Jump to content

Rothfuss XV: Move along, nothing to see here


Kyll.Ing.

Recommended Posts

13 minutes ago, Demetri said:

-snip-

I don't know what you are disagreeing with. I've literally said that the problem is with thousand hands, not Felurian and it seems like you largely agree.

I thought that the Slow Regard of Silent Things was an okay accompanying story but not an independent story. Another user Thistlepong did a detailed breakdown on it and is a piece of the puzzle and is most certainly not gratuitous. The foreword by Rothfuss though, well, the author isn't the story so I'll just leave it at that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Proudfeet said:

I don't know what you are disagreeing with. I've literally said that the problem is with thousand hands, not Felurian and it seems like you largely agree.

I thought that the Slow Regard of Silent Things was an okay accompanying story but not an independent story. Another user Thistlepong did a detailed breakdown on it and is a piece of the puzzle and is most certainly not gratuitous. The foreword by Rothfuss though, well, the author isn't the story so I'll just leave it at that.

Okay, cool. I'm with ya. Pardons for conflating your opinions with those of other posters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, kuenjato said:

flat, particularly the idea of martial artists wearing skin-tight leather (!?), though that idea might have

Kuenjato,

I don’t believe the “Mercenary Reds” worn by the Adem were all “skin-tight leather”.  I believe they were fabric that was then held in place by some red leather or red fabric straping.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Demetri said:

For the Ademre, it spoke both to a matriarchal social system as well as opening up exposition into interesting cultural aspects such as their views on man-mothers and handling of venereal disease. Both of which have larger value for explaining why Ademre culture is so separate from the culture at large in the world.

I guess, but even if we grant that it's interesting worldbuilding I think the problem we run into is whether it belongs in Kvothe's story. Unless he fathers a child there, the information is about as useful as a discussion of the Adem concepts of pensions or mortgages, and it becomes "look at this neat stuff I thought up".

This would seem to fly in the face of Rothfuss' stated desires make things as lean as possible, where everything has a purpose.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, Ninefingers said:

This would seem to fly in the face of Rothfuss' stated desires make things as lean as possible, where everything has a purpose.

On this count it is almost irrefutable that Rothfuss either failed completely or floundered in Book 2. I think the issue with Book 3 also stems from this in that Rothfuss had a rude awakening as his popularity made the books not really "his" anymore in a way that sapped the experience of any joy for him. The Ademre stuff is interesting to me personally but it understandably gets flak. Rothfuss is also nothing if not arrogant so I think he struggled to understand why he got any flak (both because he is the master of the world and because he thinks the content is quality) and, frankly, has become kind of peevish in response. 

I feel about 90% certain that Rothfuss and I wouldn't get along personally (a rarity when I imagine having a beer with authors I enjoy) and his stand-offish responses have done little to endear himself to fans who raise legitimate questions. My issue becomes when those legitimate complaints turn into general condemnation of the series, partially fueled by his response. Compare GRRM and Rothfuss in their handling of questions regarding outstanding books in the series. GRRM seems apologetic (your mileage might vary here and reasonably so) whereas Rothfuss is completely defensive to the point of rudeness. GRRM is a jolly fellow who absolutely loves his books. He also has a career background that is lightyears beyond Rothfuss's and yields more understanding of how fans interact with creations. 

I think we can fairly summarize the problems with Book 2 by looking to two factors: First, Rothfuss got in over his head. "The Name of the Wind" is great. It also was written and rewritten, honed and sharpened, over years and years. The follow-up to such a book and such a process is one inherently difficult for new writers (at least of the scope of Kingkiller) and the quality was bound to decline. But this brings us to the second point: I don't think he's having fun anymore. What was a work created entirely for himself now leads people to bother and pester him about future material that represents their emotional investment. Rothfuss either doesn't care about or doesn't see as meaningful that such an emotional investment requires or obligates him to do anything whatsoever. He certainly has that right, but so too do the readers have the right to point out that anything termed "Book 1" promises the reader future books.

My fondest hope is that he's simply gathering his strength and making a concerted effort to approach Book 3 in a fashion much more like Book 1 than Book 2. If lean is his overarching goal then I'm not sure we're going to love the result and I also question if Rothfuss is capable of interacting with his own world in a manner that prioritizes leanness of content. There are also issues of subjectivity here. For instance, is the coin system that is thoroughly described valuable world-building or minutia  only useful in the context of in-book commerce? I think reasonable minds can differ a bit on this.

But overall, I agree that Book 2 was not compact, focused story-telling at its finest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, kuenjato said:

A long while ago, Happy End deconstructed one of the best-written sections of the first book, where Ambrose breaks the lute string, and pointed out how preposterous the entire scene is -- he completes this incredibly difficult and complex song by playing really fast. Rothfuss later admitted he knows almost nothing about music. This, in a nutshell, epitomizes the Kingkiller series -- a lot of carefully-chosen words and sweated-over prose ultimately swathing over the fact that the author has very limited life experiences and is writing about a character with vast, expansive life experiences. In a Crayola-scribbled world setting.

Speaking as a writer myself, this is actually the entire point of writing, and one I cannot blame Rothfuss for. Writing is a con-job - all that counts is getting the reader to think we know what we're talking about (realistic-seeming falseness is better than unrealistic-seeming reality). For every Happy Ent, there will be a thousand people for whom that scene actually seemed plausible.

