The Robin Hobb Collection discussion

Ch21-22 -

Hooray for the dragons. Awesome scenes at the end with the dragons kicking but (or melting butt) in Chalced. I like Chassim taking over with a few dragons to enforce her rule. Loved the rescue scene where Tintaglia comes for Seldon. Nicely done. I also liked Paragon giving suggestions on how Alise and Leftrin could improve their breeding productivity * and how he and Tarmin have been making comments on the breeding habits of their owners. Funny stuff.

Very nice. I think I still prefer the Fitz and Fool novels - but I really enjoyed reading this with the group. Looking forward to the next books.

My review

Ch 21 Victory. One assumes. Ms. Hobb doesn't go into much detail of the battle, but it seems that the Duke is dead and Seldon saved.

One chapter to go.

Ch 22/Epilogue Things are mostly resolved, but much like life, nothing is wrapped up with a bow.

I loved the stuff with Paragon. I wish there had been more of him and others from Liveship in this series.

Will the Traders who colluded with the Duke's agents ever face punishment?

Will Seldon recover from his injuries. Will he hook up with the Duchess?

Overall I enjoyed it, though not as much as the first three series.

Hanne's comment in the other thread reminded me that we never find out more about the silver marks on Malta's neck..

And no one finds out what happened to Hest.

David Sven wrote: "And no one finds out what happened to Hest."

Totally fine with that.

Hest is bantha Dragon poodoo

finished it yesterday before going to bed but didn't have the time anymore to come on here.

i really liked the ending, even if i wished she'd tied it all up a little more. we indeed learn nothing more about the skill-fingers, but i'm glad we got to see Paragon. (even though i missed my dear ophelia!)
i quite like tarman, but the ships definitely have less character without the figurehead.

i was so happy when tintiglia finally appeared to hear Selden, and whent "where? where? where?".
i was a bit confused that selden didn't recognize reyn though. was he in so much armour? or selden just really so bad in health he didn't recognize his brother-in-law?

i liked the comment at the end of this being a family of changers. but it seems they pull it off without the fool being there just the same

Hanne wrote: "i was a bit confused that selden didn't recognize reyn though. was he in so much armour? or selden just really so bad in health he didn't recognize his brother-in-law?"

I think the idea there is that Reyn and Malta had continued to change while Seldon was away and probably more change again from being in Kelsingra.

that makes some sense, but still i found it weird. who else would be sitting on tintaglia's back?

My Review

And I think it was a combination of the changes he went through, the armor he was wearing, and the fact that Seldon was near dead from the illness and all the blood letting.

He's probably had all the blood sucked from his brain so not thinking clearly :)

yes, that was good. (it was relpda and sedric)

Just finished last night. I'm not sure what chapter it was in, but I love the way Hest talks Kalo into eating him, and the fact that no one knows it makes him ultimately so insignificant. I can't think of a better end for him!

Alex wrote: "That reminds me, that scene where a dragon (which pair was it?) is flying over the townspeople and emanating all sorts of fear glamour was awesome, and how that bled into the narrative.

And then, ..."

Made me laugh, too. I think Relpda / Sedric was one of my favorite dragon relationships.

Allison wrote: "Just finished last night. I'm not sure what chapter it was in, but I love the way Hest talks Kalo into eating him, and the fact that no one knows it makes him ultimately so insignificant. I can't t..."

Yeah I cheered. I think that was in the previous section since I don't see any comments about it here and I know we definitely discussed it.

Ok, found it! I didn't want to spoil anything for anyone, so figured the last thread was safe.

I'm kind of ambivalent about how things ended with Rapskal. I liked him until he went all Tellator, cruel and manipulative. I was waiting to find out that the love triangle from the past ended badly since they kept mentioning jealous rivals. I thought maybe past-Thymara (can't remember her name) ended up choosing the rival and Tellator killed them down the well or something, explaining Thymara's aversion to the well.

Instead Tellator taking over Rapskal just makes Thymara's choice clear and he goes off in a huff. Then we don't meet him again afterwards.

Yeah, always better to be safe on spoilers.

I was mostly indifferent on Rapskal as a character, I just wanted Thymara to keep away from him. I still think what he did to her is awfully close to a roofie.

Rob wrote: "I still think what he did to her is awfully close to a ..."

Totally agree.

Allison wrote: "I'm not sure what chapter it was in, but I love the way Hest talks Kalo into eating him, and the fact that no one knows it makes him ultimately so insignificant. I can't think of a better end for him! ."

Seconded, definitely!


Regarding Rapskal, i liked him at the start, but as Tellator not so much. I guess it's the Elderling equivalent of drowning in the memories the Rain Wild Traders are so known for. Elderlings can survive it better than normal humans, but there is still a danger of their lives wiped out too?

I wasn't big on any of the romances in this series. it's always been the dragon-human relationship that steals the show.

