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A review by lottovalentino
Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb
3.0
the ending of this book was so bamboozling to me that i had to take two stars off of the rating based on it alone. seeing people talk about how much they love it bamboozles me even more. there’s just a kind of dissonance between what the story is telling me i should be feeling, and what i’m actually feeling
(cue rant) in a series where most character relationships (of any kind, really! platonic, romantic, familial…) are so intriguing, complex, engaging and well-written, fitz and molly are such an anomaly. and i thought it was just me at first, back at the farseer trilogy! i thought it was a me thing, and i felt awful! i love messy teenage love stories!! (huemoni enjoyer, absolute sucker for this sort of thing, fitzmolly should literally be right up my alley) but i soon realized this is a not an uncommon opinion – there’s just something surprisingly bland about fitz and molly. there’s a disbalance between the pedestal that fitz puts molly on and the feelings i have about her as a reader. feelings that are virtually nonexistent – it might be due to the small amount of time we get to actually spend with her, but to me, she feels like an afterthought. i never felt anything about fitz’s love for her. their relationship never moved me. and the continuous insistence that fitz considers her the love of his life and isn’t able to move on from her makes this even more bizarre. the only thing they ever had going on was puppy-eyed love and a spring awakening. i don’t know how else to illustrate how hollow and uninteresting i find their relationship to be. molly borders on being a non-character. the way she’s constantly referred to in this trilogy as an item belonging to someone, the constant talks of “she was mine, and then burrich took her from me…” the “I’d claimed her again” line from fitz after they have sex at the end of the book really made me sit up and like. want to fucking kill myself for a second. this is kind of vile, no? them getting back together is still ridiculous on its own because 16 years is a long time. like that’s a long time that would’ve changed them both as people irrevocably, even if burrich and the *counts on fingers* seven children weren’t in the picture. which they were. it’s just super silly. but anyways (rant over)
right. them ending up back together, while silly and unbelievable to me, wasn’t the main issue. it’s the way it happened. here’s the thing – i fucking hate convenience. i hate it when i’m witnessing a story unfold and just…realizing that the author is making such obvious, calculated decisions to steer a story in a certain direction. and this was, by god, the worst, most obnoxious case of that i’d ever seen.
so burrich conveniently spawns on aslevjal just in time for him and fitz to conveniently have all the cathartic reunion conversations they’re supposed to have before burrich conveniently gets killed – but not before conveniently being on his deathbed and telling fitz “aah son…please go back and fuck my wife…aah…you have my blessing…” by which point the only thing standing in the way of fitz going back and Reclaiming his woman or whatever is the fool. god, it would be very distasteful for fitz to leave the fool behind in his sorry state right after bringing him back to life! but don’t worry – the fool will actually be the one to conveniently spell out x y z reasons (which were complete asspulls. honestly) for why HE should be the one to leave instead! oh man, i’m so glad we’ve conveniently cleaned up every obstacle standing in the way of fitz’s heterosexual fantasy ending of living with his girlfriend that he hasn’t seen since he was a teenager and all the children she had with his father figure (granted, robin hobb does try to ease us into this relationship with fitz like…courting molly again and bribing the children and whatever but at that point brother. i already kind of felt like dying)
the last page however. was the equivalent of someone smashing my head in with a hammer. fitz looking back on burrich’s “one horse cannot wear two saddles” philosophy and reflecting on it as being…a good…thing? and saying “i am content” right after…? i swear to god for a moment i thought robin hobb was pulling the rug from under us on purpose, like Oh! this is actually a horror story about a man's distorted view on reality! but no this is apparently supposed to be a sweet, satisfying ending. am i the insane one? am i the insane one?
burrich’s “one horse cannot wear two saddles” philosophy is bad. it’s very much not a good mindset to have. that very way of thinking is the reason why fitz lost molly in the first place – much like burrich, he put his service to the crown above her, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. i feel as if fitz’s character journey should’ve been all about deconstructing that mindset. he’s a bastard, but he’s also a deeply beloved family member to the current farseers. he has the wit, but he also has the skill. dutiful is both his prince and his son. burrich was both his father figure and molly’s husband. even further from fitz himself, the themes of similar contrasts are there! the fool is both a man and a woman. love can be felt as both romantic and platonic at once. like just by looking at some of the core motives of this story, it seems to me that there are many horses wearing many different saddles at once everywhere! and it’s a good thing! being exclusionary and dedicating yourself to only one person/concept/etc is maybe a bit of a bad mindset to have, yes? how is this not the moral of the story? how do we end this book and this trilogy on the complete opposite sentiment. i don’t know. i don’t know. it’s so strange.
