My insanely detailed reread of Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles is over, but the speculation goes on. I’m going to post the occasional speculative summary of cool things posted since last time. Spoilers for all of The Wise Man’s Fear and The Name of the Wind—these discussions assume you’ve read all of both books, and frankly they won’t make the slightest bit of sense if you haven’t. This post is full of spoilers, please don’t venture beyond the cut unless you want them.
Abbreviations: NW = The Name of the Wind. WMF = The Wise Man’s Fear. D3 = Day Three, the forthcoming final volume. K = Kvothe or Kote when I can’t figure out what to call him and I’m feeling Kafkaesque. MT: Myr Tariniel. D = Denna, 4C = Four Corners, CTH—that thing I can’t spell! IID3Y = Is it Day Three Yet?
Useful links: The Sleeping Under the Wagon post. The re-read index. The map. The timeline. Imaginary Linguistics.
I thought we were finished! I put the books back on the shelf! But you just won’t stop talking about it, will you? And that would be okay, but you just won’t stop being interesting when you do it! So I’m going to do occasional posts like this to give you somewhere to keep on talking that isn’t at the bottom of a six month old thread. I think I’ll probably do them about once a month, that feels right to me (and actually it takes forever) but we’ll see how it goes. Everything here has been posted since May 17th, on all sorts of old threads and on the Admissions Questions thread.
Arithmetic
Oh all right, there isn’t any arithmetic. I just wanted to start with FatCatFan’s thought:
Caesura – The silence surrounding the inn is significant because it is a caesura – a pause between stanzas. The story unfolding is not the end of Kvothe’s story, but only a pause. There will be music again…
I do hope so. And it absolutely fits the threefold silence.
Sygaldry
Thistlepong pointed out this post on Pat’s blog in which a fan sends Pat a copper knife and he says:
A copper knife could be really useful if you wanted to kill a namer.
Really. How interesting.
Shalter says:
That implies that Taborlin needed his copper sword to use against other namers/shapers. The most likely time for namers/shapers to be stabbing each other would be the Creation wars, but there could be rogues at any time.
Now I’m going to guess that Kvothe will need a copper weapon at some point in D3. Hmm, maybe that is why the sword is Folly—never fight a namer with a steel blade.
Could be. We certainly already know Taborlin had a copper blade, Elodin’s cell had copper to stop him, and there’s something going on with it.
JezDynamite has new thoughts on the mounting board:
(1) I’m intrigued as well as to why Kvothe ordered the mounting board
4 months ago. What triggered him to order it?(2) Does this make sense: he ordered the mounting board four months ago, and in that time:
(a) the order was sent by some combination of horseback/pidgeon/ boat to a merchant in Aryen.
(b) someone very talented/knowledgable in Aryen (or beyond) had the tools/magic to cut and shape the mounting board (which a normal carpenter and a blacksmith have trouble marking in any way, let alone working the wood)
(c) the mounting board was sent back to Newarre by boat/wagon.
Maybe the mounting boards are a standard product in Aryen? But still someone has to work the wood.
(3) There seems to be some disparity/”loss of knowlege” related to working the wood of the mounting board. I’m assuming it had to be cut from a tree/log, cut-carved-shaped and perhaps smoothed, had pegs built into it and had mounting brackets (or a groove in the back).
This implies (obviously) someone in Aryen has vastly superior knowledge to the carpenter and blacksmith in Newarre.
(4) If the mounting board and Kvothe’s chest are made of roah, I wonder how Kvothe could have made (or had made) a whole chest out of the “difficult to mark/burn” wood.
Perhaps the Roah wood comes from the Tahl, where they sing to trees?
Naming
Kineta has some interesting thoughts on namers and shapers and the Lethani:
I think “The Broken Road” is meant as a sort of ‘anti-Lethani’, or at least it’s opposite. (Lethani is the name of the chapter which follows).
Lethani is described very much like the Tao – which, according to wikipedia, literally means “a road, path, way”. Where Lethani is described as ‘right action’, the broken road seems to describe Jax’s willfull actions out of harmony with ‘right action’.
I think the chapter where Kvothe cuts his hand on the Sword Tree, saying ‘willing’ is meant as both foreshadowing and double meaning – not just to be willing to do something but also the act of willing something. His way to the tree is in direct contrast to the way the Adem do it – where they use the Lethani, right action, to guide them – Kvothe wills the wind to stop.
This seems to reflect the war between the Namers and the Shapers. The Shapers create – and hands are a fitting symbol of that. The Namers discover the inner workings of things. Magic versus Mysticism. Yin & Yang. The Adem at the Eastern end of The Great Stone Road and the University teaching Magic at the Western end.
This theme seems to find expression when Kvothe gives this as one of the beginnings of his own story: “In the beginning, as far as I know, the world was spun out of the nameless void by Aleph, who gave everything a name. Or, depending on the version of the tale, found the names all things already possessed.”
That just feels really right.
And JDH wants to know why we think Kvothe changed his own name:
Something that struck me while reading this post was that all of the theories had to do with Kvothe himself being the reason as to why he is Kote. What if he’s not responsible? What if someone else took from him, his “v and h” and he has to find his name again, before he can clearly become himself again. I do not necessarily believe this, but its interesting. Just like Haliax took part of the moon, maybe the moon (Denna?) took part of Kvothe, or Felurian, or the Chandrian, or the Amyr? Who knows, I guess we’ll have to wait until DT. If someone did take part of Kvothe, who would have the power to do that? Any speculations?
I think he did it himself because he’s guilty. Also, because of the chest. Also because of the conversation with Elodin about changing names at the end of WMF. But it’s possible somebody might have done it to him. I’d say the candidates would be Haliax, Selitos, Iax (if released from beyond the Doors of Stone), possibly Elodin, as a long shot Fela…
Linguistics
Silkki brings us some information from the Finnish edition:
I just noticed finnish translation of NotW at my library. I picked it up and read few pages and couldn’t help but notice something. I don’t have english version of the book here so forgive any mistakes made.
Lady Lackless has a ring not for wearing. Right?
The word ring translated not as a ring that you use on your fingers (sormus), but as a more general term for a loop. (Rengas)
I think when it says ring not for wearing it means it’s a literally ring that is not even supposed to be worn. Has anyone else noticed something in their own translations?
So this may be useful confirmation of the Faeriniel theory, the circle of greystones. (Good old Finnish, helping out fantasy since before it was a genre.)
The Doc has a theory about the way the Chandrian kill people:
it seems that Chadrians kill with physical objects like swords instead of using magic. And that they are not seen killing people personally. So, maybe, they kill by proxy. Using people, possessing people.
So, maybe, it was Dena who killed everybody at the wedding massacre and she remembers nothing. That was the reason why she was there and survived.
And, maybe, it was Kwothe who killed his parents and all the rest. And that was the reason he survived the attack too.
And isn’t that truly horrible, and doesn’t it fit? Though how could one person, even possessed, could kill a whole troupe, or a whole wedding party?
That made me wonder about the king killing. Because he might have killed a king in front of people but not of his own volition, if the Chandrian could possess him. I was going to say that we haven’t seen anything like this, but we have. The skindancer. It’s defined as Fae, but gone wrong somehow. And “Te rhintae?” could mean “Are you another person possessed by the Rhinta?” And the next bit could be “How do you fix that and be OK again?”
Kineta cleverly picks up on a connection I don’t remember anyone making before:
One of Kvothe’s statements to Chronicler is that he’s “killed men and things that were more than men. Every one of them deserved it” Given the Adem’s description of the Chandrian/Rhinta being “a man who is more than a man, yet less than a man.” it might be fairly safe to guess that he’s kill at least one of the Chandrian.
We also know the story that he killed an angel, which also might be more than a man?
And Jonathan White has a long theory about “rhin”:
Rhin = Shape
__________________________________
En Faeant Morie
Do we have any possible translations? it seems to me that “en” could be translated as “in” – anyway, it’s probably some simple article or preposition. “Faeant” has to be something to do with the Fae – maybe the fae world, or fae inhabitants? If we take Morie to be man, then you would get something like “A man in the Fae” or “A man among Fae” or even “A Faen Man” – all of which could describe a stirring song. We know men don’t belong in the Fae; it’s all set up for a tragic ending. It also provides a parallel to Kvothe himself – as some other commenters have mentioned, it’s “the sort of thing Rothfuss would do.”
In any case, all of those translations make sense to me with Morie = man. It could make just as much sense if Morie were desire, but I’m choosing to assume – as Jo pointed out – that “fel” and desire are tied together, in which case the “desire” part would be contained within “vorfelan.” Morie as knowledge or shape wouldn’t make as much sense.
Therefore, I am advocating the root “rhin” as shape and “morie” as man. “Rhinata” could easily be the 3rd singular form of the verb “to shape.”
_____________________________________________“We know Temic is a language like Latin where word order isn’t relevant but word endings are, and Wil isn’t all that good at it.”
I agree with Jo that in Temic, word order probably doesn’t matter, which is why there could be a more meaningful alternate translation to “the desire for knowledge shapes a man.” But imagine you’re Wil. You don’t know the language very well, you’re not going to be picking up on subtleties, etc. Chances are, your first attempt at translation is going to be word-by-word. Assuming “rhinata” is shapes and “morie” is man, when you translate “vorfelan rhinata morie” word-by-word, you’re going to get “the desire for knowledge shapes a man.” It’s the instinctive, “amateurish” way to translate. Especially if you’re translating for your friend (Kvothe) whose first language is Aturan (English), it makes sense that you would translate it word-by-word with English sentence structure. Therefore, the simple fact that Wil isn’t that good at the language advocates “rhin” = shape and “morie” = man. In simple terms, what I’m saying is that his non-skills are giving us inadvertent word parallels.
___________________________________________To me, “rhinta” could just as easily mean shaper as man, with the “ta” suffix equivalent to the “tor” suffix we have in English (borrowed from Latin, equivalent to Spanish “dor”) to turn verbs into do-er nouns (factor = make-er, victor = win-er, dictator = dictate-er, navigator = sail-er, etc.).
It’s possible that as Artful Magpie pointed out, the -ta, the -na, and the other suffixes could modify the noun “man,” but that doesn’t make nearly as much sense to me than -ta, -na, -ata as verb suffixes in context with other languages I know. Nouns go with prefixes while verbs go with suffixes, in general. If rhin is man, it would make more sense for ta-rhin to mean un-man than for rhinta to mean un-man. Take “inhuman” as an example. Now I know that since Temic is a fictional language, those rules aren’t necessarily binding, but I strongly agree with the Temic-Latin parallel, in which case “rhin” is almost certainly a verb root (“shape”) and not a noun (“man”), for the reasons and examples I have provided above.
___________________________________________So those are my three theories why “rhin” is shape, not man. They are by no means foolproof, but in my opinion, it’s going way too far to say that “We’re sure that ‘rhinata’ means man”.
I am now realizing I would like to add one more small theory – according to the rhin = man theory, “rhinata” (in the phrase) and “rhinta” (Shehyn’s Chandrian) both mean “man.” It makes much more sense for -ata and -ta to be two distinct suffixes to change the verb “rhin” (shape) in different ways (in the phrase, “rhinata” = “shapes” ; Shehyn’s Chandrian: “rhinta” = “shaper”). You can append that onto theory 3, if you’ve gotten this far.
In any case, I think the “rhin” translation is very open for discussion.
Indeed. Have at it.
History
Bam wonders about the king Kvothe killed:
I had a sudden idea—what if the King that Kvothe kills is himself? We believe that he’s high up in the line of succession, if he’s ever recognized as Natalia Lackless’s son. We know that he has faked his own death. We have Pat’s non-answer about how inheritance runs in Vintas.
And we know that the stories about him, which he mentions with such relish, are greatly exaggerated.
It’s an interesting thought, but I don’t think you’d end up with the title “Kingkiller” for killing yourself, or faking your own death. Kvothe Kingkiller is one of the few external things we know for sure, because we get it from Chronicler. That doesn’t mean he killed a king, but it does mean that everyone thinks he did. As Ivi says:
What if Kvothe “killed a king” in the same way that he “burnt down the town of Trebon”? As in, he wasn’t really responsible for it, he just feels that way?
That’s perfectly possible, and indeed terribly likely.
LennyB comes at the Ambrose theory from a different direction:
In re Ambrose as the Penitent King—this notion occurred to me early in reading TWMF, that Ambrose will assassinate the Maer and subsequently come to regret it. But I threw the idea out—because Pat’s already established Ambrose as an invariably obnoxious creep. I think it would break the larger mold of character poetics to have Ambrose suddenly develop a conscience. The Maer as Penitent King is a more believable proposition, to me, in terms of the larger poetic framework. (I’d suggest the idea that the Maer will assist Kvothe in assassinating Ambrose—and later regret it—but this also seems wrong to me. The character poetics I’m positing would seem to dictate that we’re not done with Ambrose that early in the event sequence—that there must be some confrontation between Ambrose and Kvothe that will take place *after* the ascension of the Penitent King. Maybe the Maer is going to abet Kvothe in killing the existing King, and then feel sorry about it after he ascends.) It does seem like there’s a lot of energy stored up in the story, to date, for Kvothe to eventually be killing Ambrose—king or not.
“Character poetics” is a great term, and it’s also why I am absolutely sure in my heart that it’s Ambrose that Kvothe will kill. That’s the channel that the force of story is flowing in.
But Sioger suggests:
couldn’t Kvothe have killed a Faen king?
I mean, Bast has a formal title of Prince, after all…. And there certainly seems to be an influx of the Faen people/creatures into the Four Corners as of some as-of-yet unrevealed event. Might be worth a ponder.
We’ve seemed pretty settled that the Penitent King is the Maer, with the soldiers wearing his colours. But Kineta suggests:
the possibility that Meluan Lackless is the Penitent King and Maer the killed king. As a possibility.
It is possible. Shalter and Another Andrew point out examples of women being known as “kings”, rather than queens regnant, in our history. And Kineta, I’ve been quoting you a lot. You’re now an E’lir in the Department of Imaginary Sympathy.
Britunculus thinks that Bredon is Aculeus Lackless:
Bredon is Kvothe’s grandfather (it’s in plain sight again: “what I consider grandfather old”), specifically Meluan’s father and a Lackless. It explains his political power, his presence with the Maer and his interest in Kvothe.
Oh that would be clever if so! And of course, Kvothe missed the actual wedding, when this would have been apparent if true.
While we’re on identifications, Rutep thinks Dagon is Cinder:
Dagon strikes me as much more consistent with Cinder than Bredon is. And he’s away from the city, chasing Caudicus, when the Maer sends Kvothe after the bandits. When Kvothe returns, the Maer mentions that Dagon caught Caudicus shortly after Kvothe left, but how shortly exactly? He spent, what, one month hunting the bandits, and two months in Ademre, so one month would be relatively shortly after he left Severen. And if Dagon returned around the same time that Cinder fled the camp…
Does that mean Caudicus might have been in league with Dagon/Cinder?
I haven’t seen this suggested before, but it would fit.
Sympathy
Lepidoctera suggests:
I was reading the post where Bast tries to open Kvothe’s box and can’t. I think you can open the iron lock with a lodestone. Lid, no hinge, protected against sympathy and naming through other means but nonetheless galvanically susceptible.
and Pat_Pat thinks that lodenstones are mentioned too many times for coincidence. I disagree—which is not to say they’re not going to be significant in D3, they might, but they already were significant with killing the draccus at the end of NW. I also don’t think one is necessary for the Thrice Locked Box, because if it were, Kvothe wouldn’t try to open it at the end of WMF.
This is Pat really, but I want to quote Thistlepong quoting him because this is such a lovely comment:
For ease of use, the magics are:
1. Alchemy.
2. Sympathy.
3. Naming.
4. Sygaldry.
5. Glamourie.
6. Grammarie.
7. I just remembered one more that gets a whisper of a mention.
8. And there’s an eighth you haven’t seen yet.ETA: Merciful Tehlu! Per a comment on his blog, it’s up to ten.
I just re-counted, so far there’s been:
Six magics named in the books.
Eight magics mentioned in the books.
And at least 10 magics in the world.
That I can think of right now, depending on how you count them.So, knacks and knots have been mentioned. We might have missed one. And there’s definitely one we’ve yet to see.
His answer about the difference between naming and shaping only reinforces my existing prejudices. In other words, I still think it’s only a matter of what one does with names.
That does make sense, and it is what Felurian said, and she’s the only eye witness we have. (I’m assuming Bast is younger.)
Medica
Aegon has a thought about the beets:
I figured Bast’s beet aversion was related to Beeturia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeturia). Bast probably doesn’t metabolize iron well.
No, it probably hurts him to eat!
Geography
Kushluk has a thought about Haliax’s sign and eclipses:
In one of the books Kvothe finds it states one sign of the Chandrian is the “sun going dark in the sky.”
In another book it states a sign is “the darkening of the moon.”
And then referring back to the description of Haliax on the vase in Ch.81 NW that:
“There was a mirror by his feet and there was a bunch of moons over him. You know, full moon, half moon, silver moon.”
All of these signs can be correct of one phenomenon.
Eclipses.
It could be that in the last piece of evidence the “full, half, silver” moon are actually depicting what can be seen of the sun when the moon is in front of it. i.e. each stage of the eclipse.
This could also be why the images are within a mirror. As all geeks know you are not meant to look at an eclipse directly or you could go blind.. Maybe it is some kind of ‘eclipse’ mirror.
So!
Is it possible that a sign of Haliax’ coming is an Eclipse?
If so, could the moon be in kahoots with Haliax?
The moon could be in cahoots, or eclipses could be a sign, and “dimming the sun” certainly seems relevant.
Have we seen anything about eclipses anywhere at all? How would eclipses work if the moon is in another world half the time, or half the moon is in another world all the time, or however it works? I can’t remember any reference to eclipses. But they’d be bound to be significant.
Shalter says:
If eclipses work anything like they do here, then it would seem like the effects of eclipses would be reduced directly by the percentage of time the moon was spending in Fae. Since the part of the moon that is in Fae would not be available to block any sunlight, then an eclipse would look quite different than here. A half moon would only block half of the sun even if it should have been a full eclipse. Interesting.
I would really like to know more about this!
Shalter may have found another clever way of locating Newarre now we know how a trifoil compass works.
In Chapter 9 (A Civil Tongue) of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Wise Man’s Fear, the Master Brandeur asks Kvothe the following admissions question:
Brandeur looked down at the papers before I’d even finished speaking. “Your compass reads gold at two hundred twenty points, platinum at one hundred twelve points, and cobalt at thirty-two points. Where are you?”
He is referring to a trifoil compass. A trifoil compass works by using some magical properties of that world by aligning with three objects at known locations. Rothfuss doesn’t supply any more info here, but he does supply a map. At a later point in the story we find that clocks are divided into 60 minutes and so, it isn’t an unreasonable guess that they also use a base 360 degree circle. If that is the case, then you can plot the three directions given above as rays in a polar coordinate system.
If you then take the map of the Four Corners and overlay it with the coordinate map and rotate things a bit, you can arrive at an image that looks like:
In this case, I choose to align the “gold” direction with The University and the “platinum” direction with Atur. You can see that this places the “cobalt” direction a bit off from Renere. It also places the cobalt ray pretty much right over where we think Newarre may be.
If all of these things are correct, then the answer to the admissions question is where the lines converge.
IID3Y? Actually, when it is D3 I’m going to have to liveblog as I read it and see things confirmed or contradicted. My spoiler review will be the longest review of all time!
Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published two poetry collections and nine novels, most recently the Nebula winning and Hugo nominated Among Others. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here regularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied.
I love these posts.
Thanks Jo! A new post is a great thing.
A bit more on the “triangulation”:
I tried a couple of different places as points to put two of the trifoil nodes (Two points can fit anywhere), but when I saw that putting Gold and Platinum at the University and Atur, Cobalt was about where we think Newarre is, I rather liked that arrangement. I then had the following amusing skit occur to me (that I picture PR thinking to himself in his misty fortress in WI):
Surveying Student:”I located the Platinum node at Atur and the Gold Node here at the University as you asked. Where should I put the Cobalt node?”
Master Surveyor (Harrumphing):”Oh, I don’t care, put it anywhere.”
Surveying Student:”Newarre, you say?”
Master Surveyor (Waving his hand):”Yes, anywhere, that’s what I said.”
A few days pass.
Surveying Student:”I put Cobalt in Newarre as you said.”
Master Surveyor (looking at map):”Why did you pick that place, it’s in the middle of no where?”
Surveying Student:”Just as you said, Newarre.”
…
:-)
Perhaps copper has no Name, and so it cannot be crafted and is also “invisible” to a namer’s senses (making a copper dagger perfect for a namer assassin)?
Remember that Kvothe has a “ring with no name”. Could this be a copper ring?
I was talking with a friend, and we realized something about Haliax. When Kvothe overhears the Chandrian conversing by the fire, he hears Haliax say:
What’s interesting is that Kvothe then notes:
A bit later, Haliax says:
At which point, Kvothe notices:
We also know from Scarpi’s story that Haliax cannot die:
So it seems that Haliax has issues with the 4 doors. He cannot die, he does not forget, and he stumbles over sleep. This suggests that he is also not insane (the other door being that of insanity). How scary is that? Supposedly the greatest villain in the world cannot die, always remembers, never rests, and isn’t crazy? And not only is he not crazy, but he can’t go crazy. So Haliax is being forced to constantly live with the pain of losing Lyra. He can’t forget her, and he can’t go to her, and he can’t sleep, and he can’t go crazy. I can’t imagine what that would do to someone. Perhaps he believes that destroying the world is better than continuing to live with the pain?
This also implies that when Kvothe explains what the four doors are, that they are more than just a convenient explanation. It actually has an application to larger events.
And all this ends up with this final question: are the Doors of Stone related to these four doors? Are they a fifth door?
Shalter says:
Actually, a solar eclipse occurs when the moon is directly between the sun and Earth, so by definition the moon has to be new. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth is directly between the sun and moon, so by definition the moon is full. You can’t have any sort of eclipse at a half moon.
bad_platypus@5:Here on Earth you can’t have a Solar eclipse with a half moon. In 4C, though half of the moon is literally not there to block the light of the sun, so while the moon in the 4C would be positioned between the Sun and the rest of the 4C, only the portion that was in the 4C world and not in Fae would block any sunlight.
This would give a very different sight than any eclipse we can have here on Earth. If the moon in the 4C goes between the Sun and the 4C, of course.
There is also the possibility that Iax arranged things so that the timing of the moon going between the sun and the 4C would only occur when the moon was fully in the 4C. We don’t have any info on that, but the picture could be an indication that this isn’t the case.
I’m so happy to see another post! Thanks Jo.
I have so many thoughts tumbling through my mind and I am unsure how to coherently post them. Please forgive me if they are chaotic.
1) I keep feeling like the obvious conclusion we are supposed to accept is that El’the simply means ‘Shaper’, but I had another thought when reading through WMF the other day. The chapter when Kvothe hears the second half of the Jax story is called Listening, and in the story we are introduced to a very Elodin-esque old man who seems to understand everything by simply listening. He even stresses this idea to Jax by telling him explicitly that he is a ‘listener’. Initially I convinced myself that Speaking a NAME had to be more advanced than listening to it since we have already seen the wind whisper its name in Kvothe’s ear. But I am not so convinced anymore. Master Namer called Chronicler a waste of time because he only knew one name (and more probably because he refused to LISTEN). He initially refused to accept Kvothe into his class…
“Because you are too eager to be properly patient… You’re too proud to listen properly…”
It seems impressive to master a name. Elxa Dal has two. Fela has one. Chronicler has one. The stuff they do is real magic. They Speak. But none of them is like Elodin or Magwyn. They Listen. Kvothe has glimpses of it when the wind whispers to him in the Archives, or when he sheathed his sword and heard its NAME. I think El’the means ‘Listener’.
2) It took me like six readthroughs to notice that Dedan refers to Felurian as “Lady of Twilight” which makes sense when Kvothe explains the Fae realm and mentions that Felurians abode is literally located in Twilight. So of course I finally connected Bast as the “Prince of Twilight”.
3) I love how careful Rothfuss is when writing in the Frame. I am referring specifically to the precise moments when we see Kvothe. I was reading the fight scene with the soldiers and was blown away by Pat’s language. I don’t want to waste space writing it here, but I suggest you look on your own. Kvothe is amazing in that fight. It’s the Innkeeper who sucks. Kvothe grabs the soldier’s arm at an awkward angle, but then the soldier jerks it free from the Innkeeper’s grasp. Then Kvothe is left confused as to how it happened. When Kvothe is struck, it is the Innkeeper who staggers and lets out huffs of pain. It is almost like Kvothe is fighting against the Innkeeper for control of his body while a couple of soldiers beat him up.
So carefully written. Very important I think. Maybe proprioception isn’t to blame, maybe it’s the Innkeeper.
