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Benson Cunningham posted:JivJov is right about silence being used to invoke different emotions. A cut flower is really apt for Kvothe though...the appearance of life and vitality, but look close and there's no root. Slowly but inexorably dying.
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Jan 28, 2016 16:37
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jivjov posted:A cut flower is really apt for Kvothe though...the appearance of life and vitality, but look close and there's no root. Slowly but inexorably dying. I had to look up the exact quote to make see if it actually was a quote about the silence itself being like that of a cut flower, just to make sure I wasn't regarding this conversation wrong. Lo and behold: quote:“It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.” Comparing Kvothe himself to a cut flower is fine, but comparing the silence to a cut flower is a bit much. A cut flower doesn't really have a distinct silence at all.
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Jan 28, 2016 16:47
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Huh, maybe I was right to think of it as a clunky metaphor. Thanks for looking it up. Whew!!!! Turns out I didn't learn anything from the Rothfuss thread after all!
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Jan 28, 2016 16:58
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jivjov posted:A cut flower is really apt for Kvothe though...the appearance of life and vitality, but look close and there's no root. Slowly but inexorably dying. Agree to disagree I guess. Speaking of book three though, does anyone think Denna is going to live through it? I just can't see an outcome where she survives and Kvothe still becomes mope man the innkeeper.
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Jan 28, 2016 17:20
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jivjov posted:You've missed the entire point of what I was trying to describe. Yes, the silence itself is the same; but the silence can carry an emotional connotation based on the events surrounding them. I understand that in TNotW's case we're not supposed to know yet why Kvothe is so sad. But the entire thing about silences tells us nothing. I don't care how many paragraphs he writes about silences, I'm not gonna feel anything. A plain statement like "There's a red-haired man in room. He is waiting to die." would do the same job. It would be a boring description, yeah, but it least has some actual substance to it and I can at least somewhat understand and feel it as a fellow human being (as much as I can identify with imaginary characters, at least). And I swear, I'm not an autistic robot of some kind, I don't hate metaphors and abstract concepts. But that prologue is one the most loathsome, pointless pieces of poo poo I've ever read in my life and I don't even hate his writing in general, I've genuinely enjoyed like 50% of TNotW.
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Jan 28, 2016 17:22
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Benson Cunningham posted:Agree to disagree I guess. I'm pretty sure it's going to be Kvothe that kills her somehow, too, either through direct attack not knowing it's her, or through inaction that he inexplicably blames himself for. The Hanged Man posted:I didn't miss your point. Yes, you can use silence to convey emotion. You can probably use anything in the world to convey emotion. However, without an actual event from where the emotion originates, what you get is an empty word construct that means nothing. It's the author telling me what I'm supposed to feel. You get the emotion but at this point it has become over-simplified and generic. I mean, just try reading the examples you've given me, but only the silence parts, as if you don't know what events generate them. Hell, try shuffling them around and see what happens. I think I finally get the point you're trying to make. It's not necessarily that silence can't have different emotional weight, but it's that the slence can't be like something. Red-haired man sitting silently with himself waiting to die is more than enough. Describing him is the important part, not describing the silence.
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Jan 28, 2016 17:28
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SpacePig posted:I think I finally get the point you're trying to make. It's not necessarily that silence can't have different emotional weight, but it's that the slence can't be like something. Red-haired man sitting silently with himself waiting to die is more than enough. Describing him is the important part, not describing the silence. What is that phrase that kids like to use nowadays? Show, don't... something? The Hanged Man fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 17:47
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SpacePig posted:I'm pretty sure it's going to be Kvothe that kills her somehow, too, either through direct attack not knowing it's her, or through inaction that he inexplicably blames himself for. I doubt he kills her outright, but I could see something like him letting someone get away or goes to attack one of the Chandrian directly which leads to her being killed. Honestly this next book has a lot to deliver to us since we've still yet to see him get expelled from the school for good, kill a king somehow, raid an underground barrow to save a princess....ummm, I think there are more but I can't think of them.
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Jan 28, 2016 18:11
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Benson Cunningham posted:Agree to disagree I guess. You can't see her betraying him and him letting her go?
