Fool's Quest

[HexMachina]

Synopsis sounds good

Were they ever called Servants of the Four in the book though? I thought they were just Servants.

Also, Pirate Isles. This strongly suggests to me Althea and/or Wintrow will make an appearance

[Calibandar]

38 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Synopsis sounds good

 

  Hide contents

Were they ever called Servants of the Four in the book though? I thought they were just Servants.

Also, Pirate Isles. This strongly suggests to me Althea and/or Wintrow will make an appearance

 

Spoiler

I thought it was just Servants as well. Also the later line in the synopsis suggests that the Four are probably genuinely existing figures that may have lived for a long time, rather than Godlike characters being worshipped, but that is just a hunch.

 

[Buckwheat]

Spoiler

Fitzy, Lant, Spark, and Per. What a travel company.

I am looking forward to the Pirate Isles and other southern locations, this part is my favourite in that world. And to seeing what happened with Vivacia and Althea and others.

 

[SeanF]

 

I'm also interested in seeing how Selden's and Chassim's relationship turned out.  I'm guessing that the "dangerous allies" who also have an interest in destroying Clerres are the dragons

[Calibandar]

Dutch cover art for Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb, as per Jussi.

A broken candle and an "M". If it has to do with anything ( and it usually does) then I'd think Molly, which is odd.

I also see it is coming out in April in Holland, awesome. It's enormous btw, Dutch hardcover of book 3 clocks in at 896 pages, which is 150 pages more than the already huge Dutch hardcover of Fool's Quest. 

 

[HexMachina]

8 hours ago, Calibandar said:

Dutch cover art for Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb, as per Jussi.

A broken candle and an "M". If it has to do with anything ( and it usually does) then I'd think Molly, which is odd.

I also see it is coming out in April in Holland, awesome. It's enormous btw, Dutch hardcover of book 3 clocks in at 896 pages, which is 150 pages more than the already huge Dutch hardcover of Fool's Quest. 

 

I don't know who publishes the Dutch version, but Harper Voyager's website is still listing Star Wars day as the release date so i don't know how accurate your April release date is. May be accurate of course, as these things do vary (I believe Fool's Quest for the UK was a couple of days after the US for example). If it's just a date listed on Amazon though I would be wary

[Calibandar]

The Dutch translation comes out on April 12th.

The US edition comes out on May 9th.

 

[Jussi]

976 pages for Assassin's Fate!

http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/240985/assassins-fate-by-robin-hobb/

[Slick Mongoose]

Sounds good to me.

I did think she had a lot to get through.

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah, Hobb is one of those writers where I actually WANT to read a 1000 page book.

[HexMachina]

UK Cover Art

May can't come soon enough

ETA: page count has dropped too, 864 now per Amazon. Also been changed in Jussi's link. 

Makes sense, Hobb has only recently finished edits/corrections (according The her Twitter on 10th Feb anyway)

[HexMachina]

On 26/09/2016 at 10:41 AM, SeanF said:

 

 

  Hide contents

I'm also interested in seeing how Selden's and Chassim's relationship turned out.  I'm guessing that the "dangerous allies" who also have an interest in destroying Clerres are the dragons

 

Had a thought on this

The Dragons and Elderlings are interested in Clerres downfall because the corrupt Servants were responsible for the cataclysm that destroyed the Elderlings society.

The Elderlings and dragons are a threat to the Servants at Clerres because of their powers, and if Clerres a corrupt and greedy society as it has been painted, then removing such a powerful adversary would be in their interests to consolidate their own powers.

As to how they did this, well they have access to the White Prophets and all possible futures. They just manipulate events to go in a direction that benefits them - I.e. The destruction of the dragons and Elderlings. Perhaps there was even a more direct conflict between the Elderlings and Servants we've not yet heard of.

Since The Others are also mentioned in the synopsis, I imagine they are in some way involved with Clerres. Makes sense I guess - casting someone's fate, determining their future, it's not too dissimilar to the powers of a White Prophet.

I'm probably not correct, but I think there may be elements of what I said going on. It would also answer the question asked a while ago by someone as to why the Fool needs to bring back dragons, and why this is a good thing.

[Maia]

 I have just finished "Fool's Quest" - which I loved, and just have to comment on some things:

On 15.8.2015 at 4:57 PM, Kelli Fury said:

 Maybe as an infant you wouldn't catch it but as she grew enough to look a lot like your tiny, colorless, slow growing friend, you would have to notice. That at no point anyone was like hey she looks a lot like the Fool or hey she looks a lot like the messenger he sent or a lot like the people who took her, maybe that's a clue was too much.

