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He's really good at a particular facet of worldbuilding. Namely, fleshing out the little details of myth and story in a culture. Everything else he's pretty bad at.
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Aug 17, 2011 05:14
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Lord Turtle posted:I think that something has been overlooked in the discussion of Wise Man's Fear. And that's that Rothfuss managed to create a generically asian culture that is not simply better than every other culture in every way. The Adem are inherently warlike, have a cultural bias against any form of public music and to top it all off they don't know that sex makes babies, something that even chimpanzees are able to suss out. He even manages to present these facts in a way that makes some sense. If you read the Adem section about babymaking and come from and came away from it saying "well that's convincing, it makes sense that a female dominated culture would ever not know where babies come from" then I dunno what to say.
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Aug 17, 2011 09:57
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Liesmith posted:If you read the Adem section about babymaking and come from and came away from it saying "well that's convincing, it makes sense that a female dominated culture would ever not know where babies come from" then I dunno what to say. Its one of those items that should have been left on the cutting room floor. It adds nothing to the overall story but the risk that readers won't believe it is too high. You should always weigh the risk of alienating the reader when doing these kind of things.
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Aug 17, 2011 16:51
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Yeah I wasn't sure what to make of that part with the Adem and babies. How can they not realize that? When the one character laughed at Kvothe I wanted to shake her and say "How can your culture be that stupid?!" But I didn't find the worldbuilding to be that unbelievable. The Adem are separated by part of a mountainrange and are very insular, so it makes sense they'd be a lot different. As for the other places they seem about as different as other nations can be from one another in reality. Not exactly sure what you guys are complaining about when you say "nothing is connected to anything else".
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Aug 17, 2011 17:55
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Ccs posted:Yeah I wasn't sure what to make of that part with the Adem and babies. How can they not realize that? When the one character laughed at Kvothe I wanted to shake her and say "How can your culture be that stupid?!" Yeah the differences in cultures can be believable, but the whole baby thing almost made me put the book down. I mean, drat.
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Aug 17, 2011 18:10
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Over here is Dumb Ninja land, then over on this spot is a random town where he fights some fake gypsies, and way over somewhere else is the magic school, and then there's a town far away where he fights a dragon, and then there's a city he hangs out in a while somewhere else, and there isn't really a relation between any of these places. A good setting builder like Tolkien or GRRM has places and locations that matter and interact. Any of the places that Kvothe goes could be randomly shuffled around the world without making a bit of difference. Where's the magic school located in comparison to the faerie sexland or dumb ninjas nation? It doesn't matter, because Kvothe just bounces from one location to the next. Piell fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Aug 17, 2011 |
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Aug 17, 2011 18:15
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The baby thing is a real thing that actually happened? Like there's a culture that has actually believed that very thing, in real life.
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Aug 17, 2011 18:24
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Danhenge posted:The baby thing is a real thing that actually happened? Like there's a culture that has actually believed that very thing, in real life.
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Aug 17, 2011 18:28
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Wouldn't make them any less stupid.
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Aug 17, 2011 18:30
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Danhenge posted:The baby thing is a real thing that actually happened? Like there's a culture that has actually believed that very thing, in real life. Yes someone had brought this up when this was first discussed months ago, but IIRC there were a number of significant differences. Eg: the culture that believed it was super isolated and sure as hell came nowhere near the sophistication of the Adem, who've been around for thousands of years and clearly had at some point a high level of metallurgical know-how.
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Aug 17, 2011 18:40
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I don't know why he couldn't have just had them be completely uninterested in the topic, like "sure, maybe you're right, whatever, we have babies whenever babies are supposed to be had and don't think about it too much". That would have been consistent with their culture, still been a shocking difference in viewpoint to knowledge-seeking Kvothe, wouldn't have made them look like morons, and would have been 100% more believable. But I am not Patrick Rothfuss.
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Aug 17, 2011 18:48
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Yeah, the whole "lol menfolk are nonessential to the process why do you people with dangly bits even *exist* except for banging I guess" angle is dumb as poo poo.
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Aug 17, 2011 18:58
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Wasn't there a bit where Kvothe was all "sure I've been using this here herbal remedy to make sure I don't knock up all these bitches I'm doing!" even though he's been stripped of almost all of his worldly possessions several times? Dumb. Even compared to the ProFaerieSexGrind, the stuff with the crazy martial arts tribe was silly.
