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It was loving hilarious that the Golden Screw -story is EXACTLY the same I tell people if I'm in the mood of telling really bad jokes. I make it last 30 minutes describing every single phase of the boys life and that makes the punchline double as good. Dunno if it's a well known thing but I've never heard anyone else tell it or have anyone recognise it.
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Apr 3, 2011 18:09
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I thought "man mothers" was a pretty hilarious scene, but in a "let's see what we can trick the stupid foreigner into believing" way. I also figured that the women he mentioned it to were implicitly telling him "it's not men's business in our society to worry about pregnancy or children."
No bid COVID fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Apr 4, 2011 |
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Apr 4, 2011 02:40
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Rothfuss didn't invent the Adem's lack of understanding regarding fathers and parenting, that's actually what the Trobriand Islanders believed in real life. They thought that babies were formed when a spirit returned from a distant island where the souls of the dead went. They were also famous for having a crazy amount of sex. So its dumb, certainly, but truth is stranger than fiction in this case.
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Apr 4, 2011 03:51
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Did Rothfuss claim that as his inspiration? The Adem are portrayed as more advanced than remote island inhabitants, and there was no explanation provided besides a fairly arbitrary "we think women bud." I mean, we already know Kvothe is somewhat gullible, he did walk off a roof, after all.
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Apr 4, 2011 04:05
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Unluckyimmortal posted:Did Rothfuss claim that as his inspiration? The Adem are portrayed as more advanced than remote island inhabitants, and there was no explanation provided besides a fairly arbitrary "we think women bud." I was pointing out that the thing a group of people believe in a book is the same thing a group of similarly promiscuous group of people believed in real life. People in this thread were stating that their beliefs were impossible and unrealistic, and I was stating they were actually beliefs held by real life people. I can't imagine Rothfuss hasn't ever heard of the Trobrianders.
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Apr 4, 2011 04:16
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Kadath posted:I was pointing out that the thing a group of people believe in a book is the same thing a group of similarly promiscuous group of people believed in real life. People in this thread were stating that their beliefs were impossible and unrealistic, and I was stating they were actually beliefs held by real life people. I can't imagine Rothfuss hasn't ever heard of the Trobrianders. As I posted before, as far as we can say about such things with any certainty, such believes was common early on in Stone Age cultures, but they sooner or later discovered how it really worked (or the women told the men finally as someone suggested). Usually long before they developed husbandry. Either the Adem, who have apparently a culture comparable to at least 9th century Europe with access to knowledge that would fit into the 18-19th century (via Mercs and trading), are really, really stupid or Kvothe is the most gullible man in the world. Or alternatively Patrick Rothfuss sucks at worldbuilding. Which isn't obvious when he uses quasi-medieval cultures (and even there it is problematic at some points - chemical and alchemical knowledge that fits into the 19th century, but no gunpowder and a technological world which seems to be stuck in the usual pre-renaissance Fantasy world), but becomes glaring once he tries to describe a culture in-depth.
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Apr 4, 2011 07:33
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I'm not really sure where it's canonically stated that Kvothe believes that the Adem don't know how babby is formed. It doesn't seem crazy to me that a matrilineal and matriarchal society would have an equivalent of the cabbage patch or stork that denies male participation in childbearing.
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Apr 4, 2011 08:10
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What is really going to depress me about the next book is when one of Kvothe/Chandrian kill Elodin, because there is no chance that he is still alive during the frame story.
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Apr 4, 2011 14:09
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What makes you say that?
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Apr 5, 2011 01:32
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I do believe after this trilogy patrick should write a series on elodin, he's the best character by far after the 2nd book. Potentially even called "The adventures of elodin and kvothe", that'd be so awesome.
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Apr 5, 2011 09:41
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I would read anything about Elodin, problem is I think he's only a good character because he just pops in mysteriously, does awesome poo poo, and then he's gone. Rothfuss would probably kill his best traits if it were entirely him  .
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Apr 5, 2011 16:05
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firt posted:I do believe after this trilogy patrick should write a series on elodin, he's the best character by far after the 2nd book. In "The Adventures of Elodin and Kvothe", join our heroes for a series of drunken adventures across the land as they delve into the mysteries of their world...and of love...
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Apr 5, 2011 17:10
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As soon as he was introduced in The Name of the Wind, I've pictured Elodin as Chevy Chase's character in Caddyshack wearing wizard robes.
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Apr 5, 2011 18:06
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Kadath posted:As soon as he was introduced in The Name of the Wind, I've pictured Elodin as Chevy Chase's character in Caddyshack wearing wizard robes. You have just improved my reading experience severalfold. Thanks, bud!
