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

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After an admonishment for Masters of the Skill to observe solo practitioners closely against the possibility of destruction, “The Secret Child” begins with Fitz considering his newborn child and thinking ahead to glorious futures for her. Fitz laughs at himself for his doubts as he pictures how matters will unfold around his second daughter, but his laughter soon dies as he considers further implications; his daughter is another Farseer, and that begins to raise uneasy possibilities in his mind.

The next morning sees Withywoods begin to adjust to the presence of a new child, however strange to many people’s eyes, among them. Fitz’s Wit-borne instincts see threats, but more of his attention is given over to marvel at his daughter and his wife who bore her. In a dream, he recalls his youth in Buckkeep, seeing the Fool made sport by the other children in the castle, and he is unable or unwilling to intervene as the other children assail him.

Fitz wakes from his dream and is afraid he has harmed his small child, against which Molly soothes him. He considers the reality of his treatment of the Fool in his childhood, as well as that of the other children in the area, and he realizes that his daughter will be as alone as the Fool was, possibly abused as he was, if he does not act to hinder such a thing.

The opening commentary on Skillmaster Clarity and the Cowshell Village Tragedy points, for one, to a possible horror story set in the Six Duchies. Whether or not Hobb will write such a thing, fleshing out an incident originally mentioned in passing as with the Piebald Prince, I do not know. I can hope for such a thing, however; I am not normally a horror reader, but the kind of deconstructive exploration that the commentary suggests possible is very much the kind of thing I enjoy seeing in those properties for which I can still be said, in some ways, to be a fan.

That same commentary also bespeaks the United States-ness from which Hobb writes. Perhaps it is another of my affective readings, but I cannot help but see a parallel between what is suggested–not only in the current chapter, but elsewhere in the corpus–about the developed community of Skill users and the US Judiciary. I also cannot help but note that there is, in the present chapter as elsewhere in the corpus, an explicit check on political power. The monarch of the Six Duchies loses the ability to appoint a major court and governmental functionary, and the body undertakes to police itself by adopting policies that explicitly constrain its highest member. The dangers of autocracy, growing greater as the power to enforce autocratic dicta and views of morality and ethics increases, are clear; how much of a comment on the world of the novel’s composition, or on the ongoing world of its reception, is to be found is an open question, but that there is one to be found is certain.

And as far as affective reading goes…my own daughter was born small, though she was born early (rather than after a two-year gestation, as Fitz and Molly’s second daughter is). I recall, and I read in my own journals, thoughts about my daughter not unlike Fitz’s about his. I still have some of them; I worry about how the other children in our part of the world do and will regard my girl. But I think it’s not something that needs forgiving that I do. There’s much in my life as does beg forgiving, but that’s not part of it.

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

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Following a discourse on menopause and aging, “Arrival” begins with Fitz musing on the seeming sense in Molly despite what he perceives as her disordered thinking regarding her pregnancy. Prior discussions about fertility are glossed, as is the continued management of Withywoods amid what Fitz regards as his and Molly’s declining years. The death of Patience receives small comment amid the changes befalling Molly and her family and her long protests of being pregnant despite reason and the evidence available to others.

Dynastic matters also proceed in the world around Fitz, and he finds himself carried along by them once again. As he goes, he notes the changes that have taken place in Buck Duchy and the Six Duchies since the unrest of his youth. The needs of the kingdom take him to the Chyurda and Jhaampe, and he sees again the house where the Fool had dwelt in that city. The sight puts him to musing on his past once again, and Fitz confers with one who had known the Fool for a White Prophet. The conference leaves Fitz somewhat stung, though eased to know the Fool yet lives, and he ruminates upon the matter for a time–until his reverie is interrupted by Nettle, who comes to check on him.

Fitz and Nettle travel together, conferring at length, and he learns much of the state of the Six Duchies and of people he has known from her. Notably, dragons are beginning to become a problem for the Six Duchies as they range in from Chalced, and how to deal with them is an open question. No few other topics are treated, and the pair grow closer together than they had been before, leaving Fitz saddened that their travel together must end as it does. But they arrive at Withywoods in good order and better humor, and they are welcomed warmly by Molly, with whom they exchange news at length.

Fitz and Nettle are also obliged to confront Molly’s continued insistence on her pregnancy and the extent of her preparations for a new child. In a moment of Molly’s absence, they talk together of the seeming ending of her sanity, but they do not conclude their talk before she returns and reacts with indignation neither can claim inappropriate. After some time, though, Fitz and Molly arrive at an accord and more.

In a new section, winter arrives at Withywoods, and Fitz makes a point of commending Revel for his excellent service. Soon after, Molly presses upon Fitz in his study, saying that the pregnancy she has harbored for years is ending, that she is going into labor. After some dithering and rebuke from Molly, Fitz makes himself useful against the event, and he returns with supplies to find Molly has delivered a small, small girl. Molly places the child into Fitz’s hands, and he finds a protective instinct that is partly Nighteyes well up in him as he considers the child. Fitz’s magics tell him that the child is and will be well, and he is greatly eased and enheartened.

