#and you know it was kettricken
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Nettle: tell me the truth. did you fuck your friend
Fitz: don't be crude--we went far beyond merely fucking. I will not elaborate.
#finally got around to starting#fool's assassin#rote#rote spoilers#fitz mooning around jhammpe so hard that 17yo rumors immediately spring back to life#and you know it was kettricken#go check on your dad hes staring at his ex boyfriends house again and weeping
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"She was born to rule! Born to it, and somehow now she has awakened to it! It could not have come at a better time! She may yet save us all!"
#kettricken#robin hobb#farseer trilogy#the farseer trilogy#jay scratchings#my art#im only on book 2... ive been Possessed. im very sorry to kettricken that i couldnt draw her as buff as i know she canonically is.#thats a me problem. thats a me need to learn to draw muscular people problem.#NEW LAPTOP it runs so much smoother#which means new firealpaca install which means NEW BRUSHES bc im lazy and i just decided to get new ones instead of transferring them#and new new technique!! this is the good thing abt finishing things to post#everything ive posted so far ive learned a new method during#so this i drew with many many layers#then merged em all and finished it like a digital painting#anyways kettricken i love you im sorry the six duchies suck so hard#rote
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Important question for the RotE fandom. I will not provide reasoning for any of these characters but trust me I did actually think about this.
Just note that they don’t have to fulfill the role to Fitz; many of them do for another character.
(Also, this is supposed to be lighthearted so don’t get offended on Robin Hobbs behalf; I’m not actually accusing her of using shallow character tropes)
#realm of the elderlings#rote#molly chandler#the fool#reyn khuprus#lady patience#starling birdsong#leftrin#malta vestrit#elliania blackwater#rapskal#kettricken#I know whose gonna win#but you all may surprise me
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me explaining to myself while i microwave leftovers that you dont fucking get it fitz saying catalyst and then passing it off as having said chivalry is actually so fucking genius because chivalry IS the real catalyst when you think about it. if he'd never slept with a stranger in his youth fitz never would have been born. if fitz had never been born chivalry wouldn't have abdicated the throne. if chivalry hadn't abdicated the throne he wouldn't have died. if chivalry hadn't died verity wouldn't have had to marry kettricken. if verity hadn't married kettricken fitz never would have gone to jhaampe. and if fitz never went to jhaampe etc etc DO YOU FUCKING GET IT
#THE NEXT CHAPTER IS TITLED ESCAPES AND CAPTURES I AM AFRAID#to whoever told me that when an author tells you exactly what the plan is the plan will fail i hate you. if i didnt know that i might belie#e that kettricken and the king and burrich are going to make it to jhaampe alive. I SCARED.#assassin's apprentice#rote#robin hobb#books
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Reading assassin's quest forgot how much I hate pregnancy/birth scenes BLEUGH 🤮🤮
#Weirdly I was completely fine with the kettricken one but the molly one icked me out#Like girl...you know you're going to be under threat of death and you're??? Having a baby?!!#That's harsh but like..sorry I don't like molly. not after the 1st book#Soliloquy#tokophobia tw
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so i'm writing my undergrad thesis on rote. specifically on the women of rote, specifically analyzing (and, let's be real, mostly criticizing) the ways in which hobb chooses to write them. i have a general idea of the structure and the things i'm going to write about BUT if anyone want to pitch in with anything i might've missed that you consider striking about the way the women of rote are written (be it positive or negative!) feel free to
so far i've got an outline of touching upon:
1. an overview of the ways in which different countries treat women - e.g. the six duchies being more inclusive than the cursed shores, the contrast between the violent patriarchy of chalced and the stern matriarchy of the outislands
2. sex and sexuality - this one is complicated. i have a lot to say, about molly representing the ideal woman wife and mother, about how the female characters who tend to sleep around are painted as either misguided victims of former sexual abuse (althea, starling) or just flat out written in a way that is so Vindictive (also starling, and jerd) as if hobb's catholicism doesn't know how else to handle those characters apart from turning them into rude, annoying, unreasonable people who the reader is urged to dislike
3. motherhood, the good the bad and the ugly of it. women long for children. they suffer through miscarriages (kettricken, malta), they are blamed for not being able to bear children (alise, patience) - but at the end of the day, children are always in the picture one way or another. apart from, off the top of my head - alise, jek and serilla, almost every other woman ends up a mother (i'm counting patience as a mom!) which isn't a problem on its own, but. when characters who speak openly about not wanting a typical family and who aren't pleased about having children become mothers anyway (althea). when women who have been infertile most of their life become mothers anyway (starling). when even the sidest of side characters Have to become mothers (laurel, jerd) then really, it makes you pause for a bit
