My obsessively detailed reread of Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles is over, but we want to keep on talking about the books. I’m going to post the occasional continuation post when the last one gets too long or if there’s something to say.
The Slow Regard of Silent Things is a novella published in book form. It is about Auri, Rothfuss himself says that this is not the place to start with his work, and it absolutely is not. This novella is strictly for the fans. That would be us then.
Spoilers for all of The Wise Man’s Fear andThe Name of the Wind and for The Slow Regard of Silent Things—these discussions assume you’ve read all of the 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 reread index. The map. The timeline. Imaginary Linguistics.
Let’s give up on trying to write a comprehensive balanced review kind of post. There’s no point in writing a proper review of this. I can say it’s beautiful and precise and has wonderful timing, and we can take all that for granted, that’s what we expect. what we want it for is to squeeze all the juice out of it like Auri squeezing her pomace to make soap. (Kvothe didn’t know the word pomace. She did. Neat.)
So, Auri’s an alchemist, who knew?
She’s a Shaper too! Now that’s cool. It’s new information about how shaping works, too.
This story is very precisely placed in time, it takes place in the week before Auri gives Kvothe the candle, specifically in chapter 11 of WMF, the night they meet Elodin on the roof.
We see a week of Auri’s life, divided by day. And I think the best thing to do is to go through the whole thing slowly and in detail, the way we do. I don’t promise there’s going to be a post every week, but if I try to do the whole thing in one it’s going to take literally forever.
The Far Below Bottom of Things
Auri wakes up and mysteriously knows she has seven days before she sees him. She never thinks K’s name—isn’t that interesting? She, who names everything inanimate, thinks only “him” about K. I’m sure this is phenomenally significant, but there are so many potential ways that I don’t know where to start.
Also, K is clearly really really important to her, she thinks about seeing him and is completely focused on him and finding the right things for him and all of that. K is far more significant to Auri than I would have guessed from his POV. But hey, he’s practically the only person she knows, and she’s only barely surviving down there, and he has given her a new name—but she’s still way more K-focused than I’d have guessed.
She wakes up and right away we see her mysterious light. It’s given a name, Foxen, which makes it seem like a person, but Auri puts drops on it which seems like alchemy, and indeed, it’s alchemy, and very soon we learn that she just personifies and names everything. (Except K, as mentioned.) Is she a Namer? Well, no. Maybe? Certainly finding whimsical names for things and places seems to be essential to her process. But it’s a very different process from K naming the wind.
And she has a precise sense of where things ought to be to fit, which might be magic or might be a kind of obsessive compulsive hoarding behaviour, and it is impossible to tell which.
We know students go mad and get sent to Haven, and it’s pretty clear that Auri has been a student (she thinks about Mandrag a lot) and is afraid of Haven. The way Auri is skewed from sane is clearly magical—whether or not the OCD placement of stuff is mending the world, well, the Underthing, as she thinks, or whether it’s just symptoms. She has been a student, and while Mandrag has been a master, so she hasn’t been there for centuries. But… she’s a young girl, she’s iconically a young girl to herself, and it seems to me that she must have been there a lot longer than the few years it takes somebody to stop being a young girl. She must have been, from how well she knows the place. Also, the other girls don’t know her, and they would, if she’d been there recently enough. Auri must be doing something, consciously or unconsciously, to keep herself young.
If so, this resembles no other magic we have seen. Except that the Fae seem to stay the age they are. Felurian has been like that for a long long time. And the Chandrian. And presumably Selitos and the Amyr. How do they do it? We don’t know.
So Auri. I’d say she must have been there, getting no older, for a minimum of ten years (girls don’t know her, Elodin doesn’t specifically know her) and a maximum of maybe fifty (Mandrag).
She lights Foxen—it could be straight up chemistry, does anyone know? But it’s not an ever burning lamp like Kilvin wants and we speculated that it might be, she’s using a reagent and it goes out at night.
We’re told—in a Chechov’s gun kind of way that’s going to be fulfilled—that there are three ways out of Mantle, a hallway and a doorway, and a door “that was not for her.”
She checks her stuff in a possibly magic possibly OCD way, brushes her hair, and goes to find a pipe wrapping. She goes to the pool, but the bottles are wrong, so she checks her other bottles until she finds one that is right. (In Clinks. Where K puts his blood in bottles to go around.) By this point, a few pages into the story, we understand Auri’s relationship with things and we know why she wouldn’t accept a second-hand dress.
Three textual things worth mentioning—this text is full of poetic similes. The way she jumps over the cracks in Vaults “as lightly as a dancer… as lithely as a bird… as wildly as a pretty girl who looks like the sun” and then the water is “chill and sweet as peppermint.” Then it is also very fond of French participles, by which I mean ending in “ant” rather than “ing,” for example here “tremulant.” It’s a valid English word, but it’s rare, and so are all of the ones used here. So many makes it a deliberate choice. Third, the use of the word “altogether” to mean “naked.” In my version of English “in the altogether” means naked, but “altogether” alone does not, so “altogether men” and so on strikes me as quirky.
In addition to her connection with objects, we’re shown her connection with place, with the Underthing, with the way all the places have names. We’ve seen some of this before, when she took Kvothe in, but it really is wide-reaching, she has named everything, and she’s seeing it as a relationship of mutual belonging, where it belongs to her and she belongs to it.
With some trouble, she finds a bottle for Foxen. Then she goes into the water in The Yellow Twelve, three times, and bringing something out each time. The first time it’s a bone, the second time a tangled belt with a buckle and a key, and the third time she gets a brass gear, nearly drowns bringing it up, and almost loses Foxen. She says it’s “full of love and answers,” and finding the answer to where to put it is one of the themes that runs through the novella.
The nearly drowning is interesting, not because we can think she could actually drown—it’s false jeopardy that way. There’s no point trying to worry readers than a major character will die of a random event like that—or that the only character in a novella will die on page 18. But her thoughts are fascinating—losing Foxen is bad, dying would be horrible, but losing the metal thing would be wrong. Her sense of wrongness, the magic or mental illness, is that strong. So the actual threat of death works, to make us feel how much stronger to her is the fear of being wrong.
It’s a brass gear, and it was under the water, and it’s another piece of evidence for the “lost tech of the Underthing” theory we’ve discussed. A gear is technological. It belongs to a machine, and it must belong to one from long ago.
She gets Foxen back. Then she bathes and uses her soap, starting up the soap thread that also runs through the novella, and dries herself in a hot space called “Bakers.”
She wonders if the buckle could be a gift for K, but that doesn’t feel right. Then she takes the key and tries it in locked doors. It opens one of the twelve doors in Wains, and she goes through to explore a new place. There’s a sitting room, very plush, containing bottles and a “silver gear watch.” Now this is in the old abandoned Underthing, so the question of technology and timing is interesting. The room is “almost perfect” even though it has been abandoned “without anyone tending to it.” Now we don’t know if Auri’s “tending” is magic or insanity, and we can’t possibly tell. She has magic, she has alchemy and shaping, but is this stuff she’s doing with stuff magic too? Who can say?
Any and all of this stuff could be deeply significant, and I can’t tell, and it’s driving me crazy not being able to tell. She gets emotions from the things—condescending walls, retiring stone. It’s all the same whimsical kind of stuff that she and Kvothe say to each other, but she’s constantly doing this.
She picks up a toy soldier. She finds a bone button and leaves it where it is. She finds a staircase into a new place which she can’t immediately name, a staircase “with a temper.” Then she finds another new place “not as coy as the staircase” and which she instantly names, or Names, or recognises the name of as “Tumbrel.” Tumbrel is a half-collapsed room with a bed and a “vanity” (which I think means a dressing table) with a triptych mirror and lots of mess.
She putters about with things, and finds some sheets, which she’d like to take and use but can’t because she’d be taking them from their “right place” and she thinks she shouldn’t be greedy and push things about with the weight of her desire.
Then she goes back, through various rooms, with everything just as it should be.
This is very beautiful and very weird and very perplexing, and I’d welcome your thoughts.
The next day next time—which won’t be next week, sorry, but might be the week after.
Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published a collection of Tor.com pieces, three poetry collections and ten novels, including the Hugo and Nebula winning Among Others. Her most recent book is The Just City. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here irregularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied.
I don’t agree with the leap here (if you mean physically young). I think the way she carries herself, dresses herself, and even thinks to herself, is indeed very young, but she could be any age between 26 and 40-ish, since she also has the right sort of build to seem young (small, skinny, big eyes, etc.)
But if you mean she’s keeping herself emotionally young, then you’re right, and my assumption has been that she was bullied into madness somehow, probably to do with magic and sex alike.
I adore this book though, I’m on my fourth re-read already!
Could we talk a little more about why you believe Auri to be a Shaper? That’s a pretty big proclamation and you seem very confident in it. I honestly didn’t get that from the text. Namer, maybe… it’s all wrapped up in her OCD so its hard to say. Certainly she was at the school in the past and has various school knowledge. But Shaper is a *big* deal. I’m wondering what clues I missed.
Edit: Oh yes, and THANK YOU for starting this up again. Ever since this book came out I’ve been dying to start this “reread” back up. Not only is there the book but there’s interesting stuff Pat has recently said in blogs or on that Video Chat with the artist. And then there are the cards from the Pairs Kickstarter. So much I’ve been dying to talk about.
Ohhh man I’ve been waiting for you to get to this Jo! Many thoughts. So many thoughts, as you say; the potential lurking significance of everything was sort of overwhelming, the constant effort of trying to parse her experience of the Underthing. Talk about a work of beautiful indeterminacy. I really do not know whether she’s deeply unwell or a sorceress holding the world together. One subtle thing I really loved was how the name of the Twelve changed based on its condition; the Yellow Twelve when the sun was illuminating it. Fascinating how her names seem both to identify the nature of thing and describe its condition at once.
I mean I kept thinking about Temerant as a half-built house. This is a theme, right? The world is actually fallen already even inside the frame tale. Auri is desperately at work shoring up the world around her, keeping it intact, trying to right its wrongnesses and smooth the uneven place, but obviously operating on a level that is either illusory or supernatural, or perhaps both. At a minimum this could be a kind of reaction against the traumatic discovery that a hypertalented student at the University might make, that the world around her is a somewhat deficient artifical construct. It might also be something more. We know that sympathetic relationships are real in Temerant because of sympathy. Maybe she’s working on a small scale to effect some kind of larger magic? Dubious I admit. But I kept thinking about it.
So much more to come, as well, including perhaps some startling revelations about the saga as a whole. But setting aside what remains imminent I really do think that this is a truly, extraordinarily beautiful piece of writing. Pat at his best maybe. The language so finely milled, so polished, the pieces so fitted. Remarkable.
radnyski @2, I think the Shaper proclamation comes from later on, in The Hidden Heart of Things. It’d be worth it to give the whole chapter a thorough re-read, but I’ll give you a few lines:
I put in a little extra because the rhyme and meter are so awesome, weaving in and out through the paragraphs, but anyway: What she did there isn’t Naming. She didn’t fully understand something enough to control it. She saw it the way it had to be, and it changed.
Thanks for starting this, Jo! I’ve been looking forward to it. :)
I really don’t have anything to contribute, but I sure am glad to see that everyone else seems to be just as unsure as I am about all this. In particular, the question of whether her actions are attributable to magic or OCD. Living with a kid who has a certain amount of OCD in his make-up, so much of this looks exactly like the kind of thing my son does; and like him, the specific things that have to be just so make sense only to Auri. It’s fascinating.
Alice – Don’t rule out magical OCD! My main question with Auri’s behavior is whether she acts this way because it’s required by her personal brand of magic, or whether she’s been afflicted with something that won’t let her think any other way…
I took Auri’s current magical behavior as a reflection of her past, and the trauma it caused her. She’s very pre-occupied with her refusal to make things change to fit her own desires, and feels guilt even at the thought of doing that. What they do at the school is to make things change to suit their own needs and desires. That environment scarred Auri, and her behavior now is at least in part a reaction to it. I do tend to believe that her bahavior now also does have magical insight, because of course it does, right?
omigosh I am so excited that you’re doing this book! I wasn’t sure if you would be.
I do need to read it again. I enjoyed it immensely, enough to salve my bitterness over paying $10 for 90 pages. Anyhoo…
I find it curious that you were surprised at Auri’s level of obsession with K. In a way I could see Auri being less concerned with him but we already know through the text that he is “special” (enough so that many people label him a Marty Stu/Mary Sue). I think Auri realizes his significance in a way–be it his power, or even something as simple as his ability to change things. Basically, when she refered to K as “my Ciridae” I knew she saw a significance in him, and she probably doesn’t want him to go off the deep end (possibly like she has). She wants to help keep him right, so to speak.
Well I’m really excited for the rest of the reread. I’ll probably have to go and reread it myself a few times. I’m sure there’s lots I missed.
Late contributor, I know but by the time I’d found the reread I was way behind the times.
I wanted to talk about Shaping, especially since you see evidence for Auri being a Shaper.
I’ve thought for a long time now that Shaping is equivalent to Bast’s Grammerie (“the art of making things be”) and possibly also his Glamourie (“the art of making things seem”). Of course it’s not just Bast; Felurian also demonstrates some of this and I think we could safely extrapolate this to a sizable contigent from Fae.
If I’m just repeating some quicker wit’s thoughts then I apologise but it seems that making a thing out of another thing fits the definition of Shaping perfectly. The Shapers made Fae and all the stars in its sky. They made many wonders like Felurian’s silver tree and fruit in the time before time. Basts just turns some spilled liquids into a bird but that’s still magic and, as I’ve seen noted before that’s not naming, sympathy or the other, better-understood magics.
What Auri does seems to be another thing entirely again. Possibly not truly magical at all. I’m willing to be wrong about this and I love a good debate but it strikes me that she’s not a Shaper at all or that if she is, that she’s using it in a very different way.
It is indeed a mystery to me whether she is insane or the most perceptive individual in all the books. She seems to know things internally, deeply, at their most atomic level. Atomic in an emotional way. Does that make any sense? She sees things like Fellini does in movies, to me. Their essence. Oh, this is so hard to describe, easier to just feel.
Beautiful writing. And I’m so glad we’re discussing this! I came to these books after your initial discussions of the books, and I’m so sad I missed it. (I did read them all though!) Thank you Jo, and all posters for great insights!
Yay! More Rothfuss reread!
I tend to agree that Auri may be a shaper, though I hadn’t quite figured it out at this point. It was more what rossnewbury pointed out @@.-@ from later in this story. From her first appearances in NW, it was clear that she had certain abilities, or at least a certain level of understanding, that was DIFFERENT yet may have some secret power. It’s not clear exactly what that power entails, or how readily Auri can use it, but it seems clear to me that she does have a level of understanding about the world that “normal” people don’t.
@10: Your comment about Auri feeling the atoms at an emotional level made me think of the flavors of subatomic quarks, charm and strange being two. Even real-world science personifies the subatomic essences this way.
With regards to Auri’s age:
You put the lower boundary for her time in the Underthing as ten years because none of the women seem to know her.
Do we know how long a University education is? How long has the longest-present person (Devi?) been there to not know her? Should that list be limited to those who are definitely aware of Auri as she is now?
At Loncon (in August 2014) Pat read from the first part of this chapter and his reading very much enforced Auri’s treating everything as an individual. Enough so that afterward, when I ran into Jo, I mentioned to her how Auri had some sort of will o’ the wisp as a companion/servent.
I think that along with the what is ocd/madness vs magic split is also a very unique way in which Auri is seeing the world. It really is a different place to her than it is to us. Who’s version of reality is correct (if either or neither) is an interesting question.
I tend to now think of namers and shapers as two ends of a spectrum of the same skill seperated by a philosophy/perseption. The namers tend to see the way things are or “should” be and act accordingly. The shapers see things how they want them to be and act accordingly. In this case, Auri seems to be more of the namer bent as she sees the “rightness” of how things are and either leaves them in that right state or moves them towards the rightness.
Moving things towards the rightness also bears an interesting resemblence to the “for the greater good” motto of the Amyr. All well if you can really tell what should be right or not…
@stevenhalter That is exacting how I’ve come to look at it because applied to the creation war it would make sense that there is an eternal war being faught against destiny and freew-will or the way things and could be. The two ideas of the war are amplified during chronicler and bast or in the Lord of the Rings. If there is a ring to rule them all do you use it, or do you restore things to their natural order? I find it interesting that Pat made rings a very important peice to the story(First thing standing before the Lackless door).
But as to Auri and her OCD.. She feels emotion so she isn’t in a Nirvana state like spinning leaf seeing the world in perfect clarity so it isn’t magic. However, I feel she is as Pat says, Like Puppet. She at some point reached that Nirvana state and saw the world fully as it is and hasn’t ever fully recovered from it but still has the ability of seeing things as puppet does, instantly seeing a deeper yet not full understanding of something. This is why she couldn’t immediately name the stairway.
As to the chapter I will help with one thing. The OCD would come from knowing herself truly.. Since she is just like puppet we can take a quote from him,
“What are you thinking now?”
“I am thinking you are a very careful watcher of people, Puppet,” I said politely.”
Puppet snorted without looking up, “What use is care? What good is watching for that matter? People are forever watching things. They should be seeing. I see the things I look at. I am a See-er.” …….”Do you know what you have been,what you are not, and what you will be?” Then he tells Kvothe he will be a See-er. He simply just knows it, Thus Kvothe later in the book goes into spinning leaf and clearly sees all of what the fae is and names of all things around him.
Auri is a see-er too as puppet is and just simply sees Kvothe is a ciridae. She knows what he has been, what he is not(a selas lover – denna), and what he will be(HER ciridae). This would go on to explain her knowledge of all other things in the underthing and out.
Let me know what you think.
First, thank you, Jo. This is my first re-read. I’m reading because I know I don’t understand SROST, while I only think I don’t understand NW and WMF.
Second, I agree with GarrettC: Auri’s condition suggets trauma, perhaps steming from overreach in her studies or experiments. Perhaps the women at the University knew her as a different person with a different name.
Thank you.
Sorry, *It is amplified between chronicler and basts fight about the Cthaehs control over destiny.
Are we sure that Elodin didn’t know Auri as a student? I don’t have the book with me, but as I recall, when Elodin happens upon Kvothe and Auri on the rooftops (c. 11 WMF), and Kvothe refers to Auri by that name, Elodin seems puzzled and surprised, repeating the name as a question (“Auri?”) and looking at Auri, who then explains that Kvothe has given her a new name, (“Isn’t it wonderful?”) etc. Maybe I’m not remembering this correctly, but I had the distinct impression that Elodin had known Auri by a different name, and hence reacted with surprise. Given that Elodin could easily have been at the University for 20+ years at that point, this doesn’t really change the time-frame for Auri’s age and student days, but I thought I’d bring it up.
I too had the impression that Elodin knew Auri. Not by the name “Auri” obviously but I definitely think they knew each other.
There are some great subtle puns here around Wains. Firstly, it’s wood-paneled, as in wainscoting. Also, it’s “wide enough for a wagon”, referencing “wain” as an archaic term for wagon (a “wainwright” makes or repairs wagons).
Had to check on the scene where Elodin, Kvothe, and Auri meet. It’s WMF Chapter 11: Haven. In my read of that section, there’s not a lot of surprise, save for the fact that it’s the middle of the night and they all appear to be out on the roof.
In fact, Elodin already knew she lives in the University somewhere, though it’s not explicitly stated he knows she abides in the Underthing.
This suggests to me that Elodin has actually been trying to meet her to some degree. Whether this is due to pure curiosity, a sense of her specialness, or something more innate and/or arcane is hard to say. It IS after this event, specifically with Elodin learning that Kvothe has named Auri that he gets invited to the class on naming.
@MerchanterPride: I rather like that speculation. I always got the impression that the reason Auri speaks metaphor is because the language is not sufficient to describe the reality she sees about the world. It’s as if someone with tetrachromacy tries to explain a difference in a color they see that someone without that genetic quirk simply is not equipped to evaluate or understand. And thus, perhaps her sense of adjusting the world underneath is a way to keep things in check. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”
@Remillard: This rather raises the question of whether Elodin knew Auri as a student or only as she is now.
Oh, I’m so glad you’re doing this one. I love it beyond reason.
I lean towards Auri having some kind of magic to her OCD, mostly because the Underthing seems to take care of her as she takes care of it. She doesn’t eat well, as we see it, or dress well, or live comfortably, but she’s been there for years and she always does eat, drink, sleep, and have clothes to wear, and she has not been caught by anyone who wants to put her somewhere else. Given the generally inhospitable nature of the Underthing, that argues, to me, some kind of magic. The exact kind remains debatable, especially since Auri would probably not call it the same thing that other people would.
It’s interesting you mention that things seem to belong reflexively – that’s the same way that Kvothe describes the Yllish language when he’s learning it with the chancellor
If you look at his behavior, he is just like Auri in a way.
Auri sees what things are, what they are not, and what they will be.. So she knows how to mend them, where to place them, and what to give them. She can do this for objects in the World not just the underthing(the crystal in the tree and bread on the porch – she knows it belongs there)
Elodin on the other hand is a mender of people. He sees things the same way, but not only for objects, for people. He knows how to ease their heart(Kvothe after attacking abrose). He is also possibly the Head of Haven’s management staff. His regular visits and commands of the staff there hint at this. By being master namer he can bring people closer to that state of nothingness or Nirvana refered to as Spinning Leaf(Nirvana was a state in which religions believed was the path back to nature for humans – a way for them to be without emotion or desire thus anything they do would be natural).
I think Elodin is trying to mend Auri, though he can’t get close to her because he does not lure her like Kvothe does, he searches her out and this is the one thing Auri is afraid of. As she says during the pipe wrapping chapter.
I think it’s interesting that we gravitate towards calling Auri’s behavior “OCD”. I don’t think that’s a particularly useful label in understanding it. The latter portion of TSRoST does indicate a certain trauma in the past (not wholly explained) and certainly her behavior does not fit the cultural norm described either in behavior nor language. That being said, the way TSRoST flows, it certainly does not seem like a disorder to me. I don’t claim to understand it, but she appears to operate with intent and rationality within her own frame of reference.
@Remillard Call it a woman’s intuition then. Lol
Kidding.
Also, everyone! Dont forget to go to http://app.snapapp.com/CageMatchWomenWarriorsBracket and Vote for Felurian to win the Cage match against Sabriel for Quarter Finals Match!
PAT said if she makes it all the way to finals he’ll write the end scene! If she win he might throw in a HINT!!! Go vote! Right now they are neck and neck at 50% votes!
I keep wondering how old the underthing is. Is it just a hundred or two years old or are we seeing the bones of Tyr Mariniel? It’s decayed, it’s abandoned, it’s been built over, so what context does it fit in the layer of history that underlies the modern university?
As for Auri, she’s a balancer. She senses things out of place and moves them to where they need to be, as if by this she’s adjusting the entire world on tiny butterflies of rippled effects.
She certainly listens to the objects and sees them (and of course regards them) but I don’t see her trying to shape them in any way to change what they intrinsically are.
A major theme of the brass gear was not to fix its broken bit but to find its role in is damaged state. The same can be said about Auri
My reading was the Auri is a namer — an extremely powerful namer, able to find the names of not just one or two things, but of everything she sees. But we know from the other books that it is very common for namers to go insane, and gentle Auri is an example. She feels for everything so deeply that she can intuit the names, but is not willing to in most cases. I think this is also why she doesn’t use K’s name, even in her own mind. It is not his real, deep true name, so it makes no sense to use it. And to look for or think his deep name would give her too much power over him.
I think you are completely right. But you don’t leave at names as being a namer.. Thats like calling Auri a walker because she can walk.. Naming just as walking is something that just simply exists in the world.. The true ABILITY is to be able to SEE the names of things and it is this seeing, or nirvana state that drives people mad.. You can see that Auri is actually affraid of spinning leaf and does not like to go into it.. When she is dissy from getting up the world goes white and dazzed and Auri asks “could this be…..” or something. She thinks shes slipping into spinning leaf and is happy to know it was just dizziness. Then when she does slip into during Angry Dark she can’t take the wrongness of all the world so while in spinning leaf she turns the world on itself.. I saw this almost like the scene in lost when they spun the gear to turn back time and though I hardly believe Auri turned back time with the Brazen gear i do believe she literally turned the world on itself hinting at her ability to know the “inner turnings of the world.”
Its paraphrazed but something like, “So she grabbed Fulcrum and spun it widdershins(counterclockwise – considered unlucky to move in the direction opposite the sun) and everything seemed to be right again. Everything was in its place” it was something like that. However, I think this is why she refers to herself as WICKED Because this is the first time she lets herself sucumb fully to her desire and in doing so she strays from the path or becomes unlike and ends up dropping the brazen gear and breaking it in three peices releasing his secrets like the name of the staircase, the amount of presents Kvothe needs and his true state(three whole parts rather than one).
We’ve been assuming Kvothe has two parts: Kote and his hidden nature. What if he has three?
A simple observation. In one of the first two books (I believe it was toward the end of TWMF) K attempted to learn a language (Yllish?) but became frustrated at how needlessly complicated it is. I don’t recall the exact words, but basically, he didn’t understand why owning a pair of socks fundamentally changed the socks, and him.
If I recall correctly, the language is now rarely spoken, which would likely make it an older language. Perhaps even with ancient roots. Perhaps even old enough that the linguistic rules stem from a time when language conveyed the true meanings of things.
I thought it was interesting that there is a language in the KKC universe that reflects the same dual ownership as Auri feels.
A simple observation. In one of the first two books (I believe it was toward the end of TWMF) K attempted to learn a language (Yllish?) but became frustrated at how needlessly complicated it is. I don’t recall the exact words, but basically, he didn’t understand why owning a pair of socks fundamentally changed the socks, and him.
If I recall correctly, the language is now rarely spoken, which would likely make it an older language. Perhaps even with ancient roots. Perhaps even old enough that the linguistic rules stem from a time when language conveyed the true meanings of things.
I thought it was interesting that there is a language in the KKC universe that reflects the same dual ownership as Auri feels.
First of all, like others have said, I’m excited to have another Rothfuss re-read to ponder. Thanks!
Regarding Auri’s sense of K’s importance relative to the perception given in the two main books, this is the first view we’ve seen of his relationship with her not written/told from his perspective. Given K’s frustratingly naive, but endearing, problems with figuring out women, he could be playing down or misreading her nonchalant interactions with him. Or he could be deliberately downplaying it to serve the needs of his story, possibly to provide more emphasis to a later revelation in D3.
Another thing we discussed in the main re-read (and I have no easy way to find where), Naming is more than coming up with a magic word for something and something much more than finding the proper classification of something. Obviously “wind” is the word-name for the wind, just as a rose is a rose is a rose (but they’re all different). Auri’s naming of things, where each item in her world has a unique name, is closer, particularly since she sees so deeply the item’s relationship to her, to the environment, and to the past. She personifies them and gives them changeable emotional states. But her names, while significant to her, don’t feel like Names because the names she gives them wouldn’t mean much to others, much less the universe (as far as we know).
Finally, whether Auri’s actions are working sympathetic magic on the world, in which case would we have the clues to relate them to anything going on in the outside story?, or not, she definitely “feels” emotionally and psychologically damaged in some way. She’s heartbreaking in her delight.
I am a fan, I read this, and I was disappointed. I really thought that Rothfuss was a precise writer, but this piece needed a lot of editing, IMO. It was not just slow, it was wordy. Sentences and paragraphs both needed tightening, and probably 20% could have been pruned to great advantage–but then the word count might have been too low to justify separate publication. I liked this piece, but was disappointed in the crafting of it.
A chronology musing:
Many commenters have speculated as to the age of the Underthing and the University.
It’s worth noting that the University is built directly on top of the Underthing with no other layers of construction in between, nor any layers of soil or rocks where it was covered over. They are known to connect in a number of places and the University’s plumbing runs right through the Underthing. This suggests that if they weren’t contemporary then at least the University was built relatively shortly after; c. a few centuries.
Of course this is assuming that the Underthing can be said to be one thing rather than a disorganised accumulation of construction over an unspecified period of time. The eclectic assortment of rooms definitely points towards a location serving different purposes, possibly at the same time but more probably at different times. perhaps the University itself is simply the most recent layer of construction layered down on this built-up and rebuilt site?
On another tangent; how is it that the Underthing is so disused, so unvisited and so unknown to the people of the University in general? Auri notes that they do sometimes come down to make repairs but one would imagine that with all this stuff down there that someone would be curious as to what was there. Treasure? Secrets of the past? They could at least carry out a survey to ensure the foundations of the current buildings.
I think that Auri is both very damaged and very sane at the same time. It occurs to me all of the sudden that we know of someone else who is always sane–Haliax.
Auri is in touch with the deeper namer level of reality. She pretty much never leaves it. Parts of this state seem quite odd to those of us who aren’t in the state. Much like the one eyed man in the land of the blind.
At the same time (and we’ll get some hints of what seems to have happened later), Auri seems to have had something bad happen that has left her “normal” self in a non good state.
@38: I don’t have a good answer if the University is viewed as a real place regarding why they don’t explore or utilize the Underthing. But, symbolically, if you look at the University as the “mind”, the Underthing is the subconscious – you know it’s there, but you only ocassionally poke around the edges when something needs fixing and don’t (or can’t) go too deep into it. Auri lives in the subconcious, making strange connections between things and trying to make sure everything is in the right place, but never consciously understanding (or at least never explaining) why she does what she does.
@37: That’s a very valid point of view – I worried about it myself. In fact, I got the book for Christmas and didn’t start it until February because I was afraid I would be disappointed. I wasn’t, but I can see where you could be. The writing is more poetry than story, at least to me. It reminds me of a Jorge Luis Borges quote that I re-use a lot (probably too much):
I remind myself of this when people get into arguments about quality or taste in books (or movies or other art). If you like something, it was created for you. If you don’t like something, maybe it was created for someone else or maybe it will speak to you some other time or in some other mood. Of course, if no one likes it, maybe it isn’t good art…
One of my favorite little details in this section was:
“There was a loose stone in the floor next to the wardrobe. Auri prized it up with her fingers, adjusted the small leather sack and piece of wool padding underneath then slid the stone back into place….”
I love that this could be enough money to solve Kvothe’s problems at the time and she doesn’t even notice/care beyond the fact that the stone was not in its proper place.
Auri found a secret(possibly in Black Door) that she thinks even the masters don’t know about. She also actually does kinda explain why she does what she does.
“First you tended to yourself. And then your house(the underthing). And then your corner of the sky(the world?). And after that…
Well, then she didn’t rightly know what happened next. But she hoped that after that the world would start to run itself like a gear-watch proper fit and kissed with oil.”
However, we know that the secret she found is part of why she does what she does. She says she knows the way to make herself urchin small(this is stated that small is not in terms of starving or short or skinny.. It is small as in her interference w the world is small by only fixing things and never changing them). Auri used the secret from the Black Door to create Kvothes can simply by willing it so. I think the Black Door holds Teccams account on how to fully access the mind. Which brings me to my next theory..
If you think about it, Alaxel has the most power in the world. He is both a part of the world making the world a part of him. He opened all the doors in his mind or Accessed 100% of his mind Lucy style and thus became infinite. This is because at 100% control one is completely sane and can go through all the doors in his mind opening or closing them as they wish. This is why Alaxel is always in shadow, he is the shadow or rather he is only spirit with shadow emitting the state of his spirit, making him more than a man and less than a man both nothing and everything at the same time.. Angels: Only the most powerful can see them and and only in a near death experience. This is possibly because at the greatest peril the last door barring full access to the mind is at the edge of ones grasp thus one is close to controlling it giving them sight of everything as powerful. This is why elodin makes Kvothe stand on the rail of stone bridge drunk while someone walks behind them with the wind blowing.
Also, naming is refered to by auri as a trick or a simply call or cry of plee to the things in the world. Auri knows enough to simply think it and it is so. This is how she made her candle. She is immensly powerful and I wish she was the one fighting the cage match and not Felurian.
Wow, great comments everyone! I’m enjoying them as much as the article!
I read the book trying to figure out if Auri was either a person somewhere between crazy and a magician, or: I may be in left field here, but I’ve had a suspicion in all of the books that Auri is some kind of personification of the wind (as in The Name of the Wind).
I mean, she goes through cracks in the wall, she cries for a day, she’s afraid of still places, most of what she does in the book is run through hallways…there’s plenty to support that argument in the book. But also, I don’t know why the wind would need to eat or want bedsheets, so there’s that.
Thanks for reading.
harveysbc@45:
Hmm, that’s an interesting thought. We’ve spent a lot of time in the past discussing whether Denna is (a personification of…?) the moon. So your speculation that Auri is a personification of the wind would add an interesting counterpoint to that discussion. I’m not sure whether I buy it or not, but it’s interesting to consider. Whether either of the women is *actually* the corresponding natural phenomenon, they both seem to maintain attributes and quirks generally consistent with the phenomenon.
I still can’t quite shake my initial impression (way back from when I first read NotW), that Auri is actually Tabetha, the girl that Ambrose “disappeared” several years before the events. It leads to some icky connotations, but it would make some sense, particularly given the revelations about Auri later in SRoST.
ETA: Also, I’m with Steven @14. I lean toward Naming and Shaping being philisophical differences more than “magical” differences per se. I think Auri is definitely on the scale. Where she tends to land, I don’t know, though given her extreme care about NOT shaping the world (with the exception of the soap), I’d guess that she is more on the “Naming” side than the “Shaping” side.
So excited for this!! We love your original KKC reread so much that a few friends and I are doing a mini one of our own. Ecstatic to catch this one for TSRoST as it’s happening.
Firstly, Jo, thank you for pointing out that Auri is a Shaper.
No one else seems to notice this, ever, and insists that Auri is just an insane girl with PTSD and OCD. No, no, no. Not even a little bit. Yes, she has trauma in her past. But that’s not why she spends all her days finding the perfect places for things. I’ll go into this a bit more as the chapters come up, but just wanted to say that first.
But it’s not craziness that lets her know the inner turnings of the Names of the things around her. =)
I have a couple of ideas running around my head on why (as Jo points out) Auri doesn’t think of Kvothe by name. It is especially interesting because, in NotW, she does call him Kvothe at least once (when he brings Mola to check on her after the fire in the Fishery).
Idea the first: Auri doesn’t like using calling names for things that matter to her. I think this is why she has to listen and figure out the correct name for the rooms and passages in the Underthing. So, in this scenario, she hasn’t figured out Kvothe’s real name and, until she does, he remains unnamed. What is interesting here as well is that she has no problem thinking of other people (like Mandrag) by their calling name.
Idea the second: Because Kvothe named here Auri, perhaps that prevents her from naming him back. This could be related to how Lanre was able to trap Selitos, preventing him from stopping the destruction of Myr Tariniel.
On a separate note, does anyone have an idea of what Foxen is? I was picturing a turtle or snail or something of that sort (something that would live in a fishbowl, but airbreathing), but am curious if there are other thoughts.
Just a couple of thoughts:
I read the book with Foxen as a kind of bioluminescent moss or mould – I thought the thing she was dripping on him was just something that would react to make it glow more. I guess I don’t KNOW that’s a real thing, but I thought it was.
And as for the Mandrag bit…. I took it the opposite way. I didn’t read “Oh, she know Mandrag so she can’t actually be that old.” I read: “She knows Mandrag. So he’s quite a bit older than he appears, eh?”
I’ve been certain for some time that there were… important players waiting in the wings, and that at least one of the Masters would prove to be something more than he appeared to be. I feel like this novella lends some weight to the idea that Mandrag is… something. Maybe one of the Ciridae. Probably one of the Ciridae, considering his connection to Auri.
I’m just going to leave this here. I’m not saying it’s it, but….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxfire
Hmmmmmm.
So in the thread of Steven@14 and JohnPoint@46:
Naming and Shaping as they are mentioned do seem to bear a striking similarity to each other. They both involve affecting the world directly using secret knowledge. It’s possible they use the same power source / technology / processes without being identical. Some thoughts as to how that might be:
Purely philosophical differences: Namers do stuff by asking the world for favours in a language it understands, (proud) Shapers remake the world to their liking by demanding favours in the same language.
Technical differences: Namers call on a thing as it is to do favours for them by acting according to its nature, Shapers change what a thing is (change its name and nature) so it better suits their purposes.
Some combination of the two?
Something else entirely?
None of this necessarily negates my previous ideas about Shaping being synonymous with fae Grammerie.
@Jexral: When I first read about Foxen I immediately thought of foxfire without actually knowing what it really is. Just a word I’d heard and vaguely understood. Thanks for the pointer. Looking at the text though it seems likely that Foxen isn’t just plain, regular foxfire as it seems solid enough to hold and dense enough to sink when Auri is diving. Doesn’t mean it isn’t related or derived from foxfire though.
EDIT: On rereading (it is what we’re doing here) I noticed that Auri puts Foxen in a bottle before diving… guess he/it could be regular foxfire after all.
Yay, new re-read! I can comment in time now!
The comments about Naming and Shaping being about asking or instructing, effectively being on the same spectrum are quite interesting.
I’ve developed a few theories about Auri, the nature of Naming/Shaping and alchemy.
