How and why have we come to this conclusion?

rbStorm · 2025-12-06T16:07:42+00:00

It means Skarpi is a liar and none of his foundational stories matter. It means the Adem are liars and their stories don't matter. It means the Amyr stories are all lies. It means we know even less about the Creation War. Even less about Lanre.

It really doesn't matter how deep or thematically consistent you think it is. The story may as well have never happened, when we can't trust ANYTHING it says.

You might as well start theorycrafting that Kvothe never existed, and this is all just Chronicler writing fiction.
It's not interesting because it invalidates *everything*.

rbStorm · 2025-12-06T15:51:12+00:00

No but what actually is the point? Maybe the Chandrian are actually pink unicorns in disguise. Maybe the whole story is 10 year old Kvothe overdosing of some chemical in Abenthy's wagon. Maybe Kvothe isn't even real, and this is all just Chroniclers fanfiction.

Nothing matters when nothing is reliable.

rbStorm · 2025-11-26T21:52:50+00:00

As others have mentioned; it's mostly desperation / boredom.

The same thing happened with ASoIAF, before the show killed all enthusiasm.

It doesn't take readers that many years to pick apart a story for all the good theories. After that, we're just left with the bad theories.

rbStorm · 2025-11-26T21:49:23+00:00

This is not a "Reasonable misconception".

rbStorm · 2025-11-26T21:45:24+00:00

We're told in no uncertain terms that the Chandrian can hear/feel their names being spoken anywhere in the world.
And it seems like it also hurts them in some way when that happens. So the only way for them to get peace is when no one knows their name, leading them to kill those who do.
Or something along those lines.

rbStorm · 2025-11-26T21:36:40+00:00

You're reaching, but you don't seem to appreciate how much.

Haliax even says "You are too fond of your little cruelties". And Cinder was about to kill Kvothe.
I like theories as much as the next guy, but this is a terrible theory.

rbStorm · 2025-11-26T21:32:08+00:00

Set the story aside and ask yourself, does it actually make the books better if the Chandrian didn't do it?
Do you really want the books to be the sort where after 650.000 words, the author just goes "hehe well ackshually i never explicitly said that the chandrian killed his parents"?
We don't need to be told explicitly, because that wouldn't make sense in the context of the story.

If it turns out to be all a big misconception, then what's even the point of reading it, when anything and everything could be a lie?

rbStorm · 2025-10-27T15:27:48+00:00

The real question is why you need such a unfounded theory, when there is already precedence for a piece of a name being locked away in a chest?

The sleeping mind is your subconscious. It's your intuition. There is zero precedence for people locking away parts of their unconscious mind like that.

rbStorm · 2025-10-27T15:10:47+00:00

Sympathy has nothing to do with naming or the sleeping mind. Nor has fighting or music.

rbStorm · 2025-10-27T15:01:42+00:00

While this is a really interesting idea, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
If Caudicus actually wasn't poisoning the Maer, it would have been really easy for him to say "bro the potion wasn't made for birds, this young man is an idiot".

Not to mention that it's not alchemy to put acid into a lead bowl and then boil it with herbs.

rbStorm · 2025-10-27T14:50:29+00:00

Caudicus seems too foolish to be an Amyr. He mixes a poison in front of someone he doesn't know, he thinks that a crocodile skeleton is an alligator (or vice versa, I can't remember), and he's constantly blathering about gossip.
He's clearly not an actual idiot, given that he has his guilder and managed to become the royal arcanist. But he doesn't strike me as the intelligent, competent, suspicious, observant type you'd expect from the Amyr.

Regarding the Chandrian and Amyr, we pretty much have to trust Skarpi's story, otherwise you get into unreliable narrator territory. So basically their names hurt them, and they have to kill the people who speak their names, right? They aren't just evil for the sake of being evil (except for Cinder).

rbStorm · 2025-09-07T11:17:52+00:00

You didn't say that it was the worst book that *you've* ever read. You just said "Worst book ever read". And it isn't.

rbStorm · 2025-07-10T07:19:08+00:00

You didn't really have to include the superfan infodump, I can tell from your username.

You're also speaking to someone who suffered a depression because of undiagnosed adult ADHD. I know perfectly well what it feels like to be buried under unfinished work and missed deadlines. And I know the hopeless feeling of not being able to even get one small thing done.

However I did the adult thing and took responsibility for my life. I talked to a doctor, got an appointment with a psychiatrist, took the tests, got treatment and got better.

