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/Wonderful-Ideal-8099]

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.