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Rothfuss Reread: Speculative Summary 15: Stick by the Maer

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Rothfuss Reread: Speculative Summary 15: Stick by the Maer

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Rothfuss Reread: Speculative Summary 15: Stick by the Maer

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Published on October 18, 2012

Patrick Rothfuss Re-read on Tor.com, Speculative Summary 15: Stick by the Maer
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Patrick Rothfuss Re-read on Tor.com, Speculative Summary 15: Stick by the Maer

My obsessively 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. But we welcome new people who have read the books and want to geek out about them. 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.

Okay, first, The Wise Man’s Fear won the David Gemmell Legend Award, which is wonderful, and even cooler, it’s an axe!

D3 is not here yet, but apparently people are reviewing it on Goodreads nevertheless. I’ve written reviews of imaginary books myself, but usually on April 1st. Pat responded to this in an absolutely awesome way:

While it’s nice to see folks out there giving this book five stars, and in some cases even reviewing it, I’ll admit that I’m kinda puzzled.

After thinking it over for a while, I’ve realized there’s only one explanation for this: Time travelers love my books.

This is strangely reassuring, as it lets me know that, eventually, I do finish my revisions, and the book turns out good enough so that I still have a following out there in the big ball of wibbly-wobbly…. timey-wimey…. stuff that I like to think of as the future.

I would also like to say, future readers, that I appreciate your taking time to read and review my books. It’s really flattering knowing that even with time-travel technology at your disposal, you’d rather read my stuff and mention it here on goodreads, rather than, say, hunt dinosaurs, get drunk with da Vinci, or pants Hitler.

Secondly, I’d like to say if you’re The Doctor, and you’re reading this, I would make an excellent traveling companion. I know you normally tend to hang out with pretty young women and robot dogs. And honestly? I respect that.

Still, I bring certain things to the table. Humor, witty banter, and a beard that will allow me to blend in seamlessly with any pre-industrial Germanic culture. I’m also an excellent kisser and play a mean game of Settlers of Catan.

Just throwing it out there.

Lastly, if any of you happen to have a digital copy of the book you’d like to e-mail me, I’d really appreciate it. I’d love to see the five-star version of the book, because right now, the one I’m toiling away at is about a three and a half-in my opinion. It would save me a lot of work if I could just skip to the end and publish it.

Sincerely yours,
pat

Jhirrad found this, and isn’t it adorable? What Pat doesn’t know is that if a time traveler sent him a copy of the book that would cause a paradox in which the world would end and the Aleu fall nameless from the sky.

Whatever Aleu are…

A Fox:

Odd thought. ‘Aleu fall nameless from the sky’. I think there is an easy assumption that the Alue equate to stars (much like Ludis to the moon). But what if, in fact, the ‘angels’/singers are Alue? As in Alue already existed and these were the model on which Aelph based the transformation..or transcendance. A shedding of mortal fesh and all that.

And could this relate to K ‘killing’ an angel?

Thistlepong finds the quote, and it’s very suggestive indeed:

Kvothe:

In my delirium, I imagined death in the form of a great bird with wings of fire and shadow. It hovered above, watching patiently, waiting for me…

I slept, and the great bird settled its burning wings around me. I imagined a delicious warmth. Then its claws were in me, tearing me open—

Skarpi:

They came to Aleph, and he touched them. He touched their hands and eyes and hearts. The last time he touched them there was pain, and wings tore from their backs that they might go where they wished. Wings of fire and shadow. Wings of iron and glass. Wings of stone and blood.

That the aleu might be the angels is interesting, but pretty tenuous. They’re certainly in the sky and bear a connection to Aleph. And it’s fun to think about the nameless ring alluding to killing an angel. I’m just wary of positing another faction or group to fill in the hole. There’s also the other clause, “after everything is gone,” to consider.

Sahiroth:

I always interpreted it as the Aleu being “followers of Aleph” due to the likeness of name. Aleph being the “first” of the Aleu (and thus the “angels”) because his name is the name of the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet (and synonymous with the Greek ‘alpha’). There’s another thing I was curious about regarding Aleph, as well.

Shalter:

We have seen Haliax’s goal being described as the destruction of the world. Whether this is true or disinformation, we don’t know—but let’s run with an end of the world goal.

We have seen a couple of stories with Aleph being the creator or starter being. In one he is ascribed as the original namer (either finding or creating). It is this naming of everything that starts the world rolling.
It would seem like the way to undoing the world would then be unnaming it. If you remove the name of everything then you are left with nothing. Now, you could leave it at that or you could then rename things and have a whole new universe that corresponded to your own desires.

Exactly what the nature of this original naming event/being (called Aleph) corresponds to is something we would have to leave to conjecture at this point.

But, if Aleph really did name everything perfectly, then it could be said to have removed entropy from the system—resulting in a system that was perfectly predictable. Someone (like say the Cthaeh) who was skilled enough with naming could use this to see into the future.
By breaking names, Haliax would be increasing the entropy of the system—making it in more unpredictable. At perfect entropy (chaos) it ceases to be a system.

Unnaming everything so that the aleu, whatever they are, can fall from the sky and the world(s) cease to exist… how is what they’re doing part of that plan? What are they doing? They’re wiping out everyone who says their names. Maybe they’re trying to unname themselves, first?

Stick By The Maer

The CTH said, about the Amyr “Stick by the Maer and he will lead you to their side.” We’ve obsessed about this quite a bit, especially considering the potential punning nature of both “stick” and “lead.” We’ve no evidence that the CTH puns, have we? Except that it’s generally obnoxious and therefore probably has many bad habits?

Some people have thought that Bredon, who uses a cane, is the “stick” by the Maer.

Therightstuff disagrees:

Haha, please, everyone who thinks the stick is related to Bredon and serves as some sort of definitive clue (or red-herring) please google the word “Ferule” – Cinder’s second name. “He beats her…stick to the Maer.” Then google ferule. It’s a real word, well placed and well used.

Bredon is clearly relevant, but the Ctheah never lies. Cinder is Ash.

The first and biggest problem with this is that we know Cinder isn’t an Amyr. He’s a Chandrian – enemy of the Amyr. So the “stick” meaning of “ferule” is as irrelevant as the “cane tip” meaning of “ferule.” Secondly, Cinder isn’t close to the Maer when Kvothe is with Felurian, he’s off in the Eld killing tax collectors.

“Stick by the Maer” might be a reference to Bredon or it could just be the literal words – the Maer could have helped Kvothe learn about the Amyr if Kvothe could have stayed there, but of course he reveals his Ruh ancestry in front of Meluan and has to leave. If the CTH knows all futures and there is no free will and it manipulated Kvothe into going with Tempe and therefore into coming back and meeting the false troupe and therefore into the revelation of his identity, well, there we are then. But it can’t be a reference to Cinder – Cinder, no matter how much of a stick he may be, isn’t by the Maer and won’t lead anyone to the Amyr.

GBrell came up with an interesting new Master Ash theory:

Alternatively, and this is very unsupported conjecture, have we ever considered that Cinder was Master Ash up until the wedding massacre at the end of NotW and then Bredon stepped in and took advantage of Cinder’s secrecy to steal Denna from him? Denna has no contact from her patron for at least a month after Trebon and doesn’t even mention him reappearing until Ch. 64 of WMF when she meets Kvothe in Vint.

She had met him, though, she’s met him several times – in the Eolian and at the farm, and she’s meeting him in Severen, she’d notice if he were a different person, surely?

A Fox wonders if Dagon is Cinder:

He functions to punish, in the nature of ferule, K always has bad
feelings around him, a nature that seems to paralel the way Cinder acted at the massacre of K’s family. He is also conveiniantly out hunting mischevious wizards…perhaps leaving himself enough time to begin his ops in the Eld.

The relatioship between the Maer and he is an odd one, and would be even more interesting in this light.

Shalter:

Dagon is certainly by the Maer’s side and seems to be very odd. I rather think he fits the role of being a Ciridae for the Amyr. Dagon seems quite odd as a human.

And, of course, Dagon loses an eye when he is getting Caudicus.

A Fox:

He and the Maer are ‘looking over maps’ when K first see’s him. (For what purpose? Bandits? The Lackless lands?)

“Dagan looked at me with dark, dispassionate eyes. His face was hard and sharp and emotionless. I surpressed a shiver.” WMF p.374

(coupled with Cinder, NotW, troupe massacre “His face was narrow and sharp.” & “dark and chill of eye”)

“As Dagon stepped into the room his eyes flicked toeach of the corners, to the window, to the other door, breifly over me, then back to the Maer. When his eyes touched me, all the deep feral instincts that had kept me alive on the streets of Tarbean told me to run. Hide. Do anything so long as it took me far away from this man.” WMF p.439.

(!!! This is potencially exciting. We have surmised that K’s retreat into his sleeping mind was a result of his encounter with the Chandrian, specifically Cinder (at Haliax’s command) sending him into ‘sleep’, leading him to the events of Tarbean, hiding, until Skarpi Names him. Here we have an echo of that time, and perhaps that command, when he meets the eyes of Dagan.)

Via Stapes “Good lord, Rand, he’s like cold water down the back of my neck. I wish you’d get rid of him.”

(Signs on the vase. Tree, pool of water, snow.)

Maer “So someone else could have him? No, Stapes. I want him right here. My mad dog on a short leash.”

(But whose leash? This has an interesting correlation with the relationship of Haliax and Cinder.)

Cinder, in Eld. “He stepped into the choas with fearless grace, taking in everything with a glance.” Much like Dagan in above qoute. “As I watched him stride across the encampment I was reminded of…something….He gestured to his men, and something in that motion was terribly familiar…”

Later, upon return to severen K and the Maer are talking of what happens. “But still, strange and bitter news.” he muttered, almost to himself.“ Why is this strange? He knew there were bandits-and efficiant ones. Is it the news of the leader disappearing? Or is it rather that it has ramifications on his own plot. Confirmation of ‘magic’ in the Eld, near the Lackless lands. Mmmm.

He gave me an oddly calculating look. “What do you make of it?” Then the Lackless box enters.

I am half convinced that Dagan is Cinder, wearing a glamourie. If Faen can wear a glamourie, a seeming, to resemble a mule and the Chandrian know how to hide their signs…a missing eye doesnt seem that much of a stretch. Dagan returns 2 days after K leaves. The Chandrian obviously have some sort of teleportation-like power. Dagan is not occupied, is not really mentioned other than his return. He is obviously in the Maers confidance with whatever he is plotting, but perhaps Cinder is actually playing this role to further Haliaxs’ plan? There is an obvious central focus of the Lackless lands and mysteries.

GBrell finds some counter evidence:

Some small pushback:

-Dagon is described as “weathered,” while Cinder’s skin has the “perfect beauty of porcelain.”

-Dagon is bald, while Cinder had shoulder length hair when Kvothe met him.

-Cinder wears a “coif” when Kvothe sees him at the bandit camp. Traditionally, a coif doesn’t cover the face. It was at distance, but it’s interesting that Kvothe doesn’t recognize Cinder’s face (or Dagon’s). But this could also lend credence to the glamour theory (along with the Cthaeh’s comments), since it’s unlikely bandits in superstitious Vintas would follow a man with goats’ eyes.

I’m not entirely convinced that Dagon is Cinder, but I agree it’s possible. And I’ve always thought that there’s something more going on with him and with Caudicus than what we see. Too much of that is offstage and the Maer doesn’t even seem interested in Caudicus’ motives and possible co-conspirators.

More GBrell:

Could Dagon be in league with Caudicus?

I’d like to highlight portions of this exchange:

“Ah, Dagon!” the Maer said cheerily. “Are you well this fine day?”
“Yes, your grace.” He stood attentively, not quite meeting the Maer’s eye.

“Would you be good enough to arrest Caudicus for treason?”

There was a half-heartbeat pause. “Yes, your grace.”

“Eight men should be sufficient, providing they’re not likely to panic in a complicated situation.”

“Yes, your grace.” I began to sense subtle differences in Dagon’s responses.

“Alive,” Alveron responded, as if answering a question. “But you needn’t be gentle.”

“Yes, your grace.” With that, Dagon turned to leave.

-Interestingly, Dagon only ever says: “Yes, your grace.” He has no other lines in the text.

-I presume that Dagon doesn’t meet the Maer’s eyes because of his inferior social status, but what if has to do with maintaining a glamour? The problem with this is that Chronicler’s reveal of Bast seems to suggests that indirect glimpses (as opposed to direct ones) reveal the underlying truth beneath a disguise, and that it is more about expectation than examination.

-What is the “half-heartbeat pause”? Is he merely startled by the unusual nature of the request or is he startled because he is involved in the treason?

-Kvothe detects subtle differences in his responses (see previous comment about him having only one line). This can be read one of two ways: 1) Kvothe is commenting that he uses the one line in different ways (see, e.g., Vashet with “You fight like a tiger”); or 2) Kvothe is commenting that his later responses have changed somehow from his earlier responses. Perhaps because he realizes that the Maer hasn’t caught him?

This also ties in with what happens immediately after. The Maer and Kvothe are “secured” in the Maer’s rooms while Caudicus escapes by Dagon’s orders. I’ve yet to see an explanation for the “malignant spirit” that killed Anders. And it’s “Dagon” that is after Caudicus while the guards are left to guard the Maer (due to the ambiguity of language, Dagon could’ve taken guards with him as well, the text isn’t clear – judging by the fact that guards were slain by Caudicus at his eventual apprehension, I lean towards this interpetation).

Ambiguity pops up again when Caudicus’ disposition comes up between Stapes and Kvothe. He is only caught “by setting fire to [the farmhouse].” I would normally read this as him perishing in the fire, but Kvothe reads the situation as implying that they managed to capture him and he was then “tended to.” Perhaps the reason a) Caudicus was so close and b) it took so long to catch him was that Dagon/Cinder needed time to find a patsy to replace Caudicus or prevent himself from being fingered.

And what better way to keep people from examining one’s eyes than by conveniently “losing” one?

If we’re thinking about glamours, we absolutely know that Bast is wandering around the Inn disguised with one all the time, and nobody is noticing cloven hoofs etc, so they’re right out there and maybe not even too hard.

And as for losing an eye, who do we know with only one eye? What if Dagon is Selitos?

And DB3600 thinks Dagon is a Chandrian but not Cinder.

He is described as bald or with a shaven head (nothing about a beard). In NW, K recalls who was present after the attack and sitting around his parent’s fire.

“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.”

In WMF Alveron, Stapes and K are having dinner when Dagon comes in. K wants to run and hide. I believe K instinctively knows Dagon, as one of the Chandrian but has yet to make the connection.

I find this really convincing.

And Shalter has another thought:

there is another possibility (well there are lots) for what type of being Dagon is. He could be an angel.

This would be a nice reversal of trope. We fall naturally into the idea that angels are beneficial fluffy things and so we don’t look for things that don’t look like that. This gives a slight twist to the angels being unseen. They aren’t really unseen, we just don’t see them for what they are as we don’t expect them to look like that.

Kvothe feels like he has seen Dagon before. This could be either from Angels and Chandrian being related (from opposite purposes) or from having seen Angels—possibly at the troupe massacre.

Kvothe kills an Angel. I like the idea of Kvothe having to fight and kill Dagon and having Dagon turn out to be an angel in the reveal.
If I had to pick an angel, it would be:

And beside her came Andan, whose face was a mask with burning eyes, whose name meant anger. NotW ch 28

As we have:

“Dagan looked at me with dark, dispassionate eyes. His face was hard and sharp and emotionless. I surpressed a shiver.” WMF p.374

“As Dagon stepped into the room his eyes flicked toeach of the corners, to the window, to the other door, breifly over me, then back to the Maer. When his eyes touched me, all the deep feral instincts that had kept me alive on the streets of Tarbean told me to run. Hide. Do anything so long as it took me far away from this man.” WMF p.439.

Really, this is a very strong reaction, but K doesn’t flag Dagon as important and we’ve been overlooking him.

A Fox on Stapes:

Looking over these sections I cant help but feel that Stapes has been overlooked. He is faithful to the Maer, he protects him. I also suspect that he knows more of arcanists than he lets on. He turns to evil wizard when he suspects K of poisening the Maer, or at least taking advantage, showing that he respects him. “My outer door…He has ears like a dog. Its uncanny.” Or perhaps he has a system similar to the bells in Denna’s swanky lodgings. He clearly distrusts Dagan.

“Our Stapes is old fashioned…And more educated than he cares to admit. Calanthis is the Eld Vintic Name for them…Its also the surname of the royal line of Vintas.” WMF p.440

Stapes could be an Amyr, now couldn’t he? He’s right by the Maer.

And A Fox gets excited and considers all the factions at the Maer’s court:

Oldest Factions; (Knowers) Aelph & the CTH.
Old Factions:The chandrian/ the amyr/ the singers/ the sithe.
New Factions: Often have agenda’s concerning the old factions, perhaps even for/with. Others have their own (Jakis) but whose plots intercept plots to do with above.

Lets say Dagan represents the Chandrian.
The Maer has an interest in the Amyr, even pursued it. But when he became Maer he decided suddenly not to bother looking further? He talks to K as if he is testing him, not just on character but on ability, belief system…and often of how far you would go for such ideal. Perhaps he did continue looking…and found them. He is actually seeing if K is worth initiating.

During the Amyr’s heighday, through the Aturan Empire they conquered much, if not all of the Lackless lands. They also tried to surpress Yll, the Adem, Ceald, Modeg; all countires with knowledge or customs concerning the chandrian, faen, Aelph. They also murdered Arcanists. Vints supersticious atitude toward the Arcanum strongly suggests that they have held over many of those beliefs.

So the Maer is an Amyr, one who marries into the Lockless clan.

The sithe? Bredon. His pagan rituals, and all the things I’ve waffled on before. Yll, Bredon Beer, the owl and Tak, a beautiful game, known by Felurian. The juxtoposition of kind and cruel in his nature, also like Felurian, like Bast. Ash has been proven, via various translations, to be of the tree variety, rather than of a fire. An element of nature which is always present in descriptions of the Fae, even the smell of their magic.

The singers? Well K is ruh, he sang Felurian’s name. Later, he also shares the star on the brow as did Tehlu&Pals during their transformation into beings beings who sung songs of power’. (His potencial confronted with temptation to a different path?)

Caudicus represents the almost childlike (in comparison) plots of the new players, Jakis. Succession plot.

Stapes…I think he may be a subtle link to the Knowers. Links to arcanum. Arcanum a bastion against the Amry, one in which the knowledge of their enemy has been removed…or kept hidden. Lorren, Puppet, Elodin if K were to follow their advice I imagine D3 would go down differently, certainly some of events we have seen would. Much like Tinkers offer with their goods. Stapes loyalty to Calanthis, and suspicion of Dagan; if Roderick Clanthis doesnt die, the penitant King would not arise.

Im trying to imagine it as a game of Tak, within Tak, within Tak…

I don’t think the Maer is an Amyr, because of what he said when Kvothe mentioned them to him. If he was one, he’d have said “Nonsense, my boy, disbanded years ago, Atutan Empire don’t you know…” because that would have been for the greater good. Unless he realised that Kvothe is an Amyr without the t-shirt, and even then I think he’d have responded in a different way, if he wanted to recruit him. Also, the CTH said they were close to him and he didn’t realise it, not that he was one.

JezDynamite on the bandits:

does anyone find it weird that the map (supposedly marking the bandits location in the Eld) is “locked” in the Maer’s lockbox?

I mean, if Cinder setup the bandit group, why does he need to lock up the map with all the Maer’s gold? I doubt he needs to keep the map safe from the other bandits. Perhaps he’s worried about getting lost in the Eld and the map is their only frame of reference?

I assume Cinder would have taken the key when his bandits stole the box, otherwise he’d probably also need to be another “Edro” expert or an expert lock picker.

Where are the other three lockboxes that Cinder would have stolen from the other three tax collectors that were also waylaid? Surely all of the lockboxes would be in the leaders tent. Unless they are being delivered somewhere else and the map is needed to find the camp’s location again…

I doubt Cinder would give the gold-delivery duties to one of his bandit veterans (the temptation to steal the gold would be unbearable) and he’d most likely deliver the gold himself. But who would Cinder deliver the gold to?

Alternate not-so-good theory: Could Cinder have been sent the box (including the map of where to setup the military camp) by the Maer with the Maer’s intentions to capture the Loeclos box? The gold is probably supposed to be the promised wages (held until the job is done) for the seasoned veterans and to arm/equip Cinder’s small military encampment.

Is the Maer the only source of information that says four of his tax collectors have been waylaid? This could be just a Maer invented story.

We do know, however, that there has been serious trouble on the kings road as evidenced by the lack of work and lack of caravans coming through the Eld. But that doesn’t mean that any actual tax collectors have been waylaid.

I doubt the bandits would need to go to any town to restock. The caravans they raid would have enough goods in them to keep them more than adequately supplied.

Really good questions. The Maer is the only source of information on the ambushes, I don’t think anyone mentions them. But they know about the bandits in the Pennyworth Inn.

Me:

another thing that’s odd is the Maer telling Kvothe to keep their mission secret. You’d think you’d want the bandits to know they’re being hunted so that they’d stop or go elsewhere, like those campaigns against fare dodging on the metro and anti-shoplifting where they tell you they have people looking out. The reasons for secrecy superficially make sense, but do they on examination?

Also, do they for a Chandrian led band?

Cinder could be freelancing, but if not, how does it advance the cause of the Chandrian to be leading bandits in the woods?

I can’t believe I’m actually asking “What’s their plan?” but I am.

GBrell:

I’ve always assumed they were instructed not to announce themselves for a couple reasons:

1) The Maer has managed to keep the whole affair relatively secret. While there are rumors that roads are bad, Kvothe hadn’t heard of the tax collectors being accosted. Widespread rumor that the Maer can’t protect his own employees would make it open season on any tax collector or justice.

2) If you warn a group of armed bandits that someone is hunting them, they might not run way. Instead, they might start hunting you. This is the argument Kvothe uses on Dedan on the way to the Eld.

Jo, I think you’re right that for minor offenses like shoplifting, you can spread rumors to combat the offense. But when you’re engaged in a capital crime (penalty for banditry is death), the calculus of punishment is already pretty heavily weighted. I’d bet those persons are more likely to fight than flee.

What’s more confusing is that the Maer had started providing escorts for his collectors. Depending on how you read it, it sounds as if he’s lost a dozen guardsmen to bandits. Why he thinks five random mercenaries can automatically handle them is confusing.