i guess i could also talk about how weirdly things ended between fitz and beloved but honestly i don’t even really care. why make the fool leave while believing that fitz is dead. that’s so funny ijbol. anyways i actually really liked the rest of this book. the beginning was a bit slow, but everything else, god. emotional exhaustion /pos. absolutely insane stuff. i love robin hobb’s sick and twisted mind. apart from when it makes her forget how to write. but alas
Spoiler
molly and fitz ending up back together isn’t the main issue by itself. granted – i do think it is an issue (i get possessed by a rant demon) (oooh…talk about how little you care about fitz and molly….ooooh…do it….) (i succumb to the demon)(cue rant) in a series where most character relationships (of any kind, really! platonic, romantic, familial…) are so intriguing, complex, engaging and well-written, fitz and molly are such an anomaly. and i thought it was just me at first, back at the farseer trilogy! i thought it was a me thing, and i felt awful! i love messy teenage love stories!! (huemoni enjoyer, absolute sucker for this sort of thing, fitzmolly should literally be right up my alley) but i soon realized this is a not an uncommon opinion – there’s just something surprisingly bland about fitz and molly. there’s a disbalance between the pedestal that fitz puts molly on and the feelings i have about her as a reader. feelings that are virtually nonexistent – it might be due to the small amount of time we get to actually spend with her, but to me, she feels like an afterthought. i never felt anything about fitz’s love for her. their relationship never moved me. and the continuous insistence that fitz considers her the love of his life and isn’t able to move on from her makes this even more bizarre. the only thing they ever had going on was puppy-eyed love and a spring awakening. i don’t know how else to illustrate how hollow and uninteresting i find their relationship to be. molly borders on being a non-character. the way she’s constantly referred to in this trilogy as an item belonging to someone, the constant talks of “she was mine, and then burrich took her from me…” the “I’d claimed her again” line from fitz after they have sex at the end of the book really made me sit up and like. want to fucking kill myself for a second. this is kind of vile, no? them getting back together is still ridiculous on its own because 16 years is a long time. like that’s a long time that would’ve changed them both as people irrevocably, even if burrich and the *counts on fingers* seven children weren’t in the picture. which they were. it’s just super silly. but anyways (rant over)
right. them ending up back together, while silly and unbelievable to me, wasn’t the main issue. it’s the way it happened. here’s the thing – i fucking hate convenience. i hate it when i’m witnessing a story unfold and just…realizing that the author is making such obvious, calculated decisions to steer a story in a certain direction. and this was, by god, the worst, most obnoxious case of that i’d ever seen.
so burrich conveniently spawns on aslevjal just in time for him and fitz to conveniently have all the cathartic reunion conversations they’re supposed to have before burrich conveniently gets killed – but not before conveniently being on his deathbed and telling fitz “aah son…please go back and fuck my wife…aah…you have my blessing…” by which point the only thing standing in the way of fitz going back and Reclaiming his woman or whatever is the fool. god, it would be very distasteful for fitz to leave the fool behind in his sorry state right after bringing him back to life! but don’t worry – the fool will actually be the one to conveniently spell out x y z reasons (which were complete asspulls. honestly) for why HE should be the one to leave instead! oh man, i’m so glad we’ve conveniently cleaned up every obstacle standing in the way of fitz’s heterosexual fantasy ending of living with his girlfriend that he hasn’t seen since he was a teenager and all the children she had with his father figure (granted, robin hobb does try to ease us into this relationship with fitz like…courting molly again and bribing the children and whatever but at that point brother. i already kind of felt like dying)
the last page however. was the equivalent of someone smashing my head in with a hammer. fitz looking back on burrich’s “one horse cannot wear two saddles” philosophy and reflecting on it as being…a good…thing? and saying “i am content” right after…? i swear to god for a moment i thought robin hobb was pulling the rug from under us on purpose, like Oh! this is actually a horror story about a man's distorted view on reality! but no this is apparently supposed to be a sweet, satisfying ending. am i the insane one? am i the insane one?
burrich’s “one horse cannot wear two saddles” philosophy is bad. it’s very much not a good mindset to have. that very way of thinking is the reason why fitz lost molly in the first place – much like burrich, he put his service to the crown above her, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. i feel as if fitz’s character journey should’ve been all about deconstructing that mindset. he’s a bastard, but he’s also a deeply beloved family member to the current farseers. he has the wit, but he also has the skill. dutiful is both his prince and his son. burrich was both his father figure and molly’s husband. even further from fitz himself, the themes of similar contrasts are there! the fool is both a man and a woman. love can be felt as both romantic and platonic at once. like just by looking at some of the core motives of this story, it seems to me that there are many horses wearing many different saddles at once everywhere! and it’s a good thing! being exclusionary and dedicating yourself to only one person/concept/etc is maybe a bit of a bad mindset to have, yes? how is this not the moral of the story? how do we end this book and this trilogy on the complete opposite sentiment. i don’t know. i don’t know. it’s so strange.
i guess i could also talk about how weirdly things ended between fitz and beloved but honestly i don’t even really care. why make the fool leave while believing that fitz is dead. that’s so funny ijbol. anyways i actually really liked the rest of this book. the beginning was a bit slow, but everything else, god. emotional exhaustion /pos. absolutely insane stuff. i love robin hobb’s sick and twisted mind. apart from when it makes her forget how to write. but alas