Patrick Rothfuss: Technical Difficulties

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Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Bizob posted:

quote:
It's also been said that a more sexually active Kvothe was sort of a wish fulfillment thing on Rothfuss' part. It's been compared to that of Guy Gavriel Kay with bearded characters. Keeping that in mind as I read along, I would have to agree on this. For a redhead male, Kvothe sure gets an inordinate amount of action in The Wise Man's Fear. And if you had trouble believing that Archie could have both Betty and Veronica, you may raise an eyebrow on more than one occasion in this second volume.

oh for gently caress's sake
I'll read the book, but I can already see myself skipping the cringe-worthy parts which I'm sure there will be a decent amount of

# ¿ Feb 15, 2011 23:37

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 07:42

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

Moving away from "She is a shy deer" to "Wanna gently caress that deer ".

bestiality is always a welcome addition in a book.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2011 05:55

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

muscles like this? posted:

I thought it was pretty obvious that he was faking the whole "can't fight" thing. After it was done Kvothe states that he "almost forgot who he was" in regards to the fight. He's supposed to be Kote the innkeeper, it wouldn't look good for a "simple innkeeper" to beat two soldiers in a fistfight. Then at the very end he's still able to practice the Ketan.

Why do you think that he's telling the truth with the "almost forgot who he was" in the fight thing? I took it as a kind of justification for getting beaten up ("I'm not weak, I was just pretending to be").

# ¿ May 6, 2011 04:37

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Benson Cunningham posted:

You should read The Phoenix Guard by Steven Brust. It's pretty much what Patrick Rothfuss wishes he could do but can't.

The Phoenix Guard AKA Too Many Words: The Series

# ¿ Nov 13, 2014 00:56

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Dienes posted:

Perfect, except we need 2 more paragraphs describing how it was two parts, and telling me how hard your alar was when he touched you.

"It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man waiting for 2 more paragraphs."

# ¿ Jul 17, 2015 22:36

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Well, it worked with me.
I read book 1 and thought it was great. Then I read various comments as well as this thread (back when it started) and on the reread before the 2nd book my impressions were quite different. The 2nd book only solidified my feelings toward the series.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 00:14

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Lottery of Babylon posted:

For some reason I just read the Slow Regard of Silent Things for the first time, and I'm angry. First, because the whole thing is worthless bullshit. But more importantly, because one of the sections says that:

1. Auri was raped.
2. Auri being raped, not studying naming, is what ~~made her a snowflake~~ broke her
3. Auri being raped is Right because she should be broken.
4. It's Auri's fault she was raped because she was too careless.

What The gently caress

Lottery of Babylon posted:

Context: Auri has just tripped and fallen down the stairs, breaking the gear.

The end of the first paragraph pretty heavily implies Auri was raped, which is supported by a line earlier in the book that mentions she's not a virgin. That it's used as an example of an event that breaks things indicates that it broke Auri. That it's immediately followed by that last paragraph about how things breaking is good suggests that her being raped was ultimately a good thing. And she explicitly blames herself for it in that first paragraph.

e: Even if you don't find 2-4 compelling, 1 seems pretty unambiguous to me, which means Rothfuss has raped his most infantilized female character for absolutely no reason.

It's plausible, but the narrative seems to agree with her. Her fairy bullshit is consistently portrayed as a good thing and is implied to give her some Namer insights into things, which supports the "the rape was actually good" thing. And her self-effacing routine is contrasted with Jax stealing the moon, which suggests that she's right that she needs to step lightly as a bird.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Rothfuss is definitely not saying any of the stuff you're accusing him of. The quote from the book you posted is clearly Auri's thoughts, and as someone said before, it's rationalization and self-blame, which are realistic responses to being raped.

Rothfuss has a bunch of lovely stuff in his books, but this isn't one of them.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2015 08:06

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Effigy posted:

Ok calling it now: one of the sex ninjas is going to show up at the tavern with a red haired baby, and it's going to break mary sue out of his funk, simultaneously ending the reproductive theories of the sex ninjas.

Kvothe's gonna destroy the Adem's way of life WITH HIS DICK.

Reene posted:

This excuse rings kind of hollow for me consider the overall narrative and I'm also completely fuckin' sick of male fantasy authors using rape as a cheap way of making their female characters more tragic and interesting. It's lazy at best.

If Rothfuss was a different kind of author I might give him the benefit of the doubt here but he isn't and I don't.

In my opinion, there isn't any benefit of the doubt to be given here. It's very clear from the text that those are Auri's thoughts and that she's traumatized and not in her right mind. Does he have to put a footnote explicitly explaining what he actually meant?
Disclaimer: I have read that little blogpost of his about the hypothetical cute nerdy girl who starts doing webcam porn ( :stare:

), just so you know that I'm aware of who we're talking about.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2015 09:41

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Trammel posted:

The thing that bugs me about the sex-ninjas is that they supposedly speak a tonal language, but really, really quietly and discretely, assisted by hand signals.

Living in the country with the largest number of tonal language speakers in the world, I'm convinced Rothfuss doesn't have a loving clue about tonal languages.

I think the logic goes: tonal languages = asia = martial arts dudes

# ¿ Jul 28, 2015 07:11

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

And consider the oxymoron of "a magic system". That authors can take a force of enchantment and irrationality, and systematize it (and without any sense of irony as with Jack Vance), tells me that fantasy literature is broken.

What a load of bullshit.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2015 14:52

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Srice posted:

Last year Kazou Ishiguro released a book for the first time in literally a decade and heck, I was glad of it.

Comparing a dude who writes single novels with a dude who is writing a series is silly.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2016 14:33

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

BananaNutkins posted:

What's not better than Rothfuss (feel free to add):

Adrian Tchaikovsky

What?

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 19:43

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Harrow posted:

I mean, later in the book she and the gay guy she's forced to mate with end up having lots of good sex with someone they find very attractive, so I don't think this is necessarily the point Jemisin was trying to get across.

That part doesn't jive with the critique so it can be safely discarded.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2017 21:08

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Evil Fluffy posted:

He's right about that D&D-campaign-turned-novel. Malazan is a goddamn mess.

20 trilogies/duologies worth of characters squeezed into a 10-book series.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2017 01:01

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

the childfucking thread is thataway

# ¿ Sep 1, 2017 21:25

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 07:42

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

the obnoxious prick whom everyone was clapping for when he was savaging the whipping boy du jour (with cause, to be fair) has turned around and started making GBS threads on the genre as a whole and people somehow didn't expect that as if his posts didn't exude cuntiness

# ¿ Sep 3, 2017 09:33

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Patrick Rothfuss: Technical Difficulties