The Robin Hobb Collection discussion
Book 2 - Royal Assassin
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Royal Assassin Part 6 - chapter 26 until end
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Hanne wrote: "(this "jail, kill and excommunicate" thing is starting to sound less like a joke, and more like a premonition with every chapter... "In that order?
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I'm not saying any more. LOOK over there. Unicorn!
I'm finishing Malazan today, Hanne! And i will be caught up and I will be back. I will fill in with your comments, i'm so excited to get back to Fitz. I like him more than Kvothe right now, now that would be hotly contested by some. I am only halfway though and may change my mind!
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(ch28) ooo wow, it's all dropping into Mr Catalysts' lap isn't it. too good to be true! do they really think regal will not have a couple of people running around in the keep during the festivities?
i hope it won't be Will who will catch them, otherwise fitz might regret the not killing part.
I just read one of my old Locus magazines with an article of Robin Hobb. My husband brought some in from the garage for me, I love this sf/fantasy magazine and have subscribed for a few years so I have articles with people like David Gemmel and many others who are no longer with us, which is nice to have. But I had thought Assassins Apprentice was her first book. It was only her first book in that pen name. She had written several books under the name Megan Lindholm.; and at the time of the article she said she still wrote short stories under that name, though publishers often did not want them because they were not under her Hobb name.(I don't know about books, but I assume she does, because she explained how she writes something and the style determines which name it fits under) I just found it interesting because I knew Robin Hobb was not her name but I didn't know she had another one! And books to go with it!
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but what on earth are they going to do with Fitz?
i guess i mark jail already? :s
Looks like you might have got the order right as well
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oh yes, what a shocker was that!
even the bit were Chade helps him to fake his death was in there (even though fitz wouldn't think of it that way). i guess the only part were i was slightly off is the excommunicated-thing. in practice it's correct, he can't go back, but no-one actually banished him.
still, i should have put money it!
He didn't exactly "fake" his death though. He died.Then Burrich used the Wit to raise him from the dead.
You were pretty close on your guess..but it's a pretty significant difference if you ask me.
It's not like Chade gave him a poison that made him simply appear dead. It outright killed him.
I remember that. Do I remember right that they have to dig him up/un-bury him? I think they only had a certain time where using the wit to raise him would work.
Yes. They did. And Patience cleaned and cared for him before he was buried. I think that helped. Or maybe it simply made his body more tolerable when he returned to it.
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his body was stiff and frozen, so that's more than Juliet ever had to deal with, before the final final version that is :)
The Burrich part is what really got me. He HATES the Wit, but he cares about Fitz that much more.
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didn't think his spit would contain most of the message though :D
Major plot points were left unresolved:1. King Verity left to find an Elderling. Not only has he not made it back, but we don't know if he will find an Elderling. We do know he's alive and he believes on the right trail.
2. The red-ship raiders have not been stopped. Because this was going on in book one, I could look at this as being the thread that ties the trilogy together and would not mind it being left unresolved If 1 and 3 had been resolved.
3. Where is the Queen and less importantly to some- not me-the Fool?
4. There are at least a dozen unresolved minor questions , a couple that I'm giving as minor but I don't really think they are:
a. Because Fitz was arrested for treason and use of his wit in this book, is that any kind of resolution that he's now just out on the lam? Again, some might say he's lucky to get away from Regal, but the point is, He's still wanted for treason and can't see his family or defend his people against the raiders.
b. Molly - I got what her speech meant ( I'm pretty sure I did) and so she's just left out there with something very important who knows where. I'm sure Burrich provided some sort of protection against her but I, the reader don't know anything about it.
Burrich, I'll admit is minor, but he's the only one I think that's truly looked out for Fitz's best interest. Where is he.?
I know I went into some minor plot lines too but that's because in no way could this book be said to be a stand alone. Now I know why she put in so much annoying stuff from book one though if that what Hobb intends.