4) My last thoughts are more difficult for me to write. I heard an old podcast with Pat as a guest and he was asked how he builds tension in a first person narrative when the reader knows that the character is not going to die. His response struck very close to my heart. He said that there are way worse things that you can do to someone than simply killing them.
SIDENOTE: I once argued with a friend about the ending of a popular vampire series because she loved it and I hated it. My reasoning: there was no cost for the victory. Powerful storytelling has a price. Most times it is the death of a beloved character. Sometimes it involves rooting for a fallen hero. Sometimes the hero is a villain and we have to struggle to reconcile the bad things with the good.
That is why I resonated with Pat’s comment. He has done this so well in his books. I love Kvothe. I root for him. I want him to be the hero. But Pat won’t let me off that easily. He has to keep driving home the simple fact that Kvothe destroys everything. He is responsible for more death and pain than he can repair. When Chronicler points out that people are calling Kvothe a new Chandrian, he can barely disagree. I think Pat even put an image of the Cthaeh in the background of the cover of one of the editions of NW, which according to Bast is done to let the audience know they are witnessing a Tragedy.
But I can’t help it. I love these books all the more for Kvothe’s flaws. I know how it is going to end, but my heart is with him every step.
An idea I had for a while now and which I never saw mentioned: (though I admit not to have read all the comments- I only found this reread when Rothfuss posted his answers)
Perhaps the three points of the trifoil compass are the three marked points on the map?
In order to define one’s place on a plane one only needs two directions (three, as used in GPS, are needed in tridimentional navigation). The third, while it would help raise the precision, could also be the point in the pack and describe one’s position in relation to the Fea (since it doesn’t seem to be on the map, but rather parallel to it).
I apologise for any spelling/grammar mistakes. English is my third language, and I get confused…
Polaris@8:If the 4C is using 360 degrees in a circle and not some other odd measurement, then the three yellow dots don’t fit the triangle defined by the admissions question.
The marked points seem to just be the hyperlink locations on PR’s website.
1. “Penitent King” is a calling name, not a deep name. There is no guarantee that the king is actually penitent.
Try this on. Ambrose is expelled from University, thus carrying a huge grudge in a heavy bucket. Maybe Hemme gets bounced out, too. We cheer.
Ambrose rigs it so Kvothe kills a king outside the Eolian. Smash go the stones.
Ambrose blames the catastrophe not just on Kvothe, but on arcanists as a class. Pretends to repent of ever having studied at the University. And the part of the world, newly beset by demons, takes his side.
Are there any signs of sympathy in the frame story? Assuming we’re in superstitious Vintas?
2. Trefoil compass. There are three surveyors’ markers on the 4C map. If we’re going down shalter’s awesome path, they should be the three points. I’d also say that Gold/Platinum/Cobalt, because it’s a standard of measure, would be easier to remember if you start north and go in a circle. Putting cobalt in Tarbean, right next to the ocean. Color coding. And platinum (the most valuable) is now in the Tinker’s pack, and off the edge of the map. Myr Tariniel, anyone? Tinue, which was not destroyed, but is not on the map, yet people still seem to know where it is?
3. Murder. The Killing of the Rapers bothers me every time I read it. In part, because it forces Kvothe to deal with the aftermath of murdering people. He plans it, and carries it out. Him fighting off pirates on the way to Severen isn’t in the book, but this is. Why?
Here’s my horrifying thought: Kvothe is establishing how he can arrive at killing Denna, even though he’s in love with her.
By demonstrating that he is incapable of rape, but quite capable of murdering women, and prone to reacting immediately and violently to threats and injustice. Oddly specific…
4. “I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and
provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well–the delights of the heart of man.
“I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
“I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.
“Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.
“Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and
folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done?”
-Ecclesiastes 2:8-12
How many words in those few verses have a parallel in the KK chronicle?
shalter@9: That’ll teach me to post while you’re posting. Okay, so my idea’s busted.
coyote_blue@11:It’s not exactly busted. It would be fun if the yellow dots were the Trifoil points. It’s just that it would require a different circle partition than 360. It is possible to find one that would match the yellow dots, but that was way more work than I wanted. (I would guess it would be more than PR would have wanted either :-) ).
When I read there was one type of magic only mentioned my thoughts went to when Denna described a magic where you wrote things down and made them happen from the scene in the Eolian where she asked how magic worked.
awightknight@13: Yeah, thanks for reminding me of that. Her mentioning this sounds identical to Kvothe being reluctant to ask people about the Chandrian.
I wonder if the Chandrian or their allies(?) would be bound by such magic. It would then make sense for their jailers to use it, then erase all knowledge of its existence, in order to prevent the stone doors and lockless boxes from being opened.
On a similar vein: I think the “texture-lock” (the Yllish script that only Meluan and Kvothe can feel on the Loeclos box) is blood-tied, i.e., only Lockless heirs can sense it.
I’m generally inclined to think that Meluan’s part in the tale, some
way or another, isn’t quite finished (what with all of those
significant knickknacks and “-lesses” floating about). It’s almost
enough to make one wonder if she might not be caught up in some part of our friend’s great penitence as well. (Perhaps something else to think about that remains less touched upon in the rounds of that particular speculative thicket. Indeed, one can imagine more than a few articulations and directions for the whys, hows and whats.)
It’s so awesome to have a new post and comments to read! Thanks, Jo.
And while I love everything here, I really like the idea that copper has no name. As a general rule, magic is always more interesting when it has limits, so why shouldn’t there be a limit on naming, specifically that there’s something in the world that simply doesn’t have one.
Heroine@16, and previous: I really like the idea, too, but…so weird. If the no-name thing turns out to be copper. That would mean there is a thing that has properties, a calling name, but no deep name.
I’d prefer a nameless substance to be something that only comes into being when you shove other, real material out of the way. A tangible form of The Nothing from the Neverending Story, if you will.
I’m doubtful that the ring without name can be copper, because it’s supposed to be an unseen ring. Now, to be sure, ‘unseen’ seems to be a bit of an exaggeration, given that the ring of flame shone ‘full faintly’, and a ring of ice is presumably also visible if you look hard enough. But it doesn’t seem to fit something as substantial as copper.
Of course, if you get rings for naming things, there’s something intrinsically odd about a ring with no name.
It’s also interesting that, so far as I can remember, copper and its alloys have no place in the Vintish system of rings. Gold, silver and iron are the main set, with bone, horn, wood, leather and grass for special purposes. But not copper.
Yes, I think copper having no name would be weird. But there’s the thing about the Name of Fire. Kvothe says that fire isn’t a thing, it’s an exothermic reaction, which is totally true in the same way that copper really is a thing. I mean it even has a true name (Cu) and an atomic number and an atomic weight and everything, unlike fire and the wind and people… but if naming is a matter of really getting your head around something, getting all of your head pointed in the same direction, sleeping mind and all, then maybe copper is just so impossible to do that with.
I still don’t see why it would be extra useful to kill namers and shapers, except maybe they could melt your iron blades… except that we know that Caesura was at the battle of Drossen Tor. But what is Caesura made of, eh?
Maybe it would be possible to kill Haliax with a copper knife? But if this were common knowledge during the Creation War, then surely Selitos would have done it?
I think I had posited a while ago that somehow the strange grey Adem blades (like Saicere) are actually copper that’s been shaped somehow by the same technology-level that made the siegestone and the other wonderful devices the University can’t replicate…somehow making the copper much harder and more durable, while leaving alone whatever aspect of copper that makes it good for killing Namers…just a theory!
Hello everyone-this is my first post here. I’ve read these books probably 10x since I found NoTW about 2 years ago and love everything I found in the books, and your reread has only increased the fun. Since last Friday this reread has been all I’ve read. First of all, thanks to PR for this amazing world, secondly, thanks to Jo and her members of Departments of Imaginary Sympathy & Linguistics (whom I hope to join eventually- but gotta put some work in first).
Here’s the theories put forth I’m totally sold on:
· the t-Shirt Theory (bloody hands everywhere!)
· Meluan as K’s Aunt (Never caught the rhyme once-d’oh!)
· The Tarbean awakening by Skarpi
· Iax (and maybe more) being the Enemy(ies) behind the Door of stone
· Waystone being in Vintas
· The Penitent King being either Alveron (or maybe Meluan) according to the king’s men colors
· Adem blades being shaped (and possibly copper- h/t to ArtfulMagpie)
· The Tehlin church adopting the CW story and mythologizing it into their religious dogma.
I’m not convinced regarding:
· D’s nature as relating to the moon or wind-there’s just too much chaff being thrown by PR to make heads or tails of the primary relationship of the KKC
· Who’s the hero/villain/neither re: Namers/Shapers/Amyr/Chandrian/Mortal/Fae-same reasoning. Damn he’s good!
· Nature of “The Event”-killing the king, freeing/killing the Chandrian/opening the Door and releasing the Enemy. Who the eff knows?
· Chandrian signs = inversion of knacks
· Adem man-mother’s theory.
· Contents of the Lackless box-though the Selitos’ stone idea seems very appealing
· K as the “eighth” Chandrian
I want to clarify the distinctions about the types of magic described. Here are the all the types you have found and a brief notation of mine on each:
1. Alchemy-using unbound principles and other unnaturally occurring materials. It doesn’t make sense. I know nothing about alchemy.
2. Sympathy-use of one’s alar to link 2 or more things and use an available energy source (fire, body temperature) to affect the linked things
3. Naming/Shaping-what the person does with the understanding of the subject provides the distinction, i.e. knowing what something is inherently and thus controlling it (calling the wind for D’s asthma attack) vs. using that control to change that inherent quality into something else entirely (creating Felurian’s silver fruit)
4. Sygaldry-inscription of runes upon physical objects to create links/bindings. This may be the basis for D’s theory of a magical method of writing things down and making them true. Unsure.
5. Glamourie-“making things seem”, creating an illusion, i.e. “glamoured as a pack mule laden”
6. Grammarie-“making things be”, creating an new physical object such as the shaed. This also could be how Bast was able to heal K’s tooth, by “making it be healed”. Also unsure.
7. Knacks-I definitely subscribe to the idea that the knacks are leftovers of natural talents of the pre-CW population diluted in the intervening years since due to migration (to Fae?), genetic drift, lack of genetic reinforcement, etc.
8. Knots-by seeing one is possibly influenced (such as by D braiding “lovely” and “don’t speak to me”). Unknown effects if read aloud (in Yllish?). Definitely related to the Lackless box, and it’s opening.
9. Tahl-healing songs and dancing trees. We need to know more.
10. Unknown-I think this one is the direct physical imposition of your will onto reality through physical action, such as JohnPoint’s concept of the “single, perfect” step/cartwheel, with the. Will becomes thought becomes unstoppable action with perfect control.
I see right off the bat is that 5 & 6 are created out of nothing, possibly related to Fae being a construct? 3, 4, 8, and 9 are all related to a language-either verbal or written. Can anyone see more links or clues?
I’m also curious about the lack of investigation into “Tinker Tanner”. We are repeatedly told how it is the oldest lyrical song (Bellweather being the oldest). Everyone sings it, creates verses-it is well known enough for Anker’s crowd to occupy themselves for a long while singing it, and is known from the University in the Commonwealth to the troupers who lost their bear in Vint.
There have been plenty of comments about PR’s take on the power of stories and music and how they change through retelling, so what would the impact be of a 4C-wide song that encourages the creation of new lyrics? Is it a continuous collective oral history? IIRC, there are very few actual lyrics provided by PR, but we do know that they are based on the structure of a limerick as described by K.
I have to say in all my time on blogs, I’ve rarely seen one with such open, enlightening and respectful comments. Even discussing the treatment of women (the whole Losi discussion was handled very well IMO), race and other thorny issues, the utter lack of trolls has been really heartening. It’s a pleasure to join you all and I aim to be a regular contributor. Please dissect-so glad Jo threw up a new post as I found this, and like the rest of you, I’m eagerly awaiting D3.
Alaric
A propos the trifoil compass, it also works perfectly well if the values are distances. On a plane, just knowing the distances (ie, not the directions) from three known places uniquely defines your position. Time to get out a pair of compasses and guess the three known places…
I don’t think that copper would not have a name (or else we really don’t understand what Naming is) but that it is somehow resistant to the efforts of Namers. We did see when Selitos confronts Lanre that Selitos cannot destroy him as Lanre’s name is too powerful. So, maybe rather than lacking a name, copper has a very powerful and distictive name (why I don’t know)–it’s all full of copperiness.
Quercus@22:I though about that approach but:
1)The map doesn’t have a scale and
2)The “compass” part of Trifoil Compass seems to imply pointing rather than measuring.
@3-Could the “ring with no name” correspond to the K’s mastery over the 4c equilvalent of anti-matter that can unmake anything’s Name (anti-grammarie)? This is probably related to the various silences mentioned throughout NoW & WMF. Not sure where this comes from though.
@7-El’the = Listener-brilliant!
I wonder if perhaps instead of being Name-less, copper’s true Name is simply very resistant to shaping? As in, you can learn or know the Name of Copper, but you can’t do anything with it? Something like that…hmmm…just thinking out loud, here…
ArtfulMagpie@26:Yes, something along those lines is what I was trying to say @23.
Whoops, silly me…I posted before reading. Sorry, shalter!
@28:No, it is good to see parallel thoughts. :-)
Thank you Jo. I woke up this morning on the other side of he world, checked the site, and saw your new post. Bring on the speculation!!!
Does anyone feel that the 10th form of magic is Haliax’s (and potentially Cinder’s) ability to disappear or travel seemingly at will to another dimension/location/the Faen realm?
I don’t seem to remember there being a Waystone nearby (which “could” explain their method of disappearing) when Haliax and the bunch of Chandrian disappeared, or when Cinder disappeared into the tent before it was crushed by a tree limb (that was bigger than most trees).
Coyote_blue@10
I think the way an angry Kvothe made the strawberry wine bottle explode in the frame story in NW, as pointed out by a few posters previously, is a form of sympathy. The rag he used to rub the bottles that he was holding in his hand is the link to the bottle, and the energy he needed could come from lots of places.
shalter
I love the trefoil compass work you’ve done. Thank you. I never would have thought of trying that. Did you use any special apps for superimposing your lines on the map? Or did you use something like MS Paint? I’d like to have a go too and would love to know how you did it, if you don’t mind sharing…
Jo and Britunculus
I really like the “Bredon is Aculeus Lackless” theory. I read a brilliant, very convincing post about this on the asoiaf site. I’ll see if I can find it…
@30 – I’m not convinced about the mundane use of sympathy to shatter a bottle. I’m certain it can be accomplished, but why? K knows who Chronicler is and I doubt he thinks a Sympathy trick would intimidate him. I can’t offer another explanation in the 4C world, so maybe I am grasping at straws. His back was towards Chronicler so he could be muttering a binding. But I keep asking what on Earth a tiny little display of Sympathy could do to Chronicler that wouldn’t be better accomplished by darkened eyes and a menacing step forward.
As for other evidence: When sympathy fails against the skin dancer the third person text explicitly says that it is Kvothe who throws the bottle and mutters the binding that fails. In the exploding bottle scene we are watching Kote interact with Chronicler. Can Kote do things that Kvothe cannot. I’m struggling to think of other instances in the frame story when this is on display. Most of the stuff that is really impressive comes from Kvothe before he drifts back into the Innkeeper. But if Kvothe’s Alar is really brokern, could Kote perform Sympathy?
Another thought: What kind of binding are we thinking for the exploding bottle? Cloth to glass has to be a really lousy link, maybe 2-3%? We see him squeeze the cloth, but if it is just the mechanical energy I feel confident that he would have to squeeze very hard. I am trying to imagine breaking a bottle with 100% transference simply by squeezing and it seems far fetched. I guess he could leech heat from his body and convert it to mechanical energy too? But why squeeze his hand at all? His grip can’t be adding much to the process when he could just leech heat and shatter the glass.
JezyDynamite@30:I used GeoGebra (free geometry program) to draw out the lines and then saved that image to a .tiff format. I then used Gimp (free image software) to import the map file and then the geometry line image as a transparent layer. Then, I rotated and moved the line image until I got the lines to line up over various landmarks.
I liked the results with the Gold and Platinum match the best, so then I collapsed the image into a final jpg.
As another side note, if we could get some accurate distances on the map, that would go a very long way to confirming the (or some) answer. I looked about in the text and distances were usually days or abouts.
Has anyone given any thought to the possibility that Kvothe’s current inability to perform magic or fight effectively has been caused by the “written magic” that we suspect to be contained in Yllish storyknots?
It is a presumably a form of magic that could conceivably be locked away – the spell/knot if woven (eg. Kvothe is now a spud), the story becomes truth, then the knot is locked away were he is unable to undo it?
This scenario could paint Denna as the cause of his current impotence.
Almandaragal: We know he built the thrice-locked chest, though.
Well finding this was a nice surprise. Im terribly hung over so my brain isnt offering muc ;)
Gotta say I like that map. Though I dont really get the figuring, yeah its actually making my head hurt…curiosly, which is the line that runs off past the eld? It goes right through where i think the oldest lackless lands are, where fareniel is.
Copper has properties relating to magic. Could other things as well? Like cobalt? Are they attracted, in some way, to different flavours of magic?
Exploding bottle. My view of this is that K didnt make a symathetic link with the rag per se. But rather had been using the rag to clean the bar-mopping up spilled alcohol. That the rag contained a part of the wine, or at least very similar alcohol. The explosion was unintenional, as was the binding. K was trying to surpress himself into kote, his anger/hurt, made the link (perhaps a split part of his alar? The hidden kvothe part?) the pressure/energy of his conatined emotions causing the bottle to explode-doing what he cannot. A thought.
“Exploding bottle. My view of this is that K didnt make a symathetic link
with the rag per se. But rather had been using the rag to clean the
bar-mopping up spilled alcohol. That the rag contained a part of the
wine, or at least very similar alcohol.”
Oooo, I like it. He didn’t make any sort of sympathetic link with the GLASS of the bottle. What he did was boil (?) or otherwise manage to cause an explosion of the LIQUID inside the bottle! Alcohol in the rag and alcohol in the bottle…even if it wasn’t the exact same alcohol, it would be a much better link than cloth-to-glass.
You guys beat me to it! I had the same thought last night about the liquid in the bottle being linked to the liquid on the rag. I agree with you.
Do you think Kvothe squeezing the liquid on the rag causes enough “related pressure” on the liquid within the bottle to make it explode out of the bottle?
I feel making the link was mostly a subconscious action. When Chron brought up the topic of Denna, his thoughts probably turned to the closest thing related to her that was near him, her favourite flavoured wine, which I think is strawberry, which is the liquid involved in the explosion.
From memory, Kvothe seemed to be suppressing his anger/emotions for a sustained period of time while Chronicler was trying to convince/bait him to tell his story. He may have been squeezing the rag the whole time they were talking about Denna, building up the pressure – subconsciously – until he finally squeezed really hard.
That would work. Exciting.
When we have seen previous sympathetic links, they had been to directly take an action upon something. As we see with the drabs, the linked drab seems heavier-which is explained. But if held that moment before making the link, gathering energy (exponatial growth?), the force stored would be greater. When that force is realsed its of the whole gathered force-not just the pressure from a single squeeze. To greater effecr, like the liqued expoding out of the bottle.
(EDIT: There is also gathered friction from rubbing the cloth along the bar. An nice tye-in with Sim’s amusing demonstration of ‘It’s all just energy!’)
If so, then it seems as if K has not lost his abilities, he has actually taken them to a level that is not taught at the university.
Becuase I also think that this action is taken by his subconscious, his sleeping mind I believe that he really is what is separating him from himself-enforcing Kote, the innkeeper. Rather than it something being done to him.
Like a broken tree, lightning struck and split in twain, each half of trunk living on as a tree, sharing roots, the branches facing apart and yet reaching for one another.
A Fox
It is exciting, isn’t it. A like the subconscious connection too.
I’m not sure if I agree about saving up the energy. I sort of think the liquid in the bottle is slowly “expanding/being squeezed” to the extremities of the bottle (while Kvothe thinks about Denna) and then a final hard squeeze (coupled with Kvothe’s anger) causes the liquid to explode out of the bottle.
Shalter
Thanks. I’ll have a look in the next week and see if I can work out how to do it. But it might take me a while. Being on a computer all day a work stops me from wanting to spend more time at home on the PC.
@@@@@ Bluejo – fair point, hadn’t factored that in…
Another few thoughts that have been rattling around my head this weekend:
Kaysera “The Poet-Killer” : We only ever hear the sword called “Poet-Killer”, not Kvothe – correct? Kvothe is the Kingkiller, Kaysera is the Poetkiller. Could the sword have been used to kill a poet by someone else? Maybe this is why he no longer has it?
Broken Hands : Has anyone done a count on how many oaths Kvothe has taken with his hand/s as collateral. I don’t have a Kindle version of the book to search, but we know he does it more than once. I’d be curious to find out whether or not he swears by his hand/s three times (the magic number, it seems).
A Fox@36:The line that goes past the bottom of the Eld/over the top of the small kingdoms is the conjectured Cobalt line. The line with numbers that goes through the top of the Eld and on through Modeg would be the Y axis.
I think that from the way Pat set up The 4C there is no way Sympathy can be done by accident. The entire principle of Alar is based upon conscious belief and action. Also, from every example in the text bindings must be spoken out loud and do not happen subconsciously.
As for using the alcohol in the rag as a link to the wine, I agree this allows for better transference but boiling a bottle of wine until it explodes would take a lot of heat. From the text Kote has no visible source apart from his body. I just don’t see it.
I love the imagery of Kvothe’s pain regarding Denna being so tangible that a freaking bottle explodes. Very powerful. I am secretly hoping that Pat never explains how it happened because it speaks so powerfully when it is a mystery. Almost like we have become witnesses to an unexplainable event from Kvothe the Arcane.
I would propse that “En faeant morie”=”Of the knowledge/wisdom of the Fae/Fae realm”.
Let’s take a look at “Vofelan rhinata morie”–we can break the words down as follows:
vor+fel+an
rhin+ata
mor+ie (or mori+e, we don’t have enough information)
I’ve argued that “fel-” is almost certainly “desire” and I agree than “rhin-” is probably “shape”. Assuming the last morpheme of each word is a functional category (“-an” and “-ie/e” are declensions, “-ata” is a verb tense), we’re left with “vor-” and “mor-“.
Now, Germanic languages like English allow for noun compounds like zeitgeist or stopwatch, but Romance languages like Latin generally require making the relationship between the two nouns explicit–you have to write out spirit of the age or a watch for stopping. Thus it is highly unlikely that “vor-” corresponds to “knowledge”, because we would expect to see “knowledge” in a separate word from “desire”.
Thus it is more likely that “mor-” corresponds to “knowledge” and “-ie” is the ablative/instrumental case. So we now have:
vor+fel+an=”vor”+desire+”an”
rhin+ata=shape+third person singular=either “shapes” or “is shaped”
mor+ie=knowledge+instrumental “for”=for knowledge
What is “vor-” then? Most likely, “vor-” is a proposition that is modifying “fel-“. Perhaps an intensifier like Latin “in-” as in “intense” or “impress”. Another possibility is that it’s the marker for the reflexive, that the subject is desiring something for himself.
So what about “man”? Why haven’t I included it? I don’t think it’s there. Again, while English requires subject/object pronouns, many other languages allow pronoun dropping when you have conjugated verbs. In Latin it was not common to include pronouns when they could be cut out.
Literally, then, we have the expression, “one’s own desire is shaped for knowledge”. Since we have to clean this up some before it makes sense, we can honestly say, “roughly translated”. I don’t think Wil is doing an improptu translation, but probably reciting something from memory that he’s been told and has been passed down through generations.
On “morie” then, if “mor-” is “knowledge”, it could also be “wisdom” or “understanding” or other similar words that may be more poetic in a song, and would relate directly to both myth and truth about the Fae realm, particularly the Ctheah.
Thanks for keeping this going, Jo. I neither expected to find it or to have time to read it, let alone comment on it. Hopefully this makes some sense and/or sparks some thought.
TL:DR = The ring without name really might be copper.
I pretty much agree with shalter; it makes little sense for copper not to have a Name. Nonetheless, as the text and comments and author remarks collide and coalesce, I’m starting to think that’s the case.
During Jo’s admissions interview, one of us presented this question:
On the surface, these are pretty standard answers revealing nothing. If you’ve listened to, watched, and read his interviews, though, it suggests quite a bit.
“Good questions,” are essentially notions that are on the right track for some potion of the story. They may not be true, but they usually hint at something someone within the narrative must deal with. The best example is para[phrased as, “How does succession work in Vintas?” Without fail, that’s a good question. Does it mean Kvothe’s a Lackless or could inherit? No. But it strongly suggests that someone in the story is considering that very question.
“No spoilers,” tends to mean the question as framed is impossible to answer without giving something away. In the early WMF interviews, questions were cut off thusly for approaching the latter half of the book. At this point the trade paperback is out, spoiler warnings are up, and he talks about Felurian and the Adem as much as he ever will. The only spoilers left are things that will happen or be attempted. Does this mean Kvothe will invent a new magic? No. However, It feels like he’ll struggle with that.