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Aug 17, 2011 20:57
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EC posted:Wasn't there a bit where Kvothe was all "sure I've been using this here herbal remedy to make sure I don't knock up all these bitches I'm doing!" even though he's been stripped of almost all of his worldly possessions several times?
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Aug 17, 2011 21:01
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Man he should have not taken any herbs and then when a bunch of Adem girls got pregnant and had barbarian-looking babies with red hair he could be like "told you, bitches" Goddamn Rothfuss just missing opportunities all over the drat place.
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Aug 18, 2011 04:19
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I'm more impressed that Kvothe has discovered the secret to male oral contraception, something we're still not close to in modern science. Magic plants! The whole Adem section felt like something dreamed up during discussion period of Human Sexuality 101. I can almost picture Rothfuss, that classmate with the weird beard who always seems to wear shorts and sandals to class, furiously scribbling down notes on a sexual Utopia at the back of a UW-Stevens Point lecture hall.
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Aug 18, 2011 05:54
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As silly as it is, the thing that kills me the most about this terrible book is the map; the perfectly straight road that goes from Hogwart's to exactly nowhere. He's so lazy that he can't even pretend to care about this map, but somehow it is important enough to include. Kvothe must be setting some kind of record in the extent and durability of his plot armor. He's a huge dick with a terrible temper, but is so obviously the greatest person in the history of the world there there are exactly two people who don't love him (and they are both mustache twirlingly evil, obviously). He is also so great at everything that the author makes a point of addressing the small area of one subject which he is not the world authority on; one assumes for expediencies sake.
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Aug 18, 2011 18:27
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And yet it's an enjoyable read. There is no reason to expect verisimilitude in Rothfuss's world building. The groups that Kvothe meets are thralls to his legend. Whatever they represent in the "real world" is lost in the retelling and are merely an extension of the author's personality. The Adem represent sexual innocence and awakening, the teaching of matriarchal respect and the extension of the will to self determination. They wholly reflect Kvothe's own will. At this point in the book he is going round humping everything that moves with no thought for the consequences. He, in a sense, make the world and it is only natural the the world around him should reflect his world-view. It's the same with the whole ring-giving section. A society that functioned like that would be hideous to actually live in but given that it's a narrative about status-raising, the world spun around him is one of heightened awareness of status. It's not the greatest book but I very much like the intertwining of narrative and metaphor; that's a good part of the purpose of a legend isn't it? This book is about the construction of a legend from the legend's eye view. Anyone want to complain about Zeus appearing as a rain shower or the existence of demi-gods in Roman mythology?
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Aug 19, 2011 13:54
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frozenpeas posted:And yet it's an enjoyable read. That's an interesting point, but I disliked much of the second book because these settings/ situations broke my suspension of disbelief.
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Aug 19, 2011 14:47
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frozenpeas posted:Anyone want to complain about Zeus appearing as a rain shower or the existence of demi-gods in Roman mythology? No, but I will complain about the windmills and straw men you are tilting at. I believe the idea of looking at the development of a legend from their perspective could be very interesting. Rothfuss skips most of this though. Instead of learning anything about how people in a low tech fantasy world would learn of, become interested in, empathize with, etc. this character, we just get a bunch of pages where Kvothe smugly details all the variations of the myths surrounding him. If the world Kvothe exists in was fleshed out even a little bit, this series could be a fascinating exploration of what it takes to be a hero in world of magic. As it stands, he is portrayed as being this figure of awe for accomplishing things that in this world, many people should be able to do.
