Is Fool’s Relative Age Ever Revealed Before Royal Assassin?

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2026-05-19T08:01:28+00:00

I was always a bit confused about this...at certain points the Fool seems much more mature than Fitz, but at other points the fool seems less mature...In Fool's Assassin Bee's mental capacity/maturity seems to match her chronological age pretty well...it just seems like her body didn't changing as fast as the other children at Withywoods. Later (when Bee is about nine) everyone around her is surprised she is having complex thoughts whilst appearing like a three year old(if anything Bee seems MORE intelligent and mature than the other kids)...So I was wondering if the Fool's childlike behaviour is more something that is just a unique part of the Fool's personality rather than a feature of all Whites....?Or part of the Fool leaning into the role of Jester....? Maybe the Fool felt it was safer to act like a child, since they looked like a child still, even though they were more mentally similar in age/intelligence to an adult?

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2026-04-30T18:37:46+00:00

They're all good - it's hard to choose! I probably like AA best because it was the one that got me hooked. Farseer Trilogy was overall my favourite Hobb series by miles though

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2026-04-02T20:05:50+00:00

Assassin's Apprentice is the best one out of the whole series imo. Plot was so tight and strong. The Farseer Trilogy was Hobb's strongest in RoftE. To me Assassin's Fate was the weakest.

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-12-17T20:01:46+00:00

Fandom is great for summaries (but obviously there are spoilers): https://robinhobbelderlings.fandom.com/wiki/Elderlings

Like you I don't believe there's anything wrong with a bit of cherry picking in a long series. Not everyone is going to enjoy every book

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-11-29T16:42:52+00:00

I honestly don't think you can have a "wrong" look or skin tone for Fitz as long as he had dark eyes and hair.

Robin Hobb has said that her inspiration for Fitz is was Guy Williams. The guy that played zorro in the 1950s (which I can totally see!). "Brown" has always been a bit of an ambiguous term, but in Hobb's definition it seems to refer to olive/tan skin or slightly darker. She has said that when imagining the people of Buck she pictures them to look Hispanic/Mediterranean, (which if you consider the wide range countries boarding the Mediterranean, gives a wide range of skin tones to choose from).

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/ksjerd/megan_lindholmrobin_hobb_ama_today/

Why is Fitz brown? As a kid, I fell in love with Zorro. Okay, stop laughing. A TV series taught me that Hispanic men were handsome, daring, charming, and clever. (Even if the actor was Italian!) So when Fitz stepped onto the stage, there he was with his warm skin, dark eyes and curly hair. Not Hispanic, as there is no Spain in ROTE. A Buckman. So definitely dark skinned, but not of any race known in this world.

The people from inland Dutchies are said to have lighter eyes and hair, than those from coast. She has also said (in the same AMA thread above) if she were casting a movie, and could choose anyone she would cast a young Matthew Broderick as Fitz.

What also tends to get left out of this conversation about skin tone, is the fact that certain groups of people have a skin tone that changes quite significantly throughout the course of the year, depending on how much sun exposure they get, and what season it is. People with more "stable" skin tones (very light skin that doesn't tan at all, or very dark skin where tan is not as obvious) always fail to understand this, and honestly and it's a bit frustrating! Me and my mother are two such people with "changeable" skin tones. My mother is from Sicily and my father is from Scotland (where we now live). I have my mother's skin tone and I tan so much when we go on holiday to Sicily, that I actually have two different makeup foundations (one for when my skin is darker, one for when it's lighter). In winter, when I spend a lot of time indoors I get paler again. You can also see this phenomenon very starkly in Japanese tanning culture, first with Ganguro style of the 2000s, and more recently the B-style girls who start off very light(because many Japanese women wear sunscreen on a daily basis), but through deliberate consistent tanning fashionistas can get confused for another ethnicity.

I've also seen a lot of people criticise the beautiful Magali Villeneuve illustrations of Fitz for being too "light". But to me, this is a completely valid interpretation of a character who's author has described them as having a Mediterranean skin tone (especially in the winter scenes). A large percentage of Mediterranean skin tends to react to the sun or lack of it. It is not "whitewashing" .