So, we know that alchemy isn’t anything like chemistry at all. It doesn’t behave in ways we expect for complicated reason we haven’t been given. I think that alchemy and Naming/Shaping work on an invisble level of reality that most people don’t see, almost like some sort of “spirituality” (that word doesn’t really fit, but I can’t think of another right now, so we’ll go for that. I’m not meaning religious, more some sort of essence that we can’t perceive.)
When you do alchemy, you’re performing chemistry that combines a substances “spiritual” qualities, not its physical qualities. I would expect that sympathy works in the same “plane” – connecting objects based on their essence, their connections, not based on their exact physical properties. This would be why a strand of hair or drop of blood can connect somone to a mommet miles away, because it is THEIR hair or blood, it contains their essence, even though a hair doesn’t look like a human, nor is it a total representation of that human.
Naming/Shaping would then be people altering this “plane”, so to speak. You can melt ice, or create fire and that will change something’s phyiscal structure. I suggest that in affecting the physical form of the ice, the spiritual form gets affected as well, as they would be connected. But to bend something to your will using only your will means you’re affecting the spiritual ice, which in turn affects the physical ice.
This probably all sounds mad, but the point is – Auri has connected with the spiritual plane and this has turned her the way she is.
She sees objects with personalities, she knows how things must be, which direction they must face. This, to me, is similar in a way to animism (the idea that inanimate and inhuman objects possess some sort of spiritual essence). She can perform alchemy quite easily, and there’s hints she knew Elodin. She even mentions she understands things in a way that no one else does, not even the Masters.
More importantly, she has a very strong compulsion to do what is right, not what she wants to do. I think that, long ago, she discovered a connection to this spiritual plane and in doing so became an accomplised Shaper (and therefore accomplished alchemist). I think she took this power too far and did something horribly wrong – maybe killed someone, maybe destroyed something. This whole time she spends trying to avoid exercising her own desires is in response to her exercising her desires to seriously ill effect. She tries to keep the flow of the spiritual plane going, not putting stuff wrong to as to not disturb this flow, so to speak. When making the candle, for example, I think she mentions drawing on power that she hasn’t used for a while, which suggests that she used to shape things regularly, but hasn’t for a while.
She also tries to avoid names, at least of herself (and Kvothe, I think). I believe that by avoiding her name she’s also avoiding her personal identity, as that identity would be attached to her desires. She sees herself more as an agent of what must be done, and less as a human being.
I would suggest that Elodin may have even taught her at some stage, which is why he is taking an interest in her. Either that or he feels partially responsible – as the Master Namer, people who delve into Naming/Shaping are his “wards”, and her being broken may make him feel responsible.
I also think that the alchemy room she uses at the end of the novel is her own lab, or was close to one. She avoids it and the other door in that room as is it the most solid link to her past that she has. Perhaps she ran away and took her stuff with her, hiding in one of the closed parts of the university, or perhaps she blew up a bigger lab on the other side of the door – either way, it seems suggested that people can come into her little lab, and that it is connected to the university.
Long story short – she’s not mad (well, not JUST mad), she’s powerful. Perhaps she’s sleeping like Kvothe was in Tarbean, either voluntarily or not? Perhaps the Auri we see is merely a caretaker conscience with knowledge from the “awake” state, but trying to avoid using that knowledge so the real, dangerous her doesn’t “wake up”.
@33: i would say that he, like his silence, certainly has three parts.
@54 JackofScarlets:
I like where you’re going. If you replaced “spiritual” with “metaphysical” then I’d be entirely on board. I have an unreasoning aversion to the word “spiritual”.
I really like the idea about animism. It really sums up how magic could act on things if it acts on the metaphysical self of things (I’d even accept souls or spirits, just) and their physical self changes to reflect that. It also ties in nicely to how alchemy is portrayed in the few times it’s mentioned, mostly by Simm – alchemy is metaphysical chemistry. Auri’s personification of inanimate objects would then be more a clearer / deeper understanding of their metaphysical qualities rather than a symptom of insanity. She is a see’er. Now if only there was a word for that…
As for her rejecting her identity; she constantly refers to herself and thinks of herself as a young girl. It’s very clear from the text that she is not as physically young as that. Maybe not old but not that young. Why?
She’s very prim and proper but that isn’t a part of many of the cultures we’ve seen. They all seem to be somewhere between completely sexually open (Ademre), relaxed about sex in a modern, Western way (the area around the University, Modeg) and sexually modest in public but fairly frank and honest on the whole (Newarre, Vint). Where might she have learned this kind of shy, retiring modesty? Is it a part of her youthful persona or is it a clue to her background?
The youthful persona itself ties into the whole trauma theory. That something happened and she’s shut down because of it.
The two main theories for what might have happened seem to be that she did something awful with her magic (whatever kind of magic it might be) and she’s rejecting that part of herself or that something awful was done to her and she’s hiding from the experience by retreating to a safer time in her life. Can anyone find any evidence to back up either of these?
I think the silver watch here is the most important detail. We know that the Underthing is old, even if we don’t know how old. We know that Temerant is operating at a Renaissance era level of technology. We look at the underthing, and low and behold, a Renaissance era level of technology. If you take the descriptions of the Underthing, especially the living quarters, and drop them into Imre, no one would blink. Even for allowing for some kind of Dark Ages separating the present from a previous level of high technology,this stuff doesn’t make sense: a Renaissance bedroom and a Roman bedroom are going to look different.
So, possible explanations:
1. The world of Temerant is stagnant. For hundreds of years, there has been no technological or cultural progress. Something is keeping the world from moving forward.
2. The world of Temerant experienced an age exactly like the present a few hundred years ago. This would be pretty poor worldbuilding, unless there is some force drawing Temerant back to look exactly like this previous age again.
3. The Underthing is sympathetically linked to the world above. There are silver gear watches in it because there are silver gear watches above. There are nice, neat Renaissance era bedrooms with fresh perfume bottles because that’s the way bedrooms are outside. As the world advances at large, so too does the underthing on a small scale– and thus as Auri fixes things on the small scale, as she pokes and prods this archetectural voodoo doll so too does she fix the world.
Interesting thoughts QDefenstration,
I’m not sure that one example is a large enough data set to prove your point, even if it were completely incongruous.
Historically we produced gear watches centuries ago and we still make them now. In the 4Cs they clearly have more advanced technology than gear watches, at least around the University. It’s perfectly possible that a gear watch was made centuries before the period of the story, even if it was a rare and special item at the time.
EDIT:
1. Temerant is not stagnant. Kilvin is advancing or rediscovering lighting technology and Kvothe himself invents the Bloodless.
2. The previous golden age would not have to be exactly like the current one to produce a silver gear watch.
3. This is relativelyconsistent with what we see. Still; it’s an extraordinary claim and so requires extraordinary evidence. Also that doesn’t explain the giant ruined technology that doesn’t seem to be reflected in the outside world.
@51 – Thanks Jexral. Even if that isn’t the answer (and I believe it probably is correct), that’s something cool I’d never heard of.
57. QDefenestration,
Or, what if the underthing is actually in the fae world?
The Underthing is also not completely sealed off from the rest of the University – the storage room Auri raids is still in use. Is there a clear delinieation between “in the Underthing” and “not in the Underthing”? I mean, there is for Auri, but I don’t think it’s a solid boundary over time. The room with the watch in it might have only been part of the Underthing for 15 years.
I’m with curgoth@61 on this one.
The Underthing is connected to the University all over the place. Hell, the Fishery’s drains pour right down into it. I think that safely rules out it being in fae.
I do wonder how things drift down into the Underthing though. Is there any evidence that buildings, land, etc are sinking in and around the University like they are in Chicago? If not that then how do we explain the wide range of rooms found there? Why are they under the University? The room with the perfume at least would seem like it should be above-ground. It was up some steps; enough that it is above-ground? If so, why seal it off in such a well-preserved condition?
Everybody! Don’t forget to go to suvdo and vote for Felurian to win the Womens Warrior Bracket for strongest female character!!! Shes in the Seni-Finals and needs like 50 more votes to win! hurry! its neck and neck!http://app.snapapp.com/CageMatchWomenWarriorsBracket
Also, if she wins Pat will write the scene between Death and Felurian!
As to Auri, I’ve been thinking. She says the brazen gear is actually three threes and says that she must give Kvothe three gifts, but that leaves the other two “threes.” Do you think Pat is leaving this open to give him two more sets of three gifts or are we supposed to find a triple meaning to the three she gave him? like If theres a door on the moon you can open it or if the lackless door is on the moon you can open it or this is the key to open the lock lanre/halIAX holds on the moon(her name).
Let me know what you think.
Finally, a reread I’m not 4 years late to :D
Some general thoughts on Auri:
I’m pretty sure Auri is somewhere on the autistic spectrum, probably a good way in. This doesn’t exclude her from having magic abilities, but autistic traits are at the heart of her behaviour here. I’m also not ruling out the likelihood of her having suffered some additional mental trauma at some point. I’m saying this as someone with Asperger’s who recognises the behaviour. Seeing something that’s out of line with your view of how the world is meant to be and doing what ever is in your power to try and fix it: you feel like you need to take responsibility for fixing it. The anxiety when you feel you can’t do enough, or you think you might be going too far. The feeling of helplessness when the world upturns your work. Then add to this the awkward personal interactions she has with people. She’s very shy until she gets used to someone: it took Kvothe a span of days of sitting playing his lute before she came near him. Even at the current time in the story, there are some things she’s uncomfortable talking about. Emotions seem to be difficult for her. Her use of language is odd too.
People have noted Kvothe’s similarity to Auri too, and I’d posit that he too is on the autism specturm, though very much towards the high-functioning end, with a side helping of high intelligence. He learns a lot of things extremely well, but only tends to do so when there’s a clear logic or set of rules to follow. He can be very focused. His interactions with Denna feel very familiar to me: the fear of acknowledging his feelings because he might mess things up completely. His obsession with her too; he can’t approach the relationship rationally as he does with others.
@16 Ronlandrea: Mola has met her and shown no signs of recognition. So she’s been gone at least as long as Mola’s been in the University. So the only other Univeristy-related woman who might know her is Devi, and Kvothe has been deliberate in keeping her away from Auri so far.
@38 Humanmale: Going by Kvothe’s description of his explorations of the place with Auri, parts of the Underthing are heavily damaged or misplaced due to the construction of the current University above it. My feeling is that some of the current University is the top floors of the buildings that are buried, while other (probably newer) buildings in the current University have been constructed above the old ones, and the foundations have been dug through them. My best guess on how this came to be is that some sort of cataclysm buried the older buildings at some point and the stuff that was under the new ground level just got abandoned over time. The Archives is the only building where the original lower levels are still in use, and as the need for more book storage has arisen, they’ve built up.
@54 JackofScarlets: I think Alchemy is to Chemistry what Artificing is to Engineering/Fabrication. It takes a normal thing and enhances it using the principles of sypmathy: Sygaldry in the case of Artificing, Unbound Principles in the case of Alchemy.
@58 Humanmale: yeah, extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence, and I’m lacking that. The only evidence I have is, beyond the gearwatch, that whole bedroom, with its chamberpot, perfume, etc.
W/r/t 1: Kilvin is inventing lamps, sure, but we don’t ever see those in the world beyond his shop. And Kvothe’s bloodless is special because most artificers specifically do not go all out and try to invent something amazing.
2: Yeah, I’m more referring to the bedroom there; your point still applies though. Not a huge dataset.
3: The abandoned technology is really the kicker here; my only dissapointment with this book was probably that we never got a look at them.
@60 harveysbs: Honestly, I would love to think of the Underthing as connected to Faery in some way, but Kvothe talks a bit about the very are of Faery is different, how even with no other indication that you’ve passed through, you can just tell that you’re no longer on Temerant, and he doesn’t have that reaction in the Underthing. There is one weird part that makes me think of Faery in the book though– when Auri ducks out and has that delightful encounter witht the farm kid etc, they’re superstitious in ways that seemed foreign to this corner of the world. Which is super odd.
@doctorp:
Your point about 16@ronlandrea; Mola, interesting! according to Simm, Wilem or Manet (I forget which) the master of medica has very specific guidlines as to when he offers promotion. From that and Mola’s rank we can calculate a solid lower boundary for Auri’s time in the Underthing. I don’t have a searchable version to hand but if someone does could they run the numbers?
I agree with your thoughts on the Underthing being partially the disused lower floors of some University buildings. It makes me wonder; were the old buildings built down so deep or have they sunk / fallen into the earth in the intervening time? Is the University at the surrounding ground level or is it raised up? Perhaps on a buried city / citadel?
@QDefenstration:
Thanks for the very reasonable debate. You’ve got me on the lamps, bad example. The University and more specifically the Fishery, does have a steady trade in its products. They are made for sale and according to the story they’re selling well, if in low volumes. The technology might not be widespread but it’s out there, much like during the renaissance. I also remember vaguely that someone (living) mentions that they have an invention in the Fishery’s books, just to be able to say they do. I forget who.
The giant tech is interesting. There’s nothing obviously more advanced than what we see in the story but there’s nothing on that scale anywhere. That alone speaks of a more advanced infrastructure and industrial base. Maybe not more advanced than the University but more widespread. A lost age. Hey, someone had to make the great stone road and bridges…
On the subject of the great stone road: did anyone think anything of the fact that it’s curved on the map? If that was on a map of Earth I’d think I was looking at a great circle course (a straight line projected onto a sphere) which appears curved on a map.
The enterances to Fae are the three stacked Greystones scattered all across Tamerent(3 ontop peak outside Mauthen farm, 3 by Draccus, 3 at the base of the Greatstone Bridge, 3 somewhere near Hallowfell that the troop stop at, circle of greystones on stormwall mountains, 3 in the eld, ect.). So there isn’t only Felurians enterance.
Kvothes states that the forest he sees in the Fae vaguely reminds him of the one he was in with Tempi and the crew a second ago, only with different stars now. This would imply that it is the same world, but an alternate dimension whereas all magic was strengthened and most principles were unbound(Time, Day, Night, Seasons, Depth Perception, ect.). This would explain the Fae ability to be so powerful and shed so much of it upon leaving. It would also explain why the University was created in the first place. If the world was originally connected with the fourth dimension(Fae principles) then all who lived in the world would grow ever powerful and the golden age would last an eon. But Iax stole the moon and bound the fourth dimension to her or a part of her. In doing so bound these principles to Tamerant and used the part of the moon to forge doors to the alternate dimension(Grey stone/Moon rock). Also if one were to enter the doors near the university it wouldn’t mirror Tamerant because the University unlike the Eld, was created after the split and what would be in Fae would likely be Old Belan(this is my guess at its location).
Consequently, the university was created to attempt to unbind these principles again and set the world back to how it used to be(unbound and free). This would explain why some of the masters are believed to work for the greater good. It would make sense that Auri Majored in Alchemy and is believed to be Amyr or at least stands for the same purpose. This is because Alchemy uses soul stones(a stone of pure essense) to bind unbound elements and principles(souls) to objects like star iron or Ademre Swords.
As to the Auri spec: Auri doesn’t fear the moon, infact she likes the moon and compares her beauty to it. She mearly fears being on the top of things when the moon is out full because it shines on her like a spotlight exposing her to people down low. All evidence in the book points to this. As to her fealings towards fae, she respects the customs(leaves milk for faery) however she ignores the cat.(A lot of Fae are portrayed as kittens and cats drink milk – Rothfuss refers to Felurian as more than just a Sex Kitten). I believe some Fae who do not wish to be seen and so hide as cats(In the Fae dipiction of the playing card box Kvothe is on a Roof and there is a cat standing on another roof:weird detail). Point is she avoids fae creatures but seeing as the moon was originally part of Tamerant she doesn’t mind it. She does however, blatently dislike the fact that there is blue flame burning in the tower of havens top floor.. This might be because when she cracked it was because she did as Elodin did and opened her mind fully seeing everything and was uncontrollably binding and unbinding things around her so they locked her in the tower. Then after escaping she fled to the tunnel and has remained in the underthing ever since.
This would explain why she goes to the grate to rumage for food. If she first discovered the underthing from the grate by Haven she would have to find food in the woods upon recently running away and not really knowing the underthing well enough to know of Tree’s fruit supply. Thus shes gone back to the graveyard for nuts ever since.
Lastely, This would explain her fear or hate of boundary. Boundary might have been the place they took her from when it first happened and shes traumatized by the room. Simply by being in it she is reminded of the incident(“no of course the third door was not for her”).
I also would say that this book helps us understand the prologue and epilogue of the series. I think if we look at how auri names things and how Pat phrases things we can see what Pat means by saying “It is the patient cut flower sound of a man waiting to die.”
Auri says apple has screaming and anger.(Often associated with Autumn because thats when things are full of energy and ripe. Anger being full of energy(nutrients) and screaming being waiting to die(agriculture dies in fall). Kvothes name means thunder, flame, or broken tree. Lighting and thunder, wildfires, and dying trees are all extremes of fall weather. Both Kvothe and his mother(Natalia Lackless) have green and gold eyes(green and gold are the colors of Autumn/Fall.
So when we examine the “Patient cut flower sound of a man waiting to die.” we can clearly see Pat is hinting at his bloodline. Why? Idk, yet.
Welcome back Jo! It was wonderful meeting you in London! (I also met Patrick Rothfuss, but could not think of anything meaningful to say to him.)
On naming and shaping: I agree with those who say it’s a philosophical thing. The way Felurian describes it, I think, is that some people used the art of naming simply to know, while others used it to shape – they were the ones who ‘sought mastery’. (Can I also enter my usual caveat about the use of capitals? The word ‘namer’ is not capitalised except when it forms part of ‘Master Namer’. We don’t know if ‘shaper’ should be capitalised, since the only person who uses the word is Felurian, but the parallel with ‘namer’ suggests it shouldn’t.)
On the Underthing; I don’t think there is any one thing which it is. Some of it is just the underbelly of the University, including the service pipes and so on. Some of it is bits of buildings preserved from the past, but not necessarily the remote past – clearly the figure of an Amyr must have been made within this historical era. Some of it may be much older: I think it is the remains of the older university on whose ruins Elodin says this university was founded, which may also be the broken house, at the (western) end of a broken road, from which Jax set out. (It’s not unusual, by the way, for land to rise and older buildings to be built over – normally in a ruined form, but sometimes more or less complete. I live in a city which has an Underthing of sorts, and there are some fairly complete buildings down there. The picture of Auri by the water implies that there is room for several storeys between ground level and the bottom.)
On the cage match: they are defining ‘warrior’ in an odd way, aren’t they? There are woman warriors in Rothfuss, but Felurian is not one of them.
Yeah, of course to contradict that we could just ask why Katniss wasnt picked and Johanna was? lol Probably because no one wants to see the omegas go up bc of godlike state/power and thats why everyone on there is freaking out about the four semi finalist essentially being unstopable yet picked out of popularity.
Though, I doubt the site has ever seen a fair judgement in that regard since the first women warrior battle..
Why Renaissance? Is this word of Rothfuss? Because I have always gotten the sense it’s more 1800’s without steam engines
I think AnotherAndrew has a good point regarding the underthing/university:
“Some of it may be much older: I think it is the remains of the older university on whose ruins Elodin says this university was founded, which may also be the broken house, at the (western) end of a broken road, from which Jax set out.”
I believe he may be right because Kvothe describes Mains as the oldest building at the university where hallways take odd turns, deadends unexpectedly, and how it could easily take 20 minutes to walk from one room to another, despite the fact they were only fifty feet apart.
It is similar to the story about Jax unfolding his house. It was much larger than he had guessed, more like a mansion than a simple cottage, but it didn’t fit together properly. Stairways led sideways instead of up, some rooms had to few walls or too many, everything about the place was slightly skewed.
@68 HumanMale:
It makes me wonder; were the old buildings built down so deep or have
they sunk / fallen into the earth in the intervening time? Is the
University at the surrounding ground level or is it raised up? Perhaps
on a buried city / citadel?
Chunks of the Underthing are described as living quarters or what sound like meeting halls or ballr0oms. These are the kind of building features that tend to be built above ground. There are two possibilities for why they’d now be underground. One is as I’ve described in my first post: there was some major event that buried them. The second (as others have mentioned) is that the buildings have sunk into the ground over time, which is quite plausible given their proximity to a river. My feeling is it’s probably a bit of both but I’ve nothing to back this up from the books.
@74 WhiteLightning:
I think AnotherAndrew was referring to the broken house Jax left to the tinker before he set out on his journey.
Either way, I’m not buying it. Really old buildings that have stayed in use are generally a mess of additions much like how Mains is described. I don’t think there’s anything especially magical about it.
@@@@@ Another Andrew:
All good points. Totally agree about the capitailisation; we should avoid bad habits, myself included.
I like the broken house idea. The old university definitely ended up broken somehow and was at the end of a broken road, unless the great stone road was supposed to lead to the Stormwal mountains. More likely the road led farther but the mountains came later and broke it. That would imply that a map from the creation war period might show a lot more of the land to the East than the map we’re working from.
@@@@@ euler:
Renaissance is just a comparison. The 4cs don’t really correspond to our history very accurately.
@@@@@doctorp:
You make a lot of sense. There is another possibililty that could be mixed with your two in any combination; that the University has built up above its original ground level as Another Andrew said. New stuff was added to the top and the surrounding land levelled up through earthworks. Kvothe does say that he went “down” from the University to the docks when he was on his way to Severen. Weak evidence, I know. Certainly the docks should be at a lower level anyway. Again; it’s probably a combination of reasons.
@Hummingdale @whitelightning @doctorp If the university is the house jax built then why does it not show winter out one window and summer out another. This is feature is the one hespe talked about and it matches the fae perfectly. It also matches Felurians account saying that jax brang the moon to fae. When it says he left his broken house for the tinker, we discussed in earlier posts of WMF that this meant he was leaving behind Tamerant(Broken house) so the tinkers(Mender herecies lorren talks about at the end of WMF) could mend the world. Thus, you have the tinkers endlessly grabbing things from one part in the world and trying to go out and place it where it belongs just as Auri is doing in the Underthing. I think Pat wrote this book so we can draw little comparisons to the way the outside world works.
@77 HaydenReece: I don’t think the University is the house Jax built at all. I think it’s just the University, and always has been. It’s universities all the way down :D
@HaydenReece:
Speaking for myself and maybe some of the others; the University being the “broken house” was meant to mean the broken house at the end of a broken road that Jax left behind at the beginning of his journey. Not the folding house he built.
The interpretation of the broken house being Temerant seems like a perfectly valid one. However, the University might be a slightly better fit here as it is almost literally at the exact end of a broken road whereas you’d have to use slightly more creative license to call Temerant “at the end of a broken road”.
EDIT (thoughts on reflection): Wouldn’t Menda from Trapis’ story of Tehlu and Encanis be a more likely source of the name Mender Heresies? It’s easy to see a sect of the main church of the setting having some non-canonical ideas about Menda’s role in their religion.
@hummingdale Just to debate.. Evidence strongly suggests that the Great Stone Road is perfect, flat and straight and always has been(Older than GOD and still perfect in Kvothes day and age). However, if we look at Tamerant as the broken house and the portals to Fae as a road(not for traveling) then we could assume that the “broken road” is in terms of a “gap” in the road rather than a disfuction of its proporties. Thus, you have a portal leading to somewhere else.(some mark roads that lead to safe places some are safe places that lead to bad roads).
Since Auri says there might be a door on the moon we could speculate that Myr Tariniel might be on the moon considering Hespe says “it wasnt a place you found by searching.”This would be because it is in front of your face everysingle night and Iax had no luck search for it, he only got to her by “calling” her to him. Then we would have logic over stealing the moon. If MT was on moon Iax wanted Myr Tariniel for himself and tried to steal the part of moon that had it. He made the Fae to try and trap Myr Tariniel in it, but he didn’t have all of the moons name so he only has the ability to bring her there every now and then.
*Note: I mean if you had the ability to make portals who wouldnt put the most beautiful city in the world on the moon? It would explain why he says beloved Myr Tariniel(beloved moon) was on top the stormal wall mountains or rather above them and the portal to it is located on the stormwal peak or in Tahln Walhd.
Then the tinkers(or hermit in cave idrk) are left to mend Tamerant as menders, so raising a hand or speaking rudely to the man who fixes your world would be bad luck or just “Wrong.” Pat would write the slow regard of silent things for us to draw parallels from auri to others in the outside world with the ability to regard silent things( the hermit in the cave who shows Iax how to listen to things and know them – possibly the same person standing in the cave in the glass murail forgot his name but it starts with a T?) What coincidence is it that Auri resembles one of the most Idolized people at the university?(guy in cave) I thinks pats hinting that she is either his heir and that the underthing might even be her house. who knows though.
let me know what you think.
Also to strengthen my thesis. Selitos was ruler of Myr Tariniel though I believe he is cthaeh and I have strong evidence for it if you want to see it. Anyways of selitos is Cthaeh then stealing the moon might have been in collaboration with the fall of myr tariniel and so Lanre(Haliax/Iax/Jax) steals the moon brings it into fae, binds selitos one eye see all/cthaeh to the tree and the moon leaves Selitos then becomes ever spitefull to Haliax and the chandrian. Selitos/Cthaeh would then use all his power/sight of future to control people and get them to burn down the world. This would explain the little girls explination of the Amyr being most frightening/evil and his eyes looking like he wanted to burn down the World.
I’l post the full theory under this.
@HaydenReece:
I’m not sure I can properly address all your points but allow me to attempt those I have something worth saying about.
The stone road is, as you say, smooth, flat and perfect. It stretches for at least hundreds if not thousands of miles. No matter who built it and what magic or technology they used; this was an enormous feat of engineering. Why then does it stretch from an old city, all the way across the continent only to end at the foot of the Stormwal mountains? Surely no one would build it all that way to get to the mountains. I offer that it did go somewhere, only it doesn’t any more. It connected to somewhere located either on the other side of the Stormwal or in the area now occupied by the Stormwal mountains. Either the mountains rose up to break it or the passes it passed though collapsed down on it. Either way it is now a broken road, just like a break in a line. I admit that this is almost pure logic with little supporting evidence.
As to the road being between Temerant and fae – fae didn’t exist until after Jax / Iax / whomever shaped it into being. The Jax Steals The Moon story implies that the broken road predates the creation of fae. As an oral myth it’s hardly solid evidence but it’s what we have.
I really love the idea of Myr Tariniel being on the moon. That’s exactly the kind of fantastic fantasy I want to see more of in my reading. That being said, I don’t recall much evidence for it.
The title, The Slow Regard Of Silent Things I always took as meaning that the Silent Things are watching something Slowly. Inanimate objects having minds and looking back, just how Auri personifies them. On the other hand your interpretation makes just as much sense.
I’m not sure about Auri being Teccam’s heir. There’s some similarities but we don’t know much about him so… maybe?
I see. That would make sense seeing as how Kvothe states that he does go far west to get Denna her singing tree flower, this is after singing with her in Eolian for the first time.
However, Teccam(ty for clarifying it was bugging me so much!) was/is the wisest person in the Masters eyes and Kvothes(“teccam always said this and that” and having a idolization of him drawn in the window of the University building – Just like how christians craft jesus and angels in heaven in their northmost window) Since he was one of the people in the golden age(Ergon Empire) it is likely he is the hermit at the east end of the great stone road in the cave. If this is so then we will go into a little spirituality peice really quick..
Auri spun the Brazen gear widdershins(against the direction the sun moves in – considered bad omen/luck) to make the world appear normal again because she didn’t want to see the true brokenness of the world around her in a way it was to gain her hearts desire if you will and in turn she later broke the Brazen Gear(also the climax of this story).. Again let us draw parallels to the outside world.
Iax the SHAPER moved West to East. From a Broken House to the mountains to seek out his hearts desire(the moon) and SHAPE the Fae. By going east he moved against the sun or widdershins(like Auri did) and so he gained his hearts desire but inturn broke the world.(like auri breaking the gear after bending the world to her desire).
Teccam the KNOWER sought the knowledge of things and moved with the sun(From the mountains to the University Grounds. East to West) then he would be acting as nature does and thus founding the University to Seek knowledge, but not use it unnaturally.
Kvothe could be considered a SHAPER because he seeks immediate mastery over the things regardless the cercumstances. I feel he will go East to the mountains and try to gain revenge but in doing so kill Simmon or Denna or Auri. Not physically but more like choose revenge over the life of a friend. Maybe seek out a power like Haliax did and in tern kill the love of his life whether it is Auri or Denna or hopefully Devi(:
I think Hespe’s story is one of black and whites to show us the two philosophical stand points Pat is writing. Auris story on the other hand is a step back to show us the struggles one faces when trying to choose the right path. Since we are all a little broken inside we try to do the right thing, but sometimes we succomb to desire and in doing such we work against the world only to have it later work against us.
Lastely to your point about the building of the Great Stone Road and it being the broken road. You assume that it was built from left to right because that is the direction the story is told in. However, it still could be the broken road if im wrong. We could say that Teccam saw that Iax(personifacation of Shapers as a whole rather than one person) broke the world/house/road during his lifetime and left it like that. So Teccam(Personifacation of Knowers as a whole rather than one persons) would set about in the direction of the sun(West – from Myr Tariniel to the West or as fae put it “towards day”) mending the world as he goes and his building the Great Stone Road would be tribute or the effect of his mending.
I think the Cthaeh also Personifies the Fae realm as a whole rather than one person.. If you talk to the Cthaeh no matter what choice you make you still end in tragedy..If you go to the Fae no matter what direction you take you end up at the same place(Cthaeh way of looking at destiny).
Im sorry I meant the christians built the church so the Image is in the West most window. This is so if they pray to it or look to it they are looking in the direction of the rising sun or the holy direction. This would also make sense that Myr Tariniel is built or resides in the East so they know the to pray to Tehlu in the East. Also, left is the direction one goes to seek judgement so it would make sense Tehlu started in the East and sought judgement across the land westward. This also makes me think Teccam might be greater than just a great knower, he possibly might be Tehlu himself and the name would have changed seeing as how Hespes recited inacurately through oral succession of the story. She was jumbling parts up at times, telling how her mother told it to her – whereas Trapis story was more of a recital from a book and since he is believed to be part of the mender heries( A schism of Tehlinism) through his actions with aiding less fortunate we could say his is more accurate. Thus, Teccam might just be tehlu.
Maybe Tahln Wald is Tehlus City.. Or in terms of our world, The Holy City Jerusalum(in the East) where Jesus/virgin(Tehlu/Menda) birth originated.
@56 I like metaphysical better. I don’t like “spiritual” either – it already has its own meanings and associations, and it doesn’t really represent my idea. I just got it stuck in my head and couldn’t get it out.
The youthful part you mentioned makes perfect sense. A regression from trauma, and we already know (or at least can make an educated guess) that at least one terrible trauma has afflicted her. I think she was raped. There’s a mention of something about being in a dark alley and not being able to escape, which I think would explain the modesty.
I see the University as just super old. Rooms get blocked off and stuff gets build around and on top of. I think this has happened with many real world cities, for example – in Rome, they keep discovering more ruins when they try to dig subway tunnels, and entire palaces are now underground. The only issue with that is the timescale involved, but that could be explained by people continuing to use old, now-subterranean rooms as it suits them – the Underthing would be connected to the aboveUniversity in many places, especially seeing as how the University has many blocked off passages and rooms. The perfume room could even have been a place of hiding.
Very little to contribute, except to say, I’m so so so excited for this reread!!!
And, a vanity is certainly a dressing table. I used to have a lovely one with glass shelves and wooden drawers and a huge mirror.
It was lovely to discover it in this story.
As for Auri, I just love her. She is fearful and courageous and sweet. I really enjoy her processes, the way she gets distracted, and the way she names things. I can’t wait until we get to the candle.
@HaydenReece:
Perhaps we’re allowing ourselves to wander off on tangents. Let’s focus our efforts on the points of this specific thread: Auri the shaper, Auri’s age or lack thereof, the nature of the Underthing and Auri’s odd behaviour and understanding of things.
In that spirit; many have theorised as to the similarities between naming and shaping, that they’re essentially the same thing. When Auri does her candle thing she doesn’t appear to say anything. Is this evidence of a greater difference between naming and shaping or evidence that Auri is using some other form of magic stranger than shaping?
Not to keep banging that drum but the Bast-Ink/Beer-Crow incident didn’t involve him speaking either (that I remember). Could Auri’s candle and Bast’s crow both be created using the same magic? Which I think is shaping AKA grammarie (in case I haven’t mentioned it repeatedly enough).
@Hummingmale True True, and I don’t know if you’ve played Skyrim, but today it is the most known magic role playing game(BEST FUCKING GAME ON THE FUCKING PLANET). But inside Skyrim there is a magic called alteration. It is a magic that makes illusions and I think this is what Bast is doing. Alteration is a form of Glammorie in Pats Linguistics in that he made it seem like there was a crow in the room by altering the fundamental principals surrounding the ink so that he may alter its shape to his desire. Or to his will. I think, as I’ve said before, that the Fae does not have much bound principals. For example, time is not bound in the Fae yet gravity is. Yet the two are believed to work in harmony. The Fae would then be a world in which their is no harmony. It simply is everything and not everything. So since magic has to do with unbinding principals so that your will is the only principal they are bound to, Bast would be able to become so akin to the mindset and feeling of using naming that he could simply think the name(I’m guessing) and he’d have the ability to will it to do something. I don’t think there is any greater power than the ability to see or listen to names. The only difference between magics is their ability to access use the function of a name. Alchemy for example, unbinds fire from the world and bind its properties to a sword so every strike from the sword would cast flame onto the striken object and so on for what ever thing was unbound(gravity, magnetism, air, souls, heat). Yllish knots are names in the shape of their own complexity(the more complex the name the more complex the knot). People assume we haven’t seen shaping and that it is hard to detect, but the university is a bunch of shapers changing the world(Alchemy, Sygaldry, Sympathy). If they were knowers they would leave these principals of life alone rather than use them against themselves for their liking.
So yes they are the same thing in the sense that all Pat Magic requires even the smallest of names.
@HaydenReece:
You’re probably right; glamourie makes more sense in the case of the crow. It’s also perfectly possible that at a certain level of understanding merely thinking a name would be enought to create an effect.
Part of me keeps calling out: “Proof! Proof! Facts! Facts!” though. I’m the kind of guy that prefers my hypotheses with a side order of data.
So now I have a question for you on the subject.
Auri never refers to objects in terms of actual people. She simply shows us that a thing can hold things in them or in a way be bound to things like “screaming” or “anger” or “sunshine and Dreams.” But she also says that the objects can release those things if need be. Do you think then by having a ring of something(Fire, Air, Water, Stone) unseen on the second hand is to have the ability to command it without needing to Call upon it. Or in other words you dont literally have unseen rings on your right hand rather they are your trick up your sleeve magics used to fool those that try to harm you. For example, one might want to boast of a ring of fire, but not want the world to know that if they wish it they would be able to call upon the name of any bone in their body to rip them apart so they wouldn’t wear them. This would explain the ring unwor/seen.
So if these rings were unworn, wouldn’t they hide them to keep them unknown and untampered? Thus, my question for you. Could Auris small box ontop her Mantle piece be a type of Lackless box meaning it has no lid or locks holding her rings inside that she has full control over?
Aka Lackless box holds her husbands rocks/rings. So could Auri have one after discovering such a thing. Her saying she knows something Mandrag doesn’t an all, A secret magic. Or she knew the name of Alchemy and keeps it in her box away from sight.
P.S. I love Auri, but I hate how Pat makes her feel like she is 11 when the books place her at like 24-27. Atleast thats the vibe I get when she is standing on counters and hiding a crystal in the tree.
@HaydenReece:
In answer to your question at 91: Yes. Auri’s box could hold her rings but theres nothing in the text to suggest it, at least as far as this humble reader can recall.
@ALL:
So, the Underthing, eh? Since Elodin says that the University is built on the ruins of an older university do we think that the Underthing is simply the ruins of that university or disused parts of the current University or some other structures that once stood on the site? Probably a bit of a mix, right?
Certainly some of the upper layers are very likely to be disused parts of the current University.
Since we don’t know how long the old university was ruined for before the new one was built on top it’s hard to gauge how much might be left of it down there. Probably a bit; some of the rooms and ruined mechanisms seem like they were part of somewhere advanced, like a university but too big and expensive to build to just be abandoned by the current University.
As for other structures; there’s a lot of theories that one of the creation war-era cities used to stand on the site. Given how long ago the creation war occurred (long? long, long?) is it reasonable that some of its buildings might be partially preserved down there? Nothing is described as being constructed of unusual, super-durable materials…
On the subject of materials; does anyone find it odd that the brass gear that Auri brings up on her last dive is still shiny? Brass is pretty corrosion-proof but it still tarnishes a bit. Is it made of a magic or special brass or brass-like material? Has it only been down there for a short time? If so how did it get there?
Humanmale @94 re the Underthing:
Yes, I definitely interpret it as a combination of all of the above: disused parts of the current University, ruins from an earlier age (possibly as far back as a Creation War city — Belen? — though we believe that the CW occurred around 5000 years bp. See the timeline: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/03/rothfuss-reread-timeline for more support and evidence of that age). Kvothe is fairly clear that some of the machinery is very old – solid rust:
Particularly when combined with the places that Auri finds in SR, I think it’s fairly good evidence that the Underthing is a mixture. Many areas are relatiavely intact, and other are completely rotten and falling apart. I’ve always assumed that the fact that things are buried comes from land being filled (whether intentionally, or from the accumulation of centuries/millennia), rather than buildings sinking. It happens in our world too.