 

It was my impression that while yes, there was a resemblance, it wasn't quite as obvious as all that. From what I understand Bee, while pale and blond, wasn't quite as white as the young Fool, her eyes were the same normal human color as Kettricken's, etc. It is only by the end of FQ that she becomes properly white. And also, her other pecularities, which were very unlike the Fool's, may have overshadowed their similarities in the eyes of both Fitz and Molly - who also met the Fool at Shrewd's court, BTW. Her speech impediment and strong reaction to Skilled people were very unlike the Fool, for instance, and made Fitz ascribe everything to her seeming disability. And yes, later on possessiveness and denial came into it too. IIRC while Fitz had been told that the Whites grow up more slowly than humans, he didn't know about the longer pregnancy, etc. Not to mention that so much happened since then that he could have easily forgotten that information.

 

On 21.8.2015 at 8:02 PM, AshOrSpark said:

 

 The being that pushes him out of the skill (I think on Other's Island) I took to be a dragon.  In the Heroes and Thieves chapter, when he is in the skill river, he talks about "larger and more intact" souls who "were more defined and older and wiser."  I think these are the dragons, whereas the "diluted and mingled" were perhaps the humans? 

 

I thought that these presences were people and coteries that hadgone into stone dragons, that they melded into some sort of higher consciences if they were advanced enough. After all, when Fitz woke the dragons in AQ, there were only very faint impressions of people who had gone into them. Only Verity the dragon still had his original consciousness and only while he was still newly woken. So, what would be the point of people going into stone dragons during the times of peace, if they just dissolve and mostly vanish anyway? IMHO, stone dragons are more than animated statues - they are gates into these higher levels of being. The stronger their Skill abilities, the richer their experience, the greater their depth of feelings, the more likely they are to accomplish this transition.

Living dragons definitely don't seem to be sufficiently mentally evolved to be the presences described. 

 

On 9.4.2016 at 11:55 PM, kimim said:

 So he reads Bee's dream journal, not trying to figure out if he can learn anything from it, but in order to find mistakes. Mistakes mean Bee's not the White Prophet, which means she's more Fitz's than the Fool's. For the same reason, Fitz won't share the journal with the Fool. It's possessiveness taken to an extreme.

Yes, but IMHO Fitz probably also just doesn't want Bee to be a White, regardless of Fool's involvement. After all, what did being a prophet do to the Fool himself? No parent would want that for his child.

 

On 24.4.2016 at 11:41 PM, kimim said:

Poor Fool's been through hell. He was tortured to death in Fool's Fate, returned minus his prophetic sight, gave up his beloved, had a hellish trip to Clerres, where he was tortured for years. After all that, the Fool is emotionally and physically wrecked, selfish, terrified. I think this is believable; people who go through trauma need time to return to normalcy.

 

Indeed. This has always been Hobb's strength - she doesn't gloss over the consequences of heroism and sacrifice. Her protagonists may come back from trauma and death, but they don't bounce back immediately and bear the scars for the rest of their lives, in one form or another.

 

Quote

ita. She was so stupid that could it be she was stupid deliberately? The pillar she and others escape through is not on Nettle's maps, and she leads the Chalcedeans there, almost as if she didn't want to use the obvious route (the ship).

 

From what I understand it was a plan B, since they would have pressed on if the Chalcedeans hadn't been stupid enough to betray them for short-term profit. But Dwalia was still an idiot to try to transport so many people at once. Surely Prilkop and the Fool must have warned the school about the dangers of pillar travel back when they still communicated in good faith. To be fair, I also think that she was operating far away from her usual stomping grounds - hence the mistake of engaging Chalcedeans in an attempt to kill 2 birds with one stone and install an anti-dragon ruler there.

 

Quote

I think the Fool is right. Clerres wants wealth. They're a multinational with access to prophecy.

This reminds me a bit of Clerres, a magical organization in it for profit (trope breaking). Dragons are not glamorous (more trope breaking). Elderlings are pathetic, yet more trope breaking.

...I want to know the connection between Wit and Skill, too. Maybe Skill and Wit exist elsewhere, but for some reason, Six Duchies nurtures its Skill users? idk.

We know that potential for Skill exists elsewhere - Outislanders have it, for instance. And yes, Selden and Wintrow seemed to have something similar too. OTOH, Skill is hideously dangerous, so very few people can learn to use it reliably on their own without losing their minds. They have to be both very talented and very, very lucky. The Six Duchies had the huge advantage of the only surviving Skill tradition, that allowed them to mitigate the risks. And even so they nearly lost it - probably the same way that it was lost everywhere else, i.e. attempt to restrict it to fewer and fewer highly privileged people.

