The Name of the Wind.... Overrated?

[colonelslime]

(note: I've tried to be as generic as possible in my description to avoid spoilers)

I've just tried to read the first part of Kingkiller Trilogy (About half-way through), The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and honestly, I can't figure out why there's been so much hype about it. I agree that Rothfuss can really write well, in a pure mastery of the language sort of sense. But his characters seem cliche and flat, except for Kvothe, who is quite honestly almost a a text-book definition of a Mary-Sue. The plot is incredibly slow-paced, and while I can appreciate that not all fantasy novels have to be about epic swords-and-sorcery, some of the stuff that happens is just mind-bogglingly inane. The world-building is average, mildly interesting but nothing amazingly original. Ironically, the only part of the book I really enjoyed so far is the framing narrative, since Kvothe seems like less of an insufferable Gary Stu. Is there something I'm missing, or is The Name of the Wind just a shallow story in a really pretty package, as I'm starting to think?

[Eldan]

I don't see anything wrong with what you write, but I still like the book. I guess that's different priorities, then: I like books when they are just well-written. And I like Kvothe as a character.

I was a bit disappointed by the second book, though. I thought it would be more... epic. He's talking about all the great deeds he'll commit, and none of them seem all that great, so far.

[Lady Moreta]

Really? I loved it :smallsmile: - haven't had a chance to read the second one yet so can't comment on that one.

My husband and I talked about it once, and we decided that he did essentially take up all the standard elements of a standard fantasy story for the novel. It was the way in which he told the story that made it so different and, in our opinions, so very very good.

I think it's just a case of not everyone liking the same things. All the elements that you've described as things you didn't like - as in for instance, the pace of the novel, are things that I think make it fantastic.

[Helanna]

I can certainly see how the pacing issues would bother people. I personally don't really mind them*, but that doesn't mean they're not there. Although I agree with being mildly disappointed by the second book - I still loved it, but not a whole lot really happened.

About the Gary Stu issue: This is one I've been thinking about, and I'm really not sure I would call Kvothe a massive Gary Stu. A minor one, certainly. He has a lot of the elements of one, but he also has things like flaws. His intelligence makes him overconfident, and that does have an impact on the plot. Also, I think the Mary Sue elements are at least partially intentional, to provide contrast with the story being told and the framing device - after all, the Kvothe of old was a legend. Now he's a barkeeper.

It's definitely still a little annoying, but I don't think he's a textbook Gary Stu.

*Except for part in the second book
with Felurian. I don't care how much time you spent having sex with the sex goddess! Get on with the story already!

[Eldan]

He's just a high-level Factotum. They all get like that.

[colonelslime]

It's Kvothe infuriating ability to master anything he tries, instantly, combined with the way he, and the characters around him, are always portrayed as so much better than everyone around them. He's a genius little wunderkind who
can memorize songs after hearing them twice, is fasttracted through Magic U, a school which he is paid to go to, and who everyone around him never ceases to comment on how awesome he happens to be.

He isn't a terribly written Gary Stu, which is what makes the book still enjoyable to a certain degree for me. I just find his natural gift to instantly excel at anything he does a little hard to swallow. I guess he fits the definition of hero, in a classic, almost greek myth-like sort of way, but mr. Rothfuss seems just a little too enamoured with his creation.

Edit: Honestly, If Kvothe wasn't such an agony to read for me sometimes, I would probably finding the pacing fine. What really stands out as unsavoury to me if I think about it is Kvothe in the past's over-the-top awesomeness, which, from Helanna's comment, shows no signs of abating int he second book. I was expecting a deconstruction of the hero-myth, where he is revealed to be more flawed and human than the story,and where the layers of hearsay are peeled away, but all his flaws are minuscule and shallow compared to his abilities.

[Weezer]

The thing is the kind of genius he displays isn't unheard of in real life. There are people who can memorize songs after hearing them once, people who have graduated college when most of us are still sitting around in high school. Genius child progidies aren't impossible and I think the way Rothfuss handles it feels ''real'' and not forced. His arrogance and hot headedness get him into a lot of trouble. Though I do admit his
actions revolving around sex post-Felurian really irritate me and feel very out of character. What happened to his love for Denna making him ignore all other women?

[Eldan]

I don't think that was ever the case.


Specifically, there's a comment by Bast in the first book: "Every woman you describe is beautiful, Reshi". He certainly appreciated all the women around him and got enormously flustered by them. He was just a fifteen year old who had no idea how to approach them.

[druid91]

It's Kvothe infuriating ability to master anything he tries, instantly, combined with the way he, and the characters around him, are always portrayed as so much better than everyone around them. He's a genius little wunderkind who
can memorize songs after hearing them twice, is fasttracted through Magic U, a school which he is paid to go to, and who everyone around him never ceases to comment on how awesome he happens to be.

He isn't a terribly written Gary Stu, which is what makes the book still enjoyable to a certain degree for me. I just find his natural gift to instantly excel at anything he does a little hard to swallow. I guess he fits the definition of hero, in a classic, almost greek myth-like sort of way, but mr. Rothfuss seems just a little too enamoured with his creation.

Edit: Honestly, If Kvothe wasn't such an agony to read for me sometimes, I would probably finding the pacing fine. What really stands out as unsavoury to me if I think about it is Kvothe in the past's over-the-top awesomeness, which, from Helanna's comment, shows no signs of abating int he second book. I was expecting a deconstruction of the hero-myth, where he is revealed to be more flawed and human than the story,and where the layers of hearsay are peeled away, but all his flaws are minuscule and shallow compared to his abilities.

some spoilers from both name of the wind and wise mans fear.
He is paid once. And he got that by cheating. He masters much of the more mundane things instantly, sure he's good at sympathy, sure he can make stuff with sygaldry, great he's a doctor. To be honest he can't deal with people to save his life. At least until partway through the second book... and this is the only mary sue trait I really acknowledged, he has horrible luck/methods of dealing with females(CURSE YOU FELURIAN!!!:smallfurious: YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SOME ELDRITCH GOD OF MADNESS AND KNOWLEDGE!!! at least that's what it was in my head...). He's dirt poor at least until the second book. He's poor in hand to hand combat again until the second book. Really The second book is the insufferable one, the only thing that really knocks him down in it is that he gets his rear end handed to him by Devi in a sympathy duel after irritating her. My only hope is that this is the building him up for the massive crashing down to earth in the third book.

[Helanna]

some spoilers from both name of the wind and wise mans fear.
He is paid once. And he got that by cheating. He masters much of the more mundane things instantly, sure he's good at sympathy, sure he can make stuff with sygaldry, great he's a doctor. To be honest he can't deal with people to save his life. At least until partway through the second book... and this is the only mary sue trait I really acknowledged, he has horrible luck/methods of dealing with females(CURSE YOU FELURIAN!!!:smallfurious: YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SOME ELDRITCH GOD OF MADNESS AND KNOWLEDGE!!! at least that's what it was in my head...). He's dirt poor at least until the second book. He's poor in hand to hand combat again until the second book. Really The second book is the insufferable one, the only thing that really knocks him down in it is that he gets his rear end handed to him by Devi in a sympathy duel after irritating her. My only hope is that this is the building him up for the massive crashing down to earth in the third book.

Oh yeah, I forgot how much I liked Kvothe getting beat by Devi. It does prove that even though he's a prodigy, he's not OMG THE BEST EVER!!! So at least that was cool.

Him training with the Adem was the only other part I didn't really like. Dragged on a little too long, and some parts of it were just a little irritating (the section devoted to explaining how everybody constantly has sex with everyone else but not a single person has ever contracted an STD, the part where apparently they don't believe in fathers (although I have no idea how widespread that idea was in primitive cultures, so maybe that was actually accurate)). Again, I enjoyed it, but it had a couple of irritating parts.

And I really do think that Kvothe is going to get knocked down a few pegs in the third book. Obviously, something pretty bad happened, and like I said, I think some of the Mary Sue-ish traits are intentional to make the contrast clearer. Frankly, I just think that his luck is going to run out - he's been very, very lucky throughout the first two books, and if suddenly everything starts going wrong, he'll fall pretty quickly.

