HIJK posted:

It's so weird how Rothfuss manages to absorb all this media and yet doesn't understand what makes it work. He attends writing workshops and yet only goes through the process without understanding what the process is trying to teach him. "Destroy the world" indeed.

I am more and more amazed that a publisher looked at this, that an editor was put on this book, and that it was published as it was.

As a first or second draft I can understand this kind of confusion within the material but it's baffling that no one tried to correct this.

Or maybe Rothfuss refused?

I hope someone publishes some behind the scenes material someday explaining what the gently caress happened.

Nakar posted:

Writing myth is really hard because people don't usually set out to just write myths. You have to come up with a mindset that replicates generations of oral transmission or else just have that particular flair for simple poetry that makes something sound mythical instead of just trite and cutesy. I've tried to do it and even with references to model on stylistically (Homer, the Bible, etc.) it always reads like idiotic overwrought bullshit. There are very few people even remotely capable of doing it well. One of those things, like poetry, where you're better off eliding it if you're no good at it.

Saga of King Hrolf Kraki posted:

Meanwhile Skuld assembled a troop of the best fighters as well as the worst rabble from neighbouring provinces. This treachery was concealed so that King Hrolf was completely unaware of it. Likewise the champions suspected nothing, because it was done with the most skilful magic and sorcery. Skuld, to overpower her brother King Hrolf, fashioned a spell of high potency, which summoned elves, norns and countless other vile creatures. No human power could withstand so strong a force.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Rothfuss's editors are actually hugely successful - just not artistically. Rothfuss doesn't have the appeal of even the trashiest genre stuff. I'd honestly read a Drizzt book instead any time.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Also,

Cyclomatic posted:

I'm guessing the point of the fire thing is to make the point that he knowingly destroyed what he thought to be valuable to someone he had a feud with, and then tried to kill him with fire, only for there to be no moral component. Which I took to be the point. Ivory tower types have a very hard time with that. Nihilism is the rejection of meaning, and is based on the idea of refuting something. It is like the atheist, who believes in the rejection of belief, and simply can't understand the instinctive agnostic who simply doesn't view the world in terms of belief.

quote:

But as I sat there, I felt a vague unease creep over me. A feeling that I was forgetting something impinged on my too-rare happiness. I tried to ignore it, but it stayed with me all day and into the next, like a mosquito I couldn’t see, let alone swat. By the end of the day, I was certain I had forgotten something. Something about the story Skarpi had told.

It is easy for you to see, no doubt, hearing the story like this, conveniently arranged and narrated. Keep in mind that I had been living like an animal in Tarbean for nearly three years. Pieces of my mind were still asleep, and my painful memories had been gathering dust behind the door of forgetfulness. I had grown used to avoiding them, the same way a cripple keeps weight off an injured leg.

quote:

They had killed my parents for gathering stories about them. They had killed my whole troupe over a song. I sat awake all night with little more than these thoughts running through my head. Slowly I came to realize them as the truth.

What did I do then? Did I swear I would find them, kill them all for what they had done? Perhaps. But even if I did, I knew in my heart it was impossible. Tarbean had taught me hard practicality. Kill the Chandrian? Kill Lanre? How could I even begin? I would have more luck trying to steal the moon. At least I knew where to look for the moon at night.

quote:

Selitos went to Aleph and knelt before him. “I must refuse, for I cannot forget. But I will oppose him with these faithful Ruach beside me. I see their hearts are pure. We will be called the Amyr in memory of the ruined city. We will confound Lanre and any who follow him. Nothing will prevent us from attaining the greater good.”

Most of the Ruach hung back from Selitos, too. They were afraid, and they did not wish to become involved in great matters.

But Tehlu stood forward saying, “I hold justice foremost in my heart. I will leave this world behind that I might better serve it, serving you.” He knelt before Aleph, his head bowed, his hands open at his sides.

quote:

They came to Aleph, and he touched them. He touched their hands and eyes and hearts. The last time he touched them there was pain, and wings tore from their backs that they might go where they wished. Wings of fire and shadow. Wings of iron and glass. Wings of stone and blood.

Then Aleph spoke their long names and they were wreathed in a white fire. The fire danced along their wings and they became swift. The fire flickered in their eyes and they saw into the deepest hearts of men. The fire filled their mouths and they sang songs of power. Then the fire settled on their foreheads like silver stars and they became at once righteous and wise and terrible to behold. Then the fire consumed them and they were gone forever from mortal sight.

None but the most powerful can see them, and only then with great difficulty and at great peril. They mete out justice to the world, and Tehlu is the greatest of them all—”

quote:

“Do not speak his name!” the Justice screamed, his face a livid red. “Your mouth dirties it. It is a blasphemy upon your tongue.”

“Oh come now, Erlus.” Skarpi chided as though talking to a small child. “Tehlu hates you even more than the rest of the world does, which is quite a bit.”

