Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

Blurb:

Fitz has barely survived his first hazardous mission as king’s assassin. Battered and bitter, he vows to abandon his oath to King Shrewd, remaining in the distant mountains. But love and events of terrible urgency draw him back to the court at Buckkeep, and into the deadly intrigues of the royal family.
 
Renewing their vicious attacks on the coast, the Red-Ship Raiders leave burned-out villages and demented victims in their wake. The kingdom is also under assault from within, as treachery threatens the throne of the ailing king. In this time of great danger, the fate of the kingdom may rest in Fitz’s hands—and his role in its salvation may require the ultimate sacrifice.

Review:

Wow, how the plot thickens.

This second entry into the Farseer Trilogy, “Royal Assassin,” asks us to delve deeper into our souls to confront the haunting specter of split loyalties and all the wrenching implications for our hearts such labyrinths present. 

While in one hand Robin Hobb holds us most raptly, in the other we watch her craft that bastard Fitz and his web of concerns with the nuance and meticulousness of a Swiss watchmaker. In a world where we want to have it all, the very real price to be paid is made painfully clear. And some tradeoffs are just too paralyzingly difficult, for it’s indeed our hearts that bear the bulk of that burden.

I’ll be up front, I loved this book even more than “Assassin’s Apprentice.” As much as I adored that first entry, this one improves upon it in many respects, leaving us with an overall stronger package.

Craft and Scale

Familiar characters grow, new characters shine. The supernatural mysteries of the world deepen as they are explored. Though few answers are given, tension and intrigue continue to smolder and spark. 

Underpinning these advancements, Hobb continues to dazzle the eye and soothe the soul with masterful control of pacing and prose. Despite the gloomy environments, her writing is like sun-warmed water in a stream. For as richly character-focused and magical the story is, Hobb’s technical prowess here continues to be one of the main draws for myself. To write in a way that feels like such a familiar comfort, like your favorite hearty food, your favorite quilt to protect you from the cold, is to provide a gift to us all. As much as even the deep character intrigue, it’s because of this quality I’m glad to be reading these books.

Beyond what underpins the tapestry, character development and throne-room drama again take center stage as primary focal points. Compared to the first book, this plot has less subtlety, and is more action and event focused. The pacing overall is immaculate but in its details we see only scant evidence of the more nuanced political subterfuge that provided so much tension before. Fitz’s awareness has leveled up but his enemies’ ploys have not. I miss the subtlety, but I think the scope of consequence has widened greatly for our cast which adds its own tension in the appreciable weight to every action and decision.

It’s like a growing sport becoming mainstream, where you tend to lose much in-depth media analysis and expertise in favor of louder and brighter pre-game spectacles. I’ve seen this in both American Football and Soccer over the years, and perhaps here too. If I could have more of both I would, but in lieu of that, a more grand scale is a fine alternative. Of course, the last thing I’d want is to have a book I love be accused of being boring, after all. The horror.

Magic, Love, and Loyalty

Back within the text though, more interesting to me, is the expansion of the dual magic systems, the Wit and the Skill. Fitz’s reluctant embrace of the Wit when he thinks he shouldn’t, and his growing ability with the Skill, when he thought he couldn’t. It’s a great dual nature, and the relationship between the two powers is tantalizingly explored throughout. Their mysteries grow, adding valuable texture to our still-nascent understanding of the world’s oeuvre. 

I’m usually not a big magic system guy, but this imprecise growth feels naturally interwoven with both characters and story in a balanced way, perhaps appearing more like magic “aspects” than “systems.” 

In a deft move, Hobb also aligned many characters with these magical aspects. Naturally, the Farseer line, for the most part, has a proclivity for the Skill. And by comparison, characters showing sensitivities to the Wit are from a wider and more disconnected motley of personas. 

Let us hunt! The Wolf, joyfully. In the stables, Burrich straightened from cleaning a hoof to frown at no one.

