So many subtle, delicious Tainat moments in this 3x06 scene…
Tai jumps to stop Gen when she pushes Nat:
Tai looks conflicted and guilty as Van yells at Nat:
Tai attempts to diffuse the situation as she senses it’s starting to become dangerous for Nat, suggesting a trial in an attempt to bring civility back to the group and protect Nat from immediate harm (using the same method she saw Nat use to protect Coach Ben):
She steps in front of Nat when Shauna threatens Nat’s life, getting in Shauna’s face, fully ready to challenge Shauna to protect Nat:
And the seething glare Tai shoots Lottie after she crowns Shauna as the new leader. Her anger and disappointment is so palpable in a single look that Lottie immediately avoids eye contact with her:
Tai will deliver the most tender, empathetic speech about how she needs to support Natalie after the rescue, not only for Nat's sake but for her own, recognizing her pain in a way almost no one else does ("Who does Natalie have?"), only to turn around moments later and gripe, "What took you so long?" the second Nat gets in the car.
Nat will think of Tai first when she gets arrested, call her for help, refer to her as a friend, will feel safe enough with her to accept help in a way she does with almost no one else, and then immediately snap at her the moment Tai answers the phone. Their relationship is full of sharp edges and emotional whiplash, but underneath all of it is a kind of love neither of them really knows how to express directly.
limagine all of them carry some guilt for the way they treated Nat pre-crash and in the wilderness, but I don't think anyone carries the responsibility of making up for that and putting Nat back together over and over again more than Taissa.
"Who does Natalie have? Other than Travis, which we both know was a fucking train wreck, who does she really have? No one. And now she has less. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her. So I do what I can. Not just for her, for me."
It's So Easy to Come Back: Natalie Scatorccio and Recovery
Contains spoilers for Seasons 1-3 of Yellowjackets
CW: discussion of substance abuse and addiction, mention of character death, discussion of the rehab industry, mentions of isolation and lack of support, mention of a suicide attempt,
Word count: 4.3k
Writer's note: The title of this essay and the lyrics used throughout are from the song "Lover Dearest" by Marianas Trench.
Special thanks to my loved ones for loving and supporting me, especially on the hard days.
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"This is gonna sound weird, but I haven't really wanted it."
"I used to think all the drugs and all the drinking and the sex, I use to think I did those things because of what happened out there. What I saw, what I did. But the real reason is much simpler. After they rescued us, I lost my purpose."
"Not today."
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Paramount's Yellowjackets is a masterclass in how the addition of information can change our perception of something. The most prominent example is the portrayal of the Queen Hunt in the pilot, and how the information given to us in Season Three changed everything about how we perceived it. The same is true of the characters themselves, and in particular Natalie Scatorccio. Nat, once she was rescued from the wilderness, coped with everything she and her team had experienced by turning to substance abuse for the next twenty five years of her life. This, obviously, would have a massive impact on how she walked through the world, both in how Nat treated others and how others treated her.
According to a study conducted in 2013 "Americans hold significantly more negative attitudes toward persons with drug addiction than toward those with mental illness." The study found that people were more unwilling to have an addict marry into their family or work alongside them at a job and that more people thought that discrimination against drug addicts was not a serious problem, compared to those who are mentally ill *1. This attitude towards addiction extends into clinical settings as well. A 2016 study found that clinicians frequently believed that people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) had character flaws, were unable to control themselves, and were choosing their condition and could quit if they wanted to *2.
Natalie came from a working class background with at least one parent who abused alcohol. We see that in high school she drank and did drugs, and was seen as a burnout by her peers. After the plane crash, when the group is in need of a disinfectant for Coach Scott's leg, they turned to Nat expecting her to have alcohol on hand. From the start there was a set perception of who Natalie was as a person because of her background and her substance use, regardless of anything else she did. As far as the show is willing to tell us, there was no support extended to Natalie as a teen to help her quit her substance use, and we see an example of this when Coach Scott merely shrugs off Nat's stated desire to not drink during Doomcoming.
