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

[Carrickstoneamy]

I've have read this thread with much interest. I myself believe that RH allows her stories to evolve and therefore there will be inconsistencies and false clues at times. Although I wondered if the Fool was female by the last novel I was convinced he was male. When the Fool was brought back from the dead by Fitz and he was terrified there's a small paragraph that could hint that there was some intimacy. The chapter really moved me.
Fitz writes: all that night , I cradled him in my arms, as closely as if he were my child or my lover....I let him take whatever comfort he could in the warmth and strength of my body. I have never felt less than a man that I did so. RH may have toyed with the idea of making the Fool a woman, but perhaps believed the relationship was more poignant if they remained friends. Or perhaps it was a clever way to highlight their closeness and intimacy.

[KekPafrany]

Fitz writes: all that night , I cradled him in my arms, as closely as if he were my child or my lover....I let him take whatever comfort he could in the warmth and strength of my body.

Well.. First of all: Fitz might write about Fool as "he" because

- he might want to keep the Fool's mistery in secret. And not even in a journal or memorial can you be honest if it comes to secrets

- he might want to.. I can't say it properly, but it's a way to keep your distance from "her" or anything what the Fool could be and can be in the future.

[Carrickstoneamy]

Maybe, or maybe not. But if the fool was a woman why didn't Fitz and her/him run off and make sweet music together. It could be that when his memories we're restored he realized Molly was his truest desire. No I'm convinced he's a man.

[KekPafrany]

I wasn't thinking romantic involvement. But if you know she/he has to go away at the end, you can try not to get so involved. So you keep your emotional distance from him/her because it will cause your so much pain in the end.

But I'm more sore about the first reason: he/she had a secret, and Fitz kept is in his journal. Because he learned at the beginning of this trilogy that journals are dangerous to you and your friend.

So as far as we know: Fool can be anything. Even a hermaphrodithe.

[o0Ampy0o]

...Fitz writes: all that night , I cradled him in my arms, as closely as if he were my child or my lover....I let him take whatever comfort he could in the warmth and strength of my body. I have never felt less than a man that I did so....

No man would be so concerned about comforting a woman. A man comforting a woman is traditional, natural and expected. Obviously, to Fitz the Fool is a man. Thus he is describing that in spite of comforting another man he did not feel that he, Fitz himself, was being less of a man. As I have said earlier, this emphasizes the friendship between them. Two people can deeply love one another regardless of gender. Love does not always include sexuality. When you love you love, period.

[joost]

...Fitz writes: all that night , I cradled him in my arms, as closely as if he were my child or my lover....I let him take whatever comfort he could in the warmth and strength of my body. I have never felt less than a man that I did so....

No man would be so concerned about comforting a woman. A man comforting a woman is traditional, natural and expected. Obviously, to Fitz the Fool is a man. Thus he is describing that in spite of comforting another man he did not feel that he, Fitz himself, was being less of a man. As I have said earlier, this emphasizes the friendship between them. Two people can deeply love one another regardless of gender. Love does not always include sexuality. When you love you love, period.

There's an even stronger hint in the quote that makes clear that Fitz thinks of the Fool as male: [..]I cradled him in my arms[...]

[KekPafrany]

There's an even stronger hint in the quote that makes clear that Fitz thinks of the Fool as male: [..]I cradled him in my arms[...]

Well.. I still don't know. Would Fitz betray the Fool even in his journal to us if he were a female or somthing between the two genders?

[Jaythree]

I'm coming into this after 22 pages and years of discussion so I apologise if I'm bringing up points that have already been dealt with. Mainly I'd like to add in a couple of observations from Fool's Assassin and Fool's Quest.

First of all, unconfirmed or mistaken gender seems to be quite common amongst Whites. Examples being:
The obvious one, Beloved. Not only does he have male and female personas but is often accused of being female while in one of his male roles. Interesting to note that nobody ever thinks that he might be male while he's Amber. Perhaps that's simply because some people are more likely to suspect that an effeminate man is really a woman in disguise.
The messenger that Fitz has to burn. She is the "Butterfly Man" in Bee's dream. Fitz is convinced that it's the Fool before doing a double take and realising she's a woman. Another interesting observation is that Fitz only thinks that it's the Fool because she looks so much like he did when they were at Buckkeep.
Bee. Known to the Servants as the "Unexpected Son". Mistaken for a boy by Shun, Dwalia and even Beggar Fool.

Ash / Spark also brings attention to the Fool's situation. I think the fact that they are such fast friends is telling. Of course, that could be mere coincidence. If Spark and Per develop a relationship it could serve to shine a light on the Fool's issue. Namely, should the gender you are perceived as change how a person feels about you and can you truly be sure that they love you for you and not just because you are the opposite gender?
Fitz makes an offhand comment about Spark to the Fool along the lines of "You should understand her situation" which the Fool responds to with a "more than you know" type answer (I don't have the text to hand for the exact quotes but that's the gist of the conversation).

This ties in with other points that I've noticed over the years. Mainly the Fool's persistent insistence on that last line of privacy and the historical gender pairing of Prophet / Catalyst that others have mentioned. There's one other point that comes to the mind and that's Amber's knowledge of how to bind breasts with a wrap to make you look flat chested which she teaches to Althea for her ship's boy disguise.

I think that all of this added together means that Beloved is female. I also think that he is never going to explicitly reveal that fact to Fitz because he believes that Fitz is the kind of person who will allow a person's gender to change how he feels about them regardless of whether he says it would or not.

There are inconsistencies with this viewpoint. It's extremely likely that Fitz saw all of the Fool's bits when he was dead and when he inhabited his body he must have intrinsically known the Fool's gender. However, we all know that Fitz is at times incredibly dense and absolutely capable of lying to himself to such an extent that he believes what he knows is not the truth.

