Oldies But Goodies
{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review
Subseries 1: The Farseer Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings)
by Robin Hobb
by Karen S. Wiesner
Last week, I did an overview of Robin Hobb's The Realm of the Elderlings series, which has multiple subseries within it. This week, I'll review the first subseries, The Farseer Trilogy.
In this first trilogy, FitzChivalry Farseer is the illegitimate son of a prince (Chivalry, the King-in-Waiting until Fitz's birth forces him to abdicate the throne). Chivalry willingly steps aside and moves away from Buckkeep, the royal castle, to live a quiet life away from what was once his legacy. Meanwhile, Fitz is shuffled around in his early life. As the story and subseries progresses, Fitz learns he possesses two forms of magic. The Skill is an ability that mainly only the royal Farseer line tend to have, though there are "wild strains". With the Skill, a person can reach out to another's mind, no matter how far away, and read thoughts and influence thinking and behavior. An even older magic is the Wit, in which humans feel such a kinship with animals, they share thoughts and behaviors, sometimes becoming so bonded that they themselves become little more than beasts. The strength of the bond can also lead to performing powerful attacks. The Wit is looked upon with scorn and fear by most humans.
In Assassin's Apprentice, Book 1, Fitz is a six-year-old boy when handed off to his father's most loyal servant, Burrich, who currently tends the animals within the castle keep. Fitz doesn't know his own name or origins and remembers little of his upbringing, only that nothing was ever home and he was always hungry. Burrich provides Fitz with both, though at first Fitz doesn't see his guardian as much more than a hard (though never cruel) caretaker. Burrich tries to stamp the Wit out of Fitz from an early age, with only mild success. (Why he did this was obvious to me from the first.) Later, Burrich becomes the one Fitz trusts most.
Burrich determines that Fitz must take his rightful place within the royal family. Though he's only a bastard, his life must be made to serve, and early on King Shrewd determines Fitz will become his secret weapon in exchange for allowing him to live in the castle and partake of its bounty. Eventually, Fitz is trained as an assassin as well as formally instructed in the Skill by a jealous, ruthless teacher who damages young Fitz far more than he ever helps him. Also, the King-in-Waiting, Verity, is the oldest son of Shrewd, and has given himself over almost entirely to the Skill in his relentless attempts to circumvent the Red-Ship Raiders, while his fashionable, frivolous, and scheming youngest stepbrother Regal seeks to usurp his brother's rightful place on the throne. Quickly, Fitz becomes the King-in-Waiting's man instead of King Shrewd's, but political machinations within the royal family inevitably and always become honest and good Fitz's downfall.
In this first Farseer title, we learn little more than that Elderlings and their ancient cities and settlements are found throughout the Six Duchies. However, almost nothing is written down or known about them so they've become as obscure as fables that no one living is entirely sure were ever true. As barely a mention in Assassin's Apprentice, it's said that in the olden days of King Wisdom, Elderlings came to the aid of the Six Duchies in the deadly sea raiders' war against the people of the land and promised to return in the future if help is ever again needed.
Royal Assassin, Book 2, continues almost directly after the previous story, with Fitz initially little more than a cripple after circumventing his uncle's botched attempt to claim a birthright that doesn't belong to him. Fitz is a teenager but also a grown man. He dreams of the girl he'd met when he was a child--a lowly candle maker, the only daughter of an abusive drunk. Molly has become a maid in the royal household, and when Fitz realizes it, his heart wants nothing more than to marry her and live with her in a way that proves impossible. As a bastard, an assassin, a fumbling Skill user who's unable to tamp down on his Wit abilities with a wolf he rescued, his life is complicated, to say the least. There are secrets he can't share with anyone, least of all the woman he loves. Shrewd already has plans to marry Fitz off to someone with a desirous position, influence, and wealth.
Meanwhile, the Six Duchies are in turmoil with increased raids and the jealousies of a spoiled younger prince that again puts Fitz in the center of the worst of it. While his father's health is ailing, no doubt part of Regal's renewed, ruthless efforts to become ruler, Verity's focus has been on building massive ships that, with his Skill, he can now send out to the sea and meet the Red-Ships head to head. He charges Fitz with being his protector (to that end, Burrich begins training him in earnest for combat) as well as his physical eyes and hands in dealing with the enemy on the high seas. In this way, Verity begins re-teaching Fitz the Skill. However, their efforts aren't successful in turning the tide against the raiders. The court Fool, a being who in later trilogies becomes androgynous seems to have Farsight, investigates the Elderlings' promise to help them with future raiders. Soon, Verity decides he must go himself to seek Elderling aid before the battle against the Red Ships is lost once and for all. He leaves behind a pregnant queen wife who hasn't been fully accepted by the people, let alone by his devious younger sibling who's intent on regicide and deposing his older brother through any means necessary. Fitz again stands between selfish ambition and the destruction of the Six Duchies until the King-in-Waiting, hopefully, returns with help enough to save them.
In the second book of Farseer, Hobb described Elderlings very briefly: "Of stone were their bones made, of the sparkling veined stone of the Mountains. Their flesh was made of the shining salts of the earth. But their hearts were made of the hearts of wise men. They came from afar, those men, a long and trying way. They did not hesitate to lay down the lives that had become a weariness to them. They ended their days and began eternities, they put aside flesh and donned stone, they let fall their weapons and rose on new wings." Elderlings were said to live beyond the tallest mountains of the Mountain Kingdom. The only explanation I can think of why Hobb describes these creatures as humanoid (those men from afar) in this passage is because of what happens at the very end of Book 3 between Verity and the Elderling he awakens.