Hanne wrote: "I wasn't big on any of the romances in this series. it's always been the dragon-human relationship that steals the show..."

I agree on this as well. I liked Rapskal more because he was lighthearted and seemed to be just a good friend even though everyone was making assumptions about him and Thymara. The whole romance aspect seemed forced because there were no other choices.

It definitely seemed like he was unable to surface as much at the end, and Tellator had taken over. So with Elderlings it might be even worse than for humans who just drown in memories and become comatose - the past actually comes back to live in them?

Such an incredibly bleak ending: the bad guys win.

I really can't buy into the idea that human-eating psychopaths and their coterie of militaristic, fascistic slaves who worship them as gods ruling the world and slaughtering everyone who opposes them is meant to somehow be a good thing. They're evil. They ought to lose. Or at least them winning shouldn't be presented as a happy ending. It's not as though Hobb even shied away from the dark side of her new nation of ubermensch and their brutal gods - at first it was just me going 'hey wait a minute...', but toward the end the evidence of evil just kept mounting up and mounting up. Even the characters comment at times on how evil the elderlings seem to be, or how evil the dragons are.


I also couldn't stand the Thymara-Tats resolution. So all along she tells him she wants to be independent and he should stop pestering her into sex... and it turns out all he has to do is pester her more forcefully and literally chase after her when she runs away from him screaming, and he'll be able to 'catch' her. Well whaddayaknow guys, turns out restraining orders are just girls playing hard to get! You just need to show her you're so dedicated you won't be put off by her seeming to say 'no'... again and again... while running away from you.



It irritates me that Chalced are the bad guys not just in this book but in this whole universe. That Chalced have been around since the days of the Elderlings, unchanged, and have always been irredeemably evil, and are responsible for everything that goes wrong. As I said regarding the Pale Woman - the only way Hobb can make her 'good' guys look good is by putting them up against a bad guy so laughably, perfectly EEEEVIL that even Hitler would look like the hero next to them. At least it's a bit more realistic to have one mad woman be that evil... having an entire race of evil people is just silly.

I think this messes with the timeline, too - the gap between the dragons/elderlings and modernity has now been shortened to a few centuries, to make it less ridiculous that it was all Chalced's fault. But how does that fit in with, for instance, the history of the Six Duchies?

Geography seems strained too - how could Chalced wipe out all the elderlings in the world, when they're one little city with a hinterland smaller than Shoaks? Then again, how could all the Elderling cities around the world all simultaneously be ruined by volcanoes!?

The old climate-change-and-series-of-disasters-over-a-long-time-span version seemed to make more sense to me.


Finally, did anyone else notice that Fitz's life is more or less pointless now? In particular, even if we buy that his actions in Farseer were necessary to stop the spread of Forging that would have prevented the return of the dragons, the whole premise of Tawny Man was that the Fool had failed in Liveships by trying not to use Fitz, and that as a result they had to save Icefyre because he was the only hope for dragons to survive.

Instead, it turns out that it was the Fool's work in Liveships that actually matters, because Icefyre is now irrelevant, and it's the Liveships dragons who are now the world force and will father the new race of dragons (oh, a couple of serpents will come from icefyre, but most won't). So Fitz could just have stayed at home.

I don't feel so strongly about Chalced's portrayal. A lot of what we read about Chalced comes from the POV views of their enemies so I don't expect that view to be balanced. Then the only reason we have to see Chalcadeans for a lot of the books is when they're encroaching on our POV characters territory - so we only see for the most part aggressive, militaristic types. The Chalced king does come across over the top evil - but I'm still a little ambivalent about that because I just haven't had any investment in Chalced to care.

As for the human/dragon bond - I'm not entirely sure that Hobb intended to portray them as good or evil. I think she leaves that up to us and so avoids making moral judgements about that. Perhaps that is a cop out? I personally think it would have been a little boring to label the dragons as evil and then have them get their "just desserts."

Wastrel wrote: "Instead, it turns out that it was the Fool's work in Liveships that actually matters, because Icefyre is now irrelevant, "

I think Fitz' involvement does prove to be a "catalyst" for what happens in this book with the Kelsingra dragons. Tintaglia learns of Icefyre through Fitz' skill dreams. That was the catalyst for her leaving on her search - and so abandoning the hatchlings who then suffered from neglect which in turn was the catalyst for them leaving for Kelsingra. Otherwise I think Tintaglia would have stayed and forced the humans to keep trying to make the best of a bad situation. The dragons would never have left and Kelsingra would have remained a fiction in the dragons minds.

So I think Fitz is a catalyst in a butterfly effect sort of way. The Fool never really sees or understands how Fitz' involvement directly effects anything. The Fool only knows that Fitz has to be in certain places at certain times for a certain future to play out.

I had no expectations for RWC as the other trilogies - Farseer, Tawny man and Fool's Assassin had set the bar so high for me, even higher than LST. From that standpoint, I didn't invest a lot of energy around the plot holes, and just went along a meandering but enjoyable literary ride.

