Fool's Quest

[HexMachina]

6 hours ago, Gertrude said:

I think Shun's faults are nurture here. She is spoiled, inconsiderate, and has airs - that is all learned behavior. I'm in the middle of a re-read and have just started the second book, but I do seem to recall she shows some strength in her captivity.

I imagine the Skill could be used as a contraceptive, but would Chade in particular want to do that? I get the feeling that he was happy to finally be living, and wouldn't that include a family of his own? I imagine ways are known to prevent pregnancy and believe Nettle must be employing them.

Surely she isn't still employing them?  

I agree with you that I don't think Chase wanted to prevent a pregnancy. I feel like he wanted children though he was aware of the dangers. In Fool's Assassin he has the Skill talk with Fitz about why Fitz recorded his life, and why he wanted to leave it behind for Nettle. It's obvious now (and was fairly clear even at the time) that he was asking because of his own children.

Regarding contraceptives, I feel like I remember one character mentioning they were taking some kind of herb concoction to make sure they didn't conceive in one of the books. Then again I thought it was Molly in Royal Assassin so perhaps not the best example...

eta: thinking on it maybe it was something she started to take or drink when she realised she was pregnant.

[RedEyedGhost]

8 hours ago, Maia said:

Anyway, as we have only 2 POVs in this trilogy and both are moving far away from the SixDuchies, I just don't see how Shine could get the necessary page space to believably develop. She seems to be engaged in a traditional role of nursing her failing father and she'll be learning Skill, I guess, but we can't expect to see more than a glimpse of her, probably towards the end of the book.

I'm hoping we'll get a nice long ending ala LotR that takes us back to all of the goings on in Buckkeep (if memory serves Fool's Fate had a pretty long wrap up, but the last time I read that was in 2004 - along with the other first eight books in this grand series).  I'm also wondering if, now that we have two POVs, that Fitz may not make it out alive.  I doubt it, but it's definitely a possibility, and that would definitely make this the last Fitz book.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

Yes, they admit to killing 3 men and to one escaping them. I am fresh from RWC re-read.

Cool.  I think that has to be Chade's source then.  I really liked the RWC's when I read them last year.  I can see why they got a bad rap when they were released though, I cannot even fathom how pissed I would have been reading them as they were released.  Much smaller in scope than the other RotE books, but great characters.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

I didn't consider that... Hm... But there were many instances in RWC when the dragons didn't know that another was near/didn't communicate. Maybe the Others can prevent communications too and keep the visiting dragons away from the inner parts of island. Or maybe the dragon is staying with them willingly. My belief that there is a dragon there is based on a legend, mentioned during Kennit's first visit to the island in  "The Ship of Magic". It is about a ministrel who spent half a century on the island and re-emerged with red eyes, golden hair and true songs that foretold the future - i.e. clearly as an Elderling.

 Could the minstrel have not also been changed by close contact with She Who Remembers?  I doubt there have been very many humans that were able to maintain close contact with a serpent so it's completely unknown as to what would happen, but I don't know why it wouldn't potentially cause the same effect.  I don't remember anything about that legend, but could it not have been based on She Who Remembers?

8 hours ago, Maia said:

The dragons in RWC also said that they might have been able to help Phron if any of them had been closely related to Tintaglia. The amenities that the Elderlings used to lure dragons towards their dwellings outside the city  hint that there were some benefits to be derived from being close to not just a single dragon, but multiple ones.

Very good point.  I don't recall if it was mentioned in tRWC, but does that then imply that Tarman is closely related to Tintaglia, and that's why he was able to provide Phron with some relief?  It certainly would not be surprising if they were closely related.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

And it now occurs to me that the undirected changes of the Rain Wilders had to be caused by the dragon cocoons stored in Trehaug - i.e. other dragons, but it didn't hamper the young dragons ability to shape their keepers into their own Elderlings. And Merkor threatened Sintara with taking over the shaping of Thymara during their journey - _after_ Thymara had already unknowingly  ingested some of her dragon's blood!

So, were the dragons telling Khupruses the truth? Was there some crucial difference between Phron and those other cases? Or was it just an inconsistency? Questions, questions...

If the cocoons can have that ability then certainly She Who Remembers should - and being conscious she could have then guided that minstrel's change (hoping that he would come back and release her from captivity).

I always believed the Rainwilders changes occurred because of the "acid" in the river - being that the acid is diluted or altered Silver.  The source of the Silver feeding to the river could have been damaged in the Cataclysm diverting that flow through a sulfurous/volcanic pocket, making it unusable/ineffective to Tintaglia and the other dragons.  I don't know, that's just where my mind always went.

