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Kingkiller Chronicles being developed into a movie, TV show and videogame.
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Basileus777
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Is this actually going to come to fruition unlike the 10000 other such adaptations that never see the light of day?
In truth, I was just making a joke. I don't even remember that much of Book 2.
Looking at the actual text, however, I don't feel I was skewing it as much as you say:
Context for others:
Kvothe finishes bragging about laying Felurian, aforementioned elfin sex-goddess
yeah the second book is lame. I stopped after the hundredth description of kvothes poverty shirt.
Well, that's different.
It was an after affect of the faery air that he's been swimming through while in Fae. Notice that it doesn't affect just her, it affects Kvothe too. Not long before (or after, I don't have the text in front of me), he was considering kissing a random girl just because she was beautiful and had to remind himself that that was not an acceptable thing to just do. Faerie stuff made her horny, not Kvothe in particular, though the fact that she also liked him beforehand helped as well. It still doesn't detract from the fact that what actually pushed her into going with him was what he said to her, not fairy magic or his ordinary hotness. And it doesn't last in any case. Everything after that is normal sexual encounters.
Honestly, I have no problem with joking around with the absurd stuff that happens, and I'm sorry if I came down sounding accusatory. It's just that a lot of people just use it as serious criticism as well. It's annoying. As I said, there are obviously criticisms to be made, but most people write off the ideas it wrestles with as inherently wrong to use rather than discussing how the series utilizes them. It's very frustrating. I'm not even that huge a fan of the books, but it annoys me immensely to see the series put down over misrepresentation.
Dude, we sound glib because the books are undeserving of "serious criticism." When you say it is wrestling with ideas, do you mean like pro wrestling?
I wouldn't be poking fun at your defensive, gushing posts, but you just had to preemptively fire off that comment about book gaf. Tisk Tisk.
Okay, let's try serious criticism.
Most people reach some kind of sexual maturity without the aid of a sex goddess. It's a part of human interaction. The thing is, not everyone gets it, because sex is complicated. It's been a constant sticking point in human relationships if history is anything to go by.
Rothfuss brushes past this integral facet of the human condition by kickstarting Kvothe's sexual development. Suddenly he's great at sex and having sex all the time, and just happens to run into an isolationist culture with very liberal ideas about sex. Oh, and very low STD rates. Just so you know. These guys are totally healthy so rampant sex with them is kosher.
What does he leave for Kvothe? Emotional intimacy, which Kvothe is still very bad at. Evidently sex isn't everything and there's some deeper aspect to relationships no magic or goddess can give him, that he needs to develop for himself.
(I'm hating myself for merely summarizing this junk.)
So what you're left with is an emotionally immature teenager who just happens to be very good in bed. There's room for character development, but also room for hot sex scenes. Do you see the problem with this?
In Kvothe, Rothfuss has crafted a character "virginal nerds" of the world can personally identify with, while still maintaining that fantasy about having and being really good at sex. It's blatant. The self-insert coming from his inexperience with emotions, the power fantasy coming from his impeccable PUA prowess (to say the least of his innate naming skills).
It's transparent as all hell, and not even worth discussing in depth. Hence, I take my shots, and I leave it alone, because anything else is a waste of time. I feel you're challenging the validity of my opinion, I wrote this just for you.
Rothfuss brushes past this integral facet of the human condition by kickstarting Kvothe's sexual development. Suddenly he's great at sex and having sex all the time, and just happens to run into an isolationist culture with very liberal ideas about sex. Oh, and very low STD rates. Just so you know. These guys are totally healthy so rampant sex with them is kosher.
What does he leave for Kvothe? Emotional intimacy, which Kvothe is still very bad at. Evidently sex isn't everything and there's some deeper aspect to relationships no magic or goddess can give him, that he needs to develop for himself.
(I'm hating myself for merely summarizing this junk.)
So what you're left with is an emotionally immature teenager who just happens to be very good in bed. There's room for character development, but also room for hot sex scenes. Do you see the problem with this?
In Kvothe, Rothfuss has crafted a character "virginal nerds" of the world can personally identify with, while still maintaining that fantasy about having and being really good at sex. It's blatant. The self-insert coming from his inexperience with emotions, the power fantasy coming from his impeccable PUA prowess (to say the least of his innate naming skills).
It's transparent as all hell, and not even worth discussing in depth. Hence, I take my shots, and I leave it alone, because anything else is a waste of time. I feel you're challenging the validity of my opinion, I wrote this just for you.
I didn't say book gaf, I said gaf gaf. I see this in virtually every thread. Most people don't look beyond if something makes immediate sense to them, and go off their initial reaction most of the time. They liked it or they didn't. Look at any given thread, and see how many people actually go in depth with their evaluation of any episode.
Ferro's reasonably attractive, in a lean, fit way. Or at least that's how she's depicted in fanart.
Of course, she's also black, so you might still be right.
I actually took it as
because of how much time he spent in that realm. Remember before he went there he couldn't grow a beard and by the time he got back he basically could.
What was essentially months of not a year or more of his life was spent there, to them he was gone for a few days and the last time they saw him he was a super awkward kid that didn't know how to handle even the most basic of sexual scenarios such as being hit on by the bar maid.
But then he's suddenly back three days later from supposedly a forest, with a growing beard and total confidence in his sexuality. I felt that was the reason they were inclined to believe him when he spoke the truth of what happened, and why the girl took the compliment seriously rather than him pulling stuff out of his ass.