4. rape. i don't have a bone to pick with how hobb approaches sexual assault, per se, because the way she feels about it is very clear, but still. god. althea, malta, serilla, thymara, alise, shine, etta, starling, chassim. and the difference between hobb's male and female victims of rape seems to be that the male counterparts always suffer off-page, while you most often have to look the women's abuse straight in the eyes as the reader. i have yet to sit down and really Think about why that is but i'm sure there's a conclusion to be reached
5. gender in general - i have an inkling that hobb views gender as a performance (which, i mean, yeah) or as a role one can step in and out of (think ash/spark) but assfate era beloved is particulary fascinating when it comes to this. i can't quite pick apart whether it's hobb or fitz's urge to constantly compartmentalize beloved's existence but every scene where amber takes her makeup off and changes into a pair of pants and the pronouns immediately switch back to he/him is so hilarious. is woman when makeup and skirt and dress? and man when pants? something to be said about this for sure
i think that's most of what i have on my mind so far?? i've spent so much of my free time thinking about this i'm glad i get to turn it into something useful
#i'll sprinkle in some praise here and there too. i don't think she's THAAT bad at writing women. but obviously a lot is left to be desired#.txt#this falls under the course of popular literature btw! i study english#and information science but we don't talk about that
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Kettricken being the only 'royalty' to apologise to Fitz and see him as a human being with regrets about how they used his skills means so much to me. Most other characters saw his sufferings as a necessary evil but the scene where Kettricken grieves over Nighteyes which invites Fitz to grieve in the awful heaving sobs kind of way is so deeply important to me.
Like. So far only Beloved has been determined to remind Fitz that he is more than a tool in the Farseers hands, and now Kettricken THE QUEEN is also showing genuine sympathy for him.
RAAAH Fitz you deserve so much better than what you have.
As a sidenote, their friendship really does just add to the Wit being a metaphor for Queerness thing bc Kettricken saying "I am ashamed that you face such things seemingly alone. In truth I hate that such bigotry still exists in the Six Dutchies (...) I wished to let my Witted folk know that my justice was available to them."
LIKE.
Ofc Kettricken is hardly a perfect Queen, Robin Hobb has never written a perfect character in any of her books. but Fuck if it doesn't hurt to see yet another relationship that should have been beautiful and easy if Fitz hadn't had it beaten into him that he doesn't deserve companionship.
#rote#robin hobb#the golden fool spoilers#the golden fool#tawny man trilogy spoilers#tawny man trilogy#rote spoilers#RAAAAH FITZ I LOVE YOU#Barking and biting and screaming and crying over him like dang#I love himg#queen kettricken#kettricken#raar#Fitz I'm gonna hug you so much#Need him to be okay#despite how rote is#Manifesting his happy retirement (I'm delusional)
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I just got the hugest RotE feels today. God damn it's been 4years since I've read Assassin's Fate, and I only started Assassin's Apprentice some days ago. But thinking about it all, honestly it's so hard. And sad. These books are so fucked up I feel remorse each time I reccommend them to a friend. Thank you ms Hobb, but why, whyy.
I will never stop thinking about Fitz, Beloved, Nettle, Bee, Dutiful, Patience and all the others :(.
Huge RotE rant + spoilers below:
It just makes me feel so sad each time I think about it, besides it being a fictionnal story, it rings so true and deep in my heart.
Fitz never got to die in his bed in Whittywoods next to Molly, he never got to raise Nettle like he wanted to, never got to become an adult at Patience's side, never grew a lot himself and stayed his old scarred and scared self even through some improvements, never got to grow up and old with Beloved, never got to say a proper goodbye to Nighteyes, never got to have the long conversations he should have had with Beloved, never got to raise Dutiful as his own, and the worst is that he never got to finish his days peacefully by Bee's side.
Also the fact that Beloved is so important to him, yet in the whole span of his 60+years life, he barely spent 6 with him. And how Patience mourned him for years when he was still alive, but depressed and empty. How Burrich thought he died to bandits for years after their ugly fight, and then just after being reunited with him, died for him and his son. Ugh. How after having his happy ever after, which actually was just an ever after, with Molly, he still didn't grow a good enough relationship with her to trust her wholly, and how he still was bitter and locked himself up in his office, wondering about Beloved and Nighteyes. How after all these years he still believed he didn't belong even with his own family. How he thought Bee was dead and went on an hateful and twisted path, damaging both him and his relationship with Beloved.
