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That all assumes that it'll end in three books. I'm pretty sure that's not going to be the case.
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Oct 7, 2012 03:20
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BananaNutkins posted:I'm still eagerly awaiting the king killing part of these chronicles. It'll probably wind up that he was walking to class and dropped a banana peel, Ambrose who was stalking behind him slips on it falls, breaks his skull open and Kvothe played it up as an assassination.
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Oct 7, 2012 05:37
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TychoCelchuuu posted:And the answer to "why make poo poo up now?" is because this way he can have the canonical version of his life story turn out exactly how he likes it for however long that version lasts. If someone gave you the chance to determine how history would remember you, wouldn't you at least be tempted to make yourself into a badass, retroactively?
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Oct 7, 2012 07:43
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Above Our Own posted:He's already has a reputation as an immortal, world shattering badass wizard.
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Oct 7, 2012 09:27
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Yeah but it's a confused, half-legendary reputation with a mythic quality that suggests he wasn't a real person, let alone the guy who did half that stuff. If people told stories about you that were obviously conflicting and had an air of fantasy, and you had the chance to set the record straight with whatever version of the facts you wanted, it would make sense to jump at it. I don't know about you, but I'd make sure to include a torrent of mind numbing details regarding my personal finances and my weirdo relationship with an unlikeable lady in my fictional autobiography on how badass I am.
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Oct 7, 2012 23:03
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The problem with it being an unreliable narration is that we've been reading it for 2 massive books now. So in the third one, half way through, Chronicler or Bast or whatever calls Kvothe out and he's all 'yeah I guess el oh el' and we get 400 pages of maybe the trueish version? That doesn't really sound very good at all.
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Oct 8, 2012 00:26
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:The problem with it being an unreliable narration is that we've been reading it for 2 massive books now. So in the third one, half way through, Chronicler or Bast or whatever calls Kvothe out and he's all 'yeah I guess el oh el' and we get 400 pages of maybe the trueish version? That doesn't really sound very good at all. I think it only works if he's doing it Scheherazade-style to trap the Chronicler (or maybe Bast) there with him to some other purpose. Then it doesn't matter what the truth is because he was just buying time with a good story. But I doubt that's actually what's going to happen; I'm sure Kvothe will have turned out to be mostly reliable, in the sense that he's not actively lying even though he's obviously biased.
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Oct 8, 2012 00:34
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:The problem with it being an unreliable narration is that we've been reading it for 2 massive books now. So in the third one, half way through, Chronicler or Bast or whatever calls Kvothe out and he's all 'yeah I guess el oh el' and we get 400 pages of maybe the trueish version? That doesn't really sound very good at all. Something happened in the world to seriously gently caress things up, when the Chronicler is on his way there he gets attacked by some crazy weird spiders that are new to the world. Kvoth's story will probably be epic and inspiring tale of drama, tragedy, heartbreak, and victory. Then after the scribe leaves he'll tell Bast an abbreviated version of the important events and how he ended up causing the problems and disappoint the poo poo out of him. Bast's presence in the bar is never really explained well. Him and the wooden chest Kvoth can't open are literally deus ex machinas that will either sink the entire series or make them first 2 books better in hindsight.
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Oct 8, 2012 03:05
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The only reason I think people espouse the possibility of an unreliable narrator is because they like the series and want to justify its flaws. There is a lot to like about the books, I think the prose is superb and the author instills an engaging sense of mystery. I hope Rothfuss hones his craft and produces something a little more matured after the Kingkiller series, because he has a real gift.
