I was in the book section and it was on my TBR, so I thought it was a cool find!

So, I keep coming back to the distinction between what the Cthaeh actually tells Kvothe and what Kvothe understands it to mean.

We’re told it doesn’t lie. Fair enough. But that doesn’t mean it gives complete explanations, or that everything Kvothe concludes from the conversation has been confirmed.
There’s an example we can actually check.

“It is a shame you left without a word, you know. She was just beginning to trust you before that. Before you got angry. Before you ran off. Just like every other man in her life.”

Kvothe did leave without speaking to Denna. But in chapter 75, a full day’s journey out of Severen, the tinker reminds him of her. Kvothe buys writing supplies and arranges for him to deliver a letter.

When he returns in chapter 138, the innkeeper hands that same letter back to him.

“It was sudden and unavoidable, else I would have made a point to see you before I left. I regret many of the things I said when we last spoke and wish I could apologize for them in person.”

Apparently she never received it. We don’t know why.
But Kvothe had already tried to explain himself and apologize before he ever spoke to the Cthaeh.

And if Denna never received the letter because she had already left, that changes the picture further. She may have independently moved on before his attempt to reach her arrived.

That doesn’t establish she was gone when he originally departed. He sends the letter the following day. But we also don’t know that she was sitting there waiting for him, experiencing his absence as another man abandoning her. “You left without a word” remains true of his departure. The explanation surrounding it encourages him to see himself as another man who got angry and abandoned her. His attempt to make things right, and the possibility that she was already gone when it arrived, are conveniently absent.

That’s a pretty significant omission when the subject is whether Kvothe cares about her.

There’s something similar in what it says about the University.

“The masters at the University might know the answers you’re looking for. But they wouldn’t tell you even if you did ask, which you won’t. You’re too proud for that. Too clever to ask for help. Too mindful of your reputation.”

Might know. And I’m sure some of you have already caught on to this, and have had this thought.

I know this doesn’t establish that the masters have those answers. But the next sentence makes it very easy to picture people who know and are deliberately withholding them. And the criticism of Kvothe lands because we’ve already seen him do this. In NOTW, Lorren asks about his interest in the Chandrian and Amyr. Kvothe considers telling him about his parents and Skarpi, then decides he’ll look foolish and conceals his reasons.

The Cthaeh takes a recognizable weakness and uses it to frame a possibility as something Kvothe has little reason to investigate.

Okay so let’s look at Denna’s patron, now. “He beats her, you know. Her patron. Not all the time, but often. Sometimes in a temper, but mostly it’s a game to him. Then: “Two days ago he used his walking stick. That was new. Welts the size of your thumb under her clothes. Bruises down to the bone. She’s trembling on the floor with blood in her mouth and you know what she thinks before the black? You.”

The obvious reading is that her patron beat her with his stick until she lost consciousness. And look… I understand why that’s the reading. The entire speech encourages it.

But look at where the explicit statements stop.

“He used his walking stick.”

Then descriptions of injuries.

It doesn’t actually say he used the stick on her, or explicitly attach him to the welts and bruises. We make that connection from the order of the statements. But the Cthaeh does this tense/code/POV switching repeatedly. For all we know this could’ve just been the first time the person used a walking stick to walk around her (for whatever reason).

That doesn’t prove the connection is false. But, it does leave room for true statements to produce a misleading account of how the events relate. Now, “beats her” could carry another meaning. “Game” could be literal. Pushing someone until they cry or want to leave could describe anything- brutal teaching techniques, some sort of physical gauntlet to train her, frustrating her because she can’t win no matter how hard she tries (Kvothe against Bredon comes to mind. It would no doubt be infuriating to just lose all the time. My own wife cried over the difficulty of learning Gloomhaven. I get it) Denna’s breathing problems also give us another possible context for losing consciousness.

None of those possibilities explains every detail by itself. I’m not pretending I’ve solved the scene, and cracked the code by finding a second meaning for one word.

What interests me is whether the Cthaeh is giving us enough information to reconstruct the event at all.
There’s also a necessary distinction here… Denna directly tells Kvothe that Ash hit her after the Trebon massacre. She says he made her ask him to, supposedly so her survival wouldn’t look suspicious. That incident is established through her own account. Whatever we think of his explanation, he physically struck her. It doesn’t establish the circumstances of the later incident the Cthaeh describes. Not only that- but the incident was spoken about, planned, and decided on. It wasn’t just a random act of cruelty.

And the most interesting part comes in chapter 148. Kvothe sees bruises on Denna’s arms, a welt on her back, and a scar on her leg. Those injuries are real. Then he thinks: “All I needed to do was ask about them. If I phrased things carefully, she’d admit they were from her patron.”

She’d admit

He hasn’t asked yet. He’s already decided what the answer is, and how he needs to phrase the question to get it.
Then Denna notices his scars.

