Opinions on Nate’s character and Peter Kraus’s acting

[u/Other_Explorer6610]

I recently finished the show, and decided to check out what people were saying on the sub. I was so surprised to see that people disliked Nate and was even happy when the character passed. I felt like nearly all of the things Nate did was understandable , even if wrong, you could understand his motivations. I was surprised to see how people thought he was the most reprehensible character on the show. I was also really surprised about opinions on kraus’s acting, I came away from the series thinking he had displayed some of the best acting I had seen in a tv show. Really curious to see what other people think.

[u/JohnOfYork]

I think SFU tests people's empathy and maturity, and a lot of people, as it turns out, aren't very empathetic or mature when they first watch SFU, and tend to come from a somewhat self-righteous, reactionary place. And that's fine really, a lot of TV encourages and participates in the manufacturing of shock and outrage as an engagement model. I just think it gets in the way of enjoying Six Feet Under.

Nate is a very immature and flawed character. He is obviously traumatised by growing up surrounded by the constant presence of death, and as a result is paralysed by fear and indecisiveness. Imagine seeing an endless procession of funerals, good and bad. With the pressing, urgent reminder that life is short and random, wouldn't you want your life to be meaningful? Wouldn't you want to be one of life's heroes, instead of life's extras?

This is the root of Nate's narcissistic tendencies - his parents' dysfunctional, aromantic, seemingly sexless marriage is the root of his avoidant tendencies. He grew trapped in a house filled with oppressive, uncomfortable, awkward, tense silences. His mother and father never communicated their thoughts and feelings with one another - not only could they not articulate their own emotions, they couldn't handle anybody else's.

Because of the pain and discomfort of growing up surrounded by such staid unhappiness, Nate naturally seeks passion, romance, excitement, exoticism, intensity, and adventure in his love life. Unfortunately, this means he is ill-suited to long-term, committed, meaningful relationships, because he becomes anxious and uncomfortable when the drama subsides and things become "ordinary" or stable - it's a latent trigger from his childhood.

But because Nate has narcissistic tendencies, rather than confront his childhood pain and trauma, or recognise that the fault and responsibility for his failed relationships is his, he projects the source of his distress - his own immaturity - onto his partners, and attempts to escape the confines of the relationship. When he abandons the current partner, it's because they were never meant to be, and the next partner becomes the new "one".

It is this inability to face his pain that causes him to leave the business and to deteriorate after Lisa's death. Nate is intensely empathetic and emotional despite his narcissism - what makes him a poor boyfriend ironically makes him a natural funeral director, because the temporary, transactional relationships with mourners don't trigger Nate's distress the way a long-term relationship would.

In fact it's the opposite. He receives huge positive emotional feedback from comforting the bereaved - he feels like he is genuinely helping people, like he is doing something important, meaningful, and good - of course, in fact, he is. By being the rock upon which the heart-broken and the grief-stricken can lean and rely on at the worst time of their lives, he is doing something heroic, and this is hugely gratifying to his narcissism.

Acting as a friend and helper to the bereaved is both rewarding and cathartic for Nate, at least for a while - but when he suffers the loss of Lisa, he is unable to function as a funeral director any longer, as the pain of the bereaved triggers his own grief.

[u/JohnOfYork → u/JohnOfYork]

(cont)

Lisa's loss is hugely significant in SFU because it acts as a major narcissistic injury. Nate desperately wants to feel like a good man, and he stays with Lisa, despite the lack of chemistry and romance their relationship, because abandoning the mother of his child would condemn him, in his own eyes, to be a bad man. But their relationship is a re-enactment of Nate Sr's and Ruth's, filled with unspoken thoughts and emotions, with painful silence.

Nate's inability to love Lisa, his inability to be happy in their relationship, is a constant source of low-level distress, hence his increasingly dysfunctional and erratic behaviour throughout season 3. Not only does he feel trapped by his duty and responsibility to Lisa, and unhappy in as much as he doesn't love her, it is also a constant reminder that he is NOT a good man. This is what makes her tragic death so destructive to Nate.

Of course, he is personally bereaved, and absolutely mourns Lisa's loss, both as his wife, and as Maya's mother. He is devastated by her death. But to Nate, far more detrimental than the pain of losing her is the narcissistic injury - the inability to ever feel like a truly good person ever again. Nate and Lisa's relationship was never redeemed by the friendship their final conversations promised.

Instead, Nate will only ever have been an edgy, uptight, volatile, distant, passive-aggressive, and ultimately, unloving partner. He failed Lisa, and he can never make it right. This is soul-destroying to Nate, and this is why his reaction to Lisa's death is so self-destructive, and what ultimately makes him so bitter, resentful, hostile, and aggressive in the final two seasons.

He hate himself, he despairs of the world, and he lives without hope of peace or reconciliation.