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Apologies if this has been posted in this thread and I missed it, but fantasy author Jo Walton has been doing an extremely detailed re-read of The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear over at tor, and there's a lot of useful speculation in the posts and comments. The index is here: http://www.tor.com/features/series/patrick-rothfuss-reread
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Jun 6, 2011 18:12
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Evfedu posted:Also: Kvothe killed/fought off a bunch of stoney spider-demons in book 1, and was then leathered by two punchy soldiers in book two. Did he lose shitloads of fighting prowess overnight? It's strongly suggested that Kvothe threw that soldier fight deliberately.
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Jul 18, 2011 05:33
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soru posted:Off topic: I just realized this and I'm an idiot for being so slow, but.. this is the Cthaeh, isn't it? A lone tree in the middle of a field of long grass. Yep, that's the Cthaeh. I know I keep pointing people to Jo Walton's reread: http://www.tor.com/features/series/patrick-rothfuss-reread But it's worth taking a look at. A couple of posts relevant to the Cthaeh: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/01/ro...s-on-the-ctheah http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/02/rothfuss-reread-the-wise-mans-fear-part-19-all-their-choices-will-be-the-wrong-ones
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Mar 9, 2012 00:23
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RebBrownies posted:I finished the first book awhile ago and loved it, and I am 76 pages into The Wise Man's Fear. Am I in for a poo poo time? Nah, you're fine. There are two big points in WMF that are brought up again and again, the Felurian chapters and the Adem reproduction theory. One of those is like a chapter long and the other is like a throwaway half a page. If you can ignore those, you'll be fine.
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May 16, 2012 21:33
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Danhenge posted:Yeah, that's the song No, they are different. The rhyme Kvothe is chewed out over is just a rhyme. "Seven things has Lady Lackless Keeps them underneath her black dress ..." And so on. Around location 1732 of the Kindle version of the Name of the Wind. That's attributed to children playing. The song with the line "it's worth my life to make my wife, not tally a lot less" is written by Kvothe's father, starting at location 5657 (page 274) of Wise Man's Fear.
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Dec 8, 2012 01:16
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Tangentially related to one of the perpetual discussion points: http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...sciousness.html
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Jan 11, 2013 16:40
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calandryll posted:I think the thing that irritated me the most about the second half of that book, was his comment about the pirates. Oh I spent a year with them, did all sorts of stuff but you don't want to hear that, let me go on about my time with Felurian. I think that paragraph is my favorite of the book. Different strokes, I guess.
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Jan 13, 2013 03:28
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devnulll posted:Read and really enjoyed both books. Any idea when the third book will appear? I predict about 2018. Rothfuss is having too much fun being an Acclaimed Fantasy Writer to actually buckle down and figure out how to make all of the hints and foreshadowing pay off in a way that doesn't suck. As far as real information, there is none. From a November interview: quote:R: I don’t suppose you know at all about the release date of book 3? And from the blog: quote:When will book 3 be out?
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Feb 1, 2013 19:16
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Multiplesarcasm posted:Considering we haven't heard of any king, so far in this in Kingkiller chronicle, I think it's safe to say that book three is either going to have to include an absolute fuckton or it can't possibly be just a trilogy. The king is going to be Ambrose. If you've been watching, Ambrose has been moving up the line of succession pretty rapidly.
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Jul 25, 2013 04:55
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jivjov posted:Sounds good to me...call me squeamish if you want, but having a rapist as the protagonist might sour me on a book... Certainly worked for me and the Thomas Covenant series.
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Aug 1, 2013 02:59
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The Supreme Court posted:I've read that not narrating the pirate story was Rothfuss showing off that his book was different; turning the stereotype of an action sequence on its head and effectively saying "the quiet bits of this book are the important bits/ develop the story". If it is, I reckon that's a crap reason for skipping an interesting bit of story in favour of narrating 200-300+ pages of tedium, especially given he breaks that theme to chuck in a couple of totally disconnected short stories at the end about fairy sex and sex village. It would have worked well - and I enjoyed the idea that we were only getting the parts of the Kvothe story in detail that Kvothe thought were important/interesting - if the Felurian story had been a lot shorter and focused more on the Tree of Doom. e;f,b (slightly different emphasis, but ok).
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Oct 23, 2013 21:22
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TOOT BOOT posted:I can't figure out whether I should keep these books on my Amazon wishlist. The way you guys describe them make them sound terrible but you love them at the same time? I love the first book. I wish more plot and less stupid poo poo happened in the second book, but I've read it a couple of times and enjoyed it. So get the first book and see what you think. Personally, I love pages like this: quote:My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as "quothe." Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I've had more names than anyone has a right to. The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it's spoken, can mean The Flame, The Thunder, or The Broken Tree.