What was essentially months of not a year or more of his life was spent there, to them he was gone for a few days and the last time they saw him he was a super awkward kid that didn't know how to handle even the most basic of sexual scenarios such as being hit on by the bar maid.
But then he's suddenly back three days later from supposedly a forest, with a growing beard and total confidence in his sexuality. I felt that was the reason they were inclined to believe him when he spoke the truth of what happened, and why the girl took the compliment seriously rather than him pulling stuff out of his ass.
I agree the books aren't perfect or for everyone, but all the direct hate and insults while Bemoning how their series should have gotten the tv shows demonstrates a strong sense of jealousy over the whole thing, which is unecessary because the odds of this show being good are about the same as any other series being treated by these guys
shits gunna be bad 
Instead of just flinging the usual "LOLs this happened so stupid" pretty much completely out of context of the story, foreshadowing etc, we should be happy that this kind of stuff seems to be getting some traction!
It literally means that books that you guys DO like are that much more likely to get some form of adaption which is great.
Hey, remember that time
he had to kill a dude with lightning in a forest? Kvothe had his cliche scene in which the hero must come to terms with the grim realities of the power he wields, the responsibility and the toll it takes on one's psyche! Except he really killed that marauder out of self defense and besides, he went super sayian without consciously meaning to do it. It's cool, he's still the best.
It's almost as if this have your cake and eat it too thing is a trend. I don't think that even cracks the top 10 glaring BS list either. It's stacked! The truth is the Kingkiller Chronicles started off as entertaining only to go completely off the rails somewhere in the latter two thirds of the second book. I wouldn't even mind, except it really stopped being fun.
It's worth mentioning that while before the fairy sexcapades women were still pretty into Kvothe this is still part of the power fantasy. Nearly every female character introduced into the story is sexually attracted to Kvothe or offers herself sexually to him. If you can't see how that's idiotic power fantasy writing then I don't know what to say to you. I guess this is quite the setting where grown women lust after a virginal, socially awkward, 15 year old nerd.
Hell, even notorious fedora-wearer Harry Dresden meets some women who don't drop their panties for him through sheer force of his presence.
Nope :/ not even an estimate on the release date last I heard. giving George R.R. Martin a run for his money on this reputation haha
This criticism would be much more valid if Kvothe's sex life is something that is spent a great deal of time on where the focus is him being the one in power. The only two times the text focus' on it is 1. Felurian, since that's the learning process and her whole schtick and 2. the Adem, who have his balls in a vice. The entire point of the Ademre arc is that he's desperately trying to be one of them so they'd be convinced enough to let him go without crippling him.
It's not transparent at all when you look at the actual power dynamic. WHo does he have sex with? Felurian, who is a serial rapist, and tries to rape him at one point, which activates his connection to the wind, which leaves her interested enough to consider him a person. But he himself admits that she could have crushed him at any point, even at the peak of his power. Same thing with Vashet, his teacher, whose sex with him means nothing to her. Penthe is the only one who actually likes him, but even she's not romantically interested in him. She sees him as a cool kid, but she's also unintentionally condescending towards him, considering him the weaker sex, beating him at the birth argument. While he enjoys sex with all 3 of these women, for it to be a 'transparent fantasy', they would have to be lusting after him in some remarkable way. Felurian and Penthe sees him as a novelty, Vashet is indifferent. He bonds with these girls, but they never place themselves under his power in any way. The only male sexual fantasy you might argue is the nameless girls he has sex with once he's back at the university. But that is so in the background, we see none of it. In fact, we only know of it when Fela discusses the point that he is lacking in: Emotional connection.
If you want a sexual male fantasy, something like Richard from the Sword of Truth fits far more. In that series, the power of the relationship is nearly entirely focused on him, his authority being the important factor of the relationship he has with his love interest. That's highly different from what happens with Kvothe. The relationships he has with the girls are never dominating with any kind of authority. He's not emasculated either, but to say that it's all about him is to willfully ignore the dynamic he shares with the other girls. Maybe the bar girl applies, but that's spent so little time on, it's kind of silly to say a one night stand he has for a couple pages is representative of his whole relationship with women. Otherwise, Felurian does what she wants and considers him to be a toy, Vashet is fond of him but holds a consistent position of authority over him (including deciding if they're gonna cripple him), Penthe is has a buddy relationship.
The difference between wishfullment fantasy and a situation in which I would like to be is that wishfullment ignores the parts of the scenerio that don't contribute to the reader surrogate's pleasure. Maybe plenty of people would like to be in Kvothe's position of having sex with a fairy sex goddess, but that in and of itself isn't sufficient to say that it's not a well written, well thought out scene that doesn't treat it's characters with respect.
It's not transparent at all when you look at the actual power dynamic. WHo does he have sex with? Felurian, who is a serial rapist, and tries to rape him at one point, which activates his connection to the wind, which leaves her interested enough to consider him a person. But he himself admits that she could have crushed him at any point, even at the peak of his power. Same thing with Vashet, his teacher, whose sex with him means nothing to her. Penthe is the only one who actually likes him, but even she's not romantically interested in him. She sees him as a cool kid, but she's also unintentionally condescending towards him, considering him the weaker sex, beating him at the birth argument. While he enjoys sex with all 3 of these women, for it to be a 'transparent fantasy', they would have to be lusting after him in some remarkable way. Felurian and Penthe sees him as a novelty, Vashet is indifferent. He bonds with these girls, but they never place themselves under his power in any way. The only male sexual fantasy you might argue is the nameless girls he has sex with once he's back at the university. But that is so in the background, we see none of it. In fact, we only know of it when Fela discusses the point that he is lacking in: Emotional connection.
