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

---

Following a letter regarding the Kendry and the challenges recently besetting the ship’s crew, “Feather to Blade” begins with Bee, imprisoned, regarding the passage of time in her cell and considering her situation. After lamps are lit, Prilkop speaks to her of dreams, particularly prophetic ones, and relates ominous portents. Wolf-Father rebukes her self-pity as her mind turns towards Fitz, and Bee suddenly realizes Symphe stands outside her cell door.

Bee regards Symphe as the latter undoes the locks holding her captive. Symphe offers candy as if Bee is a foolish child, and Bee, urged by Wolf-Father, follows her amid Prilkop’s jeering. Bee is taken to a chamber Wolf-Father recognizes as smelling of blood, in which Dwalia and Vindeliar await. Symphe confers with them about what will be done with and to Bee, and Bee acts in her own defense. A brief melee ensues, with Symphe being burned, her throat slashed, and Bee coming into contact with a vial of serpent spit that Symphe had purloined. Its power adds to her inborn Skill, and she revels in it, accepting the proclamation that she is the feared and foretold Destroyer and killing Dwalia with a word.

Bee returns to her cell to await a better chance for escape. Prilkop recognizes what has happened, and Bee weeps for what she has had to become.

The present chapter is not the first mention of the Destroyer, although I would appear to have failed to mark mention of the figure previously. Said figure is mentioned as an imminent threat to Clerres and the society that centers on it, the coming of which is foretold in an increasing number of recent prophetic dreams. Its approach is certain, especially given the Servants’ hubristic belief in their own correctness; the irony, recognized in the present chapter, that the Servants have brought their Destroyer into their stronghold themselves is delicious in no small part because it does proceed directly from that hubris. Bee points out (540-41), rightly, that she had a life from which she had been torn that would have kept her from Clerres save for the Servants’ need to control every possible bloodline of White Prophet and every possible outcome that could be foretold. Had the Servants been content to leave well enough alone, they would not have invited their own unmaking–but they could not, being as they were and are.

That is, of course, the point of all of it. The Servants, by relying so heavily on prophetic foreknowledge to guide themselves, inevitably place themselves into the position of making their prophecies come true. By not only accepting foretelling, but actively working to enact and guide it, they subject themselves to it, and by exerting the kind of ruthless control over it that they seem to have for generations if not far longer, they have made themselves unable to conceive of their own actions as being potentially in error. They are trapped by the very thing that they have used to accumulate power.

There are political comments to be found therein, I’m sure.

To pivot: the idea of the Destroyer as a figure of imminent menace is hardly new to Hobb, of course. I grew up and again live in the Texas Hill Country, where there were and are an awful lot of people who claim to be convinced that the End Times are a-comin’, and soon; it’s the kind of thing that lends towards apocalyptic figures. It’s not the only one, either; it’s an archetype for a reason. While Hobb does have a tendency to play with tropes and archetypes, this one seems to be pretty straightforward. At least at this point…

I’m still available to write for you!

Or you can send your support along directly!

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

There is discussion of cannibalism in the present chapter.

---

After a brief excerpt from Tom Badgerlock’s journals, “Silver Secrets” begins with Fitz joining the others from the Six Duchies aboard the Paragon in mourning the death of Chade Fallstar. There is some disagreement about the amount of hair that should be shorn from Fitz’s head, and he muses on his not having done so at Burrich’s death, as well as on the length of his association with the old man. Report arrives that the Paragon has reached the vicinity of Clerres, and Fitz considers the tasks awaiting him and the dangers to Bee that can be found among them. Plans for how to proceed are voiced, and Fitz confers with Brashen and Althea.

In the wake of the conference, Amber proposes a plan for infiltrating Clerres. Having none better, Fitz reluctantly accedes to it. Argument briefly emerges about Fitz’s retention of the Silver given him by Rapskal, but it soon fades against continued exposition of plans to retrieve Bee and enact revenge against Clerres. Fitz excuses himself from the planning for a time and finds himself conferring with the liveship about his death.

Afterward, Fitz observes as the liveship relates experiences in Clerres, and he makes his preparations as the ship approaches within sight of the city. He and the Fool confer, the Fool relating some regrets and some of the circumstances of his imprisonment in Clerres with Prilkop. They range to extreme depredation on the part of the Four and the Fool’s unwitting participation in the same. Fitz offers such comfort as he can and urges him to preserve Bee at all costs.

Discussion is interrupted by Spark arriving with water for tea. The Fool contributes herbs to brew, and Fitz is eased by them and the memories they spur, leaving Spark and Fool as they fall into sleep.

To deal with the big issue: the presentation of evil in the present chapter, the discussion of the Fool being induced towards cannibalism while imprisoned in Clerres, seems to me to be another instantiation of the almost cartoonish we-need-the-capital-letter-Evil at work in some of the later Realm of the Elderlings works. I discuss it previously here and as linked, and I find I’m not sure of the effect of the particular ponerology at present. Given the other descriptions of Clerres and its inhabitants in the novels, the motion towards cannibalism is, if unexpected on an initial reading, not out of place even in one. After all, Clerres is filled with Bad People, and cannibalism is, at least for the presumed primary readership of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus, a Bad Thing; Bad People tend to do Bad Things–and to try to get others to do them, too.