Maybe because Phron was the child of two of Tintaglia's chosen?  And because none of them were that closely related to her. 

This world has never struck me as completely consistent though.  Lot's of retconning.  After I read tRWC I went back and read Fitz's first visit to Kelsingra, and they did not feel to be even remotely the same cities.  And even after reading that I thought he had been to another Elderling city, only to find out in this book that nope, they were one and the same.  Had it not been for Alise's comments in the map room, I wouldn't have even connected the two in my mind.

9 hours ago, Maia said:

Also, the Elderlings somehow used Silver to heal/shape themselves, but apparently in a different way than Six Duchies Skilled do, because everybody was so surprised and shocked by Fitz's healings and the notion that Silver/Skill can be accessed purely mentally.

Indeed.  I really like how my perceptions of the power level of the Six Duchies Skilled raised in even just that penultimate chapter.  After tRWC I thought the dragons would be able to just dominate the world (other than humans being able to ambush them occasionally, and even then they would definitely get paid back one thousand fold).

9 hours ago, Maia said:

Some of the Farseers may have prolongued their lives via Skill too, though Hobb doesn't seem to consider the logical consequences of Skill healing/longevity on her setting with any consistency. Then, again, maybe only some Skill users can self-heal and even fewer heal others?

It has never been made clear, but I have to admit that it bugs me that so many characters conveniently insist on suffering the ravages of old age when they can be healed of at least some of them, and there is no religious reason for them to suffer. In Thick's case it goes against all his prior characterization too. And if Nettle dies in childbirth, I will be very angry indeed, because it would just be an insultingly thoughtless application of a  trope where it would be pure nonsense! Ahem.

I don't understand it either.  Especially Molly with Fitz right there looking so young.  Let him give you a little touch up!  Hobb definitely lets the story determine a character's "age."

Hmm, I was thinking there was an herbal contraceptive in this world, but maybe not.  I've read too many fantasy series and they almost always seem to have that.

9 hours ago, Maia said:

Ramble away! I have been dying to discuss AF, FQ and the whole cycle since I finished FQ a couple of weeks away. I may not be able to respond promptly, but be sure that I am reading everything and mulling on my replies!

I remembered what it was!

The butterfly cloak:  So when Fitz carried Per and Lant through the stone, Fitz experiences it completely differently to his other journeys through the stones - no distance points of light, like a hood was over his head.  Both he and Lant have the expected response to traveling through the stones, while Per is all but unaffected.  I think the cloak gave him that protection.  Sure it has been pointed out repeatedly that he has very little Skill ability/sense, and that may be why, BUT shouldn't that have made him much more susceptible to tattering rather than protecting him?  Oooh, now that I think about it I don't recall how he responded on his second trip... I think it was much worse.  However, I do recall how Spark responded to traveling with the Fool and the cloak, and she was in a much better state than she had any right to be with it being her sixth trip in two days (and much better than she was after her fifth trip).  At least according to what Fitz hurriedly observed.

Another thing I've always wondered is why there are not any Stone Dragons at the other memory stone quarries?  That makes me wonder about their location and the road leading to it.  Is their location above the source of liquid Skill?  Does the road track it's initial path?  Have they been carved in other locations, but they always rest there? 

8 hours ago, Gertrude said:

I think Shun's faults are nurture here. She is spoiled, inconsiderate, and has airs - that is all learned behavior. I'm in the middle of a re-read and have just started the second book, but I do seem to recall she shows some strength in her captivity.

I imagine the Skill could be used as a contraceptive, but would Chade in particular want to do that? I get the feeling that he was happy to finally be living, and wouldn't that include a family of his own? I imagine ways are known to prevent pregnancy and believe Nettle must be employing them.

Agreed.  And I think she acquitted herself admirably in her captivity and escape.  Other than following Kerf back to their people.  What the hell were she and Bee thinking??

I don't get the feeling that Chade was disappointing in fathering children in the slightest. 

10 hours ago, Maia said:

We know of Queen Vision, the one who had the Crossfire coterie in her service and who may have been King Bounty's mother or grandmother and of Queen Diligence, who reigned 200+ years prior to AQ and whom Kestrel/Kettle served as a coterie member from the first trilogy alone. "Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince" has 3 more Farseer kings, though one of them had a very short reign.

I really need to read that novella.  Maybe right before AF.

10 hours ago, Maia said:

This wiki is useless.

You're not joking.  The section on White Prophets is laughable.  I wish it was half as complete as ASoIaF's.

[Gertrude]

2 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Surely she isn't still employing them?

Ah crap, I forgot something, didn't I? I said I was re-reading and Nettle being pregnant was tickling the back of my mind as I was writing that but I didn't actually remember it. OK then, point taken

[Buckwheat]

Wait, Nettle is pregnant? How could I have forgotten such information?

