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Wise Man's Fear X (SPOILERS)


Elaena Targaryen

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I'm sorry if there is already an open thread, I did search but I could not find one for WMF. Anyway I really needed to dump some BS I've been working on from WMF so I just had to start a new thread since I could not find an ongoing one.

previous thread with links to all the threads thanks to thistlepong

Re: Denna's Letter

I need either help or criticism with what I have attempted to do decoding Denna's Letter that had the unusual capitalization. I was immediately intrigued and at first I, like others before me, went with the K I I I Y I I O I I O S .... and so on, route but I felt their were more than a few glaring problems with decoding the Letter this way. First being that it's way to prosaic for PR, Kvothe and Denna, who are all more the poetic dreamer types - it has to be a code Denna would actually use and a code Kvothe can realistically decipher - so I started leaning towards that maybe the words themselves that are capitalized form a verse. Another thing was there are too many I's for it to work and personally I felt that Denna's Letter itself would have to give you a clue as to what the I's really meant. So between these two problems I found a different cipher with the words themselves, whether it works or not in any way remains to be seen. I wondered if there could be something like "not tally a lot less" or some verse, or whatever, it needed to make sense in the story.

This is all way out of my league but I had fun with my disastrous attempt. At first I felt there might be some rhythm happening but it continued to become more complex the further I went, to the point I felt it would have been too difficult for Kvothe to figure out, so being burnt-out I gave up and came here for aid from those with more experience and knowledge in these areas. I can accept my attempt being invalidated and at the least I only hope to inspire someone with more talent to see if something can be worked out. There were just so many variables, times I forget things, that going back over and over I lost any rhythm. When I found codes and worked out something feasible I would find more codes so I would need to rework it again, I began to wonder if it was just a coincidence or simply seeing what I wanted to make it work better... you know just taking things too far. Anyway, I will embarrassingly show y'all what I have come up with but just please remember that I consider this a failed attempt.

First I'll try to explain how I found a code so you can hopefully have some understanding of my crazy method. The capitalized words from the Letter start; "Kvothe I'm Imre I You I I Opportunity". So I thought maybe Denna was trying to say - Kvothe - 'I'm Imre' is Imre means me, Denna - 'I You' is all single I's means you, Kvothe - 'I I Opportunity' is double I's means Opportunity - if that makes sense. Then I also played around with futherinse/Furtherence/Furtherance and Kist so if anyone would like a more detailed explanation just ask, I don't want to pile more BS on top of this growing pile, lol, plus some lines I inverted, which really made me lost after a while. Here's the final code and the message I've worked out - which is an embarrassing disaster. (Btw, the message makes it sound like Denna can see the future.) Also I'll put Denna's Letter here first for reference.

"Kvothe,
I’m sorry to leave Imre without word or warning. I sent You a message the night of my departure, but I expect you never received it.
I have gone abroad looking for greener pasture and better Opportunity. I am fond of Imre, and enjoy the pleasure of your Occasional, though Sporadic, company, but it is an expensive city in which to live, and my prospects have grown slender of late.
Yll is lovely, all rolling hills. I find the weather quite to my liking, it is warmer and the air smells of the sea. It seems I might pass an entire winter without being brought to bed by my lungs. My first in years.
I have spent some time in the Small Kingdoms and saw a skirmish between two bands of mounted men. Such a crashing and Screaming of Horses you have never heard. I have spent some time afloat as well, and learned all manner of sailor’s knots, and how to spit properly. Also, my Cussing has been greatly broadened.
If you ask politely when we next meet, I may demonstrate my newfound skills.
I have seen my first Adem Mercenary. (They call them blood-shirts here.) She is hardly bigger than me, with quite the most remarkable grey eyes. She is pretty, but strange and quiet, endlessly twitching. I have not seen her fight and am not sure I wish to. Though I am curious.
I am still enamoured of the harp. And am currently housing with a skilled gentleman (whom I shall not name) for the furthurinse of my study in this.
I have drunk some wine while Writing this letter. I mention this to excuse my above spelling of the word Furtherence. Furtherance. Kist. You know what I mean.
I apologize for not writing sooner, but I have been a great deal traveling and not until now have I had Means to write a Letter. Now that I have done, I expect it might be a while longer before I find a traveler I trust to start this missive on its long road back to you.
I think of you often and fondly.

Yours,
D.

