On Verity-As-Dragon (spoilers for Everything)
This line from Kettricken in Tawny Man really stands out as a masterpiece of dramatic irony. In it, she is offended that the Six Duchies dragons are not "true" dragons. And she retorts by claiming Verity is "truest of them all". She means noble, brave, wise, etc. but based on what we learn about dragons later, she is right in many ways that she certainly didn't intend.
Repeatedly throughout the series we are intentionally invited to make comparisons between dragons, traditional ships-of-the-line and of course, liveships
When we first see Verity's dragon, it's immediately compared to a sailing vessel in two ways:
When he takes off for the first time, another nautical simile is employed (and a common one, the wings of dragons and the sails of sailing vessels are repeatedly compared to one another - pay attention to the number of times a dragon's wingbeats are described like the "snap of canvas from a sail" or other similar comparisons.):
Icefyre is also compared to a ship when he emerges from his slumber:
It's important to note that he shares one clear cut obsession (hunting) with true dragons already, dragons are constantly compared to his other obsession (shipbuilding/ships) and his third obsession (cartography) is based on an accumulation of ancestral knowledge, with information depicted from a dragon's-eye-view of the world. But why ships? Why dragons?
Verity is a Taker, and why Ships Matter.
Verity is true to the namesake of the Farseer line - literally King Taker. He was an Outislander who chased against their traditional matriarchal society and established his own kingdom in what is now Buck. We learn based on the Outislander creation myth and Outislander cutlure that the basic way of things is: women rule the homestead and ensure the survival of the clan, men go out and raid and occasionally come back to earn the right to mate. King Taker conquered Buck, and in the process married an Elderling woman who was probably responsible for his descendants possessing the Skill, despite her importance being ignored for most of Six Duchies history. He subsumes her for his own glory.
Makers (Mothers, Women, Homemakers) vs Takers (Fathers, Men, Breadwinner). The Makers grow, cultivate, grant life and handle the thousands of boring mundane tasks that make up daily life, while the Takers must go out and extract wealth from somewhere else, indulging their own desires in the process. Robin's depiction of the traditionally masculine Breadwinner role as the more selfish, transient and less necessary to the survival of the species, the family, the culture, etc. than the Homemaker role is one of her most recurrent themes. We see this dynamic everywhere (Ronica and Ephron, Tintaglia and Icefyre, Eda and El, Chivalry and Patience, Verity and Kettricken, Keffria and Kyle, Elderlings and Dragons, etc.)
The Farseers are literally the result of a Taker, breaking with a Maker society and building a new society ruled by Takers. The Skill is the Magic of Taking (using other people as batteries, entering the bodies and souls to change or remove things, healing via burning of other resources, possession, torture, sealing) while the Wit is the Magic of Making (fomenting new bonds, healing via a communication with natural processes, empathy, life sense). Verity uses Fitz to power his Skill, he uses Fitz to make his child, he uses other people (August, members of his navy) to achieve his goals, he subsumes Kettle to complete his dragon.
Why the ships by the way? For one, they, like the sea serpents, are a sea-bound lesser form of dragon. More importantly, the dream of a ship in ROTE is the dream of a powerful being that directs the energies and memories of multiple smaller beings to a greater purpose. The Crew are subsumed as individuals and become secondary to the will of the Captain and the needs of the Ship. To orchestrate all of his "little people" to form greater wholes that will achieve his goals is the whole point of Verity's navy, and he pours that same obsession into the dragon. And the liveships are literally made by destroying embryonic life for the purpose of molding it to acquisitive and extractive purposes.
Interestingly, although this next passage illustrates a matriarchal perspective from a female dragon, Dragons are essentially the Takers in their relationship with the Elderlings.
The dragons go and hunt, fill their bellies and sate their own desires, but often need to return to the cities of the Elderlings for grooming, for Silver, for the luxury and nurturing this race of Homemakers provides for them.
