Its the perfect place to erase all data of themselves. But they must have some prescence at the University, the greater good and all that.

 

If Kvothe is Meluna's nephew, I wonder where that would put him in line of heirs to the throne. Maybe just below Ambrose?

 

Er... No. Kvothe isn't in line for the throne.

 

Quite right. Even if a bunch of other speculative questions went in Kvothe's favor, bastards are, pretty much by definition, not in the line of succession. E.g.: Jon Snow in A Song Of Ice And Fire. (Q.v. also for tricksy parentage hints).

 

Bastards can be legitimized, it's happened in real life monarchies, but it's unlikely and I feel like there is absolutely no way they'd let one of the Ruh rule anything.

Lorren would be a cool Amyr in disguise.

And the Atur Empire once ruled damn near everything it seems, they crushed Yllish and I think destablized the Vint crown to knock the Maer's family off the block. I'm sure they once ruled where the Commonwealth is too.

 

Seemed to me like nobody cared about the Yllish. Ever.

Like Nigeria.

 

Probably as far as possible. If I remember correctly the Maer chose Meluna as wife because she was the only suitable noblewoman who wasn't beholden to the throne in some way. His bloodline is probably more "noble" than Ambrose's though, if half of what the characters say about the Lackless bloodline is true.

 

MELUAN

And no, his bloodline wouldn't be more noble than Ambrose's; Kvothe's half-Ruh, and as such is at the very bottom rung of society in terms of blood, no matter what other ancestry he has.

 

I phrased it badly; I should have said he has more noble blood in him than Ambrose, even if half of it is Ruh.

 

Still no. The Ruh bit makes his blood approximately equal to pig shit, in the eyes of the nobility.

 

I would caution against importing ideas about blood from HP into Kingkiller.

IRL, so far as I know, purity of blood has never been an idea that carried much weight. Rather, it's all about having the right name.

 

That would be true, except that Kvothe is a proud Ruh. Also, since his mother seems to have changed her name (not to mention leaving her family, likely becoming disowned since she was the heir) I doubt Kvothe qualifies.

 

Not to mention we know that in the future he owns a tavern in the middle of BFE under a different name and it not king. Now I suppose the story could end with him becoming king in the present once it is realized his blood is the most royal of them all, but if that happened I'd find the nearest semi-automatic weapon and unload all the ammunition into a crowded square and then beat Rothfuss seven different shades of shit or until he changed the book.

 

On the topic of other crazy fucking endings, I propose that Denna turns out to really be Kvothe's daughter by way of Felurian who ended up in the past because the concept of time doesn't really apply to them as a concrete rule.

 

Loren makes some kind of sense as a possible Amyr agent, but I wouldn't mark him as an Amyr himself. Elodin, on the other hand, I would say makes more sense as being an actual Amyr.

And so far as the books are concerned; It makes more sense to destroy them. Reference: Kvothe.

Personally I would burn them all and do what it seems like Denna's patron was doing with Lanre and the Chandrian. Spread false stories. Build a fake repository of knowledge, and 'slip' its location 'accidentally' to lead the cunning/intelligent/persistent and other adjective peoples in the wrong direction. Repeat every century and a half or so...

It makes no sense to keep all of that around someplace you don't maintain a constant presence enough to guarantee there is absolutely no chance for someone to get it without you knowing.

It could, theoretically, but he would have a hell of a lot of shit to do to make it happen. Political dealings are the easiest half of the equation. But in order to start working on that, he'd have to have some political influence. And his entire claim is based on him being the son of "that Lackless girl that ran off with that ravel filth", which makes it over 9000 times harder.

On these two, people have made more of ... about the same. It was fairly common in Japan, fairly certain a fair few others in a fair few countries as well.

But yes, its less "blood" and more being of the family name, etc... So its theoretically possible, but given his personality, utterly unlikely he would pursue it.

Styx... No. Fuck you.

LEAVE TIME TRAVEL OUT OF THIS FANDOM PLEASE!!!!

Can we please have one fandom that isn't raped by time travel? Even in jest?

Also as a parting note to make up for being a moron in this post:

Devi/Kvothe/Fela: OTP or OTP?

 

Rereading Wise Man's Fear, and I noticed a couple things.

Firstly, has anyone else noticed the seemingly random capitalization in Denna's letters? At first I thought it was a hidden message, but they don't spell out anything. At the same time, it doesn't seem like something Rothfuss would do for no reason. Any ideas?

