letsgostealafandom:

So, here is the thing. I don’t believe that Parker has a plan M. She doesn’t have a plan C, an NOPQ. Parker has her plans, and yeah, they’re basically labeled the same as Nate’s were, but there’s not a single one in which Hardison dies.

But here is the other thing, and that is: Parker has contingency plans and backup plans and backup plans for her backup plans for her backup plans, but she doesn’t have a plan B. Or a plan F through L. There’s no Z, or A prime, or anything that allows for Eliot dying. And there is, especially, no plan where Eliot dies so that Hardison lives. I just don’t buy it.

Once Parker discovered what family – real family – is, she grabbed onto it with both hands and will never, ever let go. They’d have to pry it out of her dead, bloody fists before she’d let it go, and that doesn’t only include Hardison. Her family’s not one person big. Eliot is not somehow less than because they’re not fucking him (yet), or because Hardison came first, or because Eliot’d understand being sacrificed.

(Eliot just assumes that there’s a whole bevy of plans where he dies for them, where his dying day comes so long before theirs he’s barely a blip on their radar. Eliot is wrong.)

There’s no plan where people die, because Parker is not Nate v2.0. Parker is not playing a giant game of chess, where what’s most important – important beyond everything else by far – is the win. Parker is better because she knows when to lose. She knows when to walk away and try again some other time, when to fold and let down the people they’re trying to help because nothing, nothing, is as important as keeping her family alive and with her.

And, you know, maybe that actually makes her worse than Nate. Maybe it means that they’re doing less good, now that it’s her in charge, because she can’t bring herself to look at Eliot, to look at Hardison, and think “tomorrow you might not be here”. But she also can’t bring herself to care.

So, yeah, I just can’t buy Parker as Nate v2.0, or Nate Lite. I can’t buy her being willing to lose anyone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tags: leverage yes parker wouldn't be ready to sacrifice her family ever she'd die first i'd believe that in plan Whatever parker dies and she's good with that because her family will be alive and that's what she cares about but she'd rather walk away with all three of them alive than burn them all trying to win