If you want a sexual male fantasy, something like Richard from the Sword of Truth fits far more. In that series, the power of the relationship is nearly entirely focused on him, his authority being the important factor of the relationship he has with his love interest. That's highly different from what happens with Kvothe. The relationships he has with the girls are never dominating with any kind of authority. He's not emasculated either, but to say that it's all about him is to willfully ignore the dynamic he shares with the other girls. Maybe the bar girl applies, but that's spent so little time on, it's kind of silly to say a one night stand he has for a couple pages is representative of his whole relationship with women. Otherwise, Felurian does what she wants and considers him to be a toy, Vashet is fond of him but holds a consistent position of authority over him (including deciding if they're gonna cripple him), Penthe is has a buddy relationship.
The difference between wishfullment fantasy and a situation in which I would like to be is that wishfullment ignores the parts of the scenerio that don't contribute to the reader surrogate's pleasure. Maybe plenty of people would like to be in Kvothe's position of having sex with a fairy sex goddess, but that in and of itself isn't sufficient to say that it's not a well written, well thought out scene that doesn't treat it's characters with respect.
Also, on the off hand, there is nothing that isn't worth serious criticism. Criticism isn't some rite of passage only good series get, it's a stress test. Everything deserves it, from the most brainless twilight rip off to Paradise Lost.
No, he could shave before the
Fae, and did so. He just couldn't shave while in it because of the iron. But yeah, it was partially Fae magix.
That's true as well. I forgot that he spent a lot longer in there than the people outside realize.
Pretty much. If nothing else, it's really rude to the people who do enjoy the series and want to be happy about this. This isn't meant to be a criticism thread in the first place.I agree the books aren't perfect or for everyone, but all the direct hate and insults while Bemoning how their series should have gotten the tv shows demonstrates a strong sense of jealousy over the whole thing, which is unecessary because the odds of this show being good are about the same as any other series being treated by these guysshits gunna be bad
Instead of just flinging the usual "LOLs this happened so stupid" pretty much completely out of context of the story, foreshadowing etc, we should be happy that this kind of stuff seems to be getting some traction!
It literally means that books that you guys DO like are that much more likely to get some form of adaption which is great.
I wouldn't say he is never capable of cruelty or killing without feeling bad.
Savegly slaughtering the fake traveling band, and ensuring the last of them died in slow horrible agony by giving him water to drink as his gut wound slowly fester over the presumably 4-5 days.
Hell he only really felt bad about extending the suffering and killing the women too, dude gave no fucks about the rest, and they sure didn't attack first.
Or that time he set a fellow child alight and enjoyed it.
Hell he only really felt bad about extending the suffering and killing the women too, dude gave no fucks about the rest, and they sure didn't attack first.
Or that time he set a fellow child alight and enjoyed it.
You can argue that the context of who those people were justified his response, but honestly I wouldn't agree.
Like I said earlier the second half of the second book does rub people the wrong way, but when it's to the point of generalising the whole story because of specifically picked moments that ignore the overall progression of the story, any foreshadowing in those moments etc, it can get frustrating, especially when it's referred to as "bs" when certain aspects have been foreshadowed since the start of book one.
Addendum:
It's not uncommon, in fantasy, or sci-fi, for the topic of sex to never really be handled at all in a way that's convincing or plausible. It's skirted past because it's a difficult topic to write about so sometimes you'll encounter a sex scene that just makes you go "wha..?" or a relationship with sex clearly shoehorned in, or just no sex at all. The older the book you read, the more likely sexuality is unexplored, as a subject, despite it being integral to human experience.
What Rothfuss is doing here is saying: "Okay, I'm not going to bother developing his sexuality either. BUT, I want him to be very good at sex, so I'm going to give him a sex lesson in the forest and he'll come out all sexy and shit and now all the girls who've been thirsting after him can get some of that premium, dry-aged Kote-meat.
It's lazy, and a bit cowardly. He wants to write about Kvothe having sex without ever going through the problems that make sex what it is.
What Rothfuss is doing here is saying: "Okay, I'm not going to bother developing his sexuality either. BUT, I want him to be very good at sex, so I'm going to give him a sex lesson in the forest and he'll come out all sexy and shit and now all the girls who've been thirsting after him can get some of that premium, dry-aged Kote-meat.
It's lazy, and a bit cowardly. He wants to write about Kvothe having sex without ever going through the problems that make sex what it is.
My idea of "power fantasy" goes far, far beyond juvenile male-dominance female-submission dynamics.
Different standards. Rothfuss is more subtle about it than his peers, but it's still firmly 'power fantasy' by mine.
This is a very low bar, I hope you realize that? I'm not impressed that this power fantasy is moderately less "power fantasy" than that one.
Disagree. Time is finite resource. I gain less to criticize this seriously than, for example, reading a book. Any book, really.
No, I have to disagree, because the basis of your statement is that the point of the Felurian episode was for Kvothe to get good at sex. This is far more of an after affect. Felurian is who he learns about the creation war from, he learns about a lot of the Fae culture and history, he learns about how he misunderstands the nature of the world (for example how he grabs moonlight), he talks to the Cthaeh, and yes, even exploring Felurian herself as a character. To say that this is all about Kvothe is simply wrong. His learning of how to sex is a part of this as well, but it simply isn't all about him.