When we as the audience meet Nat in her adulthood, she is meditating while facing the Pacific Ocean just before being called inside for a group meeting, and we quickly find out that this is her last day of rehab. Later, as she gets into a cab to leave the facility, she asks her driver "Do you pick up a lot of people here?" and "How many go straight to a bar?" While this exchange can be interpreted as being an example of the show's gallows humor, it also highlights something that many people are unaware of when it comes to addiction recovery; that rehab does not work for everyone. It certainly did not work for Natalie, as she was in rehab multiple times and only achieved sobriety after being brought to Lottie's intentional community and connecting with Lisa, shortly before her death. To properly understand who Nat was before her passing, we should examine her behavior as belonging to someone going through the early stages of recovery.
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This place is a hole, but I don't want to go
I wish we could stay here forever alone.
This time that we waste, but I still love your taste.
Don't let him take my place, don't just sit there.
Sometimes I wish you would leave me.
-----
Addiction is defined as "a chronic (lifelong) condition that involves compulsive seeking and taking of a substance or performing of an activity despite negative or harmful consequences" *3. As discussed in a prior essay on stereotypes about PI peoples and how that effects fandom interpretation of Lottie Matthews, there are many who believe that Lottie caused Travis Martinez to develop an addiction to psilocybin mushrooms. Per the Canadian Centre for Addictions, "unlike the iron grip of substances like alcohol, opioids, or cigarettes, psilocybin mushrooms don't sink physical hooks into users' biochemistry... When someone stops taking mushrooms, their body doesn't revolt with withdrawal symptoms – that telltale marker of physical dependence" *4. Travis, as far as the show tells us, did not take psilocybin mushrooms again once he and the others were rescued from the wilderness. He did, however, engage in destructive spirals whenever he and Natalie were with each other, which involved alcohol and cocaine. Though we do not know what recovery looked like for Travis, if he chose that, we do know that Nat was in rehab at least five times, per a conversation she had with Lottie as adults.
There is a perception that once someone has gone to rehab, they are cured of their addiction. The reality is, however, that "there are no federal standards for counseling practices or rehab programs. In many states, becoming an addiction counselor doesn’t require a high school degree or any standardized training" *5. The rehab industry is so unregulated that anything can be qualified as therapeutic at many of these facilities. In a 2018 segment for the show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver noted that "for all those claims of success it is very hard to know exactly what you're getting at any given rehab. you might get the traditional 12 step based approach, which undoubtedly works for some, although most experts argue that there should also be consistent access to newer treatments like certain behavioral techniques or medications like [naltrexone, buprenorphine, and methadone]. But rehabs are not required to offer those, and because a rehab can essentially be whatever its proprietor says it is, that means they can frame almost anything as treatment" *6.
Part of the problem with the depictions of rehab in the media is that many believe it is a one size fits all solution to every addiction case. The reality is that, surprisingly, different people have different needs, and what might work for one person with addiction might not work for another. As we see in the figure *7 below, different lengths of stay in a rehab facility are suggested to have different levels of success, and the suitability of a treatment type depends on an individual's circumstances. This table, generated by New Jersey based Alina Lodge, would suggest that Natalie would have most benefited from a Long-Term Residential or even Extended Care facility.
(figure 1 description: a table with four columns labeled Treatment Type, Duration, Success Rate, and Best For. In the Treatment Type column are four rows labeled Detox Only, Short-Term Residential, Long-Term Residential, and Extended Care. The table lists the different lengths of stay for each treatment facility, the success rate for each type, and who might best benefit from each type.)
Not everyone is aware of the existence of long term care, however, and it can be prohibitively expensive. Even short term care can be costly without health insurance, ranging in the tens of thousands of dollars depending on location, facility, and type of care needed *8. Rehab facilities are so profitable that the term "the Florida shuffle" has emerged, which describes a practice in which patients with insurance are moved through different rehab facilities as a means of continuously billing their insurance *9. Natalie herself was not paying for these stints, as we find out when Taissa Turner mentions that the "pay cut [she] took to run for senate isn't going to fund another stay in rehab" in reply to Shauna Sadecki suggesting Nat could be scoring drugs during the stakeout of their blackmailer. Taissa is a lawyer who graduated from Howard and Columbia, and who ran for Senate in her state, and yet she sent Nat to rehab multiple times despite being able to see that she would continue to relapse.
