#mastermindmonday
I have a lot of feelings about this quote. But beyond all the obvious ones about the whole his father would be proud of him for murder thing, which is a serious but obvious issue, the bit about the ice cream says a lot about Nate’s relationship to his father.
Now, I’m not sure how it goes in other families, but in mine, ice cream stopped being a standard way for my parents to show they were proud of me long before I was an adult living on my own. That’s just not something that comes to mind for parents wishing to express pride in their grown up kid. Ice cream is something used to reward young children. And that is exactly why its mention here is so interesting.
It could indicate a kind of child-like lost feeling in Nate at that point. The line is meant to draw a link to his childhood because of how he feels at having lost his last remaining parent. And we don’t know when his mother died, but if it was when he was young, and I tend to think it was, then this could draw a link to how Nate felt at that point.
It could also imply that, true or not, the last time Nate actually felt like his father was proud of him was when he was young enough that ice cream would have been usual reward. Given their interaction in The Three Card Monte Job, I think this may be accurate. So to Nate, ice cream is synonymous with parental approval, even though at that point Jimmy Ford would have been more likely to buy Nate whiskey than ice cream.
#see this meta is surreal to me because i never received anything for parental approval ever#i mean like. for a specific act/event#but this sounds like a reasonable meta conclusion#and like. knowing what we know of jimmy ford from Three Card Monte#i feel like nate ford at ice-cream-age wouldn’t be getting much parental approval#because that’s the age that’s between#‘he’s a baby so i wont be hard on him’#and a point where you’re actually old enough to do what your demanding parent asks of you#esp b/c nate’s dad treated kid!nate as someone who should be cunning in a way little kids can’t usually do#so there’d be more of 'u are terrible if u cannot see through my card trick’ than ice cream#parents like that (in my experience) treat kids 7-12 like they have the physical/mental skills of young teens#so maybe the ice cream is tied to a particular remembered event?#given the circumstances. likely kid nate getting into a fight#i just. have feelings all over the place#that flashback scene reminds me more of my father than anything i’ve ever seen#so if u want an estimation of jimmy ford as a parent u can ask me (tags via @darkmetiknight)
That makes a lot of sense. I like the idea of ice cream as a show of approval tied to a particular event because it fits even better with the flashbacks to Nate’s childhood in The Three Card Monte Job, and getting into a fight makes a lot of sense for that event. It even ties in further to the line from The Last Dam Job because it ties Jimmy Ford’s approval to Nate committing violence. So Nate here is not guessing that his father would buy him ice cream for committing violence; he is recalling a specific time this happened.
A series of scenes from the Nate’s life, as seen by Sophie. Written for Mastermind Monday in Character Appreciation Week on Tumblr because no is better at appreciating Nate than Sophie.
The first time Sophie Devereaux met Nathan Ford she shot him in the shoulder and he shot her in the back. Even for an experienced Grifter, this was an inauspicious beginning.
The next time he didn’t mention it. Admittedly it had been two years but still she found absolutely infuriating. The man had bloody shot her. True, she shot him too, but a gentleman should at least apologize.
“Fancy running into you here,” Nate said with a smile, stepping up beside her.
“Oh, it’s you.” she said, perhaps not as icily as it should have been when greeting someone who shot her. “Sophie Deveraux, art aficionado.”
“Nathan Ford, art insurance investigator. I’m sure it’s a coincidence, you being here, three days before the auction.”
“There’s an art auction coming up?” She didn’t bother putting any effort whatsoever in her denial.
“Like I said, I’m sure it’s a coincidence and you will be taking the next flight out of town.”
“You really aren’t going to address the gunfire from last time?” she asked.
“I wasn’t planning on it. You shot me. I shot you. The way I see it that’s fair and we’re all squared up on that account.”
It was one of the things she liked earliest about him, that sense of fair play. It wasn’t the same thing as playing by the rules, not exactly. It wasn’t the same thing as a moral compass even, not exactly. And it wasn’t anything near the same thing as being nice. Sometimes fair play meant pulling the trigger. Sometimes it meant stealing as far as Sophie was concerned.
That was the moment she decided he had it in him to be an amazing criminal. Because right now, the world had always dealt fairly with him and he responded in kind. But heaven help anyone who decided to screw over Nathan Ford.
