The Liveship Traders Trilogy
The Tawny Man Trilogy
The Rain Wilds Chronicles
The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy
Fool's Quest is the second of the Fitz and the Fool trilogy and is the penultimate book in the Realm of the Elderlings saga
So what I'm saying is that this was a boring book with lot of Fitz moping about, blaming himself, both fairly and unfairly, for events at the end of the previous book. There's also way more about fashion and unnecessary buttons on pants than is called for, in my humble opinion. It's just...it's a book about grieving and I understand that, but I would have expected Fitz to immediately want vengeance and he's just dithering about the castle for hundreds of pages - it isn't even until page 191 that Hobb gets around to letting Fitz know the events of the end of the previous book.
Fitz really rubbed me the wrong way in this book. I know Fitz is beloved and I am opening myself up for some criticism here, but he never learns. He has been making the same mistakes since he was a teenager. I used to give him a lot of slack because he was a traumatized young adult doing the best he could. But he's a grown man now and still running away from his problems, not asking for help from obvious people who would love to help him, and refusing to listen to people who might disagree with him. Fitz needs to grow up ASAP or I'm going to scream.
And there's so much rape and dismissal of women in this novel. I was actually kind of nostalgic for the dumb love triangles in the Rain Wilds Chronicles. One of the characters repeatedly refers to another character as the "handsome rapist" and the way Chade, Fitz's mentor, describes women, is a bit off-putting (see examples in the notable lines section). There's one line where Fitz talks about how he does everything for women, but even that line makes it seem like women are just one more responsibility of life that men need to take care of all the time. Egads. This saga is not unproblematic with regard to sexual violence, but it seems to be particularly emphasized in this book.
There's also a surprising amount of lazy writing here. The Chalcedeans have been enemies from the beginning and the Duke of Chalced was a particular problem in the Rain Wilds Chronicles, but the portrayal of the Chalcedeans as just plain evil villains was a bit surprising from Hobb, who I would have said was a master of writing characters before this.
"They were not warriors! They had no honor as warriors. All know women can possess no honor. They are weak! Their lives have no meaning save what men give to them." (page 499) I mean, can we get more on the nose about just how bad our enemies are? I was expected Hobb to give us some sort of nuance, but none came and I was disappointed.
We leave this book on a bit of a cliffhanger. Fitz, the Fool, and their coterie of bumbling idiots have made it to Kelsingra, where we meet a bunch of our favorites from The Liveship Traders and Rain Wilds. But poor Fitz is trying to help out some children and he finds himself in a bit of a bind. So I'm excited to see what happens in the last book in the saga, Assassin's Fate.
Notable lines:
1) "You have a crow tangled in your wig?" he asked, and for a wonder there was a trace of both amusement and mockery in his voice. "Ah, Fitz. I can always count on you to have some sort of bizarre problem that breaks my ennui." (page 133)
This crow is another problem I have with the book. A whole new character introduced with no real payoff. There better be a Chekhov's crow scene with the crow in the next book or I'm going to cry foul and suggest this is worse than the unnecessary introduction of Grawp in the Harry Potter series.
2) "Everything she sang was true. I will leave it to you as to whether the truth can exist with the details omitted, or if those lacks make a lie of it." (page 183)
The great debate about whether or not lies of omission are actual lies.
3) "But she was a stupid, vain woman, pretty as a picture and vapid as a moth." (page 259)
I like to notate animal metaphors, but this one is also an example of how Hobb treats women in this novel.
4) "She is as maternal as a snake." (page 260)
Another unflattering animal metaphor for a woman.
5) "There is no path to the future, Fitz. The path is now. Now is all there is, or ever will be. You can change perhaps the next ten breaths in your life. But after that, random chance seizes you in its jaws again. A tree falls on you, a spider bites your ankle, and all your grand plans for winning a battle are for naught. Now is what we have, Fitz, and now is where we act to stay alive." (page 363)
I do not agree with this. We can definitely plan ahead for more than ten breaths in your life. Yes, accidents may befall us, but we can even form contingencies for some of those accidents. This line rang as false for the character who spoke it, too, since he is someone who is in charge of a spy network and definitely planned ahead. It just rang as false in the narrative and false about reality. I'm disappointed in Hobb.
6) "But I've seen war and I've seen peace and I know well that there is never truly one or the other. And being ready for war is better than being ready for peace, if peace is what you truly hope for." (page 431)
As an American (mightiest military in the world?), this seems true. As a person who used to call herself a pacifist, it hurts to read.
7) Night would soon be falling, it was very cold, and I was unexpectedly saddled with two idiots. (page 656)
The whole book was filled with idiots. It was nice to see it called out appropriately in the text.
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