#someone just pointed this out on discord and it’s low-key giving me psychic damage

[h-worksrambles]

The biggest plot twist in all of Echo if you’ve only ever experienced it second hand through fan art is when you realise Leo actually wears shorts.

[extreme-technicality]

On Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt, knight (in absentia) of the Realm of Goodcastle

Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt, knight (in absentia) of the realm of Goodcastle, is peak chaotic good. In this essay I will discuss how his backstory, his choices, the origin of his powers, and the symbolism of a candle combine to create Fitzroy, the hero we didn’t know we needed but very much the one we deserve.

We know from Argo’s investigation into Fitz’s home life that he is the son of a long haul trucker caravaner and a (presumably) stay-at-home mom. His family name is one of the most prestigious elven families on Nua, though he’s functionally a member in name only. One day he got a letter inviting him to become a knight of the realm of Goodcastle for the low low price of 200 gold, several other fees, and a certificate of completion from Clyde Nite’s Night Knight school. His parents didn’t have much, and had to take out a hefty loan to send him to the school (as well as pay for all the fees). He didn’t fit in with the pompous, wealthy elites there, and they let him know it with every obvious snicker and the fact that his classmates actively avoided him outside of class. Griffin explicitly states that he (Fitz) adopted the pompous, proper air he puts on in canon as a direct result of the ridicule and ostracization of his knight school classmates. He finally received something other than mocking disdain from them when he randomly (one might say chaotically) turned his professor into a catfish. He only started to truly feel like shit about the catfishing when he heard they were going to expel him from the school and, by extension, his dream–the notoriety and fear from his peers and professor bothered him far less before there were tangible consequences for his actions, inadvertent though they were. Shortly after this, he was invited to Hieronymous Wiggenstaff’s School for Heroism and Villainy, full-ride–upon graduation, he would be allowed to return to Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School and finish his schooling there, then apparently on to the realm of Goodcastle to serve in the queen’s guard. In summary: Fitzroy Maplecourt is someone of humble background who aspires to Make Something Of Himself and help people along the way; as the catfishing incident displayed, he doesn’t much care how he does that, so long as his actions help people (as well as himself).

He didn’t always lean into that side of himself, however: the catfishing incident ended with Fitz also feeling conflicted about how his power manifested to harm the people around him. At the very beginning of Graduation, he’s constantly worried about controlling his magic and not necessarily using it. A knight, after all, would have little need for magic. This viewpoint changes gradually throughout the episodes as he bonds with Snippers and learns more about the nature of magic, specifically his own. It changes most drastically when he meets the origin of his magic, the entity who goes by Chaos. Immediately after he had that psychic conversation with his magical patron, it’s like he stopped giving a fuck about what is “right” or “proper”. He used his magic with precision and intimidated the centaurs–as well as his Hero classmates–into listening to him and doing whatever he said. It wasn’t the stated object of his assignment with the centaurs, wasn’t what anyone expected him to do, and made Chaos very, very happy. He maintained his chaotic mindset, threw himself into it in fact, once he returned to the school. He attacked Gray when convention would dictate he stood there and let him monologue; he mouthed off to the Unbroken Chain tribunal, and his first action as a full member was to call one of their highest-ranking members to trial on Argo’s behalf; he suggested assassinating Gray instead of fighting a war. None of those actions were dictated to Fitz–in fact, none of those choices were knightly in the slightest. He ripped a man’s hand off and intimidated him and the surrounding centaurs (who outnumbered him and his friends many times over, might I add) into seeing his point of view. If a knight did that, he would be called a bully and said to be abusing his powers. But his motivations were selfishly good–he intimidated the centaur leaders into sitting down and having a conversation to avoid war, while he got to keep the apple Higglemus asked for; he saw an opening to attack the BBEG while he wasn’t expecting it, thereby giving him the edge and a chance to, possibly, end the war before it even began; he defended and stood by his friends in the face of people who cared (in his view) more for their precious order than for the aforementioned BBEG and the brewing war; he saw an opportunity to fulfill Argo’s need for justice and took it, unexpectedly but with due process to the order’s laws; he suggested the underhanded approach to ending the war and fighting Gray because he doesn’t want innocent people to die in a war that isn’t theirs. All of these choices were chaotic, and not all of them made Chaos happy. But they were Fitzroy’s choices, made wholeheartedly and with gusto, and he made them because he wanted to. He doesn’t care what Chaos wants him to do, has specifically said he won’t let Chaos use him to be their instrument on Nua multiple times–and that choice is perhaps the most chaotic of them all. Most everything he did and does, he does because it serves either his purpose or his friends’ purposes–but he doesn’t harm innocent people in the process. Fitzroy is chaotically, selfishly good, despite Chaos.