Rob wrote: "The Burrich part is what really got me. He HATES the Wit, but he cares about Fitz that much more."Because he identifies with him. He knows how hard it is for him. Since book one, I think everyone knows that I think Burrich is the one that has truly cared for Fitz.
It also shows just how complex his character is. A lot of this conflict comes back up later too.
Alex wrote: "Good points, Candace.I guess I never really picked up on those because when I read a trilogy, I'm in it for the long haul. Meaning I will read the whole thing almost as one story broken into thre..."
Thank you. I will just be taking a short break to read Oryx and Crake with Hanne and a few friends then I'm heading straight into the final book!
Alex wrote: "Any plans to continue on with this world after? (Liveship or Tawny Man)"Yes, I already have Liveship ready to go. I will have to take a break somewhere because doing Hobb and Malazan all through the year for me would give me no time for all the other books I want to read. Maybe after Liveship. If you are joining us for Liveship, I know a couple of other friends are planning to jump in then also.
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sounds good Alex! i like reading your comments, so you're definitely very welcome to read along.
i agree with the little break!
we normally start book 3 around the first of march.
what about reading liveship may-june-july;
and wait with the tawny man until october?
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My guess is that being out for treason migth actually give Fitz more freedom to what needs to be done.
There are a few options: he can go after Verity and together find the Elderlings, personally i wouldn't be surprised if it's not Verity, but Fitz who finds them in the end (he's the Catalyst) after all.
Secondly there is this whole thing about the Forged ones circling around Verity, so i guess they will have their work cut out for them.
I'm not sure how Kettricken and the Fool come into this. Is she going after Verity as well, or is she smarter and will she seek refuge in one of the coastal duchies?
Chade's theory about the forged one's being attracted to Verity was if he was skilling out over to everyone, like he did from the window, then they feel from his outpouring what they are missing in their mind. Verity would be skilling on his trip, but would it be enough to attract the forged ones to the extent that he did when he skilled from his window? Remember Serene and Justin have been skilling from the Keep and the forged ones have not come since Verity left. I had thought it was Regal's men ambushing Verity. The book never said forged or not. But the fact that Verity did not call them forged also leads me to think they were not. And why would Regal be so sure as to say that Verity is dead unless he planned to make sure himself that it happened before Verity could return? Very sure!!The next couple of issues are easier. Two sentences from Fitz helps with a couple of issues. I turned my back on all of it and went inland. But he [Verity] went to be a King, and I went, following my queen seeking my king. So it does seem like the queen has gone after the king and Fitz is going after her as the book ends.
@candace. I understand your misgivings but probably it's because hobb started out to tell the whole farseer story as 1 book.
Thx Jenny, that helps.It's interesting to know!
Good ending as far as I am concerned,fitz survives the ordeal he been put through with the help of chade,burrich and night eyes.But did the queen truly escape? because regal was so confident when he told the whole plan to fitz in cell.Also the coterie killing the king was a surprise for me.Well I am done with royal assassin and here is my review royal assassin
Yeesh, what an ending. I dived right into the next book, no way I could NOT know what happens next. So many questions. I can't wait to see Regal get his. Onwards!
Here's my review
Here's my review
Hi all! I just finished, I know I'm 2 years behind you:) I was admittedly disappointed by book 2, until the last chapter. So much repetition, filler, whining, and the Molly romance is really intolerably sappy. Some unanswered questions, not sure if these will be resolved by book 3, but, a few things have been bothering me:1. Why did Chade give Shrewd herbs that would essentially render him a vegetable knowing that Regal was trying to usurp the throne? Chade's role confuses me and his direction to Fitz seem rather contradictory. He is supposed to serve the king but then not act on the king's behalf?
2. If the King knew the treachery going on around him when he could speak (albeit often foggily) why let Regal have his way so easily? Why not intervene?
