Kyll.Ing.

Started reading 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster. Haven't come that far in, yet, but I can already tell that this books is one of the rare ones that makes you want to meet the author in real life... ...and grab him by the collar, cling him up against the nearest wall and shout "FULL STOPS! THEY ARE THERE FOR YOU TO USE THEM! THE PERIOD KEY DOES NOT BITE YOU!" I think it's a writing technique used to convey some sort of running-train-of-thought-feeling or something, but man do those ungodly long sentences make the book an absolute chore to read. There can be three sentences to a page, each with a dozen-odd commas. From what I can tell it's written like that throughout the entire book. It has taken me two weeks to get fifty pages in, with sizable breaks to read other, less obnoxiously punctuated books in between. I'm usually not one to not finish the books I read, but I may be willing to make an exception for this. After reading three more pages today, I think I'll read the next Discworld novel before attempting to brave the book again. The cover promises an intriguing story, at least, so I think I'll try for a hundred and see if any semblance of a plot shows up before deciding whether to put the book to rest on a shelf somewhere.

At this point, I almost wonder if GRRM decided that the five-year gap was the better idea after all, and is about to declare AFfC and ADwD non-canon and start over again from the end of ASoS. Or at least if he has seriously contemplated it. In any case, with him reportedly making many big changes to every book throughout the process, there must be lots of fairly coherent and well-written stuff left on the cutting room floor. I'd love to see all that one day.

It's bad news, but at least it's news. But is it big enough news that this stickied thread can finally be updated? It's been sitting there unaltered for 1117 days now, yet still stuck to the top of the page, so I think an update would be in order soon (that, or removal).

To follow the theme of the topic, here are my theories based on what I remember from the books a year after reading them, once. The Chandrian have one goal in (un)life: To be forgotten. Only when nobody remembers them, will they be allowed to pass on from this world. The head librarian is aware of this, and has been working to remove all traces of them from the University library. However, he fails to do it completely because the library is too big and poorly organized. Kvothe will find the evidence he needs. Kvothe's big mistake would be to publicly prove the Chandrian's existence. The Chandrian, enraged, are back to square one after centuries of carefully wiping out all trails of their existence. They will go after Kvothe and his loved ones, which (coupled with some intense regret) is what makes him go into hiding. Kvothe won't open the Doors of Stone. Devi will. She probably won't survive the ordeal. Ambrose won't be the king Kvothe kills, but he will die as a result of his actions anyway. As will Fela, Auri, Elodin, and pretty much the entire rest of the university cast in the chaos after the Chandrian re-emerge. Denna has her own agenda. Possibly related to the Chandrian. She is using Kvothe, but to what end I have no idea. She is still alive in the present day. Bast is Kvothe's son, born of Felurian. The ancient backstory is just folk tales with no further implication to the rest of the story. Present-day Kvothe has all his powers intact, but is terrified of using them (or at best extremely reluctant). Some of the information in the two first books is building towards an ending Rothfuss has later decided to scrap, and may even contradict the new ending he thought would be better. This means there are massive plot holes between the books, which Rothfuss hasn't managed to mend.

Your Majesty, there was some discussion earlier in this thread suggesting that Rothfuss had a practically completed manuscript distributed to beta readers as early as 2013. Problem was, it apparently wasn't very good. As in, bad beyond salvage and Rothfuss had no idea what to do with it. Still hasn't, by some accounts. The post two posts above what was linked suggests a manuscript that wasn't even touched between 2013 and 2016. Over the years (okay, one year and a couple of months) since I first read the books, I've come to the conclusion that the best way to approach the series is to read the first book and then try to imagine how the past and present fit together. Book two doesn't really tie anything up (it only elaborates what was said in book one, if I remember correctly), while also being a bit of a drag to read, and from what is known (or speculated) about book three, Rothfuss can't really explain what happened in between either. So at this point, your own imagination might be the best bet if you want to see the past and present tied together.