To be clear, this is not an indictment of Taissa's character or her intelligence. Dr. Thomas McLellan, who was the Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Obama, did not know what to do when one of his children became addicted. When speaking with Martin Smith for the FRONTLINE documentary Chasing Heroin, Dr. McLellan stated "all that training, all that knowledge about addiction did not prepare me for the most fundamental question of all; where do you send your kid for treatment" *10. Even those who know the most and have the best resources can still be at a loss when someone they know becomes addicted. If anyone should be blamed for the harmful system we have, it should be those who profit off of keeping people in a perpetual state of relapse and recovery, and not those who genuinely try to help them. Tai continuing to send Nat to rehab is a testament of Tai's love and devotion, something very few people in the world had for Nat.
One might ask, why not Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings, then? These meetings are free, and chapters are located much more locally than many rehab facilities are. However, despite the fact that "its absence of religious doctrine has accommodated agnostics, atheists, and believers in nontheistic religions such as Buddhism" *11, AA, and by extension NA, are both culturally Christian organizations. We see examples of this in texts of theirs such as the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions, and the Serenity Prayer. While AA/NA encourages members to adhere to their own understanding of a higher power, their literature still invokes God specifically, which implies that these groups have a Christian background. Digging deeper into the history of AA, we find that "AA has its roots in the Oxford Group, a conservative evangelical Christian organization" *12. This is important to consider when thinking about Natalie's path to recovery, as her prior experiences with spiritual or supernatural forces in the Canadian wilderness would likely make her wary of having anything to do with any group that had a spiritual focus.
Furthermore, Natalie did try AA. The show does not tell us why this didn't work for her, or even why she chose to go, but we know that she attended meetings and even had a sponsor named Susie, who she committed identity theft with, at some point assaulted, and eventually blackmailed into helping her access Travis' bank account. If we were to make an educated guess as to why AA did not work for Natalie, it would likely be a combination of the inherent religious and/or spiritual nature of AA, and the group sharing element. Not only would she be wary of any group that even hinted at a belief in the supernatural, Natalie would not be able to share what she had experienced in the wilderness with an AA support group, and would likely have felt alienated in these meetings as a result.
A treatment that could have been effective for Natalie, but that the show makes no mention or acknowledgement of, would be medication based therapy. There are medications that can assist with recovery, such as acamprosate, naltrexone, and disulfiram *13. These medications each work in slightly different ways and are taken differently, but they all can be prescribed by a doctor to assist someone who wishes to stop drinking completely. Although there is no equivalent medication that exists currently for cocaine withdrawal, recent research suggests that bupropion could potentially be used to help certain individuals stop using cocaine *14. There also exists a form of treatment called SMART Recovery, which touts itself as "an evidenced-informed recovery method grounded in Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)" *15. SMART Recovery is by its nature a secular program, and places emphasis on programs back my scientific evidence, personal empowerment, and community building. Nat is someone who thrives in community, and would have benefitied immensely from a judgement free treatment program like SMART.
The tragedy of Natalie's story isn't just what she experienced as a teenager, but also the ways in which she was failed as an adult, and the lack of compassion and care afforded to her even in death reflects the lived realities of a great many people who live with addiction. Nat's story, when stripped of the fantastical elements, is a reflection of our reality and should be examined as such.
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I stand for awhile and waited for words,
Seen but not heard and struggled to try.
My tongue's turning black, but I'll take you back.
You're still the best more or less, I guess, I guess.
Don't you leave me
-----
When someone quits or reduces their substance use, there is a chance they will experience withdrawal. Withdrawal looks different for everyone, but the most common symptoms related to alcohol withdrawal are headaches, anxiety, nervousness, irritability, insomnia, excessive sweating, upset stomach, heart palpitations, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, hyperthermia (high body temperature), tremor (shakiness) of hands or other body parts, confusion *16, and in more severe cases hallucinations, seizures, disorientation, and impaired attention *17. The symptoms for cocaine withdrawal include agitation and restless behavior, depressed mood, fatigue, general feeling of discomfort, increased appetite, vivid and unpleasant dreams, slowing of activity, and paranoia *18. Withdrawal symptoms may also be associated with suicidal thoughts in some people *19.
