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


jumbles

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Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I remember there is no sign of Alenta being with the Seven when they attack Kvothe's parents.

You are correct, there were no signs of blight described in the scene. I just read it.

But there is a flaw in that theory.

Felurian place in the Fae is full of plants, grass and kind. All of them ought to have died if she was Alenta (who brings the blight).

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You are correct, there were no signs of blight described in the scene. I just read it.

But there is a flaw in that theory.

Felurian place in the Fae is full of plants, grass and kind. All of them ought to have died if she was Alenta (who brings the blight).

I stepped back as it gave way, the wagon splintering as if its wood were rotten as an old stump.

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Thistlepong:

I stepped back as it gave way, the wagon splintering as if its wood were rotten as an old stump.

I didn't think that was Alenta's sign but rather Usnea's (Decay).

Note the line:

The wagon splintering as if its wood were
rotten
as an old stump.

If I am not mistaken, blight effects living plants.

unJon:

I saw several unfamiliar men and women sitting around a fire. My parents' fire.

That is the only mention of the group (at least in that section).

Another of them that is mentioned is described as:

a bald man with a grey beard

Only Cinder and Haliax are described apart from those. So no, we don't know exactly how many of them were at the time, and if any one of them was Alenta.

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Might be Usnea. Usnea seems like the one to go about naked, though. That or risk trailing a void like Pigpen from Peanuts. In any case he looks back at the memory enough that drawing conclusions from that chapter alone might not be productive.

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I was thinking about how the Fae were changed to be long-lived/immortal and how they all live in their special little dimension when something occurred to me.

Notice how all the chandrian take away energy from their surroundings? What if the Chandrian are drawing power from their various sources?

Cyphus bears the blue flame.

Stercus is in thrall of iron.

Ferule chill and dark of eye.

Usnea lives in nothing but decay.

Grey Dalcenti never speaks.

Pale Alenta brings the blight.

Last there is the lord of seven:

Hated. Hopeless. Sleepless. Sane.

Alaxel bears the shadow’s hame.

Cyphus might be drawing power from the electromagnetic spectrum, since blue light contains less energy than yellow light.

Ferule might be sucking out the heat from her environment.

Usnea might be taking energy from chemical reactions and speeding them up by lowering the activation energy required

Dalcenti might be taking energy from sound, causing silence

Alaxel, like Cyphus, might be sucking up light altogether and causing darkness.

I'm not sure about Stercus, but maybe he's drawing power from magnetism, thereby making ferromagnetic materials unferromagnetic and causing permanent magnets to lose their magnetic state. As for Alenta, maybe she's drawing power from life and causing death, though there's no such thing as "life energy." Or maybe she's drawing power from cellular activity, causing it to slow down or stop.

The theory I have is that the Fae need to be in Faerie in order to stay long-lived/immortal. If there wasn't something keeping them in Faerie most of the time, wouldn't there be diplomatic relations between Faerie and the human world? Wouldn't there be exchange programs and embassies? Even when the Fae visit the mortal realm, they only stay for a single night and make sure to return home before the night is over.

The Chandrian, on the other hand, are immortal and in the human world. Instead of being signs, what if the blue flame and all that stuff are side-effects of their various methods of staying alive? Think about it. Sympathy is all about changing energy from one form into another. Maybe there's a way of becoming immortal by using advanced sympathy or naming to draw energy from natural phenomena.

And this brings me to the Fae realm. I'm getting more speculative, but bear with me. Before Iax, every shaper made their own little corner of Faerie and created a star to fill the empty sky. What if, instead of creating the star, each shaper "stole" their stars and drew on them to power their little dimensions and keep them young? Then Iax came along and he pulled the entire moon into the Faen realm and suddenly Faerie wasn't just a playground for the powerful and wise but became habitable for an entire race of immortal people.

To the people in the human realm, it must have been an act of war. These shapers were seceding from the Empire and the people in charge don't like it when that happens. They were taking all the most talented people and, more importantly, stole the goddamn moon. Maybe the Empire needed the moon to power their own works.

So a way broke out that lasted for centuries, and the Empire was winning until the Chandrian brought about the fall of their cities.

[EDIT] Another wild speculation: What if the pre-Fae people were long-lived/immortal until Iax stole the moon? Felurian was alive before the Fae existed and stayed alive by emigrating to the Fae realm.

