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

[Farseer]

Going on from that, and for an almost complete change of subject, though still on the Fool...what is the significance of the baby etc in Fool's room at Buckkeep (mentioned in AA when Fitz went in there, against Fool's wishes)?

"A baby. I...knelt beside the basket that cradled it. But it was not a living child, but a doll, crafted with such incredible art that almost I expected to see the small chest move with breath. I reached a hand to the pale, delicate face, but dared not touch it. The curve of the brow, the closed eyelids, the faint rose that suffused the tiny cheeks, even the small hand that rested on top of the coverlets were more perfect than I supposed a made thing could be. Of what delicate clay it had been crafted, I could not guess, nor what hand had inked the tiny eyelashes that curled on the infant’s cheek.

I still haven't worked it out from my countless re-reads of all books and it makes me crazy not being able to find a Fool/Amber/Lord Golden/White Prophet link or a clue as to why it would be there !! The only reference to it after the event, that I can find, was when Fool finally answered this question from Fitz in RA, "Whence comes the Fool and why?"

Fool talked about how much he had been loved as a child and Fitz "...remembered the time I ventured into his room, and the exquisite little doll in its cradle that I found there. Cherished as the Fool had once been cherished."

It intrigues me because it sounds like an Elderling-wrought form of artwork. Before he saw the baby, Fitz even said, "I tried to imagine the pale cynical Fool in the midst of all this colour and art."

Not to mention the loom with all of its bright-hued threads in the corner (a reference to or even a physical manifestation of the tapestry threads of Fate he wields as the White Prophet and speaks of at times to Fitz?!), I wonder if the baby simply denotes the future Farseer heir, or could it be something more personal to Fool?

Regarding when Fitz went to the Fool's room and saw the doll that looked so life like. I just read a bit in Ship of Magic where Althea describes the wares they sell in the Bingtiwn markets on Rain Wild St, it reads:

"The toy shops always lured Althea the strongest: there one could find dolls whose liquid eyes and soft warm skin mimicked that of a real infant..."

Just had a thought...if Elderlings/Skilled Ones carved simulacra so that they could gain wings and fly like dragons (such as they often longed to do), why could they not also carve a baby for a similar reason? Possibly the babies, such as are sold as toys on Rain Wild Street and that Fool had in his room in Buckkeep, are not toys but simulacra carved in the form of babies to fill an Elderling longing to have children? After all, Elderlings did and do experience difficulty in this area of childbirth etc...thus a longing for a child would be understandable.

Further, aside from filling it with an Elderling's own memories during the creation process, they could even have been filled with memories/anmas of miscarried babies or those who have died in infancy or childhood, and possibly even woken from time-to-time just as the simulacra in the Stone Garden were woken when required.

Unlikely but just a little thought that popped into my head while I'm here searching threads for my 'Skill throughout the realm' theories. This is why I can never follow up on promises to find things...I get tangled up in all of the other great things here in the forums!!

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Or, if not carved from stone, possibly the babies could be gifts of wizardwood that have since been carved into the shape of a baby and this wizardwood was gifted to an Elderling by a dragon to ease their sadness or loss...just as a dragon gifted a minstrel with wizardwood to fashion a rooster feather as a reward. I doubt this but just thinking aloud...