Fool's Fate (Tawny Man Trilogy, book 3)

By Robin Hobb

Blurb: 
FitzChivalry Farseer has become firmly ensconced in the queen’s court. Along with his mentor, Chade, and the simpleminded yet strongly Skilled Thick, Fitz strives to aid Prince Dutiful on a quest that could secure peace with the Outislands—and win Dutiful the hand of the Narcheska Elliania. 

The Narcheska has set the prince an unfathomable task: to behead a dragon trapped in ice on the isle of Aslevjal. Yet not all the clans of the Outislands support their effort. Are there darker forces at work behind Elliania’s demand? Knowing that the Fool has foretold he will die on the island of ice, Fitz plots to leave his dearest friend behind. But fate cannot so easily be defied.

Review: 
This has been one of the hardest reviews I’ve wrote so far, you’d think because you love the book you’d find it easy but it’s only made it harder as there’s so much I want to say about it. So be prepared as this is gonna be a long one.

Since this book is the end of a series, I want to discuss the writing style and other stuff that affected all the books. One thing I noticed about Robin Hobb’s style of writing is how engrossed she gets into the character of Fitz when writing in 1st person. It just really brings the character to life as if he is real and it’s his autobiography. A way she does this is by her choice of words. She has a strong animal theme, using words like ‘animal’ and ‘wolfing’ to describe what he’s doing. For his thoughts she uses similes and metaphors that are animal related it’s to show the wolf within Fitz. Even though Nighteyes died in the first book of this series, she has kept the wolf within Fitz and so she continues to write him this way.

I didn’t realise that in my reviews I never mentioned the consistent start of each chapter. Each chapter of the book starts with a scroll whether this be a letter, or a teaching. The scrolls are written by a whole range of different people including scribes such as Fredwren, Tom Badgerlock (Fitz), Chade and skill masters. The scroll will give information on a subject such as places, poisons, the skill, Wit, traditions and culture. Most of the time they relate slightly to the chapter but if not then they still expand the lore of the Farseer World. I really appreciate this because it increases my knowledge and understanding but more importantly it increases the size of this made up world. It just makes it feel so much more real.

I think something worth mentioning which isn’t actually about this book but the series itself is the next series book titles. The next series is the final series called The Fitz and The Fool. What I’ve noticed is the titles of the books are all titles that have been used previously but the person has been swapped. It’s very clever and nostalgic but it may also give an insight on what to expect from the books. 
The Fitz and The Fool:

Fool's Assassin - Royal Assassin, Farseer Trilogy

Fool’s Quest - Assassins Quest, Tawny Man Trilogy

Assassins Fate - Fool’s Fate, Tawny Man Trilogy

If the titles do give an insight that means we can probably expect Fitz to die in Assassin's Fate, which is heartbreaking but fitting for the end of the series.

What I loved about this book was the pace. Obviously being a Robin Hobb book it was still very slow and long but this book I’d say was the least slow. It got straight into the jam-packed adventure and there was constantly something happening, it was just a very filled story.

There's very few things I found wrong with this book but if I was going to be picky then I’d say the quest is very similar to the quest to the Mountain for Verity in Assassins Quest in the Farseer Trilogy. As both quests involve going to cold landscapes to retrieve something: a head of a dragon or Verity. The repetition is shown more in the day to day struggles with snow for example rather than the quest itself.

Another thing to picky about is the way Fitz has to report a lot what he has done to the people who weren’t there to witness it. It’s quite annoying, as he has to recap everything that’s happened to him even though we as the reader already know. Sometimes it’s nice but it clears your understanding on what’s happened as sometimes a lot of stuff can happen so it gets confusing. But most the time it makes the story a bit repetitive. Overall Robin's biggest downfall is repetition.

I would say overall though I absolutely adored this book, I think it went as every fan girl of this series would have wanted it to. Because the ending was so good though, I’ve decided to take a break before reading the final series as I’m not ready for things to be ruined again in Fitz’ life.

In the spoilers section I go into more detail on how this book made me feel and the impression it left. Explaining fully why it deserves 5 stars.

*SPOILERS*

I think what I find really interesting about this book is the role-reversal of Chade and Fitz that I’ve mentioned in a previous review. I want to add to that by saying how it also amuses me that as Fitz becomes teacher he ends up in hiding and as Chade comes student he’s now in the public eye. They’ve swapped lifestyles as well as roles, which was very cleverly done.

In the beginning of the book you see that the friendship between the Fool and Fitz is still not healed. It’s hard after so many books to see these two uncomfortable with one another, luckily eventually their friendship is fixed and all is good. Except that the Fool needs leave Fitz forever to prevent influencing anymore change on the world. The ending of the book was very happy except this factor. While reading, I got so swept into Fitz happy ending that I forgot how he was missing the Fool in all of this. Although I can’t remain forever sad as clearly in the next series they adventure together again.

We discover the truth about Burrich and Swift in Fool’s Fate. I was shocked to see Burrich abandon his son for having the Swift in the previous book, just didn’t seem him. Luckily it is revealed early in this book that Swift ran away from home again with Nettle’s help to make it look like he was disowned. I was glad to know Burrich was still the same honourable man he was when Fitz was a child.

Random side note:  Fitz peed a lot in this book. I don’t remember the other books mentioning him ‘relieve’ himself but this one did a lot.

I think one of the weirdest things I didn’t expect to enjoy in this book was Nettle and Fitz dream sharing adventures. I’m usually not a fan of dreams being in books, it’s done a lot and are just tedious but these were different. The dreams sharing in this book was just superb, it was great to see their relationship grow and struggle and there wasn’t too much going on like there usually is when books do dreams. It was nice finding a book that changed my opinion of dreams in books.