One poing that I’ve frequently made in the past is that this is a story about stories. We need to be very careful about interpreting anything literally. For instance, Elodin’s story that the University was built on the ruins of an older university could mean just that, or it could mean that it was built in the ashes of a center of power and learning (but not a “school” per se). Or it could be metaphorical, even though the University was indeed built on the ruins of ancient cities.
This point also applies to many of the comments throughout this thread: we need to be careful what we take too literally (e.g., in reply to many of HaydenReece’s thoughts about Myr Tariniel, Selitos, Hespe’s story, Trappis’s story, etc.)
It is possibly DZR Brass or Dezincification Resistant. Essencially it is the Walt’s Meth version of Brass whereas it needs to be created under a perfect environment/plan.
It does make sense that there is this type of brass though especially for a Gear. Brass is used in areas where sparks could be dangerous like zippers, gears, locks, and keys. (interesting choice pat) Also, consirdering this societies ability to make giant tech its understandable they possess high quality brass and has since then been misplaced at the bottom of a drainage system(or is the Twelve flooded?).
@JohnPoint:
Would iron wood and leather really have lasted ~5000 years? Even in the deteriorated state Kvothe sees them they seem far too well preserved. That would seem to indicate that the timeline is off (and I wouldn’t want to argue with that entire collection of luminaries) or that the machinary is of a more recent vintage.
I’m really interested in your point about not interpreting things literally because this is a story about stories. Absolutely true with the KKC. Almost the whole thing is Kvothe or Kote telling a story which we have reason to believe is at least biased, perhaps deliberately false in places or in whole. He’s an unreliable narrator not in that we don’t trust him but more in that we don’t know how much to trust him.
With Slow Regard, however the entire thing is told in the third person. We are left to believe that the person telling the story here is Mr Rothfuss. As such should we trust it that much more? After all; an unreliable narrator makes for a twisty tale, an unreliable author makes for many annoyed readers.
Do folks agree with this or does anyone suspect that the tale-teller of SRoST is someone else?
Humanmanle @97:
My point about the Underthing isn’t that part of it necessarily dates to the CW. Rather, that there are areas included in the Underthing that date to different times in the past — i.e., there is more than one layer from multiple occupations of the site over the history of the world. One of those layers might be as old as the Creation War. Or it might not.
Under the right circumstance, wood, leather, and iron can last for that long (think, Egyptian tombs). Granted, the Underthing probably doesn’t duplicate those conditions very well. (Dry, little to no air exchange, moderate temps, etc.)
The 5000 year date comes primarily from the Cthaeh, who states that Haliax has been alive and sleepless for 5000 years. Also, a calculation of the age of Saicere and Kvothe’s guess about the age of the Loeclos box. Nothing definitive, but several points of evidence.
Re narrators: we’ve had some discussion elsewhere about this. On the face of it, SR appears to have a 3rd person narrator (presumably Pat), however, we see things through Auri’s mind. The narration is a reflection of her view of the world. So, it’s not definitively reliable in any kind of “absolute truth” sense. I would argue that we are getting an accurate description of Auri’s perceptions, but not necessarily the “reality” of the world. I think that it’s somewhat more reliable than Kvothe’s narration (since he is definitely crafting a story), but we have to remember the filter of Auri’s perceptions/see-ing/know-ing/madness.
@HaydenReece 96:
Good knowledge! I’ve learned something new about brass. Still, my understanding is that DZR brass is difficult to produce and as such is only used in applications where it’s expected to come into contact with sources of corrosion. Gears are usually kept dry, away from chemicals and probably greased. They shouldn’t need to be made from DZR. On the other hand it’s possible that the creators of the gear could make a DZR-like material easily with their advanced technology.
@JohnPoint:
I agree whole-heartedly that the Underthing seems to date from a range of diffferent periods. I also agree about the dating of the creation war, didn’t mean to imply I was questioning that.
SR often does seem to be filtered through the mind of Auri and her perceptions are… questionable. Maybe not wrong but certainly not easy to understand. Some things are more subjective and thus less reliable while other things do appear to be objective facts. Difficult to be absolutely sure which are which, however.
Once I get the book and read it again I’ll look closer at the underthing in Name of the Wind, but idk if you guys just read through that piece idly but lets take a look at it.
They walk into what seems like a cathedral(So it must be a very holy place). Then they notice huge machines surrounding them(Machines in a cathederal?)
Anyway, lets get to the heart of it.. First let me bring some things up to keep everyone up to date, hoping that Rothfuss is a very, very, very subtle TRUSTABLE writer and that these small hints do corelate with each other. Kay here we go:
They notice White Fungus on the wooden beams
Tehlin Churches were believed to run breweries/distileries.
Tehlins wear the Ash Grey robes.
Bredon wears an Ash robe.
Bredon is a type of beer.
Bredon beer is closer to bread than beer – Wil, WMF.
There is white Fungus on the Underthing Cathedral beams(see JohnPoints comment).
White Fungus is otherwise known as Tremella Fuciformis.
Tremella Fuciformis is used to make a gelitonous beer(like Bredons Beer).
Around the 19th Century(about when the book is based) China found that it grows best on chemically treated wooden beams(underthing beams – see wiki on Tremella Fuciformis).
Thus, Bredon could possibly have used this cathederal room to grow his empire while working for the Tehlin Order(If he were at some point head of the Church he could have ruled the land around it long ago – Belen).
If there is a Tehlin Church under the University then there were Amyr in the University.
Bredon could be an Amyr(possibly immortal)
This would explain why Skarpi(another old man suspected of being Amyr) says he has friends in the church who can help him.
If Bredon owned a brewery somewhere in the under thing the massive machines could be a production line or culivation machines and show his rank in the scheme of the Church ranks.(Possibly Arch-Bishop, Bishop or higher).
Your Welcome. I have another theory on the very next sentence after the white fungus but il let everyone bask in this for a bit.
@Humanmale as to the DZR Brass only being used in wet places environment.. If Bredon did run the Distellery somewhere in the underthing the cultivation area would have to be damp almost constantly to rappidly grow fungus.
However, the gear she finds imparticular is way to big to be used for pipes and valves up in Twelve. It is likely the stock for such parts was held in a location around twelve that’s path to the cathedral/machine room intercepted with Twelve and got dropped on the way to fix something and was too difficult to retreave.
Todays the last day to vote for Felurian!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She’s so close to winning, go vote so we can see Pat’s write up!!!!!
http://app.snapapp.com/CageMatchWomenWarriorsBracket
So. Freaking. Excited.
It’s as if Pat is Illien and we are all Edema Ruh around a GIANT circle(internet) waiting to hear his story!!!
Hayden e.g., @100: Honestly, my response is that you’re pulling a lot of speculation out of thin air.
Throughbottom is a perfect example of this. Kvothe indicates that it was *like* a cathedral. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a holy place (as you postulate). Rather, I interpret it as Kvothe describing the physical context — vast open space, supported by beams, high ceilings, etc. Combined with the machines, I would speculate that it was actually some type of factory, as we know them now — on a scale much larger than anything in the 4C during Kvothe’s life. Cross apply the illustration of Throughbottom from SR, which definitely looks to me like a factory. However, a cathedral is the obvious comparison for Kvothe to make. If you showed someone from medieval Europe the inside of a modern factory, they would probably compare it to a cathedral, since they wouldn’t have any other exposure to vast, open, indoor spaces.
The rest of your post, with it’s eventual conclusion that Bredon was the powerhouse behind the empire and ruled it through beer… well, sorry, but I just don’t buy it. Back it up with some evidence and dial back the tinfoil, and I’d think about it more.
haha You are a tough one. Okay then:
Next he decribes a huge block of Iron and it is rusted all the way through or if not at least most of the way(so it has been they for a very, VERY, VeRy! long time lol).
There had to have been water nearby or in contact for the stone to rust so significantly.
In Jeruselum there is a stone roughly the same size called the “Foundation Stone” and nearby it there are three beautiful pillars and under the foundation stone is the spring of life.
Then there is the three “GREAT” pillars nearby the stone Kvothe sees.
The pillars are describes as having green verdigris on it(verdigris is cause when copper or copper alloy, aka brass comes in contact with an acidic compoud).
Thus the pillars Kvothe see are copper or brass considering the verdigris on them.
Acidic environments aid the cultivation of bacteria or fungi. Any homemade alcohol recipe can tell you that(white fungus stated earlier for bredons beer).
There is a canal in the “middle” of the room.
Canal is described as a chasm running through the center of the room.
Chasm is another word for Schism.
There is currently a Schism of Tehlinism called Mender Herecies.
Again, room was prior described as looking like a Cathedral(Usually built in major cities and ran by the church as a group – probably Belen).
All peices in the room point to religous background in almost every single religoun today.
If others among high staff in the cathedral disagree with how one runs the cathedral there can be a vote to switch leadership.
A chasm in the religion at the time when Amyr are disbanded and Chandrian(two heads of philosophical beliefs of this world – Selitos:Lanre / Knowers:Shapers) move in.
Thus, you would have Amyr(mender hericies – conservatives) disbanded centeries back(just as Kvothe decribes the machines have been sitting idle) and the chandrians head of church.
Bredon being an Amyr his decision to keep his brewery going would be over thrown and hed lose everything.
Wanting to play a beautiful game he’d let chandrian invade Tehlin Church only to turn their efforts on themselves by using Kvothe to take them down.. It all plays into the grand scheme of things.
Convinced? You got to be stubborn to deny this much evidence.
Also, the alcohol industry is one of the titans in business so I dont doubt they grew to farm cattle, sheep for wool, and chickens along with agriculture up near Trebon to expand their influence and economy. Wool merchants today are still some of the wealthiest people alive and churches were known to sell wool in this age of our world most likely in theirs. Sorry that you didn’t come to that conclusion yourself I simply gave the Beer as one way he’d be wealthy enough to build an Empire for himself.
The Great Gatsby did it through beer alone lol. Kidding.
@HaydenReece:
Honestly, comarade; I have to agree with JohnPoint here. You’re clearly very knowledgeable about a range of things but a lot of the connections you draw between things seem very tenuous. The whole chasm = schism thing just completely threw me. You’re saying that a physical thing (the canal) which is described using a certain word (chasm) is a metaphor for an event (church split) which can be described using an approximate synonym of the first word (schism). That’s very, very thin. It would only make sense if the entire story is an allegory.
The story as an allegory is a similar idea to the one JohnPoint expounded in 98. I don’t think even he was arguing that KKC as a whole is just K trying to make a point or teach a lesson. Some parts, probably many parts have to be objectively true within the book-world. His audience (Bast and Chronicler) have considerable knowledge of their world and its history. They would question K if he was making up history, folklore, notable people, geography and such left and right. He could be maipulating many of the details but we can be confident of things like the existence of a city called Imre and its location and the number of jots in a talent.
We don’t know with certainty from KKC that the space was truly cathedral-like but when you combine that with the description and picture from SR we have to be fairly confident that it’s a real place and it has a cathedral-like appearance rather than being cathedral-like merely in its holiness.
Fiiiiiine. hahaha. I’ll continue my reread in hopes to convert you two DISBELIEVERS! lol im kidding, but yeah thanks for the input! NOW WHOS READY FOR FELURIAN VS DEATH ON SUVUDU???????? Felurian won last night :D So Pat, if he lives up to his word, will write the scene <3
Humanmale @107: Well said.
HaydenReece @104: Evidence? Nah. Speculation? Yes. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? Definitely.
My point being that if we want to get to the “truth” of the story, we need to consider and evaluate evidence in-world, instead of drawing parallels and conclusions based on tenuous links to real-world events or similar words. All while remembering that one of Pat’s main themes is that stories frequently stem from events, but evolve both randomly *and* intentionally.
Yeah I guess it might be a far stretch.
However, I really do want to know what you think it could be. I mean, why have three great copper pillars in a room? Along with an Iron Block the size of a cottage? then a 3 STORY TALL WATERWHEEL?!(this one is way too mindboggeling – made me think it was Tehlu’s Iron Wheel considering the huge block of iron that could have been used to forge it)
Put together with the other stuff this whole room seems to have been a very very important place, at least more than a factory. Come on, SPECULATE with me here. What do you think.
Most of the machines were believed to be melted. It might have been the very place Encanis was burned.
Hayden @109:
I’m going with Occam, and think it’s the ruins of an earlier, technologically advanced society. Specifically, a factory or major workshop would be my guess. Very possibly from the Ergen Empire, with the melting etc. being damage from the war. The three copper pillars hold up the roof and are immune (or resistant) to naming magic.
A reasonable guess is that the earlier society was much more advanced technologically than the current KKC — at least akin to the industrial revolution, perhaps as or more advanced than our current society. Following the war, there was a major “regression” in tech levels (and knowledge/skill with magic). Go into any industrial revolution or modern factory, and you’ll see machines that are the size of cottages, vast open spaces, and a mind-boggling scale.
@HaydenReece & JohnPoint:
The scale of the industrial remnants does suggest more technologically advanced builders, or at least more industrially advanced builders. My point here is that the technology on show isn’t that impressive, it’s the scale that’s impressive and beyond the abilities of the current society.
Let us speculate:
A waterwheel suggests harnessing power (if it is a waterwheel, of course). The copper or at least cupric pillars suggest… electricity? Conductors? The iron stumps me a bit but I could guess at either some kind of transformer or an electromagnet. The most likely combinations I can come up with is either an electrical generation rig or some kind of magnetic field generator. The first seems somewhat more likely. Or you could look at it backwards and you have an electrical motor that paddles the water in the canal along to… somewhere?
I wonder what the waterwheel is made of? I think they were historically made of wood but here that seems unlikely because of the probable age.
I like Johnpoint’s idea of cooper being used structurally because it’s difficult to affect with naming. Just to be awkward though: is copper resistant to naming or is it only the case that Elodin had difficulty in Haven because he didn’t expect there to be copper in the stones? They weren’t affected by the name of stone, you’d need the name of copper too to get out. It’s just a belt and braces approach. Stone because it’s fitting and easy to work with and copper as a backup because fewer would know the name of copper.
And just for fun as it’s pure speculation without even the faintest hint of corroboration:
The wheel is the wheel that Tehlu bound Encanis to. The chamber is the pit he cast him down into. The melted machinery is the reult of the fire in which Encanis burned.
Conclusions: Tehlu overloaded the machines to create a fire / explosion to kill Encanis in a dramatic end-of-action-movie set-piece fight in a giant steam-and-smoke factory. Probably after beating him with superior kung-fu. Sounds awesome.
@Humanmale I knew I’d bait someone eventually but yes thats how I see this going exactly! It is also noted that Chandrian in a childrens song are believed to travel to and from using lighting. “you’d be surprized the things hidden in childrens songs” – Kvothe.
Maybe the Iron was used to forge the wheel because it is said in the story it took some time to forge. Then the Pillars, since we dont exactly know they are in a line, could have been in a triangle to bind Encanis in a way (considering Elodin had to break the copper wire instead of call its name).
If the beams are still intact but the heat was great enough to melt a majority of the machines in the room that would mean the wood is resistant to heat or fire(Roah wood) together all these elements sound like a way to bind someone to a great tree then use electrodes to teleport them and tree to Fae. This would explain why the split is in the middle of the room, If it were a great tree(Cthaeh Tree) the room or cave would likely be centralized around it.
Lol just speculation.
I highly doubt Rothfuss took out an entire pirate raid in Junpiu but left a description of a large room to let us know KKC had factories..
Potential Plot: “Did you guys know they used the underthing to make things like watches and shoes and cars?” “cool Kvothe, not let me study.”
Potential Plot: “Did you guys know for centuries people have been walking over the “Charred body of GOD”, right below us is the very place Encanis was bound and burned by the wheel then set beyond the doors of stone(possibly the Archive doors or Fae).” “Merciful Tehlu! Kvothe! Are you serious?!” “Don’t curse Tehlu’s name like that, he is forgiving but he is Vengeful. Speak not of Tehlu, save in great peril.”
haha
If the path started in the Mountains, Myr Tariniel or in the East where virgin birth was believed to happen. It would make sense Tehlu went left, the direction of Holy Justice, or the way of the sun, Good. To strike down Encanis at the end of the Great stone road, The Underthing with remarkably weird room believed as a coat factory or holy place. It would also make sense if Cthaeh was Encanis he would have been at Myr Tariniel to Steal the moon then would have stayed considering the story said he kept trying to call her from there. Later, Menda is born in the name of himself and all knowers to strike down the greatest shaper of them all. “More people died in those three days than are living today.”
It connects everything.
Shit, I meant it would make sense if Encanis was IAX lol
@HaydenReece:
Let’s not get too carried away, eh?
@ALL:
So, quick poll: How old do folks think Auri actually is in chronological years since her birth?
Jo thinks she’s older but magically youthful. Personally, I think she’s young-ish, maybe as old as mid-twenties but acts younger. I’d say you could become familiar with something as complex as the Underthing in just a few years easily, especially with her OCD-like behaviour. Just like starting a new job. I certainly can’t think of anything that makes me think she’s especially old. What did I miss? K must have described her physically at some point, I can’t find it. Any age clues?
he decribes her before him and Denna sing for the first time together. t the Interlude before that says hes about to bring up THE woman. but in one chapter i think he brings up Auri and Denna.
@119 Humanmale
Kvothe describes Auri in the first book as having a young appearance. He specificially states that he thinks she is 20 give or take a year and that she has a tendancy to look even younger at times by virtue of being physically thin and childlike in demeanor.
Given that I would hazard a guess to say that she is not younger than 18 and probably closer to Devi’s age physically. Chronologically I have no idea and won’t even hazard a guess.
@56 Humanmale, and others, regarding trauma in Auri’s past: there is a hint that she was raped, late in the story, in her thoughts immediately after she drops Fulcrum and he breaks in three.
“She knew. She should have moved more gently with the world. She knew the way of things. She knew if you weren’t always stepping lightly as a bird the whole world came apart to crush you. Like a house of cards. Like a bottle against stones. Like a wrist pinned hard beneath a hand with the hot breath smell of want and wine…” [ellipsis author’s]
Not conclusive, but that’s how I read it. It might be that event, or her response to it, is what cracked her. We’ve seen that she can bring down the weight of her desire, and bend all things to please her. Maybe she was assaulted and couldn’t defend herself, or maybe she could and did bend someone else up pretty badly when threatened.
HaydenReece @@@@@ 83
I hate to be that guy who always harps on a single point (ok I don’t really) but: Teccam did not live in the CW Era. The evidence of this is very solid. Briefly:
1. It’s established in several places that no extant histories go back to Creation War times, yet Teccam’s writings exist.
2. No one smart (other than people with connections like Skarpi, and the Adem) believes that the CW stories are anything but stories, but everyone talks of Teccam as if he really existed.
Unless there’s some weird stuff going on (like Teccam being immortal, or PR having a major BF) Teccam lived in the historical period, which goes back 2000 years, well after the Creation War.
Furthermore, Teccam’s philosophy is pretty much the exact opposite of the man in the cave in Hespe’s story. Teccam talks of travel and experiencing things; the man in the cave spoke of staying put and listening. Teccam would have taken Jax’s side.
The only thing connecting Teccam with the man in the cave is the cave. And even that’s dubious since K describes this as his classic pose–key word being pose–which means it could very well be apocryphal.
Ok, here’s my theory on the Underthing. It’s a bit different than anything I’ve seen, which surprises me because it seemed almost blatant when I read SRoST.
I formed a loose theory on the very first page. It said Auri slipped out of bed and that the stone floor was “warm beneath her feet”. Now, generally speaking, when you walk barefoot on a stone floor that’s not in direct sunlight, it’s not warm. There had to be a heat source underneath Mantle.
I surmised that the Underthing is a geothermal (temerothermal?) power plant.
As I read on, I modified the theory, since it’s clear that the Underthing is multipurposed and layerd. But nothing really contradicted that the UT was at least partly a power plant, and lots of things supported it. And, although Auri’s room is called Mantle, I don’t necessarily think there is molten rock beneath it–it’s probably just pipes carrying hot water or steam.
Here’s how I see it. The entirety of what Auri now calls the Underthing was built in prehistoric times, mostly underground but some of it above ground. However, a lot of the upper layers were repurposed later. It went through three stages.
Stage 1: The lowest UT rooms (Throughbottom and Billows), and some relatively high rooms like Darkhouse, are pretty much untouched from prehistoric times, and formed some kind of factory, to make weapons for the Creation War I’d guess. There is probably a geothermal power source nearby to power the factory. What is now called the Archives was a cooling tower. The heat from the magma would be used not only to power machines, but also to provide energy needed to forge magic swords like Caesura (drawing a parallel to the One Ring, which was forged in an active volcano). The UT had some kind of preserving magic applied (a lesser version of the Shaping magic used for the Faen relam) that slowed down aging and deterioration but didn’t stop it.
As some point the factory was abandoned, and eventually everything but the cooling tower was completely buried, perhaps by volcanic ash from the nearby geothermal source. But preserving magic and/or good solid construction preserved it underground.
Stage 2. Many many years later, the older university and/or Imre was built near the site of the old factory. Discovering the old power plant underground while they were digging sewers, and recognizing its utility, they restored the infrastructure of pipes and tunnels. In this case, the geothermal heat was simply used to supply hot water, not power. The more modern-looking rooms such as Rubric, Clinks, The Twelve, and so on, were all renovated during this Stage 2.
Stage 3: Modern University. The modern university was built on the ruins of the old university. Among other things, they repurposed the original cooling tower as a library. I don’t think things got reburied, but new university did grow downward to meet the existing UT as they built foundations of the new buildings. Some of the lower rooms (The 12, Clinks) were now flooded and no one bothered to fix it, but the new university reactivate some of the pipes and vents. It built a lot of basements with doors opening into the pipe network, most of which ended up being locked and kept locked.
Wains was renovated at the beginning of this era and used as a mansion, but eventually was reabandoned. It might have even been built out a little. I suspect that it stood apart from most of the UT originally (you’ll note that no matter where Auri is, she always has to travel a distance to get to Wains).
Random points: I suspect the preserving magic is what defines the Underthing. Rooms like Boundary and Tenance were built later and don’t have it (this is why they gather more dust than the UT rooms). The perserving magic might be why Auri looks only 18 when logically she should be around 30 at least. The preserving magic might be why few people explore the UT; I suspect it has a disconcerting effect on most people. They just want to fix the pipes and get back up to the surface.
@msmcdon 122:
That’s the most compelling quotation I’ve seen for the rape theory. I’m persuaded – Auri was probably either raped or someone attempted to rape her. Doesn’t mean that’s the sole cause of her mental state but it certainly wouldn’t help.
@robocarp 123:
You make a compelling case. One wonders, however: where did Teccam’s classic pose with bare feet and cave come from? If he’s anything like our philosophers then the most likely source would be that that is how he actually taught, at least according to questionable histories. It’s also perfectly possible that the man in the cave in Hespe’s story might be Teccam – through conflation of “wise man” and “Teccam”.
The earliest (oral) versions of Hespe’s story may have had only a wise man with shoes and a house that advised. Later his part was filled out by adding details from a real wise man – Teccam (no shoes, cave).
As an off-the-wall alternative: Teccam himself only has his classic pose from him emulating a wise man that predates him who’s the source of Hespe’s wise man or from his historical account being conflated with earlier stories of a wise man in a cave from the same source as Hespe.
@robocarp 124:
You provide a lot of food for thought. Where does all the heat / steam / hot water come from? There certainly seems to be a lot of it down there. We certainly never see any giant, active furnaces. Geothermal makes more sense than most ideas.
One point I would make is that assuming that the factory made weapons is a shot in the dark. It could have made candle-holders or magi-tech iPads.
I’m also not sure about the library being a cooling tower. Isn’t it very bulky for a cooling tower? Aren’t the insides of cooling towers damp and humid?And hollow?
The rest of your ideas seem really solid. I especially like the idea of preserving magic. There’s not much actual evidence for it but it would make a lot of the other theories about the Underthing play nice together – Auri being ageless, the Underthing dating back to the creation war, the surprising amount of intact structure, etc.
Time for my own out-there theory. Not too serious about it but more a thought experiment to chew on:
The room with the machines (Throughbottom, right?) was some kind of power-plant. It used magic-rock or nuclear energy to create electricity. One day they had themselves a meltdown. Disaster! All the machines were melted and deformed from the heat and much destruction was wrought. The remains of the site had to be buried and abandoned for thousands of years while the magical / radioactive contamination slowly reduced. Then the site was re-occupied by descendants who had no idea of what had happened…
And now, the more I think about it the more I keep thinking that giant block of rust = chandrian involvement.
Humanmale @@@@@ 125
Elements of the real Teccam very well might have made it into Hespe’s story, since it’s just a story. Or vice versa, for that matter: Teccam’s legend could have acquired attributes of the hermit, and maybe this would explain Teccam’s classic pose.
But if you’re trying to extract historical inforamation from the story, it’d be going against factual evidence to say the hermit represented Teccam. OTOH, the hermit’s worldview does align quite well with Selitos, and Selitos did lived in that era on a mountain. The superficial aspects of the hermit match Teccam, but the important ones match Selitos.
Also, many cooling towers are big and bulky, and it wouldn’t be humid inside if it’s not in use (you only need it when you are generating power, not if you’re just piping hot water around).
@robocarp:
I think we’re saying the same things about Teccam. I’m not trying to say who he or the hermit are, just how the descriptions arose.
The comparison to Selitos does seem quite apt. That would make a great deal of sense.
As for the cooling tower / library: You’re right in what you say (doesn’t need to be humid, could be bulky) but I remain to be convinced. The library could be a cooling tower but the only evidence you seem to be using is it’s height (above and below ground) it’s size and it’s possible age. It could just as easily been any large, vertical-ish structure from the period or any later period. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying “convince me.”
Robocarp @124:
I like it. I really like it. Nice thoughts.
Regardless of whether the Underthing was a power plant (geothermal, nuclear, or other), factory, or some combination thereof, I expect that there was a connection to Trebon, and the “hill fort” there. Trebon would have provided raw materials — iron, perhaps coal, perhaps nuclear materials, for the industrial region, which we think was probably the city of Belen.
Humanmale @@@@@ 127
What I presented was a theory. I didn’t present every tiny piece of evidence (my posts are already long enough), and some parts are better supported than others. Really the only reason I proposed that the Archives was a cooling tower is that a big power plant needs a cooling tower, and the Archives looked like one. But since you push me, how about this.
A cooling tower needs an updraft. Otherwise the air gets too warm and isn’t able to do its job very well. Billows, which we know is adjacent to the Archives, is a drafty place, and we know that air travels between the two (this is why there is book smell Billows). When the factory was in operation it’s likely they fed the drafts from Billows into the cooling tower to make it more efficient. After repurposing the tower, they used the drafts merely for ventilation.
Or not. It’s just a theory. Wouldn’t it be funny if “Valaritas” means “heat exchanger”?
In case anyone wonders, what I was proposing was not an electric power plant, but a steam one. The geothermal plant heats water into steam, and the high-pressure steam is sent off to power machines, then (once it’s done its work) the now-low-pressure steam is sent off to be condensed the cooling tower. I saw no evidence of electrical wires anywhere.
JohnPoint @@@@@ 128
I was suggesting that it was a factory with its own dedicated power plant. They built the factory there because of the nearby geothermal power source.
That’s a tidy explanation for why there might be all this CW-era stuff a
two-day ride from the probable site of Belen (the modern location of
Tarbean). Before SRoST it seemed as if the UT could have been this big underground city, and for that reason I had ideas that it might have been the buried remains of Belen. It’s clear now that the UT has relatively few livable areas, for things like meetings and stuff, so it wasn’t a city. (Maybe Wains was a residence for the CEO.)
If, as you say, raw materials came from Trebon, it would explain why they didn’t just build the factory in Trebon. It could even explain the great stone road: it was built to easily ship supplies to allied cities.
@robocarp:
Heh, heat exchanger.
I appreciate your thoroughness. I accept that the archives could have been a cooling tower. If only we knew what the floors in there were constructed from, or at least that they were of later construction…
Interesting stuff on a steam power plant. Hadn’t thought of that but it fits way better with the infrastructure that we see; pipes and such. Of course there’s no reason that one power plant couldn’t produce both high-pressure steam and electricity. You’d only need a turbine… which might well look like a giant water-wheel…
@robocarp 124: Nice catch on the heat source beneath Mantle. The gears and machinery do suggest an ancient factory. I’d speculate that it was much more recent than the CW era, however, for two reasons:
1. 5,000 years is a very long time for any machinery to last, especially in a damp environment like the Underthing. A preserving spell could explain that, but of course the “but… magic!” argument can explain anything.
2. CW magic was prevalent and powerful. In an era when the Faen realm was “sewn from whole cloth,” when shapers wrought stars to “fill the new and empty sky,” when the Great Stone Road was built, “arrow-straight and table-flat” along an exact geodesic spanning the map… well, any mundane source of energy seems rather insignificant by comparison.
There’s an Auri-related question that’s been bothering me:
What’s the significance of Auri giving Kvothe a key, coin, and candle — the tools of Taborlin the Great?
Textual support:
(NW, Chapter 1)
(NW, Chapter 46)
(NW, Chapter 53)
(NW, Chapter 68)
(WMF, Chapter 11)
@robocarp, 124
Really nice one.
However, I think we had discussed before that magma core implies spherical (geoid-shaped?) world with the magnetism. Which might not be the case with Temerant, given existance of trifoil compasses and lodestones and stuff…
Smock @132: That’s a good question, but as far as I know, it’s not resolvable yet. We’ve discussed it before, and the obvious potential answer is that those are the tools that a namer needs, and Auri knows that Kvothe is a namer. So, she provides them for him. A less obvious possible answer is that she knows that he always had a Taborlin fetish and is giving them to him as a “joke.” And there are other possible speculations.
BioLogIn @133: If we’re truly speculating a non-spherical world, then there’s nothing that says magma has to be related to a core or anything else. There could just be deep pockets of molten rock deep underground. Or some completely different mechanism not related to a core and sphere.
On
NamingKnowing vs. Shaping.@stevenhalter, 14
Felurian agrees, except that the two ends of her spectrum are Knowing and Shaping:
(WMF, Chapter 102. She goes on to tell the story of the shaping of the Fae and the stealing of the moon.)
I think that the distinction between Knowing and Naming is crucial. If the dichotomy were Naming vs. Shaping, then it would make perfect sense to interpret Shaping as a different, perhaps competing, form of magic. But Knowing vs. Shaping strikes me as just the sort of philosophical distinction that stevenhalter mentions. I see Knowing and Shaping as two sides of a coin, and the coin is Naming.
My mental shorthand for Knowing is Science (or if you like, Natural Philosophy). A scientist, at least in the enlightenment tradition, is driven by a passion for discovery, a joy in learning nature’s secrets.
My mental shorthand for Shaping is Engineering. An engineer’s purpose is to make tools. Powerful tools that allow mankind to profoundly alter the shape of the world.
Naming, in this analogy, is the scientific method. It’s a particular way to understand how the world works. It underpins both Science and Engineering. For scientists, the method is an end in itself. For engineers, the method is a means to an end.
So it goes, I think, with Knowers and Shapers. In my opinion, Auri is firmly a Knower. Her quest for rightness and balance is all about knowing the fox, the hare, and the space between the two.
Smock @135:
Well said. And excellent point about Felurian’s distinction of knowing. I think that your analogy is pretty apt, too.
@BioLogIn 133, JohnPoint 134:
Yeah, I’m not a geologist, but I don’t think underground heat entails a spherical world. Big friggin’ tectonic plates grinding together are gonna release a lot of energy, whether they’re sitting on a sphere, cube, torus, or some other weird shape.
Thanks for the Taborlin thoughts, JP.
@robocarp to contradict Teccam not being hermit.
Kvothe leaves univercity to take a break and experience the world as Elxa Dal says he should in his Ignorant Edema story.
Kvothe leaves and ends up learning the Ketan and in Fae calls the name of the wind around Felurian and calls her name. He then is interduced to Cthaeh right after the Hespe story of IAX, Tinker and Hermit.
In Ademre he sharpens his mind and body more and discovers “Spinning Leaf”
Uses this to call the wind anytime hes threatened or nervous like when being judged by the Adem school leaders.(Its the first time he was scared while being on stage and brought the spinning leaf out).
Upon returning to univercity Elodin or someone compares him to Teccam with his famous quote about chasing the wind and walking until no one knows your name to truly find yourself.
Together these points support my theory:
Teccam, being a Knower would seek the names of all things and would go chasing the wind towards the east and find the cave “it helps me listen better” or something. Then he would stay and listen for the names of all things. Since he traveled across the world and decided to stay for a good amount of time its very likely his shoes would be unwearable at some point. IAX somewhere along the line would encounter Teccam and would be in his classic pose, bare foot in the cave teaching IAX that there is a thing called listening and such. Then shows him how to work the various items and no doubt IAX would not have been the only stragler considering the proximity of Tinue and possibly Lackless lands “Parts of the Small Kindoms and Eld at one point”(teccams time period). Considering Caudicuss remark on their influence during the time those lands would of had to be prosperous and flowing with people who stumble upon the cave. He would come back eventually and found the univercity explain the idolized imagery in the window of him.
Aside from the theory, why would rothfuss choose carefully to compare kvothes journey to Teccams quote had he not wanted us to see the simularity between the two men and their travels. Furthermore, why introduce a story of the moon and it being stolen in the first place right before he goes into the Fae?
Then you could speculate their conversation as being a philosophical difference between IAX and Hermit. Hermit sees IAX wishes to alter the world for his desires and in turn offers IAX one last chance to stay and simply be content with just knowing the things that the hermit taught him.
As to the roundness of the world and lava..
First off just to point out, all thermodynamics of the world are absent and to have a round world with lava would almost ruin their magic or at least the story. Why prize a pocket warm quick heater, if someone within the time period had already discovered a volcano with lava. They just carry around a sealed insolated casing full of lava and have all the energy they needed. This is my contradiction only because the Univercities first creation was sympathy and if they had it that far back they definately would still be using it. I think with naming theyd only need the name of fire to call enough energy for obsidian or other rock existing in the world. That or with the name of sand and rock they make obsidian knives(selitos knife).
Contrary to that, if there was a volcano then i will go against the latter. The volcano could have been the Chasm in the middle of throughbottom. The huge whater wheel would have been a steam driven turbine. The iron block would have been used to counter-act the drivetrain of the wheel to create the electricity and the copper pillars would have been used to channel it into the huge machines running and making whatever it was there were making. For all I know the machines could have mass produced Taborlin Amulets.(lol)
This would be the reason for roah wood construction beams for the foundation and why the iron block is so rusted(years and years of steam).
Whatever was being mass produced was possibly being transported asap down the great stone road thus its utility and reason for being built.
Moreover, it being as old as god we could say the creation war needed mass produced copper knives and key coin candle(univercity created sympathy then mass produced sympathy tools) and tabolin amulets to fight against fae. This would explain the Trebon fortess being south of the Fae doors on the biggest hill.(closer to univercity).
This would also explain the size of haven(possible headcourters for militia).
Considering chandrians age they must have been smart enough to look past destroying they entire facility and instead went straight for the factory overloading it enough to melt the machinery and hault its production then escape through Trebon Fae doors.
Also, since there is a Knowing side of Fae(Felurians decription of Fae), these knowers would built a safe door to fae and there side of it directly across from their headcourters so they could quickly fight the war in Fae too.
The dracus that is very near to the Fae doors outside Trebon could have been a watch dog of sorts for the doors and has been since. So Dennerlings would accasionally come through the doors, make the shack, and start up the Ophalum/tree farm to continually feed the beast so it grows rapidly and stays alive throughout the 5000 years(possible hint at book three war being old war starting again). This would also explain why its abnormally bigger than those Kvothe read about from Chonicler.
The grey stones across from Great Stone Road that wil sim and K lay by would be the safe Doors for old headcourters. The shape of the doors alone explain the “luck” phenomenon Arliden talks about.
Fairy lore say that if one hangs an iron horse shoe upside down on their down poat its believed to hold luck and the luck pours out the bottom ends or in this case the grey stones are horse shoe shape pouring bring luck into the world down the two ends.
door post* sorry
HaydenReece @@@@@ 138
PR clearly did want us to see how Kvothe took Teccam’s advice to travel. But somehow to you this proves the Teccam is the hermit, even though the hermit’s advice was to the do the exact opposite. And it seems that your “evidence” is some back story about Teccam that has absolutely no support in the text.
There’s nothing wrong with wild speculation. (I have certainly done my share of it: such as my theory that Faeries are literally dogs, and that the theft of the moon triggered a different war than the Creation War.) But responding to a fact-based, logical argument that has direct support from the text is not the place for wild speculation. You’re responding to direct evidence with a story you basically made up to fit a few selective facts.
So I’m going to call your argument both groundless, and contrary to the best-supported evidence. IOW, it’s bunk.
@BioLogIn 133:
I don’t see that the existance of trifoil compasses and lodenstones necessarily implies that the world isn’t spherical. A trifoil compass should be more useful than a magnetic compass for determining direction / position so even if magnetic compasses existed in the past they could have fallen completely out of use by the present era. Lodenstones (magnets) would then be mainly a curiousity rather than a useful material. Of course Temerant could still be flat or any other shape.
