I did not expect to win the race
My heavy legs long since slowed
And I never ran so quickly, anyway
I had not expected a new Usain
Bolting by me
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On this, his day, there’s this to say:
The fight he fought is still a fray
And too few children get to play
With unlike people, or to pray,
And too few people get to say
What their hearts bid.
The dream persists, if with delay,
Despite what hateful voices say
As they seek to incite the fray
And bloody make the game they play
As they their better selves betray,
Such as they have.
As I sit, rolling dice and telling lies,
And listening to others who surprise
With insights, comments, schemes that they devise,
The joys of years gone by return to mind.
The days between have, in the main, been kind,
Although there’s been enough mischance to find
For those who care to look, as I oft do.
Despite my pleasures and how they accrue,
My eyes will search for sorrows old and new,
My hands will feel for wounds and search out scars
And read in them the past as futures, stars;
Each line I see therein, today’s joy mars.
The dice, and stories others with them tell,
Fall as they will. I pray that they roll well.
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The page, not empty, calls again to me,
To put my pen upon it, thus to see
What work can yield. I cannot from it flee,
That task which waits for such work as my hands
Can do. Such ever are my life’s demands
That I can rarely simply sit or stand,
But must rush to and fro as lizards dart,
To new tasks turning with each beat of heart
And hoping to address each with some art.
With pen in hand, I feel my tightening grip
Upon the shaft; I see my ink to drip
And hope that I let no task thusly slip
Without my doing well what I must do.
I must so hope if I can get me through.
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Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.
Following what appears to be a report from Ash to Rosemary about approaching the Fool, “Tidings” opens with Fitz returning to his rooms to sleep and rising to uncertainty about his new role in the Six Duchies. He and Nettle confer through the Skill, with Nettle discussing a number of things with Fitz that had occurred in a meeting where he had not been present, and some matters between them are eased.
Afterwards, Fitz confers with Chade through the Skill, discussing their respective re-emergences into public life. Chade reminds Fitz that he has a role to play in his public persona and must act to suit it, noting that the same is true for private life. Fitz retreats to Chade’s hidden chamber to confer with the Fool–and with Ash, who is present–about how to put on his role. The pair delight in outfitting Fitz, who finds himself appreciative of their efforts and the results, and Ash asks Fitz about the truth of some of the Fool’s claims to him. Fitz speaks well of the Fool and invites him to dinner, but is refused, the reasons cited. At the urgings of Chade and others, Fitz makes to descend to dinner, and Ash reports to him of the Fool’s status.
Fitz is brought in by Riddle, who now sports the title Kesir in acknowledgement of his receipt of a Chyurda holding from Kettricken. The two talk together as Riddle ensures Fitz’s swift arrival with the royal party, along with whom he enters to dine. The events of the evening are glossed, among which Fitz is crowned again and publicly, and among which he is pressed socially in ways to which he is entirely unaccustomed.
Following the dinner, Fitz is again part of the royal party as it adjourns to Dutiful’s chambers. There, the group confers about next steps to take regarding Fitz and Bee, and Chade finds himself stymied at not being able to reach an agent he had dispatched to Withywoods, Slidwell. Nettle notes some annoyance at Chade’s use of Slidwell, noting “There were a number of reasons I chose to discontinue his Skill-training” (191), but she reaches out to him through the Skill, aided by Dutiful and Fitz. They find something fogging the magic, and Fitz and Chade both purpose to make for Withywoods in haste. Discussion of the fogging and its possible sources follows, and Chade briefs and equips Fitz for his journey, on which he departs in haste.
The discussion in the present chapter about the performativity of public personae–with public including any association with other people–attracts some attention. If memory serves, inhabiting a public role for any length of time, especially one seemingly at odds with his inclinations, is a strain for Fitz; his sojourn as Lord Golden’s servingman stands out as an example of his difficulties. If memory serves, the Fool is perhaps the best person to consult about the overt performativity of dealing with other people; having lived as other people than himself, as several people other than himself, across many years, affords him substantial experience with and a detailed perspective on the matter. (Yes, I know that the Fool’s presentation varies. He does seem to be presenting as masculine in the present text.) There is a temptation to read the exchange between the two–assisted by Ash, who receives some interesting comment from the Fool–as another metaphor for some issue or another, or as some level of gloss on Judith Butler’s rhetoric, but I’ll acknowledge that might just be my graduate schooling talking.
I have my role to play, as well.
