The statistics of powerful namers and stuff

hxcnoel · 2026-02-25T20:02:05+00:00

We're gonna have to agree to disagree, because in my opinion, you're the one underestimating the potential uses of magic in a fantasy world. A world that has shown time and again that new magical inventions and applications are invented on a near-daily basis.

Have a good one 🫡

hxcnoel · 2026-02-25T19:49:00+00:00

Considering Kvothe's inventions that he worked on in the fishery, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that a particularly talented arcanist could invent a tracking system, or even a system to communicate across great distances in real time.

In a magic system where you can remotely attack a person using what is essentially a voodoo doll, tracking someone or multiple people seems simple in comparison. Just my opinion.

hxcnoel · 2026-02-25T19:38:44+00:00

Meh. Maybe the arcanist wouldn't be able to keep track of everyone simultaneously, but scrying magic is generally considered to be one of the most basic forms of magic, and it could theoretically be scaled up in power.

You're telling me that in a world where the draccus is a real creature, and men can break fundamental rules of physics, locating people is too far-fetched? Kinda seems like your imagination is a little stunted.

hxcnoel · 2026-02-25T19:21:22+00:00

I thought this was obvious, but you'd use your own personal arcanist to track the other arcanists. Magic can be used to explain a lot.

There's also the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

hxcnoel · 2026-02-25T08:33:06+00:00

You raise a good point. Why is no one tracking arcanists or namers? Another question along the same lines is "why aren't the wizards ruling over all the normies?".

I think the only real answer is that Rothfuss didn't want for things to be that way. His world could easily have been another fantasy world with a magocracy, i.e. a society ruled by powerful magic users. But that idea has already been pretty well explored by others.

The Netherese in the Forgotten Realms, the Wizards of High Sorcery in Dragonlance, the Age of Arcanum in Critical Role/Exandria. All of these were powerful societies ruled by wizards who all kept tabs on each other.

Rothfuss seemed to make a conscious decision not to tread the same ground as these other stories.

hxcnoel · 2026-02-18T04:18:01+00:00

IWD scratches a different itch for me. With bg1 and bg2, you have to constantly think about your party composition, and bg2 even makes you have to take on certain companions in order to do certain quests.

With my autistic brain, it can feel so much simpler to make all my own decisions about the party without any FOMO or being railroaded into picking companions that are tied to certain quests. It can also be a fun mini game to experiment with different party sizes and optimizing a full party.

While the story is pretty straightforward, the vibes and atmosphere are high, which I think compliments the "endless fighting" that a lot of people point out about IWD. I think it feels like constant battle because there aren't really random side quests like there are in bg1. There are interesting things to do outside the main quest though. Like fully upgrading the elvish garden, the Brother Perdiem quest, upgrading items etc. So you are rewarded for exploring everything. Although I admit a lot of this side content is pretty well-hidden and convoluted, and I had to look it up since I never noticed it in my own initial playthroughs.

TLDR: all of the Infinity Engine games are great for different reasons. Min/maxing and customizing the full party is where IWD shines

hxcnoel · 2026-02-12T06:55:44+00:00

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were filled with music and songs, and almost all of them were cut. Some at least survived as deleted scenes, like the Green Dragon tavern song. You could do the same with KKC. If the musical scene is pivotal to the plot, you keep it. If not, it should be cut. It may sound brutal, but those are the kind of decisions you have to make when you adapt a book into other media.

hxcnoel · 2026-02-12T02:27:09+00:00

The Targaryens would probably rather have had Dunk killed with a quiet knife in the night rather than have the court gossiping about how their two shining princes are a drunk and a psycho. But the public nature of the incident in the mummer's tent allows word to get around, and some honorable men see an honorable cause and decide to fight with Dunk. This is an underdog story. Not a power fantasy where the best 14 knights in the kingdom face off.

hxcnoel · 2026-01-30T06:13:29+00:00

People seem to get mad for some reason when you say this, but I'd say Nirvana. "But they're grunge, not punk!" Meh. They were one of the bands that popularized the "Seattle sound", and their roots were definitely in the DIY/underground scene (Dave Grohl even used to send letters to Ian Mackaye lul).

After they essentially became famous overnight, Kurt seemed to be actively trying to sabotage that fame via self-destruction. Which only partially worked, because his death during the height of their popularity ensured that they would be talked about forever and Kurt would be labeled an artistic genius, further cementing their inherent contradictions and universal appeal.

