Wise Man's Fear (Contains Spoilers)

[Clansman]

I still think Stopes is our connection to the Amyr. Stopes does all he can do to prop up the Maer's regime, and there is more to him than meets the eye.

 

[Rick9597]

Would not Kvothe be the candle without light. At one point in the story he is described as a candle that did not burn because of his flaming red hair.

 

[Boneman]

On the basis that a candle provides illumination? Not sure about that one, but anything is possible.

I recently re-read NOTW, and there's one thing that kinda intrigues me (amongst many others...!) and that is his account of what happens to him after his troupe are killed. The chandrian leg it because Lord haliax stares at the sky and says: 'They come.'

Now, did anyone come? The plain answer is no. Why not?

But Patrick then goes to great lengths to tell us how the mind protects itself with the four doors, and goes on about how his mind invents the characters from his life who intruct him in various little things. I have a feeling that the 'Laclith' - the woodsman who teaches him in his dreams, may actually be a character, and his 'sleep' is induced by those who came after the chandrian, whoever they were. I can't find it, but, wasn't there a mention somewhere that Laclith was a variant of Lackless? Could they (The Amyr, the singers, the Sithe - whomever did come) have found Kvothe and used deep hypnosis (or the equivalent in that world) so's he wouldn't talk of them, as well?

 

[Boneman]

And Elodin continually says you have to wake the sleeping mind... sleep, the first door through which Kvothe says he goes after his family are all killed a 'retreat from the world and all its pain'. Doesn't it make some sorta sense that the Kote has to waken his sleeping mind again, so he can open the box, become Kvothe again?

Interestingly, and I can't find them all now, but will on my next read-throughs, Kvothe keeps coming out with words he can't remember having learned/heard before. In WMF when Elodin appears on the roof, he asks Kvothe wwy he picked Auri's name for her and he says Auri means Sunny. Elodin asks in which language, and Kvothe replies "Siaru, I think." Elodin tells him "Sunny is leviriet in Siaru." then this by Kvothe: "I tried to think where I'd learned the word. Had I stumbled onto it in the archives?"

Which is very strange; this is a man who learned a language in two days, memorised all his ciphers for sygaldry overnight, and has the incredbile recall that all his years as a Ruh have drummed into him, and he can't recall, where the name came from. It's a name he gave to her, and he can't remember where it came from?? Coincidence or not, Elodin distracts him from working out where he knew it from, by 'casually' talking of a class he's going to give for naming, and it goes completely from Kvothe's head...


And late on in WMF, (pg705) there's the rhyme that the boy says, (small boys in fiction are invariably messengers....) which we've had a lot of comment on, and the last line says this:

'Then comes that which comes with sleeping'

I'm convincing myself that when his sleeping mind does awaken, we'll find strange things happened all that time ago...

ps: the 'laclith' mention is from Bredon in WMF, when he's telling Kvothe about the lackless's, and gives him all the historical names.

 

[MaxTastic]

Secondly, the Maer's poisoning, and the reference to the Amyr that is/are near him. I feel that those two things are connected. Firstly, the Amyr work for the greater good. Could they be responsible for the poisoning?

I assumed it with Ambrose and Co doing the poisoning, they have ties to the University/Caldicus and people in the line of succession are killed off through out the chronicles (Wasn't there a shipwreck that brought Ambrose closer to the throne? Hmm.)

I want Lorren to be an Amyr, or at least related to them somehow. He knew Kvothe's Papa and dissuaded Kvothe from researching the Chandrian. And we know the Library was purged of anything mentioning the Amyr, who better to do that than the Master Archivist.

 

[Boneman]

Yeah, and another thing: when the bodies of said troupe were found and the death of Arliden the bard was posted throughout the land, why was nothing done? Slaughter on a grand scale, and not a word is said, ever? Surely, loadsa people knew Arliden had a son? Why didn't Kvothe tell Lorren his parents were dead? Why didn't Lorren know? I reckon the fae/Amyre/Sithe pushed all the wagons into another realm and hushed it all up... Something happened, and 'somebody' came to make the Chandrain leg it so quickly...

And didn't the lackless woman mourn her sister, when the news got out? Or is that why she's so pissed with the Ruh? Because her sister died?

Answers on a postcard, please...

 

[Boneman]

And another thing!!! Meluan Lackless's letter to Kvothe... Patrick tries hard to hide it from us, by not letting us see a single word of it. Bredon says "Is 'excrescence' even a word?" Kvothe has just read all of the Maer's letter and we know Meluan is slagging Kvothe off, but why not show it? Because Patrick wants to hide something? Could the letter be another part of the 'seven things that stand before the Lackless door'?

One a word that is foresworn.

Has someone already mentioned that the door is probably the one in the University?