Re: The Chandrian’s plan. We can try and connect the banditry to the Lacklesses, whose lands are in the north based on the random comment from the Maer when he assigns Kvothe the task. More simply, the plan seems to be to cause instability, particularly amongst the common people (who are taxed repeatedly to pay for the missing collectors).

What if Kvothe’s kingkilling actually brought about exactly the chaos the Chandrian were attempting to achieve? Would give some context to this comment: “With all the hell that’s breaking loose in the world these days you can believe people are telling old stories more often. If the Chandrian are listening for names, I don’t doubt they’ve got a slow din of whispering from Arueh to the Circle Sea.”

Slongy on the ambush:

When Kvothe and his crew were fighting the bandits in the Eld, he noticed their leader (Cinder) looking towards the sky as if sensing something, much like Haliax and co did just before they left the scene of the crime. Being that the Eld was in close proximity to where Kvothe encountered Felurian and The Cthaeh, this leads me to believe that the forces that chased The Chandrian away were The Sithe. Either that or Kvothe unknowingly at the time, summoned something unconciously or indeed had someone watching over him, much like Tehlu did with Perial.

Kvothe summoning unconsciously, or Marten consciously, who is praying. It could be the Sithe, or it could be the angels coming. The Skarpi story about Aleph drafting Ruach to be angels and protect the mortal world from now on would seem to fit, if that’s what happens.

Which brings me nicely to:

Heresies

I was thinking about Tehlu and heresies:

Pat said in the Admissions Questions, in response to GBrell, that Trapis was a Tehlin heretic, and we know that there are Menda Heresies, and Trapis mentioned Menda when he told his story, and so he’s probably one of the Menda heretics. I’d got as far as that before, but I hadn’t really thought of the implications.

Trapis story is the only story about Tehlu we have, and we’ve been taking it for what the Tehlin Church (and probably the associated Amyr) believe. But he’s a heretic. The bit about Menda at least isn’t canonical within the orthodox Tehlin Church, and we don’t know how much of the rest of it is.

We know Encannis is, because of the Midwinter festival in Tarbean. We know the wheel is, it’s on the church. We know people say ”God“ and mean Tehlu, from Kvothe’s conversation with Ben. Apart from that, what do we know for sure from non-Trapis sources, about what the Tehlins believe?

Shalter points out that we also have Skarpi’s definitely heretical story:

Most of the Ruach hung back from Selitos, too. They were afraid, and they did not wish to become involved in great matters.
But Tehlu stood forward saying, “I hold justice foremost in my heart. I will leave this world behind that I might better serve it, serving you.” He knelt before Aleph, his head bowed, his hands open at his sides.

None but the most powerful can see them, and only then with great difficulty and at great peril. They mete out justice to the world, and Tehlu is the greatest of them all—.”

Skarpi’s tale is almost certainly very much not part of what most Tehlins believe. He was arrested for heresy for telling it, so that is a pretty good bet.

and Marten’s prayer in the woods. We don’t know how orthodox Marten is, of course, but it seems to fit with what we heard from Trapis:

We also have (WMF ch 91):

Marten still lay praying on the bank. “Tehlu who the fire could not kill, watch over me in fire.” …
Tehlu who held Encanis to the wheel, watch over me in darkness.”
After a long moment of searching he found an arrow and fumbled to fit it to his string with trembling hands, praying all the while. I turned my attention back to the camp. Their leader had brought them back under control. I could see his mouth shouting orders, but all I could hear was the sound of Marten’s trembling voice:
Tehlu, whose eyes are true,
Watch over me.
Suddenly the leader paused and cocked his head. He held himself perfectly still as if listening to something.
Marten continued praying:
Tehlu, son of yourself,
Watch over me.
Their leader looked quickly to the left and right, as if he had heard something that disturbed him. He cocked his head again. “He can hear you!” I shouted madly at Marten. “Shoot! He’s getting them ready to do something!”
Marten took aim at the tree in the center of the camp. Wind buffeted him as he continued to pray.
Tehlu who was Menda who you were.
Watch over me in Menda’s name,
In Perial’s name
In Ordal’s name
In Andan’s name
Watch over me.

This actually sounds very like Trapis’ tale, so we would have to ask whether Martin is a Tehlin or a Mender.

Pat compared the Mender Heresies with Arianism, and Shalter considers that:

Arianism basically held that the Father and the Son were separate beings as opposed to part of the same trinitarian structure—Heteroousios vs Homoousios.
When the Justice arrests Skarpi he says:

“Under Tehlu’s watchful eye, I charge you with heresy.”

This phrase implies they believe in Tehlu as a kind of all seeing deity. The phrases “Merciful Tehlu” and “Tehlu and all his angels” are used a number of times.

In the frame (NotW) we have:

“I din’t know the Chandrian were demons,” the boy said. “I’d heard—”
“They ain’t demons,” Jake said firmly. “They were the first six people to refuse Tehlu’s choice of the path, and he cursed them to wander the corners—.“

This portion references the first 6 to refuse—that part is in Trapis’ tale (although not about them being Chandrian).
So, I would guess that the Mender heresies are like the Arian heresy in that (to an outsider) the two beliefs (Mender vs. main Tehlin) are very similar, with just a few differences that are unacceptable to either side.

I know quite a lot about early Christian heresies, and while the differences seem minute quibbles to us, there were rivers of blood spilled over them and people really cared about these differences. (Even now, Albigensianism seems to be huge in the U.S.) Skarpi’s story makes Tehlu one of Aleph’s angels, not God, which is quite similar to Arianism and Nestorianism.

Trapis, on the other hand, with his “Church was corrupt” and his unfailing good works, reminds me more of a Reformation schismatic.

And “Mender,” as we’ve said before, makes me think of the Jewish idea of “mending the world” and also of the Tinkers.

GBrell:

My initial thought was that Marten’s (presumably orthodox) prayer indicated that Tehlu didn’t die in destroying Encanis, where Trapis’s story has him sacrificing himself to achieve that end.

However, we should note that the line “To ash all things return, so too this flesh will burn” in Trapis’s story is the exact same line that Simmon repeats in WMF (after its mis-remembered by Wilem). Simmon specifically states that it is not his holy book (which begs the question whether Sim is an atheist since his family holds a duchy in Atur – the country with the presumably closest tie to the Tehlin church). It would be odd if Simmon knew a line that speaks directly to a heresy rather than the mainline version.

I think Sim could be an atheist the way students are, or possibly and more interestingly come from a pagan family. We know there are pagans – see rumours about Bredon. But Sim doesn’t believe in the Fae until Kvothe goes there.

On the other hand, “not my holy book” could well mean that Sim is orthodox and it is from the heretical version. Imagine a Jew correcting an New Testament quote.

The direct parallel to Arianism doesn’t really work because while Menda in Trapis’s story is created by Tehlu, he is also Tehlu (not separate and lesser in divinity).

Things in the story that I would see as being blasphemous/interesting:

-The story implies that Tehlu’s church predates the main events of the story (”his church was corrupt“). They were no longer living ”by the laws he had given“ implying a prior visitation to the mortal world. Pretty clearly a parallel to Judaism-Christianity.

I don’t think so, I think that’s Trapis being confused when he’s telling the story, the same way he is about getting drunk even on Mourning, when there wasn’t any Mourning yet. I think when he tries to imagine a demon-ridden awful world, he pictures Tarbean as it is, corrupt Church and all.

-”I think you know very little about what it is to be a man.“ This line strikes me as implying that Tehlu had to learn something, i.e. was limited and not all-knowing. That would be an easy target for claims of heresy.

-In the same vein, Tehlu is repeatedly restrained from judgment by Perial. This could be the lesser divinity parallel to Arianism, that Tehlu had to learn from Perial and was thus lesser in divinity prior to his sacrifice.

And lastly a question and an aside:

Whose is the life that does not end in death? The clear assumption is that it is Tehlu himself, but he DIES at the end of the story.

He dies, but there’s a fairly clear resurrection parallel, I think. But maybe that’s a heresy. I can imagine lots of lovely heresies from that story.

And the aside: The single thread of knowledge I hope most to be explained but I am almost certain will not be is the relationship between Tehlinism, the Chandrian (more specifically, Encanis to Haliax) and the Fae. The language in the story seems to repeatedly connect the two and its a wonderful exploration of the nature of fantasy, history, religion and story.

I would also really like to know this. And I really hope we find out.

Robocarp, on the Ruach:

I don’t think the Ruach are angels. Some of the Ruach were changed into angels (the Singers, probably) but rereading Skarpi’s story there’s no indication that those Ruach were angels before Aleph uttered their long names. At first I thought Ruach might mean ”survivors“, until I learned the Hebrew origin of the word, which made that unlikely.

I think the simplest explanation is that Ruach is the term for what people were before they became Men and Fae. The Ruach in Selitos’ story are not human, if you believe Felurian, because she said there were never any human Amyr, and most of those Ruach became the Amyr.

Which brings us to the next question: is Master Ash a Ruach? I think yes. I believe that Ash is Cinder with 99% confidence, and knowing what we know about the Chandrian, Cinder was a leader who betrayed one of the eight cities. Since the people who lived in those cities were Ruach (by my theory) it would make Cinder a Ruach.

Which raises other questions. How was it that the Ruach became Men and Fae? Felurian was presumably a Ruach when she sat eating silver fruit on the walls of Murella; now she’s a Faerie. Men and Fae both have characteristics distinct from Ruach. Faeries can’t tolerate iron, wheras Ruach could. Men seem to have much shorter lives. What happened? It must have happened in the aftermath of the Great Betrayal and Creation War, which we know very little about. (I’m still not even sure what side won.)

Another question is whether any Ruach besides the Chandrian still live. One theory I have is that the Adem are Ruach, and remained Ruach rather than turning into Men because they were neutral parties in the Creation War. This could explain their ideas about reproduction; perhaps that is how Adem reproduce because it’s how Ruach reproduced.

I really really like this, and I’m going to stop calling the angels Ruach from now on, because this fits with everything and makes sense. Also, I don’t know about the Adem, but Saicere was at the battle of Drossen Tor, so it could well be.

Sahiroth asks a very good question we haven’t considered, and which might well be heretical:

how and where and why does the creation myth with Aleph as creator start? What I’m referring to is

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.

This clearly connects with Skarpi’s story, but it isn’t it, and neither Chronicler nor Bast is shocked by it.

Imaginary Linguistics

Thistlepong on the meaning of “Haliax”:

The prefix hal- indicates salt. For years (yah, wow) I couldn’t make sense out of Salt-of-Iax. I began to sort of dismiss the whole connection between Haliax and Iax. After all, these are contemporary names from one storyteller with an agenda; stories Kvothe can only correlate because he’s encountered a guy called Haliax. What does Iax have to do with Alaxel, y’know?

It should make sense from an author biography standpoint. It shouldn’t be an accidental meaning. Pat has remarked about wanting to do a cross-cultural survey of salt in grad school and being thwarted by his advisor, who suggested he examine salt in Shakespeare. There are several salt references in the text so far: the salt he gives to Auri, “all the salt in me,” and not insignificantly related to alchemy (Ambrose mixed Sim’s salts.)

Turns out the connection is pretty solid alchemical symbolism. For Paracelcus, all being was threefold: salt=body, mercury=spirit, sulfur=soul. So Haliax would symbolically be the Body of Iax.

That sort of reifies a position I was quite resistant to: namely that Haliax is, as some have theorized, an actual agent of Iax in the mortal. In that framework, Iax would be the spirit. We don’t have to look to hard for the soul. The parallels set up between Kvothe and Lanre and Kvothe and Jax are, I dunno, blatant. Fits rather well with Jo’s conviction that Kvothe will open something and the notion that he might do it without knowledge of the consequences.

The Cinder-in-the-Box theory was playful, as I think I mentioned initially. A possibility to be considered. This is less so. The books are as full of alchemical imagery as they are clever deployment of tropes and cliches. It takes kind of a long post to explain Haliax, though…

*An update on the red sulfur/white sulphur thing: you can’t reduce white sulfur with mercury because white sulfur is mercury

**salt, sulfur, and mercury are the principles Pat referred to in our admissions interview, the same ones Sim talked about during the plum-bob incident

Robocarp:

hal- is the Greek root for salt, and we know Rothfuss uses real-word foreign roots, such as tu (= you) in Siaru, and Ruach (= breath, wind). So it seems a reasonable guess that Haliax means “salt something.” Since -iax is the rest of the word Haliax it seems a reasonable guess that Haliax means “salt of Iax,” as thislepong said.

But I have another theory. Lanre already has a connection to salt: he tells Selios, “I sow salt because the choice is between weeds and nothing.” With this quote in mind, I would say -iax means “to sow” or “sower.” Thus, Haliax means “sower of salt,” and that would seem to be a good thing for Selitos to christen him at that point.

I think that fits really well, especially if it means “sower in a bad way.”

Taking it one step further, Iax’s name also means “sower.” I think that’s an apt description of him, as both “sower of the Faen realm” and “sower of discord.” For all we know, Iax might not even be a name but an epithet. Considering Iax’s evil, it may be that his actual name became taboo and people (e.g., Felurian) refused to utter it. But that’s only speculation.

So, to summarize, my theory is that Haliax has no actual connection to Iax except that they are both sowers of some sort.

Menelmakil:

@En Temerant Voistra:
While I am not too fond of interpreting fictional languages based on real-world vocabulary, this title always felt to me like “About Your Recklessness.”

“En,” as in “En Faeant Morie,” functioning like “Of …” or Latin “De …” in book titles; “Temerant” like Latin “temerarius” (reckless, thoughtless, imprudent, foolhardy, temerarious) and “temerator” (reckless person); “Voistra” like interpreted in previous threads indicating something second person plural.

It certainly sounds like something Elodin tries to convey to Kvothe (and possibly some of his classmates), and which Kvothe can probably not learn in the library.

Imaginary Astronomy

We were talking about what it meant for the moon to be always full before the Creation War, and I summed up the way I picture it:

Imagine the 4C world flat, with the full sun and full moon passing over and under it, on rails, or in chariots pulled by horses. Then the spherical Fae world is invented at a 4th dimensional angle to it, and the moon’s rail is (in the sky) along a seam between them, with the moon itself sometimes entirely in one and sometimes entirely in the other, and most of the time part visible from either side.

I’m actually visualising this as a special case of a tesseract, and it does work.

Thistlepong Visits the CTH

Or maybe not! In any case, Thistlepong prophesies:

Off topic, the envelope, sealed by third parties and notarized, which I have pressed to my forehead contains the information (lots of oms and handwaving) that there will be a wedding in the final third of Day 3 which Kvothe will most likely miss. This wedding will turn out to probably have been important. He will draw conclusions from second or third hand sources and act impulsively.

Yes. Because Trebon at the end of NW, and the Lackless wedding at the end of WMF. I’m entirely in agreement, the shape of story demands that this happen. And furthermore, I believe that Carthage must be Kvothe will open something better left closed.

The Doors of Stone will open when they open, and there is no new news about when it will be D3.


Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published two poetry collections and nine novels, most recently the Hugo and Nebula winning 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.

About the Author

Jo Walton

Author

Jo Walton is the author of fifteen novels, including the Hugo and Nebula award winning Among Others two essay collections, a collection of short stories, and several poetry collections. She has a new essay collection Trace Elements, with Ada Palmer, coming soon. She has a Patreon (patreon.com/bluejo) for her poetry, and the fact that people support it constantly restores her faith in human nature. She lives in Montreal, Canada, and Florence, Italy, reads a lot, and blogs about it here. It sometimes worries her that this is so exactly what she wanted to do when she grew up.
Learn More About Jo
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12 years ago

Thanks again, Jo. As always, love the posts!

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hex
12 years ago

If “stick by” is a pun, how does it read in a non-english version? I’ve thought about this more than once. There’s a fair bit in the text that turns on wordplay. Translating it and preserving the cleverness of nuance must be a nightmare.

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Marco.
12 years ago

“Stick by the Maer” might be a reference to Bredon or it could just be the literal words – the Maer could have helped Kvothe learn about the Amyr if Kvothe could have stayed there, but of course he reveals his Ruh ancestry in front of Meluan and has to leave.”

I think we can pretty safely rule out the literal interpretation. CTH points it out as a joke, requiring wit.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

Everything the Cthaeh says is meant (in the long run) to force the subject of its speach into the path of the Cthaeh’s desire. We usually think of Kvothe being the party to whom the Cthaeh is addressing its remarks but, we (readers) are also getting influenced so we need to tread carefully unless we end up destroying the world falling into the trap in which PR wants us to get caught. The lovely portion here is telling the difference between the trap and the prize.

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12 years ago

“But it can’t be a reference to Cinder – Cinder, no matter how much of a stick he may be, isn’t by the Maer and won’t lead anyone to the Amyr.”

I have to disagree. By being with the Maer, Kvothe encountered Cinder (because of the bandits). We don’t know why, but it seems like the Chandrian are interested in the Maer some how. (I don’t believe they just randomly choose to rob him for the money).
Now here is where my logic gets faulty because my memory is fuzy. If the Amyr are all about “the greater good” part of that effort would be removing the Chandrian.
My guess is that if Kvothe followed the Chanrian closely enough, he would eventually encounter the Amyr.

Not saying this was what the CTH was saying; I’m just saying we can’t rule it out.

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12 years ago

In regards to Tehlu and the heresies, I understand the distinction. The Church holds Tehlu as god, where some of the heresies (Skarpi’s story) he is only an angel. The difference is significance. Not only do stories claim that Tehlu is not god, but essencially that the church has been sinful in their worship by not exalting the true god.
Personally, from a story stand point, the idea that the great Tehlu is an angel and not a god tickles my fancy.

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robocarp
12 years ago

Something to keep in mind about the Amyr. Here’s what the Cthaeh said right after telling Kvothe to “stick by the Maer and he will lead you to their door”:

“Blood, bracken, and bone, I wish you creatures had the wit to appreciate me. Whatever else you might forget, remember what I just said. Eventually you’ll get the joke. I guarantee. You’ll laugh when the time comes.”

So, it seems that whoever the Amyr turns out to be, Kvothe will find it funny for some reason. That could point to Dagon, for instance (Kvothe would find it funny that his instinct was to run away from the person he was looking for) but might be evidence againt Breadon (not sure why Kvothe would laugh about that).

Incidentally, bracken is a kind of fern.

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12 years ago

Love these posts!

stevenhalter
12 years ago

robocarp@7:I suspect Kvothe’s realization will be painful and the laughter will be not of the pleasant sort.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

Back in the previous thread, A Fox@189 mentioned:

… Honestly I think the bizzare Naming that science uses throws me more than anything! …

This reminded me of a lunchtime conversation I had at WorldCon with two physicists. I thought there was an interesting parallel between mathematics and Naming.
One of them was playfully trying to get the other to talk at a panel in their place. The other eventually said something along the lines of:
“I don’t know why they need to have a whole panel explaining the meaning of [the subject]. It’s just math after all.”
That’s where the seemingly bizarre science names (and descriptions) come from in this world–it is fairly difficult to translate very exact mathematics into normal English.
And, this brings me back to the 4C and the essence of Naming therein. A Name is a very precise thing in 4C-land. The languages extant within the 4C probably lack the precision to convey a Name. Thus we see Elodin’s explanation of the Sleeping Mind and Kvothe envisioning a musical stream in his battle with Felurian.
And, notice that Ademere adds additional precision through the gestures and maybe Yllish knots were along a similar bent–the more precisely you can model a Name, the more likely you can manipulate the named object.

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arcticcivvie
12 years ago

Actually, the Ctheah says ‘stick by the Maer and he will lead you to their door’, not ‘to their side’.

Some of the puns won’t work out in other languages, so it’s hard to get info from them. But I’m sure the translators do their best. The Spanish version doesn’t have anything special for ‘stick’ or ‘lead’. It just says something like ‘stay with the Maer and he will take you to their door’.

I think the ‘door’ the joke the Ctheah is referring to. After all, there isn’t any reason Kvothe would think the door is literal, but we know that there is some door involved.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

@11:In D3 I think that we will see a number of doors opened.
1) The “four-plate” door. Valaritas.
2) The door in the Lackless lands.
Probably some metaphorical doors–doors in K’s mind perhaps.
Probably some boxes too–the Lackless box and K’s chest. These could be doors as well as lids depending on just where they lead.

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Marco.
12 years ago

I think the ‘door’ the joke the Ctheah is referring to. After all, there isn’t any reason Kvothe would think the door is literal, but we know that there is some door involved.

@11 –

Maybe it’s the door of……..death!

Da-da-da-daaaaaaaaaaaaaah. (Dramatic organ music)

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12 years ago

@11
Or the method in which he ends up getting there.
Although, maybe the joke is the door, but more so on whose door. CTH uses “their” probably knowing Kvother will assume the CTH is referring to group X while the CTH is actually referring to group Y.
But that’s more misdirection than wit. . .

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12 years ago

A post above got me thinking. There’s this theory that Kvothe is hiding not just from everyone, but from the Chandrian in particular. What if he accidentally or intentionally kills an Amyr, without knowing s/he is an Amyr – and now he’s hiding from the rest of them?

And Jo, you misspelled my name! Names are important things, you know. Especially if they mean something. But I’m still happy I managed to write something worthy of the summary. : )

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Nameless
12 years ago

The door joke makes only sense, if the Amyr guard the door or try to open it for the greater good.

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mutantalbinocrocodile
12 years ago

Thoughts on ‘Ferule”:

Back in Book 1, when Haliax appears to use Cinder’s name to control him, or cause him pain, he calls him ‘Ferula’, not ‘Ferule’. That takes us back from English and into Latin, where ferula is most commonly used to mean a cane for whipping schoolboys. Is Cinder some kind of cosmic punishment for the world?

(BTW, if there’s any chance that Rothfuss is playing with a Lewis and Short Latin dictionary, which is one of only two standard scholarly ones, the first definition given of ferula (they go from most to least concrete, not most to least common) is the fennel-stalk in which Prometheus stole fire from heaven. Probably irrelevant, but who knows?)

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Marco.
12 years ago

Question on the word “Chandrian”: Is it a description rather than a proper name?

