#anti Nate Shelley

[stalltherain]

Your honor, I'd like to state for the record that I strongly dislike Nate Shelley, but not because he betrayed Ted. That was forgivable. The reasom I can't like Nate is the same reason I can't like CW Flash's Barry Allen. These guys creepily kept pusing boundaries for a woman they were pining for despite the woman clearly being uninterested. Then, inexplicably, their creepy behavior was rewarded by "getting" the woman.

There was no reason for Jade to suddenly be into Nate-- unless you count pitty that the model treated him like he didn't matter.

Iris repeatedly told Barry she saw him as a brother, but the show and characters, kept telling us we shouldn't take Iris at her word. Barry & her dad clearly knew her feelings better than she knew herself. Then she eventually shrugs and goes, "Well, I guess I'll date you because it seems like I'm supposed to."

It's gross and I would like this trope to stop being presented as healthy. It sets a terrible example for how to treat women.

No, dudes. If a woman says she's not interested, she's not. Just stop.

[drst]

Nate Shelley should DIAF and suffer forever

I remember thinking when S2 of "Ted Lasso" ended that they were definitely going to try to do some sort of redemption arc with Nate as a key part of S3, and also dreading it because I doubted they were going to pull it off successfully. I wanted to be wrong, because I really hated Jaime during S1 and they managed to get him through a good redemption arc and turn him around. But Nate's actions were much more repulsive than even the worst of Jaime's behavior in S1, and I got the feeling the writers weren't going to understand Nate's arc was going to have to account for that.

What I didn't expect was the show to just chuck all of Nate's character development through S2 out, pretend he had a personality transplant, and expect us to just forget. I have no idea why the writing tanked so hard on this but it did.

Nathan Shelley is a sexist and a bully. He always was a bully. The very first thing we see Nate do? He runs across the pitch to scream at Ted and Beard for being on the grass. Nate can't yell at anyone who actually works for the team, but he sees an opportunity to yell at people who aren't part of the team and he leaps at it, almost literally. (Should he be telling unknown people not to be on the grass? Yeah. He doesn't tell, he runs and screams.) It's played for laughs, of course, that the guys he thought he could chastise without repercussions are his new bosses. But we see this pattern with Nate over and over. As soon as he feels like he's in a superior position over anyone, he bullies them.

The whistle he gets at the end of S1 when he gets promoted? Ted has to take it away. I noticed when I was rewatching, Nate keeps blowing the whistle indoors. He's so addicted to having that power, Ted has to take his whistle away and give him one that doesn't work to stop him from doing it inside.

Obviously right off the bat in S2 he starts bullying Will, which just gets progressively worse during the season. He publicly bullies Colin too, and only apologizes because Beard makes him do it. It's a credit to the acting that we can feel how much Nate is seething through the apology and the scene with the jersey afterward, but Nate, the character, is enraged that he's been made to apologize.

Nate's also a sexist asshole. He makes a number of comments about women that are gross as hell during S1. The episode where he's promoted to being a coach, when at first he thinks he's being fired, he turns to Rebecca and calls her a "harpy." The OWNER of the club, he picks a specifically gendered insult to throw at her in his rage. And of course, he assaults Keeley. I know a lot of people don't want to call it an assault, but he knows full well Keeley is not interested in him, that she's in a relationship with Roy, that she's not coming on to him and is in fact going out of her way to do him a personal favor, and he forces her into a kiss anyway. The magnitude of that fuck up was really glossed over on the show and, unfortunately, by quite a few of the fans. Keeley being hot, or physically close to Nate in the scene, or open about sex and her sexuality, doesn't make it okay for a guy who knows 100% she's not interested or available to force sexual contact on her.

There's more evidence of Nate's sexism too. When he gives the speech before the Everton match, he specifically uses gendered insults on Colin and Issac, but not on Sam or Dani. He says Issac has been playing like a "big dumb pussy" and talks about Colin waxing his pubic hair (something associated with women and gay men, ironic given what we later learn about Colin). And again, this is played for laughs at the time. Colin and Issac were bullying Nate pretty badly (which is terrible! Not making excuses for that) at the beginning so we understand why Nate has an extra animus against the two of them. But he doesn't use gendered insults when he has a go at Dani or Sam, or especially Roy.