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Jan 28, 2016 18:24
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Solice Kirsk posted:I doubt he kills her outright, but I could see something like him letting someone get away or goes to attack one of the Chandrian directly which leads to her being killed. Honestly this next book has a lot to deliver to us since we've still yet to see him get expelled from the school for good, kill a king somehow, raid an underground barrow to save a princess....ummm, I think there are more but I can't think of them. Maybe he accidentally kills a cross dressing Prince in a mausoleum, which leads to his being expelled. It's pretty clear that Auri or whatever her name is will be the princess he saves, and the underground borrow is the space below the university through the doors of stone. Ambrose is very likely the king. The issue with any of this not being true is that Rothfuss has not introduced reasonable secondary characters who could have these rolls other than the ones named above. Fantasy takes its foreshadowing real serious so I doubt introducing these characters in the third book would fly.
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Jan 28, 2016 18:26
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jivjov posted:You've missed the entire point of what I was trying to describe. Yes, the silence itself is the same; but the silence can carry an emotional connotation based on the events surrounding them. "Silence in three parts" is not a metaphor. A metaphor speaks of one thing as if it was another, thus revealing some insight into it. Comparing ambience to sound is not a metaphor because ambience is sound. People can't really get past "silence in three parts" because as a superficial stab at poesy it sums up Rothfuss's terrible writing quite neatly. I advice people to move on for the moment, because this threads tends to recycle the same topics, and thus misses the scope of Rothfuss's bad writing. Any random chapter will reveal a really baffling bit of writing. Take Chapter 69 (har har) of [the first book, fir instance. This is just one paragraph. quote:Lorren nodded and came to his feet. Tall, clean-shaven, and wearing his dark master’s robes, he reminded me of the enigmatic Silent Doctor character present in many Modegan plays. I fought off a shiver, trying not to dwell on the fact that the appearance of the Doctor always signaled catastrophe in the next act. This maybe the most dreadful example of characterisation I've seen in a novel. Lorren is characterised by a comparison completely fictional literary archetype. The purpose of alluding to some literary archetype (or even text) is to refer to something known. And just to double down, it's not even an interesting archetype.
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Jan 28, 2016 18:38
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:This maybe the most dreadful example of characterisation I've seen in a novel. Lorren is characterised by a comparison completely fictional literary archetype. The purpose of alluding to some literary archetype (or even text) is to refer to something known. And just to double down, it's not even an interesting archetype.  Not to defend Rothfuss as actually being good or anything, and in the real world it's more of a visual/fine arts thing than a literary one, but it was pretty clear to me that he's basically getting at the visuals of a plague doctor + the basic function of various stock characters that portend bad poo poo, which is a phenomenon in a lot of different theatrical traditions. lovely horror movies and gothy music videos have been (ab)using Plague Doctor imagery for long enough, god knows.
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Jan 28, 2016 21:08
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What's actually dreadful about it is, if you accept he alludes to a plague doctor, he then doesn't trust his audience to understand what that means, and has to then say THIS MEANS SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN SOON. So either Rothfuss doesn't trust the reader, Kvothe thinks Chronicler (whose literal job is to chronicle interesting stories) isn't smart enough to get the reference, or Rothfuss was never alluding to a plague doctor and was creating a purely fictional comparison that he then needed to over explain anyway to get his point across.
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Jan 28, 2016 23:28
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ManlyGrunting posted:e: I should clarify that this was more of a problem with the Adem; I actually liked the fae realm stuff that wasn't the dumb impenetrable sex scenes because it was such a neat, alien and dangerous realm. The Adem on the other hand are 200 pages of the same poo poo over and over and I think the book would have been overall better if the whole thing was scrapped. I absolutely agree that they went on too long but they do demonstrate an important flaw in Kvothe's character. He's poo poo at trusting people or accepting that sometimes he needs to go along to get along. Even after they let him train and just want him to be chill, he can't help scheming and second-guessing and trying to pretend to be what he thinks they want. I believe Rothfuss needed to show that in a new context. Just showing it at University can't perform the same function because people there really have messed with him, so of course he can't trust the system. Count me as a hater of the silence in three parts. I first listened to the books on audio during a long drive and the first few minutes had me wondering if I'd made a horrible mistake. I have more tolerance for poverty stories than for the silence in three parts.