And, as I said, girls were thirsting after him before this anyway. Felurian didn't make him sexy, she just taught him how to sex.
And, as I said, girls were thirsting after him before this anyway. Felurian didn't make him sexy, she just taught him how to sex.
Anyway, can you elaborate on what you mean by 'developing his sexuality'? Do you mean you wanted more depth on how he performed sexual techniques, or do you mean his personal sexual proclivities? Those aren't elaborated on and he pretty much just idolizes women in general (especially Denna), but his romantic adventures are developed quite in depth, as his relationships with women are pretty developed.
I used Sword of Truth because it is an egregious example of what I'm talking about. Bad books tend to make the best examples to discuss what I'm talking about because they're so overt about it, hence my choice, not because I consider it the worthy standard metric by which to judge. But why do you consider this a power fantasy, specifically? As I said, I define power male sexual fantasy by the idea that the work neglects to develop parts other than what is meant to be pleasing to the reader surrogate. Simply having a scene or relationship that a reader desires is not sufficient to make it a wish fullfillment fantasy in my eyes, because that would render the vast majority of literature to be power fantasy. I would strongly argue that KKC goes beyond this by the power dynamics mentioned above and the fact that
the books go out of their way to characterize the women he sleeps as having priorities and lives beyond Kvothe. If there is a real focus on women beyond what Kvothe gets out of them, then they're not just there for Kvothe's pleasure.
That merely means you (understandably) can't give every book it's due, not that the books are not due that criticism.
spootime
Member
You can't dismiss criticism of the Adem and the Felurian sequence as "pot-shots." They take up like 1/3 of the entire second book.
At the end of the day I honestly think that both sequences are pretty much cringe-inducing shit.
At the end of the day its a bloated meandering book that really pales in comparison to Name of the Wind. I know that I'm probably being unnecessarily harsh on this book, but its mostly because NoTW had so much potential.
At the end of the day I honestly think that both sequences are pretty much cringe-inducing shit.
Kvothe doesn't grow as a character by learning the 1000 ways to please a woman from sex fairy in sex land. He really doesn't. The Kvothe that comes out of the forest is the exact same one that walked in, except now he can fuck hot bar girls all day long. Sure, maybe this complex and well-nuanced sexual development of Kvothe (lol) will have some far reaching implications with his relationship with Denna. The issue is that I no longer give a shit about Denna because shes a boring, terribly written, one dimensional character.
We are given an info dump on the cthaeh and all of that other stuff in the Felurian chapters, which is interesting. The question is why did I have to read 100 pages of the main character becoming a superpowered sex god before I got to learn about that stuff? Could Rothfuss have somehow supplied that information to me in a way that doesn't make me want to cringe and stop reading the book?
Lets talk about the Adem. You dismissed their complete ignorance of sexual reproduction as a potshot, but I think that's unfair because the Adem are just terribly constructed. When I'm reading 200 pages on the Adem, I need them to be constructed in a logical manner.
Almost nothing about the Adem makes actual sense when you think about it. Not understanding birth, women always being the best fighters, their entire system of language being inefficient, etc etc. Its a complete failure in worldbuilding, and it makes the entire segment of the book difficult to enjoy.
A lot of people like to talk about all of the character development that Kvothe experiences throughout the second book. I'm going to completely disagree with this but if you really think that then whatever. Lets talk about plot progression
-Still has a strange obsession with Denna
-Not any closer to finding the chandrian
-Still at university
-Holy shit we're still at university guys
-Fixed the money situation though
In terms of plot progression, the only thing of note that happens to Kvothe in the entire book is A. seeing ash in the bandit camp and B. The maer paying his tuition.
We are given an info dump on the cthaeh and all of that other stuff in the Felurian chapters, which is interesting. The question is why did I have to read 100 pages of the main character becoming a superpowered sex god before I got to learn about that stuff? Could Rothfuss have somehow supplied that information to me in a way that doesn't make me want to cringe and stop reading the book?
Lets talk about the Adem. You dismissed their complete ignorance of sexual reproduction as a potshot, but I think that's unfair because the Adem are just terribly constructed. When I'm reading 200 pages on the Adem, I need them to be constructed in a logical manner.
Almost nothing about the Adem makes actual sense when you think about it. Not understanding birth, women always being the best fighters, their entire system of language being inefficient, etc etc. Its a complete failure in worldbuilding, and it makes the entire segment of the book difficult to enjoy.
A lot of people like to talk about all of the character development that Kvothe experiences throughout the second book. I'm going to completely disagree with this but if you really think that then whatever. Lets talk about plot progression
-Still has a strange obsession with Denna
-Not any closer to finding the chandrian
-Still at university
-Holy shit we're still at university guys
-Fixed the money situation though
In terms of plot progression, the only thing of note that happens to Kvothe in the entire book is A. seeing ash in the bandit camp and B. The maer paying his tuition.
I never said that.
I know all the foreshadowing junk that happened in that forest. That is its own problem which I will not get into here. I'm talking about why he needed to learn sex from Felurian at all. No, really, what does it add to his character that he needed later in the book? Why couldn't he just explore it in his time with the Adem? It was already going to be a culture shock moment for him anyway. Do you think learning about sex from Felurian was integral to his experiences with the Adem? Do you think sexual prowess is a very important character trait for him?
