the burrich chivalry and patience throuple plays often on my mind... like i truly believe chiv and patience flirted with burrich in private and he literally could’ve had it all but had to be an uptight monogamist with Values and simultaneously a miserable yearner. however i am not goonposting because this made me think about The Fucking Earring. i know we always bring up how it went from chivalry to patience to burrich to fitz to the fool because it’s so narratively juicy as a symbol of devotion but Walk With Me.
for burrich the earring starts as a memento of trauma associated with his witted grandfather who leads him to see the wit as a barbaric weakness, and is therefore also linked to his belief that rejecting the wit is the only way to possibly be a Good Man. burrich gives the earring to chivalry as a token of loyalty, reflecting how his devotion to him was integral to his own self-worth—he regarded being king’s man for him as the most worthy thing he ever did. he survived because chivalry believed in him. then chivalry passes it on to patience as recognition of burrich’s importance in her life. patience knows of its connection to burrich, but not its history. by passing it on to fitz, she tries to honour him as chivalry’s son. that she pierces his ear is symbolic of how burrich’s history and baggage is being physically, traumatically etched onto him. burrich hiding and hating a part of himself is contained in the earring.
the fact that a deep hatred of the wit is modelled to fitz by someone he loves gives him a devastating fear of showing anyone who he is, which worsens his isolation and grief when smithy dies. fitz tries to give the earring back to burrich by entrusting it to the fool (simultaneously washing his hands of burrich’s presence in his life) but the fool does not pass it on. instead, he hides it and encases it in wood: a metaphor for fitz’s memories being locked away. the fool eventually offers to give it back but fitz asks him to keep it.
on the surface this act solidifies the fool’s importance in his life, but it is also a recognition of how fitz wants to forget the pain trapped inside it and never confront the fact that burrich made him the Repressed Liar that he is.