For a little while she avoided stealing anything insured by IYS. Nate was just too good at his job. It was just too big of a risk, especially since he knew her. Then there was a piece of art that was just too big of a temptation and she decided to ignore her rule. It was more of a challenge with Nate hunting her at every turn, but she was surprised to find that she didn’t mind. She had never had someone that interested in finding her before. Sure, there were sometimes people looking for her characters, but Nate wanted to find the real her, the art thief. Soon she found herself stealing IYS insured items more often, to make sure he was following her.
It was almost a year of this cat and mouse game, and it was definitely a game, and one they were both starting to enjoy, before he learned about her acting.
“You can’t prove any of this,” she said defiantly when he caught up to her trying to steal van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone.
“You’ve never mentioned proof before,” Nate pointed out. “What changed?”
“You noticed.” She smiled. If he hadn’t noticed, she wouldn’t have said anything else. “I’m an actress,” she admitted. “When I’m not… you know,” she waved a hand at the art around them. “I play Lady Macduff in three hours and don’t want you to show up with the cops.”
“Oh,” he said. “You don’t want me to show up with the cops? Or you don’t want me to show up?”
She smiled at him. “You’re a smart man.” She leaned in closer to him. “Figure it out.”
Someone slid a postcard under the door to her dressing room after the show. The front showed van Gogh’s Starry Night. They don’t tend to make postcards of Starry Night Over the Rhone. The back of the postcard simply read “To the brightest star on the stage.” She never told him that she kept that card for a long time. Years later, when she had to leave in a hurry and couldn’t go back for her things, it was the only thing she really minded losing, the only thing she couldn’t replace.
She loved Carnevale. She always was more comfortable wearing a mask. It did not surprise her that Nate showed up to stop her wearing his ordinary suit and no mask. She objected on principle. He really was failing to get into the spirit of the thing but it hardly surprised her. An honest man didn’t need a mask.
Sophie changed masks eight times that night, trying to stay ahead of Nate, but he managed to spot her through each change. She didn’t know whether it was her voice, her walk, something else. It was infuriating… and flattering, that he could so easily pick her out of a crowd.
She heard what happened to Sam. Of course she did. Most of the people in the business heard. She left a job half done to go to the funeral. It was the only time she abandoned a job when she was at no risk of getting caught. She claimed to work with Nate, only half a lie really.
She pulled a lot of cons to steal IYS insured items after that. There were a couple of reasons. Partly because they were easier marks now that Nate was out of the game, and partly as her own quiet revenge for her… whatever Nate was to her. She had never contented herself with one identity, she certainly wasn’t going to stop at one motive.
But the game lost some of its charm knowing he wouldn’t be there, following after her. She hadn’t realized just how much she enjoyed knowing he would be there until he wasn’t. That’s why, by the time her went to get her help with Dubenich, she was mostly an honest citizen. And maybe it was no coincidence that she settled in his town, where he could find her if he ever decided to look.
And when he came to her for help, there was never any question of whether or not to do it. It would be nice to be on the same side. Black king or white knight, it didn’t matter to Sophie; she looked forward to playing the queen.
I have a lot of feelings about this quote. But beyond all the obvious ones about the whole his father would be proud of him for murder thing, which is a serious but obvious issue, the bit about the ice cream says a lot about Nate’s relationship to his father.
Now, I’m not sure how it goes in other families, but in mine, ice cream stopped being a standard way for my parents to show they were proud of me long before I was an adult living on my own. That’s just not something that comes to mind for parents wishing to express pride in their grown up kid. Ice cream is something used to reward young children. And that is exactly why its mention here is so interesting.
It could indicate a kind of child-like lost feeling in Nate at that point. The line is meant to draw a link to his childhood because of how he feels at having lost his last remaining parent. And we don’t know when his mother died, but if it was when he was young, and I tend to think it was, then this could draw a link to how Nate felt at that point.
It could also imply that, true or not, the last time Nate actually felt like his father was proud of him was when he was young enough that ice cream would have been usual reward. Given their interaction in The Three Card Monte Job, I think this may be accurate. So to Nate, ice cream is synonymous with parental approval, even though at that point Jimmy Ford would have been more likely to buy Nate whiskey than ice cream.