I like my interpretation, though, because it makes their relationship that much more bittersweet. And if there is any one word that perfectly encapsulates Fitz's life it is just that. Bittersweet.

[Valarya]

Namely, should the gender you are perceived as change how a person feels about you and can you truly be sure that they love you for you and not just because you are the opposite gender?

This. I think out of every little discussion on the Fool's gender, one should remember this point. That, in the end, it doesn't matter at all... and it doesn't change the way he and Fitz feel about one another.

I think there are several moments in Fool's Quest where you can tell Hobb is really tired of the speculation, where she wishes readers would just give up wondering and caring and love Fool for who he is as a character and who he is to Fitz. When I get home later I'll look up specific examples where she skirts the issue so pointedly as to almost admonish anyone who ever gave a shit.

Personally, I think Beloved is Male (based on stories from the Servants, the Pale Woman & Fitz). But actually, I just really don't care. Fool is Fool and I love him regardless.

[Lady Persephone]

I believe Robin Hobb deliberately planted not-quite-evidence to suggest that the Fool is both male and female and not only kept the 'evidence' vague but continually changed it so that readers would always be left in doubt.

But at the same time I think that people are missing the point when they question the Fool's sex. His ambiguity is what makes the character. He even sang a song about it! I refer to him with the male pronouns without really caring if he possesses, er, a dangle, simply because 'he' is thought of as male for six books out of nine. As for Amber, she is undoubtedly a female character. She's not a bloke in a frock. Similarly, Lord Golden is effete but definitely male. The Fool of the Assassin books is androgynous in a childlike way.

'Is the Fool a man or a woman?' Yes. Or possibly no.

He's either and neither at once and that's kind of the point. Gender is neither as binary nor as important as people make it out to be. It's so refreshing to read fiction where that point is addressed, and even more refreshing that it's dealt with so succinctly in a fantasy series when even writers of supposedly more 'relevant' fiction stumble over the issue time and again

EDIT: I should point out I'm not criticising anybody. It's interesting to look at the evidence for the Fool's sex. But I just think the interest should be framed more as 'Was this a deliberate attempt by Hobb to throw us?' rather than 'Does this prove the Fool is male/female?'. It's also fun to re-read the books and see just how crafty Hobb could be by leading our suspicions and then thwarting them again. (If you can call things like having him cover his chest with a blanket 'crafty').

I've been reading all the controversy over the Fool's gender and so far this is the very best assessment I've seen yet.    It's spot on.  

It doesn't matter whether the Fool's plumbing is that of a male or female.  The Fool can't be defined that way.  He's not human.  That's the biggest red flag ever!  There were no limits to his love for Fitz and if only Fitz could have grasped that precious truth, all lot of the drama in Fitz's life would have been minimal.  He wanted to be one with Fitz.  He did become one with Fitz.  That's what really matters.  In the end, there really was NO barrier to their relationship.  They belonged together. My heart ached for him reading Golden Fool because I could see it so clearly.  Fitz was so stupid and blind just as Jek told him. *tsk, tsk*

On another note, concerning the Fool's species.  Isn't he reminiscent physically (and all of the Whites) of a serpent?  In the way that he sheds and is generally cold-blooded in nature?  I'm currently reading Fool's Fate and in the chapter where he tells Fitz not to put the snow on his face because he's already SO cold in Aslevjal.  My hubby just got a pet snake a month ago and the grace, agility, cold-bloodedness, always in need of warmth, and the way it sheds especially and how it behaves during the shedding process . . needs water for the process . . it set off all sorts of red flags in my mind about the Fool's own anatomy.  And on the point of serpents, aren't they essentially embryo dragons in RoTE? It makes me wonder if they might be somehow related to dragons in some way?  Has anyone discussed this possibility before?  I thought I read something somewhere about it . . but can't remember.  When the Fool uses the Skill and the Wit to put a dagger in the heart of that silly Civil Bresinga when he told him that he and Sydel had both been used.  How is it possible for him to possess the Skill and the Wit if he's not in same way related to dragons?  Just a thought.  I might be way off there.

LATER EDIT:  I'm nearing the end of Fool's Fate and now I have a bit more well-rounded perspective concerning the Fool.  Well, not so much a change from my earlier assessment but . . a bit better founded I think.  Others have talked about this quote from the Fool, "You are too human, Fitz.  I am not made for such as this.  Take it from me, take it, or I shall die of it."  Then before that, when Fitz was in the Fool's body repairing it and made this assessment: "Nor was the Fool completely human.  That night, I confronted completely his srangeness.  I had thought I had known him.  In those hours of rebuilding, I realized and accepted him as he was.  That, in itself, was a revelation.  I had always believed we were more alike than different.  It simply was not true.  He was human only in the same way that I was a wolf."  This was a revelation to me.  I knew the Fool wasn't really human . . he has some human characteristics, but he's not really human.  We can't fathom this because we don't know any other way . . our species is male and female.  The Fool's species of White is totally different.  His plumbing is no doubt just as different. We don't know what that genitalia is.  No doubt, of his species, he is a he insofar as we understand what a male is from our human perspective.  So.  His feelings for Fitz are beyond what we, as humans, can fully comprehend.  As Thul has said in a former post, "the answer to the Fool's gender is yes."  He's neither male or female as we can understand.  When Fitz and the Fool joined together in unity, when they passed each other, that was a joining of their souls, beyond sexual coupling, but on a par. In my opinion of course.  Hence, we get Bee.    Something that transferred over to Fitz and was fertilised in Molly in the oneness that Beloved shared with Fitz.

Okay enough of my ramblings . . back to Fool's Fate.  I'm nearly done!