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

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A brief excerpt from a pedagogical treatise by Fedwren prefaces “Things Bought,” which begins with Fitz ruminating on the rarity of knowing he has done well with Bee. He reflects on the incident with the dog-seller just previously and its denouement until the arrival of Shun and Lant interrupts his reverie. They barrage him with details of things they wish to buy, and he considers that he might be unhelpfully rooted in the ways of his youth as they assail him with their demands. That Shun suffers from an entitlement mentality is reinforced, and Fitz sinks into annoyance as he gives more thought to the acts of the day.

Fitz becomes aware that conversation around him has ceased, and the attends carefully as Lant displays the same entitlement mentality Shun evidences. The revelation settles something in Fitz, and he determines “to pry out information” from Chade about the people laid into his charge, as well as to see to broadening Bee’s education himself. Shun interrupts him once again, and he lays out how matters will be with the three of them, moving forward. This upsets Shun and Lant, and argument begins to bubble up until Riddle points out Bee’s absence, which Fitz immediately moves to investigate.

The present chapter is another relatively brief one, only some ten pages in the edition of the text I am reading. Given the placement of the chapter near to the end of the book, it does have the effect of implying acceleration towards some pivotal moment–something that the action depicted in the chapter also suggests, Fitz’s sharp decision and harsh words for Lant and Shun indicating a shift in attitude on his part. And the Fitz-centric novels have shown that Fitz’s…abrupt decisions tend to have…consequences.

A couple of points of commentary come across to me in the present chapter, as well. The prefatory comment seems a bit…pointed, and I have to wonder if there is some experiential thing at work, some use by Hobb of Fedwren as a self-insertion. I know, of course, that biographical criticism is always fraught, but I also know that writers cannot help but write from their knowledge and experience, and I think I am not alone in having seen people resistant to formal learning. I acknowledge that formal education, particularly as it is commonly practiced in the United States, is not to everyone’s taste; I’ve been more heavily involved in it than most, I believe, and there’s a lot about it that is not to my own preference, so it stands to reason that those less devoted to it would have less favorable opinions of it. But I do think there is much to be said for teaching students early on that the subjects being studied are of worth and can well carry joy in themselves, and I do not know that that gets done enough (for reasons that make sense in context; I know where to direct my anger at such things).

The social-class comments that emerge in the present chapter also seem…pointed. Fitz’s annoyance at Shun’s presumptions of him and Lant’s accommodations thereto is, on the surface of it, right; the pair of them are upjumped and unpleasantly so, echoing Regal in uncomfortable ways, even if they do not know it. But Fitz is also somewhat disingenuous about his annoyance; he has made a point of remaining in his guise as non-nobility, avoiding any claim to his royal heritage–and doing so for his daughter/s, as well. And while it is the case that Nettle has a position at court (one earned rather than inherited), Bee does not have that particular social standing to shield her; even if Shun can be faulted for not figuring things out when information has been provided for her, Fitz can be faulted for being annoyed at being treated according to the public position he maintains. Yes, any public claim he might make to his Farseer heritage would be problematic, and for many reasons, but maintaining the pretense of being common-born…it’s as much his own fault as anyone else’s, and he is old enough to know it.

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