To answer this question I want to quickly draw attention back to this paragraph:
“The final conflict between these two prophets--one true, one false, one bent on the creation of a better world, the other on destroying it--revolves around dragons, and their place in the Realm of the Elderlings. The Fool, following the path laid out before him in his dreams, strives towards the act of bringing them back to the skies, in a journey that spans nine books, six trilogies, and four different identities who are all ultimately just facets of himself. He dies for that ambition at the end of his journey--only to be revived by his Catalyst.”
The Fool prophesied that his own death would be a requirement to bring about the ideal future he saw for the world. It’s not clear when, during the canon, he comes to this conclusion, but by the time of the Tawny Man trilogy, he confesses to Fitz that he has accepted the inevitability of his fate and that even knowing what will happen if he continues on his current quest, he’s determined to see it through to the end. And he does, both with great courage and bone-deep terror, because he knows that his death will be a tortuous and painful one at the hands of someone who truly, deeply loathes him: the Pale Woman. When he dies, cold and alone, he is fulfilling his own prophecy.
That is why, when Fitz defies his will at the end of Fool’s Fate and uses both Skill and Wit magic to bring him back from the dead, the Fool ends up feeling lost and listless. Imagine spending your whole life working towards the realization of something so immense, so tremendous and all-encompassing, that you’d be willing to suffer torture and death to make it come to pass. Now imagine that you’re brought back to life again by the unrequited love of your life via a process that is more intimate and invasive than any medical procedure could ever be described as, and as life returns to your previously dead body, so too return your memories of the tortuous death that put you next to a funeral pyre in the first place.
The trauma of that experience, coupled with the uncharted expanse of living in a world where the Fool can no longer see or sense any futures--he’s not meant to be a part of it anymore, after all--would be enough to make anyone question their purpose in the world. It’s why, at the end of Fool’s Fate, as Fitz is making plans to incorporate the Fool into his life again, the Fool himself is quietly and privately making his own plans to leave. That section of the book includes intense suicidal ideation, though he never goes through with any of it.
Notable names in the Fool’s past.
I’ll devote the most time to discussing Fitz, but here are the names of characters who are important to the Fool:
King Shrewd Farseer--the reigning King of the Six Duchies during the first two novels of the Farseer trilogy, an aging monarch who shocks the Fool by providing him with protection when the Fool came to him at Buckkeep expecting to be taken advantage of. In canon, not much is known about the Fool’s early relationship with Shrewd, but his loyalty to him during the first two books is without question, and he is hysterical with grief when he is murdered at the end of Royal Assassin.
King Shrewd is also FitzChivalry’s paternal grandfather.
Chade Fallstar--the bastard elder brother of King Shrewd, and the court assassin and spymaster. Chade is responsible for the training and, in some respects, the rearing of Fitz, but he knows that the Fool is more than he appears to be and grows to become… an ally, with time, if not his friend. What they share is affection for Fitz, and little else.
Burrich--the stablemaster of Buckkeep Castle, and former King’s Man to Fitz’s father, the late Prince Chivalry Farseer. Burrich, with Chade, becomes a sort of surrogate father to Fitz in place of Chivalry, and through this connection comes to know of the Fool as well.
Prince Verity--the younger brother of Prince Chivalry, who is next in the line of succession after Chivalry’s death. He acknowledges Fitz as his nephew, and trains him in the Skill magic. After his disappearance in Royal Assassin, the Fool is part of the search party who ventures beyond the Mountain Kingdom with Fitz to find Verity.
Kettricken of the Mountain Kingdom--Verity’s bride, and one of Fitz’s closest friends and confidantes, she and the Fool grow to have a close kinship as well. She is one of the few people who also knows of the Fool’s changing identities over the course of the novels.
Nighteyes--a grey wolf, and Fitz’s Wit companion. Though Nighteyes and the Fool can’t communicate with each other, Nighteyes often refers to the bond that he, Fitz, and the Fool share as being what makes them ‘pack’ together, and repeatedly states that they are far stronger together than separate from each other.