So it’s entirely possible that copper is (was?) unnameable. Kvothe is a bit of an autodidact polymath Mary Sue who, ignorant of this basic fact, could conceiveably discover its name and become unbelievabley dangerous. Good question. No spoilers. The final ring was without name.
The other line, “There were rings unseen on his second hand,” seems to give folks some trouble as well. There’s a fairly simple, possibly balderdash, explanation here. Elodin discusses an old tradition of Namers wearing rings to display their acumen. Elxa Dal, on the other hand, suggests that such a practice also displays one’s weaknesses. Kvothe isn’t the sort of fella who’d willingly give an enemy any advantage. These are names he knows, not names he shows.
This is from Pat’s blog post about the copper knife:
For whatever weird reason, I’m tickled by the notion that authors will craft a fiction and not expect folks to read it closely. I’m glad he finds it pleasing.
Anyway, this is our confirmation that Skyaldrin, Felurian’s copper knives, and the cell in Haven are all fairly significant. I mean, I suppose he could be giggling that they’re on the wrong track, but I choose not to think so.
Still more interesting was his surpirse at the actual knife’s weight and use value. I got the feeling that he viewed a copper knife as a whimsical fairytale device; something fantastic that no one in their right mind would actually own or use. Commenters have tended to agree across fora that copper would be useless for weapons. Deadan says as much in text. Chemists are apparently more common in the tubes than smiths.
This is Kvothe’s initial reaction to Elodin’s former cell in Haven:
The entire passage is NW ch 46 pp341-3. There’s so much to discuss and so much we’ve already discussed. But he undeniable fact of the text is that this room with its solid copper door, copper meshed walls, and copper infused window messes with Namers. Elodin feels it. He’s surprised Kvothe feels it, but we’re really not. Notably, Sim knows it’s important and it’s likely Wil and Manet do as well. Kvothe, as usual, is kind of left in the dark.
We’re shown that copper is affective and told that Kvothe is ignorant, leading us back to the possibility that he might name the unnameable because he doesn’t know he can’t.
We’re also shown a the burnished copper of the door, the green copper verdigris within the walls and the red curpic oxide in the windows. None of them compare to the Adem swords. Someone humorously, or not, suggested that the dull grey oxidation on them pointed to aluminum, which would be pretty fun.
Finally, I’m limited by my spceific ignorance about alchemy. I think most of us are. Copper plays a significant role in both the material and spiritual magnum opus and iirc has strong associations with esoteric traditions, but, well, I’d just be doing bricolage. Maybe someone else can tinker further.
Three theories of the Chandrian signs:
(Long time lurker, first time poster)
There have been several theories of the Chandrian signs, and here I will talk about two that have been discussed and one that I think has at least never been explicitly stated. It seems that whatever the signs are, they apply in an area around the Chandrian—that is they don’t require physical contact. That’s not entirely clear, as the Chandrian could have previously touched everything that an observer later sees as rotting, burning blue, et. al. , but it seems likely.
I don’t know if Rothfuss knows much modern physics, but his understanding of other sciences seems deep, and I’m a physicist, so the last two of these are physics-oriented theories. The science of the Four Corners seems to currently be stuck around the 19th century (chemistry, metallurgy, basic physics, uncertain but improving medicine), but it could certainly have been greater in the past, and things that happened in the past, like the creation of new worlds (Fae) seem more parallel to modern physics like general relativity/string theory. Also, Rothfuss likes to play with the tropes of fantasy, and fantasy generally has a very strong bias toward classical physics, rather than quantum or more modern physics.
We’ll start with the simple theory, based on chemistry, and go to the more complex, based on physics.
Theory 1: Oxygen. People have mentioned that oxygen is part of the rusting process, but I’m not sure anyone has mentioned that an overabundance of oxygen can cause several other affects as well. It can kill plants, who depend on carbon dioxide to respire, and flames in higher oxygen environments burn blue. (http://discovermagazine.com/2011/oct/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-fire, item 7). It can also make people a bit giddy, as when you hyperventilate, which seems to happen around the Chandrian, but perhaps for other reasons, as well…
It seems that the Chandrian effects are quite strong, so extra oxygen probably couldn’t explain everything, but the relationships are striking. If the effects have to do with oxygenated air, then it isn’t clear that there would really be different effects from different Chandrian, though all the effects might be stronger when there are more of them around.
The extra oxygen could come about in a variety of ways. The Chandrian could emit it naturally for some reason (maybe they are plants!). Or, oxygen could have been more plentiful in the early days of the Four Corners World, so they may carry a device that emits it for them to breathe.
If this theory is the case, then non-burning light sources in the area of effect would not turn blue.
Theory 2: Copper. It seems like it would be hard to have the effect that fires near you have copper or a copper salt added to them, but it just barely might be possible, if thought about the right way. Consider the trifoil compass. Such a compass doesn’t work in the real world for several reasons, but primarily because action-at-a-distance works by fields (magnetic in the case of a regular compass), and we only have one such field (the electromagnetic field). (We actually have gravity, too, but we don’t think about it the same way because we tell up from down pretty naturally.) In fact, it was historically very difficult to calculate one’s longitude because we only had one axis compasses (plus gravity). So perhaps there are other fields in the Four Corners.
Then, what are those fields? Well we know that the trifoil compass uses platinum, gold and cobalt. And note that the Four Corners seems to have different physics but all the same elements as our world. In our world, these elements are all made from the same constituents—protons, neutrons and electrons. But perhaps in the Four Corners, all the elements are actually elemental. That is, they all have an associated field, so that platinum is a source (or dipole source) of platinum charge, etc. This would explain how the trifoil compass works, but it would also help explain sympathy. In our world, in the fundamental sense, one piece of platinum is just not that similar to another, and certainly not that much more similar than to a piece of gold. But if platinum was truly elemental and had an associated field, long-distance interactions between bits of platinum, supported by the mind-over-matter properties of alar, make more sense.
Then the blue flame would be from one of the Chandrian having an effect on the local copper field. Interestingly, this would mean that you might be able to build a special compass that would track them for you…
If this theory is the case, then non-burning light sources in the area of effect would not turn blue.
Theory 3: Time. The decay and rust around the Chandrian certainly suggest that time might flow faster around the Chandrian than elsewhere. It could have something to do with their immortality, as well (the passage of time is somehow expelled from them into their surroundings). It is actually a little tricky for the time-moving-faster-thing to cause observable effects–if it applied to everything around the Chandrian, it would apply to people observing them as well, and they would see no effect. However, it is possible that it really only occurs (or is stronger) very close to the Chandrian, and observers are farther away, so they observe the gradient in time-flow. I haven’t seen anything so far pointing out that the blue flames could also be a blue-shift effect of playing with time.
In relativity, strong gravity wells, like near a black hole, make time slow, and objects near the black hole are red-shifted, and appear redder to those outside. A similar effect occurs for objects moving fast away from an observer. Now, in the real world, there are no negative mass objects, so localized blue shift doesn’t occur. But if through some magical effect (or one of the elemental fields mentioned in the previous theory), time moved faster near the Chandrian, then every source of light near them would indeed be blue-shifted (essentially this is because color corresponds to frequency of oscillation, and according to people outside, they oscillate faster). We could call this time-constriction (as opposite to time-dilation.)
Now given the very severe time effects we see near the Chandrian, and assuming that the effect is stronger closer to them, light very near the source would appear invisible, because it would go into the ultraviolet, which could explain Haliax’s shadow. Light further away, but still within the region would appear blue-shifted. Light from outside that reflects off objects in the time-constricted area would not be affected, so you’d only see the phenomenon in light sources within the region.
Various light-bending effects would occur as well, similar, but opposite, to a glass lens, which slows light slightly. We haven’t heard those described, but they might simply have gone unnoticed, or perhaps light travels differently in the Four Worlds. Interestingly, one effect of this might be that hanging around the Chandrian, if you did it long enough, could give one a tan, and staring at them could damage your eyes.
If something similar to this theory is true, then Haliax’s shadow is a sign that he is specifically the source of the time constriction. Evidence for this theory could include light-bending, blue-shifting of light that is emitted from any source inside the area of effect (not just fires), or odd time effects for people who spend time near the Chandrian.
Phew, that was longer than expected.
Herovit@46:The elements being elemental in and of themselves is an interesting take. That actually fits well with alchemy working since that is at least one path they tended down. So, part of coppers copperiness could be that it is very difficult for namers to work with either through (for some reason) having a difficult name (or none) or a name that is very hard to change.
@39.A Fox:
When we have seen previous sympathetic links, they had been to directly take an action upon something.
Except when Kilvin demonstrates the “Capacitorial Kinetic Luminosity” by pounding his fist to create light. Or when Kvothe makes three bindings to slay the draccus (iron scale to draccus, lodenstone to wheel, tranfer of magnetism). Or how he sympathetically calls lightning in WMF.
@43.ManiacalEngineer:
Except Kvothe doesn’t speak any bindings when he uses the sentry’s body to attack the bandits. I think the bindings are tools, but not necessary ones. A strong enough A’lar should be able to enforce its will regardless of the focusing channel.
@gbrell
I’m not sure how to explain that. I’m inclined to say that Pat omitted the bindings for sake of the flow of the story, but it’s also true that Pat is extremely careful with being accurate in his storytelling. I will point out that while he mentions no bindings when Kvothe is desecrating the body, he does mutter bindings when he cuts the bowstrings and also when he uses the arrow to ground the tree so the lighting will strike. I’m willing to be wrong, but there is a ton of evidence showing the need to speak bindings and only the few against it.
Sorry if it has been discussed before…
Do we know how Auri knows to come to Kvothe’s room in his time of need? (Not the best way to describe it I know, just the easiest) It’s been a several months since my last reread so I may be forgetting something crucial in this regard but if my memory hasn’t failed me she just showed up?
I also can’t help but thinking Kvothe goes back to Fae at a minimum once more in D3 and with the whole weird passing of time thing Bast could be his son? This could also explain K seeming much older than he probaly is. I also don’t remember if we get a definiton of Reshi but going with my theory (which in all likelihood is a huge swing and a miss), it could mean Father.
kvodin@50:We don’t know how Auri knows to go to Kvothe’s room.
It does seem likely that Kvothe will go back to Fae in D3.
There are various debates on Bast being/not being Kvothe’s son.
New random notice: In old Swedish (and Norse) folklore the Troll (which traditionally could look similar to normal people, but differ in some ways) feared iron, a think that is common for many Swedish spirits. It was said to be wise to bring an iron knife into a wood known to house trolls, and that throwing an iron knife at the ground near a troll (or other entity) would take their power away / scare them away.
They would also sometimes look animal-like, with a tail or hoofs. And they know not to be seen when they don’t want to… Sounds familiar? :-)
@48 gbrell Mmmm, yes I didnt put that very well. ;)
Im not a phyicist. At all. So I dont have the necessary jargon at hand, which is frustrating. Im going to set aside the lightning incident. Even by the 4c’s that seems to be rather unusual. Though I do suspect that the answer to that lays in Auri’s sane response of ‘galvanic ironisation’. The presence of the storm, great big bloody tree, lots of metal in the bandits (guards?) armour, K on the cusp of having his power awaken….
Sypathy is kinda like changing the shape of energy.
What I meant by ‘direct’ was that the link opens a flow of energy from A to B with whatever energy is available. Like the drabs, the energy being used on boths drabs is the force of the sypathists strength. Even whith the draccus incident this remains the same, just with multiple links and a longer flow of energy, each link chosen becuase of the ensuing ramifications.
The capacitorial one through me. Was this what I was trying to get at? Mmm. No. Becuase energy is not stored, it is directly used to make light. So perhaps it is called that becuase of the action functions in the same manner…
I guess what I mean is the energy flow is linear, one event follows another.
The glass shattering under (or should that be around?) the liqueds pressure does not follow from the various options of force that K applied-rubbing, squeesing. No one, so far, as pointed out another possible link, so it seems it is a one-link binding. Thus the energy K has applied grows exponentcially before its release.
Im agreeing with your second point. I believe there is a point in the book when K notices that someone barely moves their lips at all to read. In our world, ha, reading used to be something that was done aloud. This mean that many could not read silently, moving their mouths to certain etents depending on our close they were to that ability. Just becuase you may see many people reading aloud (speaking bindings) it does not mean this necessitated reading (bindings). There is a fair amout of rote learning at the uni.
@51 – or D’s son, if she spent time in Fae pre-Kvothe. ;-)
What if that is why K seems to have trouble with sympathy etc i the frame. What if he is constantly storing energy, adding to it with every action (he’s always darting about doing his innkeeper duties except when orating) but not letting it do anything.
We know he could not store this energy inside himself becuase of the examples of being tied to the anker’s fire etc. So what could he store it in, that would not just succumb to the forces within. Perhaps this is where the Waystone Inn comes into play. Perhaps waystones can be used to store energy.
Like giant batteries scattered across the countryside.
The ones that are doors, perhaps the locking mechanism was supposed to use the energy stored. (Which would imply that the power of the name of the moon is greater even than the power the stones could store).
Perhaps the bottle exploding was not an accidental linear link, but emotionaly aggrivated link forged with slippage of an ongoing bind/s.
edit to add: Could the Chandrian’s signs be exponetial decay? Haliax’s curse (which cloaks the others) is inverse by its nature. The darkness that was within would become visable…perhaps this goes deeper that just a seeming. The darkness within Lanre was power. A power great enough that he rivaled, and surpassed one of the greatest namers. A power that stops him from passing the four doors-including death. Thats a lot of power to maintain, what if the signs are caused by slippage through the inverse of the curse, links are created* and expo’decay released.
Perhaps they hide their signs by traveling by/through waystone. The waystone would absorb the slippage, thus eradicating their signs.
* I think that the magic represented in the 4c’s is not one wholly defined by numbers, and logic etc but also by emotion. Names are often found in heights of emotion, alar is sought with will and belief which are tyed with emotions ect. Like people. So K’s semi-controlled slippage links to a thing that is connected to his emotions. The earlier theory of the Chandrians signs being curse upon the things they had once loved could tye in here. (Though not necessarily love.)
@53.A Fox:
The glass shattering under (or should that be around?) the liqueds pressure does not follow from the various options of force that K applied-rubbing, squeesing. No one, so far, as pointed out another possible link, so it seems it is a one-link binding. Thus the energy K has applied grows exponentcially before its release.
If I’m reading your comment correctly, your point is that the power of Kvothe’s action on the liquid in the rag is signficantly lower than the power that would have to act on the liquid/glass to cause the bottle to shatter. So it doesn’t matter how bad his linkage is, because his starting energy isn’t high enough.
I think there are two responses to this and a third cautionary point:
1) The initial force doesn’t actually need to represent enough energy to shatter the bottle. A poor linkage and a small amount of force could, over time, provide enough energy to catalyze a sudden event like lighting something on fire or shattering a bottle. This isn’t very helpful in this example, however, since we don’t think Kvothe was slowly building up the pressure/heat of the liquid,* but did it suddenly in a fit of emotion.
*As I’ll discuss in a moment, I’m also not entirely sold on the sympathy acting on the liquid theory.
2) We have at least one example (and probably a few more) of Kvothe’s sympathy being overly effective: his mommet demonstration with Master Hemme. What was supposed to be hotfoot became scalding burns. There is no explanation yet given for how a moderate heat source with a bad conduit resulted in excessive results. This can also possibly be intuited about the lightning strike and possibly the draccus incident (the binding that transferred the magnetic attraction certainly magnified the magnetic attraction, otherwise neither the wheel nor the draccus would have moved much, if at all*).
*Something else not ever explained is why the wheel, which probably had greater mass than the draccus and was mounted to a building, moved rather than pulling the draccus to it.
3) While I do appreciate that people have posited a possible link from Kvothe to the bottle, represented by the rag filled with liquid, the mechanism doesn’t actually make sense from a physical standpoint. Squeezing a damp rag doesn’t really increase the pressure acting on the liquid since it can escape by sponging out of the rag. That’s like saying that by clenching my fist I am exerting pressure on the air. It’s functionally true, but represents miniscule force transfer. Friction doesn’t work as an explanation since Kvothe clearly squeezes the rag prior to the glass shattering, he isn’t polishing the bar.
I still think rag to bottle makes the most sense, but I agree it still needs to explain the force magnification.
Then again, we know from Kvothe’s discussion of sympathy in NotW that the force transfer for chalk to glass bottle is 30-to-1 (2 lbs felt like 60 lbs). Depending on how fragile the glass bottle is a 30-to-1 link could still shatter it. Human hands can exert significant force.
Bluejo….can we have a lab please?
@49.ManiacalEngineer
I don’t know what to make of it either, but considering how much we obsess over other details (missing and present), I feel like we need to account for it.
@55.A Fox:
That’s a cool theory about waystones. And would make the Inn’s name a really clever double entendre.
An addendum to my earlier post:
One other example of transitive (rather than direct) sympathetic links is Kvothe’s duel with Fenton in NotW that results in both getting Binder’s chills. The normal occurrence has both students using a link (wick or wax, but Kvothe chooses straw) and a source (Kvothe expects to be able to choose brazier). But even the source chosen (no source) is external to either Kvothe or Fenton’s actions on the link. They don’t squeeze the straw/wick or tear at it, they simply believe that their link is the same as the wick of the candle and push energy through the link.
So Kvothe’s crappy link of rag (or liquid) to bottle wouldn’t matter if he drew his energy from an external power source like a hearthfire or some kind of sympathetic battery.
A type of magic which collects energy, stores it before release actually does have precedence in the story. The stories that K heard about the Adem (a people who happen to remember direct lineages to the CW). They save up their words like fuel, then burn them. Burning-candles-sympathists.
The Adem are isolated, from the early days when they were hunted (postulated that they were Lanre’s people) to their own cultural enforcement. We know they have lost arts/magic ie the swords (actually…do we?). Its possibe that they remember how to store magic when others forgot. A knowledge that perhaps the Amyr/Aturan empire wanted to surpress when the ‘had troubles’? If the waystones are able to store magic perhaps this explains how thy seem to have more signifcance in Adem culture. The test of the stones…each stone ascending to a waystone.
Think of the examples of sympathy we have seen. Now imagine those acts done using a stored energy source. Imagine what would have happened to K when ambrose passed the mommet through fire. Cindered. Would grams stand up to that…
(Ah yes grams. Objects that seem to absorb the energy of an attack. )
perhaps after the creation war the Amyr wanted to set limits on magic, on power. Damage control. On ensuring that such power was in their power. The Lockless would need to be subsumed. (Theory; Thelu=First Lock, the lockless as a sort of masons, designing the doors of stone-no lock but a lot of complicated magic. Was this tech born from an innate skill?). The empire takes land, the church educates the susequent generations that magic=demons-excepting the angels, of course. The places that resisted are shown to have knowledge, and stories containing knowledge of the CW, Aelph, Faen. Times when such knowledge was known.
The everburning lamp. What if there is a storing device within? What if it is powering itself. The storage device within emits energy in a controlled link, the energy is translated into light. The light passes through the surface of the lamp and shines. Pretty. The inner surface of the lamp takes the heat (or somesuch) from the light, the energy going into the storage device. You would have a perpetual cycle, unless the storage device was broken. If the lamp had a dial from low to high, this would demonstrate exponencial growth and decay.
I remember when I first took Thermodynamics and learned about the three laws I was incredibly disappointed. When I read Kvothe’s reaction to sympathy when he learned it from Ben I laughed because I knew how it felt to be let down like that. Before Thermo I thought the future was limitless in scope. Now I know better. But Pat has done something very cool in the 4C. He created a magic system that perfectly obeys the First Law of Thermodynamics and completely violates the Second Law. ( To this point he has not addressed the Third Law though I infer from the way the Second Law is violated that you could conceivably violate the Third with a seriously strong Alar). Outside of Sympathy, the 4C world seems to perfectly obey the laws of Thermodynamics. This is important as it relates to the discussion of energy storage.
@A Fox
I like where you have gone with the Energy ideas as they relate to “Old Magics”. Kilvin made it clear that there are items that just flip everything on its head and we can’t wisely hold these “Old Magics” to what we know of Sympathy and Sygaldry. So as far as ‘exponential growth’ of energy is concerned with Sympathy we can throw that idea away. Any perpetual motion of the first kind is explicitly forbidden by the definition of Sympathy. But as far as ever-burning lamps (an “Old Magic”) I can get behind the idea of recapturing energy.
@gbrell
You really struck on something with the Draccus that bothers me. I totally understand the first two bindings (iron to draccus, lodenstone to wheel) but I cannot reconcile the final binding. The problem with Sympathy is the need for a link. If you have no link (NOTHING) I am guessing you get zero transference. (Insert some kind of logic statement about NOTHING being absolutely dissimilar to SOMETHING) This is why the Sympathy = Bottle Explodes theory falls apart for me. K had no link for energy except his body. All through the text he has needed something: a candle lit from a fire, a pinch of ash, a bottle of water from the bath, etc. It is not like he can just picture the fire from Ankers and take the energy. So how did he do this with the Draccus. Have I missed the link? Did he keep the burnt oak twig? And what type of binding? Heat to Polarized Electrical Potential? Did he know as an E’lir how to make the wheel or the draccus magnetized? If so, why did he seem so speculative about how the lodenstone works when talking to Denna?
As far as storing energy through sympathy, I have a few issues. Sympathy works with forms of energy we recognize: Heat, Light, Mechanical, Electrical? (although they have not mastered the use of it so I am skeptical). This means that he must store the energy in one of these forms. So something he has a link to has to be getting either very Hot, very Bright, or very fast moving. And Sympathy only works when the Alar is focused. If you turn it off, then regular Thermodynamics takes over and the storage device would return to an equilibrium somehow. This means that K would have to have his Alar focused 24 hours a day. I’m inclined to say that is impossible since we have seen him sleep once in the frame.
Dracus. Personally, from the description I think the draccus would easily outweigh an iron wheel-one that is man sized as per the legend and description. The dracus was described to be as big as a waystone. Its scales had become saturated with iron, one scale is hefty. If K linked the dracus to lodestone simultaeneously with a link lodestone to iron wheel then their own weights would dictate which object went flying to the other with the force of attraction. A version of what the foolish student did when he tried to lift a wagon and ripped his arm off, but the duel links take the power of the force. The timing of breaking the links would have to be rather precise.
Perhaps here we see Kvothe performing magic as naturally as the boy could catch the ball.
“Any perpetual motion of the first kind is explicitly forbidden by the definition of sympathy.” Could you explain that please?
Alar 24/7. Exactly, if he had to maintain that, even when sleeping he may, say, have to seperate the parts of himself that enable that-the Kvothe parts-and become a fascimile of himself-kote. When the two draw together starange things (like exploding stawberry wine) happen. ;)
@61.Maniacal Engineer:
And what type of binding? Heat to Polarized Electrical Potential?
My best guess is galvanic. It’s used in the text to describe electrical forces, particularly those arising from polar potentials. See Ch. 77 when Kvothe is discussing “Clip Eels.” He also describes his link between two similar arrows in order to call lightning as a “galvanic binding.”
Kvothe admits to knowing that magnets have “galvanic properties” in Ch. 71 of NotW when he acquires the lodenstone from the tinker. He also describes the stone’s ability as a “type of galvanic force” when Denna asks about it, but he can’t explain it. Ch. 77 of NotW.
Considering the tech level, I can believe that electromagnets could be known without being theoretically understood. In our world, they were discovered in the 1820s, but magnetic theory wasn’t postulated until the early 1900s (per wikipedia, so take with a grain of salt, it’s been a while since I studied the history of physics).
Interestingly, we have at least one example of transferring non-kinetic forces. See Ch. 14 of NotW where Kvothe discusses using a “Chemical” binding, “[p]robably second catalytic,” to use lye to dissolve the oil on a bird’s feathers.
So let’s think of what subsets of bindings would do.
If we just transferred the magnetism of the lodenstone to the wheel (via a galvanic binding), we’d expect it to act on the draccus (given its scales high iron content), but it probably wouldn’t do much. Too much mass on the draccus’s side and magnets don’t scale linearly with mass. I’m not even sure a binding connecting the draccus to the scale is necessary (though that binding would be a very good one given the “similarity” of the objects).
We want the wheel to act on the draccus with the same comparative force as the lodenstone acts on the scale. We presumably don’t want the wheel to pull every piece of metal in the town to it (which would happen if the force wasn’t specifically directed), so there probably needs to be something that connects the two objects (wheel and draccus) without simply turning the wheel into a giant magnet.
So we could connect the magnetism of the lodenstone to the wheel (binding 1) and the wheel to the draccus (binding 2, a different kind of galvanic binding possibly). But this doesn’t solve the force problem.