For a softer pair of magical aspects as we have, I do like how embedded they are into our cast’s journeys. This alignment with different characters helps ground it and make it feel personal, with Fitz staying central to it all, fluidly flexing from one end to the other as the catalyst from which anything is possible. Its (for now) imprecise yet inherent nature reminds me a little of the Force from Star Wars, even insofar as there are dual aspects to it, being of course the Light side and the Dark. There’s an inworld cultural morality similarly applied to the “Royal Assassin’s” magics here, yet beneath that veneer I have the suspicion we’re talking more light-gray and dark-gray, rather than a clearer dark and light.

As much as I’m intrigued by the magic, neither Fitz nor we can ever focus on it for too long, for an even deeper power is at play which our Royal Bastard has surrendered himself to. The love he has with his romantic interest is as true and as earnest as any. It gives him a goal and a purpose to strive for even if circumstance conspires against them. It gives us as readers a sweet hope to hold on to, that through the darkness they continue to face, we have this glimmer of a future to journey toward. This love is even more unpredictable than the magic, but I hope they can find a way forward together, in the end.

“You take the most roundabout path to finally declare you love me. To break into my room and then to stand there, tying your tongue in knots about the word ‘love.’ Could not you simply have said it, a long time ago?”

This motivation doesn’t just pull Fitz away from focusing on the Skill and the Wit though. His allegiance to the Farseer monarchy is challenged by it, and his effectiveness as the Royal Assassin is undermined by having so precious a secret to constantly hide. This tension is ever present and has many layers within it. 

Even when you’ve pledged yourself to the King, does that extend to the princes in service to the underlying line of succession, and if so, how much energy should you give to a King-in-Waiting while his father, the King, becomes further and further indisposed? The Fool has his own strong opinions on this, and it serves as a form of conflict between him and Fitz that gave me a lot to chew on. I really enjoyed this question, and could feel myself conflicted. I think Fitz would have done well to heed the Fool in this case, had he doubled his efforts more in Shrewd’s favor rather than Verity, and he may have been able to avoid more hardship had he done so.

Critiques

But for as strong a cast as we have, it’s not without blemishes.

Like the first entry, “Royal Assassin” is too often plagued by underutilized characters who are positioned to be much stronger. Regal again as our central antagonist, undermines the plot with his weakness. His schemes are obvious to all the main players, and his decisiveness is also underwhelming. If I didn’t live in the real world I wouldn’t believe such incompetence could endure, so maybe I’m asking for too much out of Fantasy.

There’s Chade, too, the elder assassin who is also underutilized. He’s largely a non-factor when he could have been a more active agent in the politicking. I understand it’s made difficult needing to remain secret, and he has his own conservative strategies, but my God I thought he was dead for a solid third of the book and was wondering when Fitz would finally notice. While that specifically was a “me” problem, I felt these contrived limitations only hurt the story while offering little in return.

“I said nothing of the kind. Nor should you,” Chade observed quietly. His voice was calm but his face was severe.

I also have a pacing critique for the first half of the book. We spend an inordinate amount of time with Fitz as he struggled with his debilitating health conditions, a problem that looked to stay with him forever. Yet, he seemed to simply “get better” with neither much explanation nor reflection, cheapening the initial chapters for me.

Once healed, we then also spend a lot of time as he learns to be an oarsman. This section was engaging in that we saw some great lore and action with the spooky White Ship and good clean sea battles against the Red Ship Raiders. But we retired from this duty like a college kid going back to university after working a summer gig back home. It felt somewhat disconnected from the events of the rest of the story.

And so for my final critique, I admit it’s a bit of a cheat, because it’s the same one I had before, that being Fitz’s full first name, FitzChivalry, still feels out of place in the rest of the world. That’s right, I’m doubling down. However, after engaging with more fans, my understanding and resulting recommendation has been updated! I now believe “Fitzchivalry Farseer” would have been a stronger option. The capitalized “C” makes grammatical sense but just feels bad. “Fitzgerald” and “Fitzpatrick” are real-world contemporary examples of “Fitz” names that conditioned me to find the lowercased style more aesthetic and fluid.

It seems I’ll die on this hill, may Robin Hobb forgive me, but thank you for indulging me in that tangent for the last time. Scout’s honor!*

Final Appreciations

Alright, enough with the nits and the picks. I recognize I’m splitting hairs, but I can’t help trying to analyze both the rough and the smooth. However, there’s so much more here to savor and appreciate.

