#all the cool cognate things come later. primarily sophie needed to not be alone and fitz gave her that

[bookwyrminspiration]

What do you think the point was of making Fitz a powerful Telepath when we already had a powerful Telepath? Why not a different ability?

Okay so excellent question!! Why give the ability to another person in Sophie's friend group when Shannon could've given the benefits of a different ability to them? Like a guster or a phaser or beguiler, all things that could be very useful. Especially since there are so many telepaths in Sophie's life for an ability that's supposedly so rare, and I think there's a fairly simple answer to this: because it means she's not alone.

Think back to book one and when Fitz first found Sophie; what was the first thing about him that really made her question things--not his unusual accent or strange eye color. It was that he could also hear thoughts. They both reacted to all the kids coming through the door, the barrage of thoughts. And for the first time in Sophie's entire life, someone is just like her. She's not the weird kid with the freaky abilities after hitting her head. She's not alone, because Fitz is just like her.

Imagine if Alvar had actually found her. Would she have been nearly as willing to trust him and to go along with moving if it'd been him? I don't think so. Because to Sophie being an elf isn't a strong enough relation between the two of them, and that's all they had in common. But because Fitz is also a telepath, there's a much stronger bond between the two of them and Sophie's a lot more willing to trust him. She's finally found someone like her--she even said in book one she'd always hoped to find someone else like her, someone else who could read minds. That's who Fitz is! Not just someone else whose an elf, but someone else who can read minds.

That's the importance of making him a telepath, it's the connection it gives him to Sophie. Not only does he become Sophie's first friend in this scary new world, but he's a friend who she can relate to and talk about telepath things with. If he'd been an empath, she wouldn't have nearly as understood. He'd have his empath things and she'd have her telepath, and they wouldn't understand each other in the way they do. They wouldn't have that foundation. He knows what it's like to hear other people's thoughts, to have this power she's struggled with.

And this isn't just important for the beginning of the series when she's being found, Fitz and Sophie are consistently a duo and understand each other because they have that foundation of a shared ability. They continue to rely on each other, to work together, to foster that friendship between them (as in nuture, not Foster as in be reckless and almost die, the definition given in Legacy), because of it. Fitz being a telepath enables Sophie to be understood on a personal level for the first time in her life, and to have someone else who goes through the same things she does on a deeper level throughout the series.

Think about how different the series would be if instead of just being a powerful telepath in her friend group, she was the only powerful telepath. That'd be so alienating for her. Not only super powerful, but also the only one of her kind. Fitz makes her less alone, because he's right there with her ability-wise throughout the series. He also provides a convenient and familiar frame of reference as to the capabilities of a normal powerful telepath in their world, so we can use that to better understand how different Sophie is because of the genetic experiments performed on her.

So while it would be interesting to see what ability he would've been given, he serves a very important role as a second telepath in their group. He's like Sophie, and so she's no longer alone in her power. She may be more powerful and able to do things he can't, but at the core they are the same and that is incredibly comforting and important to her.

Then there's also all the fun things they get to do as cognates, but that all comes later. It's fascinating to see the impact the two have on each other, so thank you for the opportunity to talk about it!