End the Ring / An Ode III
A Ring of power,
A ring of binding
A ring that’s sour
A wRing of timing
Olwin & Unwin
George & George
Allen & Un-win
Richard & Richard
LotR, RotE
ASoIaF, D&E, ‘n F&B
LotR ‘n H,T
RotE ‘n TWP&TPP
The Queen of Bee
The Queen of E
The Queen of 🅱️
The Queen of Be
The King of See
The King of E
The King of C
The King of Sea
Spoiler warning for all books of the Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb
A Poem for Bee, The Destroyer
or
A Mourning
or
Not To Be
or
For Robin Hobb
or
or
Snapping the kNot of Chapter 39: The Vengeance (“A CatasTrophy of DraGones“)
or
A Song of Ice, Fire, Rain
or
A Conclusion
or A Memory of Blood
Not knot, knock knock
Who’s there?
Hobb’s hobby
Hobb’s hobby hoo?
Hobb’s hobby of magic naming
Of art making
Of knot breaking
Of plot-baking
Is simply unmatched
For even her peers say
That she’s “a diamond
In a sea of zircon“ia‘s”
Glass
~ George “Robin RHobb” Martin
Are our R R’s
The Rising Seas, Rising Earth?
Riveting Teas, Rivers of Worth?
For Silver Seas, or Rivers of Silver
In conclusion, only a Sliver
Found
The Bee’s the one that breaks the Knot
Will naming magic be forgot?
Before the bees are all but naught
If thought is Thought, then Ice is hot
A Feather’s A Blade for just a babe
The Feather’s a Blade, a Child’s aid
A Feather to Blade, so says the Sage
A Feather ‘n Blade, A Silver, Golden Age
O Saints of Old, O Saints of Gold
Please, O Please, won’t you fold?
Please, O Please, be so bold
To Let the Golden Age of Old
Return
Or
For Four+4, a Sequel
A Coincidence of Fate
A Core-incidence of fate
A Four-situation of eight
A seven situation, satiate
The Wolf within fights death
While the Fitz begs for last breath
Which, oh which future shall they get–id
Futures’ discerned fast from Crystal ball Meth-od
“The Wolf and the Jester have wasted” away
For three and four remaining days
A week remains of their ways
A week to last for all remaining days
For four and four of fate
Make a rotation of eight
An infinity to satiate
An infinite ways to open the Gate
Just one final gate remains
The Gate to Life and Death are one and the Sames
As yellow becomes blue
Fitz & Fool we (re;)turn to
As one shall be two
And 7, infinite too
The Skill Road
Inspired by Robin Hobb, Hans Zimmer, and the Realm of the Elderlings
Time is the most cinematic of subjects because before the movie camera came along, human beings had no way of seeing time backwards, slowed down, sped up. And I think that went some way to sort of explain to me why I’ve been interested in exploring it in movies because I think there’s a really productive relationship. And I had this visual notion of a bullet that’s in a wall, being sucked out of the wall and into the barrel of the gun it was fired from. And I put the image in “Memento,” my early film, as a…
Christopher Nolan, NPR interview with Ari Shapiro
The Road of Skill,
The Road that Kills,
The Road of ills
Of Sill-ver Silk
A road of Silver
I rode a Sliver
And rowed a Silver
Ship,
O What, Are you Awakening at last?
Silver Road, Skillful Abode
Whence you came from, whence you lead
By steel and lead, by gold and silver
By gold-en green, by black and white
Thence you come from, then you go
Silver came from, once you’re go(ld)
ThyiMe after TI’me, beat after beat
Road after road, seat after seat
Gold after gold, teat after deat(h)
Given after sold, deed after deed
For Ægon V(I) Targaryen
or
A Sequel two Half .5
A-gone, fAegon, E-gone for eons
Aemon gone, Ame(e)n gone, E-gone for Eons
Aegon, you the fifth or sixth?
Or seventh (or eleventh?) or mayhaps the eighth?
Either option tells me you’re legit
We must needs know you’re no fake-Gone
Æ-gone, for now only E Exists
O First letter, O El–phuh, O End-uh
O opposite of OmegUh
O beginning, why left
O ending, why right
Without Æ, what would we do, Eh
We only spoke of so much
We only wrote with such luck
Now luck is close to expiring
This trend will now be retiring
For now A-isn’t-gone, A is back,
Since A is back, now E is back
E was gone for Eons, now Eons return
Both A&E and AnE and AE and Æ return
Four become two
For fÆke-gone’s true
The Teacher of Time
Or
To Teach-her the Time
This poem is About damned time:
The name of his true Catalyst. He’d held that back, saying he’d had many: an assassin, a nine-fingered slave boy, a ship’s captain, a spoiled girl, a noble bastard. Not true. His one real Catalyst was FitzChivalry Farseer.
