The Skill and The Wit (spoilers all RotE books)

[Nuytsia]

We have discussed how the Skill and the Wit works in a few different threads, but when I looked for a thread to post this none was really ABOUT that. So I'm starting one for future discussions!

OK this post is a relatively minor point about the Skill, but one that I found in Fool's Fate when looking for something else today.

When the Fool joins the coterie in their skilling, afterward Fitz is speaking of what happened between the two of them and thinks to himself:
'I called it the Skill yet I was not sure that was a proper name for it. As well call a spark the sun.'

I could easily put this down to Fitz (and the others) relatively limited experience in the Skill (they are still regaining lost knowledge), BUT are we to take this comment more seriously? IS there something other than the Skill involved here?

Thick also has a strange response to what happens, and Fitz puts this down to the fact that he was the only other one of the coterie actually aware of what was happening between Fitz and the Fool. But was there more to it? As he leaves 'Thick turned and gave the Fool an oddly appraising look'. This could be interpreted as him wondering just what is going on between Fitz and the Fool, but I think Thick has very little interest in human relationships per se, and a lot more interest in the Skill.

[Farseer]

Great you started this! I've been thinking on it a while too, just to have 'one place' to go to, to chat about it, rather than this and that all over...

I most definitely think we should take it more seriously! One thing I mainly wanted to add (still cooking dinner so can't think on or reply totally to your very awesome pick-up!!) was that I think that Fool must have 'something'...I don't know what but your example certainly outlines my hunch or feeling. He definitely has 'something' aside from the indirect Skill-ability he received from Verity.

One of the reasons I think this, other than your example, is that both the Pale Woman and Prilkop were able to 'Skill' in some form. In saying that, let's forget the Pale Woman though as she was not technically a real White Prophet and, though strong in the Skill to turn Fitz and Thick against each other etc, she seemed to learn her Skill solely from Regal's traded Skill scrolls.

As for Prilkop, I thought it odd that he was able to confidently talk of using the Skill pillars to return to his and Fool's homeland UNLESS he had a Skill ability? Possibly a true White Prophet has far more power than we suspect, possibly this power even coming directly from Sa? Possibly they even have the ability to be open to ALL of the old magics eg hedge-witchery, the Wit, the Skill, scrying in water etc.

Even more possible is the power that comes in the wake of a true White Prophet/Catalyst Skill-joining. Remembering that Realder was also obviously Skilled to have been able to become part of the dragon carved by Salt's Coterie...something else I want to bring up in more depth later.

I know I'm not sticking to your point but just had to get that out as it made me think of it all! Back later...!

[Farseer]

Okay, knowing this can tack on to any number of Skill-related discussions we've all had, I'm plonking it here so I'll know where to find it next time! I'll also apologise that I’m going to be jumping all over the place with my RotE posts in the next little while (when is that ever NOT true ?!) but I’ve been thinking on a number of subjects for the wiki and have related points to add to the forum as I come up with them. I LOVE talking about the RotE books!

I can’t remember exactly (I don’t have the LST or RWC with me to find the related text) but I’m certain that it’s Tintaglia who mentions seeing stars at the bottom of the well that she and Fitz both came across in Kelsingra...remembering that it was from this well that the liquid Skill was raised up with the windlass and then consumed by the dragons. Though Fitz speaks of stars from the sky being reflected in the black water that flowed through the rift in the earth, the well was full with the liquid Skill when he saw it and so he was unable to see the stars within the well, as Tintaglia did.

While we’ve talked about the Skill River and liquid Skill etc quite a bit on this site, I want to call attention to the stars for a moment, as a special point of interest. Each time I have read the books, it has struck me as exceedingly odd that there were ‘stars’ or 'star-like points of light' within a dark well. What do they signify?

To help us find the answer, another significant place where stars are mentioned is the place where Fitz was ‘caught’ within the Skill-pillars on his way home to Buckkeep from Aslevjal (he was there for a month). He says of his experience with the other presence/being there with him, “I saw eternal blackness and a scattering of lights of varying brightnesses. It was like lying on my back on a tower top and staring up into a summer night. Not that I thought of it that way at the time. At the time, I drifted through stars...A brighter star was there, and I was drawn to it. I could not tell if I got closer to it, or if it approached me...When finally the star was close, I attempted to fasten myself to it...”

