For as much as I love Dark Winds season 3 is the most horror-tinged one yet, and while it's Joe Leaphorn going through the dark night of the soul this season, Chee is also quietly wrestling with his own monsters. If he wins, it could very well see him get closer to becoming the character he is in the books, which I really hope is where the show is heading.

It's not an exaggeration to say that the Dark Winds season 3's story could change that, however.

Jim Chee Is A Completely Different Character In The Dark Winds Books

Almost Nothing About Him Carried Over From The Books To The Show

In the show, Chee doesn't exactly have happy memories of his childhood, nor is he close with any family. He comes across as a loner, and the only people he's grown near to are Joe Leaphorn and Bernadette Manuelito. In the books, however, Chee has a big family with whom he's close, including two older sisters, his mother, an uncle, and two aunts.

In particular, he's tight with his uncle, Hosteen Frank Sam Nakai, and Chee often turns to him for advice and spiritual guidance. It's a great dynamic from the books, and it's a shame it's missing from the show. While there was a Frank Nakai in season 1, he had nothing to do with Chee and was a minor antagonist. Chee's entire family and that dynamic have been stripped from the show, with Dark Winds changing Chee's backstory on a fundamental level.

Worse, though, Chee's personality and characterization are completely different, as well. He's much kinder and more lighthearted in the books, a counterbalance to Joe Leaphorn's gruff and taciturn nature. Unlike the Chee of Dark Winds, who is as far removed from his Navajo culture and traditions as he possibly can be when the first season begins, the Chee of the books is deeply integrated into his culture and his faith – so much so, in fact, that he's also practicing to be a traditional Navajo healer while continuing his police work.

While Joe Leaphorn isn't exactly as spiritual as his wife, Emma, in Dark Winds, he's certainly more spiritual and grounded in tradition than Chee. In the books, it's the opposite, with Chee being the one who is fascinated with his Navajo spiritual side and who delights in exploring its aspects. His spirituality informs every aspect of his life, and it makes him open and eager to learn; Chee's insatiable curiosity is a big part of who he is. While he can sometimes be naive, he's the perfect counterbalance to the ultra-logical book version of Joe Leaphorn, who wants nothing to do with Navajo spirituality and doesn't believe in anything he can't prove with empirical data and evidence.

Chee Has Had A Lot Of Growing To Do In The First Two Seasons Of Dark Winds

He's Been Humbled & Continues To Find Himself

When Chee showed up in Dark Winds season 1, he was cocky, immature, and utterly dismissive of Navajo tradition. Desperate to be accepted as an FBI agent and blend into the world of white men, Chee allowed his ambition and desire to get away from his past to lead him astray. He did some things that weren't exactly morally upstanding, including keeping the truth that he was an undercover FBI agent from Joe and Bernadette. By the end of season 1, he'd started atoning for his mistakes, and the influence of Joe, Bernie, and even Emma started molding him.

Dark Winds season 2 continued Chee's evolution, as he was completely disillusioned with the FBI by that point and left the career he'd worked so hard for. With nowhere else to go, he ultimately made the decision to go back home to the reservation, this time as an independent private investigator, attempting to find himself but not really sure what version of himself he was looking for.

He also desperately wanted to make amends with Joe and Bernie, two people who had come to mean a lot to him in the first season. By the end of Dark Winds season 2, he had mended those relationships, though it's clear that he'd ruined any chances he had at a relationship with Bernie. But in a happier resolution, Chee finally accepted that he belonged on the Navajo reservation and made peace with his heritage, agreeing to come back to work for Leaphorn at the Navajo tribal police by the end. He has a lot of work to do on himself still, but he has shown that he has the capacity to evolve.

Dark Winds Season 3 Hints Chee Might Finally Become The Character He Is In The Books

He Has One Last Major Hurdle To Clear

The Jim Chee of the Dark Winds TV show is a lot more broken than his book counterpart, carrying with him a heavy burden of childhood trauma and abandonment, and it's given him a lot of resentment toward his people and Navajo customs. He's the reservation kid equivalent of a kid from a small town who swears they will move away as soon as they're old enough and never come back.

In so many ways, Chee has run from his demons instead of confronting them directly.

Being back in Navajo Nation territory has stirred up so many difficult feelings for him. In so many ways, Chee has run from his demons instead of confronting them directly, but his return to the reservation and the cases he's been made to investigate on tribal land have left him with no other option but to deal with his past.

Dark Winds season 3, however, has hinted that Chee might vanquish those demons and fully reconnect with his culture to finally become the version of Jim Chee from the books. Chee faces his biggest test yet in being forced to deal with Shorty Bowlegs, his childhood bully. So far, Shorty has been something of a focal point for all of Chee's resentment and trauma, regardless of whether he deserves it. So far, Chee hasn't been able to let it go. But Chee agreeing to help Shorty in Dark Winds season 3 indicated that's starting to change.

Being able to forgive Shorty Bowlegs - and thus, his mother and the entirety of his childhood - feels like the last hurdle Jim Chee needs to clear to finally become the good man we've seen in glimpses. This is confirmed by the fact he even calls Shorty out for whistling at night, a taboo among Navajo. It's a traditional superstition that the Chee of the first two seasons of Dark Winds would never have acknowledged, let alone voiced aloud. He may never become exactly the character he is in the books, but it would be great to at least see the TV show version and the book version merge.