u/DollieBTS

Why did Fitz have to go like that? I mean, I get him making the stone dragon and going into it, but until the very last moment he was being devoured by parasites. It was the most horrible death in the entire series. I wish I had not read the last trilogy. Not because it was bad, everything was perfect except the part about him never being able to do what he needed for himself. Poor Fitz. He was a foster father to so many, but he could not be one to his own daughters. Until the very end, he suffered.

I understand the need for a bittersweet ending, but that was just torture. I wish I had stopped at the Tawny Man trilogy. Now all I can think is, did Hobb punish Fitz for being an assassin? Is that his fate? Is the end supposed to be a nod to his entire life which was consumed by other people and duty? I loved his character and the books because they don’t coddle you, but this ending was torture.

At the end, all I saw was the little boy who was sleeping with dogs, the one who cried because Chade tested his loyalty, the one whose skull was battered by Galen for being a bastard, the one who was emotionally punished by Burrich many times for having the Wit, tortured in dungeons, always wanting to do right by his daughters and never getting a chance to. He suffered until his very last moment. He became a shadow king for a bit and he won Molly, but he was abandoned by the Fool. Unable to fully trust, he wanted to do right by Nettle but never had the opportunity. He wanted to be a good father to Bee but was pushed to the extreme because his own family and friends thought he was a bad father, which he was not and that’s a hill I’m dying on.

People say it was bittersweet, but I felt no sweetness in the idea that he just wanted to go back to his daughter, but instead had to pour himself into a dragon because he was dying slowly and painfully. The last three books were so good and so bad. All Fitz wanted was for his daughters to not suffer the fate of sacrifice for the throne. But in the end he gave up everything just for them to be left alone in the hands of other people, exactly like he was. I wish that he would have died without the parasites, the pain, and the humiliation of having no control over his body. The contrast you see at the end of him dying in the place where he was once strong and able, where he could hunt and fish, play with the Fool even during hard times, support his friends and king, to then becoming a man who just wants to get back to his daughter but is unable to, is unbearable. Sure that is what death is, but this was too cruel.