Other things that came to mind that I wanted to bat around with you:
1. GRR Martin and "warging"--a total ripoff from the Wit?
2. Ambiguous sexuality with the characters?
It's been a few years since I read it, but regarding the Chade/Shrewd issues...- I think it's addressed/explained a bit more later on
- but generally, I think the point is that it's a complicated situation. Shrewd has many different demands on him. For instance, there's the dilemma between the debilitating effect of drugs, and the debilitating effect of agonising pain. There's his duty to his country, but there's also his own self-interest - and Chade is his advisor (acting for the country), his brother (acting in his brother's best interest) AND his subject (following his orders), which gives Chade conflicting interests too. And as for Shrewd's attitude to Regal: there's putting Regal in his place because he'd be a bad ruler; there's supporting Regal in his place because it may be better to have a stable transition, no matter how bad Regal is, than have confusion, particularly in wartime; and there's also the plain fact that Regal is his son, and he wants to protect him, particularly since Regal reminds him of his (Regal's) dead mother.
So it's not black and white.
On your other points:
- I don't think warging is a ripoff, no. You have the wit in AA, first published 1995. You have warging in AGOT, first published 1996 (but he'd been working on it for years by that point). If GRRM is 'ripping off' anybody, then they're both ripping off Robert Jordan, with his "wolfbrothers" (from 1990 onward). But I suspect it's a coincidence that arguably the three biggest epic fantasists of the 1990s all had major protagonists who bonded psychically with wolves. [Meanwhile: Pratchett introduces the definitive werewolf heroine in 1993, and his characters talk to and conspire with actual woves in 1999. And his witches use "borrowing", inhabiting the minds of animals (with their permission) from 1987 onward.]
The general "talking to animals" thing is very old. But it was probably popularised by the druids and rangers of the Dungeons and Dragons game and books, in turn I think heavily inspired by the character of Radagast in The Lord of the Rings. We might also mention T.H. White's "The Sword in the Stone", in which Merlin transforms the young Arthur into various animals, so that he can chat to them. The more intense specific-individual-animal relationships probably owe something to the "witch's familiar" trope, but also to the common motif in folklore of heroes accompanied by virtuous animals. This was again transferred via Tolkien in the form of the great hound Huan who accompanies Luthien in her quest to rescue her boyfriend.
The specific wolf-obsession is also older than Robert Jordan. The most important example from the '80s is probable the Belgariad/Malloreon of David Eddings, in which the sorcerors of the hero's family magically transform into, and are symbolically associated with, wolves (one of the main characters is known by the nickname of 'Old Wolf'). This one doesn't come from Tolkien - in Tolkien (and Lewis) wolves are always evil.
Instead, I'm guessing the founding text for the ally-wolf in modern fantasy is Kipling's Mowgli stories, in which a boy is raised as a wolf, communicates with wolves, and in the final story is a man in human society who still has "wolf brothers" helping him.
The other huge influence is no doubt the Pern novels of Anne McCaffrey. These do not have wolves. What they DO have is intense psychic pair-bonding between gifted individuals and non-human friends, in this case dragons. This probably owes less to the traditions of fantasy stories and more to the fantasies of young girls: McCaffrey's dragons are huge, magical, telepathic, highly problematic alien ponies. [CS Lewis might be mentioned here too, because The Horse And His Boy depicts partnerships between people and sentient horses]
But anyway, I think that Perrin the Wolfbrother, and later Fitz the Witted and Jon the Warg, are all what happens when you mix together tropes of Kiplingesque wolfbrothers and Pernese trans-species pair-bonding, with dashes of witches-and-familiars and druid-and-rangers-speak-to-the-birds-and-the-beasts types, and perhaps a dash of the see-through-the-eyes-of-animals motif (eg Pratchett, but I'm sure it's older - I think it's often associated with vampires, for instance). It's probably just a coincidence that all three did very similar things at around the same time.
2. which characters are you thinking of?
Hi Wastrel,Wow, thank you for this very thorough and fascinating literary history that disproved my initial thought about the influence of Hobb on Martin. I have not read McCaffrey or Jordan (I know, I know) so this was highly useful. It's interesting how the wolf has been used symbolically to depict both good and evil, it doesn't seem to have an automatic cultural association. I'm going to think this through in terms of the werewolf myth...there is also a Cherokee legend I remember reading about the fight between two wolves...anyway, this takes me a bit far afield...
