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The Wise Man's Fear VII (Spoilers and speculation)


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Sorry, what is the Taborlin-as-Jack figure? I also assumed that excrescence meant poop.

Wikipedia shorthand

A sort of catch all name for the powerful wizard what defeats the baddies. I've seen it mentioned here and elsewhere that Taborlin might just subsume stories about other acranists over time. WMF sort of lays some pipe for this when Aaron mentions Kvothe's cloak of no particular color. And it's reinforced by Kvothe essentially lifting bits from Taborlin stories for himself. It's pretty easy to imagine Cob and an equally irascible counterpart meeting fifty miles outside away from Newarre and arguing long into the night about whether the protagonist is Taborlin or Kvothe and settling on the older name. Make sense?

Wait. So presumably the Telwyth Mael must be a separate entity from the Mael. Though that seems odd to me. Okay. From what Bast said, the Mael are the skin dancers. I'm confused now. Is it possible that his father is the prince of the Telwyth Mael = the Mael but lives in a geographically discrete area? In which case it may be possible that Bast himself orchestrated the attack by the skin dancer.

Whoa that's a heck of a thought.

WAIT. WHOA. CRACK THEORY ALERT. What if the King that Kvothe kills is Bast's grandfather? If his father is the Prince of Twilight, a prince is the son of a king... Maybe Kvothe killed the King of Fae, causing all sorts of unrest there, unrest which is mirrored in the Four Corners.

I've had a lot of trouble reconciling the Mael being much different from the Telwyth Mael myself. Not much to go on there. I took Bastas to be the prince, though...

“Chronicler, I would like you to meet Bastas, son of Remmen, Prince of Twilight and the Telwyth Mael.
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two_by_two/thistle - I think you're finally starting to convince me... :) I've got two problems with Tarbolin being "recent" though. Number one is how he can be significant to the story when most of the important people are either within 50 years or 5000 years. two_by_two you've given me a very good idea on that one which fits in well with what I've been looking into lately. As a plus side it can also work with Tarbolin-as-Jack :) I'll try to get something down on paper in the next day or two (after this Bast thought train dies out, 'cause it's a good one). Second question then - the implication on the thousand years is that Felurian has only been imprisoned for the last thousand years. What did she do before that? We know she's been alive for 5000 years, so does that mean she was immortal on the outside? In many ways I find her character really puzzling - on the surface she's completely transparent (she's a being who lives for gratification and thus her motives should be predominately selfish) but the more I think about her the more complex she becomes...

On Bast - I'm glad we came back to Bast... he really is a strange character. I read though all the earlier threads a week or so ago and hit that same story, of Bast v. Jaime and it definitely raises more questions than it answers. On Mael - I read "Mael" as like "clan" or "group"... so the "Telwyth Mael" was a group of "Telwyth's" and when he talks about the skin dancers then their "Mael" was somewhere else. thistle - you're not alone on looking for evidence that Bast is Denna... I went through that one too and thought maybe the "I've seen her once" was sarcastic... (or, super crackpot theory... Bast is actually Kvothe and he has only seen "Denna" once, because in the text he says "I knew I'd never see her again"). :) The best I can think of though is that Kvothe does something to make Bast indebted to him. From there, I came up with two answers, neither of which is likely. :) Based on the idea that the Chandrian were cursed by Lanre and didn't actually want to be Chandrian, I had Bast as Cinder/Syphus/whoever. Doesn't really work though because Kvothe names them all. Second one I had was that Bast is whoever is sleeping behind the four plate door in the library. That ones a bit crazy too. For both of them, I discarded the "Prince of Twilight" line because I reasoned if Bast was either of those two, they wouldn't really advertise it Chronicler. I don't - I think they're both pretty weak ideas but I can't come up with much better. Bast is Manet? :dunno:

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I don't think we can say Felurian's imprisoned. She crossed into the Mortal with Kvothe. The sentence, "but worst of all, my people dread the portion of our power we shed when we set foot on mortal earth,” suggests a solidarity with others able to cross into the Mortal. And she's savvy enough to appear to Mortals when they can cross to her. I assumed she didn't fancy being vulnerable and got her information about the Mortal from the rare individual who managed to converse in her glade rather than pleasure hirself to death or delerium.

This next bit doesn't really challenge your theory, but I wanted to clarify some terms. The Chandrian were cursed by Selitos:

“This is my doom upon you. Your own name will be turned against you, that you shall have no peace.

This is my doom upon you
and all who follow you
. May it last until the world ends and the Aleu fall nameless from the sky.”

So the Chandrian, the other six betrayers, basically got caught in the spray there.

