“‘What have they done to me, Fitz? Gods, what have they done to you, to mark you so? What has become of me, that I did not know you though I carried you in my arms?’ His cool fingers moved tentatively down my face, tracing the scar and the broken nose. He leaned down suddenly to rest his brow against mine. ‘When I recall how beautiful you were,’ he whispered brokenly, and then fell silent. The warm drip of his tears against my face felt scalding.”
I’m frurstrated at the ROTE fandom’s frustration regarding the absence of a sexual component to the Fitz/Fool relationship.
Whenever Fitz puts into words what Beloved is to him, he could not be any clearer - he loves him with all that he is, his entire life and canonical fate is clearly wrapped around the Fool’s, they are inseperable in a way that he is only with one other person, and that’s Nighteyes.
However, he very much does not want to bang him (nor does he want to bang Nighteyes!), even when he finds out that the fool presents as female in other parts of the world because he simply is not attracted to him that way, even though he would die for him, live for him, they have a child together, and he very clearly is the love of his life. They are inseperable even in the very end, beyond their mortal existence.
How much closer can you get to a person and why do people read all of that and still think that things would just be better if they had banged at some point?
We’ve got this beautiful, complex, genderbending masterpiece of a character and he’s in love with his childhood friend and it’s so inconceivable to everyone that said childhood friend can place such value on a friendship though Fitz is not sexually attracted to the Fool? Some relationships just are THAT important without sex being involved. It’s extremely tragic that this relationship is so mismatched in its expectations, but such things do happen.
It’s just so frustrating to always have this expectation that for any relationship to be considered valid and close, sex must occur, ESPECIALLY in this one, because there is ALL of these other things going on.
<3
OP is absolutely right and even Robin Hobb said something along these lines.
But I think some of the frustation from the fans comes from a different place, not just from placing weight on the sex component: parts for the Tawny Man trilogy can be easily read in a way that Fitz is attracted to the Fool and he is definitely jealous of the Fool’s potential bedpartners. Fitz lies all the time, especially to himself, so it’s easy to be skeptical when he says he wouldn’t sleep with the Fool. I’m not arguing that it should have happened tho. Their relationship is the most beautiful and heartbreaking lovestory I’ve ever read, and sex is not needed for this.
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet… there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
“The sails are hoisted! Onward, towards uncharted territories and new horizons! As we rid ourselves of trepidation, remember that the drowned and the damned had abandoned their intuition.”
![[XI] Lord Golden.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/2a537f1ebda26e62f3ab536985ff3947/tumblr_of27gef5D51td30h9o1_1280.jpg "[XI] Lord Golden.")
