The Fool's Gender? (possible spoilers)

[shandril]

i believe the fool is a hermaphrodite or maybe omnipitant(not sure i spelt that right) definatley an anomaly??
i believe he can be whatever the situation requires and there is no hard and fast rule as to what his sex is....makes his character more fexible i think he maybe dominatly male but able to do female as well...hmmmmm
*wanders away and ponders on it*

[rune]

thats similiar to the character from the Wreathru series by Storm Constantine. Her characters were both sexes in one body.
That would make sense for the Fool

[the_faery_queen]

i know its an old post, but my two cents
i would have swornd he was female, because of how well he knew the female body (most guys have no idea about any of that) and because of the way he knew how a woman could pass for a man. which he would only know if he was a woman passing as a man

but then, as said, white prophet thought he was male, she knew him as a child, long before he would have had any reason to adopt other genders, so i go with male. that and, well, i fancy him and prefer him to be a guy.

[darkshadow]

Originally Posted by quiet cynic

I believe the Fool is a guy. This is due to the many small hints in the three relevant series. I also believe that the question of his gender is something the Fool did on purpose, and probably enjoyed somewhat. Being a consumate actor, this would not have been difficult, and it smacks of his sense of humor and personality. None-the-less, it seems irrelevant in the end, because his relationship with Fritz is, I believe, too deep to be affected by something so basic as gender. It almost seemed to be the whole point at times - that their feelings went above/beyond that.

I agree, from the personality traits you pick up from the Fool, it definately seems he would like to act as a woman, and it would most definately amuse him. However i am not so sure about the Fool being a Guy, for all we know the Fool could also enjoy playing a male because it is fooling everybody who thinks he is a male, which would most definately appeal to his humour.

But really it comes down to this

The Fool is the Fool. He is special

[the_faery_queen]

i don't thik he changes gender. that would just be odd and i don't think that would really make sense, considering the white prophetess woman is of the same race and she is TOTALLY and utterlly female.

the fool is fairly genderless. i did think he was female for a while, mostly because he knew (as amber) how althea could disguise herself as a man, and NO man would know how to do that that well (esp how to diguse the period thing, seriously, even the most sensitve guy tends to hav eno real idea how that works!) but with the whole tawny man, tatoo by white prophet woman, i think he is a he, who just happens to be perceptive and adrogenous in a true sense. gender less, but male if you have to be specific

[Fortuna]

I think this is something that Robin Hobb has always wanted to keep us guessing about.

I also think that the fact that the fool appears genderless is another comment on the relationship / friendship between the fool and Fitz (It is so difficult not to write he or she). The friendship is supposed to transcend gender. It doesn’t, because human beings are too complicated to be that straightforward, but I think it is supposed to. Someone stop me if I am rambling.

[elvet]

I would say that the Fool is anatomically a male, or else Fitz would have commented on it when he dealt with the Fool's body. Having said that, I think that Fool did seem to have more of a feminine aspect to his character. I like the idea that his gender was flexible in a way that allowed him to assume different guises as befitted his need. It also sets him apart from the humans in the story, along with his lifespan and darkening skin.

[the_faery_queen]

i think its because he was more sensitive in many ways than other characters and i think because gender really didn't matter to him. he may well have been bi, but i think its more a case of it wasn't sex that drove him to who he loved, it wasn't based on sexual attraction. he seemed to love people for who they were, he saw more in people than a lot of other people see, so perhaps that's why it made it easier for him to be more gender neutral. without being worried about sexuality, or gender roles. it was definetly more a personality thing tho, not something from his society. because, again, the woman prophet was VERY female and very feminine in the way she came across. so in their society there must have been some gender roles and sexuality, it just seems that the fool went beyond it.

[Void Dragon]

The fool is male: otherwise Fitz wouldn't consider the love the fool felt for him as pervert...
It's normal in a medieval society that homosexuality is considered pervert (I even do so nowadays, no offence...)