Secondly, some evidence supporting the Name in the chest theory. When he's making up The Chronicler legends, he says that:

 

Uhh, slightly irrelevant quote there Styx. If Kvothe put a surrogate for himself, even referenced himself, I doubt it'd be the king.

And Vash: Fuck Yeah thats my OTP!

 

Okay, so I've just finished my 3rd re-read and have some evidence and what not supporting or refuting certain theories. Let's start at the top and work our way through.

Auri as the missing Princess Ariel

I support this theory. The following passages allow for it:

Not really evidence, I know, but word choice has always been important to Rothfuss. His entire story spins on it. Note the king, not a king. Also, reference to royalty. Nothing definitive, but neither is it dismissive.

The above refers to Elodin upon his meeting Auri and Kvothe on the roof of Mains. It is a given Elodin knows more than a small piece of a lot of the goings on about the place. His curiously formal bow here could be because of Auri's status. Or not. Again, not definitive. Elodin is eccentric, but at the end of the same chapter, Kvothe makes this observation of the man:

Meluan Lackless as Kvothe's aunt

Again, given what we know, this would make sense. If Kvothe is sixteen at the time he meets Meluan, and she in her early twenties, then all she could remember of her older sister, who may have had a good ten or so years on her at the time she absconded with Kvothe's father, would have been losing a loved one around age six, seven or so. Enough to develop her loathing of the Ruh.

Certainly suggestive, if nothing else.

The Creation War, and the man who stole the moon (Jax/Iax):

According to Bast:

So, we know mortals and the fae have two different tales of this story. It is safe to assume the fae know what really happened better than the tale Hespe told around the fire, but if we take what Bast said as true, then perhaps some of the points in Hespe's story can be implied as having actually happened.

Such as Jax speaking to the listener before he tricked the moon into revealing her name. In Hespe's story, Jax stumbles upon an old man in a cave who calls himseld a listener.

It is not a stretch to see that as interpreting the future, and thus in Hespe's story the old man is actually the Cthaeh, and as Bast said, Iax/Jax spoke to the Cthaeh before he stole the moon. What the listener says to Jax was planned and intended toward Jax doing what he did and sparking the creation war.

The old man goes on to say:

I don't know what can be inferred from Jax's and the listener's conversation, but it may be important if the listener is actually the Cthaeh, as Bast's statement seems to support.

Alternatively, in Hespe's story it simply isn't mentioned that Jax encounters the Cthaeh in his travels. But I think Rothfuss wouldn't waste an opportunity like that.

Regardless, the theft of the moon split the mortals and fae asunder, and, according to Felurian:

Points of note (things that may mean nothing or something):

Denna

p457: One of Denna's gentleman knows her as 'Alora'. As far as I know, this is the first time she's had a name that isn't some rough variation of Denna or Diane or Dynae. It breaks a pattern, and with names being of such importance... I can't really see how it matters, but it jarred.

Mortals and Fae

Reading the whole Felurian passage again, I had a thought that perhaps at one point there was no difference between mortals and the fae. This:

Felurian is speaking of men who sought not just to know names, but have mastery over them. At some point, before Jax/Iax stole the moon, there was only one sky and no split between the realms. That changed when the moon was stolen, but there was still a significant amount of Shapers roaming about. I had a thought that perhaps they wrought the Fae, the very alien sky that Kvothe comments on time and again during his stay with Felurian.

They became more than human, but were once all the same.

Later supported by Shehyn:

The Chandrian. The Seven. Not mortal, not Fae, but from the time when there wasn't so much of a distinction between the two. Around the time the moon was stolen.

Again, it may not be of tremendous importance, but seems to fit.

Crossing into the Fae, and back

From how I understand it, and according to this passage:

The gates between the mortal realm and the fae only swing a certain way given the phase of the moon. During a full moon, creatures from the fae can cross into the mortal realm and lead mortals, such as Kvothe, back with them. On the other side of the coin, during the dark of the moon, mortals can, whether they want to or not, stumble into the fae.

An interesting point.

The Adem were once part of the Empire

Fairly straight forward this one, but I missed it entirely first read through. The Adem were forced to the Stormwal when Lanre/Haliax destroyed their city.

Last bits important. Land broken and sky changed. The mortal and fae realms splitting apart.

Kvothe finding the Chandrian
I wonder on this. It seems like there is a fairly simple way of drawing the attention of the Chandrian, and Kvothe could do it whenever he pleased:

Kvothe learns their true names from Shehyn:

I wonder in the next book if we'll see Kvothe do this. Face down the Chandrian? He could have, from what we know, but we also know he didn't succeed. They're still out there. Yet he doesn't have to seek them out. If he starts singing in the Eolian, composed a song using their names, they would surely come to him.