His speech to Roy actually made me think the show had a better handle on Nate than it turned out to have, because while he insults Roy, he adds the bit about "I'm worried what it's going to do to you if you keep it all to yourself." It made it seem like Nate does care, at least about some of these guys, which is important to being a good coach. But that care doesn't really make another appearance, and by S2 he's decided all the players are idiots and anything that goes wrong is their fault, or Ted's fault for not listening to Nate.

Bullies are always very aware of the heirarchy and where they are in it. They always know who not to piss off and who they can attack freely. Nate is like that from Day 1. And like most bullies, Nate cannot stand to be made fun of, and he cannot ever admit to a mistake. They run with the whole "wunderkind/wonder kid" thing and he repeatedly denies that he misspoke, because his ego can't take it.

What frustrates me is the show seems like they set a lot of this up on purpose. S1 Issac and Colin don't stop bullying Nate until Roy (at Ted's urging) headbutts Colin and orders them to stop. The bullies continue bullying until someone in power steps in and makes them stop. Nate bullies Colin in front of the whole team (Nate's a coach by then), but Beard (higher in the ranks than Nate, who also has the "I haven't told Ted yet" card) orders him to apologize, which he does grudgingly. Then he takes the fury he's feeling out on the person who can't fight back, Will.

The thing is, there is NO WAY ON EARTH Nate's bullying behavior stopped just because he became a head coach. There's no way his ego suddenly became capable of tolerating people saying negative things about him, especially on social media. Put a bully into a position of power over more people, they get worse, not better. I know they retconned this whole "oh Nate's a certified genius!" thing in there, but there is no way Nate, who was obsessively scrolling Twitter in S2, just got over that in S3, when he was running a whole team, which probably lost some matches, when presumably the fans blamed him as the head coach. But we never see that happen. There's no way he had an entire team and staff under him and he treated everyone nicely. This isn't how actual bullies work, especially when they are in an environment where the person in power above them is encouraging the bullying, which is exactly the kind of guy Rupert is.

We see a bit of Nate being a dick to Ted in S3, but no indication that he's struggling with managing the team or the coaches. All of that power-hungry, ego-obsessed behavior just kind of goes poof. It makes no sense. And somehow I'm supposed to not only care but be happy with all the time wasted on this bullying, sexist asshole dating… the woman from S1 who correctly rejected his attempt to pressure her into giving him his number?

And of course, Nate's ultimate sin, betraying Ted's personal medical information to the press, just sits there. Unaddressed. Never adequately dealt with. Trent pays more of a price for what Nate did than Nate himself does. I guess we maybe were supposed to infer that Nate regretted it? But we're never told it in any meaningful way. We're never shown that Nate grasps that what he did crossed a line from personal insult to risking the team's well being, as well as exposing Ted's private information to the public in a way that is wildly unethical and terrible behavior for a SPORTS TEAM COACH who has to manage personal information about other people all the time. They just handwave it as "Ted forgave him so it's okay."

Beard seems to be the only one who grasps the magnitude of it, and then Ted shames him into forgiving Nate near the end - and for no real reason. Nate contributes absolutely nothing to the team's overall status and success by being there at the end. The play Jaime uses, which Nate came up with, was from S1, so Ted would've used it even if Nate hadn't been on the sidelines. Having Nate in the clubhouse again helps nobody, makes zero difference to the team. My assumption is that Apple was already pressing to try for a spin off and they needed to somehow bring Nate back to Richmond.

Nate's dad also has a total personality transplant along the way here too, so it's a larger problem that makes me think they had something else in mind for how Nate's arc in S3 was going to go that had to get rewritten, but it's one of several pieces of S3 that were really badly done. Maybe if S1 hadn't been so well written it wouldn't stand out how uneven S3 was, but here we are.

Anyway, no redemption for Nate Shelley, sexist bullying asshole. May he die violently in a fire and burn forever.

[purpleyearning]

FUCK NATE SHELLEY RIGHTS!!

[kat2107]

Nate is just such an awful person.

