#rotethoughts

[eggbland]

The pale woman plot line in Fool's Fate is so unintentionally funny to me.

When she does her little strip tease for Fitz (and Beloved), her sole strategy is to weaponize Fitz's alleged desire to procreate with his bestie. I mean, HUH?? AND IT ALMOST WORKS. She's like, "I look exactly like your bff, but I have big boobies and you can have babies with me". This man has to restrain himself from going through with it.

Turns out that the joke is on all parties involved, because, biology be damned, Fitz and Beloved make their own baby anyway.

[eggbland]

Here's the thing. Fitz never feels the need to explain or justify his relationship with the Fool when they are alone. It isn't until people outside of their little bubble begin to question the nature of their bond that he starts to question it himself.

In Assassin's Quest, Fitz is relatively carefree with his affections for the Fool in front of others, especially compared to later books. They cuddle, they hold hands, they walk arm in arm. This is all witnessed by Kettle, Kettricken, and Starling. He never seems uncomfortable with the physicality of their interactions until Starling draws attention to it.

When Fitz and Fool are alone together at the beginning of Tawny Man, they slip into an easy domesticity. Fool is cooking for the two of them, decorating Fitz's home, and sharing drunken nights with him by the fire. They embrace, lean on one another, and cuddle with Nighteyes. It feels comfortable. It feels right. Later, when Fitz shares a bed with Fool in their rooms at Buckeep, Fitz remarks that he feels a sense of safety in that shared space.

Fitz may not bring the Fool flowers, but he is incredibly sweet with him when it's just the two of them.

He doesn't seem to think too hard about what it means during this period, and instead just enjoys it for what it is. Its only when others make assumptions about their relationship that things between them sour.

Even so, after their quarrel, Fitz loosens up a bit. In Aslevjal, he sticks by the Fool constantly, sleeps in his tent, and even does the walk of shame every morning in full view of the entire camp. When Chade questions him about sleeping there, he's a little annoyed, but still answers him truthfully. For Fitz, that's a big step forward.

Love how Fitz spends every trilogy saying the fool and him are NOT lovers, just friends, no homo, and then at the end of every trilogy he just accepts there's nothing heterosexual about them like they will be cuddling together, kissing each other on the mouth, merging their souls, calling each other beloved, defying fate itself for each other, just acting lovesick in general and Fitz won't feel the need to explain himself at all

[eggbland]

The way Robin Hobb uses minstrel song to illustrate outsider perspective is brilliant. Through song we are able to glimpse the narrative of Fitzchivalry Farseer as told by Six Duchians. It rarely ever matches up with what we know to be true. It's such a fun way to show how a true fact can become twisted over time.

I NEED a song about the stone wolf.

Living in the Duchies during the return of the bastard prince must have been wild. Like, absolutely bonkers. Imagine that you are a coterie member just minding your own business, when this man you've believed to be dead for forty years just shows up. And you just have to roll with it. Not only that, but apparently, he didn't murder his grandfather like you've been led to believe and has just been partying with some elderlings for a couple of decades. Okay, sure.

But then he's gone again. Whatever.

A couple months goes by, and you get word that this man is dying. Now you've got to go watch him attempt to put himself inside a stone statue so that he can live on in the skill stream forever. Fine.

You travel to the stone quarry with Nettle, and the other skill coteries. Prince Fitzchivalry is struggling. Turns out it's not that easy to sculpt stone with your bare hands, silvered or not. who knew? The more time passes, the more it looks like the poor guy is going to die before the statue is finished. You figure that you might as well catch some zs while you wait for this nasty business to run its course. It's not like you're going to miss anything.

Then it happens.

You're woken from your slumber by the sound of shouting and cheering. Members of your coterie barge into your tent, raving excitedly. "You missed it." They say. "He did it! Prince Fitzchivalry went into his stone wolf with Lord Chance". And all you can think to say is, "He did what with who?"

Turns out that the prince completed his statue, and you slept right through it. Your coterie recounts for you an incredibly moving scene in which Fitz's daughter encouraged Lord Chance to join her father inside the wolf. She loudly declared Fitzchivalry's love for the noble, and the crowd watched on as the two lovingly embraced before disappearing into the stone.

And all you can do is nod, because for the life of you, you cannot remember who the hell Lord Chance is.

[eggbland]

Honestly, Fitz, Fool, and Bee snuggling in Clerres is so funny to me. Like, that's officially the point in the series where Fitz has no fucks left to give. Everything is literally burning to the ground around them, and he's just like, "This is my man, and this is our baby, and I'll be damned if we don't get at least three seconds of family time before I drown."

[eggbland]

When Fitz meets Carson and Sedric in Kelsingra, his first thought is, "Two men raising a baby together? What a novel concept. So strange". Yet, this is a man who is fully planning on raising his daughter with someone who he perceives as another man. Not only that, but said daughter is biologically theirs. Together. I don't think Fitz has any room to call anyone's family dynamic strange.

[eggbland]

Realm of the Elderlings? More like brotherhood of the traveling earring.

[eggbland]

In my head Starling is like 4'8 tops, and that's the real reason she was in such a bad mood during Assassin's Quest. Watching 6 foot tall, modelesque royalty parading around the wilderness probably got old really quick.