But then, even though all these bitter things it's still beautiful, worth it, because these books got to capture life's essence like a very very few other did. You never get what you want, especially if you don't admit it to yourself, and when you do achieve a dream or a huge thing, it's a sacrifice of other things that would have made you happy, but you are there and you have to carry on, and carve your own happiness with the bare flesh of your hands.
Patience desperatly tried to teach him instruments and he couldn't, and made a drawing of the cub she gifted him, as an excuse and present for her. Kettricken made the gardens beautiful again so she wouldn't be lonely. The Fool carved toys for children, made them happy, Amber carved jewels and wood and made it a life earning. She made friends with Paragon, and with a crow. Which was healed by Fitz, like many other animals, like a wolf he rescued, and all the hurting things he could care for on his path. Fitz raised a boy, supported him, fed chickens. Wrote a lot of books, a lot of letters. He helped Bee have access to her artistic abilities, protected her the best he could even if it was never enough. Did the same with Beloved, and all of the people he cared, it was never enough but the best he could have done and he himself was always enough
My man was DOOMED BY THE NARRATIVE
:(
And what comfort can we get from all this ? Bee still has a family. Fitz and Beloved are finally whole and without limits. Molly died being loved, with a little girl she loved in her very own garden. Patience died moved to see Chivalry. Dutiful has a family he can count on. Nettle has a good man (and the best one I might say) by her side. But somehow it doesn't erase the sadness and bitterness of the journey. And tbh when she releases her next book I know it will mess me up all over again agh. Bee is my favorite, this is going to hurt a lottt.
Ugh why am I crying again. And don't get me started on Beloved's side of this story, or I will violently sob on my carpet. Fitz's is bittersweet but his is just plain sad.
"What were we ?"
it's ok i'm just gonna jump off a cliff in an instant
#rote#realm of the elderlings#robin hobb#fitz chivalry#the fool rote#bee farseer#nettle farseer#dutiful farseer#patience#fitz and the fool#tawny man#farseer trilogy
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Fitchivalry has Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, part 2! (Part one here)
Okay, so I’m not going to further dissect the Quarrel, tempting as that is. I’m more interested about some of the other effects of RSD in Fitzy’s life. Disclaimer: this is how I’m learning about RSD, so I might get stuff wrong. It helps me understand my husband better if I realize that much like Fitz, he may not make sense to me sometimes, but he’s doing his best with the overactive nervous system he was given.
Ok exhibit A: People pleasing to the point of self erasure
This is Chade comforting Fitz. But as we know, Chade is entirely comfortable withdrawing affection until Fitz does what he wants. Shrewd’s interest in Fitz is similar, only more distant. Burrich also has unattainable standards for approval. The message of Fitz’s childhood is “be someone else (or at least pretend), or you’re back out in the cold.”
additudemag.com quote:
One thing I don’t understand yet about RSD is whether it’s actually an inborn disorder, or maybe it’s so highly associated with ADHD because of pattern recognition? If you can only be loved by changing your basic way of being, it only makes sense that you’d become hypervigilant about rejection.
Exhibit B: valuing his utility to others over his literal life
Above - Galen 😡 Remember this sadistic POS almost convinced Fitz he was worthless? While Skill suggestion definitely played a big part, Fitz’s desperate need for approval is what made him put up with the “training” in the first place. Being “good for” something is core to his survival strategy, which paradoxically puts him in life threatening situations over and over and over.
Until he completely burns out and goes off the grid for years, in total isolation. Losing Molly and Burrich is too much, so once he’s fulfilled his duty, he figures everyone is better off without him.
Exhibit C: all or nothing thinking
As Amber says much later, Fitz is a “man of many talents.” Maybe that’s why he manages to do both of these options.
Kettricken understands Fitz as a noble leader, becoming a paragon (heh) of self-sacrifice. But the cost is extreme indeed.
Kettricken may serve as a useful example of how cultural conditioning is not the same as RSD. The latter produces incapacitating emotional pain, to be avoided at all costs. I doubt that Kettricken suffers in the same way. Serving is not always joyful for her, but she does appear to operate from a place of fairly serene duty.