[jamietwat]

Thinking about how Jamie left Richmond with friends on the team and probably came back expecting to have to prove himself but to still have a few friends just to come back to everyone openly hating him and mad at him and not wanting him there or to acknowledge his

Thinking about how in that interview when he was on Man City he was his usual cocky self talking about carrying his team, but he actually didn’t say anything bad about anyone outside or Roy and Ted. He talked about how all of the players on Richmond were good lads except for Roy Kent and called Ted a rodeo clown and Nate showed the team it and they all hated him enough to start throwing shit despite the fact that he wasn’t saying anything he wouldn’t have to their faces if he was still on the team and despite the fact that he was actually nicer to all the players except for Roy than he ever had been in person

Thinking about how Isaac went from being his friend and starting shit with him to breaking a TV because of his hatred toward him when Jamie really hadn’t even done anything to him and Jamie coming back to Isaac hating him as if they weren’t getting up to the exact same shit together when Jamie was there and if Isaac thought he himself was a way better person now and so was Colin but there was no chance that there could be anything redeemable in Jamie

Thinking about how Jamie left and DIDN’T talk shit about the team or make weird personal comments outside of the ones about Roy and Ted that he would have made to their faces if he was still there

Thinking about the way Nate left of his own volition and talked shit publicly every chance he got

Thinking about how Nate came back trying with everyone letting him that easily when HE was a dick in person too, left them of his own volition, and slandered them and made them a public joke for fun

Thinking about how Jamie got kicked out, DIDN’T talk shit about his friends, had to beg Ted to come back against the whole team’s wishes, and then got iced out by everyone whether it was people with a right to it like Sam or people like Isaac and Colin that had been friends with him and decided to treat him like the worst man alive to distance themselves and make themselves look better by comparison

Thinking about how Jamie think his friendships are all dependent on his spot on the team and he’s seen them disappear when he got kicked out before

Thinking about how Jamie still calls Isaac his best friend after this because he thinks he deserved all of what he got and that he was the one and only problem in that situation and how really we never see Jamie and Isaac as close again as they were in season one and there are plenty of other teammates I would have expected him to say over him

Thinking about Jamie watching Nate come back and forgiving him and knowing what it’s like to be in his place but also Jamie watching everyone else forgive him and care about him as a person that easily again while he had to fight for even Ted to let him come back and had to fight to have people even accept him being on the team again and to get them to acknowledge his existence long before he earned their friendship

[lunar-years]

okay. at risk of being too harsh on Ted...

I genuinely do not think he's a very good coach. And I do not mean that just in the obvious "well he doesn't even know anything about the sport he's head coach for" way, even though like, yeah, duh that really is a crucial point. I mean it in like, he's genuinely not as good at managing and delegating and working alongside his fellow coaches! The way he acts and the ways he manages the team so rarely feels...collaborative? I've been thinking about it a lot after reading posts from other blogs about how he constantly brushes off/ignores Beard's advice and also sends Jamie mixed messages and stuff and it's like. YEAH. It's all very "Ted makes the final decision" about everything and that's deeply goofy because Ted literally knows the least about the game out of all of them!!

We see him ignoring Beard's advice to bench Roy, and ignoring that Beard is actually trying to help the team win, as it is their job to do, until Beard finally snaps at him in s1. When he decides to reject Jamie he doesn't pause to consider it or discuss it with anyone, and even afterwards when he does have the coaches "take a vote" it feels...very performative? Like no matter what they said, it was always going to be Ted's decision in the end, and if they disagreed with what he'd already decided he wanted to do, he was just going to do it anyway.

Then he gets in Jamie's head about being a team player and passing the ball a to the point where it's actually hindering Jamie's role on the team and the strength of his performance. And even though Roy recognizes that, rather than going to Ted about it and making different suggestions, he comes up with the whole signal thing which in hindsight sort of feels...very much like Roy trying to package his complaint in a way that will be digestible to Ted's approval? Like, "oh we'll give him the signal so he doesn't feel bad about playing the way we need him to play. but ONLY when we give him the sign don't worry we'll still control it!" Instead of just being like Ted, look, I don't think your strategy for Jamie works at all and here's what we need to do instead.