For that we need to transfer and amplify the comparative force of the magnet to the scale proportionate to the masses of the wheel and the draccus. That is the binding that I can’t explain (and you can’t understand). I’m not sure whether that binding is between the draccus and the scale or the draccus and the wheel or the draccus-wheel unit and the scale-lodenstone unit.
I’m also not sure where the energy comes from. As you noted, this world follows the first law, so where the heck is this extra power coming from? Nothing in the text suggests he threw away the oak twig, so he could still draw power from the heat he’d transferred to the oak tree, though its destruction by the draccus would probably make the link weaker. But that’s just supposition.
K had no link for energy except his body. All through the text he has needed something: a candle lit from a fire, a pinch of ash, a bottle of water from the bath, etc.
Except when he’s dueling, he doesn’t have ash, but believed he could use a brazier. Nor does he have a link to the lightning in WMF. I think you’re right that he can’t just visualize a far-away fire, but does he have to be touching the water from the baths? I think proximity may be sufficient to redirect energy.
This could also align with the concept of “insurmountable decay” mentioned in WMF, where Kvothe says: “While it was true that moving any significant amount of energy more than six miles was statistically
impossible, you could still use sympathy to dowse over much greater distances.” Perhaps by connecting to a power source through a talisman such as the pinch of ash or bottled water, you move the origin of the energy closer. I’m not sure whether this “second” binding (I don’t think it’s technically a binding) would fall prey to the same rules in terms of distance.
But Pat has done something very cool in the 4C. He created a magic system that perfectly obeys the First Law of Thermodynamics and completely violates the Second Law.
Does it actually violate the Second Law? The concept of slippage suggests that all sympathetic links are inherently wasteful, thus entropy increases.
@62.A Fox:
“Any perpetual motion of the first kind is explicitly forbidden by the definition of sympathy.” Could you explain that please?
Perpetual motion of the first kind violates sympathy because it creates energy. And the first law of sympathy is that energy cannot be created or destroyed.
18@AnotherAndrew
For me the word “unseen” could be understood in two ways – first – invisible, as everyone else is saying here…in my language though it can mean as well something that hasn´t been seen before – t.m. something new, something that no-one has seen before – unseen…
it may be just my language, but this is how I see this matter
Am I the only one here who thought that the binding Kvothe used to kill the Draccus was kinetic?
Here’s what he does: he links the lodenstone to the wheel (good link because they’re both made of iron) and the scale to the draccus (excellent link since it’s his own scale). Then he let’s the lodenstone go so it flies towards the scale.
The wheel mimics this movement because they are linked, that’s no different than the first example of sympathy we see: two linked iron coins. If Kvothe was truly doing some more advanced stuff with galvanic/electromagnetic forces, why does he let the lodenstone move?
That of course still leaves the question of where the energy came from. Even with a perfect link (which we can assume Kvothe was close to have) he can’t transfer more than the kinetic energy the lodenstone had while it was moving. But from how it is described, to me that’s likely what he was doing.
A Fox: A lab? What a lovely idea.
About my theory about Chandrians killing by proxy and using Denna and Kwothe.
I thought of the skindancer when I thought of this theory but I didn’t think about the possibility of Kwothe killing a king while possesed.
I think that is possible that a possesed person could kill everybody in the wedding or the troupe because the possesed one would be empowered too. In many works of fiction a possesed person is stronger than his/her usual self.
I think that it is possible that Chandrians can’t kill people directly, neither force a possesed to kill himself. Chandrians could have used Denna to kill the people at the wedding because Denna was available and she was somebody outside of the wedding. I mean, the Chandrian wanted to kill all the assistants to the wedding that had seen the vase, so they couldn’t use one of the assistants and leave him/her alive after.
And they would use Kwothe to kill his troupe because he was a child, old enough to do the killings but not old enough to be a menace for the Chandrian. After the killing, he was a scared and traumatized child left alone in the middle of no where. The most probable outcome being Kvothe lost in the forest and dying of starvation.
It is possible that Chandrian being not able to kill people directly is a limitation to their power imposed by the gods themselves. This would explain why Cinder was working with thieves so they could do the wet works.
Interesting too how Chandrians are interested in politics.
Anyway, if Kvothe killed his troupe, then Kvothe killing the fake troupe in the road to Levinshir would have a different meaning: This would be the second time he killed a troupe; but this time consciously. He has in himself the capacity/ability of killing.
About linguistics.
Levinshir. Could it be “Le vin shire”, or “shire of the wine”. They have wine in Vintas =)
(Le vin is French and it means the wine.)
The bottle that shatters isn’t just any bottle. Here is the passage:
So, it is a bottle with the “smell of strawberries.” So, a bottle of strawberry wine. Very much associated with K & D. Also, note that it is right hand that clenches.
When Elodin puts on Fela’s stone ring:
So, normal name mastery rings go on the left hand. Special mysterious rings go on the right. In the frame we have:
So, the second hand has rings unseen. We normally assume the first hand to be the right hand and the second to be the left, but the poem just calls them first and second. From the namer ring progression above, the first hand you put rings on is your left. Later (when ready) you put special rings on your right.
So, I would propose that rings “unseen” could go on your right hand. This means that In the barroom scene, Kote could very well be wearing a hidden ring upon his right hand. This could be a source of some power (stored as A Fox notes). K tightens his right hand. The ring (maybe) provides a power source he is almost unaware of as Kote. The rag contains spilled liquor. His thoughts are upon D–strawberry wine. The power is transferred to the bottle of strawberry wine, eight inches away–it is both associated in his thought and nearby.
@66.Valyrian:
I think your explanation has a few holes, too.
First, the text explicitly says he makes three bindings, you’ve only accounted for two.
Second, imagine the situation involving drabs rather than the draccus and the wheel. I have two pairs of drabs that are connected. If I move one to the other, the other two should move the same distance. But the draccus and wheel were definitely farther apart than the scale and the lodenstone, which Kvothe held so close together that he “could feel them tugging at each other.”
Third, there isn’t enough force. Your theory would require that the lodenstone supply all the force for the pull, but this would have to be done with the lodenstone’s innate magnetism. Imagine that the lodenstone wasn’t linked to anything, but that Kvothe had just linked the draccus and the scale; the lodenstone probably wouldn’t have even moved the scale because the draccus+scale unit weighs far too much.
The failing of a purely kinetic theory is that there isn’t a strong enough force present in the system to bring about the result. The failing of the magnetic theory is that you have to turn the wheel into a massive magnet, and we have no idea how you do that.
I will admit that it’s curious that he releases the lodenstone and not the scale, however.
@71.gbrell:
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about some of the points you raise here too.
I didn’t necessarily want to posit a new theory that explains everything about that incident, just add my impression of that scene when I only recently re-read it. I felt that the current discussion was focused too much on the galvanic aspect, which felt like the wrong track to me, considering that Kvothe doesn’t seem to know much about magnetism and the process of letting the lodenstone move.
Everything I could say now about the points you raised is of course pure speculation, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that kinetic energy can be directed, and Ben’s coin example was just the simplest form of kinetic bindings. It’s not to far-fetched to imagine that if you have a link between two pairs of objects, the direction of movement relative to another can be transferred to the respective partners they’re linked to, so that the movement is relative to the objects you’re linking instead of a global frame of reference. But as I said, that’s just speculation.
The energy problem of course exists for both explanations – I don’t really know about the energies involved in magnetization but I’m sure you can’t magnetize a massive wheel weighing more than a ton with a magnet the size of Kvothe’s. I’m fairly sure in either scenario the energy comes through the third binding somehow.
@gbrell
As per the violation of the second law, I agree that for the most part Pat has accounted for entropy through his use of transference (% efficiency) as well as ‘slippage’ which suggests that some of the transferred energy is dumped into a lower state reservoir. I may have been hasty in saying that he “completely” violates the second law, but under the current explanations and examples of sympathy it can certainly be violated. One of the most important explanations of entropy is that it exists to define for a system where the energy is allowed to go. In terms of a heat engine this means that you cannot extract heat from a source and convert it into work without dumping some of that heat into a lower temperature reservoir. I can’t put a pot of hot water over a fire and cool the water by making the fire hotter. If I want to pump heat “uphill” like a refrigerator, I must be dumping enough heat into a heat reservoir to allow for an overall increase in entropy. In the 4C they seem to obey the second law a lot of the time, but from everything they have said and shown a sympathist could conceivably extract heat from a fire until it is cold and use that heat for other things. The problem comes when the fire becomes the lowest energy state in the system. Sympathy should fail at that point no matter how strong the Alar.
Maybe Pat has accounted for this and not bothered explaining it because it is not beneficial to the story. If this is the case I humbly accepth my incorrect understanding of Sympathy.
@valyrian
I agree that the third binding is the one for which Kvothe draws the energy to move the wheel. In that case he must have a link of some kind to an energy source (most likely the fire in the town). But I have another problem with this. Since Pat has taken such great care to incorporate Thermodynamics into Sympathy there are limitations to how it can be used. From my understanding, the sympathist acts most often as a valve through which the energy moves. In many simple cases the sympathist acts also as the energy source by leeching his/her own heat. When another source exists and the sympathist has a link to it, the energy is taken from the source, goes through the “valve” and into the other link to accomplish something. I am fairly sure that the sympathist must be in physical contact with either the source itself or the link to the source in order for it to work. So I guess Kvothe must have had the oak twig touching his body while he was holding the scale and lodenstone in order to draw the energy from the source and transfer it into the wheel via the link.
The exceptions to this are when the energy for the action are external. Think of Denna lifting the coins while Kvothe directs the energy as the valve. She is the energy source and Kvothe does not need to bind to her for it to happen. This is how Sygaldry sometimes works, relying on other energy inputs. This is doubly true for the lightning strike. Kvothe does not provide any energy, he merely grounds out the arrow in the tree several times its normal state and waits for the energy to come from an external source. Smart but risky considering he is in the middle of several bindings as the valve and some of that energy is bound to slip through him during the lightning strike.
I still think that, having read through all of this and having just freshly re-read days one and two. Having the story and this reread fresh in my mind, gods body, I think K is cracked. I keep seeing it hinted at in the story itself and in people’s comments yet it seems to me that something Kvothe did and has been doing in the story to recognize and become more and more like Elodin seems to me to inevitably lead to him cracking sometime in D3.
How long has he been in Newarre?
A bounty or facing the Iron Law wouldn’t face Kvothe. He seems the type, as Kvothe, to go in face first and face these things with the flame and fury of a thunderclap. K’s problem and prison in Newarre isn’t one of his own making. It isn’t something he does willfully. Something in D3 shatters his mind and throws him facefirst through the doors of madness. Maybe it is D?
I just wonder if Bast’s plan will bring his reshi back. Can being forced to remember heal the broken mind?
Do we know what caused Elodin to crack and how it manifested? Could he have been unable to perform any feats of magic or manifest a second personality? While he never seems quite sane to D1 or early D2 Kvothe, he comes off as perfectly rational once we understand the deeper pools of magic as Kvothe grows– we realize that Elodin, weird as he might be, is sane.
Could Elodin the Great have imagined himself as someone else and manifest a different persona until he was able to call the name of Stone and reclaim himself from himself? It reminds me of Telhu and Menda in some odd way.
Thanks, Jo, for continuing these. I’ve been missing the discussions (-:
While I disagree with the idea that Kvothe is storing energy before explosively smashing the bottle of strawberry wine, there is as example in the story of energy storing. It involved artificery instead of sympathy, but proves the concept can work in the 4C world. Kvothe makes a siege stone in D2 and used it to stave in Ambrose’s door.
“It worked on the most basic sympathetic principles. A crossbow stores energy and uses it to shoot a bolt a long distance at a great speed. A siege stone was an inscribed piece of lead that stores energy and uses it to move itself about six inches with the force of a battering ram.”
This means the theory of “waystones as sympathy batteries” is possible, though I don’t see enough evidence to support it being probable.
@@@@@ 74. Eceas Ratha
I think you make an excellent point about Elodin and Kvothe! It would make so much sense if Kvothe in the frame is in a similar place mentally, etc as Elodin while he was in Haven. You make a great point that Elodin did not escape until he remembered the stone’s name. Perhaps he was in a state prior where he forgot his magic to some degree, and when he bacame himself again he was able to break out.
I wonder if there was something that triggered this period of forgetfulness for Elodin, or if it’s like a pupa stage with butterflies. Something that all great namers go through maybe? They learn so much and their sleeping mind becomes so great that their body goes into a state of shock locking the information away, and the truly great namers will be able to break free of their minds?
If so, it makes me much more hopeful for Kote at the end of Day Three.
But yes, I’d like to note again:
The first time Elodin (a great namer) was locked up, they didn’t worry about him calling the name of stone. Implies that they felt secure that he could no longer access his sleeping mind or something.
Once he found himself again they had to add copper to the stone, because of coppers anti magical properties.
Perhaps Kvothe/Kote is simply going through a similar chrysalis period
“So as far as ‘exponential growth’ of energy is concerned with Sympathy
we can throw that idea away. Any perpetual motion of the first kind is
explicitly forbidden by the definition of Sympathy. But as far as
ever-burning lamps (an “Old Magic”) I can get behind the idea of
recapturing energy.”
Ok. Im still struggling to understand this. I’ll give you my understanding, and if I have gone wrong, please point it out (also bear in mind that I do not have access to the common terms etc…except my trawl through, sigh, wiki from link to link that seems like the picure in my head. Honestly I feel like Dirk Gently-the fundamental interconnectedness of all things!).
Exponential growth exists in our world. If things that break the 2nd thermo’ law cannot exist, then exponential growth does not brake it. Avalanch breakdown. Dialectic breakdown..these are examples of exponecial growth. Lightning, flourescent lights.
Perpetual energy and the everburning lamp. My idea is not a perpetual motion machine (all impossible-ish and shiz), becuase it is not isolated, it uses power from the storage device. If the storage device is located within it would only seem as if it was a pmm.
‘glass ball’ filled with gas. storage device releases energy in the form of an electrical current that induces dilectrical breakdown. ‘Arc We have light. The entropic breakdown of the gas particles would also result in a realease of thermo energy. The storage device then soaks up this thermo energy, able to convert it as necessary. There would obviously have to be some heavy duty type of sygaldry/bindings that ensured the sd could soak up all excess but only release it at a certain rate.
Would the storage device have a max capacity? If the material of the device was key-say waystone, then it would also be possible that the sd was also bound to other/all waystones, and any excess would be siphoned off into them. With this it would mean that even the possible ouside forces acting upon the lamp could be equalised, thus maintaining the internal equilibrium.
If K has been linked to the waystone, storing the various energies of his actions into it constantly, then made an accidental link to the liqued he would act as a conductor between links. slippage and surge.
Mmm. The roah wood. It’s supposed to be very difficult to work with, and very hard to destroy. If the waystone is being used to store energy (would this account for the silences? The absence where energy is being drawn into it via K?), and if K is expecting something drastic to happen then it would make sense to lock away all he holds dear in a box made of it.
Kvothe-y-man, whats your plan? (I know thats awful but ha).
Oh and the rules we are applying must also be considered in light of naming and shaping. Like shaping faen. Another non pmm becuase of the moon….becuase of the 4c?
urgh. Im going to stop now.
…almost.
Elodin/Kvothe spec. Those talking about this should check out the timeline. In that discussion I raised that Elodins ‘breakdown’ was remarkably close in time to the massacre of K’s troupe. This is firmed by one of Pats’ answer in the admissions questions. I just cant help but feel that its just too much of a coincidence.
Also those in the rookery do not sem cutoff from their sleeping mind, but rather unable to escape an overstimulating barrage of names, escaping in madness etc.
@@@@@ 74. Eceas Ratha:A Fox@@@@@78 beat me to it, but do check out the timeline and note that Elodin’s commitment must fall very close to where Kvothe’s troop is killed and overlaps with some of his Tarbean episode. Very interesting possibilities.
@73.ManiacalEngineer:
I think the ways in which a sympathist can provide energy on his own is still not properly understood (or maybe I haven’t properly understood it). Very often we see Kvothe using heat from his own body, but iirc that only happens when he wants to transfer heat, such as to light the straw in his sympathy duel. On the other hand, when using sympathy to move things, the energy seems to come simply from additional muscle work (two coins are at least twice as heavy as one coin, and you don’t have to expend body heat to lift the other coin, although I assume that would be possible). I’m saying this because Kvothe mentions in the narration that he was “already exhausted” from the two previous feats of sympathy. He doesn’t mention binder’s chills, only exhaustion. After the church collapses, he sleeps for a long time. Could just be his injuries, but maybe he drew from his physical strength somehow?
By the way, in my opinion this discussion isn’t only an interesting tangent on the rules of Sympathy. There’s something different about Kvothe’s sympathy, and he seems to be able to accomplish things with it that should be impossible (like burning Hemme with an insufficient link), and I’d really like to know what that’s supposed to mean. Is it just his strong Alar? Or is it more significant?
“If so, could the moon be in kahoots with Haliax?”
gah!
Lanre turned because something happened to Lyra, right? Could it be that Lyra is the moon that Iax stole? Lanre was renamed Hal-Iax, something like “bane of Iax” because of his retailiation against Iax. Would it make sense that Lyra, as the moon, would be in cahoots with Lanre/Haliax?
“I wonder how Kvothe could have made (or had made) a whole chest out of the “difficult to mark/burn” wood.”
Kvothe, with all his faculties, could probably shape the wood into a chest himself using one ore more of the various forms of magic.
“Eight magics mentioned in the books. And at least 10 magics in the world.”
I’m betting Puppet’s carved figures are part of one of them.
@A Fox
I will try to be brief and succinct so I don’t continue these long boring posts. You are correct that exponential functions exist mathematically and that many phenomena can be modeled using exponentional functions. The challenge is in trying to understand what Science means when speaking of energy. In the case of the avalanche, you are in fact observing an exponential output of energy but that energy was already stored in the system in a form called potential energy (or more specifically gravitational potential energy). So the energy is not “growing” in the system it is simply reaching a lower energy state following an exponential output. An avalanche cannot continue forever by traveling into a gravity well and ending up back at the top of the mountain. In the same way the ever-burning lamp you described cannot run forever. Even if it is extremely efficient at recapturing heat (we call this Co-Generation) while burning or glowing, there is an energy loss in the form of light. So after one cycle you have less energy in the system than at the start. Eventually the lamp will burn out.
But as I said, this is only true in the case of Sympathy/Sygaldry because it constitutes perpetual motion of the first kind (This is what we call a system that violates the first law of thermodynamics). If you conceived of a perfectly isolated lamp which burns and recaptures all energy for reuse it would not be useful as a lamp (No light could escape) and would constitute perpetual motion of the second kind (A heat engine with 100% efficiency). But if you conceive of a lamp which did not rely on Sympathy/Sygaldry but was instead an “Old Magic” then you potentially avoid these problems.
As for Energy growing exponentially, I only objected based upon terminology. If I were storing energy as a linear input but the output were exponential, this too would be a violation of the first law. That is how I understood your definition of exponential growth of energy. If you meant an exponential release of existing energy then I withdraw my objection.
@valyrian
I am sure that there are elements of sympathy we don’t understand entirely, but I am of the opinion that we have been given enough information on which to make strong conclusions. We know, for example, that there are over 90 bindings and we even know the names of some of these ( Second Catalytic, Sympathetic Binding of Parallel Motion, Capacitorial Kinetic Luminosity,..). We also have descriptions of the effects these bindings have when used, our understanding that Pat incorporated much of Thermodynamics/Physics into Sympathy, and most importantly the scene when Sympathy is explained to Denna. So here is my understanding:
Sympathy relies upon Alar, Bindings (with associated links), and Energy. Energy comes in many forms but is all the same thing. (In our world Energy is defined as the capacity to do Work) The Bindings exist mainly to take energy in one form and use it in another (though at times the binding keeps the energy in the same form). Much like our world, heat is one of the most useful forms of energy and thus sympathists often want a link to a fire, boiling water, or in the worst case their own body heat because they can use a binding to either move that heat into a candle wick, wood in a fire pit, or they could conceivably convert that heat into a different form of energy like you mentioned. Mechanical energy is useful as well, especially if all you want to do is lift an object or stab some guys kidney, and can be summoned by moving your own arms. I am sure you could light a candle by rubbing your hands on your pant leg and using some kinetic to heat binding, but that would take longer than just leeching your own body heat.
Think of a power plant: Coal is burned to make heat, heat is used to boil water into steam, steam blows across a turbine, the turbine spins a coil of wire in a magnetic field and electrical current is generated. That goes from Chemical Potential to Heat to Mechanical to Electrical. Sympathy can do the exact same thing. Remember that Kvothe used body heat to cut the bowstrings which was most likely a heat to mechanical binding. In dueling he probably could have dropped a large mass from somewhere up high and converted the kinetic energy into heat for the candle wick. It is all just energy.
And I would argue heavily that Kvothe’s advantage in Sympathy is soley from his Alar. He actually brags about it in the story at times. All things equal (link, source, number of bindings) Kvothe can perform better Sympathy than most with the Alar being the only variable.
@82.Maniacal Engineer:
Great post. Agree with pretty much everything.
In dueling he probably could have dropped a large mass from somewhere up high and converted the kinetic energy into heat for the candle wick. It is all just energy.
We’ve seen the exact opposite as well: Devi translates heat energy from the poor boy into kinetic control over Kvothe’s body.
And I would argue heavily that Kvothe’s advantage in Sympathy is soley from his Alar. He actually brags about it in the story at times. All things equal (link, source, number of bindings) Kvothe can perform better Sympathy than most with the Alar being the only variable.
I would also think part of his advantage is having a flexible and creative mind. Sympathy appears to offer the potential for elegant, non-obvious solutions. A clever sympathist might be able to out-perform a stronger sympathist.
@82.Maniacal Engineer:
Yeah, I think you’re right about the basics of sympathy as outlined in your post. (My impression was that he cut the bowstrings by heating them at selected points until, but that’s just me.)
I’m not sure if his Alar can explain the increased efficiency of his bindings, though. Alar, as it is explained in the chapters where Kvothe is learning from Ben, is a specific application of willpower to split one’s mind and make it believe certain things. This is necessary to establish bindings. Whenever we hear that his Alar isn’t “strong enough” it’s because he fails to create another binding. I don’t remember an incident where he thinks he’s going to need his strong Alar because he has to transfer energy at a certain efficiency. The efficiency seems to be completely dictated by the nature of the binding, i.e. similarity of the linked objects, their distance etc.
Which means we’re back to square one regarding the Hemme incident.
@83.gbrell:
Thank you for bringing up Kvothe’s duel with Devi! I tried to remember an incident where heat energy was transformed into mechanical energy but I completely forgot about that duel.
And I totally agree with the cleverness aspect of sympathy. Actually I have to admire PR for that, because most of the time when magic appears in fantasy novels, we are not told its rules (other than “say this magical word to turn yourself into a dragon” or something like that). That of course makes it easy to create a mystical feel for your magic, but on the other hand makes it hard to create tension in its use. Either a character knows the spell to achieve his goals, or he doesn’t. That’s totally in the hands of the author without that the reader could predict what would happen, or wonder how the problem could be solved. That’s completely different with Sympathy: we know exactly which tools Kvothe has, and every time he comes up with a solution it feels genuinely earned, because he has to use his own smarts and not just to remember the appropriate spell.
“If so, could the moon be in kahoots with Haliax?”
I was so excited about this connection (which maybe others have already made, I haven’t managed to catch up on all the comments or blogs), that I completely jumbled up my thoughts in my previous post. Then when I started looking at the timeline and info on the Creation War, I started to think the connection didn’t work. But consider this:
The war did not end at the time of Lanre’s death and resurrection. By Skarpi’s account, “the enemy was set beyond the doors of stone” at that time, but “enemy” could be interpreted as the shapers who lost in the Blac of Drossen Tor, not specifically Iax at that time. After Lyra called Lanre back, “war continued”, “people could speak openly of peace”, “end of the war was drawing swiftly near.”
Now switch to Felurian’s account: “until he stole the moon there was some hope for peace.”
Back to Skarpi: just as peace seemed certain, rumors that Lyra was kidnapped, ill. That she was dead. Lanre had fled. Lanre had gone mad.
All the rumors were likely true, just at different times. Iax kidnapped Lyra, trapped her partially. Lanre left, seeking power to free her. Instead, through some deceit (the Cthaeh’s influence), his attempt to free her only killed her. Maybe Iax was already imprisoned, and drawing the moon into Fae was somehow an attempt to escape from the prison of the doors of stone? And to close that door and prevent escape, Lyra had to die? We can only speculate what transpired between Lanre and Iax, but then Lanre named himself Haliax, which must surely mean Bane of Iax or something similar.
Now maybe the moon isn’t “in cahoots” with Haliax, but if somehow Lyra is the moon, the symbolism of the moon with Haliax on the vase at least makes more sense. Lyra and Lanre fought in the battles “side by side”. They fought “three nights unceasing by the light of the moon”. If she is the moon, and lives on somehow in that form, then it makes sense that Haliax would somehow be bound to or aided by the phases of the moon or eclipses.
