There is drinking, probably more than the two standards recommended as the limit, in chapters 15 and 20. In chapter 15 there is a fight that might not have occurred without the alcohol (but equally could have) and in chapter 20 a character has a nap that they likely would not have without the alcohol. There are small mentions of alcoholic beverages in other chapters.

No characters go into an arranged/political marriage, but there is discussion of this being an inevitability for Leo as king and a possibility for his siblings. There is a political engagement, which does not result in a marriage by the end of the book.

Con, Leo’s brother, is bisexual and has frequent and uncommitted relationships/sex with a lot of different people. This is not based on the stereotype of him being bisexual, but is the result of a deep insecurity that he is not enough and that he has to leave before his partner realises that. He fears a marriage in which his partner thinks badly of him and they are stuck in a pattern of never talking to each other, with the tension of the days where their parents didn’t talk to one another.

Not included in text, but word from the author, Con’s reputation as a talented, respectful and very eager to please lover who happens to be a good-looking prince means that he is frequently approached by people rather than the other way around. The fact that they are accepted can be explained by his being both one of those rare people who sees something good in everyone and unskilled at saying no to things that he can’t think of a reasonable objection to.

(Don’t fear further than this for him—not being attracted to someone or not being in the mood would be a reasonable objection. He enjoys his life. But it is sad that no one thinks to want more than sex from him. He does, despite his fears, have so much more to offer than that.)

In chapter 12, an unnamed woman is killed off-screen by having her throat cut and Leo finds her in the aftermath. She has been used to fuel teleportation, something that is not possible without the enhancement that blood brings to magic and that doesn’t work for very long distances. Danya, a secondary character and good guy, then uses consensual blood magic from small samples from the Dietrich siblings, including eight-year-old Max, who is very brave about the small cut that Leo immediately heals. Another person’s throat (bad guy) is cut for the purposes of teleportation by the bad guys later in the same chapter, this time on-screen but non-graphically.

In chapter 15, there’s a fistfight that results in a split lip.

In chapter 21, there’s a swordfight that involves characters being cut non-fatally by swords and blood magic that results in either the passing out or death of one of the bad guys. In chapter 22, there is more swordfighting that results in the bad guys being injured and perhaps or probably being killed. The narration doesn’t linger on these injuries.

In chapter 33, during a swordfight Leo is stabbed through the chest and his pain is described in detail. A character close to Leo is shown to have the red eyes that show that they have been using blood magic.

The story follows Leo, who is a king and has many privileges, as do most people he interacts with. At times, his attention is drawn towards the needs of people who do not have these privileges. The fact that there are people who have very difficult lives (not explicitly shown) is the basis on which the bad guys recruit many of their members. They insist that their violence will result in equality.

The castle fool is a major character in The Fool. It capers around and does a lot to entertain and humiliate. There’s some physical comedy and silly songs mostly. It wears face paint and castle fool motley that make it very anonymous.

The mystery man that Leo falls for over the course of the book doesn’t tell him that he’s also the castle fool. Leo is okay with the man maintaining secrecy when it comes to his identity, though he’s very curious, mostly because he doesn’t want to know the extent to which he would not be allowed to have a relationship with him.

A number of characters die in the book. Firstly, King Richard, Queen Gisela and Prince Dicky (Leo’s parents and twin) are killed off-screen in a magical explosion before the events of the book begin, along with six others. Their deaths are mentioned pretty frequently throughout the book.

An unnamed woman is killed off-screen by having her throat cut by the bad guys and her body is found in chapter 12. Also in chapter 12, at least one of the bad guys is killed in the same way for the purposes of blood magic.

In chapters 20 and 21 some bad guys are potentially killed, but not explicitly.

Notably, there is a child who has a mobility disability due to his legs being uneven lengths (growth spurt while one was broken and couldn’t grow). His grandmother doesn’t use politically correct language to describe it (though the word is mild as far as such words go). This injury is healed with magic and the child will likely not have the disability anymore.

There is another instance where a character heals another character with such intensity that the magic radiates out of control and heals other unnamed characters in the surrounding streets without their consent. This isn’t dwelt on.

King Richard, Leo’s dad, who is killed off-screen before the events of the book begin, was emotionally abusive towards his wife and children. This largely took the form of demonstrating a lack of love whenever he was displeased with them, which could be prompted by anything, even things that he had previously been unbothered by. He also shouted and stomped his feet, but usually berating them without shouting was enough to make them cry, and he didn’t take this as reason enough to stop. Leo is traumatised by the memory of this, as are his siblings, though all chapters are from Leo’s POV and therefore this is less explicit. Leo’s dad demonstrated a lack of care for his children in terms of their education and physical safety.

Queen Gisela, Leo’s mum, also killed off-screen before the events of the book, was overbearing and controlling of Leo’s eight-year-old brother.