Wit crops up in Chalced too, but it very well may have come there through captured Six Duchy people turned into slaves. It seems to exist in the Mountain Kingdom, though, strangely, we never saw a practicing Old Blood from there, even though they shouldn't have been subject to persecution, like in the Six Duchies, and it should have provided them and their families with significant survival advantages.  

 

On 5.8.2016 at 11:27 AM, SeanF said:

The rule of the Farseers overlapped with the heyday of the elderlings (King Wisdom went to treat with them).  I think that some Farseers must have interbred with elderlngs, though, in order to possess the Skill.  And, I don't doubt that some surviving elderlings ended up interbreeding with humans. 

I don't think so. There may have still been a few surviving Elderlings in the abandoned city who told Wisdom how to carve his "dragon" and wake the others, but it was definitely after the apocalypse. His "elderling allies" were clearly the stone dragons themselves and, like Verity, he never returned in human form.

 

On 22.8.2016 at 6:15 PM, Buckwheat said:

I wished to read more about Nettle's youth as well, but I cannot say I was disappointed in the last two books in any way. I like Bee very much as a POV character and hope to see more of her in the last book.

Nettle not being a major character in The Tawny Man trilogy was a huge missed opportunity, IMHO. But done is done. She did develop nicely in this new series so far - she may remain peripheral, but she is actually a character and not merely a tropy plot device like in TTM.

Oh, and speaking of human - dragon relationships, let's not forget Chade's invention of gunpowder! I somehow don't think that humans are going to remain quite as helpless against the dragons as they currently are. IMHO an eventual new balance won't involve dragons lording it over everybody to the same degree as in the past.

Re: Chade - I can't help but think that Rosemary must be after something nefarious, to dissolve Chade's spy networks. Wanting to step back from state assassinations is one thing, but cutting information-gathering is quite another. Sigh. Another potentially interesting character that will remain forever a cipher. Good that Kettricken is picking up the pieces, but how can Dutiful be so stupid?

 

 

[HexMachina]

Quote

From what I understand it was a plan B, since they would have pressed on if the Chalcedeans hadn't been stupid enough to betray them for short-term profit. But Dwalia was still an idiot to try to transport so many people at once. Surely Prilkop and the Fool must have warned the school about the dangers of pillar travel back when they still communicated in good faith. To be fair, I also think that she was operating far away from her usual stomping grounds - hence the mistake of engaging Chalcedeans in an attempt to kill 2 birds with one stone and install an anti-dragon ruler there.

I think you are correct that it was plan B. But I don't think she made any error pulling so many into the pillar. I think she knew they would disappear and re-emerge some time later. Remember Clerres has the advantage of prophecy/foresight. I suspect she was aware that if it came to using the pillars, she would need to disappear for a time or risk being caught. And knew that if she took them through the pillars it would be dangerous but they would eventually emerge.

I do wonder how they will fare now. Either Verity-as-Dragon rises up and protects Bee or they are stuck uncomfortably close to Kelsingra with no supplies and the only real choice to use the pillar again.

 

I'm aware that at least one person on this board had an ARC and has finished it, which makes me massively jealous and eager to pester them  but I won't...

[Maia]

12 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

 Remember Clerres has the advantage of prophecy/foresight. I suspect she was aware that if it came to using the pillars, she would need to disappear for a time or risk being caught. And knew that if she took them through the pillars it would be dangerous but they would eventually emerge.

They didn't foresee the Chalcedeans turning on them, did they? They may know the highly metaphorical prophecies  but they don't have the talent to recognize a proper turning point in real time, like a real prophet does. They have to interpret and while they are good at it, it is not a 100% thing. Not that a proper White Prophet can't make wrong choices, I suspect, but they have more to go on.

 

12 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

 

I'm aware that at least one person on this board had an ARC and has finished it, which makes me massively jealous and eager to pester them  but I won't...

Well, apparently there was a sample chapter of FA in one of mass market paperback editions and somebody posted it  here:

http://xupz.tumblr.com/post/146564828968/assassins-fate-preview

Spoilers, obviously, but I devoured it. Seems to be the very first chapter, though there might be a prologue preceding it or something.

[RedEyedGhost]

None of the spoiler codes in this thread work, so I'm not going to bother.

