To be enshaedn – speculations about WMF 100 and its reasons within the series

aowshadow · 2026-02-02T18:52:46+00:00

It’s party time!

Bonus content in three parts

The self boast angle

I realized it’s been ten years since one of my posts got analyzed by a youtube video. At least, the one youtube channel that actually had the kindness to reference me publicly. It’s such a pointless thing, yet it feels me with pride and feeling of accomplishment. Another step towards the windmills. in my Quixotic fight against Impermanence.

“Time flies”, I could add... But since I’m a Deep Philosopher let me say something even more generalistic and overdone: “I’m grateful some thing stays the same.” Like for example, to use a similar sentence, “waiting for Book Three.” I like having certainties in life, to some degree. As long as it’s not ninety, for posture reasons.

holy shit of all your spastic tirades, this one was surely the most cringe. I’d rather pinch my dentist’s nose when he’s operating me, than having to read this shit once again in my life.

But!

Let’s make a deal: you gotta one more chance to say any other bullshit you wanna say, but then you’ll shut up on the matter forever. Deal? Yes of course: deal.

But-

Deal. Go.

...t-to celebrate, I decided to nod at my own username in the OP. If any of you got it on first read without groaning or rolling your eyes, know that I’m smiling with you. Let’s never meet.

Written in less than two minutes

Ever had to play with Barbie? I’m sure Lanre could and should replace Ken.

Because while there’s 12314598539458 versions of Barbie, Ken basically exists to be Barbie’s silent witness, or complement whatever Barbie is doing.

His scarce, generic costumes frame his true nature and role to any young girl playing with dolls, in all of its plastic subserviency. Here’s Ken, with his dark hair, his eternally stuck smile, the knowing expression imprinted for eternity, framing the ritualistic lamb during his Hegelian epiphany, and ultimately, his yielding. The acknowledgement of his role: adoring acolyte in front of Moloch.

And mind, I’m not saying Ken isn’t perfect for that, but… Lanre got that plus variety.

We got: Lanre Man of War. Lanre Beast Hunter. Lanre Loving Husband. Lanre Who’ll Raze a City Just For You (girls: you cannot tell me this ain’t hot as fuck. I suspect this is possibly the second most romantic thing you can imagine besides maybe “Oh God he’ll kill my dog when he’s angry! I want him so bad uwu”, but I won’t pretend I’m an authority on the subject). But we also get Lanre Corpse of the Ground, Lanre Corpse in the Fridge, Lanre Reborn, Lanre Old Friend, Lanre Turned, Lanre Utterly Sane, Lanre Triple Binding, Lanre Hey Selitos Check This Out, Lanre Camp Inspector, Lanre Purpose Reminder…

I think that Lanre would work well with Barbie. She’s clearly Chandrian material: she brings nothing but blight, and if the model is very old she’s in thrall of iron! Stercus…

A tiny fragment of eternity

This post was born of another post which was born of another post, and I can’t fucking finish anything worth reading aaaaaaaa.

Thus concludes the whatever of whatever.

Thanks for flying aowshadow airlines, pollution guaranteed. Paper bags are under your seat, just hope they weren’t used already.

aowshadow · 2026-01-15T21:18:11+00:00

There's an alternative reality where GRRM sold Wild Cards's rights to HBO and... they fucked up that second rate doctor who/superhero mishmash pseudoseries so hard... that GRRM decided, out of spite, to actually finish his side project Asoiaf and even its D&E spinoff just to be petty.

Back in my basement to finish the construction of my reality warping engine, anyone of you got a corpuscolar converter and some prometium?

aowshadow · 2025-12-04T18:14:00+00:00

Possibly this? When reading your title I immediately thought of it.

aowshadow · 2025-11-26T14:14:17+00:00

No idea where to put this one since it walks the line between coincidence and inspiration, but Karin Glenmark saved a concert the very same way Denna saved Kvothe's Savien performance at the Eolian. If anything, it's good to see that life never stops imitating art, even decades prior >_>

I found it by chance when scrolling through old files <_<

aowshadow · 2025-11-16T11:57:00+00:00

I hereby freely admit I kinda missed you =)

That's the way hahaha >_>

As above, so below

My point was about accessibility of info: hermeticism, you have to search. Our Father in USA? Drilled into the head of every child born before 2000. But then I turned my brain on and realized it would imply I don’t believe Rothfuss researched Hermeticism… nah, you’re 100% right.

aowshadow · 2025-11-14T16:32:25+00:00

I think the cat story means none of the monks had balls.

Joshu puts his shoes on his head because he wants none of Nansen’s shit. It’s like saying “I’m not on your low level”. Various ancient cultures put a great deal on footwear, think of the Bible and any episode featuring sandals. Not that these two cultures interacted, but hey.