Rereading the CTH passage got me thinking – it tells him not to call them that and so does Shalin. Why? Is it that it’s inaccurate and they know it? Maybe by calling them Chandrian all you’re really doing is calling them by some general term like “cursed” or “undead”.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

Marco@18:That’s a good question. The relationship of names in these is fraught with meanings and danger.Is the name the thing or just the signifier of the thing? In Lord of Light, Zelazny via Sam says it much better than I (of course):

“Names are not important,” he said. “To speak is to name names, but to speak is not important. A thing happens once that has never happened before. Seeing it, a man looks upon reality. He cannot tell others what he has seen. Others wish to know, however, so they question him saying, ‘What is it like, this thing you have seen?’ So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the very first fire in the world.
He tells them, ‘It is red, like a poppy, but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. It exists for a time upon a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone.’ Therefore, the hearers must think reality is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that which eats and excretes. They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But fire comes again into the world, many times. More men look upon fire. After a time, fire is as common as grass and clouds and the air they breathe. They see that, while it is like a poppy, it is not a poppy, while it is like water, it is not water, while it is like the sun, it is not the sun, and while it is like that which eats and passes wastes, it is not that which eats and passes wastes, but something different from each of these apart or all of these together. So they look upon this new thing and they make a new word to call it. They call it ‘fire.’

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Marco.
12 years ago

@19

Shehyn (boy, did I butcher the spelling before) corrects Kvothe to say “Rhinta”.

“A bad thing. A man who is more than a man, yet less than a man.”
….
“there are bad things in the world. Old things in the shape of men. And there are a handful worse than all the rest. They walk the world freely and do terrible things.”
I felt hope rising within me. “I have also heard them called the Chandrian,” I said.
Shehyn nodded. “I have heard this too. But Rhinta is a better word.”

Why is Rhinta “better”? Perhaps because Chandrian isn’t specific to them, but is merely a characteristic they have?

CTH:

“You would do better to call them the Seven though. ‘Chandrian’ has so much folklore hanging off it after all these years. The names used to be interchangable, but nowadays if you say Chandrian people think of ogres and rendlings and scaven. Such silliness.”

Or is this the implication that Denna is right about Lanre? The word Chandrian has become a convienent scapegoat for bad things that happen and collects blame for things like a magnet.

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Marco.
12 years ago

@19

Shehyn (boy, did I butcher the spelling before) corrects Kvothe to say “Rhinta”.

“A bad thing. A man who is more than a man, yet less than a man.”
….
“there are bad things in the world. Old things in the shape of men. And there are a handful worse than all the rest. They walk the world freely and do terrible things.”
I felt hope rising within me. “I have also heard them called the Chandrian,” I said.
Shehyn nodded. “I have heard this too. But Rhinta is a better word.”

Why is Rhinta “better”? Perhaps because Chandrian isn’t specific to them, but is merely a characteristic they have?

CTH:

“You would do better to call them the Seven though. ‘Chandrian’ has so much folklore hanging off it after all these years. The names used to be interchangable, but nowadays if you say Chandrian people think of ogres and rendlings and scaven. Such silliness.”

Or is this the implication that Denna is right about Lanre? The word Chandrian has become a convienent scapegoat for bad things that happen and collects blame for things like a magnet.

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12 years ago

@19 & @22

Perhaps now “Chandrian” is like when the CTH calls Felurian a “pixie.”
It’s accurate, but doesn’t convey them fully. Like mistakenly referring to a wildfire as a spark. If you run around screaming “their’s a spark! Their’s a spark!” people are just going to think you silly. You are not communicating the gravity of the situation well. Saying “their’s a [wild]fire!” is better as it better conveys your meaning.
Perhaps the difference between Chandrian and Rhinta is like this.

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12 years ago

Have I said before how much I enjoy these many, incredibly thoughtful to the point of obsessive posts and responses? I believe I have. I’ll say it again – well done, all!

Re Chandrian – it just means “the Seven,” right? That is not very descriptive at all, even less than calling Felurian a pixie. I’d love a precise definition of Rhinta.

Rob

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12 years ago

@24
I believe we came to the conclusion in an earlier thread that “Chandrian” means “seven of them.”

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12 years ago

Going through this post, I was inclined to re-read the Felurian chapters in WMF. Some observations and a question for discussion:

1) In re salt: There is mention of “hal” being salt, and the possibility of Haliax being something like the sower of salt. There was also some discussion re salt, sulphur, and mercury, going back to something Pat had mentioned. While I don’t want to overstate the importance of salt, I think it’s REALLY important here. In trying to get information on the Chandrian from Felurian (at which Kvothe was wildly unsuccessful) she (Felurian) says, “I do not jest…I swear this by my flower and the ever-moving moon. I swear it by salt and stone and sky. I swear this by singing and laughing, by the sound of my own name.” WMF Kindle version, Ch 99.

There are a couple of interesting things to me here. First, the pride of place to which salt is being given. Not only does she swear by it, but does so in the same line as she swears by the ‘ever-moving moon’ and ‘the sound of my own name’. It would appear this is a very powerful oath indeed. Also, the way she combines it with stone and sky. I’m not sure as to the significance of this right now, but I’m sure that it is significant.

2) The King that is killed. We have speculated extensively regarding who the King is named by the story. We almost always come back to someone in the human/mortal side of T4C. I can vaguely recall mention of the possibility of it being a faen King, but that never seemed to catch much traction. After going through the end of ch. 99 more carefully, I’m starting to believe that it might the case however.

Here’s what we know that leads me to this conclusion:
Kvothe has involved himself in politics of some sort to the point that a war was started.
He killed a King. (Was this the beginning or end of his political involvement? No idea, but it’s an interesting question.)

These two pieces, along with ch. 99, lead me to believe the King was from the faen courts. Here are some things which Kvothe says in this chapter which push me in this direction:
“All I knew for certain after hearing Felurian’s stories is that I had no desire to ever entangle myself in even the kindest corner of the faen court.”
“[T]he Fae are not like us….We are not the same…they are profoundly, fundamentally not the same…We forget it at our peril.”

Peril is a particularly strong word which Pat uses here. It is in fact the only time he uses that word in this book. It appears once in NotW, in the Tehlu story. Knowing how carefully Pat chooses each and every word, it leads me to believe it is important here.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

Jhirrad@26:The earlier chemical/alchemical discussion was using the generic salt as in the substance formed when a metal and an acid react Sodium Chloride is an example as is Mercury Sulfide.
Table salt, Sodium Chloride, has been used in a number of magical forms as a ward from spirits and of course it has value in itself in that you need to eat a certain amount of it.

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Abba Zaba
12 years ago

Normally I gobble these posts up, but I find that all the conjecture here is making my brain a little soft

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12 years ago

Well there are some correlations wthin text, and our theories.

Sky: Aleu falling nameless from, Tehlu&Pals inhabitig,lightning falls from.

Stone: Heart of, Waystone, Door of, Selitos’ eye-taking

Perhaps Salt, Sky & Stone are liken unto our Earth, Air, Fire, Water (and has overtures of the Celts).

EDIT: …curiouser..

When Alexander the Great started on his raids of conquest (ca. 335 BC), he first had to curb turmoil occurring among some tribes north of Macedonia. These were the Scordisai and several other Celtic tribes. It was during a party of reconciliation with these tribes that Alexander asked what they feared the most of all things in the world, and they answered with the famous words : “The only thing we really fear is that the sky will fall down on us”.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

I haven’t seen this theory anywhere before, so I’ll post it here.
I think Aaron believes Kote is Kvothe. It’s been remarked that he’s pretty smart, so I think he could pretend to not believe it. This way he can’t bring down the authorities on Kvothe, get his thousand royals and a duchy, and save his village ( from poverty ). Maybe we’ll see Kvothe being killed in the third book in this manner. I wouldn’t like to see it happen though, at least not this way.
… But think! This completely explains the need for that scene in the book, which would otherwise be irrelevant and have no effect on the plot.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

I also think that the Amyr would have someone in an important ‘secondary’ position for any place or position of power. Dagon would fit this role well for the Maer (Stapes seems a bit of a stretch). Lorren at the university. And so on…

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

In my earlier comment, the 30th one, I meant to say ‘this way he “can” bring down the…’

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12 years ago

Kaizoku @30 —

The scene isn’t really irrevalent. It shows:

1) Kvothe really is starting to become the innkeeper (whether by acting a convincing role or because his name is changed, etc.) He can’t convince Aaron of the truth because it isn’t true anymore (he actually is someone else) or because he is so deep into acting the innkeeper that he’s actually starting to become the mask (as per Bast)

2) He is both concerned about Aaron, and feels responsible for the war and every life that is lost due to it. He’s willing to risk his annonymity to save Aaron from going off to war, and he feels (and perhaps is, though I’m not entirely convinced of it yet), that everything sits squarely on his shoulders.

The scene adds to our understanding o frame-K, his mindset, and his sense of guilt for the cataclysm.

Remember that this story (the KKC) is Kvothe’s story. Not just who he was, but who he became. His frame mindset is a very important part of who he is today.

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12 years ago

Something occurred to me when I was pondering exactly who the belligerents of the Creation War were. It’s obvious that the war generally fell upon Shapers versus Knowers lines. I assumed that the Fae, being the product of the Shapers, was allied with the Shapers (and Iax), and that the Ergen Empire (with Selitos, Lyra, and Lanre) were allied with the Knowers.

Is there any evidence for that, though? The assumption seems to be based on nothing but a rather weak-minded idea that Shapers were “bad guys” so Lanre and Selitos must have been on the other team.

It occurred to me that perhaps the Ergen Empire and Fae might actually be allies on the Shapers’ side. The enemy, the Knowers, were people of the mortal world from outside the FC. This actually could explain a lot of things, though it creates a few problems of its own. Has anyone brought up this theory? I don’t recall seeing it.

This theory would help to reconcile Skarpi’s and Shehyn’s Creation War stories a bit. It would explain why naming magic appears to actually be a form of shaping: because it is. It would explain why the Chandrian (who betrayed the Ergen Empire) are hated and feared in the Fae. It would explain why the battles took place in Ergen Empire even though the Knowers were the aggressors (though there are plenty of other explanations for that). It might even explain what Ruach are: they could be sort of halfway between human and faerie, their bodies partially enhanced by shaping magic but not to the extent of faeries.

On the other hand, it doesn’t jibe as well with Hespe’s story, where the hermit is obviously a Knower and has been identified with Selitos. Aleph doesn’t seem to fit into this story so well. Also, what does it mean for the enemy to be sealed behind doors of stone in this case?

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Kaizoku
12 years ago


You’ve convinced me that the scene wasn’t irrelevant.
But I still have a bone to pick with the fact that K couldn’t convinced Aaron.
See these lines, firstly:
[i][i]Aaron’s eye flickered to the innkeeper’s red hair, to the sword that hung over the bar, then back to the innkeeper’s eyes.
Kote nodded slowly, then pointed to Chronicler. “That fellow isn’t just some ordinary scribe. He’s a sort of historian, here to write down the true story of my life. You’ve missed the beginning, but if you’d like, you can stay for the rest.” He smiled an easy smile. “I can tell you stories no one has ever heard before. Stories no one will ever hear again. Stories about Felurian, how I learned to fight from the Adem. The truth about Princess Ariel.”
The innkeeper reached across the bar and touched the boy’s arm. “Truth is, Aaron, I’m fond of you. I think you’re uncommon smart, and I’d hate to see you throw your life away.” He took a deep breath and looked the smith’s prentice full in the face. His eyes were a startling green. “I know how this war started. I know the truth of it. Once you hear that, you won’t be nearly so eager to run off and die fighting in the middle of it.”
The innkeeper gestured to one of the empty chairs at the table beside Chronicler and smiled a smile so charming and easy that it belonged on a storybook prince. “What do you say?”
Aaron stared seriously at the innkeeper for a long moment, his eyes darting up to the sword, then back down again.
[/i][/b]
It seems like at this point K looks pretty convincing.

Besides, in order to convince A, all K had to do was ask Chronicle or Bast to support his claim. Between the three of them, A would have easily been convinced. Unless A has a role in the thirdd book which involves this scene. It seems wrong to throw away A in a scene like this after mentioning him several times in the previous book. And it’s a bit of a stretch that he runs off to war without even waiting a single day.
This happened in the morning and the previous evening involved the skin dancer. When does the recruitment occur? What about Shep’s wake? etc.etc…. I think I’ve made my point.

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12 years ago

Kaizoku @36 —

I agree that it is a curious scene, and that your theory could turn out to be correct. Without more evidence, I’m not ready to jump in all the way yet, but it does deserve more thought.

One other potentially important point in that scene is the line, “Stories no one will ever hear again.”

Since Kvothe is ostensibly telling his (nominally complete) story to Chronicler in order to have the truth recorded, why/how is he telling stories that no one will ever hear again? Won’t Chronicler record the whole story, and theoretically publish it? Or, if he doesn’t publish it, at the very least place a copy somewhere permanent — like the Archives — where presumably someone would eventually hear it? This discrepency, and specific wording on Kvothe’s part, lends some credence to the theory (proposed elsewhere) that Kvothe is actually telling the story as bait for someone (presumably the Chandrian), and isn’t actually expecting Chronicler to leave with the story intact. Or, perhaps will actively prevent him from leaving.

But I’m not sold on that theory either…

In response to your questions about when Aaron was recruited etc.: He wasn’t. He’s heading off to market, and considering joining, but isn’t signed up yet. Carter is going because he (sort of) has to — he doesn’t have a horse anymore, and is hoping to find one. If he can’t, he might take the king’s coin. Aaron is tempted to do so to, since he heard that they’re giving a gold royal for signing up; which is a lot of money…

This scene also confirms that we’re in Vintas, based on the currency the king’s army is using.

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12 years ago

When I read the Dagan chapter – I presumed that Dagan’s behaviour adjustment indicated that Dagan was in league with Cadiceus and involved in the Maer-murder plot. However Dag is tied to Maer he doesn’t sound like the sort who wants to be on anyone’s leash. Definitely sounds like someone of consequence, Ceridae or Chandrian or otherwise. But when he is told to bring Cad back alive, and we don’t hear that he did, only that he burned down some barn and lost an eye… there is definitely more to that story, and I’m assuming things got ugly because Dagan couldn’t risk Cadiceus being questioned/interrogated/tortured – definitely more happening with them 2 then we know.

the Aaron scene is a very important part of the story, illustrating a great many things. 1- K feels responsible for the war and general state of things, 2- K is still morally and empathically ‘good’ in not wanting some local kid to go get killed in the war, 3- his guise is so good that people won’t believe the truth when its in front of their face, won’t even consider it for a second…. also the currency bit mentioned above. It is a very valuable scene even if Aaron is not a significant character. He may have a part to play, we may find out what happens to him, but I don’t see him showing up with all the King’s horses and all the King’s men to collect the reward money for finding someone everyone believes is dead….

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Outthere
12 years ago

Fox

Your thoughts on Dagon being Cinder (or I guess Dagon being any Chandrian) got me to thinking about motives. If Dagon is a Chandrian, why is he serving the Maer?

Maybe Dagon positioned himself at the Maer’s side knowing that the only suitable marriage match for him was a Lackless, thus slowly positioning himself and the Chandrian close to the Lockless box and doors. If that is the case, then it is also possible that Caudicus may be an Amyr, poisoning the Maer for the greater good.

Any thoughts on this??

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storeygal
12 years ago

Let’s play in a “minor key” (double pun) for a bit. The story is so tightly woven that loose ends really stand out and–I believe–deserve scrutiny. A couple of my favorites: The very compelling character (Viari) introduced in Ch. 61 of TNotW as a Cealdish book seeker who greets Kvothe with the standard Ruh greeting, “One family.” What’s with that? Also, Kvothe’s ridiculously belated “trick” against Ambrose (in the chapter “Debts”) pretending to be some girl–now pregnant–abandoned by Ambrose. Is it likely that Kvothe is going to inadvertantly be the agent of some young woman’s murder?

What incongruent details have you noticed and what are your speculations?

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12 years ago

On Aaron (in general)

@31,34,36-8 specifically

Aaron really only needs to suspect that Kote is Kvothe. The Innkeeper confessed. Aaron’s bluff call could be read as a cover: “If you really are…” His voice trailed off, but his expression turned it into a question. I’m skeptical, but he could be considering the relative value of 1000 royals and nobility versus one and the promise of death. Lying’s in his family. He breaths iron every day. It’s improbable but not impossible that he played it off legit.

Aaron has all day to mull it over, maybe even discuss it on the road. Given that time to take it all in, he could convince himself if not others. He’s got the confession, Kvothe’s behavior with the scraeling and the shambleman/draugar/skindancer, his sudden uncharacteristic interjection into Cob’s story, the “demons” conversation, and the strange new sword on the unimaginably expensive mounting board.

That last one might make one wonder at the expense and cleanliness of the Waystone itself: windows, keyed locks in every door, the dumbfounding selection, black stone hearths. Moreover, used only to aggravate Elodin, our innkeeper isn’t stingy around town in general: hiring the Bentleys, taking quite a bit of mutton off the Orrisons’ hands, commissioning brass ringed barrels.

Aaron would be able to present a story worth checking out to anyone who heard it.

Chapter two (Holly) also has some direct parallels with chapter 151 (Locks) which might illuminate the “why” of the scene. I’ll throw out the relevant one first for folks like to get bored by formalism. Kvothe’s failure to convince Aaron, the failure of his “legendary silver tongue,” parallels his failure to open the Thrice Locked Chest. In a sense, it’s even the failure of a third necessary part. In chapter 2, he’s got the hair and the sword, but no magic. In chapter 151, he’s got the iron key and the copper key, but no… probably magic considering the open/edro commands.

Lest the casual observer look at the above and mutter, kyxxs,coincidence, imagery and incident are reversed or repeated across both chapters as well. Chronicler comes downstairs in the morning in chapter two, unpacks his paper and pens, and receives the holly crown from Bast. He cleans the pens, puts away the paper, and tucks the crown in his satchel before heading up at night in chapter 151. These are the only two chapters where holly and the holly crowns appear. In these two chapters, Bast and Chronicler have their moments alone together to discuss Kvothe. In fact, they use awakening language in both conversations. Finally, for this post anyway, these are the only two chapters in which thorn is used, and the only two in which both thorn and blade of grass appear.

At the very least, I’m beginning to see what took so long, and what will take so long for Day 3. In order to get back by the end of Day 3, Aaron had to leave on the morning of Day 2. For structural reasons, he had to leave in chapter two to parallel the second to last chapter.

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12 years ago

@41.thistlepong:

That’s brilliant.

Also, Pat mentioned on his blog today that The Name of the Wind is being used in the syllabus of a UC-Berkeley class. Makes me jealous that I’m not back in college. I’d be interested if any of our regulars were involved.

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12 years ago

Sorry to stray off topic a bit, but coming back into the books (and re-read) after a year.

Has there been any discussion/thought of pronouncing ‘Newarre’ as ‘new air’, as in what the Wind is/brings, and any implications thereto?

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12 years ago

@43 RBSIV

Hello again! There hasn’t really been much on Newarre being “new air”, but there has beeen some discussion about it being “nowhere”.

The precedent set for etymological evolution at both standard and rapid pace in 4C is really everywhere. Not having the experience, or probably time, for that matter, to really be a contributor to the Dept. of Imaginary Linguistics, I will bow out here and let one of the Re’lar in that dept. make a more educated assertion.

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spyc3r
12 years ago

I’m new to all of this discussion so I’ll apologize in advance if this has already been discussed. I was reading through Trapis’s story again and something jumped out at me.

Encanis was still bound to the wheel…Tehlu bent and with greate effort lifted one edge of the wheel and set it leaning against a tree that grew nearby. As soon as he came close, Encanis cursed him in languages no one knew, scratching and biting. NoTW ch. 23 pg. 180

When I saw this I immediately thought about the CTH. More evidence to support this is given when Encanis tries to lie about who he is,

“Lord Tehlu, I am not Encanis…But then there was a sound like quenching iron, and the wheel rung like an iron bell…’Try no tricks, dark one. Speak no lies,’ Tehlu said sternly”.

Both the image of the tree and the fact that he is forced to tell the truth really seem to point to the CTH.

To me this seems to support the theory that Iax is the CTH and Haliax is the salt-of-iax, running around out in the world. I’m not sure that I have anything to support that though.

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12 years ago

@@@@@ spyc3r (45)

Encanis as the Cthaeh, me like! I’ve never really given much thought to Encanis and who/what he (it?) is, despite the fact that he is a central character in Tehlin theology. Do we know of any other “demons”?

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Sapph
12 years ago

I know in the interview, someone asked about the meaning of El’the and got no answer. I was listening to WMF last night, and heard the story of Jax again. He encounters an old man that was ‘chasing the wind’ – so clearly a member of the Arcanum. But he stopped and became a listener. or perhaps a Listener.

What if Listener IS El’the? It could be a logical progression. First you are a Seer – you see things as they truely are. Then you are a Speaker – you can speak Names. Then you become a Listener – instead of relying on your sleeping mind entire, you can Listen to a thing, and learn its Name, its past, and truths about it.

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hex
12 years ago

@43 RBSIV

As n8love pointed out, it’s more likely tongue-in-cheek for “no where” or “anywhere” (n-e-ware) depending on how it’s pronounced. Either works though. You get the idea that it’s meant to be a humorous way of saying the town is a generic backwater.

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12 years ago

The possible identities of Encanis have been discussed. I think the three major theories are Encanis as Encanis, Encanis as Haliax, and Encanis as the Cthaeh. Encanis in Trapis’s story shares the shadowed face and black garb attributed to Haliax at the end of “Lanre Turned.” He also shares the general Chandrian signs of frost and blight. His reaction to iron points to Faen association, as does characterizing him as a demon.

The confusion of characteristics as well as the general timeframe Trapis provides confounds current conjecture. A reader can successfully support several identities and convincingly refute none of them. Trapis is a Tehlin apostate, reciting from imperfect memory a story derived in part from The Book of the Path. His story, though, resonates with both “Lanre Turned” and Shehyn’s account.

Folk have written about how all of these may be versions of the same story, culturally relevant to the speaker, but only partially accurate. This theory’s actually quite likely. given Pat’s comments. It’s also possible that they’re iterations on a theme in a conflict spanning five or six millennia. Or both.

I’m getting some serious Baader-Meinhof for the Encanis/Cthaeh connection lately, though, so I figure it’s worth exploring. Take as given the aforementioned tree imagery and the prescription of truth.