14 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Regarding contraceptives, I feel like I remember one character mentioning they were taking some kind of herb concoction to make sure they didn't conceive in one of the books. Then again I thought it was Molly in Royal Assassin so perhaps not the best example...

eta: thinking on it maybe it was something she started to take or drink when she realised she was pregnant.

Patience and Lacey warned Fitz about the dangers of the contraceptives Molly was taking back in Farseer II. They knew she was risking her own health by taking them. I am pretty sure it was before she was pregnant. I do not remember if she just stopped taking whatever it was or if it proved ineffective.

As far as I remember, but apparently my memory is very bad when it comes to this series.

[HexMachina]

1 hour ago, Buckwheat said:

Wait, Nettle is pregnant? How could I have forgotten such information?

Patience and Lacey warned Fitz about the dangers of the contraceptives Molly was taking back in Farseer II. They knew she was risking her own health by taking them. I am pretty sure it was before she was pregnant. I do not remember if she just stopped taking whatever it was or if it proved ineffective.

As far as I remember, but apparently my memory is very bad when it comes to this series.

Yes she is. It's one of the reasons she can't go with Fitz through the pillars, because it's supposedly even more risky to do so while pregnant. Which I guess kind of makes sense, given that it's difficult enough to go through the pillars alone, and you are trying to take a partly-formed life through them. The best you could probably expect is to lose the child.

[RedEyedGhost]

5 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Yes she is. It's one of the reasons she can't go with Fitz through the pillars, because it's supposedly even more risky to do so while pregnant. Which I guess kind of makes sense, given that it's difficult enough to go through the pillars alone, and you are trying to take a partly-formed life through them. The best you could probably expect is to lose the child.

It's not any more dangerous for the mother to travel through the stones, but it is fatal to the fetus 100% of the time. And not just fatal, the fetus is gone (not just in humans, there was also a story about a horse). I now an image of a Skilled person with a business with "Baby Be Gone" placard in old timey font...  

[Maia]

 

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

I'm hoping we'll get a nice long ending ala LotR that takes us back to all of the goings on in Buckkeep

Yes, FF did have a longuish epilogue, but it didn't have to carry a serious character development for somebody like Shine. Sure, she did buck up a bit in captivity, but then she pretty much went to pieces upon being rescued and remained in Buckkeep while our PoVs moved away. There is no room for Malta-like slow transformation there. Mind, I'd have preferred if she had been the one to tag along rather than Lant (to belabor father - son and teacher - mentor issues between men yet _again_) and we could have seen her blossom, but...

 

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

Cool.  I think that has to be Chade's source then.

 

Yea, but Gresok was pretty much non-sentient at that point, while Fool gained a lot of pretty detailed memories from the dragon blood. Notably, none of the young dragons could remember the Silver well's location, but the Fool had a very precise recollection of it. Which is why I think that the blood came from a different, older dragon that didn't labor under the same constraints as the Cassarick bunch.

 

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

  I really liked the RWC's when I read them last year. 

 

 I have just re-read RWC and I am as lukewarm towards them now as in the past. In fact, back then I have concluded that Hobb had jumped the shark due to RWC, which helped me cling to my determination not to read this latest trilogy until it was finished... if then. Now, I am happy to say that I love the first 2 books of this trilogy and it looks to me so far that Hobb has achieved a miraclious rebound from the steadily declining quality of her writing after The Liveship Traders trilogy.

Of course RWC is better read all at once than in parts and it does add interesting new material to the worldbuilding, etc. There are some decent characters and plot-lines, but not enough. IMHO, YMMV.

 

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

 Could the minstrel have not also been changed by close contact with She Who Remembers? 

Wintrow wasn't changed, and there was involuntary mixing of fluids between them, as well as mental contact. I don't think that the serpents can create Elderlings. Trehaug Dragons in the cocoons were already fully transformed, they just needed sunlight to hatch, so it was a different situation.

 

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

Very good point.  I don't recall if it was mentioned in tRWC, but does that then imply that Tarman is closely related to Tintaglia, and that's why he was able to provide Phron with some relief?  It certainly would not be surprising if they were closely related.

This didn't even occur to me, but of course you are right. Somewhere in LST it is stated that the serpent Tangles normally stay together throughout their sojourn in the sea and cocoon together - which would mean that they'd have to hatch from eggs at the same time and are very likely to be siblings. This is not the case with the young dragons, since Maulkin threw over tradition and assembled his last Tangle from every serpent that he came across and could convince to follow him. The only 2 of his original Tangle who stayed with him until the end didn't make it - Sessurea died in the cocoon and is now a part of Tarman and Shreever just died and was eaten, I guess. Certainly, none of the dragon females seem to be her.