Part of that role, at least as has regarded my rereading Hobb, has been that I read affectively more than is perhaps good for me. In keeping with that, I will note that my daughter, Ms. 8, has long been engaged as a performer; she has, in fact, just started rehearsals for her next show as I write this. As part of that performance practice, she has had to inhabit other personae than her “real” one (and she is branching out into costume design as part of that work, as well, which seems relevant to the present chapter); I have had some success in explaining things to her as being parts of a role she has to adopt for specific audiences she encounters. (There’s something to be said about meeting people where they are, even when they are people well known already.) My own role-playing, in an overt sense, has gotten going again, as I’ve noted recently, and I always have some concerns about what I am doing as a husband and a father. As such, playing roles, fulfilling perceivedly expected functions for other people, has been much on my mind recently. It is perhaps coincidental that the present chapter focuses so much on such things; were I more Jungian in my approach, I might be inclined to consider the synchronicity of it. But I never have been as much embedded in psychoanalytic criticism as others have been, even others under whom I did some study in years long gone away now. At this point, I’m not sure what theoretical stance I take, really, if I do take one consistently (which is another question, and an open one).
Perhaps that is also part of my role.
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Among the many things the beginning of 2025 has found me doing is helping to administer another play-by-post iteration of the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game, about which I’ve made some comments now and again. So much is to be expected, of course; I am a big ol’ nerd, after all. (As if that wasn’t already abundantly clear.) And I have expressed my love of the game more than once previously; it shouldn’t be a surprise that I would go back to something that has given me years of enjoyment when the opportunity presents itself–as it does (in and around occasional platform problems, but those are surmountable).
With the game–which is not mine; I’m helping–I’m reminded of one of the things that I like to do when I set up events such as factor heavily in play-by-post gaming. In such events, players are typically asked to make a series of rolls (experience suggests that three is a good number), usually with some success threshold on earlier ones influencing results on later ones, to arrive at some level of success in the event. Outcomes are then typically compared across participants, with the player doing “best,” as defined in the event, receiving some reward. Such constructions do allow for variety in design and performance, and they can allow players who build characters to do some things well shine while not necessarily preventing victory by those who are less focused.
They can, however, also result in players watching their characters fail the tasks presented to them, and while an occasional failure can (and often does) make for an interesting springboard for narrative–there is an art to failposting, and it is a wonder to see done well–a series of failures becomes disheartening. It becomes even more so when the failures accrue on rolls players build their characters to do well. I know as much because I’ve seen it on both sides, as a player and as an administrator for such games.
Consequently, when I build series of events, series where it can be the case that someone does badly across the lot, I build in what I call a “backhand” prize. In one game, for instance, the focus was on the creation of a series of artistic objects, with the artist performing “best” across the board receiving an exalted social position. Given RPGs, the threshold for victory was clear enough. What I made sure to introduce was a provision that, should a character somehow fail all of their rolls to produce art, the sum of their creations would be strangely harmonious as an installation, with the character in question being lionized in milieu and receiving rewards that would have been helpful had there been other games in that vision of the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game. (Alas, as happens, real life intervened. That campaign, that series of linked games, ended. But lessons were learned, and good has come from it.)
The game I am helping to run now is ongoing. It is possible that players in it will see what I write. (I hope they will, actually; they will see that I think them a good bunch, and I benefit from wider readership.) So much means that I won’t say whether there is such a prize in the present game or what it is if there is one. But it is the kind of thing I like to do, and I think it is a good idea for others to take up, as well.
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Tomorrow, as this posts, will mark fifteen years that I have been a husband. They have been the best fifteen I’ve had yet, and I’m looking forward to more than fifteen more of them. (I mean, I might not make it past 57–not everybody does. But I still look forward to more, even if I acknowledge I may well not get them.)
There have been problems, of course; there could hardly not be. There have been strains. Some of them, we knew to expect setting out, my wife and I; we were both in grad school when we wedded, and I was still in the folly of my youth. (I’ve grown out of it; I’m now in the folly of middle age.) Some, we couldn’t’ve foreseen. Some, we’re still managing. None would I want to face without her, and none of the time with her would I give up to avoid them.
Tree though I am not, I can be a little sappy at times. But if not about my wife, then about whom (other than my daughter, whom I only have because of my wife)?
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Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.
After a report from Jek about Kelsingra and its reoccupation, “The Crown” begins with Fitz returning belatedly to his quarters, tired from the night’s events. He rests uneasily until awakened by Ash effecting entry into his rooms. Fitz challenges the boy, who delivers breakfast and letters for the renewed FitzChivalry Farseer, and the two talk together briefly before Ash notes small injuries on Fitz’s back. Fitz is surprised by them, himself, but he deflects attention by asking after Ash’s background, learning that the boy was the child of a prostitute and slotting more of Chade’s machinations into place in his mind.