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Could the skin dancer be from the Uret Mael (Mahael)? (Mahael-uret, in Fae language, is what Bast calls a skin dancer).

I'm guessing that would make the Telwyth Mael (part of Bast's title) the "Mahael-telwyth" in Fae language...

Whoa I for sure do not remember this. Can you give a quote for context? And a page number or chapter marking or something? (I'm not casting doubt, I just want a little more context for this.)

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thistle - Good point. Indirectly, I guess they could still be pissed at Lanre for being cursed, but he didn't actually do it. Cheers :)

jez - I tried anagramming "Telwyth Mael" before... I got "We Them Tally" and started thinking Bast might be Natalia Lackless. I stopped after that :)

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Whoa I for sure do not remember this. Can you give a quote for context? And a page number or chapter marking or something? (I'm not casting doubt, I just want a little more context for this.)

Sure. I hope it's not a tenuous connection.

NW Kindle Chp. 88, approx position 13480

NW Paperback Chp. 88, pg 695

Kvothe says: " 'What do you think it was anyway?'

Bast shook his head. 'It seemed like one of the Mahael-uret, Reshi. A skin dancer.' He frowned as he said it, sounding anything but certain.

Kothe raised an eyebrow. 'It isn't one of your kind?'

Bast's normally affable expression sharpened into a glare. 'It was *not* *my kind*', he said indignantly. 'The Mael doesn't even share a border with us. It's as far away as anywhere can be in the Fae."

I'm relying on the similarity between the words Mael and Mahael.

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This next bit doesn't really challenge your theory, but I wanted to clarify some terms. The Chandrian were cursed by Selitos:

“This is my doom upon you. Your own name will be turned against you, that you shall have no peace.

This is my doom upon you
and all who follow you
. May it last until the world ends and the Aleu fall nameless from the sky.”

So the Chandrian, the other six betrayers, basically got caught in the spray there.

Interesting, I'd never really examined Selitos' curse before. But the thing that jumps out at me now is the bit about Aleu falling nameless from the sky. My guess would be that Aleu are stars, which is interesting since the Shapers, at least in the Fae, named the stars and put them in the sky. Perhaps the seven cities were located in the Fae (thistle I believe your belief is that Myr Taniriel (sp?) is located in the Fae via waystones). Crackpot theory: people have speculated that the Ruh are refugees of the Creation War, and it is mentioned numerous times that Kvothe has a Fae look about him. Maybe the Ruh are of a Faen lineage.

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My guess would be that Aleu are stars, which is interesting since the Shapers, at least in the Fae, named the stars and put them in the sky.

Hmmm, perhaps the shaper's world needs to be torn down for Haliax to die?

I still can't help but feel that the Seven want to free Iax from the Doors of Stone - Haliax so he can die, the others might feel this is the only way to end their perpetual flight from the non-human Amyr (angels).

ETA: It's been touched on but I do find it interesting that Felurian and Bast seem to fear the Seven, and the Seven in turn fear whoever was coming for them after they killed Kvothe's parents.

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Interesting, I'd never really examined Selitos' curse before. But the thing that jumps out at me now is the bit about Aleu falling nameless from the sky. My guess would be that Aleu are stars, which is interesting since the Shapers, at least in the Fae, named the stars and put them in the sky. Perhaps the seven cities were located in the Fae (thistle I believe your belief is that Myr Taniriel (sp?) is located in the Fae via waystones). Crackpot theory: people have speculated that the Ruh are refugees of the Creation War, and it is mentioned numerous times that Kvothe has a Fae look about him. Maybe the Ruh are of a Faen lineage.

There's a lot of if coming off that theory, but the convergence looks good. I really do think locating MT in Faen makes a lot of sense. It slots nicely into Arliden's poem. It helps explain why it's so different from the other cities and untouched by war. And it explains why it's often slip out as seven cities and one city. It's still a pretty weak theory I haven't built up well. I'd also buy that all eight cities were in Faen, but that's even weaker. I'm glad you noted the Aleu/Faen stars connection. I tend to see that, too.

Hmmm, perhaps the shaper's world needs to be torn down for Haliax to die?

I still can't help but feel that the Seven want to free Iax from the Doors of Stone - Haliax so he can die, the others might feel this is the only way to end their perpetual flight from the non-human Amyr (angels).

ETA: It's been touched on but I do find it interesting that Felurian and Bast seem to fear the Seven, and the Seven in turn fear whoever was coming for them after they killed Kvothe's parents.

I can't figure out why the seven would want to free Iax. It seems like a theory folks keep repeating until it reverberates off the edges of the discussion with no real reasoning behind it. I see the nomenclature parallel, but nothing else. Lanre's pretty clear that he has no hope save oblivion when all the aleu fall nameless from the sky. I can't see how freeing Iax (if it's him beyond/behind the doors) accomplishes that.