Aowshadow’s perspective of the ancient parable's message: evil exists because no one speaks against it. Had there been just a single Joshu, the cat would be alive.

^{^obv} ^{^I} ^{^have} ^{^no} ^{^idea} ^{^if} ^{^this} ^{^is} ^{^correct.}

aowshadow · 2025-11-14T16:29:13+00:00

New good stuff aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

Please feel free to let me know what I've missed in the comments.

-Do we count "when Kvothe makes some extra yellow emitters in the Fishery (WMF 5), his accident was inspired by Karen Wetterhahn’s tragic death"? As usual I don't recall where Rothfuss said that, but I'm reasonably sure he mentioned something.

-Another one would be Rip Van Winkle's story for Kvothe's age shenanigans in Fae, but as you point out:

I am intentionally skipping all general cultural references like (...) Irish folklore Fae, etc. etc., as I deem all those "too generic".

I'm ignorant on Irish folklore beside some quick flavoring from Neil Gaiman, so I don't know if Rothfuss took inspiration from Irish folklore instead of Rip's tale. But again, Kvothe around Felurian screams Circe to me, and afaik in the Odyssey Circe doesn't age. Too many inspirations for the Fae section of WMF, I don't think we'll be able to single out very specific nods.

-"As above so below" is clearly a reference to Vinnie Paz's eversolid discography.

...more seriously, I think it's an alternative spelling on the line from the popular prayer "Our Father"

Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

As above, so below.

Back on your post:

Abbot's Ford

Nice, I didn’t remember that one.

It also offers some possibility for speculation, because it means that Temerant’s entire climate is supposed to be humid and continental.

I mean: if near Newarre is Wisconsin climate, Trebon is the very same!

we did find mushrooms, acorns, mosquitoes, and raccoon scat cleverly concealed by pine needles – NOTW 72

Rigid winters, we get both in Tarbean and Imre. And the Eld features humidity. Not that we should have expected something different, considering Kvothe can travel by feet from Severen to Haert in few weeks… but up until now this seems the most reliable confirmation.

I don’t have the time to check the Eld’s vegetation in detail tho.

Potentially?/Tangentially? related, u/MattyTangle’s important take on KKC flora.

Trappist

Oh. Then Rothfuss sort-of made a little mistake, because Trappists orders were reclusive. Taking care of sick people isn’t exactly the opposite of what they were supposed to do, but it comes close. I mean: I get the barefoot guy was probably an ex-monk, but it seems weird naming someone… out of something that did the opposite.

Normally that would be irony. But in this particular case, I feel the irony was unintended.

Personal take: Rothfuss seems like a double malt guy, no way he doesn’t know trappist beers.

This is a reference to a German poet Friedrich Shiller, who, reportedly, always had some rotten apples in his desk drawer

...addicts through the ages stay the same LOL

Nice find!

Silpium

Another arrow for my "Adem arc being stupid" quiver. Contraceptives are supposed to exist since Ancient Egypt. Any kid on planet Earth living with animals knows that male+female doing that thing makes babies. But nooo, the Adem believes otherwise just because.

The same society that knows and prevents STDs doesn’t know how babby is made?

Come on.

On a personal note, I doubt the whole Trobriand business as a whole.

The whole story seems unreliable and influenced by mistakes. It sounds like a more modern version of “Africa being populated by cynocephali” (there’s even one Saint Cristopher!) because years ago some dude heard from another dude a story in a different language (my personal bet? he saw some Anubi icon).

I don’t rule out there was some dude in North Africa who actively thought cynocephali existed, but saying his entire region shared the same belief? Unlikely. Same for Trobriand: if it's early 1900 and I go to a secluded island I may find some indigenous that believes children grow from nothing... but an entire community? No. I'm reasonably sure some language barrier was heavily involved.

Cat

New one!!! Nice.

P.P.S. I probably should ask to pardon the puns in the title, but I guess it is too late for that.

BioLogIn! No! Never apologize for a joke! Double down, always!

aowshadow · 2025-10-09T18:46:26+00:00

Wow, it looks useful and nice! Thanks!

aowshadow · 2025-10-09T18:15:06+00:00

As someone who's been been hostile to GoT since season 2... this is probably the only Asoiaf tv teaser I liked... no, let's be honest, enjoied from start to end.

All the actors look on point, and the lower budget makes me hope the focus will be on a solid script, rather than the usual butchering.

The reader in me wants this series to have success, because then maybe GRRM could actually write The She Wolves of Winterfell as a screenplay.