Leo’s dad took out many loans and spent the money on frivolous things such as holidays and hunting so that he could maintain a state of debt that meant that he didn’t have to pay taxes to the Empire. When one in our society claims such things as business expenses so as to not pay tax, it comes very close to evasion if they don’t have a good story for why said holiday was indeed a business expense. If they do have a story, or if it’s art for some reason, it’s simply “good business”, though as someone who would like the rich to pay a lot more taxes than they do, it seems pretty messed up from my angle.

It also puts Leo in a difficult position because he would like to repay those debts and has no way of doing so, because his dad genuinely expended the money. Leo’s money problems are a continuing theme.

The fool uses it/its pronouns, which isn’t by choice but also is a point of pride. When it reveals itself out of costume, it says that it doesn’t care what pronouns are used for it. Out of costume it dresses as a man and a woman at different times and is referred to as he and she as people interpret its costume. He’s perfectly happy being perceived as a man when events transpire that result in him being more frequently out of costume. Leo is unsure of which pronouns to use at one point because the fool doesn’t state a preference. Stay tuned for further updates in book 2.

Coral, the castle groundskeeper, uses they/them pronouns. This is not considered noteworthy.

Most people use inclusive language when talking about specific royalty needing a spouse rather than a husband or wife specifically, but not universally.

Leo and his two siblings that are old enough to take an interest in such things are all queer. Leo and his brother don’t have a gender preference and his sister is in a committed relationship with a woman. This sister is compelled to agree that she will go along with it if Leo needs to pretend he might marry her off to someone, regardless of her preference. She was also under considerably more danger of being married off while Leo’s parents were alive.

There is an aromantic/asexual character. Their sexuality is not public knowledge and they would like to continue to conceal it, but when they come out it’s treated with acceptance.

There is a ghost (revenant) in chapter 21. Revenants are mentioned a few times in passing through the book. Leo enjoys bad ghost stories, but doesn’t share any.

Leo’s parents and twin die immediately before the book begins, with Leo finding out part of the prologue. His grief is complicated. His dad sucked (see emotional abuse) and he struggles to even accept that his twin is dead. He isn’t given time to process his grief because he has to immediately start being the king and it sort of jumps out at him every now and then. It’s such a major theme I feel it would be difficult to specify when it occurs. In saying that, there’s an explicit funeral in chapter 2.

Leo’s brother is the result either of their parents conceiving him prior to their marriage or their mum having had him from someone else. As both their parents are dead, it’s impossible to know which.

Probably features in every single chapter, either in practice, conversation or narration.

In chapter 13, Leo’s brother has been healed too effectively and is in a manic state that means he isn’t sleeping much and is very enthusiastic and energetic.

The leader of the bad guys demonstrates very unstable behaviour that Leo is sure is an act, a way to make those around her feel nervous about upsetting her and therefore always behave in ways to appease her. This is most apparent in chapter 22 and to a lesser extent chapter 12.

The central relationship is between a king and his fool. The fool in question would laugh at the idea that Leo could offer him any reward or punishment that make it do anything it didn’t already want to do. Readers may disagree. When the relationship is exposed, the fool is fired and would be in a difficult position without Leo’s support (it would insist that it would be perfectly fine, but it would be difficult nonetheless). Leo faces ridicule and shunning, but there are no material consequences.

The relationship between Leo’s parents had a power inbalance in that his dad was abusive and knew how to intimidate someone.

To save you from reading the below if you don’t want to, there is no explicit spitting-on-someone-in-the-streets or similar racism in The Fool. No characters are denied opportunities or called names because of their race. It’s a subtler kind than that that’s based on modern Australia.

The Fool is not quite an alternative history, but it’s set on a continent that is very similar to Australia, if it had been colonised when castles were in fashion by a woman who had been given magical powers by her god and therefore thought pretty highly of herself. She believes (and therefore those who came with her believed) that this continent was sitting waiting for her arrival and the presence of the Indigenous people was a funny little quirk that didn’t alter her divine right to occupy it. This mirrors the attitude of the very real white people who invaded our Australia.

Unlike in our world, the Empress chose to label these people as “prevenient”, which implies that they were on the continent before her, but not that they are the native inhabitants. This too was an attitude some of the European colonisers of Australia shared. In fact, we have records of at least one letter from a coloniser stating that he believed that white people must have occupied Australia before the Indigenous people and that they happened to leave and the Indigenous people took advantage of this absence to make it their home. He believed it was white people’s right to take back what was once theirs. His evidence was that the Indigenous people possessed technology that surpassed what he believed Black people to be capable of. You can read more about this in Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe.

