Hey friends, long time no write about the Name of the Wind, Kingkiller, etc. I’ve intended to do a Name of the Wind analysis reread (not to mention the other books) for some time now. —
You should assume spoilers henceforth! Forthwith! This post shall take a fortnight of hours to read!
Table of Contents
- You should assume spoilers henceforth! Forthwith! This post shall take a fortnight of hours to read!
- Note about me:
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Ch 7:
- Navigate to other chapters:
Note about me:
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Name of the Wind Analysis — Ch 7:
Turn as per usual to our page and chapter for today in your hymnal. First imagery that shows up and sticks out?
Sun. At the start of this story. I’ll point out again that we hear so much in this story about stealing the moon, the names of the stars, the name of the wind, etc.
But what about the Sun? ‘ΗΛΙΑΚΟΣ — heliax / heliosphere / haliax
Can a story this natural, this worried about natural phenomena, completely overlook the sun except as literal backlighting?
No. But we, the readers, seem to rather often.
It seems that’s precisely the one element of the world Pat wants us to overlook. What’s a more obvious oversight than the sun itself?
I do think the series will climax in an eclipse…
Consider this:
Inside the Waystone, the light fell across Chronicler’s face and touched a beginning there, a blank page waiting the first words of a story. The light flowed across the bar, scattered a thousand tiny rainbow beginnings from the colored bottles, and climbed the wall toward the sword, as if searching for one final beginning.
But when the light touched the sword there were no beginnings to be seen. In fact, the light the sword reflected was dull, burnished, and ages old. Looking at it, Chronicler remembered that though it was the beginning of a day, it was also late autumn and growing colder. The sword shone with the knowledge that dawn was a small beginning compared to the ending of a season: the ending of a year.
Perhaps that’s just the sword reflecting autumn’s ending.
Or perhaps, as I said, it’s a shard of the moon or quicksilver or both (alchemically, they’re parallel on the macro and micro level, as above, so below). And so it’s not a beginning, it’s an ending. Ages old light.
Perhaps it’s growing colder: dawn is nothing compared to the ending. The receiving of the light. So how is this beginning an ending?
Perhaps the sword is the embodiment of the fundamental tragedy.
Why does Kvothe… how do I phrase this?
I think the broken tree is prophetic of something else and that the camp either gives him the idea for it or he goes back to the tree to get the captured lightning.
Connor texted me a list of things that stuck out to him:
⁃ Sword has no beginnings, implying it caused an ending.
⁃ A phonetic written language doesn’t communicate alternate languages very well. He could transcribe what he hears but meaning would be difficult to gather especially for words with base language roots
⁃ Chronicler doesn’t say that he created the language himself. Specifically ignores the ? Maybe Skarpi language
⁃ Was c a student before k? Heard about the tema thing “at the university” not as a student necessarily
⁃ Broken tree prophetic of the camp battle or something with rhe Cthaeh
— Connor Hathaway
Man this chapter brought up a ton of my own assumptions.
1. I’ve always assumed Denna was the princess and the barrow king was therefore the barrow king was always her patron / suitor. But it also works for Auri and (seemingly) Elodin? And then, therefore, for Felurian and the night monster.
2. “To know” and “to speak” are quothe as well — but it’s the same as the word “spell” which also means “story” — is this story a longford spell?
3. Lots of clues indicate he’s going to be set on fire in “the flame” — also lots of things that won’t burn in the Waystone, foreshadowing it will be torched at some point. Bonfires, etc.
4. Thunder also connects to the mistletoe bit, as does the broken tree
5. Blood and burning hair is what he smelled with his parents. And when he burns the scrael, it smells of burning hair and rotting flowers. Is it possible his parents due to the lockless blood were also half-fae?
6. If roah is the wood you use to hold something, could it be that the lockless clan are the ones connected to roah?
7. Considering how Natalie changed her name, how Chronicler changed his (also a lockless clan), Kvothe, could it be that their inheritance is learning how to use their name to lock a box so that their name is the secret password? This has the added effect of making them luckless as is the case for all the Rhinta?
8. Singers are doing stories in the first firelight. Are they actually witnesses to the “first fire” in a Prometheus sense? The sun? If so, did they take fire from the war between fae — or pre-fae — folk? Was the first fire the war itself?
9. Kvothe makes no mistakes in the script. Picks it up immediately. Notices all the phonemes. Asks Chronicler if he designed it himself. Chronicler doesn’t answer. He needs the story to be _exactly_ right, he needs _no_ editing, he needs it transcribed _as is_ — is the story his true name? The spell to invoke it again? And is he using story knots in the text to bring himself back, story knots bound up in this shorthand?
10. “Iron” in his voice. Again.
11. In the conflict of the story, it seems as if Kvothe summoned silence.
12. I still maintain that the woman (Denna), Taborlin’s lightning, Chandrian, Kvothe’s death, the angel/demon fight, the singers — all of this is connected to the same single event. I think there’s an Occam’s razor thing going on.
13. “Charred body of God” again calling to mind the fertility cults he tends to invoke, a la Frazier. And bonfires. And Tehlu / Cinder
14. Sword is grey-white metal. Possibilities: lead, quicksilver, a shard of the moon, mountain glass again but that would be black… could it be copper? Copper when it oxidizes is also grey-white
Again: Kvothe was struck by lightning. Or will be because that’s what he used to kill the previous priest:
The reverse of lightning, then, is the loden stone. Star iron. Again, this points to Tehlu / becoming lightning and the creature of winter’s pale. Sort of the new North Pole, the new Jack Frost.