Pstscrpt. I hope your lute case is serving you well."

Imre = Denna
I = Kvothe
I I = Opportunity
I I I = Means
She = Adem
small 'you' = Kingdoms
Furtherance = Further In See
Kist = Chest
D = Opportunity

Kvothe,

I'm Denna You Kingdoms
You I Occasional Sporadic
It My Opportunity Yll
Such You Small Kingdoms
Kingdoms Screaming Horses You
Kingdoms Cussing You
Also If You Adem Mercenary
Adem Opportunity
Though Further In See
Opportunity And Opportunity Writing
Further In See You
Chest Kingdoms You
You Opportunity Means Letter
Now You Means Kingdoms
You Opportunity Kingdoms
You Kingdoms

I can see a lot here though I know that I ended up forcing this so much that it can not be the real message in any way, to say this is imperfect is a enormous understatement. However I think this mess could say something like - they will see each other occasionally but Denna will go to Yll to help Kvothe and in the end he will go to the Small Kingdoms (btw where some old Lackless lands are and the Poet King), he will end up hated and hunted for what he does there, though if he spends time and learns from the Adem it will help him, before that a large opportunity with writing (? maybe courting Meluan), then something with a chest (Lackless chest?), next I don't know maybe that the letter he receives from the Maer will help him - the one to pay for him to go to the university (?) and it continues to get messier from there... but I think there just might, maybe, could be something to this method but I have mucked it all up and I need help, or I need to be told to trash all of it. Thank y'all for your time.

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I think I emailed Pat once about this and asked him if there was a code and he said we would be advised to spend time reading other parts of the book closely. I think the erratic capitalisation is basically to (i) show an unfamiliarity with writing, particularly long letters, on Denna's part (ii) the mixture of changing spelling, unusual punctuation and random capitalisations that was a feature of medieval and even renaissance writing and Pat added it to make the book authentic.

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I think I emailed Pat once about this and asked him if there was a code and he said we would be advised to spend time reading other parts of the book closely. I think the erratic capitalisation is basically to (i) show an unfamiliarity with writing, particularly long letters, on Denna's part (ii) the mixture of changing spelling, unusual punctuation and random capitalisations that was a feature of medieval and even renaissance writing and Pat added it to make the book authentic.

Thank you for your response Gaston. :)

I have read through most of the previous threads (the first five anyway) over the last few days, which btw is what gave me the driving impulse to give it a go with Denna's letter, and I have seen the discussions concerning (i) & (ii) which is good to point out again if we end up discussing the letter further here - like hasn't Denna written other letters with no issues, although they were likely shorter? (I don't have the books) And I have seen your post about the email. (how cool is that btw!)

Posted 07 May 2011 - 10:30 AM

so I just got a message from Pat, and he basically said that there are other things in WMF that deserve more attention than this code. Basically I take this as confirmation that there is no hidden message although he didnt say so outright.

I hoped, although I have not actually seen the emails, that it still could be viewed as ambiguous, maybe. So I figured why not? Plus from what I have seen others have only tried decoding with using just the first letter from the erratic capitalization and I thought it would be fun to try a different approach *shrugs* so even if it was a wasted effort it still helped me get over my book hangover since I had just finished rapidly reading both books, and like I said I had fun anyway.

So there is a small thing that caught my interest while I was reading the books, Auri's light. Has there been any discussion on this? I have no evidence but I have wondered if the light Auri uses in the Underthing could possibly be the "ever-burning" lamp that Kilvin obsesses over? Thoughts?

Also since I retuned the books to the library *mild frustration* I was curious if anyone has compared Felurian's silver tree with the Adem sword tree? Is there anyway it could be the same tree - though changed, since the fruit seemed to be an important, powerful and dangerous aspect - with the Adem possibly being descendants of the Rauch set to guard it? It's just an errant thought I had that I could not research without the books...

I have so much more rattling around in my head since I love this series but luckily I still have a few more threads to read through, so long as I don't get distracted with any more letters, lol. Hey now that I think about it IIRC in a previous thread someone mentioning a different character writing a letter with erratic capitalization? Mm... :P

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks, Jussi. There's a bit from later on in the story that wasn't included in the earlier excerpt:




Bast rubbed his face. This never used to happen. He had never been in conflict with his own desire before he came here. He hated it. It was so simply singular before. Want and have. See and take. Run and chase. Thirst and slake. And if he were thwarted in pursuit of his desire… what of it? That was simply the way of things. The desire itself was still his, it was still pure.