What exactly are you suggesting in the ETA bit?

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Well, I was thinking Iax might be the only one able to kill Haliax, as he could undo Selitos's curse as well as whatever lunatic shit Lanre accidentally did to himself. Admittedly I was looking at it more in terms of connecting the plot threads of the Seven with the Doors of Stone.

As for the ETA bit, everyone - including someone as powerful as Felurian - fears the Seven but it seems as if they in turn fear or at least are concerned by whoever (the true Amyr?) chased them away from Kvothe in the first part of Book I. The Chandrian have a goal and have worked toward it presumably for millennia. You'd think they'd have more interesting things to do than be highwaymen, but perhaps their own need to hide limits their ability to act.

It's just me wondering about exactly what the Seven want and why they can't accomplish this goal at once if they have considerable personal power. The one goal that I think makes sense is opening the Doors of Stone.

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Wow, thanks sciborg for that perfect segue... :) The Chandrian purpose is what I've been really looking into for the last couple of weeks. I've tried with all of this to make it build on any of the previous stuff I've chucked up, so if you're not a fan of that you probably won't like this. Either way, you might get an idea or a chance to bang your head against the wall in frustration... :)

There's something about NotW/WMF that keeps bugging me. It revolves around Kvothe's troupe and why they were killed. We're led to believe that it was because of the Lanre song that Arliden was writing. I have two major issues with this. For one, the words that Arliden sings for Kvothe's birthday are fundamentally no different from the words that Denna sings later on. Both of them paint Lanre as a hero. Sure, we don't get to hear the end of Arliden's song, but he strikes me as better than a "Lanre was great... oh wait no he wasn't" type writer.

The second thing that bugs me about this is a bit more damning. Arliden claims that he knew the purpose of the Chandrian. If that's the case, and it relates to killing people for singing/knowing about them, then why would he write a song about them that's likely to get them killed? It makes no sense.

So I started to look back through the text to see if there is any pattern to their activities. And I think I've found one. I'm building on the Laurian=Netalia, Patron=Cinder and Cthaeh=Selitos ideas, so if you don't agree with them you might not like this. I've used the following pieces of the story to try and explain the idea -

Skarpi1 - The betrayal of MT

Skarpi2 - The foundation of the Amyr

Chandrian1 - The killing of Kvothe's troupe

Chandrian2 - The Mauthen wedding massacre

Cinder1 - Stealing the Maer's tax money

Cinder2 - The tasks he sets for Denna

Skarpi1 - Although it's not explicitly stated, I think Skarpi1 describes the creation of the Chandrian. With Cthaeh=Selitos we have a reason for Lanre to attack Selitos (Selitos spoke to Iax before he stole the moon, which led to the Creation War and death of Lyra) but destroy MT and a bunch of other cities as well? It's a bit excessive...

So in terms of why he did what he did, I get the following quotes from Lanre -

"There is no joy!" Lanre shouted in an awful voice. Stones shattered at the sound and the sharp edges of echo came back to cut at them. "Any joy that grows here is quickly choked by weeds. I am not some monster who destroys out of twisted pleasure. I sow salt because the choice is between weeds and nothing."

And later

In spite of all that had happened, Selitos looked at Lanre with pity, and when he spoke it was with sadness in his voice. "Is there nothing then? No hope?" He lay one hand on Lanre's arm. "There is sweetness in life. Even after all of this, I will help you look for it if you will try."

"No," said Lanre. He stood to his full height, his face regal behind lines of grief. "There is nothing sweet. I will sow salt, lest the bitter weeds grow."

I don't think Lanre is talking about indiscriminate killing here. To me, it sounds like he is talking about wiping out a certain type of people. I'm deliberately leaving out motive here, but I think the purpose of the Chandrian is to wipe out the Loeclos line. Please save all questions for the end :)

Why attack Myr Tariniel? Assuming MT is at the end of the old stone road, we have the following from Caudicus in WMF

"The Lackless family is old." He stopped his pacing and settled down into a threadbare armchair. "Much older than the house of Alveron. A thousand years ago the Lackless family enjoyed a power at least as great as Avleron's. Pieces of what are now Vintas, Modeg and a large portion of the Small Kingdoms were all Lackless lands at one point."

If you look at the map on PR's website, Vintas, Modeg and the Small Kingdoms all meet around the end of the old stone road. I think the Loeclos family used to own the area around Myr Tariniel. As a side note - Auri gives Kvothe an ancient coin and he later finds an old Modegan coin in his pocket. I think that coin comes from MT (or the area where MT used to be).