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Apr 5, 2011 18:18
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My guess for the Felurian part is that Rothfuss at some point, like many of us do, took mushrooms and played around in the forest. The only problem is that in this section about him learning the magic of the fae and interacting with the omniscient-tree he has to have that weird sex fantasy.
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Apr 5, 2011 23:42
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Maxwells Demon posted:My guess for the Felurian part is that Rothfuss at some point, like many of us do, took mushrooms and played around in the forest. Good trip for Rothfuss. Bad trip for us.
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Apr 7, 2011 01:01
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onefish posted:You have just improved my reading experience severalfold. Thanks, bud! Completely agreed. Personally I'd rather read the same story but from another character's point of view. "Kvothe thought he was a musician - walked around with a Lute and Lord knows how he could afford tuition. He was hugely egotistical and largely annoying, and thus had few friends."
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Apr 7, 2011 05:58
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therapy posted:Personally I'd rather read the same story but from another character's point of view. "Kvothe thought he was a musician - walked around with a Lute and Lord knows how he could afford tuition. He was hugely egotistical and largely annoying, and thus had few friends." I wonder if that would be like Ender's Shadow, which I enjoyed a lot more than Ender's Game.
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Apr 7, 2011 17:32
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therapy posted:Completely agreed. "Dear diary: A young red-haired human with the awkward manner of a complete virgin wandered into my realm today. Seducing him was practically accidental, and he was done almost before we'd even started. I told him he was the best I'd ever had. Haha! I'm still not sure how I kept a straight face. Tomorrow, I'm going to have him whitewash my fence, and I'll call it something suitably mystical - 'whispering hands' or something - and tell him it has to do with lovemaking. A few of the other fae have offered bets on how long I can string him along. We have a lot of fencing in the Fae."
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Apr 7, 2011 18:12
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calandryll posted:I wonder if that would be like Ender's Shadow, which I enjoyed a lot more than Ender's Game. You.. you.. what? God I hated Ender's Shadow.
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Apr 7, 2011 19:28
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Lyon posted:You.. you.. what? God I hated Ender's Shadow. Why don't you buy a lute and write a fancy shmancy song about it.
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Apr 7, 2011 20:41
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I'm almost 300 pages in, and nothing has happened. I just finished Joseph Abercrombie's trilogy before starting The Wise Man's Fear, and Rothfuss is looking pretty weak in comparison. There is no narrative momentum, the supporting characters are flat, and the primary conflict that has consumed the last two books has the feeling of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau pulling pranks on each other in Grumpy Old Men. Is this Sucker Punch -- are the tired tropes deliberately consuming the story entirely? Am I being trolled?
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Apr 7, 2011 20:56
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I liked Ender's Shadow but Ender's Game is better because Ender is a much more likable character than Bean and his arc is more cohesive. Because Ender is still the subject of even Bean's book, the work doesn't feel as satisfying. I thought it was a neat literary trick, though, and it made Ender's Game more interesting in re-read, so good for you, Mr. Card. Rothfuss doesn't seem the type to look through his character though another's eyes, though. He's very Kvothe-centered.
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Apr 7, 2011 21:04
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Sophia posted:I liked Ender's Shadow but Ender's Game is better because Ender is a much more likable character than Bean and his arc is more cohesive. Because Ender is still the subject of even Bean's book, the work doesn't feel as satisfying. I thought it was a neat literary trick, though, and it made Ender's Game more interesting in re-read, so good for you, Mr. Card.
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Apr 8, 2011 18:52
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The villian in Ender's Shadow was pretty lovely. Curse you comically evil super genius child who grew up on the the same street that I did!
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Apr 8, 2011 23:15
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keiran_helcyan posted:The villian in Ender's Shadow was pretty lovely. Curse you comically evil super genius child who grew up on the the same street that I did! Aw, man, I completely forgot about this.
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Apr 9, 2011 00:29
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therapy posted:Personally I'd rather read the same story but from another character's point of view. "Kvothe thought he was a musician - walked around with a Lute and Lord knows how he could afford tuition. He was hugely egotistical and largely annoying, and thus had few friends." I basically picture everyone reacting to Kvothe like he's an autistic, red-headed 15 year old who talks and acts like he's 60. Basically, everyone just thinks he's super weird.
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Apr 9, 2011 08:28
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Sophia posted:Rothfuss doesn't seem the type to look through his character though another's eyes, though. He's very Kvothe-centered.
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Apr 10, 2011 02:18
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:I basically picture everyone reacting to Kvothe like he's an autistic, red-headed 15 year old who talks and acts like he's 60. Basically, everyone just thinks he's super weird. I would have really liked this. But everyone's reactions to Kvothe were half my problem with Name. He's a genius, he's musically talented, women adore him but he's oh so pure. I get that. I could work with that if people actually found him insufferable, arrogant or otherwise thick-headed. But everyone loves him. They heap rewards on him for just existing. The only people who don't are so transparently jealous and stupid that they might as well just tack "Malfoy" on at the end.
