*SPOILERS* The Slow Regard of Silent Things *SPOILERS*

[Slick Mongoose]

This thread contains spoilers for "The Slow Regard of Silent Things". You should not be reading this thread if you have not finished the book. You have been warned.

ianfitz wrote:

It seems somewhat clear that Auri was sexually assaulted or raped based on one of her descriptions about a hand on a wrist and the smell of wine on breath. It helps explain her fractured state.

The ending seemed to be a nice foreshadowing (maybe) of her helping "rename" Kvothe (Kote).

That's the only part of the book I didn't like. Why can't Auri just be cracked? Why does she have to have been raped?

Jurble wrote:

So Auri's not something supernatural as far as I can tell. She is/was a student that had a psychological break at some point.

And she can Shape, apparently. That's pretty interesting.

And

It's been theorized that Shaping involves changing Names in some manner, and that Kvothe's tranformation into Kote is relevant to his power-loss. Yet, we when see Auri Shape, there doesn't seem to be any sort of Naming involved, instead she forces her will on world so that it conforms to her desires. So I'm not sure how important Kvothe's being Kote is in a metaphysical sense.

Of course, I could be misreading and it's not Shaping Auri performs but rather Sympathy since that uses concentration or will-power and what not. But the way it's describes it definitely appears to be Shaping.

thistlepong wrote this blog post:

https://larkinledgers.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/reading-the-slow-regard-of-silent-things-part-i-the-cover/

[Slick Mongoose]

Personally, i'm wondering why exactly Kvothe is so fascinated by bottles. He spends ages fondling them in the frame story, and now Auri's commenting on it.

Oh, he's not a Selas sort of person, apparently. ;) Bad news for Kvothe and Denna.

And presumably day 3, when she wept, is the day Auri visits Kvothe in WMF? I still need to reread a few times.

With regards to shaping, I can't help but link it to Auri's reluctance to do anything for herself (the scenes with the bedsheet were heartbreaking). She clearly has some degree of power, but will only use it for a gift for Kvothe. Presumably she had a bad experience in wanting something for herself.

[Gaston de Foix]

Damn, you guys stole all my insights. Oh well.

I don't believe Day 3 is the day she visits Kvothe.

I personally do not think this unspecified trauma involving sexual assault of any kind - notwithstanding the hand on the wrist and wine on the breath. I would prefer to believe it was something she witnessed perhaps. Instead I would like to think she's a student who went cracked because of academic pressures and the effect of knowledge of shaping upon her.

I agree with the conclusion that she's not Fae in any sense. She's completely human.

[Slick Mongoose]

Some people have said that the book doesn't have a plot. I don't agree, it's a classic quest story, with various trials along the way.

[Maester Hodor]

Overall I didn't like the book very much, but it was a very interesting read. Or should I say; it was written in a very interesting way. Halfway through the book my first thought was that Auri suffers from schizophrenia and OCD.

I liked how Auri prepared a bed for Kvothe in the underthing... maybe Kvothe will go back there in future books (whenever the hell he decided to leave the inn) and it was also nice to see Auri do some magic at the very end.

Ultimately this book was exactly how I expected it to be: a weird ass story.

[unJon]

I really liked this story. Scattered thoughts below as I haven't had time to internalize.

Hasn't Auri already given Kvothe a candle in the main story? Will now need to reread that scene to see if there is a tie in. We have previously speculated that some of Auri's gifts matched the Tarbolin items (key, candle and something I'm forgetting). Auri's comment about this candle being full of Tarbolin confirms there is something to that.

Is master mandrake the current alchemy professor? Do we know how long he's been teaching?

People are saying here that Auri's shaping has nothing to do with naming. I don't think we can draw that conclusion. Auri clearly seems to know the names of things and is very concerned to not upset the world's balance. This feels to me just like the old named shaper distinction. Auri is a quintessential namer. She listens to all things and knows just where they need to be. Maybe when she shapes and imposes her will, she does so through forcing or changing their names. We didn't see that last bit, true, but we didn't see what she did there at all. I think Pat is keeping the metaphysics of naming purposefully unknowable until DoS.

What was the third gift for Kvothe? Auri putting on makeup?? I feel like I'm missing something here. Really am curious how this meeting goes if we've seen it already.