FitzChivalry Farseer
The Fool’s relationship with Fitz is undoubtedly the most significant in his life. In Fool’s Errand, a hedge witch named Jinna describes their relationship to Fitz as “a true and unending love that winds in and out of your life for all of your days,” and while the true extent of the Fool’s feelings for Fitz are not returned in canon, their connection is undeniably intense, as is the lengths the pair are willing to go to in order to reach each other time and time again.
As stated previously, Fitz is the illegitimate son of former King-in-Waiting Chivalry Farseer, who abdicated his throne upon learning of Fitz’s existence, thus ceding his throne to his younger brother, Verity Farseer. (Quick synopsis of this aspect of the Farseer trilogy: it largely concerns, the youngest of these brothers, Regal Farseer, and his long game to assassinate Shrewd and steal his father’s throne. Fitz is instrumental in bringing him to justice, and returning a true Farseer heir to the throne. [Spoiler alert, it isn’t him.]) From a young age, Fitz was groomed for his own role within the Farseer court, as the King’s assassin. It is in this capacity that Fitz becomes a crucial player in Farseer politics, though he has no head for it nor any love for the machinations that Chade concocts. As an assassin, Fitz is subject to some truly dreadful experiences, ultimately a victim of torture and death himself due to his Wit magic (a taboo magic that allows for communication and bonding with animals); ironically, it is this bond that Fitz shares with Nighteyes that brings him back from the grave.
For the Fool, Fitz is first and foremost (lol alliteration) the Catalyst to his White Prophet, meaning that he is the agent of change by which the world will be set upon its proper course. Sometimes when he is feeling grim, he describes Fitz as “the rock ground down by the wheel to set the cart on a different path”; meaning that the Catalyst often doesn’t have a great time helping bring this change about, which is true. The Fool feels tremendous guilt over the experiences he asks Fitz to endure, over and over again--but, as Fitz often claims himself, it was never easy for him to say no to the Fool.
It’s also not easy to pinpoint an exact moment in the books when the two become close friends, as the first (coherent) words the Fool ever speaks to Fitz are actually “listen, you idiot.” But as children in the castle, Fitz is the one who turns the Fool’s title into a name, rather than one of mockery; as young men, they go through a trying and traumatic ordeal together during their quest to find Verity and restore him to the throne. They share a Skill connection together; the Fool has marks of Skill magic on his fingers, and he touched these accidentally against Fitz’s wrist once, enabling them to know and share with each other in a way that defied words. When the Fool believed that he was leaving Fitz behind to die in the stone quarry, he kissed him on frantic impulse--such is the way such friendships/relationships develop.
In the interceding years between the Farseer trilogy and the Tawny Man trilogy (approximately 15 years, according to Fitz), he “thinks of the Fool often,” and misses him more than nearly anyone else from his past, including the woman he loved and left behind (Molly), who was the mother of his child. And at the conclusion of Fool’s Fate, it is this intense connection and shared experience that causes Fitz venture back into the heart of a frigid glacier to find the Fool’s dead body, and to labour to bring him back to life again.
...okay! Please let me know if you need anything else here.
[2/2]
To answer this question I want to quickly draw attention back to this paragraph:
“The final conflict between these two prophets--one true, one false, one bent on the creation of a better world, the other on destroying it--revolves around dragons, and their place in the Realm of the Elderlings. The Fool, following the path laid out before him in his dreams, strives towards the act of bringing them back to the skies, in a journey that spans nine books, six trilogies, and four different identities who are all ultimately just facets of himself. He dies for that ambition at the end of his journey--only to be revived by his Catalyst.”
The Fool prophesied that his own death would be a requirement to bring about the ideal future he saw for the world. It’s not clear when, during the canon, he comes to this conclusion, but by the time of the Tawny Man trilogy, he confesses to Fitz that he has accepted the inevitability of his fate and that even knowing what will happen if he continues on his current quest, he’s determined to see it through to the end. And he does, both with great courage and bone-deep terror, because he knows that his death will be a tortuous and painful one at the hands of someone who truly, deeply loathes him: the Pale Woman. When he dies, cold and alone, he is fulfilling his own prophecy.
