Dreams Do Come True
***Spoilers for The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy through Fool’s Quest. Mentions of the events of The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Traders Trilogy, The Tawny Man Trilogy, and The Rain Wilds Chronicles are fair game, too.***
Whew! Trying my best not to think about the fact that there’s only one book left and instead enjoy what we still have before it’s gone. On the bright side, with a story this rich, I know there is so much more discovery and joy waiting for me down the line.
Look for me back here in ten years with “Re-reactions to the Realm.” (Hopefully you don’t find me washed up on a beach with children throwing rocks at me.)
But let’s not get weepy and nostalgic just yet. (I have a feeling Assassin’s Fate is going to be a bumpy emotional ride for me both in the pages and on this blog.) We have a job to do, and that’s to break down the end of Fool’s Quest.
I found it very appropriate that last post I went deep on Fitz’s identities and what lies at the core of his character. Because when we open here with the failed attempt to follow Bee through the Skill-pillar – resulting in no trace of her or her kidnappers – it’s presumed by all that she has been lost to the Skill-stream for good.
And with that, Fitz completely lets go.
With Bee’s kidnapping, he was barely holding himself together. With her presumed death, something in him finally breaks.
On top of that, if assassin Fitz made an unofficial return previously, now Dutiful formally strips him of the role. Acting as king, he makes it clear in no uncertain terms that Fitz is no longer an assassin.
“Over and over, I had said that I was no longer an assassin. But now my king snatched the title and those duties away from me, and it felt like a rebuke. I blinked. Not a husband. Scarcely a father. And not an assassin. What was left of me?”
So last time we asked: who is Fitz among the many roles he inhabits? And now the question becomes: who is he without them?
As you can imagine, it’s pretty bleak.
He struggles mightily with the feeling of purposelessness:
“What was Burrich’s old saying? As useless as teats on a bull. That was me. I was becoming very weary of being useless and incompetent.”
Fitz comes to the conclusion that all he has left is vengeance for Bee and the Fool. And to pursue it, he essentially begins putting his affairs in order to fade out of his current life, before setting off on one final quest.
His detachment is somehow even harder to watch than his grief. It’s a slow fading away from life. We’ve seen Fitz contemplate ending his life many times (always awful), but now we’re watching him put a plan into action, albeit a very slow one.
He wants to die. But rather than a quick exit, he intends to destroy the people responsible for Bee’s death and the Fool’s torture on his way out.
Heavy. And deeply painful to watch as he slowly closes the door on relationships we know mean so much to him. Fitz may feel he has nothing left, but we know there are still many people who love and care for him. I was particularly gutted by him making peace with leaving Nettle and never meeting his unborn grandchild.
wizardwordship 