Hobb-A-Long Read-A-Long discussion

The first 100 pages of Fool's Fate are basically just to tie up loose ends at Buckkeep, so that everybody that's going to the Out Islands (not so fast there, Lord Golden!) can embark with something resembling a clear conscience.

First, Fitz has got to get things started with Swift, the new royal page, who's only ten years old and likes to flaunt his Wittedness with abandon! Fitz tries to get Web to help with this, but Web doesn't want to Swift to get the idea that the Wit is something to hide or be ashamed of, in the name of discretion. Web also reminds Fitz that Fitz has been keeping his own Witted nature secret his whole life by referring to him as Fitzchivalry Farseer, which he learned from Rolf's widow, Holly( One wonders if Chade had Rolf killed to prevent him from telling anyone about the survival of the Witted Bastard). At any rate Fitz finds out from Nettle that Swift is there by false pretenses, and sends him home( I don't make out what is being done with Swift here; this is the second time he's come to Buckkeep, and now he's sent home yet again; there doesn't seem to be any point to it).

Thick has really grown on Dutiful and Fitz, and they've really taken a paternal interest in his welfare, and not just for what he can do for them with his Skill strength; It's really very touching to see how 14 year-old Dutiful has this precociously caring way with the child-like Thick, that shows he would make for an excellent father someday. To some extent, Thick may supplant the need for either Dutiful or Fitz to someday engage another Wit-bond, which might be an argument for the natural advantage human relationships have relative to the Wit.

By contrast, Fitz's relationship to Hap is more perfunctory, and he mainly just gives him money, and leaves. The Hap character, which helped further several plotlines in Golden Fool, doesn't have the rich development other characters have, and really serves no purpose; he should probably be written out of the series.

Golden is spending all his savings on extravagances, with the idea that he will soon be dead in the service of his prophesies; he seems a little upset with Fitz that he isn't all that worried about the Fool's impending doom, but he might not know that Fitz has fixed it so the Fool can't jeopardize himself on this dangerous mission, so thereby Fitz believes that he has prevented the Fool's death. But the Fool tells Fitz and Chade that for this preferred path to better mankind by bringing back dragons into the world, to take place, his death must occur. In the end, the Fool and Chade ostensibly leave it up to Fitz to decide if he will save Icefyre, or allow him to be beheaded. He is, after all, the Catalyst.

But if he is the Catalyst, and the Prophet ( the Fool) has chosen to tell Fitz that the Fool must die to help the prophesy be fulfilled, when he could have kept that secret to himself and ensured that Fitz wouldn't then try to save him; then Fitz is not, in fact, betraying the Fool by spoiling his plans to travel with them, because his deceit of the Fool is actually part of the prophesy unfolding, as a result of the Fool telling his Catalyst this information. It would ultimately be the fault of the Fool for telling Fitz in the first place, that the Fool must die, only if that happened to finally end up resulting in the death of Icefyre. Trying to save the Fool's life is not the same as actually saving his life, as far as the future matters.

Starting this one, finally!