“They whipped you?” she said, incredulous.
“Twice,” I said.
“And you stay there?”

Kvothe explains that there’s nowhere else he can learn what the University teaches. “When I want a thing it takes more than a little blood to …” And he realizes the parallel.

That doesn’t mean that Denna’s situation is the same as his. It does show how much context matters when someone sees injuries and asks why the injured person keeps returning. Kvothe knows the circumstances of his own scars. But, he still hasn’t asked about hers.

Earlier in that same chapter, he says the Cthaeh’s account preyed on his mind: “I thought on it endlessly. Had dreams about it.” So the conversation has reinforced an existing belief strongly enough that he approaches Denna expecting confirmation. We never get that confirmation in this scene.

Now I’m not saying that her patron is secretly a good person. Even deliberate instruction could be cruel or abusive. The uncertainty is about what happened, why it happened, and how much the Cthaeh has encouraged us to supply. We know it omitted Kvothe’s apologetic letter while shaming him about his departure. We know its statement about the masters’ knowledge is qualified. We know Kvothe later treats the cause of Denna’s injuries as something she needs to “admit.” That seems like enough reason to examine the rest of the speech with the same care.

The Cthaeh doesn’t need Kvothe to believe a false sentence if it can get him to make the wrong connection between true ones. However, I do think there’s probably more information in what it’s saying than we know. There’s context missing but the random facts it’s spitting out are true. Even if just “technically.” And this has left me with probably more questions than answers

After listening to some esoteric mythology YouTuber I found myself making connections between Temerant's legends and our worlds legends of Enoch, Soloman's Temple, Templar Knights/Freemasonry. I’m fully convinced Rothfuss patterned the Archives and the Four-Plate Door directly after the ancient legend of Enoch’s Nine Subterranean Chambers—and what’s behind those four plates of copper is nothing less than the foundational, unutterable True Name of creation.

The Subterranean Mountain / The Archives: In the Enochian tradition, Enoch carved nine chambers deep into the bedrock of Mount Moriah to preserve primordial wisdom against a cataclysm. The Archives aren't just a library; they are built like an ancient barrow descending deep into stone, housing layers of history with the most volatile, restricted knowledge locked away at the very bottom. Soloman built his temple on top of Mount Moriah the same way The University was built over "the underthing".

The Ninth Chamber Parallel: In the legend, the first eight chambers hold lesser arts and histories for mankind to safely rediscover, but the absolute bottom chamber is the only place where the true phonetic name of God can be spoken without tearing the world apart. The Four-Plate Door sits at the dead end of the deepest, most restricted tier of the Archives, operating on the exact same structural logic.

The Guardians: Just as the Knights Templar served as the militant, secretive order guarding the subterranean vaults of the Temple Mount, the University functions as an elite, gatekeeping order. Look at Master Elodin: he behaves exactly like someone who looked behind the veil, realized the terrifying, reality-breaking nature of what’s locked down there, and was driven to the edge of madness trying to cope with it. Following this connection also leads to the Masters being an order derived from the Amyr, similar to how Freemasons derived from Temple Knights.

I could see the story playing out like this: Kvothes opened the door and learned/spoke the name which warped reality leading to a convergence of Temerant and the Fae realm.

I thought of KC when reading today’s XKCD comic ( https://xkcd.com/3314/ ). The two works have little to do with each other (despite sharing a couple letters, lol). However, it seems to me that readers of both probably overlap, and the comic reminded me of one of my absolute silliest KC investigations. So, if for no other reason than to laugh at human folly, here’s my journey:

A couple months ago, I spent a bit of time trying to get KC to continually count up and down to 11 (possibly by bouncing back and forth between NotW and WMF). Prior to this point, I think I’d spotted some of the more obvious recurring motifs in KC, such as some of the color sets and the metals / materials. I was hoping it would all snap together tidily one day; numbers, of course, would be ideal as a way to line things up all spreadsheet-like.

Then, while looking for something else (as is, suitably, so often the case when I look at the puzzle of KC), I spotted a suspicious sequence in NotW (“Wood and Word”):

“One man, wearing a shirt of heavy metal rings, unbuckled a sword and leaned it against a wall. Two or three wore knives on their belts. Four or five called for drinks.”

“My word!” I thought to myself. “What if the whole time, this thing is counting up and down to itself, as if frantically running its scales in the background while everything else goes on?”

I quickly determined that 7-ish wasn’t a sensible place to stop, but that 11 (days in a span; 7 plus 4) might be.

Also, I thought deep into my obsession, there might be some kind of correspondence between number and color. I spent a while working with things like, “What if 3 is also blue and birds, and 9 is also brown and horse or nut (or, by extension from ‘nut,’ riddle)?”

Which is a good way to quickly lose all sense. It didn’t really pan out.

