LetsDriveSomewhere — 9 years ago(November 04, 2016 06:39 AM)

At first, Brenda sees Nate as an individual who pulls in people's energy and feelings. It is exactly what allows him to be great undertaker despite his efforts to rebel against his family's business. His empathic abilities are actually what makes this his "calling" in life. Regardless of Brenda's observation, we have seen plenty if instances throughout the series where Nate's natural ability to relate to the bereaved out shined his colleagues who had been in the business longer. His ability to pull in people's energies and instantly relate to them is symptomatic of being an empath, though he is never outright called one on the show. There are some other clues in his character make-up, like his love of dogs when he started working at the doggy daycare and his love for being in nature. This is important t note because he actually preferred the doggy daycare to being an undertaker and never would have returned to Fisher & Sons had it not been for David's breakdown. Nate, while being a naturally good undertaker , seemed to constantly feel drained from working at the funeral home. Dealing with so many strong emotions on a daily basis would absolutely overwhelm an empath, but working somewhere like a doggy daycare would invigorate them.
Nate gives up a lot for the people in his life and never fully lives on his own terms. Still, by the end of the show we see him do some incredibly cruel and selfish things, particularly to Brenda. Before he dies he tells her he is leaving her for someone else, even while she is pregnant with his child and after she has taken responsibility for his other child from a former wide he treated very poorly. This is when Brenda, who is now a psychologist, calls him a narcissist and accuses him of being incapable of love.
The way that Nate can so easily discard Brenda, his wife and the mother of his children, does seem narcissistic. This is especially the case considering that his interactions with Maggie made Nate feel "like a better man than he actually was," to quote Brenda. She, on the other hand, made him feel worse, as did Lisa, because his relationships with them forced him to truly look at himself and how he treated others. Maggie didn't require that (yet), their relationship was too new. Nate seemed to get narcissistic supply from doing the "right thing" in marrying Lisa and being Brenda's "savior" through impregnating her. But when both those relationships became challenging, he crumbled and went looking for other sources.
Still, Nate does demonstrate the ability to reflect. He does experience remorse, regret, and guilt, so it is difficult to label him an outright narcissist. Also, take into consideration his empathic-like ability to relate. Was this really the narcissist's ability to imitate more than him actually feeling or knowing other's feeling? Perhaps he was only so drained working at Fisher & Sons due to all the pretending and acting he had to do. I can imagine how that could be tiring to a narcissist as well.
One encounter that stands out as both empathic and narcissistic was when Nate had sex with the serial killer's bereaved daughter. He was in pain, escaping inside a woman on the other side of that pain. Maybe he was able to channel her energy. It seemed as though he was able to relate to her pain due to Lisa's death. But when she came back, Nate felt delighted treating her cruelly in a way that I can only describe as narcissistic.
There are some of the opinion that empaths and narcissists are two sides of the same coin, so maybe that's why Nate seems to demonstrate both qualities over the span of the series.
Thoughts?