Both of these types of withdrawal can last for months in those who stop long term heavy use of these substances, and given that Natalie used both substances heavily for over two decades it would be safe to say she would have experienced some if not all of these symptoms at one point or another in her lifetime. Natalie as we saw her was almost always in a state of agitation or irritability, behaved restlessly, and moved in a way that suggests a level of disorientation. When she tried to practice shooting her rifle at Lottie's intentional community, she was not able to hit her targets, which suggests that her previously good aim could have been thrown off by tremors. Her search for whoever was responsible for Travis' death was marked with erratic mood swings, and could arguably have even been a means of combating depression at his passing, a state that would have been exacerbated by cocaine withdrawal. Arguably, the events of the adult timeline are started as a result of Nat's paranoia, as she decided to investigate who had sent her the postcard marked with the wilderness symbol rather than ignore it.
When she thought she had finally run out of possible leads regarding his death Natalie attempted to take her own life, which is a choice that was likely also exacerbated by being in withdrawal from cocaine. Every instance we see of Natalie as an adult should be examined carefully, and her behavior should be understood as belonging to that of someone in withdrawal. Her words and actions are completely in character even if they do not match up with her younger self, because while she is in withdrawal she is nothing like her younger self; she is someone who is currently experiencing a complete shift in brain and body chemistry, for who knows how many times by this point in her life. As a teenager Natalie likely did not experience severe withdrawal symptoms while in the wilderness, for the simple fact that her substance abuse at that stage in her life was not as severe as it would become post rescue, and also because her substance use was for a much shorter duration than it would be in her adulthood. A teenage Natalie would have a much shorter and much less complicated period of withdrawal, and therefore would have reached a state of equilibrium much more quickly than she would have as an adult.
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It hurts me to say that it hurts me to stay.
And it might be alright if you go.
It hurts me to say that I want you to stay,
But it might be alright if you go.
So leave me,
well, I'm not sick of you yet,
Is that as good as it gets?
I'll just try to hide it, or I could slip into you,
It's so easy to come back into you.
-----
In 2009, Canadian band Marianas Trench released their second album Masterpiece Theatre. During a live performance of the album's penultimate song, front man Josh Ramsay told his audience "when I was seventeen years old I was a heroin addict, and I had to go to a rehab center, and when I was there they asked me to write a love letter to my drug of choice, and I turned it into a song called 'Lover Dearest'" *20. Longtime fans of the band are well aware of this part of Ramsay's past, and this song is not the first or last time he makes mention of it. Without this additional information, it is easy for one to think that this is a song about another person, and not about addiction.
What sets Josh Ramsay and Natalie Scatorccio apart, besides one being a real life public figure and the other a fictional character, is the level of support the two received regarding their addictions. Josh Ramsay, thanks to the support of his friends and family and his love of music, was able to get off of heroin, and has gone on to have a successful career in the music industry.
Critically, Natalie's longest period of sobriety was during her time in the wilderness with her team. Even when presented with the opportunity to drink with Coach Scott, she turned the offer down. She could have indulged in the seemingly endless supply of psilocybin mushrooms, but as far as the show tells us she did not. She chose to remain sober, and the reason she chose to do so is because during her time in the wilderness she had a community and a purpose. Natalie admits as much in the pilot episode, when she tells the group that "after they rescued us, I lost my purpose."
As discussed in a prior essay on how she embodies masculinity *21, Natalie is shown to naturally gravitate towards being a protector and a provider. While in the wilderness the team relied on her to provide food for them, and both before and during her time in the wilderness we are shown instances where protecting others was an instinctive choice for Nat. In the adult timeline, after stating that she would not be able to afford another rehab stint for Nat, Tai remarks to Shauna "Who does Natalie have? Who does she really have? No one, and now she has less." Natalie did not have a support structure in place after each stint in rehab, and when Tai makes that remark about who Natalie has in her life, Travis is dead. Travis was until that point in time Natalie's greatest support and reason to continue living. After his passing, Nat had no one and therefore no reason to get sober. That is, until Lottie and her intentional community enter the picture.
