thinking about dutch again, and how it must've felt going from the center of everyone's universe to nothing over the course of a couple months.

you spend years making all the right choices, keeping people safe, giving them freedom, teaching them, loving them, raising them, showing them a life full of companionship and loyalty and joy and violence and power, and after awhile, the idea that you could ever hurt them or do them wrong is inconceivable

because it is, isn't it? that's why they all stay so long. even after blackwater, even after valentine, and rhodes, and saint denis, and guarma they all stay. because how could dutch hurt them? how could dutch let them down? how could dutch, who's done this for decades mess up? how could dutch who loves them willingly lead them astray?

and when they do start doubting? well, how could they? because it's not the woman-killer they're doubting, it's the man who saved them. it's not the paranoid, thoughtless murderer they're calling into question–it's the man they all loved.

because they live in a black and white world, don't they? you're with them or you're not. you're loyal or you're not. you're useful or you're not. this is wrong. this is right. you're a bad man, or you're a good one. and if dutch is wrong, was he ever right? and if he's always been right, then how could he now be wrong?

how could they question him? how could they doubt him? it's spitting on the image of family he's created, it's desecrating the memories of hosea he still has, it's painting him like a liar and a manipulator and calling into question every moment he's shared with the gang.

so of course–they're wrong. arthur's wrong, hosea's wrong, charles is wrong, the reverend, molly, john, abigail. they're questioning him, they're questioning his love. his loyalty. his past. his present. his future. the whole world must have gone mad and betrayed him, because the person dutch thinks he is is incapable of harming those under his protection. the person dutch thinks he is could never abandon them.