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Oct 24, 2013 01:26
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StoicRomance posted:A great place to start would be Jo Walton's TOR re-read. Her analysis and their threads cover most of them. Here's the Jo Walton reread main page: http://www.tor.com/features/series/patrick-rothfuss-reread The posts titled "Speculative Summary" have all the different theories.
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Feb 12, 2014 01:15
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Above Our Own posted:
WastedJoker posted:What? For Devi, past sexual assault is a (but not the only) reasonable interpretation of some of the relevant quotes, which I've put below. quote:"[Devi] was expelled for Conduct Unbecoming. There was no proof of malfeasance."
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Feb 17, 2014 22:11
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Anarkii posted:Both Lunch and Abercrombie were criticized for the terribly written scenes. It works really well for Abercrombie. It's not really meant to turn you on or make you feel better about the characters so much as to underline that they are broken.
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May 19, 2014 15:30
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SolTerrasa posted:He comes by his high tuition honestly, by loving up the exams. Which makes no sense, of course, unless the bursar has all sorts of ability to fiddle the numbers (in which case, why split with Kvothe)?
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Jul 2, 2014 21:46
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Above Our Own posted:So he overcharges the Maer on an already high tution; the University gets more money, the bursar gets more money, and Kvothe gets more money. ...except that the book states that Kvothe makes 50% of his tuition over 10 talents, which is explicitly calculated twice. If the bursar is overcharging the Maer, there's no reason not for this to be a flat fee.
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Jul 3, 2014 00:48
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Laverna posted:I don't see how any one could try to claim that [Kvothe] isn't a Mary Sue, because he's pretty much a textbook definition of the term. There is no way someone could write a character so obviously Sue-ish and not realise what they've done, especially not someone who's been on the internet before in their lifetime. And I'm sure any basic writing training will tell you about how important character flaws are. Eh. There are a lot of good books where the main characters are complete and utter badasses who, to the extent they have flaws, aren't defined by them. For example, look at Corwin and Merlin from the Chronicles of Amber, or Sam from Lord of Light, or Jack of Shadows from Jack of Shadows, or most of Zelazny's other protagonists... ...while those characters all probably fit the Mary Sue definition, that doesn't make the book suck. Similarly, Kvothe being hypercompetent doesn't make The Name of the Wind or Wise Man's Fear suck. Felurian, sex ninjas, and the fact that Kvothe is somehow inexplicably unable to figure out he's romancing his aunt for the Maer, makes Wise Man's Fear suck.
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Aug 8, 2014 19:15
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Karnegal posted:It's been a LONG time since I read any Zelazny, but doesn't his cast have quite a few hyper-competent people as opposed to a singular individual? I mean we're essentially dealing with demi-gods, right? Typically, yes, there are multiple hyper-competent people around. But take Corwin as an example. He loses once, temporarily, that we really see in the books (captured by Eric etc. etc.), and after that it's pretty much a straight series of triumphs (barring Gerard putting the fear of God into him) for the next 4 books.
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Aug 8, 2014 20:20
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Benson Cunningham posted:Sam, an actual god He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god. Benson Cunningham posted:Yeah, just that one time where he lost and they burned his loving eyes out. Right. Long term consequences of them having burned his loving eyes out? None. His loving eyes grew back and Corwin escaped by the end of the same book. Then Corwin goes back and recruits a new generation of the same soldiers he used last time, and wins. Corwin losing his eyes is essentially equivalent to Kvothe having all his family and friends killed, or being poisoned with whatever the hell that inhibition thing was, or seeing that evil tree (that last may actually have more consequences).
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Aug 8, 2014 20:27
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Benson Cunningham posted:By your argument, anything that happens to a hero doesn't matter as long as they go on to achieve one or more of their goals. Corwin is permanently changed by his time in prison and his blinding. It causes long lasting traits to emerge in his character. In book five, the woman he loves dies. The curse mentioned above. His imprisonment for the second 5 books. Nah. What I'm trying to say here is: 1) Books can be enjoyable even if their protagonists are supreme badasses who always win. 2) Kvothe and Corwin aren't the same character, but they definitely have some similar qualities. Everything else is window dressing and nitpicking (which is fun, so in general order): Kvothe is also changed by his obstacles. The fact that Corwin was so badass that he didn't even have to die to pull off a death curse isn't really a knock against him; Corwin is Corwin's only real problem. Being imprisoned offscreen in the 7 years between Zelazny writing Amber books was only so that Zelazny could switch to a different hypercompetent protagonist (who is, in fact, even more special than the predecessor).