As to Tarman - I suspect that he would have been able to do much more for Phron if he had been a live dragon.

 

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

I always believed the Rainwilders changes occurred because of the "acid" in the river - being that the acid is diluted or altered Silver. 

 

 I don't think that acid has anything to do with Silver. It comes from the different river than the one that flows through Kelsingra. It is quite a ret-con that there is now something that very much sounds like an active vulcano in the Mountains. After all, the Rainwilds also get ashfall from time to time, as well as quakes and runs of acid.

 

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

This world has never struck me as completely consistent though.  Lot's of retconning.  After I read tRWC I went back and read Fitz's first visit to Kelsingra, and they did not feel to be even remotely the same cities. 

 

Fitz's Kelsingra did seem rather more dilapidated, but then  Hobb now introduced the notion that it is self-repairing... And, Fitz, of course, was not quite all there due to his sudden Stone travel and all the memories assaulting his mind. Even so, it seemed odd that they found all the clothes and working smart furniture pretty much in the open in RWC. Yes, they are also Silver-worked and self-repairing, but it would have made more sense to me if they had been in some kind of stasis vault or something.

 

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

Indeed.  I really like how my perceptions of the power level of the Six Duchies Skilled raised in even just that penultimate chapter.  After tRWC I thought the dragons would be able to just dominate the world (other than humans being able to ambush them occasionally, and even then they would definitely get paid back one thousand fold).

 

Don't forget Chade's invention of gun-powder! If somebody continues to improve it, even purely physical superiority of dragons will be seriously compromised. They badly need to change instead of trying to return to their roots like they attempted towards the end of RWC - and here comes the Changer!

 

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

 Both he and Lant have the expected response to traveling through the stones, while Per is all but unaffected.  I think the cloak gave him that protection. 

An interesting idea and entirely possible. Maybe the cloak's protective intent helps to keep the mind togethere in the Stones. Or maybe the fact that it was made with Silver plays into it.

 

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

Another thing I've always wondered is why there are not any Stone Dragons at the other memory stone quarries? 

And yet another interesting question! A mystery indeed.

On 26.4.2017 at 1:58 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

I really need to read that novella.  Maybe right before AF.

It is not great, but it does provide more background for how persecution of the Witted started in the Six Duchies.

[RedEyedGhost]

12 hours ago, Maia said:

Yea, but Gresok was pretty much non-sentient at that point, while Fool gained a lot of pretty detailed memories from the dragon blood. Notably, none of the young dragons could remember the Silver well's location, but the Fool had a very precise recollection of it. Which is why I think that the blood came from a different, older dragon that didn't labor under the same constraints as the Cassarick bunch.

Maybe Gresok was dim in this life, but had better access to ancestral memories than most of the new dragons?  The gold of his eyes still reminds me or Mercor.  Maybe they're just terrible about keeping track of their leavings now that they're healthy?  That would have given the Fool both dreams of flying and knowledge of the Silver well's location.

12 hours ago, Maia said:

Wintrow wasn't changed, and there was involuntary mixing of fluids between them, as well as mental contact. I don't think that the serpents can create Elderlings. Trehaug Dragons in the cocoons were already fully transformed, they just needed sunlight to hatch, so it was a different situation.

Wintrow also wasn't on Other's Island for a half century  

12 hours ago, Maia said:

 I don't think that acid has anything to do with Silver. It comes from the different river than the one that flows through Kelsingra. It is quite a ret-con that there is now something that very much sounds like an active vulcano in the Mountains. After all, the Rainwilds also get ashfall from time to time, as well as quakes and runs of acid.

I don't know that's just where my mind always goes when I think about the Rain Wild River.  And just because the tainted river doesn't lead to Kelsingra, that doesn't mean much if we're talking about an underground flow of Silver.  I'm definitely not expecting to get any answers about this in AF though.

12 hours ago, Maia said:

Fitz's Kelsingra did seem rather more dilapidated, but then  Hobb now introduced the notion that it is self-repairing... And, Fitz, of course, was not quite all there due to his sudden Stone travel and all the memories assaulting his mind. Even so, it seemed odd that they found all the clothes and working smart furniture pretty much in the open in RWC. Yes, they are also Silver-worked and self-repairing, but it would have made more sense to me if they had been in some kind of stasis vault or something.

I can't imagine that it could have self-repaired that much in the past 35-40 years, but the more I think about it... maybe, Fitz's presence triggered the self-repair systems after they had been stuck in a maintenance pattern and having an active Skill user put it back into repair mode.  That's probably putting too much thought into it though; really I think Hobb just retconned it because by the time she was writing tRWC she decided she wanted it to be grander than previously described.

