- "Jodie, my job is to study strange... "events"."
- —Nathan introducing himself to Jodie
Nathan Dawkins is a supporting character in Beyond: Two Souls.
Character Information[]
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“I think they get the message.” — Spoilers for Beyond: Two Souls follow. |
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At some point of his life, Nathan married a woman named Helen. Later, the couple had their first and only daughter, Laura.
Nathan is a DPA scientist specializing in paranormal activity. He works with Cole Freeman to analyze and understand Jodie's abilities and relationship with Aiden. He and Cole act as surrogate parents for Jodie after her parents are transferred and cease contact.
His wife and daughter are tragically killed by a drunk driver when Jodie is still a little girl. After the accident, Helen and Laura were taken to the hospital, but died despite the doctors' efforts.
Wishing to help Nathan, Jodie channels their spirits with Aiden's help after seeing an apparition of Laura. Tragically, this gentle act misfires badly, though the end results are years away.
Nathan continues his work with Jodie and Cole, focusing on the Infraworld. Unbeknownst to his colleagues or the military, Nathan's research has increasingly focused on locating Helen and Laura within the Infraworld so that he may see them again. He eventually succeeds in trapping them between the Infraworld and our world and begs an adult Jodie to help him in his research so he can hear and see them again. Jodie channels them with Aiden, revealing that they are in agony and are begging to die. Nathan's equipment has trapped them between our world and the Infraworld and they are being torn apart.
Desperate and losing his grip on reality in the quest to do the impossible, Nathan's broken heart drives him to a dangerous conclusion: he must remove the containment field around the DPA's new, more powerful condenser and permit the Infraworld to leak into our world. He believes this will finally prevent death.
Jodie, Cole, and Ryan work together to stop him, after going through some entities and potentially losing Cole. Jodie is separated from Ryan and comes across Nathan in the containment field looking for his wife and daughter. Jodie can either be cold and cruel to Nathan, or reason with him and tell him there is still hope. If Jodie is reasonable to him, he lets her pass and commits suicide out of guilt. If she is cold to him, he will shoot her in the shoulder. At this point, the player will be given the option to choke Nathan with Aiden, or wait it out. If the player chooses to wait, Ryan will run in to save Jodie, but will be shot by Nathan; Nathan then accidentally shoots himself, dying instantly. After Nathan's death, his soul (taking the appearance of his younger self) reunites with his wife and daughter. He will say goodbye to Jodie and tell her to destroy the condenser before drifting away peacefully.
Trivia[]
- Nathan's age is confirmed by concept art for "Black Sun," which states that he is 55 years old.
- Regardless of the player's choices, Nathan will always die.
- In Nathan's office during the "First Interview" chapter, a variety of newspaper clippings focusing on paranormal events can be seen on the wall, showing his fascination with the paranormal. Most of these clippings refer to hauntings and ghosts.
- Nathan is one of the characters included in the Beyond: Two Souls costume pack for the LittleBigPlanet series, alongside Jodie, Ryan (as he appears in "The Embassy") and Cole.[1][2]
- When prompted by Jodie in "Norah," Nathan states that he knew about her adoption, but chose not to tell her the truth about her parents. It can be assumed that he did not discover this until sometime prior to "Night Session," as he still refers to Susan Holmes as Jodie's mother in a conversation with Cole during "First Night." In "Night Session," however, he deflects when asked by Cole if he was planning to tell Jodie the truth, indicating that they were both aware by this point.