[monomer]

I was a bit disappointed by the second book, though. I thought it would be more... epic. He's talking about all the great deeds he'll commit, and none of them seem all that great, so far.

I am starting to think that he isn't as epic as his stories make him out to be. If you go back to read Chapter 7 of NotW, you will notice that he has already gone over most of the accomplishments that he summarized, most of them happening by shear accident, and just grew in the telling of the tales.
As for being excellent at everything, in D&D terms, I would say that he has an incredibly high intelligence and charisma, but his wisdom score is fairly low, likely due to his age. It seems that the rest of his ability scores are average.

[druid91]

Oh yeah, I forgot how much I liked Kvothe getting beat by Devi. It does prove that even though he's a prodigy, he's not OMG THE BEST EVER!!! So at least that was cool.

Him training with the Adem was the only other part I didn't really like. Dragged on a little too long, and some parts of it were just a little irritating (the section devoted to explaining how everybody constantly has sex with everyone else but not a single person has ever contracted an STD, the part where apparently they don't believe in fathers (although I have no idea how widespread that idea was in primitive cultures, so maybe that was actually accurate)). Again, I enjoyed it, but it had a couple of irritating parts.

And I really do think that Kvothe is going to get knocked down a few pegs in the third book. Obviously, something pretty bad happened, and like I said, I think some of the Mary Sue-ish traits are intentional to make the contrast clearer. Frankly, I just think that his luck is going to run out - he's been very, very lucky throughout the first two books, and if suddenly everything starts going wrong, he'll fall pretty quickly.

As I have said, the first book was awesome, most of the second book was very good. It just seems like he suddenly remembered the fact that part of kvothes boast was loved women. plural and decided to throw in as many as possible.

[The_JJ]

I was not okay with the man-hoing... until he got called on it. Not just called on it, but lost points with Denna for it.

Kvothe's friends: "Dude, she doesn't want to hang with you because you are gleefully hip-thrusting your way back and forth over the one line she refused to cross. Dumbass."

Kvothe: "... oh."

[colonelslime]

I admit, this discussion has got me mildly interested. I wasn't even thinking of reading the second book, but enough people hear seem to like it that I'll probably give it a chance now.

On the topic of geniuses, I do realize that Kvothe's excellence is not unheard of, it just, I don't know, felt over top for me, especially early on and with regard to the people who surround him. Yes, I know, he wasn't rich and powerful, but I still found it hard to swallow that the travelling group of minstrels should be more literate and incredulous than everyone they come across, except for the wizard. And honestly, Mockwarts was a little derivative for me as a setting. (And what was really raising a few alarm bells was the rumours I'd been hearing about book II, with the "had sex with a sex goddess" stuff. I was not exactly entranced with the idea of reading an author's self-insert sex fantasies.)

But, I've had cases where upon re-reading a book, I've found my initial impressions were getting in the way of me enjoying a really good story, so I'd hate for this to be one of those cases where I ignore a good novel because of a bad first impression.

Thanks to everyone who's commented so far :smallwink:

[Mr.Bookworm]

And honestly, Mockwarts was a little derivative for me as a setting.

You do realize that Harry Potter didn't invent the concept, only popularized it, right? Discworld, Earthsea, Wheel of Time, and a bunch of others did it before Harry Potter came out. And predating all of these is Scholomance, which World of Warcraft players will recognize as a dungeon, mythological buffs will recognize as the academy in Transylvania where the Devil taught black magic, and most people will recognize it as a great name for a metal band after hearing that last part.

But, yeah. Glad you were convinced to give it another shot. I can never quite put into words why I really like the books, because they do have problems, mainly with the pacing. But I found them immensely entertaining in spite of their flaws.

[druid91]

I admit, this discussion has got me mildly interested. I wasn't even thinking of reading the second book, but enough people hear seem to like it that I'll probably give it a chance now.

On the topic of geniuses, I do realize that Kvothe's excellence is not unheard of, it just, I don't know, felt over top for me, especially early on and with regard to the people who surround him. Yes, I know, he wasn't rich and powerful, but I still found it hard to swallow that the travelling group of minstrels should be more literate and incredulous than everyone they come across, except for the wizard. And honestly, Mockwarts was a little derivative for me as a setting. (And what was really raising a few alarm bells was the rumours I'd been hearing about book II, with the "had sex with a sex goddess" stuff. I was not exactly entranced with the idea of reading an author's self-insert sex fantasies.)

But, I've had cases where upon re-reading a book, I've found my initial impressions were getting in the way of me enjoying a really good story, so I'd hate for this to be one of those cases where I ignore a good novel because of a bad first impression.

Thanks to everyone who's commented so far :smallwink:

Well that part of the story is one that makes the most sense. Your job is to stay in one place and dig holes... there is no town library and the books the passing merchants sell are expensive. Are you gonna bother when you don't have time to read anyway? I mean without buying candles, which are expensive.

Now you have a bunch of actors, who travel around and have the patronage of a lord with a library, and a heck of a lot more free time between shows. They are going to learn a bit.

Now as for wise mans fear, a few parts just need skimming.

First of all skim Felurian, IIRC only three important events take place during this. Spotting the name of the wind, the chthaigh, and his magic cloak.

Second when you reach the Adem, unfortunately the good is mixed with the ridiculous here.

That's it off the top of my head. Those two were my main two griefs with it.

[colonelslime]

Warning, mild spoilers to anyone who hasn't read the first book


You do realize that Harry Potter didn't invent the concept, only popularized it, right? Discworld, Earthsea, Wheel of Time, and a bunch of others did it before Harry Potter came out. And predating all of these is Scholomance, which World of Warcraft players will recognize as a dungeon, mythological buffs will recognize as the academy in Transylvania where the Devil taught black magic, and most people will recognize it as a great name for a metal band after hearing that last part.

It's not the magic school per se (fan of both Discworld and Earthsea myself), it's the fact that I could almost swap Draco Malfoy in for Ambrose, and Snape in for whoever that teacher who hated Kvothe was. Sure, they weren't exactly the same, but "rich kid antagonizes underdog hero, and always fails in a direct battle of wills" and "Teacher takes immediate and almost-pathological dislike to student for petty reasons" kinda screamed it to me. Though, to be fair, Rowling was hardly the first there, either, so my analogy was perhaps not apt.



But, yeah. Glad you were convinced to give it another shot. I can never quite put into words why I really like the books, because they do have problems, mainly with the pacing. But I found them immensely entertaining in spite of their flaws.

Yeah, it was the weird thing, in that while I decided i didn't want to finish the book (during exam period, so my stress levels were pretty high and I wanted something a little more diversionary) I kept having a niggling doubt that I was missing something. Rothfuss's writing style is gorgeous, and I kept wondering if I should try to finish it for that alone.


Well that part of the story is one that makes the most sense. Your job is to stay in one place and dig holes... there is no town library and the books the passing merchants sell are expensive. Are you gonna bother when you don't have time to read anyway? I mean without buying candles, which are expensive.

Now you have a bunch of actors, who travel around and have the patronage of a lord with a library, and a heck of a lot more free time between shows. They are going to learn a bit.
Yeah, I could accept most of this. It was just that one insufferable conversation with Abenthy about the Chandrian where they comment on how stupid and foolish everyone around them is for believing in boogums and snarks, when magic is real and the world is still in a dark age. They had this kind of rationalism about their worldview which for me was anachronistic (though I know that this is not earth, and therefore free to vary in when schools of though were founded). It just seemed like one more way to make his parents and their friends, and by extension Kvothe himself, that much more awesome than everyone else.



Now as for wise mans fear, a few parts just need skimming.