That is why, when Fitz defies his will at the end of Fool’s Fate and uses both Skill and Wit magic to bring him back from the dead, the Fool ends up feeling lost and listless. Imagine spending your whole life working towards the realization of something so immense, so tremendous and all-encompassing, that you’d be willing to suffer torture and death to make it come to pass. Now imagine that you’re brought back to life again by the unrequited love of your life via a process that is more intimate and invasive than any medical procedure could ever be described as, and as life returns to your previously dead body, so too return your memories of the tortuous death that put you next to a funeral pyre in the first place.
The trauma of that experience, coupled with the uncharted expanse of living in a world where the Fool can no longer see or sense any futures--he’s not meant to be a part of it anymore, after all--would be enough to make anyone question their purpose in the world. It’s why, at the end of Fool’s Fate, as Fitz is making plans to incorporate the Fool into his life again, the Fool himself is quietly and privately making his own plans to leave. That section of the book includes intense suicidal ideation, though he never goes through with any of it.
Notable names in the Fool’s past.
I’ll devote the most time to discussing Fitz, but here are the names of characters who are important to the Fool:
King Shrewd is also FitzChivalry’s paternal grandfather.
FitzChivalry Farseer
The Fool’s relationship with Fitz is undoubtedly the most significant in his life. In Fool’s Errand, a hedge witch named Jinna describes their relationship to Fitz as “a true and unending love that winds in and out of your life for all of your days,” and while the true extent of the Fool’s feelings for Fitz are not returned in canon, their connection is undeniably intense, as is the lengths the pair are willing to go to in order to reach each other time and time again.
As stated previously, Fitz is the illegitimate son of former King-in-Waiting Chivalry Farseer, who abdicated his throne upon learning of Fitz’s existence, thus ceding his throne to his younger brother, Verity Farseer. (Quick synopsis of this aspect of the Farseer trilogy: it largely concerns, the youngest of these brothers, Regal Farseer, and his long game to assassinate Shrewd and steal his father’s throne. Fitz is instrumental in bringing him to justice, and returning a true Farseer heir to the throne. [Spoiler alert, it isn’t him.]) From a young age, Fitz was groomed for his own role within the Farseer court, as the King’s assassin. It is in this capacity that Fitz becomes a crucial player in Farseer politics, though he has no head for it nor any love for the machinations that Chade concocts. As an assassin, Fitz is subject to some truly dreadful experiences, ultimately a victim of torture and death himself due to his Wit magic (a taboo magic that allows for communication and bonding with animals); ironically, it is this bond that Fitz shares with Nighteyes that brings him back from the grave.
For the Fool, Fitz is first and foremost (lol alliteration) the Catalyst to his White Prophet, meaning that he is the agent of change by which the world will be set upon its proper course. Sometimes when he is feeling grim, he describes Fitz as “the rock ground down by the wheel to set the cart on a different path”; meaning that the Catalyst often doesn’t have a great time helping bring this change about, which is true. The Fool feels tremendous guilt over the experiences he asks Fitz to endure, over and over again--but, as Fitz often claims himself, it was never easy for him to say no to the Fool.
It’s also not easy to pinpoint an exact moment in the books when the two become close friends, as the first (coherent) words the Fool ever speaks to Fitz are actually “listen, you idiot.” But as children in the castle, Fitz is the one who turns the Fool’s title into a name, rather than one of mockery; as young men, they go through a trying and traumatic ordeal together during their quest to find Verity and restore him to the throne. They share a Skill connection together; the Fool has marks of Skill magic on his fingers, and he touched these accidentally against Fitz’s wrist once, enabling them to know and share with each other in a way that defied words. When the Fool believed that he was leaving Fitz behind to die in the stone quarry, he kissed him on frantic impulse--such is the way such friendships/relationships develop.
In the interceding years between the Farseer trilogy and the Tawny Man trilogy (approximately 15 years, according to Fitz), he “thinks of the Fool often,” and misses him more than nearly anyone else from his past, including the woman he loved and left behind (Molly), who was the mother of his child. And at the conclusion of Fool’s Fate, it is this intense connection and shared experience that causes Fitz venture back into the heart of a frigid glacier to find the Fool’s dead body, and to labour to bring him back to life again.
...okay! Please let me know if you need anything else here.