[Arty]

Okay... the very nature of this post will contain spoilers, a question has been asked... and to give an answer... spoilers will happen... read at you own risk... we cannot expect spoiler warning in every post with this kind of topic.

Well I just read it and it was great.(Understatement!)
So I have a question/observation.....

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.
.
.
.
..
.
.
.
.
.

SPOILER
.
.
.
.
.
.


OK so I always assumed The Fool and Amber were/are the same people....but my sense of chronology is completely off now, I had assumed a large time gap between Farseer and Liveships........I also assumed Fool's Errand would post-date Liveships.....did it? I dont think so, maybe, but some stuff Fool said seemed to be referring to stuff in Liveships....other things made it seem Liveships hadn't happened yet. So, does the Fool exist within his own timeline, weaving in and out of everyone elses time? or have I missed (or misinterpreted) something?

[This message has been edited by Arty (edited March 10, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by Arty (edited March 10, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by dennizm (edited March 10, 2002).]

[ChrisW]

They are one person. Fools Errand happens after Liveships.

[This message has been edited by Caldazar (edited March 10, 2002).]

[Cadfael]

I agree, in 'Fool's Errand', Fitz makes refference that once he got the impression the Fool was in danger... and that he was on the deck of a ship at the time... this does happen in 'Ship Of Destiny'.

Also... in 'Traders' there are a few references to the Six Duchies recovering from the Red Ship war... they are still rebuilding the land.

[Mithfânion]

Arty

Certainly it's set after the Liveship books in terms of chronology. There's fifteen years between the end of Farseer and the beginning of Tawny Man.

What interests me is whether or not the Fool is actually a female or, and that is what I'm going with sofar, genderless. I know that sounds queer but don't forget that the Fool is said to be of a different race.

All things considered it's very likely that the Fool, who throughout the Farseer trilogy is shown as a male, could be a female, though once again there's little to point to this in Fool's errand. I just don't want it to be so. Even worse, I don't want the Fool and Fitz to end up together, something a lot of fans seem to be hoping for.


[This message has been edited by Mithfânion (edited March 11, 2002).]

[Cadfael]

I tend to go with the genderless option as well...

The Fool is very private in his personal grooming, and Amber requires a private place aboard The Paragon to 'be alone'.

[Arty]

OK then, so the part that has me tripped up is this.......

I have taken the Fool's gender to be changeable rather than genderless. I was going with the assumption that once he put on the crown with the feathers he would metamorphasis into female (thus being an appropriate match for Fitz, who he is in love with) I thought this was his excitement over the crown and feathers. But if I understand it in that way, then it has to be BEFORE Liveships...in which he has already assumed his female form, thus causing me all sorts of confusion. See?

[ChrisW]

Well I tink the fool is female all the time.
After all that bard women thought she was female in book three of the farseer books.

[Cadfael]

A good point...

But could the Fool not be a manifestation of Sa? In chapter 1 of 'The Ship of Destiny', Keffria Vestrit is concerned that she is being punished by the loss of her children... Jani Khupros replies...

"Perhaps. If Sa had but a male aspect. But recall the old, true worship of Sa. Male and female, bird, beast, and plant, earth, fire. air and water, all are honoured in ,and Sa minifest in all of them

I must admit that section got me thinking.

[Cygnus]

SPOILERS!!!!!
*
*
*
*
*
I just finished this last night.. wow. Just fantastic. Of course it was a whole kleenex box worth of crying, but I still loved it. Poor Fitz, loosing Nighteyes and his whole assumed life getting turned upside down. I knew that Nighteyes was going to die in this book (there was just too much foreshadowing to ignore), but it still was very hard to read. Sniff.

I actually hadn't thought much about what the Fool actually is. In both the Assassin and Liveship books I did get the impression of a genderless nature. But who knows how the whole White Prophet physiology works? When he (just to pick a pronoun) was white he was still in his adolesence. Now that he's tawny, maybe he's already had to pick a gender. I'd also back the crown theory.

I certainly wasn't rooting for Fitz and the Fool to run off into the sunset together, but I'm not wholly against it either.

What is with the horse, MyBlack? Something is going on there, right? The Fool made too many weird comments for it to be just a normal horse.

The next book can't come out soon enough for me.

[Rob B]

I actually e-mail Ms. Hobb after I finished reading FE and mentioned Nighteyes dying. She said it was hard, but something that had to be done. I was pretty close to tears myself.