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Background
Relationships — expectation, obligation, and where one person ends.
The Mahabharat's relationships are almost all asymmetric: a teacher who cannot be refused, a brother owed obedience, a king owed loyalty even when wrong, a wife staked in a game. Much of the tragedy comes from people honouring the form of a relationship after its substance has failed.
Krishna's own relationships model something different. He is a friend to Arjuna, a cousin to the Pandavas, a charioteer who will not fight — and he is unusually explicit about what he will and will not do. The boundaries are stated, not assumed.