I don't.
I know all the foreshadowing junk that happened in that forest. That is its own problem which I will not get into here. I'm talking about why he needed to learn sex from Felurian at all. No, really, what does it add to his character that he needed later in the book? Why couldn't he just explore it in his time with the Adem? It was already going to be a culture shock moment for him anyway. Do you think learning about sex from Felurian was integral to his experiences with the Adem? Do you think sexual prowess is a very important character trait for him?
I don't.
No one becomes good at sex and interacting with the opposite (or the same) sex overnight. Nor do they do it with a single person, a person who isn't even a human, who has very little idea of what being human is. It's a journey that lasts longer than a month, or a year, or whatever subjective time Kvothe spent with Felurian. How would you feel if, instead of teaching him about sex and girls, she taught him about emotional intimacy and trust and just dropped an entire character arc onto his lap? If he came out of the forest as developed as he would be at the end of the third book?
Cheated, right? Because that's what we're reading books for. To see characters develop on their own merits. But why is it that Book 2 defenders don't seem to care he's just suddenly very comfortable with sex and women? It's because sexuality is an afterthought in the world of fantasy, and it's an afterthought here, made more obvious by Rothfuss' handwaving of the matter to turn him into a Casanova without budging his emotional development anywhere near the same degree.
Cheated, right? Because that's what we're reading books for. To see characters develop on their own merits. But why is it that Book 2 defenders don't seem to care he's just suddenly very comfortable with sex and women? It's because sexuality is an afterthought in the world of fantasy, and it's an afterthought here, made more obvious by Rothfuss' handwaving of the matter to turn him into a Casanova without budging his emotional development anywhere near the same degree.
And it is? Fiction is rooted in escapism and speculative fiction moreso than any other genre. Most are self-insert fantasies of some sort for a reason. Kingkiller is just higher on the gradient than a lot of other but it is still on that gradient.
I didn't say they were nitpicks, I said they were potshots. Potshots are when people just go "That sucks" without actually explaining why. You have to explain WHY it's cringe-inducing shit, because no idea is inherently bad. It's about how it works within the context of the story.
First off, I don't recall claiming he grew as a character specifically because he learned sexual techniques. He grew as a character because now he knows how to respond to the signals that girls send him, making him much less awkward around them. That is character development, as it introduces different interaction with all the women he talks to.
Second, people REALLY overestimate how much actual sex there is in that passage. Seriously, go back and see for yourself. Other than Felurian's intro, most of the sex takes place in the background, or is summarized. Most of the focus is given to his experience in the Fae as a whole, not him fucking.
Again, you have to explain yourself for it to be a real criticism. Where, specifically, is the contradiction? Why, given the premises that are in the book, are all those things true? I can't refute you at this point in time, because you aren't giving any sort of logic argument to justify your position on these things.
Regarding Denna, his relationship was developed quite a bit. Whereas his obsession with her seems to be almost uncomprehensible in NotW, here they interact much more like people. Denna gives him an extremely meaningful gift, they have their first fight, and he learns things about her that she would never tell him. It was one of the chunkier developments of WMF if anything.
He learns the names of the Chandrian, he learns that the Amyr might be Fae rather than remnants of the Atur empire, gains access to learn much more. He has even more interaction with them if you buy into theories that they are operating in pieces of his life unbeknownst to him.
Yeah, he's still at the university. What about it? He does a lot of shit there, you know, particularly when it comes to developing his relationship with his friends there. Ambrose too.
He learns the names of the Chandrian, he learns that the Amyr might be Fae rather than remnants of the Atur empire, gains access to learn much more. He has even more interaction with them if you buy into theories that they are operating in pieces of his life unbeknownst to him.
Yeah, he's still at the university. What about it? He does a lot of shit there, you know, particularly when it comes to developing his relationship with his friends there. Ambrose too.
The problem I find with a lot of readers is that they believe the 'goal' of the story is to find the chandrian. The goal of the story is to tell Kvothe's life story. If he never finds the Chandrian at all, it would not be a betrayal of the premise itself.
I feel I've lost your line of reasoning here.
Am I to understand that your complaint with Felurian is that sex happened at all? That there was no way that it could happen in a good way? Because I disagree with that. If you're asking me "Could this have been written with Felurian sex cut out?" Of course. It could be written that he had sex the first time back at the university, or that the Adem taught him, or that he did it once he got back, or never had it at all. Arguing that it didn't have to be this way seems pointless because nothing of Kvothe's journey 'had' to be anything.
What I don't see is whats wrong with Felurian being the one who teaches him this, the way it's written. I don't mean that rhetorically, I'd like you to explain whats wrong with Felurian specifically that it's a detriment to Kvothe's character.
What I don't see is whats wrong with Felurian being the one who teaches him this, the way it's written. I don't mean that rhetorically, I'd like you to explain whats wrong with Felurian specifically that it's a detriment to Kvothe's character.
I don't know if it's reasonable to say Felurian has no place teaching sex. She has a humanoid body and also understand the art of foreplay and such. She's not human, but she's not wholly alien, and has sex with normal people on the regular for thousands of years. I don't think it's reasonable to say that she's an impractical teacher of sex. Her learning emotional intimacy is what's impossible with her character being as it is. Sort of. She has emotions and is a rational thinking creature and all that (people very unfairly write her off as nothing but a nymphomaniac, but there is more to her than that), but it's not in her nature to get attached. Also, I feel your emphasizing the idea that Kvothe is a sex god too much. To my knowledge, all the girls he had sex with found it satisfactory, but no one was like "BEST SEX OF MY LIFE".