On 8/15/2015 at 0:49 PM, HelenaExMachina said:

On 8/15/2015 at 11:18 AM, Kelli Fury said:

A pregnancy that lasts two years and and results in a colorless person who is an infant for years is pretty obvious. I can even buy him not getting it for awhile, but Kettricken saw her too and he saw her at the same time as the Fools messenger without being like oh, these things are strikingly similar. He's supposed to be trained to be observant and shit, I just don't buy it passing his notice FOR NINE YEARS

Fitz mentions that he is very good at lying to himself, so I suppose you could argue that he did know, or suspect, but couldn't admit it to himself.

I was hung up on that all throughout the first book, but Bee is not colorless like the Fool was in the first trilogy.  While she was repeatedly described as pale relative to Fitz and Molly, she has (had?) blue eyes and pale, but not white, hair.

On 8/16/2015 at 1:43 AM, emberling said:

Another thing in that department I thought was weird was - by my vague recollection, Bee's pov at the end of Fool's Assassin had her identifying as a boy, didn't it? I remember being shocked by how immediately she took on the Son persona they ascribed to her, and I interpreted it as representing something like Amber, another persona for her that Dwalia knew about from the prophecies, one that maybe somehow had obedience to the Whites encoded in it. But what we learn about Vindeliar's powers doesn't square with any of what I remember of that scene. I wish I had the book to compare it ... there's definitely no indication of Bee identifying as anything other than a girl in this book; practically every time she is referred to as a boy she mentally comments on it being wrong.

That was just Vindeliar projecting his expectations on her when they touched and she couldn't block him.

 

On 8/18/2015 at 4:53 PM, HelenaExMachina said:

In the excerpt of Bee's dream journal at the beginning of the final chapter, she has dreamed of being lost in the Skill current when Verity-as-Dragon speaks to her and says he will protect her as Fitz protected his 'Cubs'. Wolf father also tells Bee to run to one who can help her "if we can wake him." I thought that was a pretty clear implication of where she was fleeing to. Only question now is whether she can wake him. (I'm going to assume yes, because the idea of Verity as Dragon rampaging and killing/driving insane Dwalia and the other Servants is too wonderful to pass up.

I'll be so upset if Verity-as-Dragon isn't woken up.  

 

On 8/20/2015 at 0:03 PM, AshOrSpark said:

I think the bear will get kill most of them.  I'm not sure that Verity will come alive, although it would be great if he did.  Maybe Verity-as-Dragon will find another way to help Bee.  If he does come alive though, it'll be interesting to see how the Kelisingra dragons will react to him.  I do hope that Bee and Fitz will meet soon and then go the journey together.  I think that Dwalia may end up going with Fitz's group.  As well as Vindeliar.  Now Fitz with his new found power and VIndeliar will be an interesting meeting. Dwalia and the Fool will be an interesting meeting too.

This is the main reason I want him to be revived.

 

On 8/24/2015 at 1:27 PM, Sparrow spoiler said:

I look at it like when we first met Malta in "liveship". She was just awful. I could not stand her. Shun was a lot like that to me in the first book. Hated her and loved when fitz put her in her place. I wonder now if he would have done the same thing if he knew it was Chade's Daughter.

To quote The Fool:  "Possibly the most annoying young female I've ever encountered.  Yet lovely. I named a horse after her. Do you remember?"

 

On 8/24/2015 at 3:41 PM, AshOrSpark said:

There is a difference between Malta and Shun as well though - age.  You can forgive that kind of attitude from Malta because she is still a child but Shun is much older.

Is it me or does anyone else think that Shun and Lant did more than talk the night Fitz took the Fool back to Buckkeep?  Both Lant and Shun are in utter shock.

They might be different ages, but they have about the same maturity level. Shine's grandparents, and the her mother/stepfather never encouraged her to develop.

And yeah, they did it.

 

On 8/26/2015 at 6:23 AM, HelenaExMachina said:

the dragon touched one that Arbuc sensed is (or so I thought anyway)presumably The Fool from drinking the Dragon Blood. Which, if it comes to light, will presumably result in a lot of problems due to the who dragon products taboo.
Regarding the Skill, I was speaking to another boarder about this and I was trying to work out whether Wintrow at the start of the Liveships Trilogy (where he is creating the stained glass window with the Priests of Sa) was using some version of the Skill. If so, it would suggest that there is a remnant of the Skill in Bingtown, Jamailia and the Rain Wilds. In fact, Fitz says that all people have some connection to the Skill, to a great or lesser extent, but not everyone is able to utilise their ability. I imagine that a lack of the knowledge which the Six Duchies have on the Skill means that even those who have the Skill to a greater degree among the Southern societies cannot utilise it because they do not know what it is or understand how it can be used. Remember that at the end of the Tawny Man, the "Skill call" was sent out and many people came to Buckkeep to learn. This contrasts with Farseer where it was thought Kettle was the last skill user outside the royal family. Perhaps if something similar were done in Bingtown similar results would be had?
I suspect this will eventually be used by King Dutiful as leverage in the negotiations with Kelsingra regarding trading of Elderling artefacts and attempts to control the dragons. E.g. We will send you a skill coterie and skill master/mistress to teach anyone of your people with the ability to Skill. We will also help to heal your children and fix your physical deformities. If you will help us. [/spoiler]

