Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series soon.

---

Another excerpt from Bee’s journals precedes “A Princess of the Farseers.” As the chapter begins, Bee reflects glumly on her new status as a royal. The passage from Kelsingra to Buckkeep is glossed, Bee noting complaints about the necessities of royal travel as she rehearses events. A reunion with a maid from Withywoods prompts emotional release, and Bee begins to be integrated into the courts. She and Shun are initially polite but cool after their shared experiences, and Bee finds herself beset by duties and tutors and the sniping of pampered court ladies that she adeptly addresses to Shun’s relief.

Bee begins to settle into routines, one of which is with Beloved, now masquerading as Lord Chance. Some of them also touch on the Skill, in which Bee remains untutored and therefore of some vexation as her thoughts leak out at night. Reunions with Hap and others do ease her, however, even as she continues to struggle with the changes and comes to better and better understandings of a father she has mourned. Bee does take some opportunities to act out, struggling for reconnection and earning some rebuke.

One evening, Bee finds herself wandering the halls of the keep and stumbles upon Thick. From him, she begins to find a new friend and to learn more of the Skill. It is, for her, a strange taste of normalcy she had lacked.

The present chapter reads as sort of a passing thing, one intended primarily to move action along to its next point of importance rather than to do anything on its own. For the most part; there are some rather pointed goings-on that might well be read as toothing-stones from which another series might be constructed. The exchange in the present chapter between Bee and Violet over Shun is one such; Bee even remarks upon being certain to come into conflict with Violet again (780). While, in effect, a bit of petty sniping, it is one that serves a useful purpose–Bee is to be commended not only for taking up for one who had helped her, but also for rebuking scorn unearned–and it is one that gestures towards ways in which Bee is being set up to succeed the Fool. Speaking uncomfortable truths to adjust behavior is a function of the character-type the Fool has been by the in-milieu time of the present chapter, and Bee seems well positioned to keep on doing that very thing.

I note, too, that the present chapter does much to address the tension surrounding how Bee is and should be treated. While her numerical age is not entirely clear from the narrative, and her growth has been noted to have proceeded at a strange pace, Bee is somewhat ambiguously a child. She is not an adult, certainly, but given her experiences and her nature, she is not a child as other children are; she knows too much and too well, and much of it unpleasantly. As with the Fool, she crosses a number of categories, multidimensionally liminal, and how others must react to her is uncertain. Given the presence of the Skilled, however, with whom she might be able to share more (and “might” does a lot of work, here), those around Bee might (and, again, “might” does a lot of work, here) well be expected to understand her position better. She has responsibilities to those around her, certainly, but they also do to her, and it seems to me as I read the chapter again that the latter could use more attention.

I’m still happy to write for you; fill out the form below to begin!

Or you can send your support along directly!

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

---

An excerpt from Bee’s journals about reading Fitz’s writings and him destroying many of them precedes “Up the River.” Bee and her companions depart Bingtown in haste aboard the Vivacia, exploiting a loophole in Trader laws to allow themselves cover for executing their intentions. Joined by the Kendry, the Vivacia proceeds to and up the Rain Wild, Bee glossing the transit and the sights she notes along the way, as well as relating in summary the reports of events she makes to those who ask about how she has fared. Beloved attempts again to reconcile with her, to less effect than he might have hoped.

The Vivacia reaches Trehaug and ties up alongside Tarman for a hurried transfer of supplies and crew. Bee is welcomed aboard the old barge and watches events. The Kendry joins the other two liveships, and both are stripped of as much as the Tarman could take on while the ships’ captains confer. All watch as the Vivacia imbibed shipped Silver and begins to transform; the Kendry does, as well, even as a delegation from the Rain Wild Traders approaches and attempts to interdict the ships’ transformation into dragons, finding no success.

Later, Leftrin notes changes in the Tarman as Bee laments the barge’s slow up-river progress. Beloved lays out some of his understanding to Bee as they proceed, and they arrive at length in Kelsingra. There, they are met by Skill-users from Buckkeep, one of whom doses Bee against the Skill at work in the city. Skill-work that had been going on is related, and it is determined over Beloved’s objections that a Skill-pillar trip is in order to get Bee back to Buckkeep.

As often, the prefatory comments attract attention. In the present case, Bee’s assertion that she means to collect and write down Fitz’s accounts helps to address a question I noted earlier that the texts present: who is the author (within the milieu; outside it, of course, the answer is obvious)? It’s not a total answer, however. While it can be posited that Bee herself does a lot of the writing that constitutes the Farseer, Tawny Man, and Fitz and the Fool novels, and no few components of the prefatory materials are themselves cited as deriving from elsewhere (about which some previous comments are here), not all of them seem accessible. And there are some other factors at work, I think, but that is something only clear from the vantage of rereading; I think I’ll address those factors as they come up. For now, it will be enough to say that a partial answer is posited, but a full one to the question of “Who is doing the writing, really?” is not in evidence…at least not yet.

In the chapter itself, I think there is more for me to say about how the Traders mimic or emerge from the experience of the early United States. Some geographical cues are present, although they are only a few and serve primarily to reinforce ideas already present rather than to introduce new ones–fittingly enough, given how late in the novel the present chapter is. Legalistic notes are more evident, I think, with the reference to fines and the peculiar loophole at work in Trader law reported as being at work. In the chapter, the comment is made that, if a ship is underway when the local legislature passes a law, that ship cannot be held in violation of that law; this would seem to be a somewhat merciful thing, an acknowledgment that promulgation of a law has to be part of a law’s enactment and enforcement. This brings to mind the idea of “free, prior, and informed consent,” one applied in international law and by treaty especially to indigenous peoples and groups…something with which the United States has had some decided difficulty but which, as with so much else, is held out as an aspirational best practice. As in other chapters, then, the Traders are held out as something like a refinement of the early United States, albeit not with one-to-one correspondences in place, in the present chapter.

I’m blazing to write for you; fill out the form below to begin!

Or you can send your support along directly!