Encanis shares serpent imagery with the Cthaeh. compare “motionless as a snake” and, “Encanis hissed. his voice like the rasp of stone on stone,” with “Kyxxs” and, “I thought I saw a sinuous motion among the branches.” The serpent imagery reverberates with the ideas of deception and truth. The serpent figures from many of our mythologies don’t lie outright, but reveal partial truth to goad the listener; this, in fact, is pervasive throughout the Chronicle. Encanis and the Cthaeh share a fondness for alliterative cursing. Compare “bite and break you” with “blood, bracken, and bone.” Both Encanis and the Cthaeh create conflict, Encanis “setting men to murder one another” and the Cthaeh’s influence “is like a plague ship sailing into a harbor.”

Their names bear a curious reflective relationship. Encanis suggests canis, or dog, which has little to do with our shrouded demon at first glance. I mean, Tehlu hounds him and runs him down, and that’s sort of funny. But as before, with serpent, we might think in terms of image and cosmology. Contemplate the associations of Anubis, Cerberus, and other guardians of other worlds. Consider the Cthaeh as a reflection of Encanis in the outer darkness (Trapis) or Hell (Daeonica,) which we know to be Faen – the immanent other world that’s either above, below, or ekpyrotic to the Mortal. Encanis might translate as in/of/one dog or even behold dog, the latter further suggesting the sight of the Cthaeh.

Cthaeh, on the other hand, evokes the Mortal via it’s similarity to khthon/cthonic – in/under/beneath the earth. Having mentioned the tree connection, this is how we reconcile the pit into which Encanis is thrown and burned. Ritual sacrifices of living creatures by cthonic cults involved burning the body whole in a pit. The ligature of a and e is called aesc, or “ash tree” after the Anglo-Saxon rune. Might be coincidental or purposeful, marking Denna’s patron even as we remain unreconciled as to whom Ash is.

Thus Encanis and the Cthaeh mirror one another nominally and symbolically across worlds as well as sharing common imagery. As above, so below. I rather like it.

The connection might also narrow down the range of possible suspects in the bad-spy-novel-where-everyone-is-someone-else sense. As much as we have consensus on anything, we generally view Iax as the first shaper, he who pulled the moon, and he whom is imprisoned beyond the doors of stone. Felurian not only refuses to speak his name, but implies he’s unreachable in Faen. This strongly suggests The Cthaeh is not Iax. Further, she refuses to speak of the Seven at all, while she’s willing to discuss the Cthaeh. And we know Haliax has been recently active in the Mortal, eliminating him as a candidate.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

I lean a bit towards the Encannis story and rumours of the Cthaeh story have become entwined theory side of things.
We have the Skarpi story with Tehlu becoming an angel to fight against demons in general. Then the Trapis story with Tehlu having a much more prominent role and Encannis being a very specific adversary.
both of these seem to be echos of older events. The Trapis story and Tehlinism in general seem to be a more recent offshoot from older events that have incorporated pieces of things to fit their own internal story logic.

(By the way, in case anyone is wondering, I edited my user ID from shalter to stevenhalter.)

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Hang
12 years ago

About the fact the Cinder is lookind to the sky like Haliax did I have one theory.(Sorry for any mistake I may have, I’m from Brazil and english is not my first language).

When the CTH is talking to K about his parent’s death, he says that his father begged and cryed, saying that probably to hurt K, but what if his father did that not because he was affraid but because he knew that was what he should do.
This may be a long shot, but what if while searching to write the song he discovered something about the Chandrian and the fact they are afraid of Tehlu and the angels, what if he also discovered that they can actually listen the prayers?
So, when he was “begging” for his life, just like the CTH said que did, he was trying to call upon Tehlu and the angels, that would explain why Haliax looked into the sky(angels falling from the sky) and the Chandrian went away from the camp, they were afraid .
That would explain why Cinder looked to the sky and then vanished, because Marten was praying so the angels were coming.

That was just something I always thought and would like to listen to some opinions.

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Marco.
12 years ago

@51

Love love LOVE this theory.

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12 years ago

@51 Concur. Also posit this:
Purpose of Chandrian is to end world and have Aleu fall nameless in order to release Haliax from curse. Their attacks are to induce prayers to draw Aleu into ambush (from which they can retreat if outnumbered)

The Aleu could respond to Chandrian attacks, but can ‘only be seen by the most powerful’ and thus wouldn’t make it into stories.

OBTW, K’s power is indicated when he sees an Aleu while freezing to death in Tarbean…

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12 years ago

@51 Concur. Also posit this:
Purpose of Chandrian is to end world and have Aleu fall nameless in order to release Haliax from curse. Their attacks are to induce prayers to draw Aleu into ambush (from which they can retreat if outnumbered)

The Aleu could respond to Chandrian attacks, but can ‘only be seen by the most powerful’ and thus wouldn’t make it into stories.

OBTW, K’s power is indicated when he sees an Aleu while freezing to death in Tarbean…

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12 years ago

@51 Concur. Also posit this:
Purpose of Chandrian is to end world and have Aleu fall nameless in order to release Haliax from curse. Their attacks are to induce prayers to draw Aleu into ambush (from which they can retreat if outnumbered)

The Aleu could respond to Chandrian attacks, but can ‘only be seen by the most powerful’ and thus wouldn’t make it into stories.

OBTW, K’s power is indicated when he sees an Aleu while freezing to death in Tarbean…

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12 years ago

Double posting for some reason – Sorry,tried to post this:
@48 the ‘nowhere’ similarity struck me when I first read the passage where K welcomes C downstairs at the Inn, but it always struck me as forced. The more I read Rothfus the more it seems too much ‘in your face’, with so much else being so discrete. New-air struck me as a more subtle clue, perhaps a trap laid for winds of change to blow thru.

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12 years ago

And while I’m musing, ‘a word that is foresworn’ sounds like a broken oath. The only one I can think of is K’s promise to D not to seek out her patron, which I think is going to happen despite…

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12 years ago

Hi, I just registered and Hang was akredy taken so for now I’m Hang1, but the same guy from comment 51.

Another thing that have always bugged me, not sure if anyone ever talked about this, was the fact that the Chancellor became ill, with what seems to be an incridibly strong disease that they can’t cure, right after K told D that he was teaching him Yllish. I kept thinking if she could have done something to make him sick, like writing in her hair “get sick” or somethink like that.
And than while I was rererereading WMF while I was in the part that he hears the verse that K hears the true name of the Chandrian in the brazilian version of the book it says literally “Pale Alenta brings the plague.” I know that in english it says blight and it may make more sense for what we have seen, but what if D is working for the Chandrian, hating the Amyr for her personal reasons, Alenta made the Chancellor sick.

I’m not so convinced about this, but I can’t believe that the Chancellor just got a super virus randomly.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

Hang1@58:That has been noticed, and I think everyone thinks the Chancellor’s illness is fishy. Master Hemme has also been mentioned as a potential culprit.

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12 years ago

stevenhalter@59 I thought abot Master Hemme too but I just can’t think he woul gain a lot from it. OK, he became Chancellor but what is so great about being Chancellor? Yeah, he can make K pay a small fortune every now and then, if K is stupid enough to be called to the Horn again his vote would be of 1,5, but what else? It isn’t such a marvelous thing to be the Chancellor, at least not worth going through all the work he would have to put into it, and danger of being caught.

The only reason I can see, is that wanted to make sure that K wouldn’t lear Yllish anymore. And this happening right after D found out is kind of suspicious.

Does anyone think that Hemme might have done it for the Chancellor job? Is there any better side to it that I haven’t realized?

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12 years ago

@60 – As stevenhalter said, the general consensus is that the illness seems, shall we say, less than natural. Maybe Hemme did it as a power grab. That’s certainly what he got out of it. The timing of it is certainly curious – K starts learning Yllish and the person who teaches him falls sick to the point that not even the Master Physicker can help him. Fishy to the say the least.

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caori
12 years ago

Hang@51
I think that it is possible that Arliden was actually praying.
In chapter 104 (kindle version) Cthaeh says:
“Laurian was always a trouper (…). Much better than your father, with all his begging and blubbering.”
and then he also says that they left Kvothe alive “because something scared them away”.
I think that praying makes sense here considering Cinder’s reaction to Marten’s prayer.
What’s more, there’s Felurian’s explanation about the Cthaeh at the end of the same chapter:
“the Cthaeh does not lie. it has the gift of seeing, but it only tells things to hurt men. only a dennerling would speak to the Cthaeh.”
Thus, Cthaeh doesn’t excatly lie about Arliden’s last moments, it just puts it in the wrong way just to hurt/manipulate Kvothe.

(And do we know anything more about dennerlings, btw?)

Hang@58
I was wondering about Ademic names of the Chandrian, their gender and their knacks.
Did anyone here compare them in different translations of the books?
In the Polish version of WMF Alenta is a male and his knack is (literal translation) “conflagration”, and while it might be a synonym to “blight”, it’s not connected to “plague” as a disease in Polish.
Somehow I always thought Alenta was a woman, so it surprised me a little that they used a masculine form in the translation.

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12 years ago

caori @62 – dennerlings are also sweet-eaters, those addicted to denner resin.

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12 years ago

@62.caori:

The English version doesn’t specify gender for any of the Chandrian.

I did some analysis of it in a previous post:
tor.com/blogs/2011/07/rothfuss-reread-the-name-of-the-wind-part-14-like-a-thunderclap#200478

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12 years ago

@62.caori
In portuguese, just as in latin, the language has different suffix for male ans females, specially in adjectives.
In the verse it clearly states that Alenta is female(I won’t say women because it may not fit). And based on what was said about the vase one of the Chandrian was a women.

But based on the plague/conflagration/blight difference there may be some mistakes in translatioins.

BTW in the “stick by the maer” they translated as “stay close to the maer”, so if it was a smart pun they also lost it.

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12 years ago

Hang@66
Polish also has different suffixes for genders, thus I was courious about different translations. In Polish “pale Alenta” is transtated as if Alenta was male. It made me courious because in Polish names ending with -a suffix are usually feminine and here the word for “pale” was masculine.
Anyway, it’s probably the mistake in translation.

“stick to the maer” was lost in the Polish version, too, I’m afraid. It just says “keep close to him and he will lead you to their door”.

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db3006
12 years ago

In the discussion between K and the Cthaeh there is something I
I did not consider before, but I think it’s important.

“Why cant’ you find this Cinder? Well, that’s an interesting why. You’d think a man with coal-black eyes would make an impression when he stops to buy a drink. How can it be that you haven’t managed to catch wind of him in all this time?”

So Cinder has been buying drinks where K plays? I would say yes. AND if true, it cannot be a coincidence.

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12 years ago

caori@67 (&@62)

Another Polish reader said the genders of the Chandrian were unspecified:

Except Stercus, who is male, but don’t rely on this, in polish language if you didn’t know gender of person, and want use this words to specificy Stercus, it had to be in male form.

Is it possible that’s what’s going on with pale+(normally)feminine name? He also noted that the line about Alaxel was a bit hard to make sense of: carries horn (actually horn + diminutive from it, but I can’t find a good word in english) in shadow’s collar.

@62 In the Polish version, does it say the signs are definitely knacks?

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12 years ago

Hang@51

One of the most satisfying theories I’ve seen here, good work.

Also, when Kvothe firts encounters the Chandrian as a youngster, he says he saw a group of men and women sitting around a fire. So there are at least two female Chandrian. Haliax and Cinder are definitely male, Alenta is almost certainly female. Cyphus is probably male.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

db3006@68:I think that the Cthaeh was being somewhat sarcastic with that exchange. Making Kvothe feel inferior for not finding something that should be easily found.
Then, when the Cthaeh points out that Cinder was the bandit leader, you can tie that back to this exchange that Cinder hasn’t been hanging out in bars in plain sight. There is also the distinct possibility (alluded to elsewhere) that the Chandrian are able to control their signs and appearance to some extent. Thus, another layer of sarcasm for Kvothe to even think about finding such creatures.
The Cthaeh was laying multiple layers of verbal abuse upon Kvothe.

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12 years ago

RSBIV@54

The guys you are talking about are probably not Aleu, though they could be. There are only two references to Aleu in the two books, and both occurred in Skarpi’s story, between Lanre and Selitos, right after the betrayal of Myr Tariniel. This, you’ll note, happened before Aleph turned Tehlu and friends into angels. If “Aleu” is the term for what Tehlu, Andan, and Ordal became, then there must have been lots of Aleu before them.

However, if you ask me, I wouldn’t read too much into the Aleu. It is obviously an end-of-the-world myth and it’s possible Selitos and Lanre are both using it simply as an idiom. I might tell a girl I’ll love her till the Four Horsemen come; it doesn’t mean I literally believe Four Horsemen will show up at the end of the world.

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12 years ago

thistlepong @69
Actually, you can make out the genders in the Polish transtlation for more than Stercus; I’m just not sure if the translator knew something we don’t, or just made it up (Polish language really needs all those feminine/masculine forms).

As for Alaxel, well, it really is hard to make any sense of it. Understatement.
The word used there may mean “small horn” or a “corner”, but I would go for “crescent” as it is also used in describing Haliax in the books. There are better words in Polish for “crescent” but it also fits.
The line would then be: “Alaxel carries the crescent of shadow’s hame”

I’ve just checked the original line and it’s “Alaxel bears the shadow’s hame”
No idea why they put the “crescent/small horn” there.

Ah, and there’s no connection between knacks and signs in Polish version. Abenthy uses the typical Polish word for knack here and later in the books it’s only repeated to explain that someone is really good at something.

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12 years ago

@72 Good point on the timing with the aleu – TKS. Unfortunately I think your second point is terribly close to the mark. The series is all about the discovery that myths are real. What if this story is about the end of (a) world? The Horsemen are showing up?

Would appreciate your thoughts on implications of the following:
“facts”:
We know from when K rescues Fela that he can break anything he knows how to make.
We know Faen was made by people of power.
We know K is powerful & prone to action.
We know Chronicler is an ‘agent’ of Bast’s purpose
K thinks his story is a tragedey ( even though not dead yet)
H wants to die and can’t until EoW
Speculation:
K thinks he’s ‘on the wrong side’
Haliax has shaped (Shaped?) K to be his agent.
K could be friends with H, like Bast and C.

At this point in the narrattive it looks like K has discovered his ‘condition’ and is trying to counter, but we don’t know how much of H’s plan he has completed. We’re getting the Bogart and McCall piece of WWII. Don’t like this train of thought but it seems plausible, and whatever happens in D3 will have been (subtly) foreshadowed.

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12 years ago

random reponses:

The audiobook pronunciation for Newarre is, roughly, “neh-wahr.”

: In an earlier thread I noted that Chandrian was the same in every language I’d seen. In Catalan, it’s Xandrian.

re: post #49 and the amusing tenuous link between Ash and Cthaeh:

Seems there’s a similarly shady synchronicity between one of our Ashes and Encanis: the polished silver handle wrought in the shape of a snarling wolf ‘s head. (Incidentally, WMF appears to be more carefully crafted than NW. Take “wolf” for example. In NW it’s kind of all over the place across like 500 pages. In WMF, “wolf” is confined to Vintas, with three of four instances referring to Bredon and the fourth essentially commenting on one of those.)

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12 years ago

RBSIV@75

I can’t see how your speculation follows from the facts list list (if that’s even your question). So I’ll withhold my opinion on that, and just say that I would totally agree that Haliax is ultimately trying to hasten the end of the world, I just don’t know if that necessarily means literally causing Aleu to fall nameless from the sky since that could be just a myth. There may be more to go on if you look at other angles of it, for example Haliax manipulating Kvothe (as you seem to be suggesting).

Personally I’m a little suspicious that Kvothe running into Denna all the time is a coincidence (especially since PR renounces the suspension of disbelief of unusual coincidences in his universe, by having Kvothe as narrator talk about how you never really run into people you meet on the road ever again). I’m especially suspicious of the quite likely possibility of Cinder being Denna’s patron. So it seems beyond doubt that Kvothe is being manipulated or at least followed. Given that, I could see how the Chandrian could be helping him along hoping he’ll mess up the world.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

I really think the moon story needs to be analysed a lot more. Hespe mentioned that it was passed down her family with every word intact, which means almost everything in the story is symbolic. Like the things in the Tinker’s pack. I’ll do it when I get my kindle back, but until then I just wanted to draw more attention to it.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

Here are the things to be resolved in book three (not necessarily in order of occurence):
1. Kvothe leaves the university due to Ambrose.
2. K meets Scarpi again or learns something about him.
3. K finds out something about the LL box and the archive secret door.
4. Princess Ariel
5. K rescues princesses from sleeping barrow kings. Possibly the same as 5.
6. Denna-K plotline is resolved.
7. Kills someone in Imre.
8. Kills a king. Possibly same as 7.
9. Causes a war.
10. Brings Faen creatures (scrael) into mortal realm.
11. Makes a thrice-locked chest. Can’t unlock it. Locked something important inside it. Needs it back.
12. Loses or stops music and loses magic.
13. K meets the Chandrian or one of them (Cinder) again.
14. Meets Bast. Becomes his teacher. Bast meets D too.
15. K-Bast-Chronicle plotline.
We need to come up with a sequence of events that can resolve all or
most of the above and also resolve the main frame plotline within 1200 pages.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

I think Elodin became a ‘true’ el’the, whatever that is, at some point, which enabled him to open the four-plate door, which made him insane for some time. I recall him saying that it almost killed him.
I’ll go for the theory that the door is a way into the Faen realm through which the masters keep the peace with the Faen people. So it’s probably the Faen court. In a nutshell, here’s my theory:
Faen people could easily waltz into the mortal world and screw things up completely. Some of the masters and a bunch of other people know the name of iron and could screw up the Faen realm with a joint effort.
The doorway is an entrance into Fae where the masters, being the true leaders of mortals in a sense, meet the Fae and discuss stuff.
Now I think K jumps into the door using his naming prowess or the object in the LL box and messes around the realm, ‘breaching the peace’, meeting Bast – who is as insane as himself. Maybe he does this because D is there. D is there because of her patron, who teaches her secret things, probably related to Fae magic. He goes in to rescue D, battles some Chandrian, loses miserably, loses D and his powers, screws up the peace, and sparks a war. Somewhere in all of this he also kills a king. Bast, impressed by him, rescues him and makes him his teacher, and agrees to hang around until K teaches him all he can. This would also explain why Bast has seen D.

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12 years ago

@@@@@ Kaizoku (79)

I’m not sure your list of things needing to be resolved during day 3 is entirely made up of things that are still unresolved. For instance:

1. Kvothe leaves the university due to Ambrose.

That could be relating to when he was temporarily expelled, or when he left during the events of WMF, so as to be away and let his reputation simmer (?) down a bit.

5.K rescues princesses from sleeping barrow kings.

This could be the mutated story of the girls he rescued from the fake Ruh troupe in WMF. (In Levinshir, was it?)

Also, add “K meets Ben again” to the list.

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12 years ago

This could be the mutated story of the girls he rescued from the fake Ruh troupe in WMF. (In Levinshir, was it?)

Yes indeed, and we already know that in one version of the story the girls had turned into princesses. (If we take what he says at the beginning completely literally and factually, he has to go back to Trebon and actually burn it down; but it’s fairly clear that this is meant to be a garbled version of the story of the draccus.)

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12 years ago

@@@@@ Kaizoku (80)

I like the craziness of this theory, but I’m doubtful regarding a few points in it.

I’ll go for the theory that the door is a way into the Faen realm through which the masters keep the peace with the Faen people. So it’s probably the Faen court. […] Now I think K jumps into the door using his naming prowess or the object in the LL box and messes around the realm, ‘breaching the peace’

So far, all we can say for sure regarding Kvothe’s knowledge of the Faen court(s) is that whatever he knows of it, he’s heard from Felurian. It’s possible, though not certain, that he learns more of it from Bast or a second (or third or more) visit to the Fae realm.
The reason I doubt that Kvothe fucks around in the politics of the Fae court is because of his comments regarding the very same in the chapter when Felurian talks about it. Two things: first, he learns that the court is really dangerous with all its ferocious, feuding, faen factions. (There’s a mention of wolves there somewhere, I think. Perhaps I got that mixed up, but it goes to show the sort of imagery of feral dispute that the description of the Faen court brought to mind for me.) The second thing that has me thinking Kvothe doesn’t visit the Faen court is the way he speaks of it when he learns about it from Felurian. Without actual quotes, I realize this argument is rather feeble, but bear with me. Kvothe’s choice of words gave me the idea that his adding Felurian’s description of the court into the narrative was more to indicate how different and potentially dangerous the Fae are, or perhaps to show the possible instability and diversity of the people(s) that are Fae. This particular section of the book doesn’t seem, to me at least, to be phrased in the way that foreshadowing parts of the novels are phrased – I take this as an indication that Kvothe does not get involved in Fae politics.

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12 years ago

Kaizoku@79

In addition to Sahirioth’s points that some of those might have already been resolved, I’d opine that 6 and 13 don’t necessarily have to be resolved by the end of book 3, and for other cases how they are resolved might not be in the way we think.

Kvothe blames himself for the war, but it doesn’t mean he caused it, per se. The resolution could simply be that he finds out that some careless, juvenile action he might have already taken on a trip to Tarbean that seemed of little purpose in the novel at the time ended up startng a chain of events that led to war.

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12 years ago

Kaizoku @79 – I agree with the above posters that a lot of that has already been resolved. I’m fairly confident that 1 was resolved (twice) already. But maybe third time pays for all…5 was probably the girls he rescued on the road. The way in which that story morphed makes it likely. Let’s also remember that K does his best to manipulate stories into his favor so that his reputation is as grand as possible. Once that story began to spread, I’m sure he would do anything in his power to help it along.