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More wild speculation:

Selitos being the Cthaeh makes sense if he was the Emperor of Ergen. He created the Amyr and was all about the Great Good. The Greater Good thing sounds okay if you're benefitting from medical knowledge gained from horrible experiments hundreds of years ago, but not so much if you're living in fear that soldiers might come to your house in the night and drag your family from their beds.

If Selitos took the Great Good philosophy to extremes, he would have been a terrible tyrant.

What if one day Iax, a lord of a province or something, came to him and said, "Cut it out or I'll seceed."

Selitos said no and Iax makes war on the Empire. When that doesn't work out, he steals the moon and creates a safe haven for his people. This fits what Bast said. Iax spoke to Selitos and the conversation led to the Creation War.

Centuries later, Lanre and Lyra are fighting for Selitos against Iax. Lanre defeats Iax and dies at the Blac of Drossen Tor. Lyra calls him back and binds him to Iax. Selitos kills Lyra. Lanre decides to seek revenge and/or bring back Lyra and makes a deal with Iax. In return for organizing the destruction of the Empire, Iax would allow Lanre to access his naming abilities. It doesn't work and Lanre, now called Haliax, becomes a nihilist intent on the destruction of everything. (This explains why the Chandrian are enemies of the Sithe, who are part of the Fae establishment.)

This sort of works. Selitos stabs his eye out and gains the power to see the future. He goes to the one remaining Emperial city left, probably Tinusa (now called the free city of Tinue), forms the Amyr, and starts a guerilla war (or uses terrorist tactics). Finally, Selitos is captured and taken as a political prisoner to the Fae realm. He's bound to the Rhinna tree, and the Sithe kill anyone who comes near him.

Of course, anyone who comes near him is Fae, so Selitos has no problem arranging their deaths and causing huge destruction. He becomes such a terrifying figure in Fae culture that they can't even bear to say his name, calling him Cthaeh instead. He becomes a boogieman and is used to scare children into good behavior.

Meanwhile, the Amyr are still in the human realm, doing their Greater Good thing. Lanre and his Chandrians are continuing their campaign against existence. Aleph and his angels are there to stop him from taking it too far.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I remember there is no sign of Alenta being with the Seven when they attack Kvothe's parents.

Hmm okay well I think Alenta was there. First of all, when Kvothe's family is killed, it is never fully described how many and which people were there. All we know for sure is that there are "several unfamiliar men and women," including Cinder (Ferule), "a bald man with a grey beard," and Haliax. From the physical signs described, we can infer that Cyphus was there (the blue flame), and presumably Usnea ("the wagon splintering as if its wood were rotten as an old stump," as well as the iron rusting - though as Arliden mentions, it is difficult to say if this is a separate sign, perhaps for Stercus?). Additionally, since it is somewhat unclear what several of the signs represent, it is also possible that Alenta (blight) is in fact there.

I believe we can infer from the description "several unfamiliar men and women" that there are multiple men and multiple women. We think that Alenta is female (based on the "see a woman pale as snow" rhyme), but this means there should be at least one other female Chandrian. We know it's not Ferule or Alaxel. Based on Nina's descriptions of a woman holding a broken sword and a different woman with no clothes (WMF 35: Secrets, TNotW 82: Ash and Elm...), well, really it could be any of them: Stercus for the iron, Usnea for the decay, Alenta for the blight... who knows? I have always had the gut feeling that Usnea and Alenta are the two female Chandrian. I can't remember why, or if there is any textual evidence for this.

This post ended up being a lot longer and more rambling than I intended. In short: Alenta probably was with the Chandrian when Kvothe's troupe was destroyed, along with the other female Chandrian, possibly Usnea.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I remember there is no sign of Alenta being with the Seven when they attack Kvothe's parents.

There are signs, as a matter of fact.

I saw several unfamiliar men and women sitting around a fire.

This implies the presence of multiple women, at least two.

"There was a woman holding a broken sword[...]. And there was a woman..." She blushed. "With some of her clothes off."

This implies the existence of two female Chandrian. Thus, it seems that both female Chandrian were present at the killing of Kvothe's troupe. This would presumably include Alenta, who we assume to be female ("See a woman pale as snow...")

