Judging from reader reactions to Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicles it’s either the most awesomest fan-arty squee ever, or it’s an overblown hash of a plot that is self-indulgent, poorly constructed and mind-numbingly populated by the most tired of tired tropes. On Goodreads and Amazon both, readers either adore the novels and want to name their children after the characters or they loathe the books with the white-hot intensity of a thousand exploding stars.
Which is funny. Both extremes miss the mark with such steadfast dedication that I wonder if they read the same books, and were they at all similar to the books I read and found wonderful, subtle, complex, and mysterious in ways that haunt me still? The Kingkiller Chronicles will, I’m convinced, stand in the top five fantasy series of all time, when it’s all said and done. I’m far from alone in my admiration for Rothfuss’ novels, but people like us get drowned out in the “Go team!” chants from either pole.
People read fiction for different reasons. Mysteries to be unlocked, protagonists that stand in for the reader until the Aha! moment, after which readers marvel at the narrative’s cleverness. Inspirational novels that feature protagonists overcoming the kind of soul-crushing daily evil that grinds us all down. Thrilling adventures for armchair adventurers. All of it escapism of the best sort, and most often the kind that brings us back to the daily world with our spirits ennobled, our empathy recharged, our humanity renewed.
All of which is especially important in this horrific election cycle, and will be essential going forward through the hard work of the next two years as we convince a skeptical public that, despite a hateful and obstructionist minority, government exists to do the public good, can do the public good, and dammit will do the public good. If everything shakes out the way we think it most likely will, we’ll have two years to save our country, and it will be hard work every step of the way.
Tonight I doubt very many people are thinking much about fantasy—at least most of the people reading this diary will have their minds elsewhere. But I’m going to start our dive into The Kingkiller Chronicles anyway. Tonight will be easy. If you haven’t read Rothfuss, none of what I’m going to write will hurt your enjoyment of the novels, and if you have read them, you may be inspired to take another look with fresh eyes.
Why read the novels? They’re a fascinating, beautifully crafted, dense and lovingly written exploration of stories—why we tell them, how we tell them, and what they tell about us. That’s beneath the surface, of course. On the surface, they’re the adventures of Kvothe and how he became Kvothe Kingkiller.
What’s Their Plan?
The central mystery of The Kingkiller Chronicles involves eight mysterious figures, memorialized in a children’s song:
When the hearthfire turns to blue,
What to do? What to do?
Run outside. Run and hide.
When his eyes are black as crow?
Where to go? Where to go?
Near and far. Here they are.
See the man without a face?
Move like ghosts from place to place,
What’s their plan? What’s their plan?
Chandrian. Chandrian
The Chandrian, seven enigmatic and destructive figures, and their leader Haliax, who asks a rebellious Cinder, the man with eyes “black as crow,” “Who keeps you safe from the Amyr? The singers? The Sithe? From all that would harm you in the world?”
The Chandrian figure largely in the life of the protagonist and narrator, Kvothe. You might say they’ve made him who he is. Their influence is pervasive (much of it, I suspect, behind the scenes and to be revealed in the third and final novel The Doors of Stone) and malign. They’re worthy adversaries for our self-styled hero.
Much has been said and written about Kvothe as a character and a narrator (and in the next few weeks we’ll say a lot more). His story, his voice, and his motivations are all up for grabs, and we’ll get there. This week, however, since this is Kvothe’s journey, we have to talk about what Kvothe is seeking through the novels, and what he’s seeking is both information about and a way to destroy the Chandrian. Through the first two novels, he is offered four different ways to regard his quest and more importantly, four different ways to structure his life, four paths, if you will.
The Path of Revenge
Kvothe starts out looking for revenge, to repay the Chandrian for the all the ways they robbed him. This is pretty simple—a primal and appropriate organizing principle for a kid who’s lost as much as Kvothe has lost. He seeks out Skarpi to hear the story of Lanre, who he believes holds the key to the Chandrian; he goes to the University specifically to learn as much as he can about the Chandrian, and what he learns is that there’s almost nothing to learn. The Chandrian have been reduced to a children’s rhyme (much the same way fantasy itself was relegated to children’s literature for a long age). Moreover, information about their primary adversary, the Amyr, has also apparently been lost, although Kvothe suspects, convincingly, that it’s more likely references to both the Amyr and the Chandrian were deliberately suppressed. Why? Excellent question. One of the central mysteries in the novels revolves around it. Who were the Amyr? Did they predate the rise of the Tehlin Church and were coopted? Why were they disbanded? Are they still operating and if so, how? Are any active at the University? (hint: probably). One thing is certain, the Amyr’s motto, Ivare enim euge, “For the Greater Good” is the second path open to Kvothe.
The Way of the Amyr
It’s tempting to regard the Amyr the way the Western Church regarded the Crusaders, especially the Templars—founded for righteous reasons, growing too powerful for comfort, tending into heresy, brutally crushed and exterminated. And that seems to be the way most people in the Four Corners world regard the Amyr; however, it may not be so simple. Yes, the Amyr appear to be a powerful force, and we have to admit the possibility that they are probably still active, since Haliax specifically says that he keeps the Chandrian safe from them, and since the Chandrian are the bad guys then the Amyr must be the good guys….?
Except that the Duke of Gibea, infamous for having performed Mengele-like experiments on living people and who may have written his books on parchment made of human skin, was probably Amyr, which puts the “greater good” part of the motto in a different light. The Amyr are guys who would not hesitate to burn a village in order to save it.