12 hours ago, Maia said:

Don't forget Chade's invention of gun-powder! If somebody continues to improve it, even purely physical superiority of dragons will be seriously compromised. They badly need to change instead of trying to return to their roots like they attempted towards the end of RWC - and here comes the Changer!

It's probably a good thing that the new dragons don't have all of their ancestral memories, it should make them much more adaptable to the new world.

12 hours ago, Maia said:

An interesting idea and entirely possible. Maybe the cloak's protective intent helps to keep the mind togethere in the Stones. Or maybe the fact that it was made with Silver plays into it.

Rapskal is definitely not going to be happy if/when he finds out they have that too!  Even though Prilkop and the Fool have had it longer than he's been alive  

I am a little worried that they'll just it to escape, and we won't get much time at all in Kelsingra in this book.

12 hours ago, Maia said:

 I have just re-read RWC and I am as lukewarm towards them now as in the past. In fact, back then I have concluded that Hobb had jumped the shark due to RWC, which helped me cling to my determination not to read this latest trilogy until it was finished... if then. Now, I am happy to say that I love the first 2 books of this trilogy and it looks to me so far that Hobb has achieved a miraclious rebound from the steadily declining quality of her writing after The Liveship Traders trilogy.

Of course RWC is better read all at once than in parts and it does add interesting new material to the worldbuilding, etc. There are some decent characters and plot-lines, but not enough. IMHO, YMMV.

I think a lot of the reason I enjoyed tRWC's so much was because of how much time I spent away from this world.  I read the first 9 books in 2004, and all four of tRWC's in succession last year.  After reading her Soldier Son Trilogy I didn't have any desire to read tRWC's, especially with the poor reviews it received.  I had even intended to take breaks between those four books, but once I started I just wanted to keep plowing through them.  I'm also having a really hard time getting into another book right now, all I want to read is AF!

[Maia]

On 25.4.2017 at 5:45 PM, Gertrude said:

I imagine the Skill could be used as a contraceptive, but would Chade in particular want to do that? I get the feeling that he was happy to finally be living, and wouldn't that include a family of his own? I imagine ways are known to prevent pregnancy and believe Nettle must be employing them.

Yes Chade said that in his defense, but he has been "finally living" since AQ. Fitz had a Skill vision of him with a female mercenary in that book and he was known to be quite a Don Juan towards the end of it. The fact that he has only 2 bastards so late in life suggests to me that he had been more careful as a young man before his accident and between AQ and the end of FF, as well as after Shine.

It is also extremely jerkish, if not to say evil to expose partners, who only want to have a bit of fun with you, to the risk of unwanted pregnancy and loss of reputation or even life that might ensue, if you can protect them - as Chade could have by purchasing a wizardwood charm or later by using Skill.  Or even by limiting himself to non-procreative sex.

Which last you'd think would be very widespread in a society where having bastards can ruin men as well as women and where women fully participate in all professional and political aspects of it. In fact, it makes zero sense that such is not the case. But Hobb loves having tropes to fall back on - which she often utilizes very well, granted.

Now, with Lant I can imagine that Chade could have even tried to impregnate poor Laurel on purpose, so that she'd be under pressure to accept his suit. He really wanted to have a family with her, apparently. What a waste of a potentially interesting new-ish character, BTW.

But Shine was a result of a one-night-stand - i.e. pure irresponsibility. And potentially quite dangerous to the throne, given Chade's position. He was very, very lucky that her family had no political ambitions and only wanted money out of him. Ditto the whole Lord Vigilant as foster-parent for Lant scheme - it was so ripe for blackmail, that he was fortunate(!) that they only wanted to get rid of his son in the end.

So, yea, this family thing?  Chade might have wanted it, but he was quite abyssmal at looking after his kids. One wonders how he intended to handle it with Laurel - would it have been a secret marriage, with a secret household?

 

9 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

Maybe Gresok was dim in this life, but had better access to ancestral memories than most of the new dragons?

Dimness and lack of memories went hand in hand in the young dragons. They started to regain memories once they became smarter. But we shall see.

 

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 I can't imagine that it could have self-repaired that much in the past 35-40 years, but the more I think about it... maybe, Fitz's presence triggered the self-repair systems after they had been stuck in a maintenance pattern and having an active Skill user put it back into repair mode.