Despite the religious foundations that AA/NA rest upon, research suggests that "AA confers benefit through multiple mechanisms simultaneously but, in particular, through facilitating helpful social network changes (e.g., by helping people drop heavy drinkers from their social networks and adopt abstainers and recovering people into their social network) and, by boosting people’s confidence in their ability to remain sober when faced with high risk social situations or when feeling down or angry" *22. AA/NA meetings allow someone in recovery to build community with others who share their struggles with substance use. This is not to say that AA/NA should be prioritized over other forms of treatment, but rather that the importance of community and support are vital to sustained recovery. As previously mentioned, SMART Recovery utilizes community building to help those who live with addiction, but they are not the only program to do so. There exists other programs, like the Sober Faction and the Recovery Dharma, that give people living with addiction a means to build community without involving a religious framework.
As the show tells us, AA did not work for Natalie. Rehab also did not work for her, and we are not told if other forms of treatment were even attempted. But we do see that during Natalie's time with Lottie and her community, Natalie is finally able to to achieve what would likely have been lasting sobriety if she had lived. Natalie was able to find purpose again by connecting with Lottie's community, and particularly with Lisa. We see this when, after helping Lisa regain ownership of her fish, Natalie decided not to drink. Before this point Nat drank heavily, as we saw she she, Tai, and Shauna attempted to catch the person who had been blackmailing them. For the remaining days of her life, Nat was completely and willingly sober, and this was made possible through making peace with her past and regaining a sense of purpose. She could not have done these things in a rehab, or AA, or possibly even in conventional therapy. For as much as it was mocked and denigrated, Lottie's intentional community was able to able to help Nat heal when everything else she had tried had not.
"Do you know why we have the sunflowers? It's not because Vincent van Gogh suffered. It's because Vincent van Gogh had a brother who loved him. Through all the pain, he had a tether, a connection to the world. And that is the focus of the story we need. Connection.
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*1 Colleen L. Barry, Emma E. McGinty, Bernice A. Pescosolido, Howard H. Goldman, "Stigma, Discrimination, Treatment Effectiveness, and Policy: Public Views About Drug Addiction and Mental Illness," Psychiatric Services, Vol. 65, Iss. 10 (Oct 2014): 1183-1289, accessed Jan 15 2026. https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/epdf/10.1176/appi.ps.201400140
*2 Joseph E. Glass, Sven Andréasson, Katharine A. Bradley, Sara Wallhed Finn, Emily C. Williams, Ann‑Sofe Bakshi, Antoni Gual, Nick Heather, Marcela Tiburcio Sainz, Vivek Benegal, Richard Saitz, "Rethinking alcohol interventions in health care: a thematic meeting of the International Network on Brief Interventions for Alcohol & Other Drugs (INEBRIA)," Addiction Science & Clinical Practice, Vol. 12, No. 14, (May 2017): 1-16, accessed January 15 2026. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13722-017-0079-8
*3 "Addiction," Cleveland Clinic, published August 27, 2025, accessed January 15 2026, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/6407-addiction
*4 Seth Fletcher, "Are Psychedelic Mushrooms Addictive? Risks Explained," Canadian Centre for Addictions, April 14, 2025, accessed January 15, 2026, https://canadiancentreforaddictions.org/are-psychedelic-mushrooms-addictive/
*5 Maia Szalavitz, "What Science Says To Do If Your Loved One Has An Opioid Addiction," FiveThirtyEight, July 19, 2016, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-science-says-to-do-if-your-loved-one-has-an-opioid-addiction/
*6 LastWeekTonight, "Rehab: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)," May 20, 2018, virtual, web video, 19:06 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWQiXv0sn9Y
*7 Megan Hein, "Quick Reference: Rehab Duration Options," Alina Lodge, August 1, 2025, accessed January 16, 2026, https://www.alinalodge.org/addiction-treatment/how-long-does-rehab-last/
*8 "Average Cost of Drug Rehab [2026]: by Type, State & More," National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, published May 02, 2024, accessed January 16, 2026, https://drugabusestatistics.org/cost-of-rehab/
*9 German Lopez, "She wanted addiction treatment. She ended up in the relapse capital of America," Vox, March 2, 2020, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/2/21156327/florida-shuffle-drug-rehab-addiction-treatment-bri-jaynes
*10 "Recovering From An Addiction", Chasing Heroin, directed by Marcela Gaviria, (2016; Boston, MA: WGBH Educational Foundation, 2016), Web. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/chasing-heroin/