Also, I think we need to be prepared for the fact that PR isn’t going to resolve everything for us. I have a strong feeling that he’s going to leave some things as mystery because they just aren’t that important for the frame story. Remember, what we get to hear is what K is deciding is important enough to tell Chronicler. I would be surprised if the Denna storyline isn’t resolved, but I would be equally surprised if we find out everything about Bast or the chest in his room. Pat seems like the type to leave some things out there, like a good storyteller, leaving you wanting more.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

@Everyone after #80
I agree about the barrow-kings part, and the Ambrose plotline may go either way. But with regards to meeting the Chandrian again, I’ll bet that he meets (some of) them again. This is because of what he said in the interview with Shehyn… ”
[i]”Will you meet such a one again?”
“Yes.”The certainty in my own voice surprised me.
“With purpose?”
“Yes.”
“What purpose?”
“To kill him.”
[/b]
K will look like a total idiot if he doesn’t even meet up with Cinder again, who’s been established as his nemesis. It would be a very poor resolution to the story. Same thing with the Denna plotline. If nothing of great import happens between them, her importance is far too diminished.
And I think that we can be fairly certain that he causes the war, albeit without any evil intentions. We’ll probably see him do something out of over-confidence, thoughtlessness and maybe pride, which will lead to it. Like I said above, causing a war through a harmless prank would be a poor resolution to the story.
With regards to my crazy theory, I’m not too insistent on the Faen Court part, but I will stick to the idea that he enters the Faen realm again. He doesn’t nearly know enough about it as of now to appear worldly and wise to Bast, and he certainly doesn’t understand the ‘hidden-turnings of the world’ (that is what I think Bast said about him). I doubt he would pick up advanced understanding by reading a book.
Also the line he used in the first book:
Chronicler: I thought you would be older.
K: I am.
strongly suggests an extended stay in the Faen realm.
I’m also confident that he will meet Bast within the storyline, because Bast has seen him being awesome, and has also seen him suck. So between those two points we have the uber-tragedy which is what the story’s been driving toward for. So Bast comes before uber-tragedy hence Bast comes inside story.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

And please note that I said “resolves all or most of the above” beneath my list! I don’t insist that everything gets resolved, but apart from the Ambrose point and the Barrow-king point, I would say the rest are 90% probable to be resolved in the story.

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12 years ago

For a second I wondered if Elodin was a chandrian or someone of special importance, finding it odd that he encourages K to do all these dangerous, ridiculous things….. then I remembered him setting Hemme’s apartment on fire (essentially) and thought that maybe that wasn’t really in character as something an Amyr or one of the seven would do….

I also come back to K saying when D rode off after their first travel together ‘that was the last time I would ever see her’ – makes me wonder if D isn’t some glamoured agent used to monitor and manipulate K – or maybe its a reference to something that changed her so that she was not the same person when they get to know each other later?

stevenhalter
12 years ago

wicked@88:Elodin is of special importance–I don’t think we know just how yet.

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12 years ago

robocarp@84

some careless, juvenile action he might have already taken on a trip to Tarbean that seemed of little purpose in the novel at the time ended up startng a chain of events that led to war


A thousand times yes. He blames himself. He says he’s responsible for every life lost. There’s nothing he can really do about it now. Perfect.

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12 years ago

Kaizoku@87

It’s all good, we’re just nitpicking. People who nitpick are the kind of people that writers like PR attract. :) The list you made is good, I just think most of us don’t expect the resolution of these items to be so straightforward, and we’ve been listing a few reasons why (some have already been resolved, some might not resolved, some could be resolved very differently that we expect. But it’s a good list, most of which I do expect to happen.

I have a couple things to add in fact.
1. Kvothe will probably visit Tahlenwald (west of the Stormwal mountains) since he named it as the place he’d most like to visit. (Foreshadowing alert!)
2. Kvothe will probably be sucked into Fae on a moonless night. Whenever Kvothe is warned about something it’s almost certain to happen.
3. The prank letter he writes has got to have some unpleasant negative consequence for Kvothe; might not be the thing that leads to war but I’m sure it’s something.
4. Skarpi may show up in the narration, based on the fact that Chronicler calls him an “old friend” of Kvothe’s. Two storytelling sessions might be enough to make them old friends, or it might not.
5. Devi has something up her sleeve. She wants access to the Archives bad; she’s as much of a badass as Kvothe and more evil. (Wouldn’t surprise me it she wanted to, and succeeded in, opening the four-plate door.)

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12 years ago

Come to think of it, I wonder if Devi isn’t our Amyr. It could be argued that the Maer led K to her door by supplying the money he was able to use to pay her down. That’s a stretch, I know.

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12 years ago

@@@@@ Robocarp (91)

I also think we haven’t seen the last of Devi. Just a small correction: you accidentally wrote “west”, but the Tahlenwald is east of the Stormwal Mts.

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12 years ago

@@@@@ Robocarp 91 – I have been of a mind to believe that the letter which Kvothe wrote to Ambrose could in fact be the catalyst for the war. If Ambrose thinks that someone he slept with is trying to blackmail him because she’s pregnant, and then he has her killed, and she was daughter of a powerful family…Well, that could certainly kick off a war. It also seems like the kind of thing PR would do. Make certain we understand that even the smallest pebble can start an avalanche.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

The other thing about the “prank” letter is that it comes at the end of WMF. It comes after the Cthaeh. Kvothe “just” decides to do it. All of his decisions at this point are suspect. Especially those that just kind of happen all of the sudden.
I’d say we are correct in thinking something bad may come of this letter.

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12 years ago

Regarding Devi I have an odd idea: there have been vatious suggestions that this or that character is one of the Chandrian. This makes me wonder if perhaps Kvothe has met all the Chandrian (except possibly Haliax) in the course of his wanderings. And in that case Devi, ‘the Demon’, is a possible candidate for being one of the female ones.

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12 years ago

AnotherAndrew@96
I just thought about it when i read your post.
Usnea lives in nothing but decay.
Devi is always using those incenses or something, as she lives behind the butcher shop. Could she be hiding something else?
Just kidding, but it’s fun to consider it.

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12 years ago

Stevenhalter @95 – I completely agree that any spontaneous decisions Kvothe makes post-CTH are extremely suspect. On the one hand, those seem like they would be the decisions least affected by the CTH, but on the other, with his perfect foresight, they seem like the way he would most likely affect things – through small, seemingly innocuous actions which turn into much larger things.

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db3006
12 years ago

I’ve been reading previous posts and found the one about D calling herself Alora when at Severen. I got curious and looked it up… It means My Dream. If spelled Allora it means anyway ormoving on. I think “My Dream” fits better and it might indicate that D is not as whimsical as she appears. From my perspective D is moving about her business as purposefully as K.

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12 years ago

db3006@99

“My dream” is a bit too resonant to just toss into the middle if the room, what with the Lackless rhymes and all.

What language is it? How did you break the word? From whence comes the translation?

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12 years ago

db3006 @99 – A couple of points for you:

1) Which language translation do you get that from? In Italian it basically means, whatever.
2) I have to say that I disagree that My Dream would fit the character of Denna better than the idea of Moving On. Moving On is precisely what she ALWAYS does.
3) I certainly wouldn’t argue that D is particularly whimsical, or has ever been so. She moves on when a situation she is in becomes untenable, often because she refuses to pay the price that would be required to stay. She’ll come back once the heat has passed in a certain location.

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gjits
12 years ago

Regarding the letter to ambrose starting a war,

A letter smudged, looking like a shaky B or an R or an F or a P or an E or perhaps even a K or it could be anything really

could easily be mistaken for an A. A for Ariel.

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db3006
12 years ago

@100 and 101

Alora from Bantu Language (Botswana).
The Allora definition comes from Italian.
I also found Alora in Latin as Bay Tree, but I am not sure it’s relevant.

Just another thought absent Day 3 evidence.

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12 years ago

I get the feeling that Bantu is a bit “narrow” for PR to make references to. Romance and Germanic languages I get, what with their relation to English (although Rothfuss has stated that the doesn’t speak any language but his native one). Some people have said that ‘ruh’ and ‘Ruach’ mean something is Arabic/Hebrew – and those two are scriptural languages, so referencing them make a sort of sense, too. Bantu, though? I’m doubtful.

Also, for clarification – “allora” in Italian is not “moving on” as in the act of moving, but rather a filler phrase you might use to move a conversation forward. It pretty much has the same uses as “alors” in French or “anyway”/”well” in English. So if that’s what Denna’s ‘Alora’ is referring to, it’s a miss.

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12 years ago

I have a theory (similar to one I posted on TV Tropes) that I’d like to share here now that I’ve thought about it more.

Felurian said of the Faen realm that it was “wrought according to their [the shapers’] will. the greatest of them sewed it from whole cloth.”

Key point: she says it was “wrought” and “sewed from whole cloth”. That is, it was made from pre-existing land, not constructed out of thin air. The Shapers must have taken land from somewhere, moved it sideways into another dimension, and then shaped into the Fae. The obvious question is, where did the land come from?

I looked at the Four Corners map to see where ground zero might have been for this hypothetical move, and to my surprise I saw something that fits, namely the Reft, the large bay south of Tarbean. “Reft” is an archaic past participle of the word “reave”, which is a verb that could mean “to steal, carry off forcibly” or “to tear apart, break”. Both of which could be an apt description of what the Shapers did to the land.

So let’s run with it. Is there any evidence that Faen was originally part of the FC? I have a couple ideas. In Hespe’s story, Jax talks to a tinker before setting off on what appears to be eastward on The Great Stone Road toward the mountains. The tinker may represent the Cthaeh, who Bast said Iax spoke to before stealing the moon. But that raised the question of how the Cthaeh got into the Fae, which was apparently constructed after Iax spoke to him (according to the chronology of Hespe’s story). Now here is a possible explanation: the Cthaeh and it’s tree were part of the land that was moved sideways into the Faen realm.

Speaking of the Great Stone Road: it ends in Imre on the FC map, but if you were to extrapolate it westward, it would go very near to the Reft. Suppose the Stone Road once did lead past Imre, and was part of the land that was moved into the Fae. Is there any evidence for that? Yes: when Felurian is leading Kvothe into the darkest part of the Fae, they actually walk on a stone road for awhile. It seems like an odd place for a stone road: the darkest part of the Faen realm. Perhaps it was there before it was the Fae.

Non sequitor random thought: maybe Hallowfell was the place Kvothe killed an angel. (Think about it.)

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db3006
12 years ago

@105
What great thinking! Are you saying…
Hollow = holy and fell = cut down or kill?
Who is the angel? Ben?

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Dessert
12 years ago

I decided to read closely the parts about Meluan Lackless, in terms of what the Cthaeh said. Who sticks closest to the Maer’s side than her (and maybe Stapes). Plus, if Kvothe finds that he needs the lockless box later on and he has held it in his own hands, and his own edema blood ruined any chances of a second time, that could be what the Cthaeh finds so funny.

What I found was confirmation (in my mind) that the lockless box holds the name of Iax.

What I was reading was the scene where Kvothe looks at the lockless box. When asked to guess what the box contains he says “something smaller than a saltbox”. Given the meaning of Hal-, I’ll leave the conclusions to you. Given the nature of the box (containing iron and copper), then it is likely Iax is of fae nature. Additionally, when the Maer suggests cutting open the box Meluan replies, “I would sooner think of salting every acre of our lands.” This ties in with our salt sowing ideas of Haliax. Also, when you consider the nursery rhyme line “In a box, no lid or locks/Lackless keeps her husband’s rocks,” the Maer/Meluan are in some interesting company. Another from the rhyme: “She’s been dreaming and not sleeping,” this reminds me of Haliax (thousands of years without sleep).

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Dessert
12 years ago

gjts@102
Maybe even a D?

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Dessert
12 years ago

Kvothe kills Simmon.

I was thinking of pebbles that start landslides. I read through from after Kvothe meets the Cthaeh and a particular scene stood out to me.

Kvothe is talking to Fela and Simmon the day after his botched date with Denna. Fela is rather open about her past attraction to Kvothe and Simmon is appropriately jealous. He is soon pacified and the scene ends. However, the seed of jealousy has likely been sown. I can see this jealousy growing, probably with some assistance from Kvothe (as he is prone to doing). This will lead to Simmon doing something foolish, such as challenging Kvothe to a duel, and Kvothe being too proud to back down. At the end of the duel, Simmon will likely be dead and Kvothe will have earned the name “Poet-Killer” and Saicere will have officially become Caesura.

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12 years ago

Hey all, just a quick comment about the translations of ‘ash’. I’m sorry if this has been posted before, I haven’t had time to read all the comments.

I think we may be reading too much into the fact that when translated the word used is for the tree, not the burnt remains. If asked which meaning of the word to use Pat would have to say the tree. Because, due to the scene it appears in, using the burnt remains word would have made no sense to foreign speakers and confirmed the dual meaning to english speakers.

So, assuming we are correct that ash is used as a double entendre, this word play only works in english. Therefore I don’t think we should totally write off the master ash/cinder connection.

If Pat does a Q+A after day 3 is out then I already have my question: “how many language tricks and subtle clues had to be left out when translating? (ash/cinder, not tally a lot less etc)

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12 years ago

Dessert@109

I have a feeling PR has a surprise of that magnitude up his sleeve (which is odd because there weren’t really a lot of surprises in the first two books, not being expelled in NotW and realizing he missed Cinder in WMF being the biggest ones). However, I doubt killing Simmon is that surprise, for two reasons: 1. Kote says everyone who he killed deserved it, and I think K would consider Simmon to be the absolute last person who deserves to be killed, even if Simmon had acted in jealousy, and 2. Kote spoke with fond rememberance of watching the first spark of love between Fela and Simmon, something he’d be unlikely to do if that spark of love later led to Simmon’s death.

For the similar reasons, I’m inclined to believe stevenhalter’s theory that the angel K kills (assuming it’s not just a rumor) might be someone more like Dagon. Such as, for example, Dagon.

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12 years ago

Re: Simmon

Had I but world enough and time and all that.

Rothfuss has said, “That’s my job as an author. It’s to sometimes break your heart. Joss Whedon knows this.” It appears in print and was repeated at the signing I attended. You can hear it for yourself in Sword and Laser Podcast #54 (@28:45.)

He’s also repeatedly pimped Whedon in interviews, appearances, and via the blog. I obviously don’t wanna go ALL THE SPOILERS. On the other hand, most folks participating in this sort of nerdery must have encountered at least some of his work by now.

One of his signature elements is the death of “the absolute last person who deserves to be killed.”

With that in mind:

“To the King?” Aaron Said. “No,” the innkeeper said, his voice surprisingly firm. He held up his glass. “To old friends who deserved better than they got.” (WMF141)

That night, and for many to come, Wil and Sim took turns watching over me as I slept, keeping me safe with their Alar. They were the best sort of friends. The sort everyone hopes for but no one deserves, least of all me. (WMF 198)

I saw Fela turn her head to look at Simmon, almost as if she were surprised to see him sitting there. No, it was almost as if up until that point, he’d just been occupying space around her, like a piece of furniture. But this time when she looked at him, she took all of him in. His sandy hair, the line of his jaw, the span of his shoulders beneath his shirt. This time when she looked, she actually saw him. Let me say this. It was worth the the whole awful, irritating time spent searching the Archives just to watch that moment happen. It was worth the blood and the fear of death to see her fall in love with him. Just a little. Just the first faint breath of love, so light she probably didn’t notice it herself. It wasn’t dramatic, like some bolt of lightning with a crack of thunder following. It was more like when flint strikes steel and the spark fades almost too fast for you to see. But still, you know it’s there, down where you can’t see, kindling. (WMF225)

It reads like three strokes paring the range of possibilities down to a single individual. Maybe everyone he’s ever known is dead. Maybe he feels responsible for many lives. But there’s a special sorrow for one in particular.

I’ll say I have no bulletproof idea why or how he dies. This has just sat and stewed in some dark corner since my first read. I think “the worst kind of tragedy,” in this context, would be Kvothe killing him, or at least bearing the blame. This is his closest friend we’re talking about.

I doubt it’s jealousy. There’s really no evidence of that in Kvothe’s character at all, and it’s unlikely to develop. And he’s unlikely to justify manslaughter the same way he justified Alleg and his troupe.

“I’ve killed men and things that were more than men. Every one of them deserved it.” (NW48)

He’s pretty good at meeting that condition. An insult to his pride? Dishonoring the Ruh? Thwarting his search for the Seven? Revealing his secret?

I posted a bit more in Summary 4: Post 67 (link), but it’s almost criminally coy.

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schnoerpfelchen
12 years ago

I’m not sure if I over-read something, but I noticed that some people say, Kvothe changed his name and lost his Alar. But on page fifty of my e-book version, he shattered a bootle of this strawberrie(!!)drink with a move of his hand. Doesn’t that meen, his Alar does still exist? Or have I missunderstood something?

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12 years ago

@113: Kvothe changing his Name and/or losing his Alar are matters of speculation, and there isn’t any general agreement about either topic. Similarly, the specific reason behind the bottle shattering is up for debate. Was it sympathy? Was it Naming? Was it some new type of magic that we haven’t seen otherwise? Was it a random occurrence (bottles of wine do, on occasion, shatter on their own…)?

RE Simmon:

@111 — I agree that Pat has a huge surprise up his sleeve (it is, afterall, his MO, as per Princess et al.), and I also don’t think that the surprise is Kvothe killing Sim. It’s possible (as thistlepong points out @112 and in Summary 4), but it doesn’t feel right to me. I do, however, think that Sim is probably dead, and Kvothe feels that he bears the blame, whether he really does or not. But hands-on killing Sim himself, I don’t know about that one…

Which brings me to a crazy tin-foil-hat theory: {tinfoil}

What if Fela is… Princess Ariel.

What do we actually know about her? Not a whole lot about her background, honestly. We know that she is wealthy (such that she can have a fancy cloak made for Kvothe, has a private room, nice clothes, etc.), so she is probably “upper middle class” or noble. We know that she has skill Naming and sculpting. We know that she is beautiful, relatively young, and has been at the University for several years. But we don’t know much more (at least that I can think of off hand.)

So, what if she is Princess Ariel, in disguise at the University?

There are several ways this could play out.
1) perhaps the Killed-King is Fela’s father. He doesn’t approve of Sim as a SO for Fela, and has him killed. Kvothe goes on revenging mode, kills the king, starts the war. The penitent king, (the Maer?), puts the price on Kvothe’s head, he fakes his death and goes into hiding etc.

2) Sim and Fela get married and inherit the thrones, and become K&Q of Vintas. Ambrose has Sim, or both Sim and Fela, killed and blames it on Kvothe (this not only brings A closer to the throne, it eliminates Kvothe’s best friends and causes him to be blamed for it — fairly genius on Ambrose’s part…). Kvothe figures it out, kills Ambrose in Imre — cracked stones and all, fakes his death (pulls a Peter Pettigrew?), and goes into hiding.

3) Due to royal customs, arrangement, decree, etc., Fela has to marry someone else. Sim challenges him to a duel and is killed. Kvothe seeks revenge against either the king, Fela’s other suitor, or both. King-Killing ensues.

4) I’m sure there are other, but those come to mind off hand…

{/tinfoil}

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12 years ago

JohnPoint@114

In WMF Kindle Ch36 “All This Knowing” Will says Fela is Modegan and a bit later in Ch149 “Tangled”, Kvothe talks about her Modegan accent when Sim gets jealous that Fela is flirting with Kvothe. Does this put a dent in your tinfoil hat?

Or maybe you think Fela/Ariel might be a (il)legitimate Vintish Calinthis family heiress who was brought up in secret/hiding in Modeg?

FYI – Just in case you might think Kvothe kills the Modegan High King (which I dont think you are saying), PR mentions that Kvothe never travels to Modeg.

http://blogcritics.org/books/article/worldcon-interview-with-patrick-rothfuss-author/page-5/

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Dessert
12 years ago

Doesn’t Kvothe kill Roderic Calanthis?

I thought the poisoning of the flits in the Maer’s room was pretty open foreshadowing.

@112.thistlepong

Simmon would be jealous of Kvothe, not the other way round.

Also:
“It was worth the blood and the fear of death to see her fall in love with him.”

This suggests his death is drawn out and painful. It also indicates that there is someone else killing him (fear).


Has anyone looked into the meaning of the name dagon? Seems to be fertility god, or little fish… Not sure what to make of it. Only other source I can think of is from a video game where an item called “Dagon” casts a lightning bolt on an enemy, it’s probably just a coincidence though.

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12 years ago

Jez @115 — Thanks, I didn’t remember that.

Honestly, Fela=Ariel was mostly just a silly thought in response to the ideas about Kvothe killing Sim (which I don’t buy), but you never know. We don’t know much about Fela, we know nothing about Ariel, and we’ve speculated that Sim is dead. I don’t think that we know for certain that Ariel is Vintish, either, do we?

Dessert @116 — it’s certainly a strong possibility (also, given the foreshadowing re allowing swords in his presence bringing him to harm some day), but it’s far from certain.

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12 years ago

@105 – I think you’re onto something important. First of all, Iax ‘stole’ the moon, and this caused the war. So the idea that he literally stole a chunk of land fits in.

Here’s a variation of your idea. The Fae realm may be a single, razor-thin vertical slice of the FC – a cross-section – that was stolen and then laid out in the-time-dimension-converted-to-space, hence the realm of Twilight, etc. That sliver-thin cross-section – from sky to crust – would actually have the appearance of a cloth. It could have been folded like a cloth, tucked into a box, and later unfolded just like a cloth. It was then dragged through the missing dimension of spacetime to give it the third-spatial dimension (think of an accordion expanding), but it’s not really a spatial dimension, it’s time. So the Fae realm is the same sliver at different times of a singe day, only time has truly been converted to space. Such a process could be described as ‘sewing from whole cloth’.

Over time, this new landscape could have developed a varied topography we associate with a normal three-dimensional space.

I know this doesn’t explain the CTH’s presence in the Fae realm. Ah well. Maybe the cloth included a cross-section of the Wheel as well, taking the CTH with it. A Wheel dragged through the time dimension would look like a cylinder. The tree trunk? I know that’s a stretch. But it’s semi-congruent with Roah being iron-like.

More likely, Cinder tossed him in there. His name does suggest mastery of iron.

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12 years ago

Re: Simmon

I completely agree with thistlepong that Simmon is gonna bite it… he too much of a “good person” for us to not be extremely hurt when he goes. Plus, like it was said above…it would be Whedon-esque…

Also, if I have to make guesses about the plot, I’m gong to go with Ambrose somehow ascending the throne, tries “again” to have Kvothe killed, Sim takes the meta-bullet, Kvothe goes on a rampage, kills Ambrose, Alveron ascends “penitently” and is forced to call a manhunt for Kvothe…

(puts on tinfoil hat)

Also, what if Bast is an agent of the Chandrian, specifically Cinder

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12 years ago

John@117 -No prob. I also don’t know who Ariel is. Vintish probably but I really don’t know. Every now and then, I try to branch out into speculation (in lots of areas), only to encounter road blocks, missing roads or a dead-end. (Cue: frustration music).

