#i feel like there are some more obscure ships that have captivated me conceptually

[thecrenellations]

Top 5 Lymond ships?

I’m going to keep this to romantic* ships, but my list of top 5 Lymond relationships of any kind definitely includes some platonic and family ones (and is even more difficult to confine to 5).

*other or additional adjectives may certainly apply…

click below for spoilers and because my answers got long. Augh, these characters!

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.

honorable mention to Francis/Míkál, entirely because of this, and Francis -ahem- Lymond/Richard Chancellor, because another thing that happened as I was rereading RC was that I realized just how much I’d missed about how important they are to each other, in such a rare and needed way (the first time, I was busy losing it about the brother prophecy and yelling at Francis to be friends with Adam and Alec again).