Royal Assassin

67 pages2-hour read

Fiction

Novel

Adult

Published in 1996

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Summaries & Analyses
Plot Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue-Chapter 5
Chapters 6-11
Chapters 12-17
Chapters 18-23
Chapters 24-29
Chapter 30-Epilogue
Character List
NEW
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Book Club Questions
Quizzes
NEW
Reading Tools
Story Recap
Timeline
Discussion Questions
Book Activities

Symbols & Motifs

Doors and Locks

Doors and locks are discussed extensively throughout the novel, functioning as a motif representing the tension between individual autonomy and communal obligation. The most important door in Buckkeep castle is the one that grants or forbids entry to the King’s chamber. In fact, this chamber has two doors, as Fitz points out to his coconspirators at a moment when the protection of the King is of paramount importance: “That’s a good stout oaken door. It will take them a while to get through it. And when they do, I fancy they will find the inner door to the King’s bedchamber likewise bolted and barred” (568). Wallace, Regal’s spy, does his best to control the King’s door, barring access to some and granting it to others, because Regal recognizes that power in Buckkeep is determined by access to the King. Meanwhile, the King remains inside his chamber, seeking the peace and rest that would allow him to make sound decisions, while Regal endeavors to deny him those very things.

Fitz, too, is constantly concerned with the soundness of his own locked door. The Skill-users Justin and Serene repeatedly break into his room to search his possessions, and Fitz spends a great deal of time checking and rechecking his locks against their intrusions. He guards his privacy in part because Molly visits him at night, anyone who learns of their relationship may harm her in order to manipulate him. The door represents the boundary between his private self—who dreams of a future with Molly—and his public duty to the kingdom. Meanwhile, within Fitz’s room is the most secret door in the castle: the hidden door to Chade’s quarters. This unseen door, which not even Regal knows about, represents a link to the hidden knowledge that Chade alone possesses: knowledge of potions and poisons as well as suppressed knowledge of the kingdom’s deep history.

As a novice practitioner of the Skill, Fitz must also learn to lock his mind against intruders, a metaphor Verity uses repeatedly while instructing him in this form of mental telepathy, telling him for example, “I showed you how to ward your dreams, FitzChivalry. If you neglect to enclose your mind, you cannot blame others for what you divulge” (258). Gradually, FitzChivalry learns to keep his mind closed and locked just as he does his physical door, guarding his private life against a community in which everyone has a stake in his decisions.

Forging

The Forging of those captured in the raids—called eskralling in the language of the Outislanders who practice it—is a symbol of ultimate dehumanization. Victims of the Red-Ship Raiders’ magic are stripped of all emotions, memories, and empathy, leaving only a feral instinct for self-preservation. The fate of the Forged highlights the central theme of Compassion as the Essence of Humanity by showing what is lost in its absence. In his journal, Chade notes that the Forged “were not evil, they did not take joy in their wickedness or crimes. When they lost their capacity to feel anything for fellow humans, or any other creatures of the world, they lost their ability to be part of society” (533). Their existence demonstrates that the Raiders’ primary goal is not conquest but the destruction of social and emotional bonds. This psychological warfare is far more destructive than simple slaughter, as it forces communities to confront the soulless shells of people they once knew and loved, eroding the moral fabric that holds the kingdom together.

Fitz’s analysis of the Forged reveals their complete separation from the web of life that connects all other creatures. He notes they have no “sense of community. Of shared humanity. They are as wolverines would be if given human tongues” (126). By stripping these captives of what makes them human, the Raiders reveal what humanity would become without the emotions that lead them to care for one another. The cannibalistic attack on a small child is the novel’s most stark depiction of this dehumanization, a moment of pure horror that symbolizes the predatory violence that remains when compassion, loyalty, and love are gone.

The symbolic weight of the Forged ones justifies the extreme and often brutal actions taken by the protagonists. Kettricken’s decision to lead a hunt to kill Forged individuals is transformed from a massacre into a solemn act of mercy, a “surgery” to remove an infection from the kingdom. For Fitz, killing them is a grim duty, an act of putting tormented souls to rest. Forging symbolizes the absolute stakes of the war: A fight not just for survival, but for the preservation of the human soul itself.

The White Ship

The terrifying white ship, glimpsed twice by Fitz and never by anyone else, is a symbol of death, unknowability, and the collapse of the existing social order. Fitz sees this collapse coming before anyone else except the Fool, just as he alone sees the white ship in the distance. Fittingly, the Fool predicts that the promise implied by the name Farseer will find its fulfillment in Fitz. Fitz’s singular ability to see the white ship literalizes this promise—that he can see farther than those around him.

In the first encounter with the white ship, Fitz’s shipmates don’t see it, but they do feel the effects of its presence in the form of an immobilizing terror. In the grip of this magical fear, they forget their oars and their weapons and become easy prey for the Red-ship attacking them. The Six Duchies crew has the upper hand until the white ship arrives, briefly casting all their efforts as futile. When Fitz asks the crew whether they saw a white ship, a crewmate from the Outislands tells him, “Speak not of a white ship. To see a white ship is to see your own death” (340). As a symbol of death and futility, the white ship foreshadows the apparent futility of Fitz’s efforts to hold his world together. The Six Duchies world is held together by a strict code of duty and loyalty, and Regal’s selfish ambition, combined with the apparently mindless destruction wrought by the Red-ship raiders, is enough to tear that world apart. Fitz and his allies struggle mightily to preserve the existing social order by maintaining the legitimate line of succession, and as the novel approaches its climax it appears they will succeed. The closing sequence sunders these hopes: The King dies, and Fitz is captured and tortured to death by the malevolent Regal, who has finally gained the acquiescence of the Dukes. In this moment, everything Fitz has achieved appears to have been futile, just as it did when the white ship appeared on the horizon.