Robin Hobb, Assassin’s Fate
Those who can’t do, teach
Those who can’t say, reach
Those who can’t fight, feat
Those who can’t drink, eat
Those who can’t li(v)e, death
Those who can’t try, (last) breath
Those who can’t give, get
As those who can’t sigh, (fast) Me(th)
Is it Me who can’t or is it me who can?
Who can, who can, teach me about tiMe-ing?
Who can, who can, be a teacher of rhyMe-ing?
A Writer in the Shadows is who
A Teacher of Time is Who?
A rat’s head on a stick. No one holds the stick but it is shaken at the dreamer. The rat squeaks.
“The bait is the trap, the trapper the trapped!”
The rat’s mouth is red, its teeth yellow; its eyes are black and shining. It appears to be the sort of large brown rat often seen near the docks of Clerres town. It has a black-and-white ruff about its neck, and the staff it is fixed to is green and yellow
CAPRA’S DREAM 903872, RECORDED BY LINGSTRA OKUW
Robin Hobb
ASSASSIN’S FATE
Chapter 24: Hand and Foot
or
Resurrection
A sequel to A Poem, A Prayer
Rats, rats, o mice and rats
Then Hunted by us and also by cats
For thousands of years, of years ago
At the time of time of Tut and tat
Cats were worshipped as they sat
At X of long and Y of lat
Mice, mice, o rats and mice
If Hell is Fire, then Heaven is Ice
And where, pray tell, do dead mice go?
If disease’s evil, then rats aren’t nice
O GodDog r’ TacCat, is it fault o’ flea ‘r lice?
Would death be good, would justice suffice?
We humans too spread disease
Yet “The stronger winds, the stronger trees”
Now we know it ain’t always so
So let this be a prayer, please
For all that’s fallen, let there be ease
Whether rats or mice, death by fire or seas
Whether dreaming or-a-wake, realities or fantasies
Now Apollo and Jeezus come out of Apologiez
For now at last we have impromptu fantasyz
God, Allah, O Jeezus Cries’t
The Sun risen as Atum–Ra-ised
Apollo risen as Jesus rised
For all who die, and then they rise
Nearer my Goddess, to thee they rise
“Say it ain’t so, say it ain’t so”
Now closer to you, they do go
So so it is, since long ago
Heaven & hell now see Demise
Green and golden be their prize
Of those whose knots are also ties
Look For fallen with your eyes
What-Ever-falls will also rise
or
Spoiler warning for all 16 books of the Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb
Inspired by
Assassin’s Fate’s Prologue’s Prophecy
For servants and prophets
For corruption in profits
For the Fitz and the Fool
For Eyes of Night’s Rule
The Light splits into 3 or 4
3 or 4 or 6 or 7
A Morphism, a sorta Prism
As colours are sorted
By this Meta-More-Phasing googol
Yes, hundreds of White lights
And 3 or 4 Servants
Red and green, blue and And
Yellow too, and Black and/or
And 4 or 3 or 3 or more
Coming from Candles’ Lights
It was not just the fact that
“One shall be Two
And Two be One”
For the motley of black and white
Would now show answers of true sight:
One shall be Four
And Three bee One
As the Futures’ broken
And Truth is awoken
IceFyre comes with Fitz
Destroyer comes with fitz
Left Clerres without him
Left the Fool all Fixed
Who was the Destroyer?
Was it the Bee, an-noyer?
Or was it the Fitz, the Fool,
& Night’s Eyes’,
Light from death will Rise
For Time to be Right-sized
Black and White
A Darkened Lights
Futures and Pasts’
Present’s now passed
Bee-be-comes
A Fitz without fitz-eye-’tis
A fool without Foresight is
As three but one,
The three have won
O Precious Time, O Clock of Doom,
O Beloved’s Beat, O Beloved Bee
Destroy their Seat, and Find that Sea
Of Silver Rhyme and Silver Loom
So all Paths and Threads
Bee-Come aVoid of Dreads
Then Time moved forward,
and, at last, Bled
SPOILER WARNING: Spoilers warning for all 16 books in the Realm of the Elderlings, especially the final one, Assassin’s Fate
I finished Assassin’s Fate last year in August, and I still cannot stop thinking about it on almost a daily basis. In particular, some of the prophecies have so much depth and nuance to them, I feel like I can keep finding interpretations for them forever.
Here I will talk about probably my favourite prophecy. The prophecy is stated twice in the book, I believe:
A piebald bird, a silver ship, oh what are you awaking One shall be two and two be one before the future’s breaking
There’s a related prophecy in the prologue that mentions ‘One comes as two’ (followed by ‘The Four shall rue’) and ‘Two come as one’ (followed by ‘Your reign is done’).