But that’s where the confusion is for me. What does Clerres gain from the Fool eating the flesh and blood of those who attempt to help him? He is already their captive, and he has demonstrated that, despite both cozening and torture, he will not turn to their ends; is it mere amusement for them in Clerres that they act so? Is it simply a demonstration of just how Evil (and, again the capital letter seems needed) they are?

As I think on it some more, the thought occurs that it might be a back-handed anti-Messianic image. That is, the Fool is constrained or impelled to drink the blood and eat the flesh of those who are sacrificed for their support of him, something of an inversion of Christian Communion and one deepened by the fact of their failure. That he is yet imprisoned when he partakes is an indication that their sacrifices have not availed. Clerres is highlighted as being yet more Evil to Hobb’s presumed primary readership–a high-selling author in the United States can be presumed to be writing to a predominantly United-States-based audience, and that country says an awful lot about its putative Christian underpinnings; if Clerres inverts what is perhaps the principal ritual of a religion, it is being figured as antithetical thereto, thus more emphatically Evil…and I think I may have to rework a paper once again.

You know you want someone to write for you; have that someone be me!

Or you can send your support along directly!

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

---

A proposal for exploiting prophetic foreknowledge precedes “Bribes,” which opens with Bee waking to breakfast in her imprisonment. Disoriented, she takes a moment to collect herself and asks for wash-water, only to be denied. Prilkop explains, and the Four enter, described once again as Capra takes Bee from her cell. Bee follows her past cells and into the stronghold of Clerres, coming to a room where Bee is instructed to bathe.

Bee does as bidden, assessing her physical state. As she dresses, she keeps with her a candle Molly had made, about which Capra asks her; at the questioning, Bee sees possibilities emerge, but she is soon obliged to follow Capra again through more of the stronghold. As they proceed, Capra explains what they pass by, noting a core library of texts and how they are used in Clerres to effect.

The pair continue on, and Bee begins to formulate a plan for how she will go on. Capra lays out possibilities for Bee to consider, and she takes her to dine privately. Bee puts forward her best possible presentation while concealing as much of her deeper self as she can, deflecting questions about deeper truths. Coached along by Wolf-Father, Bee has some success in it, partly by divulging information that belied Dwalia‘s earlier comments. The success is only partial, however, and she soon finds herself being recorded in detail.

Bee considers the scribe brought in to attend upon her, Nopet, and begins to make her report. In doing so, she gives more detail than she intends, and Wolf-Father continues to coach her. But it proves well for her that she does, because her accounts are confirmed by other sources, and as the Four begin to argue, Capra takes Bee back to her imprisonment next to Prilkop. Capra ubpraids the other three again, and Bee is left confined to consider what will happen next.

The present chapter, in Capra questioning Bee at the table about Fitz and the Fool, offers a reminder about the Six Duchies’ predilection towards emblematic names, something long asserted in the Realm of the Elderlings novels. (Indeed, the opening prefatory materials that begin the whole corpus make mention of it; readers learn the practice before they learn the narrator’s name in the text.) Originally an issue of royal and noble names, the practice seems to spread beyond those confines; one example is Perseverance, who does seem to keep going when he probably ought not to do so, and Spark/Ash presents another, paired, example of the same. (I am suddenly put in mind of something of a backhanded chain of jokes as regards Spark; her presence seems to kindle Lant[ern? I know it’s not, but it’s close enough for the evocation], much as he had been infatuated with Shine and fairly glowed in her company before the revelation of their close kinship. I motion towards the latter in earlier comments, but the former only now occurs to me, I think. It’s probably not a mark in my favor, although it is something that bespeaks the value of rereadings; more details emerge each time, deepening understanding and appreciation–at least for me.)

The present chapter also speaks to what I’ve noted is a recurring theme in Hobb’s work: the primacy of writing. As I’ve commented before, it’s not a surprise that a writer would espouse such themes; making money from writing requires that people believe in the value of writing, after all. I find, however, that in the present-of-this-writing, there is a connection between the accumulated knowledge of untold but implied-to-be vast time-spans of prophecies (and the subsequent reports that bear out their correctness) and the information economy that was certainly in place as the novel was composed and initially released. Again, the novel dates to 2017; social media, with its information-harvesting and predictive algorithms targeted at the acquisition of money, was already very much in place. The idea of reading Clerres as a fantasy take on science-fiction dystopiæ tantalizes, suggesting itself as yet another scholarly someday worth investigating.

I seem to continue to collect such things. I hope to be able to address at least some of them.

The young year invites new writing; fill out the form below to get yours started!

Or you can send your support along directly!