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Jan 28, 2016 23:31
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Benson Cunningham posted:Rothfuss was never alluding to a plague doctor and was creating a purely fictional comparison that he then needed to over explain anyway to get his point across. Well to be fair, nerds would be ripshit if he actually said plague doctor.
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Jan 28, 2016 23:45
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Zorak of Michigan posted:I believe Rothfuss needed to show that in a new context. Just showing it at University can't perform the same function because people there really have messed with him, so of course he can't trust the system. The people in the new context try to kill him because he suggests that swords are useful for fighting.
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Jan 28, 2016 23:58
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The Hanged Man posted:Yeah. I would've liked the prologue much more if Rothfuss had simply described the room and the man in it. A simple semi-detailed description of Kvothe's looks, his face's expression, his surroundings, etc without any of that silences nonsense would've given me so much more, would actually maybe allow me to identify with him a little. Even the author telling me that Kvothe is waiting to die is like revealing the solution to the puzzle, without letting me to try and solve it first. Now this I can understand. One of the things I like most about Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear are the puzzles that Rothfuss puts in. For the ones you can solve, most of them are pretty obvious (like who Kvothe's mom is), but you still feel clever after solving them--the Portal style of puzzle, if that makes sense. I can see making Kvothe's present day state more of an unknown in the beginning might be more intriguing--though saying that someone is waiting to die explicitly is intriguing in its own way. (When to show and when to tell could easily be its own thread. "Show don't tell" is usually used because most beginning writers "tell" way too much.) Benson Cunningham posted:It's pretty clear that Auri or whatever her name is will be the princess he saves, and the underground borrow is the space below the university through the doors of stone. Ambrose is very likely the king. The issue with any of this not being true is that Rothfuss has not introduced reasonable secondary characters who could have these rolls other than the ones named above. Fantasy takes its foreshadowing real serious so I doubt introducing these characters in the third book would fly. Kvothe posted:I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings Denna gaining the rank as a princess (and the ensuing rescue from problems) could also tie really well to the drama that leads him to kill whatever king he kills. Ambrose seems too obvious. He's got to be a red herring for king, though still an important contributor to the political intrigue that leads to the death. (The princess could be Fey and related to Bast, but I'm inclined to think Bast does not appear in Kvothe's story proper). Whatever the Doors of Stone lead to--and it could be referring to the doors in the University or the Lockless doors that we have heard about but not encountered--I think it will be more to do with something we haven't seen yet, not the underworks of the university. It will certainly connect to forbidden knowledge that relates to the Chandrian, Amyr, and magic like shaping.
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Jan 29, 2016 04:52
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My friend and I both think the ppet king he's gonna wind up killing will be Sim. He's royalty, he writes poetry, and it would be a huge serve from the whole Ambrose thing. Our it'll just be a king we haven't met properly in the books yet.
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Jan 29, 2016 05:04
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Thanks, whoever recommended the Sabriel series of books earlier in the thread. Any other recommendations? It was a nice change to have a female main character in a fantasy novel without that typical young love angst crap.
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Jan 29, 2016 09:43
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The Gardenator posted:Thanks, whoever recommended the Sabriel series of books earlier in the thread. Any other recommendations? You are welcome! If you want more 3-dimensional female leads then I recommend The Rook by Daniel O'Malley. Very witty and gory modern story set around an organization that is basically Fantasy MI6. I read it in two days. 10/10, would recommend.
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Jan 29, 2016 09:53
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Seconding The Rook, maybe try The Scar by China Miéville?