Chaos specifically is interesting, both as an entity in their own right and as Fitz’s magic glucose guardian. They introduced themself by saying they have many names, but Chaos is the one they like the best. This specific wording makes me personally believe that the entity we know as Chaos isn’t actually chaos, but something often mistaken for chaos. My gut wants to say “discord” or “wanton self-interest”, but I’m interested to see what Travis has planned in that regard. Chaos is also the origin of both Fitzroy and Gray’s power, and the Godscar Chasm is their work and seems to be their base of operation. As much as they claim to want Fitz to let loose with his power and do whatever he wants, Chaos also tells him what they don’t want him to do. They “promised Gray a war”, and for a being called “Chaos” they don’t seem to appreciate Fitzroy’s chaotic actions very much. They’ve said before that they want Fitz to win the war, but that it has to be a spectacle–like a wildfire burning down the countryside, before new growth and chaotic peace can grow. Fitzroy, on the other hand, sees how unnecessarily destructive that would be, and prefers to sidestep that option in favor of something quietly chaotic and peacefully assertive.

If Chaos and Gray’s vision for the war is a wildfire, burning bright and brilliant and fast, then Fitzroy’s is a candle, fitting the symbolism of the most recent episode (25: Burden of Things). Fitz chose the candle key to represent himself because fire is chaotic by nature, leaving both destruction and room for growth in its wake. He also claimed candles are chaos contained and put to a good use, bringing light to the darkness and faint warmth. My own interpretation reads a candle as both instigator and instigated: a candle cannot light itself, nor can it control how it was ignited. Fitz had no choice in either the fact or the manner of his magic awakening, couldn’t control whether or not his metaphorical wick was lit or who got burned in the process. However, a lit candle can be used to light other things–paper, wood, plants, cloth, and so on. Fitzroy as the candle in this metaphor has two available options: he could light a hearth, a welcoming space for his loved ones and a respite from the cold, cruel world, or he could light an all-consuming blaze to destroy the flawed existing system and leave room for a new one–one of Chaos’s design–to grow in its wake.

So, to recap: Fitz is tangentially part of a very prestigious elven family, grew up with relatively little save for a loving family, worked and chanced his way into power, and is currently being groomed into using said power in a certain way. He is also adapting to the situation he’s found himself in, making his own decisions and doing so in the name of his benefactor (ie. chaos) as opposed to the spirit (ie. what Chaos actually wants him to do) such that the outcome benefits himself, his friends, and their goals while minimizing the damage to innocent bystanders. Along the way, his personal image has gone from grandiose knight (in absentia), pompous and proper and EliteTM, to a candle–simple, cheap, ordinary, utilitarian, and more importantly, a light source for people who literally cannot afford anything better. I look at this, and I have to wonder: what was his takeaway from Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School? What did he think of the 1%, of the order and class and propriety they hold so dear? As the son of a caravaner, I wouldn’t think he’d see much fancy shit at home, but he’d definitely see hardship. He’d definitely see needing to compromise, and needing to fight for anything you need, facing a world that isn’t serving you like it should. I would ask if he’s angry, but he literally said it this episode–he’s lost his goddamn patience. Everyone is so caught up in the order of things, in the letters and laws and rules-lawyering and arbitrary measures of “worthiness” that they’ve forgotten to turn the lights on and it’s getting dark. Thats not to say that Fitz doesn’t know when to abide by the laws, or use them to his advantage, as we saw in both the incident with the magma monster and the Unbroken Chain tribunal–but they need light, they need a fire under their asses, and Fitz is just a candle doing his best. But a candle can only do so much.

And it doesn’t take much to put a candle out.