It almost feels like none of the assistant coaches really feel comfortable questioning Ted's judgement...because he doesn't foster a space for them that welcomes that kind of feedback from them. Even with the Zava thing, he doesn't listen to Jamie, and Roy and Beard don't question it, BUT Roy offers to individually coach Jamie. Because Roy knows what's happening with Zava is bullshit, and he'd rather pull Jamie aside and deal with the problem himself in the way that he can, rather than talk to the head coach about how it's bullshit. And the ONE time Beard and Roy go off and try something against Ted's wishes (showing the Nate video), it massively backfires and they scramble over themselves to apologize while Ted feels even more vindicated in never valuing their input. It's like a never ending cycle of bad management. and the WORST part is that Ted will TELL them he wants to know their thoughts and hear their strategies, but then he doesn't follow it or he just goes off and does his own thing, so it results in like...a level of unintentional condescension, I think.

At the end of the day, I do not think Ted has bad intentions or is going into this stuff intending to walk over the other coaches, but it happens because his purpose and goal for the team is fundamentally misaligned with what the other coaches value. Ted wants to make the team better by changing the culture at Richmond (at least until he checks out and loses interest in even that) and Beard & Roy (& Nate) want to focus on helping them win matches. I also DO think there's something in all of this that could have been a very compelling major factor in Nate's downward s2 spiral. I've always said that to me the most lackluster part of Nate's arc was not his redemption but his downfall--which had a basis that was severely under-explored onscreen. When he leaked Ted's panic attacks, it felt so severe and sudden a leap because there wasn't enough to back up Nate's headspace throughout the season, even thought the basis is THERE. The foundation for Nate feeling ignored as a coach and having his input constantly undervalued is THERE. They just don't ever let the characters properly explore it, or god forbid allow Ted to reckon with how he's ostracized all of his coaches to some extent.

[kalinara]

Also, why the fuck does Trent Crimm get a pass?  

Look, I love Trent.  I think he’s complicated and interesting.  And it does say something about his measure of guilt/self-disgust that he ended up resigning after torpedoing his career.

But he still ruined Ted’s life.  He could have told Nate no.  He could have torpedoed his career BEFORE exposing a good man’s COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT medical history to the whole world.  He could have looked at the article, looked at Nate and went “...I don’t want to be this guy” and quit.

Hell, he could have WAITED to publish until talking to Ted.  We’re supposed to celebrate that he sent him a warning text the night before, when the article was ALREADY online???

And sure, okay, Trent is facing professional consequences for his decision, but they’re consequences he chose.  He resigned under his own power, by his own choice, and then came to Ted all hop skippity “aren’t you proud of my magnanimous gesture?”  

Ted’s already spent the whole day defending the man.  Now it’d be uncouth for Ted to get angry!  (I don’t think Trent’s motives were manipulative here, but they kind of had the same effect as if he had been!)

Trent’s article was kind, sure.  Ted has made something of public acknowledgment of mental health struggles, sure.  But that wasn’t Ted’s choice.  He didn’t ask for this to be his cause.  And Trent’s kind article sure as hell didn’t protect Ted from OTHER journalist and pundit bullshit.  

If Trent said no, Nate might have gone to another, less sympathetic journalist.  Maybe.  Nate’s an impulsive guy.  He lashes out, he doesn’t plan his cruelty.  He knows Trent.  Does he KNOW any other journalists?  The extra time it took for him to find another might well have cooled his temper.  (And maybe Trent could have warned Ted that Nate was shopping this story around?)

Maybe Ted would have preferred another journalist break the story because he could properly get mad at them, instead of having to devote his already strained composure to defend them.

Here’s the thing.  I love Trent.  I’m looking forward to seeing Trent.  And I’m hoping Ted and Trent remain friends.  If TedTrent actually became a thing, I’d be delighted.  

But why is Nate unforgivable when Trent isn’t?  Because Trent apologized?  Nate’s been oozing guilt for two episodes now.  I’m fairly certain there’ll be an apology eventually.  So what else do you have?

I mean, aside the elephant in the room of course...

[usercelestial]

i hope nate-antis are having a horrible horrible day

[mariathechosen1]

Nate Shelley is a great character actually, some of y’all are just racist

[edwinas]

Seeing posts about Jade being a great judge of character and accepting Nate only when he is being his true self... This fandom and show’s collective amnesia is infuriating. Fuck.

Until s3, Nate was himself with her and was punished for it. Jade’s behaviour was excused and the onus was put on Nate. He wasn’t firm enough so he didn’t get a table. A white waitress refusing to give a brown customer a table... A white woman treating a brown man badly... Anyway it’s Nate’s fault.