However, along the way (!) I realized that some of the number-substitutes were pretty plainly important in some way, if not in the way I’d thought. (I’m thinking particularly of the possibility that 5 is one-hand-spread; 10 is both; 0 is closed-fist. I still haven’t gotten that to go anywhere interesting, but I think there might be something.)

I also spent way, *way* too long thinking things like, “Okay, this sentence says half, and then the next says a dozen—so the next number in the sequence is half-12, which is 6. And then we have 8, and the phrase ‘less one’—okay, so that’s 7... Good, good; this is going great and I am definitely on the right track here.”

Eventually I more or less saw sense and stopped this nonsense. But now you understand why, when viewing today’s XKCD comic, my laughter contained an extra layer of appreciation.

Just in the past year I've noticed a lot of people online specifying tone after comments. Obviously the /s pre-dates that, but I'd be surprised if it was much older than WMF.

I think every time we specify tone at the end of a comment we inch a little closer to Ademre.

Im trying to put a value and potentially sell this 1st print 1st edition signed by Rothfuss. I know there is a market for it in the US but im in Ireland, and the rare book dealers here aren't interested if its not poetry. Would appreciate any guidance.

So, I recently listened to The Road Between Desires and in a conversation between Bast and Kostrel (or at least one of the kids) I believe Bast drops a huge hint for us as to the rough location of the village. Not sure if this has been discussed before, so sorry if I’m repeating old stuff. I couldn’t find this particular clue during my search at least.

I can’t remember the conversation verbatim, but Bast mentioned powerful people, and as an example he used the Maer. This would not make sense to a village kid anywhere except in the region under the Maer’s power, or at least very close to it. I don’t even think village kids in southern Vintas would know who that is.

It’s not proof, but a strong clue imo. Opinions?

I’d really appreciate it if someone with the text could drop the exact quote in the replies. Who knows, it migt even be the case that i completly misheard the conversation.

I’ve been looking at the way Rothfuss describes things being right, whole, or broken, and how often that description involves sound.

Auri is probably the clearest example. In Wains, something about the sitting room keeps it from “ringing sweetly as a bell.” She eventually places a buckle beside a button beneath the carpet, and that resolves it:

“The room was perfect as a circle now. Like a bell. Like the moon when it was perfect full.”

The objects aren’t necessarily making a sound. She seems to perceive their arrangement as harmonious. Something can be individually fine but wrong in relation to everything around it. Her brass gear gets similar treatment. It strikes the floor with the sound of a bell. Later, it’s a “silent bell that struck out love.” When it breaks, its sound becomes the “keening of a broken bell.”

That made me think about what Kvothe was doing with his music long before he consciously understood Naming.
After his parents die, he starts playing things that aren’t conventional songs:

“When the sun warms the grass and the breeze cools you, it feels a certain way. I would play until I got the feeling right.”

He calls these pieces things like Warm Grass and Cool Breeze and Wind Turning a Leaf. Eventually he starts playing memories, including Mother Smiling.

He’s trying to translate an experience into music, and he can recognize when he’s captured it. He spends nearly three days on Wind Turning a Leaf, so this clearly involves work. But the thing telling him whether he’s succeeded isn’t a formula.

With Felurian his sleeping mind wakes, Kvothe understands her through music:

“Her eyes were like four lines of music, clearly penned. My mind was filled with the sudden song of her. I drew a breath and sang it out in four hard notes.”

Those notes actually affect her power. This goes beyond describing something beautiful as musical. His perception of her as music allows him to act on her.

So I wonder if “knowing a name” is closer to recognizing a song than memorizing a particular sequence of sounds.
You can be taught the notes without understanding what they express. You can also recognize that someone has played something wrong before you can explain exactly what they did. Maybe the sleeping mind’s understanding works something like that, except what it recognizes is the thing itself.

Now when we get to the Lethani, Kvothe says it comes from “the same place as laughing.” At the sword tree, anger knocks him out of Spinning Leaf and he loses the name of the wind. When he laughs, the tension releases, and he recognizes it again.

I’m not saying the Lethani, Naming, and Auri’s perceptions are definitely the same faculty. But they repeatedly involve an understanding that arrives before a conscious explanation.

There’s also a problem with discerning how someone distinguishes recognition from simply feeling certain. For instance- Kvothe insists Caesura fits his sword more perfectly than Saicere. He describes the name and the sword as essentially the same thing. But then he decides that, as a namer, he can choose his sword’s name.

Is he recognizing something, or deciding his preference must be right? Given how often he misreads things, I don’t think we should just accept his certainty as proof. And, here’s where I think Auri becomes especially important. Much of her behavior involves trying to understand where things belong and accommodating them. But when she makes the candle, she also demonstrates that she can bring the weight of her desire onto the world and make things bend to please her.

Understanding and imposing your will can apparently exist in the same person. Maybe that’s part of the distinction behind Knowing and Shaping. Hearing the song of something could allow you to preserve it, work with it, or change it.