This last bit is crucial to getting some sense of the intense suffering produced by RSD. While typical people certainly know the pain of rejection, it’s easy to dismiss the RSD person as “just too sensitive,” “irrational,” and “just need to get over it.”
While it could be considered a form of extreme sensitivity, it’s not a choice and nobody wants to hurt more. For the RSD individual, this emotional pain can be so extreme that they can only cope by avoiding the triggers altogether.
Side note: my husband hated the ending of book 3 and never read past the first trilogy. Too relatable? Is it not heroic enough, to give up on getting your life back? 🤷🏻♀️
Everyone else flys back to deliver the cavalry of stone dragons, but Fitz won’t leave Nighteyes, the only companion he can always count on.
Of course, until the Fool pulls him out of early retirement. Let’s take a moment to pretend they got to live their best cottagecore life together instead. 🛖🌳🐺🥰
[ETA: the illustrations by the stunning Magali Villeneuve are from the Illustrated Edition of the first trilogy, the ISBN for Assassin’s Apprentice is 978-1-9848-1785-3 if you can still find it! Best edition IMHO]
#rote#fitzloved#realm of the elderlings#rote spoilers#rejection sensitive dysphoria#fitzchivalry farseer#fitz and the fool spoilers
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Thanks for the tag @everywaythatmatters !!
Is it cheating to add my OCs. I don't know but I'm doing it :) i love them :)
Tagging @foxounderscorecube @deergravity @gender-premium-tm @little-piece-of-tamlin if any of you want to join !!
#i will never not include my ocs in favorite character things#soooo many characters to choose between and SO MANY that didn't make it onto this list 😭 i could go on forever#but i decided to stick with some long-time favs#brookie's bullshit#tag game#rote#cosmere#stormlight archive#dune#mistborn#wot#my ocs
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I was drowsing off when the Fool reached over to pat my face with a warm hand. ‘Good you’re alive,’ he muttered.
‘Thank you,’ I said. I was summoning up Kettle’s game board and pieces in an effort to keep my mind to myself for the night. I had just begun to contemplate the problem. Suddenly I sat up, exclaiming, ‘Your hand is warm! Fool! Your hand is warm!’
‘Go to sleep,’ Starling chided me in an offended tone.
I ignored her. I dragged the blanket down from the Fool’s face and touched his cheek. His eyes opened slowly. ‘You’re warm,’ I told him. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I don’t feel warm,’ he informed me miserably. ‘I feel cold. And very, very tired.’
I began building up the fire in the brazier hastily. Around me the others were stirring. Starling across the tent had sat up and was peering at me through the gloom.
‘The Fool is never warm,’ I told them, trying to make them understand my urgency. ‘Always, when you touch his skin, it is cool. Now he’s warm.’
‘Indeed?’ Starling asked in an oddly sarcastic voice.
‘Is he ill?’ Kettle asked tiredly.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never known him to be ill in my whole life.’
‘I am seldom ill,’ the Fool corrected me quietly. ‘But this is a fever I have known before. Lie down and sleep, Fitz. I’ll be all right. I expect the fever will have burned out by morning.’
‘Whether it has or not, we must travel tomorrow morning,’ Kettricken said implacably. ‘We have already lost a day lingering here.’
I took a breath and imposed calm on my voice. ‘I will not seek to force any of you to my will. But if the Fool is not well enough to travel tomorrow, I shall not travel either.’
---
I sat beside the Fool as we drank our tea. When he handed me back the empty mug, his hand seemed warmer, not cooler.
‘Your fever is rising,’ I warned him.
‘No. It is just the heat of the mug on my skin,’ he suggested. I ignored him. ‘You are shaking all over.’
‘A bit,’ he admitted. Then his misery broke through and he said, ‘I am cold as I have never been before. My back and my jaws ache from shaking with it.’
Flank him, suggested Nighteyes. The big wolf shifted to press more closely against him. I added my blankets to those covering the Fool and then crawled in beside him. He said not a word but his shivering lessened somewhat.
‘I can’t recall that you were ever ill at Buckkeep,’ I said quietly.
‘I was. But very seldom, and I kept to myself. As you recall, the healer had little tolerance for me, and I for him. I would not have trusted my health to his purges and tonics. Besides, what works for your kind sometimes does nothing for mine.’
‘Is your kind so vastly different from mine?’ I asked after a time. He had brought us close to a topic we had seldom even mentioned.
