The Robin Hobb Collection discussion

Ch6 - So, Fitz sends Burrich a message through Nettle. I wonder how Burrich will react to that?
Looks like Nettle has some real Skill with the Skill

Ch8 - I love the politics between the Farseers and the various factions of the Out Islanders. I love how Fitz shuts down the meeting by using the skill to extend Dutiful's need to pee onto everyone present. Very dirty but well done. When Piotr came to discuss arrangements directly with Dutiful he had no chance against thge coterie of Fitz Chade and Dutiful - 3 minds against one.

I'm also enjoying the bits of Out Islander lore we get, especially about Ice Fire. It seems the dragon went into voluntary stasis to escape some grief or pain and that he entrusted his protection to the clans. Things are getting a whole lot more complicated now.

David Sven wrote: "Looks like Nettle has some real Skill with the Skill"

ba-dum-cha!

ch6 - that message was unbelievable. i just couldn't stop reading, i had to read about Burrich's reaction.


ch7 - but that reactin isn't what i thought it would be. can you imagine? after all those years, getting a message through via your daughter like that?
the utter range of emotions that must you go through you head. happy - because he's alive after all. guilt - i took his daughter and the love of his life, and brought more kids in this world, which clearly fitz knows all about. i guess quite a bit of anger, regret and a million other things.

the other reaction i'm looking forward to is Patience. what on earth will she say, when she discovers fitz is alive?

Hanne wrote: "the other reaction i'm looking forward to is Patience. what on earth will she say, when she discovers fitz is alive? "

I imagine she'll be ecstatic yet very annoyed :)

given how much she talked about fitz to dutiful, i think he'll need to find shelter :)

Ch9 - I felt sorry for Thick having to get back on the boat. Web's use of the Wit to calm rather than repel is interesting. I also like what we learn of the OutIslander custom as they welcome them ashore. Actually I find the Eda and El lore interesting with Eda giving birth to land and sea being her "waters" - or is it after birth? El being creator of men to get even and Eda countering by creating women.

Ah. Poor Thick hates boats.

Ch10 - that betrothal ceremony was pretty wild.

ch 8 - like Fitz i'm a bit of a loss at what's happening here.


David Sven wrote: "I love how Fitz shuts down the meeting by using the skill to extend Dutiful's need to pee onto everyone..."

yes that was a clever use of Skill :)

ch9 - aaaah, I'm always looking forward to shared dreams between Nettle and Fitz. but boy, my prediction is that she will be furious when she discovers fitz is her dad.

"If i dream of the wolf again, my father says, I'm to tell him, you shoul dhave come home a long time ago"
So Burrich went to Buckkeep, what was he told? Did Kettricken tell him the whole story? And is Burrich going to say anything to Molly? I'd think that she deserves to know what he knows.

Also interesting, Fitz remarking how cruel it is what they are doing to Thick for the sake of Dutiful's coterie being strong enough.
It's weird he's still ok to do it to Thick, but not to Nettle - who could probably handle all of this much better.


And where are the men of this clan?

ch10 - we're learning a few things now... Oerttre is the mother now, but she's gone, together with Kossi "Has she come home to us at last?" the mother asks.

So where are they? Oerttre and Kossi, and the men of this clan? Are they in possession of the pale lady, who is using them as leverage over this clan?

ch 6 - maybe one of the most important in all Hobb's books?

