rote sufferer

no but seriously who is fitz if not repressed? who is he without the walls he was forced to put up by galen, regal, will, burrich? he never gets past his hang-ups and self-blame because if he DID! he would FALL APART!

imagine being dutiful in fool’s errand when fitz is like please get behind me then flies into a berserker rage and massacres literally 30 people in a dead end tunnel to protect him like ok he didn’t think this guy was normal or sane at any point but then his friend/master/whatever has to step right in front of him while his sword is still swinging bc fitz is not personally capable of defusing the situation and is like fitz stop killing everyone!! haha just give him a second he just does this sometimes lol. and then fitz does actually stop and now the whole situation is just fckin mind boggling. dutiful is really the only person to witness firsthand the insanity of their dynamic until assassin’s fate

genuinely recommended rote to 2 friends with a waiver disclaiming the possibility of misery and suffering

for me the reason rote literally feels like crack is robin hobb continually orchestrates what you want to happen to a painful extent. her characters’ flaws, miscommunications and mistakes are constantly on page and you always want this or that to be rectified, put into the light, or resolved but these potentials are pretty much always denied. her narrative arcs are well thought out but you will Never get what you want and you’re just left clutching the books and rocking back and forth. definitely recommend tho

fitz is thee unreliable narrator ever he’s so fucking funny like his logic clearly makes perfect sense to him bc he is Very Intelligent Very Well Trained and sometimes he’ll make an observation that’s almost normal and you get baited into thinking omg he’s making a genuine self-actualising realisation and then he follows it up with the most batshit irrational repressed self-hating sentence you’ve ever read. this repeats for 9 books and the whole time you’re thinking Stupid Idiot Please Learn Surely You Cannot Go On Like This while fitz is like this is my unbiased factual autobiography and now you understand why i am awful. you must also have witnessed how normal and platonic i am about my close male friend the fool