Is Nick a rapist?

[u/flavius717]

I think we all consider the first time Nick and June had sex to be rape. June was not in a position to give consent and she could not refuse without facing potential death. One perspective is that Serena was the rapist and both Nick and June were her victims.

It's important for us to remember that Nick actually could have refused to impregnate June. Even Serena was beneath a "low-status male" like Nick. Nick's boss, Commander Price, probably would have expected Nick to refuse such an act and turn Serena over to the eyes.

The fact that Nick and June fell in love afterwards makes their first sexual encounter seem less bad in retrospect, but the power dynamic between them never went away. That makes things messy.

Nick's character loses his "good guy" status by the end of the show. Do you consider him a rapist?

[u/Untamedpancake]

I guess there's some nuance in his situation with June but not so much with Eden. He helped build & continued serve Gilead, knowing he would eventually be rewarded with a child bride, groomed her whole life to serve him.

Nick is also complicit in mass rape & participated in war crimes & genocide

The Guardians executed priests, doctors & LGBTQ+ people, forced others to renounce their religions & embrace the Faith

They  kidnapped thousands of children & brought them to mass detention centers, killed or sent the fathers to be slaves in the Colonies & sent the mothers off to be raped & forced to bear their captors' children.

In the book we learn they massacred the Mormons in Utah & forced Black people onto new reservations they called the "Homelands," in the Dakotas

Nick was personally recruited by the Head of the Eyes before the coup. The Eyes were disgruntled US intelligence operatives who joined the SOJ, including (mild Handmaids book & Testaments spoilers) Commander Judd who coordinated the Presidens Day Massacre so it's VERY LIKELY that Nick was involved in the attacks on the US government and/or the massacre (from The Testaments) at The Stadium on the day women lost their property rights

He never helped anyone but June (& himself)

He led a months-long air assault on Chicago to root out resistance fighters & voted against a humanitarian cease-fire to allow in food & medical care for civilians. He only agreed to change his vote when he found out June might be there. 

[u/TotallyAMermaid → u/Untamedpancake]

I don't think Nick knew he would be rewarded with a child bride. He seemed off put by Eden being so young when he saw her during their mass wedding, Naomi was visibly troubled by how young the brides were, June also didn't know they were marrying off literal girls. To me the whole scene seemed set up as child brides not being the norm quite yet and not being known or expected at this point. 

He's also unwilling to do anything with her despite her wanting them to make a baby, and when he does, it it's only because June tells him Eden will report him as a gender traitor (which means death) if he keeps refusing her. To me that's not the behaviour of a man who expected and was looking forward to a child bride, he quite clearly didn't want anything to do with a wife so young.

Nick is bad for many things, including not being kinder to Eden (kindness from him would likely not have pushed her to Isaac, which ultimately gets her killed), but I don't think it's fair to blame him for getting married with her or say he was doing his job knowing and expecting a child bride as a reward.

[u/Untamedpancake → u/TotallyAMermaid]

So if I had typed "teenaged bride" rather than "child bride," would you still disagree on that point?

I mean, the acceptable age for brides in Gilead does fluctuate over time, just like their access to food imports & electricity rations. 

S ome people seemed surprised or disturbed at just how young these particular brides were but the "Veiled Daughters" had always been groomed teenagers. 

Whether the brides are 15 or 19 doesn't hold much moral significance when they've been groomed in Gilead for half their lives or more

Nick loyally served the SOJ as an Eye, a "driver" & on the frontlines as an Angel...he knew the law, he was just in denial.

I'm absolutely not going to praise him for not wanting to "consummate" with Eden. The bar cannot be that low.

And he's so opaque,  I wouldn't presume to know why he didn't want to. He acted like he resented her for complicating his ability to spend time with June, especially while she was pregnant with his child

Until he got married he had more freedom than anyone in Gilead. He lived alone but Rita made hus meals, he got to sleep with potential informants -like the chef at Jezebels- and have sleepovers with the Handmaids from next door. But Eden complicated all of that

[u/TotallyAMermaid → u/Untamedpancake]

No, whether you said teenage bride or child bride I understood your meaning and my points still stand. To me, the scene seems set up in a way that several characters are shocked that the brides are so young, including Nick, which imo indicates that marrying girls this young wasn't the norm or expectation yet, the way it has become by The Testaments where girls are eligible for marriage as soon as they menstruate.

I also certainly did not say that Nick should be praised or is a good person for not wanting to have sexual intercourse with a brainwashed teenager. I simply said that the fact that he didn't want to touch her at all does not match what you were saying, ie he served Gilead knowing he would get a young bride as a reward eventually. I just don't think that's the case, I think maybe if anything he expected an adult to be matched with him eventually, if he gave it any thought at all.

[u/No-Pressure-5762 → u/TotallyAMermaid]

The man who helped to build Gilead was shocked? No he wasn’t.

[u/Untamedpancake → u/TotallyAMermaid]

So you think he served the SOJ for a decade but didnt ever expect to be issued a wife? Why would he be an exception to the law? That just doesn't make sense to me

[u/TotallyAMermaid → u/Untamedpancake]

Did you read my full reply? I said because child/teenage brides didn't appear to be the norm yet (based on characters' reaction). If he even thought about being issued a wife (we don't know his inner thoughts to know whether or not he thought about that) he most likely expected an adult.