Ultimately, he's learning a physical techniques from Felurian, and while that does change his character, it's not the same as changing his character directly. It is the same with the Adem's fighting. The fighting itself doesn't change his character, but it opens up avenues that were preciously unavailable to him, which he takes and THAT changes his character.
So him learning sex from Felurian being a cop out....Well, I can see if you specifically wanted in depth sex scenes that explained how each girl is different, but I don't know if that's necessary. But the writing characterizes women sexually, just not through sex itself. Specifically the Bar girl. He does it through a music analogy. Where as Felurian was a classic epic, the Losi is folk music, and he praises both as good, not with one being inherently better than the other. So I don't think he avoids what your describing altogether.
You seem to be arguing that because Kvothe learned to sex, his woman troubles are solved, but this is hardly the case. If anything, kvothe's interactions often still carry a bit of awkwardness in emotional respects, as Fela described. This is because Kvothe's relationships aren't defined only by women's sexual attraction to him. For example, Devi. She's flirted with Kvothe since day 1, but lets say that now instead of being awkward, he has sex with her. So what? They're relationship is still based on mutual interests like books, trust (regarding money and the blood vial), the friction they had, the fact that he knows how to get into the archives, etc, not to mention that Kvothe still only has eyes for Denna. So while they might have sex, they're relationship will not change all that much from the time they were friends. Kvothe's sex capability is not any kind of cureall.
Ultimately, he's learning a physical techniques from Felurian, and while that does change his character, it's not the same as changing his character directly. It is the same with the Adem's fighting. The fighting itself doesn't change his character, but it opens up avenues that were preciously unavailable to him, which he takes and THAT changes his character.
So him learning sex from Felurian being a cop out....Well, I can see if you specifically wanted in depth sex scenes that explained how each girl is different, but I don't know if that's necessary. But the writing characterizes women sexually, just not through sex itself. Specifically the Bar girl. He does it through a music analogy. Where as Felurian was a classic epic, the Losi is folk music, and he praises both as good, not with one being inherently better than the other. So I don't think he avoids what your describing altogether.
You seem to be arguing that because Kvothe learned to sex, his woman troubles are solved, but this is hardly the case. If anything, kvothe's interactions often still carry a bit of awkwardness in emotional respects, as Fela described. This is because Kvothe's relationships aren't defined only by women's sexual attraction to him. For example, Devi. She's flirted with Kvothe since day 1, but lets say that now instead of being awkward, he has sex with her. So what? They're relationship is still based on mutual interests like books, trust (regarding money and the blood vial), the friction they had, the fact that he knows how to get into the archives, etc, not to mention that Kvothe still only has eyes for Denna. So while they might have sex, they're relationship will not change all that much from the time they were friends. Kvothe's sex capability is not any kind of cureall.
Edit
I reread your post and I realize I might have misintepreted your response. Are you saying that you wanted to personally see how Kvothe learned sexual acts itself, as in the techniques and so from Felurian?
If the vast majority of fiction is power fantasy, then it ceases to be meaningful criticism for me. I don't know about everyone else, but I almost never want to participate in a world of fiction, I just want to see it play out. There are no reader surrogates to me, even Kvothe, because I read fiction to see how worlds play out for themselves. Even if I wanted to fantasize of being in Kvothe's position, he has too many characteristics that are seperate from me. At that point, it's a different story if I, Veelk, and in the garden of Felurian than if Kvothe is. For me, the term 'power fantasy' is typically meant in the derogatory sense because it is a compromise of the internal world so that the reader gains some kind of pleasure. As I see it, no one's character in KKC was compromised due to this, so I don't see it as a power fantasy.
I'll just copy paste:
Really, I don't approve of political treatises in fiction but the Adem don't hold up even under mild scrutiny. It's like if you took caricature of some East Asian culture and then dropped it right into 12th century Europe and tried to convince me that it's a working society, and it grew up alongside the Franks, the Romans, and the Slavs.
Really, I don't approve of political treatises in fiction but the Adem don't hold up even under mild scrutiny. It's like if you took caricature of some East Asian culture and then dropped it right into 12th century Europe and tried to convince me that it's a working society, and it grew up alongside the Franks, the Romans, and the Slavs.
There is. Malazan. And hey, it's actually finished. But it will never be adapted into anything because it's huge.
If your going by that criticism, then it's more of a matter of paying more attention to the details the book provides. Nearly everything up there is conceptualized or simply explained in the story. The Adem is a very odd culture, but it needs better scrutiny than that to break down.
I'm not a big fan of his criticism. He wants everything explained very precisely, which is the thing I find most clever about the series. It doesn't shy away from obscuring details or being abstract. The Adem part was boring to me, because it was more boring fantasy training scenes during a part in the series when I demanded plot. The beginning of the second book had more plot. I didn't dislike it because it was ambiguous and unrealistic. The society was left pretty open to interpretation.