‘In some ways,’ he sighed. He lifted a hand to his brow. ‘But sometimes I surprise even myself.’ He took a breath, then sighed it out as if he had endured some pain for an instant. ‘I may not even be truly ill. I have been going through some changes in the past year. As you have noticed.’ He added the last in a whisper.
‘You have grown, and gathered colour,’ I agreed softly.
‘That is a part of it.’ A smile twitched over his face, then faded. ‘I think I am almost an adult now.’
I snorted softly. ‘I have counted you as a man for many years, Fool. I think you found your manhood before I did mine.’
‘Did I? How droll!’ he exclaimed softly, and for a moment sounded almost like himself. His eyes sagged shut. ‘I am going to sleep now,’ he told me.
I made no reply. I shouldered deeper into the blankets beside him and set my walls once more. I sank into a dreamless rest that was not cautionless sleep.
I awoke before first light with a foreboding of danger. Beside me, the Fool slept heavily. I touched his face, and found it warm still and misted with sweat. I rolled away from him, tucking the blankets in tight around him.
---
I knew she was right, but it was still hard to force myself to shake the Fool to consciousness. He moved like a man in a daze. While the others bundled our gear, I hurried him into his coat and nagged him into an extra pair of leggings. I wrapped him in all our blankets and stood him outside while the rest of us struck the tent and loaded it.
---
I sat up in my blankets, convulsively gasping for air. It reminded me of wrestling and being slammed down on the flat of my back. For a moment I made tiny sounds as I sought to fill my lungs. Finally I drew a full breath. I looked about me in the darkness. Outside the tent, the windstorm howled. The brazier was a small red glow in the centre that illuminated little more than Kettle’s huddled form sleeping close to it.
‘Are you all right?’ the Fool asked me quietly. ‘No,’ I said softly. I lay back down beside him. I was suddenly too tired to think, too tired to say another word. The sweat on my body chilled and I began to shiver. The Fool surprised me by putting an arm around me. I moved closer to him gratefully, sharing warmth. The sympathy of my wolf wrapped me. I waited for the Fool to say something comforting. He was too wise to try. I fell asleep longing for words that did not exist.
#fitzloved#ass quest#rote#fitz and the fool#fitzfool#fitz x fool#these two losers#baby fitz#baby fool#fitz and fool brained at all times#rote spoilers#the farseer trilogy#realm of the elderlings#collection
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I am standing on no soapbox. I am proving no point and making no revelation. This is not scholarship and everybody who will read this gets it already. Unfortunately, the Farseer trilogy was so, so, so good but this one thing made me SO frustrated from a craft perspective that my soul could not possibly rest until I verbalized exactly why. RIP The Potential Of Molly & Starling & Kettricken & Kettle. I rejoiced to know you, and you were gone too soon.
#i don't believe in putting hate in the main tag. i don't#on the other hand this is technically criticism coming from a place of deep love. and i spent several hours on it#and i just realized i accidentally skipped a german lesson for it ... sigh. another grammar focused one too#whatever. it's safe with my beloved mutuals for now jksjdbg
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ok the other thing i have to say about fitz as a character is like. it's not that he spends his whole life making every situation worse with the shadow of a super competent heroic version of himself hanging over him... the shadow that haunts the person he becomes is the shadow of the guy who fully buys into the project of monarchy, the guy who [calvino voice] becomes the inferno and gives himself up to the violence that has been required of him with no reservations. the guy who rationalizes and makes excuses, who finds ways to justify his killings and perhaps even comes to believe in himself as someone who righteously enforces the king's justice. but fitz is never allowed to become this person, because the formative abuse he experienced growing up means that he is always for better or worse identified with the child, the victim, the kicked dog, the disabled person, the shamed woman, and anyone else who knows what it is to be powerless in a place of power, to be made a victim because you were there and it was convenient, to have no protection from those who wish you harm outside of your own wits.
