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quote:While I agree with Kvothe not being the greatest character, you just basically claimed that if a main character doesn't come out of a D&D manual, it can't be good fantasy. I think the general (and correct) consensus is the opposite. Good fantasy has realistic people, not super-heroes with dual wielding proficiency and +3 gloves of demon slaying. Not that I don't enjoy reading Brandon Sanderson or anything. No. A main character or protaganist can be whatever he wants to be. But Kvothe is supposed to be a hero (I think), while lacking any real heroic attributes. In fact, its quite possible that the only reason he's even alive to tell his story is due to the evil tree-thing shaping his future in order to keep him alive longer and thus do more harm overall. Not particularly inspiring stuff. Of course, Kvothe himself says he's not really a hero; but I think the implication that the author intends is to say that he's actually wrong, while I'm incline to agree with Kvothe. Sophia posted:Really? I think this makes great fodder for a fantasy novel. I enjoy the deconstruction of legends a lot, and it's certainly not rare to do that in fantasy; Martin made an entire book series basically about this idea and Pratchett lives there. They're both considered non-traditional fantasy writers, though, where as Rothfuss is firmly in the traditional mold. A traditional fantasy novel where the main character doesn't have any real heroic attributes just feels off. Like reading "Joe Schmo goes to Hogwarts". Also, to be frank, reading about a dude failing miserably is not particularly entertaining--not to me, anyway. You can open the newspaper and find countless stories of well-intentioned people loving up royally. Why would you want that in your fiction? I really doubt I'll be reading the next book in the series.
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Oct 12, 2011 03:06
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Vengarr posted:They're both considered non-traditional fantasy writers, though, where as Rothfuss is firmly in the traditional mold. A traditional fantasy novel where the main character doesn't have any real heroic attributes just feels off. Like reading "Joe Schmo goes to Hogwarts". I'm probably not understanding what you're saying here. It seems like you're saying Kvothe doesn't have heroic attributes, which is silly since he's the smartest, the best at magic, the best at loving ninjas and faeries, the best at playing guitar, the best at breaking bullies' arms, etc. He saves maidens in distress, he battles oppression, he fights dragons, and so on. The problem -- both plot-wise and writing-wise -- is that he has too many heroic attributes and too little self control. Then it seemed like you said he's failing miserably, which also doesn't make any sense since he's been wildly successful so far at all things except knowing how to talk to girls. Learning magic, learning to fight, making money, etc. We know he's somehow an innkeeper now, but we have no idea what led to that and whether it was "failure" or some other thing.
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Oct 12, 2011 03:17
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soru posted:I'm probably not understanding what you're saying here. It seems like you're saying Kvothe doesn't have heroic attributes, which is silly since he's the smartest, the best at magic, the best at loving ninjas and faeries, the best at playing guitar, the best at breaking bullies' arms, etc. He saves maidens in distress, he battles oppression, he fights dragons, and so on. Yeah, I'm not really sure what mistakes he makes. Even when he does, there's no real penalty or punishment for it. I don't think he has any heroic qualities, he's just the best at everything. And because he's the best at everything, everyone believes Kvothe is awesome except for really terrible, shallow people who are stupid and ugly. Which is a very weird parallel for the series. The more people insist that Kvothe is heroic, the more people think he is heroic. The more people insist that Rothfuss is a genius, the more people believe it without actually looking at it.
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Oct 12, 2011 04:06
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soru posted:I'm probably not understanding what you're saying here. It seems like you're saying Kvothe doesn't have heroic attributes, which is silly since he's the smartest, the best at magic, the best at loving ninjas and faeries, the best at playing guitar, the best at breaking bullies' arms, etc. He saves maidens in distress, he battles oppression, he fights dragons, and so on. That's because I'm struggling to convey my point. I'm getting really tangled up trying to explain it, which may mean my thoughts aren't fully in order; let me try again anyway. To wit: Heroes are heroes because they are motivated by heroic impulses to do heroic things. It never really feels to me like Kvothe is doing anything heroic, though--with certain exceptions. When he saves Fela. Killing the Draccus. Helping Auri. At most other times in the story, though, he is primarily motivated by self-interest or simple morality. Even when he saved the two girls from the fake Edema Ruh, he was more concerned about punishing the bandits for slurring the Ruh's good name. He does heroic deeds without heroic impulses. He's an above-average mortal with a mortals' sense of morality. It's not a story about growth, either. Kvothe doesn't really change throughout the stories, except for when he meets Felurian and becomes a sex machine. If he was slowly becoming more heroic, I could understand the framing device better. If these were presented primarily as side-stories to his hunt for the Chandrian, it wouldn't be so bad--but we already know he fails to kill the Chandrian, and anyway they barely appear in the story. To me, the primary tension in the story is between Bast, Kvothe and Chronicler. Bast thinks that Kvothe is a hero. Kvothe is pretty sure he isn't, but as each of the epilogues suggest, he may have some doubts. And Chronicler is a neutral party whose opinion will sway Kvothe one way or the other. My problem is that the author is indicating we should agree with Bast, while I am instead inclined to agree with Kvothe. anathenema posted:Yeah, I'm not really sure what mistakes he makes. Even when he does, there's no real penalty or punishment for it. I don't think he has any heroic qualities, he's just the best at everything. And because he's the best at everything, everyone believes Kvothe is awesome except for really terrible, shallow people who are stupid and ugly. To me, it's almost a deconstruction of the idea of heroism. Are you a hero because you do heroic things, or are you a hero for doing heroic things for heroic reasons? Can you be a hero doing petty things for heroic reasons? Kvothe does heroic things, but he generally lays out his motivations so that you understand he's doing it according to his own nature. Is that good enough to be labeled a hero? Bast thinks it is. Kvothe is sure it isn't. Chronicler is just along for the ride.
