There are my favorite books, period.
You say that Fitz was supposed to be a "great assassin". Where was he portrayed as such? His mentor Chade was a great assassin. Fitz never quite managed it. I think Chade even says at some point that Fitz was too good of a person who never quite got the ruthlessness he was supposed to need.
He failed with the Skill because the Prince's skill master, Galen, beat him down with it during the training process and imprinted into his brain that he had failed utterly. Thus the disconnect for quite a while that he didn't have any skill at it - his memories were altered...until Prince Verity cleared the mental block. Even then, he never got consistent, good training - Verity himself says this, and says if he had months free to dedicate to training him, he could undo the training damage. Part of it is that he was abused with it, and reflexively keeps barriers up as a result (think emotionally abused kid and how they can isolate from others and lose trust).
Fitz was not a, say, Drizzt Do'Urden. He was not a superhero. He was a bastard kid, trained as an assassin, but not keen on it. He did assassinate a few people (mainly mentioned in passing) during his trips abroad. Sometimes he managed better (like the Lady with the little dog) instead. If you're expecting a Legolas, a Drizzt, or some other kind of superheroic, greater-than-life character, that's not Fitz. That's the whole point. None of Hobb's characters are like that. He's just a teenager, and Chade and Burrich point that out. He was never given a chance to make his own decisions. Yeah, he acts like an idiot sometimes and you want to slap him. Just like most teenagers. Hell I'd slap myself as a teenager, looking back!
Here's a quote from after he is revived from the dead / un-beastified:
Quote:
(Burrich here)
"When I woke up, the dog had a master again. Of a different sort. I know you've heard people say Chivalry was cold and stiff and correct to a fault. He wasn't. He was what he believed a man should be. More than that. It was what he believed a man should want to be. He took a thieving, unkempt scoundrel and …" He faltered, sighed suddenly. "He had me up before dawn the next day. Weapons practice till neither of us could stand. I'd never had any formal training at it before. They'd just handed me a pike and sent me out to fight. He drilled me, and taught me sword. He'd never liked the axe, but I did. So he taught me what he knew of it, and arranged for me to learn it from a man who knew its strategies. Then the rest of the day, he'd have me at his heels. Like a dog, as you say. I don't know why. Maybe he was lonely for someone his own age. Maybe he missed Verity. Maybe … I don't know.
"He taught me numbers first, then reading. He put me in charge of his horse. Then his hounds and hawk. Then in general charge of the pack beasts and wagon animals. But it wasn't just work he taught me. Cleanliness. Honesty. He put a value on what my mother and grandmother had tried to instill in me so long ago. He showed them to me as a man's values, not just manners for inside a woman's house. He taught me to be a man, not a beast in a man's shape. He made me see it was more than rules, it was a way of being. A life, rather than a living."
He stopped talking. I heard him get up. He went to the table and picked up the bottle of elderberry wine that Chade had left. I watched him as he turned it several times in his hands. Then he set it down. He sat down on one of the chairs and stared into the fire.
"Chade said I should leave you tomorrow," he said quietly. He looked down at me. "I think he's right."
I sat up and looked up at him. The dwindling light of the fire made a shadowy landscape of his face. I could not read his eyes.
"Chade says you have been my boy too long. Chade's boy, Verity's boy, even Patience's boy. That we kept you a boy and looked after you too much. He believes that when a man's decisions came to you, you made them as a boy. Impulsively. Intending to be right, intending to be good. But intentions are not good enough."
"Sending me out to kill people was keeping me a boy?" I asked incredulously.
"Did you listen to me at all? I killed people as a boy. It didn't make me a man. Nor you."
"So what am I to do?" I asked sarcastically. "Go looking for a prince to educate me?"
"There. You see? A boy's reply. You don't understand, so you get angry. And venomous. You ask me that question but you already know you won't like my answer."
"Which is?"
"It might be to tell you that you could do worse than to go looking for a prince. But I'm not going to tell you what to do. Chade has advised me not to. And I think he is right. But not because I think you make your decisions as a boy would. No more than I did at your age. I think you decide as an animal would. Always in the now, with never a thought for tomorrow, or what you recall from yesterday. I know you know what I'm speaking of. You stopped living as a wolf because I forced you to. Now I must leave you alone, for you to find out if you want to live as a wolf or a man."
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I know that when I first read these in high school, I wasn't a fan. I didn't like the ending - the good guys are supposed to win, but it's not supposed to be sad at all! I didn't like that you didn't find out precisely how they were making the Forged. I didn't like that Fitz didn't kick some ass like Drizzt. Revisiting when I was older and they became my favorite books due to this strength of characterization. These aren't archetypal characters, like perhaps you can say LOTR embodies WRT modern fantasy.
This is similiar in many regards to George R.R. Martin (who recommends Hobb BTW). But he has so many characters, some of them kick ass. But a lot of them...well...things don't turn out so great. They're not always successful. Even the kick-ass characters make mistakes...sometimes fatal.
Hobb's characters aren't super human. They're normal people, complete with flaws and issues, and capable of poor decision making. In the case of Fitz, it's impulsive decisions and poor judgment of consequences. He's quite a bit wiser in his 30s (in Tawny Man) although he is still stubborn and sticks to bad decisions far longer than he should.