*11 Michael Gross, "Alcoholics Anonymous: Still Sober After 75 Years," American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 100, Iss. 12, (Dec 2011): 2361-2363, accessed January 15 2026, https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2010.199349
*12 Tom Gregoire, Mike Broman, Keith Warren, "A Brief History of Alcoholics Anonymous," Origins, June 2025, https://origins.osu.edu/read/brief-history-alcoholics-anonymous
*13 "What Medications Can Help Me Stop Drinking?," Alcohol and Drug Foundation, accessed January 16, 2026, https://adf.org.au/insights/medications-stop-drinking/
*14 "Antidepressant Medication May Be Key to Help People Stop Use of Cocaine While in Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder," Johns Hopkins Medicine, March 15, 2023, https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/2023/03/antidepressant-medication-may-be-key-to-help-people-stop-use-of-cocaine-while-in-treatment-for-opioid-use-disorder
*15 "What is SMART Recovery?," SMART Recovery, accessed January 30, 2026, https://smartrecovery.org/what-is-smart-recovery
*16 "Alcohol Withdrawal," Cleveland Clinic, June 2, 2025, accessed January 16, 2026, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/alcohol-withdrawal
*17 Amelia Sharp, Ryan Kelley, "Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms, Detox, Timeline, and Treatment," American Addiction Centers, updated January 17, 2025, accessed January 16, 2026, https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcohol/withdrawal-detox
*18 James Regan, Wendy Manwarren Generes, Ryan Kelley, "Cocaine Addiction: Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment," American Addiction Centers, updated Jun 30, 2025, accessed January 16, 2025, https://americanaddictioncenters.org/stimulants/cocaine
*19 "Cocaine withdrawal: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia," MedlinePlus, accessed January 16, 2026, https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000947.htm
*20 Jessica Laura, "Marianas Trench The Noise Tour Lover Dearest Live Irving Plaza, NYC," June 16, 2013, virtual, web video, 5:19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oEcFMkwm7s
*21 "Is Alcoholics Anonymous Religious, Spiritual, or Neither? Review Finds AA Effective, But Not In the Way You Think," Research Recovery Institute, January 22, 2025, https://www.recoveryanswers.org/research-post/alcoholics-anonymous-religious-spiritual-neither-review-finds-aa-effective-not-way-think/
*22 @mano-writes, "The Undying Masculinity of Natalie Scatorccio," The Power Is Yours (tumblr), August 3, 2025, https://www.tumblr.com/mano-writes/790887095278452736/contains-spoilers-for-seasons-1-3-of?source=share
i think i like lotties the most, the antlers looking like a skull worked out cool i don’t think i even meant for it to happen😭 i think i had tai’s started so perhaps i’ll come back to this….
chatted this through last night but i figured i would post it here:
i think it's interesting/useful to consider nat's class status in intersection with being chosen for the queen draw and the hunt that follows. there's the obvious parallel between her and lottie: "it can't be her [lottie]," taissa tells the group, but following the draw, it turns out that it can be nat.
this is fascinating in several ways but namely because nat is the hunter, and this skillset/value given to the group is apparently not worthy enough to pass over her as a possibility for the hunt. keep in mind she hasn't trained gen how to hunt yet and the only other probable hunter/trapper at the moment is travis, which given their circumstances... well, it just doesn't seem like the best idea to slaughter one of their two hunters.
my theory (you can disagree, it's an interesting thought to run with though) is that if nat hadn't been the one to draw the card, if it had been anyone else, the rest of them would have folded and broken from the fervor. (remember: this is new. it's not the same as mari. this is an experiment. they haven't done this before.) the reason i think this is the way nat is devalued the entire time she's the hunter & the classist condescension, subtle or otherwise, that the other girls exhibit toward her in both timelines.
more than that though is the fact that nat didn't buckle, didn't plead for her life. the only reason she runs is because travis broke the circle. but initially, the way she approaches the draw is with fear, yes, but it almost seems mundane to her. "of course it would be me." because why wouldn't it? she could never get a bone in this life. she's the trailer kid on the team. she's the girl who smells like a wino. her life and wellbeing, demonstrably, has never mattered as much as the lives of others.
so it's two things in my mind: from a classist perspective, nat is accepted as more killable than others. and owing to the ways she's internalized the condescension and lack of dignity that comes with being poor, she's accepted this as true too.