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Aug 9, 2014 02:02
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Laverna posted:I would have probably been able to take the tree part a bit more seriously if I hadn't stopped paying attention around then. Tree tl;dr: the tree is evil, has perfect precognition and will only talk to you to gently caress you up. If the tree appears in a play, it's always a sign of horrible tragedy. There is an entire fairy group dedicated to killing anyone who has seen the tree. Or just look at the reread comments on chapters 102 and 103 here: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/02/rothfuss-reread-the-wise-mans-fear-part-19-all-their-choices-will-be-the-wrong-ones Also Jesus loving Christ, that reread is from February 2012 and we still don't have the third book. What the gently caress has Rothfuss been doing for the last 3 years? ulmont fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 16:52
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Whalley posted:He ran a Youtube channel for Geek and Sundry where he had video chats with other authors about literary conventions in the fantasy genre, he teaches at a university, he's been on ridiculous amounts of book tours thanks to his insane popularity, and he's a writer for the upcoming game Torment: Tides of Numenara. Plus, he writes short stories, runs a charity, and is raising a young kid. I mean, the guy's not a great writer, but he's also not only a novelist. quote:April 18, 2007 ...oh, wait. Whalley posted:Sorry he's not writing books you don't like faster?
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Aug 20, 2014 18:33
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Xaris posted:How was the Bast Novella (that was in Rogues right?)? Pretty good. Better than at least half of Wise Man's Fear.
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Sep 30, 2014 18:26
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Boing posted:So I started reading something else. A lot of people in this thread recommended The First Law, so I'm a few chapters into the audiobook of The Blade Itself, but it seems like it hasn't really picked up steam yet. The Abercrombie thread is here, but the plot will start going interesting places towards the end of the Blade Itself and moreso in the next book. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3293685
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Oct 8, 2014 15:09
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Dienes posted:I love the setting and ancillary characters, but Jorg or whatever is like if Kvothe and King Joffrey had a love child. Yeah, gently caress that guy and that trilogy. I'm going to try the spinoff though (Prince of Fools).
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Oct 24, 2014 02:23
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Boing posted:I definitely didn't read that bit! Maybe it's in the next book? That, or my audiobook skipped it for some reason. It's the second-to-last chapter of the first book, titled "The Bloody-Nine."
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Oct 28, 2014 16:45
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Solice Kirsk posted:So we're all in agreement that Kvothe changed his real name and thats why he sucks at magic and everything now right? quote:But what I really believe is this variant. Part of his name, the V and the H, are shut in the Thrice Locked Chest, the way part of the moon’s name was shut in Jax’s box.
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Oct 30, 2014 15:56
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Khizan posted:One thought I had about it was that it came from a broken oath; Kvothe swears his serious oaths by his name, his power, and his good (left/right) hand and now he's Kote, he can't do sympathy, and he can't fight. ...except he can both do sympathy and fight, at least under certain circumstances. Kote breaks a bottle of strawberry wine in Chapter 6 that he's not touching: quote:Kote stood with his back to the room, a stillness in his body and a terrible silence clenched between his teeth. His right hand, tangled in a clean white cloth, made a slow fist. Eight inches away a bottle shattered. The smell of strawberries filled the air alongside the sound of splintering glass.
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Oct 30, 2014 16:54
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Effigy posted:There's a part in one of the books, can't recall now, after the fire at the fishery. The professor guy quotes something in his own language, which translated to 'Expect disaster every seven years'. One of the words was 'Kote'. Wouldn't be surprised if Kvothe changed his name to disaster, and that's why his poo poo's all hosed up now. It's in The Name of the Wind, at page 495 (Chapter 67). quote:“Do you know the saying ‘Chan Vaen edan Kote’?”
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Nov 4, 2014 20:12
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Ornamented Death posted:When NotW was first published, he made a huge deal about how the other two books were substantially complete and only walked that back when he realized (or was told by his editor) that what he wrote as a college student was worthless as anything more than a detailed outline. Yup. quote:April 18, 2007 In November 2012, Rothfuss thought he would have to "rush" to get Day 3 out by the end of 2013. You'd think two extra years would be enough to fix that "rush" problem. but apparently not. Hilariously, he later then said it "probably won't be 2015," which people in 2013 took to mean "2014" rather than "2016 or after I'm dead." quote:[Update: Pat has said in another interview that “It probably won’t be 2015, but it isn’t going to be this year as well.” Which means the release date for book 3 will probably be in 2014. — Just thought I’d add this is, since most of you have come here from trying to find the release date
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Jan 17, 2015 06:45
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Wittgen posted:I'll offer another comparison. Harry Potter was about a million words total. When Doors of Stone comes out, Kingkiller Chronicles should be pushing a million words as well. Harry Potter was published over ten years. If Doors of Stone doesn't come out until 2017, Kingkiller Chronicles will also have been published over ten years. Harry Potter - 4224 pages (taken from a NYT article presumably using the US editions), released over 8.33 years (September 1998-July 2007). So 507 pages of story released / year. Kingkiller Chronicles - 1677 pages (taken from Amazon's page showing the page numbers for the US Kindle edition), released over 7.83 years so far (March 2007-January 2015). 214 pages / year so far. Even if Day 3 were to come out today and be the same size as Wise Man's Fear (so another 1001 pages, for a total of 2678), Rothfuss would be at 343 pages / year, or significantly slower than Rowling. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire clocks in at 262 pages / year by this metric, for the record. So it seems to me that Rothfuss is significantly slower than your Rowling example in releasing pages of story, and that Rothfuss is clearly on the Martin side of the spectrum (and Martin is known to be frustratingly slow).