I always get confused with the “tinfoil hat” expression. Is it similar to “conspiracy theorising” or maybe something like “tongue in cheek”?

Tymerion@119 – I guess it could be possible for Ambrose to jump ahead of Alveron in the Vintish line of succession if he married a Calanthis heir. I like this idea. But a lack of info by PR (on purpose) on Vintish succession rules is frustrating as all hell.

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12 years ago

greyhood@118

You know, I hope that’s close to the truth. It reminds me of Parsifal: “You see, my son/here time becomes space.” And it dovetails nicely with the notion that part of the world-soul of the Four Corners was used to make Faen. (I think it was re-termed collective unconscious for the Admissions interview.)

There’s a much longer post I don’t have the time for at the moment, but I wanted to give you props. I don’t really have anything invested in the Cthaeh always having had been there, so I don’t see it as a wrinkle.

Jez@120 What’s deliberately confusing about Vintish succession?

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12 years ago

@@@@@ Jez re tinfoil hats — I guess I think of it as “tongue in cheek conspiracy theorizing.” At least when I use it to refer to myself. Traditionally, it’s probably more the conspiracy theory realm (being a faraday cage to keep out mind probes, or something like that), but I like to use it somewhat ironically.

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12 years ago

@tinfoil hats — Yeah, I just do it when I’m about to say something completely insane/stupid…I want it to be a buffer

@118-greyhood, The visual of your theory is fascinating, ideas like this make me wish we could learn more about the meta-physical makeup of 4C. I feel like there’s so many things we don’t understand, it’s like shooting an arrow into the darkness and hoping you roll a nat20.

But on the other hand there’s so much to be said about NOT knowing. It’s kind of refreshing to have no clue whatsoever to what is going to happen…it’s true dramatic tension, and is really hard to find in literature nowadays…

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

Why would Felurian be living at a walkable distance from the most evil creature in history? Why wasn’t there anyone guarding the Cthaeh? What happens when the Cthaeh bites someone?
We probably won’t get the answers to these questions, but they need to be considered.

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12 years ago

@124-kaizoku — I would guess that distance in the Fae realm is not based the same as our reality. It seems to me that something about K, perhap his “darkness’, is what draws him through the Fae realm to the CTH…

We do know that the concept of distance exists in the realm, Bast refers to his home as being from a totally different part of the Mael than where the skin-dancer is from somewhere else that is “as far away as anywhere can be in the fae”

As for what happens if CTH bites someone? that seems to be truly frightening to me…perhaps it has something to do with the skin-dancers? What kind of infection would it be? hmm…sounds bad

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12 years ago

greyhood@118

I like that theory a lot, especially the idea that the dimension of time was directly projected into a dimension of space in Faen. Also like the suggestion of how Iax could have folded up the land he took and folded it into a box, it would match the idea of a folding house in Hespe’s story. And certainly cloth would be a good metaphor. Excellent.

And now for a random thought. We’ve noticed before that Tinusa and Belen have similar names to geographic locations in Kvothe’s time. Perhaps even Emlen (Anilin). What about Vaeret? It is only a voiced consonant away from Faeret (V is a voiced F). I wonder if that city had any special connection to Faen?

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Dessert
12 years ago

Why does everyone love the moon so much?

The answer is simple, the moon is more than a pretty rock in the sky. The moon influences the tides of the magic that imbues the world.

When Iax stole the moon he robbed the Four Corners of magic, infusing the fae with the worlds magic (this magic saturation gave the Fae some level of consciousness that Kvothe senses). This was what started the creation war and split the Ruach into Faelings and Humans. Those who stayed in the Fae gained considerable power and immortality, while those who stayed in the Four Corners were robbed of power and longevity. When the Fae enter the mortal world, they are left with a fraction of the power they hold in the Fae because there is less magic to manipulate in the Four Corners. The Fae is thick with magic, meaning that matter and time in the Fae is incredibly malleable, hence the food materializing in Felurian’s Glade and various other phenomena (time dilation).

This also explains the travel between the Fae and the Four Corners. When the moon is entirely in the Four Corners, the magic of the Fae is pulled towards the Four corners. When the moon is in the Fae, the residual magic of the Four Corners is drawn to the Fae.

This would also give the Cthaeh a motive for what he does. The Cthaeh desired more power, so he tricked Iax into stealing the moon (Iax was amongst the few powerful namers who could, the Cthaeh wasn’t). The Cthaeh managed to absorb a lot of this power by staying at the core of the Fae (his tree). If he leaves the tree he loses his powers (perhaps even his oracle powers) and would likely be killed/killable. So he must win the war against his enemies (presumably the angels/amyr), or they will destroy the Fae and redistribute the power away from the Cthaeh and towards the Four Corners.

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12 years ago

thistlepong@121 and robocarp@126 – thanks.

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Dessert
12 years ago

Haven (rookery, crockery) was originally a fortress designed to defend against the Fae.

These quotes are from Kvothe’s visit with Elodin.

1. “… But something wasn’t quite right. The closer we got to the gates, the more I doubted this was some nobleman’s estate. Maybe it was something about the design of the gardens, or the fact that the wrought-iron fence surrounding the lawns was nearly ten feet tall and unclimable to my well-trained thief’s eye.”

Sounds like it was designed to keep people out as much as in. There’s also 2 guards at the gate.

2. ” ‘How many more could we fit if we needed?’ Elodin asked him.
‘Another hundred-fifty easy.’ Jeremysaid… ‘More in a pinch.’ ”

What kind of pinch?

3. ” The clerk mentions: “The moon’s getting full, too. You know how it gets.”

Moon, Fae.

4. “Why would anyone go through all the trouble of making a solid copper door?
The window frame is copper too. Copper is magic neutral (like iron is anti-magical).

5. “More copper, I thought. Veins of copper running through blocks of stone that made the wall.”

Blocks of stone, sounds like castle wall material.

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deviantlightning
12 years ago

I hate most speculation that isn’t founded on actual written evidence or follows some obvious literary rule or convention.

Occam’s Razor guys. [Edited by moderator.]

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deviantlightning
12 years ago

I have to make a special point of saying that “magic” isn’t any single one thing in Kingkiller trilogy. They don’t all follow the same rules and there is no Force or mystical energy field that makes magic possible and universally well-behaved.

They’re just facts about existence. Nothing more and nothing less. It’s only “magic” because people don’t understand the things arcanists take for granted. Kvothe describes starting fires with sympathy as commonplace as lacing on boots for arcanists. Elodin calls naming “real magic” only because it’s fundamentally unknowable to the waking minds of humans.

So saying that the moon is the source all magic energy or that copper is some universal ward against all magic just seems kind of silly. (The latter is demonstrably not true, since having copper wouldn’t help you against malicious sympathy or alchemy.)

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12 years ago

Hey, deviantlightning.

I hate most speculation that isn’t founded on actual written evidence or follows some obvious literary rule or convention.

Okay. Take a good long look at A Fox’s work on Dagon and stint thy clep, then. It’s based on textual evidence and guided by occam’s razor. It’s based on fewer assumptions than Cinder-as-Ash, in fact.

Occam’s Razor guys. You’re [ed: mistaken] if you speculate that Dagon is Cinder or anything other than a minor character.

Keep in mind occam’s razor isn’t a natural law; it’s an heuristic convenience. A gimmick. It’s incredibly useful if you know how to wield it.

Consider your posts in Part 11.

You spend four paragraphs rambling in support of the conclusion that Alveron’s discussion of power useless. You use two, if I’m being generous, textual examples, address no conventions, and bring a lot of baggage to it. To be fair, it’s not a theory. You’re just complaining. Razor? It’s there for a reason. Heck, he’s in hiding ’cause he ran afoul of temporal power.

You reject Bredon as Ash based on a single point of contention which you suggest could apply to several named characters. This single point is almost irrelevant to the theory. But, y’know, whatever. I don’t wanna waste a lot of time on it ’cause the substance, if we can call it that, of the argument you do make is so weak. Denna’s patron is one of the Seven because the Seven are cruel and because her song allegedly fits the apparent motives of the Seven. The Cthaeh calls the beatings a game, not a cruelty. The “apparent motives” of the Chandrian are Kvothe’s assumptions: that the Chandrian destroy any reference to them. “The Seven Sorrows” doesn’t make her patron a Chandrian. Razor? The Seven are looking for the young woman that keeps talking about them, but she keeps moving around.

By far your most confounding assertion in that thread is your last, though: the oddities in Denna’s letter are only cutesy ironies. This is actually that obvious literary convention you were going on about. The one where the letter holds a code, acrostic, or other secret meaning. Better yet, when asked about it specifically, Pat indicated that, yah, there’s something going on there. If only the narrative referred to ciphers and wordplay, then we’d really have something. Razor? A letter with odd capitalization in a fantasy novel at least deserves a look.
[Comment edited by moderator.]
Edited to conform with the intent of the moderator edits – t

stevenhalter
12 years ago

@deviantlighting:
Since a Tinker might very well travel about with an ass rather than a mule, and since that ass might very well be a powerful fae lord, any hat that it was wearing would doubtless be a powerful magical implement. If one were such a hat, then it could only have been through a powerful spell of transmorgification. Obviously it would be a sign of high power to have such a hat.
::sarcasm::

BMcGovern
Admin
12 years ago

@deviantlightning and thistlepong: I’ve just edited both of your comments, for the sake of relative civility. Let’s try to keep these arguments more or less polite. Thanks!

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Marco.
12 years ago

@TP(132)
The one where the letter holds a code, acrostic, or other secret meaning. Better yet, when asked about it specifically, Pat indicated that, yah, there’s something going on there.

Do you have a source for this?

The code or whatever it is in Denna’s letter is my favorite unsolved mystery in the series because it’s in plain sight, and a puzzle. My efforts at decoding it haven’t bourne much fruit, so I’d be incredibly interested to see that Pat confirmed that there’s actually something where I’m looking and I’m not just spinning my wheels.

Thanks in advance.

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deviantlightning
12 years ago

I question whether you actually understand what the Razor is. I’m also going to assume that you think my ego is tied-up in getting an accurate prediction and that time will vindicate me or whatever. Except I don’t care.

I reject the reasoning for Bredon being Ash. And it has to be better than the one piece of evidence that says he’s an older man comfortable with wealth.

I’m not expecting exact proof, but it’s still gotta be better then, “he’s comfortable with wealth and somewhat mysterious.” At the very least, some foreshadowing happening around Bredon would make a very strong case for this theory, but that just doesn’t happen.

You know what? I’m just going to go, “Hey guys, I think Count Threpe is Ash!” It’s certainly possible. Come on. He’s an older well-dressed noble comfortable with wealth! (And if I just so happen to be right, it’s because I was using good reasoning!)

Yes, Denna’s beatings is a game. That’s my entire point. It’s a pretty neat coincidence that Haliax has rebuked the Chandrian for this kind of behavior.

The Chandrian would have no reason to go stop somebody from singing a song lionizing one of their kind, assuming that Kvothe is right in believing that Laenre was a villain and not a hero.

I find it funny that you call Kvothe’s beliefs on the subject to be just “assumptions.” Except that they’re pretty well-evidenced and reasonable assumptions. They attacked a site where an urn depicting them was found and attack Kvothe’s troupe. He’s also heard from Haliax’s mouth that their enemies are the Amyr, Sithe and the Singers; whoever those are. So it’s a pretty reasonable to guess that they want to hide evidence of their existence for survival.

Am I wrong? It’s possible. But there’s at least a couple points of data there already and we have reason to believe that Denna’s story ends in tragedy.

As for Denna’s letter, you’re obviously trying to bring down a peg. If Rothfuss did officially say there’s something there, that’s a point in your favor. Sorry for making the reasonable assumption that Denna is actually being drunk and frivolous there. CONFOUNDING ASSERTION.

The problem here is that if there’s some special cipher here, why would she send it to Kvothe and then never talk about it at some later opportunity whe she’s alone with him?

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deviantlightning
12 years ago

As for Dagon being Ash, yeah, the Razor applies here. It requires a lot of evidence to materialize in order to support it.

What if Dagon is a shapeshifter? And he obiously entered Maer’s employ to keep an ear to the ground. And so on.

We know absolutely nothing about the man other than that he’s a psychotic mad dog in Alvernon’s employ and we have no way of confirming anything else about him, even by reference to narrative devices like foreshadowing or recurring theme.

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12 years ago

@deviantlightning
If I remember correctly, Denna mentions, that Ash is a surprisingly good dancer and Bredon mentions that he has taken to dancing lately. To me this seems like a pretty solid hint, as far as these things go.

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12 years ago

Marco@135
A poster on Westeros wrote to him and asked about it. Please note I said indicated rather than confirmed. His reply was something like, “there are more interesting things than the letter.” I can’t remember the exact wording and that’s made recovering the post rather difficult, given all the fantasy novels – including their raison d’etre – which feature a significant letter.

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Marco.
12 years ago

@137

We have no hard evidence, but Kvothe’s sleeping mind is powerful and perceptive. His reaction to Dagon is noteworthy:

“When his eyes touched me, all the deep feral instincts that had kept me alive on the streets of Tarbean told me to run. Hide. Do anything so long as it took me far away from this man.”

If he’s a nobody then Kvothe’s reaction needs explaining. Why the fear? If he’s a soldier, maybe even one with a bad reputation that Kvothe has heard of, why the viceral reaction?

I’ll answer my own question: It’s because of the “touching” of eyes. I don’t think this word choice is a concidence. The Adem touch eyes, and both Elodin and Magyn(sp?) have been able to effect Kvothe by looking in his eyes. I think there is something magical going on here, which identifies Dagon as some sort of magical player. As for what kind, who knows?

stevenhalter
12 years ago

I’ll repost these old entries since it seems that new people are looking at the letter but not the posts:(from
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/01/rothfuss-reread-speculative-summary-part-6-qexpect-disaster-every-seven-yearsq-speculations-on-kote#234772)

I took another look at Denna’s odd letter with an eye towards hiding in plain sight and noticed something. If we take only the words that absolutely shouldn’t be capitalized and are we have:
Opportunity
Occasional
Sporadic
Screaming
Horses
Cussing
Writing
Furtherence
Means
Letter

So, OOSSHCWFML. From this jumble we can get:
WMF SCHOOLS

Now, this could be a coincidence, but the WMF seems like a good crib phrase. If this is a message in the letter then we would have to ask what Denna is trying to say. One interpretation would seem to be a warning to Kvothe about staying at the University. When they meet next D doesn’t say anything about this to Kvothe, but maybe she was happy he was at the U any more.

We have seen that Kvothe has enemies at the U. There are Ambrose and a few masters. Maybe the U isn’t the home Kvothe thinks it to be.

Or maybe something else, or that isn’t really the message.

Then later thistlepong mentioned I had missed the M and Y:

thistlepong@56: M from Mercenaries and Y from You probably belong. “Adem Mercenaries” could be a proper name but a lone Y is a bit odd although it could be a stand in for “Why?”.
So, you could end up with:
WMF Schools (discarding Y) or
WMF my schools or My WMF Schools

That is about as much of a message as I could massage out of D’s letter.

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deviantlightning
12 years ago

Stapes feels the same way and Kvothe attributes it to his survival instincts from Tarbean. Often this means nothing more sinister than older street rats or brutal guards. They are nonetheless quite life-threatening.

I think it’s fairly safe to say that Dagon acts and looks like a psychopath. This isn’t hard, he just needs to look like a muscular man with weapons, scars and a cold affect.

I don’t think of Dagon as anythig other than a dangerous psychopath who has made a career choice befitting a psychopath. He’s too useful to get rid of and follows enough rules to avoid getting his head cut off.

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deviantlightning
12 years ago

@141

That seems really forced. Again, why wouldn’t Denna mention the letter later? Why be so circumspect in a private letter anyway? There isn’t any need for deception.

“WMF SCHOOLS” is a really vague message and you’d only get it if you were deliberately trying to arrange it to mean something.

Denna also doesn’t know anything about University politics and has only a vague notion of their disciplinary policies so why would she be in any position to warn Kvothe about anything?

stevenhalter
12 years ago

@143:If “WMF (MY) SCHOOLS” is the message, it is most likely Pat having fun with readers rather than a message from Denna to Kvothe. We discussed that later in the thread.

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12 years ago

@stevenhalter/marco

WMF MY SCHOOLS always suggested the sea (where she was/on which she traveled) in a storm, a night with no moon (which a lot of folks connect to her in one way or another), and the anger of a gentle man (which could be her patron). I tend to agree with Jo, though. If it’s significant, then there’s probably something else going on as well.

@deviantlightning

You’re demonstrating inattention to and unwillingness to engage with the community. I’d suggest reading the whole of Part 11 and Summary 8 before you reject the reasoning about Bredon.

“If a man comes into my hut and defecates on the floor, what do I do? Do I shut my eyes? No! I take a stick and break his head.”

“Okonkwo has spoken the truth,” said another man. “We should do something. But let us ostracize these men. We would then not be held accountable for their abominations.”

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deviantlightning
12 years ago

I’ve just read it all and it’s all mostly random shots in the dark. It just reinforces my opinion.

There’s a guess that Bredon is playing against the Chaeth. This is a proposition completely unrelated to him being Ash. Even if learned that Bredon were the Chaeth’s adversary it would do nothing to confirm that he’s Ash.

There’s a loose connection between Ash’s sadism and Bredon’s Tak. This is slightly better, but we’ve never seen evidence of sadism in Bredon as of yet. (More likely the “beautiful game” fits into the theme of Kvothe “chasing the wind” and developing his powers of intuition or his “sleeping mind.” He gets much better at Tak and calling the wind after he becomes good at those Zen/Lethani riddle games. Both the Adem and Bredon are there to teach him to appreciate reality on more than a conscious or egoistic level.)

For another thing, why do people have so much trouble seperating the proposition that he’s related to the Fae, to the proposition that he’s Ash? They don’t go hand-in-hand as a matter of course. (“I think Bredon is Ash. Here’s lots of speculation about the Fae.”) Bredon allegedly participating in pagan rituals isn’t evidence of him being Ash.

After going through the laundry list of every permutation of every possibility ever, there’s simply nothing of substance. (Except maybe Kah-Thurak’s mention of Ash being a dancer. But I haven’t found those exact parts of the book yet.)

I’m reminded of a certain webcomic artist having his audience guess his story correctly, but only because his audience had covered every space on the metaphorical target with metaphorical darts. (Hey, it’s possible that Ben, Skarpi, Ash and Bredon are all the same person!)

Your reponses don’t inspire confidence in me either, as they’re just a series of personal attacks and you seem incapable of using your own words or ideas to defend this idea.

Actually, that seems about right. You’re having to refer to quotations to insult me.

Nor should I have to trawl through everything written by every random stranger on the internet for you to defend an idea with something resembling a legitimate argument.

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Marco.
12 years ago

@142
Looks like we’re going to have to agree to disagree.

You think it’s safe to say he looks and acts like a psychopath – I see no textual evidence of this.

I think the “eyes touched” line is signifigant. YMMV.

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deviantlightning
12 years ago

@@@@@ Marco
I’ll take a polite disagreement.

Personally, I think you’re reading a bit much into it. Touching eyes is a rather common social gesture and there isn’t any particular emphasis on it as an act of magic.

Dagon’s “subtle” changes in attitude are really him asking unasked questions. “How much can I cut loose?”

To which, Alvernon replies, “Only this much.”

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12 years ago

Re “whole cloth” and the creation of the Fae:

I was just looking through an old interview of Pat (http://www.peter-hodges.com/2008/03/21/author-qa-patrick-rothfuss/), and found confirmation that Pat uses the term “whole cloth” to refer to a completely new creation. After being asked about whether Denna was based on someone or not, Pat’s response was:

So instead, let’s say I claim I made Denna from whole cloth. She is the pure child of my brain. Suddenly, you know Denna is purely make-believe, and as a result she becomes oddly insubstantial. Rootless. Less real.

Which I take to mean that the Fae was created entirely from scratch (as opposed to from a slice of the mortal, even though it’s a neat idea). Since Pat uses the term to mean something created afresh, then that is (almost certainly) what he meant when he wrote the line about the Fae being created from whole cloth.

@@@@@ deviantlightning:

Without jumping into the middle of the Bredan/Ash/Cinder/Dagon argument (which I have absolutely no desire to do at this point…) I recommend taking a step back, and considering the other views before rejecting them out of hand. One of the great things about this reread is that — almost universally — people here are very thoughtful and considerate, and people tend to research their ideas in detail and support their arguments from the text. Even in our most vigorous disagreements (c.f. Part 25) we tend to be good web citizens, and not attack each other. Many of the regular contributors have been following this reread for months — if not the entire 1.5 years it’s been online — and have read both books 4, 5, 6, or even more times. A few of the contributors (thistlepong: here’s looking at you), have encyclopedic knowledge about all things KKC/PR — dismiss their ideas at your own peril.

Edit to add: re the capitalizations in the letter, and to emphasize what stevenhalter said @@@@@144. I keep pointing this out for all sorts of issues, but it seems that I have to keep doing it: Pat doesn’t only include details in the book because they’re directly related to the plot.

He also includes details because they’re fun, and he got a kick out of writing them. As such, if the letter says “MY WMF SCHOOLS” or something like that, it could be because Pat wanted to leave a secret message for us, or just because he enjoyed leaving an easter egg. Not every detail in the book is directly relevant to the plot. the story, yes, but the plot, no. (Sorry Jo, I have to disagree with you on that one.)

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deviantlightning
12 years ago

With all due respect:
No.

I’m perfectly willing to believe that there are amenable, reasonable individuals with encyclopedic knowledge.

Some certain individuals simply haven’t demonstrated that.

And I dislike crass authoritarianism. If there really is such virtue in long-timers, they should be able to demonstrate it, not fall back on made-up internet seniority.

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dozier
12 years ago

1. I also kind of suspected the moon was related to magic, mainly because I couldn’t think of any other reason that would make it worth stealing and then starting a war over.
2. According to felurian, it seems they got to choose between staying in Fae and keeping their powers or going to the 4c. In a sense the fae are actually trapped in their world, and I wonder if kvothe did something to free them so reshi means savior or something like that. Maybe it’s part of bast’s motivation; he wants his reshi to wake up and finish what started
3. the more I think about it, the less I think that kvothe actually talked to the ctheath. It doesnt make any sense that he’d be allowed to walk away from something that’s connstantly guarded. he was literally taken aback by bast’s reaction because he had no actual information about it. We know kvothe is a liar and a story teller, and it seems like the type of thing he’d add because in every good story the hero talks to the CTH. I don’t think that makes it’s hints any less significant but I also think we shouldn’t make a big deal about what he decides to do as a result of their convo.