[Slick Mongoose]

I really liked this story. Scattered thoughts below as I haven't had time to internalize.

Hasn't Auri already given Kvothe a candle in the main story? Will now need to reread that scene to see if there is a tie in. We have previously speculated that some of Auri's gifts matched the Tarbolin items (key, candle and something I'm forgetting). Auri's comment about this candle being full of Tarbolin confirms there is something to that.

What was the third gift for Kvothe? Auri putting on makeup?? I feel like I'm missing something here. Really am curious how this meeting goes if we've seen it already.

About 100 pages into WMF, Auri gives Kvothe a candle, a kiss, and a safe place to stay. :)

[unJon]

About 100 pages into WMF, Auri gives Kvothe a candle, a kiss, and a safe place to stay. :)

was just coming here to post that! Chapter 11.

ETA: now that we know she rubbed holly berries on her lips I need to go figure out what holly is for. Wasn't Bast using it in the frame story as protection from Fae?

[Slick Mongoose]

was just coming here to post that! Chapter 11.

A few chapters ealier, Auri comforts Kvothe when he's crying. The is described as being a few days. Which is why I think this is Auri's day 3.

[Slick Mongoose]

When Kvothe last met Auri he tells her it's going to be six days. So why is she convinced it'll be seven days at the start of the story?

[unJon]

Auri serves the brined olives to Kvothe and Elodin during the candle meeting. Rothfuss really did tie in a bunch of Easter eggs. It's very cool.

I haven't gone back to read the prior meeting SM mentions so am holding off in commenting there.

[unJon]

Other stuff:

1) Elodin says he's been trying to get close to Auri "for years". His crashing the candle dinner party is the closest he's gotten within 10 paces of her. Yet Auri knew Elodin's name at that meeting. Unless that's some crazy naming skillz it means she knows Elodin from when she was a student.

2) We see Foxen during an early Auri visit in WMF when she takes Kvothe into the Underthing. "She carried the bottle and held aloft something the size of a coin that gave offa gentle greenish light."

3) during that earlier first WMF meeting she serves Kvothe with a teacup. In SRFST she refers to a teacup as "his teacup."

4) Mandrag is the current alchemy master. I just searched his name in NOTW and WMF and didn't find anything relevant. I did note that Auri remembered Mandrag said that alchemy is 99% chemistry. In NOTW Simmon says: Everyone thinks chemistry and alchemy are so similar, but theyre really not. Theyre not even related. They just happen to live in the same house.

5) Auri rubs holly on her lips before the meeting when she kisses Kvothe. In WMF a no one really seems to know what holly does but it is something they make how's out of in response to the skin dancer attack. Bast says about it: Im running dark on this myself, Reshi. I know the Sithe usedto ride out wearing holly crowns when they hunted the skin dancers. . . . Kvothe says: In the stories Ive heard, Kote said, holly traps them in a body, too.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Just finished. Digesting.

[eta]

It was interesting. Not my favorite but I'm glad I've read it. Whatever broke her was a severe trauma, that much is obvious. What is interesting to me is that to be a "proper" namer it appears the "namer" needs to be a bit mad to awaken their sleeping mind.

I would say that Auri was merely traumatized and suffering mental illness but for her perception of change in the "slow regard of silent things". That's exactly what Eloden talks about when he's describing "true names". They are fluid things not concrete and as such awarness and perception of them comes only with great difficulty.

I wonder if Auri is disapointed that Kvothe hasn't come to claim his spot yet?

[unJon]

Per Wikipedia holly berries induce vomiting and diarrhea and consumption of 20 berries can be fatal to children. Not sure if that is at all relevant but it does mean that a red holly berry is a strange choice for lipstick.

ETA: Rothfuss is bad at math. He has Auri think that 9/10 of alchemy is chemistry and 9/10 of chemistry is waiting. But that tenth of a tenth of a part is . . . . That's not how the fractions combine. There is actually 19% unexplained. 81% of alchemy would be waiting. Another 9% is something else from chemistry and 10% is something alchemy specific.

