halfway through assassin's quest and i can't stop thinking about how the men in fitz's life (chade, burrich, shrewd, even verity) constantly try to impress upon him a notion of duty that involves unwavering loyalty and servitude to one man (shrewd/verity) above all else. which is deeply problematic not just in that it reinforces strict hierarchies of power but because it only ever results in fitz's identity and autonomy being erased in order to make him a vehicle for endless responsibility and service and suffering on these men's behalf. that's their idea of duty. but it's not the duty that the women around him teach.
patience abandons her peaceful solitude and moves to buckkeep, a place she hates full of people she mistrusts, all to protect fitz. not out of duty to chivalry, but because he's just a boy and she wants to protect him and guide him through a world set out to hurt him. and yet her duty isn't just to him. she shields molly after her father's death and disciplines fitz on how precarious molly's situation is, looks out for kettricken when the court is scheming against her and her heir. and even when fitz and molly and kettricken are all long since gone from buckkeep she does not stop, she becomes the lady of buckkeep and rallies her people and protects them and helps them rebuild from the raids wherever she can, because her duty isn't tied to just one person. it's duty to humanity.
and then there's kettricken, whose title of "sacrifice" by its very nature dismantles the notion of royal privilege and authority upon which the six duchies are built.. she is above no one; her peoples' suffering is her own. she risks her life to fight at their side, she sells every finery and all the pretty things she owns to feed and protect and rebuild them while the men around her sit on their wealth. kettricken does not hesitate to sacrifice her comfort and safety and even life on behalf of her people, simply because she cares. she loves the people of the mountains and the duchies alike because they are human and they deserve her love and her care.
it's just this really beautiful idea in contrast to the notion of duty put forward by the men in fitz's life that instead of a transactional, hierarchical relationship between two people, duty is a responsibility to the world, to humanity. for patience and kettricken their duty is founded in empathy and selfless care for those around them. they expect nothing in return. which actually helps fitz be loved and protected rather than used as a tool. #mygirls <3 <3
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