Who here has read Robin Hobb’s three series The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Trilogy and the Tawny Man? To start with a plug, if you haven’t then you should go do so. Now. The Farseer Series is excellent, as is the Tawny Man Series. The Liveship series is also good, but I wouldn’t reccomend it as enthusiastically as the other two except insofar as it helps a lot to have read it before The Tawny Man.
I’ve recently got my brother reading the series as well, and he too is hooked. At the moment he’s read all of the Farseer trilogy and has foolishly started on the Tawny Man series without reading the liveship first.
Anyway, my point. The two of us are having an argument - is the Fool male? He says yes. I say firstly that it shouldn’t matter ( “It’s just plumbing” ) and is probably not entirely well defined anyway. However, my inclination is that if we ever find out which (s)he is, (s)he’ll probably not be male. I even have a very convincing argument for it.
I strongly doubt Fitz is sufficiently open minded to have an intimate relationship with another man.
If the Fool and Fitz don’t get together in the end I’m going to have to reach into the books and kick Fitz’s ass.
I don’t want to do that.
Therefore the fool is not male.
(What do you mean that’s somewhat less than watertight?)
So, what do you think? Any other thoughts on the books you want to share?
::crickets::
Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s read these books?
I’ve read the first two trilogies and the first book in Tawny Man… so expect some SPOILERS
In the Farseer trilogy, I think you’re just supposed to assume that The Fool is a man, although you’re supposed to suspect that something is up between “him” and Fitzy. In the Liveship trilogy, it becomes pretty clear that Amber is the Fool, and that “she” is most definitely in love with Fitz. I mean, when she recarved Paragon’s face, she carved it to look like the man she loves, and if you read closely, you’ll realize that it’s Fitz. In the first book of Tawny Man… hmm, it must not have made much of an impression on me, because I can’t recall specifics about the dynamics of their relationship there.
My personal feeling is that male and female don’t really apply well to whatever species the Fool is. The Fool could be both simultaneously, or both in cycles, or neither, or whatever. I don’t want to call the Fool an “it,” though, so I’ll stick with “him” as my default pronoun.
So I didn’t really answer your question, but I DO know that I once Googled a Robin Hobb specific message board and this question came up a lot. I didn’t read the threads, because I was in the middle of the Farseer trilogy and didn’t want to spoil anything, but you could try looking for that.
I just wanted to start a thread about this topic - lucky me I did a search first.
I am quite sure that the Fool is female, for about the same reasons that you specified. I don’t think that Fitz will be able to love another male in a physical way. Although (major spoiler for volume 2 of The Tawny Man):
At the end of Vol. 2 there is a very sweet scene between the 2: Fitz has found out that the Fool lived as Amber in Bingtown and loves him. He unnecessarily confronts the Fool about this and hurts him badly in the process. Estrangement follows, but Fitz misses the Fool’s company a lot and in the end goes to see him. He remembers a joke the Fool made a long time ago, asking him to call the Fool his “Beloved”. So he goes to see the Fool and says to him “my Beloved, I have missed your company”. Very sweet!
One other question: Am I the only idiot who read the Farseer trilogy and then The Liveship traders and did NOT realize that Amber is the Fool?
Well, it took me waaaay too long to figure it out than it should have, and I didn’t realize at all that she recarved the figurehead of the Paragon to look like Fitz. Until I reread the trilogy and wanted to smack myself for not noticing - she even includes Fitz’s earring! Durrr.
Anyway. I am not sure about the Fool, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter, really. The Fool/Amber isn’t really human, I don’t think, so I don’t know how important gender is.
I’m halfway through the liveship series. I have to :smack: about amber though - i never think while reading, unfortunately.
I think the both/other gender fits best somehow, based on what i read, but not sure why.
Does anyone else think his books, while fun, feel a bit aimless? That’s not quite what i mean, but that, for instance, when we find out how forging occurs, it feels like it’s been worked out after the fact, and is tacked on as an afterthought, once the raiders have done their job of acting as a plot hook. It’s something i’ve felt with a few good authors, don’t kill me
I have to admit, I was not really paying attention and missed a lot.
I first bought the Assassin trilogy and was really looking forward to reading it. I thought: “Great, a fantasy novel about an assassin, some cool killing is going to happen, interesting murder methods etc.” Since this is just not what the books are about, I was really disappointed and did not enjoy the books at all.
Then, about a year or so later, I bought the first book of the Liveship trilogy and really really liked it. I bought the other 2 volumes in hardcover because I simply could not wait to find out more. I stupidly failed to even notice that this trilogy was set in the same world as the Assassin and so missed all hints regarding Amber.
When I saw the first volume of The Tawny Man, I read that it was a continuation of the Assassin’s trilogy and was unsure if I wanted it. So I decided to re-read the Assassin’s trilogy. Since I had absolutely no expectations now, I immensely enjoyed it, all the time telling myself what an idiot I had been.
Then I started reading The Tawny Man (volume 1) and found out that the world was in fact the same as The Liveship. But I still did not get the Amber thing, since reading the Liveship books was just too long ago.
So now I am re-reading the Liveship Traders while waiting for volume 3 of The Tawny Man.
I agree on the Forging thing. I was quite disappointed when it was explained at last, and did not feel satisfied with the explanation. Robin Hobb is a woman, by the way.
Regarding the Fool-Fitz lovestory: we may never find out whether the fool is male or female. I have the suspicion s/he may die in Volume 3 of The Tawny Man.
I liked the Liveship books better than the Fitz books. But that may be because I have the desire to slap Fitz every 50 pages or so. Not the brightest character around.
