I Just Need Kit To Be Loved Ok? And Who Better Than Jade For The Job

I just need kit to be loved ok? And who better than jade for the job

Ko-fi

@mythsonly (Scorpia)

She hadn’t felt clean in ages. Probably not since they were last in the Wildwood. She didn’t even know for certain how long they’d been traveling, using rivers to wash up. But thank the Mothers for the unspoken alliance they now held with the Bone Reavers, Jade thought, exiting a tent after a long, hot bath and a change of clothes that her sister seemed to have had made for her in her absence. But Jade couldn’t fully relax yet. She hadn’t since the Immemorial City.

Her eyes searched the encampment, looking for the Bone Reaver leader. Her party was nowhere in sight, probably still bathing or maybe even resting. So many Bone Reavers were prepping for dinner, wandering back and forth through the village. Her gaze finally landed on her older sister near a blazing campfire that was beginning to spread light across the camp as night began to fall. Jade hurried over. “Can we talk?”

add / make more willow muses

After writing that analysis on Jade's hair, I wanna word vomit about Jade's mask and and what it means for Jade's story (even though we only see it in two sequences). Bear with my messy train of thought. Some of this might not even be fully realized or might be a reach. To recap what I wrote in the analysis, Jade's mask represents an identity that is intrinsically tied to Tir Asleen. Based on the way it's constructed, it forces her to keep her hair tight and bound, which could be read as Jade being trapped in the values that she's grown up with in Tir Asleen. She's forced to conform to the mask physically and to her duties to the crown ethically. If the hair analysis is read as valid, then Jade can never be truly liberated while she holds onto the mask.

Jon Kasdan has said that the show is meant to explore "a more fundamental conflict... between your desires and your ideals." Jade's mask is the ultimate symbol of her ideals while Kit is the embodiment of her desire. The primary function of a mask is to conceal or hide one's self. If her mask is representative of Tir Asleen and her knightly ideals, then it is also the tool she hides behind to cover who she really is and what she truly wants. The opening scene of Willow is our first visual representation of ideals versus desire: the mask vs. Kit. The first time we see Jade remove the mask, it's so she can look up at Kit and reveal to us the truth of her feelings for the princess. These two images coincide at once to present two opposing ideas living together. In order for Jade to see Kit (desire) fully and clearly, she must remove the mask (ideals).

It’s interesting, then, that when Jade loses her mask, Kit is essentially offering to give Jade back her identity and ideals. It’s one of the key factors keeping them apart, because as long as Jade hides behind it, she’ll never be able to love Kit the way they both want her to. She can't love Kit fully if she lives under the belief that her duty as a knight requires that she can never be with the princess she serves. There's a boundary that must be observed and Jade's desires can never come before her duty. Kit, as much as she won’t admit it, fears change, especially in her relationships. She needs Jade to take that mask back, because then it means everything is okay. But it’s not okay and Kit and Jade continue to not see eye-to-eye until almost the end of the next episode after Jade has properly grieved Ballantine and her previous life. Ballantine’s death quickly sets her on a path of being able to confess her love to Kit two episodes later. Duty and honor lost her someone she loved already. It’s not worth losing Kit for.

Jade refuses the mask, because, unknowingly to her, she’s refusing to return to who she was, to the identity and ideals that Tir Asleen instilled in her. She’s begun wrestling with the ethical and moral implications for what it means to her as a knight to have killed Ballantine, someone who was not only her Commander, but essentially her father and someone she loves. Ballantine is the one to tell her in episode one that "a knight is defined... by the oaths they keep." If duty and honor is of the highest ideal, how could it ever ask her to kill someone she loves (and, essentially, sacrifice love)?

When Kit suggests killing Graydon in episode four, it should immediately align with Jade’s ideals of duty, but she quickly denies it. This is pure speculation, but after killing Ballantine, it must occur to her that duty and honor forced her to kill Ballantine while love has saved Graydon from the same affliction, not even 24 hours later. If Jade had chosen love instead of duty, could she have saved the only man she’s ever seen as a father? Again, ideals versus desires. And this ultimately ties into Elora's and the show’s message that love is the most powerful thing in the universe, because Kit is given the same opportunity to mirror Jade’s actions with Airk in the finale. The ideal of sacrifice for the greater good vs. the desire to save someone she loves. But the text says it’s the wrong choice for Kit to kill Airk out of dutiful sacrifice when love can ultimately save him. It's important that Jade refuse that mask, refuse the lessons that have been ingrained in her by Ballantine, who ultimately acts as an extension of Tir Asleen and her ideals. 

