The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle)

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It wasn't hot and furious, as some of my flashes of temper tend to be. This was different, slow and cold. The Kingkiller Chronicle tells the life story of a man named Kvothe. In the present day, Kvothe is a rural innkeeper, living under a pseudonym. In the past, he was a wandering trouper and musician who grew to be a notorious arcanist (or wizard), known as the infamous "Kingkiller".

Teacher/Student Romance: Downplayed, Kvothe enters a Friends with Benefits relationship with his Adem mentor Vashet. She just views it as a way of keeping his mind on the training instead of on finding her distracting.Ms. Fanservice: The Felurian is a supernaturally beautiful Fae who is nude for all of her appearances. Kvothe keeps describing how gorgeous she is during his whole time with her. There’s little doubt in my mind that Denna’s patron knows she is close to Kvothe. Maybe he’s instructed her to follow him and/or keep an eye on him, waiting for the right time to strike. Something certainly breaks between these two young lovers, and I think it’s likely Master Ash is at the center of it.

Riddle for the Ages: Caudicus's motive for trying to poison to Maer. After he's caught, Kvothe asks about it, but Stapes refuses to discuss the matter. Escalating War: Kvothe deliberately tries to avoid antagonizing Ambrose more after the events of Name of the Wind so as to not escalate things between them even further, but Ambrose is still on a personal crusade against him, using his wealth to make sure Kvothe can't get a patron and drugging Kvothe's on the day of his admission and even making a mommet of Kvothe to torture him. To the point that when Kvothe is believed to have died on a trip in the sea, all of Kvothe's friends at the university believe Ambrose was somehow involved with it.Kvothe: I refuse to throw myself at her like every other man she's ever met. She hates it. I've seen what happens. Armor Is Useless: The Adem don't wear armor. It apparently would just slow down their perfect martial arts moves. Armor also doesn't seem to be much use against them. The Slow Regard of Silent Things (2014, ISBN 978-0756410438), a novella focusing on a secondary character that appears in The Kingkiller Chronicle 's main plot. We know Fae shed some of their power in the mortal realm, so I think there must be a very compelling reason Bast decides to remain in Newarre with his Reshi. Does Kvothe enter Fae again at some point, and meet Bast there? Was Bast traveling in Temerant and the two crossed paths? Or had one of them been looking for the other, for some reason?

Closer to home, I think a likely suspect for a battle in Imre is Ambrose (admittedly kinda obvious) or Simmon (incredibly tragic). Kvothe does talk about Simmon with a bit of wistfulness, as if something irreparable may have happened between them. Either way, killing a noble’s son in front of the Eolian would certainly be a story that traveled far and wide. Ohhh, Master Ash: the man who launched a thousand theories (which Jo Walton helpfully condenses in the TOR reread). There are a number of folks on Reddit who believe Ash is either Cinder or Bredon, the noble Kvothe plays Tak with in Severen. Some think he’s neither of these characters. Some think he’s both. Personally, I’m not 100 percent convinced on the “Bredon=Cinder=Ash” line of thinking; I believe Denna’s patron is likely to be either Bredon or Cinder, but not both. Mr. Fanservice: During the entire expedition in the woods of Vintas, Tempi usually wears his skin-tight mercenary reds. Except the time that he spends most of the day stripped to the waist, or the times when Kvothe and Hespa discover that the Adem have no nudity taboo.Matriarchy: Adem society is a Patriarchy Flip. The Adem all believe that women are morally and physically superior to men. One female Adem says with some pity that men have absolutely nothing to contribute to the world.