I am also finding myself constantly thinking of Time’s Labyrinth, a room that is somewhere within Cassarick, I think, and maybe even waiting to be unearthed by Reyn and company. I can’t remember where this is mentioned but imagine it would either be in the RWC books (most likely as I have not read them as thoroughly) or the LST. I know that it screamed "IMPORTANT!" to me at the time of reading and I am fairly certain that when Time’s Labyrinth was mentioned, it talked about it having a ceiling of stars...and it’s this mention of stars that jumps out at me, as much as the mention of time, seeing as Fool and Fitz have discussed the possibility of a future outside of time. It is also interesting because people experience an existance outside of time when they go through, or are within, the Skill-pillars eg that lovers would flee from parents and be gone a year or a decade etc and return as though only a day had passed for them, but not those they left behind (like what Fitz also experienced). Hmm...there’s definitely a connection here.

Back to the stars though (so easy to get sidetracked!)...

I have lots to chat about with this but the other MAIN point I wanted to jot down for now is that, while the Wit is said to be a bestial magic, the Skill is said to be a celestial magic....and this ‘heavenly’, ‘godly’ or ‘of the sky’ aspect (depending on how one interprets ‘celestial’) possibly adds a firm link between the Skill and stars, and these other points of reference I've made as well?

[Nuytsia]

Interesting stuff!
But I have nothing to add at this point.. !

[Farseer]

Ok, I was reading an old post of mine tonight (different thread), where I talked about the Star Chamber and, since I knew it had a connection with Time's Labyrinth, I went for a search...here's what the passage in Dragon Keeper had to say about them both:

I don't now if this is needed but Dragon Keeper Spoiler

WARNING! CONTAINS HIGH LEVELS OF ELFBARK

Sintara is telling Thymara, "And so Cassarick had chambers capable of welcoming the dragons that came to tend the cases. There was the Star Chamber, roofed with glass panels. From there the Elderlings were wont to study the night sky. The walls of the long entry to the Star Chamber were decorated with a mosaic of jewels that held a light of their own. No windows were built in that hall so that visitors might more easliy view the vista that the jewel artists had painted with their tiny dots of light. I recall there was an amusement that the humans had built for themselves, a maze with crystal walls. Time's Labyrinth they called it. It was all trickery and foolishness, of course, but they seemed fond of it."

Totally off topic but after posting on this new thread The Circle of Magic (thread contains spoilers for all RotE books), I was instantly drawn to the word "crystal" and wondered "Could the crystal walls have been used for scrying?"!

On topic, a bit of a different spin on my "ceiling of stars" but still star-related nonetheless !

[Farseer]

I can’t remember exactly (I don’t have the LST or RWC with me to find the related text) but I’m certain that it’s Tintaglia who mentions seeing stars at the bottom of the well that she and Fitz both came across in Kelsingra...remembering that it was from this well that the liquid Skill was raised up with the windlass and then consumed by the dragons. Though Fitz speaks of stars from the sky being reflected in the black water that flowed through the rift in the earth, the well was full with the liquid Skill when he saw it and so he was unable to see the stars within the well, as Tintaglia did.

I have found the Tintaglia-related passage in SOD, Chapter Eight, and it's a little different to what I thought as it seems she is seeing more the Skill River rather than true 'stars' as such. Still, stars are mentioned:

She snuffed the edge of the well, then peered into its depths. As she shifted her head, she thought she caught a distant shimmer of silver at the very bottom, but she could not be sure. Did not stars shine in daytime in the bottoms of the deepest wells? It may be no more than that...

