(11-12-2017, 03:42 PM)irukandji Wrote: My issue with all of this is Nick's hesitation and failure to follow through. The "I was going to propose" excuse is just that. An excuse.
So I blame Nick. I don't think he ever really intended marrying Juliette and avoided talking about it at every turn. Those are not the actions of a man who seriously wants to get married.
Nick continued to demonstrate this same trend with Adalind, only with her it was even worse. Even his awkward "I love you" to her was retracted when he turned back time. While they obviously remained together, I have major doubts that he ever really committed to Adalind by way of marriage.
I don’t think Nick was initially hesitate because of doubts that Juliette was the one or his readiness for a lifetime commitment. IIRC, Nick saw Adalind woge within minutes of purchasing the ring. Whatever he thought caused the ‘hallucination’, stress, insanity, bad sushi, Marie showed up that night dying with cancer and spouting a tale of Grimm and Wesen and the urgency of Nick continuing his family’s age-old battles. And that was quickly followed by Renard’s first assassination attempt.
Nick was suddenly on a rollercoaster that wouldn’t stop, and to me, it makes sense that he put the proposal on the backburner until he could figure out his suddenly bizarre life, especially considering that Marie warned him Juliette wouldn’t be safe in that world. What stands out about Nick the most to me, is that he chose to keep Juliette in his world when he didn’t really understand it himself, other than how dangerous it was. And for me, Nick not making up a reason to break up with Juliette implied a level of selfishness that prevents a balanced and healthy relationship, setting the tone for his role in Nick/Juliette, and later, in Nick/Adalind.
But Juliette staying with Nick despite every instinct sounding alarm bells is what felt the most strange to me. And for me, Juliette choosing to join Nick’s secret world instead of lashing out over his secrecy causing the hell she’d experience set the tone for her role in their relationship moving forward. At the very least we should have learned at that point whether one or both owned the house, because Juliette should have wanted to distance herself from Nick once learning he could have warned her about Adalind and chose to keep his secret instead.
So in the end, I don't think it was one person or one decision that led to a tragic Nick/Juliette ending. Both had the free will to make decisions based on what was based for each and his/her partner. Some decisions were made out of love and some out of selfishness, but they had an equal hand in how things turned out.
All that said, I did get the impression from what very little we saw of Nick/Juliette before it was influenced by the Grimm/Wesen conflict, that had Nick not become a Grimm, he and Juliette would have been very happy together.
As for Nick/Adalind, I tend to agree. But the course of their relationship was complicated by the creative team’s fumbling. Nick was written as being too settled with Nick/Adalind too early in the season and G & K rewrote later scenes to express Nick’s apprehension and distrust, which progressed the relationship assbackwards and made it confusing. But while I question creative decisions and lazy writing, I still think the goal was to bring them together and for Nick to have the kind of relationship he wanted/needed as a Grimm.
"If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well." Rainer Maria Rilke