Lemonade Book Reviews

We made it to the end of Assassin’s Apprentice! This is a fabulously written book (I think I like it even more after a re-read), but I’m really excited to get to the next book in the series, Royal Assassin. Without further ado, let’s discuss the crazy-ass ending of this book.

We jump right into the action with Rurisk rushing into Fitz’s room with an antidote for the poison Kettricken fed him. It turns out Rurisk is the coolest guy ever and an extremely skilled diplomat, so he proposes a solution to Fitz’s mission (since Regal spilled the beans and told Kettricken that Fitz was on the way to kill Rurisk) that doesn’t end in bloodshed. Rurisk is the royal who really wants a marriage alliance with the Six Duchies because he wants to grow his kingdom and knows there’s a limit to the arable land his people have access to. In exchange, the Six Duchies need a certain type of timber for their warships that grows in abundance in the Mountain Kingdom, and Rurisk is willing to give them that wood (even though it’s culturally significant to some, including the King). Fitz agrees to not kill Rurisk and decides to go back to Buckkeep without completing his mission.

A day of festivities ensues that Fitz struggles to participate in because his tummy is upset (been there). We learn that NOSY IS ALIVE and has been living in Jhaampe ever since Burrich gave him up. Nosy is Rurisk’s dog now (and maybe Wit bond partner? it’s unclear) and has fathered a ton of pups. Fitz almost immediately finds and confronts Burrich about how Nosy is alive, and Burrich realizes he really fucked up as a parent. He still can’t bear to have a relationship with Fitz if Fitz intends on using the Wit, though.

Regal summons Fitz to his rooms that night and asks how his mission is progressing. When Fitz tells him that Kettricken and Rurisk know what he’s in the Mountains for, Regal says to continue with his mission as though it’s not an issue. He also mentions that he wanted Lady Thyme to be the one to come to the Mountains. Fitz tries to get out of having to kill Rurisk, but Regal threatens to kill Fitz if he doesn’t do exactly what Regal wants. The following day, Fitz asks August to Skill to King Shrewd since he’s unable to do it himself, and Shrewd apparently tells Fitz to just listen to Regal (if August actually Skilled to him and is actually telling the truth about what he said).

That night, Regal’s valet gives Fitz a poison and tells him to give it to Rurisk before dawn. Fitz knows something is wrong, but he doesn’t know what to believe or do. He decides to eavesdrop on Regal’s chambers for a bit and hears as Regal betrays him to his men (Sevrens, Rowd, and Cob). After this, Fitz goes to Kettricken’s chamber and asks her what she would do if he killed Rurisk that night. She says she would go through with the wedding, so Fitz goes to Rurisk’s room and tells him he’s there to poison him. Fitz and Rurisk talk about the situation over apple wine, and Rurisk explains the situation to Kettricken when she comes in. Soon after that, Cob runs into the room and tells Rurisk he’s been poisoned! Rurisk, Kettricken, and Fitz give Cob the Gen Z stare until Rurisk falls to the floor and starts convulsing.

Regal made sure the wine that was given to Rurisk was poisoned even before Fitz had the opportunity to put more poison in it. Fitz chases after Cob, and during their fight he realizes that Cob is the one who killed Smithy and tried to kill Burrich. Fitz kills him but Kettricken doesn’t fully understand what happened, so she knocks Fitz out and gives him to Regal. Regal and his men proceed to tie him up and beat him privately. Fitz has also been poisoned by the wine, so he kind of just lays there in pain. Regal reveals what he “knows” to Fitz in his villain monologue moment, and then abandons Fitz to hopefully die before morning. Fitz then overhears Galen Skilling to an unknown person (who is definitely Regal) about plans to kill a whole bunch of people, including Verity. He learns from this that Regal’s plan is to have Galen touch Verity and drain his strength with the Skill and then marry Kettricken himself to unite Farrow, Tilth, and the Mountain Kingdom through marriage and leave the coastal duchies to their fate.