Similarly, though the Empress and her people have lived on this continent for around 800 years, Indigenous people were granted the right to marry less than 400 years before the time the novel is set. Two characters discuss that they are unlikely to have Indigenous ancestors due to their family selectively choosing those whose magical power was more evident, which one character seems to doubt as the only reason Indigenous people were avoided. In the journal entry at the beginning of the book, the Empress writes “When they had proven their devotion sufficiently, I graciously elevated them to a status equal with the true citizens of the Empire”. This implies a lot, but most significantly that despite what the Empress terms equality, they are still not considered true citizens.

In our modern Australia, there sadly exists a number of white people who unironically think that Indigenous people should “go back where they came from”. There are many more who resent the meagre measures our government makes to try and do something about the gap between life expectancy, education, incarceration rates and many other measurable indications of quality of life. This is to say nothing of how so much of modern Australia is incompatible with the Culture of its First Nations people. You can read more about Culture in Tyson Yunkaporta’s work, particularly Right Story, Wrong Story which he’s more proud of than Sand Talk, though Sand Talk is an incredible read that left me shaking like a handbag dog for weeks. He reads the audiobooks and his voice is amazing.

In The Fool, Leo’s sister explicitly advocates for Leo including an Indigenous Elder in his Cabinet. Leo is thrown by this because it’s never been done before and he’s reluctant to begin his rule with something so controversial. Our Australia recently voted on whether we would like an Indigenous “voice” in Parliament, and the result was an excruciatingly racist campaign that resulted in a “no”. There would likely be some uproar if Leo made so bold a choice, though the act of listening to someone isn’t exactly a bold choice in my opinion. It’s also mentioned that she advocates for self-determination, which is one of the items in the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Leo’s sister’s passion for Indigenous rights is one of the reasons that someone close to her went over to the bad guys, who claim to be acting out of a desire to improve the lives of the most vulnerable members of society. This is not why they act, and there is a good reason that many Indigenous people didn’t want anything to do with them.

I discussed the depiction of Indigenous people and the issues that affect them in The Fool with Shu Brown of the Ballarat and District Aboriginal Co-op. He was extraordinarily kind and I appreciate the time he took for me so much. They do such good work in the community at BADAC.

The society in The Fool revolves around religion. Because magic is a gift from the god bestowed on the Empress and passed down through her bloodline, and because magic necessitates a respect and reverence for the magic that the user is doing, the rulers of every country (almost all descended from the Empress and therefore magical) have reason to be devout. Everything from their months to their currency is structured around the Trinity (god). Triangles everywhere!

At the end of the book, the Trinity is brought into the mortal realm, which doesn’t end well.

Several characters are chained up, to suppress their magic, to torture them or sacrifice them.

Leo is aware from very early on that he doesn’t want to begin anything with his mystery man because he doesn’t want him to be his dirty little secret. He begins it anyway, and it is indeed a secret.

There’s no sex on-screen, though it comes close in chapter 26 when a character grabs another character’s bottom under his pants and then their hands are between them in a suggestive way. It’s heavily implied this results in sex. There are other scenes that imply that sex will or has happened. Leo thinks about things he’d like to do that could lead to sex. Leo’s brother has a reputation for sleeping around.

The off-screen explosion that occurs before the book and which kills 9 people was set off by one of those 9 people. It’s not dwelt on.

There is infrequent (from an Aussie’s perspective) swearing throughout the book, mostly the s-word, a-word (as in bottom) and f-word. I didn’t want to go overboard with it because I think that it should have impact when it’s used, but it’s there pretty casually. I’m afraid LibreOffice Writer doesn’t tell me how many times a word occurs for me to give more precise statistics on the swearing.

Leo’s brother is tortured with very little detail in chapter 12. He passes out from the pain but is healed soon after by Leo.

Leo is traumatised by the emotional abuse he suffered from his father, detailed in the emotional abuse dropdown. He has a flashback to a time he saw his dad expressing hatred towards his mum and a couple of times expresses his aversion to hearing heavy boots that signaled a bad mood in his dad. He has nightmares, which aren’t depicted in detail. He reflects on the fact that he didn’t feel his trauma as severely while his dad was still alive and he and his sister both share that they feel they can’t talk about their trauma with anyone because it wasn’t physical abuse.

Leo’s need to be liked and therefore his sensitivity to the fool’s antics, and his feeling that if he behaves perfectly things will be okay are trauma responses. He struggles to balance his instinct towards compliance with the necessity of assertiveness that comes with being king. He believes that anger is an unacceptable emotion and suppresses it even when he probably needs to process things. He doesn’t see the point in feeling negatively towards his siblings because he is determined to always be on good terms with them. His siblings encourage him to push down his emotions rather than express them, also a trauma response.

His trauma is most explicit in chapter 21, when he is confronted with a revenant (ghost) of his dad and is rendered crying and helpless.

The bad guys seek to gain power for themselves so that they can rise up against the current systems of power and are willing to hurt/kill whoever it takes to do so. At the end of the book, conflict of this nature is mentioned as happening in other kingdoms.