Read the previous entry in the series here.
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Following a recollection of Nighteyes’s early experience, “Winterfest Eve at Buckkeep” opens with Fitz starting awake in unfamiliar surroundings, returning to his human experience from the dream of being a wolf. Fitz soon assesses himself and his situation, and he attends to the Fool, noting the changes that had befallen him since they had last seen one another and ruminating on the Fool’s request that he kill the Servants. He ruminates, too, on how he has left Bee and Nettle’s decision about her sister, and he notes the changes that have been enacted on Chade’s old hidden chambers as he works to set things to rights.

As he works, Fitz reaches out to Chade through the Skill, only to find him engaged in diplomatic matters concerning Kelsingra and its potential alliance with Chalced. After brief consideration, Fitz leaves off thoughts about those efforts and resumes his work to attend to the Fool, slipping clandestinely back into the halls of Buckkeep and despondently considering his separation from Bee as he takes in the sights of holiday preparations and changes to Buckkeep Town as he approaches it. Amid his shopping, for the Fool and for Bee, he considers the difficulties involved in resuming his former identity as Badgerlock, and he returns to Chade’s hidden rooms without incident.

Once there, Fitz notes the service provided to the chambers and pens a letter to Bee. He is soon disturbed by the approach of a serving-boy, Ash, whom Fitz soon dismisses. Ash leaves a message from Chade behind, one that offers Fitz an identity as Lord Feldspar and commissions him with information-gathering–something that offers a perverse excitement, along with a reasonably complete kit for the clandestine work in which Fitz was trained long ago.

The Fool wakes, and he and Fitz talk together briefly before the Fool works to navigate himself to the chambers’ table, where food awaits. Progress is slow, but he reaches his goal, and at the table, the two exchange some reports of their doings, the Fool noting that Bee was the “son” he had sought. Fitz notes that Bee is his daughter, and some argument about that point ensues, leaving the Fool confused and either sullen or fatigued. Fitz then begins to do the work Chade has asked of him.

As all sequels seemingly must, the present novel begins with exposition, bringing a reader abreast of in-milieu current events and foregrounding major threads to be pursued in the text. Hobb handles the events-summary well, using Fitz’s confusion at waking in unfamiliar surroundings to smooth over assessment of them and the situation that puts him among them, as well as using the conversation between Fitz and the Fool to establish their current tensions. The message to Chade, something entirely reasonable to include, also permits the swift establishment of current international contexts, and Chade’s machinations give Fitz a reason to go out and get involved in larger events, making more plot possible. It’s something I appreciate as I begin to read the novel again.

As noted, this is not the first time I have read the novel. I discuss my first time doing so here, a little more than nine years ago as I write this, and while much of what is in my initial comments remains true as I write now, I have to wonder how much of it will continue to do so for me. After all, I first discuss the novel after having completed a reading of it, and I am not all the way back through the novel again as I write this. Too, I am a different man now than I was then; I am not a still-aspiring academic, and while I was a father then, nine years in the life of a child is quite a long time, and a parent cannot help but change as the child does. And some of what I discuss has changed; there seems to be much more attention given to world-building and the implications of fantastical elements in texts now than there was then, whether just by me or by creators themselves.

I do look forward to the continued rereading, truly. Looking back to some of the earlier portions of it so as to pull up references made in the present chapter (and I’ve doubtlessly missed some along the way; I’ve read and reread and written about Hobb’s works so many times they form a sort of background noise for me, and I don’t always note everything in them that there is to find) has reminded me of how long I’ve been working on this project, doing so in fits and starts along the way, updating inconsistently as I can steal moments to attend to it among the many other things that clamor for, that demand and deserve, my attention and my efforts. I have changed as I’ve done this work, although not so much because I’ve done it and continue to do it as for other reasons; having some record of the change is…interesting, at least for me.

I hope the rereading continues to be interesting for you.