First of all skim Felurian, IIRC only three important events take place during this. [SPOILER]Spotting the name of the wind, the chthaigh, and his magic cloak.
Duly noted :smallbiggrin:

[druid91]

Yeah, I could accept most of this. It was just that one insufferable conversation with Abenthy about the Chandrian where they comment on how stupid and foolish everyone around them is for believing in boogums and snarks, when magic is real and the world is still in a dark age. They had this kind of rationalism about their worldview which for me was anachronistic (though I know that this is not earth, and therefore free to vary in when schools of though were founded). It just seemed like one more way to make his parents and their friends, and by extension Kvothe himself, that much more awesome than everyone else.

Except from what I can tell they are dead wrong. Creatures do exist, and anyone who believes otherwise is lucky to have not met them.

[Aidan305]

"Teacher takes immediate and almost-pathological dislike to student for petty reasons" kinda screamed it to me.

I thought that one was done quite well myself. Henne had decided that Kvothe was too arrogant for his own good and needed to be taken down a notch. Kvothe responded by humiliating Henne in front of his class and the other masters. Henne has good reason now to dislike him.

[quote]Yeah, I could accept most of this. It was just that one insufferable conversation with Abenthy about the Chandrian where they comment on how stupid and foolish everyone around them is for believing in boogums and snarks, when magic is real and the world is still in a dark age. They had this kind of rationalism about their worldview which for me was anachronistic (though I know that this is not earth, and therefore free to vary in when schools of though were founded). It just seemed like one more way to make his parents and their friends, and by extension Kvothe himself, that much more awesome than everyone else.
Perhaps, but if you take in to account that the whole trilogy is (in some ways) about how events can be conflated to the extent that they're indistinguishable from the reality, then it makes more sense. Kvothe's family built their life around telling these stories. Perhaps they felt that people should understand better the difference between story and life.

[Eldan]

Especially when he actually runs into half these creatures later :smallwink:

[valadil]

I think that what I liked about Name of the Wind was that it pulled off a lot of things I wouldn't tolerate elsewhere. Yeah, Kvothe is a Gary Stu. Hell, he was based on Rothfuss's D&D character. Somehow it still works, at least for me. Were I to summarize the book for someone else, it would come out sounding like bad fanfic, but reading it I somehow got caught up in the character and plot and never bothered considering that they may not be the best.

I also offer some forgiveness to the Gary Stu-ishness because Kvothe is the narrator. You have a character who is arrogant and loves hearing himself talk. Of course he's going to make himself out to be that awesome. I never thought Kvothe was too awesome because I always accounted for him exaggerating his own awesomeness. Each time he learned a skill too quickly his narration seemed more and more flawed.

[Eldan]

Hmm. True, and I didn't even see it from that angle yet. I mean, sometimes he's talking about himself telling stories and over-exaggerating them. He's a bard singing his own Saga.

[Themrys]

I started reading it yesterday. The problem I have with it is that there are no really likeable characters. They all are too much into sex for my taste (with the exception of Kvothe, but he's still a child in the beginning), too less interested in helping others and...I don't know.
And it takes an age for the story to start. I thought Lord of the Rings was long-winded...compared to The Name of the Wind, it's a short story!

[Weezer]

I don't remember there being a lot of sex in the first book, or even a lot of talk of sex in the first book. Could you point out examples?

Though I will agree it takes a while to work through the frame and get to the 'meat' of the story, I think it's worth it, Rothfuss is able to pull it off in such a way that kept me engaged.

[Themrys]

I don't remember there being a lot of sex in the first book, or even a lot of talk of sex in the first book. Could you point out examples?

Though I will agree it takes a while to work through the frame and get to the 'meat' of the story, I think it's worth it, Rothfuss is able to pull it off in such a way that kept me engaged.

It was never explicitly mentioned, but:

The young-looking, but in fact 100something years old guy who is Kvothe's apprentice or whatever talked about pretty girls because of whom he didn't read his books. (Disturbing given the girls' probable age)

Kvothe's parents were horny more or less all the time

For the university town, it was mentioned how many brothels there were, the size of towns seems to be measured by how many prostitutes are there (at least by some people), and I don't count how many "Your mother's a prostitute" insults there were.

Abenthy, prior to his departure from the group (in order to live with a young widow...), disappared in a woman's tent, allegedly to see the dance she would only perform there...

Oh, and the dirty song about Lady Lackless (that's the German name, don't know the English one) , which Kvothe was expected to understand and therefore not sing. At that age, I wouldn't have understood what was meant...now, however, I perfectly understand why the song is dirty.

The little boy Kvothe didn't help in that city seems to have been sexually abused, but that may only be my dirty thinking.


Pratchett mentions sex, too, but his characters aren't as obsessed about it...well, except Nanny Ogg. In "The Name of the Wind" every character seems to think about sex a lot of the time...and I just don't like it if it's so obvious that the author is a man. :smallwink:

[Weezer]

It was never explicitly mentioned, but:

The young-looking, but in fact 100something years old guy who is Kvothe's apprentice or whatever talked about pretty girls because of whom he didn't read his books. (Disturbing given the girls' probable age)

Kvothe's parents were horny more or less all the time

For the university town, it was mentioned how many brothels there were, the size of towns seems to be measured by how many prostitutes are there (at least by some people), and I don't count how many "Your mother's a prostitute" insults there were.

Abenthy, prior to his departure from the group (in order to live with a young widow...), disappared in a woman's tent, allegedly to see the dance she would only perform there...

Oh, and the dirty song about Lady Lackless (that's the German name, don't know the English one) , which Kvothe was expected to understand and therefore not sing. At that age, I wouldn't have understood what was meant...now, however, I perfectly understand why the song is dirty.

The little boy Kvothe didn't help in that city seems to have been sexually abused, but that may only be my dirty thinking.


Pratchett mentions sex, too, but his characters aren't as obsessed about it...well, except Nanny Ogg. In "The Name of the Wind" every character seems to think about sex a lot of the time...and I just don't like it if it's so obvious that the author is a man. :smallwink:

I don't see any of those as particularly egregious mentioning of sex. Sex is part of life and I think that Rothfuss (at least in the first book) works it in subtly without overdoing it.
None of those allusions to sex break verisimilitude. Bast is Fae, it's practically his job to seduce young maidens.

Kvothe's parents are young and are alluded to having sex like maybe twice over a part of the story that lasts over a year. Doesn't sound like horny all the time territory, merely them being sexually active.

The University is made up primarily of young adult/teenage men, who are pretty much universally obsessed with sex as you put it so it makes sense that there would be more call for whores. I think Rothfuss' mention of both that and the excess of taverns was to indicate that the students are real people with real needs, not just machines for learning magic as they are depicted in typical fantasy.

The dance with the trooper seemed like an expy of the stereotypical (at least in the US) wild bachelor party involving strippers.

I think the only reason Kvothe was expected to understand the Lackless poem was because of how precocious he was. No actual child of that age would realize it and even genius Kvothe had to think about it a minute.

In short, I guess there are more allusions to sex than I remembered but I still dont think any of them were egregious. If you didn't like the amount of sexual content in this book be wary of the next, I personally think Rothfuss fell into the trap of "young men like sex, most people who read fantasy are young men, so lets put lots of sex in" which really bothers me and took away from the story.

[Squidmaster]

I'm pretty sure they call the wind Mariah.
I am so sorry

[Themrys]

@Weezer: Thanks for the warning...I only read the first book because I got it as a present, I'll probably not read the second one then.

I don't say the frequency with which sex is mentioned is not realistic. However, I don't want my books to be realistic. I don't really want to know how young men think. :smallwink:

[Eldan]

:smallbiggrin:

Switzerland has a few old university towns. From the few contemporary accounts I've read, it's not too far off the mark.

[warty goblin]

@Weezer: Thanks for the warning...I only read the first book because I got it as a present, I'll probably not read the second one then.

I don't say the frequency with which sex is mentioned is not realistic. However, I don't want my books to be realistic. I don't really want to know how young men think. :smallwink:

It's a good thing you don't work with the people I work with, because you would probably die. My boss for instance occasionally goes around chanting the names of various bits of genitalia.

And that's on a mild night.

[Eldan]

Or an army recruitment. I was only there for two days, but I saw my share.

