#will scott

Francis/Will - The nicknames! The fights! The stars! Strip tarocco and its narrative implications! Then the wedding day sheep battle, the tactical cross-dressing, “everything there was to know about Lymond’s way with women” ?!?!, the ring, the way Will is there at Midculter when Francis comes home in DK… They’re such a disaster, in hilarious and serious ways, but they make it through to real trust and friendship in the end, and I just love them.

Francis/Philippa - Their relationship is always important and telling and entertaining, and after a certain point but before the suffering sets in, they just keep making each other smile and laugh, by accident and on purpose. Reading their scenes in RC is like genuinely being in the room with them, with banter and chemistry that is PALPABLE and makes me into a third wheel, but as a reader I also have insights that they don’t, so I’m in on it too? Or something. They love each other so much! And after everything, they get to be together. Francis, you fool, this is what you should be!

Francis/Jerott - if you’d told me when I was in the middle of reading the series that they’d be on this list, I’d be like, “Uh, ok, sure. Dorothy Dunnett has changed my opinion about characters before.” If you'd told me when I had just finished the series, I’d go, “Huh??” But here I am. There is so much wrong with both of them, and we know it all too well, but they are so important to each other, and Jerott is one of the characters closest to the story's heart. Getting Jerott safely out of the disaster that is DK is one of the things Francis promises himself, and he’s so glad when Jerott decides to stay. Their relationship, especially in PiF, becomes deeply devoted and strange and delicate and absolutely full of self-deception on both sides. But Francis never stops trusting him, even when he’s busy running away from all of his own feelings with increasing speed, even when Jerott is being awful to him. And all the desperate conflict within Jerott distills to the essential element of being there for Francis, every time it comes down to it. Also, the way Jerott calls him his first name more than anyone else (on-page, in the series’ scope) messes me up.

Marthe/Güzel - I REALLY wish we’d gotten to see more of them. For Marthe, PiF is (among many other things) this long, agonizing breakup, but we only get a few clear glimpses of it. That scene between them in Djerba! Marthe plays a song wishing misfortune on the brother she knows her girlfriend is zeroing in on, and she cries because Güzel has happiness (does she though 😬) and she has none! And I cry too! And the whole mess that web of relationships becomes is fascinating (and one of the clearest examples of how queer these books are, yay), and there's also the parallels with Francis and Margaret, to consider? Anyway, to quote @sophosthewisebunny, Marthe deserves better than the shadiest bitch in the Mediterranean/someone who would leave her for her brother, but their relationship is very interesting.

Francis/Güzel - Rereading RC, every scene between them made me feel dead inside, while also making me want to run around screaming and then return to my book to savor every word. There’s so much going on with them, hardly any of it good, and since I was just thinking about the previous ship on the list, I have to wonder how their relationships to Marthe affect how they relate to each other, because that’s an interesting question, too.

sooooo i do hope it is a truth universally acknowledged that lymond cronicle gay. but in what way is it gay exactly? especially the first book which doesn’t have robin stewart, gabriel, jerott and marthe, not even danny hislop, and is very subdued in its references to same-sex love and desire in comparison to the later installments - where does it store its queer subtext? in this essay i will undertake the noble mission of finding out :D

a couple of introductory remarks before we start: first of all, i’m fully aware that assigning modern labels to historical personalities and fictional characters in historical settings is Bad and so i tried to refrain from it as much as i could, except in cases where i do it for comedic effect. but secondly, i do hope you will grant me some licence since i’m not doing historical research but instead something more akin to literary analysis (the horny kind). in that sense, while we can’t assign a label to lymond since those didn’t exist in his time and the very understanding of what we call queerness was entirely different, we can however compare him to a number of similar fictional heroes and see that some of his behaviors are far from typical, they are pretty queer in the broadest sense of the word, and to me this quality constitutes a very important part of lymond’s appeal. which is why when i say stuff like “a straight man would never do that” i am only half joking😏

part one: will scott and gay subtext 

fine so let’s read queer, let’s look at the textual Evidence. firstly, one of the most entertaining things about lymond in the earlier books is his flirtiness and in gok will is his primary target

sure lymond does it in order to tease and provoke but one doesn't prevent the other. besides, flirting and pointing out will’s good looks including his red hair (for which lymond clearly has a thing and you can’t convince me otherwise) as a teasing strategy is. a choice. not to mention all the petnicknames and terms of endearment with various levels of innuendo which are so manifold and suggestive i had to compile them into a separate post

secondly, there are some. ambiguous scenes and phrases, such as

this is right after lymond figuratively brought will to his knees after the hume caste mission and maybe it’s just bc i find power dynamics hot but i think that this passage is worded in a *certain* way and once you see it you can’t unsee it. i admit this one is a bit of a stretch but the other ones are absolutely not.