There’s also some sort of possibility that if the name of the moon is freed from the (Lackless?) box, Lyra may have somehow survived and there could be some resolution to Lanre and Lyra’s tragic story? That she could end his undying, or end his despair and pursuit of oblivion?
I’ll admit this theory of the sequence of events doesn’t jive with Bast’s statement that stealing the moon sparked the entire creation war, but histories get muddled and Bast isn’t a particularly attentive student anyway. Felurian says “he stole the moon and with it came the war”, but that could be either the Creation War or Lanre’s destruction of the cities. Regardless, it seems certain to me now that Lyra’s death and the theft of the moon are tied together in the story, even if they are not the same thing.
I think everyone probably agrees that Kvothe opens some sort Pandora’s box, in the literal sense, whether it be the doors of stone, the four plate door, the lackless box. But what was left in the bottom after all the evil escaped from Pandora’s box? HOPE. And what did Iax take when he locked part of the moon in a box? HOPE.
Okay, I think I just stumbled upon something that hasn’t been mentioned here before, and since this is a generic discussion thread, I thought I’d share it. I was randomly rereading parts of WMF (mainly to read the Chandrian / Creation War clues again, but some of them are hard to find in a physical book), including Elodin’s “quit grabbing at my tits” lecture. There Elodin asks every student to come up with a subject that cannot be explained. When Kvothe protests that no such thing exists, Elodin quips he should’ve said music. Kvothe replies that music explains itself and then (UK paperback p. 230):
“It [music] is the road, and the map that shows the road. It is both together.”
Now that sounds remarkably like the way the Adem try to explain the Lethani!
“No,” Tempi said sternly. “The Lethani is not a path.” […] “The Lethani is what helps us choose a path.” (p. 711)
The imagery here is very similar, which is never accidental with PR, so I think this is one his hidden-in-plain-sight foreshadowing moments.
It’s especially curious because there’s definitely more to the Adem taboo of performing music (and by extension expressing emotion at all). So we see music contrasted to the Lethani, using similar imagery, but differing “definitions”: music is not only the way to find the road, but also the road itself, but Lethani isn’t the path itself. The fact that the Adem stress this fact implies that we’re not just talking in random metaphors here.
Also, I don’t think Kvothe is just randomly good at music. It’s been speculated before that after the death of his troupe, when he played his lute until he could play certain events of emotions, he was actually naming these things, only with music instead of words. This would fit with the theory that his encounter with the Chandrian put him into a sleeping mind like state, which he only snapped out of when Skarpi named him in Tarbean.
We also have the Singers, which we know almost nothing about, except that they’re probably identical to the Tahl, a nomadic people of certain existence (unlike Fae, Sim doesn’t doubt them at least) who live beyond the Stormwall and can heal people with their singing or animate trees (by the way, I’ve always assumed they lived in a forest because their home is called Tahlenwald, with -wald being German for forest – but that doesn’t seem to work well with a nomadic lifestyle).
I think singing, or music in general, allows access to a form of magic similar to naming, but instead of using words to describe the inherent nature of things, they use music.
Then we also have the implied common ancestry of the Adem and Edema Ruh. It’s curious that if this is true, one of them made music their defining trait and the other turned it into a taboo. Could this be the initial reason of their schism? I wonder if music falls somewhere on the namer/shaper divide. It is certainly related to all of this somehow, because I don’t buy that the Adem shun it only for cultural reasons (in my opinion – and I’m sure Kvothe would agree – music is not at all like making facial expressions. It’s more like laughing or crying – suppressing it would be “unhealthy”).
Anyway, I apologize for the disconnected nature of this post. I was just trying to describe my trail of thought when that sentence reminded me of the whole music/singing aspect. It hasn’t been talked about that much here so far, but then again we really don’t know much at this point.
Valyrian@87:Yep, Singing as a form of Naming and the potential Edema Ruh/Adem split is all a quite possible area. I rather like it. The Tahl are nomadic singers and so are the Edema Ruh. The Edema have (maybe) just lost the naming portion of the songs. We did discuss it in some thread(s) back in the dim mists of threaddom.
@85.
My understanding is that there was disputes between the namers and shaper, but it hadn’t boilded over until Iax stole the moon. Before each party was open to finding a solution and just we having difficulty finding one, but Iax stealing the moon was the last straw.
This way statements like “he stole the moon and with it came the war” are still true, but can also fit with your Lanre/Haliax Lyra/Moon theory. There are typically scuffles before full on wars, and during these scuffles Iax stole the moon causing full blown war.
My only question is how does Iax stealing the moon (Lyra) fit into Lanre being betrayed? From Scarpi’s story I get the impression (because I can’t remember if he said it outright) that Lanre was betrayed. Lyra wasn’t simply taken from him, but in a way that meant Lanre’s trusted betrayed him. Perhaps the others didn’t stop Iax? Or they didn’t warn Lanre when they discovered Lyra was at risk?
Valyrian @84:
Brandon Sanderson expands on this in First Law of Magic. Interesting reading.
http://brandonsanderson.com/article/40/Sandersons-First-Law
@88.shalter:
Oh, do these threads still exist? I’d love to read this because I’m sure you’ve been able uncover even more connections there.
@89. laurene135
In Skarpi’s story, Lanre says “My wife is dead. Deceit and treachery brought me to it, but her death is on my hands.”
That could mean a lot of things, of course, but my interpretation is that Lanre killed Lyra either by mistake through some power he thought would free/save her, or he was deceived into thinking Lyra had betrayed him. The Cthaeh could be responsible for either of those. The story of Jax stealing the moon indicates he seduced the moon using a stone flute, and asked a kiss of her. Jax’s story is clearly not constructed to be factual, but it undoubtedly contains parts of the truth. Iax may have worked some magic on Lyra, the singing/music type of naming/shaping that has been hinted at. Lanre was a powerful warrior, but did not yet possess magic of his own, so if Lyra had been enchanted and appeared to have betrayed him, he may not have discerned that magic was involved.
@90. bad_platypus:
Thanks, a great read, and Sanderson is exactly talking about what I meant. It’s also great by the way that Rothfuss manages to have the cake and eat it too with regards to hard and soft magic in the form of sympathy and naming. You’d almost think it shouldn’t work out, but somehow it does.
(I really need to read Sanderson. I only hear good stuff both about and from him.)
Concerning the motivation Caudicus: I always thought that it was rather heavily implied that Caudicus was attempting to murder the Maer under orders from the Jakkis family. Seeing as how it was specifically mentioned that he had recently been staying at the Jakkis estate, then never really went anywhere other than Kvothe saying that he tucked it away in his memory or some-such. This, coupled with the theory that the Jakkis’s had an entire family “lost at sea” while the Barony is known as “The Pirate Isle” implied that the Jakkis’s killed them off. I guess I just took it for granted that the Jakkis’s were systematically killing off, or trying to kill off, all those that stood above them in line of succession to the throne.
Concerning the movement of the moon: One thing that always bothered me is that when Kvothe first enters the Fae, it is during a full moon in the 4C, and inversely a new moon in the Fae, which makes perfect sense. But then we have at least one full moon in the Fae, which you would assume meant that there was a new moon in the 4C. However, we then find out that only 3 days have passed in the 4C, which makes impossible for there to have been a new moon in 4C , especially given that we know the synecdoche period of the moon the 4C. This implies…well I’m not sure what it implies, I’m guessing it involves portals though. Alternatively, it could be that what would be the dark side of the moon to the 4C is stuck in the Fae. Making it 2 sides of the same coin type of deal. Which raises the question “Where does the moon go when it’s not in our sky?” I’d assumed that the answer to Elodin’s question was the Fae, but that doesn’t seem to be true, at least not completely.
I also wonder how the moon phases even work if both the Fae world and light source in the Fae are stationary, as they seem to be.
Concerning Bredon being Aculeus Lackless: This never even occurred to me. But it makes ALOT of sense in retrospect. However, it seems like he would have a similar reaction as Meluan to Kvothe, seeing as how Aculeus disowned Natailia. His reaction to the letter Meliuan sent also seemed genuine, and you think she’d mention something to her lord father about how some ravel had been masquerading as a Noble. In short it makes a lot of sense, but there seems to be a lot of holes as well.
Anyway, just thought I’d offer up a few of theories, and comments. I’d just finished rereading on my own, to try and piece something’s together, when I found these. And I was very much relieved to see that people were arriving at the same conclusions I was.
94. Flidan
Good point about the moon. I mean it has been implied that time in the fae moves differently than in the mortal realm, but this doesn’t really answer your question/point.
My only guess is that perhaps the moon cycle is more chaotic than our own? We we have evidence that the lunar cycle is regular? Or did we just assume it is because ours is? Perhaps the moon moves between the mortal and fean realm at varying speeds? And if this is the case, it wouldn’t necessarily be point out by the characters because for them it would be normal.
Thoughts? Any evidence in the book that points to the consistency of the lunar cycle?
Flidan@94:That is an interesting point that I don’t think we’ve really explored much.
Kvothe seeing several phases of the moon in Fae and experiencing a much longer (but abstract) amount of time than the 3 days that pass in 4CLand implies that not only is time moving at a different (faster) rate in Fae relative to 4CLand, but that the Fae time is occuring in the relative future to 4C time.
So in Fae, the moon has emerged into Fae by X amount. If Kvothe were to make a mark on the moon (somehow) and travel back to the 4C, it would seem that the mark he had made would nat appear to be visible for quite some time in the 4C. Interesting.
@95. laurene135:
We know that the synodic period (the time between two full moons) is roughly 72 days in the 4C world from one of the admissions questions Kvothe has to answer.
This doas seem to strongly imply that the time differnces come from the waystones, not merely the two paces running at different rates. Could this be due to some sort of strectching/how ‘open’ the doors are relative to the moons passing?
Or is it just a slip up by PR? There has been the odd one (believe he noticed one becuase of the admissions q&a?)
@97. Valyrian
Oh how interesting! So their synodic period is significantly longer than ours (ours is roughtly 29 days).
@98. A Fox
Great point about the waystones, but perhaps its the waystones that sync up the times? They’re the little worm hole that things travel through, and time is just compressed on one side.
Considering how careful PR is I don’t (and hope) it’s some sort of slip up
I agree that it’s a too important aspect of his worldbuilding to be a slip up. Getting math wrong is one thing (seems to be an initiation rite for writers anyway), but we’re talking about the moon here. Rothfuss is known to revise his work endlessly, and in interviews he says that it goes down to changing single words in the end. I doubt he’ll overlook something this big with such an eye for detail.
Anyway, do we have enough explicit information about the Fae moon phases during Kvothe’s stay there to see if there’s really any contradiction? If time passes more slowly in Fae maybe its synodic period is simply longer to make up for it?
I don’t have WMF at hand right now, does it mention him seeing different moon phases? All I remember is him being surprised at seeing the moon at all, which might imply that it has been new moon before. But maybe Kvothe was just too … distracted by Felurian and the whole Fae to notice it before?
By the way, another thought has crossed my mind. In our world the moon rises and sets just like the sun, for the same reason – Earth’s rotation. Now Fae doesn’t have sunrise or sunset – the light is the same in one place all the time. Does that mean there are parts of Fae where the moon is always visible and others where it isn’t? Does the moon rise and set at all even in the 4C world? Given its magical nature we can’t take anything for granted.
I just found these discussions yesterday so I apologize if I bring up old ideas.
@41 I love the broken hands thoery! I’ve been wondering if anyone else suspects that K’s condition in the frame is at least in part due to the oath he swears to D in day 2. I don’t have my books with me but I believe he swears to not go after, research, pursue in any way, master Ash (Who by the way I agree is either Cinder, the king K is going to kill in D3, Bredon (becasue of his cane), or some combination of the three). K Swears by his name, his power, and his good right hand, but D prefers his left, so by his good left hand. Three things he seems to be missing in the frame. His name, his power, and his left hand (music). I don’t know if this is the only reason for his current state, it’s probably more complicated than that, but D does seem rather shocked by his oath. And I’ll be shocked if K doesn’t break this oath.
@46 I really like the oxygen theory. Don’t forget that rusting is oxygenation. Perhaps your comments on time, especially rust, can be tied into your oxygen theory.
I’m also interested in copper, how it rusts (I believe this process is different then other metals any chemists out there?), and the Chandrain. This may be relevant, maybe not. All I know is I’m not going to get anything done for a few days when book 3 finally comes out.
@100 Valyrian While we aren’t given many specific moon phases, we are given some. We know that at some point after enter the Fae, Kvothe notices a sliver of the moon, and is surprised it’s the same moon. The fact that he hadn’t noticed it before, implies that it wasn’t there or wasn’t visible when he first arrived. We also know that they were waiting on a full moon to help bring the shaed into the light, and that they eventually get one. This tells us that there are phases of moon in the Fae and that the moon passed through all of its phases at least once while Kvothe is in the Fae. Even if the synecdoche period of the moon is long there, it doesn’t account for there being near 200% moon between both worlds, when there should only be 100% possible.
As far as the moon phases are concerned, here’s how the phases would work in our would if the earth was stationary, thus having no rotation or orbit.
It’s important to note that so long as the Earth is stationary “Noon” will always have a New moon while “midnight” always has a full moon. But due to our orbit and rotation we get the different phases.
Because night time and day time seem to be based upon geographic location in the Fae, and we’re told that the Fae is round, which would imply that it is stationary in relative terms to its light source. However, this would mean that there could be no different phases of the moon; each area would always have the same phase. Since we see that the moon changes phases in each individual area, or at least in the one we’re shown, this leads me to the conclusion that the Fae and its light source rotate each other at a constant rate much like binary stars. (I would say that the Fae may orbit its light source at the same rate as its orbit, but I don’t think that’s possible, but I could be wrong). If this is true then the moon could orbit the Fae while the Fae and its light source orbit each other, allowing the moon to have its phases while the Fae maintains its geography based night and day. I think…
This is all of course assuming that Kvothe is correct about the Fae being spherical, rather than planer with a strong center of gravity.
As for waystones, I think that they are simply magical anchors binding the worlds of the 4C and Fae together, kind of like Ule and Doch in Sygaldry. We’re told that the land was ripped asunder, around the time of the CW, well something has to be holding them together now. My answers: The waystones. This is of course pure conjecture and I have absolutely nothing to back it up with…
@68, TheDoc:
To the theory that the Chandrian used proxys to kill has one flaw. When Kvothe stumbled upon them around the camp fire, they seem surprised. Moreover, there was mention of that tthey seemed to have missed a him, and that he may have sharp fangs (or something of the sort, at least with the same implication. I don’t have the book with me at the moment to refer to).
This implies that they didn’t know about Kvothe’s existence until he came before them.
@102. Flidan:
Thanks for clearing up what the text states – I was assuming the Fae time dilation could be reconciled with the shared moon if the moon phases there were simply longer as well. But the fact that Kvothe experiences a full moon cycle in the Fae of course wrecks this theory.
For the rest of your post, I don’t know if treating the moon as an astronomical object in the 4C universe can be very fruitful. I mean, from what we’ve been told, a new moon isn’t dark because it’s in the Earth’s shadow. It’s dark because it’s in another world. I don’t think it can have this property and still be a satellite of the 4C world or Fae. We don’t even know if the 4C world orbits its sun or the other way around.
That’s the reason why I asked about the rising and setting of the moon in the 4C world, and the implications such a behavior would have on the Fae.
@104 Valyrian It would seem to me that we have just found evidence that the moon doesn’t go dark in the 4C due to being in the Fae and vice versa, due to the discrepancy between the amount of moon visible in the 4C and the amount of moon visible in the Fae. However, I do see your point. We have been given very little if any information concerning the heavenly bodies of the 4C world and that of the Fae. It is entirely plausible that their sun in fact orbits the 4C. Although, due to their gravity being very similar to our own, I find that a little bit of a stretch. Never the less, you are right, and we have not been given enough information to jump to any definite conclusions. So let me just say that my previous post(s) is my own speculative theory. :)
@104 Valyrian Maybe the moon exists within an extra dimensional pocket of space that allows it to be viewed from both worlds simultaneously and independently, excepting for when it is all the way in one world or the other. This could allow for the moon to be full in the Fae yet still very visible in the 4C. Assuming that just because the moon is full doesn’t mean it is completely in one world or the other, and the only time it is completely in one world or the other is when it appears to be a New moon in one of the worlds? Maybe?
Maybe I should stop trying to apply real physics to a fantasy world. :/
@103, Nisheeth
Maybe, or maybe they are having “fun”.
The Chandrian said when K appeared: “Back by the fire, a bald man with a grey beard chuckled. “Looks like we missed a little rabbit. Careful Cinder, his teeth may be sharp.””
But after that they began to ask him about his parents. So petty cruelty is not beyond them.
In terms of light sources in the Fae, my guess was that the faen world and the faen sun was stationary, and the moon slipped back and forth in the night sky. The problem with the faen world or the faen sun orbiting/rotating is that where night and day fall would change. I don’t get the idea that Fel is constantly moving her twilight realm.
Do you remember those pop up type books (transformation pop ups) and you pull a tab and the image changes? That’s kind of how I see the moon phases. The more it’s pulled into one realm (the more you tug on the tab) the more you can see of it.
The faen realm was created by shapers, not necessarily physicits so it wont necessarily follow physics. The world is held together by magic. Remember, “broken house.” The broken house was not built by an architect, hence its brokenness.
Perhaps we should focus more on time. Like the idea of having twins and sending one twin out into space traveling always at light speed, and when he comes back he is younger than his twin. Same universe, but experienced very differently.
But the broken house represents the 4C world right? And the unfolding house represents Fae? What’s broken about the 4C world? Maybe it’s that it didn’t conform to the ideal magical world the shapers had in mind so they (or Iax specifically) decided to make one from scratch.
Another random thought: is there even a sun in Fae? If I recall correctly, when Kvothe explains its “geography” he’s only telling us that it becomes brighter in one direction and darker in the other. And wouldn’t Kvothe be less surprised at the moon if he’d seen the sun already? (Of course it could be argued that Felurian’s twilight isn’t bright enough to have a visible sun.) What I’m saying is that there could just be light in Fae for magical reasons, without an actual light source like the sun.
And please don’t understand my response at astronomical approaches as opposition – I just don’t think that this is what PR would be going for, because it’s hard to weave astronomical stuff into a story that’s mainly concerned with magic. There would need to be someone who’s an astronomer (it’s curious by the way that the university doesn’t seem to care about astronomy or physics).
@109 Valyrian
Oh, I always thought the broken house and the unfolding one was the same. Myabe I need to reread the passage. I though Iax couldn’t unfold the house properly because he was unwilling to listen, causing it to be broken–this house being the Fae. In the world the story takes place there is already a moon, and he tricks the moon into visiting the broken house (Faen world).
I’ll reread the passage, but my assumption was Iax was in 4c, but created the broken/faen realm (perhaps part of its brokenness is the abnormal atronomy, day/night, etc) and then stole the moon.
Your point about the sun is a great one though. Considering Iax stole the moon instead of just creating a separate one for the Faen world, perhaps things like the sun and moon cannot be created by shapers. So maybe there is no sun in the Fae (like you said), hense why the 4c’s sun does not change shape. The sun doesn’t have to travel between two worlds.
@107, The Doc:
Definately the Chandrian are not above Petty cruelty. But that doesn’t explain the first line. “Looks like we missed a little rabbit.”
That line holds no sort of cruelty in my opinion. Neither does the warning to inder (though it may be mockery)
@110. laurene135:
If I remember correctly, the broken house was were Jax was living at the beginning of the story. But I might be confused here too.
The story tells us that Iax attempted to steal the moon after every shaper has created a star of his own* in the Fae. This implies that creating a moon facsimile was beyond their power. Unless the sun is “less” than the moon in the 4C world, I’d say the same is true for the sun.
*or did it say Aleu? Anyway I’d really like to know what the Aleu are.
I’ve just reread the summary posts of the relevant chapters, which I should’ve done before guessing around.
– the broken house at the end of the broken road is indeed where Jax lives at the beginning of the story
– there is no sun in Fae, Kvothe says so explicitly when explaining the “peculiarities of the Fae”:
There aren’t directions of the usual sort in Fae. Your trifoil compass is useless as a tin codpiece there. North simply does not exist. And in a place with no sun, you cannot get your bearings by watching the sun rise to the east.
@113. Valyrian
Oh thanks so much! Very useful.
So now that we know the broken house is not the Fae, is the broken house representative of the 4c or of Iax? The broken house is at the end of a broken road, which has been theorized to mean a way that is opposite to
Lethani. So is the broken house just for symmetry? A broken boy living in a broken house at the end of a broken road? Or is the broken house truly symbolic of something significant?
First I didn’t think the broken house was significant other than to chatacterize Jax as a “broken boy” like you said.
But if we take into account what we know about Iax and the shapers, that they wanted to create a world of their own, it makes sense to view it as representative of the 4C world. The shapers thought the “real” world was broken or flawed, probably beyond their power to “fix”, which is why they started from scratch and created the Fae.
Good catch about the broken road = Lethani aspect. I was always reminded of Tehlu’s road from Trapis’ story, and now I wonder if it’s something similar to the Lethani, i.e. the right way to act, especially regarding Naming.
The unfolded house seems to most likely correspond to Fae.
The broken house is ambiguous and has a few potential meanings:
1)It could just represent the 4C but note that Jax was alone in the broken house this wouldn’t seem to imply the 4C so,
2)The broken house could be an entirely different world than either the 4C or Fae. The existence of more worlds than the 4C or Fae is implied by the Tinker knowing about items like the folding house and the existence of the Doors of Stone as a prison of sorts. I rather like this option and its implications or
3)It is more of a metaphor for the ethical failure of Iax’s brand of Shaping. Note that this option is not necessarily exclusive of either 1 or 2.
The moon having more phases in Fae than in the 4C is compatible with the time flowing at different rates. It is odd to think of a single macroscopic object to be existing such that it experienced differing time rates across itself, but if you think of it as a collection of waveforms in a quantum environment, it seems remotely possible.
This raises two further interesting thoughts for me. The first is that you could envision naming as an identification of all quantum states of an object and shaping as a manipulation of quantum states. This probably says something very interesting about the state of the uncertainty priciple in the universe of the 4C.
The second thing that it implies to me has to do with just why Iax’s “stealing” the moon may have been such a tremendously bad thing. If the story has some trueness in that the moon in the 4C is in some fashion a sentient being, then having your consciousness split across different time flows would most likely be extremely strange and most probably very painful and leading towards madness. So basically, Iax would have been forcing the moon into a state of almost perpetual torture. Not a nice thing to do.
Or:
4) It is a specific place. More precisely, given its apparent location at the western end of a road, it is the old university on whose ruins the current university was built.
And can I ask again: is there any textual support for using ‘the Four Corners’ as the name of the world where Kvothe lives? My understanding is that this world is called ‘the Mortal’, and that ‘the Four Corners’ is a region, something like a continent. (Its people see themselves as civilised. The author may not agree. One group of people, the Adem, clearly don’t.)
AnotherAndrew@118:I don’t think a general term is really given for how most of the inhabitants of the world refer to the world as a whole. I usually just use 4C or 4C world as a shorthand for “the world containing the region that is referred to as the 4 Corners.”
(4) is a nice extension of (1).
Andrew, Pat has stated that the Four Corners are not the entire world. However it’s largely a matter of personal preference whether commenters refer to “the world” as 4C or the Mortal. I started using the latter because it’s less ambiguous and encompasses places like Ademre, the Tahlenwold, &c that lie outside the Ralien-Cershaen-Renere-Tarbean area.
@shalter:
The part about the moon doesn’t convince me (aside from the fact that I really doubt would pull a quantum physical explanation for his world out of his hat).
Everyone who seems to know what’s going on with the moon acts as if there’s some sort of external “global time”. A certain part of the moon is either in the 4C world or the Fae at any given point of time. Look at how Felurian said how the moon travels back and forth between the mortal world and Fae. That wouldn’t make any sense if there can be full moon in both Fae and the 4C world at the same time.
Valyrian@121:Ah, but PR has already opened up some quantum interpretations with a comment about not being suprised that Sympathy bears some resemblance to Quantum Entanglement on his Google+ blog. So, it isn’t as if he doesn’t have thoughts in this area.
Felurian Says:
Note that she does say “when your moon is waxing full”. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the moon in Fae is in a corresponding phase.
This doesn’t preclude any time slippage. The Faen may have a different sense of time than mortals. Felurian seems quite careful to use your rather than our in the passage above. Maybe there is a good reason that the Cthaeh is in Fae. I would be rather enthralled if PR is actually exploring the first implications of Quantum Mechanics in a fantasy setting. ::Coolness::
Not sure you if we have failed to pick up on the fact that the suggestion that the Chandrian possessed Kvothe has been hinted at elsewhere, after he kills the false troupe:
“I dreamt of killing my own troupe”
What if this was a memory echo hidden semi-permanently behind the doors of forgetting?
