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

[Jade]

strange to start my first post here as a new thread too...

like most of you what I loved best about the Robin Hobb books (Farseer, Liveship and Tawny Man trilogy) is the many different characters that grow and change and adapt. Most mysterious to me is Amber (hence Jade ). I'm now convinced she's really female but the Tawny Man is convincingly male and Fitz never even considers the possibility. What do you think about that?

//I changed the subject to warn about spoilers, and although I think Amber's identity is starting to be "common knowledge", it's not yet really that widely know, and someone browsing the forums before reading all the trilogies might see it, so I removed her name. -- Mervi

[chriSchaeffer]

...I'm now convinced she's really female but the Tawny Man is convincingly male and Fitz never even considers the possibility...

The Fool, Amber, Beloved, The Scentless One... He's male. He's an actor! We first meet him as a jester in the king's court acting the part of a fool. Next he acts the part of a young female shopkeeper. Later we see him act the part of a rich nobleman.

Now he might be a little sexually ambiguous, but I don't believe that The Fool is a girl.

[maulkin]

To begin with, I wondered whether all white prophets were androgynous or hermaphrodite. It even crossed my mind that they might be sequentially hermaphrodite, alternating between male and female as the need arose. The greatest evidence against this is that the Pale Woman was utterly female. Then again, the Pale Woman was a failed white prophet who had become incapable of changing colour. Maybe she had become incapable of changing sex also.

[taloshield]

I do not belive the white Prophets are hermaphrodites. I can not recall which book it was said in, I assume it was in the Tawny Man Trilogy, but one of the chapters opened with facts on the histroy of the White Prophets. It said that when they were alive, and their race was comming to an end, a Female left their land and traveled the world. She became pregant by 6 different men, and gave birth to 3 girls and 3 boys, thus ensuring that the White Prophets blood would be intermingled with those of the world. So anytime that two distant offspring of hers came together, their children would become the next White Prophet.
Also, the Pale Women was Female, because Fitz saw her nude body. And the Black Man was male. And the Fool said he was male when he was desribing to Fitz that he loved him, but that did not mean he wanted to bed with him.

[chriSchaeffer]

Great answer taloshield!

Case closed!

[maulkin]

I do not belive the white Prophets are hermaphrodites. I can not recall which book it was said in, I assume it was in the Tawny Man Trilogy, but one of the chapters opened with facts on the histroy of the White Prophets. It said that when they were alive, and their race was comming to an end, a Female left their land and traveled the world. She became pregant by 6 different men, and gave birth to 3 girls and 3 boys, thus ensuring that the White Prophets blood would be intermingled with those of the world. So anytime that two distant offspring of hers came together, their children would become the next White Prophet.
Also, the Pale Women was Female, because Fitz saw her nude body. And the Black Man was male. And the Fool said he was male when he was desribing to Fitz that he loved him, but that did not mean he wanted to bed with him.

Nothing that you mention is incompatible with white prophets being sequentially hermaphrodite. A sequential hermaphrodite changes sex from male to male to female but is always either male or female at any given time. Just because the Pale Woman was female when Fitz saw her does not mean that she had always been that way. The Fool may have been female while in the guise of Amber and male again by the time of his reunion with Fitz.

[chriSchaeffer]

While some sequential hermaphrodites can change sex multiple times, most can only change sex once. Sequential hermaphrodites on wikipedia

The White Prophets must have evolved from wrasses or clown fish! Wow! That explains Amber's connection with the Sea serpents!

[maulkin]

Well, we all evolved from fish at some point.

[messi]

I will preface by saying how much I LOVE this series, I can't even think of the books as trilogies but six books, or even one long and wonderful book...now here comes the but. It was so clear, to my obviously muddy vision, that the Fool was a woman. At first I thought perhaps that the White Prophets were androgenous. But then it was made pretty clear that they were considered either male or female. But there were several indications throughout the series that the Fool was at some point going to be revealed as a woman. There were the questions regarding his sex when they were young, then he tells Starling and doesn't actually deny it but rather concedes to Fitz's discomfort with the idea, then Kettriken makes mention of it also regarding her experiences when they traveled together, Kettle talks to Fitz about how Molly is only a childhood/first love but that he has another true love to look forward to, then there are all the innuendos when he is Lord Golden, and he keeps his chest covered when he shows Fitz his tatoos, and when Jinna read his palm she talks about how he has a true love that weaves in and out of his life through to the end (which is not Molly), and Jek's comments about Fitz being blind and stupid and the fact that all the other White Prophets mentioned were a male/female match to their Catalyst....and I'm sure a few other points that I'm forgetting. So it really felt to me that this was a storyline that was pursued up until the last part of the last book and then just disdained. I was so emotionally attached to the characters in these books that I found it unsettling the way thier relationship ended. I can only hope that its because there will someday be another book...
has anyone ever heard Robin speak to this question of the Fool in interviews?

[Cecilyk]

Everything you say about The Fool is true (Jinna's palm-reading, etc etc etc)...but that doesn't make him a woman. It just makes him in love with Fitz. To the Fool, (being NOT human) the gender thing didn't make a difference, but he knew Fitz well enough to understand that it was definitely a problem for Fitz. That was one of the themes of that last two books I think...Fitz had to learn that real love has nothing to do with sex. And he did learn that. It's what the Fool had been trying to teach him all along. I thought the ending was perfect because the Fool loved FItz enough to first, give him his life back by way of girl on a dragon and second, let Fitz have the life HE wanted (with Molly and Buckkeep and Nettle). The Fool knew he couldn't have all of Fitz's love, so he left. It made a lot more sense to me the second time I read it.