[the_faery_queen]

that's not really the point. the fool appears male to fitz, just as he appears female to althea in the liveship traders. that doesn't mean he IS male or female, which is what the topic is about. fitz thinks he's male, it doesn't mean that the fool IS male. he has a very good understanding of the female body (the fool) far more than most men in that sort of world, without proper medical adivse would, he also passes himself off as female very well, and gets on well with women (starling) in a way that she thinks makes him female. so its not a simple fact that fitz thinks he is male, that means he is.

and i have to say, the farseer society is VERy far from true medieval. the women have pretty much an equal status to the men, they can come and go as they want, no one is treating them like brood mares. rape and violence is also pretty low, which people keep telling me it wasn't in medieval society. it may have castles and kings but it isn't a true medieval society. just because something is fantasy, it doesn't mean it is historially medieval. so perhaps homosexuality was disliked in medieval society, this world isn't medieval particularly, so that actually has nothing to do with anything. after all, from what i can gather of medieval society, if homopsexuality WAS disliked that is because of its christian elements (no offense to any christians i hope) the same reason that it is often disliked in religious countries now. but religion isn't that strong in the farseer world, so there isn't any real reason for them to be homophobic.

[Sketti]

Definitely a man. Like Teir said, Fitz would have known. Not to mention that when he found Fool dead in the dungeon, Fool was nekkid. I think he would have gone "OMG! WTF? Fool you have boobies!" if Fool was a girl
So he has deep feelings for Fitz, doesn't make him automatically female or changing. He's also a very good actor remember? When he was Amber he was acting female, he also comes from a place much more open it seems to me and that he would be considered "feminine" by a harsher society is normal.

[Sketti]

Originally Posted by the_faery_queen

i think its because he was more sensitive in many ways than other characters and i think because gender really didn't matter to him. he may well have been bi, but i think its more a case of it wasn't sex that drove him to who he loved, it wasn't based on sexual attraction. he seemed to love people for who they were, he saw more in people than a lot of other people see, so perhaps that's why it made it easier for him to be more gender neutral. without being worried about sexuality, or gender roles. it was definetly more a personality thing tho, not something from his society. because, again, the woman prophet was VERY female and very feminine in the way she came across. so in their society there must have been some gender roles and sexuality, it just seems that the fool went beyond it.

I agree
Where the Fool is from struck me (from what little we get of it) as a more open society than the one on the continent the story is on. The pale woman didn't seem to find it odd at all that Fool had feelings for Fitz. Also, the whole exchange of names thing I can't imagine from a society that doesn't appreciate feelings and phylosophy quite a bit. It makes perfect sense to me that the Fool wouldn't have a hard time being "gender neutral" personality wise. There's also the fact that he chose to appear male to Fitz, and then there's the bit (not sure if I'm remembering correctly) where the Fool was comparing his feelings for Fitz with what Fitz felt for Nighteyes and there was something about him being "too male" in the same conversation(need to find the passage).

In the mean time, the end annoyed me I wanted the Fool and Fitz to stay together. Molly was sooooo boring and ughhh and she just didn't get it that he had a more important purpose than her! *squeezes Molly's neck"

[In search of forever]

An effeminate male with bisexual tendencies.

[the_faery_queen]

i don't thik he was effeminitate. effiminate, to me, implies camp. he wasn't camp, except for as lord golden, and that was a show. he wasn't female, he wasn't male, he transcedied gender traits, he just was a person who was free of gender. there are a lot of peole who feel that they're neither gender, they dont' relate to either, and i think the fool was like that, his love for fitz was definatly more than sexual love, it was love love. and i don't think he was bi or gay or straight, i dont' think he was bothered by bodies or gender at all. he just loved who he loved. gay or straight or bi implies some sort of preference (well bi likes both clearly) but i think he would have felt the same about anyone, any creature, any animal, anything, because he loved who they were, not their bodies.

[Teir]

*quiet snigger as teir has a few flashbacks*
well......he was a bit camp on occasion......even just as the fool

Though with him it was always hard to tell whether that was a personality trait, a facade, or just a bit of warped sense of humour *Grin*