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

[Caroline]

Perhaps White Prophets take a long time to sexually mature.

The ending I would have preferred is
1) the Coterie bypasses the block and Skill-heal Burrich of his injury, cataracts and various other stuff he accumulated over the years
2) Fitz recognizing that his love for Molly is the first love of youth, something precious but something that belongs to his past.
3) Fitz being truly happy for Burrich and Molly for who they are now AND what they have now
4) Fitz knowing the Fool's body inside out during healing and recognizing that the Fool will mature into a "She" which amuses him to no end.
5) Fitz caring and nurturing the Fool through a period of healing (from dying of torture) and transition where the Fool is needy and emotional (like the average hormonal teen). But the Fool whom Fitz loves (wise, funny, loving) is always there.
6) They travel back to the school and find there is a ceremony for neutralizing White Prophets/Catalysts after their mission is finished - something the Fool would have known if she hadn't run away from school.

Well, it is a fantasy. And several plot elements were pointing to this possible ending.

[julia]

For me, Fool is a man. It feels quite possible that the white prophets are hermaphrodites, but I always think about both Fool and Amber as a him.

And I think Fool is making it very clear that he wants to have a physical relationship with Fitz in their argument in Golden Fool.
(I just translated this from the swedish version, so it's probably not as in the original!)

Fool: You know what I feel for you. You've known it for many years. Let's not, you and me, now when we are alone, pretend otherwise. You know that I love you. I've always done so and I will always do.

Fitz: And you know that I love you too. Like a man loves his best friend. I am not ashamed of that. But to let Jek or Starling believe that we would go past the borders of friendship, that you would like to share my bed...

Fool: I love you. My love has no limits. None at all. Do you understand me?

Fitz: Just to well I'm afraid! I would never... Do you understand? I would never want to sleep with you. Ever.

Fool: And that is also something we've both known in all these years/.../Did you really think I would make you do something you didn't want to? I know very well how disgusting you would find that. And I also know that such attempts would destroy everything we have experienced together.

But then on the other hand, he compares their relationship to the Fitz/Nighteye... I'm not sure he even knows what he wants himself..

[Shantar]

I strongly feel he's male. When Fitz raised him from the death, if the contrary, I very much believe he would have noticed something so surprising to him and given it some thought. And if the answer was something so strange as the prophets being able to shift between genders, I believe it would've been hinted more clearly. Of course, I can't know what kind of books there will be in the future. Perhaps it will be hinted later on.

[Elven]

I'm convinced Beloved is Female and there were a lot of clues pointing to this fact.

1. I recall in the Liveship trilogy that Amber teaches Althea how to act like a boy and strap her chest and how to manage her monthly times. Althea attributes Ambers good knowledge of these things due to the fact that Amber had told her she had spent some time masquerading as a male in the past.

2. In the Tawny Man trilogy, Fitz eavesdrops on Beloved speaking with Jek. Jek expresses shock at how Beloved has kept this all from Fitz. Admittedly, Beloved could of been simply keeping up his image as Amber for Jek, but from reading that conversation I was convinced that Beloved was sincere in expressing that he/she never wanted to tell Fitz the truth about his/hers love for him and or Gender

3. If those things didn't convince me, it was when I read this that I was certain of Beloved being a female, when Beloved shows Fitz the tattoos he/she is marked with, yes he/she holds the sheets up to his/her chest the entire time, and then Fitz is ordered to leave whilst he/she puts the shirt back on and Fitz remarcks that it takes Beloved a very long time to get his shirt back on which leads me to believe that Beloved was strapping her chest.

Also adding up all the other clues that have been mentioned in this thread.

But I'll also say that the gender of Beloved is irrelevant to the story, and Hobb makes a point in this purposely.

Though it is fun to speculate

[Masha]

I absolutely agree.
But I think that RH probably has more to say about this. It certainly paves the way for future books.
Every time I read the trilogies I find more in them!

So, I think Ambr/Fool /[/size][/font]Golden is hermaphrodite (see Left hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin)

[n00854180t]

The Fool dressing him up, to me, was like a spouse or partner picking out the clothes that they always wanted to see their lover wearing because they knew how much more attractive they'd be, maximizing potential.

Having been subjected to this by my ex-wife in reality, this if how I saw it as well.

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.

The issue of the Fool's gender is also rather satisfactorily cleared up when Fitz retrieve's the Fool's body, before resurrecting him. In fact, that was the point at which the question of the Fool's gender was actually cleared up in my mind. I believe it would have been mentioned if the Fool had been female, and it was not, despite the fact that the Fool was definitely naked during this period.

[petterone]

It feels quite possible that the white prophets are hermaphrodites..


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[Draquia]

I still have no definitive answer for the Fool's gender, but I was very convinced it was a she when I read about Amber teaching Althea to disguise her womanly attributes so thoroughly. It struck me as a very intimate thing to know about women that the Fool would know how to disguise a period.

Male or female or hermaphrodite however, Beloved's gender is not crucial to his character. I feel like there was much more about him that we never discovered, and I would love to read more about him. But most poignant for me was the love shared between Beloved and Fitz. Fools Fate was the most tragic happy ending I've ever read. I can't believe they never even got to say goodbye properly. At the very least I would want to see that happen, which is why I'm desperately hoping to see the Fool again in Dragon Keeper, which I'm off to buy tomorrow. I desperately want to cling onto Jinna's prophecy - that Fitz's true love winds in and out of his life - and that their paths will cross again one day.

Caroline - if you ever write that alternative ending, please send me a copy - I would love to read it.

[redchild]

I still have no definitive answer for the Fool's gender, but I was very convinced it was a she when I read about Amber teaching Althea to disguise her womanly attributes so thoroughly. It struck me as a very intimate thing to know about women that the Fool would know how to disguise a period.

That actually may not be an indicator of a person's sex. Male female-impersonators are actually very attune to what makes a feminine woman feminine- probably much more so than a woman. The everyday motions a woman performs, and does not notice, a man would study and imitate with much scrutiny, down to a woman's walk and gestures. The same goes for female male-impersonators.

I just thought of the novel Orlando by Virginia Woolf, and I think it may be an inspiration for the Fool's characterization. Orlando lived as both a man and a woman over centuries and found that a person's sex to be irrelevant to a person's core identity. Though to be honest I never read the book, but I did see the film adaptation with Tilda Swinton in it :

[Mervi]

Caroline - if you ever write that alternative ending, please send me a copy - I would love to read it.

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