r/robinhobb 19d ago

Spoilers All Fitz and the Fool Trilogy Spoiler

Did Nighteyes go into Fitz when he died? In their time with the Old Blood, there were several mentions of Wit partners who had gone on in the other after death. Rolf rebuked that severely but Fitz mentioned that he and Nighteyes had not decided what they would do when they died.

When the Fool visited Fitz at the start of Fool’s Errand, Nighteyes wanted him to tell the Fool of their time with the Old Blood, and I think Nighteyes wanted some validation of what he intended to do. He told Fitz something along the lines of “we think better when we talk to the Scentless One”.

When talking about the woman-deer pair, Fitz said “The wrongness I sensed still crawled along my spine. “Yet.” I struggled to make myself admit this to the Fool. “Yet privately I wondered if any safe those two could fully understand the decision that had been made. If perhaps, despite how it appeared to us, it felt right to them.” (Chapter VIII: Old Blood, Fool’s Errand)

Then later Fitz talks about how Nighteyes had learned to seal himself so Fitz couldn’t feel him at all, though he were behind a curtain.

So my guess is:

  1. ⁠Nighteyes didn’t want Fitz to heal him because he intended to go to him after his death and didn’t want Fitz trapped in his dying body. He was worried about Fitz and I think couldn’t let go.

  2. ⁠He didn’t tell Fitz so that Fitz could learn to live without him, but at crucial moments and times of danger or great sorrow he came out to give Fitz advice.

  3. ⁠He was able to go to Bee and come back again because his consciousness was wholly his and separate from Fitz’s, rather than a meshing of substances like what happened between Fitz and Beloved. Also because Bee was their Cub. She has 3 fathers lol.

  4. ⁠There was a story about a woman whose dog had died, but when she was in trouble he went to get help for her by ‘giving dreams’ to another man who I assume was also witted.

  5. ⁠Is the idea not that it’s bad for 2 beings to co-exist but that they should not compromise how the other lived, as in the case of Pelladine not allowing the cat to groom or gorge?

  6. ⁠Perhaps Nighteyes knew all along that their ultimate end would be inside memory stone and he was preserving himself to go into it with Fitz. Without both Nighteyes and Beloved perhaps Fitz wouldn’t have enough to go into the stone.

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u/DTJ20 19d ago

No, this is what black rolf had tried to teach them, how to go on after death without doing that. As Fitz said, nighteyes was better at learning these ways than he was.

What was left behind was more than memories, but less than all nighteyes was. The remaining imprint might have been more than it would have for any old blood because they had been so closely joined but that's just speculation.