Dismissing Ash, Fitz turns to the correspondences that have begun to come in for him, considering them and the ways in which his new status will affect Bee. He is distracted from his ruminations by the arrival of the crow that has insinuated herself into his life, giving rise to a rumination on the Wit and its limits. The bird harangues him for a bit as he wistfully considers changes in the area surrounding Buckkeep, and Fitz attempts to mask the physical differences that separate the crow from her fellows.
So much done, Fitz ascends to Chade’s hidden chambers to confer with the Fool. The latter notes that he is beginning to recover some semblance of sight, and Fitz guardedly congratulates him. The pair then confer about Fitz’s re-elevation, about which not all are pleased, and the Fool notes to Fitz a package Chade had left for him. Within is a sealed message from Verity, dating to his departure to Kelsingra and naming Fitz to his line of succession; a crown accompanies it. Despite his concerns, the Fool places it on Fitz’s head, and the two confer about injuries and Skill-healing. Fitz investigates the Fool, finding himself in mind of his own mistreatment by Galen, and both end up fatigued by the experience. The crow–deemed Motley by the Fool–returns as they continue to talk and makes herself part of their circle.
The present chapter does make a number of references to in-milieu past events, even more than I link herein, glossing them neatly and generally well. It is a good piece of world-building on display and a useful reminder that the present volume is one in a long series. (And what a relief it is to read an author who actually gets books into print!) I could wish I had taken more detailed notes, or more searchable ones, but that is an issue with me and not with the text.
I find some interest in some of the comments regarding those who are not pleased at the return of FitzChivalry Farseer. One, in particular, stands out, that made by the grandson of a soldier who had helped Regal capture Fitz: “My grandfather died thinking he had sent you to your death. To the end of his days, Blade believed he had betrayed you. He, I think, you might have trusted” (162). Again, I appreciate the work to connect the present text back to the earlier volumes in the series; I know–oh, I know–that there is a lot of material in the Elderlings corpus, and keeping track of all of it is not necessarily an easy thing to do. Again, I could wish I had taken more detailed notes, or more searchable ones, than I have done these past years. (It’s strange to think it’ll be six years this May that I’ll’ve been working through this rereading series–and there’s more to do!) But in any event, while some might be displeased to see FitzChivalry return for superstitious reasons (as noted previously), and others might be displeased because the reappearance of an acknowledged Farseer–with an earned reputation as a more-than-capable killer–and possible heir presents substantial disruption to any number of political intrigues that might be in place, the indication that there are entirely justifiable, personal angers to be directed at Fitz does some good work in continuing to humanize the character. Shades of steel-grey would appear to show, indeed, and I find myself thinking yet again of a scholarly someday that might be worth pursuing. Too, the small-scale slice-of-life things Hobb includes do much to make the milieu more “real” for the reader, with effects I think I’ve noted before.
So, yeah, it’s a good chapter.
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I struggle to shrug off the sloth of past weeks,
How the holidays heaped upon me,
Weighted with wonder at a world seeking joy.
A tree is yet trimmed, its trinkets retaining
Though lights have been lost that lingered through years,
Glimmers now gone, their gifts now bestowed.
Work now awaits, the world resuming,
And where it is winter, the weather declines,
Giving out gray and stifling glee.
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Once again, as at this time last year, I sit to write with a steaming cup of coffee on the desk in front of me, looking ahead to another twelvemonth. At this time last year, I was looking at the opening of a new office, a shift in my main line of work and a continuation of my sideline work (of which this is part), and I’m pleased to report that things went relatively well with it. The office is still there, still going, and I’m still running it–with a bit more staff this time around. Too, some of my clients from the last pass have already started coming back to me, which tells me I did a decent job of it. There’s pleasure in that, to be sure. I’d be happy to have more business, of course, but I’m glad of what I’ve gotten so far and appreciate the clients who come in and come back.
Work at the office is not all of what I have going on, of course. There’re a few freelance pieces already queued up for me, monthly projects that should carry me into the second quarter of the year. I’ve got a couple of scholarly projects to address, as well, and in more earnest than I’ve approached them so far (which is my failure entirely; I’ve had time to work on them and haven’t done so nearly to the extent that they’ve deserved). I’m also working to submit poetry and other writing to contests and for publication. And in more personal endeavors–about which I might well write in this webspace–not only will I be pressing ahead with my Robin Hobb reread, I’m also helping to administer a fairly large play-by-post roleplaying game, with others in the offering for the year. So I’ll be busy, but I think it’ll be a good kind of busy.
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Elliott RWI 