Thinking about this post and can we talk about how important it is that fakir was okay with Duck not loving him back?
I think it’s fair to say it’s pretty heavily implied that he’s in love with her, and it’s explicitly confirmed in the guidebook.
While Duck’s feelings for him are more nebulous and hard to pin down, from his perspective she’s in love with Mytho. We as the audience know she doesn’t actually feel that way about Mytho but from Fakir’s perspective everything she’s done so far has been for Mytho. She admitted to him in episode 12 that she had feelings for mytho and there has been nothing to dissuade him from this line of thinking. In fact, he finds her crying because mytho chose rue.
There’s this little moment I like. When Duck tells him mytho has chosen rue as his princess his eyes narrow ever so slightly.
[ID: two screenshots of Fakir from episode 25. In the first he is looking at Duck (off camera) with a serious expression. In the second he narrows his eyes slightly. End ID]
He REACTS to this news, even if it’s subtle. And he doesnt look happy about it. Fakir is upset that Mytho rejected Duck. And this seems so antithetical from what we come to expect from a romantic subplot.
So the girl he loves loves someone else… and he’s okay with that. He never tries to pressure or guilt Duck into being with him. Hell he never even mentions his feelings. She likes someone else so what’s the point. But this never dissuades him from his devotion to her. He doesn’t give her an ultimatum or make her choose. He doesn’t even seem get upset that she loves someone else. Even when she goes back to being a duck destroying his last hope of being with her romantically, even then he never wavers. He wants to spend the rest of his life with her. Whether that’s as friends or as partners or as just a simple boy and a duck, he wants to be with her. How she feels for him doesn’t matter so much as getting to share his life with her.
And I find this such a refreshing spin on tired romance tropes. “Just friends” looms large in our media so it’s lovely to see a boy in the so called “friendzone” who’s okay with it. Beyond okay he treasures the time he spends with Duck. His affection for her doesn’t hinge on reciprocation.
It’s so common for characters in fakir’s archetype to grow angry or sad that they’re not “the one,” often lashing out at the girl who doesn’t return their feelings. But instead we have Fakir who’s perfectly content to stay Duck’s friend. After all, being her friend is a gift in itself.
I just love to see a platonic relationship not treated as a lesser stepping stone to a romantic relationship. Sure, Fakir has feelings for Duck. But that in no way undermines the friendship they already have. It’s treated with all the gravity usually reserved for romantic relationships. They’re going to spend their lives together and whether that’s as friends or as lovers—that part isn’t important.
I’m tired of media treating friendships like they’ve suddenly become worthless when one party develops feelings and the other doesn’t return them. With fakiru, the lovely part is that their relationship is built on such a strong foundation it can stand on its own. We the audience are free to interpret it as romantic, platonic, or something in between, but with any reading their close friendship forms the centerpiece.