for example, the famous scene at the ostrich is brilliant bc you can interpret it either way - will expects to have sex either with one of the girls OR with lymond (or both? does our boy willy expect an orgy? do i underestimate his kinkiness?), the ironclad arguments in favor of the latter being 1) it’s much more fun and juicy and 2) i don’t think will’s a virgin at this point (he just came back from his study sojourn in paris and i doubt all he did there was study) and his inner monologue in this scene indicates he’s about to do something new and exciting such as gay sex with a man he has an angry crush on. in any case, his disappointment at not getting laid is cute and lymond’s sarcastic reaction is hilarious bc he clearly can read will like an open book and so he intentionally pranked him bc toying with people is his love language.

another example of "dunnett didn’t have to write it like this but she did bc she wanted us to ship them and who am i to disagree” comes up during their fight after the margaret lennox fiasco

interesting... why did you need to stress that, lymond? once again, you can interpret it as lymond being self-deprecating and ironic (”i’m such a lousy cavalier that i only fight women bc they’re the only ones i can hope to win against”) OR you can look at this sentence in the context of the scene in which he and will are quarelling like an old married couple and lymond even draws a parallel between how his bitter ex margaret gets on his nerves and will’s bitching AND lymond explicitly points out that will’s “admirably pretty” for the umpteenth time (in his defence, he’s as drunk as a sailor) - in which case the meaning of the phrase may be something along the lines of “i get involved only with women” - which would sound like a confirmation of lymond’s heterosexuality if it weren’t pointed out so entirely unprompted and in such defensive a manner. the gentleman doth protest too much

and that, my children, how subtext feeds on ambiguity. but i’m not done

bc sometimes the carefully composed subtext can in a way become text if the characters acknowledge it in-universe. the way this happens in gok is characters drawing parallels between will scott and all the women lymond allegedly seduced. richard does it

lauder & co do it multiple times during lymond’s trial accusing him of cultivating “associations both natural and unnatural”, “enticing” and “corrupting” will in the same manner as they believe he did with christian and mariotta and forcing lymond to defend will by describing him as “a normal, lively youngster” (lol i wish will had been there to hear this insightful assessment of character)

hell, even will himself does it after lymond is captured and brought to threave castle and christian reveals their acquaintance in an attempt to save him - and in such a petulant manner too

stop being jealous, will! the master has two hands! 

this Evidence is already vast even without me going into will’s complicated and ever-evolving feelings towards lymond, including but not limited to admiration, hero worship and desire to surpass, envy and frustration, anger and disappointment, mistrust, lots of confusion, remorse, and finally, in their last scene together, “enslaved eagerness” and delight (big Gay). lymond dismisses all of it as a kind of teenage idolization which will is going to outgrow (although the readers who continued with the series know that that’s not true) bc lymond firmly believes himself unworthy of love and interprets every kind of love people show him as some other convoluted emotion. as for myself, i think this intricacy, this ambiguity and openness to interpretation are qualities dunnett put there on purpose and they are meant to intrigue and invite us to make connections. if gok had been written today it would’ve definitely been accused of queerbaiting of some sort, but since it wasn’t we can just live in peace and enjoy the homoerotic subtext. speaking of which.

the aforementioned friend said that in her opinion lymond has nothing but “fatherly feelings” towards will which led me to believe she must think my gushing about the homoerotic subtext of gok must mean that i think lymond lusts after will or smth. and like, no? i mean i do ship them bc dunnett left me no choice but. this is not what subtext is about?