And (yes, I'm wittering, but these things keep occuring to me) since Patrick has said how much he admired the play Cyrano de Bergerac, it's interesting that Roxanne, whom Cyrano was convinced could never love him, was a distant cousin... Maybe - following on from what others have said - Denna is a distant cousin, not necessarily a close Lackless. Do you have everything if you can't lack less?

 

[X'Nedra]

Maybe Denna is one of the Amyr? OK, I didn't really think that through thoroughly, but wouldn't that be a twist and a half??

 

[Clansman]

I think Denna is the opposite of the Amyr. I think it more likely that she is being slowly corrupted by the Chandrian.

There are certainly clues enough that she works for one of the Chandrian.

 

[Boneman]

I think Denna is the opposite of the Amyr. I think it more likely that she is being slowly corrupted by the Chandrian.

There are certainly clues enough that she works for one of the Chandrian.

Yeah, I'm going with that...

BTW, on Patrick's latest blog, he links to an interview done (where he drops a hint and clue or two) and is asked the question "Will there be more books in this world?" and he says "Oh yes." YIPPEE!!

 

[X'Nedra]

Yeah, I'm going with that...

BTW, on Patrick's latest blog, he links to an interview done (where he drops a hint and clue or two) and is asked the question "Will there be more books in this world?" and he says "Oh yes." YIPPEE!!

Groovy - but will it be as enjoyable without Kvothe?

 

[Boneman]

Groovy - but will it be as enjoyable without Kvothe?

But who says Kvothe will be absent?

To be honest, unless the demi sex god that is now Kvothe doesn't get it together with Denna, but continues as the shy, bashful, little man, then I won't miss him at all!!! I'd love to see an Elodin book, or even a Devi book or a Fela book or a Bast book... god save me from the Adem, though.

 

[ZaggyStardust]

Just read both books and loved them, so I'm happy to see this discussion and hope it's still active. I read every post, and some of you have very interesting theories.

Some stuff I've been thinking about:

What does the title mean? (And what happened to Kvothe's powers)?
The Name of the Wind is obvious, but what does The Wise Man's Fear refer to? There's the explicit mention when Felurian tells Kvothe that a wise man fears a moonless night, because that's when the mortal world is pulled closest to the Fae. But it could also refer to something more literal.

Elodin seems to be the wisest man around (what a great character!), and the only time he expresses true fear is when Kvothe asks him about someone who changed their name. This suggests that Kvothe changed more than just his "calling name" when he became Kote, which explains how he lost his powers.

Kvothe retains his physical prowess--he holds Bast by the wrist to prevent Bast from attacking Chronicler and there's a bruise forming afterwards, he kills some scrael, he performs the Ketan "perfectly" at the end of WMF, etc.--which means he could have beaten up the soldiers who robbed him, but chose not to. However, he seems to have lost his magical abilities. When the skinchanger attacks the inn in NotW, Kvothe fails to perform sympathy. Bast later tells Chronicler not to bring this failure up. Also, he tries, but fails, to open the chest at the end of WMF. It seems that Kvothe did what Elodin feared, and is weaker because of it.


Why does Denna always show up? (And do the Amyr or Chandrian know about Kvothe)?
After reading NotW, I thought this was just cute, love-story, coincidence. Maybe she just happened to be in Trebon when he goes looking for the Chandrian. But now it's just too much. She just happens to be in Severin when Kvothe goes to work for the Maer? And she just happens to be in Tarbean when he goes there for a few days? And just happens to burst into the inn where Kvothe is hanging out, unable to breathe? Way too much to be coincidental.

Which means she, or her patron, can track Kvothe. When thugs jump Kvothe in an alley in NotW, he figures out that they have a divining compass (I think that's what it was called) and a piece of his hair or blood, which is why they could find him. Similarly, Devi demands three drops of blood before lending anyone money, which she can use to track (and then hurt) them, if necessary. Denna's patron probably has something similar.

Someone powerful (Amyr? Chandrian?) is obviously keeping tabs on Kvothe, but in a less-than-obvious way, which suggests that they know he has a major role to play. Perhaps opening the Lackless door, as some of you have suggested. This someone is, or is connected to, Denna's patron, who sends her to bump into Kvothe in various locations, and to get close, but not too close. It's possible that Denna is in on it, or is being manipulated herself, but she's definitely manipulating Kvothe. That means that she probably will get him to do the thing that starts the war, which reveals her deception and leaves him feeling betrayed and depressed.

Here's a good place to add my speculation that:
-Bredon is Denna's patron.
-Bredon is the Amyr that's close to the Maer.
-The Amyr aren't "good" in the traditional, pure, good-guys way. They're powerful and opposed to the Chandrian, so they're good in that sense, but they're playing a larger "beautiful game" and willing to do a lot of less-than-good stuff along the way.


