The Wise Man's Fear IX [Spoilers & Speculation]

[Loslathdos]

Not sure if anyone else can recall seeing this, and obviously somewhat off topic, but this Spanish book trailer for Name of the Wind is still the best book trailer I have ever seen:

I find that trailers for books tend to be horrible =P

[jumbles]

I just Googled "Sceop" to see if I could find exactly where he was referenced and pulled up this:

Sceop: An Anglo-Saxon singer or musician who would perform in a mead hall. Cf. Bard. (A-S, 'shaper,' also spelled scop)

Very interesting....

Here I found this:

SCOP (pronounced like "shop"): An alternative spelling of sceop.

The pronunciation seems suspiciously close to shape or shaper.

Page 4 of this document has sceop or shaping/creating being what God did and refers to Him as a Shaper/Creator.

This book says, "It was only necessary that he should be a "sceop," or shaper of metre-craft (meter-craft), in contradistinction to the overflowing of the heart of the songster who joyously trills out his ecstatic lay because he cannot help it." So I guess here a sceop is an emotionless or methodical poet or singer?

[jumbles]

While re-reading it jumped out at me that the Loeclos Box had both copper and iron in the wood. I had always thought that it could be opened using the Name of wood, but I guess the copper would prevent that.

When Kvothe visits people in Tarbean (WMFc147), he says it was dustier, dirtier, and smellier than he remembered it ever being. I always just assumed it was because he wasn't used to it anymore. But maybe it really was worse because a Chandrian (Usnea? Or possibly Alenta?) was there. He did end up meeting Denna there; and I believe Denna is working for the Chandrian. The Chandrian were at the Mauthen farm when Denna was, and I believe Cinder was in Imre the day Denna met her patron the first time.

As mentioned here, Denna visited Tinue, Vartheret, and Andenivan; cities that may be Tinusa, Vaeret, and Antus. Those were three of the cities of Ergen, which would make them (or at least two of them since one city ended up not being betrayed) cities that the Chandrian betrayed. So those three cities that Denna went to may all be important to the Chandrian. Also, Andenivan may have some significance to Andan (one of those who joined Tehlu in Skarpi's second story).

Edit: Also, Tarbean could be Belen, another city of Ergen, since Imre is in Belenay-Barren and since bean is close to Belen. Though I'm less convinced of this since I also like the idea of Imre and/or the University being on top of Belen's ruins because of the Underthing and the Great Stone Road.

[Loslathdos]

While re-reading it jumped out at me that the Loeclos Box had both copper and iron in the wood. I had always thought that it could be opened using the Name of wood, but I guess the copper would prevent that.

When Kvothe visits people in Tarbean (WMFc147), he says it was dustier, dirtier, and smellier than he remembered it ever being. I always just assumed it was because he wasn't used to it anymore. But maybe it really was worse because a Chandrian (Usnea? Or possibly Alenta?) was there. He did end up meeting Denna there; and I believe Denna is working for the Chandrian. The Chandrian were at the Mauthen farm when Denna was, and I believe Cinder was in Imre the day Denna met her patron the first time.

As mentioned here, Denna visited Tinue, Vartheret, and Andenivan; cities that may be Tinusa, Vaeret, and Antus. Those were three of the cities of Ergen, which would make them (or at least two of them since one city ended up not being betrayed) cities that the Chandrian betrayed. So those three cities that Denna went to may all be important to the Chandrian. Also, Andenivan may have some significance to Andan (one of those who joined Tehlu in Skarpi's second story).

Edit: Also, Tarbean could be Belen, another city of Ergen, since Imre is in Belenay-Barren and since bean is close to Belen. Though I'm less convinced of this since I also like the idea of Imre and/or the University being on top of Belen's ruins because of the Underthing and the Great Stone Road.

I still think it's just memory fading over time, to create a false image or memory of what Tarbean was like, that coupled with the fact that he wasn't used to it anymore.