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Jan 17, 2015 16:19
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anilEhilated posted:To be fair he'd probably axe the whole Mary Sue issue and made some proletarian nobody the one who actually did poo poo while whatshisface gets the credit. Kvothe, for all his faults, is much more proletarian than, say, Ambrose... ...I mean, fine, he's on the assembly line in a magic factory, but he's still working on an assembly line.
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Jan 20, 2015 20:55
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Benson Cunningham posted:Probably where you forcefully distinguish the difference between burning and glowing. The Name of the Wind posted:Kilvin growled out a couple words and pounded his fist on the table, each thump as his hand came down was accompanied by a staccato burst of reddish light that welled up from his hand. “No sympathy. I do not want an ever-glowing lamp. I want an ever-burning one.” The Slow Regard of Silent Things posted:There was just enough light to see the pale shape of her arm as her fingers found the dropper bottle on her bedshelf. She unscrewed it and let a single drip fall into Foxen’s dish. After a moment he slowly brightened into a faint gloaming blue.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:41
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MrFlibble posted:NOTE: I've spent the last five minutes thinking about this post, and the kind of posts you usually make on a forum like something awful. And this isn't like most of them. But thats ok. This is a post just for the people who like this sort of post. But if you don't like this post? Well this post isn't for you, and thats ok.  Srice posted:Even if you ignore that novela it has only been 4 years since WMF. Plenty of authors take more time between books! MrFlibble posted:But when he said he had the whole thing written, or mapped out or whatever he was being deliberately misleading. MrFlibble posted:Personally I don't care that its looking like 5 years or more between book 2 and 3. Whenever I imagine book 3 I think it will have probably 10% cool stuff, maybe an explanation for the mysterious poo poo thats gone down in the present of the novel and 90% D&D adventure quests, petty feuds between Kvothe and Ambrose and hey maybe sex barbarians/vikings to go with the fairies and ninjas.
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Jun 11, 2015 16:05
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Rurutia posted:So I guess it's not within the realm of possibility that he's grown in the many years since having written most of the books in college and realize the flaws in them that we've noted throughout and is probably rewriting the vast majority of it as a part of his revision process. Also, hey, let's go back to Rothfuss in his own words: quote:April 18, 2007 So, in 2007, Rothfuss thought with all his obsession over writing the third book would be out in 2010. EDIT: If he originally wrote most of the books in college (usually a four year timeline), he's had enough time to rewrite everything in Book 3 from scratch after publishing Book 2. Face it, releasing Book 3 is not in Rothfuss' top priorities as revealed by his actions. ulmont fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 16:33
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MrFlibble posted:The copies I read didn't have anything like that in front of the actual story (or part of the story, like stephen kings dark tower note). Is there a printing with notes at the front? If so then I guess thats not an insult seeing as how the dude actually served in a war. It's the 1966 second edition. It has some rambling, including: quote:The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dűr would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves. It's also found in the Kindle 50th anniversary edition.
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Jun 11, 2015 18:04
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esn2500 posted:Could you go into the sex ninjas more? Heard this a few times from other goons. Did they use sex as a weapon or something, or were they just a buncha nympho assassins lol quote:She sighed. “Kvothe, you need to remember. You come from a barbarous place. Much of what you grew up thinking is quite wrongheaded and foolish. None of it as much as the strange customs you barbarians have built around your sexplay.”
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Jul 21, 2015 18:22
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Jimbot posted:Rothfuss should turn the next book into a 10 page short story as a pro-contraceptive cautionary tale as all the Adem and Kvothe succumb to STDs. It would be utterly perfect. Ah, but remember, while the Adem laugh off the idea that men have any part in making children, they are aware of STDs (xref the quoted "Are you free from disease?").
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Jul 21, 2015 18:45
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Zore posted:also they haven't figured out the link between sex and childbirth because all the women just fuckin love eating this natural birth control plant and get pregnant when they stop eating it. Because apparently everyone is boning like five times a day with random people. Page 843 posted:I asked her if she had ever known a woman to get pregnant who had not had sex in the previous months. She said she didn’t know of any woman who would willingly go three months without sex, except those who were traveling among the barbarians, or very ill, or very old.
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Jul 21, 2015 19:05
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