***Spoilers for the Tawny Man Trilogy through chapter 21 of Fool’s Fate.***
Holy shit. Is this the peak of modern literature? I know we have a ways to go, folks, but this section of chapters blew my fucking mind.
Up until now, events on our dragon-slaying journey had been unfolding fairly mundanely. Something had to give. And that thing – as I so deftly predicted – was the ice. And once it broke, everything went nuts. The tonal shift that accompanied Fitz and the Fool’s fall from the glacier’s surface into the hidden world beneath was magnificent. Suddenly, we were in a horror story, and I was on the edge of my seat.
I know I am constantly glazing my lord and savior Robin Hobb and her mastery, but the culmination of storylines in this section was on another level.
So what all went down? (You know, aside from Fitz and the Fool, literally going down.)
When the guards sent on a supply run fail to return, Fitz – accompanied by the Fool and Thick – is sent to investigate. Listen, when you want a job done, you send Fitz. It doesn’t always look pretty, but the man finds a way.
After perhaps some chicanery with the trail markings, the Fool comes across a thin spot in the ice. It looks like they might be able to reroute, but Fitz and the Fool first sink partially into the snow before the ground gives way entirely, plunging them deep into the glacier. The fall by itself is nightmare fuel, made even worse by Fitz’s frantic worry for Thick, left alone on the surface.
And so begins a whole new ballgame for Fitz and the Fool. They land in a dark, freezing system of ice caves, and the situation is bleak. Once again, Hobb manages to fuse the reader’s experience with that of her characters: this new setting is so eerie and disorienting, you feel like you are stumbling through it with Fitz and the Fool. All of Hobb’s settings come alive, but this was perhaps the most evocative yet.
And the terror only builds. At first, the isolation and sense of being lost is frightening enough. But then signs of humanity appear – which should inspire hope, but instead make the atmosphere even more chilling.
“Do you think we should go on?”
“It is the only path,” he said tremulously. “We have to follow it.” He stared and stared at the discarded body. He was shaking again.
“Are you still cold?” I asked. The passages we were in seemed slightly warmer to me than when we had been in darkness. Light seemed to come from within them.
He gave me a ghastly smile. “I’m scared.”
Me. Too.
I can’t claim to be a scholar of the horror genre, and there are probably loads of better comparisons, but there was something Saw-esque about these scenes: the isolation, the despair, and the inescapable sense that you’re just a pawn in some larger, yet-to-be-revealed game.
Cliffhanger endings aren’t usually a staple of the Realm of the Elderlings, but when Robin chooses to end on a suspenseful note, she delivers:
“…’Don’t touch it, Fitz. Come on. We have to hurry.’ And we did, for a time. Until we came to the first dungeon.”
Another exceptional sentence to head off to dreamland on.
From here, we learn the dungeons are filled with Forged folk (eek!) and Fitz and the Fool stumble forward in increasingly rough shape, until they finally come across their first glimpse of Icefyre, trapped beneath the ice as promised.
I will certainly come back to Icefyre and the Fitz-Fool dynamic in a bit, but first I want to get to the arrival of the Pale Woman. After glimpses, whispers, and a slow, inevitable pull toward her, she finally steps fully into the story. And she is a nasty piece of work. She positions herself as the true White Prophet, dismissing our beloved Fool as a pretender:
“The Fool, oh, that is such a charming love-name for him.” She smiled, her pale lips arching like an ivory bow. “And so apt, I’m surprised that he lets you call him that.”
(Kind of a sick burn.)
We meet her in her Court of Nightmares throne room (shoutout Rhysand). She’s got Kebal Rawbread chained up and is still trying to infuse her stone dragon with souls via Forging. Somehow, in 15+ years, she hasn’t quite grasped that her technique doesn’t work. Most notably, this is also where Fitz first feels a twinge of his Skill returning.
But the real fireworks happen when she summons Fitz to her bedchamber. She: emerges from her bath fully nude (power move); forces Fitz into his own Pretty Woman pampering montage; wines and dines him; and then propositions him, not just for sex, but to join forces, make a baby, and take over the world.
(Now listen, folks: I haven’t spent two trilogies with Fitz and the Fool just to turncoat for the villain. Your girl is firmly Team Fool (gotta work on the branding). But I’d be lying if I said the Pale Woman didn’t make some pretty compelling arguments. She points out that true White Prophets are marked by their complete lack of pigment, something she embodies, while our Fool has gotten progressively… tawnier. She also argues that maybe not restoring bloodthirsty dragons to the skies may be a preferable path for humanity.)
