Hello! Amendments in the comments. Some quick background on the caste system of Orzammar: every dwarf born within the thaig (aka within the city) is born into a caste, which stays with them for the rest of their lives. There is no mobility within the castes except through the birth of the next generation (e.g., someone from a slightly lower caste can have sex with a member of a higher caste, and the child from the union will bear the caste of its same gender parent). Each caste has certain privileges and restrictions placed upon it, and there is a natural hierarchy that positions the nobility at the top, and those born without a caste--those like Kit--at the very bottom. To be born casteless in Orzammar is to be born a non-person, one who is viewed by society as irredeemably bad by virtue of ancestry.
So, taking all of that into consideration, there was definitely a time when Kit would have chafed at the suggestion that being born casteless defined every aspect of his life, because the thought of ceding that much control over his identity to the system of government that decided he was less than nothing even before his birth would have been too much for him to stomach. But as a grown man it is… not easier to look back on the course his life took and recognize that much of it was out of his control, but possible in a way that it just was not when he was a boy in Dust Town, stealing and fighting and killing for the Carta just to keep his head above water. He has self-awareness of the fact his estimation of his own sense of self-worth is mired in the mess that was his formative years, where everything around him reinforced that he was nothing. That he is nothing. This internalized mess of self-loathing is a nightmare to unpack, and he hasn’t yet managed to do it.
Ironically, I think the aspects of his personality that stem from this origin is his ability to spot others who are similarly bogged down by the baggage of an underprivileged or just plain abusive childhood, and to do what he can to pick them up and help them move past it. It’s a little tragic that while he’s able to help others this way, he seems incapable of helping himself--to the point where if others he has helped try to return the favour (or to, in some way, form a deeper friendship or romantic attachment to him), he tends to ghost on those relationships… and leave town, normally. This enables the pattern to start anew: in a new setting without the old baggage behind him, he is yet again confronted by people who need help, who are ignored or spat upon by the people around them, and it’s just not in his nature to turn his back on them. So again he steps in--especially if the victims in question are children.
The inevitable ghosting out of the relationships is not something he consciously does; it’s just that a large part of him does not extend the same kindness, generosity of spirit, and faith in others to himself. When he looks at himself, he sees the same dirt that the rest of Orzammar sees when it looks at Dust Town--and worse. He sees a murderer, and a deserter, because at the end of the Fifth Blight, Kit accidentally killed his closest friend, rather than return to the Deep Roads.
A lot of this is also intimately connected to Kit’s role as a member of the Legion of the Dead. The circumstances that led to him joining the Legion are less important that the life he spent living, fighting, and burying his fellow Legionnaires in the Deep Roads, in an unending battle against the darkspawn. Part of the process involved with joining the Legion involves a figurative ‘death’ of the new Legionnaire; a funeral is held back in Orzammar before the Legionnaire departs Orzammar forever. When the Legionnaire inevitably falls in the battle against the darkspawn, another funeral is held, and the Legionnaire’s remains are returned to the Stone.
Kit took to heart that first funeral--he views himself as figuratively dead, even as he hates Orzammar, hates the caste system, hates that the life of a casteless dwarf gave him only one avenue of escape, and that was to die. But he was deeply loyal to his brothers and sisters in the Legion, and fought and bled for them. He buried their bodies in sarcophagi when they died and said their final rites over them. When he died, he fully intended to have his spirit returned to the Stone. One can imagine how he will feel waking up in Aifaran instead.
Opinions on other groups/organizations in Thedas:
Orzammar: If the Frostbacks were to collapse inward and crush Orzammar into dust, Kit's only regret would be that the thaig would be too far under the rubble for him to find it and take a piss on it. (And in reality, he'd never be able to sleep again thinking of all the Dust Town kids likely killed in the process.) That said, he doesn't take kindly to non-dwarves weighing in on the inequality, oppression, and exploitation created by Orzammar's caste system.
He occasionally wonders about the other last remaining (known) thaig in Thedas, Kal Sharok, and wonders whether they have the same strictly implemented caste system that Orzammar has.
The Grey Wardens: Kit admires and respects the Wardens who ultimately serve the same role as the Legion, though they often combat the darkspawn on the surface during the Blight. He realizes that his hero worship of them likely involves projecting his feelings for the Legion onto them, but otherwise doesn’t interrogate the thought too closely.
Elves: Kit tends to view widespread discrimination against elves with undisguised disgust, and is especially prone to intervene on behalf of city elves struggling to get by in alienages. Their plight probably strikes a little too close to home.
The Chantry: The main human religion on the surface, which seems to cause more trouble than it solves....it's a weird surfacer thing, but it's a weird surfacer thing that's important to a lot of people, so he tries not to belittle it.
lemme know if you need more!