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Oct 8, 2012 06:29
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TychoCelchuuu posted:This sums up my feelings more or less perfectly. If Rothfuss were smarter, these books would be masterpieces, and if he were dumber, we either wouldn't have bothered reading them or he would've had some inkling that there's no conceivable way he could turn Kvothe into a sex god by way of sleeping with the literal sex goddess without getting laughed out of the room or shunted into the erotic fantasy section next to half naked werewolves and vampires. Haha, this reminds me of Peter F. Hamilton, who writes entertaining space opera by all means, but i have never ever read about so many boosted penises, and implant enhanced sex and whatnot. After reading his books i concluded that he must have the tiniest penis in the galaxy. Nano-penis. Ikonoklast fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Oct 9, 2012 |
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Oct 8, 2012 09:26
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I hope his next project doesn't have any sex in it. His sex scenes are like the Zybourne Clock thing where Johnny Fiveaces is gonna do it cyber hard*. Only they are fifty pages long. *Johnny Fiveaces powered down the magnabike with a not quite unhearble hum and checked his chronometer. “drat.” he hissed threw his clinched teeth which were surrounded by the stubble of five days where in he had not shaven himself at all. It was almost chromodawn at Clashpoint. Alreddy the sun was sitting Walliston’s Hill ah blaze like so much molten meddle or a coin, gyreating in the air, tossed there by the uncaring hand of an imaginary god that doesn’t exist, borne from the interior minds of the hobbled masses. The sky was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel that was orange. drat, he, Johnny, thought. We thought we were opening a new beginning with our mad dreams of time travail but ironically the only time now is the time of which we’re out of. It’s almost humorous. Yeah, I could almost laugh, if I hadn’t cried that part of me away when my parents were maccasared by Dr. Malaprop and the government sanctioned murderers of “CAPITAL”. He lit a Nicosheen brand swaggerette and took a dip drag, sinking farther into his inferior horologue. He thought of Nina and her mellifluous buttocks that he used to love to bang. Even now his nano enhanced hearing could almost hear her vagina lips quivering with moisture and also pleasure, like a slice of synth-ham being tongued by one of Malaprop’s slamhounds. When he got back to City5, he was going to do some sex, no doubt about that. “That’s right doll” he said to nobody and the wind. They were going to do it hard. He smiled, blowing smoke from his nostrils. They were going to do it cyber hard.
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Oct 9, 2012 12:34
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Liesmith posted:I hope his next project doesn't have any sex in it. His sex scenes are like the Zybourne Clock thing where Johnny Fiveaces is gonna do it cyber hard*. Only they are fifty pages long. This is somehow more mature than Wise Man's Fear. At least it's funny.
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Oct 9, 2012 13:02
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I don't recall whether it was ingwit or brendle who wrote that, but all their stuff is great.
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Oct 9, 2012 13:14
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keiran_helcyan posted:On the last page Kvothe goes "Nah I was just loving with you guys, none of that really happened" and walks out of the bar. This somehow redeems all flaws with the story up until this point. This is literally the only way this series could be saved at this point. Unfortunately no editor in the world would let it happen.
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Oct 14, 2012 16:30
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I'm about 400 pages into "The Name of the Wind" and I'm kind of underwhelmed. A lot of it comes across as amateur and poorly researched. I'm trying to figure out why a quasi-medieval setting has the same distinctions between sciences that we do, with a few fake magic ones thrown in for good measure of course. Those are very, very modern concepts. Medieval universities didn't really divide things up like that. I guess it could be for convenience, but GRRM's maesters seem to do the same thing way better. Also, does Kvothe ever do anything other than be great at everything he does and get sabotaged by the evils of others? I'm trying to figure out why I should care about him as a protagonist. I know he survives up until he buys the inn, so there's no tension at all, but I feel like there's not actually a story here. A bunch of stuff has happened, but there's no plot. Does that pick up or do I have to wait until book 2?
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Oct 26, 2012 05:11
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Do we have anything even approaching an estimate of a guess for the release date of Doors of Stone? I know that Rothfuss writes (or his editor edits) at about the same pace as GRRM, but I'm really excited for the conclusion to the trilogy.
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Oct 26, 2012 05:14
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Haraksha posted:I'm about 400 pages into "The Name of the Wind" and I'm kind of underwhelmed. e. BTW soru doesn't like it when people don't like the things he likes. It's not stupid to post criticism of a book in a discussion thread about the book but you know how some people love their hugbox echo chambers. Above Our Own fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Oct 26, 2012 |
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Oct 26, 2012 05:18
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Haraksha posted:I'm about 400 pages into "The Name of the Wind" and I'm kind of underwhelmed. It's not medieval, and I have no idea what you could mean by poorly researched. You understand this isn't earth, right? Anyway, Kvothe is always the best at everything, beloved by all women, has killer ninja moves, and is right even when he's wrong. Also the basic structure of the story doesn't change so if you don't find it interesting after 400 pages, you probably won't. I'd suggest you stop reading so you don't turn into one of the bitter people in this thread who apparently read two very long books they hate and never stopped to think about how dumb that was.
