Hello Hearties! I am so excited to share this character analysis with you all! As some of you already know, this is the first of a series of psychological analyses of When Calls the Heart characters that I will be sharing. And since Nathan in particular has been through a lot in recent seasons, I figured I would start with him, since some of the issues I will be discussing are still fresh. That being said, I would like to point out really quickly that I am not a psychologist, but that this post is the product of a lot of research. Are you ready to dive in Hearties? Let's do it!

Side Note: I am aware that writers and show runners have made certain changes over the years. I am however, taking everything from the last four seasons into consideration, and I am choosing to focus on the fictional side of things rather than what went on behind the scenes. So yes, everything that happened on screen is canon.

Before I begin with my exploration into Nathan's character and head space, I would like to surmise what we know about him so far. If this is old news to you, feel free to skip this paragraph and move on to the one below.

So, what do we know about Nathan? He is the youngest of two children and his sister, Colleen is two years older than him. Nathan's father, Archie developed a gambling addiction and began pawning the family's belongs to pay off depts when Nathan was about 10 or 11 years old. Archie was thrown in jail for stealing from the bank that he worked at, and then again for petty theft when he took to stealing just to put food on the table. (When Nathan was 13 years old, he had an accident while learning to ride and was injured pretty badly.)

Nathan decided to become a Mountie to be different from his father. His sister, Colleen married Dylan Parks, who Nathan did not approve of. When Colleen's daughter Allie was 4, Colleen passed from unknown causes, and Dylan left, abandoning Allie. Since there was no other family who were able raise her, Nathan took Allie himself and acted as her legal guardian. When Allie was about 8 or 9 years old, Nathan was officially reprimanded for disobeying orders, and was replaced by Jack Thornton for a prestigious assignment at Fort Clay. When Jack was killed on said assignment, Nathan requested a transfer to Hope Valley to look after and protect Jack's wife and child out of a sense of duty.

When Nathan had been the Mountie of Hope Valley for over a year, Archie, his father came to reconnect. After resisting Archie's attempts and hearing that Archie had been accused of stealing once again, Nathan decided to work to prove his father innocent and was successful, allowing him to let go of the years of anger he felt towards Archie. Nathan fell in love with Jack Thornton's widow, Elizabeth during his time in Hope Valley, but she ultimately turned him down. After being rejected by Elizabeth, Nathan was hit by a speeding car. The collision left both he and his horse injured and emotionally traumatized. After choosing to accept a plea deal with the man who hit him in exchange for Lucas, Elizabeth's boyfriend's exoneration, Nathan starting to develop headaches and insomnia. As of the Season 9 finale, Nathan's headaches started to improve, and friends Mei and Faith appeared to show interest in him.

Did you get all of that? It's an understatement to say that Nathan has a lot going on in his life. That being said, I feel like it would be best for me to break this analysis into several different sections, starting with Nathan's childhood and how it impacted the rest of his life.

As I pointed out in my overview above, Nathan’s father Archie was a gambler, whose addiction landed him in prison several times. Archie stole to pay off his gambling depts and feed his family, and this lifestyle led to lots of lies, false promises, and deception. It is pretty clear that Archie’s vice as well as the deception that went along with it left Nathan with some trust issues.

Now, before I go on, allow me to explain a bit more. Trust issues developed in childhood can often lead to something called Black and White Thinking. Black and white thinking causes one to think in extremes, with very little grey area, and it is often a result of childhood trauma. Trauma can either occur as a result of one particular experience or many smaller experiences that add up over time. In Nathan’s case, his childhood trauma resulted from many instances of his father breaking promises or lying to him. While Nathan’s situation as a child did not affect him too negatively later on in life, it did leave some scars, most of which manifest themselves as black and white thinking.

Nathan even opens up about this to Lucas in the Season 9 finale, when he says "Lucas, I'm a Mountie. I have to look at things black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. You know what I mean?" While Nathan expresses this in the context of "being a Mountie" it's fair to say that this way of thinking applies in most areas of his life as well. Have you ever wondered why Nathan has a tendency to shut people out, sometimes without all of the facts? That is the black and white thinking coming into play.

Trust issues can lead you to push people away the minute they hurt you. It's a similar principle to Allie's struggle in Season 6. She was pushing people away so that she didn't have to worry about losing them. When someone is struggling with black and white thinking, aka trust issues, they shut people out the minute they experience any kind of hurt or betrayal, because cutting a person out of their life seems easier than enduring the pain of a broken promise again. Someone with trust issues will push even their friends away if they believe they have been deceived. Nathan is such a person. Similarly to Allie, Nathan pushes people away so that they won't hurt him or break his trust. All of this is linked to the hurt and disappointment he has experienced as a result of Archie's behavior. This becomes apparently clear when he asks Elizabeth, "How am I supposed to tell Allie that if she lets him (Archie) in, all he's going to do is break her heart?" He is obviously speaking from experience, and is all but admitting that Archie broke his heart over and over again.