2. I'm thinking of Burrich in particular, but the Fool as well (so far, I'm now on Assassin's Quest, about 200 pgs to go). Burrich's intense and emotional relationship with Chivalry, to the point of giving him an earring....The Fool is likewise ambiguous but in a different way. He is described almost fine boned, there is that room with teh doll, and then Starling declares him to be a woman. Last, the relationship with animals of the "witted" (Burrich/Fitz), the closeness of the bonding--at times it reads almost as sexual.
To your first point about things not being black and white...I agree, but Hobb otherwise IS rather black and white for the most part with her characters (there are "evil" and "good" very flat character) and I think that is what I find confusing...
Thanks again for the response.
Colleen wrote: "2. If the King knew the treachery going on around him when he could speak (albeit often foggily) why let Regal have his way so easily? Why not intervene? ."One additional comment. Can't remember if this was in RA or AQ, so just in case, (view spoiler)
As Wastrel said, many things will get addressed later... Whatever questions re Burrich/Fool/Wit that you have now, please stay with the rest of the books for answers. There are 13 more books to go, you know! (Including Liveship x3 and Dragons x4) Everything gets progressively better - prose, story, depth **.
With the exception of a couple badass caricatures, I'll second "nothing is black & white". Refer **
Ha, okay, you've convinced me. 3 down, 13 to go to get my answers;)
Regarding wolves more generally... I think traditionally wolves were almost always evil, up to, say, the eighties. They were the personification of the big bad human-eating things that lived in the woods and came out to steal sheep and babies when the hunting was poor.It's now turned around, and these days wolves are almost always good - even werewolves are usually misunderstood, or tragic, rather than outright evil.
As I say, I think a big inspiration there was Kipling (popularised further by the film adaptation in 1967), which I'm guessing is in turn intentionally based on Roman myth (Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome, were raised by wolves, and so the Romans considered themselves symbolically wolves by association).
But the big thing is probably just forgetfulness. The more we've moved from a society of sheep-farmers terrified of wolf attacks, the more we've come to see wolves as Noble Spirits of the Forest...
Colleen wrote: "Ha, okay, you've convinced me. 3 down, 13 to go to get my answers;)"Don't mean to cop out with a generic go-read-the-books kind of answer. Haha I have trouble restraining myself from spilling the beans and will do so with just the slightest encouragement...
On the subject of wolves, Hobb's Nighteyes is the best fictional wolf I've had the privilege to read. In my mind, it's not really just a wolf, but a character as central as any of the two legged ones... Which goes to Wastrel's point about the evolving roles of wolves.
No, I completely understand! I just wanted to be assuaged that there would eventually be an answer. I love Nighteyes. Hobb somehow pulled off making him a rounded character that we really can love and appreciate. His dry wolf humor was the best! Can you believe I am adopting a wolf at a sanctuary because of him?
Wow! That's amazing. Most people just write a great review and buy the next book, not adopt a wild animal! Hope you don’t make a habit of that because... never mind. Consider sending a pix of the wolf (name?) to Robin Hobb on her FB or in GR. She will be inordinately pleased, I imagine.
ha, I know, can't make it a practice, it might be more expensive than my book habit;)
Wastrel, it depends on the culture. In Native American culture, wolves are seen as protectors of the family. (They are fantastic parents) When I worked at a wildlife park, I was fortunate enough to meet the wolves up close (and very personally). The alpha male developed quite a crush on me. Let me assure you, the feeling was mutual. I picture him when I picture Nighteyes. (He was a big boy & solid black. And he *did* have a sense of humour.
i'm not sure how this plan will work out. i'm all for removing kettricken away from regal, but removing shrewd from his care might only play in his advantage even more?
one thing to have a queen-in-waiting disappear, it's an entirely different thing to have the king disappear. very easy to call them all traitors.
this "jail, kill and excommunicate" thing is starting to sound less like a joke, and more like a premonition with every chapter...