I'm pretty sure the dragon-touched that Arbuc smelled was Fitz, because he said, "chosen by a dragon we have long believed dead, and the only known dead dragons have been consumed by the living dragons. Chade did believe that the dragon blood he had acquired had come from a dead dragon, maybe the were incomplete in their feeding...  I'm also baffled as to why The Fool is still as healthy as he is, I guess the easy explanation is his link to Fitz.  Yet Fitz performed no healing on him after he consumed the blood...

 

On 8/26/2015 at 6:41 AM, HelenaExMachina said:

Dragons drink the Skill, it is sort of very important for their development. The Rain Wilds Dragons, due to the lengthy time they spent as serpents (they are the same serpents from the Liveships btw. One of them is Maulkin) are deformed and not properly developed. To cut a long story short drinking the Skill from the well in Kelsingra (which the Fool seeks out) eventually helps them begin to develop properly. I might be misremembering but I think they are still slightly weaker than standard dragons like IceFyre and Tintaglia. Which is why their blood has streaks of silver/skill running through it (the dragons refer to this Skill well as "Silver". They don't skill, exactly, but they need the Skill to survive I guess. It's a bit complicated and hard to explain. Although, now I think on it i suppose it is possible that the dragon glamour is a form of Skill manipulation. The dragons "guide" the changes of their Elderlings too, deciding how they should change and directing them. It isn't quite clear how they do this though. However, as per usual, the dragons are arrogant and ignorant, so the changes they give to the Elderlings are not always practical, and are often dangerous/damaging. One dragon in particular, who is the most arrogant and self-centred of the lot of them, gives her Keeper wings just so she looks more startling and impressive than all of the other, without considering the pain and impracticality of this change.

Dragons' magic is definitely the Skill, and likely also the Wit.  As both of Fitz's abilities are triggered when they speak.

Tintaglia was shocked when she arrived at Kelsingra for the first time and saw that they were "real" dragons, and as somebody else mentioned Icefyre was defeated in a mating battle by one of the new gen.

 

On 8/30/2015 at 1:38 AM, Warg Arry said:

Perhaps then, reconnecting with Nighteyes. Though I'm trying to remember at what point Fitz tried to search himself for anything left of Nighteyes and couldn't find/feel anything. If that was before or after the wolf dreams. 

I think the last time Fitz had a feeling of contact with Nighteyes was when Bee was being abducted.  Afterwards, I only recall him speaking to her.

 

One moment I liked that I haven't seen mentioned (I've only read through page 7 of this thread so far) was when Chade unlocked Shine's Skill.  

[Maia]

3 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I was hung up on that all throughout the first book, but Bee is not colorless like the Fool was in the first trilogy.  While she was repeatedly described as pale relative to Fitz and Molly, she has (had?) blue eyes and pale, but not white, hair.

Yes, I have gone back and looked at Bee's descriptions in AF and FQ and her hair prior to her abduction was described as "wheat-colored" and "golden". Her eyes were the same blue as Kettricken's. Coloring-wise she looked like a normal Farrow (as Shun cattily pointed out) or Mountain child, it is just that Buck population is almost uniformly dark-haired and eyed with swarthy skin. And there is more - unlike the Fool and other "White" people whom he encountered in these 2 books,  Fitz could both strongly sense her with his Wit and scent her. Not to mention that Riddle, a trained observer, saw the dying  messenger while Bee was in the same room and didn't catch the resemblance either.

 

3 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

To quote The Fool:  "Possibly the most annoying young female I've ever encountered.  Yet lovely. I named a horse after her. Do you remember?"

She was a very entertaining character with a great character arc. I somehow don't see Shun/Shine getting the same, and, of course, she is at least 5 years older than Malta was at her first introduction (12). Also, after escaping her step-father, wasn't Shun with people who tried to train her for a couple of years or so? 

 

3 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I'm pretty sure the dragon-touched that Arbuc smelled was Fitz, because he said, "chosen by a dragon we have long believed dead, and the only known dead dragons have been consumed by the living dragons.