The present chapter is unusually lengthy; Hobb’s chapters in the Realm of the Elderlings novels are usually around twenty pages as printed, while the present chapter approaches forty (109-46). Some of the unusual length can be explained by the chapter doing much to situate the novel in the broader scope of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus. I’ve noted before, I believe, the challenge later novels in a series face in introducing new readers to characters and milieu; for a novel such as Fool’s Assassin, published nearly twenty years after the first member of its series and with more than a dozen earlier works to synthesize and address, the challenges are particularly strident. To take a double-length chapter to address a number of points that would be expected to come up, to make notes of what has happened with characters who received more or less attention in earlier works and whose situations could well be expected to matter to the protagonist directly and to the setting in which the protagonist operates, is not out of line. For readers who started their journey in the Realm of the Elderlings with the present novel, I can believe that the extended exposition is helpful. For me, it was a reasonably pleasant reminiscence; even though I have been working on this rereading more or less consistently for some time, it has been some time since I’ve looked at some parts of the corpus. (I do occasionally have to do other things, after all–and I even get to do other things now and again!)

As I reread, I find myself doing so affectively once again. The novel was published in 2014, the same year as my daughter’s birth, and while my wife was not pregnant so long as Molly, our child was born small (and early, by some weeks). I admit to having been worried about her young life (and more than once, in the event; she took pneumonia at a year old, which did not help matters), and I think I am far from alone among fathers in feeling a great sense of duty to protect well up once I saw my child. I also do not think I am alone in seeing no small amount of sass in my newborn daughter’s gaze when she looked at me for the first time. The present chapter speaks to such things, or my reading of it does–although, again, I concede that I read affectively more often than I ought, and no readers fail to bring their own biases to bear on what they read when they read it. We cannot help but do so, of course; we read as an aspect of who we are, and who we are is necessarily a product in part of what we have done and seen. Each of our experiences shapes our understanding in some way or another, and the application of that understanding is itself an experience that helps shape the next–recursive, yes, but not necessarily a bad thing, all told.

As I reread, too, I find myself thinking again about biographical criticism. Just as readers necessarily bring their experiences to the act of reading, such that each will find something different from the other in the same words on the same pages, writers bring their experiences to the act of writing. While it is certainly true, as I recall remarking and as I know many others have, that writers can write of things outside their direct experience, there is a reason “Write what you know” remains advice given to them. Knowing what I do about Hobb’s biography (and while I will admit that that knowledge is incomplete, it does offer enough for me to do simple math), I can readily guess than an author in her late fifties to early sixties as the novel was brought into being would be familiar with such concerns as are attributed to Molly, and I do not think I would be wrong to make such a guess. I do not go so far as to say that it is only that experience that informs the character–I do not believe so much is the case–but I do not think it fitting to ignore that experience, either. Something about a baby and bathwater comes to mind–but, again, that’s my experience showing up in my writing.

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

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Following an excerpt from an autobiography by Chade Fallstar, “Preservation” begins with a Skilled conversation between the old assassin and his erstwhile apprentice. Fitz takes care to let Molly sleep where the Skilling from Chade had awakened him as he stalks through hidden corridors to his private study. Conversation between the Skilled assassins turns to writing and potential regrets about it, and Fitz muses on the matter somewhat wryly as Chade lays out his reasons for asking.

An offhanded comment stifles further inquiries about the writing, and Fitz marks the shift in the tone of conversation as Chade asks after the Fool. Fitz reflects on his relationship with the Fool as Chade relates a report of strange visitors in Buckkeep Town who seemed to be searching for the Fool or someone very much like him. Another report ties the pursuit to the messenger Fitz had failed to receive or recover, and Chade leaves Fitz to consider matters.

Ruminating bitterly, Fitz considers Verity’s sword that Dutiful had given him in fulfillment of a promise, and his thoughts turn to other gifts. One of them, the memory-cube given him by the Fool, attracts his attention, and Fitz considers his present situation deeply before returning quietly to bed. There, Molly, having woken to find him absent, invites him to intimacy, after which interlude, she announces her pregnancy to him, and Fitz fears for the coming loss of the woman he has long loved.

The beginning of the chapter is quite the metanarrative commentary; that is, the writing is about writing, something with which a writer must necessarily be concerned. (This webspace is an example of that concern, for reasons I think are obvious to any who look at it for any length of time.) The focus on it is something that has pervaded the Realm of the Elderlings works, not only in Fitz’s own ruminations (attested in no few chapter-beginnings throughout the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies), but also in the correspondences at work in the Rain Wilds Chronicles and, as I’ve noted, in the novella “Words Like Coins.” There’s not necessarily a consistent position espoused in the metanarrative, to be certain; there are valorizations of the act and demonstrations of the need for record-keeping, of course, but there are also warnings against leaving clear records, admonishments that doing so can lead to ruin. I suppose that, if there is a single underlying message to be found in the thread of discussion about writing that weaves through the Realm of the Elderlings tapestry, it is that writing is a useful tool and a neutral one, affording power to who will use it but imposing no morality upon those who do. And I’m not certain what all to make of such a thought.

I will note, though, that the revelation of Molly’s pregnancy once again struck me oddly, even though I knew this time that it was coming. (It’s a rereading, after all.) Now, the use of what seems to be deus ex machina is not itself a bad thing, as I’ve noted, especially for a work in an avowedly medievalist genre. (Even if there are other readings that might actually be better-supported, as I have argued and will argue again, there’s more than enough in place to sustain a reading of the Six Duchies as partaking of the prevailing Tolkienian tradition of fantasy literature; certainly, she acknowledges her indebtedness thereto, even as she is clearly not circumscribed by it.) But it is certainly a surprise upon first reading.

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