[Weezer]

I kind of had the same thought as warty goblin, if you cant stand the allusions to sex in The Name of the Wind, how do you survive in our sex obsessed culture?

[druid91]

I kind of had the same thought as warty goblin, if you cant stand the allusions to sex in The Name of the Wind, how do you survive in our sex obsessed culture?

What I find hilarious here is that if it's in a book, and it isn't too bad as in name of the wind or the various anne mcaffrey books, I could care less.

Now people talk about it in real life I dislike it because there are so many other things to do. Strategies to be tried, battles to be won or lost, obstacles to be overcome... yet a decent chunk of my generation of mankind seems content to sit around mating like rabbits for no other purpose than momentary pleasure.:smallsigh:

And people wonder why I want to engineer a robot species...:smallannoyed:

[Themrys]

I kind of had the same thought as warty goblin, if you cant stand the allusions to sex in The Name of the Wind, how do you survive in our sex obsessed culture?

I try to stay away from the sex obsessed people.
And it's not that I couldn't read The Name of the Wind - I have read it. It's just that I don't like it much.

[colonelslime]

I try to stay away from the sex obsessed people.
And it's not that I couldn't read The Name of the Wind - I have read it. It's just that I don't like it much.

I'm much the same way myself. Not necessarily anti-sex, but the focus of it in several parts (as well as it being an explicit piece of the plot in the second book) doesn't endear the narrative to me. I prefer my protagonists to be a little more forward looking than that. I have trouble reading characters who seemed driven by the desire to satiate urges, regardless of what those urges are. I'd rather have a conniving politician than a bloodlusting warrior or sex-crazed scoundrel.

[Kageru]

In the end most things come down to fulfilling your urges, helping othes to fulfill their urges or protecting yourself from things which would make it hard to do the first 2 things (like death).Conniving politicians usually strive for power or something like that. And if they don't want power/money only to have power/money (which reminds me off playing games for the highscore) they will probably use it to fulfill their urges.
Though I guess that going around sleeping with everyone , while fun for the one doing it , doesn't make an interesting story.

Anyway I don't consider Kvothe a sue, sure he is very talented but I don't think that outstanding talent alone makes someone a sue, that would make the term quite meaningless. He has flaws and the flaws do cause him problems. Though you can argue over the definition of a sue so I will just say: I don't think his super learning speed makes the story worse or Kvothe a bad character.

The framing device is interesting. The question "How does he become a barkeeper who can't even beat up 2 soldiers(near the end of book 2) and how does he lose his magic" will keep me reading. Since he beat the 5 spider things he can still fight a bit and he attacked the two solidiers so he probably was able to handle two random thugs in the past. Maybe someone cursed him with suckiness. Maybe he hit his head really hard and can't enter his caster mode anymore. Maybe his actions will somehow damage the whole magic system for everyone (hmm no the chronicler knows the name of iron). Honestly I don't know.
Anyway compared to their length there doesn't happen all that much in the two books. And if you view "find and kill the Seven" as the main story it barely advanced. He briefly saw one of them and got a few informations. He mostly does sidequests and farms some money. But I don't mind that I have read enough books where the focus is one the fight against the big bad and where his years at the university would either end in 100-200 pages or where the whole 2 books would be reduced to a brief backstory.

Edit: Somehow I found the whole man-mother thing extremly irritating. Somehow I just find it hard to believe that a culture doesn't figures out that sex leads to children. I could imagine that such an view could result from a weird religion. But just never noticing that the father has something to do with it? The argument that they don't notice it because they have sex all the time and thus can't notice the corelation between pregnancie and sex is hard to believe. Even if their culture is very sex positive there will be people who don't have sex for a while. (Because of illness, social isolation, being asexual,). And they never notice that a kid looks familiar to his father?(Okay maybe the thing which irritated me the most, was that she answered Kvothes similarity argument with a weak argument about the look of babies. Fictional people bringing arguments which I consider dumb or weak always irritates me because I can't answer myself but have to hope that the other fictional character can argue.)
But it was only a minor topic so I should just ignore it. Probably there was a culture somewhere who thought things like that and I just overerstimate humans.

[warty goblin]

I kind of had the same thought as warty goblin, if you cant stand the allusions to sex in The Name of the Wind, how do you survive in our sex obsessed culture?

Try species, and I suspect you'll be more accurate.



Now people talk about it in real life I dislike it because there are so many other things to do. Strategies to be tried, battles to be won or lost, obstacles to be overcome... yet a decent chunk of my generation of mankind seems content to sit around mating like rabbits for no other purpose than momentary pleasure.:smallsigh:

Like right here you mean, where we're having a completely non-productive discussion about the offensive qualities of a fictional character's sex drive?


This seems a rather hypocritical complaint really; some of us spend our free time hanging out online and yammering about spaceships or using a bunch of dice to pretend to be a wizard, others spend theirs trying to get laid. We're both accomplishing close to nothing in any long term sense, both acting out of what is essentially a pleasure-seeking principle, what is the difference here?

[druid91]

Try species, and I suspect you'll be more accurate.


Like right here you mean, where we're having a completely non-productive discussion about the offensive qualities of a fictional character's sex drive?


This seems a rather hypocritical complaint really; some of us spend our free time hanging out online and yammering about spaceships or using a bunch of dice to pretend to be a wizard, others spend theirs trying to get laid. We're both accomplishing close to nothing in any long term sense, both acting out of what is essentially a pleasure-seeking principle, what is the difference here?

Because, worst case scenario with one is you are told you are a nerd.

The other? You are now a parent, hope you were planning on that.

Either way good luck, I'm gonna be over here rolling my dice and not creating an 18(at the minimum) year long financial, emotional, and physical burden.

[Eldan]

My assumption on Kvothe?


Coming from what Bast said in the first book about Kvothe's disguise being too good, my assumption is actually that, if Kvothe was really motivated, he still could do most of the things he did earlier. But somehow, he just can't get himself to do it. He's a barkeeper now. Barkeepers don't use magic. Or beat up two soldiers with Karate. And he believes that, himself, on enough levels to fail at most tasks.

So, something utterly and totally broke his morale.

[warty goblin]

Because, worst case scenario with one is you are told you are a nerd.

The other? You are now a parent, hope you were planning on that.

Either way good luck, I'm gonna be over here rolling my dice and not creating an 18(at the minimum) year long financial, emotional, and physical burden.

This is a completely different argument than you made before. It also strikes me as directly at odds with your previous statement.

Being a games nerd not only produces nothing but momentary satisfaction (although potentially a lot of that), it is pretty much incapable of resulting in anything more.

Contrast with having a lot of sex. If there's no children, all you've had is a good time, so there's no difference there. If you do end up with a child however, there's an opportunity there to produce a useful, moral and good person. Granted, there's also the potential to do exactly the opposite, but hey, you were the one who thought overcoming challenges was a good thing right?

I've got no problem with people not liking very sexual works of fiction, or not liking sex either, if it comes to that. I also don't care if somebody refuses to read a book without an orgy inside the first fifty pages. I'm a firm believer that a person's sexual choices are, outside of a few fairly basic prohibitions, completely their own business, and exactly none of mine or anyone else's. If however you are going to climb up upon a moral high horse and start judging people based on their sexual preferences, please make sure said horse actually exists first.

[druid91]

This is a completely different argument than you made before. It also strikes me as directly at odds with your previous statement.

Being a games nerd not only produces nothing but momentary satisfaction (although potentially a lot of that), it is pretty much incapable of resulting in anything more.

Contrast with having a lot of sex. If there's no children, all you've had is a good time, so there's no difference there. If you do end up with a child however, there's an opportunity there to produce a useful, moral and good person. Granted, there's also the potential to do exactly the opposite, but hey, you were the one who thought overcoming challenges was a good thing right?

I've got no problem with people not liking very sexual works of fiction, or not liking sex either, if it comes to that. I also don't care if somebody refuses to read a book without an orgy inside the first fifty pages. I'm a firm believer that a person's sexual choices are, outside of a few fairly basic prohibitions, completely their own business, and exactly none of mine or anyone else's. If however you are going to climb up upon a moral high horse and start judging people based on their sexual preferences, please make sure said horse actually exists first.