The room became unnaturally still. The Justice’s face grew pale. “God have mercy on you,” he said in a cold, trembling voice.

Skarpi looked at the Justice mutely for a moment. Then he started to laugh. Great, booming, helpless laughter from the bottom of his soul.

The eyes of the Justice flicked to one of the men who had tied the storyteller. With no preamble the grim-faced man struck Skarpi with a tight fist. Once in the kidney, once in the back of the neck.

Skarpi crumpled to the ground. The room was silent. The sound of his body hitting the wood planking of the floor seemed to fade before the echoes of his laughter did. At a gesture from the Justice, one of the guards picked the old man up by the scruff of his neck. He dangled like a rag doll, his feet trailing on the ground.

But Skarpi was not unconscious, merely stunned. The storyteller’s eyes rolled around to focus on the Justice. “Mercy on my soul.” He gave a weak croak that might have been a chuckle on a better day. “You don’t know how funny that sounds coming from you.”

quote:

When I had worn myself out with sobbing it was deep into the night. I lay there looking at the sky, weary but unable to sleep. I thought of my parents and of the troupe, and was surprised to find the memories less bitter than before.

[...]

If you have ever slept the whole night without moving, then awoke in the morning, your body stiff with inaction. If you can remember how that first terrific stretch feels, pleasant and painful, then you may understand how my mind felt after all these years, stretching awake on the rooftops of Tarbean.

I spent the rest of that night opening the doors of my mind. Inside I found things long forgotten: my mother fitting words together for a song, diction for the stage, three recipes for tea to calm nerves and promote sleep, finger scales for the lute.

My music. Had it really been years since I held a lute?

I spent a long time thinking about the Chandrian, about what they had done to my troupe, what they had taken from me. I remembered blood and the smell of burning hair and felt a deep, sullen anger burning in my chest. I will admit I thought dark, vengeful thoughts that night.

But my years in Tarbean had instilled an iron-hard practicality. I knew revenge was nothing more than a childish fantasy. I was fifteen. What could I possibly do?

I did know one thing. It had come to me as I lay remembering. It was something Haliax had said to Cinder. Who keeps you safe from the Amyr? The singers? The Sithe? From all that would harm you in the world?

The Chandrian had enemies. If I could find them, they would help me. I had no idea who the singers or the Sithe were, but everyone knew that the Amyr were church knights, the strong right hand of the Aturan Empire. Unfortunately, everyone also knew that there had been no Amyr in three hundred years. They had been disbanded when the Aturan Empire collapsed.

But Haliax had spoken of them as if they still existed. And Skarpi’s story implied that the Amyr had begun with Selitos, not with the Aturan Empire as I had always been taught. There was obviously more to the story, more that I needed to know.

The more I thought on it, the more questions arose. The Chandrian obviously didn’t kill everyone who gathered stories or sang songs about them. Everyone knew a story or two about them, and every child at one point has sung the silly rhyme about their signs. What made my parent’s song so different?

I had questions. There was only one place for me to go, of course.

quote:

As the sun was rising, I removed Rhetoric and Logic from its hiding place underneath a rafter. I unwrapped the scrap of treated canvas I used to protect it and was relieved to find it dry and well. I felt the smooth leather in my hands. I held it to my face and smelled the back of Ben’s wagon, spice and yeast with the bitter tang of acids and chemical salts mingled in. It was the last tangible piece of my past.

I opened it to the first page and read the inscription Ben had made more than three years ago.

Kvothe,

Defend yourself well at the University. Make me proud.

Remember your father’s song. Be wary of folly.

Abenthy.

I nodded to myself and turned the page.

quote:

Others came forward. Tall Kirel, who had been burned but left living in the ash of Myr Tariniel. Deah, who had lost two husbands to the fighting, and whose face and mouth and heart were hard and cold as stone. Enlas, who would not carry a sword or eat the flesh of animals, and who no man had ever known to speak hard words. Fair Geisa, who had a hundred suitors in Belen before the walls fell. The first woman to know the unasked-for touch of man.

Lecelte, who laughed easily and often, even when there was woe thick about him. Imet, hardly more than a boy, who never sang and killed swiftly without tears. Ordal, the youngest of them all, who had never seen a thing die, stood bravely before Aleph, her golden hair bright with ribbon. And beside her came Andan, whose face was a mask with burning eyes, whose name meant anger.

quote:

This the mercenaries did with rough efficiency.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Some people will tell you that Kingkiller’s world-building is enchanting because it feels real, because of the little touches.

These people are idiots.

jivjov posted:

Why not just make your points? Why do you feel this insane need to put everyone else down for looking for different things in a book?

jivjov posted:

And thus you make your entire post not worth reading; not worth the electricity powering my monitor to see it.

