The internet ate my diary. Dammit.
Of course, it’s probably karmic, since I’m still in a snit. I don’t like to write when I’m in a snit, and I’ve been snitty for about a week. I’m snitty about tropes. I absolutely hate tropes, not the rhetorical device trope, which refers to any utterance that conveys other than literal meaning. Tropes that include synecdoche, metaphor, metonymy and irony.
No, I’m talking about trope as shorthand for story element, and always employed with the modifiers overused, tired, and clichéd.
On one hand you have the Great Cauldron of Story, bubbling away and blending elements ancient and new, flavoring both, inspiring combinations in intriguing and tasty ways. On the other hand, you have Trope, which slices apart the elements of story and reduces them from things signified, things alive and evolving and fertile with literary possibility to signifiers—signs of thing measured, quantified, pinned and stuck on a wall. Dead. Lifeless. Judgable. It’s the difference between going to a Civil War battlefield and 1) chatting with soldiers in character, who complain about their brogans falling apart, their sore backs from sleeping on the ground, the heat and ticks and rashes, and why it’s all worth is because the guy on the other side feels just as miserable but is going to lose, and 2) walking around a desolate field with a map in hand and needing the map because you lack the context and imagination to figure out where the battle happened and what it was like. One thing is alive, but the other is dead. Tropes do the same thing as the Civil War map. They simplify what is complex; they bleed characters and events of their potential, their arcs, their development, their life. You can dismiss a trope without thinking about it—you cannot evaluate a story element without a fair amount of pondering.
But alas! my diary was scattered into bits and bytes and flung into Kurald Galain, perhaps to the feet of Mother Dark herself. It ain’t coming back. And I need to get over my snit. As a writer I believe that readers have the right, indeed the duty, to evaluate work, to appreciate it, and to leave it alone when it leaves them cold. After all, there are (hard as it is to believe) people in this world who don’t like Mozart. They don’t go about running Mozart down or denouncing him because he uses harmonies that are just so last millenium; they simply move on to appreciate the composers they do like.
Likewise with readers. Don’t like Danielewski? Fowles? Rushdie? Atwood? You don’t go to town denouncing them. If you’re wise you leave them alone. In genre reading, though, some readers are proprietary; they get offended if a writer doesn’t write up (or down) to their expectations. In genre it’s possible to use a “tired trope” as an excuse to dismiss a work that took years of someone’s life to produce. It’s as superficial as That Guy who says nothing Springsteen did after “Born To Run” was anything more than a sellout.
What has this got to do with tropes? The device itself allows readers to dismiss a writer’s work without thought. If a book is inauthentic, you have to figure out why. If it fails its promise, you have to define the promise it offered you and how it broke faith with you. To dismiss Denna because she’s a MPDG or Kvothe because he’s too...whatever only means that the reader has missed the point and doesn’t care enough to figure it out but doesn’t want to admit it.
A book asks you only for your attention. It leaves you to draw your own conclusions. It’s a gift, taking from you only your time and in return taking you to a place you’ve never been. As Kvothe tells Chronicler, “When someone tells you a piece of their life, they’re giving you a gift, not granting you your due.”
Another way to put it, as Neil Gaiman famously wrote, “George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.”
Now for something completely different.
Because you’ve indulged my mini-rant, I’m going to share a bit I found on Rothfuss’ personal blog, a piece from the Cauldron of Story that dates from 2012 and is the visualization of an amazing match up. Who would win in a fight: Aslan or Kvothe?
There wasn’t any snow on the ground, but the early morning air was chill as the cloaked and hooded figure moved through the forest, brushing aside the fir branches as he went. Eventually the trees thinned and the figure stepped from the pale blue of early morning into a warmer, richer, light.
The cloaked figure smiled fondly and ran one hand over the iron lamppost. Then sighed and walked past it, moving deeper into the forest. After the better part of an hour he found a clearing where a small stream cut through the thick grass, making a gentle sound as it rolled over the stones.
Still wearing his hood, the figure looked around for a long moment. Then he spoke: “Aslan,” he said, and though he did not speak loudly, his voice was strangely resonant, striking the air like a bell. “Aslan.” He looked around, drew a breath, and squared his shoulders. “Asl–.”
“You cannot bid me come,” came a deep, sweet voice from the edge of the clearing. It was like distant thunder laced with honey. “Neither can you bid me go.”
“Of course not,” the cloaked man said. “You’re not a tame lion.”
There was a low, throbbing sound that almost sounded like a purr, and a lion padded softly out of the trees, his huge feet making no noise in the grass. The sun came out from behind a cloud, warming the air, and when it struck the huge animal he shone as if made from molten gold.
“Nice entrance,” Kvothe said pushing back his hood. His hair caught the sun as well, shining like copper and fire. He looked younger than his voice sounded, a boy just on the verge of becoming a man.
“I will admit,” Aslan said. “I did not expect you to come here.”
Kvothe unclasped his cloak and lay it carefully on a nearby tree and looked back up at the lion. His clothes were threadbare, only a half step away from being truly ragged. “I thought we should talk.”
