Endings are difficult to pull off. Beginnings and middles are written with the
sense that there is somewhere to go, a journey to take, but actually allowing
that journey to end is a difficult feat.
This becomes especially true in cases where the highpoint before you get
to the ending is some of the most satisfying prose and revelations to bring our
heroes to their lowest point as is the case in Royal Assassin. The book ends with the hero, Fitz Chivalry
Farseer, dead and his soul in the body of the wolf Nighteyes on the verge of
resurrection, Robin Hobb brilliantly capturing a character losing their life
and humanity and the grief of others leading to his resurrection. Assassin’s Quest is the ending of the Farseer
Trilogy but by far from the ending of Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings,
though it was written as a possible end to the series in general and is clearly
intended to be the end of Fitz’s story (though this would not be the
case). It is also the longest
installment in the trilogy, by page count coming in at double of what Assassin’s
Apprentice was and with this added length comes the sense that Hobb was
writing more to a page count than to a story that she wishes to tell.
The middle of Assassin’s Quest has Fitz
searching for Verity who is still alive in a series of story loops that to
their credit do hit on the idea of Fitz attempting to pull his life together as
a fugitive and find his purpose once again as an outcast of society. The introspection and time he is forced away
from Nighteyes is fascinating, but Hobb’s issues with the portrayal of the
relationship between Fitz and Molly in Royal Assassin become even more
apparent in Assassin’s Quest as there are several other female suitors
for Fitz that assist in bloating the page count of the novel. These suitors vary from barely being a presence
to being a better match for Fitz with Starling, but once again the romance is
Hobb’s weakest aspect of writing. This
is especially apparent with the continued subtext of Fitz being an outsider in
a world that fears him and Hobb’s writing emphasizing Fitz’s relationships with
Burrich, Nighteyes, and Verity, all male characters, over the female
characters.
The opening and conclusion of Assassin’s Quest,
however, make this a more conflicted read as they contain some of Hobb’s best
material from the entire trilogy. The
opening chapters chronicling Fitz relearning how to be human and reflecting if it
will even be possible for him to be truly human again. Hobb doesn’t ever diverge from Fitz’s point
of view throughout the book, even when he uses the Skill and Wit to make
connections and see through other’s eyes, so the reader gets to experience this
animalistic entity that was once FitzChivalry Farseer. Burrich and Chade attempt to rehabilitate him
but in the end of the sequence while he has regained a sense of self, it
certainly is not the sense of self that he had before dying in Royal
Assassin. Burrich’s tragedy
throughout this is the fact that he has to take care of Molly and Fitz’s own
bastard, the pair falling in love almost entirely off-page that somehow Hobb
writes more convincingly than the relationship between Fitz and Molly ever
was. The conclusion of the novel once Verity
and Fitz begin to understand what the Elderlings actually are and what they can
do to defeat the Red Ship Raiders who are still a problem, Regal not being fit
to be king. The Fool is also present at
the climax which is integral for a lot of Hobb’s themes in Assassin’s Quest
to work, the outsiders being the ones to save the Six Duchies. Dragons also representing the outsider and
the power of these particular outsiders is something that just resonates with
the current sociopolitical situation, much of the outsider theming from Hobb
being clearly laid out as LGBT coding, though never queerbaiting as it were as it
remains largely subtext, though Fitz ending the book as a hermit on his own
with a child that may or may not be his is certainly a choice.
Overall, Assassin’s Quest has a great first and
final act, but the act in the middle is what really stops Robin Hobb from
sticking the landing. The middle is far
to repetitive, while her theming being some of the best that it has been to
this point. The characters shine, the
emotions are there, but that middle makes it impossible to really work. 5/10.
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