Get Nerdy With Me No. 12

This is not a Nick Davis shitpost, but it might feel like one.

I don't like Nick Davis, and I have a very dismal fan theory for him.

Nick Davis is a walking red flag. Has been ever since he introduced himself in Legendborn by bellowing out Bree’s full name across campus.

“Briana Irene Matthews!”

I freeze, then pivot slowly to look for the sort of asshole who calls out someone's full name in public to get their attention.

Legendborn, Chapter 6, page 49

That moment gave me the creeps. Nick, the heir apparent of a seedy organization obsessed with lineage and family names, yelling out Bree’s (a stranger’s) full name? Eew. No.

The thing is, Nick seemed to make up for his inauspicious beginning by being charming. By being loyal. It’s easy to forget a faux pas when someone’s got as much charisma as Nick.

Nick continues to make mistakes, some too big, grave, and icky to forget.

Like running from Bree and Sel in Bloodmarked when they came to rescue him. His reason? He craved time to himself.¹ This decision is so unforgivable. He ran instead of teaming up with Bree and Sel, abandoning them when he knew Erebus was near. Erebus! A figure integral to Bree’s imprisionment and torture. He ignored that threat and ran, instead of standing by Bree’s side, at least long enough to see her to safety. (WTF, Nick! ) Bree almost died that night.

But that is not even the biggest red flag waving over Nick’s head.

Nick’s character, to me, has always felt like a ticking time bomb. Like every moment we spend with him is just part of a countdown, the clock winding down to a giant moment of betrayal— a romantic one.

I will never ship him because he is the Scion of Lancelot, aka the Scion of great romantic betrayals.

I think, in each generation, the Scion of Lancelot is destined to betray the Scion of Arthur in a romantic way. Nick comes from a long line of men who are infamous for sleeping with their best friend’s spouse.² In Nick’s and Bree’s generation, the cycle of romantic betrayal will likely manifest a little differently (a prediction for that soon).

No matter what, if Nick follows in Lancelot’s archetypal footsteps, there is going to be a moment when he breaks Bree’s heart irreparably.

How will he break Bree’s heart? How will he betray her?

I think Nick is going to fall in love with or become fatally attracted to Ava, the Scion of Morgaine, and there’s foreshadowing for that in one of Bree’s blood walks in Bloodmarked.

“Morgaine flushes red and dips her head, a small bow to her mentor. “Apologies. I did not mean to overstep.” Morgaine catches my eye, then Lancelot’s, and flushes a deeper red before mumbling a farewell and making her retreat—likely back to her and Merlin’s shared laboratory.”

Bloodmarked, Chapter 50, page 458

Tell me. Why does Morgaine flush “a deeper red” after locking eyes with Lancelot? I have guesses…👇🏻

• What if the original Lancelot had an affair with Morgaine, Arthur’s half sister, not Guenevere?

• What if the Guenevere-affair story is a historical cover up? A fake story baked into the Arthurian legends that was a little more palatable than Lancelot hooking up with Arthur’s sibling)?³

• What if the present day Nick doesn’t wait for Bree? What if he gives up on her? If he can’t handle the distance and, in his close proximity with Ava, falls in love with her?

We know at the end of Bloodmarked that the Legendborn have firmly teamed up with the Line of Morgaine. They bring Ava and three of her soliders to the final fight.

I think Nick made contact with Ava and the Line of Morgaine before the blood walk he went on with Bree and Sel, something Nick obliquely reveals here:

He gnaws at his lip. “There are other ways to live than what the Order has shown us.” He shakes his head. “I’ve… I’ve seen it.”

Bloodmarked, Chapter 51, page 464

Tracy Deonn’s own words do not make me feel hope for Nick’s character arc…

Um, this sounds ominous.

Tracy Deonn’s Thread from 1/17/2025 about Nick Davis. Check out the full thread here.

Final thoughts: Sel’s gaze is “unwavering”

Sel has already proven himself loyal and true. He was willing to sacrifice his life twice for Bree in Bloodmarked.⁴ He would NEVER abandon or give on up Bree willingly. She knows this too. “A kingsmage gaze is unwavering,” Bree says confidently in Chapter 43, page 414 of Bloodmarked—unlike the gaze of a Scion of Lancelot. Historically, that is a gaze that wavers and strays.

1. “I need time,” Nick says evenly, “I’ve never had time to myself, Sel.” Bloodmarked, Chapter 51, page 461.

2. In the legends, Lancelot sleeps with Guinevere, King Arthur’s wife and queen. In the past, Reynolds (Nick’s grandfather many times over, Scion of Lancelot) sleeps with Samuel Davis’s wife (the scion of Arthur’s wife). She gets pregnant. The three of them coverup the parentage of the child, the affair, and Samuel Davis’ rape of Vera, passing off the child born to Davis’s wife as a Davis child and Arthur’s heir.

3. Tracy Deonn explains in Legendborn that all the great texts in the Arthurian canon are basically the Order’s propaganda. They had a hand in what Tennyson wrote in Idylls of the King, what Malory wrote in Le Morte d'Arthur, making them stories written to hide the Order behind legend.

4. He holds her body together with aether life support, waiting for William to arrive to heal her. He almost dies doing this. Then of course, the ending…😭💔