I have enjoyed the comments section for this post a lot. I wanted to share some speculation and interesting observations based on somewhat outside sources.
1) I was browsing through Pat’s online store and found an interesting t-shirt:
http://thetinkerspacks.bigcartel.com/product/kingkiller
The image at least tacitly implies that Kvothe actually kills a king, but also seems to depict him as a pawn. Any thoughts? I guess we could argue he is a pawn of the Cthaeh, though I keep hoping that the Lethani can somehow counteract that influence. Is he a pawn of the Amyr perhaps? Is Bredon involved? Is Skarpi? Is this an elaborate endgame for some powerful players? I would love some thoughts, even though the source is just a t-shirt and is therefore apocryphal at best.
2) Someone once posted this link a while back in the reread and I owe them thanks for leading me to it. It is an excerpt from WMF that isn’t in the final version. It looks like it takes place in chapter 40 just before Kvothe meets puppet and it is well worth reading if you haven’t already.
http://www.zimbio.com/member/pat5150/articles/3711983/Exclusive+excerpt+Patrick+Rothfuss+WISE+MAN
In particular I had a thought about this section:
“Of all the University’s secrets, I suspect this one was wondered over most. But while most students’ interest in the four-plate door faded in light of the thousand more accessible secrets the University provided, I never tired of it. When I finally managed to sneak into the Archives, this was the first place that I had come. And every time afterward. No matter how hurried or tired or busy or busy I was, I was drawn back to the door again and again. Each time some part of me was sure that this would be the time I might find the door ajar. Or with a key still left in one of its locks. Or perhaps the great piece of grey stone would simply swing open to the pressure of my hand. It is fair to say that I have a gentle madness where secrets are concerned. If something is kept from me, I cannot help but pursue and uncover it. But this particular secret drew at me more than any other. The University is the heart of all civilization. The Archives is the heart of the University. What then, lay here, in the heart of the Archives? What was Valaritas?”
That made me think about Skarpi’s story of Lanre:
“Out of love for Lyra, Lanre had sought knowledge where knowledge is better left alone, and gained it at a terrible price.”
Is this comment symbolic of Kvothe’s obsession with the four-plate door? I think most of us believe he is going to open the door in D3 but we are having trouble with what is behind it. Perhaps when he opens it he ends up like Lanre in a way, with knowledge and power better left untouched.
I also thought about what Selitos says to Lanre about his power:
“Your name burns with the power in you. I can no more extinguish it than I could throw a stone and strike down the moon.”
It occurred to me that this may be the most important reason for Kvothe to change his NAME in the frame story. Maybe more than hiding himself, he has changed his NAME to protect the rest of the world from what he would become. I seem to recall that in NW it said he had changed his name for all of the usual reasons and for some unusual reasons as well.
Just some thoughts. Again, I am really enjoying these comments lately.
Ive spec’d along this path before…
And I cant help but feel that what lies behind the door is the antithesis of the CTHs power, that dark inverting power. That it has more to do with Knowledge, for those who are worthy, who seek to do the right things the right way. Knowers, and perhaps the tinker theory.
The uni has stood in opposition of the key players in the fall out of the CW. Whilst the Amyr expanded with its Empire, the rise of the Tehlin church and the demonisation and purging of magic, the Uni kept this knowledge safe-even taught it. Teccam on the window. The Underthing and Broken House.
This is also why I do not think Loren is part of the Amyr. Ks flame and his reaction. Puppet (also a resovoir of knowledge, likely part of this group). The skivs (whats-you-ma-call-ems) who travel gathering books-and have a seemingly initmate relationship with Yll and the Ruh (also set in opposition). I believe this is what happened to the old knowers.
Although K desires these things, the nature of his desire-vengence-shapes the way he pursues it. Reckless. Uncertain morals. His actions lead to unworthiness. (The Adem mommets, the false troupe, always Ambrose). In the frame we see him aware of the consequences, with more bitterly gained knowledge. But he doesnt sem that repentent, he doesnt wish to undo what he has done, although he feels’ bad for some. We suspect he has his own plan, own redemption-a seeking of worthiness.
Perhaps after the frame has taken over the story it will be K that goes through the doors of stone.
ManiacalEngineer@125: Thanks for the link to the partly unpublished except.
I like the parts about puppet that didn’t make the final cut.
I wonder if in the current version of the book, puppet has the same abilities as is listed in the excerpt. Puppet revealing (by doing a quick calculation in his head) that there should be 620 books about the amyr, 50 of which should be dedicated to the subject of the amyr, but there actually are only 8: that section was replaced in the current version by kvothe asking about the discrepancies in texts about who disbanded the amyr.
Also, Kvothe and Wil’s discussion at the end of the excerpt is not in the final version. Where Wil believes everything he has been told by puppet and kvothe seems to agree with this too.
Puppet also seems to be more friendly/easy going in this unpublished excerpt.
Two comments, but introductions first…
First time post, long time fantasy/science fiction reader, and Tor.com lurker for the past two years. I ended up here by making my way through a top ten list of epic fantasy series, skipping any series not complete. (This one was number 4). But when I saw that Jo was starting a re-read, I wanted to play along so I bought the two books and couldn’t put them down. I have generally followed all the posts and commentary from day one, but never commented. I now have to wait 4 years, but don’t regret it since this re-read was worth it.
Now my points …
First, since the copper knife was mentioned in the post and commentary, I wanted to say that I always felt that the barrels bound with brass in the inn were not just to exclude iron (e.g. make Bast more comfortable), but because brass contains copper. After all, only three barrels were delivered with brass and you would think he has more barrels, or if not, that there is all sorts of iron used in a buidling like an inn. I just feel that this could be a Chekhov’s gun (Chekhov’s gun – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
Second, I was always struck by the cover of Name of the Wind, specifically the tree in the background, which the books tell us signal tragedy in a play. Trees were also on the UK cover of WMF, so a big tree theme. It will be interesting to see if there are any trees on the DT cover. Assuming the tree means tragedy (and not something else), then the question arises whether the books are the tragedy or whether only the story being told by Kvothe to Chronicler (which I compare to a “play” since he is Ruh and is storytelling as much as anything else) is the tragedy. The latter scenario would leave open the possibility of the frame story leading to a non-tragic resolution. I don’t really care either way as I trust Rothfuss to satisfy, but in my opinion the most satisfying ending will be that any victory is earned such that you are left with some real conflict of whether the victory was worth the cost.
@123. shalter:
Wow, that’s interesting. I never noticed that Felurian only explicitly refers to “your” i.e. the mortal moon. Kvothe says “our moon”, but that can be conveniently misunderstood (our = mortals, instead of him and Felurian) so she doesn’t need to correct him. This would leave the possibility that the phase of the mortal moon controls the connection between the Mortal and the Fae, but not the phases of Fae’s moon.
I’m still not convinced by this. What about Elodin’s question “Where does the moon go when it’s not on our sky?”? The standard interpretation of this question was that he’s aware of the relation for Moon, Mortal and Fae and the answer is: “it’s in the Fae sky”. But your theory doesn’t really allow that, neither does the fact that we see all moon phases in the Fae over three days. At half moon, it could be new moon in the Fae, which would leave nowhere for the moon to go.
So either Elodin’s mistaken, the answer to his question is something entirely different, or there’s still something fishy going on.
@125. ManiacalEngineer:
Thanks for sharing the excerpt. That was very interesting.
@128. danthony33:
Now that you bring up the subject of brass, I’ve noticed that Denna reacts curiously to this alloy. When Kvothe shows her the lodenstone in NotW, she speculates if there could be brass lodenstones as well (and who knows, maybe there are?). And when she gifts the new lutecase to Kvothe, it’s mentioned that she specifically asked to make it without brass. I also immediately thought that it might be because brass contains copper and she might be somehow affected by or vulnerable to it.
Valyrian@129:Actually, my theory is that it is the same moon in Fae and non-Fae, but the time is out of phase.
What do you mean by that, exactly? That “the same time” is not the same time in the Mortal and Fae?
What’s the answer to “where is the moon when it’s not on our sky” in your theory?
The moon is the achor to two realities, its time is constant, but time flows differently (if at all ;) )in each reality. Each has a different perspective of the constant.
Thats how I see it, and am in agreeance with Shalter.
The unpublished excerpt is gone, or at least is no longer at that link. :(
Chipmaker@133
“The unpublished excerpt is gone, or at least is no longer at that link. :(”
Interesting…… I wonder if someone raised an objection in order to have it removed?
Very interesting blog today by PR. Suprised he said some of the things he did.
1. Did anyone happen to copy the excerpt?
2. New blog post wherein Pat talks about just how rough WMF was after NW was released. It’s quite interesting especially in light of how we approach this reread. For example, when Kvothe finally recognizes Elodin’s fidgeting as Ademic we get a revelation stretching back to the first book that didn’t exist at first, that he spun out of a minor detail. I expect D3 will be well worth the wait and its specifics still better chosen.
@125 That particular t-shirt is among the ones that were made after the fans voted on their favorite entries in a t-shirt design contest. As such, it wasn’t created by PR and you probably shouldn’t read too much into it other than “It made Pat giggle and the fans liked it, too.”
Valyrian@131:Very good questions. A thorough answer to:
answering the “exactly” part would require a couple of books and then punting since what time is exactly in our universe isn’t resolved. Plus, we don’t know for certain what rules apply to Rothfuss’ universe(s?).
A briefer answer is that we have seen that when Kvothe went into Fae (via a waystone gateway of some sort), he experienced some amount of time that was to him much longer than the three days that had passed in the 4C when he returned to the 4C. So, Kvothe at least experiences a significant (but ambiguous) amount of time passing.
When Kvothe sees Felurian in ch.94: Over Rock and Root, there is a full moon in 4C. As near as I can tell, Kvothe doesn’t notice the moon again until ch. 102, The Ever Moving Moon in which he notes that there is the slenderest crescent in Fae. Kvothe and Felurian then discuss the moon and she confirms that there is a single moon that travels between Fae and the mortal realm.
Now, more subjective time seems to have passed for Kvothe than could be accounted for the moon in Fae moving from a New moon to the slenderest of crecents, so at this point, one of a set of things could have happened:
1) Kvothe hasn’t noticed the moon moving through the phases that should have occurred given the time that seems to have passed for Kvothe. This option means that time in Fae is passing faster in Fae for both observers and the moon. The moon is experiencing two different flows of time–Fae time and 4C time.
2) The moon phase has only changed a small amount in Fae while a large amount of time has passed. Kvothe hadn’t noticed that the moon was “stuck”. This option means that while time is passing faster in Fae than in the 4C, the moon itself is phase locked to the phase in the 4C–time for the moon is passing differently than time for Kvothe.
3)The “time” that Kvothe experiences as passing in Fae is something of an illusion. Time itself is passing as expected, It is Kvothe that is sped up.
In both 1 and 2, the “answer” to the time differential is that Fae and the “mortal” are separate universes, each has its own frame of reference. If you took a clock in the 4C and placed it in Fae and then back in 4C, the clock would show that more time had passed than a paired clock in the 4C. In 1), a clock placed on the moon would show a different amount of time than a paired clock in the 4C. In 2), the moon clock would match with the 4C clock, but Kvothe’s clock would be ahead.
The answer to where the moon goes when it is not in the sky in the 4C is that it is in Fae.
Sorry if I broke the unpublished excerpt by posting a link. Maybe there was a more clandestine way to tell you about it. The only portion of it that I copied is the section in my post @125. It was cool to read if only to get a glimpse at some of the things Pat was considering before the final draft. I’m just as fascinated at his process of developing the way he tells the story so we see Kvothe the way he does as I am at reading the final version.
On that subject, how many of you have read this interview?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000661941
Overall, it is a cool interview considering how much I like Brandon Sanderson and Pat. It’s also cool to see two authors talking instead of an interviewer and an author.
The most interesting part to me is how Rothfuss explains that the Frame Story came later in his writing. It makes me wonder if his story was originally just a tragedy. Hard to imagine any redemption without the Frame (although I am still strongly of the opinion that it is a tragedy regardless).
Anyway, hope someone gets some joy from reading the interview.
@shalter:
Thanks for taking the time to elaborate on this again. I hope you don’t think I’m being pedantic or argumentative, I just think I’m missing one aspect of your reasoning. Here’s how I see it:
a) If you’re in one world and see a specific shape of the moon, that’s all of the moon that is in this world (i.e. there’s no shadow hiding parts of it like in our world).
b) Part of the moon in the mortal world + part of the moon in the Fae = full moon.
Do you disagree with any of these propositions so far?
I think (b) must hold true if you accept the answer to “where does the moon go when it’s not on our sky” is “it is in the Fae”. I think this leaves only the possibilities 2 or 3 you mentioned (it’s relative whether Fae moves slower or Kvothe moves faster through time, so that’s not decideable or even meaningless).
Full moon in the 4C world means there’s New Moon in the Fae at that point. Kvothe spends three days of 4C-time in the Fae. With a synodic period of 72 days, that’s 1/24 of its period. To put it into perspective, it should be roughly between what we see one or two days after Full Moon of the earth moon. The negative of this is then visible in the Fae: one/two days before/after the New Moon is indeed only a “slenderest crescent”. So that would mean there is no contradiction so far.
What tripped me up the whole time is that someone mentioned that we see a whole moon period pass while Kvothe is in the Fae. I didn’t check this, although my reread is approaching the Fae chapters, so I’ll pay attention to it then.
If this is true, I think it would violate proposition (b). If during the equivalent of three 4C days the moon can go through all phases in the Fae, there’d have to be a point in time where there’s full moon in the Fae and almost full moon in the 4C world. And I “the part of the moon that’s not on our sky one day after full moon is the full moon in the Fae” contradicts (b), no matter how time is dilated in the Fae.
@Whomever cares to read: It seems to me, and I think I’ve said something along these lines before, that the moon may exist independently of the two worlds.
What I mean by this is that the synecdoche period of the moon may not dictate when the moon is fully in one world or the other. In fact, I think it’s fairly obvious that it doesn’t since we see the full in the Fae and a nearly full moon in the 4C world. That’s not to say that we’ve been given any wrong information, because surely there will be a full moon every 72 days in the 4C world. However, that doesn’t mean that moon isn’t visible in the Fae every time there is a full moon in the 4C.
My theory is that it’s kind of like our eclipses. Eclipses happen all the time, and with predictability. They just seem like a rare occurrence to us because it’s rare for the eclipse to happen within view of most people.
So it goes that the moon passes between it’s phases constantly and with predictability, between both worlds. But only when both worlds’ phases align does it ever pass completely into one world or the other.
I think this also seems like a better like a better answer to Elodin’s question than “It’s in the Fea!”. That’s simply, to easy of an answer to for a Re’lar. I mean, he could have answered that question with that answer, after hearing Hespes story, hell, I guessed that it went into the Fae on my first read through. My point being, that it’s pretty easy to say “if it’s not here, then it must be there” and it doesn’t seem like a Re’lar level question, if the answer is as simple as “in the Fae”, not to me anyway.
So to sum up my theory: The only time the moon travels to one world completely is when the synecdoche periods in the worlds are at opposite ends of the spectrum, E.g. When it’s a full moon in the 4C world and a new moon in the Fae, the moon is totally in the 4C world. When it’s a full moon in the Fae and a new moon in the 4C world, the moon is totally in the Fae, and no longer in our sky. For rest of the time the moon behaves as you would expect the moon. To account for the apparent discrepancy between the amount of moon available when the moon is full in the Fea and near full in the 4C world, that can be explained by the moon existing in a space separate or both worlds where it is viewable by both worlds, assuming that the worlds are indeed independent of one another, which is a big assumption.
Onto other matters…
This morning Pat posted in his blog that Bredon didn’t exist at all in the original WMF, for me, as much as I hate to say, this seems to discount the theory that Bredon is Dennas patron. Unless Pat meant that he didn’t originally have Kvothe meet the character “Bredon” in book two, it seems that Bredon is indeed just a side character, conveniently placed to explain the inner workings of the ring system to Kvothe, what are others thoughts on this?
@139.Maniacal Engineer:
Don’t worry about it. I’d linked the excerpt in at least two previous threads, so I’d be surprised if your link broke the camel’s back. In case anyone is still interested in reading it (or missed it when Maniacal Engineer posted it), it’s still available through archive.org:
http://web.archive.org/web/20081212102239/http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2008/12/exclusive-excerpt-from-patrick-rothfuss.html
@141.Flidan:
Pat has also said that the original story didn’t have Auri or Ambrose in it, but that hasn’t stopped any of us from hypothesizing that Auri is Princess Ariel and Ambrose is the king-to-be-killed. I still think that Pat has laid too many clues for it not to be Bredon and there aren’t too many other characters that it could be, assuming we’ve met the patron at this point.
@142 gbrell
Then it is to you I owe thanks. When I posted the link earlier I couldn’t remember who pointed it out earlier.
Thank you.
@many:While the varous pieces of information about early drafts and PR’s general method of working are vaery interesting, we shouldn’t read too much into them as to ruling things in or out. Early drafts are just that–early drafts and Pat is perfectly free to change or add direction, motives, characters, plots and most anything else.
It was pretty interesting that WMF was in such rough shape upon finishing NotW–explains why it took quite as long, but I’m really glad his editor gave him both time and direction for doing it right.
He also (very fiendishly) did not say in what shape D3 was.
The latest blog post holds a few goodies! Patrick writes:
Point 2 really suggests that Bredon can’t be Denna’s patron since he didn’t exist until after Denna got a patron. I wasn’t really in the Bredon-is-Denna’s-patron-camp before but this really disproves the notion in my mind.
Mmm been busy here.
@Faek. I have to disagree, as have others. We know there have been many seemingly key aspects that were not in the original idea; the frame, Auri, the Draccus, Ambrose, Bredon, Adem handtalk etc. Stories have a habit of growing by themselves when you know your world and plot, and sometimes-although you may not have realised it-there is already a hole in the shape of a chara/idea and you need to recognise to move forward/tighten.
Im not really into second guessing what may have been. Sure, its interesting to see how things have changed, but ultimatey they have changed becuase PR needed/wanted them too-to create that final story. Whats published is whats what.
Plus one to A Fox and Shalter.
What A Fox said.
Which Jo said awhile back. And folks seem to think she knows a thing or two about storytelling. Just sayin’.
@@@@@ lunatics ::affectionate::
The moon in Faen is fully consistent with the Mortal moon in terms of phases as described in c94-106 and thus Felurian’s explanation is probably accurate. Elodin’s question alludes to the same conclusion. Pat has Kvothe make a point of how he hasn’t seen the moon at all until the slender crescent appears.
Time as experienced in Faen is attenuated.
Valyrian@140:I hadn’t checked the original poster’s assertion that the moon passed through phases in Fae while Kvothe was there either. When I checked, I saw only the phrase “slenderest of crescents” in ch. 102, The Ever Moving Moon as directly referring to the moon phase.
With that (and as Thistlepong@149) I tend to lean towards option 2 from my post above–time flows more quickly in Fae except for the moon and that is locked in time phase with 4C time. There is on moon and it travels in between Fae and the mortal realm in a rigid fashion.
post script
Please pardon the multiple posts and textual errors. Most of my time and energy is devoted to Bast, son of thistlepong, and these are thumbed out in fitful interstices.
A Fox@146:
@Faek. I have to disagree, as have others. We know there have been manyseemingly key aspects that were not in the original idea; the frame,
Auri, the Draccus, Ambrose, Bredon, Adem handtalk etc.
But the point isn’t just that Bredon wasn’t in the original idea for the series: it’s that he wasn’t in the original idea for WMF even after NOTW had been completed. Hence, it would seem, things that are in NOTW can’t refer to him.
Now I must say I am surprised that Rothfuss would give this away: he must know that people are speculating that Bredon is Denna’s patron, so it seems odd that he would throw out a big signal that he isn’t. I wonder, therefore, if he is being sly – he may mean that the persona of Bredon did not exist at all, taking it that Master Ash and Bredon count as different characters even if they are the same person. That would strike me as cheating, but lots of people seem OK with it, treating Voldemort and Tom Riddle, for instance, as different characters, so that what’s true of one needn’t be true of the other.
But it seems to me that that these revelations should affect the way we read the series, not because they count against any particular theory, but because we often tend to assume that the whole thing has been planned in great detail, so that any mysterious feature must be a clue to something, which has a definite answer, did we but know it. This implies that isn’t so.
@145
“Can’t” is a bit of an overstatement(I don’t thing we can say anything difinitive at all), but I do think it lowers the odds.
Bredon as nefarious baddie would be a pretty big reveal, and fairly structurally important. It’s not impossible, but I have my doubts that this was added later, especially as NOTW was published at that point and he had to be pretty sure where he was going with things.
I’ve always favored Bredon as an infodump device. When Kvothe gets to Vint, the story needs to communicate several things: how the Court works, what the Maer is like, the rings, etc, etc. Bredon is a nice vehicle to make that happen.
@152/3
The utter absence of Ademic hand-talk provides an illustrative example. Elodin’s hands were busy fidgeting in NW, but after its addition in WMF they were always inflecting his speech. The same can easily be true for Bredon; he can always have been Denna’s patron with no contradictions in the text.
In a sense, I agree with AnotherAndrew. This should affect how we read and reread the text. I just disagree with the conclusion that the story as it existed upon publication of NW was solid, immutable, and fully realized.
Many of our theories depend on information being revealed and scenarios unfolding in D3. All the weight of our speculation lies with text to come. Similarly, the story in WMF as published carries more weight than NW. And the published NW is more meaningful than the drafts without Auri and Ambrose.
Folks tend to reject the significance of characters that are now indispensable to the story as we know it. Ambrose fuels Kvothe’s reputation every step if the way and facilitates finding the name of the wind. Without Auri, Kvothe never sneak into the Archives, never shows compassion.
@154
Sure, but it’s a matter of degrees, isn’t it?
Something as simple as Elodin’s knowledge of hand talk can easily be inserted with no disruption whatsoever. It’s a throw-away detail which adds a bit to the richnes of the characterization, but really isn’t important.
Denna’s patron is a horse of a different color in my opinion. It’s a major plot point, which the Ctheath has oracle-ized about , Kvothe has sworn oaths about, etc
No one is suggesting that “conclusion that the story as it existed upon publication of NW was solid, immutable, and fully realized”, but I consider it to be unlikely that such a major piece of the story (Bredon as patron, if it is indeed the case) was yet to come into existence. YMMV.
Cheers
Edit: Used square brackets instead of parentheses the first time and everything inside disappeared, making the post nonsense. Let’s try that again.
Faek @145, et al.: A possible interpretation of “Bredon didn’t exist. At all” is “Bredon didn’t exist (in the manuscript). At all. (I originally planned for Kvothe not to meet D’s patron until the third book.)”
I don’t necessarily buy that interpretation, but I think it’s too strong to say that the original statement disproves Bredon as D’s patron.
@141. Flidan:
If you really thought “it’s in the Fae” is the obvious answer while reading WMF and the respective admissions interview for the first time, I salute you.
I don’t think it’s the obvious answer at all. And it really isn’t an obvious answer for Kvothe or any other Re’lar. Even (or especially) at the university the Fae is regarded as, quite literally, faery-tale material. Remember when drunken Kvothe, Sim and Wil talk about where they’d want to be if they could pick any place? Wil says “the faen court”, which Sim counters with “Fae doesn’t exist”. Later on while settling their bets in the archives he shoots down another discussion about greystones being portals to the Fae as ridiculous.
Thus I think it’s pretty safe to assume that the knowledge about Fae’s existence or the nature of the moon is lost to the general public. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the other masters don’t know about it, considering how they rolled their eyes at the “where does our moon go” question just like they did with “how many spades is that”.
I mean, even deducing that the moon moves between the Mortal and Fae from Hespe’s story seems to be reaching to me.
On another matter, have you already discussed Denna’s song about Lanre and how it is apparently a well-known song in the frame? (That’s mostly a rhetorical question as I’m sure you have.)
It leaps at me every time I read that passage because it reminds us that something’s fundamentally different in the frame. Arliden looking for clues about Lanre was enough to bring the Chandrian upon him, but now everybody’s heard of it? Shouldn’t they go on a rampage then? Maybe they did go on a rampage?
You may say now that the song didn’t mention the Chandrian in particular, only Lanre. But it’s called the Song of Seven Sorrows, indicating that the final version does feature the Chandrian in some way.
At least I doubt one of the Chandrian would be happy about a story about him, even if it does paint him in a positive light.
For fun, I whipped up a little parser to see just what we have been doing in the re-read. To date (including all of the reRead posts and the two reviews of The Wise Man’s Fear), there have been a total of 831 uniquely named posters who have posted somewhere around 939548 to 1019050 total words. It’s “around” as it depends on how you want to count a word. I used two ways. One was to just count the total characters and divide by 6 (a variant of the One True Word (OTW) count mechanism from TNH) and the second was to just split everything by whitespace and count them as words. There were 442 people who posted once. I didn’t try to do any consolidation if people used several names. If anyone is curious about any other numbers, feel free to ask.