Also this extra info from Selden on the Star Chamber from Chapter Twenty-Four in SOD. He is speaking to Jani and Keffria: "Compared to Cassarick, Frengong was humble....Cassarick is the city you will excavate for Tintaglia. There, you will find halls built to a dragon's scale of grandeur. In the Star Chamber, you will discover a floor set with what you call flame-jewels, in a mirror of the night sky on Springeve. There is a labyrinth with crystal walls, tuned to mirror the dreams of the ones who dare it; to walk its maze is to confront your own soul. Time's Rainbow, they called it among themselves, for each person who completed it seemed to do so by a different route. Wonders are buried there and may be brought back to light..."

Bring on The Star Chamber and Time's Rainbow/Time's Labyrinth!! It just HAS to be in the next installment because I think it is tied firmly to Fool's quest to take time out of its current course.

In Chapter Sixteen of AQ, this is what Kettle/Kestral has to say regarding the role of the WP when Fitz asks her, "So they work for the end of the world to come?"

"Not the end of the world, Tom. The end of time. To free humanity of time. For time is the great enslaver of us all. Time that ages us, time that limits us. Think how often you have wished to have more time for something, or wished you could go back a day and do something differently. When humanity is freed of time, old wrongs can be corrected before they are done."

I LOVE THIS !

---

To free humanity of time. For time is the great enslaver of us all.

Freedom from slavery is a strong theme throughout the books so how perfect that the WP's role is to go that much further and free humanity from the slavery of time, as well as literal slavery etc ?!

I don't know about anyone else but I often find myself wishing for a time when I would not have to be imprisoned by life's and other people's many and varied schedules!

[Farseer]

I seem to have posts about 'time' all over the place but I thought I'd pop this question here as it sort of runs on from my last few posts, though doesn't overly have much to do with the Skill directly (or does it ?!).

At the very beginning of Chapter Ten of AA, 'The Pocked Man', Fitz has this to say: "Tides and time wait for no man, and that I know is true. But time? Did the times I was born into await my birth to be? Did the events rumble into place like the great wooden gears of the clock of Sayntanns, meshing my conception and pushing my life along?"

I intend to ask a very different question about this passage in another thread but, for here and now, who or what is "Sayntanns"? Could this be the full, true name of "Sa"?

[redchild]

Interesting that you mention clocks. I don't know who Sayntanns is, possibly a divine/mythological figure or even a specific place, but I'm more interested in the actual contexts of clocks in relation to your earlier post about stars.

Clocks that tell the time of day are in general instruments that measure cosmic intervals. Mechanical clocks, ones that use gears and pendulums, were first constructed in Europe during the Middle Ages in order to keep time for when church bells were to ring at certain times of day. This meshing of scientific astronomy and religious allusions connected to it are quite fascinating.

From Wikipedia:

"Most of the first clocks were not so much chronometers as exhibitions of the pattern of the cosmos . . . Clearly the origins of the mechanical clock lie in a complex realm of monumental planetaria, equatoria, and geared astrolabes."

Besides demonstrating a drive to understand the intricacies of the cosmos, astronomical clocks also reflected the philosophy of an "ordered, heavenly-ordained universe."

I haven't delved into this very deeply, but perhaps this could be of interest.

[Nuytsia]

Bring on The Star Chamber and Time's Rainbow/Time's Labyrinth!! It just HAS to be in the next installment because I think it is tied firmly to Fool's quest to take time out of its current course.

Wow that's gobsmacking! If that isn't true, it should be!

In Chapter Sixteen of AQ, this is what Kettle/Kestral has to say regarding the role of the WP when Fitz asks her, "So they work for the end of the world to come?"
"Not the end of the world, Tom. The end of time. To free humanity of time. For time is the great enslaver of us all. Time that ages us, time that limits us. Think how often you have wished to have more time for something, or wished you could go back a day and do something differently. When humanity is freed of time, old wrongs can be corrected before they are done."

That's really inspired me to get back to my re-read! I've forgotten allllllll of this stuff!
It's funny how in the first read through I'm so focused on 'the story' - ie what happens next in the narrative, and it's not until afterwards I am interested in taking more notice all the intriguing bits and pieces that make the 'bigger picture'!

[Nuytsia]

Not 100% sure where to put this post, but,

as the Wit is required to wake the stone dragons, can we assume King Wisdom was Witted?