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Marco.
12 years ago

@148

“Touching eyes is a rather common social gesture and there isn’t any particular emphasis on it as an act of magic.”

DL,
I’ll agree with the first part of the line but disagree with the second. Touching eyes is a common social gesture, but in the four corners namers have the ability to do more with this action. Elodin stills Kvothe’s sleeping mind, Magwyn is able to determine Kvothe’s deep name. Rothfuss goes to lengths to describe this. We know Kvothe becomes a namer and his sleeping mind is capable of these things.
It seems extremely reasonable to me that Kvothe’s sleeping mind doing to Dagon what others have done to him, and the reaction is his sleeping mind trying to warn him of the danger.

Of course, we can’t say this definitivly, but I think the odds are better than even money.

Cheers

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12 years ago

Deviant, if you want to be welcome here, you’ll need to make yourself welcome. You will have to trawl through what’s been put forth regarding an idea if you wanna make a big fuss over it. And you need to hew to the text to support your own interpretations if you wanna be taken seriously.

I’ve no desire to inspire confidence in you, son. I want you to stop bein’ awful to folks I like.

Still, here’s a bone to worry:

Bredon is Ash because his colors are “ash gray and charcoal”

Not just gray. Not stone gray, which accounts for most of the gray in the novels. The same interview JohnPoint mentioned (fine frelling catch there, btw) includes this: “I’m just very careful with my words when I write. Obsessively careful. I’m the sort of person who worries about the difference between “slim” and “slender.”

Bredon is Ash because Ash beats Denna with his walking stick.

…something two characters, both in Severen, carry. So far no one’s taken the notion of Alveron being Denna’s patron too seriously.

Bredon is Ash because their presence and absence in Severen coincide.

Yah, I dunno what more folks would need, here. He’s there. She’s there. He leaves. She leaves.

Bredon is Ash beacuse the beatings are a game to him, not a cruelty.

At least half of Bredon’s scenes revolve around gaming. More is you consider court intrigue a game.

Bredon is Ash because Ash is “a surprisingly good dancer.”

…and Bredon is learning to dance. Again, this is just laid out like breadcrumbs.

Bredon is Ash ’cause the description from WMF roughly matches the one from NW.

Older. White haired. Gentlemanly. The basics do have to line up.

Bredon is Ash ’cause Ash implied dealings with the Maer

…and there’s Bredon with free run of Alveron’s court

We can stop at seven; that’s a good number. Wait a minute! None of those have anything to do with the Seven, the Amyr, or Faen. It just works: narrative, symbol, imagery. Without assumptions.

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Dessert
12 years ago

@131.deviantlightning

My use of the word magic was chosen due to it’s ambiguity. I did not mean, naming, grammarie, glamourie… I meant an underlying fabric that the universe was constructed from. The fabric is twisted, torn and woven by arcanists and the Fae. This manipulation of the fabric is known as magic(sympathy, naming, etc). As for evidence, I’ve got none. This is just a fun bit of speculation.

Although Kvothe is never explicitly told of copper’s properties in the frame story, there is evidence to suggest that there is more to copper than we thought.

Most notably the copper door, mesh and window frame in Haven, Taborlin’s copper sword in Marten’s story (why would you make a sword out of copper? even Dedan points this out) and the copper lock on his thrice-locked chest. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

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12 years ago

What is going on with all the nerd rage lately? Scalzi has been all over it this week, and then I come here, to a place I normally find to be sane and civil, to find more raging. BAH to that I say. Civility and intelligent discourse is the way to go. Let the trolls fall by the wayside.

thistlepong @153 – Well stated for many of the various reasons why one might conclude that Bredon is Ash. While it took me a while to come around on that particularly theory personally, the piece which drove me there was where you quote PR and his obsessive attention to every single word he writes. He has also noted that he wrote his books with subtelties which would require very careful reading to discover. I think his choice in description of ash gray regarding Bredon’s colors is the most telling piece of evidence offered. Thinking on that is what finally drew me around to Bredon being Ash.

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12 years ago

A separate topic now which I’d like to bring into the discussion, as I haven’t noted it in our discussion to this point (though I will admit I haven’t been able to go through all the comments in all of the re-read and follow-up).

The Penitent King. I know there has been a great deal of discussion about precisely who this is. Many have conjectured Alveron. I’m not certain what all the other theories out there are regarding that character. However, as I was reading through NotW yesterday afternoon, something stuck out to me, especially after reading the discussion re: Bredon as Ash. In Chapter 22, A Time for Demons (sorry, I only have a Kindle version in front of me so I can’t give a page), after “Encanis” has given Kvothe a full silver talent and rushed off, Kvothe hides himself as “Tehlu” and his coeterie pass.

Tehlu stood tall and proud in the back of a wagon drawn my four white horses. His silver mask gleamed in the torchlight. His white robes were immaculate and lined with fur at the cuff and collar. Grey-robed priests folled along beside the wagon, ringing bells and chanting. Many of them wore the heavy iron chains of penitent priests.

Emphasis added. We know that at one point in history the Church had a large hand in governing in Atur. Let’s also recall that Simmon is the 4th son of a duke. The third son is a priest. See WMF, Ch. 39, Contradictions. “…he has three older brothers and two sisters. The first son inherits. The father bought the second a military commission. The third was placed in the church.” That is, in fact, something which commonly took place in medieval/rennaissance families. First son inherits, second son is a soldier, third son is a priest. Maybe our Penitent King is one of these 3rd sons that was sent to become a priest, became a penitent priest (which I don’t think is mentioned anywhere else in the text other than this one scene), but ends up inheriting through the death of his elder brothers. Being such a devout Tehlin, that would necessarily put this king on a path to collide head-on with Kvothe in some way, this evil magic user who has already been brought before the iron law for his “Consortation with Demonic Power, Malicious Use of Unnatural Arts, Unprovoked Assault, and Malfeaseance.” Also, if the war is, as many have suggested, one between the Fae and mortal realms, it is not much of a stretch to think that such a conflict could have been started/perpetuated by a heavily religious leader, Lhin?

Honestly, it was thinking about Pat’s incredibly delicate and obsessive choice of words that led me on this path.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

Jhirrad@156:I like that. Good catch on the penitent priests phrase.

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Marco.
12 years ago

My biggest problem with Bredon as Ash: (Full disclosure – overall I think there’s too much circumstantial evidence to ignore)

Kvothe gave Denna’s patron the name Ash before meeting Bredon and Bredon’s colors turn out to be ahs gray.

This bothers me. If Kvothe had met Bredon and then called the patron Ash there’s a tidy explanation in my mind: Kvothe the namer is powerful and his sleeping mind knows the name of all things.

Taken in the other order it feels like cheap writing to me. Kvothe calls the patron Ash, and then he appears later with the color of ash gray? ZOMG what a coincidence! (coincidences like these are a pet peeve of mine)

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12 years ago

Marco @158 – Re-read that passage. Remember that it’s not just his naming prowess that caused that. A leaf from an ash tree fell into his mouth at the time. He declared, “The wind has decided for us. Master Ash.” And of course, we already know that the wind and Kvothe have a very close relationship. Why wouldn’t the wind help bring him the knowledge that he seeks?

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Marco.
12 years ago

Jhirrad @159
Thanks – I had forgotten about the wind deciding part. (Although admittedly this feels even cheaper to me.)

It’s an interesting thought about the wind taking an active role – are there any other instances of the wind (or water, or something similar) taking intentional actions?

Lastly, I tend to agree with TP that Rothfuss chooses his words very carefully and the similarities are meaningful (dancing, ash gray, etc). I just wish the clues were of higher quality – something that a clever character could concieveably figure out, and more than the right kind of leaf blowing into his face.

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12 years ago

Jhirrad@155

Many people on here have argued that Master Ash was named for an ash tree, and therefore it doesn’t matter that ashes are more or less the same thing as cinders.

I don’t know if you were one of the people doing that, but it seems to me that the same argument would apply to ash meaning the color.

If Breadon wearing ash clothes is evidence that he is Master Ash, then cinders being a kind of ash must also be evidence that Cinder is Master Ash, so at best this argument is a wash.

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BlightBringer
12 years ago

Okay, here is a new theory: I believe that Yllish knot stories are (or in someway related to) the “written magic”that Denna talks about. I believe this because:
1. Denna says “if someone saw the writing, even if they couldn’t read it, it would become true for them. They’d think a certain way, or act a certain way depending on what the writing said.” (WMF chp. 18, pg 152)

2. When Kvothe studies Yllish, there is one particular comment he makes on the nature of the language. “You couldn’t merely say “the Chancellors socks. Oh no. Too simple. All ownership was oddly dual: as if the Chancellor owned his socks, but at the same time the socks somehow gained ownership of the Chancellor. As if the simple act of owning socks somehow fundamentally changed the nature of a person.” (WMF chp 146 pg 949). I originally read this as a simple detail showing how difficult it was to learn Yllish, but the part about “changing nature” parellels directly to Denna’s “written magic.”

3. Denna has “lovely” braided into her hair in Yllish. As she uses the profits from suitors to get by, this could be an attempt to entrance her suitors subliminally/ magically. “Even if they couldn’t read it, it would become true for them,” and they would think her lovely.

4. Denna braids “Don’t speak to me” into her hair. Kvothe then says “I might be thick, but even I can read a sign that obvious. I closed my mouth, biting off the next thing I was about to say”
(WMF, chp. 148, pg. 972). On the surface, it seems like, Kvothe is just doing what she says in fear. However, could it be the writing making him “act a certain way?”

5. It appears the loeclos box has Yllish knots on it… perhaps saying you cannot open me? Be a bit cooler than just a clue in Yllish.

6. For those thinking “Yllish isn’t a written language! its knots!” perhaps Master Elodin can convince you. For interesting fact, Inyssa says “The Yllish never developed a written language.” Elodin replies “Not true. They used a system of woven knots.” he made a complex motion with his hands, as if braiding something.” and they were doing it long before we started scratching pictograms onto the skins of sheep.”
(WMF, chp. 15, pg 132)

If anyone finds some more info on Yllish/ written magic, or even something disproving my theory, I’d like to here :)

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Dessert
12 years ago

Been searching through for mentions of “Yllish” and “Yll” in WMF (ebooks ftw).

Things to note. The carvings on the leoclos box aren’t necessarily Yllish knots, Kvothe just guesses that (this is before he started learning Yllish).
He calls the name of the wind while reading a book of Yllish history and again when Denna has the knot saying lovely in her hair. Probably coincidence.

I like to think the Yllish are/were a faction that was disbanded/disappeared (like the amyr, singers, sithe), but there just isn’t enough (any) evidence to support it. Kvothe says they were “nearly ground to dust under the boots of the Aturan Empire”, which suggests they have been virtually non-existant for longer than 300 years. Although, Yllish people do seem to be scattered throughout the world (Deoch and various other miscellaneous encounters).

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12 years ago

Yll is marked on the map as a distinct country, so it exists, though I think there’s a remark somewhere about how small it is.

There’s some evidence that the Yllish culture extends further than Yll itself, though; the statement that Bredon beer is drunk by pregnant women in the Small Kingdoms gets the response ‘I’m not a pregnant Yllish woman’. I’m guessing that the the current country of Yll was the small part wuich escaped conquest, while the Small Kingdoms are places with Yllish culture which were conquered, but re-emerged when the empire broke up.

stevenhalter
12 years ago

Dessert@162:We’ve talked about Denna and magic writing and Yllish knots through the threads (google denna yll tor) and while there isn’t conclusive evidence, it does seem like a good theory. I lean that way myself.

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db3006
12 years ago

Something about knots has been on my mind for quite sometime…I am not sure if anyone else has commented on this.

In NoW while K is dreaming:

“Knots are interesting things,” Ben said as he worked. ” The knot will either be the strongest or the weakest part of the rope. It depends entirely on how well one makes the binding.” He held up his hands, showing me an impossibly complex pattern spread between his fingers.

Could the word “binding” refer to Sympathetic Binding instead of just simply binding? PR is so careful with words it may well be purpose in his choice of words.

I think there is a connection to Yllish knots as referenced @162 BlightBringer.

The complex knot pattern Ben shows K must be the solution to something. Could it be the solution to opening the Lackless box?

I think the dream gives us a number of clues not only to the knots and his father’s song, but also about Laclith, Abenthy and his father. It may well support previous assertions that all three are Amyr.

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12 years ago

…the original had links, which Tor hates from time to time…

@163/164
re: Yll

I’d second the search suggestion stevenhalter made. But, regarding Yll as a nation present and past, I can shed some light. According to Pat, they maintained that small section of the island still marked Yll on the map in the face of the Aturan Empire “beacuse they were cussed.” Along with extreme the extreme northwest corner of The Shald and extreme northeastern Modeg, it was one of the three fronts Kvothe mentions:

Partly because the military was fighting three different wars of conquest at the same time…

Clues in the text suggest they’re primarily sailors and, maybe, sheperds at the time of the narrative. Between Kvothe’s experiences and Denna’s “hardly anybody bothers with the knots,” we can infer that their language is in decline, if not dying; much like Native American dialects.

Red hair appears to be a maker of Yllish heritage, judging by Viari’s mistake with Kvothe. It’s a minor point of contention when folk discuss the, er, real background of his parents.

db3006@166

The dream sequence comes up from time to time, but, to the best of my knowledge, no satisfactory interpretations have come up to explain its various images.

Knots come up more frequently along with the speculation that Denna’s Yllish braids constitute the writing magic Denna’s intersted in. Ben’s knot in the dream hasn’t come up again. The sailors’ knots come back on his way home from Vintas: he’s not much of a knotter, but he’s good and untying them.

Knot appears in too many contexts for the word itself to make a passage significant, but it’s clearly important to the story in some way: Jax’s knot, Ben’s knot, Yllish story knots. I knew next to nothing about knots when I read NW. Now I know something and when I think about them my interest flares quickly and burns out. Good luck.

Interesting Search terms:
Quipu – the Earth version of Yllish
List of Binding Knots

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

Yll was ‘ground to dust’ under the Aturan empire, the Lackless family lost power (but I think in a different period, sso weak point I know).
The Lackless box has a Yllish story knot.
(some) Yllish people have red hair. Kvothe, whose mother is (most probably) a Lackless, has red hair.
This very strongly suggests a deeper connection between Yll and the Lackless family. Maybe the Lackless are of Yllish descent, and/or maybe even of part Faen descent, and/or perhaps the Yll are of part Faen descent- which would explain K changing eye colour, K’s naming prowess(maybe), the box having a magical object, and give a greater significance to D visiting Yll.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

[i]All the while I watched Caudicus for some telltale sign. Some whisper of nervousness, a bead of sweat, a moment’s hesitation. But there was nothing. Not the slightest indication he was preparing a poison for the Maer. He was perfectly comfortable, utterly at ease[/i]
I think it is significant. Any thoughts on him being possessed/controlled/impersonated using Faen magic? Maybe he regains control and runs for it knowing that claiming to be possessed won’t be a plausible excuse. Honestly any theory I come up with feels inadequate and flawed. But I still feel this is significant.

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12 years ago

@169

Laurian cannot be shown to havehad red hair.

@170

He’s Stercus. Kvothe dismisses the blue flames in his tower ’cause he’s a fool. ::arch, musing::

He’s an alchemist. The alembic gives him away. He’s not poisoning the Alveron. Kvothe’s ignorance makes him jump to the wrong conclusion. ::too complicated:: Stapes’s visit to Caudicus is never accounted for. ::formally serious:: He clearly warned Caudicus about Kvothe and gave Kvothe the ring not for saving Rand, but for unknowingly absolving Stapes. ::tinfoil::

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12 years ago

FYI —

Worldbuilders has started (see Pat’s blog for details). Pat’s first goal is 50,000 — when he gets there, he is going to explain the calendar and currency system:

Over the years, I’ve had countless requests that I explain the details about the calendar and the currency system of the Four Corners.

So. After we hit 50K, that’s just what I’ll do. I’ll spill some of the secrets of my world onto the blog. And for the hardcore geeks out there, we’ll even put up a cool widget that will do conversions between Vintish pennies and Cealdish jots.

http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com

stevenhalter
12 years ago

JohnPoint@172:That’s cool. Also, if we’re really lucky maybe one of us will win the “Favor from Pat:”

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12 years ago

Yeah, that would be amazing! The question, however, would be what to do with it?

Yikes… it’s almost like thinking about what to do with lottery winnings were one to “hit the jackpot” …!

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12 years ago

I think it’s reasonably clear that Laurian did not have red hair; the question ‘Did you bed down with a red-haired god?’ would not make sense if she had red hair herself.

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BlightBringer
12 years ago

@175
Also, it says “Dark Laurian” in the poem from Arliden, so she clearly has black hair, as shes not Cealdish.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

@171,175,176
I said:
Kvothe, whose mother is (most probably) a Lackless, has red hair.
or removing the bracketed part,
Kvothe, whose mother is a Lackless, has red hair.
As in, Kvothe has red hair. I never said his mother has red hair.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

Hespe’s moon story always portrays Jax ‘catching’ the moon, never stealing it. It could argued that the Moon was being stolen from the mortal world, but someone who heard the story would use the word ‘catch’ not steal.
But:
“I heard a story once,” I said. “About a man who stole the moon.”
Felurian’s expression went solemn. She unlaced her fingers from mine and looked down at the stone in her hand. “that was the end of it all.” She sighed. “until he stole the moon there was some hope for peace.”
Maybe it’s just the author’s complete knowledge of the story spilling over to put in the word ‘steal’ which would more accurately describe what actually happened.

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

I’ve always assumed that the Chandrian’s, or at least Haliax’s goal is ending the world so that he can end his agony with oblivion.
Maybe their main current goal is to conquer the mortal world by seizing control of all kingdoms etc.? After which they’ll use mortal armies to fight Faen folk.
Even if all Faens are magically powerful, they could still possibly be subdued with iron.
If the Maer was killed, his lands will become chaotic.
So they (chandrian) bring the Maer into a super weakened state where he is easily controlled and suggestible.
They would follow this up by using the Maer’s armies to attack Roderic. They couldn’t poison Roderic effectively because he might be doubly paranoid about arcanists and keep them away, or some other reason we don’t know yet.
To create tension between Roderic and the Maer, they loot the Maer’s tax collectors, which would piss off Roderic since he isn’t getting his share. Or maybe they would make it appear that Roderic’s people were looting the Maer’s tax collectors.
How would this tie in with them trying to hide all knowledge about them from mortals?

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

Why does everyone focus on Stick by the Maer when they speculate on the Cthaeh’s joke? I always though it obvious that the joke was “he will lead you to their door” where ‘door’ would be a literal door. If he stuck with the Maer he would have had good relations with Meluan, which might lead to him getting a look at the Lackless door, which might get him to the Amyr.

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12 years ago

Kaizoku@179

I’ve actually begun to think that (attacking the Fae) was the Chandrian’s goal from the beginning. It failed to happen right away because one city was not betrayed and the Empire was left with hope, then the Chandrian’s plan got severely derailed by a well-known figure about the time the Lockless box came to be. When the Aturan Empire collapsed and the Amyr were disbanded the Chandrian were able to resume their plans. So I could definitely believe your theory.

I came to this theory, incidentally, after having spent a lot of time thinking about how the world of the Creation War could become the world of Kvothe in a way that makes sense and fits the known facts. (I think a lot of us have been on the wrong track for quite a while, but I am still pondering the details.)

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hex
12 years ago

A timely and relevant (I hope) addition to the Denna-Yllish knot connection. On Pat’s blog, he’s mentioned that he has worked with a jewler for over a year to create a replica of Denna’s ring. Here’s what he said, emphasis mine:

But recently, Badali has recently made a few other pieces jewelry based on my books. The first of these is Denna’s Ring:
I have to tell you, they worked with me for a *long* time on this. Over the course of a year, they developed at least 6 different prototypes that I, like the precious little princess I am, looked at and said, “That’s beautiful, but it’s not quite right. Could we….?”
And then we’d chat about it, and they’d go make another version of the ring.
The truly impressive thing is that at no point did they stab me in the neck for being so freakishly obsessive about the design. They worked with me on the type of stone, on the style of the ring. On the feel of it. And, of course, on the knot work involved.

Makes you wonder what the knot(s?) say…
The original post can be found here.

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Marco.
12 years ago

Funny how memory plays tricks on you.

I would have sworn that Denna’s ring had an opal.

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12 years ago

Same blog post as the ring:

It’s modeled after the one Chronicler wears. If you look closely, you’ll see the names of Tehlu’s angels written around the edge.

The coolest thing in my opinion? Badali went out of their way to find someone who would cast it in iron. This doesn’t happen much, because, y’know, nobody with any sense makes iron jewelry. But when I stressed that it really should BE iron, not just iron-ish. They went the extra mile and made it happen.

So, I guess that clears that up with some satisfying finality.

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12 years ago

Is anyone attending the Rothfuss reading in San Fran tonight?

I’m hoping to make it in to the city for it. Any questions people would like me to ask (no guarantees)?

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12 years ago

@185 I can think of a Million questions, but I don’t think he’d answer them…enjoy, and let us know if you learn anything interesting!

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12 years ago

gbrell@185

Where was Caluptena?

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12 years ago

gbrell@185

If you get a chance, and you think its appropriate, could you please ask:

Are the words for the first seven days of the span based on the numbers one to 7?

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12 years ago

We have a fairly respectable yes on that one.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/03/rothfuss-reread-timeline#247677

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Dessert
12 years ago

Elodin = El-Odin

1. Odin was once cast out of Asgard by the other gods despite being an “all father” figure. (Wikipedia)

Sounds like the time Chancellor Elodin was put into the rookery.

2. Odin is also known as the raven god.(Wikipedia)

Guess that puts his confinement in the rookery in new light.

3. “Old Norse (Viking Age) connotations of Odin lie with ‘poetry, inspiration’ as well as with ‘fury, madness and the wanderer’ “(Wikipedia)

Sounds roughly like Elodin.

4. Odin sacrificed his eye at Mimir’s spring in order to gain the Wisdom of Ages.

Elodin is Selitos?

