What the hell happened to Fitz? SPOILERS Fool's Assassin and Fool's Quest.

[Sooty]

I really hope that I've marked SPOILERS adequately. The last thing I want to do is ruin anyones' enjoyment.  OK. In the Farseer Trilogy and Tawny Man Trilogy, in  keeping with first-person narratives, Fitz may sometimes be the unreliable narrator of his own story. We only ever get his side of anything so he comes across as the most noble character in the books and/or the stupidest.  He is an instrument and a weapon honed and used by others.- Burrich, The  Farseers, the Fool, maybe even Molly. And we feel this.  And have sympathy.  His loyalty and, mostly,  unquestioning dedication to other peoples agendas is both touching, valiant but also a weeny bit gutless.  But I could handle this because he was young(ish)  and lost in a world which never really accepted him.  BUT my beef is his weak willed, emasculated response to his tiny defenceless(?) daughters abduction and the torturing of his dearest friend.  He's older of course in his 60s(?) and maybe because of  his too comfortable lifestyle at Withywoods and marriage to his childhood sweetie, Molly, has gotten weak. And worse than that almost incapable of committing to things.  The poor Fool who not only has been blinded and tortured and left wandering the roads of the Six Duchies to get to Fitz and say:"Kill 'em Fitz! Kill 'em good" has been STABBED by him. I nearly fell of my chair! And this not long after he's beat a man senseless for abusing a dog! So Fitz gets his dander up about a dog and a blind helpless beggar but won't jump up immediately and say to Beloved: "Point 'em out to me! And I will slaughter them!"  No he dithers around. And then when Bee is abducted and his people at Withywoods raped and murdered he listens to the Farseers! "Oh, no you cant do anything yet!" Arrgghhh! And THEN, to keep him reined in , they acknowledge him and have a big do and name him Prince Fitzchivalry and he gets sucked in and sells out!  And when he discovers the skill pillar that the baddies  took  little Bee through-he waits! And then lets the Skill Swat Team go through - they take about 20 minutes- to assure him that there is no one there.  Now Fitz KNOWS that time is weird beyond the skill pillars, a day in the real world might be a few weeks on the other end of the pillars.  SURELY he would have just jumped in, I would have thought any parent (well, any parent faced with a skill pillar) would at least do that - to look and wait himself. I mean he didnt have any other ideas.  I really hope that Ms Hobb is making a point about something, other than Fitz has just got middle-aged and lazy. Surely for his little daughter, the tiny miracle child of Molly, he'd be a bit more - well proactive???  I'm having a hard time liking him at the moment and hope the final book in this trilogy sees him actually doing something for both his daughter and the poor bloody Fool. Big Time!