There’s also Bast telling Chronicler:

“You are not wise enough to fear me as I should be feared. You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.”

Granted, I get he’s the Pan-like, flute-player character. But this is another instance, outside of Kote’s narration, that mentions music and how it pertains to understanding someone. Why keep using the same imagery if it’s not related?

Just a bit of tinfoil / thought experiment I've been playing around with...

We know Feyda Calanthis was declared the first king of Tarvintas posthumously, with his brother Jarvis being the first living king. Rothfuss has since revealed that Feyda became a draug, and that he originally united the clans and petty kings into what became Vintas.

So what if Feyda didn't simply conquer those clans, but somehow bound them to his rule through an ancient treaty?

There's something interesting about Feyda's coin, too. On the living side, he's holding what looks like a map or perhaps some sort of document. It got me thinking about Denna's description of a magic where you write something down and it becomes true, even if it wasn't true before.

What if the document represents a treaty between Feyda and the original rulers of Vintas? And what if that treaty was written using the sort of magic Denna describes? Rather than simply recording their allegiance, it actually made them subject to Feyda and his descendants.

Perhaps the agreement was binding for as long as Feyda himself endured.

And that's the interesting bit. Feyda died, but he didn't exactly stay dead. He's been hanging around as a draug for centuries, so technically the original agreement might still be in force.

Now suppose Kvothe encounters Feyda, perhaps while rescuing a princess from a sleeping barrow king, and kills him.

He's killed a king. Just not the one we've all assumed.

But he's also broken the original treaty holding Vintas together. The old noble families are suddenly released from their obligations to the Calanthis crown, and their ancestral claims to sovereignty are back on the table.

Which brings me to the Maer.

The Alverons once held royal power, and the Maer already has his own soldiers, considerable wealth and a fair degree of independence. What if, with the binding broken, he simply declares himself King of Severen and the surrounding lands?

Roderic is still King of Vintas, but his authority is beginning to unravel. Other noble families might follow Alveron's example, declaring their own independence, and before long Vintas is fragmenting back into the smaller territories Feyda originally united.

Perhaps Alveron then starts taking neighbouring lands, either through alliances or force. He's building his own kingdom, while Roderic is trying to hold on to his. Eventually Alveron becomes powerful enough to oust Roderic and the remaining Calanthis family altogether.

But taking the throne doesn't end the fighting. Roderic's supporters still want their king back, while the other newly independent rulers have no intention of surrendering their sovereignty to Alveron. Some might even fancy the throne themselves.

So Alveron has managed to reunite much of Vintas, but he's struggling to keep hold of it.

And perhaps that's where the Penitent King comes in. What if Alveron genuinely regrets what he's started? He saw an opportunity to reclaim his family's former sovereignty, but his ambitions have dragged the entire kingdom into a bloody civil war. He's got his crown, but the fighting hasn't stopped, and thousands are dying because of it.

It also makes Aaron's comment about getting the rebels to swear fealty to the Penitent King rather interesting. Alveron is essentially trying to do what Feyda did centuries earlier, bringing the competing rulers back under one crown. Except this time, there's no magical treaty keeping everyone in line.

And Kvothe? Perhaps he killed Feyda to save someone, inadvertently undoing centuries of Vintish history.

"I'm responsible for everyone who dies in this stupid war. I was just hoping to save one."

Obviously there's a fair bit of speculation here, particularly around the treaty and Denna's writing magic. The document on the coin might just be a map, for all I know. But I rather like the possibility that Kvothe doesn't kill Roderic or destroy the Calanthis bloodline at all.

He kills the first king, and in doing so breaks the agreement that held the kingdom together.

Feyda united the petty kings into one kingdom. Kvothe kills Feyda, the old treaty collapses, and Vintas tears itself apart. Alveron then tries to put it all back together, only to discover that conquering a kingdom and keeping it are two very different things.

Perhaps that's why Kvothe is the Kingkiller. Not because he assassinated the reigning monarch, but because he killed the king whose continued existence had held Vintas together for centuries.

Just a thought. :)

It's fall, and that means I dive back into KKC. I'm at the part earlyish into WMF where Kvothe and the gang devise the plan to steal Dennas's ring from Ambrose's room. All goes well, because obviously, and they reconvene back at the fire in the woods.

Kvothe explains that he lifted the jeweler's receipt for said ring from Ambrose, as well as some coin when they bumped into each other following the fire hooplah that happens in his rooms.

Some loose coins I could see Ambrose either not noticing being lost, or overlooking due to the commotion. But the jeweler's slip? Did he just forget which jeweler's shop he dropped the ring off at, or that he had the ring at all? Did the owner of the shop not find it odd that it was someone else entirely who came to retrieve the ring? Could Ambrose not have gone back to that shop claiming the slip was stolen and asked for a description of the person?

I understand for the purpose of moving forward with the plot in general we are probably supposed to just suspend disbelief and move on but this one particular section always annoyed me.