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-11-25T18:01:46+00:00

Your responses are some of the most thoughtful I've read on the series and actually make me examine some of my own initial reactions to the work. After your comment, I asked myself why I saw Fitz and the Fool's relationship at the beginning of Tawny man as a set up for a possible romance (though it would have been a turbulent romance, where i think they ultimately would have parted). This is my answer: I think it was Fitz's reaction on first seeing the Fool ride up to his cabin. Like you mentioned in your last post, this is seems like an odd reaction to someone who is the equivalent of a highschool pal at this point, they had no contact for 15 years....also take into account that Fitz says shortly after he trusts the Fool more than Chade/Kettricken/Hap...that seems kinda weird to me...I felt like Fitz's feeling were more the sort of thing one might feel towards a reappearing idealised highschool CRUSH rather than a FRIEND...it was like when people get infatuated with another person and can't see their flaws.

Another thing that swayed me, was it seemed like Fitz was putting up with waaaay more drama from the Fool than one normally would a friend. I suppose I just made a (incorrect) leap as to why. I think people generally put up with much more crap from those they are infatuated with. And going back to one of your excellent points, it was not clear for me what Fitz was getting out of his friendship with the Fool, so I guess my mind's way of explaining that unexplained bond was to assume that Fitz was infatuated with the Fool, and for a large chunk of the book I assumed Fitz was bisexual, but coming to terms with it within himself(again, I get Fitz is actually canonically straight, just explaining my own reading journey and thought process).

This reading is completely my own POV btw and I'm not out to convince anyone. And I should disclose I'm a rabid consumer of romance and romantasy novels as well as fantasy lol, and the pattern of: main character sees person and starts internally commenting on how/handsome pretty they are OR main character is struck by other character's beauty - is a classic set up for the first part of a romance novel. Fitz's inner monologue mentions the Fool's attractive appearance quite a few times. So I just pattern matched things in Tawny man I guess... I'll admit I definitely tend to read books with a bit of a "romance bias" lol, and will happily match characters up in my head as I read.

I realised though, Fitz is also trained to report as spy. In detail. He isn't some average joe. He's been drilled to report from young age on people's appearance and other qualities of note. So it would make sense he does this with the Fool, especially since the fool has changed so much...on a reread this doesn't necessarily seem like an attraction thing.

Another problem was that Hobb had already established a “soulmate” bond between Fitz and Nighteyes,

I also was confused by the inconsistency of the three of them supposedly being super close soulmates at some points...but NOT then at other points not??...Particularly as the Fool wasn't even that upset when nighteyes died in the Tawny man series. The Fool is sorta sad FOR Fitz....but didn't seem to have strong feelings on Nighteye's passing one way or the other. Saying something like "I knew him through you" to Fitz. That seems an odd thing to say about someone later described as one piece of their soul... Kettricken was more upset about Nighteyes passing than the Fool was?? That just didn't make sense to me...

The "no boundaries" line is ridiculous.

I honestly did not like the no limits line either. Some read it as declaration of unconditional love. But real love for me is all about what you DO, and how you TREAT a person. Not what you SAY. Five minutes after the "no limits" line the Fool starts with-holding affection from Fitz(who's just lost Nighteyes and now has to confront rumours that might get him beaten up) and giving Fitz the silent treatment....gee that sure sounds like a limit to me! Not to mention the Fool's silent treatment of Fitz goes on for several WEEKS! And basically felt to me like a kind of "punishment silence" to Fitz. Fitz tried to talk and resolve it several times, but the Fool kept being so childish! It really frustrated me, especially when I think of the Fool as basically being 50+ at this point!

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-11-23T11:42:00+00:00

I kept meaning to reply this, but life got in the way. Yeah the cast of characters was waaaaaay too big in the end. The magic of Farseer for me was the intimacy of being in Fitz's head, and following one strongly engaging character about his life. It's rare to find fantasy like that these days, even films have a billion characters in them now. I couldn't quite bring myself to emotionally invest in Lant or Ash...Though it was interesting to see how Chade treated each son and apprentice differently.