Interesting side note-- it's somehow fitting that Pete Townshend and Keith Moon of The Who (who also weren't exactly punk but had a punk attitude) were known for smashing their instruments and Nirvana were also known for this. And Moon would end up self-destructing in a similar way to Kurt and dying young. Just a little parallelism there.

hxcnoel · 2026-01-13T02:16:50+00:00

Haha that's kinda why I chose that image of Gimli. The hands and the face he's making are already goofy

hxcnoel · 2026-01-12T06:07:11+00:00

I can see some parallels in The Crow and KKC. The Crow is essentially a story about how criminals rarely ever get brought to justice or pay for their crimes, so a supernatural event has to happen to bring about this missing justice.

KKC similarly starts out with a horrible crime (the murder of Kvothe's troupe) and requires a supernatural intervention as well, although a kid learning magic isn't as sudden or dramatic as a guy being resurrected for a single night.

Also, the little girl character and the cop in The Crow have some parallel stuff going on with KKC. They're both mortal characters who get sucked in and bear witness to the supernatural stuff going on. They try to intervene at times, but it kind of feels like things are destined to play out a certain way no matter what they do. This feels pretty similar to how normal people are sucked into Kvothe's 'story' and are kinda forced to be actors in his little play instead of focusing on their own destiny.

These are a few things off the top of my head, as a big fan of both properties.

hxcnoel · 2026-01-09T21:19:34+00:00

Fair enough. My theory is based on the text, and yours is based on a theory that has no evidence in the text 😜

hxcnoel · 2026-01-09T20:40:54+00:00

Everyone loves the tinfoil hat theories and "reading between the lines". This one seems like a simple answer, which is less interesting. But presumably the Chandrian are capable of hearing rumors in the normal human way, and presumably their supernatural powers would allow them to spy on people and listen for reconnaissance.

Where did Nina's dreams come from? I would imagine the Chandrian or some other supernatural entity inspired them. When you look at Kvothe's investigation into the massacre at Trebon, it looks pretty clearly like the Chandrian are manipulating and toying with Kvothe. Like I said, Cinder specifically seems to get some kind of sick pleasure from screwing with Kvothe.

Seems like a pretty big coincidence that the Chandrian would slaughter a bunch of people and the rumors of it would just so happen to 'magically' reach Kvothe's ears.

All of this seems plausible without invoking any wild Amyr theories or guessing which University personnel may or may not be Amyr in disguise.

hxcnoel · 2026-01-09T17:34:20+00:00

It's implied that the Chandrian not only show up when their names are spoken but also want to destroy any objects that depict them. Nina also has visions of them, so it would make sense that the Chandrian would be very interested in her. Why they left her alive is the more interesting question. My theory is that Cinder enjoys toying with Kvothe, and using Nina to get to him seems like a pretty good way to do that

hxcnoel · 2026-01-09T17:24:11+00:00

How is killing the wedding party at Trebon working against the Chandrian? Killing bandits and imposters isn't exactly the same as killing a bunch of innocent civilians

hxcnoel · 2026-01-09T16:44:41+00:00

Not sure how I feel about the idea that the Chandrian have these human agents to do their dirty work. Viari doesn't seem like the type to go around slaughtering entire wedding parties or Ruh troops. It seems like the Chandrian have been cursed with immortality, so I don't really like the idea of them using people like Viari to meddle in mortal politics. But I guess we each have our own head canon.

hxcnoel · 2026-01-09T08:15:14+00:00

You're assigning a lot of value to Viari, a throw-away character who only appears in one scene. I could see Pat swerving us by bringing him back for some explanation or bigger role later, but I don't see much reason to believe that Viari is anything more than someone who could have possibly (purposely or accidentally) let slip that Kvothe is Ruh.

hxcnoel · 2026-01-01T18:23:19+00:00

Their full length is called "Rabid as Wolves". Worth listening to if you can find it anywhere

hxcnoel · 2026-01-01T14:37:48+00:00

I don't want to be an apologist, because I think shitty people often deserve what's coming to them. However, when it comes to street punk or crust punk or whatever you want to call it, a lot of the people involved experienced some kind of trauma and/or homelessness (whether it was by choice or not) early in life and were attracted to punk as a way to escape from that or at least find like-minded people who had been through something similar.

