Wise Man's Fear Spoilers Thread (SPOILERS)

[Foreverlad]

Kvothe believes he's a disaster (as choosing "Kote" for his new calling name suggests). His actions made everyone's lives worse (as when he claims responsability for the ongoing war). To himself, he is a big failure. And to complicate matters, when he faked his death and went into hiding, he had to forsake much of what defines him, like his music (which is so much of who he is, as we have seen in the books), his personallity, etc.

Y'know, I don't think there'd be anything more satisfying than finding out that Kvothe's responsibility for the state of the Four Corners is just as blown out of proportion as his legend is. Here's a semi-normal bloke who has become mythic. What better way to play on this theme than to reverse it in regards to circumstances.

Sure, Hitler was responsible for the war, but if Eva hadn't spilled his cup of morning coffee he wouldn't have been so agitated that day and things would have turned out differently.

...forgive the example, no sense of historical accuracy is intended.

[chano305]

Hi all, first time poster here. Blown away by all the stuff you guys found that just wizzed right by me.

What I was wondering was the title of the book itself, and the three fears. In distinct places in the book, a big deal is made of clarifying which new fear he (Kvothe) just encountered. Devi's alar is "like the ocean in storm". Felurian tells him "a wise man views a moonless night with fear". It doesn't get more clear-cut than that.

However, at no point that I can recall in THIS book do they point out "the anger of the gentle man". I recall in NoTW that Lorren's anger was described similarly, but I was wondering if there was a new one in this book that I missed? Since PR made it pretty clear about the first and second, I expected the third to be as momentous. Instead, Lorren is as stonewall as ever. Is someone else the "gentle man" and I just completely missed it?

[Zizoz]

I think some people were confused about how the Sithe killing people who talked to the Cthaeh prevented its influence, as the Cthaeh would necessarily have predicted that as well. I think the idea is that the person is killed no matter what the Cthaeh says, so it doesn't matter. Although perhaps they kill people preemptively too; that would also work.

Also, anyone else notice that "edro" is one of the words Gandalf tried on the West-gate of Moria? I believe it's Quenya for "open". I wonder if this is an intentional LOTR shout-out or just a coincidence.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Hi, welcome to the board, hope you're a GRRM fan as well :)

Anyway, I had considered the gentle man's anger as well, but my personal belief is that Kvothe is becoming, well, not so gentle. After he used bindings to kill the bandits, learned to fight with the Adem, and then of course killed the false Ruh, he was anything but gentle.

Edited to reply:

I think some people were confused about how the Sithe killing people who talked to the Cthaeh prevented its influence, as the Cthaeh would necessarily have predicted that as well. I think the idea is that the person is killed no matter what the Cthaeh says, so it doesn't matter. Although perhaps they kill people preemptively too; that would also work.

Also, anyone else notice that "edro" is one of the words Gandalf tried on the West-gate of Moria? I believe it's Quenya for "open". I wonder if this is an intentional LOTR shout-out or just a coincidence.

Certainly intentional, good catch. Lots of shout-outs in the book, and PR is well-versed in fantasy literature.

As for the Cthaeh and the Sithe, Bast says that they kill people who approach the Cthaeh to prevent him from poisoning their lives. I suppose they could kill you when you return from it, as well (what's the difference, after all, you're just as dead), but he seemed very clear that Kvothe would not have been allowed to even approach the tree.

[TheValyrianDragonlord]

Anyone want to discuss the ademre's chandrian story on page 844?

It's said that six of the seven betrayed their cities. And one remembered the lethani and didn't. Does this mean one of the chandrian didn't betray their city? If so why does he/she still follow haliax?

And good find grinachu on disproving the bredon/cinder theory. the cthaeh never lies and kvothe's only met cinder twice.

[HLS11]

I have a question about Denna and then some comments about a potential second trilogy.

Does anyone have any ideas as to why Denna laughs and scoffs at Kvothe's suggestion that Lanre became one of the Chandrian (she even asks, "what kind of a child are you?"). Is this just something she said in the heat of the moment because she was upset? It conflicts with her previous reaction at the wedding massacre outside of Trebon, when she paled at the suggestion that the Chandrian were responsible and ultimately admitted that "it sounds strange, but I think it was them." Is Master Ash's influence to blame? Can it be explained simply by distance and the passage of time?

