#its fiction
Nicky is clearly framed as The Sensitive One: the one who worries about Nile being scared and alone when she first discovers she’s immortal, who invites her to talk through her nightmare with them, who’s still thinking about the kids they thought they were rescuing after it’s clear they’ve been set up, who thinks about small things like offering a non-aggressive greeting to civilians they pass while armed to the teeth in a former war zone (“peace be with you” might just be a standard greeting in Nuer, the same way it is in Arabic, but I think it’s also his way of saying “don’t worry, we’re not here to harm you.”)
But also…Nicky’s the sniper, a kind of violence associated with coldness and deliberateness and ruthlessness, and we see that he is very good at it. When he and Joe are sleeping, Nicky’s always the one in front, between Joe and the door, and when they wake up in the safe house Nicky has a gun in his hand before Joe’s even fully woken up. (He’s also the one who sees Nile put herself between Andy and a bullet when that needs to be done and copies the move immediately after.) And when we see him and Joe fighting together in the lab, he is usually the one in front, attacking first to disarm or disable an opponent and relying on Joe, behind him, to guard his back and finish the job. And they do it so fluidly that this is clearly an established pattern with them.
The only time we see him get visibly angry is when someone hurts Joe, and yes, of course. But also, “cinnamon roll who goes absolutely feral when you hurt someone they love” is a trope we have seen before, and I think there’s more going on here than that.
Nicky is quiet and attentive to others and emotionally intelligent, and he is extremely competent at violence; he’s just not quick to anger and he’s not cocky or showy about it. “He thinks you’re a mouse, Nicky,” Joe says about Merrick, and he thinks it’s funny, because he’s seen this so many times before, someone underestimating Nicky because they think he’s soft, and he has most definitely seen that be the last mistake they ever make.
The word you are looking for is praus (πράος). The best description is “carrying your sword sheathed.” War horses were trained to be praus. Medicine was said to be praus. It is strength with authority and control. Power that you do not use until you need it. Anger at the right time, never angry at the wrong time, with every instinct, impulse, and passion under control, as William Barclay put it. God is said to be praus, translated as “gentle” in English, and the praus, translated as meek, will inherit the earth.
I can’t help but think that Nicky learned that from his days as a priest, took it to heart, found it true as a warrior. And they call him a mouse, because they have not yet been trampled in war, they have not seen the sword unsheathed on them. All they have seen is the medicine heal, but they will feel his anger, Righteous and pure, because they hurt Joe, and Joe is as close to God as Nicky has ever been.
“Why do people like a character who’s committed war crimes but hate this other character just because they’re annoying” because it’s fiction Susan, and being annoying in fiction is a greater sin than being a supervillain, because it won’t make me want to read about them. It isn’t difficult to understand
I will say, the trend to shame people for just liking a simple, trope-heavy story (written for free and for fun) as an escape is shitty as hell.
Why do we have to be shamed for this? Like damn y'all, I’m sorry we’re not making the homemade media we use to decompress from the ridiculous grind of whatever we’re all going through realistic enough or accurate enough??
Sometimes, it’s about the hurt/comfort. And fucking hell, sometimes the person hurting that needs comfortisme.
Yes. I need all the tropes to get me through sometimes. And sometimes I need the toxic, problematic tropes because life sucks, and I really want to read about characters I love hurting and then getting better. I want the hurt to be extreme and the comfort to be extreme. Because I need to be comforted.
On par with the argument of Aziraphale and Crowley fitting so many different types of queer rep into them because they can be whatever we want to see them and that’s awesome… There’s an argument I always miss in this sort of “discourse”, and it’s that even outside of human labels and identities, they are absolutely queer characters? Like, even ignoring all the human stuff, saying they might not have gender for real, are canonically sexless, etc etc… Like, guys, they’re so queer when you just look at them as angels (demons).
Crowley’s presentation is continuously neat, tidy, fashionable and modern. He isn’t presenting at all the way other demons are. Demons are expected to be dirty, with old clothes, hair full of grease and blood and other gross liquids, sores on their faces, animals on their heads. Crowley doesn’t confirm to this presentation at all. We speak about his gender non-conformity in human terms, but his demon non-conformity is at least as important IMO. Crowley chooses how he wants to look, how he wants to be seen, for himself, even if it’s looked down on and met with scorn from the demons around him. (Does this strike cords with anyone else who’s gnc? Because it should.)
Likewise, Aziraphale doesn’t wear the tailored suits and the gold tattoos that are a normal presentation for an angel. He engages in a lot of unangelic activities, like hoarding books and enjoying meals, and he gets flack for it the same way any person who fails at having the proper interests for their gender gets flack from their environment, too.
Already on their own these characters are queer coded that way. And then there’s their relationship, their love for one another, the way they’re drawn to a member of a group they’re not at all supposed to be attracted to. They fall in love with the wrong person. The person they love isn’t the gender sort of angel they’re supposed to, allowed to love. Does that sound familiar to anyone?
Especially Aziraphale goes through all the struggles a lot of us queer folk go though. He tries to not see it. They’re just acquaintances, it’s nothing - okay, they work together sometimes - okay, they might be friends, but they can’t - oh fuck he loves Crowley, and it’s mutual, and he cannot live in a world that doesn’t have Crowley, but loving him puts Crowley at risk, they can’t let anyone see, ever. That’s, yeah, that’s just living in a homophobic world, y'all. It does that to us. And Crowley is more comfortable with his love in itself (and cares less for the approval of his family side), but he too is aware of the risks and aware of how difficult giving in to it is for Aziraphale.
Like, yes, the characters aren’t human. There’s analogies and metaphors and shit here, yeah. But their entire story is queer as fuck. Please shut up about the queer baiting.
