The Fool (spoilers for all RotE books, including LST)

[Farseer]

So many good things to discuss and go off-topic with! And no time! Quickly though...

gender while also acknowledging that they are in love with you. People would feel betrayed. They would not trust that person because they carried on a lie. They would never have a chance to know the "real/true" person because they would slam up walls of distrust, resentment, repulsion even. Repulsion, because of the betrayal as well as the incompatible sexual orientation. (Fitz was clearly heterosexual). Who could be attracted to someone they had always thought of as the gender opposite of their own? Even if that friend looked beautiful/handsome as their true gender it would not matter. To suddenly find out that the person you thought you knew enough to consider a trusted close friend was in fact a female posing as a male would end most friendships instantly. You could not feel you knew that person. You could never see them the same way. They would be someone else. You would not have a chance to develop a friendship with that new person. The ingredients for friendship would be lacking. Most people would walk, if not storm, away from that friendship and not want to look back.

I think that Fitz has already experienced this, back when Starling stated that Fool was really a woman and in love with Fitz and particularly from the time Fitz overheard Fool speaking to Jek in Amber's voice. After the latter, he felt betrayed and questioned if he'd indeed ever known his friend. I think he even acknowledged then that he hadn't? This has been a huge issue between the two throughout the Farseer and Tawny Man books. Fitz not knowing, unsure if he should trust and Fool wishing he'd trust and stating that Fitz does know but he doesn't acknowledge what he knows he knows. I think Chade, too, spoke at times of Fitz and his inabililty to place trust in others (such as when he didn't want to ask for money or help with Hap).

As far as 'know what he knows', a number of readers take this to mean that Fitz knows that Fool is a female but it is unacknowledged...a lie he feeds himself...and so a reveal from Fool that reveals it to be true would likely be not so dramatic as if there had never been any hints or signs?

Kettricken- I am not 100% invested in a Kettricken/Fitz romantic alternative ending

the sexual tension between them.

The tension between Kettricken and Fitz was no doubt deliberate but I never felt that anything between them could truly happen. Actually, their relationship is definitely a part of the tale that I have very much enjoyed. Though Fitz and Kettricken were far more 'of an age' than Verity and Kettricken ever were, much of their attraction for each other did stem from their shared connection with Verity. If Fitz had not been joined with Verity via the Skill, he'd never have had intimate experiences of Kettricken to clearly draw on and feed his attraction to her. He'd certainly had no desire for her previous to her times with Verity at Buckkeep eg while he was in the Mountain Kingdom and Kettricken was trying to kill him! .

Through Verity, Fitz at times awoke smelling her smell and feeling the touch of her skin and hair etc even when he was clearly in love with Molly, and sharing Molly's bed. Poor man. Just as it was difficult for those who witnessed the mating of Tintaglia and Icefyre above the Witness Stones of Buck to not be physically stirred, it would be difficult for Fitz *not* to have some kind of physical attraction to Kettricken after that. And the same would be true of Kettricken after her night with Fitz-as-Verity (or is that Verity-as-Fitz? ). The likeness Fitz had to Verity eg Kettricken said something to Fitz like, 'Oh, don't look at me with my lord's eyes', and also the family connection and history that they'd shared would also have played a role.

It would certainly have (and may yet still?!) proven all the old rumours to be true should they have ever made a romantic match. Regal had let it be rumoured around that Fitz and Kettricken had plottted against Shrewd and that the child of her body was the Bastard's. So close to the truth was he!

More to be said but I will have to come on this...

but the shadow king + queen partnership between them I am.

They could have ruled as queen and shadow king never acting on the sexual tension between them.

I believe that they have so ruled and did so without acting on this tension. Fitz himself said at the end of Fool's Fate that he had bit-by-bit wrestled the power from Chade to hand to Dutiful when he eventually became King-in-Waiting. Though he lived away from Buckkeep after he and Molly married, he did play out the role of a 'shadow king' during the years that he spent wooing her, and his role as a 'shadow king' also later took him to Buckkeep often. In this, he has indeed ruled with his queen, Kettricken, as a shadow king.

More when time allows, or my obsession itches , but I am enjoying this, o0Ampy0o. Talking about the books, right or wrong, is always enjoyable.