Skarpi2 - Kvothe misses the start of Skarpi's second story. We hear the following

...Selitos One-Eye stood forward and said, "Lord, if I do this thing will I be given the power to avenge the loss of the shining city? Can I confound the plots of Lanre and his Chandrian who killed the innocent and burnt my beloved Myr Tariniel?" Aleph said, "No. All personal things must be set aside, and you must punish or reward only what you yourself witness from this day forth."

So two things out of that. First, Aleph (who spun the world out of a nameless void) is asking Selitos, Tehlu and the rest to do something for him. I think this task is protecting the Loeclos family from Lanre and the Chandrian. If they do this for him he will give them angel powers.

But importantly, there are rules. If they take this power, they can only strike at the Chandrian after they have seen them commit a crime. They can't act based on evidence or heresy. That's pretty good incentive for the Chandrian to strike secretly, rather than risking an all out war.

Chandrian1 - So on to the killing of Kvothe's troupe. Why did they kill them? From NotW

"Is this your parents' fire?" he asked with a terrible delight in his voice.

I nodded numbly.

His smile slowly faded. Expressionless, he looked deep into me. His voice was quiet, cold and sharp. "Someone's parents," he said, "have been singing entirely the wrong sort of songs."

So based on the idea that if Arliden knew the purpose of the Chandrian, he wouldn't write a song basically asking them to come and kill him, I looked at other songs they've sung. From WMF

"You said your mom made your dad sleep under the wagon for singing the verse about sheep. Did she really?"

"It's mostly a figure of speech," I said. "But once she really did."

I didn't often think of my early life in my troupe, back when my parents were alive. I avoided the subject the same way a cripple learns to keep the weight off an injured leg. But Sim's question brought a memory bubbling to the surface of my mind.

"It wasn't for singing 'Tinker Tanner'," I found myself saying. "It was a song he'd written about her..."

This is the "Not tally a lot less" song. I think that this is the song that Cinder was talking about. I think someone made the connection that Laurian was Netalia so the Chandrian tracked down the troupe and killed them. I think it gives a second meaning to the song as well - not only saying that Laurian is Netalia, but the words before that - "It's worth my life/To make my wife/Not tally a lot less".

Chandrian2 - So the second time we encounter the Chandrian, they're laying waste to the Mauthen farm. Kvothe meets Denna as the sole survivor to the massacre and she tells him she was on an errand for Cinder. What did he ask of her?

"I really didn't see much," she said as she daubed her face on her shirtsleeve. "I played before the wedding, then again while they were getting ready for supper. I kept expecting my..." she gave a faint smile, "... Master Ash to make an appearance, but I knew I couldn't dare ask about him. For all I knew, the whole thing was another test of his." She trailed off, frowning. "He has a way of signalling me. A way to let me know when he's around. I excused myself and found him over by the barn. We headed into the woods for a bit and he asked me questions. Who was there, how many people, what they looked like." She looked thoughtful.

"Now that I think about it, that was the real test. He wanted to see how observant I was."

There's no mention of the vase there at all, but to me, it sounds specifically like he was looking for someone. Earlier in the Chapter it is claimed that 26 guests were at the wedding. I believe that one of those guests was a descendant of the Loeclos family. Why? Easy - the Mauthen's found the Chandrian vase 6 months before the wedding. In that time, one of their sons showed it to one of his friends. It's perfectly conceivable that one of the other four showed it to someone or mentioned it to someone else. In fact, if you believe that the Chandrian killed them for finding the vase then that must of happened - else how else would they know about it? I think that one of the guests that came along is an offspring of the Loeclos family and the vase is a red herring.

Cinder1 - One of the most confusing aspects of the book is why Cinder would go to all the bother of stealing the Maer's tax money. I think there's a clue in what the Maer says in WMF

"How much have they managed to take?" The Maer gave me a stern look that let me know the impropriety of my question. "Enough. More than enough. This is the fourth I've had go missing. Over half my northern taxes taken by highwaymen." He gave me a serious look.

"The Lackless lands are in the north, you know."

"You think the Lacklesses are waylaying your collectors?"

He gave me a stunned look. "What? No, no. It's bandits in the Eld."

I think that Cinder set a trap for the Lackless family. I think that he stole all of their tax money in the hope that they would search him out to try and get it back, and he could attack them while they were vulnerable. This fits with the idea that the Chandrian are sneaking around and trying to wipe out the Loeclos line.