are will and lymond gay / bi? was lymond attracted to will sexually or romantically? did will want to have sex with lymond? these questions miss the point bc they are too direct and the beauty of subtext lies in its subtlety - the art we’ve started to lose in recent years as queer rep far too often takes the shape of throwing around labels but not depicting experiences they’re meant to represent with any subtance or nuance - which is why dynamics that can’t be described in one word like that of will and lymond are fascinating to me and i think the liminality of this relationship, its inherent ambiguity and resistance to being defined are part of the appeal. if you don’t reduce the queer aspect to the surface-level observation that their tension didn’t result in anything explicit (which like, people in general and these two people specifically have many reasons not have sex even if the attraction is there) thereby proving them to be straight once and for all, you can interpret what they had in any way you like and that’s what makes it compelling and fraught with meaning and queer - as in “peculiar” but also potentially as in “if lymond didn’t automatically friendzone everyone who might develop feelings for him he and will totally would’ve banged” or “i don’t wanna assign modern labels to fictional people in historical settings however not in a million years would i believe lymond isn’t queer”. in conclusion: it’s about the vibes👌

that being said, despite the possibility to interpret lymond and will’s relationship any way you like which is sufficiently provided in the text, the interpretation depends entirely on who’s doing it. like, i’m sure my esteemed colleagues on tumblr caught each and every nugget of gay subtext dunnett wrote or alluded to or thought about briefly in the summer of 1960 but my friend, my mom, some (many?) og lymond fans just don’t see it or choose not to. this is not the case with lymond and christian’s relationship which is universally understood as romantic - on the one hand, bc we live in a heteronormative society and have been taught by media to think that any relationship between the opposite sexes must be romantic by default and any woman in a male-dominated story can only occupy the role of the love interest, and on the other hand, bc dunnett did rely on certain tropes that date back as far as chivalric romances and the very invocation of those tropes signals to us the presence of a romantic relationship regardless of whether it’s actually there or not. all this to say, i personally believe dunnett only invokes those tropes to subvert them.

part two: christian stewart and platonic love

during lymond’s trial harry lauder sums up his and christian’s relationship in the following way: “an honest, gentle and virtuous girl, a young girl of open and innocent years, betrothed to a fine man, who fell into the power of a practiced and powerful seducer, appearing to her in a guise both insinuating and irresistibly romantic”. now, the readers know that this can’t be further from the truth bc christian isn’t naive or excitable and lymond is a gentleman, but what i’m interested in specifically is how jarring the difference is between what lymond stands accused of and what his and christian’s relationship actually was like - as compared to the case of will who after all was, in a sense, led astray, who did display that “emotional instability” bishop reid describes so vividly, who, even if he wasn’t seduced and driven to anything “unnatural”, still in the broadest sense corresponds to the narrative the prosecutors present in court. christian however doesn’t bc her and lymond’s relationship wasn’t anywhere near what people are led to imagine when they find out about the manner in which their secret meetings took place.

by virtue of being a relationship between two people of opposite sexes set in the 16th century lymond and christian’s interactions are much more ceremonialized and less casual than, say, between lymond and his brothers in arms. at the same time, since lymond believes christian doesn’t know who he is, he doesn’t feel as much need to perform a certain identity in front of her which leads to a much more honest and genuine relationship - one that is entirely chaste, devoid of innuendo and filled with banter which, while not lacking in intensity compared to lymond’s banter with will scott, is much more amicable but definitely less passionate. an affair of minds, if you will.

in a different story our romantic leads would’ve fallen in love as soon as they met but in this case there are few indications that they develop anything resembling romantic feelings towards each other at all. we aren’t privy to lymond’s true thoughts or feelings but even from outsider pov he doesn’t strike me as a lovestruck man. there’s no pursuing the lady in order to have the pleasure of her company nor are there any melodramatic love confessions at the deathbed - a trope that one could expect these characters to engage in in a different story.

does lymond flirt in a similar equivocal way he does with will or maybe even make advances? in fact, there’s only a handful of times in all of their dialogues where romance is touched upon at all. the most evident of these few instances in my opinion is the following exchange after agnes herries’ wedding which is obviously conducted in a humorous tone

the rest are mostly implications of the poetry lymond quotes - and very subtle implications at that. for example, this is how the author of nowyouhavedunnett blog interprets lymond quoting a single line from the clown's courtship to christian during their inchmahome meeting