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Oct 12, 2011 22:12
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anathenema posted:Yeah, I'm not really sure what mistakes he makes. Even when he does, there's no real penalty or punishment for it. I don't think he has any heroic qualities, he's just the best at everything. And because he's the best at everything, everyone believes Kvothe is awesome except for really terrible, shallow people who are stupid and ugly. I think it's important to remember that everything we know about Kvothe's past is told to us by Kvothe himself. So of course he's the best at everything, and of course he comes out looking great from everything, because that's how Kvothe is telling it to Chronicler. All the bluster that Kvothe puts into telling his backstory is contrasted with all the lack of those same things that he displays in the present in the framing story. The real problem I have with Rothfuss is that he spends too long in the backstory so that you forget we're supposed to be hearing this through the filter of a guy telling us how awesome his life has been now that he's old and washed up.
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Oct 17, 2011 03:55
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Dominion posted:I think it's important to remember that everything we know about Kvothe's past is told to us by Kvothe himself. So of course he's the best at everything, and of course he comes out looking great from everything, because that's how Kvothe is telling it to Chronicler. That'd be a great theory if Kvothe didn't poo poo on his feminine prowess in book one then his intellect in book two.
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Oct 17, 2011 04:40
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Dominion posted:I think it's important to remember that everything we know about Kvothe's past is told to us by Kvothe himself. So of course he's the best at everything, and of course he comes out looking great from everything, because that's how Kvothe is telling it to Chronicler. If this were true Rothfuss would still be a bad writer. In order to pull off the unreliable narrator schtick you have to drop hints and clues that what we're hearing isn't true. The Chronicler should be thinking to himself that things Kvothe is saying just don't match up, or there should be internal inconsistencies. Kvothe just lying and then on the last page going "nah I'm just kidding you" is not good storytelling.
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Oct 17, 2011 04:44
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keiran_helcyan posted:If this were true Rothfuss would still be a bad writer. In order to pull off the unreliable narrator schtick you have to drop hints and clues that what we're hearing isn't true. The Chronicler should be thinking to himself that things Kvothe is saying just don't match up, or there should be internal inconsistencies. Kvothe just lying and then on the last page going "nah I'm just kidding you" is not good storytelling. The fact Kvothe can't use magic, is apparently unable to fight and refuses to sing doesn't hint something is fishy with his story? I mean, there doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong with him but he doesn't act like the Kvothe of the story he's telling at all. And he's an admitted liar who spreads tales about himself to boost his own reputation, he tells us this outright.
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Oct 17, 2011 04:49
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Dominion posted:I think it's important to remember that everything we know about Kvothe's past is told to us by Kvothe himself. So of course he's the best at everything, and of course he comes out looking great from everything, because that's how Kvothe is telling it to Chronicler. This isn't supposed to be the story of a guy who's bragging about his past; it's the story of a guy who regrets basically everything he's ever done. He doesn't think his life has been awesome - that's basically the whole point. But obviously Rothfuss thinks his life was awesome, and therein lies the problem. I don't think it's bluster on Kvothe's part, it's lack of objectivity on Rothfuss's part. He's also not really that old in the framing story anyway (maybe 24 or so).
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Oct 17, 2011 15:58
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Sophia posted:He's also not really that old in the framing story anyway (maybe 24 or so). Wait really? I got the impression he was much older than that.
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Oct 17, 2011 17:43
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Sophia posted:e doesn't think his life has been awesome - that's basically the whole point. But obviously Rothfuss thinks his life was awesome, and therein lies the problem. I don't think it's bluster on Kvothe's part, it's lack of objectivity on Rothfuss's part. I disagree with this. You can't talk the way Kvothe talks and not think many parts of your life have been awesome. I mean it even starts with that whole, "Maybe you've heard of me," speech. That's pure hubris. He doesn't like everything he's done, but he's surely got an ego about music and magic and brains.