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Apr 10, 2011 06:34
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Oh, man. Today's Penny Arcade is about Kvothe.
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Apr 11, 2011 09:57
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Haha, they distilled it pretty well. Ironically Penny Arcade was where I heard of the series for the first time.
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Apr 11, 2011 13:45
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Maxwells Demon posted:My guess for the Felurian part is that Rothfuss at some point, like many of us do, took mushrooms and played around in the forest. Or he read A Midsummer Night's Dream in college. Also, notice that the dialog between Kvothe and Felurian is sometimes in rhymed couplets.
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Apr 12, 2011 18:35
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Streebs posted:Or he read A Midsummer Night's Dream in college. Also, notice that the dialog between Kvothe and Felurian is sometimes in rhymed couplets. her lines start with a lower case letter for no other perceptible reason than ~fey~ Rothfuss tells a pretty good story but man can it be grating if you think about it too hard
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Apr 12, 2011 19:06
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:her lines start with a lower case letter for no other perceptible reason than ~fey~ It says outright that they start that way because of the way she talks. I don't have the book with me so I can't get the exact line or anything. I mean it's not really a good reason but there's definitely a perceptible reason.
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Apr 12, 2011 20:10
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:Rothfuss tells a pretty good story But he really doesn't! I'm not sure how our expectations got so low for storytelling, but The Wise Man's Fear isn't so much a coherent story as it is a sequence of unrelated vignettes. The first three to four hundred pages are Laurel and Hardy-style antics without any consequences or bearing on the larger narrative. Worse still, as they're happening, you fully recognize that they won't have any meaningful relationship to what little larger storyline there is. This is the exact opposite of competent storytelling -- nothing is meaningful, there's no relationship between individual anecdotes, and there's little to no persistent characterization. One minute Kvothe is a sassy student, then he's a thoughtful troubadour, then he's a kung-fu master, then he's a wizard, then he's a Don Juan, then he's a stone-cold killer, and then he's a resigned innkeeper. Rothfuss is literally writing as if he's Napoleon Dynamite explaining gender dynamics to Pedro: "You know like numchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills... girls only want boyfriends who have good skills." Between the lovely writing, the inconsistent characterization, and the casual misogyny, I thought it might be a deliberate send-up of tired fantasy tropes, but I've come to the conclusion that it wasn't deliberate at all. It's like a Michael Bay movie, but somehow more repulsive. Michael Bay at least recognizes what he's doing and actively panders; Rothfuss is just providing a window into the dark depths of the mind of a goon. This book is like a how-to guide on how to be stunted. 
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Apr 12, 2011 20:37
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It's fairly clear to me that all of the (mis)adventures Kvothe gets into have an impact on the overall story, which is him finding and exacting revenge on the Chandrian for killing his family. Everything he's learned so far will play into that, although I'll grant you that he takes to everything a bit too easily and that can be jarring. His experiences at the University, from his initial frustration at Naming to his artificing, all seem to go into who the character is now in the framing story. He is a Hero of Legend, after all. What are heroes supposed to do but travel around, picking up skills to help them in all their various hero adventures? That said, having read WMF twice now, I wish that we could have saved a few hundred pages of Kvothe being poor or Kvothe being miserable or Kvothe tracking Denna down and furthered the loving plot some. We're 2/3 into the story and there is a LOT of ground to cover if we're going to just catch up to the framing story, much less have any sort of detail/conclusion to it.
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Apr 12, 2011 20:52
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I made it to the part where the people were talking in the library, and Kvothe took two pages to tell them to shut up and then everyone applauded and it turned into a riff fest. I am having a hard time picking this up again. Does his character ever learn humility or anything?
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Apr 12, 2011 23:11
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If it makes you feel better, he gets suspended from the Archives for a few days for that like two pages later.
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Apr 12, 2011 23:36
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If it makes you feel better, he eventually loses all his powers and slinks away to run a lovely bar in the middle of nowhere.
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Apr 13, 2011 00:56
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EC posted:It's fairly clear to me that all of the (mis)adventures Kvothe gets into have an impact on the overall story, which is him finding and exacting revenge on the Chandrian for killing his family. Except Rothfuss has said in interviews that not everything has a purpose. Something along the lines of (paraphrasing) "It's a biography. Every part of someone's life isn't about some big overarching plot." So I'd say very little of it will have much of an impact.
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Apr 13, 2011 00:58
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