The story is more refined than "How Old Holly Came to Be" and has a lot of the unity and shape we expect from Rothfuss. Her take on it is interesting. Tom Sawyer? A faun? The latter, definitely.



ETA: totally harsh on Willis...


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  • 3 weeks later...

About The Slow Regard of Silent Things:

At a signing I went to last week Rothfuss was rather emphatic that this novel is very different from his other books. It should not be viewed as a starting point his other books and fans of the Kingkiller Chronicles may want to think twice about reading because it’s so different. He’s writing a long forward to the novel that says as much.

I think this makes it sound even more interesting. But it’s likely that a lot fans may not appreciate it.

http://aidanmoher.com/blog/2014/06/news/everything-know-slow-regard-silent-things-patrick-rothfuss/#comment-30682

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About The Slow Regard of Silent Things:

At a signing I went to last week Rothfuss was rather emphatic that this novel is very different from his other books. It should not be viewed as a starting point his other books and fans of the Kingkiller Chronicles may want to think twice about reading because it’s so different. He’s writing a long forward to the novel that says as much.

I think this makes it sound even more interesting. But it’s likely that a lot fans may not appreciate it.

http://aidanmoher.com/blog/2014/06/news/everything-know-slow-regard-silent-things-patrick-rothfuss/#comment-30682

He actually says pretty much the same thing it the video I linked above. It's a bad introduction to his work, don't start there, he's writing as much in the forward... I was kind of grousing about the post when I read it 'cuase it's not, like, everything we know about The Slow Regard of Silent Things. mistlepong suggested I write my own blog, then.

He's shown it something like 20 people, including beta readers, his agent, and Betsy Wolheim. The responses have been overwhelmingly positive by all accounts. The audience response to the beginning was raucous. I reckon the response will be similar to how folks are reacting to Half a King. Folks like the author and most of them will like whatever he puts out. Some folks will feel like they wanted something else.

He's had plenty of time to write this one. Something like "How Old Holly Came to Be" was written in a day and really didn't seem like his other work at all. "The Lightning Tree" was worked over for one or two months. It encourages a reread but doesn't demand one. But it works like I expect something by Rothfuss to, laying out bits and pieces throughout the story and contextualizing them at the end.

I dunno, I'm excited.

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Jussi's link notes that



The Slow Regard of Silent Things is the second of three novellas announced by Rothfuss in a January 2014 AMA on Reddit. The first, The Lightning Tree, is available in Rogues.



Does anyone know the word count for The Lightning Tree? I am surprised to see it referenced here as a novella. I thought it was just a short story.


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The e-ARC story has a word count just shy of 21,000, which falls in the interval used by many of the awards that choose to define novella length. I had never thought to look. It goes by fast.



I thought How Old Holly Came to Be was rubbish but I liked The Lightning Tree. Bast still creeps me out but he's a little more interesting now.


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I'm looking forward to it. It keeps us hungry for the main thing and keeps Pat in the game. Is the Laniel character from the other spin-off novel someone we've seen before? My memory is a bit hazy on the cast for this series especially after a couple of years.

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I'm looking forward to it. It keeps us hungry for the main thing and keeps Pat in the game. Is the Laniel character from the other spin-off novel someone we've seen before? My memory is a bit hazy on the cast for this series especially after a couple of years.

She gets some casual mentions in The Wise Man's Fear.

Then two lovely women, one in her forties and the other young enough to be her daughter, sang a duet about Laniel Young-Again I’d never heard before. WMF 44

Often the only thing that marked one day from the next were the stories we told around the fire at night. Stories of Oren Velciter, Laniel Young-Again, and Illien. WMF 568

...and this is probably relevant, too.

I looked up at the stars, tracing the familiar constellations in my head. Ewan the hunter, the crucible, the young-again mother, the fire-tongued fox, the broken tower. . . . WMF 288

He read the beginning, in its current form, at ECCC 2014.

Laniel went off adventurin' after her children had left home. Set in Modeg. Not done.

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Cheers, Thistlepong. I can understand why I may have forgotten those references. Judging by the estimated length of the novel it could be seen as a prequel.


The other good thing is that there aren't any spoilers about her fate :)


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