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Jan 29, 2016 10:30
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https://twitter.com/PatrickRothfuss/status/693581817694126080 Don't pretend to be writing a book to maintain popularity. https://twitter.com/PatrickRothfuss/status/693582059474780160 If you're contemplating suicide over Patrick Rothfuss, kill yourself right now. https://twitter.com/PatrickRothfuss/status/693582866337300480 Don't threaten, act.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:35
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The Slithery D posted:https://twitter.com/PatrickRothfuss/status/693581817694126080 Wow. You're a loving jackass. Telling people to either kill themselves or attack another person is loving terrible.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:39
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Not killing yourself or another when it is objectively the morally correct thing to do is abominable. It's awful that I have to tell people this because of their self delusion or weakness.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:42
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The Slithery D posted:Not killing yourself or another when it is objectively the morally correct thing to do is abominable. It's awful that I have to tell people this because of their self delusion or weakness. See, I know you're just shitposting, but even "joking" that killing one's self or another over a goddamn delayed fantasy novel is in any way morally correct is disgusting.
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Jan 31, 2016 18:15
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jivjov posted:See, I know you're just shitposting, but even "joking" that killing one's self or another over a goddamn delayed fantasy novel is in any way morally correct is disgusting. Jivjov does not like hyperbole.
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Jan 31, 2016 18:25
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Benson Cunningham posted:Jivjov does not like hyperbole. Not when it involves bodily harm to ones self or another, no. No I do not.
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Jan 31, 2016 18:34
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jivjov posted:See, I know you're just shitposting, but even "joking" that killing one's self or another over a goddamn delayed fantasy novel is in any way morally correct is disgusting. Welcome to somethingawful.com
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Jan 31, 2016 18:46
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The Slithery D posted:https://twitter.com/PatrickRothfuss/status/693581817694126080 
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Jan 31, 2016 18:48
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People obsessing over tweets is always good, and not a sign of sadbrains
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Jan 31, 2016 18:49
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jivjov posted:See, I know you're just shitposting, but even "joking" that killing one's self or another over a goddamn delayed fantasy novel is in any way morally correct is disgusting. Yeah, why waste all that potential manpower? I think people who would commit suicide over fantasy novels should be put in work camps. They can die after they've done their part.
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Jan 31, 2016 19:39
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Zelazny was the best:quote:A small, rodent-like thing at my mind’s roots called attention to the fact that every other time I had felt good recently, the day had ended in disaster. I decided not to pay it any heed.
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Jan 31, 2016 21:22
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Solice Kirsk posted:My friend and I both think the ppet king he's gonna wind up killing will be Sim. He's royalty, he writes poetry, and it would be a huge serve from the whole Ambrose thing. Our it'll just be a king we haven't met properly in the books yet. The Gardenator posted:Thanks, whoever recommended the Sabriel series of books earlier in the thread. Any other recommendations? A Confusion of Princes is sci-fi, not fantasy, but it's also an excellent book by Garth Nix. BravestOfTheLamps posted:This maybe the most dreadful example of characterisation I've seen in a novel. Lorren is characterised by a comparison completely fictional literary archetype. The purpose of alluding to some literary archetype (or even text) is to refer to something known. And just to double down, it's not even an interesting archetype.
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Feb 1, 2016 01:10
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That simply doesn't make sense with the characterization we're given. Why would such a literary archetype scare Kvothe, a hardened orphan who who navigates through different social settings and "roles"? That Lorren acts in an artificial or unreal way would make sense and thus serves as an unsettling foil for Kvothe would make sense, but he's a normal academic. He doesn't do anything intimidating in that scene except chastise Kvothe in a completely reasonable manner. If you strip the sentence down, you'll notice sentence's rhythm is simply bad: "He was like a character from a play, so I was a little afraid." If extended throughout the scene, this could work as comic or ironic. But the writing just isn't good. It's rather clear why jivjov spends so much time defending the pretense of Rothfuss still writing the series, and freaking out over "morally disgusting" statements: it helps distract from discussing the books themselves and how traumatically bad they are. You never see him actually defend Rothfuss on his literary merits. Enjoyment instead comes from participating in a fantasy life. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Feb 1, 2016 |
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Feb 1, 2016 06:53
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:You never see him actually defend Rothfuss on his literary merits. Enjoyment instead comes from participating in a fantasy life. Why would anyone defend a fantasy author on literary merits? I mean I get you, Rothfuss is not a great writer. I agree. But this is an airplane book. It's escapism. Of course enjoyment comes from participating in a fantasy life, because a fantasy life adds a bit of enjoyment to being stuck in 47J with a crying baby three rows ahead and four more hours to go. That's kind of the point. Pick up the average thriller or scifi or romance that shows up on the NYT bestseller list and start picking apart the sentences and characterizations and you'll very often run into similar problems. These kind of books aren't "traumatically bad" they are just typical genre fluff. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Feb 1, 2016 |
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Feb 1, 2016 08:03
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Shakespeare, Lord Dunsany, Tolkien, John Crowley - why would anyone defend them or their works on their literary merits? Because they have literary merits.
