@InvaderSkoodge Yes

@Wipqozn Done.

so first off, what did you think @InvaderSkoodge?

Reading your goodreads review, and this is a really good takeaway from the series:

> If there's a lesson to be taken from these books, it's to do the things that make you happy now, because you never know how or when things will change.

The end was simultaneously really rushed and really drawn out.

I really wound up disliking the Fool by the end of the series, so when he joined the wolf it was almost a disappointment.

@InvaderSkoodge Yeah things went really, really quickly once Fitz and crew reached the temple of the whites (Can't remember the proper name right now)

Clerres, but I mean after that.

When he goes to the old elderling site and starts carving his wolf.

Everyone just shows up and he has teary goodbyes with everyone he cared about who was still alive.

So the fact that like, everyone just shows up super quick is really unlike the rest of the writing for the series.

There was an entire 600-page book about the journey to that location earlier in the series.

Like the series has been sad all along, with Fitz having to deal with catastrophe after catastrophe, so for him to go out with this whimper of like "well, life sucked, but now it's over and I don't have anything to give anybody and now I'm going to go die."

It's a super depressing end for me.

Like the phrase you quoted from my review is the positive take on that lesson.

But another way to look at it is, "Life is pain and then you die." which is really how Fitz's life went.

@InvaderSkoodge He did have happiness for a while, but yeah, wasn't how things normally went for him

I also feel like there's a lot about how the skill and wit work and interact that wasn't quite fully explained, which is a bit disappointing

Like are the people Fitz encountered on the skill stream just echoes of once-sentient beings or are they still there actually experiencing things from a new "ascended"(?) perspective?

@InvaderSkoodge So didn't want to say this until you finish, but Hobb has said she may write more stories in that world. There's a rumor flying around she's working on a book that follows Bee after this book.

@Wipqozn Yeah I can see that potential.

@InvaderSkoodge So something else I've been waiting on, is someone actually asked Hobb something like this in an AMA once. It was about the presence Fitz encounter a few times in Tawny man. The question was "Who was that?". Hobb teases a bit of "oh do you really want me to spoil that? okay, I'll answer... no no I can't!". Which is nice to show she has answers, and also suggests to me we might get more answers in a future book.

but at the same time Hobb does seem like one of those authors who likes to keep the magic a bit mysterious too, so who knows

Yeah you mentioned that to me once before.

Man, the more I think about this series, the more depressing it gets.

Oh yeah it's not a happy series by any stretch

I ended up rereading quite a bit of the last few chapters here

When you set a series over the course of like 60+ years tons of characters are bound to die, but somehow in this one there's so much impact to each death.

Hopefully this Sanderson YA novel is lighter in tone.

I need something at least a little cheery.

I also really liked the scene right after fitz and fool forge, when Bee tells the fool "He loves you more than me or anyone!", something like that. Then right after that, Fitz/Fool tells her "that was the greatest lie of all", which was probably the closet Fitz ever got it telling Bee (or anyone, really) just how much he loved them.

@Wipqozn There are so many meanings to this line that it fits the Fool's character perfectly.

oh also in book 2, I liked how Kettricken revealed she knew Fitz fathered her son all along

Wait, I thought she knew right from the moment it happened?

Like it was definitely Fitz's body doing the act, and I don't really see a way that she wouldn't have noticed that.

@InvaderSkoodge Verity told Fitz he planned to use the skill to make Kettricken think it was Verity's body

Oh, I must have missed that.

Not sure if he actually did that or not and Kettricken just noticed anyways, but that's at least what Verity told Fitz

Which means that whatever line she had to reveal that probably went over my head.

@InvaderSkoodge I think it was like one chapter before Fitz leaves the castle.

I forgot how much I loved Nighteyes until he came back.

Everything about his appearance in this final trilogy was perfect.

Bee calling him "Wolf-Father" was the best, and then Fitz finding out that she called him that and liking it was also the best.

@InvaderSkoodge Oh yes I loved that!

I also really, really liked how after they get split up, Fitz specifically notes a few times that it felt like something was missing.

Oh, I didn't notice that.

@InvaderSkoodge Yup I can't remember the exact context. but in book 2, you basically never see Fitz have any of his talking moments with his inner nighteyes, until after they rescue bee.

so the nighteyes presence residing in Fitz, or however it worked, specifically followed Bee to protect her. so that's great, but reveals something about the Wit, Skill and Death, I'd say.

Specifically that somehow a persons presence really does seem to live on in the skill stream after death, or something like that, maybe?

Not sure, but I just loved all of that.

Eh, Nighteyes was in a person, not quite the same as just going into the skillstream.

Fitz also survived once by moving his consciousness into Nighteyes.

I don't think it's the same as what happened to Shrewd/Verity/Chade

But it was really well done.

@InvaderSkoodge Oh really, really good point

That's exactly what it was

Just didn't think of it for some reason

@InvaderSkoodge Also I really liked how they revealed that the reason we started to see Bees POV was because she was the one who actually wrote the books. At least the last 3.

Oh yeah, I didn't make that connection.

The Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies were "written" by Fitz in his random musings to himself.

But this one was "written" by Bee. Neat little detail.