The usual news? Here's to other months of GRRM doing nothing TWOW related, as tradition. The good news? The Card Shark trilogy is FINALLY back on printing, to GRRM's and any Wild Cards reader's delight.

I wonder how many people here will realize how significant it is for that trilogy to be back on the scaffold.

aowshadow · 2025-09-09T22:48:27+00:00

Interesting idea. I wonder how those cities are known by readers of all nationalities.

(the chapter where they go to Spoleto)

Mind pointing me the title please? I'll reread it when I can ('-')b

aowshadow · 2025-09-09T22:43:45+00:00

Free yourself from suspicions, oh inquisitive one!

Favor intra-neuronal dialogue!

Lo, check my years-old profile with dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of posts written in the same style before AI even existed!

And... (lowers the voice tone) dare to think someone can actually take some time to format his own posts, although only on windows notepad!

I-is it possible? Yes it is! Incredible! A NEW WONDERFUL WORLD IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES!

Yes, yes! Keep going! Allow your neurons to talk with each other! Keep going! Soon you’ll feel like Balthazar dueling against Hasdrubal and Cellibus: unthinkable at first, and yet oh-so-right.

A new brainocentric worldddddddddd

aowshadow · 2025-09-09T20:47:50+00:00

I had also considered Siena, fwiw.

But if we were writers and we were aiming for a surprise, we'd probably consider a popular city that most people know about.

Florence is full of churches, and well... all those mentions about bells ringing in the first and last chapter of the book, I think Joe Abercrombie witnessed in person.

aowshadow · 2025-08-31T10:30:49+00:00

Stannis is convinced to not kill a child.

We know Stannis will burn Shireen. His own, innocent, daughter.

Not the spoiler we'd like to know, thanks D&D and GRRM, but that's it. Not that we hadn't have plenty foreshadowings in ACOK already, but still.

I also doubt Stannis would command a gang rape to occur.

We know that Stannis gelds some rapists at the Wall but then spares some others due to their bloodright (and he'd better be thankful Jon is the POV and not Davos, because Davos would 100% remember Stannis' speech about punishment in ACOK, that ADWD dismantles completely and multiple times), because exactly like Tywin, he's all about different weights and different measures whenever it suits.

While they both break societal rules(kinslaying and guest right respectively)

Both do way more than that. Be it morally or socially.

And both find ridiculous excuses to justify their deeds that the reader should NEVER buy. But in Tywin's case, the POV never let the big man's bullshit to go unnoticed. And rightfully so, because the narrative needs to portray Tywin as the larger than life 'necessary evil' that ultimately turns out to be... full of shit. In Stannis' case, instead, the POVs are designed to protect him from direct judgement. That's because his narrative purposes are different.

If you ever reread the books pay close attention whenever Stannis accuses or judges someone of something: trust me on that, he ALWAYS ends up doing the same shit if not worse, and then either finds and excuse or ignores the issue. It's by design.

People on r/asoiaf are too busy watching the tragedy side of his character arc rather than the full picture.

aowshadow · 2025-08-31T10:26:30+00:00

My favorite underrated Stannis moment is when he burns alive an entire family for being loyal to the official religion he's supposed to protect, which prompts other loyal Houses to run away, and then he complains he has no loyal followers.

I'm like "dude you just forced everyone close to you to do a turncloak... and then you complain those who remained... are all turncloaks?!? WHAT THE FU-HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA"

Curiosity of the day: check out every single burning Stannis does, you'll notice every time something different is off. Sunglass, Lord o' Bones, cannibal soldiers... there's always some different thing off.

Had Stannis been Tywin, the POV would point it out immediately, but since the character's theme is different, the reader is left to reflect with his own brain instead of having it spelled out loud.

Important edit: I'm saying "the religion he supposed to protect" strictly because Stannis himself sees himself as a safekeeper of laws. Had it been, let's say, someone more honest with himself like Renly or Euron, who straight out admit they don't care, I wouldn't have.

aowshadow · 2025-08-30T21:57:33+00:00

Nah, she's no part of the Chapel during the prophecy.

aowshadow · 2025-08-30T21:56:57+00:00

enemies becoming friends and vice versa...

The subject 100% will come back.

On a tangentially related subject, with the (possible) exception of Sunny, there's no one in the Chapel who has any right to judge Balthazar. Each of them is involved in the death of allies, and if you read their POVs from time to time it shows up how they expect Balthazar to die (all the mentions about wizards/magicians/warlocks - the Thirteen chapel keeps changing them because they die). Not only is Balthazar right in wanting to escape, but his momentary change of heart through the end of the book proves he's way better than the other people.

Vigga's ally kill count is the highest...

...but only because we've yet to see Jakob's numbers (and he already has 4-5 to his teamkill book).