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12 years ago

Just got back from the signing. Had a great time, even though it took three hours to get my copy of WMF signed.

He didn’t answer many questions about the books, but I took some notes:
Q: “Does Lorren know about Puppet and, if so, why is he allowed to have candles?”
PR: “No answer.”
Q: “Is Elodin actually crazy or is he pretending?”
PR put this up to an audience vote and joked that most people think it’s a little bit of both.
Q: “What does el’the mean?”
PR considered answering, but said that he didn’t want to screw it up (made it sound complicated), then said that he wouldn’t answer because it comes up in D3.
Q: “What is Auri’s real name?”
PR: “Auri.”
Q: “Does Abenthy come back?”
PR: “Good question.”
Q: “How do you plan to finish the story in just one book?”
PR: “Very carefully.”

He also restated that in his initial draft Kvothe and Lorren were best friends. There was no Auri, no Devi, no Ambrose. Interestingly, he originally didn’t have Ambrose because he “didn’t want a villain.” Make of that what you want…

When he signed my book, I asked him if he’d mark on the map where Caluptena was (I also considered asking the “lu”-root question or whether “el’the” and Kvothe shared a root) and he said, “No, but that’s a good question.”

I also got a picture with him that I’ll post tomorrow.

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hex
12 years ago

@184

Wait, that clears what up?

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12 years ago

hex@193

From time to time, there has been disagreement about the precise nature of Chronicler’s wheel. Descriptions in NW are sloppy: ring, disk, wheel. It’s nice to have a picture to show folks.

gbrell@192

Thank you. ::formal:: He wasn’t inclined to tell me the names of the first Amyr when he signed my Kindle, either.

The bit about Ambrose is interesting in that it resembles another quote wherein he said he initially didn’t want a villlain but came to understand the value of an antagonist. I always thought he was referring to the Seven. Maybe not.

D3 has to be pretty tight of he’s doing what it looks like he’s doing from a construction standpoint. I scoffed at a couple interviews where he suggested it wouldn’t be much longer than NotW, but I’m inclined to believe it. I expect it’ll be a couple years before we see it, though.

robocarp@181

Um, wanna elaborate on the details you’re workin’ out? I mean, if we had rep points or something you’d be pretty safe…

Kaizoku@180

The sort of “why does everyone focus on X when Y seems obvious” is only possible on a thread by thread basis. The OP focuses on “stick by the Maer” ’cause that’s what folks looked at recently. Never fear, we’ve spent time on “lead you to their door.”

stevenhalter
12 years ago

I did some searching through the books for descriptions of Denna’s ring. It is described as silverish (white gold) with a light blue (smokestone) stone. I don’t see it being described as having knotwork, so it is very interesting that PR took time to make sure that aspect of the ring was correct.
I wonder if the knotwork on the ring could be what led Denna to first ask about magical writing. There is not much knot work on the ring and since we don’t really know anything about Yllish knot writing, we can’t really guess what it might say.
Denna is described as playing with the ring–much like her hair later. It does seem quite possible it has something interesting to say–intriguing.

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12 years ago

After reading PR’s comment on Denna’s ring and the knotwork, I came to a similar conclusion as stevenhalter @195. That is, the ring is what drew her towards Yllish story knots and “written” magic. Based on her general behavior and the clear importance of the ring to her, my guess is it might possess some sort of subtle charm. Possibly to influence people in the manner she wishes. That’s my best guess.

Also, I received my literary pin-up calendar last night. Felurian is amazing in it as “Miss December”.

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JojoDomingo
12 years ago

Wow, it has been a long couple weeks since I discovered this re-read existed. My brain is melting and I didn’t even read a significant portion of the comment sections. However, I have a few thoughts I’d like to post, just incase the ideas haven’t cropped up already.

1. Regarding the “Not tally a lot less” song and scene, it was pointed out that PR is a clever author and if he is bothering to take the time then it must be something relevant. I didn’t catch anyone mention that K is also the author here, and equally clever, suggesting he knows its relevence/significance. This would mean K, in the frame, knows who his mother was.

2. I was happy to see it suggested that Lorren may be involved in the pruning of history that is happening. Might this be a primary function of the book fetchers he has roaming the world. What is the Shelving Wars was actually an attempt to hide some of the significant books away and keep them from being pruned.

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12 years ago

Hi All, nice to see things keep on ticking over in here! :o)

I don’t have time to contribute much these days but I’m always impressed by the work that goes into the discussions and I love seeing what you guys are talking about from week to week.

Re. Denna’s ring:
that one artefact gets a heck of a lot of references, right from early on in the story. I always felt it had something of a Chekov’s gun quality about it. Will it really turn out to be significant in D3…?

I’m not necessarily suggesting it’ll turn out to be anything as dramatic (or trope-ridden) as, say, being the lost key to the Lackless Box because that just doesn’t seem to be PR’s way but I can’t help feeling it somehow has a role yet to play.

Also, the “silverish” metal: any connection to the “grey” blades of Saicere and the other *old* Adem swords…?

@197 (2):
Yes, maybe there is a deeper purpose to the “shelving wars” than just the egos of librarians!— and that’s as good a reason as any!

@187, Re. Caluptena:
Thistlepong, I have no evidence for this whatsoever (!) but my gut instinct all along has been that Caluptena was in Yll and was destroyed by the Aturan Empire when Yll was crushed. I think that may have been guided by the context in which it was mentioned I the story but I honestly can’t put anything concrete behind it. Do you have any suspicions or guesses?

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Kaizoku
12 years ago

Why did D not approach the masters about Ambrose withholding the ring? And even if she didn’t think of it, K certainly should have.

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12 years ago

@@@@@ Kaizoku, 199

Never thought about that, but now that you mention in: I have several none-too-far-fetched theories:
A) accusing a noble of such a thing might be dangerous (it’s Ambrose, after all), and Denna would have to prove his guilt
B) word would probably get out, and any chance for Denna to be incognito (afterwards) would be lost
C) Denna doesn’t know which of the more uncanny rumours about arcanists are true and which are false – she might be scared of the Masters, not to mention Ambrose
D) Kvothe doesn’t go to the Masters because he knows Ambrose will get away with it, or
E) antagonising Ambrose further would be risky, or
F) revealing the link between Denna and Kvothe would put Denna at great risk due to the enmity between Kvothe and Ambrose…

I’m sure you can think of many more. Bottom line is, Denna doesn’t go to the Masters because she doesn’t know them and has no reason to trust them. Kvothe doesn’t go to them because he has no right to reveal Dennas situation to others, and perhaps because retrieving the ring by himself would impress Denna and make her grateful.

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12 years ago

Something I noticed in Chapter 148 of WMF:

She (Denna) told me about the cities she had seen: Tinuë, Vartheret, Andenivan.

Or, to point out what’s interesting about this:

Tinuë (Tinusa), Vartheret (Vaeret), Andenivan (Antus)

Throw in Tarbean/Imre (in the province of Belanay) and Anilin (Emlen), where she heads to after leaving Kvothe, and Denna seems to have quite a travel itinerary.

Andenivan or Vartheret might be in the direction of Yll or Hallowfell. If Denna is trying to hit the Creation War cities, and if there’s a Creation War city in the area of Yll, she’s likely visit Imre between that city and Anilin. She probably visited Tinuë after leaving Severen.

Do we know of any other cities Denna’s visited?

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12 years ago

Just as importantly, WHY is she apparently visiting what appear to be the descendant cities of those from the CW-era? What is she hoping to find or collect…?

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12 years ago

“What do you know about the research I did?” she demanded. “You haven’t the slightest idea! I’ve been all over the world digging up pieces of this story!”

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12 years ago

Yes, that much I remember – I was just wondering what the broader motive was. I sure we all harbour suspicions that it’s not *just* about the song!

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12 years ago

Worldbuilders has reached/surpassed $50k, which is pretty cool by itself. Presumably, the details of the calendar and currencies will go up in the near future.

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Marco.
12 years ago

Re: Caluptena

It’s mentioned 4 times in D2, three of which include a reference to burning. A couple of things seem to fall out:

-It’s the tower on the breastplate of the Amyr. Why else mention the burning so much?

-We know it as a different place current day. I’m sure someone on here has developed a good theory or two. Any one care to summarize or point us in the direction that the discussion happened?

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12 years ago

@207:

I thought the “burning tower” emblem of the Amyr was representative of the fallen city of Myr Tariniel, after which they chose to name themselves.

Caluptena always brought to mind that great wonder of antiquity, the library of Alexandria. I love the clear implication that so much ancient knowledge has been lost from the 4C because of an act of wanton destruction that occurred during a fit of imperialist expansion.

(Or was it…?)

New post?! Roll on Thursday! :o)

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12 years ago

@207/209

Aesculapius is correct. The blackened tower is the symbol of the Amyr – both the Tehlin folks and Selitos’s avengers. It seems pretty clear Caluptena is gone. The Archives house what was able to be rescued.

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12 years ago

Re Caluptena —

A not unwise guess would be that the University is built on the ruins of Caluptena. We know that:
1) the University built on the ruins of something (the Underthing, etc.)
2) there was an ancient place-of-learning there (as per Elodin’s discussion of naming and the teaching of it) which would likely have included massive libraries or archives
3) the reminants are stored in the Archives, and would not have had to be transferred far.

I know we have (relatively well substantated) speculation that Imre/University is located where Belen was, but do we have anything stating that Belen and Caluptena are in different locations?

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12 years ago

No. Can I say it feels wrong, though? I get an elsewhere vibe from the, admittedly spare, mentions.

Look, a tangent! Does anyone recall any specific statements from Pat about his faith or lack thereof?

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12 years ago

I agree. There’s definitely *something* we still need to find out about the history of the Underthing and the University. We know from Elodin’s that there was a much more ancient centre of arcane learning on this site — but my *impressions* (because nothing is certain) on reading and re-reading the sparse references in the texts were consistently:

1. The OLD university (or whatever it was, and potentially therefore the Underthing…?) is described in such a way as to imply that it is *significantly* older than the current University; it’s hard to say exactly but Elodin’s description suggests a type of arcane knowledge more akin to that of the Knowers and Shapers of the Creation War than anything directly related to the University of Kvothe’s time. It could, however, have been a centre of learning that grew out of the remnants of the *aftermath* of the Creation War — and that was certainly what I thought Elodin was implying. The current University would then be whatever had grown and evolved from that start over the many centuries that followed, possibly even with interruptions that set back its growth from time to time because of the waxing and waning of politics, religion and superstition that could easily be directed against a centre of arcane learning.

2. The sack of Caluptena, as Thistlepong points out, is very much spoken of as if it is something that happened in a *known* location, elsewhere in the 4C. If it was the loss of a direct forerunner of the current University, in the same location, then this would be a very incongruous way of describing it.

3. Whilst occurring several centuries in the past, at the height of the Aturan Empire (I seem to remember about 350 years, but I suspect Thistlepong will correct me on this), the fall of Caluptena seems more consistent with earlier times in the era of the current University; it certainly seems to have happened within the scope of the current written record. I guess it’s not beyond the realm of possibility to contemplate that the surviving fragments of Caluptena were smuggled out and brought to the University for safe-keeping, some almost immediately and some collected over the years and centuries that followed. The Archives certainly seem to have a fair collection of such material but, again, the implication is that it was all gathered and brought there from elsewhere.

PR has been deliberately avoidant when it comes to discussing the location of Caluptena; we know that this has implications for D3. In the light of this, I have gone back and wondered if this *does* mean the the Underthings is the remnant of Caluptena but, for the reasons outlined above, I still think probably not.

For my money, Caluptena is (or rather was) on Yll and was destroyed as part of the invasion of Yll by the Aturan Empire. My gut feeling, with perhaps a little guidance from some circumstantial evidence, is that Yll was a last outpost of pre-Creation War civilisation and knowledge, and the library at Caluptena was at the centre of this.

The crushing invasion of Yll could simply have been part of general Imperial expansionism but, in the context of the stories and the things we’ve discussed about information relating to the Amyr and the Chandrian being censored, hidden or destroyed, then I’m almost forced to contemplate this as a much more deliberate act intended to wipe out both academic learning / recorded knowledge and also wider cultural knowledge. Why else so completely raze a civilisation and scatter its people and knowledge?

I’m struck by the fact that both Yllish knots and Adem hand gestures (and their (apparently) down-beat verbal tradition) all seem to be centred on the avoidance of things otherwise common to verbal linguistic traditions — perhaps only to be expected by societies with cultural memories of the destructive potential of overt expressive naming?

Thoughts anyone…?

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12 years ago

thistlepong@212

The only reference I have is the recent Sword and Laser interview. Of course if that very video is the reason you ask, then no, I do not recall any.

edit for excessive nitpickery on my part

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12 years ago

n8love@214

fixed. thanks. And I hadn’t gotten to that interview, yet. Thanks. I’ll keep looking.

Aesculapius, this got long, and then weird, so here are the bones.

1. I tend to think any contiguous throughline from CWE (Creation War Era) to the narrative is unlikely, whether it be the University, the Taborlin story, Tecam, or whatever. It stretches credulity especially in light of the actual history we get going back 2000 years with blips and rumors a bit further back. The Adem, essentially another incongruous civilization, seem to be the only exception, and even they seem to have lost most of the intervenng details. So I doubt when Elodin says “ancient university” he means much more than, ahem, a couple millenia.

3. Caluptena’s burning is bounded by the life of the Aturan Empire. It has to occur between -1000 and -300. Caluptena itself can technically reach back to -2000, but it’s unlikely. Any University with an Arcanum would have been shut down or destroyed by the Empire. As the Commonwealth was well in hand while they were waging the three front war, I’m betting the current University dates from -300 or sooner.

Yll seems an unlikely location for Caluptena because of the existence of the roomful of spools in the archives that aren’t attributed to it. I admit it’s a weak objection. I’m also curious as to why Yll would have had Lockless genealogies going back two or three thousand years.

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12 years ago

Well, if the Lackless line is sufficiently ancient that the box potentially goes back to the times of Lanre, Lyra and Selitos AND the box has carvings that appear to be Yllish then why would it be such a leap for the Library of Caluptena (and the records of ancient times that it holds) to be in Yll…?

That was part of my thinking in considering isolated Yll as a last outpost of the ancient civilisation. I would agree that it would be too much of a stretch to consider anything beyond perhaps the isolated culture of the Adem and the Seven and the (true) Amyr to have any sort of true contiguous history right back to pre-Creation War days. Even the sort of last remnant in Yll that I was considering would be much changed and faded as a culture by the time of the invasion, perhaps to the extent that the true importance of the contents of the Library had been largely forgotten too.

If you think of the invasion as being some sort of “clearance” led by deeper forces than just the contemporary leadership of the Empire then maybe, just maybe, the were biding their time, waiting for the last true knowledge of Naming to die out before launching the invasion…? (Yes, I know that’s stretching the point a little). I’m very much inclined to agree about the relative age of the term “ancient” as far as Elodin is concerned; let’s face it, if we were talking about two thousand years ago then we’d be back in the times of the Roman Empire in Europe. That’s old enough to count as ancient! I certainly don’t think the current University has a truly continuous history back to much older times; rather, I imagine lots of “partial” histories as survivors of other centres of arcane learning slowly gravitated, at various times, towards somewhere they had heard of that might still survive as a centre for arcanists. The current university may even have begun as an “underground” movement (literally?!) in the Underthing, the ruins of a much older but well-remembered site, before being strong enought to surface and begin to construct its own buildings, beginning, perhaps, with places like the Archives (although I detect some implications that the Archives might actually be somewhat older…?).

I freely admit some of this is more than a little speculative but the link between the Leoclos, the box, Yll, ancient records and genealogies and therefore, potentially, Caluptena doesn’t seem to be any more of a stretch than some of the other links we’ve been musing over!

Interestingly, on the original map, there’s a place-marker dot on the island (?) of Yll, directly opposite Tarbean on the South side of the Reft. K comments on how much the Aturan Empire ground Yll to dust and how little currently remains. I’m guessing that Yll once included ALL of that island/peninsula and that the unnamed dot is the site of Caluptena. It means that the move to Imre/Belen wouldn’t have been such a great leap for refugees from Yll if there was already rumour of, say, arcanists in hiding there, and makes me wonder about the link from the end of the Great Stone Road at Imre, down river to Tarbean and then straight across the Reft to Yll.

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12 years ago

Just a thought: maybe the Yllish knots are only Yllish by association? Perhaps that’s just the place that they were mostly known to come from because that’s where they were last used and where the last great collection was?

What if the story-knots far pre-date Yll as a means of recording information? PR doesn’t create stuff randomly; we know the power of Naming and the potential for magic that becomes true if you write it down. My hunch is still that there is something in the nature of the story-knots in particular that allows the recording of information about the true nature of things (ie Naming!) but in a way that is somehow protected from the power of Naming. Thus the knots could have been in widespread use across Ergen but known only to K (and therefore us) through Yll.

This makes me wonder if there’s more to the metaphor of Jax / Iax unravelling the knot than we already think? I also wonder how this ties into the knotwork we now know to be on D’s ring…?

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Silver
12 years ago

The first and biggest problem with this is that we know Cinder isn’t an
Amyr. He’s a Chandrian – enemy of the Amyr. So the “stick” meaning of
“ferule” is as irrelevant as the “cane tip” meaning of “ferule.”
He might not be Amyr but he is Chandrain and I think that would draw Amyr like a honeypot.
As for the stick, sharp thinking there, I’d always assumed Ferule was some other word, perhaps the true name, of Iron

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11 years ago

I’m still trying to catch up, but I just wanted to add that I thought the part about all the heresies really interesting, and I kind of love that you mentioned Albigensianism, as I have noticed that too.

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fatcatfan
10 years ago

A bit of rambling speculation, sparked by my current re”read” of the NotW audiobook.

I was impressed again with how expressionless, neutral, Master Lorren seems to be. There’s been speculation that he is an agent of the Amyr or Chandrian, but we seem to have three factions:

* Haliax and the Chandrian, motivated to end the world so that he may finally end his undying.

* Selitos and the Amyr, “for the greater good”, Selitos expressly wishing to stop evil/wrongdoing before it even happens, not just punish after the fact

* Tehlu and the Ruach, protecting the world, providing justice for evil, but not exacting revenge

I hesitate to call them “bad”, “good”, and “neutral”, but the angels seem to fit in between the Chandrian and the Amyr. I think Lorren is instead an agent of the angels.

The Chandrian aren’t just rampaging about the world, bent on wiping out everything. Instead, the Chandrian only seem to want to erase any knowledge of themselves. Perhaps so they may be forgotten, unnamed, and ended?

How could you prevent that? What if you collected all the books that mention the Chandrian, and hid them away amidst millions of other poorly cataloged books, so that no man could find them to destroy them? Perhaps this is why Kvothe provokes Lorren’s wrath, not for the potential destruction of the whole archive, but instead those specific books and records of the Chandrian that it is designed to hide and protect. Maybe no man alive would know their Names, but it’s established that the Names of things can be locked away, recorded in something other than minds. The Chandrian books/records are behind the copper plate door?

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fatcatfan
10 years ago

Also, if Pat has said that Kvothe’s story ends with D3, so what? Kvothe wouldn’t be the first in this series to receive a new name (Name?) and be transformed by the process. Perhaps the story of “Kvothe” ends, and Kote’s begins in earnest.

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9 years ago

Regarding Denna’s ring:

I mention on one of the other threads that the fact that its setting is knots is curious indeed. Her habit of constantly turning the ring could be flashing a subliminal message to herself and/or those she is with. During the time she is without it, she may have discovered that she’s better off without that message constantly in her face, meaning that Ambrose unintentionally did her a favor/? This could be why she is not all that thrilled to receive it back again. btw, I was very surprised that the stone used to represent smokestone is not RW moonstone, or some other semi-translucent cabochon stone. It’s interesting to me that Pat chose a cut transparent stone: a blue topaz, which in our world is either rare and naturally occurring (quite expensive) or irradiated and heat-treated (relatively inexpensive). I cannot imagine the significance, but maybe one of you other wonderful theorizers can run somewhere with it.

Going back to the Cthaeh’s comment:

It is interesting that it is for the first time, AFTER he returns from Fae and Ademre, that Kvothe actually arrives at Stapes’s door (to return the rings). This is one more point in support of the idea that Stapes could be the Amyr whose door the Maer has led K to.

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Rainsford
6 years ago

Has anyone noticed that Bast swore upon the doors of stone in WMF. This was during his tantrum about the Cthaeh. 

So I’m assuming that these doors of stone are actually doors that the fae know of. 

From that, it is plausible that the doors of stone are actually the closed doors between the faen and human worlds.

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6 years ago

I *think* that’s been discussed, although—with my last read now over 3 years ago—I cannot be absolutely sure of my memory!

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3 years ago

I was disappointed to read all the mean-spirited exchanges in this thread after so many threads with carefully diplomatic disagreements. One point I have to agree with is: please read *all* the posts and their comments before arguing. Yes, there’s an awful lot here, but for the most part it is all well-reasoned and reasonable discussion.

 
Blight Bringer @162: It appears the loeclos box has Yllish knots on it… perhaps saying you cannot open me? Be a bit cooler than just a clue in Yllish.
 
Oooo…..yes! I like that!
 
db3006 @163: “Knots are interesting things,” Ben said as he worked. ” The knot will either be the strongest or the weakest part of the rope. It depends entirely on how well one makes the binding.” He held up his hands, showing me an impossibly complex pattern spread between his fingers.
Could the word “binding” refer to Sympathetic Binding instead of just simply binding? PR is so careful with words it may well be purpose in his choice of words.
I think there is a connection to Yllish knots as referenced @162 BlightBringer.
The complex knot pattern Ben shows K must be the solution to something. Could it be the solution to opening the Lackless box?
 
Nicely done! I don’t recall anyone else making these exact connections. This makes sense to me.

Rainsford @224: Has anyone noticed that Bast swore upon the doors of stone in WMF. This was during his tantrum about the Cthaeh. 

So I’m assuming that these doors of stone are actually doors that the fae know of.

This time, I have recently completed a reread of the books and all the comments up through this thread, and I can reply that I do *not* recall discussion of this point. Whether the indication leads to your final point is another whole thought. Maybe once we have definite news of a publication date for D3, various participants will return and refresh all these theories, and then your detail will receive the group attention it deserves.

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