Description of my process for the animatic and what each piece represented to me while creating it ^^
The theme of the animatic is Mercenia and home. It has a cyclical beginning and ending. We start off with the Fool and his mother in Mercenia as shown in the first art:
It’s warmth, it’s safety and everything good. I focused a lot on bright colours and the feelings of warmth and belonging.
Then we move into the next stage of the Fool’s life in Clerres:
Everything is colder and it is night. I showed it through the cooler blue and the only light present is that of the moon. The Fool’s eyes are lifeless. He has been working as a clerk for Capra and destroying the evidence of his family history behind her back. This scene is him sneaking in the dream library one night before deciding to leave and search for his Catalyst. Probably the scroll is one of the many ones about the unexpected son.
We move to Buckkeep era where Fool’s tower room is a bright place and he had made certain of creating that impression of light and colour from his childhood. The baby doll in my headcanon represents tiny Beloved. And he is holding a little version of himself and missing being loved. His white and black motley sets him apart from his childhood self. He is already on a mission to fulfill his role as the White Prophet.
Amber somewhere at the beginning of The Mad Ship. I imagine she is looking ahead, thinking of Fitz and his home, thinking of Paragon and the unfair treatment of his family and alas thinking of her own family. Are her parents alive anymore? Are her sisters? She is hugging herself because in spite of the sun, the day is chilly and her heart longs she could be by her beloved ones.
The Fool in the Lord Golden era set in the Golden Fool. The costume is from chapter 4 where he pretends he has a broken leg for Fitz to have a reason to join him in the Great Hall. This is after the ceremony is over and everyone has left and the socialising is over. The one looking at us through the mirror is a more vulnerable Fool who ponders the next steps of the mission regarding Icefyre and Aslevjal. But also thinking on his childhood with both Mercenia and Clerres, trying to make his family proud, trying to prove to everyone to Clerres that he is the White Prophet. Of course he knows that even if his teachers from Clerres believe him, he will be dead and he will never see them having a change of heart.
This is right before he decides to remove his make up for the night. The curtain that appears in the mirror signifies his privacy and a safety for his vulnerable side to come out.
The last two arts are a set and it is chapter 30 in Fool’s Fate:
“He looked down at the world portrayed there. His long fingers wandered over the rippling sea and then returned, to hover over Buck. Without touching them, he indicated the four jewels set near Buckkeep. ‘These gems … they indicate Skill-pillars?’
‘I think so,’ I replied. ‘And those would be the Witness Stones.’
He touched, a wistful caress, the coast of a land far to the south and east of Buckkeep. No gem winked there. He shook his head. ‘No one who knew me lives there any more. Silly even to think of it.’
‘It’s never silly to think of going home,’ I assured him. ‘If I asked Kettricken, she –’
‘No, no, no,’ he said quietly. ‘It was but a passing fancy, Fitz. I cannot go back there.’"
The aftermath of the torture by the Pale Woman has left the scars, the bruises that had darkened on his face (finally healing properly after a few days). Aslevjal is cold and the blue light comes from the corridors. But also there is the heaviness of the feelings such as it is too late for something or the torment of the nightmares and the longing for safety. The resurrection as a sort of rebirth in a life where he is visionless. It makes one think of their origins and of their purpose.
I imagine that even if Mercenia is not as clear on the map for Fitz, the Fool sees it with his heart. Always.