Not quite. One of the people who butchered Gresok before the young dragons left Cassarick in Rain Wild Chronicles managed to escape and might have managed to snag a bit of blood in the process. However, I personally think that the Others are keeping a captive dragon and that's where the blood that healed the Fool came from.

 

3 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

 I'm also baffled as to why The Fool is still as healthy as he is, I guess the easy explanation is his link to Fitz.  Yet Fitz performed no healing on him after he consumed the blood...

Didn't the Chalcedeans have records of healing via dragon parts? And didn't consumption of Elderling flesh and blood provide short-term  healing for the old Duke? Even though Selden's own developement wasn't going quite right due to Tintaglia's negligence? How this jives with negative effects on the Rain Wilders and unguided Elderling children is unclear. Maybe the healing is a strictly short-term effect, maybe there is something more to it. And yea, bond to Fitz is probably affecting the things as well.

OTOH, I also can't help but think that the Whites have a lot of odd similarities to serpents/dragons and wonder if everything that we have heard about their origins so far isn't Servant fabrication.

I wonder as well how the slug-like, bloodless creatures without internal skeletons such as the Others (per Liveship Traders description) could possibly be the result of mingling of human and dragon characteristics? I mean, there is nothing human about them. IMHO, dragons' prejudice blinded them to the truth about this matter.  

 

3 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

Dragons' magic is definitely the Skill, and likely also the Wit.  As both of Fitz's abilities are triggered when they speak.

Yes, it seems to be a a mixture of the 2, however they appear to use it in different and more limited ways than humans. It also seems to me that the same was true of the  Elderlings and that the Skill and Wit split is a post-Elderling development. The Six Duchies Skill users may, in fact, be more proficient than the Elderlings of old. There are also people with other minor magical abilities - charm-makers, scryers and such. We now know that the Elderlings used liquid Skill/dragon silver to produce their magics, but Six Duchies practitioners do without it.

Maybe that's why the Servants are so determined to destroy the Six Duchies - because it has a potential to develop into a new magical civilization, one that may be superior to the Elderling one,  since they wouldn't be dependant on dragons and sources of liquid Skill?

What is even more perplexing and intriguing, though, is that the Wit appears to be completely unknown outside the Six Duchies and possibly Mountain Kingdom and Chalced. Unlike the Skill, it is not an ability that could be eradicated due to loss of training tradition and knowledge. We have seen that it just pops up in people, and if they spend enough time around animals, they start to instinctively use it. What is more, there are many, many places where having it would provide a significant survival advantage. And yet it doesn't seem to exist anywhere else.       

 

 

[RedEyedGhost]

6 hours ago, Maia said:

She was a very entertaining character with a great character arc. I somehow don't see Shun/Shine getting the same, and, of course, she is at least 5 years older than Malta was at her first introduction (12). Also, after escaping her step-father, wasn't Shun with people who tried to train her for a couple of years or so? 

I enjoyed Shun's arc, and was surprised to see her get such a bad rap in this thread.  Sure people tried to change her, but they weren't family, so I doubt she had any respect for them (like she had none for Tom Badgerlock).  Had Chade told her who he was when he initiated her training, I think it would have gone completely different.  The bad things Chade said about her (vain, ignorant, etc) are all his fault. 

 

6 hours ago, Maia said:

Not quite. One of the people who butchered Gresok before the young dragons left Cassarick in Rain Wild Chronicles managed to escape and might have managed to snag a bit of blood in the process. However, I personally think that the Others are keeping a captive dragon and that's where the blood that healed the Fool came from.

I thought the dragons got all of them, but I just reread that passage and all we actually know is that Sintara smelled human blood on Kalo and Ranculos when they returned from devouring Gresok's remains (maybe in another passage we learn that only one escaped?). 

You're going to have to give more info about that theory.  Wouldn't Tintaglia and Kalo (and Icefyre?) have sensed a captive dragon when they went there for her to bury her eggs??

 

6 hours ago, Maia said:

Didn't the Chalcedeans have records of healing via dragon parts? And didn't consumption of Elderling flesh and blood provide short-term  healing for the old Duke? Even though Selden's own development wasn't going quite right due to Tintaglia's negligence? How this jives with negative effects on the Rain Wilders and unguided Elderling children is unclear. Maybe the healing is a strictly short-term effect, maybe there is something more to it. And yea, bond to Fitz is probably affecting the things as well.

OTOH, I also can't help but think that the Whites have a lot of odd similarities to serpents/dragons and wonder if everything that we have heard about their origins so far isn't Servant fabrication.