Well, Will's coterie visited Kelsingra too, so they may have been the ones to accidentally activate something ;). The city probably mistook Fitz/them for dragons, since it doesn't seem to me so far that Elderlings were Skill-users in the Six Duchies sense. The odd thing is that Tintaglia, whose memories are fairly complete and whose mind was fully functioning,  visited the city in LST, but couldn't switch it on, while Sintara, just a few years later, did. Maybe the city's self-repair process passed a crucial milestone in that time :).

Speaking of which - what about all the other Elderling cities? How is it that they existed/had Silver-worked artifacts when Kelsingra was ostensibly the only source of Silver? Did they have their own, lesser sources, that ran dry at some point - hence wars between Elderlings and dragons over Kelsingra before the cataclysm? Did they import all the artifacts or import Silver to make them? BTW - how is it even possible that there were non-Kelsingra sentient dragons, when the only cocooning beaches were up the Rain Wild River? Something doesn't quite add up.

 

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It's probably a good thing that the new dragons don't have all of their ancestral memories, it should make them much more adaptable to the new world.

You'd think so, but by the end of RWC and from what we have seen/heard in AF and FQ they appear to be back to their old tricks - arrogant, aloof, ignoring their Elderlings, taking what they want from humans... It is shocking how much more likeable they have been as serpents.

 

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Rapskal is definitely not going to be happy if/when he finds out they have that too!  Even though Prilkop and the Fool have had it longer than he's been alive  

 

 Rapskal/Tellator has only expressed a (retroactively) proprietary interest for Kelsingra stuff. The cloak is from Aslevjal...

Nor do I think that Fitz is in condition to use the Stones at the end of FQ, so a quick escape would seem to be out. Additionally, given how much of Clerres agenda is tied into preventing return of the dragons, I have hopes that we'll learn more about dragons and their history in AF. In Kelsingra or elsewhere . There is still whatever city Verity visited to coat his and Kestrel's arms in Silver, too.

 

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 After reading her Soldier Son Trilogy I didn't have any desire to read tRWC's, especially with the poor reviews it received.

I  dropped SS after the first book, but it was actually TTM trilogy that made me wary of RWC.  I disliked the last 2 books of TTM on the first read and while I have appreciated them (particularly the 3rd book) more on my very recent re-read, it still could have been so much more. In that light, RWC looked like an acceleration of a downward slide. I have only properly read the 2 volumes, IIRC, and skimmed the rest back then, so my recent "re-read" of it had been the first proper read. And yea, for all the interesting stuff that it fills in, those poor reviews weren't  wrong, IMHO. 

 

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I'm also having a really hard time getting into another book right now, all I want to read is AF!

 

I solved this problem by expanding my Hobb re-read from just Fitz and Fool books to the entire Realm of the Elderlings cycle . I wasn't going to include LST and RWC, but my hunger couldn't be assuaged otherwise. LST remains an excellent trilogy that didn't quite stick the ending and a pleasure to re-read. And RWC, at least, provides some theory fodder. Not that LST doesn't, but it isn't it's main (only?) attraction ;).

[Maia]

A couple of other things:

Are Dutiful and Nettle going to die in AF? This epigraph to chapter 1 of FQ omniously changes Nighteyes' 2 brothers into brother and sister mid-dream:

https://books.google.at/books?id=RitsBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT9&lpg=PT9&dq=Robin+Hobb+my+brother+and+sister&source=bl&ots=cRqz-Eu-0K&sig=65pc3PMR_FDCYx5A8JpRWxzLe3g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiVjtLyocfTAhXLWywKHepRB74Q6AEIRDAG#v=onepage&q=Robin Hobb my brother and sister&f=false

And, of course Fitz has a son and 2 daughters, one of whom is "born last and smallest of all". Is the dream prophetic somehow? I mean, it seems almost certain that Lady Rosemary is up to no good and she is in a perfect position to betray and eradicate the older Farseers. And also, in the first trilogy the Fool said something about Farseers not being worthy of their name yet, but becoming so in the future. Could Bee be the retroactive reason for it, given the allegedly cyclical and/or interactive parallel dimensional nature of the Elderling world?

And if so, did Fitz really change fate beyond all foreseen possibilities when he ressurected the Fool in FF? Because there is this oddity with the Rooster Crown - that the Fool wouldn't accept the feathers late in GQ or maybe early in FF because "it wasn't yet time". So, he must have had some sense when the proper time to put them into the crown was. But when it was time, he himself was dead and Fitz had no clue about what Fool's intention with the artifact was. He thought that he was supposed to burn the crown together with the Fool's body - which would have meant that Fitz never got the memories back from the stone dragon and therefore never achieved the future that the Fool had foreseen for him!   This quite a conundrum, right there! Either Fool was wrong that he was supposed to die and remain dead... or he lied.