Actually... Being a games nerd produces a lot. Namely it produces certain skills applicable outside the realm of games. math skills, strategic thinking, acting, a penchant for research, imagination.

In addition you can get quite a few amusing anecdotes that you can tell just about anyone and have a good hope of not embarrasing everyone involved.

Now lets see what you get with sex as a pasttime. Well I suppose you become or are reasonably charismatic to do. Something that a game nerd can also have... You have a decent chance at learning dancing. You might learn food.

And you will certainly have anecdotes. Not that you can tell granny any...

Now As for having a kid being a good challenge. No it's a bad challenge. At least IMO...

But then again I want to build a robot son, and eagerly await the day cybernetics become commonplace... so this argument will be pointless. I won't be convinced, you won't. And I will just come out looking like a lunatic because of poor wording on my part.:smallsmile:

[0Megabyte]

This is getting strange. You dislike the idea of children, find it negative, a "bad challenge," and yet wish to make some robot son, sounding completely serious, as though that will even be possible.

Maybe you just don't like sex. That's okay, of course, if that is truly the problem. Maybe you are too afraid of the risks, and you were "scared straight" too much. Your choice. There is also the possibility of sour grapes being a part in all of this. You know the story, I am sure. A fix tries to get some grapes that are very high up, but fails. He then storms off and says, "bah, they were probably sour anyway."

Now, I don't know, at all, why you dislike sex, or think of it as a waste of time, whereas role-playing isn't. You certainly sound a little bitter, but there are many explanations for that, including my misreading you.

But it is certainly odd. But that itself is no problem. Nobody here wants to convince you to change your mind, me least of all. But, importantly, you go and talk as though other people's interest in sex is a waste of their time. Moreso than pretending to be a wizard or whatever in a role playing game.

You don't get to do that, not really. I mean, you can, but also have a right to point out that this I'd inappropriate. I presume people on this forum don't really like having their pastimes judged by others as a waste. Consider where we are, afterall. I personally got in trouble with a teacher back in middle school for playing d&d, because of such reasons. It's not polite, especially in a forum filled with people arguing why star trek doesn't have working body armor.

I don't know why you find sex a waste if time. But I will never argue it with you. I will, however, mention why I feel it isn't.

Beyond just randomly feeling good, people are generally designed to not just like sex, bur intimacy. We like being with others. We really enjoy being close with others, even when it hurts sometimes. Sex is a healthy and natural part of that. It isn't, hopefully, something done in a vacuum. Presumably you care about the person you do it with. And it helps cement a romantic relationship, and is part of most healthy ones. (waiting for marriage aside, after marriage those who are well adjusted still go at it.). Are there risks? Yes. But there is good there too. You can generally tell if a relationship isn't going so well when sex stops, or people aren't into each other anymore. It's important, which is why this can (but isn't always) be an indicator of how a relationship goes.

Sex with random people doesn't interest me much. Sex with someone I care about? I'd cancel a D&D game, for it is a stronger and more important relationship.

[druid91]

This is getting strange. You dislike the idea of children, find it negative, a "bad challenge," and yet wish to make some robot son, sounding completely serious, as though that will even be possible.

Maybe you just don't like sex. That's okay, of course, if that is truly the problem. Maybe you are too afraid of the risks, and you were "scared straight" too much. Your choice. There is also the possibility of sour grapes being a part in all of this. You know the story, I am sure. A fix tries to get some grapes that are very high up, but fails. He then storms off and says, "bah, they were probably sour anyway."

Now, I don't know, at all, why you dislike sex, or think of it as a waste of time, whereas role-playing isn't. You certainly sound a little bitter, but there are many explanations for that, including my misreading you.

But it is certainly odd. But that itself is no problem. Nobody here wants to convince you to change your mind, me least of all. But, importantly, you go and talk as though other people's interest in sex is a waste of their time. Moreso than pretending to be a wizard or whatever in a role playing game.

You don't get to do that, not really. I mean, you can, but also have a right to point out that this I'd inappropriate. I presume people on this forum don't really like having their pastimes judged by others as a waste. Consider where we are, afterall. I personally got in trouble with a teacher back in middle school for playing d&d, because of such reasons. It's not polite, especially in a forum filled with people arguing why star trek doesn't have working body armor.

I don't know why you find sex a waste if time. But I will never argue it with you. I will, however, mention why I feel it isn't.

Beyond just randomly feeling good, people are generally designed to not just like sex, bur intimacy. We like being with others. We really enjoy being close with others, even when it hurts sometimes. Sex is a healthy and natural part of that. It isn't, hopefully, something done in a vacuum. Presumably you care about the person you do it with. And it helps cement a romantic relationship, and is part of most healthy ones. (waiting for marriage aside, after marriage those who are well adjusted still go at it.). Are there risks? Yes. But there is good there too. You can generally tell if a relationship isn't going so well when sex stops, or people aren't into each other anymore. It's important, which is why this can (but isn't always) be an indicator of how a relationship goes.

Sex with random people doesn't interest me much. Sex with someone I care about? I'd cancel a D&D game, for it is a stronger and more important relationship.

You misunderstand me, not your fault I'm a confusing person, What annoys me is when people talk to me about sex.

If you guys (generic you, not specifically you) want to go out and conversate about how body parts fit together... go ahead. Just don't involve me or I will ignore you until it becomes too much and lash out with a similar tirade as above.

As for sex between someone and the person they love... IMO you wouldn't talk about that. It would be a private thing. Almost sacred.

By my own confusing and complex moral system, if you speak about sex with someone you are insulting/disrespecting them, therefore they are obviously not intended to be a permanent partner. Therefore it follows that they shouldn't be having it to begin with. you don't do something that could have long reaching consequences with someone who you are going to leave in a few months.

[warty goblin]

Actually... Being a games nerd produces a lot. Namely it produces certain skills applicable outside the realm of games. math skills, strategic thinking, acting, a penchant for research, imagination.

I've got a Bachelor's in mathematics with a focus in statistics, and am about to begin a Ph.D. program in the latter subject. I can tell you straight that things I learned gaming have helped so little as to irrelevant in those fields. OK, gaming may have made the first two homework assignments in probability a bit easier, but certainly was irrelevant by the time I got to interesting and powerful stuff.

It certainly hasn't helped me in learning how to research effectively, learn new material, or really anything else. If anything it's been a hindrance, since it has taught me that these should be quick, easy tasks, when they are anything but. (Not to say research isn't fun because working towards understanding an interesting problem is immensely enjoyable. It is however completely different than looking something up in the back of the Player's Hand Book.)


In addition you can get quite a few amusing anecdotes that you can tell just about anyone and have a good hope of not embarrasing everyone involved.
There are only two things as boring as listening to anecdotes about somebody else's hobby if you do not share it: stories about somebody else's dreams, and stories about somebody else getting drunk. Which really is just a specialized case of stories about another person's hobby, albeit with more vomit.


Now lets see what you get with sex as a pasttime. Well I suppose you become or are reasonably charismatic to do. Something that a game nerd can also have... You have a decent chance at learning dancing. You might learn food.
You also get a decent workout and a lot of hormone releases with fairly significant health benefits. And most people aren't utterly promiscuous either, in which case they get to share an intimate, enjoyable thing with somebody they at least like quite a bit. That, for most people, is almost certainly worth more than rolling two crits in a row.


And you will certainly have anecdotes. Not that you can tell granny any...
I think that depends on the granny in question. I'm certainly no more likely to bore mine silly with stories of how I killed a non-existent ogre as I am to embarrass her with details of my sex life.


Now As for having a kid being a good challenge. No it's a bad challenge. At least IMO...

But then again I want to build a robot son, and eagerly await the day cybernetics become commonplace... so this argument will be pointless. I won't be convinced, you won't. And I will just come out looking like a lunatic because of poor wording on my part.:smallsmile:
Yours is, I feel confident in saying, a minority view.