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Oct 26, 2012 05:18
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Above Our Own posted:I agree with your criticisms and it doesn't get better in book 2. If the other charms of the series don't keep you interested then I'd say you can safely stop reading. The author wrote this during college which is why it reeks of angst and self-insertion. There's a lot of things I really like about Rothfuss but I don't deny that his worldbuilding is really sketchy and you can feel the neckbearded self absorbed Dungeon Master persona leaking through every page. Really? I actually think his world-building seems incredibly intricate (to the point where the languages have meanings, he's worked out some kind of weird physics for this world, and the history is both muddled but accurate by piecemeal, like a real world history is before printing presses). I'm definitely not the person who's going to argue about characterization or plot / pacing, but the world-building and the language are the two things I think are the best about it. When I read these books I felt like they were in a real place, which doesn't happen to me very often.
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Oct 26, 2012 05:23
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His languages are decent (better than most contemporary fantasy) but no Tokein. But still pretty good. His mythbuilding is I think the strongest element of his work and it really sets him apart. But his cultures are poorly fleshed out and super derivative, and like the poster mentioned I don't think he's executed a believable world with the magic and technology systems that are present. With the sympathy and sygaldry especially I would expect his world to be way beyond it's current technological level, and it's not really explained well why it isn't. Yeah I get "some people are suspicious of magic" but really magic in the series is not that uncommon and the technological superiority offered would be rapidly assimilated especially in military contexts, similar to how technological advances were very quickly put to military use in our own history. That particular aspect isn't very well done.
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Oct 26, 2012 05:36
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I'm just trying to figure out why they discuss chemistry and biology but they aren't industrialized and there hasn't been a single mention of a powerful enough microscope to actually look at a cell. How is that they have an understanding of germs and chemical formulas, but all of their medicine is crushed up herbs? They have vast, vast knowledge and understanding of intricate and complicated concepts, but no technology. You can say it's not medieval, but it is. It's rural farmers, knights with swords, kings, dukes, lords, and ladies. People play lutes and harps. No one writes symphonies. Things don't really seem to fit well together. They have a clear distinction of physics as a discipline, but it was only in recent memory that they figured out how to build a lute with metal strings. Literacy is hinted at not being widespread, but we've never met an illiterate character. Everyone travels by horse and buggy, but they have the ability to produce near limitless energy. And this might come across as nitpicky, but how did Kvothe spend three years of his life struggling to survive when he had knowledge of magic and the ability to perform it at will the entire time? The entire middle section of the book never mentions sympathy. It falls out of the story completely until they reach the University and he has near complete knowledge of it again. It's not like he was incapable of getting supplies either. He picked locks, saved up money to set a person on fire, and could get basic stuff from the dude who helped kids. Tell me that at no point he thought about using his amazing abilities to his advantage.
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Oct 26, 2012 06:08
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Well, yes. Most of the plot is designed to make Kvothe more of a superman. These things aren't widespread so that when Kvothe does them, they can be all the more special.
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Oct 26, 2012 06:24
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I'm willing to accept that he didn't practice sympathy for a while due to severe psychological trauma. Kvothe was completely neurotic, although he did snap out of it kind of suddenly.
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Oct 26, 2012 06:29
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Above Our Own posted:I'm willing to accept that he didn't practice sympathy for a while due to severe psychological trauma. Kvothe was completely neurotic, although he did snap out of it kind of suddenly. I would be willing to buy it if he ever mentioned that as a reason. He talked about how traumatized he was in relation to not doing other stuff, but sympathy is just completely dropped in that entire section of the book. It's as if it no longer exists in the world at all. And then he is suddenly doing it so well in the University that he's the best duelist and can embarrass a Master. It's just another weird disconnect. For some reason he has to spend months getting back into practice with a lute, but an incredibly taxing mental ability comes back to him without even trying. I think I might enjoy the book more if I read it from the perspective that Chronicler is actually just a psychologist trying to better understand the long term effects of frequent and severe concussions in people and Kvothe is his case study. I mean, Kvothe is regularly getting the tar beat out of him, but he doesn't seem to suffer any long term injuries from it at all.
