Assassin's Fate - BookWyrm

abbybutinspace reviewed Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb (Fitz and the Fool, #3)

Review of "Assassin's Fate" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I am undone. A glory, a triumph, a tragedy.

nemo@ramblingreaders.org reviewed Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb (Fitz and the Fool, #3)

Review of 'ASSASSINS FATE_HB' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Content warning Spoiler Warning for the whole series.

I’ve spent the last year or so slowly going through the series, starting from Liveship Traders (I’d read the first trilogy 6 years ago).

This is such a lovely ending to such a well written series. Fitz gets a great farewell, and I was sobbing for the last 10% of the book saying goodbye to him and his memories. It’s the best kind of closing book you can ask for.

There’s a point in the Rain Wild trilogy (the weakest books, I suggest skipping them) where Rapskal goes and drowns in memory stones, it’s called “Memory Diving”, where he starts to live in the memories of the elderlings instead of his friends around him. I felt that as an allegory for readers, sampling books and living lives through characters. (His diving ends up coming of use, as memories of long dead elderlings, show them the way). And I felt that keenly here, towards the end - the books are as much about memories and dreams as they are about dragons.

Every time you read a book with lively characters, they live in within you. In the case of the Fool and Fitz, these are characters that you’ve seen go through a lifetime together. Through misery, death, joy, subterfuge, grandeur, and the amazing journey we call life.

By the end, with Nighteyes and the Fool joining Fitz in his wolf, it felt like I was the wolf they carved, and they will live through me.❤️

—-

Beyond the ending, the rest of book is great, and I loved the closing arcs of various characters from the Liveship trilogy. Amazing to see Vivacia take flight, Paragon become Dragons, Althea, Ronica, and Malta yet again.

It’s very hard to write a book that deals with foresight. And with the Fool’s prescience the books have always had an element of that. However, this and the last book use so much of Bee’s journals as epigraphs, that you want to go and reread them as events are unfolding. It’s quite a tough job to show foresight, and hint at events, but not show them to the reader outright.

It’s very well done.

Sean Gursky reviewed Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb (Fitz and the Fool, #3)

Review of "Assassin's Fate" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Don't do what you can't undo, until you've considered what you can't do once you've done it.

A quote from the Assassin's Apprentice comes back around to the finale, and there is more importance and significance in those words than ever before.

Tomorrow owes you the sum of your yesterdays. No more than that. And no less.

It was only two and a half years ago I started on the Farseer Trilogy. My thoughts of the earlier books were neutral and I questioned if I wanted to continue reading. At the end of The Fitz and the Fool I don't want to stop. In such a short time I have become emotionally invested with this story that it's sad to see it go. I'm thankful I started this journey and can't imagine how others who have been invested for decades feel.

It's a challenge to separate Assassin's Fate from the …

Don't do what you can't undo, until you've considered what you can't do once you've done it.

A quote from the Assassin's Apprentice comes back around to the finale, and there is more importance and significance in those words than ever before.

Tomorrow owes you the sum of your yesterdays. No more than that. And no less.

It was only two and a half years ago I started on the Farseer Trilogy. My thoughts of the earlier books were neutral and I questioned if I wanted to continue reading. At the end of The Fitz and the Fool I don't want to stop. In such a short time I have become emotionally invested with this story that it's sad to see it go. I'm thankful I started this journey and can't imagine how others who have been invested for decades feel.

It's a challenge to separate Assassin's Fate from the rest of the trilogy, and larger series, but it does an exceptional job of pulling together stories and giving a proper finish. I never read Liveship Traders or Rain Wild Chronicles and I feel like I missed out on some exceptional crossovers here. I found those parts of this book to be the weakest because I lacked the history. I didn't understand the tales of what Amber did, the significance of Paragon's history or the attachment to Boy-O. Even though I was uninitiated Hobb's dragged me along and once the story resumed with characters I had followed my excitement levels resumed.

I will spoil the following paragraph because of what happened at the 77% mark...

This is our last hunt, old wolf. And as we have always done, we go to it together.

When it became known that Fitz would die you hoped that he could avoid fate, but that sort of 'happy ending' wouldn't be possible, not in a story like this. Fitz and his interaction with Nighteyes was so emotional that I felt it was a similar send off to when Nighteyes died. When no Fitz chapters appeared for a while I wondered if it was truly it, that Fitz had just quietly blinked away from existence.

My fate was a runaway horse, dragging destruction like a broken cart through so many lives.

I approached this final book with hesitation. I didn't want to read to much at once but I didn't want to lose my momentum either. I made the final push to finish this book on an airplane and had to hide my tears because it was over.

I can't imagine how difficult it was for Hobb's to craft an ending that served this trilogy. In addition to completing this trilogy there was the larger Fraseer story and then stories that came from other parts of the Realms of Elderling but she did it.

I wasn't sure what my ideal ending would have been but this was perfect. It served as an excellent bookend to the story and provided wonderful, if painful, closure to the story.

Here are some spoilers for the final chapters of the book...
I was thrilled Fitz came back and worried that Hobb's would write a happy ending where Fitz could share his knowledge with Bee. What happened instead was both beautiful and sad. Fitz pouring himself in to a Nighteyes sculpture was a touching way to draw the story to a close.

The farewells that came to see Fitz in the stone garden was a nice way to bring back stories that were left behind in Buckkeep. The lie being taken back from Fitz, the Fool passing in to Nighteyes, Kettricken smiling at the end because of their hidden escort...there was a lot of emotion tied up in those final pages and it was perfect.

This was a fantastic novel capping off a great trilogy of trilogies and the emotional connection I had with these characters hasn't been matched by any other author, thanks for the incredible journey Robin Hobb!