#this turned out to be kind of a lot asjkds. there's just sooo much i want to say about her even though it's probably not in the smartest wa

[ghostlyheart]

I never expected this to be the season that really highlighted Nadja and Guillermo's friendship but I'm so happy it was. Them physically protecting each other was amazing, but in the last few episodes of the season she really goes out of her way to defend him from both the Baron and Nandor even though she disagrees with his choice. That scene of them in the motel together is short, but it says so much. She gives him the lecture about protecting his sire not for Derek's sake but because she's worried about Guillermo and she's trying to give him some of the important vampiric lessons that he's missed out on because his turning was abnormal. I wish we had gotten to see the rest of their conversation play out before she left because it seemed like she was empathizing with him about how complicated relationships can be once you turn into a vampire and learning to accept those consequences. She takes on an almost big-sister-like role with Guillermo where she acts annoyed but also secretly cares very deeply and is trying to help him learn from her own experiences.

The entire household has grown closer to Guillermo this season, but for me his and Nadja's relationship is special because I feel like she's the one who has held him at arms length for the longest. Last season, their dynamic changed because he became the nightclub's accountant, but in situations where she helped him, she always fell back on the excuse that it was in her own self-interest. She could have abandoned Guillermo at urgent care, told Nandor his secret in order to minimize the fallout for herself, not gone to visit Guillermo or advocate for him to Nandor, etc., but now she puts herself in those risky situations because she cares.

Woven through this season there are bits and pieces about her early life and how her turning ended up being kind of a traumatic experience. She mentioned last season that she watched most of her family die (and at another point that she was the only one of her siblings to survive). In "Local News" and "Hybrid Creatures" she talks about being forced to leave Antipaxos and the only place she ever really felt at home. The fact that she was so desperate to escape when they thought they were exposed on the news, even if that meant going without the others, speaks to her being afraid of leaving herself vulnerable. Unlike Laszlo, she also doesn't seem to have many connections outside of her housemates until she begins visiting with the Antipaxos family. I think all that amounts to her being wary of trusting people or letting in others outside her relatively small circle because she's experienced the danger of getting too attached. It's taken her over a DECADE to warm up to Guillermo, but as she becomes comfortable reconnecting with her culture and her human past with the Antipaxons, it makes sense that she would start to let her guard down with him as well. I think Laszlo's comment in the finale about vampires having a difficult time expressing their emotions externally ties in well with this. Nadja is a very expressive person, but when it comes to displaying her emotional closeness with others, it comes across a lot more subtlely. Nadja's arc didn't have the clearest throughline this season, and the hex plot itself didn't really spur much development from her, but I feel like it ultimately led to moments that demonstrate how she forms relationships and the ways in which that's informed by her past.