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

[o0Ampy0o]

Thanks Valarya. Not knowing what most people here thought I was compelled to address the topic.

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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?

Here I believe the opposite. If Fitz believed or suspected the Fool was female he would have had those ideas cross his mind or he would have said something to that effect. IOW, Hobb would have written that into the text. Instead, Fitz never gave the notion credence. He thought "Jek thinks the Fool is a woman" or "Starling thinks the Fool is a woman." [not exact quotes] This to me is what counts and is what we as readers should heed. Fitz acted as the barometer of this gender ambiguity issue and seemed to take the Fool's input/defense as a given. Fitz did not question the Fool's gender. He questioned the Fool's sexual orientation. He was incredulous over being perceived as Lord Golden's lover. He resented the Fool's apparent cultivation of this perception. The words between them were chosen to force the Fool to explain himself as a person. Had Fitz suspected the Fool was female the confrontation would have been different because that specific topic would have been a defining issue that went far beyond "who are you.....I don't know who you are?" [not an exact quote].

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!

I took the "...my lord's eyes" reference to mean the attitude in Fitz's eyes as a Farseer family member bearing resemblance to his father and uncle Verity not anything Skill related as in Verity through Fitz. Fitz looked like his father and his father's brother shared physical traits that may not have been constant like literally having similar looking eyes but a similarity that activated with an attitude more like having the same smile or laugh or walk or temper. Stagnant they may not be similar but in action they are. Whatever Fitz was thinking, Verity had looked at Kettricken with the same attitude. Family members can think similarly as well as share similar physical and behavioral features.

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.

Although Fitz recalled the swapping of bodies with Verity a couple of times and noticed the scent and taste of Kettricken when he first recovered his body after Verity used it to have relations with her, many independent scenes of sexual tension were written in a way that justified attraction between them outside of any tie to Verity or the Skill. Kettricken was also Witted and had a connection to Nighteyes. That is a huge factor in favor of her being intimate with Fitz, (not sexually intimate per se).

Hobb's inconsistency in writing of the ending.......in the last chapter the way she ran through some events was a fast way to provide closure. There were too many descriptive explanations as opposed to experiential passages in the last chapter. IOW, she wrote a few sentences describing the way things worked out. She did not have the same balance of activity intermingled with description she had demonstrated throughout the 9 books leading up to this section. We did not see enough happening. Instead Fitz narrated what happened. Gradually whittling away Chade's power provided an easy way to explain how Fitz could manage Chade. The Chade we knew would have continued to work the plan and remained instrumental. The "whittling away power" served to neutralize a character in the series. Chade was removed as a significant figure in order to make the happily ever after ending possible.