These dragons, much like deadbeat dads, leave half-finished Elderling babies everywhere that their Elderlings often have to shoulder the burden for, hoping their dragon will 'wise up' and take responsibility one day.
Interestingly, just before Verity enters his dragon, he displays the same, cold draconic lack of remorse shown by Mercor above:
Verity literally consumes a woman and possesses Fitz' body in order to complete his process. Even his great works come at a cost to others, who are often forgotten by history in the telling of 'his' deeds.
Kettricken is right, Verity was the truest of all dragons as we come to know them: Aloof, inattentive, detached, unconcerned with the 'little' people, enormously powerful, someone who could grant great boons at an often steep price to the receiver, a user, a taker, a hunter, a 'Great Person' whose legend is upheld by the many people who sacrificed so much to see their dream fulfilled. This is dragons as we come to know them over the course of 16 books, and Verity already was one from the beginning. He simply physically becomes what, on some level, he always was at the end of Assassin's Quest.
Takers, Makers, Maternal Fathers
Ultimately, Verity, Dragons and the great Takers of the story (no matter how well intentioned) illustrate Hobbs' basic idea: the Makers are more important. The people (usually depicted as women or homemakers) who build and maintain the home, the city, the society, the species are the most important and the adventurers, pioneers and plunderers are selfish at worst, a necessary evil in dire circumstances at best.
When Verity goes on his pipe dream quest, it is Patience and Kettricken who maintain the stability of Buck society. When Ephron dies, it is the Vestrit women who must keep the family and Bingtown proper alive. It is Tintaglia who works to keep dragonkind alive, not Icefyre.
Fitz has two Fathers: Chivalry (with Skill, the Paternal, Male, Taker Magic) and Burrich (with Wit, the Maternal, Female, Maker Magic). Chivalry disappears from Fitz' life against the advice of everyone and leaves him nothing. Burrich remains in Fitz' life and ultimately is the vessel by which Fitz is reborn via the Wit. He teaches Molly how to handle children properly and builds their homestead. Burrich's Maternality is ultimately his most redemptive quality and his status as Maker is the reason Chivalry is just a ghost and Burrich is actually a pivotal part of Fitz, Molly and their children's live.
Dutiful has two Fathers: Verity (truest of all dragons, Taker, enormously powerful in the Skill) and Fitz (erratic connection to the Skill, Witted). Verity enters Fitz' body and uses him as the vessel with which to create life. Fitz ultimately fits into the Homemaker role in his relationship to Hap (his most well-adjusted child) and Starling (deadbeat philandering Minstrel mom)((we love her)) and is more responsible for raising Dutiful and protecting him then Verity every was. His finest, most redemptive quality in his relationships with his children is his Maternality, his desire to be Homemaker.
This is why Tarman and the other dragons recognize Fitz as being claimed by a dragon. Because Verity is. Despite the nobility of many of his goals, his obsession, his single-mindedness, primacy of his own perspective, his subconscious need to use and consume others, his detachment from the finer details of mundane daily life turns him into a Dragon eventually. As these books say so often: We are as we are meant to be. Verity is the ultimate dragon, in both his range of positive and negative qualities. Hunter, explorer, adventurer, destroyer, user, abuser, Taker, Great Man, Hero. The difference between ROTE and many series is that we see the true cost such a man has on the people around them.
When we learn that the Mountain Kingdom was initially founded by two notable women in the final trilogy, it ties together this theme with an almost too-neat bow. A Matriarchal ruler (on a smaller scale, the homemaker) sees themself as Sacrifice. A Patriarchal ruler (smaller scale, the breadwinner) as Taker. Fittingly, the most Patriarchal ruler of them all, the Duke of Chalced, has destroyed his own bloodline and most sup the blood and flesh of Selden (bonded to a female dragon, often considered gentler and softer than other men), an Elderling (the Maternal or Maker species in their dynamic with dragons) in order to sustain his own life.
I have no idea how to end this, other than saying I will write more on this and am currently working on a video.
