The thing I love about Nathan Ford (one of the things, let’s be honest here) is that it is very important to him that he chooses not to be his father’s son.
He has a gut-level instinctive ability to manipulate everyone around him without thinking about it, could have been as good a grifter as Sophie, as dangerous a criminal as his father, (but worse, because he is exactly as good at what he does as he thinks he is, and he is capable of telling exactly how good everyone else is and adjusting his plans accordingly), the sky’s the limit!
He is ruthless in the way of that famous Applegate/animorphs quotation in that he can see the line from where he is to where he wants to be, can see what adjustments he will have to make when something goes wrong along the way, and once he starts he will not step off his path.
And he’s Jimmy Ford’s son. He’s seen exactly what that might take along the way and he will not flinch.
But he’s not just Jimmy Ford’s son. He’s a literal altar boy. He has friends, he has people he cares about, he has things he realizes are more important that just what his father taught him, what his father can get away with.
Somewhere, somewhen, somehow, he learned the difference between righteous and self-righteous, and he wants, oh how he wants, to be the former. He wants to be better, he wants to do better, he wants to be righteous and moral and upstanding and make the world a better place.
(He wants to leave his father in the dirt where he belongs, he’s going to walk away and never look back.)
He’s been taught by the Jesuits how to think, and why he should, been taught about consequences and sin and responsibility and mercy and grace. (Has realized, perhaps, that he deserves better, that almost everyone he knows deserves better, and that maybe, maybe, he can get it for them.)
He learned how to think and now he can’t stop. (And he’s ruthless enough to look at himself, to see where he’s weak, to know exactly how someone could manipulate him, to be aware of how he manipulates himself.) He’s smart enough to look at what used to just be instinct and understand the how and the why until his skills are as finely honed as a stiletto, a sniper shot rather than a blunt instrument.
But now he can’t claim he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing, can’t ever tell himself he didn’t know better when he pushes someone just so.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and how badly he wants is a weakness. He’ll crave it, he’ll need to do the right thing, and it’ll be so easy to take the step from knowing he’s the smartest man in any room to thinking he’s the best. Nice is different than good (he bypasses that by never being nice, but that’s a side-issue), might does not make right, smart is not the same as wise.
That just because he can doesn’t mean that he should.
He can’t trust his own instincts, because his instincts tell him he can do anything. (Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, he could rule the goddamned world and who would stop him? Who could? Who would know when they should?)
He goes to seminary, he’s going to be a priest, he’s going to let the church define his life, give him the rules, the ethics he can’t quite trust himself to hold onto on his own. (He and Paul are going to save the world together, going to be everything for their parishioners that no one ever was for them.)
But the church has too much authority, doesn’t it? Too much power, too much corruption. And he’s too smart, too manipulative, (too proud of both), to ever let down his guard somewhere where he’d be rewarded for how ruthless he is, for how selfish he can be, for those instincts he can’t ever trust that insist he always be in control, always hold the power in his own hands. (The damage he could do, insisting it was all for the greater good, that he knew better.)
He needs external rules to keep him in check, an outside organization that will limit his imagination, limit his potential knack for destruction, but it can’t be too structured, too recognized. He can’t go into secular politics or law enforcement. He’d have so much direct power, right there, just waiting for him to take it, because he’d be so much better at it than everyone else, wouldn’t he?
But insurance. He’s still catching criminals, going after people who commit fraud, who make it harder for the people who need help to get it, can be rewarded for all his tricks, all his cleverness, but his rewards never make him a dictator over other people, they just acknowledge how smart he is.
He can be just a little scary, but he only scares people who’ve earned it. And then he can go home, to his friends and his wife and his son, can be Sam Ford’s father and know that he’s nothing like Jimmy Ford.
Until IYS refuses to help him, until he sees how many people they’ve refused to help to save money, until his son dies and he knows he’s been working for the villains, that he’s been Jimmy Ford’s son for years and never even noticed.
His son dies, and it’s all his fault, and he’ll never not be Jimmy Ford’s son again.
Maybe. Maybe he can also still be Sam Ford’s father.
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