Tragic Protagonist Appreciation Society

Like, Patience is the step-mum who Fitz makes a terrible first impression on. She's demanding and short-tempered and treats Fitz like he's feral.

Kettricken is the pretty girl who poisons Fitz shortly after meeting him. She's calculating and, after her marriage, ruling over a culture she doesn't fully understand, making Fitz's life more difficult with her decisions.

It would be so easy to write both of them to one-note stock characters. Two more minor antagonists in Fitz's life. But Robin Hobb doesn't. They're good. They're complex and sympathetic. They love Fitz and he loves them. They talk about him after his death. They make sure that his son knows him, even in Fitz's absence.

“They grow quickly now, and when they are grown I shall have my wings.”

“If I had wings, I would want to fly too, Dany thought.”

The Lady Patience <3

I don't care if the darkness is soon to arrive, just save me a place in the hungering sky

do not fear for me. the fire is mine.

but then when jon DOES finally give in to ygritte’s advances, she teases him for being a “maid”, which he counters with “I was a man of the Night’s Watch” (he was a man. is he still a man? who is he if not a man?). of course the question is, how is jon supposed to have had any experience with sex if he took vows of celibacy under penalty of death at the age of 15? (“No one had ever told Jon just what lords did with their ladies”). how are women expected to get married, have sex, and undergo pregnancy/childbirth when no one ever prepares them for what that means? (see: sansa’s entire storyline). jon did his duty by not asking questions, but he’s still laughed at/emasculated for not knowing the answers. so jon tries to convince himself that it’s all going according to plan (“I had to make her trust me”) and that he actually holds the power in their relationship, despite being keenly aware of how little choice he has (“If I refuse her, she will know me for a turncloak”). but the power clearly lies with ygritte to spare his life, to accept him as one of the free folk, to teach him about sexual pleasure based on her own experiences as an older woman (“Ygritte had been his teacher”) while constantly reminding him that she holds all of the knowledge that he needs (“You know nothing, Jon Snow, but I can show you”). by westerosi standards, jon is her wife. the only time that he actually takes her by surprise is when he performs oral sex on her, which is both the complete centering of female pleasure (finally!) and another instance of jon playing the woman who “gives” pleasure to ygritte.

and ALL of this is happening while jon is simultaneously learning what it means to be a woman who doesn’t fit into a song (via gender inversion with ygritte and his time among the spearwives and other free folk women). he’s playing the part of the “ideal” westerosi woman while being surrounded by women who refuse to conform to that mold, but who are clearly still existing within a different brand of misogyny (based on what we know about the free folk tradition of “stealing” women and even ygritte’s complete unfamiliarity with oral sex being performed on women). so if jon is a woman by westeroi standards, what is he by free folk standards? can he still be a man with ygritte? will he still be a man when he climbs back over the wall?

of course the difference is that jon is not in fact a woman, so when he gets the chance he can simply escape back to the safety of the all-male order of the night’s watch where ygritte (the “man”) can’t follow him. and when she dares to try, a fellow man kills her and leaves jon to hold her as she dies…before jon regains his power as a man and ascends to the role of lord commander. it’s also notable that what permanently “taints” him is not really the fact that he had sex despite his vows, but that he did so with a free folk woman (the “other”, the “unnatural”, the feminine).

exactly!! this is what I mean when I say that the night’s watch fears the free folk as the “other” / “unnatural” / feminine. everything that jon does in adwd challenges the night’s watch and its strict ideas of masculinity (discipline, tradition, duty, honor, the protector/shield, a man’s world apart from women and children). think of satin as a queer-coded man, sam being perceived as feminine, spearwives wielding societal power, val refusing to be the “wildling princess” to be married off, melisandre as stannis’s most influential advisor, jon emphasizing the importance of saving the free folk women and children at hardhome and being ridiculed for it, etc. oh no jon snow is turning the night’s watch into an army of women !!! 😱