***Spoilers for the Tawny Man Trilogy through chapter 24 of Golden Fool.***
Ok, friends! With six chapters remaining in Golden Fool, I’m going to break my reactions into two (theoretically) smaller posts to sufficiently cover all that is sure to be thrown at us. Without further ado, let’s get into the Golden Fool finale, part one:
We have some important things happening in these chapters; namely, Dutiful learns Fitz’s true identity and (almost) all that entails, and we are given some major White Prophet/Catalyst lore courtesy of the Fool. I’m not sure that dissecting lore is my area of expertise (if you’ve been following along, you know my expertise lies in naval strategy and mating strategy), but I’ll do my best 🫡.
The Fool catches wind of Elliania’s back tats (twinsies!), which sets off a big trauma dump to Fitz. He gives Fitz a handy refresher on the functions of White Prophets and Catalysts across time (much appreciated by this blogger) and adds a little more color to their particular turn in the roles. Some of this we already sort of knew or inferred by this point, but here we get things laid out more explicitly, with a clearer picture of where things are heading.
The main beats: we have dueling White Prophets, and the Fool’s foe, the Pale Lady, is responsible for both the Fool and Elliania’s tattoos (though we don’t yet know their purpose). The Fool claims the Pale Lady wants to destroy the world, and the only way for her to do so is for Fitz to die (naturally). For the world to continue as it is, Fitz must free the mythical dragon Icefyre (sick name!) and succeed in restoring the dragons to the skies, though the Fool thinks this outcome is near-impossible (perfect). And – bonus prophecy! – if they are successful, the Fool will die on their upcoming jaunt to free Icefyre from the glacier.
Fitz raises his hand to note that it seems like a lot of effort just to keep the status quo. (Valid point when the current version of the world involves your near-death every 4-6 months, plus living in a closet while pretending to be a servant). The Fool handwaves him off, basically saying, “oh, yes it’s a beautiful world we live in indeed; people falling in love, wolves frolicking about, dragons flying in the skies.” Again, Fitz is confused:
“Dragons. That sounds different.”
But the Fool lets him know:
“The skies of this world were always meant to have dragons.” … Fitz: “I thought we had to save the world. What has that got to do with dragons?” The Fool: “It’s all connected.”
As mentioned, our other major update this section is Prince Dutiful learning Fitz’s true identity. And so, the spread of knowledge around Fitz’s Fitziness has begun. As the saying goes: three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. And with every link we add to this circle of trust, the chain weakens.
The princeling is not just aware, he is in awe (welcome to the club, we have pins). I loved how Dutiful’s fanboying puffed Fitz up with pride. I mean, what could be better than the highly sought approval of a teenager? (Asked with zero sarcasm.) We get some really touching lines. From Dutiful:
“Do you know what it means when she names you Sacrifice like that? Do you know how my mother thinks of you?” … “When she names you Sacrifice, it means that she thinks of you as the rightful King of the Six Duchies.”
And from Fitz:
“I sat a time in silence, uncomfortable and yet basking in his regard. How strange to be loved simply for who I was.”
Overall, Daddy Fitz has a pretty good run here. It’s not just Dutiful fawning over him; Fitz and Hap repair their relationship as well. After Svanja tramples Hap’s heart when her sailor boyfriend returns to port, Hap refocuses on his apprenticeship and admits Fitz was right all along. A predictable tough outcome for Hap, but there are some lessons one can only learn through experience.
Dutiful is to Fitz as I am to Robin Hobb (shoutout SATs): once again, she amazes me. Her ability to portray the most relatable human situations against a fantastical backdrop is unmatched. I would heat her soup and make her a cup of tea any day.
Musings on all the rest:
There are so many great details in our lore dump. My favorite was when the Fool tells Fitz:
“We must free the black dragon trapped beneath the ice so he can rise, to become Tintaglia’s consort. So that they can mate and there can be real dragons in the world again.”
Dragon matchmaking!!
Thick and Dutiful! I LOVE their burgeoning relationship. That’s all.
I normally don’t comment on the chapter preambles. Of course I read and enjoy them, but there’s already enough in the main text to sift through and untangle. But I’m making an exception here, as two things stood out to me:
A) The prelude of Chapter 23, where the Fool dumps his death-predicting prophecy on Fitz, focuses on the unethical practice of Witted ones transferring their consciousness into their Wit-partner to extend life. While I don’t believe the Fool’s death will see him transferring into an animal via the Wit, it did make me wonder if this could allude to some sort of conscious-transfer/metamorphosis that will occur. The Fool is already our resident shapeshifter of sorts, having transformed previously. Perhaps we are destined for a symbolic death of this version of the Fool? Or maybe I’m just making connections where none exist. Time will tell!