The elite of the Amyr are the Ciridae. They’re the ones whose hands and arms are tatooed to look like blood. When Nina brings Kvothe the drawing she remembers of the Mauthen pot, of the eight figures she saw, seven of the Chandrian and the one Ciridae opposing them:
“I don’t like looking at him even now,” she said. “They were all awful to look at. But he was the worst. I can’t get faces right, but his was terrible grim. He looked so angry. He looked like he was ready to burn down the whole world.”
In the surface narrative we’re conditioned to think that the Amyr are good. In the undersurface, I’m not at all sure that’s true. It is, however, the path most closely associated with Kvothe. When Auri finds him bereft and bloodied on the rooftop, she tells him,
“You are my Ciridae, and thus above reproach.” She reached out to touch the center of my bloody chest with a finger. “Ivare enim euge.”
Sim also mentions that Kvothe tends to act rightly without thinking about it, acting not always in his own interest but always with the greater good in mind. It’s not his fault, for instance, that the dragon heads for Trebon, but once he sees where it’s going, Kvothe can’t not intervene, even though it means abandoning Denna. We’ll come back to the path of the Amyr shortly.
A Beautiful Game
At the Court of the Maer of Vint, Bredon introduces Kvothe to the Path of the Beautiful Game through the game of Tak. Bredon knows a great deal about courtly politics.
“I was quite fond of it when I was young. I was even something of a power, as these things go. But at present, I have no machinations to advance. That takes the spice from such maneuverings.”
He observes that Kvothe has met the most gossipy members of the court. “I am no magpie. I need nothing shiny, nor do I care what gossipmongers think. I play a longer, more subtle game.” As part of his subtle game, he introduces Kvothe to Tak, which now exists as a real-world game. The point of the game reflects Bredon’s approach to life—not to win or lose, but to play a beautiful game—to get trapped and turn the snare upon it’s maker, to outplay opponents, and to do it merely for the pleasure of the game.
“Tak reflects the subtle turning of the world. It is a mirror we hold to life. No one wins a dance, boy. The point of dancing is the motion that a body makes. A well-played game of tak reveals the moving of a mind. There is a beauty to these things for those with eyes to see it….The point,” Bredon said grandly, “is to play a beautiful game.” He lifted his hands and shrugged, his face breaking into a beatific smile. “Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?”
Bredon’s comment, “I think I’m going to have quite a bit of fun playing with you,” carries ramifications far beyond the game board, since Bredon is far more than he appears to be. More about him next week; for now, it will suffice to say that stuff is going on in the background, and Bredon may well be moving about behind the scenes and orchestrating events in pursuit of his beautiful game.
Lethani
Kvothe’s sojourn with the Adem serves several purposes in the narrative, at least, several obvious purposes. Kvothe learns how to fight; he earns a sword; he learns more about the Chandrian, and he learns about the Lethani, which seems to be rather like the Tao. Lethani is governed by right thinking. Right actions follow from right thinking. The mercenary Tempi introduces Kvothe to the Lethani while they’re in the wilds chasing bandits, and Vashet continues teaching him the wisdom of Lethani, based on ninety-nine stories Rethe told her master Aethe before she died. The final story, the hundredth and most important piece of wisdom, died with her.
“What is the heart of the Lethani?” I asked Vashet.
“Success and right action.”
“Which is the more important, success or rightness?”
“They are the same. If you act rightly success follows.”
“But others may succeed by doing wrong things,” I pointed out.
“Wrong things never lead to success,” Vashet said firmly. “If a man acts wrongly and succeeds, that is not the way. Without the Lethani there is no true success.”
My principal criticism of Kingkiller Chronicles is that the Adem are loosely adapted from traditional Chinese culture—the philosophy based on Taoism with a dash of Buddhism, the fighting based on Tai Chi, and other aspects of the respective cultures uncomfortably close, although the Adem are light-skinned and mostly blond, so at least the racial aspects don’t line up. There is a suggestion, however that the Ademre and the Edema Ruh, both survivors of the Creation War, are more closely aligned than is obviously apparent. (My other criticism, that Kvothe is too young for his narrative voice, I take it back. I’ll explain maybe next week.)
Kvothe’s Path
So far (two books into the trilogy) Kvothe appears to be on the path of the Amyr, acting instinctively for the greater good, despite Bredon’s attempt to seduce him into the Great Game for its own sake, and Vashet’s instruction in Lethani. In fact, as soon as he leaves the Adem school and returns to Vint, on his way to the Maer’s court, he runs into a troupe of fake Edema Ruh, and acts. Not only does he poison the imposters to sicken them and liberate the two village girls they kidnapped as sex slaves, he executes them all and brands them with the Edema mark of outsiders, people who are not of the Family. His actions are far more informed by the Amyr than Lethani, even though he’s been steeped in Lethani philosophy. Apparently, the Lethani offers precious little in the way of guidance when dealing with imposter thieves/rapists/murderers.
You can also say that Kvothe comes full circle, asserting his Ruh heritage above other forms of conduct. Remarkably, he feels almost no remorse for killing the false troupe, and that may well be the Amyr influence. But in another sense, he has returned to the Family that the Chandrian took from him.
Next week, we’ll talk about names and Names, Kvothe’s and others. Meanwhile, there’s an election to win, and then there’s what comes next.
In her acceptance of the 2014 National Book Lifetime Achievement Award, Ursula LeGuin said,
Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality.
Now more than ever. Let’s get to work and make Secretary Clinton President Clinton!