Come to think of it, Denna seems to have forgotten many things that happened near that time, even though she wasn't yet under the influence of the denner resin. She heard Kovthe admit, when his mind was on the Chandrian and he was rambling, that he always looks for her and never finds her. She knew he wasn't just saying that to get in her favor because he was out of sorts and she had to touch his arm to get his attention. Yet later she never seems to believe Kvothe when he says he looks for her too.

I also collected some information about the rumored second trilogy. Drawing conclusions is difficult because it doesn't appear that Patrick Rothfuss himself has ever confirmed what a second trilogy would be about, and he might have even changed his mind over the years. In his recent YouTube interviews he expressed an intent to write more stories in the same world, but he didn't really get more specific than that.

A review of The Name of the Wind on Amazon that was written by Patrick St-Denis in February 2007:

Reading along, I found the structure of the story a little odd. The better part of the novel is comprised of Kvothe's back story, with only a few scenes occurring in "real time." Having never encountered something like it, I discussed it with Betsy Wollheim. She did shine some light on the matter, and it turns out that Rothfuss' first trilogy will focus on the main character's past, with occasional tantalizing hints of things to come. A second trilogy will then recount Kvothe's "present" tale.

Then, a post from Patrick St-Denis on SFFWorld a month or two later, in response to a question:

Mithfânion: Just got word from Matt Bialer, Rothfuss' agent, just to make sure that I had it right.

The first draft of volumes 2 and 3 are indeed done, yet neither Bialer nor editor Betsy Wollheim have read them at this point. Apparently, there is still a lot of revising to do. But the plan is to release a book every year, or so I'm told.

According to the author, those who like The Name of the Wind will love the sequels. The first volume sets up a lot of stuff that will come to a head in the sequels.

And yes, the first trilogy will recount Kvothe's story of the past, while the second series will have to do with "current" events and the imminent war that's implied in The Name of the Wind.

Finally, from a 2007 interview of Patrick Rothfuss by Patrick St-Denis (notice a pattern here?):

What can readers expect from the two sequels and the trilogy that will follow this one?

Well.... I've already written them. So you won't have to wait forever for them to come out. They'll be released on a regular schedule. One per year.

You can also expect the second book to be written with the same degree of care and detail as this first one. You know the sophomore slump? When a writer's second novel is weaker because they're suddenly forced to write under deadline? I don't have to worry about that because my next two novels are already good to go.

All of these hints at a second trilogy are from the same person and are years old, so the information might not be accurate now if it ever was. In the interview, it almost sounds like PR just ignored the part of the question about the second trilogy and just talked about the next 2 books instead.

[jurble]

Btw

Denna reminds me of that song (ignore the video...)

[Slick Mongoose]

Hated. Hopeless. Sleepless. Sane.

Alaxel bears the shadow's hame.

Skarpi's story left me with the distinct impression that Haliax/Lanre was off his rocker.

Sane? Sane? :shocked:

[red snow]

I've always thought that the trilogy was set up for another trilogy dealing with the things going on in the present/time where the story is being told in the inn. There's something tantalising about the potential future as we don't know what's going to happen while there's a certain element of certainty in the past.

[jurble]

I wouldn't mind a non-Kvothe sequel trilogy, in that, at the end of book 3, Kvothe gets his shit back together, and then the sequel trilogy, when the protagonists visit an inn or a pub, there's people talking about the distorted/exaggerated further exploits of Kvothe.

ie. Kvothe calling down lightning to kill 10,000 Scrael, Kvothe forcing tons of Mael out of possessed bodies by the thousands, etc.

[TeaSpoon]

Hated. Hopeless. Sleepless. Sane.

Alaxel bears the shadow's hame.

Skarpi's story left me with the distinct impression that Haliax/Lanre was off his rocker.