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Oct 26, 2012 06:36
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Haraksha posted:I'm just trying to figure out why they discuss chemistry and biology but they aren't industrialized and there hasn't been a single mention of a powerful enough microscope to actually look at a cell. How is that they have an understanding of germs and chemical formulas, but all of their medicine is crushed up herbs? I don't know, maybe the Chandrian are actually team science police, formed up to stop the inevitable grey goo scenario that you'd get once they figure out computational sympathy.
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Oct 26, 2012 06:52
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Above Our Own posted:But his cultures are poorly fleshed out and super derivative, and like the poster mentioned I don't think he's executed a believable world with the magic and technology systems that are present. With the sympathy and sygaldry especially I would expect his world to be way beyond it's current technological level, and it's not really explained well why it isn't. Hm, I guess when I think of good world-building I think of internal consistency more than consistency with the Earth's history. Not that the latter isn't totally valid, I suppose I'm simply able to accept the world as its presented to me as long as it makes sense within itself, which Rothfuss seems to be able to do. I'm willing to accept that a world with magic, especially one in which people can control things at an intrinsic level through Naming, wouldn't have the same level as another planet. Especially if this really is some kind of post-apocalyptic world hosed up by past Namers. I'm totally not saying you're wrong to be bothered by it, if it bothers you though. I'm just lucky I guess.  Haraksha posted:And this might come across as nitpicky, but how did Kvothe spend three years of his life struggling to survive when he had knowledge of magic and the ability to perform it at will the entire time? The entire middle section of the book never mentions sympathy. It falls out of the story completely until they reach the University and he has near complete knowledge of it again. It's not like he was incapable of getting supplies either. He picked locks, saved up money to set a person on fire, and could get basic stuff from the dude who helped kids. Tell me that at no point he thought about using his amazing abilities to his advantage. A theory is that either Kvothe's trauma or Haliax and the Chandrian hid a lot of his memories at that point, the ones from the time with his parents, even from himself. He's explained about forgetting being one of the doors, and that his slower, unconscious mind had taken over. Kvothe talks a lot about his "sleeping mind" and "not being himself" in those chapters. It's sort of like how he's made himself into Kote in the framing story. Only when Skarpi shows up and specifically calls him Kvothe, Naming him, does his waking mind come back / the door open. At that point he remembers basically everything and he moves on to his next stage, looking for revenge on the Chandrian. Immediately after Skarpi says his Name he goes and does sympathy. Elodin does a similar thing in the second book, Naming Kvothe to bring him back to himself. It raises the question of how powerful Skarpi is that he's able to do that, of course, but it makes sense. Sophia fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Oct 26, 2012 |
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Oct 26, 2012 14:06
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Sophia posted:Hm, I guess when I think of good world-building I think of internal consistency more than consistency with the Earth's history. Not that the latter isn't totally valid, I suppose I'm simply able to accept the world as its presented to me as long as it makes sense within itself, which Rothfuss seems to be able to do. I'm willing to accept that a world with magic, especially one in which people can control things at an intrinsic level through Naming, wouldn't have the same level as another planet. Especially if this really is some kind of post-apocalyptic world hosed up by past Namers. It seems like the power of names and information will be some major plot point for the third book. Why else would 2 separate groups try to wipe the historical record of their own existence?
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Oct 26, 2012 16:13
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Sophia posted:Hm, I guess when I think of good world-building I think of internal consistency more than consistency with the Earth's history. Not that the latter isn't totally valid, I suppose I'm simply able to accept the world as its presented to me as long as it makes sense within itself, which Rothfuss seems to be able to do. I'm willing to accept that a world with magic, especially one in which people can control things at an intrinsic level through Naming, wouldn't have the same level as another planet. Especially if this really is some kind of post-apocalyptic world hosed up by past Namers. It's not necessarily about consistency with Earth's history as much as that this is the kind of thing you'd expect to naturally come about. For contrast, I think that the Naming is much better developed and consistent. Namers are powerful but extremely rare and that form of magic can't be mass produced.