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Oct 17, 2011 17:47
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Dominion posted:I think it's important to remember that everything we know about Kvothe's past is told to us by Kvothe himself. So of course he's the best at everything, and of course he comes out looking great from everything, because that's how Kvothe is telling it to Chronicler. Not once is it ever hinted that Kvothe's retelling is unreliable in any way. It's plainly evident that his inability to use magic is because of some event he hasn't revealed yet, not that he was never able to.
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Oct 17, 2011 17:54
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soru posted:I disagree with this. You can't talk the way Kvothe talks and not think many parts of your life have been awesome. I mean it even starts with that whole, "Maybe you've heard of me," speech. That's pure hubris. He doesn't like everything he's done, but he's surely got an ego about music and magic and brains. Well, sort of, but I think there's a difference between him being proud of his talents and being proud of his life. He does know that he is amazing at doing things like magic and music, and he knows that people believe he is a legend, but his life story (to him) is of failure. He believes he always does the wrong thing because he had all of the skill anyone could ever want but constantly misapplied it to the detriment of, eventually, the entire world. Whether or not the things he feels responsible for are ultimately his fault or not is debatable (Trebon's destruction, for instance), but I'm pretty convinced that Kvothe views his life as a tragedy of his own making and is telling it that way. But really, you're also right, because it's been hammered home time and again that his fatal flaw is hubris. It's unlikely that his hubris has vanished entirely even in his regrets. IRQ posted:Wait really? I got the impression he was much older than that. At some point the Chronicler realizes that he's not really as old as you'd think: quote:He’s so young, Chronicler marvelled. He can’t be more than twenty-five. Why didn’t I see it before? He could break me in his hands like a kindling stick. How did I ever mistake him for an innkeeper, even for a moment? Sophia fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Oct 17, 2011 |
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Oct 17, 2011 17:58
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Wow, that Jo Walton analysis is starting to make these books look good again. I have my doubts as to whether it's as preplanned as she thinks they are, but it's a fun read. I wish she had written the books as well now.
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Oct 20, 2011 03:51
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Zore posted:The fact Kvothe can't use magic, is apparently unable to fight and refuses to sing doesn't hint something is fishy with his story? I mean, there doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong with him but he doesn't act like the Kvothe of the story he's telling at all. And he's an admitted liar who spreads tales about himself to boost his own reputation, he tells us this outright. I agree with the others that Kvothe isn't embellishing or lieing about his life. He is telling his life which he knows is incredible, but a failure to him. It is Kote who can't do the things hes speaks of. Names in this book are important and Kvothe has "forgotten" who he is. He is Kote the innkeeper, not the Kvothe he speaks of.
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Oct 20, 2011 19:29
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It looks like there's a pretty good chance there will be a delay before the third book as Pat's dad's lung cancer has come back. His mom died from the same thing right before the first book, and that was part of the reason for the delay of the second book. Poor guy, every time he releases a book someone close to him gets lung cancer  .
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Oct 26, 2011 04:41
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Sorry to dredge up this thread from the depths of The Book Barn, but thanks for posting that in depth re-read. I'd missed a lot of little connections along the way (I'm usually pretty bad about picking those things up), so it's nice to see them all laid out pretty clearly. Also a big fan of this book for some of the things it does, even if it has some weird and goony moments. We'll see how much that's affected with the 3rd book, since it's based on having a decent wrap up.
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Feb 9, 2012 09:30
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I just finished the books a few weeks ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I guess all the stuff about Kvothe being a Mary Sue didn't bother me, since as far as I could tell, just as much poo poo went wrong in Kvothe's life as it went right. I'm glad I read through this thread though -- I had picked up on Kvothe's mother being the Lackless sister, but I had never gone back and read the first few chapters. Kvothe's father's song with "Not tally a lot less" --> "Netalia Lackless" is fantastically witty. As for the third book, I'm way more interested in what happens in the current timeframe, rather than how Kvothe's autobiography finishes. The scene in which Kvothe tries to light the demon on fire and fails was stunning, then depressing. It made me think a whole lot more about what might've happened to Kvothe before he resigned himself to being an innkeeper. In any case, Rothfuss managed to spark up my desire to read fantasy again. I'm burning through Abercrombie's The First Law, and I'll probably read Sanderson or something similar next.
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Feb 9, 2012 22:15
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This guy epitomizes gross creepy neckbeards. Gonna just repost this huge entry from his blog sperging about the Lord of the Rings movies complete with a weird creepy girl metaphor that spans several awkward paragraphs. Patrick loving Rothfuss posted:“But Pat,” I hear you say, “Why the concern? The Lord of the Rings Movies were good!”
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Mar 1, 2012 17:22
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God I found that last night. Properly skin-crawling stuff.