As I have mentioned before, the scars of Nathan's past, namely the black and white thinking is still present in the different areas of Nathan's life. I can think of many examples in which Nathan pushes someone away, sometimes without all of the facts. We saw this happen when Nathan discovered that Mei had three outstanding charges and was seemingly married. He felt hurt that she hadn't told him anything sooner and proceeded to distance himself. While Nathan's reaction here is completely understandable, it was clearly a struggle for him to give Mei a second chance. Since giving someone a second chance had historically resulted in disappointment or worse in Nathan's early life, it makes sense why giving someone who appeared to have deceived and betrayed him a second chance would be difficult.

Another example of Nathan pushing someone away can be seen after Elizabeth and Lucas go to Union City together for the Virginia Wolfe reading. Think about how that situation looks from Nathan's point of view: he tells Elizabeth he is going out of town, while he is gone Elizabeth agrees to go on a seeming overnight date with Lucas, and the entire town is trying to keep the truth from Nathan when he comes back. From Nathan's POV, Elizabeth appears to be kindling a relationship with Lucas, and everyone in town knows about it... except for him. In other words, it doesn't look good, and Nathan, feeling as though he has been deceived or kept in the dark, closes himself off.

Even Lucas points out to Nathan while trying to teach him how to drive that "Maybe you're once bitten and twice shy." And while Lucas is referring to Nathan's past hurt from Elizabeth, it all goes back to the overarching theme of the fear of giving people a second chance and being hurt again. Even Nathan voices the fear of opening himself up to love and potentially being hurt again. "It would mean putting myself back out there again, after Elizabeth..."

While Nathan still struggles with giving second chances, he is learning to trust, slowly but surely. He is opening himself up more not only to the people in his life, but to the entire town. He has more friends now than he ever has, and has individual relationships not only with many of the men of Hope Valley, but also the women. He has shown different sides to his personality and is more comfortable to just be his playful, sometimes quirky self. And even though he is hesitant about opening up himself to love again, he has at least begun to consider that idea as he mused about how "it would be nice to find someone" while talking to Bill.

I think his conversation with Lucas in the Season 9 finale showed his movement towards learning to trust. He apologizes to Lucas for believing that he had anything to do with Wyman Walden, and his apology is more about his mistrust in Lucas than it is about anything else. As I've mentioned before, sometimes Nathan's black and white thinking causes him to make impulsive judgements of other people.

But he's working on it. He overcame a lot of his distrust and hurt in Season 9, and was able to give many people in his life a second (or third) chance. The good thing about Nathan is, once he knows he is in the wrong, he adjusts and makes the change necessary. His main objective is always to do the right thing, so I think the more he learns to trust, the more effectively he will be able to do that. As Kevin McGarry would say, "He is headstrong, and he can be stubborn, but Nathan has a heart of gold." As Season 10 approaches, I expect Nathan's journey of learning to trust will continue, until he makes the ultimate act of trust; opening his heart up to love again.

Apart from his trust issues, Nathan is a surprisingly healthy individual in view of his childhood and the example his father set him. He is a good father to Allie, he is very good at his job as a Mountie, and he is loyal and protective of those he cares about. How is this possible when his father failed to teach him any of that? How is it possible for someone to be so successful in so many areas in their life when their parental figure leaves them nothing to go by? The answer is through something called reparenting.

Reparenting is when we give to ourselves what our parents failed to give us when we were children. For example, if you weren't given enough affirmation or love by your parents, once you are old enough to recognize that, you can give that affirmation or love to yourself. Thus, in a way, you are reparenting yourself, or more specifically, the inner child within you that never got the love or affirmation it needed. So, how was Nathan able to fill the gaps that his parents (specifically his father) left behind? I have a theory.

When Nathan became Allie's guardian after Colleen passed, he was forced to be both a good provider and a good father to her, neither of which he ever had the luxury of having when he was a child. The truth is, when Nathan took Allie as his own and learned through trial and error how to be a father, he wasn't just parenting Allie. By parenting Allie, he was also reparenting himself, and learning what a parent should be giving to their child or what a child should be given by their parent. By learning how to raise Allie on his own, Nathan was also learning how he himself should have been raised. Because Nathan was able to give not only to Allie, but to himself the protection, and stability, and love that had been sorely lacking in his own childhood, he was able to build a good home and family without the presence a strong father figure in his life. In short, Nathan became the father that he never had, and Allie, who is happy, loving, successful, and comfortable is a testament to that.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that there are two types of trauma: one resulting from one, particular event, and the other, resulting from many, smaller events that eventually add up? Well, it turns out that Nathan has suffered both kinds of trauma in his life. Unfortunately, he seems to have a knack for ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a teenager, Nathan was thrown from his horse and dragged by the spooked animal because his boot was caught in the stirrup. While we don't know the full extend of the injuries he sustained in this instance, we do know that it was "pretty bad" in Nathan's own words. Although this particular story gives us (more specifically, me) more questions than answers, the main point of it is that the experience stuck with Nathan many years later.