when he sees the bruises on the fool's face, he thinks of his own capacity for violence but also of his best friend molly's childhood beatings and abuse, and of how it felt when burrich hit him; when he gets to know kettricken he is supposed to have the mindset of a representative of the royal line but can't help himself from empathizing with her loneliness as she is brought into a strange place where everyone is trying to trip her up, much like they did him when he first arrived at the keep. in later books he is with women and children every night through the skill as they meet their ends at the hands of raiders; he is with young people who take up arms for the first time in desperate attempts to defend their homes. he never gets used to it, he never stops being sickened by brutality, because for every time that he wields an axe he spends hours with those who get cut down for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
what they did to him never managed to kill the part of him that knows what it is to be victim to violence; he was never given the tools or the space to harden himself and turn those he hurt into objects or monsters. he never had the luxury of killing someone without thinking of them as a full person, without remembering all the times he came near death or experienced things that made him wish he were dead. no one was there to protect him from harm; even as he was designated a tool of the king's justice, he felt the full force of the crown's violence, whether through the advisors that were allowed full access to him, the enemies of the crown that tried to take his life, the demands of the crown that made his life into something he barely recognized. he was poisoned, raped, used as a battery, tortured, buried and left for dead. he was awake for all of it; he had to keep his eyes open the whole time. he knows exactly what he did, because it's all been done to him. he'll never forgive the people who hurt him, but by the same token he'll never be able to forgive himself. :)
#fitz as a character is like. im awake during surgery someone please knock me out#and no one ever does :)#realm of the elderlings
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all due respect but people who get to the end of assassin's fate and are like "sorry was I supposed to know that kettricken had romantic feelings for fitz, that came out of nowhere" make me feel insane like??? did you read different books than me??? we're talking about miss kettricken "I would not disdain you" farseer here. (if you can read that scene alone and come away thinking she feels nothing romantic for him I genuinely don't know how to help you.) someone who shared a bed with fitz and kissed him on the mouth multiple times. who brought her son (whose conception she'd known about for YEARS??? don't get me started on that) to his sickbed night after night and told the story of fitz's whole life??? who started weeping "as if verity himself were walking toward her" when they finally acknowledged fitz at court???
like yes of course fitz and beloved reign supreme over rote ships as well they should but please be serious!!!!!!!
#when i write my au where kett bonds with a fox and they have an old blood romance it's so over for y'all#being a fitz/kett warrior is hard work but someone's gotta do it#sacrifice squared#rote#kettricken
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sorry for making one million posts about assassin's quest today but i don't care. im thinking about what leaves you (or me at least) with such a hollow feeling at the end of assassin's quest, even though the characters have technically succeeded in their journey. regal dies. verity is found. the elderlings are awoken. the war is ended. but i think that's it --- all that happens just for the war to end. not to bring fitz to peace, or kettricken to the life she wanted with her husband, or anyone, in the end, together. the war is just over. but so much is left unsatisfied for the characters. and there's kind of an incredibleness to that, maybe a message, what war does to people, what tragedy does to life, the way certain changes are irreversible. i don't know. but i'm sitting here with all this sadness and longing on behalf of people that don't actually exist. and in awe of robin hobb's writing.
#like idk im kinda a big believer in the power of happy endings but also WOAH its a skill to make a person feel this way with just words. you#know.#rote#assassin's quest
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Sorry, i know this is a bit random, but i recall you wrote ages ago that Carol Berg helped you get over disowning Robin Hobb as your favourite author (did i get that right?), and being familiar with both authors myself, I couldn't help but wonder what’s the story there? :) (just discard this if it's something very personal)
Ohhh, impressive memory! Yeah, I don't mind sharing, if you'll forgive me for being a little dramatic about the matter...and long-winded ^^'
(To be clear, the only Robin Hobb books I've read are the Farseer Trilogy, Fool's Errand, and The Golden Fool. The only Carol Berg books I've read so far are The Spirit Lens and The Soul Mirror.)
I was first introduced to Robin Hobb when my brother gave me the Farseer Trilogy when he went off to college, a year before I did the same. That was a very weird and stressful in-between sort of year, one where I really needed some other world to escape to, so I utterly devoured that trilogy.
Assassin's Apprentice, especially, really grabbed my imagination (and is the one book of hers I still have on my shelf). In many ways, it's the kind of story I hope to be able to write one day. It's high fantasy, with magic and kings and queens (and eventually dragons, but not in that particular book), but it feels very grounded. It doesn't brush aside some of the more sordid aspects of medieval life, while not making everything feel grungy and ugly like some grimdark stories I could name. There is ugliness, but there is also beauty - in realistic measures that makes the world feel like one that actually exists somewhere.
I also loved how deeply emotional Robin Hobb's writing was. I immediately felt like I was living under Fitz's skin, feeling things as he felt them. It's not rare for me to cry when reading a good book, but there were several scenes where it really struck me hard and I just sobbed my heart out. (I'm particularly thinking of the last scenes with Smithy and Nighteyes, as well as Fitz saying goodbye to Burrich in...I think that was the third book?) A lot of fantasy in general, and especially the books I'd been reading around that time, were much more plot-focused, so even when the worlds were cool and the plot was engaging, I wouldn't get hit with emotion that strongly. Robin Hobb really stood out in that regard, because while her stories have intricate plots, they're also intimately characterized. I don't think there was a single character in that series who felt flat.
