[1] Hobb described her personal response to going back to Fitz's narrative voice as akin to "putting on a really comfortable pair of jeans", finding it a relaxing writing experience.

[10][11] Scholar Geoffrey B. Elliott notes that the Out Islands feature ice- and glacier-filled isles as well as a group of people with a matrilineal system of rule; this shares resemblance to Northwestern geography and indigenous cultures.

Visitors to his home include the Fool, who prompts him to recount memories of life away from society, as well as the minstrel Starling, who shares his bed on occasion.

He encounters and kills them in the city, but is grievously injured and arrested; a group led by Chade smuggle him to the palace and attempt a Skill healing on him.

He learns that the Fool spent the events of the Liveship Traders trilogy as a woman, Amber, and that she loves Fitz, carving a ship's masthead in his likeness.

In another plot thread, the Old Blood venture out of their exile to negotiate with Queen Kettricken, resulting in the establishment of a Witted coterie in the court of the Six Duchies.

She has IceFyre imprisoned in chains; it is later revealed that Dutiful's quest was a ploy by her to end the Farseer dynasty as well as to capture the Fool, the true prophet.

The stone dragon is eventually defeated with the aid of Burrich, who wields the Wit as a weapon, but at the cost of personal injury and death.

Fitz's internal conflicts in the Farseer trilogy – in particular, the sense of shame and trauma that result from his being Witted – have been described by scholars as an allegory for queerness.

[15] Fool's Errand features a group of Witted revolutionaries called the Piebalds, who attempt a military uprising against the Farseer throne.

Their assertions, which scholar Peter Melville compares to slogans from 1990s queer activism, create a conflict between Fitz's Witted identity and his allegiance to the throne.

Melville describes Fitz as "inhibited by the hegemonic hold the state has on him", bound in service to a social structure that denies him the right to live as himself.

An enigmatic character whose gender identity shifts through the series, the Fool presents as a man in the Farseer novels, and as the woman Amber in the Liveship Traders.

[20] Reviewing the conclusion of The Tawny Man trilogy, The Birmingham Post likewise commented positively on the series' flawed and believable characters.