[thistlepong]

When Kvothe visits people in Tarbean (WMFc147), he says it was dustier, dirtier, and smellier than he remembered it ever being. I always just assumed it was because he wasn't used to it anymore. But maybe it really was worse because a Chandrian (Usnea? Or possibly Alenta?) was there. He did end up meeting Denna there; and I believe Denna is working for the Chandrian. The Chandrian were at the Mauthen farm when Denna was, and I believe Cinder was in Imre the day Denna met her patron the first time.

That's a clever thought. You'd wanna flesh it out, following his progress through Tarbean trying to match imagery, maybe see if anyone shows up more than once.

[Nisheeth]

Was wondering, has this theory been discused before?

That Denna is Princess Ariel (or how-ever it was spelled). I don't think it has been, but I will be looking for things that suggest that she might be a princess.

[thistlepong]

Was wondering, has this theory been discused before?

That Denna is Princess Ariel (or how-ever it was spelled). I don't think it has been, but I will be looking for things that suggest that she might be a princess.

I might have popped up, but no substantive evidence has been presented. Good luck.

I'll try to share a couple things I've been working on as time permits.

A request for jumbles: Can you post when you update your list? I see that there are a few New (Date) entries, but I'd never have looked.

[thistlepong]

Interesting bits from the tubes:

A recent unsigned post in a decrepit Tor thread pointed out that this:

“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.”

...seemed to describe the philosophical conflict between the shapers and the old knowers.

One of Goodreads's more active posters reported some irregularities in the first printing of the US paperback of WMF.:

p691 Bast says Jax, not Iax, stole the moon.

ch103 retitled "Lessons" rather than repeating ch 101's title "Close Enough to Touch"

Both appear to have reverted with the second printing.

Can anyone confirm of deny this?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

There is now a widget for conversion of many of the Four Corner's currencies (it is author approved):

http://www.brinkofcreation.com/KKC-CurrencyExchange/CurrencyExchange.html#

[thistlepong]

There a number of clickable items on the widget:

• All four column titles in the upper table say something about that currency.
  
• The first section of text at the bottom expands into an exchange rate table.
  
• The second section expands into a description of the Quiat Auriam.
  

Vinitish currency has already received a fair amount of scrutiny on Tor.

One confusing part is that Vintish currency has two parallel systems above the Bit, one base 8 (with a Round at 16 Bits) and one base 10 (with a Royal at 1000 Bits). Presumably someone introduced a partial currency reform at some point.

The two Vintish systems only diverge above the bit. Halfpennies, pennies and bits are part of both systems; quarter bits, rounds and royals are exclusive to the round system, and hafts, nobles, reels and five reel pieces are exclusive to the reel system.

Rather than currency reform, I think they're separate systems. Remember that Alveron retains the power to mint coins. I don't have a sense of which is his and which is the official Calanthis currency, though.

If you click on "Vintish" at the top you'll find that "Vintish coin is less a coherent, rational system of currency, than it is the product of an unhappy marriage of several obsolete related coinages". To me that doesn't suggest attempted reform but that the two systems developed alongside each other.

Some speculation:

The divergent Vintish currencies are another marker pointing to Roderic Calanthis being the titular king, killed, and Alveron being the Penitent King. In fact, Aaron notes at the beginning of WMF, “And they ain’t just giving folks a silver noble for listing up anymore. These days they hand you over a royal when you sign up" It's not just a shift from silver to gold, it's shift from the base 8 system to the base 10 system.

And a specialized post explores an historical similarity:

I'm finding a lot of evidence that Vintish Currency is at the very least strongly based on Spanish Currency circa 1850. Interestingly, Isabella the II changed the Spanish currency system in 1859 from a base 8 system to a base 10 system. I'm foreshadowing with that comment.

Let's start with the economic system before 1850.

In Spanish Currency at that time there was a coin called a Doubloon. This coin got its name because it had a portrait of Ferdinand and Isabella on it (i.e Royals). The value of this coin changed but in 1849 was worth 80 reales de vellon. As it happens, there was a one reales de vellon coin and it was called "a bit". There was also a two reales de vellon coin commonly called "a quarterbit". You'll note that these coins exist in Vintish Currency also.

