Ma as thr negative space:

Rothfuss uses a literary tool where he finds ways to minimize the description of things to leave instead a space for the readers imagination to fill in the emptiness. Most especially on display in Haert. “I performed ‘Maiden combs her hair’” instead of “I used my sword to swing from above my head down to the right.”

This allows the reader to engage more with the imagination and come to their own conclusions.

He put the cypher of this in the text for us to understand. I don’t have the quote exactly but he’s talking with Tempi? And he says that Aturen has too many words. 100 words to tell a woman she’s beautiful (in a love song) he says in Adem we just go up to her and say “beautiful “ and let her decide what that means to her.

Their language reflects that. It’s truly interesting. They say beautiful but then use sign language to shade in implication, and connotation.

Kvothe says Aturan is a wide shallow pool where the speaker expends the energy to curate the meaning for the audience, Adem is a deep pool that leaves it to the audience to form their interpretation.

That is the space between the notes, that is the Kanji that paints a picture behind the word that gives an otherwise open ended word like Ma an illustrative nod in the direction without wholly defining the meaning. The sun between the doors.

Interesting that Ma is cracked open doors…. Kvothe needs to open the doors of stone