Cinder2 - Finally, we get mention in the text of a few other tasks that Cinder has set for Denna. I posted about it a bit back, so I won't go into too much detail here, but he has been getting her to travel around to conduct genealogical research. And that research led her to the story of Lanre. Again, I think that he has been using Denna to find any hidden Loeclos family members.

So all of this leaves us with a bunch of questions. I'll go through all the ones I've thought of so far.

Why would the Chandrian want to kill the Loeclos family?

Ahhhh.... motive. I can give you three reasons - none of which is really a smoking gun, but all of which fit the story. Firstly, for what they are - I think the Loeclos are descendants of Lyra and Lanre, but there might be more than that. Maybe all the shapers came from this line. Maybe all the Faen creatures came from this line. Maybe being the offspring of Lyra is enough, and there is some madness passed down to them that Lanre is trying to rid the world of. Secondly, for what they have - the Loeclos box immediately springs to mind. I'd imagine that Lanre would like to have that. Another alternative is that he is trying to prevent the Lackless Door from being opened by making sure there isn't a "son who brings the blood". Thirdly, for what they might be - this ones a little left field, but maybe someone in the Loeclos family is destined to do something one day. I keep thinking of the "prophecy" as a fantasy cliche. Well, it wouldn't really be a cliche if the only person who knew there was a prophecy was the enemy would it? He could be making sure that whatever it is that Selitos has told him does not come to pass. Ironically, all the other players in the story could have no idea.

So, you're basically saying that one single family has existed for 5000 years as the enemy of a bunch of immortals... I call shenanigans!

Technically that's not a question. :) But not really, no. Maybe it's not the Loeclos family, but another family that the Loeclos family derived from. Maybe there a few family lines they are trying to erase, and the Loeclos line just happens to be one. Bear in mind, when I say "Loeclos" here I am talking about all of the offshoots - the Lackless family, the Lackeys, the Kapcaens, etc (so not just Meluan and Aculeus). If you think about it, if you trace a family back to a couple of people 5000 years in the past, then follow those original two all the way to the present, there will be stacks of people. At least, there'll be plenty to kill in the intervening 500 years.

If the goal of the Chandrian is to kill the Loeclos family, why didn't they just kill Kvothe when they had the chance?

Three reasons, from the Cthaeh

"Why did they leave you alive? Why, because they were sloppy, and because you were lucky, and because something scared them away."

That last part is the key. Because something scared them away. Because there are rules to the game. If the angels see the Chandrian killing someone, they can use their powers against them. I think that when they look at the sky, that is the cue that the angels are watching. From that point on, they can be attacked by the angels if they do something wrong. This also explains why Cinder fled from Kvothe in the forest. It wasn't because he thought Kvothe was an Amyr (although that may have helped). It was because he was being watched by angels and by the rules of the game he couldn't attack.

If the Chandrian wanted to kill a Loeclos at the Mauthen wedding, why wait until everyone was there?

If the goal of the Chandrian was only to wipe out all traces of themselves (ie destroy the vase and everyone who saw it) then why not hit the farm in the week before the wedding? They obviously knew a wedding was going on, because they sent Denna there to watch over it. There are more subtle ways to remove traces of yourself than killing nearly 30 people with blue fire and shadows. I think they needed to wait until the wedding because whoever they were targeting simply wasn't around yet. And this is why they sent Denna in - they needed to hide all traces of themselves from the angels until the time came to strike, then go in, kill the lot, and get out ASAP.

As a side note, in Skarpi1, Aleph mentions the angels can also reward actions they see. Someones already brought up the notion that the tinkers offer Kvothe things that he needs at a later date. Ever notice how he only runs into tinkers when he's heading towards Chandrian? :)

Why don't the Chandrian just go and kill Meluan and Aculeus?

Same reason they didn't kill Kvothe when they had the chance. Because there are rules. Because open warfare against the Lackless family would be watched by the angels. And the outcome of that wouldn't be good at all for the Chandrian.

What's all this got to do with Tarbolin?

Glad you asked :) With the Loeclos family as descendants of Lyra and Lanre, we have a good mix for making magically strong offspring. With the Chandrian trying to eradicate the Loeclos line, we would have many run ins between the Loeclos' and the Chandrian. Tarbolin can be either one Kvothe's earlier relatives down the Loeclos line, or a combination of a few of them. It makes sense that these people fighting the Chandrian might be spoken of for many years to come.

And lastly - a little off topic but some smart people on this board have pegged Newarre as being in Vintas. Based on nothing more than a hunch, I think in D3 we'll find that refined to be within Lackless lands. Sorry for the long thread :)

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Wow Bradd, you've put hours of thought into that. Great ideas and well put together.