Given that in Vintish Currency; eighty bits equals a Royal and two bits equals a Quarterbit, I think it at least strongly suggests that a Vintish Royal is a Spanish Doubloon, a Vintish Quarterbit is a Spanish two reales coin( aka a Spanish Quarterbit) and a Bit is a one reales coin(aka a Spanish Bit). This much I'm certain about.

In Spanish Currency at this time, there was also a coin called a Spanish Dollar otherwise known as "a piece of eight" because it was made up of eight reales. However, it was made up of eight reales de plata fuerte, each of which is equal to two and a half reales de vellon (as of 1737). This would make it worth twenty reales de vellon and would make it equivalent to the Silver Noble. Given that Reales de Plata Fuerte were silver, it makes sense that the Silver Noble is made up of these reales.

This is as far as I've gotten which means I still don't fully understand how the Ha'Penny, Penny, Round or Reel in Vintish Currency correlates with Spanish. Still, I think that the definitions for Bit, Quarter Bit and Royal are solid and I think that the one for Noble is correct. Even if I'm wrong about the Noble one, then the value of the piece of eight would be equivalent to the Round which means one of the two pieces of Vintish Currrency is explained.

I don't have all the answers but I think it's enough to strongly support my theory.

And some general nerdery:

Please do not inquire as to Yllish and Modegan currencies, as we only deal in the proper coin of civilized nations.

We can infer, then, that Yll and Modeg have currencies. And, in fact, we know Modeg does since Sovoy's tuition is in strehlaum and Kvothe pulls one out of his purse in WMF. Modeg has no international exchange rate. Their currency isn't governed by the treaty. Presumably there wouldn't be that much variance from country to country and they'd tend to balance exhange rates according to the Cealdish gold standard. Technically, Modegans could also lend gold unlike the signatories to the Quiat Auriam; which would put them into conflict with Cealdish moneychangers. Hence the language above.

We probably even know enough about the world to guess why Modeg didn't sign. Their royal bloodline probably predates the foundation of Ceald as a nation. Their wealth and culture is thousands of years old. Their language and customs survived the expansion and dissolution of the Aturan Empire. I can't imagine them allowing themselves to be subservient to a nation of miners and merchants.

*It also looks like the widget developer got tuckerized into the world as Lord Arlait Brinke, which is cool by itself. But since his photo presents him in his "browncoat ball finery," I'm guessing he might hold that name in two worlds... unofficially anyway.

[jumbles]

A request for jumbles: Can you post when you update your list? I see that there are a few New (Date) entries, but I'd never have looked.

Okay. I just added the two previous posts as Four Corners Currencies.

[thistlepong]

Heads up twoimc:

Pat's doing a Reddit AMA @8pm cst tonight.

You can submit questions until then.

link

[two_by_two]

On the Patrick Rothfuss facebook page:

When Auri woke, she knew she had seven days.

[erikpfeiffer15]

On the Patrick Rothfuss facebook page: When Auri woke, she knew she had seven days.

I don't like this; has Kvothe suddenly become omnipotent?

[Slick Mongoose]

Or is she appearing in the frame story? Or the short anthology story he's writing?

[two_by_two]

Apparently it is from a short story he's working on or something.

[thistlepong]

Apparently it is from a short story he's working on or something.

citation?

[Hodor Frey]

Yeah, I'd like to see the cite for that. While there is speculation that it is for an Auri short story, on the subreddit there was no definitive conclusion on where the spoiler came from.

[Red Wanderer]

I apologize if this is a bit of a non-sequitur, but I didn't see a similar theory in my cursory check of these forums and I thought this was worth bringing up.

On the nature of shaping:

I'm not sure if this is too obvious or not, but here goes: Modern day naming is shaping. A casual reading of the text suggests that shaping is to naming as sygaldry is to sympathy: making a temporary "magic" permanent. The evidence for this is basically twofold: the text always emphasizes the things that shapers make, and the word to shape usually means the manipulation of a physical object.