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Aug 19, 2011 17:47
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Doesn't it make sense that the subject of a legend should lack modesty and the ability to introspect? There seem to be an undercurrent of "legendary" amoral characters who value the will to power above all else. Why should Kvothe be any different? Just because someone has a legend attached to them doesn't mean that, in reality, they weren't awful or boorish or vain. The ability to learn quickly, name and bind is what separates Kvothe from other people. In most other respects he's an overbearing child. I don't see the point of going "Hurr, self-insertion, wish fulfilment!" or "Waaaa, this book isn't EXACTLY what I would have written if I was a writer." What else is there to discuss about a book beyond, ME LIKE, ME NOT LIKE? It might be useful to compare the presentation of Sherlock Holmes to the presentation of Kvothe. Holmes is always displayed through the cognitive filter of Watson; a man of inferior intellect, which makes Holmes appear all the smarter and more "magical" to the reader. Holmes explains himself to Watson, who records it for the reader. We are astounded because Watson is astounded and thus Holmes, who always states that he is quite ordinary, seems quite incredible. If Conan Doyle had let Holmes tell his own stories he would probably have come across as insufferably as Kvothe. Chronicler is the Holmes character in the Kingkiller Chronicles but because he exists purely as a character with Kvothe narrating his own story, we don't get any of the sense of delayed wonder that would be present with a proxy narrator. Watson blows Holmse's trumpet, so to speak, but Kvothe is left to blow his own trumpet, which, in light of his personal failings that would otherwise be filtered out with a "Watson", has the effect of diminishing whatever achievements he relates. Imagine if Sherlock Holmes had long passages about sitting in the dark doing cocaine and being depressed. Yeah, that's why Watson exists. Kvothe needs a Watson. Spermanent Record fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Aug 20, 2011 |
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Aug 20, 2011 10:26
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It's unconvincing. Self-insertion writing usually is and also comes off as really goofy. I would love a convincingly done full blown narcissist Kvothe, it would make make for a much more compelling character.
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Aug 21, 2011 07:37
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frozenpeas posted:Imagine if Sherlock Holmes had long passages about sitting in the dark doing cocaine and being depressed. Yeah, that's why Watson exists. Kvothe needs a Watson. Guy whose never read sherlock holmes spotted
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Aug 22, 2011 01:36
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frozenpeas posted:Kvothe needs a Watson. The thought occurs that, to follow with the Zapp Brannigan analogy, tales of his exploits told from a Lieutenant Kif-type sidekick character could be hilarious.
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Aug 22, 2011 03:45
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I am seriously doubting whether some of you calling Kvothe a Mary Sue have even read the books. One of the points of the story is that despite being a polymath and highly skilled at what he chooses to do and ending up becoming a hero he still fucks up regularly. The entire story is from his point of view and Bast is too consumed with hero worship and Chronicler with his own objectivity to point it out. I don't think it HAS to be pointed out that he hosed up by someone in the narrative if it's evident to the reader. Kvothe is challenged and overcome by his own arrogance and self-assuredness on more than one occasion, not to mention his goony ways with the women. He pushes Denna away, he alienates Fela and the only woman he manages to connect with is an insane sex-obsessed fairy woman because he's hot and ever since he met her he's ONLY had a sexual connection with women. He destroys a town because he's SO SURE the draccus is going to destroy it he tries to poison it and makes it go crazy and destroy the town anyway. He puts himself in mortal danger over and over again because he's too prideful to actually seek help. If he hadn't been such an arrogant prick and would have just let Ambrose win he would have been down a lot of problems in his daily life. In the end no matter how skillful and intelligent and handsome and strong the boy is and how hungry for knowledge and truth, his own hubris gets him where his self-imposed naivete doesn't. On top of that he throws the world into chaos all for a piece of rear end he can't even have an actual relationship with because they're too similar in all the wrong ways. Kvothe isn't a blameless self-insert superhero. He is a FUCKUP who gets lucky. His problems beyond the Chandrian slaughtering his family and leaving him homeless and alone are utterly his fault. Kvothe is no mary-sue. He's badass and clever and really, really flawed and the only reason this isn't pointed out in the setting is because he's the storyteller and the people listening aren't interested in doing so. In the end my point is that you are reading the book. You don't have to be TOLD through narrative that Kvothe is a fuckup who is responsible for his own poo poo because you're reading the story. Similarly I don't think it has to be suggested that he's an unreliable narrator, the point makes itself because he's telling the story in his own way, as he told Chronicler. It's inherently questionable how much of this is true, I think the question being served to me on a silver platter would have detracted from my own engagement with the narrative. I mean we KNOW that Kvothe is a consummate liar and that he failed to write his own memoirs. Could it be because he finds it so much easier to lie to someone who isn't himself? I'm definitely with you on Felurian going on too long though. How good Kvothe got at sex was pretty damned gratuitous.