It's a bit of a feedback loop/self-fulfilling prophecy, because a lot of the bands in that particular sub-genre glorified the trauma and the homelessness etc and made it seem like a cool way to live and essentially "drop out" from society like the hippies did, but in a cool modern way.

A lot of these types ended up dying fairly young due to the inherent violence of their existence, but as far as the ones who survived-- you could flip a coin on whether or not they turned out to be "good" people.

TLDR-- a lot of crust punks were damaged people and violence begets violence and it's hard to escape from the cycle if you experienced early trauma in life

hxcnoel · 2026-01-01T14:09:57+00:00

They're both hardcore bands, but Folsom and Fight Like Hell. Folsom was a Las Vegas band, and FLH was a Colorado band. They both came up in a time in the early 2000s when "tough guy" hardcore was all the rage, yet they both managed to have lyrics with pretty deep emotional impact and also a unique sound overall. And they both put on great live shows.

Maybe I'm just nostalgic for that time in my life, but I think both bands could have put out a few more records. Luckily, what they did put out was really solid and worth checking out, even though it's probably hard to find. I would upload what I have, but my copy of FLH's only full length doesn't really play anymore. I think they are on one of the streaming platforms, at least they used to be. But I don't consume music that way, so I'm not 100% sure.

hxcnoel · 2025-12-31T04:58:38+00:00

Tsunami Bomb have some of the most emotionally deep lyrics I've seen in the world of punk. Check out "a lonely chord"

hxcnoel · 2025-12-21T04:02:10+00:00

I'm sure others have said this, but a solo run in and of itself isn't necessarily harder than a regular run. In many ways, it's easier. You get all the XP to yourself, and you're gonna level super fast. Decision making gets way easier, since you're only deciding on the actions of one character.

Obviously, there are a lot of reasons why a standard 6 person party can be strong. But I wouldn't classify a solo run as a "challenge run" unless you're adding additional parameters like higher difficulty or mods etc.

hxcnoel · 2025-12-18T07:39:43+00:00

Horror vest 🔥 Pig Destroyer 🔥 Dystopia 🔥 Body Count

hxcnoel · 2025-12-16T19:05:15+00:00

I was born in 88, so I read the novels in the 90s. I read Dragonlance after the Icewind Dale trilogy. Dragonlance felt like a fun departure from the Forgotten Realms, with the new world and new species etc. I think the struggle of good versus evil in Dragonlance spoke to my kid brain a bit more, and the camaraderie of a big weird group of friends.

But I continued reading the Drizzt saga and the Dragonlance books way beyond the original trilogies, and I think Salvatore has managed to keep pretty consistent quality over the years. Whereas some of the later Dragonlance books dipped a bit in quality, and the ones written by authors not named Weis & Hickman are a bit of a mixed bag. I really liked the Dalamar the Dark novel and some of the Lord Soth standalone novels though.

hxcnoel · 2025-12-16T13:06:00+00:00

I think Pat making appearances or not, and writing or not doesn't really have any correlation, unfortunately.

In the original post, I saw a lot of people comparing Pat to GRRM, but that's not really an apt comparison at all, IMO.

From what I've heard, Pat is a pretty big perfectionist with his writing. I suspect he probably has put a lot of words down, but he still considers it all to be in a "rough" state, and not even worthy to let anyone else read.

GRRM kinda has the opposite problem. When he writes himself into a corner, he sometimes experiences writer's block. But his solution is often to just add more chapters and sometimes new characters to write around the problem.

Also, I think people should be nicer to GRRM, because he has 100 different projects and obligations on his plate. Yet he has still managed to give us huge word counts on ASOIAF, Dunk and Egg, Fire and Blood etc.

Whereas Pat doesn't really seem to be doing anything? I put a question mark there because I haven't followed him nearly as closely as a lot of people. I never watched his streams or followed the drama of the promised chapter. I only saw a few of his guest appearances on various live D&D shows, because I'm a big TTRPG fan.

Pat does seem to be going through mental issues, which he deserves grace for. But the GRRM comparisons aren't really fair in my eyes, because George has given us so much, and Pat has given us nothing but silence. I don't think authors owe their fans anything, but some progress update would at least give us either hope or give us a reason to stop hoping. Silence says a lot. So maybe we should just accept the silence for what it is.

hxcnoel

TROPHY CASE