Some quick background on the caste system of Orzammar: every dwarf born within the thaig (aka within the city) is born into a caste, which stays with them for the rest of their lives. There is no mobility within the castes except through the birth of the next generation (e.g., someone from a slightly lower caste can have sex with a member of a higher caste, and the child from the union will bear the caste of its same gender parent). Each caste has certain privileges and restrictions placed upon it, and there is a natural hierarchy that positions the nobility at the top, and those born without a caste--those like Kit--at the very bottom. To be born casteless in Orzammar is to be born a non-person, one who is viewed by society as irredeemably bad by virtue of ancestry.
So, taking all of that into consideration, there was definitely a time when Kit would have chafed at the suggestion that being born casteless defined every aspect of his life, because the thought of ceding that much control over his identity to the system of government that decided he was less than nothing even before his birth would have been too much for him to stomach. But as a grown man it is… not easier to look back on the course his life took and recognize that much of it was out of his control, but possible in a way that it just was not when he was a boy in Dust Town, stealing and fighting and killing for the Carta just to keep his head above water. He has self-awareness of the fact his estimation of his own sense of self-worth is mired in the mess that was his formative years, where everything around him reinforced that he was nothing. That he is nothing. This internalized mess of self-loathing is a nightmare to unpack, and he hasn’t yet managed to do it.
Ironically, I think the aspects of his personality that stem from this origin is his ability to spot others who are similarly bogged down by the baggage of an underprivileged or just plain abusive childhood, and to do what he can to pick them up and help them move past it. It’s a little tragic that while he’s able to help others this way, he seems incapable of helping himself--to the point where if others he has helped try to return the favour (or to, in some way, form a deeper friendship or romantic attachment to him), he tends to ghost on those relationships… and leave town, normally. This enables the pattern to start anew: in a new setting without the old baggage behind him, he is yet again confronted by people who need help, who are ignored or spat upon by the people around them, and it’s just not in his nature to turn his back on them. So again he steps in--especially if the victims in question are children.
The inevitable ghosting out of the relationships is not something he consciously does; it’s just that a large part of him does not extend the same kindness, generosity of spirit, and faith in others to himself. When he looks at himself, he sees the same dirt that the rest of Orzammar sees when it looks at Dust Town--and worse. He sees a murderer, and a deserter, because at the end of the Fifth Blight, Kit accidentally killed his closest friend, rather than return to the Deep Roads.
A lot of this is also intimately connected to Kit’s role as a member of the Legion of the Dead. The circumstances that led to him joining the Legion are less important that the life he spent living, fighting, and burying his fellow Legionnaires in the Deep Roads, in an unending battle against the darkspawn. Part of the process involved with joining the Legion involves a figurative ‘death’ of the new Legionnaire; a funeral is held back in Orzammar before the Legionnaire departs Orzammar forever. When the Legionnaire inevitably falls in the battle against the darkspawn, another funeral is held, and the Legionnaire’s remains are returned to the Stone.
Kit took to heart that first funeral--he views himself as figuratively dead, even as he hates Orzammar, hates the caste system, hates that the life of a casteless dwarf gave him only one avenue of escape, and that was to die. But he was deeply loyal to his brothers and sisters in the Legion, and fought and bled for them. He buried their bodies in sarcophagi when they died and said their final rites over them. When he died, he fully intended to have his spirit returned to the Stone. One can imagine how he will feel waking up in Aifaran instead.
Opinions on other groups/organizations in Thedas:
Orzammar: If the Frostbacks were to collapse inward and crush Orzammar into dust, Kit's only regret would be that the thaig would be too far under the rubble for him to find it and take a piss on it. (And in reality, he'd never be able to sleep again thinking of all the Dust Town kids likely killed in the process.) That said, he doesn't take kindly to non-dwarves weighing in on the inequality, oppression, and exploitation created by Orzammar's caste system.
He occasionally wonders about the other last remaining (known) thaig in Thedas, Kal Sharok, and wonders whether they have the same strictly implemented caste system that Orzammar has.
The Grey Wardens: Kit admires and respects the Wardens who ultimately serve the same role as the Legion, though they often combat the darkspawn on the surface during the Blight. He realizes that his hero worship of them likely involves projecting his feelings for the Legion onto them, but otherwise doesn’t interrogate the thought too closely.
Elves: Kit tends to view widespread discrimination against elves with undisguised disgust, and is especially prone to intervene on behalf of city elves struggling to get by in alienages. Their plight probably strikes a little too close to home.
The Chantry: The main human religion on the surface, which seems to cause more trouble than it solves....it's a weird surfacer thing, but it's a weird surfacer thing that's important to a lot of people, so he tries not to belittle it.