Let’s return to the cast. Kettricken shines brightly here. She embodies so much soul, humanity, and goodness in the story. She fights for her people and loves her King-in-Waiting. She gardens! She yearns for more in order to do more good. This is someone we can root for, and one not without her own layers of complexity and tensions. What will become of her royal pregnancy? How much of the Wit does she know? Just how friendly will she and Fitz become, eh?

Burrich returns too, and for me is all the stronger for it. Fitz’s maturity allows him to see his old guardian in a recontextualized light as we learn more of his backstory and the complexities that inform his history. If I liked him before I really love him now. 

The much-loved Fool is also here. He was for me an enjoyable presence once again, even if I may not have the same appreciation for him as others in the fandom. His dogged loyalty to King Shrewd feels at odds with his more ominous placement in the wider world. Perhaps it’s as simple as he himself is fallible despite his prophetic-like abilities, and I don’t mind this incongruity since it gives me something to chew on that doesn’t feel like a mistake. Even if I’m not fawning over him I left with a deeper appreciation for his character than before.

Finally, there’s Nighteyes. A new and welcomed face. Canines are a bit of a cheat-code in stories with how inherently lovable they are, but his growth from puppy to adolescence, and his attachment to Fitz as they both learn to trust, were among my favorite parts of the book.

As Fitz learned to trust more in others and in his bonds, he often gained useful advantages, especially in times of desperation. This was even central to the book’s epic conclusion.

Can desolation be a source of courage? Or was it merely recklessness and a desire for self-destruction?

If the first book’s weakest point may have been its conclusion, “Royal Assassin” completely turns its ending into a strength, filled with drama, suspense and danger. The crescendo resolves beautifully in a way full of consequence, pushing us to the limits and beyond them. There are more open questions that burn and seethe, and I feel I can’t exhale until I read the final book. It’s not a cliffhanger, but a perfect execution of a middle entry to a trilogy.

Reflection

Looking back and comparing this to “Assassin’s Apprentice,” what we have here is a resounding success on the evolution of the formula. Hobb’s pacing is overall great and hides well the bloated opening half. Only hindsight revealed those weaknesses to me, since I was initially so taken in by the characters and beautiful prose. The world is smaller and closer here, which allows for more intimate stories. I still hope to see more of the world and explore the environments in greater detail than the surface level adventures we skate across, but this could just be a property of Hobb’s writing I need to get used to. 

And so as we turn our attention to the final installment of the trilogy, “Assassin’s Quest,” here’s what I’m looking forward to: answers and resolution of course! We’ve been steadily building tension and intrigue around the greater mysteries of the realm, specifically around the Red Ship Raiders, Forging, and the Elderlings. While I’d also love to uncover more of the connection between the Skill and Wit, we perhaps even more crucially need resolution around the Royal line of succession. But then most intimately of all within our tapestry, I’m desperate to see personal resolutions for the tension between all those with competing allegiances—looking at you Fitz, Molly, Chade, Kettricken, and Nighteyes.

With so many now beloved characters at stake, I’m prepared to suffer for this conclusion.

To help fortify my spirits, I had the pleasure to meet Robin Hobb once more during a local author signing event. I had just finished “Royal Assassin” and it gave me the opportunity to have her personalize “Assassin’s Quest” as I prepare to tuck into it. Sorry to rub it in. 

During our short discussion she told me a book review is one of the most impactful methods available for helping an author’s books be seen by others. It helps build the social proof that’s Gold in today’s attention economy. As we talked about this and other things, it was a great reminder of why I’m doing these reviews, and I hope that for more popular titles like these, they can, if nothing else, help provide a baseline for readers as I also discuss less well-known (for now!) works.

It’s been a joy to cover the Farseer trilogy so far, and it reaffirmed my decision to start my Robin Hobb journey with it. As I continue to explore more of her Realm of the Elderlings, I have faith this thoughtfully layered groundwork will only continue to build and compound, as will my love and fondness for it.

*I was never a scout.