Well, the thread title seems a little more... unfortunate in light of these news. Onto something completely different. I mused a little in the previous thread if the trilogy was meant to be unfinished, and this "Tricked you into reading" part didn't really soothe me. I think a great portion of the appeal of this series lies in the contrasts between the past and the present. We're shown a present time where Kvothe has built himself the reputation of a living legend, but lives as a washed-out barkeep in the middle of nowhere. A war is going on, a king has been killed, and the once-legendary Chandrian have apparently gone on a bit of a spree. Monsters roam the land, and things look pretty dire overall. Then we see the past. A young and talented Kvothe loses his parents after they begin unraveling some old legends. He lives a troubled life as a street kid, but is able to wit himself into university. Over the next few years, we see him go from learning the basics of magic to actively practising it. He gets friends, he gets an education, the realm is at peace, and the Chandrian remain the stuff of legends. Book two even ends on a very happy note. The question that intrigues the reader is: "What the heck happened in between?" Who was the king that was killed, and how/why did Kvothe kill him? Why did the war start? What caused the Chandrian to emerge, and why did they kill Kvothe's parents all those years ago? What broke Kvothe's spirit so badly? What happened to Denna, and what's the deal with her at all? Where did Bast come from? So many plot threads we see the beginning and end of, but the middles remain mysterious. There are times I wonder if it is all an elaborate prank. If Rothfuss wrote a great set-up, a massive tangle of mysteries, with no intention of ever untangling it. After all, tying together the beginning and the end is hard work, even if you know the ending (ref.: the series behind this forum) The mysteries may even be more intriguing than the solution, and sometimes not knowing can be even more interesting than knowing for certain (ref.: the General (ASOIAF) subforum). Sure, it would make the publisher angry. But the payoff from the first two books is great enough to make a comfortable living anyway, and the publisher has also made their investment back and then some. I don't find it entirely unconceivable that the series was written with the intention to deliver questions without answers, anticipation without delivery. However, I think it would fall apart (or at least, stop making money) if the author was ever to spill the beans on the plan, so it's not like he could ever admit it.

To be quite honest, this looks a lot like one of those "My uncle works for Nintendo" type of posts that pop up on the Internet every so often. The only thing that keeps me from being convinced that he made it all up, is that he didn't make any outrageous claims or predictions. Usually, those kinds of posts have an element of sensation to them ("There will be an alternate evolution of Pikachu!" or the like), intended to make them spread as far and fast as possible. But this guy could basically have been making a summary of the things that have been said over the last fifteen pages in this thread, there's nothing in it that hasn't been alleged by others before.

I'm afraid I find myself agreeing with @SuperMario here. The theory-building in the classic sense of the term, "what does this piece of text imply for the direction the series is heading?" has been exhausted years ago. An author can be brilliant and write clever twists, but if clues to the further development of the story is hidden in already-published text, it can't be practically hidden from thousands of obsessed fans reading every book several times, then devoting weeks of their spare time to discuss the meaning of every paragraph in them. The forum has been circling around the same discussions for years now (there have been 165 twenty-page threads on R+L = J already), and it's mostly old people saying the same stuff over again, or new people stumbling across the same old clues. What is left now is the stuff you have in your signature. Wild guesses as to the end-game of the saga, based more on flights of fancy than clues and foreshadowing. It might be a decent guess, but it's a total shot in the dark. The solid foundations to base theories upon have long since been exhausted. I think the series is big, popular, and well-written enough that these forums can be sustained indefinitely by new people coming in to discuss the clues they've found for their first time. But after a few years of discussions, there isn't that much more to talk about. It's a series of finite size, after all. ASOIAF won't go away any time soon, but longtime fans might. I find myself checking these forums less and less often, and it's kind of disheartening to see that the threads on TWoW information sit dormant for years without anything happening. It's nice to see that the General subforum still has so much activity in it, but it's nothing I haven't seen variations of before. It's not really a place for me to enjoy any more.

