The Robin Hobb Collection discussion

ch 11 - Bolt!
what a change, from Vivacia to Bolt, i quite like it. and it definitely suits a pirate ship. i wonder whether they could do this to all the liveships?

they might not be dragons anymore but they could still do the job to guide the serpents up the river. i would miss ophelia though, i want her to remain a gossiping grandmother :)

(ps, i decided to use numbers this time. so no 'elf' mistakes anymore :))

Hanne wrote: "(ps, i decided to use numbers this time. so no 'elf' mistakes anymore :))"

Aww. ;-(

ch13 - this has become a complicated mess! i completely could not follow that note from mingsley to serilla, but i'm not sure that matters

i'm quite hopeful about this tenira-vestrit alliance with the slaves and three ships folks. there might be something real developping there.

selden launching the idea of the dragon aiding them. who knows? the dragon needs human help, and they need some supernatural help. let's restore some of that elderling-dragon glory

ch14 - i most definitely did not see that one coming!
the pieces aren't fully together and i almost would need to re-read a few chapters if i could remember them.

but this chapter: paragon's thoughts certainly make it seem like he was kennit's liveship. not igrot's (that part was clearly upsetting). talking about "his family liveship", how the boy would hide and paragon protect him, him wondering whether "this time the boy would be unhurt"

so kennit is a liveship traders son? i thought he grew up at that island though where his mother still lives??
did they go to that island after the whole igrot debacle? that can't be either because igrot came to burn that down, so that always seemed like kennit was living on that island and joining igrot after they came on that island.

what on earth happened there? was kennit just an innocent boy on the paragon when igrot was pirating him? or was he a liveship traers son? i always thought it was the first, but that doesn't seem likely anymore if you read paragon's thoughts though.

david, you better get here quickly. you seem to remember these sort of details better than me. i need answers! :))

on other news about ch14: i can't wait until althea meets dragon-vivacia. she's going to be perplexed.

also, amber's comments to paragon were quite touché: "on a night such as this, moving swift and silent in the dark, i almost feel as if you could unfurl you wings and lift us into the very sky itself"
is this a coicident or does amber know? she dreamed a lot about the serpents and dragons, so i guess she might know about wizardwood?

Oh. Now things are getting good. :-)

it certainly looks that way!

ch15 - this steam train has started going and it looks like it isn't going to back down!

I'm not sure if Bolt striking down Wintrow was a smart plan. It only lead to more Wintrow blood on her planks, which means more memories to take into account.

Weird though that She Who Remembers recognizing that Bolt fears Wintrow, while from the humans point of view Bolt seems to have all the power.

So why would she fear him? Is Wintrow the key to re-awaken vivacia? i'm not sure whether hurting him would be a good idea then.

Bolt seems to have a lot more magical abilities - even as a dead dragon. I don't think she will be content with being a servant - sounds like she wants to be equal or more to the captain - he's just a bug after all.

yes, i think tintaglia's chapters have told us very loudly what they think of those bugs indeed!

Hanne wrote: "david, you better get here quickly. you seem to remember these sort of details better than me. i need answers! :))
"

OMG MOMENT! Kennit must be Kerr Ludlock! From Ship of Magic

Few sailors cared to ship aboard him twice, for Uto was a harsh taskmaster, not only with his underlings but with his young son Kerr, the ship's boy. There were rumors that the unquickened ship was difficult to handle, though most blamed it on too much canvas and too little freeboard due to Uto's greed.
The inevitable happened. There came a winter day in the storm season when the Paragon was reported as overdue. Setre Ludluck haunted the docks, asking word of every ship that came in, but no one had seen the Paragon or had word of her husband and son.
Six months later, the Paragon came home. He was found floating in the mouth of the harbor, keel up.

They must have been captured by the pirate Igrot.

So what I can gather - Igrot took the ship somehow. he kept the ship boy Kerr/Kennit and held him hostage so the ship would obey him. But he would still mistreat Kennit and Paragon would help by absorbing his pain and hatred

But he could absorb the pain just as he absorbed the blood from his beatings. He could dim the agony and soften the edges of Kennit’s recall. All that he could do-for the boy. It demanded that he keep for himself all he took away from Kennit. The sharp humiliation and indignity, the stabbing pain and stunned bewilderment and the scorching hatred all became Paragon’s, to keep hidden forever deep inside him. To Kennit he left only his icy-cold resolve

Then Kennit at some stage must have abandoned Paragon or commanded him to die or something to erase Igrot's legacy. maybe Kennit asked the ship to drown all the pirates and to stay down with them forever.

He would make it as if the evil old pirate had never been. No one would even recall his name. Everything Igrot had ever dirtied would be hidden away or silenced.
Even Kennit’s family liveship.
That was how it was supposed to have been.

And then the serpents came and revived his memories and made him want to go home

He had tried to be loyal, he had tried to stay dead, but then the serpents had come, prodding and nosing at him, speaking to him without words, confusing him as to who he was and where his loyalties should lie. They had frightened him, and in his fear he had forgotten his promises, forgotten his duty, forgotten everything except his need for his family to comfort and reassure him.

I totally did not see any of this coming.

And now Paragon loses the plot when the Divvytown pirates yell that he's Igrot's ship. Maybe it's something Igrot forced him to say or he's hurt Kennit

The insult of that vile lie was too much to bear. Too often had it been flung at him, too many times he had been forced to mouth it for the boy’s sake. Never again. Never!1

So now you know!

it's good isn't it! i'm glad you didn't see this coming either!

It was a total surprise.

And yet people skip this series and go right to Tawny Man..

I'm definitely glad I read this first.

I think it will be even more true for all the little subtleties in the next book trilogy.

skip this one? i think this is brilliant!
i don't see how tawny man can be better than this?

i do have to say though that the titles of these trilogies are less exciting than the others. so maybe that's it?

I liked it better. I think people skip it because they want more Fitz and just don't want to wait/don't know what they are missing.

And what's not exciting about The Mad Ship?

it's not as cool as assassin's quest.
it's about a boring ship. i didn't know that these ships were going to be cool characters

all that was obviously before I started reading it
I'm in complete awe of what she created here

Some great revelations there David. also the the book just keeps on getting better and better, there so many parallel stories going on and it is going to be a huge convergence.