My obsessively detailed reread of Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles is over, but the speculation goes on. I’m going to post the occasional speculative summary of cool things posted since last time. Spoilers for all of The Wise Man’s Fear and The Name of the Wind—these discussions assume you’ve read all of both books, and frankly they won’t make the slightest bit of sense if you haven’t. But we welcome new people who have read the books and want to geek out about them. This post is full of spoilers, please don’t venture beyond the cut unless you want them.

Abbreviations: NW = The Name of the Wind. WMF = The Wise Man’s Fear. D3 = Day Three, the forthcoming final volume. K = Kvothe or Kote when I can’t figure out what to call him and I’m feeling Kafkaesque. MT: Myr Tariniel. D = Denna, 4C = Four Corners, CTH — that thing I can’t spell! IID3Y = Is it Day Three Yet?

Useful links: The Sleeping Under the Wagon post. The re-read index. The map. The timeline. Imaginary Linguistics.

First, this month’s “Pat is awesome” story. At World Fantasy in Toronto, I met a twelve year old kid whose father was a fan of mine. The kid was a fan of the Kingkiller Chronicles, so naturally that’s what we talked about. He’d met Pat earlier in the day, and asked him various detailed stuff, as you would. And he’d asked him about the currency, and Pat pulled two copper jots out of his pocket and gave the kid one. I immediately asked him how good his Alar was, and whether he could make the other jot, still in Pat’s pocket, rise into the air. He said his alar was like a bar of Ramston steel. He’s a great guy. Go donate to his charity.

Kvothe: Mary Sue?

I’m going to start this time with the allegation that Kvothe is a Mary Sue. “A Mary Sue” for those who don’t know the term, comes from Star Trek fanfiction. It’s a useful term for a reader insert character who is just so perfect she* can do everything and solve everything and everyone loves her. Characters like this are generally deprecated, and there’s a useful discussion of why on Making Light. The real problem with Mary Sue is that she’s a wish fulfillment character who gets everything easy, and that’s a detriment to story.

(*The pronoun “she” includes “he” in this context.)

Now there’s a lot about Kvothe which does recall the classic Mary Sue. He’s better than everyone at everything. Well, not everything—not alchemy, and not tact—but he’s the best at Sympathy and music and he learns the Adem fighting and everybody loves him. There’s the whole Felurian thing, which we have talked about at length. And he’s so very clever, and a dab hand at untying knots.

There are a pile of reasons he’s not a Mary Sue—Rothfuss being conscious of the problem for one thing. But the real reason he’s not and cannot be a Mary Sue is the frame. In the frame, Kvothe has failed. He’s lost D, he’s lost his mastery, he’s lost magic, he’s lost his name, he’s like a cut flower waiting to die. And the frame informs everything in the story, it’s the resonance between the frame and the story—the multiple stories—that makes these books so great. Kvothe needs to shine brightly in the story—which he is telling—because of the darkness of the frame, he needs to have the hubris because we know he’s getting the nemesis. What we have is tragedy.

Aaron in D3

Brilliant suggestion from Kaizoku:

I think Aaron believes Kote is Kvothe. It’s been remarked that he’s pretty smart, so I think he could pretend to not believe it. This way he can’t bring down the authorities on Kvothe, get his thousand royals and a duchy, and save his village ( from poverty ). Maybe we’ll see Kvothe being killed in the third book in this manner. I wouldn’t like to see it happen though, at least not this way.

… But think! This completely explains the need for that scene in the book, which would otherwise be irrelevant and have no effect on the plot.

Well, even without that it would be character development for K as JohnPoint points out:

1) Kvothe really is starting to become the innkeeper (whether by acting a convincing role or because his name is changed, etc.) He can’t convince Aaron of the truth because it isn’t true anymore (he actually is someone else) or because he is so deep into acting the innkeeper that he’s actually starting to become the mask (as per Bast) 2) He is both concerned about Aaron, and feels responsible for the war and every life that is lost due to it. He’s willing to risk his annonymity to save Aaron from going off to war, and he feels (and perhaps is, though I’m not entirely convinced of it yet), that everything sits squarely on his shoulders. The scene adds to our understanding o frame-K, his mindset, and his sense of guilt for the cataclysm. Remember that this story (the KKC) is Kvothe’s story. Not just who he was, but who he became. His frame mindset is a very important part of who he is today.

and WickedKinetic:

the Aaron scene is a very important part of the story, illustrating a great many things. 1- K feels responsible for the war and general state of things, 2- K is still morally and empathically ’good’ in not wanting some local kid to go get killed in the war, 3- his guise is so good that people won’t believe the truth when its in front of their face, won’t even consider it for a second…. also the currency bit mentioned above. It is a very valuable scene even if Aaron is not a significant character.