[Corvus]

I have to admit to being one of those who didn't understand the hype. It was a decent book, but not great. It also didn't make me really interested in reading the second book.

And the name Kvothe? Are most people expected to know how to pronounce that?

[druid91]

I have to admit to being one of those who didn't understand the hype. It was a decent book, but not great. It also didn't make me really interested in reading the second book.

And the name Kvothe? Are most people expected to know how to pronounce that?

Actually no, He says how to pronounce it early on. It's like quothe.
I always pronounced with a very short k.


kv= almost an f sound

and then othe= like oath.

[Corvus]

It has been a while since I read it - so I'd forgotten the explanation about how to pronounce it.

Names like that are one of the things that bug me about fantasy from time to time...

[colonelslime]

Just my two cents for warty goblin...

A strong ability of self-control is paramount to my conception of maturity in a person. It's not that gaming is any better a hobby than sex. It's that I find people who indulge in either to extremes (and I have seen such, personally I cannot stand to spend as much time rp'ing as some of my friends do) immature, and characters who seem too free to indulge without a long-term view to their goals are hard for me to enjoy. The whole part with Felurian (I'm into the second book now) just isn't my cup-of-tea when it comes to character development. I'm also a person who finds romance a hard thing to care about, and sometimes find it really annoying when characters emote and wax poetic about their love troubles, when a well-reasoned, rational solution to their problems is waiting under their noses. I just have a feeling something like this is going to come up in the Kingkiller trilogy.

My enjoyment of the book has been tempered by the above, but that doesn't mean other people can't still enjoy it for what it is.

And I'm so rational and logical that my own family has sometimes told me I must have no emotion or empathy, so take my assessment with a grain of salt.

[Hadessniper]

Oh, and the dirty song about Lady Lackless (that's the German name, don't know the English one) , which Kvothe was expected to understand and therefore not sing. At that age, I wouldn't have understood what was meant...now, however, I perfectly understand why the song is dirty.

Minor spoilers from book two.

Kvothe's mother isn't really upset because it's a dirty song, she's upset because Lady Lackless was her mother.

[warty goblin]

Just my two cents for warty goblin...

A strong ability of self-control is paramount to my conception of maturity in a person. It's not that gaming is any better a hobby than sex. It's that I find people who indulge in either to extremes (and I have seen such, personally I cannot stand to spend as much time rp'ing as some of my friends do) immature, and characters who seem too free to indulge without a long-term view to their goals are hard for me to enjoy. The whole part with Felurian (I'm into the second book now) just isn't my cup-of-tea when it comes to character development. I'm also a person who finds romance a hard thing to care about, and sometimes find it really annoying when characters emote and wax poetic about their love troubles, when a well-reasoned, rational solution to their problems is waiting under their noses. I just have a feeling something like this is going to come up in the Kingkiller trilogy.

My enjoyment of the book has been tempered by the above, but that doesn't mean other people can't still enjoy it for what it is.

And I'm so rational and logical that my own family has sometimes told me I must have no emotion or empathy, so take my assessment with a grain of salt.
I suspect I more or less agree with you on the self-control thing; excesses of anything tend towards unhealthiness. And excessive sex is almost certainly more damaging than excessive gaming. There's a certain sort of smugly superior a (or perhaps more accurately) anti-sexuality however that irritates me no end.

Not that I have anything against asexuality, or people not liking sex in their media or conversation. As I said before, that's entirely personal preference on a matter that is subject to little else. Others however do like such elements in their lives, conversations and media, and I think this deserves the same respect that the former position does. For reasons of basic courtesy, one should of course tend towards keeping all things sexual from one's conversation when in any formal, business or non-personal setting, but there is nothing a priori wrong with their discussion or enjoyment. That's the position against which I was arguing.

[Helanna]

By my own confusing and complex moral system, if you speak about sex with someone you are insulting/disrespecting them, therefore they are obviously not intended to be a permanent partner. Therefore it follows that they shouldn't be having it to begin with. you don't do something that could have long reaching consequences with someone who you are going to leave in a few months.

Yes, but that's your moral system, and I suspect most people don't share it. For most people, talking about having sex with someone isn't insulting (unless they mean it to be), and has no bearing on whether they're a permanent partner or not. You can't say "You shouldn't be having sex if you're going to talk about it because that's insulting and you'll break up!" when neither of the people involved think that it is.


Minor spoilers from book two.

Kvothe's mother isn't really upset because it's a dirty song, she's upset because Lady Lackless was her mother.

Well, technically that's still speculation.

. . . Okay, I can't see that little plotline going anywhere else, but you never know. :smalltongue:

[0Megabyte]

I have to agree with wartygoblin here... but then I would, since I said the exact same thing a few posts ago! :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, on to a few responses:


You misunderstand me, not your fault I'm a confusing person, What annoys me is when people talk to me about sex.

If you guys (generic you, not specifically you) want to go out and conversate about how body parts fit together... go ahead. Just don't involve me or I will ignore you until it becomes too much and lash out with a similar tirade as above.

As for sex between someone and the person they love... IMO you wouldn't talk about that. It would be a private thing. Almost sacred.

By my own confusing and complex moral system, if you speak about sex with someone you are insulting/disrespecting them, therefore they are obviously not intended to be a permanent partner. Therefore it follows that they shouldn't be having it to begin with. you don't do something that could have long reaching consequences with someone who you are going to leave in a few months.


You're not a confusing person, and your moral system is neither confusing nor complex, really.

What you are is unclear. I'd recommend reading The Elements of Style by Strunk and White to help with that. Great book, very short.

As for part one: The fact that you dislike that people talk to you about sex.

You have every right to not be interested. It's kind of silly to feel like those people have better things to do, though. You don't want to talk about it? Just say you aren't interested. To be fair, there are people I won't talk about personal matters with either, so avoiding subjects with people you don't wish to talk to them about isn't foreign to me.

However, in your statements about there being so many better things to do, you sound snobby, as though you dismiss the importance of sexual thoughts and feelings. I will argue that these things are important, and worth a lot of the time we put into them. The fact that it bothers you enough to lash out in some sort of snobby way is strange, honestly. Most people don't belittle a concept when they're bored of it, after all.

They might say something like "I just don't care about your sex life! Stop talking to me about it, it's boring, and you're being boring!" As another poster pointed out, hearing about hobbies you don't share can get quite boring. I had this one friend, a chick, who would never shut up about Dr. Who. I just did not care.

So yes, you are within your rights to not care. But lashing out at the whole concept is right out, in any sort of civil setting. It's strange why you do so, in a matter that sounds like criticizing the concept.

Three: Here's where the lack of clarity comes in. There are two seemingly valid ways to interpret your last paragraphs, which both have advantages and disadvantages.

Interpretation One: It's disrespectful to talk about the sex you're having to a person not involved.

Interpretation Two: It's disrespectful to talk about sex with the person you are in a relationship with.

Both of these interpretations have issues which require addressing, and neither of them are complex nor confusing. They do, however, require believing certain premises that I may not hold, depending on the situation.

Before I continue, I'd prefer to know which of these two interpretations is correct, or if there is another interpretation that was less clear that I am not listing.

Of course, I assume your viewpoint is more complicated than the one sentence maxims given in any case, as most peoples' are.

[The_JJ]

A strong ability of self-control is paramount to my conception of maturity in a person.

While I find that an interesting yardstick, part of the point here is that Kvothe is around 17 as these events are unfolding and has received nothing near a normalized upbringing. He is, in many ways, very immature. I see arguments bemoaning Sueish next bopping up next to arguments highlighting his flaws. Perhaps we can bring the two parties into accordance.

I will note that at times the narration fails to directly condemn young!Kvothe's actions, but a. I prefer a narrative that allows me to size up my take on such actions, as it allows me to build a far more nuanced view of said characters via show not tell, as opposed to being handed easily identifiable caricatures. B. the character arc is definitely setting us up for a fall from great heights, some of which, no doubt, will involve taking a hubris hammer to the face. I anticipate the catharsis gladly.