While we do see into the Medica on occasion, it always seems to be as a patient, and never as a student.

We do hear Arwell mention sympathy wax to Mola, so there needs to be a use for it somehow.

I am so curious to see how magic and medicine meaningfully intertwine.

So I always though the mess that is the postal system in Temerant and wondered if there couldn't be a device to avoid this, at least between students. It would be a type of engraving system where anything written would be mirrored to a twin, and if two persons have those they could write (for example in wax as it can be reused) to each other. Or simply for emergency cases, bind to pieces of paper so anything written on one it shows on the other, this would only require sympathy. Why haven't they thought on this? It would have been so useful during the chapter of ambrose's room burning or passing quick messages in a rush

We know that Cinder's sword doesn't reflect light, just like the sword Folly.

Many have theorized that Folly is Cinder's sword and that Kvothe killed him and got the sword. However, Cthaeh said this to Kvothe:

“Still, you must admit, you’ve had quite a piece of luck. I’d say it was a twice-in-a-lifetime-opportunity meeting up with him again (Cinder). Pity you wasted it."

So what is going on here? Do I have low reading comprehension or did Cthaeh made it clear that Kvothe will not be able to encounter Cinder again as he already has 2 times or since there is an "again," at the end of the sentence, Kvothe has one more chance at encountering him. Or maybe he just hinted at the rarity of the second encounter rather than using his omniscient abilities to hint that he will be/won't be able to encounter him again.

Saying all this considering that Felurian was right that Cthaeh doesn't lie.

Since Cthaeh is known for being omniscient, I have been digging deep into the things that he said to Kvothe and this question has been nagging me for a while. I'd like to hear your thoughts about it.

Hey everyone, long time lurker first time poster. I don't have a groundbreaking theory to introduce or anything, I'm just curious how well we think those two get along lol. The only real evidence we get is that Elodin asks the same question during the admissions interview that Mannet asks after Kvothe loses them a set of Corners. I know with the University being the size it is, it's highly unlikely that they don't know each other, but the way Elodin asked that question indicated, to me at least, a much closer relationship than just associates

​

Last month I finished reading the 2 main books in the series. I enjoyed them so much that I was inspired to create a custom figure of Kvothe.

For the past month I have been collecting supplies, crafting, painting, and learning a lot along the way. But here he is in all is 6 inch, 1/12 scale glory.

Some things I used right out of the box:

His belt and coin bag

His travel sack

His cloak(s)

His walking stick

Some things I bought and modified:

His boots - I added the leather tops

Caesura - I clipped and molded a new hilt (to match the officially licensed version) with epoxy putty as well as a new paint job

His clothing - I added the patch on his pants and the laces on his shirt

The figure - I primed and painted every bit

"The Rhetoric of Logic" - I just wrote the title on the cover

Some thing I crafted myself:

His lute - I crafted and painted. I added Selas flowers because I thought they would look cool

Caesura's sheath - I formed the leather and added some small charms

The Eolian Talent Pipes - I crafted and painted out of wire and cord

The crude wax figure - I shaped with epoxy putty and painted (take that Master Hemme)

This project was at times quite difficult but also incredibly fun! It's not perfect, but I wasn't going for perfect and I'm very happy with the end result.

Tldr: Rothfuss may be unable to write book 3 because his writing is not the same as it was 20 years ago and he doesn't want to put out a bad book.

Like many of you I've been waiting for years for book 3. The irony is that I usually refuse to read nonfinished series. I just hate waiting. I still havent read the game of thrones and many other series because of this.

However my cousin (curse you!) highly recommended the Kingkiller chronicles to me in 2017. At the time, I remember I browsed the book in the library and read somewhere in the book that it's a 3 book series and that the rough draft was completed for all 3 books. Since the book was out for over 10 years surely all 3 books were completed I thought to myself and never confirmed before starting to read it.

I was hooked. I spent nights often going until 3 or 4 am reading it even though I had work the next day. I finished the first book and immediately bought the second one and finished that too. To my surprise there was no third book. That's when i researched and found out about the waiting hell of book 3.

I was optimistic at first. It had been over 6 years since the second book. Surely Rothfuss will release the third one soon. I was eagerly checking every once in a while. Eventually i became less optimistic and started checking once a year. I forget when but eventually i got angry. Like how can you not release the third book. Why would it take that long? I decided to boycott it. Even if it comes out i wouldn't buy it nor read it.

However, I recently went through a similar experience. In college, I once asked a girl out and got rejected cruelly. At the time I thought it was the end of the world and got severely depressed for months. During that time, I decided to write an erotic love triangle story. I had the whole plot in my mind and already knew the end, i just had to write it. I began writing and got the initial part done. Then life took over, I had death in the family, i graduated, got a job etc... and totally forgot about the story.