And yet it’s out of character, isn’t it? Breaking character that way? Most of the time he’s so careful to stay in character, even to the point of getting beaten up by the soldiers. Maybe he wants Aaron to bring the authorities to stop Chronicler? Or something?

This feels—this feels like the kind of thing Rothfuss does, like the Bast/soldiers thing.

Kaizoku:

in order to convince A, all K had to do was ask Chronicle or Bast to support his claim. Between the three of them, A would have easily been convinced. Unless A has a role in the thirdd book which involves this scene. It seems wrong to throw away A in a scene like this after mentioning him several times in the previous book. And it’s a bit of a stretch that he runs off to war without even waiting a single day.

I like this theory. Kaizoku, you’re promoted to E’lir in the Department of Imaginary Sympathy.

WickedKinetic:

He may have a part to play, we may find out what happens to him, but I don’t see him showing up with all the King’s horses and all the King’s men to collect the reward money for finding someone everyone believes is dead….

I can. I really can see that happening in the frame part way through D3, but if it does it will be because K wanted it to.

Thistlepong:

Aaron really only needs to suspect that Kote is Kvothe. The Innkeeper confessed. Aaron’s bluff call could be read as a cover: “If you really are…” His voice trailed off, but his expression turned it into a question. I’m skeptical, but he could be considering the relative value of 1000 royals and nobility versus one and the promise of death. Lying’s in his family. He breaths iron every day. It’s improbable but not impossible that he played it off legit. Aaron has all day to mull it over, maybe even discuss it on the road. Given that time to take it all in, he could convince himself if not others. He’s got the confession, Kvothe’s behavior with the scraeling and the shambleman/draugar/skindancer, his sudden uncharacteristic interjection into Cob’s story, the “demons” conversation, and the strange new sword on the unimaginably expensive mounting board. That last one might make one wonder at the expense and cleanliness of the Waystone itself: windows, keyed locks in every door, the dumbfounding selection, black stone hearths. Moreover, used only to aggravate Elodin, our innkeeper isn’t stingy around town in general: hiring the Bentleys, taking quite a bit of mutton off the Orrisons’ hands, commissioning brass ringed barrels. Aaron would be able to present a story worth checking out to anyone who heard it. Chapter two (Holly) also has some direct parallels with chapter 151 (Locks) which might illuminate the “why” of the scene. I’ll throw out the relevant one first for folks like to get bored by formalism. Kvothe’s failure to convince Aaron, the failure of his “legendary silver tongue,” parallels his failure to open the Thrice Locked Chest. In a sense, it’s even the failure of a third necessary part. In chapter 2, he’s got the hair and the sword, but no magic. In chapter 151, he’s got the iron key and the copper key, but no… probably magic considering the open/edro commands. Lest the casual observer look at the above and mutter, kyxxs, coincidence, imagery and incident are reversed or repeated across both chapters as well. Chronicler comes downstairs in the morning in chapter two, unpacks his paper and pens, and receives the holly crown from Bast. He cleans the pens, puts away the paper, and tucks the crown in his satchel before heading up at night in chapter 151. These are the only two chapters where holly and the holly crowns appear. In these two chapters, Bast and Chronicler have their moments alone together to discuss Kvothe. In fact, they use awakening language in both conversations. Finally, for this post anyway, these are the only two chapters in which thorn is used, and the only two in which both thorn and blade of grass appear. At the very least, I’m beginning to see what took so long, and what will take so long for Day 3. In order to get back by the end of Day 3, Aaron had to leave on the morning of Day 2. For structural reasons, he had to leave in chapter two to parallel the second to last chapter.

I agree with GBrell, that’s brilliant.

Netalia Lackless

DarlinKaty suggested that Meluan might be Netalia’s daughter rather than her sister, and I explained:

No, Meluan can’t be Laurian’s daughter and Kvothe’s sister because she refers to her sister who ran off with the Ruh. She’s his aunt.

GBrell pointed out: