Assassin's Quest by: Robin Hobb

 

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.