Another option: there is a core but it doesn’t contain as much iron as ours. There would be either no magnetic field worth talking about or at least a weaker one.
@smocksmocksmock 135 & JohnPoint 136:
If you draw the distinction between naming / knowing and shaping in this way would that make any active use of naming magic to cause an effect an act of shaping? That is; the knowers would be content to simply know how to do it, to actually bend the world to your will by doing a thing would be shaping. That’d make Kvothe a shaper.
RE: Mantle:
The name could simply be more poetic than literal. The place is warmed by something but it needn’t be magma. Other options include but are not limited to: More pipes beneath the floor (ancient underfloor heating or just on their way somewhere else), proximity to a mundane furnace or my own “patented” magical radioactivity providing continued warmth.
@Humanmale 143: Well, I don’t think Knowing/Shaping is an exact binary, with “using magic to do stuff” as the line in the sand. It’s a subtle spectrum, as subtle as the Lethani or the Tao. Actually, a fair characterization of Shaping is probably “Naming that is not of the Lethani.”
To address your main question, though: Yeah, for sure. I think Kvothe is definitely a Shaper, or at least is far down the road toward becoming one. Although the idea of wise use of power is a deep theme running through NW and WMF — embodied most obviously in the Lethani, but also in Elodin’s teaching, conversations with the Maer, Iax and the moon, Lanre’s fall, etc. — it’s one that in-frame Kvothe is totally unable to grasp. (Frame Kote grasps it all too well, to his enduring regret.) I think this will be a fundamental contributor to the tragedy that awaits us in D3.
Consider, for example, Kvothe calling the wind at the end of NW:
(NW, Chapter 84)
Naming in anger in order to do physical violence strikes me as pretty much the antithesis of Knowing.
Of course caveats apply: Kvothe is still a Naming noob, he was abused as a child, Ambrose is a total twat, etc. But let’s reread that scene, imagining that Kvothe is a young apprentice blacksmith carrying around a heavy hammer, rather than a young apprentice magician carrying around the name of the wind.
What happens in the scene? Ambrose teases Kvothe, so Kvothe threatens, “in perfect earnest,” to straight-up murder him. Ambrose doesn’t stop, so Kvothe picks up his hammer and smashes Ambrose’s arm. When Ambrose eventually gets up, cradling his broken arm, Kvothe feels no remose. He enjoys Ambrose’s pain, and wants to hit him again — not to do more harm, but to explore the limits of his newfound power.
Shehyn would flip her adorable hat if she saw an Adem act that far from the Lethani.
Smock@135:Yes, Knowing is probably the more descriptive term for talent. Auri knows the place and relationship of things as she “sees” their true “names”. She is one with the force in these instances.
I’m not going to comment on the merits of the thread but, as with the previous Kvothe posts by Jo and the voluminous commentary by the Tor community, I want to say excellent job to all! Well done (so far).
R
@smocksmocksmock:
Yeah, Kvothe is definitely one to jump off the slippery slope. He can get back on later, maybe.
You’re right; there would have to be shades of knowing and shaping. After all; they’re just names (lowercase “n”), everybody’s different and very few would be entirely pure knower or pure shaper.
Naming of the Lethani (or not) is catchy. On the other hand shaping has a strong indication as to what is done with it (making stuff) rather than a moral indicator (wrong naming).
Is Auri’s odd behaviour, or at least some of it an example of knowing?
What I find interesting is the moral aspect. There seems to be a strong thread that knowers are good, humble and righteous while shapers are proud, wilful, arrogant and self-interested. Do you think the books back this up or is this more of a trap we’ve fallen into in the comments? And if the books back that up, are they doing so in a way we should trust or should we suspect bias?
Also interesting are the names themselves. Knower and shaper sound like things you’d call “our side” not names assigned by others. They both have positive connotations. You’d think that whoever was telling the tale they’d use the positive name for their side and a less flattering term for the other side.
For the most part, we are seeing the classic history as told by the victors story. Jax & co. appear to have lost the CW and we are hearing from the other side. The victors do usually present themselves as good, just & etc.
Are they really–we don’t know. We do see a hint at another side (3rd side) from Denna’s song about Halliax.
Faint. Feint. Feigned. Fain. Faen?
I just reread Day 1 of SRST, and the following passage stuck in my craw.
(SRST, p. 11)
I don’t really know what to make of that passage, but it seems terribly significant. Parsing it raises two points:
1. Auri strives every day for “the smallness of a tree among trees. Of a shadow underground.” So she’s trying to blend in, to hide. That makes sense; no deep revalations here.
2. Without her halo of hair, Auri feels (a) dim, and (b) more faint-feint-feigned-fain. What the heck does that mean? All I can think of is the moon, which is more in the Fae — more Faen — when darker (as seen from the mortal realm). Is this just PR extending the analogy of Auri and the moon? Or is he hiding in plain sight the answer to @BlueJo’s riddle, “Why is Auri young?” (Answer: “Because she’s Faen.”) And what does “the perfect strip of linen” have to do with the price of butter?
Also, any thoughts on what a “water nixie” is?
(SRST, p. 14)
This is the first use of the word “nixie” in the books. It makes me think of a naiad. Some sort of Fae creature?
Help!
smocksmocksmock@149:Fain is an interesting word choice there. It means willing or obliged or even compelled and so casts a darker shadow there.
A nixie is a water spirit in general so some sort of Fae would seem reasonable in Temerant.
@smock:
(May I call you smock?)
I actually read that as a candle metaphor. “Dim… wick rolled down.. guttery.”
Yeah; that sentence lost me too. Could be that fain = faen, could be… but that rather begs the question: What does Auri feel like when she doesn’t feel fain / faen? And how would she equate feeling faen with feeling lesser?
A nixie is a type of water fairy from germanic / scandinavian folklore. Shape-changing, seductive, tricksy. Probably a fae creature in KKC, one might imagine.
EDIT: and the perfect strip of linen is the strip she went hunting for first that she used to tie her hair back. I imagine she’s saying having wet hair hanging everywhere would be even more unbecoming. Something she’d fain accept.
Humanmale @@@@@ 143
My guess is that, officially, Mantle is named after a mantle in the sense of a cloak or protective covering. However, the name in a lot of rooms seems to have multiple meanings and puns built in. So the warmth under the floor probably is contributes to the name as well. There’s also something like a mantel in the room (she sets the brazen gear on it).
Whether there’s molten rock underground doesn’t really say anything about the shape of Temerant, but if there’s a layer of rock undeground in Temerant called mantle, then it’s evidence that Temerant is round like Earth.
@robocarp:
I think all the names of places in the Underthing have those hidden meanings. They’re not always obvious or even at all deducible from the available information but I suspect they’re there. That’s Auri’s style.
I caught the mantlepiece meaning and as you say a protective mantle, like a room as outerwear. The warmth under the floor could well be a third meaning but I just can’t make my mind up.
When Auri is looking in the mirror which I think is in mantle or one of the other rooms adjoining her bedroom she catches some sunshine. That means she’s at or near surface level. If there was magma warming the floor at that level you’d expect to see some sign of it on the surface; hot springs, geysers, steam, smoke, that sort of thing, especially as there’s nearby water (the river). It could have been overlooked in the stories as irrelevant detail, I guess.
If there’s a layer below ground in Temerant called the mantle that doesn’t mean it’s the same as our mantle. It’s just a name. On the other hand it is evidence, just not very strong.
Regarding Auri feeling faint. Feint. Feigned. Fain.
This is when her hair is tied back. As I recall, Fela puts her hair up for her fancy date with Ambrose. So hair done up is flirtatious; it must make Auri feel very different than she feels with her cloud of hair.
She feels faint, dizzy. Feint, pretentious. Feigned, put-on. Fain, willing.
Having her hair down makes her feel young and small.
Auri with her hair tied back is a different, dangerous girl. A girl who could do things she shouldn’t.
I hope by the end of Book 3, we’ll have a better sense of which stories are all the same stories seen through the lens of time, retelling, and adaptation. If anything, that notion is the masterwork underlying the whole series.
Euler @155:
Precisely. Well stated.
@robocarp:
For what it’s worth I do think that Temerant is probably spherical.
What little evidence there is seems to point that way and I’d tend to assume that it’s like a real place / planet until proven otherwise.
Evidence:
*Mantle the room as a play on Mantle the layer of a planet.
*The great stone road being drawn as a curve on the map. Most likely a great circle course or geodesic as drawn on a projected map (probably the strongest evidence).
*Fae appears to be spherical or toroid (you can keep going straight and end up where you started according to… Felurian?). It was built by someone who was trying to build their own version of Temerant. Without evidence to the contrary they probably based its design on Temerant.
*Presence of a horizon.
I’m probably missing some points but it’s enough for me to feel moderately confident.
@euler 155:
Don’t forget the effects of bias. It’s the quickest way to turn one story into two very different seeming stories.
Just curious, any thoughts as to why Auri’s hair sticks straight out making it look like a halo. Is she full of electrostatic energy or what? Is there some machine still working in the underthing that creates electrostatic energy? I’m half joking yet half serious. Anyone else think that’s weird or wish to talk about that.
Come on HaydenReece, I know you’ve got a theory ;) Tell me it has something to do with an electromagnetic field she creates and it is similar to how the chandrian can travel through lightening. And she stays young because she can create 1.21 Jigawatts of energy and travel back in time, or something cool like that.
@whitelightning during a retread of all the stories of the book I was searching for delusions Iax story and stumbled upon the fight scene between K and F here is what I found:
“Her power hung about her like a mantle. It shook the air. It spread behind her like a pair of vast and unseen wings. Close enough to touch, I felt her power thrumming in the air. Desire rose around me like the sea in storm. She raised her hand. She touched my chest. I shook. She met my eyes, and in the twilight written there I saw again the four clear lines of song. I sang them out. They burst from me like birds into the open air. Suddenly my mind was clear again. I drew a breath and held her eyes in mine. I sang again, and this time I was full of rage. I shouted out the four hard notes of song. I sang them tight and white and hard as iron. And at the sound of them, I felt her power shake then shatter, leaving nothing in the empty air but ache and anger.”
This clearly says she has unseen wings that signify her power..
Tehlin Angels can only be seen by the most powerful and only at great peril
Kvothe in the next scene, binds felurian and in response his brow glows a white star.
Angels power hangs on their brow like a white star.
At the end of that skit it is said that the only thing left in the air was anger.
Andan is an angel and his name means anger.
Meanings of name signify their power.
Fair geiza is an angel and was believed to have many suitors in Belen before the walls fell.
Felurian has hundreds of suitor by simply being anywhere near many people.
A wise mans fear is a sea in storm and a moonless night and a gentlemans anger.
The skit says felurians will was like a sea in storm.
Kvothe is gentle mans anger.
Ordal is youngest of all angels and name means golden.
Auris hair is referred to as a golden halo.
Auris power is just like felurians in light of her not needing to speak names and rather only needs to bend the world to her desire.
Thus, you have my theory.
She is youngest angel or ruach and since ruach are immortal and don’t age she does not age and she strives to be small in the sense that she hopes the huge world would regard such a silent and small thing and fix her, putting her exactly where she belongs in the same sense that she does for her underthing objects.
On another note, I’ve been thinking. each side says the enemy is locked beyond the doors of stone..however, fae fear cthaeh more than death itsself. I feel like Cthaeh is the true enemy. This would be because the whole plot revolves around life and death purity and wicked. This my theory:
All things desired knowledge, and we know true knowledge would be the full understanding of Lethani.. This is because Vachet says it is rooted in the heart of Kvothes soul and it is what kvothe reached inside himself for directly before he saw all the world and their names.. This would make the Lethani the power Given to the Angels considering sheyn says their was a time the lethani was not known and that was a time of many wars and chaos(blac of drossen tor). So since Death is an open door to haliaxs power I suspect he means he draws from the power of all dead things/people and world this be ever powerful. Angels would then draw their power from all living things(sun moon and all of earth) making their power much greater.. I suspect Chandrian are out to kill the moon and draw from her power..Maybe lyre is the moon and haliax is iax and lanre and him killing the Lyra was figurative to him changing her name and so maybe Alue is the name of the sun and he plans to kill him so alue may fall nameless from the sky and selitoss binding will let off and he can live in bliss..
Sorry it spell checked delusions at the beginning but I meant felirians
@HaydenReece – Heavy, real heavy. Truly you have a dizzying intellect. Knew you wouldn’t disappoint.
Here’s my theory: you are either PR himself or Mel Gibson’s character off conspiracy theory.
@whitelightning, you might even find this interesting:
Vachet has a talk with Kvothe about the lethani.
During the talk Kvothe jokes that when they talk of the lethani they sound like drunken cartagrophers.
Vachet laughs and say that there are actually plenty of people who do such things.. “Legendarly so”
Skarpi is a drunk who tells stories for alcohol in exange, so much so that all the kids know not to anger him only to bide by his rules that he has set and enforced long enough for the kids to understand not to..
Skarpi knows every story in the world. Or rather one story that branches into other stories.
Skarpi read Kvothes heart “like a book”
Skarpi has a beard and sparkling blue eyes.
Sceop has blue eyes and is grandfather to the Ruh.
Sceop regains his power by telling his life story and after words travels the world telling ruh all the stories of the world.
However, Sceop says he is only “called Sceop” Just as menda was only “Called Menda” just as Kvothe is only “Called Kote”
Thus, I think Sceop is Skarpi and since you have to be a little bit of a liar to tell the story the right way I think Skarpi is biased by saying Selitos was the hero. Then I started listening to more of the stories and found my next theory..
Before my theory i forgot to add in the last one that since Sceop is grandfather to Ruh he is Ruh down to the marrow of his bones. Kvothe is also Ruh down to the marrow of his bones and his Adem name is an anagram of Ademre…. Kvothe would then be Adem and thus would make him of Sceops bloodline. Which would also mean that Sceop had possessed the lathani deeply rooted in him. Since lethani is what Kvothe used to see all of the world in Fae and Call the wind and Felurians name It would mean Sceop could do the same.
Skarpis name resembles an Itallian word “Scarpino which means to hike or to trek.
This would mean his name means to travel. Or he is a born traveller..
If Sceops life story was about how he traveled to fair ryniel it would make sense that he was only “called Sceop” yet his name was Skarpino or Skarpi or something close. (true name that is).
This would also mean that he is the original Ruh and Immortal.
Thus you have arlidens explination of all the grandchildren adding up to a blue eyed grandmother, with the grandmother part to throw us off until the time he saw him again as the story says.. Also, would explain his dislike for him.
As to my next theory Il leave it for tomorrow after you’ve all chewed on this.
HaydenReece@163: You said “Thus you have arlidens explination of all the grandchildren adding up to a blue eyed grandmother, with the grandmother part to throw us off until the time he saw him again as the story says.. Also, would explain his dislike for him.”
My question is, who did Arliden dislike?
I’m sorry that’s my thinking faster than I can type while trying to hide the fact that on tor at work lol.. Kvothe calls skarpie and chronicler both rumor mongers considering what he knows in book three when he meets skarpi again and because chroniclers description of draccus was wrong.
@whitelightning & HaydenReece:
No offence to HaydenReece but much of what you say sounds like the ravings of a madman. So much so that I wonder if it’s deliberately written that way.
Still there’s some real gems hidden in there. Maedre being an anagram of Ademre – insightful. I can’t take more than a fraction of what you say seriously but that fraction that’s left is intriguing.
@Humanmale “Not ravings of a mad man,” Kvothe said grimly. “Perspective.” We go rummaging around in other people’s lives. We hear rumors and go digging for the painful truth beneath the lovely lies.
I go looking for plost twists and parrallels but am left with close to nothing on Pats part for putting so little backround on each character sometimes only describing their eyes and voice. So left with only these scraps I attempt to do what Arliden did and follow those eye colors back to the changing blue grean eyed grandmother.
I am sorry that each theory is so vague however, you have to remember he built the book then rebuilt onto it with new characters, then went through and took out i think it was like 200000-300000 words and these are the details he DELIBRATELY left us with. They aren’t the 300000 words of fluff in to make a set of pillars JUST be a set of pillars in a weird room. NO. I have to believe he deliberately told us of the verdigris on the pillars to tell us they are copper pillars in a weird room. And this, like all the other little things that make small details I point out, a lot more than what they are said to be. So yeah to you it might sound like nonsense, but that might be because I’m closer to seeing the changing eyed grandmother(big picture) than you are. Maybe. Maybe you’re closer and I am crazy.
@HaydenReece:
That actually sounded a bit harsher than I intended. My apologies. And that’s a good point – In these books more than just about anything else I’ve read (maybe excluding holy texts?) there is gold hidden in the crevices. Small details squirreled away in inoccuous passages. Fun!
@Humanmale I like that, gold in the crevices. It makes me think of Auri. Maybe she can do great things, far greater than what we’ve seen so far. I hope he does a book of the CW.
Pat’s version of the final match for the Suvudu Cage Match is up: http://suvudu.com/2015/04/cage-match-2015-round-5-death-vs-felurian.html Be sure to catch Pat’s version of the Felurian vs. Susan match as well (on his blog).
We can glean a few things from the narrative, including that Pat gets grief about the overly Taoist feel of the Lethani, Felurian does indeed have a whole variety of powers (including potentially shaping abilities), and that the Aleu are NOT the stars. In the past, we’ve had discussion of what, exactly, the Aleu are. Speculation has included the angels, stars, or something else. However, Felurian says the line “forever. until the stars go black and the aleu fall nameless from the sky.” Which seems to differentiate them from the stars. My money is on the angels, or whatever Aleph and kind are actually. (e.g., Aleu could mean “followers of Aleph” or something like that.)
JohnPoint @@@@@ 171
The Aleu could be angels, but one thing to keep in mind is that the Aleu were spoken of before the angel-creation incident, at least according to Skarpi (but see below). So if Tehlu and friends are the Aleu, they’re not the first ones.
I have absolutely no doubt that “the Aleu fall nameless from the sky” is an end-of-the-world idiom to some people in Temerant. It would be like us saying something like “until the Four Horsemen come”. And, here’s the important thing: the person saying it doesn’t necessarily have to believe the Aleu exist. Also, because it’s an idiom, it could be used anachronously in a story. So it’s very possible the phrase came into being later, with Aleu referring explicitly to the Tehlin angels, and that it was backported into Selitos’ and Lanre’s mouths by Skarpi.
I don’t like it, though. At all. There’s a whole bunch of reasons, including an Auri-like sense that it’s “just wrong”. But the major reaons are: 1. I think there’s already a term for Tehlu and friends: singers. Not to mention angels. 2. It seems to me that the Aleu would need to be there from start to finish for this idiom to carry its force. It is possible that Aleph merely created more of what already predated the world, but that’s unsatisfying. 3. The angels are known to have names, which means they have to lose their names (is that even possible?) before falling. To me it feels like the Aleu never had names and never will, but I admit another interpretion is that the losing their names is something the end of the world causes.
My guess is:
1. We will never find out what the Aleu are (at least not until KKC gets its very own Silmarillion)
2. If we do, they won’t actually exist. It’s just an idiom based on an old myth. Or that might be the whole point.
On to Felurian. It doesn’t surprise me that she has a variety of powers. I suspect a lot of people didn’t notice Felurian counterattacked Kvothe (and not in her typical way, if you know what I mean) between the two times he called her four-note name, and he felt it: he said he tasted bile and bitter rue. It was the title of that chapter. Also, Elodin calls her “old and powerful”.
robocarp @172:
Re Felurian: oh, I totally agree. I’ve always figured that she had skillz. (And, as you say, she was able to attack Kvothe with more than her typical lust power.) However, I’ve seen a number of comments by various people — not here so much, as other places online — that she’s no more than a sex fairy. Or something along those lines. Anyway, I think that the undertones of Pat’s story firmly (should, at least) end that speculation. She quite clearly has much power at hand.
Re the Aleu: you could definitely be correct, and they are some type of apocryphal legend or idiom. However I would be a bit surprised if that were the case, given that Felurian used the expression firsthand. She doesn’t really strike me as the idiomatic saying type, particularly if it’s an anachronistic term that Skarpi added to the story (I don’t think that either Bast used in the Lightning Tree, or Auri in SR, but I don’t have searchable copies to check right now…) Given the people that used (or are reported to have used) the expression, I think the Aleu are something indeed, and it’s an old expression only used by those who are in the know.
I probably shouldn’t have used the term “angel” in my earlier post: what I really meant was Aleph and his kind — and I think that Aleph is (was?) something different from Tehlu and pals. As far as Kvothe knows, Aleph came before anything else:
I’ve always interpreted this as evidence that Aleph is a different type of being than Tehlu and pals — they get changed into something (angels, singers, something…), but they aren’t on the same “level” as Aleph.
Since this is a story in which names are important, I would be surprised if the aleu didn’t have names to start. To me, it seems like the end of the world would indeed involve *everything* losing its name — which would make the saying more powerful if the original “source” of names was itself then becoming nameless at the end of the world.
JohnPoint @@@@@ 173
Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Actually that’s probably the best Aleu theory I’ve heard. Still, there’s one quote I can think of to suggest Aleph is not a different kind of being:
“Selitos knew that in all the world there were only three people who could match his skill in names: Aleph, Iax, and Lyra.”
So Aleph is a person (whatever that means), and comparable enough to Lyra and Iax to be mentioned in the same sentence.
robocarp @174: Yeah, that has always been a sticking point for me too. A few ways that I could resolve it:
1) It could be explained through dramatic license on Skarpi’s part, but I’m not really satisfied with that explaination.
2) Alternatively, Iax and Lyra could have been Aleu as well (maybe Selitos too?), but I’m not really happy with that, either.
3) A third possibility would be that all of the Aleu were the old name knowers and/or the shapers as Felurian discusses them. Honestly, any beings with that type of power (they created the Fae realm out of nothing, after all…) would be much more on the order/magnitude of Greek gods, instead of mortals like Kvothe et al.
@JohnPoint & robocarp:
I always thought of Aleph as a prime mover-type being; the original source of all, comparable to Yahweh. Seems that’s supported by:
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.
NOTW Ch 7
Also, Aleph is the first character in a number of alphabets. To me it sounds like Aleph might not be his (?) name as such, more a title or honorific. All that would seem to make him unique in the nature of his being, at least within Temerant.
Lyra and Iax would have to be something else but they could be listed alongside Aleph as being at the pinnacle of skill in names but otherwise quite different in nature. Compare: “As red as a shiny apple, as blood on snow, as a pretty girls blush.” Doesn’t mean they’re the same as each other except in that one quality. Consider; Aleph made Temerant, Iax made Fae. They don’t seem to be equally well made.
The Aleu…
The order of beings to which Aleph belongs?
Those created / enhanced by Aleph?
An alternate name for a named group (singers, Amyr, angels)?
The souls of the stars?
Gods?
Ascended mortals?
Something else entirely?
Some combination of those?
There’s just not even close to enough information to begin to know. That they’d “fall nameless” implies that it’s not their natural state. As in their natural state is in the sky, not falling and with names.
I do find interesting that K quote about Aleph spinning the world into existence. Sounds kind of religious, right? Doesn’t sound very Tehlin, right?
@176 Humanmale
Based on comments Kvothe has made in the first two books, I’d say his opinion of the Tehlin church–and particularly some of its priets–is fairly low.
The Edema Ruh in general probably aren’t the biggest fans of the church since they seem to be in the habit of torturing people Inqusition- style for telling stories/singing songs/preforming plays they don’t like.
That’s more than enough to put a seed of sceptacism in him. Add the fear for the priests he gained as an orphan in tarbean, and finally, the emotional blow when they drug off Scarpi and his opinion probably morphed into outright hostility.
Then there’s the fact he’s seen the Chanderain and other “demons” for himself, and they don’t always line up with what people think about them (though there is apparently quite a bit of good advice hidden in some of the rhymes on how to dispose of their corpses).
Why couldn’t Aleph be Tehlu, and the Aleu be his angels?
As we’ve discussed, a core theme in KKC is the nature of stories and storytelling. It’s pretty common for names to change/evolve as stories are told and retold. It’s also common for stories to be merged.
A major example of this is the creation of the Catholic church in the 4th century as an amalgam of the Christian teachings that were floating around at the time with older Roman and other pagan traditions.
From where I’m looking, both Tehlu and Aleph are mythological rather than actual. The stories told of them are old, old enough to predate the recorded history of Temerant. It is convenient to conflate the stories with the natural powers of the world (naming, sympathy, sygalrdy, etc). Again, we’re used to people assigning supernatural explanations to natural phenomena they don’t understand (this is basically how religion evolved): even in Temerant where supernatural forces exist, there’s a degree of this happening.
@@@@@wcarter 177:
My point was more that it seems religious but doesn’t sound Tehlin and Tehlinism(?) is the only religion we get much exposure to in the story. If his quote / paraphrasing is from a religious text, as it sounds to be then which religion does it belong to?
@@@@@ doctorp 178:
You certainly could be right but Skarpi’s story refers to Aleph and Tehlu as separate characters with a defined relationship; master and 1st of his angels, respectively. Skapris’s story could be wrong or an outright lie but if you discount it then there’s very little left to work out who they might be.
Isn’t it far more common for characters / gods to be conflated together into one compound being (syncretism) rather than the reverse which is what I think you’re proposing? Unless you’re saying Tehlu as he is worshipped in the Tehlin church is a fusion of the historical / mythological Tehlu and Aleph, in which case I entirely agree.
I’d say it’s a bad idea to discount Tehlu, Aleph et al as mythological rather than actual because in this setting there are immortal or at least long-lived individuals (e.g. Felurian) that have personal experience of events commonly believed to be mythological like the creation war. They may predate recorded history by enough of a margin to be mythological to the humans but there are other perspectives.
Humanmale @@@@@ 176
I don’t think it does. This is the exact sort of phrase that calls for a superfluous descriptive word. I am pretty sure anyone familiar with the phrase would know what you meant if you said, “until the Aleu fall”, which means “nameless” and “from the sky” are superfluous, which means they could be descriptive just as easily as they could be restrictive.
(It the word “nameless” were not superfluous, it would mean that Aleu regularly fall from the sky, just with names. So the Aleu are … raindrops?)
So…been reading the re-read posts and comments for a long time, but this is my first comment here.
i have a wife with moderate to severe OCD, plus bipolar disorder and/or chronic depression, some probably genetic, some stemming from a couple of major traumas. She feels that Auri’s the most relatable character to her from any book she’s ever read (and she reads extensively). I’m not sure if writing that kind of character was PR’s intent, but it’s good to see one written well in fiction.
looking forward to the speculation on this one…
I always saw the Aleu as a sort of heaven for tamerant in the sense that Tehlu and palls live there. No support on it just fit right when thinking chandrian purpose.
@wcarter Kvothe doesn’t like Aturin Tehlin’s because Cinder is the Tehlin Justice…. However, he is fond of Trapi, a secret priest part of mender herecies. I believe Trapi is as old as cinder because halfway through his Tehlu story after saying “many years past” twice he begins to use “us” instead of “they” to describe the people in the story. As to cinder being justice:
Cinder has perfect sharp porcelain face
Justice has similar features save the beard
Both have “coal black eyes”
Cthaeh mocks Kvothe saying you’d think you notice a man with coal black eyes when he comes in to buy a drink(in the bar during sharpies story)
Chanrian fear the name of God(tehlu) and at sharpies first mention of tehlu the justice makes a demonic hissing noise(it’s better heard in audio book)
SKarpi says to the justice that Tehlu hates him more than anyone else.
Before Kvothe goes into the bar he sees a priest with empty eyes outside and it reminds him of Haliax and palls
Thus he hates Aturan Tehlins
Also, in skarpis story there are three ruach groups. Amyr, lone Ruach with no purpose, Angels.
Haliax protects chandrian from Amyr, singers, and sithe.
Comparing this to old families we can say ruh were the singers.
Amyr are loyal empire soldiers.
Angels are Sithe.
Amyr is obvious but il explain the other two.
KVothe said there was once a time when Aturans would kill mass amounts of ruh. The start of this could have been because they chose not to fight for their empire so they were banished and those who didn’t leave were killed off for disgracing Selitos purpose.
As to sithe, felurian has been said by kvothe to have unseen wings that signify her power just like angels. In pats new skit for women warriors he says felurian is a personification of desire and has the power to grab the moon out of the sky and wield it like a sithe. Possibly to show us her simularity to death. Or to show us the significance of “the sithe”
If they can wrought a star and grab the moon out of the sky I think the only thing keeping Chandrian from simply destroying the moon with a single willed desire is because the Angels bend their will upon opposing Chandrians will. This would mean the only way Chandrian can be stronger is if they weaken the will of the Angels by killing loved ones and stealing their secrets and salting their fields. These things are big impacts to their hearts and weakens their will so when they discover Chandrians plan their too weak to oppose them. I’m guessing kvothe is probably bloodline of andan like a Demi god so he is an enemy to Halifax and so haliax murdered fam
I’m pretty sure that Aleu does not refer to a heaven since the quote from the book is “Aleu fall” which would be plural instead of singular. I suppose it could be multiple heavens, but I don’t think so.
Something I thought of just now is that the word “Aleu” could be related to the “Aleph.” So the Aleu could be multiple Alephs? Things that are related to Aleph? Created by Aleph?
@@@@@ robocarp 180:
I agree that “nameless” and “from the sky” are almost certainly superfluous and used for poetic effect. I think we agree that “from the sky” is superfluous because that’s where the Aleu are known (among the intended audience) to be, so that’s obviously where they’d be falling from. The Aleu do not fall nameless from the shed roof.
What I think we disagree on is the “nameless” bit. Yes it’s superfluous but I think it’s superfluous in that “nameless” is the only way that the Aleu would fall. As in that if they still had their names they wouldn’t be falling. Their names define their being including their ability to stay up nearly forever (ahem).
The entire phrase implies that the Aleu are effectively immortal and very old. They were there a long time ago and they will be until the end of time, the end of the world, the end of the age or somesuch thing. I read it as saying that a sign of the end times will be the Aleu who can’t die ceasing to exist. Cease to exist as in lose their essence, lose their names and then fall, more than dead. Something like “Until all the stars in the heavens shall burn out and fall into oblivion.”
The more I think about this, the more I love the core conceit of this series.
Names have power. When you fully understand, you can control that which you name. Words like names have power when they express a deeper understanding: Yllish knots and Sygaldry. Some people have a way of naming by reading that reality: the naming of Auri, Maedre, (and perhaps Kote) for instance. There are no special magic words because all words are magic. Yllish and Sygaldrish perhaps happen to have words that better express the relationship between things, so by manipulating them you create new relationships.
Writing a truth down (as with Chronicler’s three days) or fixing a story into a song, knot, or tale (Kvothe, Denna) might establish a more enduring truth. Wild stories, ones that aren’t captured evolve in ways that can be manipulated (paper swords, bloodless whippings). One can’t help but wonder if Haliax gets set free if he can finally change his story, as Denna is starting to do. Even Hespe’s story handed down lovingly generation to generation shows marks of adaptation, even if it is a more “purebred” presentation than many Creation War era tales.
Underneath everything seems to be core truth (call it “History”), one that the Chthae can read and that’s fixed, but it’s also one that can be manipulated by the power of hints and incomplete truths, propelling characters through tragedies because it sees both forward and back, and picks the nastiest possible manipulations.
This Creation Wars story so far is lens shards, each shard distorting that truth, almost none close to original form. Felurian’s story is firsthand but interrupted, incomplete, and narcissistic. Hespe’s has been through too many mouths and ears. Tehlins have manipulated and distorted for political reasons. Ardilen talks about the frustration inherent in trying to work back through corrupted data.
At the same time, the underlying story seems to be repeating itself. The cocksure hero, the selfish love, the (probably) dying heroine moving beyond the doors of death, the foolish move opening those doors and bringing unspeakable evil back to the world.
Rothfuss is doing an amazing job pulling all this together. I can’t wait for Book 3 but I want it done right.
Hey Jumbles,
Have you heard from thistlepong in the last 3 months?
Seems likes thistle has gone silent on the regular websites/twitter and I am hoping everything is ok with thistle.
cheers
Jez
@@@@@ euler:
I like the idea of the repeating story.
The simplest explaination would be Rothfuss or K (or both, I suppose) using the similarities between the two stories for dramatic effect.
A slightly less simple one would be K deliberately shaping his story (his choice of pertinent events / exaggerations / outright lies) in such a way as to draw the comparison with Lanre for either dramtic effect or some other, ulterior motive.
Finally; the more complex explaination that occurs to me is that the similarities exist for a reason. Perhaps K is repeating the narrative of Lanre because he is a reincarnation of him or being pushed into it by outside forces (Chandrian? Angels? Fate?).
Feel free to apply Occam’s Razor as freely as seems appropriate to each of you.
Hi Jez,
I think the last online activity I saw from thistlepong was on January 5th. Normally I wouldn’t be very concerned since people sometimes disappear for a few months and then come back. I myself will frequently go for months without posting anything. But this absence is more striking than most since the Larkin Ledgers cut off in the middle of its analysis of “The Slow Regard of Silent Things” when the posts had been coming regularly. I too hope thistlepong is doing well.
Repeating, similar stories:
I think there is a third, very important one:
Sir Savien Traliard and Aloine.
And we know only the outlines there.
Thanks Jumbles.
@181 kyndig: I posted a while back (post 66) that I reckon Auri is somewhat autistic (and I think Kvothe is too). Obsessive behaviour fits well with that diagnosis.
IMO an under-appreciated theme in this series is mental health generally. We see repeated references to the mental health consequences of sympathy and naming. It’s accepted as normal at the university that mental health problems arise and they seem to provide good care for them in Haven.
We see Elodin accepted back as a Master after his breakdown. Kvothe and others often refer to the doors of the mind when referring to people dealing with stressful events.
@183 haydenreece
As to sithe, felurian has been said by kvothe to have unseen wings that
signify her power just like angels. In pats new skit for women warriors
he says felurian is a personification of desire and has the power to
grab the moon out of the sky and wield it like a sithe. Possibly to show
us her simularity to death. Or to show us the significance of “the
sithe”
I’m going to guess that you’re pronouncing “sithe” like scythe and I’m fairly sure you’re off the mark. In Irish folklore, the Sí or Sídhe are a race similar to faires or elves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aos_S%C3%AD
Given Rothfuss’ familiarity with Irish (he named a publican Deoch which is the Irish word for a drink!) I’d imagine this is the inspiration for the sithe in his story.
if you read the audio book thats how he pronounces it, Pat works w the guy who does the audio and would be the cause for my confusion. Regardless, it only strengthens the fact that site would be angels considering the strongest fairies are reach and the reach were the one crowned angels by Aethe. When I said that I was meaning cinder is afraid of those strong enough to grab the moon out the sky and wild it like a scythe.
Interesting :) It’s funny how our cultural biases influence our reading of these things!
HaydenReece@195:
It was Aleph who made the angels, not Aethe. But I’m glad you wrote the wrong name, because I never would have noticed how similar the names are. Maybe they’re the same person? I don’t really know who Rethe would be then.
** somewhat of a spoiler alert, and this is getting slightly off topic so forgive me please……**
I need to hear some thoughts. In NoTW we here K say that you’d be surprised what’s hidden in children’s songs, or something along those lines. In chapter 3 of NoTW the children in the street gather around a tinker and sing about three chandrian signs:
1: Hearthfire turns blue
2: Eyes are black as crow
3: Man without a face
Is it possible that K went up against them, killed four of the Chandrian, now there are only three, and they bear only these signs now? I ask because Chronicler states – some say there is a new Chandrian who comes in the night and his hair is as red as the blood his spills (its something like this but not an exact quote).
Sorry I don’t have exact quotes as I do not have a digital version and am going off limited memory.
My connection to Auri, as it relates to this blog, is that Auri sees him as such an important person. He has a voice like a thunderstorm and knows the deepest names of all things. He is her Amyr. SHE paints him like a hero, yet HE paints himself like he’s really ashamed of himself. I’m trying to reconcile how this all fits. I feel like Auri is so attuned to silent things that she has a deeper and more real appreciation for where things *are* or *belong* in the world. She thinks K belongs in her world, yet he seems to think he doesn’t belong in *the* world. Please help….
This isn’t about TSRoST, but it’s a thought I keep coming back to about names in the main storyline.
There’s a reasonable theory that K has reNamed himself somehow, from Kvothe to Kote (and indeed that the V and H from his name are in the thrice-locked chest). But it seems to me that both Kvothe and Kote are “calling names”, not actual names. Haliax is a good example here; he was Lanre, and then explicitly renamed himself Haliax. But saying those names doesn’t seem to be problematic. The name that shouldn’t be said, the one that scares Bast, is Alaxel. Speaking that name is something that Haliax can hear; saying the name “Haliax”, or indeed “Lanre”, doesn’t seem to be anything like as much of a problem. That seems like “Kvothe” and “Kote”, to me, especially as Lanre chooses “Haliax” because it is a “new and terrible name” which implies that it was chosen for its meaning, and we already know that Kote means “disaster”.