It didn’t take long for my prediction of Elliania and Dutiful to fall in love on the quest and it was a good job they did as otherwise I don’t think they would have got married in the end if that’s not what they wanted. It was very cute and subtly done and you could tell Dutiful fell for her first. Simply sweet.

One of my favourite scenes in Fool’s Fate was the cake drugging scene. Basically, Fitz eats a cake filled with Elfbark in order to ruin his skilling ability by the Pale woman. Being such a high does he is pretty much acting like someone high on weed. It’s such a funny scene and there isn’t many of those in this series so I really appreciated it. Fitz in this scene can’t seem to stop talking or focus, his senses are heightened and everything seems weird to him. It was a well written scene as it showed the ecstatic state of his mind.

One of the happiest things in the middle of the book was Fitz sending Nettle a coded message in the dreams to tell Burrich he lives. I was so happy he finally told him. This leads Burrich to head to the Outislands to return Fitz and Swift home, I was truly shocked when he arrived. Hobb played a clever trick to make it sound like Nettle knew Fitz was her father in her dreams with Thick. However she was actually saying Burrich wason his way to the Outislands, I really didn’t expect it  but was so happy that he did… to an extent. It was great to have their runion and all of things they needed to talk about discussed but I was devastated when it didn’t last long. Burrich’s death was the hardest one to face, even harder than the Fool’s temporary death. It also caused me to have questions of what this meant for Fitz and Molly I had a feeling Burrich would tell him to be with her, as Jinna prophesied that his love would return to him. Didn’t take long for this to happen, as Burrich did just that but he did make it less predictable by saying he was the better man for her, as Fitz had thought. That was a nice touch.

A better reunion than with Burrich was Fitz with Patience. Her and Lacey’s reaction was amazing and exactly how it should be. This made me so happy but again like Burrich the happiness was short lived as Lacey died of old age. However at least it wasn’t complete sadness after all Patience still lived and she got be Fitz’ mother again.

I still have so many questions about the Fool and his species, however a lot did get finally answered in this book. Previously the Fool tells Fitz his name is ‘Beloved’ and like Fitz I didn’t believe him and thought it to be a joke. But when we are introduced to the Pale Woman, she constantly refers to him as ‘Beloved’ so I’ve came to accept that it his real name. Not only that, I came to accept that his is male as she also referred to him as him rather than her. I’m glad to have these things cleared up. From the Black Man; also known as Prilkop; we finally understand the skin colour change of the Fool. It is known as ‘The Change’ and basically when a White has made significant change his skin sheds and he becomes a new colour, he changes with the change he made. Therefore now the Fool is brown.

There was bit of a flaw to the plot in my eyes at least. Dutiful makes the decision to kill the dragon then go after the Pale Woman and decided to end his binding to Elliania as he plans to ask her hand in marriage after the slaying. What I don’t understand is why not defeat the Pale Woman then free the dragon, that way everyone gets what they want as Elliania was still willing to marry him. Dutiful had a wit and skill cortire, he also had his guards. He had plenty of people to kill her. Fitz sort of realises that it would be better to free the dragon, but didn’t kill the pale woman first so the fool still died. I’m aware they did have Tintaglia the dragon on route for the dragon but they were planning to kill the dragon so that shouldn’t matter. I guess it was just make there be more story.

A very important scene is when the Fool kisses Fitz. It was to give Fitz his memories/feelings that he put into Girl on a Dragon back in the Farseer trilogy. This changed Fitz back to the way he used to be with lack of caution and getting the things he wanted without worrying about consequence. These slightly boyish traits were missing in the second series and I just didn’t realise they were till the traits came back. More importantly, we found out information we never thought we’d find out about. We finally found out Fitz’s original name it was Keppet! I can’t believe this was revealed I thought it would never be found out and has been pushed aside since the first book! It was an unbelievable reveal.

I think it’s definitely worth mentioning Thick’s fear of boats. Looking back I believe this to be foreshadowing for the skill pillars. As soon as Fitz came across the skill pillars, I knew Thick wouldn’t be getting on a boat home, I just didn’t realise his constant complaining would be foreshadowing for this. Very sneaky Hobb.

This book finally produces good news for Hap. After a battle of love and money he finally realises that his love interest Svanja was just a gold-digger all along and gave up. However in the process he did lose his wood apprenticeship but he did end up in a minstrel apprenticeship and he is happy at last.

Fitz getting with Molly in the end did make me happy but it did remind me a lot of the movie Pearl Harbour. If you seen it you’d understand what I mean. I wasn’t a fan of the way that movie went because it seems wrong but when Fitz and Molly did the same I didn’t mind because I had a deeper connection for them.

As the happy ending for Fitz continues, Nettle finally finds out he is her true father. At first she is mad and feels abandoned but she comes to terms to him he can finally claim his daughter, at last.

The biggest point of this book was when Fitz recognised his destined title: King Fitz. After so long it blew me away that he finally realised his rightful place. Although he doesn’t take the King role he seems to take it among the people who know him and has told the people he loved that he is alive. There was a quote in the book that was amazing:

‘As you will, King Fitz’

-Chade Fallstar

I just loved the power of this small sentence. I was pretty much jumping out my seat.

Another quote also brought me great joy. The last line of the book:

‘I am content’

-FitzChivalry Farseer

It was so simple yet so brilliant and made me so happy that he finally got there. Which again explains why I’m not ready to have it be ruined by the next series. I loved this series and I highly recommend The Tawny Man series.

Quote: 

'Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see it what is not there anymore.'

- The Fool, Fool's Fate

Rating: 5 runes out of 5

Series Rating: 5 runes out of 5 

Check out my review on the next series, Fitz and The Fool Trilogy, book 1: Fool's Assassin (tbc)

                                                                                                                                      written by Lauren