Do any of you like Denna?
Just curious. I loved it when she unexpectedly sang with Kvothe and helped him get his pipes, but have liked her less and less as the story went on. I can't decide if Rothfuss wants us to like her or not.

 

[Boneman]

Good Points, Zaggy, and welcome to the Chronicles...

Re the loss of magic: there is a bit at the beginning of NOTW, where Kote (incidentally, somewhere in WMF when Kvothe is struggling with foreign words, it's shown that 'Kote' translates as 'lost'...) is talking with Chronicler and his right hand, tangled in a cloth, made a slow fist. Eight inches away, a bottle shattered. So the magic is still there... somewhere.

Do I like Denna? Like you, I thought she was great to start with and I like her less each time she appears, and in many ways she's starting to irritate me. The bit where Kvothe overhears her talking to the woman in trouble is very unconvincing, and I'm sure it was to show that Denna is a good guy, when she very probably isn't. I think it's way too convenient she's shown up the way she did, right from the beginning, and keeps appearing and disappearing, and never once telling Kvothe her full story. Oh I know he shouldn't ask, and all that, but for goodness' sake, who can she trust if she can't trust him? For all I know she could be one of the Chandrian.

 

[ZaggyStardust]

Oh, good point about the shattering bottle. He still has some magical ability, but it's weaker, or deeply buried.

Upon close inspection, a wise man fears (according to Teccam):
-The storm at sea
-The anger of a gentle man
-A night with no moon

But Elodin fears name-changing. I'm sticking with the name-changing theory, although Kote is close enough to Kvothe that it could be a partial name-change. In some sense, he could have passed through the door of forgetfulness, like he did in the forest after his family was killed. Either way, it seems that his transformation into Kote is more than just acting.


At this point, I'd like Denna to be a bad guy manipulating Kvothe for some nefarious purpose. Or manipulated by a bad guy to manipulate Kvothe. Or, perhaps, for there to be some magical reason why she is the way she is (e.g. she has to leave all the time because she's part fae and the faerie world moves further away, or something). The scene towards the end of WMF, where she gets upset that Kvothe has been with other women, was especially annoying. You're with a new man every time! Every time! Talk about hypocrisy.

I also wonder if we're getting a rose-colored version of Denna in Kvothe's story. The stuff in the Waystone is 3rd person, so we can assume that's reliable. But the parts in the past come from Kvothe telling Chronicler, so they're colored by his perceptions. In NotW, Bast says he's met Denna, and wasn't particularly impressed. But Kvothe describes her as stunning, perfect, irresistible. It's not unreasonable for a man in his 20s to fondly remember the girl he fell in love with when he was a teenager.

Of course, it's also possible that Rothfuss, like many male writers, just isn't that good at creating realistic female love-interests for the main character; making Denna a cross between a Manic Pixie Dreamgirl and a modern Damsel in Distress (one who is capable, but still in need of saving). Still, I'd like to give him he benefit of the doubt, so I hope there's something in the 3rd book that explains her behavior in hindsight.

 

[Clansman]

How long is this series projected to be? The standard three books, or longer than that?

I am getting the impression of a five-book series, despite the author saying three books. Can he really wrap the rest up in one book?

Have to be one huge book.

 

[ZaggyStardust]

I think he'll stick to three, mostly because of his willingness to skip over stuff that isn't essential to the story. The trial and the shipwreck in WMF both could have been cool scenes, but they weren't essential to the overall story, so Rothfuss didn't spend any time on them. This leads me to believe that he has the whole thing carefully planned out, and that everything he chose to include is important to the larger story.

It's also worth noting that Kvothe didn't spend any time on the trial or shipwreck. Why? Is he deliberately hiding something that happened? Does he just find them boring? The trial is a matter of public record--Chronicler knew about it in advance--so perhaps he doesn't see a need to get into it. But there might be some ulterior motive.

Also, Rothfuss has said that he'd like to write more stories from this world, so Kvothe's story might finish in three books, but there will probably be more stories in... ... does anyone know what the world is called? Something like "Middle Earth" or "Narnia" or whatever. The Four Corners of Civilization and the Fae? That's a mouthful.

That being said, I agree with you that the book would have to be huge to wrap up everything in one volume.

 

[chrisxcore]

You know I was thinking, perhaps Kvothe did lose his power, or it would even make sense that he gave his name and with it his power...both of those sound feasible given the importance and power in names throughout the story. But keeping in that same tone, I kind of think that may be the source for the instance with Bast when he tried to attack Chronicler. Maybe Kvothe took Bast's name, or Bast maybe gave it to him, and with that he can control Bast and was able to stop him from hurting Chronicler. This would also answer why he has power over Bast, but cannot find it in him throughout the two days to return to old form.

Just food for thought..

 

[Alar]

anyone still posting here?

 

[Boneman]

You are... anything to add, will be gratefully debated.