However, I feel that a closer reading contradicts this notion. To begin with, if the uninitiated were to talk about modern day sympathists, they would likely stress the things that artificers make. They're just the most obvious things to mention. Shaping can also mean to impose one's will on something, albeit in a slightly less literal meaning. So either of the ways that the text suggests that shaping is permanent naming can be dismissed if there is evidence that this is not the case.

What do we know? Shapers and namers went to war. Would artificers and sympathists go to war? It hardly makes sense. Also, allow me a long quote, from when we first learn of the shapers.

"Long before the cities of man. before men. before fae. there were those who walked with their eyes open. they knew all the deep names of things." She paused and looked at me. "do you know what this means?"

"When you know the name of a thing you have mastery over it," I said.

"no," she said, startling me with the weight of rebuke in her voice. "mastery was not given. they had the deep knowing of things. not mastery. to swim is not mastery over the water. to eat an apple is not mastery of the apple." She gave me a sharp look. "do you understand?"

I didn't. But I nodded anyway, not wanting to upset her or sidetrack the story.

"these old name-knowers moved smoothly through the world. they knew the fox and they knew the hare, and they knew the space between the two."

She drew a deep breath and let it out in a sight. "then came those who saw a thing and thought of changing it. they thought in terms of mastery."

"they were the shapers. proud dreamers."

So... as we know it, naming consists of two pieces. When you know a name, you know everything about the named concept. When Kvothe has access to the name of the wind, he can see the flow of air well enough to walk through the sword tree without fear and, by learning Felurian's name, he sees her whole nature. The second piece comes from speaking a name, wherein you can change the named concept/thing in a meaningful way according to your will. Kvothe, at this point, simply considers knowing a name to be a necessary step to being able to speak it. The rebuke startles Kvothe, and it is somewhat surprising to us as readers as well. After all, doesn't speaking a name grant mastery? What good is knowing a name without speaking it?

If Felurian is to be believed, there were people who went their entire lives without speaking any of the various names that they knew. The deep and immediate understanding of the world offered by knowing names would still be an extremely powerful tool, as Kvothe demonstrated with his whole sword tree trick. If we associate speaking names with mastery, as it seems to be in the books, then it seems clear that shapers spoke names while namers merely knew them.

Understanding vs. control is a serious ideological difference that could easily lead to war, whereas permanent vs. transitory is somewhat less so. Lastly, Iax's most famous act as a shaper was to steal the moon, an act that would not require any form of physical creation. So where does that leave us? As far as it can be told from the story, namers in the old sense no longer exist. Only shapers. This makes sense because, as Felurian remarks, Kvothe thinks like a shaper.

If this is correct, then the natural question becomes "why do today's shapers suck compared to old shapers". The answer is likely "for the same reason that today's everything sucks compared to antiquity". During the creation war, civilization basically got wrecked and has been slowly recovering since then. The shapers, while victorious, seem to have mostly departed and so new shapers have been stumbling around without even so much as the old name-knowers as guidance.

[two_by_two]

If this is correct, then the natural question becomes "why do today's shapers suck compared to old shapers". The answer is likely "for the same reason that today's everything sucks compared to antiquity". During the creation war, civilization basically got wrecked and has been slowly recovering since then. The shapers, while victorious, seem to have mostly departed and so new shapers have been stumbling around without even so much as the old name-knowers as guidance.

Excellent theory. I would however answer your question differently: Today's shapers suck compared to old shapers because not only did civilization fall apart and have to be rebuilt, the modern shapers also lack the desire for understanding and the idealogical framework upon which old shapers built their control. I feel the urge to make a Star Wars reference - the Jedi during the time of the Republic not only had systematic, formal training on technique, they also had extremely strict mental and emotional conditioning from a very early age, which enabled them to focus more clearly and devote more willpower to the task at hand. Similarly, if you've been conditioned to understand more clearly, once you decide to turn that understanding towards control, well. No power in the 'verse can stop you.