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The Roles of the Fool in King Lear Fools in traditional royal households were seen as imbecils and jesters, nothing more. The older role of a royal fool, which Shakespeare adopted from the pagan setting of King Lear, was to correct minor faults and incongruencies in their masters. By detatching the Fool from a conventional fool's role, Shakespeare allows for the crowd's suspention of disbelief in the Fool's ability to get away with the comments …

…The tragic fate that befalls King Lear is made perfectly clear through his interactions with the Fool on many different levels. At the end of the play, Lear appears as a father, a man, and something the audience can feel for and pity. The Fool plays an integral role in the manipulation of the audience's evolution of feeling. Lear walks through a world of deceit; the Fool walks with him like a halo of truth.