homophobia: Burrich has repudiated a piece of his own identity and seeks to eradicate it in others. Fitz thus develops an "identity in shame", according to scholar Peter Melville, and withdraws into the closet, even as he continues to explore the ability. Fitz's feeling of shame toward the Wit leads him to keep it hidden even from those he cares for, including his beloved Molly. The secret is one of many of Fitz's "multiple closeted lives" that eventually drives Molly away from him. Toward the end of Royal Assassin, Fitz's Witted identity is revealed to the public and he is tortured. After he shifts to the wolf's body and returns, he more openly participates in his Wit-bond and finds a community of the Witted at the edge of society. Comparing the Old Blood to a queer support group, Melville views the sense of connection Fitz experiences in their midst as essential to his self-acceptance. The series then transitions from Fitz's personal struggle to the larger struggle for equal rights for the Witted, which is explored in The Tawny Man trilogy. Speaking of her motivation behind the Skill and the Wit, Hobb commented that "I think we can see that in almost any society, something that is accepted and OK in one society makes you a member of a despised group in another society." Queer themes are also portrayed through the Fool, a character whose subversive aspect is hinted at in Assassin's Quest, when the minstrel Starling states to Fitz: "The Fool is a woman. And she is in love with you." The Fool alternates between masculine and feminine identities through the many Elderlings series; this blurring of gender boundaries is explored further in the Liveship Traders, Tawny Man and Fitz and the Fool trilogies. The dynamic between Fitz and the Fool, described in the Farseer trilogy as "two halves of a whole, sundered and come together again" when they connect via the Skill, is also developed further in later trilogies. Hobb sharply contrasts the two forms of magic in the series, the Skill and the Wit: though addiction is portrayed as a negative consequence of both, according to Larsson, the Skill is "more insidious". The Skill is practiced by the ruling class, but the Wit is relegated to lower classes; the Skill is also a stereotypically masculine magic, since it functions as a weapon, and the Wit, used to bond