Discotheque
Banned
shit like this NEVER pans out. how many times have we heard of a wheel of time movie, tv and videogame deal for instance? and then years later all we get is this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvNYIEN1vIg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvNYIEN1vIg
The funny this is that atleast a good portion of that is spelled out explicitly, he just must have fallen asleep. Haly, honestly, you've been a responsive and intelligent debater so far, which I appreciate even if I fundamentally seem to disagree with your positions. Really, thank you for being a responsive conversationalist here. But this copy and paste just isn't up to your standards. It's very weak and I'm surprised you found it worth quoting.
And If someone here wants to contradict the Ademre culture's ignorance of the birthing process, I did spot one glaring piece of information that raises an eyebrow regarding their knowledge, but I'll see if any one here whose the actual opponent of the notion that the Adem are a fully developed culture can spot it.
Edit: wait a minute, is this the dude that thinks that interpreting figurative language literally is valid criticism? Holy shit, it is. Haly, man, just trust me, stick to your own guns on this one. While I disagree with you, atleast you've proven you can support your arguments. This guy tho...It's no wonder that copypasta had the integrity of a wet tissue. This guy is HORRIBLE at literary criticism.
More sex and violence.
But we just got Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel + The Magician.
So glad I'm not the only person who's read Ronan
Does a great job of ripping this terrible series to shreds.So glad I'm not the only person who's read Ronan
Dude...trust me, no he doesn't. It's not even a matter of me liking the books, it's that his criticism is pathetic. The copypaste Haly provided is a prime example. Everything he mentions in the first part is either his misconceptualized or explained in the book. The second quote, with the hand gesture takes about 10 seconds of consideration to give a number of reasons of how the adem could have happened upon it as a cultural norm and what the advantages of it are.
Hah, his posts on Silent Regard really rubbed you the wrong way huh? He doesn't interpret figurative language literally. He criticises terrible prose that sounds flowery but has no descriptive power. Silent Regards is full of that nonsense. It's Rothfuss doing his best impression of what he things good prose should sound like without really understanding what makes good prose you know...actually good.
DaSorcerer7
Member
Hopefully it will have a budget to do it justice.
I didn't read his Silent Regard stuff. I've read maybe 5 of his posts, 3 of them being the beginning of NotW, and then a couple random ones, on WMF I think. His criticism is worthless. At one point, there was a line "Carceret eyes were daggers." This isn't flowery or even that unique of a line. Glares have been described as sharp or stabbing and the like by hundreds of authors. But he made it a point to interpret it literally and act as if it's some nonsensical flowery prose. Glancing over his other stuff, he does this a lot too. And criticizing prose isn't picking line after line to remark whats wrong with it in particular anyway. Criticizing prose is about how it gets in the way of the reading experience as a whole. For example, one might criticize Twilight's prose by the fact that it comes across like a monotone diary entry due to consistent use of "I did this, then I did that" sentence structure, that doesn't leave much room for emoting. Simply saying something is flowery is not enough, he'd have to go into why a flowery passage actually prevents his understanding or engagement of what is being said. It is at this point that every criticism I've seen from him breaks down, usually due to his own insufficient interpretation of the material present.
No, his criticism is paper thin and one of the weakest I've come across on the net. As mentioned above, the only part that Haly quoted that couldn't be answered by paying attention to the story could be inferred by a minutes worth of contemplation. And in any case, it's not good forum etiquette to dump articles and leave it for posters to write up responses to it, which takes more work than copy pasting and isn't really a discussion between posters. I consider it important for posters to be actually talking to one another. After all, I can blast you with in depth positive reviews of what the series, and then go out to party while you hammer away a response to each one, but I'd consider that pretty unreasonable and rude to do.
Many things in fantasy or sci-fi novels require enormous suspension of disbelief. The more elaborate and bizarre the setting or culture, the more likely that it implodes upon investigation. I don't think the Adem are too bad in the grand scheme of things, not when there's stuff like demons, magic, a fairy world, an eternal evil tree or the Chandrian.
I don't think too highly of the Kingkiller Chronicles, but the books are pretty enjoyable for me nonetheless.
I don't think too highly of the Kingkiller Chronicles, but the books are pretty enjoyable for me nonetheless.
The thing about suspension of disbelief is that it works differently for different aspects of a story. We willingly suspend our disbelief when we read fantasy for things like demons, fairies, aforementioned evil tree, and so on because we know this is fantasy and the introduction of fantastical beings that do not exist is part of the genre. However, the Adem are not fantastical beings, they are a human culture, and we know human cultures very well. Because of this we expect the Adem breathe oxygen, need to eat and drink to continue living, and know that the act of a female having unprotected sex with a male can lead to pregnancy.
Any post hoc rationalization that, no really, this could actually happen is just that. What the Adem are a society constructed just to provide his boy hero with freely willing, no strings attached casual sex partners, as well as to remind us that he's totally awesome at sex, guys. They make no sense whatsoever from a worldbuilding perspective, especially since they are both supposedly highly isolated as a society and their only economy is exporting mercenaries to fight in the outside world.. You'd think there'd be some cultural osmosis going on from trade but apparently not.
Seraph_Nicholas
Member
So, I know nothing about these books except what I've gleaned from this thread, but... Is the main character actually called KingKiller Kvothe?
It sounds like a vaguely racist xbox tag. There's basically only one alliterative pattern that's in poor taste, why use it?
Not saying the author is a racist or anything. In fact, he would seem to be unaware of racists, ha-ha.
It sounds like a vaguely racist xbox tag. There's basically only one alliterative pattern that's in poor taste, why use it?