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There are signs, as a matter of fact.

This implies the presence of multiple women, at least two.

This implies the existence of two female Chandrian. Thus, it seems that both female Chandrian were present at the killing of Kvothe's troupe. This would presumably include Alenta, who we assume to be female ("See a woman pale as snow...")

Where are the signs? You're only listing hints that there are more than one female Chandrian and I agree with you on that. I wrote in the previous thread that the German translation says clearly that Alenta is female.

I saw several unfamiliar men and women sitting around a fire.

That's true but it could also mean that there could be even more than two female Chandrian, thus Alenta doesn't have to be present. Actually, I believe there is even an evidence for Alenta not being present when they kill Kvothe's parents. Alenta brings the blight, right? To me this is in regards of plants. NotW, ch. 16:

It was Shandi's fire, and a small pot hung simmering, boiling potatoes, strangely familiar among the chaos. I focused on the kettle. Something normal. I used a stick to poke at the contents and saw that they were finished cooking. Normal.

If Alenta were there, the potatoes would look different, right?

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Nope, it's only done so with Alenta. However, the translator changed the phrase of Dalcenti completely in order to avoid using a specific gender (instead of 'the Grey Dalcenti never speaks’, it is translated as 'Dalcenti: grey and mute and solemn.') He could have done the same with Alenta but for some reason didn't.

Another thing about Alenta= Felurian. I know that if Alenta brings the blight it is impossible that Felurian is Alenta since plants and animals surround her. However, I think it would be completely ironic if Felurian in fact turns out to be Alenta. What if TeaSpoon's theory about the Chandrians' signs is right? Alenta/Felurian could then be around plants without them spoiling (can you say that? Plants dying I mean) because she doesn't need to take their live energy the entire time. But if she then needs the power/live energy, she's in the perfect place for that.

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Interesting. I'm fairly convinced Kvothe liked the person he killed and that he both sees his actions as necessary but regrets having to do what he did quite a bit. What is your take on the Introduction to the NOTW where Old Cobb is telling a Taborlin story with the Chandrian as the villians? In TWMF Kvothe's research and personal experience, then Bast's reaction to Kvothe's saying the Chandrian's names, seem to indicate they are still dangerous. However, Old Cobb talks about them plain as day in his story. No qualms or hesitation about mentioning them. Why?

I've always been under a similar impression about Kvothe's feelings. Don't forget, at one point early in NotW he baldly states that he's killed a lot of people and each and every one of them deserved it. This would therefore apply to the king he kills, the bandits in the Eld, the faux Ruh, and any supernatural creatures. He may have regrets about the consequences of his actions and the need to kill someone, but I think his attitude echoes that of the doctor's when he returns the kidnapped girls: if you have a cancer you cut it out, if a leg has gangrene you cut it off. It's a very Amyr-esque point of view.

As for Cobb telling the story of the Chandrian I always figured that something happens in the series that lets the general public know that they are, in fact, real. Or at least puts them back in the public consciousness. Remember that when Kvothe is at the University pretty much everyone regards the Chandrian as quaint fairy stories, and the only books he can find with information in them are childrens books. However, by the the time of the framing story not only is Cobb telling a story about the Tamborlin the Great and the Chandrian, but he's using a name pretty close to a true name (presumably King Scyphus is really Cyphus). This indicates a huge shift in public awareness.

This leads me to some pure speculation that's already been touched on before, about the Chandrian being replacable. Perhaps each of the Chandrian is less an individual and more of a position of sorts. I imagine that if the Tamborlin the Great story has an ounce of truth in it then Tamborlin kicked the king's ass, which means he either died or repented. But if that's the case then why are there still 7 Chandrian? The Chronicler mentions rumors that there is a new Chandrian. People have speculated that it's Denna or that people believe Kvothe became a Chandrian. Maybe there's some truth to this possibility.

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Whoah...Where's this? Thanks!

It's somewhere in the very beginning of the series, right after the Chronicler recognized the innkeeper as Kvothe. He's trying to persuade Kvothe to tell his story and is rattling off all the different rumors swirling around. I'm pretty sure I recall (and I've seen other people on this thread mention) that one of those rumors is that there is a new Chandrian running around. Can anyone else confirm?

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