|
ultrachrist posted:The arrogant young buck vs. broken man dichotomy could have worked if it wasn't a bloated fantasy novel and moved quicker and had more of old Kvothe. For how well edited the book is supposed to be, you have entirely superfluous sections. The long period of time where he is a beggar is completely pointless since he easily adapts back to normal life (which is completely ridiculous btw; Can you imagine having your parents killed at a young age and living several years on the street and not being socially/emotionally hosed for at least a few years??). The ending is equally pointless and feels really out of place. This is my issue with the whole thing. I don't care that he's a crazy prodigy, the problem is that he doesn't change at all through the whole thing. The whole point is a character study of what's supposed to be a fascinating person, and he's the exact same dude on the first page as the last. I think there's literally one paragraph when he snaps back after the whole beggar section. Watched his parents murdered, spent his formative years on the street literally never talking to anyone, gets ambiguously raped I think, and it "all comes flooding back" in one paragraph. He's not behind on studies, still light years ahead of people 5 years older than him. Not out of practice having not touched an instrument for years, still a prodigy. Not the least bit of social maladjustment, PTSD, trust issues, nothing. The result is that it seems completely self-indulgent, it's just there so the protagonist can have the darkest of dark pasts. It serves no narrative function and has no lingering effect. I think this is what people are getting at when they complain he's too perfect. It's not a problem that he's too smart, you could write a really awesome book about the world's greatest prodigy, especially one with all the crippling psychological issues this dude should have. But this isn't really it. I don't mean to get all angry, it's not terrible. The writing is really pretty good when he's just writing the story (when he's making a conscious effort to Write, like the descriptions of the girl or the opening page about silence, it's cringeingly purple). But there really isn't any characterisation in the whole book. He's the most boringly static character ever, his enemies are just straight up bad, stupid people, his best friends are nonentity sidekicks. It's a pretty fundamental flaw for a book about what made him the man he is, that should be entirely character driven.
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2010 16:51
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 08:07 |
|
|
Dr Scoofles posted:The young Kvoth narrative is, however, just a story told by a washed up innkeeper to a captive audience. Chances are he's going to bullshit to make himself sound bad rear end, I would. Just because old Kvoth says it happened doesn't mean we have to beleive him. True, but he's supposed to be a storytelling prodigy as well. I can definitely buy him telling a rose-tinted self aggrandizing story, but it shoudln't be a bad one. See basic characterisation failure described at tedious length above.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2010 17:58
|
|
|
anathenema posted:I used to think Name of the Wind was objectively bad. I've since come to realize that it's really just not a book for me... I kinda wanna reiterate what I said earlier, because I think a lot of people are complaining about the wrong things and the defences are pretty valid. I dislike this book because it follows one character through his early life, as he apparently matures into the legendary hero he's gonna become. It's entirely character based. And yet, there's no character development whatsoever. I don't dislike it because he's too perfect, or constantly talks about how awesome he is. That's intentional. He's a narcissistic prodigy who spent his early life training with a troupe of actors and has an obsession with mythologising himself. That's fine, and could have worked really well. I don't dislike it because of the occasionally retardedly florid writing, or goony goony atttitudes towards women or any of that other crap, because those are bad, but the sort of flaws that loads of books have and you overlook if it's engaging enough. But, I really think it is objectively bad. I'm saying it basically fails fundamentally at what it's trying to do, with the complete failure to develop a character or have any of his experiences meaningfully affect him. Makes the book completely substance-less. The whole book sort of felt like an introduction, like I was kind of pissed off at the end that the writing had been good enough to string me along for the whole book without ever developing into something substantial. It's a shame because like people have said, when he isn't going overboard the writing is pretty good. I kind of wish he'd written a self-contained book or two (I don't know if he has?) before diving straight into some three-book magnum opus epic. Because this book might have been good if he had a bit more experience of structure and character, but I think he hasn't given himself much to work with. Felt very style-over-substancy. (I don't know nearly enough about writing to make that assessment, that's just kind of what it feels like).