To steer the thread slightly back towards its tracks, let me weigh in with my opinion. I think the author is morally, but not legally of course, obligated to provide closure to their fans. There is an implied agreement that, whatever happens, the followers should get to know how the story goes in the end. That being said, closure can mean a lot of things (maybe more/fewer/other things than I think, English is not my first language). It doesn't necessarily mean the author should crap out a sequel just for the sake of finishing a story, actually that should probably be avoided at all costs. It can mean the story gets its ending and the series is wrapped up nicely. It can mean the author makes it clear they are unable to finish it. It can mean a brusque and depressive "don't expect anything more from this series, I'm not", or "the trilogy is open-ended and book two provided that open ending". It can mean a news bulletin announcing the author's passing. Any of those would serve as closure, although some way less satisfying than others. But at least they all state, more or less clearly, which page of the story is officially the last one. What should not happen, at any rate, is prolonged uncertainty. The series can be open-ended, but the state of the series should not be left hanging. If the author is unable to finish the work, and self-aware enough to realize it will not be done in the foreseeable future bar a drastic change of circumstances/motivation, that message should reach those eagerly waiting for more news. An unfinish work can still inspire feelings in its readers. After turning the last page with words on it, it's up to the reader to imagine what happens next. That imagination can sometimes provide a better story than an uninspired author could. But the words "to be continued" imply that the story is intended to continue from the pen of the author, making the reader's imagination a less "authentic" provider of continuation. As long as a sequel remains a possibility, it will always mean the "official" story is still going on, unfinished. TL;DR: There is no legal obligation to finish the story, or even a moral one. But if the author gives up on their work, they should be expected to let their fans know.

Indeed. That twist was something I hadn't anticipated in the slightest. Wonder how (not if!) it will affect the rest of the series. Looking forward to read it when it comes out, at any rate!

Spoilers for Episode 6:

I'm usually of the opinion that 90 % of the posts in the rant threads are just made for the sake of picking the episode apart. Therefore, I tend to avoid the threads. However, the plot line beyond the wall was such an incoherent clusterfudge from its conception to its aftermath that an "oh, it was all a dream and I'm still on Dragonstone and we're mining dragonglass" ending would actually have improved it at this point. The... incident... has been covered so extensively by now that I guess that the original contribution I could make would be to point out that the chains would be more likely to tear the head off the dragon than pulling it out of the water. It's stuck under the ice, and a lot of force is applied. At the very least, its neck would be soundly broken in a dozen places.

Worse still... they had a long, nice lake to drag those chains across. Hundreds of wights per length of chain. Sounds like sufficient force to tear the dragon's head off pull the dragon out of the lake. I guess its neck would be pretty broken now, though. Effectively, they've hanged the dragon with iron collars, via the pull of chains and friction rather than the pull of gravity, but the same principle is at work. There would be a lot of dislocated disks in that dragon neck at the very least. And for some reason, the work leader decided to let the front of the columns walk up a hill while pulling. Congratulations, all those men at the front are now worse than useless. The force they pull with would pull the chains taut - that is, a straight line from the top of the hillside to the dragon - thereby lifting the middle and end of the columns (who are still marching on flat ice) up in the air, instead of helping them put horizontal force on the dragon. Okay, arguably this is the direction they want to pull the dragon in in the first place (out of the ice instead of along the lakebed), but then the rear of the columns just weigh the chains down and pull in the wrong direction anyway. In either case, only half the men are actually doing something to get the dragon out of the lake, the other half are making it harder. Rope pulling only helps when everybody is pulling in the same direction. These guys had a bend in the chains - against the direction of gravity, no less - which would make the contribution of roughly half the members completely useless. No wonder why we see the chains are actually quite slack between the dragon and the rearmost pullers. Oh, and the timelines didn't quite add up either. But that has been extensively covered in this thread already. All I could contribute at this point was a bit of cable theory.