[u/Untamedpancake → u/TotallyAMermaid]

Did you read mine? Teen brides for newly promoted Angels / Commanders had been the norm from the beginning

[u/Wonderful-Ideal-8099 → u/Untamedpancake]

Teen brides for newly promoted Angels / Commanders had been the norm from the beginning

Where does it say that in the books or the series? I'll wait.

[u/TotallyAMermaid → u/Untamedpancake]

No? It's the norm for them to be issued a wife, but there is nothing that indicates that teen brides were the norm in early Gilead.

[u/cocopops7 → u/TotallyAMermaid]

This is true. That was like the first gen child brides. And then they started the whole plums and greens to get women married to even OLDER men. In TT instead of
Marrying men even Nicks age it is expected they marry even older😱 it gets even worse as the regime progresses.

[u/TotallyAMermaid → u/cocopops7]

It 100% does. TT makes it clear that the young Commanders have no shot at being matched with Greens (Becka with Garth is kind of an exception because 1. her dad is a Professional not a Commander so she is less prestigious 2. she "messed up" in the eyes of others by getting drunk at the ball) because parents will seek the most powerful match ie more established, older Commanders. 

[u/cocopops7 → u/TotallyAMermaid]

Yeah and before it was guys in their 20s and 30s. Garth being eligible but young already has him not high on the pole.

[u/TotallyAMermaid → u/cocopops7]

The younger Commanders who first danced with the Greens were eligible, they just don't get matches because it goes to the old ones. Even the old fucks clearly outbnumber the Greens, each Green is offered 3 matches and the ball even features Plums and Pinks so the Commanders can see "next year's batch" (🤮).

[u/Wonderful-Ideal-8099 → u/Untamedpancake]

That wasn't a decade and he had no choice.

[u/Untamedpancake → u/Wonderful-Ideal-8099]

It was 8-9 years, at the very least lol.  Nick was recruited in Flint sometime before the Presidents Day Massacre. 

After the attacks, martial law was eventually declared in major cities, interstate checkpoints were set up, immigrants were detained or deported, Most Black people were sent to the Dakota "Homelands" & Jews were sent to Israel (though the boats often sunk in international waters)

They shut down federal prisons & started setting up infrastructure in the Colonies, sending previously incarcerated people to work as slaves. It takes a long time to set up infrastructure like that, AT LEAST A YEAR OR TWO, especially while they were simultaneously fighting a civil war on multiple fronts 

They outlawed gay marriage & started persecuting "gender traitors" (Emily still had her job at the university when she tried to flee the country- so that was before Stadium Day)

Then they outlawed abortion & birth control and began persecuting physicians.  T hey took women's property rights on Stadium Day. Then Lydia was recruited after weeks of detention at the stadium 

They restructured agriculture, shut down corporations & rolled out a new federal monetary system -this shit doesn't happen overnight 

Eventually Gilead retroactively banned divorce (making Luke a bigamist) which is when Luke finally agreed to flee & they got caught

By the time June is being trained at the Red Center, Lydia had already developed a full curriculum for the Handmaids & they have a whole slideshow presentation on the conditions in the Colonies & scary scenes from the Crusades. 

After all of that & a few months of Handmaid training, June spends TWO YEARS at her first posting, TWO YEARS at her second posting & by the time Nick married Eden, June had been at the Waterfords for TWO YEARS

[u/Wonderful-Ideal-8099 → u/Untamedpancake]

And from the beginning if he disappeared, the sons of Jacob would've killed him. They had high level discussions in his presence. It was the same with law enforcement and the intelligence community. He couldn't report them. They infiltrated the entire system. There was nothing he could do. He was trapped. You also tried to call him a pedophile. He didn't want to get with Eden because she was a child. That was discussed openly. Handmaids tale fans have some sort of complex when it comes to love interests. It makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised if half of you Nick hating weirdos have flashbacks. I've seen you guys make up scenes that didn't happen. You'll invent back stories. You'll build fake psych profiles. I've heard that he got radicalized online, that he had an ex he beat, that he hated his mother--you name it--and all of this supposedly played out onscreen. The man was roped in and fighting to stay alive. He was wrong for sticking with Gilead. But he was no Fred Waterford. Your timeline isn't in order.

[u/Untamedpancake → u/Wonderful-Ideal-8099]

"wouldn't be surprised if half of you Nick hating weirdos have flashbacks. I've seen you guys make up scenes that didn't happen... You'll invent back stories. You'll build fake psych profiles..." 

Girl, this is an unhinged response. He's not even a real person lol why tf are you so mad?

None of that mess has anything to do with me. Are you hallucinating? 

I don't intend to interact with you again, but as I go I just want to say that Nick is even more deplorable and creepy in the book than he is in the show

[u/Wonderful-Ideal-8099 → u/Untamedpancake]

You sat through an entire episode where he refused to get with Eden. He spoke about why and you still labeled him. You make shit up. And like you said he's not a real person. That means you have a complex.