Sane? Sane? :shocked:

It has to do with the four doors of the mind. According to Kvothe, the mind has four different mechanisms to cope with pain: Sleep, Forgetting, Madness, and Death. When Lanre became Haliax, these doors had no purchase on him anymore. He could no longer escape the pain because he could no longer sleep, forget, go insane, or die.

Imagine not being able to forget any bad thing that happened, finding no relief in sleep or insanity. In this condition, he came to certain realizations. The world is an awful place and needs to be wiped clean. It's a sane and logical conclusion, if all you can see is pain and suffering. He has no hope anymore, save the hope that he'll finally be able to die once he's destroyed creation.

[EDIT] Another thing, everyone keeps assuming that Kvothe locked his name in a box because that's what Jax did to the Moon. I would just like to point out that the story was wildly inaccurate. It was passed down from mother to daughter for millennia. Among the inaccuracies are:

- His name wasn't Jax but Iax.

- He didn't unfold a house. If you look at the description, it's obvious he's talking about Faerie.

In the end the result was the same: the mansion was magnificent, huge and sprawling. But it didn't fit together properly. There were stairways that led sideways instead of up. Some rooms had too few walls, or too many. Many rooms had no ceiling, and high above they showed a strange sky full of unfamiliar stars.

Everything about the place was slightly skewed. In one room you could look out the window at the springtime flowers, while across the hall the windows were filmed with winter's frost. It could be time for breakfast in the ballroom, while twilight filled a nearby bedroom.

Because nothing in the house was true, none of the doors or windows fit tight. They could be closed, even locked, but never made fast. And as big as it was, the mansion had a great many doors and windows, so there were a great many ways both in and out.

Space is weird; going into one direction can lead you to another. Different seasons in different places. Different times of the day in different places. There are a bunch of ways for someone to sneak into or out of the place. And most damning, there's no moon in that different sky until Jax put it there. That's the exact description of Faerie.

According to Felurian, Iax was the first and most powerful shaper. He made Faerie, and didn't just unfold it.

- Since the folding house was actually Faerie, we can assume that the flute and the box also represent something else. The flute could be anything with the power to call something else, and the box is something that is able to hold names.

- We can probably dismiss the bits with the tinker and the old man as fiction. Maybe Iax had help stealing the moon, but those characters seem to be there to give the story a moral.

[jurble]

Ah, so Haliax has become Erratic?

Anyway, what is Haliax/Iax/Tehlu/Aleph/etc's race? They aren't human, the first Amyr were of their race, and the first Amyr were said not to be human. Ergo, they all must not be human, but they seem to appear human.

[Slick Mongoose]

Cheers, Teaspoon.

Ah, so Haliax has become Erratic?

:lol:

The Lethani is without beginning or end.

Anyway, what is Haliax/Iax/Tehlu/Aleph/etc's race? They aren't human, the first Amyr were of their race, and the first Amyr were said not to be human. Ergo, they all must not be human, but they seem to appear human.

Felurian was one of them, so presumably they were Fae?

[Slick Mongoose]

Come to think of it, Denna seems to have forgotten many things that happened near that time, even though she wasn't yet under the influence of the denner resin.

Yes, I was under the impression that it was the effects of the drugs, they affected her memories of that whole time, not just after she took them.

sure I saw something like that on House. :dunno:

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Maybe it's lupus.

[Returned]

Anyone want to discuss the ademre's chandrian story on page 844?

It's said that six of the seven betrayed their cities. And one remembered the lethani and didn't. Does this mean one of the chandrian didn't betray their city? If so why does he/she still follow haliax?

And good find grinachu on disproving the bredon/cinder theory. the cthaeh never lies and kvothe's only met cinder twice.

If you recall the little girl coming to show her drawing of the chandrian to Kvothe, she mentions there not being seven, but eight. I suppose the eight on this drawing is the one that didn't betray their city.

[Gaston de Foix]

If you recall the little girl coming to show her drawing of the chandrian to Kvothe, she mentions there not being seven, but eight. I suppose the eight on this drawing is the one that didn't betray their city.

e

My understanding was that there was Lanre, and then there were six other Chandrian. That is to say, there were seven people who were tempted to become Chandrian by Lanre or this mysterious enemy and six succumbed but the seventh did not and so a remnant of a remnant of the knowledge of the world and the peoples of the world were saved. Obviously there were survivors from the other cities too, those are some who become angels under Aleph's direction.