The above aside, Rothfuss is trying to say that 1% is shaping I guess? Unless it wasn't shaping what Auri was doing but it seems way to much like what we understand shaping to be. If I understand correctly, alchemy is then some method that aids people in shaping in certain ways. Without the person even knowing it. Auri says she doubts Mandrag even knows this secret yet surely Mandrag does alchemy so is unknowingly shaping???

[Gaston de Foix]

I would say that Auri was merely traumatized and suffering mental illness but for her perception of change in the "slow regard of silent things". That's exactly what Eloden talks about when he's describing "true names". They are fluid things not concrete and as such awarness and perception of them comes only with great difficulty.

I wonder if Auri is disapointed that Kvothe hasn't come to claim his spot yet?

Ser Scot, I couldn't agree more. In fact Elodin says that most things are alive in one way or another. I think one of the reasons that Auri, like Alder Whinn, has her break-down is because of over sensitivity and because her radar becomes erratic when faced with the complexity of the Named world.

Auri is clearly a person with power, which is why I am hesitant to think of her as a stereotypical victim of abuse.

[unJon]

When Kvothe last met Auri he tells her it's going to be six days. So why is she convinced it'll be seven days at the start of the story?

this is interesting. In NOTW I wonder if Kvothe has been late in visiting Auri. I have a vague recollection of this but am not sure. If so then reasonable for Auri to discount what Kvothe says. Also could just be that Auri 'knows' it is seven days from what the world is telling her?

Also in ch 11 of WMF Kvothe says that Auri was not expecting him. How is that true if this is day 6 and Kvothe told her he'd be back in 6 days? Maybe we have this timeline messed up?

[thistlepong]

It seems somewhat clear that Auri was sexually assaulted or raped based on one of her descriptions about a hand on a wrist and the smell of wine on breath. It helps explain her fractured state.

That's the only part of the book I didn't like. Why can't Auri just be cracked? Why does she have to have been raped?

With regards to shaping, I can't help but link it to Auri's reluctance to do anything for herself (the scenes with the bedsheet were heartbreaking). She clearly has some degree of power, but will only use it for a gift for Kvothe. Presumably she had a bad experience in wanting something for herself.

I think you might have talked me out of the common interpretation.

Here's the passage in question with the offending sentence bolded:

She could still feel him in her hands. She saw the lines of his sharp edges kissed into her skin. Coming to her feet she shuffled stiffly down the stairs. Her steps were numb and stumbling as more thoughtless step-stones tried to trip her, like a daft old man who won’t stop telling an unfunny joke yet and again.

She knew. She should have moved more gently with the world. She knew the way of things. She knew if you weren’t always stepping lightly as a bird the whole world came apart to crush you. Like a house of cards. Like a bottle against stones. Like a wrist pinned hard beneath a hand with the hot breath smell of want and wine. . . .^{1268 (really, no real page numbers, DAW?)}

So we think thin frail girl. Victim. It's fair. Rothfuss hasn't given us a lot of reasons to think otherwise. I responded to it elsewhere, when another commenter expressed disappointment, thus:

It'd be boring, rote, and unbearably predictable. Dozens of posters theorized that Auri had been a victim of sexual assault before TSRoST because it's such a common trope for female characters. That doesn't make it invalid, of course, but if there was a sentence in the book I didn't care for, it was this one.

But it might be worth a second look. She's talking about fulcrum, of course, but there are gendered pronouns and ambiguities.

She could still feel him in her hands. She saw the lines of his sharp edges kissed into her skin. Coming to her feet she shuffled stiffly down the stairs. Her steps were numb and stumbling as more thoughtless step-stones tried to trip her, like a daft old man who won’t stop telling an unfunny joke yet and again.

She knew. She should have moved more gently with the world. She knew the way of things. She knew if you weren’t always stepping lightly as a bird the whole world came apart to crush you. Like a house of cards. Like a bottle against stones. Like a wrist pinned hard beneath a hand with the hot breath smell of want and wine. . . .

There's a strong theme of regret running through The Kingkiller Chronicle, of things done that cannot be undone and things that left the the world a lesser place. There's a decent case for an alternative reading. Auri has retreated from the world, limited her interactions and interventions, and engaged in what amounts to self flagellation not because she was hurt, but because she hurt someone else.