The second thing that bugs me about this is a bit more damning. Arliden claims that he knew the purpose of the Chandrian. If that's the case, and it relates to killing people for singing/knowing about them, then why would he write a song about them that's likely to get them killed? It makes no sense.

I don't think Arliden would have claimed their purpose as being related to "killing people for singing/knowing about them". I think they kill people that sing their true names (it causes then pain/discomfort?). ArIiden probably would have practiced singing the song - singing in private, many times, at least a few of the couple of dozen Chandrian's names he's collected - which would have been like a moving beacon for the Chandrian to follow.

I agree that if Arliden knew that singing their names was dangerous, he wouldn't have sung them.

As to the Chandrian's purpose that Arliden thinks he has found, you may be right. I just don't know.

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This is the "Not tally a lot less" song. I think that this is the song that Cinder was talking about. I think someone made the connection that Laurian was Netalia so the Chandrian tracked down the troupe and killed them. I think it gives a second meaning to the song as well - not only saying that Laurian is Netalia, but the words before that - "It's worth my life/To make my wife/Not tally a lot less".

Nice idea. It never occurred to me that his Chandrian song might not be the one Cinder was referencing.

I think that Cinder set a trap for the Lackless family. I think that he stole all of their tax money in the hope that they would search him out to try and get it back, and he could attack them while they were vulnerable. This fits with the idea that the Chandrian are sneaking around and trying to wipe out the Loeclos line.

Why would Lackless and Alveron tax collectors be traveling the same routes? Wouldn't that mean they're taxing each other's subjects? That doesn't make sense to me.

Edit: Well I guess it's possible they each have taxpayers on each side of the Eld and that road is the best way for each of their tax collectors to travel.

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great stuff bradd, on a reread of your post curious about this part:

I think that Cinder set a trap for the Lackless family. I think that he stole all of their tax money in the hope that they would search him out to try and get it back, and he could attack them while they were vulnerable. This fits with the idea that the Chandrian are sneaking around and trying to wipe out the Loeclos line.

Would he expect them to send an actual member of the family?

I can see their desire to wipe out the family lines, but this cherry picking of its members seems an almost impossible task.

We know that in the first scene of the Seven, Cinder is threatened by Haliax, who notes that he keeps the others safe.

To me, this endless running across the millennia means that their goal, whatever it is, has to lead to a state where at minimum they no longer have to fear whoever is watching them. The fact that they flee seems to suggest that whoever was coming in the first scene could have at least imprisoned them. So I think these angels or whatever are more than just watchers maybe?

What's also interesting is that the Sidhe guard the Cthaeh, but who guards the Doors on Lackless grounds? The Amyr? The angels?

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I think this is some cool speculation bradd, but I think your theory has a few flaws. Firstly, the song. I think it's a new observation that maybe the Tally a lot Less song was what attracted the Chandrian, but in the present day Kvothe seems to be under the impression that it was the Chandrian song that attracted them. Either Kvothe is still ignorant, or it was the Chandrian song that got their attention.

As for the vase being a red herring it's certainly possible, but as you point out the Chandrian probably wanted everyone they were interested in one place. I believe Denna makes the point that they could use the wedding to kill everyone who has seen the vase.

I also agree with jumbles that waylaying tax collectors seems a strange way to lure the Lackless family into the forrest. Unless they were targetting Kvothe specifically it seems unlikely that members of the aristocracy would show up in the Eld themselves. Most likely they'd send some sort of Lackey (pun intended).

As for motives, I think you're going to need to find a more concrete motive for Haliax and company wanting to wipe out the line of Lyra and Lanre (assuming Lyra was a Loecless), since Lanre IS Haliax. Why would Haliax want to wipe out his own bloodline? I guess you could make the argument that he had made a deal with supernatural forces to get his newfound naming power and wanted to remove his corrupted children. But would his powers/curse carry down through the generations, especially since he got those powers AFTER the mother of his children was dead (it couldn't be passed on genetically).

Finally, I think the biggest hole in this admittedly intriguing theory is Haliax's reaction to Kvothe on the night the troupe is murdered. When Kvothe stumbles into the firelight Cinder toys with him but Haliax says something along the lines of "this one has done nothing wrong, send him quickly to his last sleep" (the text even mentioning that Haliax sort of stumbles on the word "sleep" which I whought was a neat little touch). If Haliax's driving motive for 5000 years is the destruction of each and every last member of the Lackless/Lockless/Loecless lineage then his reaction should probably have been more along the lines of "There's another one of the fuckers right there! Quick! Quick! Get him now before the little shit gets away!"