... characters who seem too free to indulge without a long-term view to their goals are hard for me to enjoy.

Ah, but is that not the meaning of life? :smallcool: (Throw away comment on the Hedonist philosophy)


I'm also a person who finds romance a hard thing to care about, and sometimes find it really annoying when characters emote and wax poetic about their love troubles,

Ahahaha. Not to worry. Odds are sometime soon you'll find someone who changes your view on this. Doesn't make anything any smarter or saner, but it's easier to understand the sentiment.


when a well-reasoned, rational solution to their problems is waiting under their noses. I just have a feeling something like this is going to come up in the Kingkiller trilogy. More than a feeling. It's been going on about since Kvothe first started talking to Denna. The trick here is that we're seeing it through the lens of the framing device, so there's a lot of dramatic irony surrounding young!Kvothe. He is simply not cognizant of many of the facts barkeep!Kvothe is relaying. Barkeep!Kvothe, at least, has his head on his shoulders.


And I'm so rational and logical that my own family has sometimes told me I must have no emotion or empathy, so take my assessment with a grain of salt.

*high five* You and me both kid. They called me 'Spock' and 'our pet Vulcan.' Just learn to decouple yourself from the narrative and enjoy.

[druid91]

Yes, but that's your moral system, and I suspect most people don't share it. For most people, talking about having sex with someone isn't insulting (unless they mean it to be), and has no bearing on whether they're a permanent partner or not. You can't say "You shouldn't be having sex if you're going to talk about it because that's insulting and you'll break up!" when neither of the people involved think that it is.

No, but I can say "I don't want to talk about this, it's disrespectful. Go blow something up, or build something, or play a game."


I have to agree with wartygoblin here... but then I would, since I said the exact same thing a few posts ago! :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, on to a few responses:




You're not a confusing person, and your moral system is neither confusing nor complex, really.

What you are is unclear. I'd recommend reading The Elements of Style by Strunk and White to help with that. Great book, very short.

As for part one: The fact that you dislike that people talk to you about sex.

You have every right to not be interested. It's kind of silly to feel like those people have better things to do, though. You don't want to talk about it? Just say you aren't interested. To be fair, there are people I won't talk about personal matters with either, so avoiding subjects with people you don't wish to talk to them about isn't foreign to me.

However, in your statements about there being so many better things to do, you sound snobby, as though you dismiss the importance of sexual thoughts and feelings. I will argue that these things are important, and worth a lot of the time we put into them. The fact that it bothers you enough to lash out in some sort of snobby way is strange, honestly. Most people don't belittle a concept when they're bored of it, after all.

They might say something like "I just don't care about your sex life! Stop talking to me about it, it's boring, and you're being boring!" As another poster pointed out, hearing about hobbies you don't share can get quite boring. I had this one friend, a chick, who would never shut up about Dr. Who. I just did not care.

So yes, you are within your rights to not care. But lashing out at the whole concept is right out, in any sort of civil setting. It's strange why you do so, in a matter that sounds like criticizing the concept.

Three: Here's where the lack of clarity comes in. There are two seemingly valid ways to interpret your last paragraphs, which both have advantages and disadvantages.

Interpretation One: It's disrespectful to talk about the sex you're having to a person not involved.

Interpretation Two: It's disrespectful to talk about sex with the person you are in a relationship with.

Both of these interpretations have issues which require addressing, and neither of them are complex nor confusing. They do, however, require believing certain premises that I may not hold, depending on the situation.

Before I continue, I'd prefer to know which of these two interpretations is correct, or if there is another interpretation that was less clear that I am not listing.

Of course, I assume your viewpoint is more complicated than the one sentence maxims given in any case, as most peoples' are.

Interpretation one, it is disrespectful of someone who shared a private moment with you, revealed weakness to you, etc...

You don't put what happens in private in the public.

Give no information, ask none. To have the feelings and thoughts is one thing, to expess them to someone on the outside is wrong. If you are talking to me about it, you have better things to be doing as far as I'm concerned.

[The_JJ]

No, but I can say "I don't want to talk about this, it's disrespectful. Go blow something up, or build something, or play a game."



Interpretation one, it is disrespectful of someone who shared a private moment with you, revealed weakness to you, etc...

You don't put what happens in private in the public.

Give no information, ask none. To have the feelings and thoughts is one thing, to expess them to someone on the outside is wrong. If you are talking to me about it, you have better things to be doing as far as I'm concerned.

So there's a bit of "Don't kiss and tell," but it's modified as not 'because that's not fair to your kissee' but rather 'not fair to you the listener?'

[druid91]

So there's a bit of "Don't kiss and tell," but it's modified as not 'because that's not fair to your kissee' but rather 'not fair to you the listener?'

Nope, it's the first one..


To spell it out plainly,

It is disrespectful to yourself, and to your partner to talk about it, medical circumstances aside.

I don't want to listen to it. So therefore IMO they should be doing something else.

Anyway this is a massive Derail, if you wish to continue this discussion let's take it to the PM's.

[The_JJ]

To spell it out plainly, This is good.


It is disrespectful to yourself, and to your partner to talk about it, medical circumstances aside.

I'd certainly agree that it's not something you'd do without consent of the other partner, but in the real world I find there's a gradation of acceptable familiarity between parties involved and details of discussion I find acceptable.


I don't want to listen to it. So therefore IMO they should be doing something else.

This is the second thing I said. Is it both?


Anyway this is a massive Derail, if you wish to continue this discussion let's take it to the PM's.

Eh. It's a related topic, and the main thread ain't exactly bumping.

[0Megabyte]

I don't think you're the one to judge what they should be doing, other than not doing something that makes you uncomfortable.

I will say that while I understand your concerns, and there are aspects of it I can get behind, ("oh yeah, I totally banged that chick" type things can be annoying, after all) you certainly take things in an interestingly condescending direction.

I don't see how you got to decide which feelings a person ought to express, for example. You don't like hearing about it? Great, tell people you don't enjoy it and to please change the subject, because you don't care. That is valid.

But to arbitrarily decide that an entire range of human interactions are completely taboo, and to show disrespect towards people who don't hold to your idiosyncratic morality is, well... rather weird.

"I slept with this person, but I think I made a mistake. I don't care for them as much as I thought, and I was lonely. What am I supposed to do?"

"I'm gay, and people have been telling me it's wrong to be my whole life, but I just don't feel that way towards those of the opposite sex. But, now that I did it with my girl/boyfriend, I can't get their words out of my head. I feel guilty about it, I feel dirty. What should I do?"

"My girlfriend is pregnant, and she says it's mine, but it might not be. I'm really nervous about it."

"My fiance and I stopped having sex recently. She seems fine most of the time, but she seems more and more distant, and she's refused to be as close to me as she used to be. Whenever I try to initiate things she gets mad, and makes me out to be the bad guy."

"My boyfriend is completely uncaring about me. During sex he hurts me, and just says he's sorry, but then goes on to continue doing what he was doing the next time. *cries*"

People have feelings on their relationships. Sex is a huge part of their relationships. It's not healthy, and not good to have to be silent on such matters. It is all fine and dandy that you don't want to hear it. But you do not get to judge them for not adhering to your philosophy, anymore than a Jew can judge a gentile for eating pork.

It is not them who are being disrespectful.

As it is, there ARE ways to talk about sex which are disrespectful.

"I totally banged that hot chick last night!"

"I could get her in bed with me if I felt like it. I think I might."

"Man, you should have seen what my girlfriend did last night! That trick was amaaaaaazing! Let me tell you..."

Etc. The point is, talking about it in and of itself is not disrespectful. It's actually disrespecting someone that is disrespectful!

[druid91]

This is good.



I'd certainly agree that it's not something you'd do without consent of the other partner, but in the real world I find there's a gradation of acceptable familiarity between parties involved and details of discussion I find acceptable.



This is the second thing I said. Is it both?



Eh. It's a related topic, and the main thread ain't exactly bumping.

No, it's not both.

Since it's a pretty safe bet you think murder is bad... Not that I am comparing the severety. Just the basic principal.