K does have another name, though, at least in another prevalent piece of fanon: it’s the thing that Elodin says to him to still his whirling mind after Ambrose breaks his lute and he calls the name of the wind in anger. So if reNaming is a bad thing (as Elodin later suggests when asked about D) and we think that K’s current state may be partially due to reNaming himself, this suggests that the Name he changed wasn’t Kvothe to Kote; it’s this secret name to something else. And then he started calling himself Kote because he had to pick something (everyone knows who Kvothe is, after all) and Kote, meaning disaster, seemed morbidly appropriate.
@stuart I don’t think that Elodin was saying Kvothes NAME.. Elodin read Kvothes heart and spoke the thing he saw. He could have spoke a variation of the wind. it was Aerlefsedi or something, but “aer” is close to air and it would make sense that Kvothe would speak the name of wind at this time considering the repeated “whirlwind state” phraze was used so much in the scene. The word as Pat said, “stilled” whirl wind.
Hayden @200 – Here’s the scene:
I think it’s pretty clear that Elodin did indeed name Kvothe. At first, Elodin checked to see if Kvothe could calm himself by naming the wind again (hence why he told him to say the name of the wind, why Kvothe was able to hear it — not just as “wind” as Sim does — and why Kvothe can say it), but it doesn’t work. His “sleeping mind” is out of control. In order to get it back in control, Elodin has to look INTO Kvothe, and name him. The parallel in language between this scene and the one where Kvothe names Felurian is clear. Yes, Pat uses the language about the storm in his head, etc., but this is an analogy. Stuart @199 is correct — Elodin spoke Kvothe’s Name. (Notice, Pat doesn’t tell us *what* Elodin said. Why not if he said “Aerlevsedi” again?)
I have a theory: Elodin said when he yelled the name of the wind at Elxa Dal his face eploded with ash and ember. Cinder is named master Ash and is creature of Winter’s Pale.
Winter is a signification of Wind element.
Calling wind can create ash and ember from intense heated air.
The WIND sends an ash leaf into Kvothes mouth.
WIND and static is what creates lightning.
Chandrian are believe to come and go like lightning out of the sky.
Cinder disappears from fight w/ lightning.
All signs point to cinder being connected to the wind.
We could speculate that the connection between the wind and Cinder is that Aleph is the Spirit of the Wind and so Aleph is simply The Holy Spirit not in any religious sense just in the sense that Aleph is the life blood to all spirits and so calling the wind would be calling forth the power of Aleph. This would be why the first knowers sough the name of the wind first. After calling on the power of Aleph all other names would come easier. However since Aleph is Wind then the other three original names, Selitos, Lyra, and Iax, would be the other three elements. I cant begin to know what elements they are, but If Cinder travels by lightning and wind it would be likely that he lives in Ademre also considering his Adem fighting skills. Also explaining his sword. However, strong evidence paints him as the Tehlin Justice of Tarbean. Maybe he goes by maaaaany disguises and is living as a different powerful man in each country. Idk.
Yep. I mean, it’s not certain by any means that what Elodin spoke was Kvothe’s secret Name (he might have said “calmness”, or “undo”), but I find the argument reasonably convincing, especially when compared with the scene where K Names Felurian. (Although note that we do only have Elodin’s word that that’s what K did, and Elodin might be lying.)
Still, I think that this secret Name of K’s is the one that corresponds to Haliax’s “Alaxel”, and said secret Name has been demonstrated to have power over K.
(Also, where did Haliax get the name Alaxel? Was that also his Name when he was Lanre? If not, that’s good evidence that changing the secret Name is what one does to change a whole person (from “good guy” Lanre to “bad guy” Haliax), and that it’s possible to explicitly do it to oneself.)
Stuart @203 re Haliax and Kvothe —
I agree that “Kvothe” is not his Name, and he has some deeper true Name. We’re pretty much explicitly told that by Elodin at more than one point in the story. And I agree that — if his Name has been changed (whether by himself or by someone/thing else) — it’s not the Kvothe/Kote that is the important shift. Something else was changed (and the idea that he has the V and H in the chest has always seemed, well, metaphorical and simplistic to me.)
Similarly, we don’t actually know that “Haliax” is his calling name, or the name that Skarpi used in his story. In WMF after Kvothe repeats the Ademic poem about the Chandrian, Bast is aghast. Kvothe responds that he has been careful to *not* use any of the Chandrian’s Names before. Thus, we don’t know 1) what Cinder actually called him around Kvothe’s parents campfire (could well have been “Lord Alaxel,” and Kvothe changed it for safety), 2) What his new name actually was, if Skarpi’s story is true in the basic details. “Haliax” may well be what Skarpi used, but it is likely not what the-Rhinta-formerly-known-as-Lanre actually told Selitos way back when (if the events occurred, I expect that he said “I am Alaxel and no door can bar my passing.” Notice, he doesn’t say that he changed his name himself, either. He just says that he is no longer Lanre and now Haliax. Or Alaxel. Or whatever he said.)
I guess in summary, I think that all or most of these are calling names: Haliax, Lanre, Kvothe, Kote, etc. Alaxel is perhaps different — it’s probably not his true long Name (multiple times, true names — particularly for living beings instead of inanimate objects — are refered to as longer than a simple word. Kvothe says that he spoke 4 long notes of song that were presumable Felurian’s name. “Selitos spoke the long name that lay in Lanre’s heart, and at the sound of it the sun grew dark and wind tore stones from the mountainside.” Kvothe likely plays his true name when he plays the song than runs through his being, like for Vashet in Haert. Etc.), but Alaxel is a truer name than Haliax or Lanre. Skarpi’s story is likely not literally true — for oh so many reasons, and we don’t know how he was renamed (whether he renamed himself, or someone else renamed him. It’s not clear given Skarpi’s words.)
Hm. The actual sequence from Skarpi’s story is:
which I read as him explicitly choosing that new name for himself, but it doesn’t actually say that, does it? It is possible that a duck flew in the window and gave him this new name.
So that’s three names, at least; Lanre, Haliax, Alaxel. Bast seems scared of saying Alaxel in a way that he isn’t about the (considerably more frequent) mentions of “Haliax” and “Lanre” in the earlier story; I suppose you could be right and what Kvothe’s saying is carefully edited so that wherever Kvothe says “Haliax” he actually heard “Alaxel”, but that seems… implausible, to me at least.
Another quotation, from the discussion after Alaxel is spoken by K:
I read that as “I have been avoiding saying the real names (Alaxel, et al) by saying instead the calling names (Haliax, Cinder, etc).”
Stuart @205:
Yeah, that’s pretty much my reading as well. I would just potentially disagree that “Alaxel” is necesarily “the long name that lay in Lanre’s heart.” I think that we might have two types of calling names, and one type of true names: 1) Calling names that actually reflect a being, and can be “tracked” by those who have skill (e.g., “Alaxel” et al., maybe “Kvothe” and “Auri,” and others) 2) Calling names that others use to safely talk about someone — nicknames, if you will (e.g., Haliax, Cinder, and many of Kvothe’s “names” that he mentions: Six-string, Shadicar, lightfinger, etc.) and 3) real Names — the *true* long names that actually are the individual (Felurian’s 4-tone name, whatever Elodin called Kvothe, whatever Selitos called Lanre/Haliax/Alaxel, etc.) We don’t actually ever see the true names of any of beings in the story, just a few inanimate objects (like “Aerlevsedi” for wind”), since we wouldn’t understand them.
I think we are missing the point entirely. It isn’t four words sung, it is four NOTES so when sung those notes come out and are in the wind to bind that person thing with wind. These as Auri states are simply callings or plees of things in times of need. Shapers see the world as it truely is and seek mastery of things. So they strengthen their Alar until they cant imagine a word in which you didn’t do exactly what you wanted. As Kvothe said Felurian does. Then whatever they thought of themselves would be true for them. They wouldn’t just be seen as beautiful, they would be beautiful seen. This means when someone looks at felurian they arent looking at a beautiful woman who is beautiful, they are looking at the personification of beauty thus the minds need to desire beautiful things or lust for them. Proud Dreamers. Auri gives Kvothe a candle with dreams to keep him safe. So he could have used the candle to dream of a world in which he IS disaster. Kvothe is not actually in a disastereous state where he hates life and wants to die, I say this considering he was able to take one single perfect step at the end of Wise Man’s Fear. This means he is in hiding as he says and changing his name was for reason not the least of which for the power names hold. So by changing his name to disaster even Bast who knows true Kvothe cannot help but SEE disaster as he looks at him. It might be for a beautiful game or because of something in book three that reflects a scene he had on the roof of his special place in Tarbean.
Kvothe heard crys below the roof and knew he should help the boy but didn’t because he knew it wouldn’t do much and he’d just be worse off for it, losing his security in life and ben’s book, but out of all his troubles in life he remembers that boy sobbing clear as a bell. He says he could have done something but he didn’t and he regrets it. Bones mend, but regret stays with you forever. So this is where we must look to determine why he’s in the state he is now and it reflects his statement perfectly: I had to trick a demon to gain my hearts desire, then kill an angel to keep it. Now all he is left with is a secret that he regrets, weighing his heart down the longer he keeps it.
As to Alaxel and the name change, the grey lady in the cave in ademre GIVES Kvothe a name after reading his heart. This same power could lie in some other person like Cthaeh and Lanre went to Cthaeh for a flower but instead the Cthaeh gave him a new name after reading the sorrow and dispair in Lanre’s heart. It would be like spitting poison in his ear. I say this because there are two different secrets in the world, Lanre’s or Cthaeh’s types of secrets even though Cthaeh only spits out your secrets(secrets of the mouth people wish to let out) and Lyra’s type of secret(secret’s of the heart that lay on them like a great weight). It is said to be better to spit poison than to hold a secret in your heart to let it grow heavy until disaster. Lanre’s secret would be that he was betrayed and he holds his vengence in him like Kvothe as a secret waiting to let it out in anger or dispair, while Lyra’s secret is of the Heart possibly a love for someone else like Iax if she is also the moon. Or she could hold a love for Life itself she is death she would hate taking people’s lives and it would weigh her down till the end of time). Thus, Lanre would be personification of life and Lyra death. So Lanre being Life would live forever and without his love he is in endless tragedy. If she’s keeping Lanre alive it is because she loves him and can not bear taking his life and losing him forever.
So The Enemy is SHUT BEYOND THE DOORS OF STONE. Let try this one.
Iax/Cthaeh the first and greatest shaper whos heart was broken before he could use it would go out looking for his hearts desire and steal the moon and possibly get her to love him, maybe. After stealing the moon and spending Tehlu knows how much time with her he possibly gets her to love him “STEAL ME KVOTHE” and knowing she loves Lanre and is bound to him because of the turning of the world Iax bends the world with his desire and rips apart the world and steals the moon. Lanre learns this and “kills” him and sets him beyond the doors of stone or on the tree. Enemy to the world but love to lyra forever bound beyond the Lackless Door of Death never able to go to his sweet escape of death. He then grows ever malicous, talks to Lanre and tells him about the love they have and when Lanre returns he kills Lyra and becomes Alaxel and trys to destroy the world. I’m guessing Cthaeh names him in spite and now theres the world we read about.
As to Kvothes name, It is Maedre, an anagram of Ademre and means Flame, Lightning, Broken Tree. In my own baised oppinion I think this means he is heir to Aethe. This is because in the story How Old Holly Came To Be, ‘The Lady’ is said to leave a tree by her tower to keep it safe and mend it through the years until she returns. It is a sad and tragic story but it has to happen. It has been speculated that the tree is simply the spirit and that the spirit resides in Aethe or the Tree in the desert Kvothe goes to, to get Denna’s Flower they talk about post singing in Eolian. Also that she is Lady Lackless or Rethe and is dying and will return with the final story. The Lady/Rethe was said to be a weak fighter but very skilled in magic/naming and so it would be easy to see she out skilled her teacher in wisdom and naming which are the key to his accuracy with the bow, andtisipating the wind an all. Her leaving could be her going to Fae to bind The Enemy to the great tree in the sense that she is the tree Cthaeh is bound to and Old Holly and The Lady are symbolic of life and death. This would also signify them as Lanre and Lyra. Lady lackless has a secret could mean that she is holding the final story a secret in her heart a story of love for life and nature so killing it would be endlessly tragic. When all is dead she would return to take Aethe/Lanre’s Life who is the personification of Life i think.
In retrospect I suspect Denna might fall for her Patron too and Kvothe would as he did on that roof, stay back safe and secure while Denna is hurt by her patron after finding out that it is Cinder. Kvothe would feel ever betrayed that she would side with him and he would do as said Making him the person you hear in stories(A new chandrian).
Complicated I know. I hope it made sense let me know what you think.
Scratch that last part, Aethe theory is just too confusing, but all that stuff before it I think is pretty convinsing
WhiteLightning@198
Kvothe as a new Chandrian is a a pretty common theory, I’d say. Some people have suggested that K killed one of them, Cinder most likely, and thus became one of them. Once I saw a revolving door theory (Chandrian are constantly being killed and replaced by their killers, though I find it dubious).
The children’s rhymes certainly don’t have any clues about which oncs he might have killed, though. Bunch of reasons.
1. The narrative says the rhymes were ancient even then their grandparents were children
2. We aren’t getting the whole rhyme, and in fact later in the novel D and K give us at least one more verse (something about a woman white as snow, meaning probably Alenta)
3. If Kvothe did kill any Chandrian, you’d expect the black-eyed one (Cinder) to be one of them, possibly the faceless one (Haliax) as well
4. Kote and Bast talk about the Chandrian as if they’re still around, of course K could just be pretending to think that
In the Taborlin story at the beginning of Name of the Wind Taborlin is locked in a high tower with blue flame captured by Cyphus.
But in Martin’s story Taborlin is trapped in a deep prison or cave with no way out.
Taborlin has a shaed and coin key and candle and a copper/silver/adem sword.
Cyphus needs his help and will help him out if Taborlin swears to help him because Taborlin never breaks a promise.
Right after Martin tells the story about king cyphus the chandrian Kvothe tells a cryptic story of a boy with a golden screw and how the wizard king of Modeg has a golden screw driver and made his ass fall off.
We later hear of the chronicler wants to marry the high king of Modegs daughter, and cant manipulate the king because chronicler doesnt know any of the kings secrets and the king has his name writen in a glass box sealed in a copper box and sealed in a great iron chest.
Felurian said the Gorse Court meddled in the Berentaltha between the Tain Mael and the House of Fine.
The Berentaltha is a type of dance.
Ketan is a type of dance.
Berentaltha is Fae for Ketan. Ketan is different depending on who the culture puts faith in(Latantha/sword tree path, path of aethe, path of joy, et al.).
Lethani is debatable but ketan is not for barbarians and is sacred to each culture of Adem.
Before Adem was Adem they were all singers who sang songs of power and were much set on by the strength of the bow.
So according to Adem, ruh were those who do not follow the lethani, they are free willed spirits who will their own destiny and make their own path while Adem use Lethani to follow the RIGHT path.
Adem and Edema are differences in belief of how to express the soul(introvert vs extrovert – mind vs body – nature vs destiny).
Kvothe sang Tinker Tanner at eolian drunk about a priest and a goat.
It is the oldest song in the world.
We know bast is the Telwyth Mael(true prince) of Twilight side of Fae. Gorse Court is Twilight side of Fae. Felurian is First Twilight, first quiet.
So we could speculate that Taborlin is the main character of the Chronicler story, Felurian story, and cyphus story. If so, Taborlin would be in love with the Cyphus’s daughter. The only significant prepresent royal girls we know of are, Natalia Lackless, Princess Ariel, and the girl in Illiens song where a girl was dressed as Alione. We know that Natalia is a Lackless and would not be daughter to a Modegan King. We know that Kvothe will tell us “the truth of Princess Ariel”. We know Savien and Aloines love was a perfect harmony and are similar to K and D. we know that Kvothe lives an almost identical life to Taborlin. So maybe Ariel is Aloine and Savien is Illien considering the simularities between each name it sounds logical. If so we can speculate that Illien, who sang songs of power is Taborlin and when Taborlin the great
That is the Taborlin story parrelleled with the chronicler story and they match exactly. Taborlin and the chronicler both have special swords and both are king of Modeg…After Taborlin was given the task, he would have searched for magics and secrets to impress the king and win over Princess Ariel. All the stories however have taborlin breaking from the cave/tower and escaping. I’m guessing illien is Taborlin considering Taborlin is in the time when Cyphus is just relaxing in his kingdom letting people know his true name. If Aloine is Ariel and Taborlin is Savien/Illien then Denna would be daughter to a Chandrian just as ariel is, and her Silver Blue ring would be the royal colors of her family. Thus, Kvothe is parrellel to Illien, the new Ruh’s hero and is going to find out Denna is daughter to Cyphus or Cinder or Lanre and denna would probably end up making kvothe promise not to kill him or maybe he kills him and denna makes him promise never to see her again. The perfect tragedy.
As to the BerenTaltha, Illien/Taborlin would have went searching in the fae for secrets and the Sinus fruit and learned the Fae Ketan of House of Fine and Tain Mael making him an insanely good fighter. Since he is Illien he is true edema and edema are Adem origin and would have known the significance of the Ketan of the Fae. This would also place adem in the Gorse Court of Fae in prehistory times. It would also explain why Adem pass down history of Chandrian and Aethe, considering the heros of that time almost all know ketans or are part Adem. (taborlins sword and Lanres sword). It would be a stretch, but what if Taborlin is Illien is Lanre is Tehlu is Menda is God and Alaxels choice of salt lest the weeds grow is just Tehlu ridding the world of Immortals and only letting the mortals live, I say this because Lanre fought for men w steel and iron and once the beast was killed Lanre dies just as Tehlu did, and both were reborn. Then both are known to be cursed “Curse tehlu and his angels” and lanre being cursed by selitos. It would make for a very exciting plot twist and would be a great recap of the moral of the story…….”All the truth in the world is held in stories you know.” To prove my point let me just show you who all fought a beast and are old heros…
“illien and the bear!”(name of the wind skarpi story)
“On the last day Lanre slain the beast.”(Name of the Wind Skarpi story)
“You will burn but I will come again, if called in the proper ways I will come to judge.”(Name of the Wind Trapis story).
“I think he called the Lightning down, like God himself.” “Like Taborlin the Great I thought, then slept.”
So Kvothe and God himself both called down Lightning to strike something down, like Taborlin the Great.
Taborlin goes looking for old secrets and magics to show king and goes into fae to get sinus fruit and if Felurian has a poet king just like vashet then illien/Taborlin/Lanre/Tehlu would have went looking for the secrets of the world like Kvothe to strike down his enemy. Its all a perfectly great story; however it is a simply mystery so I suspect Rothfuss created the frame to get us to doubt the ending and created new characters to get us confused of the enemy bc as of now we can definately tell that Cinder is the justice in Tarbean and Pat would have noticed this and brought red herrings into Wise mans fear like bredon to stray us away.
Idk why that posted twice, sorry.
Any thought on the source of names for rooms of the Underthing?
Some are obvious, some were explained in NotW. Here’s some I’ve come up with.
Mantle – Protective mantle (note: Kote uses this phrase to describe what Heart of Stone feels like), there is a mantel (ledge) in the room, and can be a metareference to the Earth’s mantle (or an actual reference to Temerant’s if it has one) thanks to the warm floor.
Port – There are a bunch of items Auri carried there from the UT, or maybe the room can be said to carry those items; also since it seems to have a wine rack it might refer to port wine.
Van – Short for vanity since there’s a mirror in the room; maybe it’s the front of something (a la van in vanguard, even though it’s a false etymology). Could this room have been the original entrance lobby? Also it seems to be connected to a room called “Forth”.
Cricklet – Explained in NotW to refer to little crickets that gather there, but probably also means “little crick”, crick being a dialectal version of “creek”.
Clinks – The sound bottles make when they collide with things there.
Darkhouse – I believe this is the room Kvothe went through that had boarded up windows even though it was 50 feet underground. (This is the main reason I think the underthing was buried after it was abandoned.)
Vaults – We were told in NotW, Auri has to jump over pits in the room.
Billows – As told in NotW the draftiness causes Auri’s hair to billow, and might be a pun on belows, bellows, and blows.
Throughbottom – There appears to have once been a stream through the bottom.
Umbrel – Sunlight gets into this room, but that only serves to highlight the shadowy parts. (Umbra being Latin for shadow.)
Annulet – Which means little ring. The room was circular and this was the room with the little ring under the carpet.
Bakers – Probably the room is furnacey due to lots of hot water or steam pipes.
Tenance – Maybe a pun on “tenants”?
Borough – I think it might have to do with the original meaning of the word to refer to a fortified city, it might also be a pun on “bureau” (meaning a cabinet).
Crumbledon – Seems to be a steep tunnel with things crumbling down it.
Tree – Is a kitchen so maybe refers to the tree’s role in producing fruit? Also I vaguely recall a water source in the room that might be tree-like?
Woods – The wooden structure, which is breaking down, looks like branches of trees in a forest.
Emberling – Seems to originally have been a venting shaft or chimney. Perhaps today embers from furnaces above fall down into it.
No idea: The Twelve, Rubric, Pickering, Downing, Wains, most others
The Twelve is due to the twelve rays of light that come into the underthing through the drain grate above.
“Better still, the slow regard of silent things wafter off the moisture in the air.”
Anyone got an idea why such a casual title drop?
Wafted*
Also, as to through bottom and the landscape of the University as a whole: we know that the Omethi river is in a canyon that reaches 5 storys below the Great Stone Bridge, and that through bottom is 5 stories below the university grounds so either the chasm running through throughbottom was at some point the Omethi River and that it meandered around the University or someone made a canal for it to drain away from the New University. Also, there is the Ease down docks in Imre meaning the land in Imre is water level compared to the 5 stories high University land.
This implies that the land was dug to gradually reach water level or that earth was moved to University to cover existing city. We can disregard the first because Rothfuss has never described such a landscape and rather we could infer that the university is somehow 5 stories above Imre. This is because Tarbean Also has a inclining landscape – Dockside/Hillside. Considering this, along with the fact that all buildings above throughbottom are GreyStone, we have to wonder what required the constructor to move five stories of dirt to the University and what the need to meander the river was.
Also due to elevation of scaperling and the four plate door we can infer that the Four Plate door leads to Black Door, whether they connect completely or that there is a room in the middle of the two we know that they are connected. This is because the black door is as Auri says “all unseen. All unseamed.” This is the discription of the four plate door with the exception of the four copper plates. This means two things:
The four plate door is only copper on one side and leads to the under city of Underthing and that the copper on the outside is to ward off namers or to in a way seal them in? Possibly with the properties of silence they hold in them that push on a namers senses like in Elodins room. If it is to ward off Namers it would make sense that Scaperling is the first thing the copper door leads to. What better mechanism to ward people off than a copper seamless door and a everchanging scaperling at first enterance? It just makes sense considering the highly valuable things in the Underthing like Auris gem she puts in the tree and the expensive mechanisms down in ThroughBottom.
The second reason is that there is a room in the middle of BOTH rooms. Then the room itself would be as Kvothe says, the Heart of the Archives with a secret in it weighing it down slowly killing it. With whatever secret locked in it one could not move such a thing so it would have to be built around and locked with copper plates to keep out namers learning at the university but that the Black door is older and could possibly have copper doors but the room in Scaperling is too dark to see them. This also means that whatever is inside it almost killed Elodin but did not leave the room. This means it could be the a room that holds the door to the side of Fae that Bast does not like “they are as far from my kind as one can be in the Fae.(a different corner of the Fae).
This seems too weird to asume so I find the first to be more realistic. If it is as the first, connected as one with the Four plate door then the Four plate door might signify four major doors in the fae that have to be opened before this one can be or that four keys from each corner or something like that. Then that would mean that the four plate door is a door and that the stone inside it is fit perfectly to SEAL the door and that Auri fears opening such a door that she would open the door to the Enemy. Of course it could just lead to scaperling as I said and that Elodin almost died in scaperling as it changed around him, He might of even found Auri that way and would explain her fear of the door.
As to Fae beings, Bast says that some hide as Pack Mules(in lightning tree i think) this could explain the fear of being rude to a tinker or that the tinkers are faen themselves. Also would explain Kvothe saying they sometimes come out of Fae to learn magics and secrets of Tamerant from humans. Who better to learn secrets from than an traveling merchant who is loved by all and always is being told rumors. who better to be as a disguised fae..
Has anyone noticed that auri can in a way control her hair? Or at least it reflects her emotions.
When Kvothe is around its everywhere gleaming and wafting, but when she is seen by the girl it clouds around her face “like a cloud of smoke” then when is down and wet she feels less like herself as if her hair is her state of feeling and down and wet she feels watered down or just not as high and mighty as she usually is.
It should also be noted that the butterfly wings that were being torn at the Cthaeh tree by the unseen god were: “purple and black , or blue and black, like those in Felurian’s clearing. Others were a solid, vibrant green, or grey and yellow, or silver and blue.” To me this signifies liniage. And purple and black or blue and black would be that of Vintish or Yllish origin like Felurian and “Sea Foam Skarpi with his glittering blue eyes, and the silver and blue being that of Common Wealth origin like count threpe or denna, and the grey and yellow being that of Atur origin like ash and oak burned in Atur with Encanis, and the Red being Ademre being that of Kvothe and Meadre meaning flame and offending him by being Ruh. This led me to believe Auri as being Vintish or Yllish considering her pale complection like Felurian. However, where Felurian’s skin had a gold tint I think Kvothe doesn’t notice it because of Auris lack of want to be in direct moonlight. If we consider that Kvothe opens the story with “I have talked with godSSSS we can infer that the angels or ruach were in a way gods in the light of Aleph giving them GODLIKE powers or instilling within them the power of the wind in the sense that wind is the traditional way of going about with naming and that after learning it all other names were easier to grasp. In retrospect, after calling on Alephs power all other names were easier to grasp. If we anthropomorphize the elements of the world we could say that the wings behind each angel signify their inherent power, as calling stone would be calling the power of a certain angel and that will is the driving force that bends that gods power. and that one stone would be part of a larger stone the larger stone being a part of an angels soul. So all stones are one stone, so all fire is one fire, so all wind is one wind, so all desire is one desire.
If so Auri may have found a knowing of such things and knew that instead of CALLING the candle and PLEEING it to do what she wishes, she would FORCE her will upon the world by first, creating a SAICERE or CAESURA to ward off all wind.. “It was like pulling a peice of velvet over a piece of broken glass. Idk why it made me think of something sharp, but it did.”(Felurian after finger light) “If there was a wind it would have brushed it down the road.”(Prologue) “it was the patient, cut-flower sound”(Prologue) “there was a wait. A weight. there was no wind.”(Auri Candle making). Then with the absense of wind or Good god, Auri could SHAPE in the presence of Darkness and a Bad god and moonlight, the moon vs the sun, stillness vs wind. Even Bast is afraid of the Silence that is a 3 part woven silence made by things that were lacking in a way that shows no fear, then by a silence that shows fear of the world, then by the power of Kvothe and his knowledge of such things allows for the dark power, possibly the secret he learned and stole from the heart of the archives the university four plate door and got kicked out.
Leaving work so i might have added something in here and forgot to talk about it halfway through sorry, I’l read it later and clarify.
Has anyone noticed that auri can in a way control her hair? Or at least it reflects her emotions.
When Kvothe is around its everywhere gleaming and wafting, but when she is seen by the girl it clouds around her face “like a cloud of smoke” then when is down and wet she feels less like herself as if her hair is her state of feeling and down and wet she feels watered down or just not as high and mighty as she usually is.
It should also be noted that the butterfly wings that were being torn at the Cthaeh tree by the unseen god were: “purple and black , or blue and black, like those in Felurian’s clearing. Others were a solid, vibrant green, or grey and yellow, or silver and blue.” To me this signifies liniage. And purple and black or blue and black would be that of Vintish or Yllish origin like Felurian and “Sea Foam Skarpi with his glittering blue eyes, and the silver and blue being that of Common Wealth origin like count threpe or denna, and the grey and yellow being that of Atur origin like ash and oak burned in Atur with Encanis, and the Red being Ademre being that of Kvothe and Meadre meaning flame and offending him by being Ruh. This led me to believe Auri as being Vintish or Yllish considering her pale complection like Felurian. However, where Felurian’s skin had a gold tint I think Kvothe doesn’t notice it because of Auris lack of want to be in direct moonlight. If we consider that Kvothe opens the story with “I have talked with godSSSS we can infer that the angels or ruach were in a way gods in the light of Aleph giving them GODLIKE powers or instilling within them the power of the wind in the sense that wind is the traditional way of going about with naming and that after learning it all other names were easier to grasp. In retrospect, after calling on Alephs power all other names were easier to grasp. If we anthropomorphize the elements of the world we could say that the wings behind each angel signify their inherent power, as calling stone would be calling the power of a certain angel and that will is the driving force that bends that gods power. and that one stone would be part of a larger stone the larger stone being a part of an angels soul. So all stones are one stone, so all fire is one fire, so all wind is one wind, so all desire is one desire.
If so Auri may have found a knowing of such things and knew that instead of CALLING the candle and PLEEING it to do what she wishes, she would FORCE her will upon the world by first, creating a SAICERE or CAESURA to ward off all wind.. “It was like pulling a peice of velvet over a piece of broken glass. Idk why it made me think of something sharp, but it did.”(Felurian after finger light) “If there was a wind it would have brushed it down the road.”(Prologue) “it was the patient, cut-flower sound”(Prologue) “there was a wait. A weight. there was no wind.”(Auri Candle making). Then with the absense of wind or Good god, Auri could SHAPE in the presence of Darkness and a Bad god and moonlight, the moon vs the sun, stillness vs wind. Even Bast is afraid of the Silence that is a 3 part woven silence made by things that were lacking in a way that shows no fear, then by a silence that shows fear of the world, then by the power of Kvothe and his knowledge of such things allows for the dark power, possibly the secret he learned and stole from the heart of the archives the university four plate door and got kicked out.
Leaving work so i might have added something in here and forgot to talk about it halfway through sorry, I’l read it later and clarify.
I’ve found something : We know the Cealdish people were nomads. Which means they were wanderers. We know that Encanis poisened skorpians that bit him(so he was from the Taln-Wald in the great sand sea where skorpians are native) We know that Cealdar originated over the stormwal in the taln-wald. This is because :
This would explain the simularity of the Cealdim mountains and the land beyond the StormWal names – Shald mountains / Taln- Wald. It would also explain their dark complection reletive to African skin pigment and African climate. The stone that Myr Tariniel was build of “Held the suns light into the night” This would be Sandstone and would absorb the heat and would also “shine silver in the moonlight” considering it was pale and the moonlight beams in book are silver. So after the destruction Myr T Ceald would be left to wander the earth in search of land. Somehow they took control of the Ceald Mountains and named it Shald mountains. Then coined the true ringing cealdish coin with the symbol of the mountain in my picture. We also know that “Wil there believes in all manner of silly damn Cealdish sky spirits” This would make sense if Cealdish people originated from Myr Tarineil and would have ancestory to ruach who witnessed the angels being blessed by Aleph. His claim that Amyr didn’t originate from Atur would make more sense as he would also have stories of Amyr in Myr Tarineil and having no affiliation to Tehlu “though gods and men might bar my way”
Together it all makes sense. However, I’m left with the symbolic mountain in the lake of Ceald so I thought.. Maybe Tall Kirel who was left burned in the ash of MT is figurative and that Tall Kirel was actually just dark skinned and Skarpi was simply changing the story to make it more interesting. That of he is Lecelte the angel who laughed even when there was woe thick about him. This is only because Kilvin and WIllem seam to laugh a lot more than other peoplle in the book while still having a woe look to them. Like when Kilvin just had his office burned down by the huge fishery fire yet the next day, he finds a way to make a joke about it to Kvothe. So being Cealdish he would travel to the Shalda mts. I dont mean to say Selitos and the rest were Ceald from sun burn or that Ceald owned MT, but rather that they originated from those lands, considering MT economy was so booming it would make sense that “Cealish traders” who were living as nomads easily coined a barter system becoming trillionares after building such a large enough trade system for MT to boom then being nomads after the fire. Considering their metal work it might even be plausable the ruach Ceald aided in the building of GSR as a trade route between ruach and men. However, I dont understand the Black tower in flame when the walls were white in MT.
Thank you robocarp for the response and more in depth theories. I appreciate it
robocop @214
I was at a reading of Pat and he said that “tree” comes from “pantry”, since thats a place where you store food.
Denna interests me.
She asks Kvothe and pals if they knew of a magic of writing and even if the person couldnt read it it would be true for them. All the while she is tracing on the table and looking distant(as if in heart of stone). Then kvothe asks her a question she is pulled out of it. Later she goes to Yll and small kingdoms gathering parts of Lanre story and learns Yllish knots and the language.
All things in the world have 4 notes of song that are called their “long name.”
So if someone saw those invisible 4 notes of song(with their sleeping mind) and couldnt read them or realize they were reading them due to lack of ability to use sleeping mind it would still be true for them.
This implies shaping. The shaping of names. Felurian could SHAPE the woven knot of notes that is her loong name so people saw the word lust or desire. This would as Pat said in Felurian Death battle, make her “a personification of desire.”
So, this would mean she would have to weave those 4 notes of song herself. How, I hear you ask?
With songs of POWER.
The song Felurian sang right before Kvothe and pals felt the pull of her that though they had no reason to were bent on NEEDing her. It even happened when Dedan spoke them in the story of the little boys father.
The storys in the book are said to hold all the truth in the world. This my friends, is so cryptic without being so. At first hearing, this quote is nothing but a common thought. one might think “well of course, but surely not all the truth in the world.” But this is only because we think of the stories as HOLDING a truth rather than BEING the truth.
Stories in the book, when told in “the tradition style” are written in iambic pentameter and are sometimes in ryhme. This implies that they are spoken songs. So when told like Skarpi tells them, with his black honey voice that made “you believe whatever it was he was saying” he could tell/sing the song, weaving it to form the shape he desired so when people saw the knot of breathe coming from Skarpi they would believe whatever he said even if they couldn’t read it.
Thus, stories are the bones of the world. They are what make it what it is. If one were to change a story of Tamerant History, they would be changing the truth and changing Tamerant, literally changing tamerant. They would be shaping the innerturnings of the world(Tamerants four note name) and would change the world to be that as people heard the story. God this makes all the crypticness of stories so much more clear.
This means when Skarpi and Sheyn say that Myr Tariniel only exist in stories now it is because that is how the story is painted by the Amyr with Haliax as the enemy. With Skarpi telling the story in the right way it would make it so MT actually on does exist in stories. But when Arliden and Denna sing the song, Lanre is a fallen hero trying to reclaim land and his wife. I strongly believe Tinue is the native land because, Caudicus or someone says that Tinue was taken from Lackless family and Lanre is said to be strong as Spring(green gold eyes that signify spring and Lackless blood). Thus, Lanre would be the first Lackless and Kvothes ancestor.
Tehlu is said by the guys at immaginary linguistics website to mean “First Lock” or first Lack. So Lyra would die and be the first lackless for she is without lanre beyond the doors of death. However, her naming power would grant her to shadow him and keep the chandrian under her blackdress. Thus, gorse court meddling in the Berentaltha between house of fine and Tain Mael told by felurian would parrellel of Lay of Sir Savien, Lanre and Lyra being savien and aloine joining to sing songs of Power, but being scorned by Lyras family(King Cyphus of Modeg). So Lyra/Aloine would be a sunny side fae and part of house of fine or Tain Mael and lanre would be Taborlin/Chroniclerstory/tehlu.
This is all confirmed by the fact that Haliax who uses Cinder the “knife blade” man with a nightmare smile to conduct his plans is leader of the Pagan church. Selitos and other Amyr would paint Tehlu as a pagan god and his chase of Encanis would be twisted by Amyr to seem as though Tehlu/Lanre burned the cities down and upon reaching Atur/MT Lanre/Tehlu catches Encanis/Selitos.
“Maple. Maypole. Catch and Carry. Ash and Ember. Elderberry.” “Barrel. Barley. Stone and Stave. Wind and Water. Misbehave.”
The first would explain Tehlu/Lanre/Taborlin gathering wood, catching selitos, carrying him to Atur and burning him. Elderberry is said to be used when one wants to remember things but still drink their sorrows away “the song of seven SORROWS.”
The second would be ways to get to MT im guessing it might be a grey stone in a clearing of barley and wind and water are what are being punished. or that Tehlu/Lanre is Wind with the power of Aleph and Selitos is Water. And misbehave would be Lanre/Tehlu demanding penance from Encanis/Selitos.
It all just makes sense. While Tehlu is going out seeking true justice, he is being scorned by the evil minds and “he might have slain them all right there” but he remembered his purpose and sought for penance taking Ruach/Kings/Angels to rid the land to prove their inocence. So Lackless family would be Amyr “the maer has come close to them though he does not realise it. Stick close to the maer and he will lead you to their door. Out of everything remember what I just say. One day youll understand the joke and laugh.” This strengthens Lyra/Lackless family being cyphus daughter and would explain why they are said to rival Modeg in liniage. Lackless would be cast out and married to a ruh so modeg would rival the filthy theiving ruh. And lanre/tehlu would be cast in shadow hiding from amyr who are bound to duty “though gods and men might bar” their way.