|
|
#
¿
Nov 16, 2010 22:59
|
|
|
Octoduck posted:I had fun reading this fantasy novel. WELL YOU WERE WRONG
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2010 19:23
|
|
|
A Nice Boy posted:I dunno, I think he goes through some pretty hard poo poo, especially at the beginning when he's homeless. I just think that the fact that it's being narrated by him in the future takes some of the danger and suspense out of it, as we know that no matter what happens, he's going to survive to become this badass wizard. Right, and what happens? He snaps out of it, then goes and totally fleeces some pawnbroker guy for his book, because his social skills haven't been slightly eroded by avoiding contact with any human being for years. Picks up an instrument and makes complete strangers break down in tears, because he's not out of practice musically after several years. Goes to university, takes over his first class and shows up the mean teacher because he's still way ahead of everyone five years older than him.. That's what the dude means by no conflict. It's not because you know he'll survive, it's because there's a lot of "oh the terrible hardships I went through" and "the tragedy took a terrible toll on me" but no actual consequences. EDIT: which is why we call him a Mary Sue, not just because he's good at everything. A couple of people in this thread keep making that point, and people keep coming back with "why can't you accept him being good at everything he's supposed to be and he's exaggerating anyway". We know. Melche fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Nov 21, 2010 |
|
#
¿
Nov 21, 2010 19:24
|
|
|
Melche posted:EDIT: which is why we call him a Mary Sue, not just because he's good at everything. A couple of people in this thread keep making that point, and people keep coming back with "why can't you accept him being good at everything he's supposed to be and he's exaggerating anyway". We know. mabbott74 posted:And my issue is that everyone forgets that this is a book that is a biographical. Not only a biographical, but one of a person who was raised by actor/entertainers. Of course the people he hated are going to be represented as stupid and ugly. Of course he is going to be 10x smarter than anyone around him. It's his perspective! Dude... we really aren't forgetting that. We know. Once again, the problem isn't that he's too smart, it's that the book completely lacks characterisation or drama. I honestly wonder what people think is going to happen in the next book that would make this one good. Someone turning up from his past and saying "that's not how it went, you only came third in that class" wouldn't make it good. Him failing at something important wouldn't make it good, unless it actually led to some character development. Seriously, what do you think? The first line of book 2 is gonna go hahaha! The last book was intentionally bad, here's the actual character development he never mentioned because he was too busy making himself look good! Unreliable narrators can be awesome, and this book could be really cool if you were gradually figuring out what a mess he was through his side of the story. But no one's really getting anything like that, you're just saying he's obviously exaggarating, the payoff will probably be in the next book. It would take something pretty loving special in the next book to basically justify this one being intentionally bad. Not to mention the guys he's telling his story to tearing up when he talks about Denna and making GBS threads themselves when he gets pissed off and his eyes flash with rage or what-the-gently caress-ever give the impression he's depressingly serious about the whole thing.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2010 15:13
|
|
|
I quite liked the Prince of Nothing, so I wanna say what I think is the key difference. Kellhus isn't the protagonist. He's not really a character at all, because he's barely human. What he is, narratively, is the Terminator (except not explicitly evil). You get some first-person poo poo from him for the same reason the beginning of the Terminator films follow the robot around - to establish what an unstoppable motherfucker it is, and how hosed everyone else is. The actual story is how the real characters deal with this poo poo. That's what Kellhus is. The other guys aren't supporting cast, they're the main characters (even though they have less effect on main events). Personally I think he's better than Kvothe, because he has a better backstory than "basically just a genius" and more interesting goals than "wants revenge, no rush". But the point is, if he was actually the main character, the books would suck. Because however cool the stuff going down was, you'd see it through the eyes of a complete non-character. It would be like the film following the T-1000 around looking for the Connors for the entire time, instead of following them around knowing it's just behind them, seeing how they deal with that, and have it rock up in a truck and tear poo poo up now and again. So yeah, there's two examples of how to use a super-perfect guy properly. Like you said, if you want him there, get your characterisation in elsewhere (or actually make him interesting despite being a genius, like House or someone)
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2010 20:34
|
|
|
Eh, people who think something's totally poo poo don't have any more to say than people who think it's totally great. The reason there was so much discussion going on here is that there's enough good for people to care about the poo poo. If it was Twilight or something we'd just have stopped reading after one chapter and not bothered posting anything. I think the reason me and a couple of others have been sperging so hard is that the writing's good enough to pull you in, so you're pretty invested in the whole thing when you gradually realise (I maintain) it's pretty substance-less. All our whingeing hasn't been us looking for stuff to complain about, it's the reaction of "wait, this never loving went anywhere".