Fitz reaches out to comfort Nosy with the Wit once Rurisk dies, which causes Nosy to come to Fitz and get him out of his bonds. Fitz sleeps while Nosy gets Burrich. Burrich starts taking care of Fitz, and Fitz asks how he knew where to find him. Burrich finally admits that he has the Wit, but he doesn’t actively use the magic (whatever justification works for you, Burrich). Fitz and Burrich start trying to figure out how to inform Verity that Galen is going to kill him. They get distracted when Burrich realizes that Patience gave Fitz the earring that he gave to Chivalry.

Eventually, Jonqui finds them and lets them know that King Eyod and Kettricken have forgiven Fitz using a specific mountain tradition where kin can forgive kin for kinslaying. When Burrich and Fitz get back to the royal palace, they find Fitz’s room destroyed. August finds them there and tells them that Verity Skilled a message for the two of them. He also says they need to meet Regal in the baths ASAP. The message instructs Fitz to try to tap Burrich’s strength to Skill to him, but Fitz and Burrich can’t manage it.

Fitz and Burrich meet Regal in the baths, and before they can even start a conversation, Regal has a tall Chyurda man club down Burrich. Fitz falls in hot water when Burrich goes down, which causes his legs to stop working. Regal then drops him in a deep tub in an attempt to drown Fitz. By being so close to death, Fitz is able to Skill to Verity successfully and warn him about what Galen is trying to do. Verity kills Galen without even really thinking about it by tapping Fitz’s strength and slices through August’s mind to get into Kettricken’s. He reassures Kettricken that he had nothing to do with her brother’s death and shows her his self by touching minds with her. He follows up with a promise to report on everything that Regal did to make a mess of things to Shrewd.

After this, Fitz and Burrich convalesce for weeks in the Mountains. Burrich basically suffered a TBI but came through it ok. Fitz how has continual seizures because his body took so much damage from poison, beating, and near-drowning in like three days in the mountains. Jonqui and the other healers aren’t really sure how to help him because they don’t know what’s causing his symptoms. He does slowly but surely get better though, and he, Burrich, and Hands are able to make the trek back to Buckkeep a few months later. We also learn that Nosy died pulling Fitz out of the bath in one of the most heartbreaking paragraphs I have ever read in my goddamn life.

This part of the book is so good it’s insane. I love Assassin’s Apprentice a lot because I relate a lot to Fitz and it helps me to go through the book and say “wow he didn’t deserve that and therefore neither did I”. It’s not super plot heavy because it’s essentially Fitz in his bildungsroman era, though. I want to discuss a lot of what happens, especially between him and Burrich, through the lens of queerness because I think it’s impossible to separate the queerness of Burrich and Chivalry’s relationship from the emotional trauma that Fitz goes through in this book. Other things happen in this section of the book (somehow), so let’s start talking about the non-gay things that happen.

Rurisk is the closest we get in the entire series to meeting Chivalry. I think the Shrewd-Chivalry-Verity and Eyod-Rurisk-Kettricken family structures intentionally parallel each other – old, somewhat isolationist king with an heir raised to rule and extremely skilled in diplomacy who dies prematurely and a second child who ends up ruling in their stead and is very straightforward. We learn that Rurisk and Chivalry actually treated with each other before Chivalry abdicated the throne and that they were kinda friends. Chivalry even told Rurisk his feelings about learning that Fitz existed. It is so nice reading about Rurisk’s obvious respect for Fitz, and I like that Fitz gets to talk to a semi-father figure who never treats him poorly. Fitz is indirectly responsible for Rurisk’s death as well, which is just another helping of dad trauma for his plate that he really doesn’t need.

I wasn’t shocked that Nosy was alive when I read the book for the first time. I had realized about halfway through that Burrich would never kill a dog because Fitz did something wrong. I was shocked that he was Rurisk’s dog, though. I love how that came together. I’m also glad that I can love and talk about Burrich now without the shadow of him murdering a puppy for no reason.

Fitz becomes physically disabled in a real-life way in this part of the book. His Skill ability is already damaged, so I would argue he was disabled before, but having a specifically magical disability isn’t exactly great disability rep. The beginning of Royal Assassin gets much more in-depth about his emotions about what happened to him, so I won’t go into detail on that today. Still, I want to shout this out as something I particularly like about Hobb’s writing. Her characters suffer consequences for their near-death experiences, both physical and mental. I will be saying much more about this in the future.