Here are the top 30 posters by word count:
Name ____________ posts _________ Words ____”OTW”
Jo Walton__________ 58__________161976____ 147303
A Fox_____________203__________53871______ 50048
gbrell_____________ 174__________50480______ 48594
shalter____________488__________38554______ 35540
thistlepong_________220__________34349______ 33071
ArtfulMagpie_______ 205__________25770______ 24180
Wetlandernw________105__________23760______ 21549
Aesculapius________ 80__________22979______ 21430
Herelle____________ 71__________18904______ 17359
ryanreich__________ 68__________14571______ 13648
mr. awesome________ 92__________12474______ 11551
JohnPoint__________ 45__________11958______ 11263
RobMRobM__________ 128__________11531______ 10301
Jezdynamite________ 85__________11322______ 10514
mereader____________17__________11080______ 10414
bluejo_____________ 175__________11044________9859
greyhood____________99__________10447________9534
Daedos______________98__________10239________9358
CPJ________________ 18__________ 9342________8583
Jhirrad____________ 48__________ 9117________8253
Susan Loyal________ 48__________ 8577________8096
AnotherAndrew______ 66__________ 8476________7803
adamshekerjian______27__________ 8129________7467
sillyslovene_________31__________ 8044________7432
Zolt_______________29__________ 7758________7168
n8love_____________52__________ 7531________6884
wickedkinetic_______ 20__________ 7380________7047
David_C____________ 58__________ 7369________6919
C12VT_____________ 57__________ 7354________6698
Here are the top 30 posters by number of posts:
Name_____________ posts ________ Words______ “OTW”
shalter_____________ 488__________38554____ 35540
thistlepong__________220__________34349____ 33071
ArtfulMagpie________ 205__________25770____ 24180
A Fox______________ 203__________53871____ 50048
bluejo______________ 175__________11044____ 9859
gbrell______________ 174__________50480____ 48594
RobMRobM__________128__________11531____ 10301
Wetlandernw__________105__________23760____ 21549
greyhood____________99__________10447____ 9534
Daedos______________ 98__________10239____ 9358
mr. awesome__________92__________12474____ 11551
Jezdynamite__________85__________11322____ 10514
Aesculapius__________80__________22979____ 21430
Herelle______________ 71__________18904____ 17359
ryanreich___________68__________14571____ 13648
AnotherAndrew______ 66__________8476____ 7803
Jo Walton___________58__________161976____ 147303
David_C_____________ 58__________7369____ 6919
C12VT______________ 57__________7354____ 6698
n8love______________ 52__________7531____ 6884
felipem______________ 50__________6152____ 5661
Jhirrad______________ 48__________9117____ 8253
Susan Loyal__________48__________8577____ 8096
JohnPoint___________45__________11958____ 11263
Trollfot_____________42__________3973____ 3680
AO_________________36__________6497____ 5874
Dominiquex__________35__________7187____ 6758
bam________________34__________2705____ 2424
DrFood______________ 32__________5897____ 5473
bad_platypus @156: Post corrected to actually make sense!
Bad Platypus: Ah, good. I thought it must be my stupidity which prevented me understanding it.
I am only moderately terrified by the fact that my posts in aggregate would satisfy NaNoWriMo.
Jo, any thoughts about doing a collection on Rothfuss’s trilogy when he finishes D3?
Concerning the song that Arliden sang, which made Laurian/Netalia force him to sleep under the wagon. Has anyone considered that the last line “Not tally a lot less” isn’t supposed to be “Netalia Lockless/Lackless” but rather “Netalia lotless”. As in “It’s worth my life / To make my wife / Netalia lotless”. Lotless meaning “owning nothing”. (Not sure if it’s still in use in modern English – equivalents can be found in other Germanic languages, e.g. the Swedish “lottlös”.)
My point is that he could be referring not just to Laurian’s real (first and family) name, but rather just her first name and the fact that she was disinherited for running away with him.
More evidence that Newarre is in Vintas. (Won’t hold up in court, but still might be an indicator of geography.)
When Kvothe fakes the “pregnant girl” letter to Ambrose, he delivers it via Vintish peasants. They sort of sound like rednecks. The only other “redneck speak” we see in the story (so far) is from the Newarre villagers, and from Nina (girl from Trebon). Off the top of my head, I seem to recall her accent/word choice being not as similar to the Vints as the Newarre-folks was.
About the “Kvothe-has-these-rings-rhyme”: If his “first hand” has rings of amber, iron, bone and wood, I’d say that’s his right hand, because 3 out of 4 rings seem to correspond to the rings he was given in Severen. Iron from the Maer, bone from Stipes (the Maer’s manservant, for those who have forgotten), and wood from Meluan Lackless. Amber might be from something which will be revealed in Day 3.
@163,
The best example of a rural accent is the one you’ve missed- the swineherd outside of Trebon. In fact, the whole chapter “Pegs” has the swineherd, Kvothe and Denna using a thick rural accent.
As for the ring of amber… Isn’t it suggested that amber (or a ring of amber) is a ward against demons? The Vintish ring system is used to represent the relationship between two people. I’m not sure how that fits, unless the demon thing is a total red herring.
We have already been told that Kvothe is alleged to have an amber ring which gives him power over demons (not just protection against them), although that’s clearly mythical.
Fitting the rings in the rhyme together with the Vintish ring system is tricky, because Kvothe only brings two rings home from Vintas – wood and bone. If we count the rings he left behind in Vintas, there were also silver ones and one gold one, which aren’t included in the rhyme.
@164 & 165: I didn’t imply that ALL the rings on his “first” hand are Vintish symbol rings. Just saying that three of them fit the profile, so to speak, so it could be them. And AnotherAndrew – I did not include the rings he left behind (gold/silver) due to the fact that he never WORE them, and so no one would’ve seen or heard a rumour about him wearing them. (Probably not – rumours are rarely entirely true and often mutate.) The other rings he might’ve worn after the events of WMF (or even Day 3), thus sparking rumours which turned into song material.
Hi – this is Greyhood. (My handle got messed up for some reason.)
Did some fiddling with the trifoil compass. It works with the three yellow dots being the poles. But I have no idea how to upload the image. I’m looking at it? Does that help anyone? The point is just west of the Aturan-Small Kingdom border just above the island (Junpui?). My Word program wasn’t very accurate. I’m very low-tech. Does someone with computer skills want to try and create the image? What I did was similar to what shalter did. Make a circle. Three lines radiate out from the center, intersecting the circumference at 32, 112 and 220 degrees (I superimposed a compass to get it right). Then superimpose the Rothfuss map and rotate/adjust until the the lines go through the three yellow dots. You’ll have to rotate the map about 100 degrees clockwise.
Any word on D3 yet?
Grey hood–you will have to save it as some kind of image file, jpg, say. Then you have to get it to the net. If you have a flicker account or something, that will work. Or, if you want, you can email the word doc with the image in it to me and I’ll get the image posted. My email address is in my profile.
In a recent blog post, Pat posts about his editor and gives an example of how hard it was for her to deal with his shenanigans aka unfinished writing. Once he gave her a manuscript and in it, “Vashet didn’t exist. At all. Bredon didn’t exist. At all.” So I have a tough time (though I do think it would make it so interesting and I would like for it to happen) believing that Bredon could be Master Ash.
But then again he could just be talking about “Bredon” as an addition to Master Ash’s character, but still.
@170. Yuni:
That’s been addressed some posts ago already, and doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s been mentioned that there’s been a time where the story didn’t have a frame, but we don’t conclude from that that the frame’s unimportant to the story, do we?
Actually, the fact that PR mentions them explicitly, and how everything in his books has a clear purpose to the story (and someone like Bredon isn’t just background to spice up the Maer’s court, for example), tells us that these characters are clearly significant.
Also, it could mean that Bredon is Master Ash, and he only planned to introduce him in the third book. Or, similar to his “something happens with Ambrose here” his manuscript only had chapters that read “Kvothe meets Master Ash’s alter ego here” and he only later decided to create the character of Bredon to fill that role. And so on.
And now that Netalia Lackless has been mentioned, did anybody else find it odd that among the rumors Kvothe hears in Severen is “Young Netalia Lackless run off from her family”? I mean, what kind of rumor is that? It’s like hearing the rumor that the wife of the British crown prince died in a car accident – totally outdated and something that should be established fact already.
So, is someone feeding Kvothe information through the rumors? Bredon perhaps? Would that assumption put other rumors into a different light?
Sahirioth@166: The problem is that if the gold and silver rings aren’t included in the rhyme because they were left behind, the iron ring shouldn’t be included either, as it was also left behind. So presumably the iron ring in the rhyme must be something else.
Questions:
1. Are we ever told in which hand Vintish rings are worn? (Most of the time they don’t seem to be worn at all: but if they are.)
2. Do we know what happened to Kvothe’s own rings – the ones with his name on them, which Bredon gave him?
On PR’s blog, he did a nice interview with Terry Brooks. In it Pat mentions:
This seems like a nice fleshing out of his writing method. Very big on rewriting and letting beautiful things emerge.
Wow – I really am behind the times…!
A new speculative summary and a monthly update plan?! Way to go Jo!
I have really missed looking forward to the re-read every Thursday, and to the week-long (or longer!) discussion that followed each of Jo’s posts, so this is like some rare and special treat! :o)
So many things to say but I don’t have time to sit down and type them all up now — but will definitely do so later!
Shalter: you obviously have WAAAAAAY too much time on your hands (!) although your summary of the posts so far did make me chuckle.
I’ve written 22 000 words so far? Really…?!! Wow. *I* obviously have WAAAAAAY too much time on *my* hands! ;o)
I’m trying to sort out my thoughts on Kvothe’s rings (particularly, the “ring without name”) and the magic system in general here. Part of it I gathered from various posts around here, another part is my own interpretation.
First of all, I think the only “true” form of magic that has always existed is Naming. Knowing and Shaping are only different approaches to the method that is Naming. I’m not sure what the exact difference between them is. The common opinion seems to be that Knowing is only about literally knowing the names of things, without doing anything with them, while Shaping is the use of naming to affect the world. But maybe that’s going too far, because for example the university (and Elodin’s class) would be actually teaching Shaping only.
There’s another possible interpretation, though: if we look at Felurian’s explanation (“swimming is not mastery over the water”), it seems that at least the Knowers didn’t object to use naming to affect things within their nature. They only started to object after the Shapers started to change the nature of things (like creating silver apples and of course, an entire new world). This leaves the possibility that there is no strict dichotomy and there could be a “neutral” form of Naming between both extremes: not just knowing, but affecting things, but only within their nature. Making a wall of stone crumble is not changing the nature of stone, making a fire light up is not changing the nature of the fire. Preventing the fire to hurt your hand might be.
But back to my original idea: I think that all other forms of magic are either a different form of Naming (I suspect Singing, and maybe the knots here) or were consciously created using Naming. We know for example from Elodin that the early University was all about Naming, and that Sympathy and Sygaldry were invented there – invented, not discovered! That implies that Sympathy hasn’t always been “out there” and they just found a way to use it, but that they created the possibility to use it in the first place. This could also explain why Sympathy has a vocal component (you have to say words to create a binding after all), something that has always struck me as odd for a form of magic that was so much about physics and strength of will only. The words for bindings seemed arbitrary and unnatural. But if Sympathy was created using Naming, it makes perfect sense – the words for bindings could be a form of “residual naming”, triggering the “rules” of sympathy the namers have created for the world.
On the other hand, we have the Faen magic, glamourie and grammarie. The fact that they work a lot better in the Fae than in the Mortal (both Felurian and Bast comment on this) suggests that they are tied to the Fae itself, which has been as we all know created by the shapers. So it’s reasonable to assume that Faen magic was created by the Shapers as well.
I say this mainly to explain why in my opinion, everything about magic in the world hinges on Naming.
Now on to Kvothe’s ring without name. I think it may be a copper ring. We know that copper is used to fight or contain namers – Elodin’s cell, Taborlin’s copper sword (and PR’s comment about it) and presumably the Four Plate Door. It has also been speculated that this may be because copper has no name, and therefore namers can’t control it. That’s a reasonable assumption in my opinion, but also seems to be counterintuitive. The name encompasses everything a thing is, so it should certainly be possible to understand what copper is. Why should copper of all things have no name?
Then I remembered one offhand comment at the beginning of NotW (paraphrasing): “In the beginning Aleph gave names to all things, or, according to another reading, discovered the names the things already had”. On my first read, inexperienced with PR’s writing as I was, I just assumed it was a nice hint at theological arguments to add to the worldbuilding, assuming that Aleph is a God-like figure. But later on we hear his name mentioned along with other great namers, so maybe that’s not the case. Anyway, I think this distinction is going to become important. All through the books, names are treated has if the second interpretation is true: things have names, and you have to discover them. But what if that’s not true, or wasn’t true in the beginning? Maybe a thing has to be given a name at least once before it can have one. And maybe copper has never been given a name.
So, how does that relate to Kvothe? My idea is that he will name copper in D3, and therefore name something that previously didn’t have a name. His talent with naming has been foreshadowed on multiple occasions (Auri, Nell the stereotypical serving girl, the horse he buys to get to Trebon, Caesura, Master Ash [who fits regardless of whether he really is Bredon or Cinder] etc. Also note how many characters suddenly have a name in the narrative without introducing themselves), so he could pull it off. His motivation should also be clear: his obsession with the four plate door. Maybe it’s not that important what’s behind the door, but what Kvothe will do to find out. Maybe everything the shapers did to the world somehow hinged on the fact that copper doesn’t have a name, and it’s Kvothe naming it that wrecked the world to the point where it is in the frame. I think that’s the real thing Kvothe feels guilty about, not the kingkilling. Political turmoil settles down after a while, the destruction of the magical framework of the work doesn’t. And it explains the chaos with the skindancers and scrael.
So in short, I think the “Ring with no Name” is one of the rings that indicate power in Naming: in this case, naming something that didn’t have a name before.
And now that Netalia Lackless has been mentioned, did anybody else find it odd that among the rumors Kvothe hears in Severen is “Young Netalia Lackless run off from her family”? I mean, what kind of rumor is that? It’s like hearing the rumor that the wife of the British crown prince died in a car accident – totally outdated and something that should be established fact already.
Yes, that is odd. Perhaps it wasn’t generally known – it might have been given out that she was dead, or, if she ran away before being introduced into society, it may not even have been widely known that she existed.
Or perhaps Denna is Netalia, after all.
I do not find it odd. We must consider the context. K is playing the role or mysterious, but slightly dim, noble interested in colecting stories for a history. Which he claims he is not familiar with, and is open too gossip.
The gossip passed on would easily span a consideral amount of time, and 16-17 years ago is not that long. Some of the info passed on is centuries old.
Oh ad Diana was not married to Charles when she died. And she was a person, not just his wife. I mention this in relation to the nature of rumour/stories and ‘established fact’.
Lol, I do ramble on somewhat, mmm?
Right, forgot that he was collecting stories about noble houses in general – I somehow thought this was just about the rumormongers supplying him with recent court rumors.
And yeah, I was incorrect about the marital status of Diana (I’m not that much into the rainbow press stuff, but I probably should’ve gotten my facts straight before using it as an example). But I don’t know how her marital status, whatever it was, implies that she isn’t a person. And I don’t know why you’re reacting so snippily.
I am not being snipy. At which point, exactly, did you manage to infer that?
Surely not the fact that I disagreed with you and bought furher information into play….was it my audacity at correcting your mistake?
I dont know what you mean by rainbow press…my mind associates that with rainbow parades etc. Then I cringed at the gays heart royals stereotype, which Im sure your not refering to!
Im not a royalist (nor one of those who beleieves she is a saint) but growing up when I did Diana’s life was inescapable. By refering to her as merely “the Crown Prince’s wife” you have only given her identity in how it relates to the man she was once married to, you have demeaned her as a woman and individual and touched upon the issues behind her struggles and fall.
You stated that your version was ‘established fact’ when actually it was rather insensitive/ignorant. Relating back to the KKC you are demonstrating, negatively, an angle of one of the themes; that of how ‘fact’ and stories evolve and change, twist into something other, grains of truth remain but other things are lost.
And yes it is amusing that this comes about at the same time you are discussing rumours/facts that appear in the book!
This just occurred to me: due to the odd flow of time in the Fae, Bast could be Kvothe’s grandson. Through speculation here it’s been more or less established that he’s not Kvothe’s son, due to him being introduced as “son of Remmen”. (Then again, that could be a lie, or ‘Remmen’ could be what Kvothe is called in the Fae.) But what if Remmen is Kvothe’s son by Felurian?
A Fox and Valyrian—before we get too off-topic here, perhaps it’s best to return to the discussion of the book, and not get caught up in name-calling and personal attacks.
@Irene.
Mmm, I agree with your sentiments. However I have certainly not ‘atacked’ anyone or called names. I have responded to two seperate garbled facts, and then to the ‘I dont know’s and accusation.
If someone jumps down my throat in such a manner then I reserve the right to respond-also gender politics is a bugbear of mine! I hope you can see that, in both posts, I tried to bring it back onto topic
@valyrian. This really is a near as a troll free zone as the’net gets so its better to assume people are saying things in an intellectual/soft humoured/conversational manner rather than assuming the worst.
Anywho, thats me done on this, meh. Insert smiley faces and overblown shortnings of laughter at will.
Well, personally I didn’t think that second part of your post was in any way relevant to the discussion of the book. But I probably misinterpreted the tone of your post and responded in a more hostile manner than was called for. So apologies for that.
I agree that we should return to discussing the book now.
GBrell: No, when D3 comes out a lot of this will be obsolete.
When I get it — and it could still be years — I’m going to see if I can liveblog reading it as well as doing a grown up sensible review. But I was thinking of sharing the “OMG Master Ash is XXXX” moments. We’ll see.
@184.bluejo:
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I meant a collection of essays about the books rather than a collection of posts. It would be an interesting time capsule, however, to see what crazy ideas we all had.
Here is the image Greyhood created @167:
As you can see, you can match the points given for the trifoil question with the three yellow circles (slide the lines up just a bit more). His compass points are the reverse of mine–that’s why it didn’t seem to fit to me.
In this answer, you are standing somewhere to the bottom of Atur. This is pretty interesting. It seems quite possible that PR chose the places for the three yellow circles so that they could fit an answer. Of course, just as in my previous drawing, this could be coincidence.
Nicely done Greyhood!
Total speculation triggered by the map above. Puzzle pieces:
1) We know metals and magics are interrelated. Copper for naming, iron for fae are two. (Any more?)
2) We know that there are three mother-lodes of metal ore that allow the trifoil compass to work: gold, cobalt and platinum.
3) The admission question ‘does Kvothe create a new magic’ received the answer ‘that’s a good question’.
4) Finally, we have speculated that the Waystone is located strategically for a final showdown.
SPECULATION: the Waystone is located at the Tinker’s Pack Yellow Dot under Vintas, right on top of the Cobalt Pole. Support:
1) At the time of the creation of the map the Tinker’s Pack was in No Man’s Land (so far as we can see). It is part of no country. It really is in the middle of ‘Newarre’. This would give the town’s name local and intrinsic sense. The locals would have called it ‘Nowhere’ – ‘where do you live’ ‘nowhere’ (shared chuckle between farmers). And it is ‘Newarre’ because that’s how the locals say it. (I’m thinking of the Shmand Fair in Beyond the White Mountains (is that right?), which was a local corruption of ‘chemin de fer’ or railroad.)
But if Newarre is just in the middle Vintas, then the pun Newarre is a cleverness of the author – that is, an intrusion of the author into his world. That’s why it currently has a bit of the *groan* feel.
2) Newarre currently seems to be in Vintas. So perhaps the king has expanded his territory. This would be a logical conquest since there is no established royal opposition. There would just be…rebels.
3) The Maer is seeking the Amyr’s door. Perhaps Kvothe created a new magic relating to one of the mother lode metals that was critical for opening the door. The Maer jumped in to claim the territory. If this is right, it could be tied to his regret. The whole Amyr/Kvothe/war caused total disaster and the world is now coming apart.
4) So Kvothe starts playing with other metals (his Fishery experience is invaluable here), probably screws with alchemy which he can’t control, makes a discovery with cobalt that created chaos, tells only the Maer, a war starts and every archon is now coming after him so he plants himself over the cobalt mother lode and decides to learn how to listen while he waits for the avalanche.
5) I chose cobalt over gold and platinum for several reasons.
i) It’s intrinsically more interesting than the precious metal tropes in fantasy.
ii) Cobalt fits into the copper and iron family of PR’s world
iii) Cobalt is never found in mother lodes but rather in the earth’s core (interesting) and just basically all over the place in the soil. So it is VERY interesting that there is enough of a motherlode in one location to attract remote compass needles, (and also to overpower the cobalt at the earth’s core).
iv) cobalt has interesting properties. (http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/co.htm) It is similar to iron, forms many alloys, is chemically very active, is impossible to destroy once it is in the atmosphere (whatever that means), and is used to create magnets.
v) a large concentration of cobalt will also create a ‘dome of silence’ effect and disturb usage of one’s left hand. Very strange.
6) Finally, the Tinker’s Pack with a Yellow dot? Come on. That HAS to means SOMETHING. And it obeys the ‘hidden in plain sight’ principle.
I couldn’t find anything corroborating 5.v, possibly ’cause I’m not trying hard enough. Could you point to and/or quote same?
I did see that one of the toxic effects is asthma.
@188 – Asthma! Are you thinking of D?
(double post)
@188 – I can’t find it either. What I do find is this:
“Difficulty in proprioception”, “clumsiness” and “depression”, among many others, are listed as symptoms of pernicious anemia, which in turn is caused by a cobalt DEFICIENCY, i.e. lack of cobalt. The latter is very rare, according to the wikipedia page on cobalt poisoning. So this would argue against the “large concentration of cobalt” speculation. Also, cobalt needs to be ingested, inhaled or at least come in contact with your skin in order for you to be affected. The “dome of silence” effect I could not find anywhere, nor does that specific phrase pop up on a normal google search.
@188, 191. I am SO terribly sorry. I ought be expelled for mischief. I made up the dome of silence and left hand bit. I should have put an emoticon after it to clarify that I was kidding. Sorry!
However, it inadvertently launched the research that uncovered the proprioception connection. That is BRILLIANT. Maybe K has been ingesting loads of cobalt to augment this new cobalt magic he invented. Maybe it makes him immune to certain kinds of magic if it’s part of him, just like eating copper might mess up his naming.
I realize I’m way out on a limb here.
Oh whoops. Cobalt DEFICIENCY. Man am I off today.
Ok so maybe he’s laying off the cobalt because it’s such a potent weapon when used magically, and that’s why he’s depressed, clumsy and can’t find his left hand.
Has Rothfuss ever been asked about the dots on the map? It would be rather depressing if, after all this, they did turn out to be links and nothing else.
Been lurking a while. Fascinating series of blogs and responses. Some thoughts/questions of my own.
a) Name of sword. We have the smith in the tavern call it “Kaysera”. The Adem called his sword “Saicere”. Suppose ‘c’ in the second word is pronounced as ‘k’, in the same way as the ‘c’ in Ceasar is supposed by some to be pronounced as in Kaiser. And suppose the last ‘e’ is not silent, as it is in English, but a full vowel. Then “Saicere” would become ‘saykera’. A consonant swap, which is quite common, would lead to ‘kaysera’. Hence someone mishearing a tale told by someone with a different set of sounds for pronouncing letters could substitute “Kaysera” for “Saicere”. So the sword in the inn remains the adem blade. And “folly” because having a sword does not make a person wise enough to use it.
b) A thought on the war and the ‘penitent king’. Wars have two sides. We have heard about the king on one side and rebels on the other. But why are there rebels?
c) There was a discussion about ‘princes regent’. Aristocracies can have princes that do not rule, eg., England, where the ruler is the king/queen. But there are countries where princes rule, such as the Principality of Monaco. Even Dukes who rule, such as Luxemborg. So ‘princes regent’ could refer to those countries/autonomous areas which are ruled by princes. A ‘regent’ when the heriditary ruler is not competent to rule (underage) can be of any rank, and there is only one.
Looking forward to D3.
maybe the translation is more accurate than we’ve been assuming. “a desire for knowledge shapes a man”. we know lanre went to the cteath for knowledge on how to save Lyra. kvothe stumbled into it seeking knowledge of the chandrian, and possibly iax spoke with it seeking knowledge about the moon. maybe it (the ctheath) literally Shapes a man, changing who he is, or even possibly changing a persons name (ie lanre to Haliax)
@Cobalt discussion:
Interesting. I never paid attention to it but considering how copper and iron have some kind of power, this could mean something.
Cobalt, by the way, is named after Kobolds, a type of fairy/leprechaun like creature from German mythology. Maybe there’s a relation to the Fae after all? PR is not above making a reference to real life etymologies and non-English languages.
