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Nan is a character.It is a character in American Horror Story portrayed by Jamie Brewer. Nan is a student at Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies, and is described as "enigmatic". Nan is a clairvoyant. [1]

Background

Constantly underestimated by the other girls, and considered simple minded by the outside world, Nan is anything but. She has the ability to get into the minds of others. Nan surprises everyone when her gifts attract the attention of Fiona Goode, the Supreme.[2]

Personality and Appearance

Nan is a young witch with a kind yet ominous personality. She has long wavy hair and an affinity for wearing dresses. Well meaning, she is shown to act as a mediator in fights.

Her clairvoyance gives her insight to secrets and information about others that they would rather keep secret or do not even know themselves. This is shown when Madison tries to gloss over a story about a director she killed which Nan quickly clarifies was anything but a simple accident.

Nan will at times become enthralled with a clairvoyant reading, wandering off in the direction that it leads her. One of these bouts led to the discovery of  Madame Delphine LaLaurie, whose body laid secretly buried at her home, turned museum, for centuries.

Powers and Abilities

  • Clairvoyance: Nan is a powerful clairvoyant, able to utilize a variety of telepathic and precognitive powers; , in "Bitchcraft," for example, Nan uses her powers to read Madison's mind, while she later uses those same powers to detect Madame LaLaurie's whereabouts. [1][3] Nan has been shown to have some difficulty limiting her powers, and wears headphones in an attempt to block out Madame LaLaurie's thoughts, though she is ultimately unable to do so. Nan's clairvoyance usually manifests itself only as telepathy, that is, the ability to hear others' thoughts, but she has occasionally demonstrated the ability to allude to the future.
  • Telekinesis: Like many witches Nan has shown the power of telekinesis, moving matter with her mind. We first see Nan display the ability when going to Luke's house to help him after hearing his thoughts while his mother is punishing him, as she unlocks and opens the door without touching it. Another example of Nan's ability with telekinetic abilities is when she sharpy willed it against Zoe, casting her away from her space and holding her in place while simultaneously making Joan fall to her knees[4].
  • Concilium: As an extension of her telepathy, Nan has recently displayed the ability of telepathic mind control[4], also known as Coercion. Using her newly risen power, she was shown to use it with ease at a masterful level, from making Madison stop smoking and put out her cigarette, to making Joan Ramsey kill herself. According to Zoe, Nan's coercion is very powerful, not even Fiona has shown such facility to get into someone's head.
  • Divination: Nan has also shown to possess Divination.[5] After discovering that Luke has passed away, Nan goes and pays Joan a visit in an attempt to discover the whereabouts of his body. When Nan asks his mother where his body is, Joan pulls out an urn from one of her top cabinets and says she had him cremated. Nan uses her newly discovered power (Divination) to not only discover the cause of Luke's death, but to also find the bleach she uses to kill Joan.

Story

At the iron gates of Miss Robichaux's Academy, Zoe enters what seems an empty antebellum house. Dark figures, cloaked and masked, stalk and grab Zoe, and begin a ritual. One figure mounts the bewildered new student and raises a ceremonial knife. At the last second the figures reveal they are joking and unmask themselves. Zoe recognizes Madison Montgomery, a movie star. The other two introduce themselves as Queenie and Nan.  The headmistress, Cordelia Foxx, enters and explains the history of the Academy to the girls. That night during dinner the girls get to know each other, and Nan's clairvoyance is revealed as she constantly, and annoyingly, reveals secrets and information about her fellow students.

The next morning Queenie & Nan watch the news as it covers a story about a fatal accident that happened at a frat party, a frat party that Madison and Zoe attended.

Fiona Goode, the supreme witch, decides to take the girls out and lecture them about society and the increasing need for witches to defend themselves. It's during this trip that Nan is captured by a clairvoyant reading and wonders off to the museum of Madame Delphine LaLaurie. There she wonders about trying to pinpoint the source of the reading. Fiona finally finds Nan in the backyard of the museum sitting alone. When asked why she is there Nan reveals that the lady of the house is there.

Later that night Fiona digs up the still alive LaLaurie from her unmarked grave and takes her to the school where she keeps her captive.

Nan later releases Madame LaLaurie because the socialite's incessant loud thoughts bother her, later bearing witness to Queenie being knocked out by LaLaurie.

Along with Queenie, Nan watches their new neighbor, Joan and Luke Ramsey, move in. They are joined by Madison, who expresses interest in Luke. They walk in, and go to the dining hall, in which Nan reveals that boys find her "hot", and she gets it on quite a lot.

Nan is accompanied by Madison to the Ramsey house, bringing a cake to welcome them into the neighborhood. After Madison and Joan face off, Nan and Madison are kicked out of the house, but not before Nan witnesses Madison's new powers, which she demonstrates by setting the neighbor's curtains on fire. [6]

The Council on Witchcraft (Myrtle Snow, Quentin Fleming and Cecily Pembroke) pays a visit to Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies, Cordelia clumsily lets slip about the Minotaur incident and her entering voodoo territory, necessitating Fiona's placating them. Nan reveals that she sent the Council here because Madison went silent in Nan's head. They are conducting an official inquiry. The death of a descendant of Salem is punishable by incineration. They interrogate Cordelia, Zoe, Queenie, and Nan. They ask, among other things, if she was manifesting new powers. Cordelia notices the rug is missing. They realize that Fiona was aware that Madison gained another power, and Myrtle suspects her of killing Madison for having the potential as the next Supreme. After Nan crafts a shrine for Madison. Luke arrives, bearing cookies to repay the cake Nan brought him. [7] He is not long inside before more seekers arrive at the door. Delphine takes a good look at the zombie trick-or-treaters and recognizes them not as made-up children, but as her own long-dead daughters, the smiling one in the middle being Marie Pauline, the daughter who seduced Bastien shortly before Delphine turned him into the Minotaur. A look outside shows an army of the undead laying siege to the house.