There’s a moment where Regal specifically acts regally in the book:

“‘You are dismissed,’ he told me regally.” – Regal, page 402

I think Hobb dislikes people who cling tightly to hegemonic power. The Farseers are written to be generally good monarchs/stewards of the land, but the royal who Fitz (and by extension Hobb) gives the most respect in the book is Kettricken. Kettricken was raised with the idea that the ruler serves the people. The main villain of this book, Regal, expects based solely on the nature of his birth that everyone will serve him. I think regality is a trait that Hobb doesn’t think is that important for a ruler to have compared to truthfulness or generosity, and she’s not even a little bit wrong. This moment, where Regal acting regal is clearly a negative thing, is a transparent statement of that thesis. It’s also kind of interesting that Regal acting his nature is terrible while Verity, Chivalry, and Shrewd acting their natures is ultimately good. Characters conforming to their names was also discussed recently (with spoilers for the whole series, beware) on r/RobinHobb, and I left this spoilery comment with my thoughts if you’re interested in my spoiler-filled ideas about the subject.

The central internal conflict for Fitz in this part of the book is if Shrewd knows that Rurisk is healthy. From what we know about Shrewd, it is obvious that he would not conduct an assassination in the fashion that Regal would (mostly because Shrewd seems to keep his hands relatively clean of the details of assassinations done in his name). He definitely would not have told Regal to reveal that Fitz is the “poisoner’s” apprentice, or that Lady Thyme is the royal “poisoner” to foreign government officials. I think it’s possible that Shrewd intentionally sent Fitz on a mission he knew would be extremely difficult to do successfully to prove that he was useful. If we look at Fitz as a piece on a game board, he can’t Skill and Verity outright refuses to either teach him or use him as a battery. Fitz’s only value to Shrewd right now is as an assassin. Given that this mission would create a 7th Duchy, it would prove that Fitz is an extremely talented assassin. I also think Shrewd sent Fitz instead of Chade because he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his master assassin yet. Chade mentions earlier in the book that had worked with Chivalry on diplomacy in the mountains before. It wouldn’t shock me if Rurisk could recognize him/Lady Thyme as an assassin even without Regal pulling strings. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to me that Shrewd would be behind this. I support Fitz meaning Verity in his heart when he says “my King” because Shrewd really fucked up and Verity is still the only member of Fitz’s family to protest using him the way the Farseers do.

FINALLY I can talk about the reveal that Burrich and Patience are a fag and his hag (although I also ship Lacey x Patience so ya know. gays everywhere for those with the eyes to see them).

This section of the book haunts me. FitzChivalqueer Farseer, son of Chivalqueer Farseer and Burrich. The line

“I think I finally guessed then what the earring signified.” – Narrator Fitz, page 441

has been rattling around in my head ever since I read this book for the first time. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN ROBIN?????? We’re told at the very beginning of Royal Assassin that Burrich will follow whoever’s wearing the earring wherever they go. However, the line directly before the one I quoted is also Burrich saying that. The implication is 100% that Burrich gave Chivalry the earring as a symbol of his love and devotion. Slight spoiler: the queerness of Chivalry and Burrich’s relationship in Assassin’s Apprentice gets retconned in Royal Assassin. I think an in-universe explanation for this is that Fitz is an unreliable narrator and he backed off on his suspicions in the following book for whatever reason. Assassin’s Apprentice is a story about loneliness, so maybe he wanted to more heavily emphasize how alone he felt during this time in his life by contrasting it with the purity and devotion of Burrich’s love for Chivalry. An out-of-universe explanation could be that the publisher wasn’t expecting Assassin’s Apprentice to be so popular and Hobb had to write in a heterosexual explanation for everything. I guess I’ll see how I feel about the retcon when I reread, I kind of just ignored it the first time.