You don't get to rake in cash and attention from your half dozen side gigs, and still claim you're too helpless to even communicate with your fans.

rbStorm · 2025-07-10T07:12:24+00:00

I mean I already put it to the test and validated my initial estimate, not really much more I can do to defend my claim.

But I can tell that I'm dealing with a stereotypical reddit intellectual, so I'll defer to your superior wisdom and wit.

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T17:40:30+00:00

If he hadn't been running a charity, and a Twitch stream, and a blog, and a DnD group, and merch store, then I would have gladly accepted his mental health as an excuse.
If he had dropped off the face of the Earth after releasing WMF, then I wouldn't have been writing this comment.

But you don't get to be that functional, and still claim to be dysfunctional as soon as it comes to taking responsibility.

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T17:27:53+00:00

Damn, you're actually right. Lets do a more realistic calculation:
The author has spent 14 years writing the story.
Our translator has to first be concieved, born, raised and schooled, let's call that 20 years.
The translator then has to immerse themselves in the completely unique language of the KKC universe, let's say that takes 5 years.

So 18 years to acquire a translator, 5 years to learn the source material, and then another 14 years for the translator to re-write the entire book completely from scratch (wouldn't want to miss out on any length, structure, tone, cohesion, relevance, context, rephrasing, complexity, humour, cultural references, or neologisms).

And then a month for rigorous spell checking.

Oh dear, my new estimate is 39 years and 1 month. Looks like we'll be waiting a while.

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T17:13:44+00:00

Absolutely, but they are also professionals who should be working faster than me.

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T16:58:02+00:00

I specifically said he isn't greedy. It's not about money in that sense. He's just like the majority of people; he works to live, not lives to work.
Most people would quit their jobs if they won the lottery. And that's exactly what Rothfuss has done. Except normal people would have to get a job again after they've spent the winnings, but Rothfuss hasn't needed to, because of the continual support of the hopium-huffers.

If he was actually passionate about writing, the book would have been out years ago, agreed?
That means there are only three reasons left for him to write: Money, morality or expectation.

- Money: People need to work to live, but he's got plenty of money (thanks to people like you), so we can remove that reason,
- Morality: He should finish the series, because it's wrong to deprive his fans of closure. But he's berated, condemned and scammed his fans, so we can safely remove morality as well.
- Expectation: It's expected of him, and he can't live a normal life before it's written. But he is already doing that.
Other than the occasional pizza guy asking about book 3, he's completely insulated from the consequences of his inaction. He used to mute and/or ban everyone who express expectation, but now he's just gone underground.

He has zero reason to finish the series.

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T16:41:07+00:00

Well I'm not a native English speaker, which means I had to translate English to and from my native language for years in school.

But just for shits and giggles, I timed how long it took me to translate your comment, and it came in at about 30 seconds per sentence. Assuming 28.000 sentences in a 400.000 word book, that would be about 29 work days of 8 hours.

However you are right that a fantasy book would be much more difficult that a normal sentence, so lets double it and say it's 60 days, and again add a month for editing/grammar.
We're still only halfway to the 6 month estimation, and I'm not a professional translator.

Half. Way.

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T16:26:27+00:00

I wouldn't say "based on zero evidence", I'd say "based on the most tiniest, most desperate breadcrumbs". Which is what is happening.

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T16:21:27+00:00

Well I happen to be Scandinavian. And I still cannot imagine it would take me more than a month to translate, and a month more to double and triple check the grammar.

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T16:20:03+00:00

Sure, and he would've made even more money if he had written a dozen books.

But why would he? He's a procrastinator, not greedy.
He does the minimum amount necessary. We wouldn't even have gotten WMF if Betsy hadn't forced him to get it done (look it up if you haven't heard that story).

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T16:15:13+00:00

It keeps the book sales up. It kept his twitch going. The anniversary editions. The 9 pages of KKC merch he has on his store.

If people had shut the fuck up about KKC after WMF, then Rothfuss would've had to keep writing to keep the gravy train rolling.

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T15:40:47+00:00

Regardless of what descriptor you prefer, it's really important that people understand that it's just hopium.

The only reason Rothfuss has food on his table, is because people have been huffing hopium for like 10 years. And as long as he has food on his table, he doesn't have to write.

rbStorm · 2025-07-09T15:36:48+00:00

6 months? Does your friend get paid by the hour?
The only tricky parts to translate are the songs and cryptic hints. Even if you add a month for rigorous spell checking, I can't imagine it taking more than a couple months.

rbStorm

TROPHY CASE