Connected, yes - in the sense of being White Prophets or a variant thereof...but I didn't think they were the same person for a moment. Duh. Actually, I thought Amber was a lesbian, and that it was a characteristic of White Prophets (I realise that in theory Amber couldn't have been yet another White Prophet if she had been just herself, but I did think she was a variant on the theme) etc. to prefer their own gender...
Yes, the ship is Vivacia, and Burrich's son is Swift (comes to call himself Swift Witted).
I know what you mean about feeling like she might need a couple of books to tie up loose ends satisfyingly - I'd guess the next book (Fool's Fate) will be pretty huge. I was somewhat surprised Myblack was such a nonentity, still... hardly any conversations with animals in the whole thing...
I guess what bothered me about this book was that it tied up so few loose ends itself and instigated so many, and because, unlike the other books, it was not an adventure per se in and of itself, more a preparation for the third book. And some of the characters seemed to lack crispness (but that might have been me just not really liking any of them).
I thought it was vaguely unlike Fitz to have such a freak-out about the Fool's feelings (which he must have known about all along, as is indicated)...and telling him he should try and be normal, or words to that effect...what? The Fool has never been 'normal', but neither has Fitz - he should've known better, dammit. I thought it was deeply sad to see that, because I always thought the relationship between Fitz and the Fool was lovely. I do get that stuff can't be fluffy fluffy all the time, obviously, but it was still surprisingly painful. I was also surprised by Fitz's lack of curiosity about why the Fool has been so many different people in his life...
My thoughts on this are fuzzy, and I will warn everyone now that I am talking about this in relation to these characters and probably not saying this very well - I swear I am more educated and sensitive about (trans)gender politics than I sound here. But for a while I was truly disturbed that RH was going to make the Fool 'really' female and thus pretty much sidestep the queer aspect...and then I changed my mind again and decided she wasn't going to go that route. As it now stands, I remain unsure about what exactly she's going to do, though the force of opinion on the Robin Hobb messageboards is that the Fool is at least physically female or equivalent, and it is true that there are plenty of indications that this is so.
I think the Fool transcends boundaries to a large extent...but I think on some level it would be a cop-out to make his feelings for Fitz so easily heterosexual (and it will do that, if the Fool is physically 'female', whatever hir feelings are about her real gender). I suppose I should consider that gender fluidity is a good thing to be dealing with in fantasy novels, but it seems less meaningful to me because in fantasy-land (*not* real life), non-standard gender is that much easier to deal with than homosexuality is... people expect genderfuck in fantasy novels, but homosexuality still makes those same people uncomfortable (there's stuff here about the Othering of the Fool, and whether or not he is actually human in the strictest sense - and if not his gender fluidity is even easier to write off. i'm not sure that the same would be true of his 'homosexuality'). It makes Fitz uncomfortable, dammit. It would be such a cop out to give both Fitz and the readers that easy escape route - giving the Fool breasts and a vagina would be the biggest fuck-up since Anakin Fucking Skywalker in episode 2. It would render the whole thing oddly mundane, and would fuck with the dynamic in really unfortunate ways. This is my gut reaction, based only flimsily on real sense or probably politics, and I am prepared to be proven wrong - but that's how I feel atm...
If that makes any fucking sense at all... |
