Hobb-A-Long Read-A-Long discussion

Catalyst lied about his baby girl being his without blinking, that's how sick and tired he is of all of this situations and he just wants to be alone is peace with his family. But Sterling had to go and tell everything to the Fool and he got mad that Catalyst lied to his face. All those confrontations with Chade, Kettricken and the Fool had me nervous, holy crap after all of this they still want to use Catalyst (his baby girl) and Kettricken as a grieving woman and seeing herself as a failure grabs the only option presented to her by Chade and she basically gets brainwashed into the plan of taking Catalyst's daughter. This is where the love and hate relationship that most reader's have with her seems to come. It's sad that Catalyst doesn't even have a say in his daughter's future, but that is what means to be the sacrifice of the people, maybe Hobb is trying to give us the downsides of being of royal blood, as Catalyst is always wishing to have a simple life. Jhampee royalty has it worse as they don't have many privileges and must give everything for their people.

In a Skill dream of Verity, Catalyst notices the river, so I'm sure verity is in the Rain Wilds and he knows what he has to do but is not easy and he is getting tormented by the coterie at the same time. This river seems to be a source of power, maybe the source of magic in the world?

Also verity told catalyst that he fears to not succeed or worse that they distract him and succeed in his place, which tells me they know what verity is attempting, and they seek to do the same thing, in other words this is a race towards something. Maybe the allegiance of the Elderling?

This chapters are really weird but filled with mystery, I feel like I'm in a reading trance. That road I'm pretty sure is was shaped by skill, by an Elderling? I'm sure that when they come back the mountain kingdom will be in full on war with the six duchies as I think regal wants to dominate all the trade routes and the mountain kingdom is important for that.

I'll be surprised if verity still lives and he is not existing in a weird real of reality, I don't think he will ever come back and be king as to how the situation with Catalyst's daughter is going to be resolved i don't know.

So Catalyst is putting up wall so he can't get enchanted by the road but as doing it he also goes into a trance himself and ignores people round him. I'm still wondering why Verity can't tell Catalyst where is he and what is that he has to do to summon the Eldering, this is the mystery that has me hooked and really wanting to end the book.

Who the f**k is really Kettle?? The Game is an old Buck game but it wasn't taught to everyone, Kettle is definitely of Farseer blood, maybe distant cousin of Shrewd? The fool is getting more curious about her true identity she has to be someone really important. She seems to know a lot about the Skill but not the Wit, that's interesting. Also she knows a ton about prophecies and the White Prophets.

Samantha wrote: "Also there is a massively important reason why the Fool wants to know about any children Fitz fathers. Hobb starts to lay the groundwork for that mystery in this trilogy but you won't have final re..."

Wow you just tripled my intrigue!! Now I have to know asap!!
I imagine that any of Catalyst's children would be important as they could be catalysts themselves but we'll see. But if you said Fool's assassin I won't get to know till December 5th :'(

Yes the length is a little unnecessary and too much repetitive scenes specially on the road with the wolf hunting etc.

I was so looking forward to a reunion of at least some of the long standing characters in the series( the lack of interaction of these stellar personalities in this volume has been probably kept the novel from really taking off) that when Chade and Kettricken come and advocate for removing Fitz's child from Molly, and passing her off as Verity's child and Farseer heir, my heart sank. It was so bitter and disappointing that two characters I had high esteem for would suggest anything so heartless and reprehensible.

At length, I could at least see that Kettricken(not always gifted with the most sound judgement) might be unduly emotionally impaired by a recent stillbirth, the apparent loss of her husband, and the strong belief that those of royal blood should be Sacrifice for their people( which she intends to be applied to Fitz's child).

But that child was never intended by her parent's to be Sacrifice for anything, and was not by tradition or Farseer blood born into a mileau that supports this practice.

Kettricken can't see that she herself is subconsciously trying to replace the baby that she lost and is in fact engaging in an act of self-fulfillment (becoming a mother) that the Sacrifice is supposed to eschew.

Chade's role in this plan is the more sinister and made me reassess how I have viewed him in the past. I had thought age, infirmities and an overly sentimental attachment to his brother the king had addled his decision making and not allowed him to be very objective distilling advice.

I now think that, seeing him outside of his brother's shadow, he appears to have acquired a Machiavellian ethical bent from all his years of behaving as an assassin, leaving him with a warped view of human relationships and corrupt moral sensibilities.

Fitz cannot trust the vague assurance from Chade that he won't attempt to seize his child in the future.

Don't have much to add that hasn't already been said, but I am really concerned about Molly, Nettle, and Burrich they reveled their position in Fitz's last Skill-Dream and I feel that must be significant aka they're in danger ;.;

This is really picking up at this moment.
Other than the mentioned above, which I fully agree, I really like how knowing Nighteyes is making people much more confident about Fitz's Wit.

The Kettle's mistery is really making me nervous.

Wow, I have very rarely gone from liking a character a lot to just thinking she is the worst. That is what happened to me with Starling. I can understand her motives but at the same time I just thought she would be a better person. The same can be said about Kettricken. The difference is here that she has more people than herself to think of and even thpugh I feel sorry for Fitz, Kettricken's attitude and actions are understandable.

I didn't think I could dislike Molly even more. I know I could argue that she doesn't know any better, it's whal she learnes from her father, bla bla bla. Honestly, it might be wrong of me but O don't think I even WANT to like her anymore. And I know I should want the best for Fitz but I really don't want the end to be him and Molly happily ever after.

I am all for thet relationship between him and the Fool, although I am a bit sad that the Fool doesn't talk in riddles anymore.
Kettle is awsome. Am I the only one who thinks she is some kind of immortal;P

Sarah wrote: "Wow, I have very rarely gone from liking a character a lot to just thinking she is the worst. That is what happened to me with Starling. I can understand her motives but at the same time I just tho..."

I was speculating about psychiatric disorders among the characters in this series( Fitz and PTSD; the Fool and Schizotypal Personality Disorder), and you might want to consider here whether Molly might have Post-Partum Depression. To be honest, unless she acts like she does in Ch. 24 for two weeks or more, she more likely has Post-Partum blues, which is a lesser, more transient variant. This occurs in over 80% of mothers in their lifetimes, and includes uncontrollable crying, fits of anger, wide mood swings, loss of sleep, hormonal swings,etc. Women like Molly, who have experienced violence in their lifetimes, are more prone to this. There are very few women who will not feel or express something like what Molly does here in the presence of their small child at some point in their lives.

Samantha wrote: "This. This section is the bit where I begin to really hate Kettricken. The way she treats Fitz is terrible. He was handed shitty cards at the end of Royal Assassin and did the best he could with th..."

I think I would have appreciated this group leaving from Jhaampe better if it had followed more of a yellow brick road motif: Kettricken as Dorothy; Nighteyes as Toto; the Fool as the Scarecrow (no brains, hence a Fool) and Fitz as the Tin Woodsman( he knows how to work an ax). Verity, who they are all going to see, is obviously the Wizard of Oz. Or maybe based on what you've stated here, you'd like to see Kettricken play the Wicked Witch! But then who plays Dorothy? It's a long way to Bearns to fetch Celerity! Is Patience too old to sport pigtails? How about Rosemary? Can she keep her mouth shut? LOL!

I'm also getting more and more hate for Chade and Kettricken in this one.

This book is so hard for me to get through. It's very repetitive and I seem to only be able to keep concentrated for 50 pages at a time. Hopefully it will change soon. It did definitely change a little for the better in the last chapters of this section. I think it's because of the Fool.