Of course, we have plenty of evidence of her villainy (see: Forging, ice palace of terror). And she knows exactly how to hit Fitz’s vulnerabilities. She flatters him as a would-be Farseer king and dangles his deepest desire before him:
“‘Our child will be beautiful,’ she assured me as she released me and stood up. ‘You will delight in our son. I promise you this.’
I could feel the truth of her words and they went thrilling through me, like ice and silver in my blood. A child, she would give me a child whom I could hold and cherish. A child who would never be taken from me. She knew all that I most desired and offered it all to me.”
(I know I’m not cut out to be a fantasy hero because my fickle ass would’ve enjoyed the bath, food, and wine, heard one convincing argument from a beautiful naked woman, and jumped ship immediately.)
BUT villains always make a classic blunder. Only slightly less well-known than “never get involved in a land war in Asia”: you can’t seduce the supreme seductress. And as alluring as the Pale Woman may be, when it comes to seduction, our boy Fitz is the apex predator.
Just when it seems he’s falling victim to her temptation, he flips the script. He’s been seeing through her act the whole time. Chade may suck (he’s not even here, but I have to get one shot in), yet his assassin’s lessons definitely pay off. Fitz doesn’t resist her Skill influence head-on, he moves with her force, not against, waiting. And at the last moment, when it looks like he’s giving into her seduction, he slams his Skill-walls into place and lunges for her throat:
“I flung myself on her, as she had expected, but my hands closed on that milky throat as I brought my knee down sharply onto her gently rounded belly. I felt her Skill batter at me along with her fists.”
Hell. Fucking. Yes.
This scene was incredible- Fitz at his absolute best. I was immensely proud of him. (I guess all that practice resisting temptation finally paid off.) Now, was he successful? No. He missed her throat, and her guards reached him before he could inflict any damage. But hey, ya win some, ya lose some 🤷♀️.
Back in the throne room, the Pale Woman has Fitz by the beloved, using the Fool as leverage. If Fitz wants to save him, all he has to do is chop off Icefyre’s head. Easy peasy: kill the dragon, clear the way for Dutiful and Elliania’s happily-ever-after, make Chade happy, and free whatever remains of the gradually-getting-forged Fool. Sounds straightforward to me!
Well, time is ticking, and heaven help anyone standing between Fitz and someone he loves. Get that axe in his hands, stat!
MUSINGS!
At the onset of Tawny Man, I found myself unsure of my feelings around the Fitz-Fool relationship. I liked the Fool fine in Farseer, but I never quite felt the strong connection between him and Fitz. I stated my openness to seeing how things evolved, and thank goodness for that – because the way their dynamic has grown across Tawny Man has been truly chef’s kiss.
I have well documented my love of their growing angst, and ambiguous or not, I absolutely lived for their dynamic in these chapters- the tenderness shining through even in the bleakest despair. Noting the Fool’s chill, Fitz gives him his cloak, and at numerous points when the Fool seems unable to continue, Fitz refuses to let him give up. Chivalry, indeed!
And thus we arrive at the Pale Woman’s second classic blunder: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line never underestimate Fitz’s drive to protect those he loves:
“Yet my glimpse of the Fool, gagged and spread like a trophy hide on one icy wall, roused in me an anger I had not felt since the days when I had battled Red Ship raiders with an axe.”
Chade Death Watch
The moment of truth ever nears. Why do I just know that if he does die, it will be in some ultra-heroic, selfless act that will annoy me to no end even in his demise?
Favorite Exchange
“Life is change,” the Fool observed placidly. “And death is an even greater change. I think we must resign ourselves to change, Fitz.”
“I’m tired of resigning myself to things. My entire life has been one long resignation.”
Things can be the bleakest of the bleak, and Fitz is still gonna Fitz:
“I heaved myself to my feet. The seat of my trousers was wet. Oh, good.”
I love when a character perfectly captures what I’m feeling as a reader. In describing the Fool to Fitz, the Pale Woman says:
“He dances at the edges of your understanding…”
That is exactly what he does! Thank you.
(I’ve probably spent 700 words circling this sensation, and Robin sums it up in a cool eight.)
As I creep closer to the conclusion of my Tawny Man journey, I find myself not wanting it to end. In that, I really related to the Fool in this line:
“‘This is hard,’ he said, but he did not seem to address his words to me. ‘I’m too close to the end.'”
Sigh. This is hard. I want to bask in the glory of these characters and this story forever. But alas, Fitz comes through with a bit of wisdom to propel me forward:
“I smiled. ‘Welcome to human existence. Come. Let’s go see this dragon you came so far to save.’”
Can’t do much better than that. Let’s rejoin our pack and see this dragon indeed!
wizardwordship 