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Feb 1, 2016 08:18
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Shakespeare, Lord Dunsany, Tolkien, John Crowley - why would anyone defend them or their works on their literary merits? Those authors can certainly be categorized as fantasy but they aren't genre fluff written purely for entertainment, which is what Rothfuss's stuff is. Of course it doesn't have literary merits. I mean it kind of goes without saying. Like I said, I agree the guy isn't a good writer, but a lot of the posts in here seem like writing paragraphs of analysis explaining why a McDonalds burger is not Fine Dining.
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Feb 1, 2016 08:29
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Earwicker posted:Those authors can certainly be categorized as fantasy but they aren't genre fluff written purely for entertainment, which is what Rothfuss's stuff is. Of course it doesn't have literary merits. I mean it kind of goes without saying. Probably because a lot of people actually do insist that Rothfuss is a good writer that produces strong and well-developed narratives and prose of some literary merit. There's value (entertainment and otherwise) in dissecting his stuff, and I'm not sure why people are pushing back against that. You say it's fluff written for entertainment, but the dissections of that fluff are also frequently entertaining as hell. Why say making GBS threads on one is fine but not the other?
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Feb 1, 2016 08:53
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Reene posted:There's value (entertainment and otherwise) in dissecting his stuff, and I'm not sure why people are pushing back against that. You say it's fluff written for entertainment, but the dissections of that fluff are also frequently entertaining as hell. Why say making GBS threads on one is fine but not the other? Well like I said earlier I don't really get the whole "intentionally reading something you think is bad just to tear it apart" kind of thing.. but aside from that the impression I get from a lot of the posts in here doesn't sound so much like dissecting Rothfuss's stuff for fun but rather that goons are angry that the dude even exists. I mean really, "traumatically bad"? It's just typical escapist stuff, it's hardly some kind of outlier, that's why I think it's kind of strange that there is so much hostility directed at this one writer in particular like his career is some sort of Crime Against Literature when you can grab just about any random thriller or romance that's selling well (or that isn't) and find all kinds of bad writing. It's the norm. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Feb 1, 2016 |
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Feb 1, 2016 09:02
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:That simply doesn't make sense with the characterization we're given. Why would such a literary archetype scare Kvothe, a hardened orphan who who navigates through different social settings and "roles"? That Lorren acts in an artificial or unreal way would make sense and thus serves as an unsettling foil for Kvothe would make sense, but he's a normal academic. He doesn't do anything intimidating in that scene except chastise Kvothe in a completely reasonable manner. Also, Lorren is totally a secret Amyr. BravestOfTheLamps posted:It's rather clear why jivjov spends so much time defending the pretense of Rothfuss still writing the series, and freaking out over "morally disgusting" statements: it helps distract from discussing the books themselves and how traumatically bad they are. You never see him actually defend Rothfuss on his literary merits. Enjoyment instead comes from participating in a fantasy life. 2. If you find the writing "traumatically bad" I'm glad you've never faced actual trauma and live such a pleasant life that you'd think that's what trauma is like  Earwicker posted:Well like I said earlier I don't really get the whole "intentionally reading something you think is bad just to tear it apart" kind of thing.. but aside from that the impression I get from a lot of the posts in here doesn't sound so much like dissecting Rothfuss's stuff for fun but rather that goons are angry that the dude even exists.
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Feb 1, 2016 09:40
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