The girls are terrified, but Luke thinks it is all a prank. He finds his way out the door. In Cornrow City, Marie is levitating on her ritual mandala. While Luke walks among the dormant zombies, Marie commands them to begin. They tear apart an innocent bystander. Luke tries to flee for safety but is struck down. Zoe takes charge and has the lights killed and curtains drawn. She then orders everyone upstairs. She tells Spalding to take Delphine and Queenie to his room but when he refuses she says to pick a room. Nan slips out the door and aids Luke to take refuge inside Cordelia's car. Zoe charges to the aid of an exposed Nan and Luke with a chainsaw and quickly dispatches the intruders.

Fiona, Nan, and Zoe incinerate the fallen dead army in the yard with a bonfire. Luke is asleep in Nan's bed.

After suspicions rise over the missing Madison and Fiona's aggressive behavior Zoe, Queenie and Nan make a pact over absinthe shots to watch each other's back.

The three young witches use a spirit board in hopes to find the possibly deceased Madison. Instead of contacting Madison they contact The Axeman at which point Queenie ends the seance.

Zoe tries to convince the Witches to reestablish contact with the Axeman, but neither Nan nor Queenie are interested, so Zoe goes it alone.

After discovering the whereabouts of Madison's corpse in Spalding's room, Zoe brings Nan and Queenie to interrogate him. Nan use's her Clairvoyance, or more specifically her telepathy, to translate for the mute, though her modesty does not permit her to quote Spalding's verbatim.

Nan become increasingly more worried about Luke, who's mother won't let Nan see him, as his thoughts suggest to her that he is being harmed. Despite her concerns, Cordelia reminds Nan that the coven has more pressing matters to attend to. The remaining witches at the School will concoct a plan to kill Fiona. With the help of Myrtle Snow this plan becomes the ritual called The Sacred Taking.

After the newly resurrected Madison tries to convince Fiona to commit suicide, the girls all gather on the school stairway and discuss who could be the possible new Supreme. When Nan is dismissed as a possibility she storms off.

Nan decides that she will visit Luke and as she approaches his home she uses, for the first time, telekinesis to open the front door. She follows the sounds of grunting up to a closet on the second floor where she finds Luke bound and gagged. After releasing him Luke insists that they leave, Nan kisses him on the cheek and agrees. They are stopped before they can reach the front door by Luke's mother, Joan Ramsey. She threatens to call the police and report Nan as an intruder.

As the mother and son get into a brief altercation Hank Foxx, who had been following Nan since she left the school, raises his gun and fires. The bullets hit Joan twice killing her and before one can hit Nan Luke jumps into the way to save her and it hits him instead. Nan is immediately distraught and insists that Luke can not die because she is his Supreme. Luke does not die and is taken to the hospital in critical care, with Nan going with him while Fiona orders Misty to resurrect Joan. After being brought back to life, Joan attends to Luke and bars Nan from seeing him.

When Madison and Zoe come to collect Nan she reveals that she hasn't seen Luke since he was taken in. The witches help Nan find Luke against his mother's wishes. Joan becomes furious at their presence and blames them for this incident. Nan uses her powers to speak for a comatose Luke, telling his mother to calm down. Nan uses Luke's thoughts to prove that she is a mind-reader and can help Joan, resulting in Madison ultimately revealing that they are witches and Nan is clairvoyant. Joan then allows for Nan's continued presence when Nan says that Luke wishes his mother to sing "A Closer Walk With Thee." After singing to Joan, she embraces Nan and accepts her.

Joan returns to the room with snacks and expresses gratitude towards Nan. However, Nan listens to Luke and reveals that Luke has seen God and that God is judging Joan for the murder of her husband after Joan saw him with another woman, using bees and making it appear as an accident as her husband was deeply allergic to bee stings. Joan rebukes this truth and orders Nan out of the room. Nan is then comforted by Madison and taken back to the house as Joan then smothers Luke to death. After she finds out that Luke is dead and his mother suffocated him with a pillow, Nan compels Joan to drink bleach, killing her.

Back at Miss Robichaux's, Nan's clairvoyance leads her to the baby that Marie Laveau kidnapped from the hospital and intended on killing it in sacrifice to Papa Legba. Compromised at this point by her knowledge and their predicament, Marie and Fiona drown Nan in a bathtub as a substitute for the "innocent" that Marie had intended to sacrifice, rationalizing that while not a complete innocent, Nan is close enough. When her soul appears, she asks if she will be stuck in her dress for all eternity, but Papa Legba assures her she won't and that her afterlife is filled with treats. She goes with him though she comments it is better than being in the coven. [4]

Later, a photo of Nan is seen as Queenie tries to contact her. [8]

Quotes

  • To Madison Montgomery: "I'm not a virgin, I get it all the time and guys find me hot."
  • To Zoe Benson: "Fiona's a bitch, I'm going to be a nice Supreme."
  • To Papa Legba: "Do I have to wear this outfit for all eternity?"
  • To Marie Laveau: "Eat my shit. I'm the next Supreme, I just killed the neighbour next door and I will kill you."

Notes

Gallery

References

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