@Saicere:
Made up languages always confuse me when there’s no pronounciation guide. You never know if the author simply transcribes it according to English rules or makes up his own rules of transcription. Personally, I interpreted the “c” as an “s” sound before e.
So Carceret = Karseret, Saicere = Saisereh (no silent e at the end). Just my impression though. But it’s consistent with how Kvothe mishears (or subconsciously names) it as Caesura instead.
@Princes Regent:
The problem here is that we don’t even know if they’re princes because they’re royal heirs or if prince is a rank of nobility. They’re mentioned in NotW right? Maybe I should dig up my German copy of the book (the words differ in German) – the translation already helped us to figure out what kind of ash Master Ash was after all ;)
@Cobalt
I love this idea, regardless of whether it’s cobalt or platinum or gold, or some other metal. Particularly the idea that metals and magics might be interelated–it appears the cobalt deposit theory has some problems, but could be on the right track. Is there any textual evidence for a relationship other than copper->naming, iron->fae?
One thing speaking against this is that it would be a bit odd if it required three distinct types of magic to make a trifoil compass. It seemed like a pretty clear use of sympathy. Do we have any background on how they are made?
On the other hand, the relationships of those metals to magic is that they stop them, so maybe it would be fine to use sympathy for a trifoil compass, as long as none of those three metals were the one that harmed sympathy.
If the trifoil compass is sympathetic, then there doesn’t have to be a huge concentration of the metal at the “pole.” The appropriate compass needle tup just has to be sympathetically linked to the particular piece of metal that is at the pole.
Herovit@199:That’s how I envision them being made. Some sort of sympathetic link exists between each of the three indicators and each of the “poles.”
The Princes Regent are introduced as being in line to the throne and quite close to it, so whatever exactly ‘prince’ designates they seem to be royal in some way. If they were just a group of ruling princes, of different families, it’s unlikely that they would all stand in the same place in the line of succession.
@199
According to Kvothe’s admissions question from Elxa Dal, the distance of insurmountable decay for Iron is five and a half miles. I dont think Sygaldry is how they make a trefoil compass.
@Princes Regent:
Sure, their place in line to the throne suggests they’re part of the royal family, but prince regent could also be the highest rank of nobility in Vintas … like prince elector was in the Holy Roman Empire.
@Trifoil Compass:
What if it doesn’t require sympathy, but plain old magnetism? Maybe Denna wasn’t that far off when she speculated if there are magnets made of another material than iron?
“Richer than the King of Vint”-Roderik
I believe that Vint, Artur and Modeg have kings. The impression is that kings tend to come and go in the smal kingdoms.
@198 (and all re: Princes regent)
We’ve gone over this in detail before. There are, or were, at least two princes regent. Sim mentions them in line after the royal family, not as part of it. Alaitis was killed in a duel while Kvothe was killing and cavorting. His death sent the Southern Farrel into chaos as nobles tried to capitalize on the death of a highly placed member of the court.
Most of the theorizing placed a regent in each farrel represented by a cardinal direction, for four, or excluding East since it’s not mentioned, for three.
@198 Saicere and pronunciation
The audiobooks are a good source for this. He says he spent more than 6 hours on the phone with Nick getting the pronunciations right.
Car-sir-ette; Sigh-sair; Say-sure-uh
@202 Excellent point.
I was thinking about what we know about the other metals, especially copper. A couple of things came to mind. Elodin was trapped in a room with copper in the walls, and Taborlin had a copper sword. I immediately thought- maybe someone has a cobalt sword. Have we seen that? Is there one perhaps hidden in plain sight? A sword made of an unspecified grey ish metal…
Airplanes are made of cobalt chrome. This alloy holds it’s shape forever, and is apparently shatter-proof.
And then I wondered if there was a room that had a strange feel to it, like Elodin’s cell… like silence…
Anyone feeling this?
@207 – the sword room in Haert would perhaps meet this definition, and Ademre swords might arguably along those lines.
Re the trifoil compass: I don’t think that there’s anything definite saying that the three needles point to gold, platnum, or cobalt. They might just be named that way. Also, remember that with sympathy you can form a dowsing compass that points toward something (e.g., a person using their blood) for a much further distance than what you are able to directly affect via energy transfer. So, the trefoil compass could still be synpathetic, even though the distance of insurmountable decay is perhaps not too far.
Sorry for the double post. Just looked up what Kvothe says about trifoil compasses, and he +/- directly states that they’re created by sympathy/sygaldry:
That seems to confirm that it’s not some different type of magic. I suppose that it could be simple magenetism/polarity (if there are magnets that work for cobalt, gold, platnum), but it indicates that it’s at least in the realm of “normal” Artificery.
quick thought.
Trapis as penitent king? Pat admitted that Trapis was connected to a religious schism and what shouts penitent more than an exiled holy man, living day and night in agony whilst caring for the sick and deformed children of the streets?
it could even be that he’s a famous exiled holy man and declined more of kvothes money to prevent attention being drawn to who he is.
Trapis always struck me as a bit odd/creepy. if he did become a king with a secret agenda only realised by kvothe, the guilt from taking him down could be reason for locking away his abilities.
just a passing n0tion anyway, a folly one might say.
Jo,
Kvothe and Pat say it isn’t a happy story; it doesn’t end well.
I think the Maer is the killed king and Ambrose is the Penitent King.
Wouldn’t it be awful if Kvothe killed the Maer? Perhaps they came into some conflict over the Amyr or the Lackless Box. Wouldn’t it be awful if Kvothe made Ambrose the king? Throughout the books we hear how close Ambrose is to the throne, but Sim explains in NOtW that Muluen and the Maer are closer to the throne than Ambrose. Ambrose cannot be the killed king unless the Maer and his wife are already dead (or Ambrose does something to get higher in the succession).
>Dagon strikes me as much more consistent with Cinder than Bredon is. >And he’s away from the city, chasing Caudicus, when the Maer sends >Kvothe after the bandits. When Kvothe returns, the Maer mentions that >Dagon caught Caudicus shortly after Kvothe left, but how shortly >exactly? He spent, what, one month hunting the bandits, and two >months in Ademre, so one month would be relatively shortly after he >left Severen. And if Dagon returned around the same time that Cinder >fled the camp…
>Does that mean Caudicus might have been in league with >Dagon/Cinder?
I don’t think so…Stapes tells Kvothe shortly afte he got back that Dagon returned 2 span after Kvothe left to hunt the bandits.
Also, did anyone else see that Meluan has a round “key” she wears on chain to open the chest that contains the Loeclos Box? A ring not for wearing? At least in the traditional sense
Just thought of something; don’t know if anyone else said it. Rhin is shape. Ata is man. Ta is man, but actually changes the Rhin part– Man-shaped. As such, A Rhinata is a Shaper, and the Rhinta are man-shaped.
@@@@@ person 18
What about listener’s “seeing” names (like with Kvothe and thewind?)
I reckon there’s no such faction as the Singers. Controversial here perhaps, but I think singers refers to just, y’know, singers. Folk who sing songs in pubs, travelling minstrels, the Ruh. Arliden and Laurien. K himself says that songs keep their shapes better than stories. If you want to hide your name and your secrets from the world then the first thing to do is to erase the old songs and take care of any new ones. If Ash really is Cinder then his using Denna to sow doubt about Lanre and his murder of K’s troupe are fundamentally the same action: keeping the chandrian safe from singers.
There’s all kind of a real-life equivalents here. One example is Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty is derived from a folk tale which can be traced back to the 1300’s (though is probably older) and hands down to kids things that old women learned in bygone days, but in a form which passed below the radar of powerful men. One interpretation of the older tale which has persisted is a resentment over the transition from a lunar to a solar calendar. Another has it that the blood of the pricked finger represents a girl’s first period, with the forest of thorns symbolising that she should only be in the company of women for the first one and that the men should keep away, those being the ideas of the time.
Back to Temerant and the kids’ skipping rhyme is remarkably instructive, telling kids to run outside and hide if the hearthfire turns blue. See on the one hand this means the Chandrian are dismissed as a nursery rhyme, but on the other hand it means that everybody grows up with this knowledge embedded deep in their psyche. Every Aturan-speaking child knows the signs and knows to run to a single waystone. Imagine the effect if that song were replaced by the description given by Shehyn? They’d be getting named so often they’d go deaf with it, and any arcanist who can make a decent binding of iron could be taking a pop at Fehr Ule if s/he had sufficient beef to do so.
Pardon if I am late to the game here, but has there been any theorizing (other than my own, mind you) of Kvothe having some sort of connection with the sun? (The first description of K we get: “True-red hair, red as flame,” “moving with subtle certainty,” as the sun seems to do…)
Other random support for this:
“But brought up I was Kvothe. My father once told me it meant ‘to know.'” <—- reminds me of “shedding light” on something or enlightenment, both of which have “sun” or “light” connotations.
If we are assuming that Denna has something to do with the moon (which, from my rapid read through of both NotW & WMF rereads, there is strong evidence to suggest that she does), then their interactions would be extremely similar to how we perceive the celestial bodies interacting: one “chasing” the other. Kvothe seems to have hard time finding D when he wants to, and whenever he does, it’s often very well-timed (the saying “aligning of the stars,” comes to mind).
Also, since the amount of moon that people on Earth see depends on the amount of sunlight is being reflected off of the moon, an argument could be made (and is being made, currently) that the various names that D goes by is analogous to the moon phases: what we see on any given day (aka, what name she goes by) might be different than the last, because it is waxing or waning or crescent or full, but we know we are looking at the same moon. Same goes for D. Underneath the title that she has during an interaction, we still see the same “person,” so to speak.
Going off of that train of thought, when the sun and the moon interact most directly (at least, from the perspective of us Earth-dwellers) there is an eclipse, a term that I’ve seen discussed previously in this forum. K also has traveled to both worlds in which the moon exists.
Could be way off base here though.
All that being said, I love the work you all are doing/have done here. It’s because of this reread and these comments that I began to start thinking about the stuff that I wrote in this comment, so I appreciate you all inspiring me to think in a way that I am not used to thinking, ha. Can’t wait to see how D3 plays out.
Until next time…
Because I’ve seen some speculation and guesses about the trifoil compass and the yellow dots on the map on Pat’s website: They are not connected.
The yellow dots are links, if you click on them, you get some information on Tarbean, The Great Stone Road and tinkerers.
The yellow dots are links, but they might _also_ be the locations of the objects to which a trefoil compass is tuned. In which case, replicating Shalter’s basic method, I get a location smack-dab in southern Atur (nation), southwest of the lakes.
However, I grant you, it’s doubtful.
I also don’t think that Master Brandeur is asking about Newarre.
If you use three major trade centers, Ralien, Tarbean, and Junpui, as your reference object locations, this gives a point on the Great Stone Road, about halfway between Imre and Anilin. (0-degrees would be just west of north in this case.)
More likely locations for the three objects are Ralien, Cershaen, and Renere, which you will note all have a larger reddish circle around them on the map that no other city has. (At first I assumed the circles just meant large cities, but wouldn’t Atur also be large?)
I can find two ways to replicate Shalter’s work in this case. They give
1) a point in the western Eld, just east of the Modeg/Atur border, southeast of Atur city, and
2) a point in the center of the “D” in MODEG, just south of Cershaen.
Which of the two is correct would depend on which object (gold, platinum, cobalt) is located in which city (Ralien, Cershaen, Renere). These cities have long histories, so it would make sense to place reference objects there, as they are likely to be relatively politically stable (unlikely to be looted or destroyed).
Taking the _opposite_ method, using cities _without_ the reddish circles (I don’t think this is likely correct) but which are still historically important or centers of learning, we can use the University, Atur, and Tinue. This gives us a point almost directly south of Atur City.
Now for the really _interesting_ ones.
The trefoil compass is used to determine location, not direction. The 4C has a north: it’s clearly labeled on the map. So presumably they have more standard iron compasses (perhaps built into the trefoil) for aligning to a cardinal direction. In that case you could always measure angles on the trefoil from that cardinal direction for convenience. (Why _wouldn’t_ you set up the system that way?)
If you set due east as your 0-degrees, then use Tinue, Atur City, and Junpui your location for reference objects, you get a point smack-dab in the middle of the Small Kingdoms.
If you set due east as your 0-degrees, then use _3 of the 4 corners of the map itself_ (the SW, NW, and NE corners specifically) as the locations of the objects, you get a point on the western straight of the Reft (barely on Commonwealth portion of the Yllish island). I like thise because it’s clean, and plays off the 4C name. It would suggest the 4C were in fact defined by the placement or location of these 3 objects (huge mineral deposits?), and perhaps another SE of Vintas that is no longer used.
You can, of course, turn it around, use due west as your 0-degree angle, and use the NE, SE, and SW corners of the map as the location of the reference objects. This gives a point on the NE Modeg border, near Ademre but on the Modeg side of the branch of Stormwal.
Lastly, I’ll say that if Master Brandeur was being a bit of a dick, he might have just been giving the coordinates of the University itself. But if so, I can’t find 3 convenient cities or other landmarks that line up that way.
Hmmm… I’m going to try reversing the direction of the angles (clockwise instead of counter-clockwise).
Okay, using reverse-direction angles (still assuming 360 “points” is all the way around) if the reference objects are at Ralien, Tarbean, and the small island in the Centhe sea (Caluptena?), then the University or Imre could be the location Brandeur’s asking about. (0-degrees would be the line from the University to the compass rose in the SE).
Ah! But if we use these reverse-direction angles and the Ralien/Cershaen/Renere trio (0-degrees is roughly W, a bit S), we get a location in southern-most Modeg, probably contested territory, in the Eld, very close to NW Vintas, about where we would expect Newarre to be.
Alternatively, if you switch which city is which metal, you get a point just west of Cershaen.
Using reverse angles, W as 0, and using 3 corners of the map, you get a location in central Vintas, near the big inland sea. Using E as 0, and using 3 corners of the map, you get a location just north of the little lake north of Ralien.
Using a vague SSW direction as 0, and using 3 corners of the map, you get Anilin.
If Jo emails email, I can email the maps. But this would be a lot easier with a just a little more information.
@215 J McK: Apparently this thread has been active long enough that you had a chance to read SRST before posting here! Nice to see someone finally use the name Temerant for what we’ve been calling the 4Cs for convenience.
ARMed_Pirate: Wish this thread were still active so you could post the maps. I am duly impressed by your diligence!
Auri is the one who is going to give Kvothe his new name. It says so explicitly at the end of The Slow Regard of Silent Things. I’ve transcribed the text below from my audiobook copy, so please excuse any errors in punctuation.
“He would need a place someday, and it was here all ready for him. Someday he would come, and she would tend to him. Someday he would be the one, all eggshell-hollow-empty in the dark. And then, Auri smiled. Not for herself, no. Not ever for herself. She must stay small and tucked away, well-hidden from the world. But for him it was a different thing entire. For him she would bring forth all her desire. She would call up all her cunning and her Craft.
Then she would make a name for him.”
Yes. Of course you are right.
It’s unfortunate that Jo has not continued the posts for SLOST, because for the most part people held back on discussing “revelations” until the appropriate post, which would have been the last, not the first. *sigh*
rhinata / morie
It seems more logical to me that Morie means “shape” and the root Rhin “man”.
Some morphology :
– Temer-ant : it’s the Name of the World. Fae-ant could be the complete name of the Fae. Ant would be a suffix like “-ia” in latin (Iberia, Italia…)
In this case, En Faeant Morie would mean “About the Shaping of the place of the Fae” (En = “De” in latin essays).
Vorfelan Rhinata Morie : in this expression, rhinata is the word for “men” (with the suffix -ta as the mark of plural).
The oblation of -a- in Rhinta could evoque the inhumanity of the Chandrian.
I’d like to develop so more… But I’m french and my english drastically limitates me.
In regards to the trifoil compass, I don’t know if anybody has thought of this, but instead of the points meaning degrees of a circle, and therefore, as rays originating from a certain point on the map, could it be the radius of a circle?
In the text when Kvothe is asked the question, he says he’s only seen a trifoil compass twice, and has no idea how they work, explaining that few use them and it takes a lot of charts and tables and whatnot, but he answers “Tarbean” and later, doubtfully, “somewhere in Yll?” I’m sure Kvothe would be able to sorta figure out how it works after seeing it twice, his whole thing is being very clever, and the fact that Tarbean and Yll are rather close in proximity on the map, than say other wild guesses like Tarbean and Tinue, means that he does know even a tiny bit.
Now, @8 mentioned that perhaps the three points on the to be where the rays originate from and triangulate to a point on the map, which is how you can use a trifoil compass to determine where you are with precision, but the degrees given to Kvothe don’t seem to line up to a place on the map if they originate from the three yellow dots, at least from my attempt as guestimating. But going back to Kvothes guesses during admissions, I think the numbers could be radii of three circles with their centers on the yellow dots, and wherever the three circles intersect, is your location.
Going off of what I think I saw in some comments, gold, with a measurement 200 something points, is the tinkers pack, because gold is a valuable trading good in almost any world. Cobalt, with a measurement of 30 something, would be Tarbean, as cobalt is a bluish metal and the map colors the Commonwealth as blue. That leaves platinum, 100 something points, to be the dot in the middle. There could also be a clue on the periodic table of the elements: Cobalt is group 9, platinum, group 10, and gold, group 11. Looking at the map from left to right, the cobalt point comes first, then the platinum point and then gold. So, Kvothe guesses, based on the radii of the circle and their intersections to be somewhere near Tarbean or Yll. This way of determining where you are relies heavily on math, whether the unit of points means the radius of a circle originating at the dots, or an angle measurement, and as we see later Kvothe isn’t very good at math because he says he dropped or failed the advanced math class he was taking.
The problem I see with my method is that I’m also not very good at math, and you can definitely have measurements where the three circles don’t intersect or intersect more than once, but those three dots on the map have to mean something about maps, because otherwise they wouldn’t be there. They could be towns or cities, since Tarbean has one, but the dot on the tinker’s pack is beyond Vintas, into the unknown, and mapmakers wouldn’t mark a random spot in the middle of unexplored wilderness on the map for no reason.
Perhaps the danger of copper isn’t so much that it’s nameless, but that different namers can program different copper artifacts to have a true name that only the respective namer knows?
The reason I suspect this is due to a certain piece of dialogue in the part of NotW where Elodin takes Kvothe to the Rookery.
“‘Sod me, they changed it,’ he [Elodin] said quietly to himself. ‘Huh.’ He stepped closer to the wall and lay a hand on it.
I let my attention wander. Wil and Sim had been right, the man was cracked in the head. What would happen if I ran out of the room, unstuck the door, and slammed it? Would the other masters thank me?
‘Oh,’ Elodin said suddenly, laughing. ‘That was half-clever of them.’ He took two steps back from the wall. ‘CYAER-BASALIEN.’
And the stone wall turns to sand before their eyes.
The first sentence makes me think that perhaps copper either has a malleable name or is inherently nameless. If it doesn’t have a set name, then perhaps skilled Namers/Shapers can program the metal to have a true name and do things that only they can command it to do? This could explain why it’s so dangerous; the name of copper can be encrypted and used by your adversary, but remain unaffected by your attempts to manipulate it in order to defend yourself against it. This wouldn’t be too much of a stretch, seeing as copper is a malleable and ductile element with high conductivity and thermal and electrical conductivity. Perhaps its physical malleability extends to its true name?
Even after Elodin does figure out the name of the stone, the copper webs are still present. He doesn’t even try to use naming to break them; he just grabs a piece of broken furniture and uses it to break and bend the metal. Perhaps copper has properties that allow it to change the true name and properties of objects with which it comes into contact (such as the stone walls) while also being impervious to people’s attempts to manipulate it through naming?
What do you guys think?
Wow…I think you just might be on to something. At least, your theory would account for much!
FWIW, copper knives are used in our world – by Explosive Ordinance Disposal types…
https://emersonknives.com/shop/knives/limited-models/eodknife/
I’m fairly sure anything ending in -ent is denoting a forest. My reasoning being in the comic PR wrote as a companion to the game Torment (which he wrote a character for named… Rhin) the main character (the before mentioned Rhin) says first she’s from “Elreth” and then “Elerent” and since she also says she’s from “Lord Barenth’s Steading” that would put her in Modega since that’s the same “Steading” as where Laniel Young Again is from according to the prologue reading. Which points us towards the Eld.
So to try to tackle “En Faent Morie” we should set aside rough translations
Nick I’m having trouble following . . . perhaps because I am unfamiliar with several references that you seem to take for granted we will all know.
Now that I’ve re-reread ALL the comments, here’s my responses:
Jo @OP (re: post by JDH): If someone did take part of Kvothe, who would have the power to do that? Any speculations?
Jo @OP (in response to JDH): I’d say the candidates would be Haliax, Selitos, Iax (if released from beyond the Doors of Stone), possibly Elodin, as a long shot Fela…
I believe we have a hint about (re)naming at the very end of SRST (which had not been published yet) when the narrator gives us Auri’s thoughts: “For him she would bring forth all her desire. She would call up all her cunning and craft. Then she would make a name for him.”(and I see JJC @220 has also posted this quote)
Jo @OP: And, maybe, it was Kwothe who killed his parents and all the rest. And that was the reason he survived the attack too.
And isn’t that truly horrible, and doesn’t it fit? Though how could one person, even possessed, could kill a whole troupe, or a whole wedding party?
Ah. But we already know how one person could kill a whole troupe. Kvothe demonstrates that quite graphically when he rescues the two girls from Levinshir. With his own troupe, he could, conceivably, have added enough herbs to their stew that they were all passed out entirely first. As could possibly Denna have done with the wedding massacre. [Note that The Doc @68 discusses their idea further, so this is in answer to both AND see Millner @124: “I dreamt of killing my own troupe”
What if this was a memory echo hidden semi-permanently behind the doors of forgetting?]
Jo @OP (re: post by Britunculus): Bredon is Kvothe’s grandfather (it’s in plain sight again: “what I consider grandfather old”), specifically Meluan’s father and a Lackless. It explains his political power, his presence with the Maer and his interest in Kvothe.
I liked this idea when I first read it on whichever post Jo found it, and I still like it.
Jo @OP: Actually, when it is D3 I’m going to have to liveblog as I read it and see things confirmed or contradicted. My spoiler review will be the longest review of all time!
Ha! I’ll take you up on those promises!
AnotherAndrew @118: And can I ask again: is there any textual support for using ‘the Four Corners’ as the name of the world where Kvothe lives?
And of course this response is just a *few* years too late, but: we now know from SRST (confirmed by PR extra-textually) that the world is named Temerant.
Valyrian @157: At least I doubt one of the Chandrian would be happy about a story about him, even if it does paint him in a positive light.
I must strenuously disagree. If her song paints him (and possibly the other Chandrian) in a positive light, that makes it very different from what Arliden was doing, especially if it is Denna’s version that is accurate!
I just found this thread and must say it provided quite a lot of insight and speculation as well.
I wonder though why hasn’t anyone mentioned how odd it was that so many of the items Auri gave to Kvothe were like the tools that ____(forgot his name) had in the stories; key, coin, candle, etc. ?
Auri gives Kvothe a key to a door in the Moon… she gives him a coin he’s never seen before… she gives him a ring that keeps secrets.. and also gives him a candle she made herself..
And to me the fact that he left all these items safe back in Ankers so that they weren’t lost in the sea on his way to Vintas means that they may still play a role in the hopefully upcoming Doors of Stone.
Taborlin the Great is who you were trying to think of, and if you were to read every thread in these reread blog posts, you’d find plenty of discussion on that exact “coincidence.” We’re all curious to see where it goes in D3
Regarding the Lethani:
The Lethani could be the Tao, but I don’t think so. The Tao as I understand it is like the life force that is behind all creation. As they say: “The Tao that can be known is not the great Tao”, meaning nothing within creation is able to grasp the true Tao. It is more likely that the Lethani is based upon the Dharma of Buddhism, which is closer to the right action you described in your post. But there is an important disctinction between mere right action and the Dharma/Lethani: the Dharma is about the truth revealing itself. This truth guides right action of course, but it also is much deeper than that. Seeing the Dharma and acting in accordance with it is to be in harmony with life itself, which is exactly how I read the Lethani in the books. The true Tao cannot be known, but the Dharma is there for all of us, all the time, waiting to reveal itself to those who desire truth.
Regarding Kvothe losing his own name:
I believe the seeds of this were planted when Kvothe swore to Deena on his good left hand that he would not try to discover the true identity of Master Ash. I think Kvothe breaks his promise to Denna and somehow loses his ability to play the lute. The left hand is the fretting hand, and without it no musician can play a string instrument. Without music, Kvothe is without a core part of who he is. If he does indeed break such a promise with Denna, he could also be without her, No music, no Denna. Kvothe is a different person without them. It would also explain one aspect of the silence around the Waystone inn.
All valid speculation. I wish D3 would get finished!