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Starling and The Fool’s friendship: why it failed

An analysis of two different ways to love

Okay I know I’m already on Ship of Destiny but I still can’t get out of my head the amazing duo that is Starling and the Fool.

They are both serious, goal oriented, competent people, but the moment they are left alone together they turn into basically preschoolers.

Like, take Starling, tragic backstory, big dreams, incredible talent and someone who’s never without a plan. She could outsmart anyone if she set her mind to it, and to be honest Fitz would have never gotten to the mountains if it wasn’t for her. But as soon as she meets the Fool, all of that flies out the window. They can’t stand each other, to a point where it becomes absolutely hilarious. Fitz of course gets caught in the middle of it, and even he can tell there is something weird going on between them. When he arrives to the mountains, Fitz has the first glimpse of the Fool’s life outside of him. They have built a life for themself in that village, and a pretty successful one too, despite dealing with mourning a friend and the huge prophet-existential-crisis that came along with it. The Fool is such a tragic character, I’m not even halfway through the books but the way they deal with the burden of being a prophet and knowing that their life doesn’t belong to them but to their quest, already speaks volumes. But even with all that on their shoulders, the Fool turns into a mean eith-grader as soon as Starling is in their field of view. These two bring out the teenager in each other, which is something neither of them had ever experienced before. Both Starling and the Fool have been forced to grow up too fast, one because of trauma and responsibility, the other for their life purpose (edit: just finished tawny man. Also trauma!), but they still never had a time to be stupid and careless. That’s why I think they were so drawn to one another, because even if through annoyance and rivalry, they recognized they could share something they never had.

Even if it’s through Fitz’s eyes, during the journey up the Skill road, we see Starling and the Fool grow closer, their dynamic developing from a rivalry to a reluctant friendship to becoming each other’s shoulder to cry on.

That’s where the trouble starts.

To fully understand the breach in their friendship, one needs to understand that Starling and the Fool are complete foils in the way they love and care for people.

Starling’s trauma led her to base her whole self worth on how desirable she is. She craves immediate intimacy and codependency in relationships, otherwise she’s afraid people will just leave her behind or take advantage of her. She needs to control people’s perception of her, she needs to know she can use their desire and attraction to her, need be. That’s why she’s so upset when Fitz rejects her initially, even though she has no real feelings for him.

On the other hand, the Fool is convinced that they can’t let themself become too close to people, because they know they will have to leave them eventually. They try to keep themself closed off, often masking their feelings with humor and insults, and even though they make an awful job of it, because as we’ve seen they become quickly attached to anyone who shows them any bit of affection, they keep this outlook of not being allowed to care for anyone otherwise they’ll end up hurting them. Really the only person the Fool is allowed to fully care for because they know they’ll spend their whole life with him is Fitz as he is the Catalyst to their Prophet. That is a huge factor in the Fool’s feelings for Fitz, because the one time they’re allowed to care for someone with no restraints, they instantly become dependent on them, and almost drown in the amount of love they allow themself to feel. Part of me always thinks that the Fool has so much love inside of them, and since they can’t put it anywhere they give it all to Fitz. (And they’re convinced that even the one person who they’re allowed to love will never love them the same way... ouch)

So while Starling cannot take part in a casual friendship and instead demands instant intimacy, the Fool gets scared easily and closes themself off.

This is why their friendship falls apart, two opposite extremes meet and clash, leaving no room for an actual relationship.

Starling responds to this rejection by undermining the Fool and getting closer to Fitz, with whom she believes she has more chances of keeping the control she so needs. This is a huge deal for her and the Fool, because Fitz had never been part of their little bubble. He was a topic they shared, multiple times we can see them teasing each other over how much they care for the man, but he had never been part of that little circle. Starling decides to burst that bubble because the air inside had become too uncomfortable for her to breathe in, and the Fool takes advantage of that to further close themself off as well. Fitz goes from being something the two of them had in common to a weapon to use against each other, so when the Fool tells Starling to go to him at the end of Assassin’s Quest, knowing perfectly that she has no real feelings for him and that she only really gave off that idea because it had become “their thing”, it completely shatters what they had once shared.

Starling and the Fool found in each other something they needed, but their friendship was doomed to fail from the start.

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Starling Birdsong I love you <3

(by the way, the bird on her harp is a greater blue eared starling. I like basing the colors of her clothes off of their feathers they are so pretty)

#funniest homophobe in the Six Dutchies #no one is doing it quite like her #realm of the elderlings #rote #rote starling