 

[RedEyedGhost]

10 hours ago, Maia said:

Well, Will's coterie visited Kelsingra too, so they may have been the ones to accidentally activate something ;). The city probably mistook Fitz/them for dragons, since it doesn't seem to me so far that Elderlings were Skill-users in the Six Duchies sense. The odd thing is that Tintaglia, whose memories are fairly complete and whose mind was fully functioning,  visited the city in LST, but couldn't switch it on, while Sintara, just a few years later, did. Maybe the city's self-repair process passed a crucial milestone in that time :).

Speaking of which - what about all the other Elderling cities? How is it that they existed/had Silver-worked artifacts when Kelsingra was ostensibly the only source of Silver? Did they have their own, lesser sources, that ran dry at some point - hence wars between Elderlings and dragons over Kelsingra before the cataclysm? Did they import all the artifacts or import Silver to make them? BTW - how is it even possible that there were non-Kelsingra sentient dragons, when the only cocooning beaches were up the Rain Wild River? Something doesn't quite add up.

I have no memory of Tintaglia visiting there in LST... That makes me think even more that it was just a complete retcon.

The other Silver sources running dry definitely was what caused the Elderlings/Dragons to war with each other.  And that makes me think more about the underground source of the Silver being altered seismically pre-Cataclysm.  The one cocooning beach along the Rain Wild River is another reason I think it's waters are the way they are because of Silver, and that's why the dragons were so vulnerable.

I do not recall at all, but do the memory stone quarries near Forge and on Aslevjal have veins of Silver in them too?  Or are they just stone?

10 hours ago, Maia said:

Rapskal/Tellator has only expressed a (retroactively) proprietary interest for Kelsingra stuff. The cloak is from Aslevjal...

Nor do I think that Fitz is in condition to use the Stones at the end of FQ, so a quick escape would seem to be out. Additionally, given how much of Clerres agenda is tied into preventing return of the dragons, I have hopes that we'll learn more about dragons and their history in AF. In Kelsingra or elsewhere . There is still whatever city Verity visited to coat his and Kestrel's arms in Silver, too.

Is it from Aslevjal?  I thought the Fool said Prilkop found it when they stopped in Kelsingra.  Did Verity visit a different city?  My assumption was he went to Kelsingra as well (but I remember very little about that at this point).

He definitely is not fit to travel, but who knows how long they'll be imprisoned.  And they way they like to not share that important information, does not make me hopeful that they'll tell the Keepers what they're doing and ask for help. That would just be too easy for them to explain everything and then talk some of the dragons into flying to Clerres and razing it.

11 hours ago, Maia said:

I  dropped SS after the first book

Lucky you.  I think the second book is probably my most hated book ever.  I was much more of a completest when I read it though, so I actually read the final book too. Thankfully the last book was an improvement over that dire middle volume. 

11 hours ago, Maia said:

I solved this problem by expanding my Hobb re-read from just Fitz and Fool books to the entire Realm of the Elderlings cycle . I wasn't going to include LST and RWC, but my hunger couldn't be assuaged otherwise. LST remains an excellent trilogy that didn't quite stick the ending and a pleasure to re-read. And RWC, at least, provides some theory fodder. Not that LST doesn't, but it isn't it's main (only?) attraction ;).

Unfortunately, I don't have the time.

6 hours ago, Maia said:

Are Dutiful and Nettle going to die in AF? This epigraph to chapter 1 of FQ omniously changes Nighteyes' 2 brothers into brother and sister mid-dream

And, of course Fitz has a son and 2 daughters, one of whom is "born last and smallest of all". Is the dream prophetic somehow? I mean, it seems almost certain that Lady Rosemary is up to no good and she is in a perfect position to betray and eradicate the older Farseers. And also, in the first trilogy the Fool said something about Farseers not being worthy of their name yet, but becoming so in the future. Could Bee be the retroactive reason for it, given the allegedly cyclical and/or interactive parallel dimensional nature of the Elderling world?

I certainly hope not!  I was hoping that was just a retcon...

There was that chapter intro by Chade about his ability to scrye in the last book, and how he would watch a boy that looked like him growing up in a castle.  That seems to fit with "far-seeing."

6 hours ago, Maia said:

And if so, did Fitz really change fate beyond all foreseen possibilities when he resurrected the Fool in FF? Because there is this oddity with the Rooster Crown - that the Fool wouldn't accept the feathers late in GQ or maybe early in FF because "it wasn't yet time". So, he must have had some sense when the proper time to put them into the crown was. But when it was time, he himself was dead and Fitz had no clue about what Fool's intention with the artifact was. He thought that he was supposed to burn the crown together with the Fool's body - which would have meant that Fitz never got the memories back from the stone dragon and therefore never achieved the future that the Fool had foreseen for him!   This quite a conundrum, right there! Either Fool was wrong that he was supposed to die and remain dead... or he lied.