Assassin's Quest, Book 3, spends nearly three-fourths of its length dealing with issues that came up in the first two books. As necessary as it was to address the critical plot threads that were left dangling, the thrust of the book--and almost my sole focus at that point--was on the last quarter of the tale and the trilogy. Finally, finally, in this last installment, after Verity is thought to be lost, Fitz and his friends go on a quest to find the king. In the process, they also discover the nature of the Elderlings--stone dragons that can only be woken by carving them out and filling them up with everything the person of Skill has and is. So the dragons are also "men" in the sense that they have a Skilled man's entire being--memories as well as the tangible--incorporated into their beings.
In this final book, we also learn that Regal long ago stole everything written about instructing those in the Skill (and maybe also in the use of Wit), which is necessary to truly wake these Elderlings. We also find out that a companion that made the journey with Fitz to find Verity and the Elderlings was once a powerful Skill user during the time of King Wisdom, having used her abilities (as was common at that time) to make herself young and all but ageless. Though it was assumed that Verity had the most Skill of anyone alive up to this point, it becomes clear he doesn't know enough to do what must be done to awaken the dragons. Able to use Skill and Wit magic, Fitz must utilize both to do what seems impossible.
~*~
These three books that make up the first trilogy are very introspective and slow-moving tales. Despite the inherent clichés of the basic theme of the stories, Fitz is a singular character and introducing him to readers at such a young age allowed me, for one, to grow to care for him. Despite all that he's made to do, he remains innocent, if a bit naïve and childishly reckless, unwilling to do harm where it isn't warranted. He's taught by the court assassin Chade to never assume but to follow every single lead until you're absolutely sure you know everything before you act, and Fitz does that. Though as a "king's man" he's forced to do what he's told, he always has a mind and a conscience of his own that direct his actions. I was deeply drawn into his story in Book 1 and moved by his successes but mainly his failures, as those seems to be more prevalent in his lamentable life. In a review, the Los Angeles Review of Books stated, The Farseer Trilogy offers "complete immersion in Fitz's complicated personality."
That said, I can't deny that by Book 2, my interest was waning. I desperately wanted to find out more about Elderlings, and so much of Books 2 and 3 of this particular trilogy aren't really about that. Additionally, I became very frustrated with all the characters because it seemed like there was a trend in everyone to make the stupidest decisions possible in whatever came about as a result of the plots and conflicts. For instance, in Book 2, Regal's mad schemes to gain power should have made everyone--especially the older brother Verity--wise to his ways. Instead, after nearly killing their father, Verity, Fitz, and Burrich, what happens as a result of this megalomaniac's grab for power? Basically nothing. Regal continues on with his plans without punishment, let alone restraint or confinement, and, gee and golly, what happens in Book 3? Yup, you guessed it! Regal attempts to kill his king father, his brother, Fitz, while trying to seize the throne. He does this all but unfettered. It was senseless on the part of everyone. Not one of them ever learned the lesson of not trusting Regal. Locking him up and throwing away the key might have been the best course of action here, but illogically no one ever thought to do that. In one particularly moronic situation, Regal orders every last horse in the Buckkeep stable to be sent away. What possible reason would he have for doing that, other than nefarious purposes? Yet everyone follows his orders, letting the castle be plundered while Regal sets up his own keep somewhere else in the ultimate goal, of course, of ruling the land from there. It was hard to escape the everybody's-too-stupid-to-live assessment of the trilogy after that point.
One other thing that bothered me about The Farseer Trilogy was that Fitz's Skill abilities seemed a little too convenient. For most of the trilogy, he didn't know what the heck he was doing, his training was abysmal (which makes a lot of sense), and yet when he most needs to use the talent, suddenly he's able to do all but impossible things with it (which doesn't make a lot of sense). This reminded me of Terry Brooks' Shannara Series. In that, those from the Shannara line would be called upon to utilize magic without any idea how to go about doing that. There were fits and starts, some success, a lot of failure, and eventually confidence grew as the user and the magic within whatever the instrument of power was (a sword, a stone, a song, etc.) melded into one--a scary proposition that frequently led the users to put magic as far from them as possible once the immediate danger was past. In some ways, it's logical that someone who comes from a lineage of magic users wouldn't necessarily know how to use it effectively themselves. It's like learning a language. At first, nothing makes sense; it's all Greek. But, as the learning process continues, things start to gel as understanding and adeptness grows. But Fitz's Skill advancement felt a bit too contrived as the trilogy progressed, too convenient to whatever the plot needed it to be at the moment of direst need.
All that said, finally having the Elderlings "realized" in this trilogy was thrilling, though I felt like it came far too late and also, once they appeared, the story wasn't focused enough on the actual battle of Elderlings driving back the Red-Ship Raiders, nor on the in-depth information I wanted about these majestic, powerful creatures of legend. I wanted much, much more of that. I hope to get it in reading further subseries, though I do need to take a break from The Realm of the Elderlings. This first trilogy was intense and complicated, to the extreme. I do intend to review the rest of the offerings in The Realm of the Elderlings series in coming months, though at this point I'm not sure what order I'll do that in. Stay tuned.
Karen Wiesner is an award-winning,
multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
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Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/
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