Why not just make your points? Why do you feel this insane need to put everyone else down for looking for different things in a book?

Stop lording over everyone else and post your analysis without being an rear end about it.

SatansOnion posted:

So why don't they?

ChickenWing posted:

you are the gift that keeps on giving, except the gift is bad posts


you are the bad post that keeps on posting

SatansOnion posted:

Not-Cardinal Ximenez could set out with Cardinals Not-Biggles and Not-Fang on Monday and have that wretched hive of free-thinking scum and villainy shut down before the weekend. So why don't they? Jackbooted oppressors generally don't fart around when it comes to shutting down perceived threats like universities.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Now a lot of people will claim Kingkiller is a coming-of-age story or even a bildungsroman. This would imply that the book is about Kvothe’s development. It is not, as is evident from how it contradicts with the text. Look at what I’ve bolded: as we will see, the Tarbean sequence features only a warped version of Kvothe. His life in Tarbean is merely him being suppressed, and has no actual effect on his development. The actual metaphor used in the text is that he awakens and throws away his old clothes. There will be nods to the skills he learned in the streets, but not to how it has affected his personality and his lifestyle. There is no ruthless survivor’s instinct or “iron-hard practicality” after this. Kvothe will in a future chapter claim that financial insecurity at a privileged academic institution represents poverty!

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Going over what I've posted, I may be wrong about the story having no central theme. The theme might be knowledge and how it sets people apart.

Benson Cunningham posted:

The central theme of the story is the disparity between the myth and reality of Kvothe and how each influences the other.

Just because he's doing a lovely job of it doesn't make it any less the central theme. It's also dumb because the myth of Kvothe has had almost no impact (that we can see) on the protagonist, save that he built a cabin in the woods to hide in because he didn't want to dye his hair and stay somewhere more public.


Other people in the world have their own mini cycles of this theme as well.

-Kvothe's parents try to tell a story about the Chanders that's too close to the truth, and are killed for it.
-I'm sure there are others.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

And the point is to show how some people are better than others because they're set apart. It's an elitist position.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

That's not disparity.

quote:

This time he gave me such a long hard look that I began to get a little nervous. It was only then I realized how I must look, covered in a year’s worth of alley dirt, trying to get a receipt for a book I’d obviously stolen.

Eventually he gave another bland shrug and scratched out a note on a slip of paper. At the bottom of it he drew a line and made a motion with his pen. “Sign here.”

I looked at the paper. It read:


I, by signing below, hereby attest to the fact that I can neither read nor write.


I looked up at the owner. He held a straight face. I dipped the pen and carefully wrote the letters “D D” as if they were initials.

He fanned the ink dry and slid my “receipt” across the desk toward me. “What does D stand for?” he asked with the barest hint of a smile.

“Defeasance,” I said. “It means to render something null and void, usually a contract. The second D is for Decrepitate. Which is the act of throwing someone into a fire.” He gave me a blank look. “Decrepication is the punishment for forgery in Junpui. I think false receipts fall in that category.”

quote:

I decided that he was not an altogether bad fellow. I smiled back at him and for a second I almost felt guilty about how I’d written the receipt.

I also felt guilty about the three pens I’d stolen, but only for a second. And since there was no convenient way to give them back, I stole a bottle of ink before I left.

quote:

Still naked, I wrapped myself in a towel and left by the back door. I took my purse but kept it out of sight. It was a little before noon and people were everywhere. Needless to say, quite a few eyes were turned in my direction. I ignored them and set a brisk pace, not trying to hide. I composed my features into an impassive, angry mask without a trace of embarrassment.

I stopped by a father and son loading burlap sacks into a cart. The son was about four years older than me and head and shoulders taller. “Boy,” I snapped. “Where can I buy some clothes around here?” I looked pointedly at his shirt. “Decent clothes,” I amended.

He looked at me, his expression somewhere between confusion and anger. His father hurriedly took off his hat and stepped in front of his son. “Your lordship might try Bentley’s. It’s plain stuff, but it’s only a street or two away.”

[...]

He pointed and I strode off. As I walked I remembered one of the young page parts I used to play in the troupe. The page’s name was Dunstey, an insufferably petulant little boy with an important father. He was perfect. I gave my head an imperious tilt, set my shoulders a little differently and made a couple of mental adjustments

quote:

I slid out of the robe and pulled on the pants. “They’ll get me home, I suppose. How much for your trouble, Bentley?” I asked.

He thought for a second. “One and two.”

I began to lace up my shirt and said nothing.

“Sorry, sir,” he said quickly. “Forgot who I was dealing with.” He swallowed. “One even would do nicely.”

Taking out my purse, I put one silver talent into his hand and looked him in the eye. “I will be needing some change.”