I recently went over my old stuff and found the story. It's been 17 years since i wrote that initial story. My writing isn't the best and the story is a bit elementary but in my opinion it wasnt bad. It's kind of like a bad porn story but you read it for the content anyways.

I wanted to complete it. I already knew the ending and had the major plots. But i couldn't do it. After all those years, my view of the world has changed. I just can't write the same way that I could 17 years ago. The finished story just doesnt sound good. I dont have the same emotions that I did before. I'm also more mature and more boring so I think my writing doesn't has that naive but hopeful writing that it did 17 years ago. I tried using AI to complete the story but the story just doesn't seem right. It's just a story that can't be completed. It doesn't sound right to me write the rest of the story that isn't good. So i just deleted everything and left it incomplete.

Maybe that's one possible explanation of why Rothfuss can't complete book 3.

I’ve been thinking about Bast’s behavior across the books, especially how his treatment of Kostrel and Rike fits with his threats against Chronicler and the soldiers at the end of WMF.

I think his affection for these people is genuine. But caring about someone seems to make him capable of both considerable kindness and some pretty frightening behavior.

In The Narrow Road Between Desires, Bast considers killing Kostrel because the boy’s questions threaten his secrets and, potentially Kvothe. But he likes the kid. While he’s struggling with that, Kostrel notices something is wrong and reaches out to comfort him. Immediately afterward:

“No. Bast couldn’t kill this boy.”

The narration also tells us:

“He had never been in conflict with his own desire before this place.”

Previously, things were straightforward. Want and have. See and take. Now he wants things that interfere with each other. Protecting himself and Kvothe matters, but so does this particular mortal boy.

Rike gives us another side of this interesting development. Bast asks who he thinks he is and who he wants to be. Rike believes he’s inherently bad like his father, and wants to be the boy he was before. Bast then works toward helping him escape that understanding of himself.

His methods still sound disturbing. He tells Rike he owns him, claims his fear and self-hatred, and demands that he repeat statements about himself. There’s a resemblance to Haliax making Cinder affirm that he’s a tool. But Bast uses that position to tell Rike that doing bad things doesn’t make him inherently bad, and that he’s brave, strong, and full of love.

Afterward, Rike takes his hand. Bast squeezes it.
That makes his behavior toward Chronicler particularly uncomfortable. He uses ownership language there too, but this time it comes with threats of prolonged torture:

“if you lead my master to despair, I will slit you open and splash around like a child in a muddy puddle.”

Here he shows that he’ll endure iron to reach Chronicler. Then he switches back to being charming and explaining how everyone can get what they want.

When Chronicler asks what Bast wants, that composure falls apart. He looks close to tears:

“I just want my Reshi back.”

I think those moments shadow each other. His vulnerability helps explain the threats. It also shows how dangerous his attachment can become when someone might interfere with it.

By the end of WMF, he’s arranged the soldiers’ involvement in an attempt to get the result he wants from Kvothe. When Kvothe gets badly hurt, Bast struggles to accept that ordinary men could have beaten him. He becomes forceful about treating him, and the tooth working ends with exhaustion, blood on his teeth, and a smile the narration calls mad.

Kvothe has already told him:

“Quit expecting me to be something I’m not.”

But Bast keeps looking for an explanation that preserves the person he believes Kvothe should still be.

Then Chronicler’s argument about the Cthaeh leads him to conclude:

“If everything is going to end in tears anyway, I should do what I want.”

He immediately leaves, and his meeting with the soldiers ends with violence strongly implied. That doesn’t tell us when he decided to hurt them. The meeting already seems expected, and he could have been considering it beforehand. But the conversation with Chronicler immediately precedes his decision to act.

The connection between those passages is also interesting to me. In Narrow Road, Bast recognizes that his desires have become complicated and contradictory. At the end of WMF, he takes permission to do what he wants anyway.

I also wonder whether How Old Holly Came to Be gives us a useful comparison. The Lady initially means little to Holly. Holly thinks of things as good or bad the way a regular tree would. Later, the Lady’s presence is good and her weeping is bad. Her wellbeing becomes important to him. He catches her, protects her, and eventually fights for her.

Attachment changes what matters to him, and what he’s willing to do about it. Eventually the Lady leaves, and he stays for her return until even the tower and stream are gone.

Bast is also becoming attached to people whose lives are much shorter than his. And with Kvothe, he’s already missing someone who is still sitting in front of him.

That brings Lyra and Lanre into the picture too. Lyra decides to attempt Lanre’s return because she loves him and wants him back. Skarpi’s account gives Lanre some apparent participation, he hears her and comes to her, so I wouldn’t call it clearly forced. But her desire to restore him comes first. Later, Lanre seeks the power to recover her and discovers that having incredible power still doesn’t mean he can bring back the person he loves.

Bast seems caught in a related problem. He cares deeply, and he has the power to intervene. He can threaten Chronicler, arrange the soldiers, treat Kvothe’s injuries, and try to steer events toward recovery. But he can’t simply make Kvothe be the person he remembers.