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Oct 29, 2012 03:46
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Above Our Own posted:Remember Kvothe's arrow-deflector he invents in the second book? I would expect this world to be chock full of those kinds of inventions since there isn't really much to limit their production. I guess it's just surprising that in the history of this world someone hasn't invented a sygaldry powered firearm, or that all major leaders don't wear one of those devices that protect you from sympathetic attacks. thinking outside the box is hard. especially when your main concern is finding enough food to eat/passing grade so you can continue to chase wenches. also anyone wondering about the society being oddly developed in some areas and under developed in others is making the assumption that its developing on its on with no more advanced input which has been show to be patently false already. and kvothe is being written as some major league badass genius wizard ninja dude is it so much more of a stretch to make him this worlds leonardo or eientsien? not really and the grams are kept secret the same reason that they keep secret the fact they can burn people to death from another room using a fireplace. but yeah his whole sexual goddess thing was a bit loving much to swallow although it was one of the more interesting descriptions of the fae if read recently (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 29, 2012 21:39
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I don't mean kvothe inventing all those things. I mean the world in general being full of those things from other arcanists.
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Oct 29, 2012 21:54
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I think Oldmangray's point was that if Leonardo da Vinci could invent a tank, a helicopter, a glider, solar power, and dozens of other things (in addition to speaking a bunch of languages, being one of the greatest painters of all time, making vast strides in anatomy, botany, geology, math, music, and so on) then it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that Kvothe is not just a pretty awesome musician but also far, far above average in terms of coming up with clever uses for sygaldry. Presumably at some point in the world, everyone's going to figure out how to make amazing things with sygaldry, but just as steam power existed for a long while before we got choo-choo trains and jet propulsion was known about for many hundreds of years before anyone built a jet, it's easily understandable that the world in Rothfuss' books isn't filled with all kinds of crazy technology.
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Oct 29, 2012 23:40
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Newton wrote the Principia Mathematica during the time of the Black Death and an almost complete lack of meaningful science-based medicine. I can buy it because a lot of the science in the books relates to speaking and writing. Kynetx fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Oct 30, 2012 |
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Oct 29, 2012 23:56
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I can buy it if there are a very limited amount of Arcanists and if the knowledge is very strictly controlled. Rothfuss alludes to a time where sympathists were hunted down and killed, I wish he'd flesh this out more.
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Oct 30, 2012 06:07
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It feels like it is a post apocalyptic world. Everything in the world already went to hell and has rebuilt back to what it is. The magic they have is child's play to what was in the past. Knowledge was destroyed to try and prevent what ever happened from happening again. Humanity hosed up big and that is why the spider things are back. They had happened before and kovath most likely messed with something he shouldn't have and now the worlds feels like it is ending again. The big baddies want to make sure things do not advance to the stage when the spiders/grey goo mess everything up again.
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Oct 31, 2012 07:14
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Dude, he messed with the moon and caused a fae imbalance. I will bet you money this is what happens
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Oct 31, 2012 07:20
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Kynetx posted:Newton wrote the Principia Mathematica during the time of the Black Death and an almost complete lack of meaningful science-based medicine. well, the black death recurrences had largely retreated after the 1660s. And the big bad black death that devastated europe, was in the 14th century.
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Oct 31, 2012 10:39
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Ikonoklast posted:well, the black death recurrences had largely retreated after the 1660s. And the big bad black death that devastated europe, was in the 14th century. Fine. Point being that calculus existed in a time before the germ theory of disease, which I use to illustrate the point that technologies don't advance at equal rates.
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Oct 31, 2012 13:32
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Kynetx posted:Fine. Point being that calculus existed in a time before the germ theory of disease, which I use to illustrate the point that technologies don't advance at equal rates. Which I am in complete agreement with you sir!
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Oct 31, 2012 13:49
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Above Our Own posted:Dude, he messed with the moon and caused a fae imbalance. I will bet you money this is what happens I thought Iax had already messed with the moon to cause a fae imbalance? I had assumed he was going to either finish the job or undo the job.
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Oct 31, 2012 13:49
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I remember borrowing Name of the Wind from a friend when I was teenager, and I also remember absolutely loving it. Recently, however, I bought it and re-read it; big mistake. It came of as juvenile, I didn't remember Kvothe being this arrogant and smug, and as some people have already said, having such a "nice guy"-attitude towards women. I have no idea how this happened and why my opinion changed, but it literally did a 180... Still gonna read the sequel, though. So there.
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Oct 31, 2012 14:07
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