Not saying the author is a racist or anything. In fact, he would seem to be unaware of racists, ha-ha.
That is precisely why many fantasy and sci-fi novels utterly fail when you think about them for a few minutes. People don't behave like people. Societies form in nonsensical ways. Economics don't work out. You almost always have to suspend your disbelief to an enormous extent from the very beginning regarding all aspects of life. The more outlandish and bizarre, the more the obvious problems.
I wasn't judging the book or the author's intentions. I was saying that given the Kingkiller Chronicles world, the Adem didn't stand out that much to me.
Holy. I think you really fixated on the sex. I can't even remember it happening at all.
Is anyone named Feig legally required to work in the movie industry?
Admiral Woofington
Member
This thread was more fun when we were doing sex jokes.
Regardless all of these points are moot if it ends up up that Kvothe isn't a reliable narrator.
Regardless all of these points are moot if it ends up up that Kvothe isn't a reliable narrator.
This is the worst rationalization of the Adem yet. Patriarchy is such an ingrained aspect of our lives, that the idea that a matriarchal system seems to be simply incomprehensible to some people. The Adem, given the justifications in the novel, are a perfectly plausible people, it's just that the idea is so bizarre that many, like kin here, reject it out of hand, without realizing the fact that he hasn't given a reason why this is impossible. If someone here disagrees, try to point out the logical contradiction, the actual reason that they can't not know. Because thus far, people have just remarked on it's impossibility just because...it's impossible. Kin puts knowing a fact on the same level as biological needs, as if people are born with the scientific knowledge of how anything works, let alone pregnancy.
Okay, first off, pregnancy has been a very misunderstood thing in ancient times. For example, the Greeks fully believed that women actually had nothing to do with it except for the fact that they had no outlet. That's why Zeus, who is the perfect masculine figure, was able to give birth to Athena. Since he was the perfect man, he obviously wouldn't need a woman to give birth to a child. For greeks, women weren't even the 'fertilizer' but just the placeholder that they, inexplicably to them, used. But if you want to argue that even the greeks understood that they needed women just because they admitted they inexplicably used that, also realize that the Adem were based on a real culture. I forget the name, but there is a pacific island somewhere that has naturally occurring contraceptives in the local diet of the food. As a result, these cultures also don't understand in the male role in pregnancy. And, as I said, there IS one glaring contradiction within the novels that you can point at, but thus far, no one has done so. The real point of the Ademre is to put forth a matriarchal society. It's a society that considers women to be the superior gender and has it's blindspots centered around maintaining that superiority. The Ademre are wrong, even their pregnancy requires men, but in the entire human history of cultures where patriarchy ruled that women had no participation in the making of a child, only it's holding, why is it so impossible to theorize a culture that misunderstands pregnancy from the other side? As for the retort itself...
If this was an excuse to have no strings attached sex, this is laughably inefficient. For one, Kvothe spent ZERO time on the actual sex. Kvothe talked about, they talked about social norms regarding sex, they talked about social norms that indirectly relate to sex (how they view music), they talk about the schools, the history of the adem, the Lethani, etc, but at no point is anything about "Holy shit, Kvothe, you are awesome at sex" or even an explicit sex scene. And to top it all off, if the writer wanted to write about consequence free sex, he doesn't need a society that doesn't believe in pregnancy to do so, because he starts banging away at girls as soon as he gets to the university, who know all about the male's role in the pregnancy process.
Edit: Ah, I found it. The Trobiand Islanders. Empiracal proof of a real life society with no concept of fatherhood. Maybe they don't breathe or eat too.
Again, why would there be? First off, the Adem are elitist, considering the rest of the Four Corners to be savages. You want to tell me how much cultural osmosis Britain gained from, say, India or Africa? How much american settlers took from Native American culture? So why would their mercenaries give two shits about any culture they work for? They're hired to defend this or fight that. They don't need more than a VERY basic understanding of the language to do that, hence why most of them barely speak Aturian.
Sorry to ruin that for you, but I highly dislike it when series are thrown under the bus for misunderstood or misrepresented things. The way I defend this series makes me out to be a bigger fan of it than I actually am. I like them well enough, but they're not my absolute favorite. It's just that too many people have very poor arguments against them that otherwise go unchallenged.
I'm surprised Kvothe being an unreliable narrator is such a big point though. The entire point of the story is that he is trying not to be. He's proven to be unreliable in certain aspects, but his reliability, to me atleast, is supported by the fact that he wants this to be the true account of his life, warts and all. I can agree he skews it due to personal biases and all that (all women in his life are beautiful, when Bast points out that Denna had a crooked nose), but I don't believe is intentionally lying about any of it.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I don't see why we need a Kingkiller video game. Skyrim already lets you be awesome at everything with minimal effort.
This was one of the worst fantasy books I have ever read. I couldn't even finish it. It literally put me to sleep multiple times. Hopefully they massively edit the story, cause it needs it.
Do Mistborn first, Stormlight is barely getting started.
Do Mistborn first, Stormlight is barely getting started.
Skyrim doesn't have a tuition and student loans mechanic for its wizard school, though.
It's important stuff.
That's another thing. It's bizarre that people criticize that Kvothe accomplishes everything with ease, then in the same breathe claim he just pull himself out of abject poverty like it's no big deal.
That show has already been done. It's called dragon ball z. Pass on shooting anything relating to malazan.
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