Thus, the reason they do what they do is to set the world to rights and rid the earth of those who wish to change the story of Tamerant back to the Realm in which MT existed. Tehlu/Lanre would constantly be changing the story to keep the Realm as Tamerant and not Ergen. It would be a “Holy War”!!! god it makes so much sense. He is keeping the world’s name as Tamerant meaning “the wicked” or something like that so the world would stay in penance constantly “salting the earth lest the weeds grow”
Holy shit it makes so much sense. All those stories of the peasant girl(Lyra) taking the queens position and being a better queen that the one before because she grew up as Cyphus’s daughter and would know the customs and begin the lackless linaige until Lanre killed her? I’m guessing this is a fake death like Kvothe and that “er death is on my hands” could be selitos painting him as a enemy and wicked being only that her death was faked to save her from those who seek revenge on lanre, in turn she would cast a cape of no particular color(cast him in shadow) and she would leave to fae to live in safety. This would explain “The lady” leaving the second time promising to return when Holly/Tehlu has mended the earth. Thus Trapis story would be the true events of Lanres expidition after The Lady left him to mend the earth. So Felurian would be LadyLackless “Lady of the First Quite” and saisere or Caesura would be Selitos’s sword(the ciridae in the potery picture).
Actually maybe Felurian isnt lady lackless. Actually I think the moon is.
I’ve been reading these readthroughs for sometime now. But I’ve never commented. I’m glad to be finally caught up.
@haydenreedee: Your theories don’t really make sense, but then again they are fun to read.
I think something is definitely up with Auri’s hair, maybe what she does with the ribbon is some kind of yllish story knot? I was just thinking that because of what we see Denna doing; maybe Auri is intentionally/unintentionally tying a knot that gives her power or somesuch.
Jezdynamite@188 & Jumbles@190:Thistlepong is fine, just took a break for a while.
Stevenhalter @232: Thanks for sharing — I’ve been concerned too.
Thank you for the information stevenhalter!
Interesting, like she’s using a knowers knot where it is displayed as no knot to show that she does not manipulate the outside world with her power or something like that @JHerbe
@232
Not knowing where someone on the internet went away to and being concerned is a weird feeling, to say the least. I suppose this is just a new part of life.
Anyway, thank you for the update.
Thanks Steven. I’m glad to hear thistle is ok.
I’ve said this before but I think Myr Tariniel is on the moon..
Myr Tariniel is no man has found by searching. It’s a cross-roads.
Myr Tariniel was made of stone that holds the Suns light well into the night.
Selitoss tower is black, but holds the Suns light into the night.
Abenthi is believed to believed to be Amur bc he teaches kvothe so much stuff and steers him towards university with the quote, “remember your fathers song” this steered me to the song
“Sit and listen all, for I will sing A story, wrought and forgotten in a time Old and gone. A story of a man. Proud Lanre, strong as the spring Steel of the sword he had at ready hand. Hear how he fought, fell, and rose again, To fall again. Under shadow falling then. Love felled him, love for native land, And love of his wife Lyra, at whose calling Some say he rose, through doors of death To speak her name as his first reborn breath.”
I’ve read the song over and over and over and nothing struck me as anything to remember until I thought of the moon as being MT. So if MT is the moon then Lanre is in love with the moon and MT is his native land or at least land of the reach.. Then I put the facts I stated above about the stone and Selitos and Ben to this –
Jax endlessly searched for the moon and could not find it
Only after calling it with the enchanted flute did he call her down to speak to him.
Jax then stole the moons name so he could call her to him whenever he wished.
Jax continuously calls her to him after that and she always leaves “because she has to”
However, at first meeting, the moon offers herself to him and instead he steals her name and she leaves.. Which is parrellel to Denna’s stone story.. So now the moon enjoys moving
So Lanre would have been robbed of Lyra/Moons love from Iax and his native land/MT on the moon would be taken from him for the rest of time by one of the four great namers(the first and greatest shaper – Cthaeh) and would be furious.
The sack of MT before he reveals himself would be because he as bast said, “talked with the Cthaeh” the Cthaeh/Iax would have told him the truth, but only things that would anger him out of his maliciousness. So the Cthaeh would tell him about the stealing of the moon and how Lyra/themoon offered her body and kissed him upon first meeting her and lands would flip out.
Then he would come back and kill her? I’m guessing if the Ruach can have kids then it would mean Denna truly is decendant of the moon and Kvothe truly is descendant from Illien(I think illien is Lanre). So they would be the endless tragedy both in love but never being able to stay together bc they are in harmony.. Moon and sun. Life and death. Lanre life/sun/the flame/meadre and Lyra death/moon/MT.
So lanes would kill Lyra but she would have heirs(lack less family)and senna would be Lyras descendant and explain why cinder is working with her.
If grey stones and sky iron are from the moon it would explain why Chandrain travel with lightning and sky iron(loden stone) have galvanic properties and why the moon is the reason why people can travel to and from Fae.
Okay. So if the moon is MT then it would have been on “the highest mountains of the world like a gem” meaning the moon would have literally been on top of the stormwal mountains.
This would explain their name.. If lodestones are from the moon they would attract lightning constantly bc everyone would use it as a crossroads to and from wherever they were going and there would always be lightning or a storm..stormwal.
So when caudicus says “on there oldest estate there is a door” the “lackless door” on the moon where MT is. Thus If the Enemy is trapped beyond the doors of stone he would be trapped in the lackless door. But if Lyra is death and the moon and her door is on the moon then Lanre is trapped beyond those doors.
Thus we have the lackless rhyme.
“Seven things stand before The entrance to the Lackless door. One of them a ring unworn One a word that is forsworn One a time that must be right One a candle without light One a son who brings the blood One a door that holds the flood One a thing tight- held in keeping Then comes that which comes with sleeping.”
So the ring unworn would be lackless ring I’m guessing wrought from the bone of Lyra herself.. A word forsworn would be the word that the yllish knot says on the box.. A time that must be right is the right moon phase as in the vase with Lanre trying to complete this rhyme.. The candle without light I’m guessing is Lanre/Illien or Kvothe considering they’re both Edema Ruh/Yllish..(tinker thinks Kvote is tallish from his hair color).. The son who brings the blood sounds like either Kvothe or cinder bringing denna if she is truly lackless blood.. One a door that holds the flood would be the MT door that is in a circle of grey stones possibly a burned tree that resembles Cthaeh tree that Tehlu bound him to(maybe Kvothes broken tree part of his name means he is descendant to Tehlu/Lanre and that Lanre bound himself to Encanis/Selitos to keep him in far forever then amyr/ sithe would guard him while “gods and men might bar his way” beyond the doors of stone.. This you have One a thing tight held in keeping making Iax cthaeh and he is bound to the tree “it’s not bad since he can’t leave the tree”. This would make sense that MT the moon is the crossroads and ever since the Lackless door was closed the only possible way to travel between worlds now is if Cthaeh pulls the world into the fae.. Damn I’m good.
pulls the moon into the fae, sorry
It seems to me that Auri is a truly devoted follower of the Lethani. She might not call it that or think of it that way, but the Lethani is right action and the knowledge of what right action is. And Auri always seems to know what feels “right.” It’s like she lives her entire life in a mind-state like Spinning Leaf.
If the Lethani is right action (and knowledge thereof), then it seems like the sort of thing other people could come to on their own (and often do, though only briefly, before they go off and do something wrong again). The Adem are just the only people for the Lethani’s existence is wide-spread cultural knowledge, so they strive towards it. (Though I bet they’d be shocked at someone like Auri who distinctly does _not_ fight or use a sword.)
Hey guys, I know I’m late to this, but just wanted to mention a couple things.
Someone mentioned Sceop/Skarpi a while back. If I recall correctly, Kvothe accidentally speaks Adem while exhausted and says Sceopa tes, meaning “I’m not speaking…”
So, does Sceop’s name have anything to do with speaking/telling stories?
Oh, and I saw a few Chaendrian names mentioned up there a ways back. I hope you’re prepared to walk a thousand miles.
Oh, one more thing. Up at the very top, before the comments, it’s said that Auri unlocks the door with the key she found. The way I interpreted that passage in the book, the doors are all unlocked. She just doesn’t open them until she finds keys. Did anyone else draw the same conclusion?
yeah, that was me. If sceop means to tell considering the “a” in sceopa is equivalant to ing in english then it would solidify my skarpi/sceop conclusion even more. Skarpi “knowing all the stories in the world” parrellel to Edema’s claim to know all the stories in the world and how Sceop is grandfather to Edema.
Hi. Howre you folks doin’? Thanks for asking after me. I’m still trying to people individually.
robocarp@214
Great list. I can add to a few of them real quick.
This one’s in the text. “Pans were nearly all the fruit that Tree could offer up.” It’s the pantry. There’s a video haunting YouTube where he provides the riddle that spawned it.
“Rub” for rubedo; “bric”for brick. Rubeus brick, the “round red-brick tunnels.” It doubles as an alchemical symbol, too. There are lots of them.
Rubric is the structure that winds under the entire University, which makes it metonymically symbolic of what’s above. I imagine that years of grading from a rubric influenced that one.
Wains is more straightforward. It’s reference to wain defined as a horse drawn cart: “The hallway was wide enough to drive a wagon through;” wainscot with, “”wood paneling hugged the lower portion of the walls;” and to the condition of the once great hallway in decay, or on the wane.
HaydenReece@216
It’s not entirely casual. It’s in “WHAT A LOOK ENTAILS.” It makes some sense to contrast a look with a slow regard. But it’s in the book at all because he’s dropped every chapter title within the chapter itself. (Except “HOLLOW,” which gets dropped in the following chapter for reasons.)
It’s a bit of structural artistry we might expect in the next book. Several of the chapters in The Kingkiller Chronicle are name for lines within them, but I don’t think it’s true all the time like it is here.
I don’t think we’ve really looked at Ciridae with enough questionability.. Ciridae could kill an angel, break an old stone bridge, or burn a church and no one would question what they did. They are feared more than the Chandrian, yet no one talks about it because all history of them is perished. What if all the Ciridae are doing what Kvothe is.. They destroy all accounts of whatever creul necessary act they did and go into hiding and try to create their own account of what happened like Skarpi or Kvothe.. Just a weird thought.. I think Taborlin is a Ciridae, possibly the same man who talked to sceop however, Old cob says he shared his dinner with a tinker, when Kvothes account says the man didn’t share with Sceop.. This could be that Kvothes version of Sceop and Amyr story is true and The Cob version is the Amyr creating the Identity of Taborlin to cover up things like not feeding Sceop.. So the Ciridae would hide behind the heroic stories he creates of himself switching out the name to Taborlin and all the bad things would in turn paint chandrian in a bad light.. However, Cob lets something slip in chapter one.. Cob tells them Taborlin was captured in a high tower and there was blue flame.. Then the smith Prentice asks why they didn’t kill him when they had the chance..Taborlin is locked up by the king of modeg, Cyhpus.. Who is also the bearer of blue flame and the same king in the chronicler story Kvothe makes up.. In the chronicler story Cyphus needs a favor from Taborlin and he knows Taborlin never breaks his word.. Since Taborlin wants to marry Cyphus’s daughter Taborlin has no other choice.. So i’m guessing Taborlin was forced to do one of the things that changed the world(steal the moon – burn Caleptena – sack MT – open Lackless door – kill lady lackless – kill himself – swear fealty to cyphus – creation of the nameless – meddle in the berentaltha between house of fine and the tain mael – ect.)
thistlepong @245 – There you are! I’ve been wondering if you were okay – haven’t seen you here for a while.
Also, Thisle if you could, can you refresh or inform the new viewers with a short synopsis of the Ring concept of The King Killer Chronicles format with a couple a parrellel to Slow Regard of Silent Things Ring format?
A lot of people in this feed could build on it considering the minor feedback given to it’s first appearance in Larkin Ledgers. I hope I’m remembering correctly that it was you that illustrated that forum. Sorry if I’m mistaken :D
Anyone notice that Roah wood is describe almost parrellel to Cinders description. It was speculated in one of the posts that all lockless variations(lochees, lacklith et al.) are “branches of the same family tree.” I think it might be that they are literally part of the same tree, Cthaeh tree and somehow they are all what bind the Cthaeh to the tree.. It would make sense why the Cthaeh says cinder did him wrong one time. And maybe the nina Vase is the event when the Chandrain bound the Cthaeh to the tree. Then it would make sense to match the ash all things return said by ertram the wiser who sounds like Erlus the Tarbean Justice who reprimands sKaroo who is speculated to be Cinder..what better move in a game of Tak than to play the act of a philosopher(ertram the wiser) and coin a famous saying with it hinting to himself(cinder) cryptically saying he was the fire that returns all things to ash.. Explaining why he was the one holding the bloody sword during the assassination of K fam..wooooah
@thistlepong 245: Thanks for pointing out the structural artistry, hadn’t spotted all of them in SRoST so will try and catch them this time – I wonder if there’s any pattern to when the chapters in KKC are dropped in, e.g. Auri chapters or those where he’s seeing rather than looking?
On the Auri Namer/Shaper debate, I’d have to say she definitely seems to be more on the Namer side of the spectrum/philosophical divide as many have pointed out, but the quote that implies assault was a good catch and makes me wonder whether the magic and mundane trauma could be plausibly connected – shaping or misuse of naming/knowing as a result of an attack that killed her attacker and left her both mentally fragile and withdrawn and especially concerned with all things in their right place from that point on. I’ll definitely be rereading with shaping in mind though to make up my mind on this.
In terms of Auri’s age, I’m not convinced she’s that old or that there’s a need for the supernatural to be at work. Someone asked about Mola’s time at the university as she’s the only girl we know doesn’t know Auri – Mola’s been a Re’lar for “almost three years now”, it says at the same time as they say Arwyl only advances people after “Six terms E’lir. Eight terms Re’lar. Ten terms El’the”. It certainly seems from me that it’s unclear whether Elodin actually knew Auri before, he says he’s been trying for years if I recall correctly, but that could just be ‘trying to get close enough after Auri ran away years ago’, rather than ‘trying to get close enough to find out more about her’. Finally, if Auri only took classes in Alchemy or certain other subjects that other women didn’t do (or no longer took after the initial studies and E’lir), and was wealthy enough to stay outside of the halls e.g. in an Inn like Ambrose, then there might be perfectly plausible reasons for her not being known to other women even if they were at the University at the same time.
Also, while I’m sure Jo has enough on her plate that I don’t want to add to it with another story just as she starts this one, is it worth discussing the Bast short story here or has that been done in another thread?
@Zuphlas we focus on mainly Auri’s story, but if you have something compelling about the bast story share it. Most of the bast story is written in contrast to Auri so most times all things pointed out about bast and Lightning tree shades in areas around auris story, showing us what she isn’t or at least what she finds “philosophically” wrong. “I chose auri for the rogues anthology, but as I was discovering who Auri was I soon found she wasn’t right for the anthology.” – paraphrased pat
I brought this up on another post, and Zuphlas suggested I post it here. I wasn’t going to, but then I saw HaydenReece brought up Taborlin. So I’ll engage in a bit of off-topic, and my apologies.
I’ve been thinking about Taborlin the Great (he said self-importantly).
Taborlin the Great may be a mythic figure, but he is also discussed as being a real one–and the association of myths with real figures is a central part of the story Kote is telling in the framing narrative. This made me think of the legendary Irish poet Taliesin, the Chief of the Bards. He is believed to be a historical figure, with 11 poems from the 6th century ascribed to him. But he is also a mythological figure, with other poets ascribing a mythic life to him.
For example, one of the poems about him says:
I have been a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated,
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been in the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin.
It almost seems like that poem should end with ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of me.’
He is also given a magical past in the Hanes Taliesin (Tale of Taliesin). He is said to have been a boy who stole three drops of a magic potion that gave him wisdom from a princess who was a powerful sorceress. While fleeing they took many forms, until he ended up hiding as a kernel of corn and she ate him–and then was pregnant with him. The magical abilities, great wisdom, and possible ‘mythification’ of a real person into a legend make me think that at least part of the story of Taborlin came from Taliesin, which would fit in with Mr. Rothfuss’ weaving of Celtic mythology (Fae, Sithe, etc.) into the story.
The name also bugged me for a bit, as there are other ones where we can more easily line up what the influence is. In addition to non-matches (the TAxpayer Bill Of Rights, for example), there is one that caught my eye. A Tabor is a kind of portable snare-drum, which has an interesting musical connection to both Taliesin and Kvothe. It also reminded me somewhat of Tamyrlin and the Amyrlin Seat from the Wheel of Time, so the name Taborlin could be another way of tying in to the sound of ‘Merlin’ without being obvious about it.
But Taliesin also has an interesting parallel with Kvothe as well. The name Taliesin literally means ‘Shining Brow’. While this is allegedly because he had a particularly fair forehead, it does resemble Kvothe singing the Name of Felurian, with the star upon his brow.
@mpark6288 fantastic. It is obvious that Pat has borrowed from some very great books only to make him own like all great writers do. Still fun to find more and more simularities out there. I have already got it in my head that Taborlin is Illien, “the Edemas/Bards hero” I also think he is Lanre who is Tehlu. This is because there are three names however, each culture has different names and Taborlin is refered to over and over as a traveler so: dpark6288 let me know if you followed this well
Ciridae are unquestionable “greater good” heros.
Lanre is a hero to his people that fight with iron and steel.
Lanre was “counted among the best of us”(this is how ciridae are refered as”
Illien is Edema down to the marrow of his bones.
Illien is a hero to his people, Edema Ruh.
Edemas are travellers.
Taborlin is a traveler.
Lanre travelled between cities defending them from “The Enemy”
Taborlin knows the names of all things.
Long names are four notes of song.
Long names are sung out.
Illien is the greatest singer.
Illien wrote the greatest love song in the world.
Lanre and Lyras love was so great she “Called” Lanre from beyond the doors of death.
Naming is reffered to as Calling.
So Lyra sang his long name and called him to the world again.
Lanre had no powers of naming that were known.
Naming is sparked by great emotional stress.
Lanre was betrayed causing great emotional stress and sometime within there he kill Lyra.
Illiens greatest song is The ballad of Sir Savien, the greatest Tragedy in the world.
Lanres the figurehead of the greatest tragedy in the world(ciridae turned chandrian because love felled him, love for his wife and native land)
Taborlin was locked in a tower by Cyphus until he swore by his good right hand to help.
If Taborlin broke that promise he would not be able to do good archanist stuff as Kvothe says he would be mollified by the thought of losing function in his hand.
Lanre broke his promise to protect the cities and after Selitos cursed his powers, now he only has naming and the rest is done by his cinder and the rest..
Lanre fought a beast and was killed
Illien fought a bear
Taborlin used fire and lightning to fight cyphus “like god himself” – martin
Tehlu is referred to by the Tehlin Justice(Cinder) in skarpi story chapter of ntw as the one true god or whatever
Taborlin had a great sword.
Lanre had a great sword.
Illien is Edema, who are a branch of Ademre with conflicting idealogy about music causing a split in belief “you just wouldn’t want your daughter marrying one.”
Ademre however are first a branch of modegan, considering both are great bowmen(magical bow myths).
Edema are Vintish/Lackless(lockless).
Ademre are Modegan/King Cyphus of Modeg.
Both are the oldest bloodlines in the book.
Lanre is 50oo years old who had a wife just as old.
Lyra was one of the greatest namers.
Namers are refered to as sorcerers by superstitious folk.
King cyphus is refered to as a sorcerer king.
Taborlin wanted to marry the king of modegs wife but had to prove to the king of modeg that he was worthy.
Taborlin was trapped by the king of modeg until he promised to help Cyphus.
So its pretty clear they are meshed as one, however I will cover names now
If we consider his NAME is Lanre and that he was a traveling Edema we will consider he has visited all cultures of KKC. Since edema are Ademre w a philosophical devide then Lanre would have an Adem name after he got his sword from them.. This would be the spark of the name Illien. I sounds way more ademre than lanre.
Then we can say that he would use his singing song writing skills to paint himself as a great hero, savien. This is because he knows the significance of songs of power.. Now since Aleph is god of all and Tehlu is watcher of mortal world then it would make sense that Lanre watched over the mortals with iron and steel while selitos defended ruachs with naming.
So Illien/Lanre would progress in his ability at singing and would train from adem to be a great fighter..become a hero and save the world, but he would talk to the Cthaeh and figure out he was being decieved and was fighting for the wrong side. so he would become insanely overstressed that someone would totally minipulate him like Felurian did to Kvothe and just as he found this out he would do as Kvothe did and reach deep inside him for the Lethani and use that all powerfull Chi of sorts to see the true turning of the world, full of the darkside(knowledge of shaping) he would seek vengance “Tehlu is forgiving, but he is vengful” “then menda grew angry, and he would have slain them all right there”. So with this new knowledge of names he would have the ability to shape his name into something by “writing something down and whatever he wrote it would be true for him” this is when he would go and write Lay of Sir Savien in hopes to save Lyra or something but it is a tragedy and doesnt work so he shapes his name to Haliax, sparking the fourth name. With this he would “salt lest the weeds grow” the weeds being whoever betrayed him. I’m guessing it was king Cyphus or someone..
Then the “holy war would start and people would fight over history books in hopes to write the history in their favor considering the only thing everlasting beings have to keep is memories they would probs want to be revered for whatever they did. So Illien/Lanre/Haliax/Tehlus watchful eye (“yooure as good as a watcher haliax”) would go and craft the Taborlin stories to paint him in a good light, but keep all real identity (ie chandrian amyr history) out of the world.. So taborlin would always be known as a hero while Haliax/Tehlu goes and salts the earth lest the weeds grow for eternity. To the world it would seem as though he is creul and insane, but to him he is a clenser gone from the world that he might better serve Aleph in shadow hidden by the black dress of his Love.
So he and his angels would leave the world and be cast in shadow, beyond the doors of stone, murdering anyone who would stray from lethani or try to discover them or something. And all ruach and humans would see them as evil and say that the enemy has been locked beyond the doors of stone or beyond the lackless door.. So lyra would keep them locked and hidden under her black dress and since shes been dreaming and not sleeping she would be a powerful powerful powerful shaper, considering the theory that she is the moon in Iax story it would make sense that other shapers like auri would ask of the moon to remove the anger from the candle before auri shapes it under the light of the moon..In felurians case with the cape i suggest she used iron to bind the light of stars and moon to the shadow.. Which makes me wonder what lyra had to do to bind shadow to lanre…..Ouch.
Also, does anyone think that the thing inside the lackless box holds, a philosophers stone of sorts..Taborlin had an amulet that protected him from bad things. The philosophers stone is believed to be created by the moon goddess, who bears the giving and taking of life.. So if lanre is Taborlin he would have wanted to marry cyphus’s daughter lyra..But Cyphus was the wisest king of all and would have known of the philosophers stone and would make Taborlin promise to get him it but might not have told Lanre what the stone does, then when Lanre goes “searching the four corners of the world for secret magics to bring back to the king” he would have asked Cthaeh of it and found found it.. Then maybe the stone also possesses knowledge of all things allowing people to become ever powerful or something. Then Lanre/Taborlin would eat the sinus fruit and know the names of all things and see into the deepest hearts of people..It would make sense if they locked the philosophers stone in the lackless box. What better heirloom than a philosphers stone created by the moon.. Maaaaaybe, the IAX story isnt really about stealing the moon, maybe its about pulling the moon to the fae in hopes to draw the world closer to the fae so Cthaeh can attain the philosopher stone..If this is true chandrian might actually work against the Cthaeh keeping the stone away from him and explain why cinder did the cthaeh wrong one time and cthaehs excitement to hear that Kvothe might kill Chandrian aiding cthaeh in retrieving the stone..So if the Sithe kill anyone who has talked to the cthaeh it might be because the cthaeh is trying to get someone to retrieve the stone and the sithe dont want that. And since the Philosophers stone is what grants rebirth and eternal life it would be the most sacred thing to the Ruach/Lackless. “Their are no books that talk of the lackless box.” And since there is an old river that ran through the university it could be that they were using the machines and water power to conduct electricity to somehow draw power from or to create the philosophers stone.. And that would explain the four plate door.. After the philosophers stone was created or draw power from, some great event with the using of the stone would have happened and the door would be used to seal whoever used it or drew from it(Cthaeh/Iax) in an attempt to save the world or whatever..Finally we have the answer to the Ciridae quote “if he were to burn a church(ciridae setting fire to the cathedral room, throughbottom, during the event of creating or drawing from the philosopher stone) or break an old stone bridge(Taborlin/Tehlu trapped in a completely stone room and escaping)no one would hold him accountable, knowing whatever he did was for the greater good.
Thus Vorfelan Rhinata Morie. we know that morie means shaper or shaping(glamorie, gramorie/”‘he desire for knowledge SHAPES a man’or something like that”) and we know that Vorfelan means land of fel or land of desire because fel means desire in latin and felurian sings Vorruhlan in her song before kvothe runs for her meaning land of Ruh or land of Sould because ruh or ruah is soul. Thus we know rhinata is something to do with knowledge becuase rhin is a alternate spelling of Rune with are stones that hold “True Knowledge” or “complete knowledge” like a tree of Sinus fruit.. So we know the door holds a tree or land of sinus fruit or desire fruit and what better place for E to almost kill himself”god it almost killed me” he would have got in ate a fruit learned the names of all thing or ways of seeing listening feeling them and would go insane and be locked in haven.. Then still having the knowledge hed have broken out.. It all makes sense. “no one talks about it” Sorry if that was confusing
Question for our resident Temerant historians who can keep the timelines straight better than me:
In WMF, while Kvothe is searching in the archives, there’s this throwaway line:
Rothfuss goes to a bit of effort to have Kvothe call the veracity of this information into question both before and after the information. But it almost seems to kinda fit, given what we know about cities being betrayed and Rothfuss’ love of hiding things in plain sight. So, the question:
Is this possible, given what we know about the timeline of the Aturan Empire?
Marco.@257
Technically, sure. Incredibly odd considering the policies of the empire; but if folks can think Arcanists are Amyr, this should be allowable.
I’m thinking of a specific passage in a specific book that’s not handy, but it appears to have been a common artistic practice during the Renaissance.
Marco @257 : Maybe I’m missing the gist of the question, but I have to disagree with Thistlepong @258 here, at least as far as our general timeline goes. The CW (and presumably the Chandrian) date back ~5000-5500 years, while the Aturan came into existance around 1000 years ago. So… I have to go with “no” it’s not possible.
But then, our general assumptions about the timeline could be wrong. Or, the Chandrian (other than Haliax) could be younger than the CW — which would tie in with the “new Chandrian replace old” theory.
JohnPoint@259
It’s the apparent longevity of the seven that makes it technically possible. We already assume them to have been acting on a vast scale. In vulgar terms,”What do y’all wanna do this millennium?” “How ’bout we try to take over the world?” ” We can smear the Amyr for laughs!”
The account from Adem would not make sense if new chandrian were replacing old ones. The names wouldn’t match up.. However, the books account on the rule of the empire could be wrong because, Lackless owned Tinue until the empire repremanded them of it and started murdering Ruh the same era.
thistle @260: Ah, I see what you mean. Not that they *originated* as Aturan emperors, but that some/all of them may have been emperors as part of their plan (or just for kicks).
In that case, yeah, I don’t think that the timeline of the Aturan empire rules it out at all. But it would be somewhat odd.
“We were shephards, very much set on by our enemies.” “Once there was a great realm peopled by great people. They were not Ademre. They were what Ademre was before we became ourselves(uncivilized and no knowledge of lethani). But at this time they were themselvesm the women and men fair and strong(ruach). They sang songs of power(bell weather) and fight as well as Ademre do(Berentaltha). “10,000 shepherds begin whistling Bell Weather(When they were repremanded of their land.” “Love felled him, love for native land.” So before Adem were who they were or knew the Lethani they were Edema – uncivilized. “You just wouldn’t want your daughter marrying one.” So to update the TimeLine I think the beginning of Ademre would start before the sack of Myr Tariniel or during. In old holly came to be “The Lady leaves a second time for good and leaves Holly to mend her home.. In other words, Lanre is left in Lyras black dress and has to stay to salt lest the weeds grow..Or Aethe is left to mend the earth by teaching lethani to the world. So Aethe/Lanre would rid the earth of all these great beings to make room for change. Salt lest the weeds grow. Out with the old in with the Lethani.
It cant be a coincidence that three great people lost a women and were left to mend the earth..
I find it weird that Kvothe is supposed to be a prodigy and everyone who is at his skill level is around the same age as him.. Devi is only a couple years older but is the level of an El’the on her second term. Auri possesses shaping and is probably El’the to have her own workspace, yet she is portrayed as Ordal “the youngest.” Fela is relar and is only a couple years older but can make a ring of stone before kvothe. Fenton is a couple years older, but is incredible at physics. Denna is described as “young” when kvothe meets her on the road first..but can sing just as well and play any instrument she tries out just as well as kvothe. Then she learns yll and their knots better than people who are born and raised there. Elodin is youngest to get into the university and to become chancler until he goes into the four plate door almost dies, goes insane and escapes his room. and yet the whole book is springing off the fact that KVOTHE is such a hotshot for doing so good while hes young..I mean hes average when it comes down to it..It’s like there are 17 epic hero/heroines walking around this book. Like, kvothe got his ass kicked by like a 8 year old adem for tehlus sake..Nina has photographic memory and can paint. Chronicler devised his own writing language. Kvothe gains another split in his bindings like every month. Penthe beats sheyn after like one min goes by. Kvothe bests a fairy goddess at age 16. Martin shoots a perfect shot while lightning storm wind are blowing through a valley and rain is dumping down..
All the while, a master arithmatic cant even defend against kvothes alar by his first term when being burned. Kilvin cant figure out the lightbulb. Elodin cant teach Heart of Stone like Abenthy did. The 40 maer cant recognized that the only time he gets sick is when hes drinking the medicine. Creepy Bredon has a cane but doesnt need it for his first 5 chapters. Jaxim is like relar and bad at math. Mola shows up to burn and stab kvothe w sympathy and she doesnt think shes going to be used as a medic. Denna swollows black tar herione and is like fuck it idc. Threpp spends a silver talent every weekend to try his pipes when he knows hes going to be playing a parody song.. Chandrian are 5000 years old and know every magic in the entire world but use swords to kill. Lanre dies and goes beyond the doors of stone and Lyra goes searching for him(deaonica)and once she found him all she did was say hey come on lets go back and hes alive again. Felurian is a being of pure desire and does not care what people care for yet she tries to comfort Kvothe after he almost killed her? Abenthy can call the wind whenever he want and make it do anything, yet he travels by carraige? wheres the Magic carpet taborlin travel? The chancelor owns his socks so his socks own him, yet owning socks requires no contract only the idea that they are the chancelors. Tehlu and pals can litteraly shout tehlus name and the demons will run(are you serious?) like, Tehlu! oh know what will i do if he hits me with his hammer and sends me back to the fae its so hard being immortal oh know still run tho hes scary..?
Were supposed to believe Kvothe is some prodigy, yet everyone of his friends is like god smart and somehow everyone of his friends are good looking and get the best looking people during the book? Either each of his friends are ruach born or this is some huge trope. All young are god smart and all old are lacking all common sense and have anger issues..
@@@@@ JP & TP
Thanks very much. JP answered the question I was getting at, and the CW predating the Aturan Empire by thousands of years kills the ‘Emperors betrayed their cities, fell from grace and became the Chandrian’ theory.
But…..TP raises an interesting thought – what if part of the manifistation of the Chandrian’s Plan is posing as emperors?
Thanks again.
If they posed as emperors, then it would make sense that they would elect Cinder as the Tehlin Justice. It also matches up with Emperor Nalto’s third decree to disband the Amyr from the Church. If the Amyr are working to against Chandrian and the Chandrian are posing as heads of the world it would make sense that most suspected Amyr are these random bums like Skarpi or Poppet or Bredon, though bredon seems as though he might have one point been a big head figure in the empire or in Atur atleast judging by his ash garb.
Them posing as Emperors does fit in with a lot of the songs. Ghost and the Goose Girl. Ten penny king. The Tehlin and the goat(tinker tanner – Amyr=goat Tehlin=Chandrian). Also, Them being leaders of the Empire would mean that they are claiming Haliax to be Tehlu.
If they pose as heads of the Aturan Empire then they fall under Tehlin court overrulement,(if you cite the Hempin verse in Temic you get away with out being hanged). So if the chandrian are appounting Erlus to be the Justice of Tarbean when Skarpi is telling his story then Erlus’s connection to being Cinder(“Coal black eyes” and “a knife blade face” and in the Audio book erlus sounds almost exactly like cinder) would mean Cinder believes “Lord Haliax” to be “Lord Tehlu” when Erlus says to Skarpi, “do not speak the lords name!”
Rereading TSRoST it does seem pretty clear Auri’s a shaper rather than just a namer.
Apologies if I’m just restating what others have said, but what stood out for me was the nature of the way she looks at things and the way that it’s tied up indivisibly with her alchemy. The emotions she attributes to everything and tries to mend e.g when she’s making the lavender candle (before she brings shaping to bear) are described as ‘principles’ and her changing of them as ‘factoring’. Leading me to suspect that her usual perception of things is something to do with perceiving the principles that alchemy deals in.
While I wouldn’t rule out OCD in the mix, what I reckon her sight is mostly is seeing the parts of the world that alchemic principles deal with at all times, which is then affected/thrown out of kilter by the trauma she’s been through; the implied rape, attempted or otherwise.
However, I suspect it’s also something a little bit beyond just alchemy’s principles, based on what she sees as lying at the heart of alchemy: “So much of what she’d thought was truth before was merely tricks. No more than clever ways of speaking to the world. They were a bargaining. A plea. A call. A cry.”
This seems to me to be referring to alchemy, artificing, sympathy – they are ways of asking the world to do something for you. So Auri seems to have gone beyond Mandrag’s alchemy and understood the truth beyond (you can’t bargain without someone to bargain with, can’t successfully plead without something answering), able to perceive things and speak to the world directly to get it to do what she wants without the language of factoring and principles.
While not entirely the same thing, Auri’s way of engaging with the world and the objects she personifies also strongly reminds me of the hermit in the cave, who helps Jax and asks the knot to open, and also Bast’s descriptions of ‘stabbing’ iron etc.
I see it more like this.
Kvothe says Vachet says Saicere like its the name of god.
Saicere’s true name is Caesura, which is the absense of sound or wind, “an in drawn breathe” that has the ability in music to subdue people and campfires for some reason.
The entire book is literally and figuratively build INSIDE a Caesura(the three part silence prologue and epilogue).
When Felurian saves Kvothe from almost silent thing above them she wraps Kvothe in a Caesura.
When Kvothe hides in the Waystone he uses the three part absense to create a Caesura.
When Elodin uses his great voice in the Masters hall to ask Kvothe where the moon goes he begins with a Caesura.
When Auri makes the candle she uses the presence of a Caesura before she shapes it.
I couldn’t think of a way to describe or show this until I compared it with Skarpis story of Tehlu’s and angels. We see Aleph, Lyra, Lanre, and Iax as the four greatest namers in the world. If even Selitos, who claims to be the greatest namer, looks up to Aleph as a god in a way and asks for his help.
So I got to thinking if wind is the traditional path, and angels got their power from being instilled with wind, and elodin says elements are alive in a way. Then Aleph could be the wind.
Then this new knowledge she talks about, saying all other things were just callings or pleas could mean that, if auri mastered the name of the wind she would possess the power of Aleph and if Aleph created all things she could shape whatever she wanted by creating a Caesura or in other words bringing forth the power of god to change a thing.
Of course, I have said this before but I doubt you want to scroll through 300 comments looking. “endlessly searching” like Iax
re: Conspiracy #264.
I think part of what you’re seeing is selection bias, at least when it comes to the University. Kvothe is a certain age, and has a certain group of friends–so the only people he talks about being brilliant are of a certain age and friend circle. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other people doing brilliant work, just that Kvothe doesn’t see them.
As a comparison, I went to law school from 2010-2013. I can tell you in detail the accomplishments of people the same year as me, where they were brilliant and where they weren’t. But I can only do that a little for people +/- one year from me, and can’t at all for people +/- 2 years from me. They weren’t in my friend circle, and they weren’t in my classes, so I have no idea what they did.
The University is filled with clever people doing clever things, and they all have to be at least talented enough to get a tuition they could afford (with a sliding scale for what that means).
As for some of the other things. I think the teacher in question he burns is meant to be seen as being promoted above his competence. Bredon not using a cane could either be A) He has an intermittent condition (I have gout, which is chronic but also acute, so I can sympathize) or B) He is evil and faking it. Someone being Re’lar and bad at math isn’t out of the ordinary if their specialty doesn’t involve math–see attorneys and math for an example of smart people dumb in one area.
As for the Maer, I think we only need to look in to actual history to see people who willing take “cures” that are worse than diseases from people they trust. If you go in to a Doctor’s office and he gives you a pill, are you taking it to an imaging spectrometer to check the chemical make up, or are you slugging it back and going on your way? Threpp, meanwhile, is rich and therefore eccentric.
As for Denna–Denna is a weird one, and there might be something magically off about her. Or…I dunno, if I accidentally ate a bunch of heroin I might try to play it cool afterword too, you know? Probably wouldn’t bring it up a lot.