It's touching how Fitz is now, almost as a mantra, talking about 'my daughter', rather than just 'Nettle' - right at the point where he seems on the edge of losing her. But I think what sparks it is the conversation of Burrich. Talking about Burrich, conjuring up that family relationship - and in particular perhaps the idea of ending his deception with Burrich, and thus in some way making that relationship real again (and Fitz provides the imagery himself when he talks about being outside Thick's dream yet observing it - Fitz has been outside the dream of Burrich's life, yet observing it, but to him it has only been a dream, and hence unreal and safe) - forces him to think of Nettle as his daughter, without himself being aware of the change. And of course it's not the only family brought up, as we see one of our few glimpses of Fitz's mother. In the process, we receive a very strong indication that the woman in the crowd in the Farseer novels was indeed Fitz's mother, and a real indication (which previously was just a wild guess) that Fitz's real name is 'Keppet'. Although it could still be that 'Keppet' is just a term of endearment (so it could be that the woman who calls him Keppet earlier is a different woman who just happens to use the same term by coincidence).
And this coming so soon after Fitz was confronted with his own father, in the shape of his sword! I have to feel it's no coincidence that Fitz is becoming more grounded than ever in his own lineage at exactly the time he makes a move to expose his own. Because that didn't feel like a necessary message to Burrich. Sure, he wants to do something and there's not much he can do, but I can't help but feel that the resolutely isolated Fitz of the last fifteen years would either have found another way or else born the pain and done nothing.

Continuing evidence, btw, of how powerful both Nettle and Thick can be, and some foreboding about Thick's potential dangerousness. But surely nothing could go wrong, this is a Robin Hobb novel!

Ahaa! very interesting. I had no clue what keppet-women you were talking about (one of the perks missing when you read the first time around), so i looked it up, and copied the passage here so the others don't have to do the same :)

"The variety of the items on Fedwren’s list took me all over the town. I had no idea what use a scribe had for dried seamaid’s hair, or for a peck of forester’s nuts. Perhaps he used them to make his colored inks, I decided, and when I could not find them in the regular shops, I took myself down to the harbor bazaar, where anyone with a blanket and something to sell could declare himself a merchant. The seaweed I found swiftly enough there, and learned it was a common ingredient in chowder. The nuts took longer, for those were something that would have come from inland rather than from the sea, and there were fewer traders who dealt in such things.

But find them I did, alongside baskets of porcupine quills and carved wooden beads and nut cones and pounded bark fabric. The woman who presided over the blanket was old, and her hair had gone silver rather than white or gray. She had a strong straight nose and her eyes were on bony shelves over her cheeks. It was a racial heritage both strange and oddly familiar to me, and a shiver walked down my back when I suddenly knew she was from the mountains.

“Keppet,” said the woman at the next mat as I completed my purchase. I glanced at her, thinking she was addressing the woman I had just paid. But she was staring at me. “Keppet,” she said, quite insistently, and I wondered what it meant in her language. It seemed a request for something, but the older woman only stared coldly out into the street, so I shrugged at her younger neighbor apologetically and turned away as I stowed the nuts in my basket.

I hadn’t got more than a dozen steps away when I heard her shriek “Keppet!” yet again. I looked back to see the two women engaged in a struggle. The older one gripped the younger one’s wrists and the younger one struggled and thrashed and kicked to get free of her. Around her, other merchants were standing to their feet in alarm and snatching their own merchandise out of harm’s way. I might have turned back to watch had not another more familiar face met my eyes.

(the familiar face is molly nosebleed)

reading that except, i think you could be spot on. i don't remember what i thought the first time when i read it, although i could go back and find out in the threads, but i'm too lazy to do that.

i think a lot is changing for Fitz in the last two books and a big part is that he is finding his place in this world. half way book 2 he stops calling it Chade's tower but talks about my tower, a few chapters later it's his bed in his tower.
And now i guess that's moving on to fully accepting Nettle as his daughter. I think the very emotional decision to let Burrich know he is alive is indeed a big part of it

ch.10 - Hobb is great at action scenes, but the bits I find most exciting keep seeming to be scenes of people watching other people not doing very much. Like here: Fitz watches Peottre watching Dutiful looking at Elliana's breasts.
That really should be a gripping scene.

I think it's because Hobb conveys very well Fitz's constant paranoia - we see Fitz so on edge, so desparate to find out what's going on, that we become on edge as well.

Exactly right Wastrel. Hobb is so good at putting you in her characters head that you can enjoy the roller coast right in their head even when nothing much seems to be going on externally.