and another thing
--> the entirety of s2 onwards was incredibly traumatizing to duke. s1 was still bad for him but honestly it got progressively worse after s2. his wife came back after she bailed on him three years prior ( it is canon that duke has a fear of abandonment esp from women stemming from the neglect and abandonment by his mother ) and she lied to him and conned him , teaming up w the rev who only wanted to use duke as a weapon. he wanted to use duke’s curse and clean up haven , encouraging evi to manipulate him to help turn him into an instrument. not just that , but his wife proceeded to die in his arms ( over the course of the series , three woman duke cared about died in his arms [ first vanessa in season one , then evi in season two , then jennifer in season four ] ) further traumatizing him more. his trouble was activated towards the end of s2 and he then found out about the curse and why his father made him swear to come back to haven ( i.e kill audrey , his friend ). to top it off , there was a trouble that made ghosts visible in haven , i.e simon crocker. he spent the entire episode being manipulated by the ghost of his father // abuser as well as the rev while nobody tried to help him. sure , audrey told him to stop but ? his friend nathan and the ghost of nathan’s father garland did nothing to stop the rev or simon from trying to manipulate him. they treated him like a crocker , like a murderer. like a monster. the episode ended with duke killing for the first time because the man threw himself onto the blade duke was given before duke could try to stop him. not to mention his obsession with the guard tattoo. in season one , duke’s childhood babysiitter whom he had a crush on had the trouble to foretell someone’s death when she touched them. as she laid dying in duke’s arms , he was told he was to die by a man with a tattoo on his forearm of a maze. turns out , many have that tattoo and he lived in constant paranoia of anyone who had it.
s3 is when we saw duke’s struggle with his trouble. he knew from the beginning that he wasn’t going to give in , that he wasn’t going to be like his father or all the crockers that came before him. the entire season , nathan treated him like a villain. like he wanted the crocker curse. that he had any say of what was thrust upon him , what he never asked for. going back to the guard tattoo , nathan rejected duke so much to the point that he got the tattoo so that if someone with it was going to kill duke , he wanted to be on that list. to add onto that hostility , duke was manipulated by one of his closest friends into killing a man for the greater good. this comes after duke’s battle against being turned into a weapon , after said close friend refused to let him be a weapon by others’ hands. she told him that if he didn’t kill the man , many many lives would suffer. they would suffer if he didn’t kill him. lives would be ruined and ended if duke didn’t turn into a murderer. he killed the man and it visibly broke him and shook him. an episode followed where lady justice became real and targeted those who had done unlawful things. filled with guilt , he expressed his hatred over killing a man. he regretted his actions though he knew he had to. killing that man out of manipulation really traumatized duke. as s3 progressed , he continued to be targeted by the guard as well as nathan. nathan blamed duke for his actions of killing that man , never once blaming audrey even though she was the one who made duke do it. the sad thing is , duke has been manipulated and abused by women all throughout his life that he knew audrey was doing it and he knew what she was doing was wrong. yet , despite this , he never left her. he loved audrey and he let her use him out of fear that if he didn’t , she would leave him. s3 ended with audrey being forced to go back into the barn to save haven , and nathan manipulated duke into following her by basically saying if you love her , you’ll follow her. if you love her you wouldn’t let her leave. he jumped into the barn after her and it imploded when he did.
s4 is where we saw a six month time jump between his entrance into the barn and his leaving it. he came back and audrey didn’t. he fell into a fish tank at an aquarium in boston , and he proceeded to meet jennifer mason in the hospital afterwards. they went back to haven after finding nathan , who treated him positively upon his return but it went away when he realized duke didn’t have audrey. his older paternal half brother , wade , came to haven in his absence , taking care of duke’s ship and restaurant as he believed that duke had died. in episode s4 ep 04 , duke was taken control of by a teenager with a possession esque trouble. while not in control of his body , the teenager used him to kiss jennifer as well as kill his original body. when he killed the teen through the other’s control , his trouble kicked it and ended the possession trouble. another thing with that , audrey who had come back from the barn as lexie let him kill that teen because she knew his trouble would kick in. not once did she try to help him or stop the teen , more focused on keeping her identity as audrey a secret than helping duke. after he regained his body , jennifer used the kiss as means to begin a relationship and have her move onto the rouge with him , knowing fully well he was not in control of his body at the time. as this occurs , his half - brother wade has been manipulated as well into encouraging the crocker curse , becoming a serial killer for the high and the power. after wade goes after jennifer , duke is forced to murder his own brother , something only jennifer knew. duke blames himself vehemently for the murders committed by wade as he believes that it was his fault he came to haven in the first place. through the murder of wade , the crocker curse ends as the curse ends afflictions within the family , thus ending his. he buries wade alone and fears he is beginning to turn into a killer like wade , fearing that he is beginning to become like his