Changes

I have read all of the books in the Realm of the Elderlings trilogies many times. The [[Fool]] is one of my favorite characters of all time because of his burden, his destiny, his heart... and to be honest, his ambiguous gender. Is he male? Female? Both? Neither? How can he have two fathers; does he come from a non-human race who breed in threes?  The character of the Fool brings to mind the realizations questions Le Guin caused us to see raised in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_hand_of_darkness The Left Hand of Darkness] and the further contemplation Barker caused us engendered with his hermaphroditic Mystif character, Pie 'oh' Pah, in his book [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_%27Oh%27_Pah Imajica]. The Fool makes us ask, What is gender? How does it affect intelligence, action, wisdom, and the way one moves in society? Is it a gender definition a help or a hindrance? And most importantly, what is loveto personal realization?