|
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2010 22:29
|
|
|
Except as people have pointed out like a hundred times in this thread, it's not a fifteen year old writing, it's an actual adult. And when we zip back to the present nothing changes, he's still got the same ridiculous attitude towards the girl, still shocks and amazes people with his godlike intellect, still makes grown men poo poo themselves when his eyes flash with badassness or whatever. Look, we were all hoping it would be an interesting unreliable narrator story, and the kid's view of himself being totally amazing, everyone who doesn't like him being a bumbling cartoon villain, and all the creepy crap about the girl would get shown up. But that really never materialised. The adult version is exactly the same as the kid, and there's every indication that the author completely agrees with him. No one's complaining that they didn't like the concept, everyone's agreed that if done well the whole magical prodigy thing could be pretty cool. We're complaining about poor, one-dimensional characterisation, and while yes there's no accounting for taste, that's about as close to an objective criticism you can get.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2010 19:21
|
|
|
I don't know about everyone else, but I've been describing the author as goony, not the character. A Confederacy of Dunces and the Catcher in the Rye are books that describe flawed, goony characters really well. This is what happens when a goony author tries to write a cool, deep character, but his gooniness seeps through (at least partially) unintentionally. Personally, my suspension of disbelief was pretty well blown every time Kvothe swanned through some overblown tragedy or bumbling bad guy's plot with no actual consequences.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 21, 2010 12:33
|
|
|
mabbott74 posted:This is my biggest problem with some comments. People seem to forget that it is a story of a 15 year old who has zero experience with women. It is also told in first person by a person who was raised by elite performers; and is, apparently, washed up. Man, everyone has answered this so drat many times, and still every third post is someone telling us we're forgetting it. No I'm not forgetting that, and if I was I'd have been reminded by every single post in this thread, including my own. Look, the insight that he might not be a completely reliable narrator, and might even be exaggerating his story, doesn't magically give him character depth. For an unreliable narrator to work as a device you actually have to do something with it. As has been said over and over again, we'd all really like to have read an interesting story where you figure out who he really is through a haze of his bullshit. But it just never happens, and you can't just pretend it has. Throughout the whole book every other character and the author (in the third person parts) treat him as the exact ridiculous figure he claims to be. Saying "oho well he's probably exaggerating" isn't enough when nothing whatsoever is done with that possibility.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 21, 2010 20:38
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:So would I like this series if I find mary-sue type characters really annoying? It might be worth reading through the thread. There's a faction that thinks it's poo poo and a faction that thinks it's fun and the other faction are being a bunch of stick-in-the-muds. It doesn't descend too far into a bitch-fight, and spoilers are tagged. I didn't like it, but it's not really worth re-opening the argument. I just dropped into the thread to have a look at that exerpt.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 21, 2011 19:22
|
|
|
So I was one of the dudes really making GBS threads on the first of these two books, but for some reason (actually it's because it's up free online somewhere) I tried out the second one. I didn't get all the way through it, and I'm not gonna post much because there's no point making GBS threads up the thread if some people are enjoying it, but I will say this: it is loving hilarious how Rothfuss thinks sex and fighting work in the exact same ridiculous way. I broke the 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2011 16:48
|
|
|
Yo, it has been picked up on that Kvothe is supposed to be an unreliable narrator. The thing is, Rothfuss announces loudly that he's an unreliable narrator, talks constantly about he intentionally builds up his own legend that doesn't completely correspond to the facts, but then doesn't really develop the concept in any interesting way. You only have to look at the present tense bits, the bits that aren't written from Kvothe's perspective. It's all "kvothe looked like a pretty normal guy, then someone pissed him off and eyes flashed with green fire and everyone in the room shat themselves at the glimpse of his true badassness emerging like the sun from behind a grey cloud". Point is, there is nothing in either the past or present sections that actually develops his character in the interesting ways that might follow from him being an unreliable narrator. It doesn't read like a conman talking himself into a legend, it reads like an adolescent writing what he thinks of as a genuinely badass character, with some stuff about intentionally building up his own rep thrown in. A lot of people in this thread seem to see the bit that screams "he's an unreliable narrator!" and just assume none of the events happened as they did and actually, a much better book happened. And I don't know, this'll all be revealed in the last line of the last book. That would be great, everyone agrees that concept'd make a good book, but the thing is that book hasn't been written.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 17, 2011 23:38
|
|
|
I'm not saying it's all a set up, I'm saying Rothfuss tried to write an unreliable narrator but fell in love with his character and didn't really have the balls to go through with making him genuinely flawed. So again and again you get him telling you how he intentionally crafted this legend of himself, but then nothing's done with that, he never really look less than awesome. Or he keeps "loving up", but never in a serious way that takes away from him being fundamentally amazing. And yeah, I don't know why I dislike it so much. I mean I think it's a pretty bad book, but for some reason it really gets under my skin.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 18, 2011 00:19
|
|
|
keiran_helcyan posted:Imagine there's this race of super hot ninjas who want to have sex with guys at the drop of a hat. And here's the best part: they don't see men as having any connection with reproduction! If you knock up a lady ninja and skip town, she won't see any problem with it! Also there are no gay people. In this completely sexually liberal society that hasn't figured out the link between sex and reproduction, and if you think about it for 5 minutes probably wouldn't even have a concept of heterosexuality. (I'm not accussing him of being homophobic, just saying stuff like that and the animal husbandry thing makes it pretty clear his aim in writing about them was less building up a consistent believable society, and more convoluted excuses for sex ninjas). People harp on about the sex in the books because it looks like in the end, what his writing is really about is creepy wish fulfillment. Stuff like that is just where it comes out most garishly.
|
|
#
¿
May 17, 2012 11:55
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 08:07 |
|
|
HeroOfTheRevolution posted:I think he specifically meant in the Adem culture. Yeah exactly, like I said I wasn't accusing him of being homophobic for not having enough representation of gay people overall or anything. I was saying with the Adem he wrote up a society of total sexual permissiveness and didn't have a single mention of it, although it would clearly be a logical inevitable part of their culture. Which to my mind kind of undermines the idea that he's trying to invent an interesting consistent culture, rather than writing Captain Bonesalot meets harkavagrant's Strong Independent Characters with a hand down his pants.
|
|
#
¿
May 17, 2012 22:38
|
|