brother as jennifer flinched when he came near her. this murder and the disregard both audrey and nathan have for duke leads duke to consider leaving haven. he is filled to the brim with guilt and self hatred , believing himself to be selfish and soft. he reiterates what he has told himself over the years and what people have told him as well. i’m supposed to be the selfish one. when it was discovered the crocker curse was done ( when people encouraged him to kill someone without even asking , another form of manipulation for the greater good ) , some viewed it as a loss as it came in handy. another example that people only viewed duke as a crocker and instrument rather than a person who is being slowly but surely ruined by this curse. not so long after the death of his brother at his hands and reobtaining his trouble , he takes it back upon himself to save people of haven. william , a man revealed to have been the lover of the original form of audrey as well as well as the co - creator of the troubles , altered a fatal curse that took many lives. duke was thus pressured to reclaim his trouble under the very real risk of a mass death. realizing he would have to kill a member of that family to save everyone , he had audrey recurse him with the foundation of the troubles i.e aether. he noticed a change in audrey as she retroubled him , a flicker of her true self. after he killed the father of the baby with the trouble , it is revealed that there is something very wrong with him after he got retroubled. he is in a major amount of pain and to top it off , after opening the gateway to another world , his body begins to suffer more and jennifer dies in his arms as a result of her opening the gateway. it is here that mara is revealed , and duke is bleeding from his eyes for unknown reasons.
for the first two episodes of s5 , after the explosion of the lighthouse in which the s4 finale took place , he refuses to acknowledge that jennifer had died. he is searching for her and in the meantime , spilling his blood all over haven. thanks to him being retroubled , his curse had been altered thanks to mara. now , duke is filled with every single trouble that any crocker before him had absorbed. it is very quickly killing him , and with every drop of blood spilled , a trouble is released to afflict anyone. they are tied directly to his emotions , i.e a hear no evil , see no evil , and speak no evil trouble sewing people’s mouths , eyes , and ears shut if they try to make duke acknowledge the reality of jennifer’s death. this proceeded to make him unable to grieve the death of the woman he loved to avoid a risky trouble he has no control over. from here , duke has never grieved jennifer’s death. he accepted it , finally , but that was all he could do. with mara formerly on the loose and now held captive , duke is in an incredibly vulnerable place. she is a trained manipulator , even getting under the skin of an army trained interrogator. never once did she not have the upper hand of any situation she was placed in , never once was she not in control. they instructed duke to take her to his home to watch her , only for her to heavily manipulate him and getting into his mind. he was forced into consulting with her when nathan was possibly dead , forced by audrey into giving himself up to this woman and making him vulnerable. mara asked about duke’s mother and told him that she would only help him if he opened up about his abuse , something he never even told audrey who he told many things. when he told audrey , she ignored his worries and further forced him into letting a known manipulator know his weak spot like that. she didn’t care , and this is another example on how duke gives himself and lets people take what they need from him , even if it hurts him. she wormed her way into his thoughts , convincing him that his so called friends would abandon him and that they were similar , catering to the fears of abandonment he has. and expertly , may i add , because he begins to believe her words after his “ friends “ seemingly give him up to save their own asses. they only contacted him when they wanted to use him or “ neeeded “ him or needed him to get information out of his abuser. she forced him to kill a man responsible for a pandemic that has already killed many people after she stabs the man , making duke put him out of his misery. while on their own in a cottage , she leads him to believe she will never leave him or hurt him like so many had done before. she tells him that he doesn’t need to be alone anymore because he has her. in her own words , she said ‘ i won’t abandon you , duke. you say you don’t need anyone ? this trouble is proof that you’re lying. you want people to think that you’re a selfish bastard so that when they leave you , they won’t know how badly they have hurt you. ‘ she is once more catering to his abuse and abandonment issues , telling him she will be there for him because nobody else is. this is textbook manipulation at its finest. this leads to mara raping him while he is clearly vulnerable and unable to give complete consent. on top of that , while having sex with him , mara touches him with aether many times , troubling him with dozens if not hundreds of troubles without his knowledge. she reveals not so much later that she was using duke and turning him into a weapon , so filled w troubles that he will explode. to save the town and everyone in it from himself ( duke isn’t shown blaming mara at all , he takes every ounce of blame for these troubles even though they aren’t his fault ) , duke tries to commit suicide and is then stopped. this comes from an entire season in which nobody is shown caring about duke , and only when he tries to die do they start to have semblance of caring for him. season 5a ends with mara turning off duke’s bomb though it is reactivated when mara is killed. his body thus expels all the troubles out of his body , afflicting many lives as well as affecting every single person in haven.
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