I wonder as well how the slug-like, bloodless creatures without internal skeletons such as the Others (per Liveship Traders description) could possibly be the result of mingling of human and dragon characteristics? I mean, there is nothing human about them. IMHO, dragons' prejudice blinded them to the truth about this matter.

Yes, but those documents, have very little to ensure their veracity and authenticity.  Eating Selden's flesh did provide renewed vitality for the Duke (much to Ellick's dismay), and I think it's from a small amount of Skill infused into his body by Tintaglia's shaping of him. That  would jive with the consumption of dragon flesh, and with why dragon flesh is more potent.

I'm interested in seeing how Fitz's healings compare to the dragons' shaping.  I think his will actually have a more permanent effect because each time he did it he mentally noted how right the changes he made felt, whereas the dragons are shaping for their own vanity.  But I do think the younger children will need closer monitoring as their bodies are still going through natural changes.

In The Rain Wild Chronicles it was noted that if someone consumes dragon blood and is not shaped by that dragon, then they would die.  Evidenced by none of the Rain Wild dragons being able to save Phron, Tintaglia's mark was too strong on him.  I love that Fitz was then able to heal him, and that makes me wonder if a trained Skill user can potentially be stronger than a dragon?  Especially when they are close to raw Silver - I think that's why Fitz is so strong in Kelsingra not because he's leveled up significantly.

It wouldn't surprise me if everything we know about the Whites and Servants is a lie.  Can't wait to find out!

I would love to learn more about the abominations.  It does seem that they are created by dragons being in close contact with humans - at least from the ancestral memories of Tintaglia and Icefyre dragons that lived in like that were more likely to spawn abominations.  I wonder if they went on a feeding frenzy when the arrived at Other's Island to lay her eggs?  There could be very few left.

 

7 hours ago, Maia said:

Maybe that's why the Servants are so determined to destroy the Six Duchies - because it has a potential to develop into a new magical civilization, one that may be superior to the Elderling one,  since they wouldn't be dependant on dragons and sources of liquid Skill?

That's definitely a possibility.  Fitz and Dutiful have both, and they also appear to be stronger in it than other individuals. 

I'm really curious about the "larger beings" when they're accessing the Skill.  The more I think about it, the more I think they are the coteries in the stone dragons and not actual dragons' consciousnesses.  My thinking for that is how important it is for dragons to consume dead dragons to retain those memories... maybe they're the dragons that couldn't be consumed after the cataclysm?  I don't know.  That healing scene at the end of the book really changed my thoughts on how powerful the dragons actually are magically (they're still massive flying animals that can spew clouds of death). 

 

7 hours ago, Maia said:

What is even more perplexing and intriguing, though, is that the Wit appears to be completely unknown outside the Six Duchies and possibly Mountain Kingdom and Chalced. Unlike the Skill, it is not an ability that could be eradicated due to loss of training tradition and knowledge. We have seen that it just pops up in people, and if they spend enough time around animals, they start to instinctively use it. What is more, there are many, many places where having it would provide a significant survival advantage. And yet it doesn't seem to exist anywhere else.       

I would love to get more insight to this and why the Six Duchies is that epicenter, but I don't think it's going to happen (I haven't read the next book's synopsis, as I want to go into it blind).

 

It's been so long since I've read the first three trilogies... I was surprised when I looked at the Realm of the Elderlings wiki, and there's only seven Farseer kings listed.  How long does a typical monarch reign?  By looking at England, 40-60 years.  So average that to 50, that gives us 350 years.  Verity's reign was extremely short, Dutiful's will likely make up for it, but it hasn't yet.  Maybe they've only been around for about three hundred years?  How long ago was the Cataclysm?  The Rain Wild Traders rediscovered the ruins "centuries" after it?  How long ago was that?  A century?  So 300-500 years for the Cataclysm?  How did the serpents and abominations live that long?  That seems crazy to me.  Because of the way those time scales fit, I'm likely the idea that Taker is either Tellator (more likely) or his son (less).  Hell, it could even be that after they fled the Cataclysm an Elderling with a strong healing ability reshaped the survivors to look more human.  I would like to know more about the Elderling art that used to hang in Buckkeep castle, but can't find anything on the wiki.

I'm also really interested in why Bee shed her color, and the coincidence with that timing and the Fool's consumption of the dragon blood.

I feel like there was something else I wanted to say, but have probably rambled on long enough.

[Maia]

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

 The bad things Chade said about her (vain, ignorant, etc) are all his fault. 