His mouth made a thin line, but he nodded and handed me back two jots.

quote:

I opened my mouth to protest; an iron penny for an hour’s work was a bargain I was hesitant to pass up. Two pennies was the same as a loaf of bread, and I couldn’t count all the times that I had been hungry in the last year.

Then I saw my hands resting on the bar. They were pink and clean, I almost didn’t recognize them for my own.

I realized then I didn’t want to do the dishes. I had more important things to do. I stood back from the bar and got a penny from my purse. “Where’s the best place to find a caravan leaving for the north?” I asked.

quote:

I felt strange to be walking with the crowd.

Over the last couple years crowds had become a part of the scenery of the city to me. I might use a crowd to hide from a guard or a storekeeper. I might move through a crowd to get where I was going. I might even be going in the same direction as the crowd, but I was never a part of it.

I was so used to being ignored, I almost ran from the first merchant who tried to sell me something.

Once I knew what was bothering me, the greater part of my uneasiness left. Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear.

Great Expectations posted:

I had not got as much further down the street as the post-office, when I again beheld Trabb's boy shooting round by a back way. This time, he was entirely changed. He wore the blue bag in the manner of my great-coat, and was strutting along the pavement towards me on the opposite side of the street, attended by a company of delighted young friends to whom he from time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his hand, "Don't know yah!" Words cannot state the amount of aggravation and injury wreaked upon me by Trabb's boy, when, passing abreast of me, he pulled up his shirt-collar, twined his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked extravagantly by, wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling to his attendants, "Don't know yah, don't know yah, 'pon my soul don't know yah!"

quote:

I knew that he was trying to do me a favor, and a week ago I would have jumped at the opportunity for free shoes. But for some reason I didn’t feel right about it. I quietly gathered up my things and left a pair of copper jots on his stool before I left.

Why? Because pride is a strange thing, and because generosity deserves generosity in return. But mostly because it felt like the right thing to do, and that is reason enough.

quote:

As I made my way down the short hallway, a boy in rags emerged from the inner rooms holding a small winter apple. He pulled up short when he saw me, then scowled, his eyes narrow and suspicious. Looking down, he brushed roughly past me.

Without even thinking about it, I slapped his hand away from my purse and turned to look at him, too stunned for words. He bolted outside, leaving me confused and disturbed. We never stole from each other here. Out on the streets it was everyone for themselves, but Trapis’ basement was the closest thing to a sanctuary we had, like a church. None of us would risk spoiling that.

[...]
It dawned on me then. None of them recognized me. Clean and well-dressed, I looked like some regular boy come wandering in. I didn’t belong.

quote:

“Kvothe, you run for soap.” He held out a halfpenny. “Go to Marna’s in the Wash. You’ll get better from her if you tell her who it’s for.”

I felt a sudden lump form in my throat. He knew me. I can’t hope to explain to you how much of a relief it was. Trapis was the closest thing I had to a family. The thought of him not knowing me had been horrifying.

“I don’t have time to run an errand, Trapis.” I said hesitantly. “I’m leaving. I’m heading inland, to Imre.”

quote:

Of course. Trapis never saw the clothes, only the child inside them. “I stopped by to let you know where my things are. On the roof of the candle works there’s a place where three roofs meet. There are some things there, a blanket, a bottle. I don’t need any of it anymore. It’s a good place to sleep if anyone needs one, dry. No one goes there….” I trailed off.

“That’s kind of you. I’ll send one of the boys round,” Trapis said. “Come here.” He came forward and gathered me into a clumsy hug, his beard tickling the side of my face. “I’m always glad to see one of you get away,” he said softly to me. “I know you’ll do just fine for yourself, but you can always come back if you need to.”

One of the girls on a nearby cot began to thrash and moan. Trapis pulled away from me and turned to look. “What what,” he said as he hurried over to tend to her, his bare feet slapping on the floor. “What what. Hush hush.”

quote:

He turned away and barked curses in Siaru at a man loading a wagon with bolts of cloth. When he spoke his native language, he sounded like an angry rockslide.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Lots of words

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

pentyne posted:

So White Tiger is a "good" book? I remember it pretty distinctly for how f'd up India sounded and how the protagonist's life ended up making him just another part of a corrupt as gently caress system but he came off as a "nice" person because he tried to do right as far as you could in a morally corrupt world.

jivjov posted:

Go gently caress yourself. I don't shame you for your reading habits, don't shame me for mine.

In fact, I just finished up the last book I was reading, I'm going to re-read Name of the Wind again solely to spite you.

What the hell is it about this thread that invites people to be so loving judgmental, not of the books themselves but of other people's enjoyment of them?

Groovelord Neato posted:

have you REALLY read these books 10 times? holy poo poo.

Solice Kirsk posted:

You usually have to read a book you're writing hundreds of times. Jivjov is Rothfuss, you see.

Groovelord Neato posted:

have you REALLY read these books 10 times? holy poo poo.