Farseers 💎

chivalry makes me so sad because what do you mean in an old forum thread, robin hobb confirmed that ‘the other one’ chade is referring to is chivalry and that in the past queen desire would fabricate situations to paint chivalry as disloyal to the farseer family. shrewd testing chivalry and fitzchivalry, shrewd breaking his son and then his grandson…and both times due to queen desire’s machinations. it’s so bleak! i think of young chivalry losing his kind mother and infant sister then his father marrying someone who is cruel to him and strives to corrupt his father’s image of him and relentlessly undermines his place in his family. of course, chivalry fighting to marry patience allowed him to break the cycle that shrewd set; although chivalry had a hateful stepmother who killed him, he was able to give fitz a loving stepmother who saved their life.

(hobb’s comments in the thread under the cut)

I love Lady Patience and her strength, but I admit, when I was first reading about her, I underestimated her greatly. It's not that I didn't like her. Quite the opposite. She was my favourite character for most of the books. But because Fitz saw her as some ditzy, eccentric woman when he first met her (And a little bit of an annoyance, but I can't blame him for that), I halfway did. I say "halfway" because I knew there was more to her than what Fitz initially assumed, it's just that I was deeply uncreative when I imagined what that "more" could be.

A woman who knows more than she lets on. A woman who was supposed to be queen. She was a character with an earnest heart, even if her actions didn't always come across that way. And at first, I thought it was ironic that Lady Patience....Didn't have much patience with Fitz on the early stages of their relationship. But sometimes, I also feel as if Hobb was talking to her readers and Fitz too. There's so much more to her. Have patience. It's not as if all of her virtues and strengths suddenly popped up when needed, they were always there. Her kindness with Molly, her loving relationship with Lacey, her resilience when it came to Fitz, her intelligence in how she presents herself to the court, and how she navigates its politics. But there's also a sort of freedom to her, a hint of the chaotic. How she can sometimes be so blunt and self-determined, yet sensitive. I love how Patience's eccentricities were never flaws to be corrected by the author. They're just parts of her that makes up who she is.

Lady Patience, to me, is kind of hard to describe, but she's just so dear to my heart. She defies what other characters would think of her. But she's not an enigma. She's just so true to herself that it confuses people. But she's still, clearly, not perfect. No person is. She can be wrong. She can hurt people even when she doesn't mean to. She can make mistakes.

Anyway, there were a lot of moments where she clearly doubts herself and her abilities, but in the end, she does what she thinks is right. That's what I think true strength is. She's such an inspiration to me, because she proves that people can be strong in so many ways. They can come into who they are despite what other people think of them, despite sometimes, what they think of themselves.

Like, the quote from Project Haily Mary (Does this count as a spoiler? If so..SPOILER)

"I think I will always miss him."

Fitz(Chivalry)