In Season 9, Nathan is hit by a speeding car and pretty much left for dead since the driver doesn't stop to render help. Just like his first accident as a teenager, Nathan gets a concussion and can't remember the accident at all. Now, imagine if you were out doing your normal routine when you suddenly wake up in the infirmary and can't remember how you got there. That would be pretty frightening, wouldn't it? I think Nathan was pretty shaken up by the whole experience. As a Mountie, he faces the possibility of death daily. However, in the instance of this car accident, the situation was completely out of the blue, and out of his control. There was no way he could have physically or mentally prepared for it; it just happened.

In all honesty, the accident could have killed Nathan (you saw how his hat was completely crushed) and it happened completely without warning. I think that's why Nathan felt guilty about it. It was easier for him to believe that the accident was his fault than it was for him to accept that he had no control over the situation. That's why he blamed himself for it, even though he couldn't even remember what actually happened.

Dealing with trauma, especially trauma resulting from a freak incident often feels like a battle to get back to normalcy while trying to work through the overwhelming emotions that have been stirred up. I think Kevin McGarry did a phenomenal job of conveying that through Nathan, especially in the middle of Season 9. Nathan is trying to put his life back in order and continue with his normal routine, despite not being fully recovered, physically or mentally. Faith admonishes him for being up and about sooner than she would like, and Nathan later admits to Bill that he may have reinjured his arm while getting Newton to the rink. In other words, Nathan is trying to do too much too fast. He's trying to rush through the healing process, perhaps in the hopes that he can put the accident behind him like it never happened. It's not until Newton won't respond to him that Nathan is forced to face that truth: that the accident did turn his life upside down and his emotions inside out.

It's not until he admits to Mei that he is not himself that Nathan actually stops for a moment and actually opens up about the accident. Before then, he is restless, and agitated, and eager to get back to normal as soon as possible. Part of trauma, as well as post concussion syndrome is that your emotions are all over the place, and you don't feel like yourself. That's not to say that a person's personality has changed. On the contrary, a person's personality is not altered by emotional trauma. Sometimes, it's just buried beneath the swirl of overwhelming emotions. And since Nathan tends to bottle up how his emotions, admitting that he wasn't okay was difficult for him. But it was also that first step towards emotional healing. Once he was able to admit that everything was not okay, he was also more open to accepting help and being a little easier on himself.

Now, would I say Nathan has fully recovered emotionally speaking? Based on what I've seen from Season 9, my answer would be "no", though I do believe that he is well on his way and in a much better place. Unfortunately, When Calls the Heart is When Calls the Heart so the topics of trauma or PTSD will never fully be explored, if at all. Back in Season 5, Jack was suffering from a very obvious case of PTSD, but unfortunately it was hardly touched upon, and in my opinion, Jack died before he actually healed from it. Likewise in Nathan's case, I would have loved to see him work through his complicated emotions after the accident and learn to manage them. The insomnia and seeming anxiety that he still appeared to be experiencing at the end of Season 9 however, leads me to believe that he may still have some trauma to work through and gives me hope that we might see it addressed in Season 10. Will When Calls the Heart finally present a storyline that deals with men's mental health, particularly PTSD and Trauma? I doubt it, but a girl can hope, right? I think it would be a great topic to bring awareness to, especially since not enough people talk about it.

Nathan is a character with a lot of layers, and for that reason, a surface level assessment of him isn't enough. What you see is what you get, and yet, at the same time, he will always surprise you. Of course, I could go on and on about Nathan and the many different facets of his character, since I find him fascinating. Unfortunately though, I am not going to be able to cover all of it in this post, since the material I have presented you with is already pretty dense.

Overall though, I just can't express enough how much I love the character. His flaws, his virtues, his strengths and weaknesses, etc. It's not an exaggeration to say I love everything about this character. Does he have flaws? Most definitely, yes. Do I like his flaws too? Absolutely! His flaws makes his triumphs all the greater. In fact, I think it is the balance of strength and weakness in Nathan that really draws me to him. He's both relatable and admirable. He isn't perfect, but he is always striving to do better, which I think we can all relate to. Nathan was the first character on When Calls the Heart that I could point to and say "He's like me" or "He struggles just like I do." Because of that, he'll always hold a special place in my heart.

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