B) Another pre-chapter excerpt casts strong doubt on the veracity of White Prophets in general. This was the first time I considered the Fool could be completely full of shit. A random priest fellow writes:
“Any thinking man can see that, as there is no way to compare what has happened to what might have happened, White Prophets can always claim to have bettered the world.”
And further:
“…such self-deluded fanatics are actually suffering from a rare disorder that drains all pigment from their flesh, at the same time inducing hallucinations of prophetic dreams sent by gods.”
Of course, we have witnessed the Fool’s magic firsthand, but still…
Justice for Lady Patience! Getting a Patience update from Dutiful was a delight! I love that he spent time paging for her, where she taught him basic life skills- you should see him crochet! (Patience is the best). Less fun: hearing how she considered Fitz a son, even referring to herself as his mother. For those keeping track, that’s now two parental figures left falsely mourning Fitz’s death.
We also get the incredible nugget of the origin of Fitz’s pseudonym, Tom. Long story short: Fitz chose it because it’s what Patience decided to call him in lieu of Fitz when he was a boy. Turns out, this came from Chivalry and Verity’s code they used to write about him, referring to him as the “Tom-cat Burrich had adopted,” which shortened to just Tom…
“Tom. And Patience had, I thought, so carelessly hung that name on me. And I had kept it and little known its history.”
Chivalry’s absence looms so large throughout the story that it’s always interesting to get a morsel of info about Fitz’s father.
Dutiful to Fitz:
“You sitting there and me knowing who and what you are… it is as if my father has walked into my life for the first time.”
How long are we going to drag the carcass of the Jinna-Fitz relationship? Eda and El, it’s time for everyone to move on. I was glad Fitz had a friend (and positively delighted he got some action), but it seems like this has finally run its course. Then again, I’ve said that at least twice before, so you never really know. When Tom visits after recovering enough to leave the castle, Jinna reveals that she doesn’t exactly like Fitz including his Wit, but more despite his Wit, which is irredeemable to Fitz.
If you like the wolf in the sheets, you need to accept him in the streets, Jinna!
Speaking of fraught relationships: Fitz and the Fool.
Things open frostier than ever. The Fool brushes off Fitz’s Treasure Beach feathers reveal. Fitz fears their bond has been irreparably broken:
“Perhaps he could not be the Fool again, any more than I could go back to being Burrich’s stable boy. Perhaps our relationship had changed too profoundly for us to relate as Fitz and the Fool. Perhaps Tom Badgerlock and Lord Golden were all that was left to us.”
The rift widens when Fitz is pulled from Lord Golden’s employ to serve in the Queen’s Guard. (I did enjoy Fitz getting a promotion – movin’ on up!)
Things seem to be moving in a direction of reconciliation when the Fool vulnerably shares his tattoos and the hot prophecy talk, which included predicting both their imminent deaths. I loved this little exchange:
The Fool: “I can’t go through another one of your deaths. I can’t.” Fitz: “You can’t?”
But we shall see how things go moving forward. Fitz promptly tattles everything to Chade (because he always has the most objective takes 🙄). Chade’s solution to the conflict (Fool’s mission to free the dragon vs. Dutiful’s mission to slay it, plus the Fool’s prophesied death) is simple: do what’s best for the Farseers and leave the Fool at home.
Farseer agenda > Realm agenda.
I love when we hit inflection points in the story, a visceral changing of the seasons. I felt one earlier in Golden Fool as Fitz settled back into life at Buckkeep. Another arrives here, with Fitz himself noting:
“Things had changed. All my roles had shifted, not just with Prince Dutiful and Jinna and Lord Golden. Even Chade saw me differently.”
I suppose death will do that.
I didn’t touch last time* on Fitz’s Skill-healed face and the reapplied scars. But I was very amused with him claiming to Jinna he’s dyeing his hair out of vanity, to cover up his missing signature white streak “badgerlock.” Fitz, be serious.
*It may be hard to believe, but I actually make an effort to keep these reasonably-lengthed and things end up on the cutting room floor. I could type for days, this text is so rich.
There’s a small side-plot of plans being made for a contingent of Old Blood to meet with Queen Kettricken. I would just like to mark my strong suspicions here. Something fishy going on…
Did you think you were getting out of here without me griping about Chade? Think again. As Chade is being a menace at SkillU, Fitz notes:
“My kindly and patient teacher*, I discovered, was a terrible student, headstrong and insubordinate.”
Shocking.
*Are we talking about the same Chade?
(Also, his reckless abandon with the Skill – could’ve just let him unravel – continues to grind my gears. You’re an old man, get a grip! And beckoning Nettle to Buckkeep was nasty work.)
Hope you enjoyed this “shorter” post 🙃.
Only three chapters + an epilogue remain. Plenty of time for Lady Rosemary to dip into her old bag of tricks, grease some secret passageway steps, and take care of a Chade-shaped problem for me!
wizardwordship 