Kingkiller Chronicles predictions: What a Woman Wants

Posted by: Redhead on: July 5, 2011

• In: Patrick Rothfuss | Uncategorized
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So I finally got my other half to read Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind (reviewed here) and The Wise Man’s Fear (reviewed here), which, for the uninitiated are books one and two in Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles. We both adored The Name of the Wind, and while I found The Wise Man’s Fear to be long yet lovely, the other half had similar complaints as many other reviewers have had: it’s too long, too episodic, Denna is annoying and it’s too convenient that she keeps showing up everywhere Kvothe does, the Felurian bit was fine but went on about 50 pages too long, same with the Adem fighting clan bits.

we discussed it, and I pointed him to Jo Walton’s excellent spoilery threads on TOR, which he read, and then I reread. if you’ve read both books, go read ‘em. if you haven’t read these books, for the love of anything you believe in, do NOT read the TOR spoilery posts, or this great thread over at Fantasy Faction. It will spoil everything. As could, umm, reading the rest of this post.

If you haven’t picked up on it yet, be warned: this post contains spoilers, guesses, predictions, etc that you may want to avoid if you haven’t read these books.

So, back to the Kingkiller Chronicles discussion I was having with my always adorable other half,  the questions that kept coming up over and over again included:

why are we trusting Kvothe to be telling the truth? some of his stories sound legit, but others are so outlandish as to be completely implausible. he admits to having started legends and rumors about himself while at University, and have you never heard of unreliable narrators?

What does Bast want? that question quickly turned into Who is Bast and what is his connection to Kvothe, which quickly turned into what does Felurian want?

Bast is a fae creature, we know that for sure. there are some rumors/predictions/guesses online that Bast is the child of Felurian and Kvothe, and while to me, that’s a detail that doesn’t really matter, I do give that possibility a 50/50 chance. my thought is this: Bast is working with/for Felurian towards her goal.

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and what is Felurian’s goal?

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don’t ever think for one moment that the Fae are anything like us humans. Ever.

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There is one thing Felurian wants: she wants fame. she wants everyone to know who she is. She is beyond horrified at the idea of being forgotten. The moment she is forgotten, she will disappear, forever, from the minds of men, and this simple can not happen. in fact, I do not think there is room in her worldview for that concept. And since most folks who visit her never come back, she is actually quite dependent on Kvothe to tell her story and spread her fame. That ain’t workin’ out so well with Kote running a tavern in a village that’s on no map.

the only way Felurian can get what she wants is for Kvothe to tell his story, that stars her for a little while. Even better, for him to tell her story, perhaps by finishing a song he started writing about her. A song that will be sung by others, a song that will spread her fame. Felurian is a woman used to getting what she wants, and using any tool (that would be Bast) to do so. Bast needs Kvothe to remember, he needs Kvothe to be the man he claims he’s been, and Bast will do anything to make this happen.

So that’s my prediction. It’s all about Felurian, all about those scenes in Wise Man’s Fear that had so many readers panties in a twist.

I’m sure in book three we’ll get buckets of Chandrian and four panel doors and locks with no keys and Denna being a pest and Auri and Elodin being awesome, and laughter and tears and humor and prophecies and Bast and everything else I want.

not to mention a box, a lineage, and the (un)intended side effects of changing one’s true name.

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But in the end, I think it’s all gonna come back to Felurian.

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Tags: epic, fantasy, Kvothe, Patrick Rothfuss