(To draw an analogy - Bernard Cornwell's early Saxon stories have a Viking character wearing black. I know why this is an error, but most readers don't, so it doesn't matter). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

(To draw an analogy - Bernard Cornwell's early Saxon stories have a Viking character wearing black. I know why this is an error, but most readers don't, so it doesn't matter). 

Okay, spill. What's with Vikings and wearing black?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, brunhilda said:

Okay, spill. What's with Vikings and wearing black?

I'm glad I'm not the only one! Google wasnt forthcoming except that wool was mostly white or grey, and available dyes were not great quality - is this on the right track? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, brunhilda said:

Okay, spill. What's with Vikings and wearing black?

Viking-era Europe did not have access to the appropriate dyes. Black dyes only became viable in Western Europe with the opening up of the New World - during the High Middle Ages (so post-Viking), you'd re-dye cloth over and over again until the colours mixed appropriately darkly, which was both expensive, and prematurely wore out the cloth.

For the Norsemen themselves, dark blue was the colour of Death. A guy wearing a dark blue tunic in a saga is basically a black hat in a Western.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Viking-era Europe did not have access to the appropriate dyes. Black dyes only became viable in Western Europe with the opening up of the New World - during the High Middle Ages (so post-Viking), you'd re-dye cloth over and over again until the colours mixed appropriately darkly, which was both expensive, and prematurely wore out the cloth.

For the Norsemen themselves, dark blue was the colour of Death. A guy wearing a dark blue tunic in a saga is basically a black hat in a Western.

As you're from New Zealand, I defer to your sheep-knowledge, however... Wouldn't this work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Nabarg said:

In Westeros, there may exist plants that doesn’t exist in our world from which it is easy to extract black dyes in plenty. One of the advantages of fantasy relative to historical fiction.

Maybe dragon/direwolf dung? 

"Taking the dark brown" isn't as catchy as "taking the black' either.

As for vikings maybe they get the black dye fron the same place as their chinese princesses?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/25/2019 at 9:38 AM, Zorral said:

It began with the acquiring editors.  They were giddy with excitement about the first book.  They were so giddy they even sent me the ms, so eager were they to share it with the sorts of people they believed loved this sort of thing (I was doing a lot of writing and reviewing within the field then -- that's how long ago this was!).  And it performed even higher than their most optimistic hopes.

Then ... the troubles began, starting with a horizon shift in a significant segment of younger Fantasy enthusiasts, who found the primary a ridiculously immature sexist.  Then, of course, the enormous agony of getting the second volume, and now -- never the third, it seems, while the field's shifts only grow larger and affect more and more of the previously unexamined issues of sexism, colonialism, racism and the inclusion of many other diversities, in the 12 years (2007) since publication of Name of the Wind.

 

I always felt Rothfuss's feel for lgbt womens characters wouldve been interesting in 2009. But now is completely overdone and overused. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wait irl parallel: if Kvothe kinda is an autist incel, wouldn't he be spewing far right conspiracy theories about ww2. Theres a lot of passages of Kvothe downplaying the actions of the Amyr and questioning the veracity of the church's accounts of the Amyr's crimes. Kvothe is always needling the public's emotional beliefs about the Amyr, always claiming "they're not as bad  as what they seem."

Kvothe is always vaguely searching for them on these odd quests across the world. Kvothe would've visited Bariloche, Argentina searching for "old men in the mountains" from WW2. 
Facts

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First Season of SHOWTIME’s “Kingkiller Chronicle” Script is Complete, Says Showrunner

Quote

According to showrunner (and pilot writer) John Rogers, the season finale script of the series was completed last month.

The most interesting thing gleaned from Roger’s tweets has to be in his response here to a question about emotional payout.

“In other words: your medieval fantasy emotional payoff will actually be… good?”

"First of all it’s not medieval ..."

"Hey everybody works differently. This is my jam. "

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, nah said:

I'm genuinely starting to enjoy the man's pomp just for how easily it seems to trigger some of the folks in this thread. He's like a big old, fuzzy Anita Sarkeesian for fantasy readers.

Ahem, to steer the thread somewhat away from crazy town, their are definitely some people who follow Rothfuss just to be mad about it I think. I mean I don't like the guy, but I don't follow him on any social media or go out of the way to see what he's up to outside of this thread. Some of these people remind me of that line from the Howard Stern movie about how the average Howard Stern hater listened more then the people who actually liked him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Ahem, to steer the thread somewhat away from crazy town, their are definitely some people who follow Rothfuss just to be mad about it I think. I mean I don't like the guy, but I don't follow him on any social media or go out of the way to see what he's up to outside of this thread. Some of these people remind me of that line from the Howard Stern movie about how the average Howard Stern hater listened more then the people who actually liked him.

I stopped frequenting his blog when it became apparent that the book wasn't going to be out any time soon and also when I realised that I could count on this thread to keep me informed. I've never seen his twitter and have only viewed his twitch once. 

Besides, I don't know who Howard Stern is but presumably people follow him for his opinions. People follow Rothfuss primarily for information on his books. If so, it is a different situation entirely. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Proudfeet said:

I stopped frequenting his blog when it became apparent that the book wasn't going to be out any time soon and also when I realised that I could count on this thread to keep me informed. I've never seen his twitter and have only viewed his twitch once. 

Besides, I don't know who Howard Stern is but presumably people follow him for his opinions. People follow Rothfuss primarily for information on his books. If so, it is a different situation entirely. 

Ha, well, not knowing who Howard Stern is makes you probably lucky, but I digress. I do think there are people who will follow someone on social media that they hate just to, well, hate, but that's a much bigger discussion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...