Slick Mongoose sums it up nicely with "Presumably she had a bad experience in wanting something for herself." That's running throughout the novella and it explains some of her behavior that doesn't work very well with the victim interpretation. I'm not entirely sold, but as I do more blog posts, I'll have to keep it in mind.

[unJon]

Now that we know Auri is naming:shaping and putting things for real into the Kvothe gifts, I thought it might be interesting to list them:

1) a key that unlocks the moon.

2) a feather with the spring wind in it (not given to Kvothe because he was late)

3) a coin that will keep him safe at night

4) a wooden ring that keeps secrets

5) an apple that thinks it is a pear, a bun that thinks it is a cat and a lettuce that thinks it is a lettuce

6) a candle with happy dreams inside it, a kiss with holly berry juice and a safe place to stay

Searching on kindle also just saw that Auri is contained withing Kvothe's mother's name: Laurian. I could see there being significance there. Maybe more about Auri reminding him of family. Dunno.

Also curious whether we should read anything into Elodin giving Auri a single commas fruit, which "is considered a terrible insult if given to one of the Beladari."

[unJon]

Sorry for the multiple double posts. Want to point out a couple of more things I've noticed:

1) When Auri is making soap and squeezing the nutmeg with the perfume in the cloth with two sticks, she wishes for a press so she could do the task more efficiently.

Despite herself, Auri wished she had a proper press. It was so wasteful otherwise.

She actually has a press in Boundary. She uses it when making the candle.

Auri left and returned with the honeycomb. Moving in a businesslike fashion, she lay it in the press and screwed the handle down until the honey poured into the clear, clean jar below. It was the work of half a minute.

I think this neatly illustrates how she does for others what she would never do for herself. It's also a nice demarcation of how Boundary is outside the bounds of her world normally. When making the soap, she doesn't wish she could use her press in Boundary, she actually wishes she had a press at all.

But what is in Boundary is not Auri's stuff. It is the stuff of the girl who Auri used to be. The student. The alchemist. Note that she still has all the knowledge she used to have. Her thoughts in the story show her perfect grasp of chemical and alchemical theory. But the possessions of that girl are not Auri's.

Boundary is the third way out of Mantle.

There were three ways out of Mantle. There was a hallway, and a doorway, and a door. The last of these was not for her.

2) When Auri is making the candle she wishes for camphor:

A pinch of camphor would have been ideal. Just a pinch, a spark, a hint of something volatile. But she had no camphor, and there was no sense in wishing.

But we know that there actually is camphor in the very room she is in.

There were shelves here, all mounted on one wall. Crowded with vast and varied tools of the craft. Acids and reagents in their stoppered glasses. Sulfonium inside a jar of stone. Racks of powders, salts and earths and herbs. Oils and unguents. Fourteen waters. Twicelime. Camphor. All perfect. All true. All gathered and factored and stored in the most proper ways.

I can't decide if this is just a slip on Rothfuss' part or if it means something. Unlike Auri wishing for a press, she is actually in Boundary wishing for camphor and the camphor is also in Boundary. And camphor was in her mental list of the items in the room! Instead she goes to Port for some pitch to use. Any ideas?

[thistlepong]

Second post is up.

Now that we know Auri is naming:shaping and putting things for real into the Kvothe gifts, I thought it might be interesting to list them:

1) a key that unlocks the moon.
2) a feather with the spring wind in it (not given to Kvothe because he was late)
3) a coin that will keep him safe at night
4) a wooden ring that keeps secrets
5) an apple that thinks it is a pear, a bun that thinks it is a cat and a lettuce that thinks it is a lettuce
6) a candle with happy dreams inside it, a kiss with holly berry juice and a safe place to stay

Searching on kindle also just saw that Auri is contained withing Kvothe's mother's name: Laurian. I could see there being significance there. Maybe more about Auri reminding him of family. Dunno.

Also curious whether we should read anything into Elodin giving Auri a single commas fruit, which "is considered a terrible insult if given to one of the Beladari."

We really only have confirmation that she used any magic at all for the candle. The rest could still just be things. In fact, the kiss and the safe place to stay, while full of meaning, appear to be entirely mundane. I'm certainly interested to konw if there are hints one way or the other about the rest, though.