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
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An excerpt from a travelogue discussing the White Prophets precedes “The Raid,” which chapter begins with Bee noting her return to Withywoods with Lant and Shun. She reports a gloss of their comments, and she marks their arrival at her home with displeasure. They leave her behind in the stables, from which household servants retrieve her and make over her. She reports events to them, although she meets with some disbelief at her account. But after she is assisted in and into her chambers, Bee tries to puzzle out more of what she has experienced and what her father said to her, repairing to his study to do so. Within, she confers with Wolf-Father, who offers comfort and cryptic wisdom.

Bee wakes in the morning to a busy estate as it makes preparations for the Winterfest holiday. Bee is again tended to, making ready for the day as she puzzles yet further. She manages to slip away to her private sanctum in the walls, spending a little time there before sitting to her lessons. Perseverance joins her there, discussing with her the dogs that Fitz had acquired. Lessons begin at length, going poorly until commotion outside prompts their interruption. Investigation soon reveals the commotion to be an attack on Withywoods, and Bee and Perseverance urge the other children to flee to safety. Bee opens the hidden corridors of Withywoods to them, and she and Perseverance attempt to obscure their passage. Their flight continues, and they see the members of the household and their assailants, the latter interrogating the former.

Perseverance heads off to seek his father, leaving Bee to hide herself. She sneaks back towards the estate, determined suddenly to protect a people she recognizes as her own, but she encounters Perseverance. The two ride in haste for the nearest town, but their passage is marked, and they are pursued. Perseverance is injured, and Bee is taken, seemingly ensorcelled by the delight of her attackers at finding “the unexpected son” at last.

The epilogue that follows turns to Fitz and a rumination on memory–and the descent of his life beginning then.

And here it is, the end of the novel–and what an ending! If it is the case that the previous chapter identifies the principal forces at work in the novel, the final chapter brings them into view more overtly and personalizes the problem they present for Fitz, which problem he realizes in the epilogue. The chapter also points up the instability of gender categories in the Elderlings novels, a topic treated by Katavić, Mohon, Räsänen, Sanderson, and Schouwenaars (find abstracts and citations to the pieces in question here, please), among others; Bee, despite being female and presenting as feminine, is regarded by her captors as being a brother and an unexpected son.

It might be thought that placing such an assertion on the lips of antagonistic characters renders the assertion a faulty one, something to be scorned. As with many things Hobb does, however, the presentation is more nuanced than that. The Fool, after all, believes that the figure sought by the Servants is a son, and, on his word, Fitz looks for a son springing from the Fool. The latter should, from experience, be wary of such claims from the Fool, there having been significant tension about the Fool’s willingness (and ability) to present as a woman. The former, knowing from lived experience that such categories are unstable–certainly as applies to the Fool–have even less excuse. It must be noted, however, that Hobb often presents her protagonists as being wrong; it’s a touch of authenticity I appreciate, overall, although the (large) part of me that reads affectively is annoyed at some of the failings on display.

As if I do any better in my own life. (I likely do not.)

If I return again to Freytag’s pyramid (which may or may not be useful, admittedly) and regard the trilogy as the structure at work (which is more useful, given that even the edition I am reading–a first edition–shows “Book I of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy” on its jacket), the final chapter and epilogue of the first volume can be read as having presented the inciting incident, ending formal exposition and setting up for rising action to come in the second book of the series. From the chapter and epilogue, and without thinking in terms of a rereading, the rising action could well be expected to be flight of Bee’s kidnappers and pursuit thereof by Fitz–although reading within the context of Hobb’s Elderlings novels and, more broadly, in her body of work would suggest that there will be no shortage of complications for both groups. Indeed, it would hardly be a Fitz novel without him running into problems, no few of his own making. (Another point of affective identification, that.) It’s been some time since I’ve read the text, however, and longer since it was more than a scan for passages to cite in the service of some argument I was trying to make. I don’t remember if I’m right…but I look forward to finding out.