I think it's also important to note that masks play a key role in both of Jade's identities. The reason I relate her mask, not only to her ideals, but to Tir Asleen is because it's visually paralleled to Ballantine's helm in episode three. When Jade lowers her mask to fight him, he does the same motion. His mask also has a similar facial structure to hers, because they serve the same military. It also draws comparisons of a child resembling and mirroring their parent. In episode five, we discover her Bone Reaver origins and that community is known for and identified by their masks. Returning to our mask metaphor, her identity in Tir Asleen was used to mask her origins as a Bone Reaver. It might be assumed that Jade's Tir Asleen mask was also meant to foreshadow and mirror the Bone Reaver masks, possibly hinting early on that everything about her is not as it appears and that she is in fact one of them.

While Jade has given up her original mask and, therefore, her Tir Asleen identity and ideals, it doesn't mean that she has given up on Tir Asleen or that she can't return to live peacefully there, and vice versa for the Bone Reavers. It also doesn't mean she can't find a way to unite those identities. In episode six, Scorpia gives her the ultimatum of choosing between Tir Asleen and the Bone Reavers. We see her wear her Bone Reaver armor and embrace that part of her, but she also is still fully devoted to Kit who, as princess, is already a symbol of Tir Asleen. I personally foresee Jade coming to terms with both of those identities and using that to form an alliance between those two communities. I can also see Jade making a new mask in the future, that reflects both aspects of her. I think it'd be cool and kind of full circle for her to create a mask that is an extension of herself.

It took her a moment to realize who exactly she was talking to. She and Brunhilde weren’t friends. Not because of any sort of dislike or based on any bad impression. They just didn’t cross paths often. But Jade knew basic things about her. She knew she worked in the kitchens and had a reputation for baking the best muffins. She knew Brunhilde was about the same age as her. And she knew that was because she was an orphan, a ward of the queen, just like Jade was. It was the one thing they shared in common.

Jade also knew the squire boys around her age had a tendency of teasing Brunhilde for her name. And while that bullying made the young knight-in-training uncomfortable, she never said anything. It wasn’t that the boys were her friends. On the contrary, she would consider very few of them as such and most of her time was spent with Princess Kit anyway. But Jade already got enough shit for being the only girl training with them. She didn’t want to pile onto it.

But Brunhilde certainly seemed nice.

“You’d do that? Help?” Jade glanced down at herself. She was going to need help if she wanted to do this safely and get out to the pitch on time. “I’d really appreciate it. Thanks. This cuirass is a bit more difficult than I thought.” She could hear the crowd all the way from here, their excited and anxious chatter faint in the distance. “Shouldn’t you be out there, too? Watching?”

Brunhilde had been in charge of the pastries. Of course. It came so easily to her that it was almost like magic. But Helga had given her clear instructions on what to do and frankly, Brunhilde had forgotten. Surely the older maids would blame her newest obsession for this, but how could she focus on muffins and lemon cakes when Airk Thantalos was right there, in armor, ready to go to battle? Yes, it was simply a tournament but he had looked truly like a shining knight, smiling at her and... On her way back to the kitchen the moment replayed in her mind over and over and over again. This was her chance to get closer to him, to repay him for the kindness he had granted to her – a simple kitchen maid. But she had forgotten her muffins, spend almost all night on them and now they lay in the dark. She huffed and puffed as she hurried back, knocking a plate off of a counter as soon as she entered the warm rooms and then she froze.

Jade Claymore, the knight. Or the squire? She had not been around this other girl, this other orphan many times before. "Can't tell anyone what?“, Brunhilde's head tilted as she took in the sight in front of her, dimly lit by the warm fireplace. The pieces of metal and clothing, armor, scattered on the ground and a girl only half-dressed as a knight in the middle of it all. "What are you doing here? Should you not get ready out there? With the others? - Oh, oh!“, her eyes grew wide as she realized, "You aren't even supposed to.“

Brunhilde knew that feeling all too well, she had felt it only heartbeats ago when the prince smiled at her and she looked into a world that was not her's to partake in. "You need some help with that?“