I skipped ahead a bit, but in my defense that’s one of my favorite quotes from the series. We get confirmation that Burrich is Witted in a shock to no one (maybe people who have literally never interacted with a gay person or read a book before?). He says that there’s a difference between using it and not using it, but that is the most DL man excuse for why it’s ok for him to be gay and no one else. I also think he was deliberately lying to himself about Smithy’s relationship with Fitz until Fitz, in his honesty and good heartedness, forced Burrich to confront that he was using the Wit. Both the scene where Fitz confronts Burrich about Nosy and the scene where Fitz finally gets him to admit to being Witted are heartbreaking. Burrich realizes what he did wrong in using a really punitive parenting style and never explaining things to Fitz, but he still can’t let himself show his unconditional love for Fitz until Fitz is literally dying in front of him. He apologizes to Fitz for Nosy, but he is still willing to turn his back on Fitz for not repressing an identity they share.

I think the moment where Burrich stays with beaten, broken Fitz after Cob’s murder shows Burrich’s true character more than any other moment in the book. Burrich reviles the Wit and believes it leads to nothing but trouble. He is willing to use it to find and, if not save Fitz, stay with Fitz while he’s in pain because he loves Fitz so deeply. This actually does end up getting him in trouble, since Regal and August act like Burrich was an accomplice in the crime. What’s amazing about Burrich is that it’s worth it to him. He is defined by his honor, but he will let his honor be sullied if it means standing by Fitz for what he knows is right. I know I’ve said it before, but Burrich is so well written.

Now back to the fag-haggery: Fitz and Burrich are sitting in the woods trying to figure out how to warn Verity that Galen is going to try to kill him when Fitz suggests bribing someone with the earring Patience gave him. Burrich essentially does a double take and asks him where he got it from, and when Fitz explains, he says

“‘She had no right!’ And then, more quietly: ‘I thought it went to his grave with him.’
I was silent, waiting.
Burrich looked aside. ‘It was your father’s. I gave it to him.’ He spoke quietly.
‘Why?’
‘Because I wanted to, obviously.’ He closed the topic.” – Burrich and Fitz, page 425

First of all, hilarious Burrich moment. We love a dad who isn’t ready for a lore drop. Second of all, I don’t think I need to belabor why Chivalry wearing Burrich’s earring to the grave is gay as hell. I’m kind of surprised Patience didn’t send it to his grave with him. However, I’m not mad because it provides us with a symbol of queer love in the story. I do think it’s thematically relevant that we only learn about this symbol of Burrich’s love for Chivalry after we learn for certain that Burrich has the Wit. Like I’ve said before, the way that Burrich talks about the Wit echoes internalized homophobia. He can never be the man that Chivalry is because he is un-manned by the magic in his veins. By finally sharing about the Wit, Burrich becomes capable of opening up about some of what the earring means to him. I love the tension between Fitz and Burrich in this book, and the final chapters conclude it in a really satisfying way.

There are a few other scattered Gay Burrich moments I want to discuss. First, I want to shout out the moment where Patience gives Fitz the earring.

“Finally she held up one that was like a silver bit of net with a blue stone caught in it. She made a face over it, then nodded reluctantly. “That man has taste. Whatever else he lacks, he has taste.” She held it up to my ear again, and with absolutely no warning, thrust the pin of it through my earlobe.” – Narrator Fitz and Patience, page 362

Patience thinks Burrich lacks honor because Chivalry had sex with someone who wasn’t her and it led to a baby (this is what is stated in the text of Assassin’s Apprentice). Doesn’t mean he doesn’t know fashion!

Burrich was Chivalry’s King’s Man, so Burrich allowed Chivalry to pull strength from him to Skill. This calls back to the moment earlier in the book after Chivalry had died where Burrich cut his hair to show mourning for his king. It’s also something to keep track of going into Royal Assassin, since being a King’s Man is an important, somewhat gay theme that continues throughout the series.

During the last chapter, we learn that after Burrich tells Fitz old stories about Chivalry when they’re both getting healthy. In response to this, Fitz tells him about Molly. I’m not saying there’s an intentional parallel being drawn here, but yes I am, actually. I think it’s undeniable that the relationship between Burrich and Chivalry is queercoded, but I don’t see anyone talking about it outside of Tumblr. Shout out to Tumblr though because it’s rarer to think Chivalry and Burrich never fucked on that website.