As for Kvothe’s relative skill, I think what you’re overlooking is that Kvothe is generally good at anything. He can Name with a lute, fight like an Adem (or close), recite whole passages of books, his alar is like Ramston steel, he is actually pretty good at writing poetry, good at math, clever with words, and invents arrow catches. He isn’t a prodigy because he is the most amazing in the world at one thing, but because he is a polymath–good at so many things. JFK once said to a gathering of Nobel laureates in the White House that this was the most knowledge and talent in one room at the White House since the last time Thomas Jefferson dined alone–Kvothe is more like that.
And there are two other sides to consider. One is this is a story about Kvothe, who became famous. The person who becomes famous is not necessarily the person who is the best, but who is good and also there at the right time. Maybe Kvothe is telling us this story in part so that Fela, and Devi, and all the others get known as well and get remembered for the people they were.
A lot of what you’re saying could also be viewed through the “unreliable narrator” lens, i.e. Kvothe isn’t giving us a true account but the story.
re: 269 Very, very intersting to turn the tides to a story of Kvothe into a story to comemerate his friends. Very heart warming, and I would love if it was that type of story. I would make puting down book three at the end of a true tragedy so much more of hard, as I would just miss everyone who was lost in mysterious great moral event in Book three. I can’t think of it. I won’t. But I like the sound of it. I also liked getting a real life retrospection of the book as it helps to consider the black over the white. Thanks, but there must be some conclusion from magic or will basis that we see kids who should have way less wisdom possessing stronger wills than a fairy goddess who uses her will for eons condemming men with her thighs.
I think Master Archivists are leaders of the Sithe………Found a lot of evidence for it.
Just finished another re-read of WMF after TSRoST, and Denna’s remarks about what you can learn by listening and listening to the stories of the stones at the end now reads somewhat terrifyingly like Auri’s perceptions of objects. Taken together with her potentially Fae/Chandrian patron who she stays with as he has knowledge she can’t get anywhere else, as well as her Yllish knots (themselves linked to the ancient Lackless box) and the ‘written magic’ she talks about, it’s starting to sound awfully to me like Denna is in training as a shaper, not just a musician out to rehabilitate Lanre and the Chandrian on behalf of her patron.
Although, as an aside, did anyone notice that Denna mocks Kvothe quite nastily about the Chandrian when he tells her the ending to the Lanre story he heard despite being quite up for talking about them and seemingly convinced of their existence near Trebon?
I’m definitely coming more and more round to the idea that Denna’s journey and training is in many ways a mirror of Kvothe’s, just happening entirely out of sight. And possibly something that even Frame-Kvothe is unaware of.
But yes. Shaper’s duel between Auri and Denna, anyone? Or maybe I’m just being paranoid here…
Oh, and final remarks (promise): Anyone notice Auri’s declaration that “For [Kvothe] she would bring forth all her desire. She would call up all her cunning and her craft. Then she would make a name for him”. In light of Elodin’s terror about someone changing their name quite a lot, it’s worth mentioning that Kvothe receives a new ‘deep’ name from the Adem, and we suspect he may have a new one as Kote. This makes another name from Auri, presumably a deep one, that just adds to the list. Evidence for some of his problems in the frame being due to changing names so often?
I’m working on what seems to be a clear hierarchy of names for people that emerges:
Calling name, Deep/True Name, Long name – the last two being the dangerous ones, and Elodin seems worried about changing the middle one but not the first, and the latter is seemingly required for any significant changes to or control over people (Aleph calls the long names to create wings for Tehlu et al, Kvothe uses to break Felurian’s power).
If Auri is truly princess ariel then her father would be the barrow king trapping her right? lol Anyway just wanted to know because if so that makes her super old.. So like since shes the coolest character and shes goofy, what if her idea of giving a name is something like “Taborlin the Great” and that she gave that name, but regardless of the silliness of that name it gave said person infinite naming powers or atleast TTG powers..but for Kvothe hahahahah I would laugh so hard if he got the name Maedre the Maleficent! or something from Auri ;D
And yes, but if anything close to a shaping battle happens I’d like Felurian to be somewhere in there to shape a lava dragon similar to bast’s ink crow. Then she could send it flying into Denna’s caravan while Auri shapes Foxen into a Hydra and shoots alchemical liquids at Felurians dragon that turn it into delicious candy. Just don’t mix it with water.
@274
Did the Adem give Kvothe a new name, or merely reveal the one he had?
There’s more than one school of thought:
I tend to think that it’s the latter. After all,
@277 – It’s entirely possible and I take your point. But the reaction of Vashet when he’s given the name Maedre, “a hint of dismay in her voice”, suggests to me that other Adem have borne it and it’s a name from the Adem tradition. Which would be a weird thing to find at the heart of Kvothe. Kvothe also refers to her as ‘honoured shaper of names’, perhaps just a rhetorical flourish but Kvothe is often surprisingly unintentionally accurate with his careless phrases and I see it as an example of Pat’s wordplay hinting at deeper things. Personally I suspect that the use of ‘shaper’ here implies something more active than finding.
Still, even if the Adem found his name rather than gave it to him, we still have this foreshadowing of a new name from Auri. And potentially one in the frame for Kote to add to the list (unless it’s Auri who helped him change his name/seal his power in a chest, Taborlin-style/whatever it is that changes K so profoundly).
Re “Temerant”:
This may have been suggested elsewhere, but I don’t remember seeing it off hand and it struck me this morning. I propose that “Temerant” is related to “Iron”. As in, “The Iron World,” “Land of the Iron People,” or something like that. Remember that Vashet tells Kvothe that in Ademic “Tempi” means “little iron”, “tempa” means “iron”, “to strike iron”, and “angry.” Then Kvothe responds that “temper” means both “angry” and tempering hardened steel in Aturan.
Thus, I think that the name of the world is somehow related to iron. Which would make some sense, given that Fae creatures can’t abide iron. Iron belongs in Temerant, not the Fae, so it wouldn’t be unfathomable to refer to it as the iron world.
Sorry if I’m poaching a comment from earlier…. If so, I either missed it or have forgotten it.
Some potential foreshadowing from TSROST for the Kvothe story:
1. Kvothe’s new name
This seems to give us a glimpse into the events that are coming. We know he breaks, and we know he ends up with a new name. Her prowess as a namer/shaper may be the reason it’s stuck into the frame story.
2. Kvothe versus the seven
The gear Fulcrum (Kvothe) shatters the seventh step (The Chandrian) and in doing so breaks itself. Between the use of the word “shattered” (what Kvothe did to the cobblestones) and the use of “seven”, and it ending up broken, I think Rothfuss is practically screaming the parallels at us.
Sorry if this is off topic, but on my twelve billionth reread of the books one section has stood out to me involving Puppet. Now, it may be reading a bit too much into a grammar correction but the exchange between Kvothe and Puppet seems to me that Puppet knows the Amyr.
“They call me Puppet.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“Who are they?” he corrected, raising a finger.
I smiled. “Who are they then?”
“Who were they (The Amyr) then?”
“Who are they now?” I clarified, my smile growing wider.
::
“You know, them. People.”
“What do you call yourself?”
“That would be telling, I suspect.”
From this small dialogue, and there is a good chance I could be very wrong, I think Puppet is either an Amyr or is associated with them. Keeping in the line of cryptic statements, when Kvothe asks “Who is they?” Puppet answers “Who are they.” (The Amyr) “Who were they then?” “Who are they now?”
Once again, I could be reading too much into this, but those few graphs have really stuck in my craw. Puppet is trying to teach Kvothe in the same way as Elodin, giving him hints and ideas, a general direction.
One of the reasons I have loved Patrick’s work is that everything is intentional. By the time his books have come out, they are river stones polished to a mirror shine. The fact that he italicizes those key words during that exchange indicates to me that we should be paying attention.
Puppet knows who the Amyr are now. He know who the Amyr were then. He is either a member or an outsider with knowledge of them, and he is not one to tell.
I think that Puppet is one of the Amyr. Specifically I think he is one of the human Amyr because of:
In WMF chapter 99, Felurian says that human Amyr “sound like children dressing in their parents’ clothes.”
and
In WMF chapter 40, Puppet is described as “grinning like a child playing dress-up in his parents’ clothes.”
I don’t have anything brilliant to add here, but I will note a few things:
Threes are very important in this tale: Just from this chapter, there are three ways out of Haven, she can do three dives on her finding expedition, before each dive she takes three breaths. (Three jumps over the Vaults and three regions of the water in the pool – before first tangle, between first and second, then after second.)
Seven is also important to her, though mostly we see that in her certainty that “he” will come in seven days. I’m not sure what to make of it, because it’s an example of something she’s sort of right about with no real explanation of why she would be able to know – and not the only example, just the only one in the first chapter (there’s another on the second day – I have no idea why a bird tapping three times on a pipe means that there’s a leak somewhere, but she’s right about that).
Her actions look really strange, partly because the explanation of what she is doing and why she does it is never laid out: for example: she wants the right kind of pipe why? Because the right kind is wrapped in a kind of cloth that she can tear off a section of and use to tie her hair so it doesn’t get caught in the tangles. Perfectly reasonable reason, just never laid out clearly. Similarly, why is the first day a finding day? Because light from the sun shines brightly enough to be seen deep in the Underthing (both in Haven and in “Yellow Twelves”, which differs from “Black Twelves” by having sunlight, I presume), so she can see into the water and generally around herself. I don’t know why most days lack this, but it’s clear that this would be useful… So she’s a lot more rational than she immediately seems.
OT:
I just found these rereads and I’m excited to join you all!
I had hoped to find something from Jo in the comments to suggest why she’s had to wait to post the next chapter, but since there’s nothing that I see . . . does anyone know?
Meanwhile, I have posted “real” comments further down in this thread, since I seem to be the only following for now.
*edited to remove whiny intro.
@@@@@283 – Carlo Henden, I suspect the rational reason the bird tapping on the pipe let her know there was a leak was because of the sound of the tapping – a pipe sounding hollow where it should be full of water, something like that.
@285 – Plausible, though… It would seem that she makes a habit of fixing broken pipes so as to keep outsiders from getting into her Underthing. Do they generally transmit hollow sounds to her? Is it always that pipe that breaks? In any case, though, she’s right. Whatever’s going on with her, she knows what all the sounds and sights in her world mean.
I do wonder what some of her other actions later in the book mean – whether we are seeing how she is broken or whether there’s actual significance in them. I’ve intended to wait until more posts come before I say anything about later in the story, but maybe there won’t be more? Maybe someone should take over in Jo’s name and finish the tale?
Carlo Henden @@@@@ 286
Something you wrote (namely, “her Underthing”) just made me think of something. In NotW, Auri teased Kvothe when he asked to see the Underthing, telling him he shouldn’t ask to see a girl’s underthing. I took it as nothing more than a joke. But what if there’s more to it than that?
Is the Underthing symbolism for Auri’s vagina? And when she brings Kvothe into the Underthing, is that symbolic? Is it symbolic that she doesn’t want other people to visit it?
Maybe it’s even more than symbolic. What if what we call the Underthing is literally bound (magically) to Auri’s vagina? When she senses that something is out of place, does she get tingly? Does the pipe burst every 29 days? Maybe all this moving things around is just her tending to her own health. When Kvothe visits the Underthing, perhaps that makes her his first lover in a technical sense. I’ve always felt that the woman her refers to as his first lover is Auri, but maybe it can be said to be literally true.
@287 – I’d have chosen her underwear, close about her and very private, rather than parts of her body.
The craftsmanship in this book is amazing; it feels like every word was carefully selected and placed.
I think a few things are plain upon re-reading.
1) Auri was either a master or a very wealthy advanced student. I say this because she had her very own alchemy lab built to her own scale.
2) Auri was (or was becoming) a powerful shaper. It seems like this is strongly tied with her damage as she’s obsessive about not imposing her will on the world.
Less certain is the thought that she’s been in a sort of mental stasis, forgetting things and rooms outside her small world but is getting a little better through her association with Kvothe and his providing her with a new name.
Darron@289: good thoughts…both seem very plausible to me.
Regarding #1: One more question I would have about lab, though, is *when* was it built? It seems to be part of the Underthing, indicating that parts of the University have been built above it, right? Yet she expresses familiarity with Master Mandrag. Did she actually study with him? Or was she maybe secretly, silently “auditing” his classes?
#2: I agree with and have no further questions to offer. I assume we’re all assuming that D3 will reveal a great deal of her mystery and abilities.
I have severe OCD, myself. So, if it helps any, I can confirm that to me Auri really feels OCD, if she’s meant to have it or for her condition to be similar to it, it’s the best depiction I’ve ever seen of what it can be like, her strong sense of wrongness, the way objects feel to her – as far as I know Rothfuss doesn’t have OCD, so I’d be impressed as I would never have expected someone without it to be able to get it so right. I don’t think that means her condition and her actions couldn’t still be magical, though, it’s just that if it is it’s still very comparable to OCD. Speculative fiction is sometimes used to depict mental illness in that kind of slightly surreal, abstract way, in fact I think doing so conveys aspects of it that a purely literal totally realistic depiction would struggle to. Even for me, my OCD comes with a perspective on the world that I’d say isn’t all bad, and has its advantages.
@Amphy291
Only I am left to welcome you, and I am a rank newbie myself, currently working my way through ALL the other marvelous threads Jo has posted here. If you are interested in reading terrific analytical thinking and marvelous creative theories about what the 3rd book holds, I highly recommend Jo’s posts and the discussions that follow.
Thank you for your insight.
I missed the first two re-reads for NOTW and WMF, and have now completed reading all of the posts and comments as part of my second reading of the books and preparation for the coming of day three…thank you for doing this.
I am excited to see that this re-read is dated only a few months ago, but it seems to have been halted – probably by Jo’s schedule? I hope that it continues in the near future! I have subscribed and am hopeful…I also hope to finally be able to contribute!
Jim in NH
jimnh: Sure wish you had posted as you read. We could have had a conversation, just the two of us!
Any plans on doing the Bast short story “The Lightning Tree“?
There’s a post for the spoiler-free review, but with hardly any comments following. I asked the same question over there. If Jo has offered any news anywhere, I’m unaware of it.
So a random thought to throw in, on Chandrian signs. There is a Chandrian on the vase in WMF who is naked, and in the Adem poem who is described as living in blight.
I think we’re definitely right that the Chandrian who “lives in blight” is the naked one, if “lives in blight” means makes plants rot. Remember this is a pre-modern society–depending on the in world botanical situation, the most common material to make clothing out of would probably be linen (which we see many times in the text). Linen is, of course, a plant–as is cotton, if that is available in quantities. So she could wear silk (an animal byproduct), but silk is also more rare and she might have just decided to not go to the trouble of robbing people’s clothing. She is a Chandrian, it is beneath her after all.
Isn’t it odd that, of all Jo’s speculative summaries, there is none on the Chandrian? Your speculation fits right in with the other attempts to identify them.
I’m new to the theory boards so please excuse me if this has been discussed but has anyone noticed that when Auri mistakenly goes On Top of Things in Chapter 3 (I believe) she hides from the crescent moon. Does this have any relation to the shape of the Masters table when Kvothe goes ‘on the horns’? I understand that shaping doesn’t mean shapes but could certain shapes be ominous?
That’s an interesting question, Jim. I’m almost done with all the Rothfuss reread posts, and I don’t remember anything discussed about shapes. Auri’s different reactions to the moon is discussed_somewhere_but not in relationship to shapes.
Hello to all recent posters, there is at least one person reading your comments!
@135 smocks… I also saw the similarity between what Felurian told Kvothe concerning Namers (they know the fox and the hare and the space in between) and Auri’s constant adjusting of items in the Underthing. It seems fairly clear, as many others have commented, that Auri is a Shaper. Or maybe it would be better to say she has the ability to Shape, but she avoids it like someone trying to avoid the occasion/temptation of relapsing into a former drug addiction. It really seems like her obsession with this Naming activity is a way to avoid letting her mind slip into a Shaping thought process. While many have commented that her behavior is similar to OCD I would say it also has some similarity to PTSD which could have resulted from some traumatic Shaping experience of hers or one she witnessed.
One of the most revealing passages in the book for me was on page 120 of my Kindle book:
“She used the flat edge of the petal plate to slice the dome of soap. She cut it into cakes, each one a different size, a different shape. Each to each, and all to her desire. It felt wicked and delicious, but given the soap was hers, this tiny willfulness could do no harm.
She indulged herself from time to time. It helped remind her that she was truly free.”
One has to wonder what was happening with Auri before she retreated to the Underthing that only there she could feel “truly free.” It could not have been good.
@280 Marco. And @283 Carlo Henden: great comments!
I have two observations regarding WMF and future events.
The first is the Kvothe knows who Bredon is, even if they have never been formally introduced. When he’s taking about the rumors the other nobles dropped off for him, he specifically lists Bredon as one of the nobles that he received gossip about. And there’s no way the gossip was simply about ‘Bredon’ rather than ‘Lord Bredon of Whatever’. So while Bredon may be a figure of mystery to us, he is less so to Kvothe. Their non-introduced status is more of a polite fiction than a real state of affairs.
The second is that it occurs to me that when the University refers to Kvothe in any sort of official manner, it’s not just “Kvothe”, but “Kvothe, son of Arliden” or some such. I’ll absolutely bet that’s what’s on the receipt/bill that they are sending the Maer. Now, it’s highly unlikely that they Maer ever handles that himself, but maybe Stapes does. Either way, I guarantee that someone is going to put two and two together. After all, I suspect that anyone ‘in the know’ about Kvothe’s mother would know exactly who Arliden is.
@ryan H: Very astute! Especially regarding the “bank statements” showing what was paid for whom, for Kvothe’s tuition. Makes sense…I like it!
p.s. and *why* does TOR insist on creating links just because I use the “at” symbol?
Why I think Bredon isn’t anyone “famous”
Because of the gossip letters. Kvothe has a bunch of scandalous stories about members of the court: the Duke of Cormisant, the king and queen, Netalia Lackless, and Baron Jakis, among others.
And Bredon.
Firstly, this is proof that Bredon isn’t Baron Jakis. But more importantly it’s proof he isn’t anyone else Kvothe might have known about, either. The letter identifies Bredon as conducting pagan rituals, and Kvothe knows it’s about Bredon (so it doesn’t refer to Bredon as “the Earl of Leicester” or some other title that Kvothe doesn’t know). This suggests one of three possibilities: that the gossip letter refers to Bredon as Bredon alone; it refers to him as a title which doesn’t get mentioned because it’s not relevant and so Kvothe doesn’t bother to note it (“Bredon, Earl of Leicester”), or that Bredon is his title (“the Duke of Bredon”).
Anyway, the idea that Bredon is “someone else” who Kvothe has heard of but doesn’t know to be Bredon (such as Baron Jakis, or his own grandfather and Meluan and Netalia Lackless’s father) is pretty much ruled out by this, to my mind.
Of course, none of this precludes Bredon from being Master Ash, or some sort of bad guy, but he’s not a “hiding in plain sight” noble who Kvothe has heard of but doesn’t know Bredon to be.
(oops, and I note that Ryan H made a similar point at #302!)
This does lead to another sort of question, about names and surnames.
Kvothe only has the one name: Kvothe. (To identify him, he’s “Kvothe, son of Arliden”. Or “Kvothe the Arcane” or whatever, but this is not about nicknames.)
At least two of the masters at the University have both name and surname: Master Herma, the Chancellor, is Arthur Herma, as we see where Kvothe is put on the horns for writing Jackass, Jackass:
and Hemme himself is Jasom Hemme, which is what the Chancellor calls him after Kvothe is questioned about setting fire to Hemme’s rooms:
It’s not clear about the others. Elodin seems to only have the one name (unless anyone thinks he’s, like, Kevin Elodin). Elxa Dal might have the first name Elxa, or it might be a title; it’s a bit odd that Dal is frequently referred to as “Elxa Dal” but the other masters are not. I don’t think that there’s evidence one way or the other about Kilvin, Lorren, Mandrag, Brandeur, or Arwyl. (I’ve got an idea in my head that Elodin once jocularly claims his first name is “Master”, but I can’t find that and might have made it up.) This might just be cultural — some of the 4C cultures have two names, others not — but it’s interesting.
Interesting observation. I believe the names might have been discussed in passing, in one of the old NW or WMF reread threads.
(Once again, I *really* wish Jo had the time and inclination to revive the SLST reread here, so those of us who are new could participate in real time ::regretful resignation::)
Stuart @305, 306:
We have discussed this somewhat in the past, so you might find more thoughts there (though I don’t remember off hand when/where we discussed it…) In short, your points do support the claim that Bredon isn’t someone else (other than perhaps Master Ash), but they don’t rule out the possibility. Bredon could well have more than one title, and Kvothe doesn’t know it. Remember this exchange (WMF ch. 62):
So Kvothe could well know Bredon under one title (my theory: the Earl of Baedn-Bryt), and he is simultaneously another “political entity” such as Baron Jakis or the Lackless patriarch, without Kvothe knowing the connections. The gossip that Kvothe reads likely isn’t written as “The Earl of Svanis, also known as the Viscount of Tevn, was seen doing X with Y…”
Elodin jokes about his first name in NotW ch 69, after Kvothe fought off the assassins, when he was watching the wind in the courtyard:
Ryan H @302: I think your observation about “Kvothe, son Arliden” being recorded somewhere in the tuition bill is an excellent point, and it’s one that I haven’t seen before. Nice catch.
JohnPoint @@@@@ 308: hm. I suppose it’s possible that, for example, Bredon is Baron Jakis and also the Earl of Baedn-Bryt, and Kvothe got a letter saying “Baron Jakis paid to avoid scandal” and a second letter saying “Bredon, Earl of Baedn-Bryt, is a pagan”, and although they’re both about Bredon, Kvothe doesn’t know that. But… that seems fairly implausible to me. The Earl of Svanis may well be also the Viscount of Tevn, but in general he’d be referred to by just one of the titles (normally the most senior) if one were speaking of him in this sort of gossipy context — on a legal issue to do with Tevn, sure, you’d speak of the Viscount (that is: the position), but when spreading gossip one would speak of the person (not just the position that they temporarily hold). Prince Charles is the Duke of Rothesay as well, but nobody refers to him thus except in contexts where that’s specifically important, I think. If I tell you some gossip about the Duke of Rothesay you’ll be way less impressed. Again, I suppose it’s possible that, for example, Tevnites think of their bloke as “the Viscount” while the Svanish think of him as “the Earl”, but that would sorta imply two separate houses, moving between the two of them, two separate lives almost. Possessing multiple noble titles doesn’t, in general, work that way (although obviously generalising from the real world to Temerant is dodgy behaviour).
Glad to see I wasn’t making up the Elodin thing! I thought I’d read it, and thank you. Does Elodin saying that imply he has a first name? It would be slightly odd for anyone with only one name to refer to even the concept of their “first name”, although (a) Elodin is slightly odd, and (b) even if the idea of a first name doesn’t apply to him, this is a bloke who understands names and would therefore grasp the concept.
To all: I’m actually in the middle of reading comments for the speculative reread thread called “A Good Cloak.” In it, there is quite a bit more in-depth discussion, more even than some of the reread threads, about reliable versus unreliable narrators, stories versus history, and myth versus fact. The more of this I read, the more I think about Rothfuss’ books…*his* stories…themselves, and what an incredible challenge it must be to keep all his facts straight and consistent. He has created such a complex tapestry of events that we, even as analytical readers (or multiple times rereaders), cannot tease out what is intended to be what! Will D3 reveal an underlying story much simpler than we have imagined? Or even more complex? Much as I enjoy reading discussion of all these theories . . . I can’t wait!
I strongly believe that Foxen is in fact (based on) ‘foxfire’, aka fairy fire. It is a form of bio-luminescence from a fungus in decaying wood. Foxfire also glows bluish green, it’s a reaction from luciferase with luciferin (Source: wikipedia). It is definitely not Kilvin’s ever glowing lamp.
Yes. Comments at 50 and 53 also make this suggestion, which…due to lack of argument by other posters…I believe is probably now generally accepted as the explanation.
I love Auri’s names for things! Often they are teased out of some characteristic for a place, either their apparent purpose or her relationship to them . . . so somebody tell me why she thinks of the world by its name (as confirmed by Pat): Temerant?
Is there ever any kind of hint dropped of Elodin having children? Specifically, a daughter….?
Well, I would say not, but I have not read as closely or as many times as those who used to frequent Jo’s posts. As far as I know, you are the first to ever hint at the possibility.
@tricknick no, I have listened to both books on audio more than 50 times each with only about 4 rereads by paperback and no hint nor mention of him having children. However, Lorren is rumored to be an amyr because a wise man fears the anger of a gentle man. retrospect the scariest thing in the vase from nina was the amyr more so than chandrian. Kvothe himself says he is truly frightened at angering lorren..This and his remarked GENTLE behavior has definately marked him as Amyr. It would explain why he is head of every historical book of importance in Tamerant, having his guilders collect books from all over..Thus, as Fela put it he is the head of one side of the holy war, protecting his version of history.
Now on the subject of children; Lorren never would allow anyone to live in the Stacks let alone light candles and have them continuously burning..Unless the person doing so were his son, and a highly wise person as Puppet knows how to see things for what they are..he is an Elir, but not as those elirs of the university. no. he is a true elir at that and can see into a persons heart. But just as Felurian said, he is only a child dressing in his parents clothes, since he enjoys knowledge he is snuggled into the heart of the archives as a hermit for the story to draw on when K need X or Y solved.
Both Lorren and Puppet are unnaturally tall.
Both Lorren and Puppet love books.
Both Lorren and Puppet know extensive info of the Amyr.
Both Lorren and Puppet have an unnatural calm.
Cheapass Games has posted its Tak rules as an open beta.
They’re looking for feedback from folks who actually want to try it out and try to break it. A redditor played it several times today and seems pretty positive. You can check out hir thoughts here.
thistlepong @@@@@ 316
I am intrigued by this piece of tak trivia:
“The game is rarely played on a 7×7 board” (wonder why…) “and experts can’t decide whether there should be one capstone or two“.
Is there any ancient knowledge hidden in the rules and/or history of tak? Did the Amyr try to change the rules to hide the truth? I am trying to think of a case where there was confusion over whether there was one or two of something in the novels.
(The only confusion over numbers the pops into my head is the plausible suggestion that the Chandrian might have at some point been counted as eight. It doesn’t seem that this bit of tak trivia would be related to that.)
As to the game itself, it definitely looks like the sort of game that has the ability to change character in a hurry. Remember when Kvothe was finally starting to challenge Breadon, then Breadon told him he wasn’t playing beautifully, and calmly turned the tables and defeated K soundly. It seems like one of these moves where you lay down a bunch of stones from the stack could do that.
Finally, I wonder if you get bonus points if the road is perfectly straight (like the Great Stone Road).
The tak game looks awesome I already have a strategy built up for the 8×8 game table! a couple actually!
Been steadily catching up on the rereads and just read TSROST. For those that are curious (as I was) Jo answered someone on twitter (in August) about finishing this part if the reread. She stated she wouldn’t be starting again until Sept at the earliest since she is traveling.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Can’t wait (but will…I will)!
Check Pat’s blog: http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2015/10/hollywood-news/#respond for some exciting news… !
NOooooooooooo…….I can’t access this page. Tell me, tell me!
Sorry, try this: http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com
And this: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/lionsgate-wins-rights-fantasy-book-828557
Thanks. For some reason where I work all of the Rothfuss blog pages are blocked, but the hollywoodreporter one worked!
Pat talks about it at some length in his blog, and unpacks the specifics a bit. It sounds like he is going to be heavily involved with the project, and will have a lot of control over how the present characters, etc. I’ve been nervous about a tv or movie adaptation in the past, but trust that Pat (as he says) loves the books even more than we all do. So, he’s not going to let them screw it up. Yeah, things will look and sound different than I envision them, but I think it will be good.
However, it will probably delay D3 even further. <sigh>
srEDIT@326
Doubtful. He’d already reduced commitments and appearances next year. Folks have this perception of D3 getting continually pushed back ’cause they keep wanting to believe it’s just around the corner. It’s been clear for a long time that 2017 was about the earliest we could expect it.
Okay, but what if these new plans *require* him to not reveal the ending until it can be shown on TV (or a movie)? I would think that Lionsgate would want the rights to maintain suspense.
srEDIT @328: Honestly, I doubt it. Pat’s concern is for the story, and one of his priorities is getting the book right. I have a really hard time believing that he would allow the deal to mandate holding D3 until the show/movies are ready. That’s just not his style. I think that thistle’s 2017 as earliest estimate is probably about right. Maybe a bit later, of course, but that jives with his recent comments about progress and timeline. If anything, I’d predict that the film/show deal could encourage him to publish D3 sooner than it might otherwise occur — I strongly suspect that he will insist on the books being complete before a show approached the conclusion.
But then again, who knows? (Other than Pat and the associated media people…)
@MorsManwoody #319
Jo………..? Where are you?
Forgive me if some of this has been posted before; it’s been a while since I read previous posts and didn’t feel like going back through everything. I also started rereading Name of the Wind, and several things occurred to me.
Who is the man waiting to die? – If Kote is indeed a separate piece/artifact of Kvothe, could he be wanting to die in order to become Kvothe again?
I also noticed that Kote is described as having all his scars silvered over with age, except one. I wonder if this is a sign of him having cut out a piece of himself in a more literal way (or maybe gained something undesired – a sign of his folly).
A couple of thoughts on the name Maedre.
1) Flame – Clean flame is one of the things that is supposed to kill demons. Kvothe lives up to this against the Scrael at the start of NotW. It may also foreshadow some of his interactions for Book 3 (maybe in relation to Bast?).
2) Broken Tree – Could this imply something about the Cthaeh? Another thought was that it refers to his family tree since the branch of the Lackless family he belongs to was disowned
Edit to Add: 3) Thunder – When talking to Arliden about he Chandrian, Ben says part of what makes them so scary is that “they come like lightning out of the blue sky.” And Kvothe is the thunder that follows them.
Roger
Has anyone ever checked to see which phrases or descriptions are used 3 times in a paragraph or chapter? I’m curious because I was the description of Kvothe’s scars (I checked and it is chapter 3, p. 30 in the hardcover) was threefold – covered with scars that have silvered over, scars are like lightning, one scar is not silvered. Ben’s comment about the Chandrian appearing like lightning in a blue sky happens twice in the chapter (unless I missed one). So that’s two instances, at least, where the repetition makes it stand out and seem more significant.
And, we all know that if something is REALLY important, it needs to be said three times.
Roger
Roger:
@331 re Thunder: Interesting. I haven’t seen the link between the Chandrian coming like lightning and Kvothe (or, Maedre) as the thunder that follows. Nice catch, and potentially a good clue.
@332 re repetition: I don’t remember any analysis of repetition, other than Thistlepong who pointed out that the only direct, triple repetition is Elodin’s quote about the color of the sky: blue, blue, blue. But analysis or repeated phrases within paragraphs or chapters could provide some new hints, too.
JohnPoint – here are the references:
Chapter 8, p. 82 “Things we understand we can try to control. But Chandrian come like lightning from a clear blue sky. Just destruction. No rhyme or reason to it.”
Chapter 8, p. 86 “Now I’m not saying that the Chandrian are out there, striking like lightning from the clear blue sky. But folk everywhere are afraid of them. There’s usually a reason for that.”
I came across another Lightning and Thunder pairing earlier today as well, when Ben calls the wind to save Kvothe:
Chapter 14, p. 99 “He looked at me. His mouth moved. He called the wind.//A leaf in lighning, I shook. And the thunderclap was black.” [note the double slash is there to denote a paragraph break]
Roger
On a different note, here’s the description of Tarbean (chapter 22, p. 143):
“Part of Tarbean’s vastness is the fact that it is divided into a thousand small pieces, each with its own personality. There was Downings, Drover Court, the Wash, Middletown, Tallows, Tunning, Dockside, the Tarway, Seamling Lane. . . . You could live your whole life in Tarbean and never know all its parts.”
This strikes me a very similar to the description of the Underthing, with all its different named rooms, halls, personalities, etc. One more link between Kvothe and Auri.
Roger
I’m noticing something interesting this reread.
My impression previously was that Kvothe/Kote was avoiding music; couldn’t stand being around it anymore. He doesn’t want a musician playing at the Inn. Singng “Tinker Tanner” at the start of the frame seemed to be out of character. Bast seems to reinforce this feeling when he tells Chronicler not to ask about his music.
But, the book is FULL of music. Lyrics from maybe a dozen songs are included in the story. Since Kvothe dislikes poetry so intensely and makes much of the difference between songs and poetyry, I feel we can safely assume that he must be singing the songs to Chronicler when he is telling the story.
I’m not sure if this is significant, but it does lend a different feel to my reading.
Roger
Although there is a clear attempt to avoid music, I always perceived it more as an addict deliberately avoiding whatever it is that triggers his addiction. Or…if not that…as an attempt to avoid being identified because of his prowess.
I never even considered it as being no love for music.
@337 s’rEDIT
I wasn’t trying to imply a lack of love of music. My impression was that it was either too painful a subject for him to touch upon (as described in NotW before he bought his lute) or that it brought up things that were too painful (possibly concerning Denna).
I don’t think it is an attempt to avoid being recognized per se since he doesn’t want other musicians to play there either.
But, in the end, my point was that while there is, as you put it, a clear attempt to avoid music in the frame story, there is a lot of music actually being performed by Kvothe/Kote in that same timeframe as he relates his history.
Right.
And I’d never thought of…and don’t recall it being discussed on any of the threads…that he must have been singing these songs / snatches of songs as he tells the story. Good catch!
More random thoughts from this reread of mine. Again, some may have been discussed previously, but it has been over a year (or three) since I read through all the comments:
* It is strange and seems significant that Denna uses the name Alora in Vintas. It is the only time she uses one that isn’t similar to “Denna”
* Three times in WMF, Kvothe ends up looking something like an Amyr (bloody red hands): when being attacked by malfeasance, when attacking the bandits using Sympathy, and when he leaves the sword tree. This last one, though, is only one hand, which implies he is an Amyr in training?
* Is Maedre really Kvothe’s name amongst the Adem? He is told that the name they gave his is more than a calling name and should not be shared with anyone. Why, then, would he include it in the story? Anyone reading it there could theoretically gain power over him.
* Bast’s rhyme at the end of WMF (at least the verse with “misbehave”) is the same he uses at the start of the book when mixing a drink. What sort of misbehavior was he possibly planning? Was it referring to the mercenaries he has rob the Inn or something else? Could he have possibly call in the Scrael in NotW in hope that combatting it would help bring Kvothe out of Kote?
* When I first read WMF, I felt the thing in the Lockless box was tied to the Cthaeh, maybe a seed? This time I’m wondering if it is a piece of the moon, maybe part of its name (making the box the one Jax used to capture it).
* Teh is the sygaldry rune for Lock. Ule is for binding. Put together, I think you get Tehlu, who guards the doors of stone? I can’t see any other reason to have the list of runes in NotW. The rest don’t seem to tie to any other names or places.
* It is strange and possibly ominous that Elodin wants students to make rings that show which names they know, but none of the masters, including him, have any.
* Where did the name Kysera come from? The Ademic “Saicere” indicates that “Caesura” should be pronounced with an “S” sound rather than a “K” sound. Which does the audio book use?
I may have a couple more thoughts once I finish Book 2, but that seems like a good stopping place.
Roger
Hi, Roger!
Here are a few direct responses, based on what I remember (it’s been less than six months for me since I’ve read the entire set of threads here):
Denna’s names: been thoroughly discussed, although I think the use of Alora was never focused on in particular.
Amyr in training: discussed thoroughly, and even incorporated as a meme in further discussions
Maedre: Yes, why is Kote so freely acknowledging this name? This is a question that has been discussed, but the significance of his freedom is not yet clear.
Scrael: Until now, no one had suggested that Bast had deliberately enabled them to arrive earlier than Kote seemed to expect them.
Lackless Box: A piece of the moon may be the most popular theory; at the least its been thoroughly discussed. I lean that way myself, just because I like the neat and tidy allegorical connections within the KKC universe.
Tehlu: been mentioned in various other threads
Rings: We don’t know that the other masters don’t have any; we just haven’t “seen” them/? I believe this has been touched on in discussions about K’s possible rings (the ring rhyme).
Kysera: Thank you. That is an observation that I had unconsciously noted, but not been able to voice. I hate inconsistency.
@336 followup
I finally realized where the idea that there is not music comes from…it is the Silence in Three Part chapters. They all seem to include the phrase “…but of course there was no music.”
@342 s’rEdit
Thanks.for the follow-up.
One final set of thoughts, on sixes and sevens:
When discussing Sir Savien with Threpe, Kvothe notes that six is not a great number; that seven or three would be much better. I think all the threes in the book fairly consistently indicate a seriousness or sense of importance. Sixes and sevens, though, are hard to pin down. In fact, I can’t think of a single pure instance of seven:
* Sir Savien – Six years with the Amyr, returned to Aloine in the seventh
* Chandrian – There are seven of them, but, per the Adem, it is 6 who betrayed cities and their leader. Similarly, six cities were destroyed and one survived. And the six cities Encanis destroys with one surviving.
