Reading challenge – Realm of the Elderlings Final Update

August 13, 2014

[challenge-progress for=”Realm of the Elderlings” bg=”black” font=”white”]

[book-info title=”Fool’s Fate – Canadian Audiobook” author=”robin-hobb-2″]

Progress: Fool’s Fate 100% complete. Challenge 100% complete

Today I finished Fool’s Fate, the final book in the Tawny Man trilogy and the last of the five books I was reading in my Realm of the Elderlings challenge.

I was right in my prediction yesterday that the section I read today was very much a wrap-up.  Other than the expected resurrection of the Fool it was all about ensuring that the good guys were recompensed for their heroism.  Fitz gets his Molly (sigh), Dutiful gets his Narcheska, Tintaglia gets her Icefyre and they all live happily ever after and raise lots of children.

The scene with the Fool and the Rooster Crown wasn’t as I’d remembered it.  It was a beautiful scene, but it doesn’t quite reach Perrin and his Hammer for epicness.  The secret of the Rooster Crown was very Fool-like.  Some readers have wondered why Fitz didn’t learn the secret of the Fool’s gender during this whole process, but I  easily understand why he didn’t even consider breaching the Fool’s trust in this manner.

The writing of the Fool’s character development with his resignation to his death, his PTSD following his torture and his struggle to adapt to a world where he didn’t know the future and no longer had to struggle to move it into the right path was beautiful – these character insights are Hobb’s real strengths as a writer.

I’m still not 100% happy at a Fitz/Molly reunion.  Hobb had spent too much time emphasising that Molly was the love of his youth, comparing the feelings Fitz had for her to Hap’s boyish infatuation with his Svenja.  She had Fitz realise that it wasn’t so much Molly the woman he was in love with but of the people they were so long ago.  The Hedge Witch states in Fool’s Errand that Fitz’s True Love is on his way back to him.  The VERY NEXT CHAPTER he is reunited with not Molly but the Fool after many years’ separation.  What gives?  I really feel she’s been backtracking on the foundations she has laid.  I suppose I can kind of give her a pass in that the restoration to Fitz of the feelings he’d fed into Girl in a Dragon back in Assassin’s Quest as well as the lack of need for a Catalyst mean he can be the man he might have been had he not sacrificed so much for the Farseer cause.  I still feel his relationship with the Fool is far deeper and more genuine than the one with Molly.

Still I have a whole series on Fitz and the Fool to come to remedy this.  I’m familiar enough with Hobb’s writing style to know to expect wonderful character development, but very slow plot movement.  I can’t wait to read what she has in store for these wonderful characters.  My next full book review will almost certainly be for Fool’s Assassin, but don’t expect that until I return from my vacation!

So, that’s really all I have to say from my wanderings through the Realm of the Elderlings.  I’ve really enjoyed my reread of the series and thank you all for joining me.

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