I could literally write an entire separate essay about the queerness of Chivalry and Burrich’s relationship, but to spare you all and move on from that, there’s also an epigraph where Fitz describes a dream he had about the Fool. In it, the Fool is explaining why he keeps saving Fitz’s life. What’s interesting is that the Fool says

“Do you think I keep you alive because I am so entranced with you? No.” – Dream Fool, page 404

We proceed to spend the next 8 Fitz books watching the Fool be so entranced with Fitz. There are obvious parallels between Fitz and Burrich, Chade, Verity, and probably other characters that I’m not thinking of right now. Burrich is the character that it feels like Fitz is the most directly told not to be like. Becoming Burrich would be a failure to both Fitz and Burrich, because to Burrich it would mean that he raised Chivalry’s son to be “tainted” and to Fitz it would mean not becoming who Burrich and Chade think he should be. There’s an additional queer layer here, in my opinion, but I don’t think I can talk about that without getting into spoilers for the Tawny Man books.

Something that Hobb does really subtly throughout Assassin’s Apprentice is show how Fitz is constantly told that things would be better if Chivalry was still King-in-Waiting. A theme throughout the series is the duty that rulers have to their people, to the point that either Chade or Verity mentions that Fitz will eventually feel it himself because it’s in the Farseer blood. I think that Fitz would have felt responsible for all of his people anyway because of all of his trauma. Something that’s commonly repeated is that Chivalry was an amazing diplomat and he would have been able to handle (insert Six Duchies problem) better than Verity. Fitz becomes a staunch defender of Verity. Then, in the scene where Shrewd tells Fitz and Verity about Verity’s wedding plans, Fitz sees how Chivalry’s abdication is affecting the Farseer family dynamics. He feels responsible for Chivalry’s abdication (even though it’s not really his fault, I don’t buy that Fitz would have been in that much more danger if Chivalry had remained at Buckkeep in the line of succession). Additionally, his closest attachment figure, Burrich, is telling him that the best version of a man he can be is literally Chivalry. Because Fitz isn’t Chivalry and isn’t allowed to fulfill the roles Chivalry left, he can basically tell himself that every single thing going wrong in the Six Duchies is his fault. The anguish he feels about people losing their families to Forging is amplified by the guilt he feels that he isn’t Chivalry and can’t go to them with a diplomatic solution. I’m going to cut myself off again to avoid spoilers, but fatherhood and trauma are series-wide themes for Fitz, so it will be back.

Shifting focus back to the members of the royal family in the Mountain Kingdom, another interesting point of discussion about Rurisk is whether or not he has the Wit. I didn’t pick up on this the first time I read the series, but I think it’s implied that he does. Nosy is obviously capable of bonding/Witted himself, and Fitz says that he can’t achieve the same level of bond with Nosy that they had as pups until Rurisk dies. As our Chivalry proxy, it’s interesting to consider that maybe Chivalry also had this magic that Fitz is being told is a part of himself to revile. Verity’s relationship with Leon is suspect in the same way. I do think Burrich would have been able to tell if Chivalry was Witted, and if Chivalry was Witted and Burrich knew about it, I doubt he would have such a complex about himself being Witted. This is a concept we’ll continue to revisit, so I won’t say too much for now.

Something else that I noticed is that King Eyod is said to have “the old feelings about the cutting of trees”. We’re going to continue to learn about the Wit as the series progresses, and one thing Fitz mentions at some point in the Farseer trilogy (I think it’s Assassin’s Apprentice but it’s not really a spoiler if it’s not) is that he can sense the life in plants. He has to really focus, but it’s there. I wonder if the Wit allows people to bond to plant life as well as animal life, and maybe Fitz just isn’t aware of it. It would be cool if so, but also probably somewhat limiting geographically.

Assassin’s Apprentice is an amazing start to the Realm of the Elderlings that does a great job setting up the themes and characters we’re going to follow for the next 15 books. It’s incredible how much more there is to pick up on during a reread. I did go to the Tamsyn Muir School for Not Knowing the Actual Plot of the Book Until Act 5, so I do like being able to go back and see how much was hidden in plain sight. This book is 5 stars if you’re traumatized, neurodivergent, gay, like good character writing, or some combination thereof. I’m really excited to continue the series, because the Farseer trilogy has very tight writing and in my opinion the plot does a great job of serving the characters and the themes. I can’t wait to keep going :)