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Mar 1, 2012 18:50
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So when a girl becomes a stripper she loses all humanizing traits, just like the LOTR movies did?
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Mar 1, 2012 19:01
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It's kind of hilarious that he doesn't realize that his fetishization of the nerdy girl in high school is exactly the same as the world's fetishization of her in porn, but for some reason his is supposedly sweet. "How dare you take the false personality I projected onto a real girl and change it into a different false personality that I don't like as much! It's so much less charming when I'm not in control!" This might explain a lot about Kvothe and Denna.
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Mar 1, 2012 19:07
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Oh man, what a creep. Women must stay the fake innocent 16 year olds they will always be in my head! Gross.
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Mar 1, 2012 19:29
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I hope Patrick Rothfuss gets old enough to do what all older scifi/fantasy authors do when they get older: get really pervy. I want to see how deep this rabbit hole goes.
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Mar 1, 2012 19:52
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This is why I avoid his blog and just read his books.
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Mar 1, 2012 19:53
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Holy poo poo, I had the feeling he had some Nice Guy-isms in him from his writing, but...goddamn. Dude has some issues.
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Mar 1, 2012 20:11
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On the flip side, how many fantasy and sci-fi authors don't have issues?
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Mar 1, 2012 20:12
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Good point! Rothfuss seems to be among those that wear said issues on his sleeve, however.
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Mar 1, 2012 20:24
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Ornamented Death posted:On the flip side, how many fantasy and sci-fi authors don't have issues? 2. Ursula Le Guin? I think? 3. Joe Abercrombie (yet to be famous enough to say really offensive things in public though) I'm out.
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Mar 1, 2012 20:40
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Did David Eddings really have any issues? The two series of his that were identical (seriously, a hero chasing after a blue magical jewel with a sorcerer's help only to have to fight a god at the end?) were absolute amazing for me when I was 13-16 or so.
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Mar 1, 2012 20:49
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Ornamented Death posted:This is why I avoid his blog and just read his books.
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Mar 1, 2012 22:27
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This series has been pretty good so far, assuming that Kvothe is an unreliable narrator, that the whole Denna thing is deliberately screwed up and that all the general sex/ women/ Adem weirdness is All According to Plan and will be revealed in the final book. Posts like that just reinforce my suspicion that it's all a big Mary Sue goes on sexual conquest adventures in the repressed land of crazy women. 
The Supreme Court fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Mar 1, 2012 |
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Mar 1, 2012 22:35
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syphon posted:The two series of his that were identical (seriously, a hero chasing after a blue magical jewel with a sorcerer's help only to have to fight a god at the end?) were absolute amazing for me when I was 13-16 or so. Dude unabashedly wrote to a formula, he writes about it in a non-fiction book of his.
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Mar 1, 2012 22:38
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McGrady posted:I hope Patrick Rothfuss gets old enough to do what all older scifi/fantasy authors do when they get older: get really pervy. I want to see how deep this rabbit hole goes. *cough* GRRM *cough*
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Mar 1, 2012 22:46
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I think Rothfuss is worse than GRRM. Somehow I can tolerate "pervert old man" more than "creepy nice guy stereotype with reddit-quality views on women".
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Mar 1, 2012 22:48
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Hahah oh dear, there's just been a new post with an alternative image he nearly used to symbolise the "selling out" of the Lord of the Ring films, summing up everything he thinks is awful about the films. This is that image: Aka Felurian. This guy must have absolutely no sense of irony at all. 
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Mar 1, 2012 22:51
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I see he says he was "too classy" to make a "wizard staff joke" but the enchanted forest joke is ok! God he's terrible at humor. e. Still looking forward to Book 3 though
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Mar 1, 2012 22:55
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That comic sums up book 2 pretty entirely.
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Mar 1, 2012 23:00
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Above Our Own posted:I think Rothfuss is worse than GRRM. Somehow I can tolerate "pervert old man" more than "creepy nice guy stereotype with reddit-quality views on women". I dunno, way more people defend GRRM and his lovely views on women. That to me is way worse. Plus, at least Rothfuss has written a couple of decent women characters (the loan shark and the medic girl) without being a total weirdo about them. He has some nuance in his writing. I get the feeling that he sees most women as people and just has a major (MAJOR) problem with women he sees as love interests or sexual partners because he is a creepo. I'm pretty sure GRRM only thinks of all women, regardless, as victims, villains, or baby-obsessed.
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Mar 1, 2012 23:01
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I don't know that much about what GRRM has said and I've only read two of his books. I seem to remember Arya, Brienne, Catelyn, and Cersei being better written female characters than anything Rothfuss managed so I figured that apart from his penchant for weird sex stuff in his books that he viewed women normally. I'm horribly wrong, aren't I?
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Mar 1, 2012 23:07
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