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Why attack Myr Tariniel? Assuming MT is at the end of the old stone road, we have the following from Caudicus in WMF

"The Lackless family is old." He stopped his pacing and settled down into a threadbare armchair. "Much older than the house of Alveron. A thousand years ago the Lackless family enjoyed a power at least as great as Avleron's. Pieces of what are now Vintas, Modeg and a large portion of the Small Kingdoms were all Lackless lands at one point."

If you look at the map on PR's website, Vintas, Modeg and the Small Kingdoms all meet around the end of the old stone road. I think the Loeclos family used to own the area around Myr Tariniel. As a side note - Auri gives Kvothe an ancient coin and he later finds an old Modegan coin in his pocket. I think that coin comes from MT (or the area where MT used to be).

This is pretty cool, and good catches. Do we know approximately where Severen is? I'm assuming it's somewhere approximately due west of the V on this map, but I have no evidence for this; it's merely a guess. This would help me out in placing the current Lackless holdings.

Skarpi2 - Kvothe misses the start of Skarpi's second story. We hear the following

...Selitos One-Eye stood forward and said, "Lord, if I do this thing will I be given the power to avenge the loss of the shining city? Can I confound the plots of Lanre and his Chandrian who killed the innocent and burnt my beloved Myr Tariniel?" Aleph said, "No. All personal things must be set aside, and you must punish or reward only what you yourself witness from this day forth."

So two things out of that. First, Aleph (who spun the world out of a nameless void) is asking Selitos, Tehlu and the rest to do something for him. I think this task is protecting the Loeclos family from Lanre and the Chandrian. If they do this for him he will give them angel powers.

But importantly, there are rules. If they take this power, they can only strike at the Chandrian after they have seen them commit a crime. They can't act based on evidence or heresy. That's pretty good incentive for the Chandrian to strike secretly, rather than risking an all out war.

I like this a lot, especially the idea of rules. That's a big deal to Bredon, and I think it makes sense to be reflected throughout.

Chandrian1 - So on to the killing of Kvothe's troupe. Why did they kill them? From NotW

"Is this your parents' fire?" he asked with a terrible delight in his voice.

I nodded numbly.

His smile slowly faded. Expressionless, he looked deep into me. His voice was quiet, cold and sharp. "Someone's parents," he said, "have been singing entirely the wrong sort of songs."

So based on the idea that if Arliden knew the purpose of the Chandrian, he wouldn't write a song basically asking them to come and kill him, I looked at other songs they've sung. From WMF

"You said your mom made your dad sleep under the wagon for singing the verse about sheep. Did she really?"

"It's mostly a figure of speech," I said. "But once she really did."

I didn't often think of my early life in my troupe, back when my parents were alive. I avoided the subject the same way a cripple learns to keep the weight off an injured leg. But Sim's question brought a memory bubbling to the surface of my mind.

"It wasn't for singing 'Tinker Tanner'," I found myself saying. "It was a song he'd written about her..."

This is the "Not tally a lot less" song. I think that this is the song that Cinder was talking about. I think someone made the connection that Laurian was Netalia so the Chandrian tracked down the troupe and killed them. I think it gives a second meaning to the song as well - not only saying that Laurian is Netalia, but the words before that - "It's worth my life/To make my wife/Not tally a lot less".

Never would have crossed my mind. I really like the idea of Arliden's Chandrian song being a red herring. However, I find a few things hard to swallow.

  1. that someone who heard Arliden's song about Laurian managed to piece together that he was talking about Netalia,
  2. that this information managed to get back to the Chandrian at all - how would they pick up on this small piece of gossip?
  3. that the information got back to the Chandrian along with the knowledge that it was picked up from a song.

Especially the last one. The human mind does not cite its sources well. We absorb information but ignore where we found it. The only way I could see this possibly happening is if the story went like this: "I heard this Ruh singing a song and figured out that it meant his wife is the lost Lackless!" But then it seems the next degree of separation would be more like this: "The lost Lackless married a Ruh!" and so on. No mention of the song anymore.

Chandrian2 - So the second time we encounter the Chandrian, they're laying waste to the Mauthen farm. Kvothe meets Denna as the sole survivor to the massacre and she tells him she was on an errand for Cinder. What did he ask of her?

"I really didn't see much," she said as she daubed her face on her shirtsleeve. "I played before the wedding, then again while they were getting ready for supper. I kept expecting my..." she gave a faint smile, "... Master Ash to make an appearance, but I knew I couldn't dare ask about him. For all I knew, the whole thing was another test of his." She trailed off, frowning. "He has a way of signalling me. A way to let me know when he's around. I excused myself and found him over by the barn. We headed into the woods for a bit and he asked me questions. Who was there, how many people, what they looked like." She looked thoughtful.