Difficult to determine nature versus nurture ratio there. And Shun seemed quite taken with the idea of protecting the queen, etc. which the people who tried to train her offered as a goal. Sure, Chade screwed up, no question about it. And you'd think that he, of all people, would know how to avoid siring unwanted children.

This is one feature of the Realm of the Elderlings that annoys me more and more and makes  zero sense - that no heterosexual people seem to be aware of sexual practices that don't risk pregnancy. And the one reliable contraception method that existed - the wizardwood charms, are now a fixed and finite resource. I mean, you'd  think that somebody who routinely uses Skill to maintain his body would figure out how to use it to prevent conception as well.

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. 

 

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

 Sintara smelled human blood on Kalo and Ranculos when they returned from devouring Gresok's remains (maybe in another passage we learn that only one escaped?).

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

 

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

 You're going to have to give more info about that theory.  Wouldn't Tintaglia and Kalo (and Icefyre?) have sensed a captive dragon when they went there for her to bury her eggs??

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.

 

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I'm interested in seeing how Fitz's healings compare to the dragons' shaping.

Ditto. Like you I believe that his healing is superior to the dragons', though I wonder whether his ability to help Elderlings/dragon marked people is also partly due to his Wit. We know that some pure Skill users can heal other humans, but I am not sure that they could direct development of what is essentially hybrids. We'll see, I guess.

OTOH, there is no question that human Skill users appear superior to dragons in communication range and reliability, as well as ability to heal themselves and others. 

 

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

In The Rain Wild Chronicles it was noted that if someone consumes dragon blood and is not shaped by that dragon, then they would die. 

 

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.

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 herdragon'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...

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.

As to healing via consumption of dragon parts  - well, we only know what's in the text. Chalcedeans had records of it, the Duke experienced positive effects from eating an Elderling and the Fool was brought back from his death bed via dragon blood. How this computes with the Khuprus situation and what the Keepers experienced is difficult to say. Maybe everything will be explained in Assassin's Fate!

 

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

 Especially when they are close to raw Silver - I think that's why Fitz is so strong in Kelsingra not because he's leveled up significantly.

 Likely. But I imagine that his stint in the Stones with Chade and Fool's gradual transformation via dragon blood could have played a role as well.

 

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

  It does seem that they are created by dragons being in close contact with humans - at least from the ancestral memories of Tintaglia and Icefyre dragons that lived in like that were more likely to spawn abominations. 

From Tintaglia's and IIRC Sintara's ancestral memories the dragons believe that, but they don't actually know for sure.

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be a prejudice rooted in dragon arrogance and general jerkiness. And the fact that the Others are more unlike humans than dragons are (they, at least have blood, lower limbs and skeletons!) would kinda undermine the notion that it is the influx of human characteristics that is responsible.

 

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I'm really curious about the "larger beings" when they're accessing the Skill.  The more I think about it, the more I think they are the coteries in the stone dragons and not actual dragons' consciousnesses.

 

 That's my belief as well. Honestly, the dragons we have met so far just aren't evolved enough to be such exalted enities. And Fitz has been told by them in Tawny Man trilogy that he was "unfinished" and needed to grow yet before he could join them.

 

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

It's been so long since I've read the first three trilogies... I was surprised when I looked at the Realm of the Elderlings wiki, and there's only seven Farseer kings listed.

This wiki is useless. 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.

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 have always thought that there had to be at least 5 centuries between the Cataclysm and time of the novels, since the world was so thoroughly re-shaped in that time, with completely new, acid-resistant  flora and fauna taking over the Rain Wilds, etc.

I don't think that Tellator was Taker, though Taker may have been one of the last Elderlings from Aslevjal(?).  Queen Adamant may have been an Elderling as well.

 

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I'm also really interested in why Bee shed her color, and the coincidence with that timing and the Fool's consumption of the dragon blood.

Indeed.

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I feel like there was something else I wanted to say, but have probably rambled on long enough.

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 prompty, but be sure that I am reading everything and mulling on my replies!

[Gertrude]

2 hours ago, Maia said:

Difficult to determine nature versus nurture ratio there. And Shun seemed quite taken with the idea of protecting the queen, etc. which the people who tried to train her offered as a goal. Sure, Chade screwed up, no question about it. And you'd think that he, of all people, would know how to avoid siring unwanted children.

This is one feature of the Realm of the Elderlings that annoys me more and more and makes  zero sense - that no heterosexual people seem to be aware of sexual practices that don't risk pregnancy. And the one reliable contraception method that existed - the wizardwood charms, are now a fixed and finite resource. I mean, you'd  think that somebody who routinely uses Skill to maintain his body would figure out how to use it to prevent conception as well.

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.