I honestly believe that some of y'all don't realize just how complex of a character Mary Hartford is. Aside from the fact that she genuinely haunts the narrative, the bits and pieces of her that we get throughout the series are so interesting.
I don't believe that she was a good mother, and I am not going to defend her abuse. However, I think it's different to defend her than it is to attempt to understand her character.
She grew up in one crime family, to then be married off into another one. The second, from what we can infer, is greatly more violent. From what we know about Nathan, It would not be a reach to say that she spent the entirety of their marriage being abused.
Nathaniel was her solace. When she learned that he was either to be sold to the moriyamas or be killed by Nathan himself, she didn't hesitate to plan a full fledged escape, which most likely took a great deal to plan.
It's also important to understand the mindset she had before they ran. I know that one of my first thoughts was “why didn't she run before?” I thought about it for a long time, and I'm sure a lot of people thought the same. To Mary, the abuse both her and Nathaniel suffered was able to be pushed to the side because she had no reason to fear that either of them would be killed. Whether she understood that no child should have to suffer that form of abuse or not, it wasn't death, which was enough for her. For someone like her, anything short of death was sufferable. When it was Nathaniels actual life at stake, that's when she realized that she had to do something. That's when she couldn't look the other way anymore. She knew what would happen if she took Nathaniel and ran, she knew they would be continually hunted down. In her mind there was no reason to run before because she knew that would be putting an immediate target on their backs, when their hadn't been one before. Then that changed, and there was a target on Nathaniels back either way.
It's never stated whether or not she was abusive towards Nathaniel before they ran away, or if it was simply just the only way she knew how to get him to fully understand the stakes. I don’t condone either, but I personally believe that it’s the latter. We never hear of Mary being abusive when they were in Baltimore, only while they were on the run. This is where we have to look back on how she was raised. Mary grew up in a crime family, which means she was undoubtedly exposed to violence, even if it wasn’t directed towards her specifically. This is also similar to her mindset while living in Baltimore as well. I believe that her background and trauma mixed with the stakes of their situation made it an easy choice for her; Nathanial taking a hit was sufferable so long as it meant he was alive. She wasn’t going to cry, and plead for him to understand, so she used the one method she knew without a doubt would make the information stick.
like it or not, everything Mary ever did was for Nathanial. She wanted him to have nothing to do with the mafia in any way, shape, or form. Even turning her own family away after they offered to protect them.
She was not a great mother in the general sense, but given the circumstances, she was the best mother she knew how to be.
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