"Now that I think about it, that was the real test. He wanted to see how observant I was."

There's no mention of the vase there at all, but to me, it sounds specifically like he was looking for someone. Earlier in the Chapter it is claimed that 26 guests were at the wedding. I believe that one of those guests was a descendant of the Loeclos family. Why? Easy - the Mauthen's found the Chandrian vase 6 months before the wedding. In that time, one of their sons showed it to one of his friends. It's perfectly conceivable that one of the other four showed it to someone or mentioned it to someone else. In fact, if you believe that the Chandrian killed them for finding the vase then that must of happened - else how else would they know about it? I think that one of the guests that came along is an offspring of the Loeclos family and the vase is a red herring.

Excellent point. The best way to get rid of a piece of evidence like this is not to let the word get spread about and then kill anyone who might have been involved. It's to get rid of the evidence before anyone else can see it. Also, the Chandrian leave their signs everywhere. That's how we know about them at all. And make no mistake - we do know many of them even without this evidence. What difference does it make if a few farmers in the middle of nowhere know exactly which signs correspond to which Chandrian?

Cinder1 - One of the most confusing aspects of the book is why Cinder would go to all the bother of stealing the Maer's tax money. I think there's a clue in what the Maer says in WMF

"How much have they managed to take?" The Maer gave me a stern look that let me know the impropriety of my question. "Enough. More than enough. This is the fourth I've had go missing. Over half my northern taxes taken by highwaymen." He gave me a serious look.

"The Lackless lands are in the north, you know."

"You think the Lacklesses are waylaying your collectors?"

He gave me a stunned look. "What? No, no. It's bandits in the Eld."

I think that Cinder set a trap for the Lackless family. I think that he stole all of their tax money in the hope that they would search him out to try and get it back, and he could attack them while they were vulnerable. This fits with the idea that the Chandrian are sneaking around and trying to wipe out the Loeclos line.

I like this. Cinder does seem to be there solely to give Kvothe another look at him, without any real motivation.

Why would the Chandrian want to kill the Loeclos family?

Ahhhh.... motive. I can give you three reasons - none of which is really a smoking gun, but all of which fit the story. Firstly, for what they are - I think the Loeclos are descendants of Lyra and Lanre, but there might be more than that. Maybe all the shapers came from this line. Maybe all the Faen creatures came from this line. Maybe being the offspring of Lyra is enough, and there is some madness passed down to them that Lanre is trying to rid the world of. Secondly, for what they have - the Loeclos box immediately springs to mind. I'd imagine that Lanre would like to have that. Another alternative is that he is trying to prevent the Lackless Door from being opened by making sure there isn't a "son who brings the blood". Thirdly, for what they might be - this ones a little left field, but maybe someone in the Loeclos family is destined to do something one day. I keep thinking of the "prophecy" as a fantasy cliche. Well, it wouldn't really be a cliche if the only person who knew there was a prophecy was the enemy would it? He could be making sure that whatever it is that Selitos has told him does not come to pass. Ironically, all the other players in the story could have no idea.

This is my doom upon you and all those that follow you.

All those that follow you. His offspring. The line of Lanre itself is cursed. Selitos screwed up the wording and accidentally caught Lanre's children in the blast. Or something like that. Maybe it was deliberate.

Finally, I think the biggest hole in this admittedly intriguing theory is Haliax's reaction to Kvothe on the night the troupe is murdered. When Kvothe stumbles into the firelight Cinder toys with him but Haliax says something along the lines of "this one has done nothing wrong, send him quickly to his last sleep" (the text even mentioning that Haliax sort of stumbles on the word "sleep" which I whought was a neat little touch). If Haliax's driving motive for 5000 years is the destruction of each and every last member of the Lackless/Lockless/Loecless lineage then his reaction should probably have been more along the lines of "There's another one of the fuckers right there! Quick! Quick! Get him now before the little shit gets away!"

Good point. Haliax and Cinder do pause for an awfully long time to chat once they know that Kvothe is the child of Arliden and Laurian if they're trying to kill the Lacklesses.

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If you think about it, if you trace a family back to a couple of people 5000 years in the past, then follow those original two all the way to the present, there will be stacks of people. At least, there'll be plenty to kill in the intervening 500 years.

After 5000 years they could easily have millions of living descendants, most of the world could be descended from them.

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This is pretty cool, and good catches. Do we know approximately where Severen is? I'm assuming it's somewhere approximately due west of the V on this map, but I have no evidence for this; it's merely a guess. This would help me out in placing the current Lackless holdings.

Word of God: "North of Renere. South of Tinue."

Best fit, given docks and the Eld is northerly: where the river meets one of the two larger lakes

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