Chalced - I agree they were clearly portrayed as the one-dimensional Evil Villain... but that's no different than the Servants or the Pale Woman or Regal. These characters had no redeeming qualities or complex story behind their evil-ness (e.g. Kennit). Almost every evil Chalceaden did their evil deeds under duress to protect their families from annihilation by the evil Duke. The Duke created a culture of evil - kill or be killed. Chassim and her relationship with Selden may well change that.. I smell a potential book about Chalced in the future..

Dragons - After 4 books, I still couldn't root for a single one probably because there were no POVs save for Sintara's and Tintaglia's, and they were both such divas. Although it was nice to see that real dragons had personalities after the rather cold and machine-like stone dragons in AQ.

Elderlings - I agree with Wastrel - how did the Elderlings in every city get wiped out? Hope that gets explained in later books. (Robin if you're reading this, please put a post-it here). It was interesting to learn that Elderlings were not these perfect magical beings but rather flawed people with wars, jealousy etc..and they appeared to have no magic of their own but needed special gloves to handle the silver liquid aka Skill. Fool alluded to Fitz's Elderling ancestry. So if ancient Elderlings had no Skill, how did the magic get passed on to folks like Fitz?

Keepers - the whole series read a little like an adolescent coming of age romance. Thymara was like a mature teenager, and the rest were well.. teenagers. Could not root for anyone either.

Fitz/Icefyre: David Sven's "So I think Fitz is a catalyst in a butterfly effect sort of way. The Fool never really sees or understands how Fitz's involvement directly effects anything." Hold that thought, I am switching over to Fool's Assassin discussion on that one.

Alfred wrote: "I had no expectations for RWC as the other trilogies - Farseer, Tawny man and Fool's Assassin had set the bar so high for me, even higher than LST. From that standpoint, I didn't invest a lot of e..."

This is a bit of a mixed up comment straddling FA/and Blood of dragons!! It's hard for me to seperate the subjects now!;-)

With all the upheaval going on in Chalced/evilness/civil war/dragons, I was very surprised that none of it appeared to have affected the six duchies at all by the time we were reunited with Fitz in FA. And that not one dragon went rogue at all over the intervening 20 years, and started worry cattle in any of the duchies... was implausable!
I was fascinated by the skill pillars in the evil dukes 'throne room' though. A ring of skill pillars all pushed down on the ground. I'd be interested to know if it was a main transit hub for the elderlings at one time, and if in the intervening years, anyone bothered to stand them up! For fitz/fool to get to their quest destination, they may have to chance the pillars and it would be a twist if they ened up there!
I agree the relationships were a teenage 'coming of age' scenario, but there were some interesting adult character too. I was most taken by the m/m relationships and loved how Sedric's ex(can't remember his name!) ended up! That actually made me laugh out loud-which I rarely do with a Robin Hobb book!
I thing i was most taken by in the book was the descriptions of Kelsingra,and thinking how much the Fool would have loved the city. It was wonderful to read the way it came to life, as life came into it's boundaries again. It was a nice touch to have them explore the same map room that Fitz and verity had explored, and left their marks in. I don't understand why Fitz never visited the live city, or had no interest in the silver river...Hopefully that is to come!

One thing that bugs me is that the dragons 'Know' fool/white prophet from their ancestral memories. He helped them come back to the world so has the favour of dragons. Why when the shit hit the fan for him did he not think of calling in a favour( a drop of blood?)-even just to get a message to Fitz?

Alfred wrote: "It was interesting to learn that Elderlings were not these perfect magical beings but rather flawed people with wars, jealousy etc..and they appeared to have no magic of their own but needed special gloves to handle the silver liquid aka Skill. Fool alluded to Fitz's Elderling ancestry. So if ancient Elderlings had no Skill, how did the magic get passed on to folks like Fitz?"

I agree with you, to see how the Elderlings were just normal people bonded with a dragon that had all the flaws humans have was very interesting! Before I thought of them as half gods or something.

I think some people have the Skill but some people, like Sedric, don't have it at all. Maybe it works a little bit like the scaling, if you live close to dragons it's a bigger chance that you will have the Skill (even if you're not an Elderling). I think all the Rain Wild born keepers could hear the dragons from the beginning. When Sedric drank from the dragon's blood he gained the Skill and started becoming an Elderling. The Elderlings do have their own magic, some aren't born with it but gain it through a bonding with a dragon, some are born with it and it gets stronger when they are bonded.

Humans and Elderlings need gloves made of dragon skin when they are handling the Silver because otherwise they will skill-drown in it.

Also, I remember Fitz experiencing dragon speech as a mix between Skill and Wit. Fitz has always been trying not to taint his Skill with his Wit but maybe they are supposed to work together. Maybe it is just two parts of a bigger whole.