for their own ends. The Fairborns want him to kill Marcus, and Mercury wants the same thing. All Nathan wants is the right to choose.

“I’ve killed a woman. I didn’t mean to but her neck is broken and Rose is dead too and I’m shaking. There’s blood all over my hands, the girl’s blood, and I’m rubbing my hands on my shirt but there’s more blood. There’s lots of blood.”

Shortly after his conversation with Mercury, Nathan accidentally does kill a Hunter. As this quote indicates, he is distraught at what he has done. Perhaps the civilized Fairborn side of his nature is asserting itself. More likely, this quote speaks to the previous one. Nathan has once again been deprived of choice when it comes to who he will kill.

“‘Why didn’t you come before?’ I sound pathetic but I’m so exhausted that I don’t care. ‘Nathan, you are just seventeen. That’s very young. When you’re older you’ll realize that time can move differently. Slower sometimes...faster occasionally.’”

Nathan asks Marcus why he didn’t come for him. While Nathan judges that he sounds pathetic, his question is perfectly reasonable. A father has an obligation to protect his child. Marcus will later say that he takes his parental responsibilities seriously, but his reply in this quote sounds vague. His explanation explains nothing. The reader is left with a sense of Marcus’s moral ambiguity even though Nathan seems to accept the excuse.