“We are to fight,” Aslan said. “It strikes me as odd that you should come here and give me the advantage of the home ground. It seems your best hope would be hold your ground, force me to come to you, so you might catch me with some trick or trap.”
Kvothe smiled. “That reminds me of a joke,” he said. “How do you catch a unique lion?”
The lion cocked his head.
“You neek up on it,” Kvothe said with a straight face.
Aslan’s tail stopped its restless motion. He turned his head slightly to look behind himself.
Kvothe continued, “How do you catch a tame lion?”
The lion turned back to look at him, but said nothing.
Kvothe gave a slightly embarrassed smile. “Tame way.”
There was a moment of silence, and then the clearing was filled with a low thrumming noise that could conceivably be the sound of a lion chuckling.
“It’s been a long time since anyone told me a joke,” Aslan said, then shook out his great golden mane. “But we still have to fight.”
“We do,” Kvothe agreed. “Though it might be more accurate to say that we are forced to come into conflict.”
“And you know you cannot win, especially here,” Aslan continued. “The only question is how much you might hurt me before the end.”
Kvothe shook his head seriously. “No, the real question is how much will winning cost?” The young man smiled a small, sad smile. “Believe me, this is something I have some personal experience with.”
“I… I don’t know if I follow you,” the lion said.
“If we fight, you’ll kill me,” Kvothe said matter-of-factly. “You’ll win, but there will be a cost.”
“You would bring your death curse upon me?” Aslan said.
“That’s Harry Dresden,” Kvothe said, obviously irritated. “Come on now. Except for point of view and a respect for thermodynamics we really don’t have much in common.”
“Oh,” Aslan cleared his throat. “Right. Sorry.”
“There’s nothing I could do to you if I lost,” Kvothe said. “And honestly, I’m not sure I’d want to. I’m not really one of those ‘from hell’s heart I stab at thee’ types.'”
“Actually,” Aslan said, “From what I’ve heard, you’ve…”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Kvothe interrupted, his eyes narrowing. “My point is this: if you kill me, there will never be a second book.”
Aslan was silent for a moment. “So you’re threatening me with reprisal from your fans?”
Kvothe shook his head again. “You’re missing my whole point. I’m not threatening you at all. I’m just saying that if you kill me now, people will never get the chance to read the rest of my story.”
Aslan looked thoughtful. “And the result is…”
“Despair,” Kvothe said. “Terrible despair in the hearts and minds of thousands.” He gave the lion a frank look. “You’ve always struck me as the sort of person…”
“Lion.”
“Sorry… You’ve always struck me as the sort of lion that was trying to make people happy in the long run. Not the sort that would actively cause despair.”
Aslan lifted one huge paw from the ground and then pressed it down again. He cleared his throat. “Tricky.”
Kvothe nodded. “Your books are all finished. You’re immortal in ways more important than the obvious. I’m not quite there yet.” He sighed. “That’s why I figured we should talk.”
After a long moment, the lion looked up. “So what’s the other option?” his voice was low and uncertain.
“Forfeit,” Kvothe said. “Just walk away.”
“*You* could forfeit,” Aslan pointed out.
Kvothe shook his head. “It’s not in my nature to give up or walk away. I’m psychologically unable to back down from something like this. Hell, I’m a short step from feral.” He ran his hands over his ragged clothes, half embarrassed.
Then he made a sweeping gesture to the huge lion. “You, on the other hand, are a noble creature. You have a precedent for martyrdom. It’s consistent with your character. You better than anyone know that sometimes the only way to win is to concede.”
Another pause, then Aslan spoke. “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”
Kvothe smiled again, and for a moment his face was almost boyish. “It’s all stories,” he said. “That’s what I do.”
Aslan looked up and swished his tail. He drew an impossibly long, deep breath. “Fine. Fair enough. I concede.”
Kvothe sagged with relief. “Thank God.”
“You’re welcome,” the lion said as he turned his massive head and began to walk from the clearing.
“Um…” Kvothe said. And for the first time since he came into the clearing he looked unsure of himself. “Before you go…. I was wondering…. Could I?”
Aslan gave a great gusty sigh that was more amused than exasperated. “Very well.”
Kvothe stepped closer to the lion, moving hesitantly. Then he raised his hands slowly and sank them deep in the thick golden mane. He leaned forward and gave the huge lion a hug, burying his face in the lion’s fur.
After the space of a deep breath, Kvothe pulled his face away, but left his hands where they were. “I’ve wanted to do that forever,” he said softly, his voice a little choked. “My mom used to tell me your stories.”
“I would lick your face,” Aslan said gently. “But it looks like it’s been a while since you’ve washed it.”
Kvothe laughed and stepped back from the lion.
“When is the second book coming out, by the way?” Aslan asked. “I’ve been waiting frikking forever.”
“Soon,” Kvothe said.
“What does that mean?” Aslan said. “In a couple months? Sometime this year?”
“I call all times ‘soon'” Kvothe said.
Another deep, thundering chuckle. “I suppose I deserve that,” Aslan said, and turned to pad silently out of the clearing, where he was quickly lost to mortal sight.
Source
Trope rant done. Next week we’ll dig a little deeper into Kingkiller. You still have time to read it, or at least get a bit of a start.