Kvothe mentions Aleph at the beginning of NOTW.

"In the beginning, as far as I know, the world was spun out of the nameless

void by Aleph, who gave everything a name. Or, depending on the version

of the tale, found the names all things already possessed."

Aleph is potentially a shaper or a namer, and it makes sense if he is a figure of God at creation (or equivalent) that the Namers and the Shapers would have varying accounts of the Creation of the World.

What is interesting is that Aleph is also mentioned by Skarpi as one of the four most powerful namers alive, Iax, Lyra, Selitos and Aleph. It does not seem that Aleph in this telling is anything other than a mortal namer. But the abbreviated version of the story that Kvothe hears about the founding of the Amyr from Skarpi has Selitos kneeling to Aleph and Aleph creating angels to act as his enforcers which again places him on a god-like plane. So it's not clear what his true nature is.

[Poobah]

The eighth figure on the drawing is an Amyr, I believe.

[Gaston de Foix]

It has to do with the four doors of the mind. According to Kvothe, the mind has four different mechanisms to cope with pain: Sleep, Forgetting, Madness, and Death. When Lanre became Haliax, these doors had no purchase on him anymore. He could no longer escape the pain because he could no longer sleep, forget, go insane, or die.

Imagine not being able to forget any bad thing that happened, finding no relief in sleep or insanity. In this condition, he came to certain realizations. The world is an awful place and needs to be wiped clean. It's a sane and logical conclusion, if all you can see is pain and suffering. He has no hope anymore, save the hope that he'll finally be able to die once he's destroyed creation.

[EDIT] Another thing, everyone keeps assuming that Kvothe locked his name in a box because that's what Jax did to the Moon. I would just like to point out that the story was wildly inaccurate. It was passed down from mother to daughter for millennia. Among the inaccuracies are:

- His name wasn't Jax but Iax.

- He didn't unfold a house. If you look at the description, it's obvious he's talking about Faerie.

In the end the result was the same: the mansion was magnificent, huge and sprawling. But it didn't fit together properly. There were stairways that led sideways instead of up. Some rooms had too few walls, or too many. Many rooms had no ceiling, and high above they showed a strange sky full of unfamiliar stars.

Everything about the place was slightly skewed. In one room you could look out the window at the springtime flowers, while across the hall the windows were filmed with winter's frost. It could be time for breakfast in the ballroom, while twilight filled a nearby bedroom.

Because nothing in the house was true, none of the doors or windows fit tight. They could be closed, even locked, but never made fast. And as big as it was, the mansion had a great many doors and windows, so there were a great many ways both in and out.

Space is weird; going into one direction can lead you to another. Different seasons in different places. Different times of the day in different places. There are a bunch of ways for someone to sneak into or out of the place. And most damning, there's no moon in that different sky until Jax put it there. That's the exact description of Faerie.

According to Felurian, Iax was the first and most powerful shaper. He made Faerie, and didn't just unfold it.

- Since the folding house was actually Faerie, we can assume that the flute and the box also represent something else. The flute could be anything with the power to call something else, and the box is something that is able to hold names.

- We can probably dismiss the bits with the tinker and the old man as fiction. Maybe Iax had help stealing the moon, but those characters seem to be there to give the story a moral.

Teaspoon this is the most brilliant post I have read on this thread. Everything you have said rings true, in particular the description of Lanre reminds me of a quasi-buddhist like attitude; life is suffering, therefore let us end it all.

I had the same intuition about the house in the story being Fae.

However Iax was not the first shaper, I think, but merely the most powerful. I also somewhat disagree with you about the old man being irrelevant in the story. The old man was a Namer and familiar with their lore who was searching the name of the wind. In fact I suspect he was called an E'lir or listener. His presence in the story suggests that the Namers (or a particular Namer) tried to dissuade Iax from capturing the moon but did not succeed in doing so. This namer also had skills Iax did not have, being able to open the knot on the tinker's pack where Iax failed.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

A thought, could Sympathy be "shaping"?