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Following a short excerpt from an instructional manual in one use of the Skill, “A Time of Healing” opens with Fitz, the Fool, and Riddle emerging from the Witness Stones at Buckkeep, the three in poor condition as Nettle and a retrieval party arrive. Nettle rebuke Fitz for his treatment of Riddle, and the group proceeds to Buckkeep and healing. Fitz attends to the Fool himself as keep staff under Nettle’s direction address Riddle’s needs, and he finds marks of long torture upon his old friend. Chade, Kettricken, and Dutiful enter, and some jurisdictional questions arise as Fitz quietly continues to attend to the Fool. Matters soon resolve themselves, however, with Riddle prescribed food and bedrest, and the Fool adjudged a poor candidate for Skill-healing.

Kettricken asks Fitz if the figure he attends is, indeed, the Fool, and she is shocked at the affirmative response. Reports of events begin to be made; Fitz tapped Riddle for Skill-strength, some of which powered the trip through the Skill-pillars, and some of which stabilized the Fool. Arrangements begin to be made for the Fool, and Riddle receives more attention, nodding to Fitz and humbling him with his acceptance. Chade offers some rebuke to Fitz, which he accepts, even as he accepts that Chade’s accommodations of them will have costs to come. The Fool reports a desire for Skill-healing as soon as he can withstand it, and Fitz makes to conduct him to the chambers being prepared. Nettle pulls Fitz aside briefly before letting him and the Fool proceed, and a page guides them to their destination.

There, Fitz keeps an open ear while the Fool bathes and dresses, and as they talk together afterward, the Fool identifies those who have so assailed him–the Servants–and lays out the peril they present. The Fool also lays out his history since his ragged parting from Fitz, turning to the idea of his own child being some pivotal figure in–or powerful force against–the plans of the Servants. And he asks Fitz if he will kill the Servants for him.

The present chapter is a long one–some thirty pages in the edition I am reading–and there is a lot going on in it. (Again, I long to be able to do the counting project of which I have long thought. But, alas, time and resources do not presently permit it!) Among the things happening is the confirmation of what appears to be the central conflict of the present series: between the Fool and the Servants. While there is a bit of retcon going on in the chapter (openly acknowledged as being a refiguring or adjustment to previous understandings, admittedly), and there is some annoyance in seeing it (again, and alongside some character inconsistencies), having clarification about a central focus of the books to come is useful; having a guide to reading often helps the reading that takes place, although it is also the case that such a guide can constrain readership. But then, it should be the case that the text constrains the ways in which it can be read (as opposed to should, which is a whole ‘nother thing).

If I indulge my (ongoing) affective reading, I find myself taken a bit by the exchanges between Fitz and Riddle and between Fitz and Nettle in the infirmary at Buckkeep in the present chapter. Fitz, as often throughout the novels that feature him, doubts the regard in which others hold him, always expecting to be shut out; a psychological reading (always fraught, since characters are not people and the narratives of fiction are necessarily curated) might suggest that the traumas of separation from his maternal family and the strangeness with which his paternal “accepted” him prompt such doubts and expectations, as well as the horrors wrought upon him by Regal. Both Riddle and Nettle reassure him of their inclusion of him, the latter outright rebuking him for his doubts. All ’round, it’s something I found resonant; I don’t think I am the only one, either.

Less affectively, the indications of how court at Buckkeep has changed are telling. It is clear that the court thrives from the number of people in attendance at and in service to it, the specializations on display and the clear training patterns at work within them. The relative privileging of some specializations over others is perhaps less a joy to see; in addition to moving Hobb’s work back towards more “mainstream” Tolkienian-tradition fantasy works (I am, for some reason, put in mind of Feist’s Midkemia), it speaks to hierarchical models that are often, if not always, problematic. But that issue gets toward deeper questions surrounding speculative literature, generally, such as “what is the purpose of it?” My studies suggest that one answer is “to show what can be,” hence the frequency of science-fiction dystopias–but also fantasy utopias. It’s something to consider more thoroughly, yet another scholarly someday for me; I look forward to having the time to address some of them!

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