Krin is Denna's sister
This may have been brought up already. I don't recall. Regardless, here is some speculative evidence in support of the theory:

Alternatively, considering what Krin has been through and what it is often implied Denna has been through, perhaps the eyes just look similar to Kvothe because both Denna and Krin have seen humanity at its worst.

Kvothe's Swords

The sword hanging over the bar at the Waystone, Folly, isn't Caesura. So where did Kvothe come by Folly? Why call it Folly, when names have such important meaning?

Kvothe's fight with the soliders

I'm of a mind that Kvothe intentionally lost the fight with the two soldiers Bast hired to jog him out of his lethargy:

That last line is interesting. 'Forgot who I was...' When the fight started, he was winning, two to one. I think he remembered that an innkeeper such as Kote wouldn't be winning that fight, and intentionally took the beating to avoid suspicion.

That said, it was only Chronicler there, who knows the truth of Kote anyway, but still...

Caudicus as Denna's Patron

This one's not likely, sure, but we know he was trying to kill the Maer and escaped. The Cthaeh says Denna's patron beats her with his walking stick. Caudicus travelled away for months at a time, could've used a stick... a stretch, I know.

According to Stapes near the end of the book Caudicus was dealt with by Dagon, but we never see a body, and other arcanists have faked their deaths before...

It just seems like a loose thread, and Rothfuss ties those up nicely. I think Caudicus is still kicking, and may be Denna's patron. For what purpose or reason, not a clue, but it would have a certain symmetry to it. Why she was in Severen, for one.

The Lackless Box

Don't really have a theory on what's inside, but there is this:

Why would lemon scented wood be familiar? I don't know, maybe someone can draw a thread from this to another part of the story.

Someone (Denna?) poisoned the Chancellor as he was teaching Kvothe Yllish

Nothing I could find beyond this, but it is a bit of a coincidence given the timing and his recent acquisition of Kvothe as a student. Perhaps Caudicus fled back to the lands around the University and, being Denna's patron and up to nefarious plots of his own, is out for revenge on Kvothe. Very thin, that one.

Alright, I reckon that's enough to be getting on with. I plan to read The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear in unison next, so some other things may jump out at me.

Joe out.

 

Lets continue this discussion of the Adem. Also this is my first post so bear with me =)

So far I don't really like the way that the Adem are used in WMF. Their deep, introspective philosophy seems to be to be at odds with (a) their reputation as fighters and mercenaries, and (b) the strange sexual norms of the culture.

The explanation given in the book for (a) - that they only fight to defend their employers, and that they send X % of their earnings back to their home - doesn't seem adequate.

It just doesn't seem likely that they build such a recognizable reputation simply by protecting people. After all, they are called "mercenaries," a term more associated with soldiers of fortune, swords for hire, etc. More apt would be to call them protectors, guardians, or defenders.

With regards to (b), it just seems to contrived. They take so seriously the act of violence, and wrongful violence is something singularly terrible. Killing is a very personal act - it is the taking away of a life, an irrevocable and powerful thing. The Adem as Rothfuss has created them recognize this. Yet on the other end of the spectrum, the very personal act of intercourse is regarded extremely lightly.

Of course it is extremely easy to explain this away. Since sex is not something that is powerfully associated with life (or death), it is not taken seriously by the Adem. Hence, the tryst between Kvothe and his instructor, then the other woman. One would think that such as serious culture would take sex more seriously. It is only the very simplistic conceit that men have no part in birth that allows this to make sense on the surface. Again inadequate, in my opinion.

Yet it is even still more strange that for a people that have sex so often there is minimal incidence of 'diseases'. This is also explained away by Rothfuss.

For all these reasons, the Adem don't seem realistic at all to me. It was Rothfuss's first attempt at putting Kvothe in a wholly different culture, and I think he did a poor job of it. The Adem just don't seem like a group of people that could actually exist in the world Rothfuss created.

*edited for typos

 

Joe: Regarding Kvothe having a Lackless heritage, what you posted certainly adds credence to the theory, but I think it's cemented by what was [discussed earlier](http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showpost.php?p=441466&postcount=95) in the thread regarding the poem Arliden sings near the beginning of NotW.

Meridias: I agree with you to some extent. They appear to be a "perfect" society from their POV, and I was seriously raging until the part about man-mothers which explicitly revealed the Adem's ignorance in some matters.

Also, if you'll indulge my curiosity (this goes to any of the other new posters in this thread), did you find this thread by Googling or did you know about DLP beforehand?