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Sep 3, 2011 21:00
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Sparda219 posted:I am seriously doubting whether some of you calling Kvothe a Mary Sue have even read the books. I have read the books, yes, and he is most definitely a Sue. Like others, I'm looking forward to what Rothfuss goes on to write after he gets Kvothe out of his system, because Kvothe is so clearly his Sue. An excellent article on Sues sums it up better than I can: Pat Pflieger posted:Recently, some fan fiction authors have recognized that this much-reviled character does serve a purpose beyond allowing the author to live vicariously. Mary Sue is, they point out, a writer's baby-steps in writing. We seem to write her naturally -- and to kill her off just as naturally. [...]
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Sep 4, 2011 00:34
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I am seriously doubting whether you, not recognizing Kvothe as an obvious Mary Sue, have read very many books.
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Sep 4, 2011 03:11
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Above Our Own posted:I am seriously doubting whether you, not recognizing Kvothe as an obvious Mary Sue, have read very many books. Well I don't think you read his post because it was very coherent and he backed up his point well.
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Sep 4, 2011 03:17
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Well the answer is obvious; he's a self-hating sue.
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Sep 4, 2011 03:33
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After watching a few of his interviews where he's like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so becoming like Kvothe now that I've written him for so long", I think the case is definitively closed on his Mary Sue-ness.
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Sep 4, 2011 05:50
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I did a quick search of this thread and didn't see this mentioned earlier. Incoming WMF spoiler about Kvothe's background: Kvothe is almost certainly a Lackless bastard (making Ruh-hating Meluan his aunt). The evidence is in THOTW, where Kvothe's father sings a song about his mother that makes her angry and his dad gets kicked out of the bed for the night. Kvothe thinks its because the song's meter is bad, but that isn't the case: Dark Laurian, Arliden's wife, Has a face like a blade of a knife Has a voice like a prickledown burr But can tally a sum like a moneylender. My sweet Tally cannot cook. But she keeps a tidy ledger-book For all her faults I do confess It's worth my life To make my wife Not tally a lot less... Not tally a lot less = Natalia Lockless, if you say it phonetically. Also the name of Meluan's sister. I take no credit for this, it's been plastered around different boards.
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Sep 4, 2011 06:52
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Me from page 6:keiran_helcyan posted:Speculation that I'm just about 100% sure on: Meluan Lackless is Kvothe's aunt. Meluan hates the Ruh because one of them stole her sister, Kvothe's mother was seduced by his father away from the nobility. Kvothe keeps having weird recognition that he can't place when he meets her. Hell, Kvothe's mom gets mad at him in Name of the Wind for singing a tawdry song about Lady Lackless. I also wouldn't be shocked if Kvothe has some faerie blood in him, people keep emphasizing his eyes which change with emotion, which sounds like a faerie thing. My other baseless silly speculation: 1) Amyr are at least part Faerie (Felurian says the true ones were never human, also it helps explain how they vanished so quickly in the past.) 2) Tak is a faerie game (Felurian knew it instantly, it emphasizes beauty over logic) 3) Bredon is an Amyr/faerie (see the last two) 4) Bredon is Denna's secret patron (location, interest in Kvothe, The Oracle mentions Denna's patron beats her with a cane and Bredon is the only person we've met with a cane. It would also explain why Denna keeps "coming back", maybe she feels like by aiding the Amyr she's doing something useful with her otherwise pointless existence.) 5) Kvothe will kill Bredon to rescue Denna (since he's an Amyr this fulfills his bit about killing an angel in his intro). 6) the door at the bottom of The Archives binds Jax/Iax (the character who in the past captured/named the moon, it mentioned that he was enslaved "under Earth", The University has presumably since forgotten that he was down there). 7) The Lackless box contains the name of the moon and the key to reuniting faerie and human realms.
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Sep 4, 2011 18:27
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keiran_helcyan posted:
I wanna play too. There's some evidence that music is a way to use naming magic. I think Kvothe figures this out, uses/abuses it in a way he regrets and locks his lute away in the thrice-locked chest he keeps at the inn to prevent himself from doing it again. As for all the Mary-Sue stuff, I think a part of the reason people feel so strongly about it is that Kvothe often sounds like he's reading from the compulsive liar's handbook. I feel like the modern equivalent would be a guy saying, "Music? I shred better than Stevie Ray Vaughn. Can I fight? I learned secret kung-fu from monks in China. Love life? I lost my virginity to Olivia Wilde and she said I was the best she ever had." We've all probably met someone who goes on like this and there's an instant revulsion when they can't back it up when pressed. Even if it is all true for Kvothe, it doesn't turn off the warning sirens that go off when someone starts with the ludicrous bragging. Kote, on the other hand, is an interesting character. There's a guy who could really do all the nerd-wank fantasy stuff and choose to give it up. It's a shame we don't get to see more of him but hopefully the frame story plays a bigger part in Book 3.