The whole poem is a proposal of marriage. Francis would not have lightly chosen to quote this poem at this moment. He is the clown, the fool, as he says, and this is as close to courtship as he can allow himself to come. He is telling Christian, obliquely, that if he were free to come every day to woo and win her, he would. But he cannot and he will not. (x)

and this is how they interpret lymond referring to himself as a "joyless jeweller” during christian’s death scene

Lymond is in full self-flagellation mode, saying he has been a "joyless jeweller up to the last, exquisite drop from the crucible." The phrase "joyless jeweller" comes from a medieval English poem, Pearl. It expresses the deep despair of a man who lives while the one he loves resides "glad and bright/In Paradise, of strife unstrained...." (x)

while i wouldn’t presume to contradict any of these interpretations, i have to say that last time i read gok along with ramsey’s guide and even then i could hardly understand the connections. do you see what we’re required to do here? we’re invited to interpret the romance into lymond and christian’s relationship (if it’s something we’re interested in doing, that is) much in the same manner as we’re invited to do it in will’s case (although i must admit the stuff lymond quotes to will is much more explicitly flirty and doesn’t require an encyclopedia to comprehend). the romantic hints are there but they are buried deep under all the references and require lots of rigorous interpreting. the difference between will and christain in this respect is that with will the romantic subtext is much more obvious but, depending on the reader, much more readily ignored, whereas with christian it’s hidden very deep and yet we still view lymond and christian as lovers by default bc of all the reasons i’ve cited above. i would argue however that the subversive value of gok lies in the fact that there’s plenty of room for them not to be viewed as such.

during the trial lymond says that there was nothing but friendship between him and christian (whereas his line of defense in will’s case is “this youngster is entirely normal and not gay at all”) and that it was enough for him to be ready to sacrifice his life in exchange for her freedom, no matter how ludicrous it may seem to lauder. obviously, lymond would never claim anything else publicly bc christian’s virtue is at stake, but even so i don’t think he’s lying. it’s said multiple times that christian would go to the same length for any of her friends as she did for lymond and it’s stated at least once that lymond would give himself up in exchange for any of his men should they be captured bc of him (to say nothing of friends and family). i think this allows for a much more noble understanding of their charactes than if either of them did what they did just bc they were in love.

as lymond remarks, lauder and the jury might find ludicrous the fact that his actions were inspired exclusively by friendship - and that is ofc bc the society we live in is not only heteronormative but amatonormative as well, which means that in the hierarchy of human relationships romance is placed at the top and all the most profound and overwhelming feelings and noblest gestures are associated with romance. many people subscribe to this view, either consciously or not, and i, for one, firmly believe that we should strive to deconstruct it in any way we can. christian indeed has feelings towards lymond and the more their relationship develops the more intense those feelings get - but the thing is, intense feelings aren’t always romantic in nature. as an aroace person i can assure you that you can experience all the spectrum of what christian felt towards her mysterious friend without being in (romantic) love with him. her emotions could very well reside in the realm of agape and philia - a kind of heavenly, altruistic love that becomes more and more personal as she gets to know lymond better. and i think ascribing a romantic sense to lymond calling christian “a woman with a familiar spirit” would be very limiting.

that’s what i find alluring about their relationship - it is a High Romance but not as in “a tale of romantic love” and instead as in “a fascinating story about a marvellous adventure” that happens to be centered on friends instead of lovers and elevates friendship in that imaginary false hierarchy of relationships by being just as grand and dramatic, sweeping and beautiful as often only romances get to be. 

so. can lymond and christian’s relationship be described as a romantic involvement? would they have married if christian had survived? just as in the previous case, these questions miss the point in my opinion bc they try to force what they had into a box - specifically into a heteronormative one - whereas their actual relationship is much more undetermined and ambiguous and, if you look at it through the aspec lens, queer.

this ofc is not to say that there’s not enough evidence to interpret their relationship as a good old traditional romance and to answer those questions positively, but merely to draw your attention to the fact that dunnett wrote these relationships in gok in such a way that, once you think about them outside of the  constraints of gender roles and sexuality norms, leaves plenty of room for interpretation and queer reading - not just in the case of lymond and will scott but also, despite it not seeming as intuitive, in the case of lymond and christian.

i’d hate to end this on a serious note so here are some selected suggestive quotes from the one and only prosecutor for the crown