Besides that, Fitz is a very sympathetic character, especially in the first book when he's just a kid who doesn't fully understand what's going on - and I've always had a thing for lonely little boys. And then there's his animal companions! Nosey! Smithy! Nighteyes! (Oh my word, Nighteyes alk;djfsdlkjf) And I also really liked a lot of the human secondary characters, especially Burrich, Kettricken, and Verity.
But more than anyone else, my favorite character, at least from the second book onward, was the Fool. He was so kooky and weird, so mysterious, so multi-faceted. One minute he seems almost half-witted, the next he rattles off something truly wise. And certainly by the end of the Farseer Trilogy, I adored the way his relationship was unfolding with Fitz. It seemed like everything I've always wanted and so rarely seem to find: two men who trust each other with their lives, who would die for each other, who aren't afraid of telling each other that they love each other, without even a question of romance.
Well. If you've read the Tawny Man trilogy, you might be able to guess some of where this is going.
I think my main problem was identifying too closely with the writing. I didn't just say, "Robin Hobb is my favorite author!" or "Robin Hobb is my writing role model!" It was like...because I recognized multiple very important things in her writing that I also wanted to achieve in my own writing, I went beyond simply trying to learn from a master and skipping ahead to assuming that she would craft her stories the same way I would in ten, twenty, thirty years. Like the only difference between us was time and experience, like we had the same values and the same ideas about characters and stories.
(To draw a contrast, I would now say that my primary writing role model is Brandon Sanderson. I really admire his worldbuilding and the way he crafts compelling plots and interesting magic systems but also does really well with making characters interesting and realistic, so I can enjoy a breathtaking plot and also sob my heart out in the emotional scenes. And I also really like the way he writes romances. But while I know there's lots I can learn from him, we write very different stories. I don't really have any aspirations to write epic fantasy with huge, sprawling casts and intricate magic systems. I'm much more interested in smaller, standalone stories that focus on just a few characters who might not even be saving the world. So it's much easier to read his books and go, "Wow, that was awesome! I have so much to learn from him! But I would never have written XYZ that way.")
Looking back, I can see a lot of red flags that should have jolted me out of this weird way I was reading Robin Hobb, things that should have clued me in much earlier that it wasn't just that Robin Hobb is a much better writer with ages more experience than me, it's also that we have very different ideas of how to handle a story and its characters. If I'd noticed sooner, maybe I would have been able to just enjoy her books for what they are instead of imagining that they were something else and then getting sucker-punched when I couldn't deny the truth any longer.
One indicator was Robin Hobb's stance on fanfiction. She took her rant down from her website, so I suppose it could be that her opinion of fanfiction has changed, but she's still on the forbidden list on FFNet, for whatever that's worth. Anyway, my point is simply that anyone who ever felt that strongly against fanfiction is clearly not someone who sees eye to eye with me on everything XD
Another interesting point is how, now that I've put several years between me and these books, I see how kind of...excessive Robin Hobb could be with all the horrible things that happen to her protagonist? Don't get me wrong, I love angst and whump probably more than I should, and it made for some really dramatic and nail-biting plots because it was clear that she wouldn't balk at going so far as to permanently maim Fitz if she thought the story called for it. Worse than that, she kept on tearing away everyone he loved in one way or another. There is so much pain and darkness in these books, and Fitz always seems to come out the worse for it, despite all of his efforts. If I'd been writing the stories, I would have given him a bit more of a break here and there ^^'
More to the point, though, is the way Robin Hobb handles romance. I knew from the second book (when Fitz is actually old enough to have romantic entanglements) that I did not care for her romances whatsoever. I don't think there was a single romance in any of the books I read of hers that I whole-heartedly liked without any reservations. (Kettricken and Verity came closest, but we hardly even see them together, and then there's that whole thing with Fitz....) Content-wise, they're not the most graphic scenes I've flipped past read, but the way Fitz never fails to make the absolute worst choices when it comes to romance, and the way he never fully commits to any of his romantic partners...like, I get it (at least sometimes), but I don't respect it.