“Nate’s deserving of kindness and support now because he’s bettering himself. He’s now deserving of Jade’s attention.” Fuck. That. Being you best self and receiving basic courtesy are not mutually exclusive. All Jade needed to do was greet him, take his order, be polite and not stare at him like a zoo animal. That’s it. 

Nate’s criticised for boasting about his job in s3. Jade’s always put him down, is it surprising that he wants to impress her? That he wants to get the validation he desperately craved???

Plus everything Nate said was true. He is coaching a premier league team and is excellent at it. Jamie says he’s incredible at his job? Go confidence king! Nate says it?? He’s gotta be an incel demanding sex from the poor white woman. 

Yes, Nate is healing. But he was always deserving of basic decency and dignity. It shouldn’t have taken his humiliation for Jade to take pity and treat him like a person. She wasn’t withholding kindness because “he didn’t deserve it.” She’s just a racist bitch. 

[pearlynn59]

If there are no Nathan Shelley haters left in the world, then know that must mean I'm dead.

[kutputli]

My Ted Lasso posts

Because none of my posts are showing up in the tags, I am going nuts trying to find the stuff I've written. So just until this season gets over, I'm going to try to update this list of my Ted Lasso posts - episode reactions and meta - so that I can find it.

Nathan Shelley's Final Moments

On Fandom recognising sexual abuse but not racial abuse

On white fans being happy about Nathan's ending

On Ted Lasso being voted as best dad

On the disability model of morality

Ted Lasso 3x11 Episode Reaction

Comparing the reception of Jade to Shandy and Simi

Forgiveness means abject humility

Moe is undemocratic, the show is racist

Poor Jamie Tartt

The racialised reactions to Nathan's arc

I predicted Lloyd and Ms Kake

Is Roy Kent Biracial or is the show following Eyebrowcasting?

Ted Lasso 3x10 Episode Reaction

Nicole Shelley Headcanons

On Isaac McAdoo and Colin's Gay Arc

Bumbercatch, Wealth and the show's failure at Class

The Nepotism of Keeley Hazell Being a Writer

Tag your Anti PoC posts

On Ted's Confidence and Selective Suppression of Feelings

The 3D Chess of Predicting how villianous all the non-white character are

PSA: CBT at the Workplace is Sexual Harassment

The Kind White Moderate Racism of Ted Lasso

Maria Shelley's origins and Lloyd Shelley's cartography (or lack thereof)

The Saviour and the Warrior - on Ted Lasso and Roy Kent

On the tone policing bias in tumblr engagement with Nathan posts

Ted Lasso S03E04 'Big Week' - Episode Reaction post

Shandy Fine and the treachery of White Acceptance

On fandom forgiving Nathan by villianising his father

Keeley Jones PR spin-off?

Let Nick Mohammed sing!

How racism informs white queer female critical takes on the show

On the absence of spectator racism within the show

On Dani Rojas (in relation to Jamie, Zava and Ekalavya)

Ted Lasso S03E03 - Episode Reaction post

Ted Lasso S03E02 - Episode Reaction post

On Trent Crimm owing an apology to Nathan

On Nathan being called a junkyard dog

On 'wonderkid' and 'nate the great'

Ted Lasso S03E01 - Episode Reaction post

Lloyd Shelley as an immigrant parent

[ad1thi]

honestly i cant stop thinking about how Ted internalized the feeling that he lost his dad because he failed to tell his dad how much he appreciated him and how a major arc for Ted this season has been reconciling and dealing with that grief and coming to grips with it only for Nate to throw it back in his face by saying that Ted doesn’t appreciate him enough

[stydiaeverafter]

I truly hope Ted tapes the BELIEVE sign and hangs it back up. He gave the players love, compassion, courage, honesty, support, joy, and hope. Nate will never destroy what Ted has created for this team.

[melodiousoblivionao3]

still can’t get over how nate was like “oh no my picture isn’t in ted’s office” and “oh boo hoo he’s valuing the opinion of a FORMER STAR PLAYER slightly more than me” so time to throw a fucking temper tantrum and spill about Ted’s very intimate mental health issues to the press instead of dealing with it like a fucking grown up

[double-hoe-seven]

After today's episode, i have one thought

nate shelley, you absolute FUCKING TWAT HOW DARE YOU BETRAY THEM LIKE THAT.