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

['thul]

there are plenty of stories to visit...

[morganeparisi]

Hi, first post here.
I'm a french cartoonist and since I just made an illustration fanart of The Fool, I though might share it here
Since I never understood how attach an image in a forum post, here is the link !

http://morganee.canalblog.com/archives/2...66618.html

[Farseer]

Welcome to thePlenty, morganeparisi!

I have merged your new thread from the forum that you placed it in, into this RotE forum and Fool-specific thread to ensure that others don't stumble into spoilers.

I *love* your illustration of the many facets of our favourite fool! Thanks for sharing with us!!

[morganeparisi]

Cool! Thanks a lot !

['thul]

nice picture and welcome...

[Valarya]

The single strongest trait of the Fool's link to the protagonist FitzChivary Farseer was friendship. As soon as you make the Fool a woman or homosexual or hermaphrodite it becomes a sexual relationship. Even as a counter-sexual being a hermaphrodite is sexual. The sexuality of one character overshadows the relationship. This wasn't a simple friendship. Fitz and the Fool were closer to one another than any other. More than once in the story Fitz and Nighteyes were as one. More than once in the story Fitz and the Fool were as one. None of the characters in the series thought of Nighteyes sexually, (I am speaking of the relationship as a character and a being in a story......the role occupied). The relationship was that of deep friendship and kinship. This was a shared feeling described towards Fitz and the Fool by Nighteyes.

I quoted this entire paragraph for context, but the part I want to focus on I have put in bold. That no one has ever had thoughts about the sexual relationship between Fitz and Nighteyes. It's obvious why, of course... a human and a dog. And as you say, the relationship between Fitz and Fool isn't conjecture. All the clues are there and they all point to deep friendship. A lot of people overlook the fact Hobb tried to "fix" this business in Tawny Man when Fool explains that being with Fitz would be like Fitz 'being' with Nighteyes.

The Fool was not human as described by Fitz more than once when inside his body with the skill and by the Fool himself when he needed to give Fitz back his emotional memories he had retrieved from Girl-on-a-Dragon. Fitz also mentioned how beautiful and unique a being the Fool was. He never identified anything about the Fool as being female when he was within him and able to see from the Fool's point of view.

Yes. This. Exactly this. It's the easiest "proof" that Fool's sexuality doesn't matter in regards to Fitz.

Either way... well stated Ampy. I love how you so eloquently stated my feelings on the Fool. Welcome to thePlenty!

It always makes me almost angry, when people spent hours to try to sort out what gender the Fool is.

Me too. Haha

I was fortunate to have had all of the Farseer books available as readily as I could complete each one. I started reading them well after all of them had been written. I skipped the Live Ship books because they did not include FitzChivalry. I read the Farseer and Fool trilogies like one large book.

I downloaded a sample of Ship of Magic to my Kindle and was immediately drawn into it. So I am currently reading the Live Ship trilogy.

This is exactly how I started the series. I read Farseer and TM as a whole then went back to read LST. It's interesting how LST instantly became my favorite 'trilogy' of the series overall. However... now that you have read LST (or will have by the time you read this perhaps), you will be so much clearer on several things that happened in Tawny Man. In fact.. going back and re-reading the entire series in its proper order made me realize just how lost you can be in Tawny Man without the LST context. It's so important.. so I try to tell people that it's a 9-book-series and must be read in order.

Enjoy!!

['thul]

these beings still believe the answer to the fool's gender is yes.

[ArtanisG]

I’ve been silently reading this thread for about a year and a half, I guess. But having read this, I just couldn’t stay silent any longer

The Fool could not be this "sequential hermaphrodite" because Robin Hobb never introduced the concept. This author lays the foundation for every object, concept, character and storyline in the reality of her books.

Because although there’re so many great thoughts and ideas and parallels mentioned here, I was always amused that nobody noticed one solid clue on the matter of White Prophets gender. The story of Prilkop.

To begin with, I don’t care about the Fool’s gender at all. He is a ‘he’ when I think of the Fool, and he is a ‘she’ when I think of Amber even though I figured that Amber and the Fool were the same person when Althea spoke to Amber for the first time (at the time, I just shared my thoughts on the subject in my blog, and one of my readers told me my suspicions were correct).

But then again, it’s impossible not to think about who and what the Fool is. And I do think he’s a hermaphrodite. Somewhere through reading the Tawny Man trilogy I came to a thought that, personally, I don’t want the Fool to be a man or a woman, that the exact gender would just simplify everything. But then, I thought, if he were a hermaphrodite, there must be some hints in the books. Robin Hobb is indeed the author who will not let anything happen without building a concept.

So, I started trying to think of a clue about the possibility of a hermaphrodite existence in the Realm of the Elderlings. And then it stroke me that such a creature was almost always there – Sa. And there was a quote in the book about duality of the White Prophet gender borrowed from the faith in Sa, so indirectly but Sa and White Prophets were connected by the author herself.

And coming back to the story of Prilkop – he is the character who is referred both as a man and a woman. He is the Black Man who collects the food which is left by the Outislanders on the shore. And there’s an old legend which I cannot quote at the moment as I don’t have my book with me but the legend tells a story of a girl who stayed young for years and years, whose hair was black and who was a prophet living on Aslevjal and collecting the food left by Outislanders for Icefyre. So, we have Prilkop who told that he came to Aslevjal even earlier than Icefyre, and we have a young female prophet who lived there after. And I think the legend of the Black Man and the legend of the black-haired girl are too similar to be coincidence or to describe different people.

And does anyone here know if this news is true?
http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/fbrbl...ovel-news/

[joost]

And does anyone here know if this news is true?
http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/fbrbl...ovel-news/

It's true-ish. Robin Hobb may (or may not) be working on a book about Fitz and Fool, but what it is, when it'll appear on our bookshelves, or even if it'll appear is still unknown. We'll know when we know.

See also this thread.

[Farseer]

I’ve been silently reading this thread for about a year and a half, I guess. But having read this, I just couldn’t stay silent any longer

The Fool could not be this "sequential hermaphrodite" because Robin Hobb never introduced the concept. This author lays the foundation for every object, concept, character and storyline in the reality of her books.

Because although there’re so many great thoughts and ideas and parallels mentioned here, I was always amused that nobody noticed one solid clue on the matter of White Prophets gender. The story of Prilkop.

Some of us noticed. It may not be mentioned here in this particular thread but we have certainly chatted somewhere about the possibility that Prilkop could be/have been the Oracle of the Outislanders. Just as we have discussed the similar, black-haired Oracle of Others' Island. Sometimes our conversations flow in the oddest of places, and not always where they seemingly should...

Welcome to the 'member' fold, ArtanisG!