Normally, I wouldn't keep going with an author who puts so much sexual content into her stories, even if it's not usually described in much detail. I would have gotten fed up with Fitz's dumb romances...but I really liked everything else about the books, so I persevered. Even if Robin Hobb's romances were crap, at least she was doing a really good job at making me care about all the other relationships. At least she was doing something I'd so rarely seen, with Fitz and the Fool's close friendship. There was no drama there. No dumb misunderstandings or stupid choices.
Until there was.
When I got to a certain scene in The Golden Fool, where rumors abound about the Fool's sexuality and Fitz finally confronts him (for the second time) and is like, "There's nothing romantic going on between us, right???" I was crushed by the Fool's response. I was waiting for another scene kind of like the one in...Assassin's Quest, I think it was, where he asks a similar question and the Fool's answer is basically, "Why does it matter? I love you, that's all." Instead of that, the Fool's response leads Fitz to understand that the Fool is in love with him (I don't have the book anymore, but I seem to remember the line going something like, "I love you in every way possible."), and he handles it as well as Fitz ever does, which is to say, terribly.
That was the moment where everything came crashing down. I don't know, maybe no one will really understand why that was such a big deal to me, but it was like all of a sudden I couldn't fool myself anymore, and I saw that Robin Hobb was taking the relationship in a direction I never wanted it to go. I wanted it to be the one uncomplicated relationship Fitz still had. I wanted it to go without saying that they loved each other, but not romantically. In that moment, I realized I didn't care what the answer to the mysterious things about the Fool's identity was. I didn't care if the resolution of it all ended up being that the Fool was a woman after all, or that he's some kind of androgynous or hermaphrodite creature, or that he ended up being a dragon or a fairy or anything else. I didn't care what the answer was, because I didn't want them to ask the question in the first place.
It was the weirdest feeling. Like...usually, if I make it past a certain point in a book, nothing short of a graphic sex scene or something truly horrible will make me stop reading it, even if I'm bored and don't care anymore. I usually at least want to see how things end. But when I got to that scene of this series I was deeply invested in, that had made me cry and smile so many times...all of a sudden, I didn't care at all. I didn't care if everybody died horrible deaths. Because the magic was shattered, and suddenly I was looking at letters printed on a page that I didn't much care for, rather than a vibrant world passing before my eyes.
So I kept Assassin's Apprentice, because I still think Robin Hobb is an excellent writer, and that's the one book in the series that doesn't have any romance for Fitz to screw up. But I sold all the other books, and have never felt even the slightest urge to read any more of her writing.
At long last, this is the part where Carol Berg comes in! I don't remember how long it had been since I disowned Robin Hobb as my favorite fantasy author, but at one point I picked up The Spirit Lens. I don't know if you'll agree with me or not, but I noticed a lot of similarities to Robin Hobb's stories. The way Portier hides in plain sight but is the one who really gets things done in the kingdom. The way the fantasy is magical and interesting, but still very grounded, paying attention to things like the workings of the court and such. The exquisitely horrible torture Portier suffers.
But most of all, my favorite character, Ilario de Sylvae! 8D The second he came on the page, I sat up straight, feeling like I'd just heard a familiar voice. Not necessarily because of his actual voice, but his character is so reminiscent of the Fool! Pretending to be a foppish rich boy who faints on couches at the sight of blood, only to reveal he's actually very serious, very skilled, and has a heart of gold. He comes through for his friends in the nick of time. He cares deeply for Portier, especially, but there's not a hint of romance between them. (At least, not in the two books I've read. I picked up on what might be some hints as to his sexuality, or at least the hints of questions, so if that becomes a thing in the third book, I guess I'm wrong about this. But so far I don't see any of that between him and Portier.)
So it's really interesting, because I was so enamored with Robin Hobb's stories, just blown away by the sheer emotion, but while I've enjoyed Carol Berg so far, I wouldn't say she's in my top five or anything. I think she's an excellent author and I really do love her characters, but I don't think they've made me cry so far. And yet, reading The Spirit Lens kind of healed the wound left by The Golden Fool. I'm not expecting Carol Berg to write the story exactly the way I would - in fact, I don't think I would ever get to the point of writing that particular story! - but that frees me to just enjoy a good story well told. And I can see echoes of Fitz and the Fool in Portier and Ilario, without any of the qualities that aggravated me so much. Like I can finally get the resolution I didn't realize I still needed.
Anyway, that's my story! Hopefully I didn't bore you to tears! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the two authors.
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