For interpretations, let’s start with the Piebald Bird.
The Piebald Bird’s obvious interpretation is that it refers to Motley the Crow. Interestingly, the feathers on Motley begin as black and white (the colours of the Black Man and (initially) the Fool, respectively), probably representing both the beginning and ending of an era (which is what the end of Assassin’s Fate is). Bonding with two dragons (one shall be two), (correct me if I’m wrong) the white turns into shades of red as the black turns into a blackish-blue.
This leads to my second interpretation of the ‘Piebald Bird’. From a distance, dragons may look like large birds far in the sky. IceFyre’s name sounds like a motley of elements, or a motley of colours (blue and red again). However, IceFyre himself is black. But who is the other dragon that arrives just before IceFyre does, to destroy the Servants’ abode? Heeby, the red dragon. Black and red, just like Motley the crow.
Onto the next part of the prophecy. LiveShips, as we find out beautifully at the end of the series, can also become dragons. So now, the interpretation of a ‘piebald bird’ (as dragons) can mix with the interpretation of ‘a silver ship’ (the dragon Paragon). Indeed, dragons can be thought of as flying ships that have consumed Silver, so this interpretation can apply to all of Motley, IceFyre, Heeby, and Paragon.
And what is being awoken? Paragon, but also Bee, and Fitz/Fool/Nighteyes (as one being). Paragon splitting into two dragons (‘One come as two’ and then ‘One shall be two’ apply here too) can be seen as Paragon awakening to his true fate. The same goes for Bee becoming the destroyer, and of course, for Fitz/Fool/Nighteyes becoming The Wolf of the West. (And both (counting Bee as the Destroyer) of those events could be seen as an ‘Assassin’ of sorts awakening to their true ‘Fate’. Ah, what a beautifully titled book.) Finally, I would call this an awakening too: IceFyre overcoming the magic of the Servants which caused him to act cowardly, and finally attacking the ones who wronged his species.
We already stated a few interpretations for the One/Two line, but before stating more of those, the ‘future’s breaking’ refers probably to the act that Bee did in the library. However, my headcanon is that Bee accomplished something more than she set out to do. In the chapter Vengeance, Bee wonders if there would ever come a White Prophet who would sever the cycle of revenge that she continues to witness, as she sees what the Dragons have done to Clerres. I think if Hobb continued writing out her Bee story, Bee (and the Fool, as ‘One shall be two’) would be the prophet(s) that finally severs that cycle, without knowing it.
Without knowing, she ‘burned the past’ (a different prophecy), and that allowed Dragons to return to full-strength and destroy Clerres. Now that dragons have returned, the the Fool accomplishes his goal from the beginning: first with stone dragons at the end of Assassin’s Quest, then serpents becoming dragons at the end of Ship of Destiny, then the return of IceFyre at the end of Fool’s Fate, and then the ships becoming dragons at the end of Assassin’s Fate. The fact that dragons are so OP and view humans the way that humans view ants means they can always keep humanity in check and prevent humans from accumulating too much power. This hinders the ability of humans to continue the cycle of vengeance. Ah, but dragons would also continue this cycle. I think this is where Mercor comes in: the relationship between humans and dragons will become more balanced. Mercor always seemed the equivalent of the ‘White Prophet’ to the dragons, as a Golden serpent and later Dragon with White false eyes. It’s possible that he was fully White when younger, and just like the Fool, becomes Golden by the time he’s more mature (and not black like the Black Man). I think the Golden represents the coming era as the ‘Golden Age’, but it required at least 4 prophets to accomplish (the Black Prophet, the Golden Fool, a reluctant White (Bee) Prophet, and a Serpent/Dragon (Maulkin/Mercor) Prophet) (could be 5 if you count the last one as two.)
Speaking of counting one as two, that’s one of the non-obvious ways that the prophecy refers to dragons in general. Dragons seem to have separate but connected identities as serpents versus dragons, so “One shall be two” and “two be one” could refer to the way that Dragon identities operate. Both one identity split into two, and two identities becoming one being.
Now, as for the interpretations of 1 -> 2 and 2 -> 1. As mentioned already, Paragon splits into two beings. In addition, Nighteyes was with Bee when she came to Clerres, but leaves her (one splitting into two) and rejoins with Fitz once Fitz arrives (and two be one). Another way to view this situation is Nighteyes and Fitz became two when Nighteyes left Fitz to be with Bee, and then later rejoined with him. And of course, two being one should also refer to Fitz merging with the Fool (and Nighteyes) by the end of the series.
I feel like I had more interpretations for the last part but I cannot remember them now. I may add them to this post later.
How did all of y’all interpret this prophecy, and the other prophecies in this last book and trilogy?
(this post also available on reddit)
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