Roah wood seems to respond to iron similarly to the scrael OR to the way iron itself responds.
When Ben teaches K the sympathetic bindings he writes it down phonetically so yeah looks like Chrons writing can be used for arcane purposes.
— Connor Hathaway
There we go. Does he give any of the phonemes? I don’t think so, right? What’s also fascinating is that he doesn’t want it nearly perfect. He wants the exact sounds and words he says, which sounds a heck of a lot like naming to me. Also it always sticks out to me how clearly Kvothe already knows this cipher. He’s not merely getting it quickly. He knows it. It’s either because he’s seen it in story knots, encountered it with Cyphus before, or actually invented it himself.
“Some sort of cipher” rhymes with Cyphus, by the way. The mecurial guy of winter’s pale who nails things down to iron. We’ll get to midwinter in the next chapter, but again Chronicler and Caudicus in cahoots.
Of course for my caudicus theories, we’ll have to wait until the Wise Man’s Fear reread…
“Learn all of anything, let alone a language.” That, there, is sort of the thesis of the series: a series about epistemology and etymology. Can you Kvothe all of anything? Can Kvothe Kvothe all of Kvothe?
No.
Ruh < ? > roah
Interesting. Little morbid that burning roah smells like burning Ruh
— Connor Hathaway
Also burning demons. Maybe the metallic content of Roah is copper. And maybe the land of the sun is the land of iron and the land of the moon is the land of copper.
VERY alchemical to be so. So the copper bloodline is the one that stores names and beings in copper. Nameless trunks, nameless swords, nameless bloodlines.
Denna: wild as a fire, sharp as shattered glass, sweet and clean as clover. ]
No, not Denna.
The Moon.
Denna is wild as fire. Felurian is sharp as shattered glass. Auri is sweet and clean as clover. Auri is what it’s like for a boy to love. A child. Denna is what it’s like for a teen to love, a “first love” kind of love. Felurian is what it’s like for a tenured husband to love. A lover proper. Or, if you will, a waxing crescent, full, and waning gibbous. Or if you’re late antiquity, crescent, half, and full. Or if you’re OG, it’s crescent, full, and dark moon.
Again with the Wiccan ideas, Pat.
But the full moon is Lyra.
“I wanted fire and lightning.” Is connected with “I wanted to learn the name of the wind.”
Smell of blood and burning hair, Chandrian, Ruh, Scrael.
What is the true beginning of the story, though? Let’s list them:
- In some ways, it began when I heard her singing.
- the singer, Lyra, who knows the world as the moon. So it’s a sun/moon creation story
- It began at the University. I went to learn magic of the sort they talk about in stories. Magic like Taborlin the Great. I wanted to learn the name of the wind. I wanted fire and lightning.
- so it’s an arcane magic creation story, the magic that holds up the world
- I expect the true beginning lies in what led me to the University. Unexpected fires at twilight. A man with eyes like ice at the bottom of a well. The smell of blood and burning hair. The Chandrian.
- so it’s a summoning origin, a ghost story out of the mist, like a fireside horror origin story
- “In the beginning, as far as I know, the world was spun out of the nameless void by Aleph, who gave everything a name. Or, depending on the version of the tale, found the names all things already possessed.”
- so it’s a namer’s beginning
- Very well, for simplicity’s sake, let us assume I am the center of creation. In doing this, let us pass over innumerable boring stories: the rise and fall of empires, sagas of heroism, ballads of tragic love. Let us hurry forward to the only tale of any real importance.” His smile broadened. “Mine.”
- So more like satan frozen at the center of hell?
Let’s assume he is. It’s his singer’s story. It’s his story of the arcane grounding of the universe, wind, lightning. It’s his story of the Draugr horror. It’s his story of the names of all things, the power of Aleph passed down.
The name Kvothe pronounced as “Quothe” is supposed to mean “to know.”
Quoth, in our language, has this etymology :
From Middle English quoth, quath, from Old English cwæþ (first and third person past indicative of cweþan (“to say, speak to, address, exhort, admonish”)), from Proto-Germanic *kwaþ (first and third person past indicative of Proto-Germanic *kweþaną (“to say”)). In PIE *gʷet- was both “say, speak” and “resin, gum.” It’s interesting because a descendant of that root, was kvæði — to chant, which, in Old Norse, because the “poetic tale of someone’s life.” This word can also mean to utter, recite, related terms include: “a greeting, welcome, salutation”; “to call on, summon; to welcome”; “to banish, to forbid”
“to decide”
Knowing. Shaping, Saying.
All of it directly bound up in the story of someone’s life.
While we’re here:
Edema Ruh —> Ademre —> Amyr —> Edema Ruh
Adem called him Maedre, which is an Old English word for the plant that makes the red dye.
But why all three names?
The flame — the color of the hair.
The thunder — contained like it is in mistletoe.
The broken tree — the lightning tree.
But sure, red hair and baritone and whatever. It’s prophetic on a deeper level.
“Stealing princesses back from sleeping barrow kings” is the Draugr story. That’s the whole story. That’s Felurian, moonlight, talking to Gods, loving women, etc. That’s the core.
Navigate to other chapters:
I’ll put this at the end of each chapter so we can actually navigate the text
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Prologue
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Chapter 1
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Chapter 2
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Chapter 3
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Chapter 4
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Chapter 5
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Chapter 6
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Chapter 7
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Chapter 8
- Name of the Wind Analysis — Chapter 9
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