I think that’s what makes him compelling and scary. His affection is real, and so is his willingness to decide what everyone else needs to do because of it.

When he says he wants his Reshi back, how much room is there for what his Reshi wants?

So I love Tempi, yeah? Seems most people do.

But I despise how his part in the story ends.

It feels lazy beyond lazy. So much time is spent establishing that no, Tempi is not dumb. He is actually quite clever, good natured, very aware, and a quick study. He learns language twice as fast as Kvothe. Nearly all of his words have deeper double meaning. He has a tragedy to him with music.

There are no many interesting nuggets with Tempi, only to be tossed away like an unwanted waste.

So much time to establish his cleverness only to be reduced to "and he's not very bright".

I don't mind him being average as a warrior, that was kind of the expectation with the blood shirts.

But to build him up and then throw him away? Didn't and don't care for it. It sours the entire section of the book for me a bit.

Commentary update: I had never considered the misandry of the Ademre as a core source of this opinion of Tempi, but it certainly fits. I don't know that it makes me like the decision any more, but it does make me dislike it a bit less, as it's a fair and understandable lens to view it from.

Personal note: thank you to those who understood the bones of my point, rather than the surface of it. I adore P.R. and his writing style, it is an inspiration to me (particularly his prose and verse), so this is not a judgment on his talent. Just a personal qualm within an overall lens.

So after Ambrose poisons Kvothe with the plum bob in The Wise Man’s Fear, Auri somehow shows up at his room in Anker’s to comfort him. But how did she know where he lived?

Did Kvothe tell her where he stayed at some point? Did she follow him or maybe has some magic to trace him?

A simpatia é um sistema de poder extremamente legal e bem feito, mas eu gostaria de ver o kvouthe usar ela mais vezes e de forma mais criativa, tipo conectar duas fechaduras, uma que você tem a chave e outra que você não tem, abrir a que você tem a chave e assim abrir a outra sem chave, quais outras formas de usar simpatia vocês já pensaram?

So I am in my annual autumnal reread of the KKC and as always I have noticed ever more and have ever more questions. Here is milt current rabbit hole involving Lorens true intentions behind a seemingly innocuous question and a theory about Lorens Motivations and connections.

A Secret Amir

There is a common theory that Master Loren is one of the secret members of the Order Amir.

This is based on his redirection of Kvothe on his first visit to tomes. But also the fact that books pertinent to the amir are notably missing from the stacks. And we are told of the "horror" of someone stealing books from under master Lorens nose.

This is supported by the knowledge that all the masters have a private library and ask scrivs to keep an eye out for books that they think the masters would want to keep separately (see scrivani) but also the way Loren "just happened" to be helping a scriv and noticed the request (I interpret this as the scriv snitches)

ANYWAY assuming this is correct I was considering master Lorens surprise question during kvothe's admission interview.

"Who was the greatest man who ever lived?"

What if this is a "dog whistle" or code for the amir to identify each other...and he was testing to see if Kvothe knew more than he was letting on that would fly even further under the radar for the other masters (they all probably know about "the greater good" being learned men)

The main reason I think this is because the Kvothe makes a point of saying that it was a question he hadn't heard him ask other applicants.

And it was asked AFTER the questions about the fall of the arturan empire. In which Kvothe did mention the amir (we don't know how much of their involvement is common knowledge,really)

I wonder what would have happened is Kvothe had said Lanre, or selitos?

Is there a correct answer at all?

What if kvothe's answer of Illien was more significant than we originally thought (see theories about Illien being the first singer: inventing the seven stringed lute, "metaphorical" spell binding effects of Illien songs, story knots, Dennas hair having 6 strands instead of 4 implying getting closer to the magic number of 7 that Illien used etc etc) ?

If Loren had more obvious reactions would we have seen relief or renewed interest?

SIDE THEORY: Loren and Arliden

We know Loren approaches Kvothe after to ask about Arliden.

I have a side theory that Loren had spoken to Arliden at some point in his questions about Lanre and the question was testing to see if Kvothe was his son (supported by Loren asking him is it was the same Arliden) but also to see if Kvothe had the same obsession with Lanre his father did and as such needed to be watched carefully.

I wonder if Loren or one of his gilders had also tried to dissuade Arliden on this line of questioning the same way he did Kvothe. Given wrong information Or maybe Loren was more helpful than we realised?

Maybe it is as simple as the amir heard about Arlidens questions and Loren was keeping an ear to the ground for him.

LORE MASTERS Skarpi, Loren, chronicler

(Also I only just realised that's the joke of Lorens name)

But what if he is not Amir but something else entirely?

After noticing Lorens special interest in Kvothe after the admissions interview, approaching and attempting to start conversation making sure a trustworthy pupil accompanies him to be a good influence (simmon and by proximity Willem) I can't help but think why? Loren gave no indication he was impressed by Kvothe, On the surface it would seem like kilvin would be the obvious choice for this convo, unless rothfuss wanted us to know more.

