In case you were worried we’d left all the serpent suffering behind in Liveship Traders, The Fool drops a quick update for us on how things went post-cocooning:

“Stunted,” he said sadly. “They emerge in the late spring, weak and thin, like kittens born too soon.”

I have questions about the cocoon care program down in the Rain Wilds. Tintaglia’s cocoon just chilled underground for years on end and she popped out fit as a fiddle. These guys couldn’t have been kept in the shade a tad longer?

I really enjoyed learning about Fitz’s adventures since we left him at the end of Assassin’s Quest. Among the highlights: “Fitz finds himself in the mountains.” “Fitz gets yet another abusive teacher while living among the Witted folk.”(Someone start up Rate My Professors: Six Duchies, stat. Yeesh.) And “Fitz tries to worm his way into the Liveship trilogy with a little sojourn to the south.” This was wild shit. Just imagining him mucking along the pirate-infested swampy coast on foot? Definitely getting him an REI gift card for Springfest next year.

There is so much beautiful reflection and metacommentary in these chapters. As Fitz and The Fool grapple with their purpose in the world and the path forward, The Fool declares:

“Look at you. Not the hero, no. The Changer. The one who, by his existence, enables others to be heroes.”

(Side note: The Changer > Tom Badgerlock.)

Fitz’s heroism is rooted in his relentless drive to do what’s right for the greater good. Time and again, he chooses principle over personal desire. It’s often painful – I find myself begging him to choose himself – but that’s not Fitz. We see this in the story of how he sought out Molly, Burrich, and the kids. He makes it to their home, sees them from a distance, and turns away rather than disrupt their happiness by revealing himself.

He tells us as much himself:

“I don’t need to be a hero, Fool. I’d settle for feeling that what I did every day had significance to someone beside myself.”

You matter to me, selfless king!

Speaking of metacommentary, after Fitz explains some aspect of the Wit, he asks The Fool if he understands, and The Fool replies:

“Not completely. But enough to take your meaning.”

And I think that pretty much sums up me as a reader.

I am finding myself increasingly fascinated by the different magics in this world, and especially the contrast between the Skill and the Wit. The Skill is primarily human-to-human and thus, easily corrupted. The Wit, meanwhile, feels more like a communion with all living things. In one of my favorite pieces of writing in the Realm to date, we get this stunning description:

“There is a natural euphoria to the Wit. It is both like and unlike the Skill. With the Wit, one is aware of all the life that surrounds one. It was not just the warmth of the mare nearby that I sensed. I knew the scintillant forms of the myriad insects that populated the grasses, and felt the shadowy life force of the great oak that lifted its limbs between the moon and me. Just up the hillside, a rabbit crouched motionless in the summer grasses. I felt its indistinct presence, not as a piece of life located in a certain place, but as one sometimes hears a single voice’s note within a market’s roar. But above all, I felt a physical kinship with all that lived in the world. I had a right to be here. I was as much a part of this summer night as the insects or the water purling past my feet. I think that old magic draws much of its strength from that acknowledgement: that we are a part of that world, no more, but certainly no less than the rabbit.”

This paragraph and a gummy in perpetuity, please.

We get more interesting magic comparisons when Fitz enters Nighteyes’ body to perform some sort of Jedi force healing on his heart. (I will not be further commenting on the Nighteyes choking/heart failure sequence as reading it once was punishment enough). It immediately called to mind the healing capabilities we saw with the liveships.

Hap returns home to find the cottage received the Feyre-mountain-cabin treatment (iykyk) thanks to The Fool’s carving spree. Hap is wondering when Fitz picked up this new skill. Fitz tells him it was an old friend, to which Hap replies, “An old friend? I didn’t think you had any save Starling.” Zing!

Poor Hap. He goes out into the wide world (a few neighboring farms), earnest and hardworking, and gets treated like shit. They may not be blood, but this is definitely Fitz’s boy. But not to despair, “Tom” 🙄 has some secrets up his sleeve. Not only does he have a fancy sword he’s been hiding, his old friends do more than carve porn into the water barrel! I love that good ol’ honest Fitz can’t figure out how to secure a future for Hap until he remembers literally everyone important in the kingdom is forever in his debt. C’mon Fitz, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Time for the usee to be the user, for once.