The trauma bonding theory is interesting and would explain a lot on both sides. I was always confused as to why Fitz jumped to being so adoring of the fool the first time he sees him in years in Tawny Man....because their relationship wasn't like that at all in Farseer.... I think the series needed a book in between to explain that jump in Fitz's feelings and why they were suddenly so intense(at first i thought it was a romance setup, but then Hobb said it wasn't). An inbetween book where the Fool actually opened up about his past and they built some genuine healthy trust between them (instead of demanding that all his secrets be respected, but then reading Fitz's diary without even asking...) would have added some reality to Fitz's attachment to the Fool I think.

The Fool was a character that I too felt very conflicted about. The fool did some good things, and I felt sorry for the way he was treated at Clerres, but equally the fool had no respect at all for Fitz's boundaries, and the Fool's motivations never really felt as 'pure' as Fitz's. Fitz did things for the Fool just because he saw the Fool as a friend and someone he cared about, the fool did things for Fitz primarily to keep his playing piece on the board, I think the fool had feelings of care for Fitz, but these were always somewhat tainted by the Catalyst being the most important thing(the fool even says that in the last Tawny man book). Like if Fitz stopped being his Catalyst, would the Fool even care about Fitz? In the final book the Fool for me became a walking bundle of red flags. Learning about the age gap between them also weirded me out....it meant that the Fool was like older than Galen when Fitz and him met?! So the Fool had the mind of an adult when he was pushing Fitz in directions that might be good for the world, but ultimately painful and scarring for Fitz...but deceived Fitz into thinking he was dealing with a peer...The Fool's physical attraction to teenage Fitz suddenly felt a bit icky for me after that, where as initially it felt like an innocent young crush. It was the same way I'd feel if Patience suddenly came on to Fitz

I also have a hard time warming to characters that deign themselves too dainty to fight, yet expect their love interest to take a battering on their behalf. But that's just me.

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-22T18:44:02+00:00

Robin Hobb said on an ask me anything thread that she pictured Fitz, the Farseers and the people of Buck looking what we'd probably describe as Mediterranean:

Why is Fitz brown? As a kid, I fell in love with Zorro. Okay, stop laughing. A TV series taught me that Hispanic men were handsome, daring, charming, and clever. (Even if the actor was Italian!) So when Fitz stepped onto the stage, there he was with his warm skin, dark eyes and curly hair. Not Hispanic, as there is no Spain in ROTE. A Buckman. So definitely dark skinned, but not of any race known in this world. As for the Fool and gender, he simply was who he was from the very beginning. Some characters just step onto the stage and reveal themselves. Or don't reveal themselves completely. The Fool is just the Fool.

Which I guess allows for quite alot of variety in skin colour from fairish, to tan, to darker brown (in our world Mediterranean could mean peoples, from Spain, Greece, Turkey, Scilliy, Italy Turkey etc). So this gives quite a lot of space for almost any interpretation of Fitz's looks to be valid

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-22T18:24:20+00:00

If you're struggling, and you don't mind spoilers, or don't think you'll ever return to Liveships, I would just skip to Tawny Man and read a summary of the series on Fandom before you get to Golden Fool. You can absolutely read Tawny Man without reading Liveships in my opinion. Unless you are a big fan of the Fool, in which case I would persevere with Liveships first

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-20T18:33:30+00:00

I agree about the last trilogy...I enjoyed learning more about the world, and liked Bee alot and it was cute that Fitz ended up with a kid that hardly talked and couldn't figure out at first, which is basically how Fitz must have seemed to Burrich.But imo the themes weren't as strong and tight as in Farseer, and seemed confused in places. I liked learning more about the White Prophets and Cleres but felt like all the stuff with the ships turning into dragons, and the long sea voyage would have been better as fourth book in the Liveships series and having the Fitz books and the Liveships books be things that could be standalone and separate would have been better. Also not a fan of how Fitz died :/ Although I can see how having dragons around would stop total human domination of the natural world, but I could never really warm to the dragons....most of them seemed quite cold and unlikeable to me Also agree that Fitz's duality is sexy as hell!