Never!

[RedEyedGhost]

On 4/27/2017 at 10:57 AM, Maia said:

Wintrow wasn't changed, and there was involuntary mixing of fluids between them, as well as mental contact. I don't think that the serpents can create Elderlings. Trehaug Dragons in the cocoons were already fully transformed, they just needed sunlight to hatch, so it was a different situation

I keep forgetting to comment on this... Are they really fully formed though? If they were, wouldn't the Traders have noticed as they were chopping them up? There was still some significant magic that needed to take place. And aren't the Rain Wilders continuing to change with no more wizardwood around?  And why don't the crew of the liveships undergo changes? I don't buy it. 

[Gertrude]

I'm pretty sure they did, but thought they were dead rather than waiting to hatch. Maybe they were actually dead at that point and only Tintaglia somehow survived. I don't remember clearly, but I'm certain they saw the bodies as they harvested the wood. The magic that still need to take place was the eating of their cocoon to absorb the memories.

eta: a quick search reveals a description calling them 'half formed'. Maybe they all did die before they matured all the way. I'd still think a half-formed dragon would be recognizable, and why say half-formed  if they had no idea what it should look like? I'm nit-picking now and don't really remember the answer.

[HexMachina]

6 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I keep forgetting to comment on this... Are they really fully formed though? If they were, wouldn't the Traders have noticed as they were chopping them up? There was still some significant magic that needed to take place. And aren't the Rain Wilders continuing to change with no more wizardwood around?  And why don't the crew of the liveships undergo changes? I don't buy it. 

The Rain Wilders definitely knew there was something inside the cocoons. When we get Jani's POV she thinks a little about wizardwood and dragons and it's clear she knew the reality of dragons living in the cocoons. I suspect some of the May have communicated in similar ways to Tintaglia in the past to previous attendants.

 I think there is reference to some probably having died in their cocoon before becoming Liveships (I believe it is Ophelia who suggests this as a reason for why she remembers little from her former lives).

I think you are correct about silver being responsible for changing the Rain Wilders. But I think it comes from constant interaction with Elderlings artefacts and Elderlings magic in Trehaug and Cassarick (which we now know was achieved with the Silver) rather than just the cocoons. I thought this was a poor explanation at first since Elderlings products are traded the world over, but thinking on it some more, the RW'ers are in contact with Elderlings magic every day. It makes sense they would be most heavily effected. Bingtowners also suffer, but this seems only to effect their fertility/ability to bear healthy children (interesting to note that Elderlings were also said to struggle to have children)

1 hour ago, Gertrude said:

I'm pretty sure they did, but thought they were dead rather than waiting to hatch. Maybe they were actually dead at that point and only Tintaglia somehow survived. I don't remember clearly, but I'm certain they saw the bodies as they harvested the wood. The magic that still need to take place was the eating of their cocoon to absorb the memories.

eta: a quick search reveals a description calling them 'half formed'. Maybe they all did die before they matured all the way. I'd still think a half-formed dragon would be recognizable, and why say half-formed  if they had no idea what it should look like? I'm nit-picking now and don't really remember the answer.

When Tintaglia emerges from the cocoon she is described in a way that would quite reasonably be called half-formed, I think. It's as she absorbs her wizardwood shell and takes in the sunlight that she develops colour and flesh. I don't think all the other dragons were dead when they were toppled out of the cocoon, though some probably were.

 

Separate but related question; was there a dragon in the cocoon Leftrin added to Tarman from? Logic says yes. But what did he do with the body? I only just reread and can't recall it being mentioned. (I suppose one of the dead dragons from the cocoons could also be the source of Chade's blood, if not Gresok, which is probably my favourite idea)

[Elaena Targaryen]

On ‎4‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 7:58 PM, RedEyedGhost said:

I don't recall if it was mentioned in tRWC, but does that then imply that Tarman is closely related to Tintaglia, and that's why he was able to provide Phron with some relief?  It certainly would not be surprising if they were closely related.

The ship could help Phron since he is family to Tarman, Leftrin and Reyn are cousins.

[HexMachina]

So now would seem like an appropriate time to settle this - spoiler tags for Assassin's Fate material, at least for a while to give people a chance to read it? Or just start a separate thread?

[Calibandar]

Separate thread I'd say. This book will be an event.

 

[RedEyedGhost]

2 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

Separate thread I'd say. This book will be an event.

 

[Gertrude]

I vote for separate, too.

[john]

Boom it's out. Solid reading for next couple of days.