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Sep 5, 2011 07:21
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RichestManInTown posted:It's a shame we don't get to see more of him but hopefully the frame story plays a bigger part in Book 3.
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Sep 6, 2011 15:55
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keiran_helcyan posted:My other baseless silly speculation: With regards this, I thought from the story that Skarpi (I think it was Skarpi) said that the original Amyr were people that were selected and then turned into angels, Tehlu among them. Obviously all stories are suspect but it's implied that Skarpi has special powers or maybe was one of them / knew them at that time. I didn't think they were necessarily faeries to be non-human. The most interesting theory I've heard is that Denna is one of he original Amyr (in the story one the women had a "D" name) but has since forgotten or discarded her true name and also who she is. That would explain her beauty and why some characters describe her as seeming older than she looks. This would also possibly explain why Bredon is her secret patron - he may also be one of the Amyr trying to "wake her up" as Bast is doing with Kvothe in the framing story. That would make more sense with the "greater good" philosophy of the Amyr as well - he would be trying to help her rather than just being an rear end in a top hat beating her up. It also keeps Kvothe close, since it's indicated that he's really important to the Amyr for whatever reason (possibly his Lackless blood); they may have put Denna in his path immediately soon after Skarpi found him and named him in Tarbean, to spy on him and also keep him distracted from their manipulations. I suppose she could also be some kind of Amyr creation just for that purpose, if they have that kind of power. She says at one point during her denner high that it's her job to pay close attention to him. Just a theory. Though it doesn't explain why Bredon would want a nice story about Lanre from her unless they were trying to lure out the Chandrian or something. I like the parts about the door hiding Jax and the box hiding the name of the moon, though. Kvothe opening it to bring the Fae and human skies together is a very interesting reason why so much faerie stuff is suddenly in the world. Sophia fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Sep 6, 2011 |
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Sep 6, 2011 16:15
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JT Jag posted:Something occurs to me. Remember when Kvothe swears on his name, his magic, his good left hand and on the phases of the ever-changing moon that he would never investigate Denna's patron? This is many pages back, but I think there's a hell of a lot of sense in this. Elodin's shock at the idea that someone would change their name has already been pointed out many times in this thread, we see the loss of his magic in his failed attempts at sympathy, the loss of his 'good left hand' could explain why he no longer plays the lute and why the two soldiers got the best of him, and perhaps his swearing on 'the phases of the ever-changing moon' literally results in the moon going entirely back to fae, which is what is what allows all the 'demons' to cross over into the real world and wreak their havoc.
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Sep 7, 2011 03:18
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I was late to the party with these books (just started reading "Name of the Wind" a week ago, now a quarter way through "Wise Man's Fear"), and am just glad to hear that others seem to have the same problem with the Denna crap. She didn't bother me AS much in the first book, but the storyline is downright pathetic in the 2nd. "Oh, there's the girl I like... banging the umpteenth rich dude this month. It's OK, she doesn't really love him. I'll just smile like an asstard at him and keep hunting around aimlessly like a douche for her". It's getting old, and I'm struggling to not skip paragraphs whenever I see the name "Denna". I was hoping it'd come to some kind of resolution this book, but it looks like that didn't happen. Dammit.
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Sep 7, 2011 18:55
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I wonder how much the Denna parts got expanded (read: drawn out) when Rothfuss split the story into three books. I'm sure he has a resolution for it, but at the end of the story, and therefore in the third book somewhere, so he had to stretch it out so that it happens along with the resolution for the rest of the story instead of nearer the beginning of the trilogy.
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Sep 7, 2011 19:32
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The Denna parts were my favorite in both the books. Not in the YA "will they, wont they" unresolved sexual tension aspect, but a lot of the prose for the Denna parts is beautifully written.
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Sep 8, 2011 08:30
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Anarkii posted:The Denna parts were my favorite in both the books. Not in the YA "will they, wont they" unresolved sexual tension aspect, but a lot of the prose for the Denna parts is beautifully written.  Reading those passages is like drinking maple syrup.
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Sep 8, 2011 15:42
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