Nate’s role as a villain is complex but pervasive as he smothers other characters through performing his role as patriarch. Nate beats David at every turn: he takes the freedom (from the family business) which David craved, then walks back into the business as his equal (despite a lack of experience or qualification) and in doing so he annuls the years of life that David has invested into the funeral home. In his personal life Nate also beats David without trying, claiming fatherhood and marriage (twice) Nate cares for neither but they come to him easily, almost accidentally, enabled by social norms and laws that support his role as partriach. David has to work hard for success in family life and his business life, but social norms allow Nate to simply have these things even though he resents all of them. Nate takes sex where he finds it, and while this easy sexuality will eventually be implicated in his downfall, no other character is allowed to have the same sexual success. David is criminalised and physically abused for taking what he wants, while Federico’s bumbling naive attempt to be like Nate is disastrous for his marriage. The big contrast between Nate and Brenda is in now they attempt to or resist becoming their same-sex parent. Nate truly does become Nathaniel Jnr in the end, proving just as inadequate a husband and father, underlined by the fact that his last act before going to his deathbed is to cheat on his wife. Brenda, on the other hand, actively resists trying to become her mother, Margaret Chenowith.
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