Assuming the Arliden question was a front to sus Kvothe out some more:

I wonder if it's connected at all to how Skarpi seemed to know kvothe's name and that he was going to be significant to the plot of the world, Seemingly because of his knowledge of the "only one story"

I wonder if Loren has a similar ability (or in the same organisation). And recognised the same thing in Kvothe that Skarpi did.

This would make sense to me as each others Foils. Skarpis is a story teller, making sure history is disseminated even in the most unlikely places. Where as Loren is a Lore keeper making sure the story is preserved on paper making sure things don't fall into the wrong hands...at least not until the right time.

Is the Chronicler in the same group? With a role a Lore writer? He is does know both Skarpi and Loren (he was a scriv, and may be one of his gilders, sent far and wide to get new stories) it makes sense to me that Loren would keep "The great debunker" close at hand.

ETA: reading this interview Rothfuss says that Loren was going to ask for Kvothe's help cataloging his father's works before his "hissy fit" which is very sad for Kvothe to not get to experience that connection to his father again. I wonder if Loren even knows Arliden is dead. Then again Loren is a patient man so he probably thought he'd have time to come back around to it.

(This is about a very speculative connection between KC and a real-world book on rhetoric. Even if the connection is there, I can't attribute any comprehensible "meaning" in terms of KC's plot mysteries. Still, I think it's interesting--if for no other reason than it demonstrates a different approach to understanding KC than those usual questions along the lines of, "In DoS, who will be revealed to be one of the Amyr?" and so on. And, though this post is getting auto-flagged as "low-effort," it's taken me many years of my life with KC, and several hours just this morning to get to this point. If you want to say I'm obtuse or obsessive for needing to put in a lot of effort to get here, fine; but this is absolutely not "low-effort.")

I’ve found at least one good use for AI in my life: proposing terminology for things. Important things. Like KC Reddit posts. (Fwiw, my default source is Claude AI; I virtually don’t use ChatGPT these days.)

So I asked Claude AI for some succinct terms regarding self-erasure or “a thing that struggles with its own nature.” There were many good suggestions. Some were too broad or ordinary; others were too narrowly academic.

Falling more into the latter category was this: “aporia.” I looked it up. It seemed to be about hesitation due to self-doubt, which struck me as relevant. And so I was eventually led to what seemed to be a classic work on... wait for it... rhetoric.

Cue groans, mostly mine.

So I braced myself by leaning against the wooden furniture. I took my two hands and I roughed my hair; I smoothed my face. I exhaled all the air in my lungs and then inhaled again. And then, neither hesitating nor anticipating, I took what I hoped would be a single perfect step:

I opened up Larret Langley’s 1835 work ( https://archive.org/details/langleyrhetoric ), the catchily titled, A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, with Copious Illustrations from the British Poets, and Examples from the Roman Classics. For the Use of Schools.

I did a search for “aporia.” In the table of contents, I encountered what seemed to be an odd series of typographical or html-borne errors, to the effect of:

“ . . . ee ee

ee eo

ee ee

ee ee . . . ”

I would have dismissed this. Except, diligent Rothfuss re-reader that I am, I couldn’t help but immediately think of this (NotW, “A Time for Demons”):

“‘OOOOOH OOHRRRREE EEEEEEHHAA!’ Tanee bellowed, strange half-gasps punctuating his cry [caesuras??] . . . ‘I think he wants a story,’ I said, surprising myself by speaking."

If this is a real connection, then I’m absolutely losing all hope of ever being able to help anyone decode KC. The more I think I understand it, the less I feel I can explain it. (And, yes, the more I try, the more I do start to sound like Elodin. I’ve noticed it’s a commonly leveled accusation around here.)

The “ee eo” seeming-nonsense in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric might, I think, be a meaningful set of logical symbols. Because, also in the table of contents, there’s stuff like:

“Metaphor .. «6, «-

Allegory .. «2 o«

Metonymy.. .. ee

. . .

Ecphonesis ee> ea.”

My background is in linguistics, so this type of transformation from comprehensible language to impenetrable abstraction isn’t completely foreign to me. Frankly, though, I don’t have more time to devote to tracking this down this morning. I’m already far, far off from the tidy and normal-sounding post that I was originally trying to compose.

I’m leaving the rest as an exercise for the reader, save for this afterthought:

I suspect there are a lot of Shakespeare references in KC that are going right over my head. And Langley’s “aporia” section does give us this very KC-resonant quote from Hamlet (Act III, scene iii):

“Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will;

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;

And, like a man to double business bound,

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect.”

So, for the rhetoric-disinclined, I think there are other potential threads to follow, spinning out from here. Langley's work is, after all, mainly comprised of examples from "important" poetry and literature.

... Discuss??? If you dare.