* After the Fishery fire, Kilvin quotes “Disaster every seven years” (also the first time “Kote” is translated)
Then there are some nebulous ones:
* At the end of WMF, Kvothe has called the name of the wind six times (vs. Ambrose, Felurian, at the sword tree, once on the bridge, once in the Archives and once to save Denna). And, if he did create a ring of air/wind, that would be seven.
* Also at the end of WMF, Kvothe is seventeen. In the frame story, Chronicler guesses he is at most 25. So, since he is still at the University, we can guess that the frame takes place six or seven years after he is expelled/leaves. Or, maybe, since the war started.
Since none of the examples of seven that I can remember are positive, I don’t know what to make of all this. Any thoughts?
Roger
p.s. Rereading is a good reminder of how incredibly tightly written the books are, down to the aliteration and poetry in the dialogue. In many ways it is a wonder he managed to get book 2 out in such a short time, and no surprise that book 3 is not ready yet.
Yes, I’m planning to do another reread myself…and it will be the first one since reading all the threads. So I hope I can enjoy the books on a whole other level (rather than being distracted or put off by all the analyzing I’ve been exposed to now).
I was wrong. Two more thoughts, this time around Auri:
1) Before Trapis tells the story of Tehlu/Menda, Tanee is heard screaming “OOHHHHREEEE”, which Kvothe translates as “story”. Phonetically, I could easily hear this as “Auri”. So, might her name have the meaning “Story wanting to be told”?
2) We learn through Felurian “…that the gift of a single cinnas frui is considered a terrible insult if given to one of the Beladari.” This is the gift that Elodin offers Auri and Kvothe when he finds them on the rooftop of Mains. Since she’s not insulted, we know she’s not one of the Beladari. She may still be Fae (Kvothe thinks of her that way, at least before he meets any real ones), but definitely not Beladari.
Roger
1) That’s a thought . . . good observation!
2) Been discussed in some previous thread, somewhere . . . although I think the specific point that it proves only that she is not Beladari was not mentioned (IIRC).
Roger @346 re cinnas fruit and Auri:
It’s not absolutely clear that Auri *isn’t* insulted by Elodin’s gift of a single cinnas fruit. She definitely looks at him disapprovingly, though that may just be because he didn’t bring anything for Kvothe. Here’s the scene:
That said, it’s fairly clear from the Pairs Faen deck that Auri isn’t of the Fae, since she is one of the seven “Mortal Guests.” Although the question of whether the decks are completely cannon is up for discussion, Pat was heavily involved in the design and layout of the artwork. If Auri weren’t mortal, I don’t think he would have ever allowed her to be one of the mortal guest cards.
John Point, thanks for chiming in. Those of us who do not have the playing cards seem to be at a bit of a disadvantage!
srEDIT — no problem. I may not post much here these days, but I do lurk…
Images of all of the cards (the Pairs decks, as well as the regular playing cards) should still be available online. We definitely had links here when they originally came out. If they’re broken, a google search should readily find some good pictures.
I have found some of the pictures, but not all (read the thread discussions but haven’t had a good up close look at all the artwork).
@348 John Point
My thought was she disapproved of Elodin not bringing Kvothe something rather than reacting to the cinnas fruit itself. Interestingly, he did end up bringing Kvothe an invitation to the naming class.
Thanks for the note about the Fae deck. I also don’t have it so I didn’t realize Auri was in it. I would agree that does indicate she is not Fae.
Dear Jo!
Thanks for the gread reread, absolutely loved it.
Do you happen to have the Rogues-Book from GRR Martin? There’s a story about Bast “The Lightning Tree”, which in my opinion is absolutely worth a chapter here. There’s some stuff about the fae …
Please keep on posting!
Mr/Ms. whatever. If you click on Jo’s name you can find Jo’s review and many comments about the Bast story.
Enjoy!
Hey there, fellow obsessives. I’m just checking in here to see if anyone watched Pat’s live streaming of his writing of book 3, and whether there’s anything there worth obsessing over. (I’m *pretty* sure his worldbuilders fundraiser yielded at least one livestreamed writing session, but correct me if I’m wrong.) I would love to carve out 3 hours to watch Pat write, but time is in somewhat scarce supply just now. If it’s worth watching, I’ll make it happen. But if someone here can tell me it contained absolutely nothing that would contribute to our speculations here, I’d probably end up skipping it.
Happy Holidays to all.
We know (from the Kingkiller books) that Elodin has been trying to reach out to Auri for a long time. This makes it very likely that she belongs in Haven, having cracked during her student days (which she recalls under Mandrag), especially since Kvothe urges Elodin not to try to take her to Haven. This makes me think of Kvothes visit to Haven with Elodin and suggests that Auri was cracked by ‘going too far’ in naming (rather than alchemy). That’s why she is so aware of the moon, because the people in Haven seem to be affected by it too, perhaps because naming brings you into contact with the Fae realm.
Interestingly, she improves after Kvothe names her Auri, which impresses Elodin. Maybe Elodin needs help treating all the cracked students in Haven, since he didn’t seem to be able to help Alder Win in the visit early in NoTW.
Thoughts?
So, being that Patrick didn’t post on New Years that we shouldn’t expect the book this year… do you think we Should? Or do you just think he caught flack for it last year so he just is shying away from the subject?
Or none of the above. Your wild speculations are welcome!
@358 Audion It sure would be nice if he volunteered something about the pub date. But if he doesn’t I’m not going to be the one to ask. On the one hand, it would be great to hear some news. But on the other, so long as I don’t get an update I can imagine that Book 3 will be coming out very soon. There’s every chance that if pressed, he’d just say that it’s not going to be happen in 2016.
The 9 tooth gear is brazen, or rather, copper. (Nameless) sounds more like angels reference since there were nine Angels, ” the gear broke into 3 threes”.
It starts as Auri nearly dies to discover the gear in a place that she has been searching every week in an obvious place. Reference to kvothe only being able to see or find an angel when faced with near death, ” only the most powerful can see them, and only in great peril.”(kvothe when he sees the fire/shadow bird in tar bean when he was frozen.
after Auri thinks of kvothes presents she says” could the brazen gear be for him? Maybe, but that can wait.” Again, referencing that Kvothe might need the Angels help, but not quiet yet.
Then Auri goes into a old knower sort of seeing phase where she sees the world truly and sees its all wrong, all not how it should be and that the only thing to save the world is to bend the 9 tooth brazen gear to her will, however this sets things in motion that end up breaking the gear and releasing the truth of it all to auri. This is a reference to kvothe tricking a demon, and killing an angel(broken gear parallel) to gain his hearts desire(knowledge of why the chandrian did what they did to his family).
Let me know what you think, haven’t posted in a while so I’m a bit rough of all my old theories
“Brazen” is only part copper: it is either brass, which is usually 69% copper at most, alloyed with either zinc (brass) or tin (bronze). “Naval brass,” used for its noncorrosive properties, is 59% copper, 40% zinc, plus 1% tin.
Hmmm . . . I’ll have to return to the book, but I just don’t remember Auri thinking she would/could bend the gear to her will/? Could you cite page numbers?
re: brass There was a long period of time when brass was made from copper and arsenic when tin was scarce – which was most of the time, since it is found in mine-able concentrations in very few places on earth. It’s now referred to as arsenical bronze and is no longer made for obvious reasons. The god of smithcraft was lame in multiple pantheons, probably due to the effects on smiths of crafting bronze with arsenic in it. Smiths didn’t start out lame, but suffered neurological damage due to arsenic exposure. – For whatever it’s worth.
Sorry im less educated in minerals, but the location i was referring to was the chapter when all things were out of place and to fix everything she had to turn fulcrum widershins to put the world to rights
I see. I got confused over the difference between bend (change the shape) and turn (move around an axis).
So i figure that the song about Lanre had been too close to the truth and that is what made it the wrong sort of song.. but what i dont get that was pointed out by scarpi is that Lanre says death is an open door to his power.. is it that he has no soul anymore thus no emotion only logic? Like a robot AI. Or is it that the four doors are wide open to him and he is able to draw from those who are dead? I see that the forum has been dead and kickstarting it with the Lanre song, skarpis story, dennas song, and Trapis story would be fun
Wish Jo would continue her posts on SRST, but barring that . . .
I will need to re-re-reread NOTW and WMF before I really have much more to say. But thanks for trying to reboot us!
Here’s a question for the group: Are names universal?
We are told by Elodin that the name of the wind changes from place to place, but can generally be found if you know how.
What I’m curious about is whether the name of the wind that Elodin hears is the same as the one Kvothe hears. Would it change if the listener or speaker was Siaru vs. Vintish? If not, what language is the name from (Fae from before the split)?
Small note to all- a vanity is a woman’s dressing table,soemtimes curved around the low stool she sat on. It usually had a triptych mirror so she can see the back of her head. It’s a low table, usually glass-topped, with drawers to store makeup and the like.
Thanks cris, that was confirmed by more than one post, above.
Re 367 Roger: I would say names are universal, but the sleeping mind converts it to your language. So like Sim being able to hear “wind” it was just his mind interpreting what was said. With that said, I’m not sure you could “speak” that language, and there is no evidence that “wind” or “fire”, while both Names, have anything in common with each other. Each Name might be it’s very own language.
But, I think Yllish probably comes the closest, with the multiple possessive tenses and how everything changes everything else. I have a feeling the learning of the Knots will be important in day 3.
Oh no? Where’s part 2?
Will this ever continue? I have really enjoyed reading Jo’s thoughtful posts and all of the commentary (including on the re-read threads). Just throwing this here so I can see if it ever gets updated. As for this book, I loved it. It’s so obvious how practically every word has been chosen for a reason.
Second the motion!
I would venture to guess that Jo might continue once we hear definite word of a publication date for Doors of Stone.
I’m guessing she got tapped as a Beta reader for The Doors of Stone, and thus is unable to continue these threads due to spoilers. Good for her! Bad for us! Heh
I am re-reading WMF again, and something caught me as probably prophetic/foreshadowing in the scene where Denna gives Kvothe the case for his lute.
She is berating herself and mutters to herself “What’s wrong with me” “Why am I such an idiot? Why can’t I do just one thing right in my whole life?”
I feel that last line will come to haunt us all. Will Denna finally do one thing right in her life? Sacrifice herself for Kvothe perhaps to fix something she did, or he did for her?
Audion,
Just now saw your previous post too. I hope you’re right. Jo would be an awesome beta reader since she knows and loves the story AND has access to so much info from fan comments here AND is an author herself. But surely she could manage to post the next segment of SRoST without revealing spoilers? At least the rest of us could get on with our observations and speculations. *sigh* Oh, well.
Regarding your suggestion that Denna’s line is a foreshadowing . . . sometimes I feel as if there is absolutely nothing in these books that is not foreshadowing.
I”ve been reading these summaries for ages now, but never added anything myself, mostly because much cleverer people have been contributing fantastic ideas. But I’ve been stirring something in my head, and I don’t think it’s been brought up before. Apologies if it has; there’re so many comments to check through at this point, eventually we’re all going to end up playing Pierre Menard to someone’s Cervantes. I did a quick Ctrl+F through the “Too Much Truth Confuses the Facts” and the two Lackless speculative summaries, and didn’t see anything.
Anyway – does anyone else think that Lady Lackless’ black dress is the Blac of Drossen Tor?
I think A Fox pointed out that tor can be connected to henges and standing stones; it’s also German for gate or door. Dross is a term for solid impurities in molten metals, including wrought iron, which seems important given what we know about iron and the Fae, and what we suspect about copper and Namers. Jo herself pointed out that blac has to be something important, because it’s one of a handful of times we get a direct translation for a word.
If we accept that the Drossen Tor is the Doors of Stone, then the Lackless rhymes could either be pointing toward the items needed to open them, or to the items sealed behind them (keeps them underneath her black dress = hidden by the Blac of Drossen Tor). Maybe the first rhyme, “Seven things has Lady Lackless,” is about the latter, and the second, “Seven things stand before/The entrance to the Lackless door,” the former.
Blac of Drossen morphs into black dress via metaplasmic enclitization. In fact we first hear that term when Kvothe is explaining the origin of the Ruh slur ravel – and as others have pointed out, the line “Lackless likes her riddle raveling” could be baby talk for “Netalia Lackless like her little Edema Ruh.”
Good stuff!
I’m pretty sure someone has brought up that idea in one of the threads, because I remember reading it and having that sense of *ding* or *click* as it fell into place.
But don’t let that discourage you! Obviously you came up with it independently. More than I’ve had to add to the discussion . . .
Gooddoggy, I’m with srEdit – Yes, it’s been brought up and discussed before, but that’s okay. Good catch for picking up on it yourself. It may interest you to know that there’s strong support for the idea in foreign language translations – since the association between dress and drossen is replicated in various foreign language editions. Raveling has also been spotted before and it’s one of my favorite wordplay catches. (Not that I caught it myself, but I applaud whoever first mentioned it here, and you as well.)
Ah, I figured someone must have caught it already. Excellent, though! That means the idea has already been talked about and percolated through other theories and speculations. I was less excited about potentially finding something, than I was concerned that there might be a line of inquiry we’d missed.
KateH, that’s interesting about the foreign language editions, thanks for that!
That’s good stuff, Gooddoggy! If you wanted to see the foreign language discussion you can find it here:
http://www.tor.com/2013/05/23/rothfuss-reread-speculative-summary-20-watching-his-master/comment-page-6/#comment-340271
That comment references another which in turn references another. All three may be worth a look.
Hey guys (hope people still read this),
I have a theory! Now I know there’s more noise out there about Auri being the lost princess Ariel, I just wanted to second that. But what I found most important after my re-read is that somewhere in this book, Auri says that she can give Kvothe a new name, just like he gave her a new name. When Elodin finds out that Kvothe named her (after they had dinner on the rooftop, the 3(!) of them), he realizes Kvothe has some Naming prowess, that probably means that Elodin himself knows her name too.
To me it seemed really obvious that Auri was raped, something about breath that smelled of wine, and wanting. Obviously she’s all against desire because of her Shaping, but maybe also because she was desired. Now for some reason I had it in my head that Princess Ariel was with Ambrose when she disappeared? Which would mean Ambrose raped her, and she cracked. We all know how he is with women. Then I can imagine Kvothe gets mad about that, and kills him (by the fountain where the cobblestones are all shathered, shattered) (being a kingkiller)?
Furthermore, she’s certain Kvothe’s going to come down and stay with her in the Underthing, and will be protected by her and her tin Ciridae. Because of his murder..?
Thank you Jo, for having these re-reads, I hope you have some time to continue this one in the future
Hi Steph, welcome.
We don’t actually know anything about Ariel, other than the fact that Kvothe tells Aaron that if he stays to listen to the rest of the story, he’ll learn the truth about Princess Ariel.
I believe that you’re conflating Ariel with Tabetha, the girl who was dating Ambrose and disappeared. I’ve always wondered if Auri was Tabetha (see, e.g., my comment above @46), though that does lead to some rather unpleasant perspectives. But still, it’s a possibility, and could be the impetus for an attack on Ambrose.
*I* still read!
Your speculations are mine also, almost word-for-word. This all being prior to the frame story, of course.
And then he betrays her somehow.
Any thoughts on the anagram “Stone Dorrs” coming from “Drossen Tor”?
Too contrived?
Am I the only one weirded out by the fact that Selitos is a cyclops?
Is he? Or is he “human” but lost an eye? I always thought of him more like a pirate, with a patch.
Were I to have pictured him as a cyclops, I would have been a bit more weirded out, to be sure.
Has anyone confirmed if the day Auri wept ties to the day she comforted Kvothe during his Plumb Bob episode? When she came looking for him in his room and found him missing his mother? I’m pretty sure the timeline lines up appropriately, which makes me wonder why she went looking for him before the 7 days were up. Did she subconsciously know he was “out of true”?
Some other thoughts – Kvothe killed an angel to get his desire – could that angel be Auri, either literally or figuratively? He refused to give her up to Devi, but perhaps Devi didn’t have the right bargaining chip for him. I could see him trading access to the Library for information Devi obtains on the Chandrian, with Devi getting caught, and ending up with Auri dead or in Haven (figuratively dead in a catatonic state).
I don’t think Auri is necessarily all that young, or a past victim of Ambrose. Ambrose and Mola seem comparable in age, and as given above, with the scarcity of women on campus, Mola would recognize any woman near her age, or at least be cognizant of any stories of women disappearing before her enrollment. So I would put Auri as later 20’s, maybe even early 30’s. Given her expertise with alchemy, she would have been a senior student when she disappeared (say 22), and then with Mola also being a senior student and not recognizing her (at least 4 years?), that puts a lower bound of 26 or so.
Bredon I am convinced is Master Ash, the parallels are just too many. I also think he is an Amyr, and the song Denna is writing with him is not to clear the Chandrian’s name, but rather an attack on them. Kote said Denna’s song was good, and would be sung across the world. Imagine what would happen to Lanre/The Seven if their names being spoken hurts them, if their true name is woven into a popular song easily sung? Spreading like wildfire across Temerant, it would probably prevent them from their true purpose, whatever that is (ending the world is my guess).
A few very brief responses, in order of your topics:
Auri’s weeping day: I don’t believe it’s been confirmed, but it’s pretty much assumed (IIRC).
Killing angel: Lots of scattered comments on this. Many agree with you and all are sad.
Age: Not so sure about Auri’s age. Do we have actual evidence she is not known to Mola?
Master Ash: Bredon as Ash does seem a pretty sure thing.
Richard @389: Welcome.
Re the Auri weeping and the plum bob — we discuss the timeline starting @165 of the previous thread (Tue Nov 4, 2014 1:05pm). It definitely appears that Auri weeps on the plum bob, but there’s also a lot to imply that Auri and Kvothe saw each other several times during admissions, but he just didn’t *play music* for her until the end.
Re killing an angel — it’s a possibility. I haven’t seen anything convincing either way yet, so I’d say it’s a tossup.
Re Bredon — again, it’s a distinct possibility that he is Ash, though there is also a good case to be made that Cinder is Ash. Unless Bredon is also Cinder, one of those sets of possibilities has to be a red herring. So we’ll find out eventually…
@srEDIT All references to selitos phrase it as singular, even with the name “selitos one eye”
About auri,
Kvothe entire relationship with Auri revolves around him playing music for her.
The Adem believe the voice is the expression of love.
Kvothes Name in ademre is maedre literally an anagram of ademre.
He even finds a way to awake his sleeping mind to understand the lethani.
He clearly has a connection with the Adem.
Apart these all seem as random facts but together we can combine them with the fact that Kote doesn’t play music and that he killed an angel. Together they make this
If we assume that auri is an angel because of her halo hair reference, then we can assume he killed her or got her killed to get what he wanted. However kvothe playing music for auri is almost sacred to both of them, Kvothe taking time out of studying to play for her, auri scavenging and making a huge fuss over what to give him the next time he comes to play.. this with the added sentiment music brings with itself in ademre belief could set the two up to fall in love the next book unexpectedly thus when kvothe Gets her killed or kills her to get revenge on cinder he then vows to never play for another person other than auri, a true tragedy.
I just finished reading all three books back to back. I love this book. its like a perfect poem, like something deeply knowing, full of deep truths that are inexpressible. I think Auri might be an angel or a fat but something extremely singular . I remember a ref in one of the other books that K killed an angel. I hope its not Auri
Audi also says she will name him, give him a new name. I wonder if this is how he changed his name.
Widdershins, by the way is the way the world turns, the earth. Its not evil, its actually working with the earth rather than against it, with the earth, completely the natural way, rather than something that works on the earth, ( its relationship to the sun)
Maybe Auri has deeper more perfect more utter knowledge than anybody. Maybe she is like an avatar, and she must live in perfect harmony with everything, taking nothing for herself
This book has changed the way I think. Its reset me.
I don’t think she is mad. She talks about herself as broken but she understands that she is. Until we understand how we are broken, that we are, and that brokenness is essential for everything, until we accept it and live according to what it teaches us, we live in illusion
Oh i cant find any other parts to this reread. did you never do any more Jo? Thanks everybody for all you brought to this discussion. I didn’t read everything, but I received so much food for thought.
julieanne, there is one other piece of Rothfuss’s that I know you will enjoy fitting into its place in this world. It is a short story called “The Lightning Tree,” which is part of the anthology Rogues.
Also, don’t miss Jo’s “extra” posts, which gather a lot of the theories into their own threads for even *further* discussion!
Just click on the link for The Patrick Rothfuss Reread to find all the speculative summaries and a few others (such as posts about the Name of the Wind playing cards).
The post for “The Lightning Tree” is a spoiler-free review, but the comments are no longer spoiler-free. Click on Jo’s name and scroll back through various posts to June 5, 2014.
Thank you srEdit
Actually that story about Bast in rogues is what led me to Patrick Rothfuss’ books, i came into it the back way lol. He’s story in Rogues was a diamond in that book. There were many other great stories but his was totally on a different level for me.
Thanks for telling me about all the other things to explore. I am actually about to start rereading the stories.
xx
Yup. Re-reading is what we all do/did. I read them all 3 times straight through back to back. The plan was to read again “along with” the threads: reading a post and comments and then re-reading that section, and so on. But then other books on my reading list intruded, and I haven’t been able to get back again.
Although I’ll *have* to before D3.
I am half way through the second book, rereading. Ive been thinking about what people said here. One of the things thats occurred to me is that I disagree that Denna is the moon, I think she is the wind and Auri is the moon. Donna is hard to catch like the wind, she comes and goes, she is elusive. Auri goes dark, she peeks out, she is skittish like the moon but she is also like the subconscious, like the sleeping brain, the things she says are very poetic and more like right brained dreaming kind of thinking and the moon is a symbol in our culture of these things. She is also seen as a little bit not right in the head… but I think she is really the moon in us all, in touch with the sleeping mind, or always the sleeping mind awake.
In the wise mans fear, at the beginning of chapter 71 Kvothe knows the mayor is coming into the Waystone before he has arrived and begins taking out a deck of cards to appear nonchalant.
This could be Kvothe listening to the world or the town. Why would say “I suppose that’s how they found my troupe.” When talking about the Chandran and saying their names if kvothe already knows how to “listen” for such things. Either it’s a contradiction in the book by lack of editing or kvothe doesn’t want bast or chronicler know of his ability to listen to the world possibly to bring light to it in book three or merely to protect himself. It’s weird and something to think about.
@HR: very nice catch. I believe that’s a thought that’s *not* been mentioned before. Whew! I don’t envy PR or his editors the chore of maintaining continuity and consistency in his last book…how can it be done?
@julieanne: Although you may have noticed the Denna as moon comments just by preponderance of numbers, there are others as well.
@everyone: Hmmm…looks like this massive thread has become our go-to discussion board for all things Kingkiller.
Hayden @398: I always assumed that Kvothe either 1) saw the Mayor through the window, or 2) heard him on the street. The transition between when Kvothe stops talking and when Chronicler hears his footsteps on the inn landing is likely only a few seconds, so the Mayor couldn’t have been too far away. Kvothe holds up his hand, gets out a deck of cards, and starts dealing them. I can’t imagine that would take very long, and since he has good hearing (e.g., his “finely tuned eavesdropper ears”) I never thought that there was anything odd about him realizing that the Mayor was coming. Remember that he’s also on high-alert for anything that might appear out of place, so he’s likely being particularly cautious while telling the story. Though I suppose that it’s possible that he is “listening” in a magical sense.
So…will there be a part 2 (to 7)? Ever?
If you’ve read through the thread, you’ll see that Jo has been asked that periodically for over a year. But it seems she’s not actually following the thread anymore herself…or at least, she’s never answered.
I’m too excited not to share this. I finally received my signed copy of The Name of the Wond inscribed with seven words. Any seven words of Rothfuss’s choosing. (A perk from his Geeks Doing Good Worldbuilders fundraiser.)
Recess. Princess. Excess. Egress. Impress. Redress. Abcess
Wow! Great perk, indeed!
Do you ascribe any meaning?
‘Abcess’ is actually spelt ‘Abscess’. It is the most statistically misspelled word in medical writing. Did Pat misspell it on your signing or did you misspell it on your post here? Just curious because Pat is one of my heroes.
Ouch!
Well, either way, I know *I* just learned something (sheesh, and I used to think I was a good speller)!
So… Pat posted this recently… http://www.thewrap.com/lin-manuel-miranda-produce-feature-film-tv-series-kingkiller-chronicle/
Yep. Saw that on TOR.com, but thanks for posting here!
Yeah, I saw that article 30 seconds after I posted it here. Guess I’m slow to the party today…
I read this book without reading any of the other books (still haven’t, it’s on my to do list, right below dwarf tossing…)
But I understood the book, your brain goes into compensation mode and you figure things out faster than fast! Loved it muchly though!
Would it be awful to hope for a second helping?
@410: Some people loved it; others (who loved this 1st two) hated it. There’s no accounting for taste. ;-)
But you’re far from being the only one calling for more.
Trafalgar @@@@@ 405: Abcess is misspelled in Pat’s inscription. Probably not purposefully, but it could be. Also, the first word (recess) is not capitalized like the others. For a reason? In both cases, I think I prefer the added ambiguity.
Pat just announced on his blog that there will be a book 3 Q&A on his twitch channel on Friday 3 Feb, 3pm US central time, I think.
Best to check his blog for the factually correct info. You can pre-ask questions on a form he provides on his blog and/or join the twich session and/or watch it post-session.
No book 3 spoilers nor release dates will be given.
I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but Jax’s Folding House was undoubtedly designed by MC Escher.
That’s the one Pat must have been thinking of!
Did you discontinue the rest of TSRoST? Was much looking forward to reading more!!
Yeah, Ryan…I think we all agree. If you read ALL the comments here, you’ll find many that ask.
I think since auris name is relative to sunshine or sun she innately inherits the life like characteristics of the sun. I.e. Long lifetime(he ability to stay young) and her stigma to the moon I’m guessing is that the moon uses the suns rays to shine(steals the color from all things) kind of like a strain on her will, which would explain her mood cycles.. also her need to set the world to rights, what effects the world more than the sun.. late night thoughts lo
Nice thinking, regardless of the time of day!
@418 – Minor point of contention: Kvothe thinks Auri means “Sunny”, but Elodin points out that it isn’t in any language either knows (more specifically, Kvothe thought it was Siaru, but Elodin points out that is a different word entirely).
Right. It will be interesting to see whether we find out more in Book 3.
Roger @420: “…Elodin points out that it isn’t in any language either knows…”
Minor point of contention with your minor point of contention — Elodin asks Kvothe in what language “Auri” means “sunny.” Kvothe guesses it’s Siaru, which, as you say, Elodin points out is a different word. However, this is not the same as Elodin saying either, 1) that it doesn’t mean sunny, or 2) that Elodin doesn’t recognize the language.
So, while it is completely possible that Elodin doesn’t know the language, it’s also quite possible that Elodin knows the language but asks Kvothe as a test. For instance, imagine that it actually does mean “sunny,” but in the Fae language. Elodin hears Kvothe use the name, and translate it accurately. So, he asks to find out if naming Auri was an instance of him knowing the Fae language (wow!), or of his sleeping mind knowing it (double wow!), or just of it being something that sounded nice or that Kvothe heard somewhere (meh…). Since Elodin asks Kvothe to join his class immediately after that conversation, I always figured that he was impressed with Kvothe’s demonstration of his naming prowess. We can’t assume that Elodin didn’t recognize the word/language given his response.
(Edit to correct comment reference number.)
JohnPoint@422:That’s how I always read it.
Thanks, John Point!
I had forgotten the exact circumstances, but now that you’ve refreshed my memory, I’d have to say that I had always understood it that way also. Not reasoned out quite so logically as you, but I certainly can remember recognizing that Elodin had understood something very significant about Kvothe’s abilities just from that one naming.
Also, I believe this was discussed rather thoroughly in the appropriate thread (or as an OT thread *somewhere* among all the discussions).
(I *really* need to reread these books again!)
@422 JohnPoint – yeah, I wasn’t all that sure about how to phrase that thought, which is why I added the parenthetical.
Has anyone here picked up the 10th Anniversary edition yet? Is it worth the investment?
Since this is the only “active” thread for PR’s works just now, just thought I’d add this from TOR’s main page post about the Lin-Manuel Miranda KKC TV series:
*Edited to add that LMM tweeted a comment about the term “generational” having very specific meaning, which of course left many fans thinking it would focus on Kvothe’s parents.
@426 RogerPavelle, I have it on order. Should arrive next week. I’m looking forward to finding out what’s new. I know there’s a new map. I’m also re-reading again for the first time in 2.5 years. It’s interesting to re-read after a break, but with pet theories and theories I’m curious about very much in the forefront of my mind.
Will try to remember to report back after I get my hands on the anniversary edition.
I’d say it’s worth the investment if you are troupe member. It’s a gorgeous book, with red page edges. I haven’t had time to reread it yet.
I got the 10th Anniversary and agree it’s probably worth it if you’re the type of person who still checks this thread. It’s a beautiful version. I haven’t read through it yet, but I read all the new material. There are *two* new maps! The appendices on the calendar and money have some fun information, and I’m sure the folks here could tease some theories out of them.
I’m going to see Pat at PAX tomorrow. I’m racking my brain for a good question to ask him – one he might actually answer. I’d love input from the legions here. The best I can come up with right now is to ask him something about Elodin’s childhood, or whether Elodin likes to cook, or something of that nature. A question that would make Pat laugh would be best of course, even better than one he might answer.
Suggestions?
Okay, I’ve refined my question:
“If Elodin were to join an online dating site, what would he be looking for in a partner, and what would he say about himself in his profile?”
Pat is a master of evasion when it comes to these Q&A’s, so if it my question only gets a laugh out of him, I’ll count it as success.. If he actually gives an answer, it’ll just be gravy.
Still open to suggestions.
Can you eliminate the part about what he’s looking for in a partner? Or do you really want him to (maybe) address that?
Of course I could eliminate it. Is there some reason I wouldn’t want him to address it?
Just that it makes it a two part question, i.e., less direct. YMMV
I see. So you’re saying that what he would say about himself is the more interesting part of the question? I’m all for carefully crafted questions that are more likely to lead to real answers. I’m not sure if a more open ended question or a laser-focused one would more likely result in a real answer. I just know there’s no way I’d get an answer about anything remotely serious or spoilery for day 3.
KateH @434 —
I tend to agree that you’re probably better off eliminating the part about what Elodin would be looking for in a partner, as I expect that Pat would use that as a way to avoid answering the question. I predict that his response would be something like “Elodin would never join a dating site, that would be akin to searching for the wind,” or something else evasive. Focusing on one part of the question might be more likely to get a good response.
Also, I’d also recommend phrasing it unconditionally, e.g., “You just learned that Elodin joined a dating site — what does his profile description say?” or something like that, rather than a conditional “If Elodin were to join…”
Good luck, and let us know what he says!
@437 JohnPoint – I like it. I will try that approach if I get the chance to ask a question, see what happens, and report back. Thanks for the pointers and the good wishes.
Okay, follow up report time. Pat was loopy with sleep deprivation and too much caffeine. He was less in evasion mode and more in freestyle digression mode. He did not answer my question, but did relate a time when all of his undergrad friends had graduated, and left him in his college town and he was looking for new friends and decided to post a personals ad to find new friends to play D&D with but he was also really poor and the newspaper charged by the character. So his personal ad read, “Experienced GM looking for players.”
He did answer a few questions, sort of. If compelled to choose one of his own characters to have sex with, Bast would be high on Pat’s list because he’s hot af and is “really good at what he does.” When asked why Kvothe didn’t simply go to Baron Greyfallow (or whatever the name was) when he needed a patron, readers “should not assume he didn’t think of that.” Whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich depends on how you define sandwich, but people who parse such semantics are killjoys who rob others of the pleasures of debate/argumentation.
All in all, considering how whacked out he was (more so than usual, I’d say) it was a pretty good Q&A session.
Lol should’ve asked him if it was Cinder who arrested Skarpi
“Ring unworn” could this be the ring auri gives Kvothe?
So apparently 441 was the most recent comment for this over-long thread. I can’t help but still be sad that Jo never did post the next chapter thread and also never left us a note to explain why or say “goodbye for now” or something.
Regarding the comments, everyone starts out restraining themselves from commenting on points from later in the book because they expect new posts will continue the series, but eventually the discussion turns to the whole book. And—HaydenReece—almost all your comments are convoluted (as well as needing spell- and grammar-checking). I started out reading them with some interest but eventually they just became too tedious to follow, sorry.
Jo @@@@@ OP: she thinks she shouldn’t be greedy and push things about with the weight of her desire
I’m sure you had intended to get here, Jo—what happened? This is an especially important point in contrast with her final work on the candle for Kvothe, when at the very end of the book she “brought the weight of her desire down full upon the world.
And all things shook. And all things knew her will. And all things bent to please her.”
I see that others begin to comment on this also.
JohnPoint @@@@@95 (quoting NW): Many of the huge machines were beyond identifying, looking more melted than rusted.
And how about this? Does it imply magic was in use? Surely a melting would have involved fire, yet Kvothe does not mention identifying any fire damage.
Humanmale @@@@@96: Would iron wood and leather really have lasted ~5000 years? Even in the deteriorated state Kvothe sees them they seem far too well preserved.
Yes, but . . . magic. Isn’t it possible that—as mentioned by someone who posts later in this thread—there is some kind of preservtion effect happening throughout the Underthing?
Humanmale (again) @@@@@125: And now, the more I think about it the more I keep thinking that giant block of rust = chandrian involvement.
But, of course! All that decay could be their influence.
Smocksmocksmock @@@@@132: On Naming Knowing vs. Shaping. . . . So it goes, I think, with Knowers and Shapers. In my opinion, Auri is firmly a Knower. Her quest for rightness and balance is all about knowing the fox, the hare, and the space between the two.
She might think of herself as a Knower, but we know she broke her own rules in order to prepare the candle on time for Kvothe’s visit.
Hayden Reece @@@@@219: Kvothe saying they sometimes come out of Fae to learn magics and secrets of Tamerant from humans.
What? Why don’t I remember this? Where does Kvothe say this?
MorsManwoody @@@@@321: She stated she wouldn’t be starting again until Sept
Unfortunately, even that later date was not to be. ::regretful resignation::
HaydenReece @@@@@391: @@@@@srEDIT All references to selitos phrase it as singular, even with the name “selitos one eye”
Yes, I know. And I understood why you suggested it. Nevertheless, a cyclops is conceived as having a single eye in the center of the forehead, *not* as a entity similar to a human being, who once had two eyes but blinded himself in one of them.
Hi I’m Salva from Spain.
Just a point.
1st Day Kvothe was working on Brass Gears and yellow lamps. Auri find a Brass Gear. The Brass is brigthly not green marked because the time. So Auri find one of Kvothe broken gears.
2o Day Auri feels Kvothe singing. At same time Kvothe is singing at the Eolian. She clim upper thing but he is no there. She looks to the Imre’s bridge. At same time Kvothe is crossing the bridge with Simmon and Will… So she wait for him, but he is not there… At same time Kvothe is dawn but they both sre separated by the Factory. He just saw the Archive and her the Teachers rooms. He WAS there.
3rd Day She cray…This is the same day she went to Anker’s and find Kvothe’s crying. She cries later because she knows the pain hes suffering
@443: Thanks for posting. This book is one of my favorites, although some people found it disappointing and others, downright worthless.
You’ve made some excellent connections! I hadn’t bothered to tie everything together, but obviously PR was very careful in working out his timing for these two characters.
@444 srEdit
” although some people found it disappointing and others, downright worthless”
An incomprehensible attitude, in my opinion: I find this to be one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.
I’ve read it over and over again, myself.
I loved it too. I’m currently reading a book that vaguely reminds me of this one (although I can’t really articulate why) although does not exceed the prose quality of course. But it has that same kind of fairy-tale-ish POV from a slightly quirky female character feel.
I wish this column had continued, or we could at least get some closure on it! I know Jo still posts here occasionally.
Then again, given the state of the series in general, it’s fitting!
@Lisamarie: Tell me what you’re reading now. I need a new book (not that I don’t have a TBR pile).
@448 – it’s Tress of the Emerald Sea, which is one of the Brandon Sanderson ‘secret books’. I actually find the quality of the prose and imagery to be a step above his normal prose (which I typically find serviceable, but not something I consider his strong point. That’s not a knock against the emotional beats of his books, or the worldbuilding, or the themes, or the way certain parallels are made…but…there are just some authors for which the words themselves are clearly obviously curated for an evocative, aesthetic impact that fits the story itself. Bradbury is one of those for me, Rothfuss is another. In the songwriting world, Simon and Garfunkel and AURORA, are among other examples for me, maybe Evanescence too, and certain Queen songs (The White Queen!!!)).
I was hesitant to say which book it is, because it’s one of those things where somebody else might say, ‘what are you talking about, they are nothing alike!’ But I don’t know, something about it just gives me the same vibe, especially Part 1, and the way she talks about cups :)
Thanks! I agree with you about Sanderson’s prose, but I might try it!
@srEDIT – apparently I am not the only one to make this connection, so at least I’m not totally nuts! :)
https://www.tor.com/2023/01/03/whats-the-first-line-of-the-first-book-youre-reading-in-2023/comment-page-2/#comment-963965
I know, right? I saw the book listed there too, but somehow I had skipped the point about similarities to SLoST, so I’m glad you mentioned your own discovery here.