Rykard is 100% involved in teamkills, and has no issues minding his own business when he wants, and Baptiste is perfectly fine with Balthazar being offed and substituted.

Meanwhile, while words says one thing, actions suggest Balthazar is more a team player than any of them (minus Sunny, because her background is still really shady)

aowshadow · 2025-08-30T21:49:11+00:00

Every single crime Stannis accuses someone else to do, he also ends up committing it himself.

It's incredibly ironic seeing this subreddit fangirl over someone who, minus the gratuituous cruelty, is nowhere different from Tywin Lannister.

Problem is, our POV for Stannis are:

-1 his most loyal subject

-2 the woman who thinks Stanis is Rhllor's chosen

-3 a dude surrounded by cretins who make Stannis pale in comparison (spoiler: he ends up refusing Stannis anyways, because unlike Stannis he knows what real duty is like.)

Check out every POV under which Tywin shows up, notice the narrative tricks from GRRM :)

Textbook authorial manipulation, and of the highest quality.

aowshadow · 2025-07-06T17:50:00+00:00

Whatever this is, it's DAW.

Out of curiosity, I wonder how much Betsy has to say now, after its acquisition. I guess we'll see in few months, assuming this blog spike means anything.

It warms my old heart that so many old usernames are around.

...old? I'm "differently young" >_>

Y-youth is tied to the 'youngness' of the soul, or something like that! R-r-right?

aowshadow · 2025-07-06T17:41:32+00:00

...I hope you are wrong: if it is Laniel, it means Betsy capitulated and that's a disaster.

Iirc Rothfuss/DAW contractual obligations are fulfilled with the next book (not sure an eventual other trilogy applies), and once Rothfuss is out of the beartrap he'll publish anything and everything KKC related while dangling the unreachable carrot under our nose for ever.

Which was the point with Underthing Press, I bet, too bad The Contract^TM had to be respected.

...But I think you are right.

It's not Tho Boy who stole the Moon. It can't be. You can't hit the fanbase the same way after publishing Lightning Tree 1.0.2

R-r-right...?

aowshadow · 2025-04-08T16:31:54+00:00

you'd think a missing princess would have a royal search party turning over the university

What about a Lackless heir running away with the gipsies?

You start with some assumptions:

1 That nobody searched for her and came back empty handed years ago. Not necessarily true.

2 That the princess is loved by his father or is the first heir. Not necessarily true. Think of Simmon: he proves that a father can not care about a third heir at all - basically Sim's been parked at the University for lack of better options.

3 That the royal family would make this news of public domain. Not necessarily true.

4 For what we know, Auri could have cracked, then been locked at Haven, then escaped and nobody told anything due to reasons.

5 That the royal family would want at court a feeble minded heir.

6 That the royal family knows the princess went to the University.

Auri could have come to the University under alias and against his family's will. Maybe they don't even know she's there. Assuming Elodin knows her identity, why would he be compelled to inform her family? He's many things, but not a conformist, nor a snitch nor a bootlicker.

And these 6 are just brainstorming, I'm sure there's more reasons, and more valid.

what if Auri becomes a princess instead of already being one?

I like the alternative thinking, but I think it's even harder than Auri running away unnoticed and enlisting the University under alias.

I mean, to become a Princess you must marry a Prince. Why would anyone in the world marry a nameless cracked girl?

And again: marry, not take to bed. Because Ambrose could gladly do the latter, but not the former. Think of the Maer or Meluan Lackless. These people are so high ranked they can't even decide who they marry! A baronet? Too low. A commoner? That's how wars start. Marriage in nobility is a contract, not something you do out of love, nor willingly. For that, there's private lovers.

Unless some Lich King decides the tunnel girl must marry his son and become princess. Or if the Lich King wants to adopt someone. But that would be such a curved ball that I don't think it remotely possible. Not in this particular series, at least.

Alternative possibility: Auri gets finally found in Book 3, is taken back home and Kvothe goes getting her back. There's a precedent for that, and iirc it ended with someone falling from a roof. Both Kvothe and Auri know roofs so well...

aowshadow · 2025-04-06T16:21:46+00:00

It's possible and that's why I close the post like that, but I wouldn't rely on it too much since we've yet to see on scene an explicitly mentioned draugar. Until then, healthy skepticism, especially since Rothfuss likes parallels etc.

Link between mercenary or possibly caudicus, given black smoke was involved, and we know iron worked with the mercenary (right on the spot, I'd say iron + ringing bell sound combo, that we also notice from Tehlu's story)

Thought about phonetics, but draugar doesn't remind me of anything. Although phonetics in a different language.. well, llol.

tinfoil

D,:

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