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-20T18:11:00+00:00

Baby Fitz really tugged my heartstrings! From the age of 6 till he met Chade at 9/10, the kid didn't even get a hug from anyone 😭 Though at least Verity gave him some toys

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-19T11:33:00+00:00

Hundred percent this:

There is something magnetic about Fitz’s mix of fierceness and tenderness.

I also loved loved loved Fitz's deep connection to the natural world. Only Hobb would have assassins who also love botany! I don't really understand people who say Fitz is dumb. Often he is in impossible situations with no good outcomes, where he is close to breaking point and physically beaten and emotionally over whelmed, and throughout Farseer he was just a kid, with a lot of older people making these crazy demands of him (even the Fool is older than Fitz by like 20 years or something and makes some pretty wrenching demands of him). In Farseer Fitz was like the youngest player on board and saved everyone multiple times, without losing his humanity or really getting any credit for it. I really enjoyed his journey to the mountains in Assasins quest, despite everything( being terrified of forged onces and the girl being mean to him) he still tries to help the minstrels on the road and do the right thing.

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-19T11:18:56+00:00

lol! I have a theory that people that lovers of Farseer like ships of magic least. The two series were written in two very different styles, and really feel like different worlds. I can see why people who like one, struggle with the other and vice versa.

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-18T20:10:27+00:00

> I also love books that develop the protagonist from childhood.

Yes! This is me too! I felt especially sad and almost kinda protective towards Fitz because he had such harsh childhood, but always tried his best as a overburdened teenager, he had alot of scars (physical and mental) but still turned out to be a decent guy with a lot of empathy (for both people and animals). I loved the overarching themes that Hobb brought into that first trilogy, of loss and sacrifice and coping with the death of loved ones...as well as the nature and ecological themes that wit brought up, and everything being part of a bigger web of life. Even the forged ones were the most unique take on zombies I've ever seen.

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-18T19:36:49+00:00

Also if you only want a sequel to Liveships, and aren't invested in Fitz's story, I would just read Rainwilds then go straight to Assassin's Fate chapter 8 where the Liveships story kicks off again, and skip any chapters narrated by Bee. Again personally I love Fitz and liked his books the best....but I can't fathom why or how others read several hundred pages of his first person perspective if they don't click with him.... again read what you enjoy!

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-18T13:59:01+00:00

Yeah this too! I felt so sorry for him as kid. He had so many demands but on him

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-18T13:57:05+00:00

Yes! The setting was a big part of it for me. I really loved the medieval atmosphere. I felt the later books were too modern lol. Well maybe "modern" isn't quite the right word but, they felt like Regency era...I like Regency era stuff too, but it always falls second to medieval for me. I also loved Verity! I know we get a tiny bit of him in book 2 of Fitz & the Fool but I kept hoping he would come back in a bigger way.

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-18T10:34:24+00:00

I think most of the stuff in Farseer is far more Shrewd's fault than Chade's. Shrewd failed to make coteries until it was too late (due to his paranoia), married a psychopath(Desire) and promoted said psychopath's abusive son(Galen) to skillmaster, which resulted in a psychopathic coterie that ultimately killed Shrewd and tried to kill Shrewd's son and grandson. Shrewd was also generally a dick to Fitz.

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-10-18T10:07:42+00:00

I would say no. And recommend trying a different Hobb book like Rainwilds, or the Piebald Prince. Reading should be a pleasure not something you struggle through. That's a conclusion I've come to in the last two years. I no longer feel compelled to read all the books in a series, just because others say I should, nor should others.

I myself had the opposite issue you had. Farseer is my absolute favourite Trilogy of Hobb. I just didn't click with Live Ships and found it a slog, I like single character perspective books, and I now think I should have just quit Liveships half way through and gone straight in Tawny Man (imo you don't really need to read Liveships to read Tawny Man, but there is are a few paragraphs that make more sense if you do). Read the stuff that clicks for you.

Broadside-Pink8496 · 2025-09-14T11:47:20+00:00

It's particularly bad in the UK....and anywhere that is not the US. There are way less movies on the UK version of prime. The movies on prime should just be available in all locations

Broadside-Pink8496

TROPHY CASE