Say hypothetically I did not, and another person did not, We told you this. And then began a brutal attempt to end the other.

Would you just sit there and watch? Because we thought it was ok? Or would you stop us and try to tell us it's not ok?

That feeling is how I feel, To me they are doing something wrong and disrespectful. It would be wrong to just act like it's ok.


I don't think you're the one to judge what they should be doing, other than not doing something that makes you uncomfortable.

I will say that while I understand your concerns, and there are aspects of it I can get behind, ("oh yeah, I totally banged that chick" type things can be annoying, after all) you certainly take things in an interestingly condescending direction.

I don't see how you got to decide which feelings a person ought to express, for example. You don't like hearing about it? Great, tell people you don't enjoy it and to please change the subject, because you don't care. That is valid.

But to arbitrarily decide that an entire range of human interactions are completely taboo, and to show disrespect towards people who don't hold to your idiosyncratic morality is, well... rather weird.

"I slept with this person, but I think I made a mistake. I don't care for them as much as I thought, and I was lonely. What am I supposed to do?"

"I'm gay, and people have been telling me it's wrong to be my whole life, but I just don't feel that way towards those of the opposite sex. But, now that I did it with my girl/boyfriend, I can't get their words out of my head. I feel guilty about it, I feel dirty. What should I do?"

"My girlfriend is pregnant, and she says it's mine, but it might not be. I'm really nervous about it."

"My fiance and I stopped having sex recently. She seems fine most of the time, but she seems more and more distant, and she's refused to be as close to me as she used to be. Whenever I try to initiate things she gets mad, and makes me out to be the bad guy."

"My boyfriend is completely uncaring about me. During sex he hurts me, and just says he's sorry, but then goes on to continue doing what he was doing the next time. *cries*"

People have feelings on their relationships. Sex is a huge part of their relationships. It's not healthy, and not good to have to be silent on such matters. It is all fine and dandy that you don't want to hear it. But you do not get to judge them for not adhering to your philosophy, anymore than a Jew can judge a gentile for eating pork.

It is not them who are being disrespectful.

As it is, there ARE ways to talk about sex which are disrespectful.

"I totally banged that hot chick last night!"

"I could get her in bed with me if I felt like it. I think I might."

"Man, you should have seen what my girlfriend did last night! That trick was amaaaaaazing! Let me tell you..."

Etc. The point is, talking about it in and of itself is not disrespectful. It's actually disrespecting someone that is disrespectful!

I never said they couldn't, only that I rather they wouldn't.

People have ignored my strange morals before and they proabably will again. If anything the condescending tone is their because of the fact that they ignored me, and in a few cases went out of their way to talk around me.

As for your hypothetical scenarios... one is something it'd be best to think about yourself. and the others fall under medical. Either psychological or physical something is wrong.

As for not being able to judge someone, I can. I do. Everyone does. Would you tell a blabbermouthed friend a secret? Would you ask a forgetful friend to remember something? Would you ask a clumsy friend to carry something breakable?

I observe a trait I dislike, I may or may not comment on it. In fact despite the fact that I talk here on the boards, I mostly zone out and ignore things IRL.

[The_JJ]

No, it's not both.

Since it's a pretty safe bet you think murder is bad... Not that I am comparing the severety. Just the basic principal.

Say hypothetically I did not, and another person did not, We told you this. And then began a brutal attempt to end the other.

Would you just sit there and watch? Because we thought it was ok? Or would you stop us and try to tell us it's not ok?

That feeling is how I feel, To me they are doing something wrong and disrespectful. It would be wrong to just act like it's ok.

To conflate every difference of opinion you have with another to the level of a life or death struggle over the morality of murder is, in itself, an unacceptable level of self centered, self righteousnesses that does, indeed, cross the line between 'live and let live' and 'attempt corrective behavior via applied peer pressure.' Because, you know, internet, procrastinating blahdeeblahdeeblah. In short, "this feeling is how I feel," is insufficient justification for assuming the moral high ground and application of judgement.
Translation: I think you might be right, but would like to see more justification.
To that end:

Application of Rational Thought to Morality, to Create Justification of 'feelings':
What, exactly, down at the roots of your morality, is it about open discussion of sexuality you find so threatening?

Confirming the Bounds of the Dispute:
What level of discussion is and is not taboo. Would informing an interested party that I am currently in an exclusive arrangement with a third party be unacceptable? Does acknowledgement of romantic feelings toward one person to aforementioned person's friend in an attempt to sound out acceptability of advance in that direction, and in the interest of avoiding 'things getting weird' constitute a grave violation?

Since I can't actually sit here thinking up hypothetical, and in the interest of furthering understanding of the specifics of your argument, perhaps you could offer a definitive delineation on acceptability.

[0Megabyte]

This is the basis of tolerance:

Believing someone else is wrong is common. Many of of them believe things you do and feel are morally wrong, just as you find their actions morally wrong. There are several solutions to this problem:

One is for one side to force the others to follow their morals. The other is to live and let live.

Telling people that they have something better to do, and sneering at them, leans towards the first. Telling them you aren't interested, you aren't comfortable, please stop, leans towards the second.

As long as one is not hurting another person, one should live and let live. After all... you don't want them interfering with your life for things that aren't hurting anyone, do you?

Addendum: You have strange definitions of medical. None of them were about medical problems, all of the examples in the first set were purely about relationships. I'm curious which one is "something one should think of themselves," and is thus not something one should tell another person.

[colonelslime]

No, it's not both.

Since it's a pretty safe bet you think murder is bad... Not that I am comparing the severety. Just the basic principal.

Say hypothetically I did not, and another person did not, We told you this. And then began a brutal attempt to end the other.

Would you just sit there and watch? Because we thought it was ok? Or would you stop us and try to tell us it's not ok?

That feeling is how I feel, To me they are doing something wrong and disrespectful. It would be wrong to just act like it's ok.

Now you're falling into moral relativism though. What if I, and my society, think murder is hunky-dorey? The major problem with any morality system (or logic, cursed be the universe) is that nothing is self-proving. I spent a lot of time reading ethics philosophy trying to see if I could come to some personal framework for deriving my moral feelings (I am weird). Immanuel Kant is my current favourite. But yeah, the harm principle is usually what I use in general. If it does not negatively impact me, the person doing the act, or a third party, what right do I have to complain? And if it doesn't affect me, why would I care?

Back on the main topic, I was just thinking that the framing narrative really is what makes Kvothe a good character. Every time I read his past self, he just screams sue to me (honestly, Felurian and the Fae are a little much; as I read through that part, I at several points felt like I was reading bad fanfiction) despite the flaws that sometimes hamper him. But knowing that he will get humbled has eased my ire alot. I'm just wondering If anyone else feels the same way.

[The_JJ]

Felurian and the Fae are a little much.

Basically, yeah, without that wonderful frame I'da dropped this one before his parents got offed (though, had I reached it, that mighta kept me on board until he reached the Acadamy). Felurian could've been cut down to capture, learned, (in a few brief sentences) what he needed to, and then had him snap out and Name the Wind. And run into the Doom Tree. And get the shiny presents, but in a slightly more succinct manner. I'm one of nature's editors.

And I'm hoping all that swordtraining comes up later so it wasn't all just to make him cooler.

[0Megabyte]

To be fair about the sword training. He still kinda sucks at it. I never saw him as an expert, since it takes years, since childhood especially, to become truly skilled with something like that. Even Kvothe isn't that good, and it shows. He can sometimes defeat an 11 year old girl who has been trained in this art. He managed to touch the chick who hated him once in his little duel, and this was an accomplishment. He also managed to parry some blows, but was clearly outmatched. The fact is, he might be more competent in a bar fight, but he's no super-swordsman, even at the end of all of that. He's probably not even great. But he learned enough to defeat a few drugged people, and still had a little trouble with one such drugged person, so I really don't see how that part is at all sue-ish. He had a little trouble with a guy who was drugged, for goodness' sake! :smallbiggrin:

[druid91]

To conflate every difference of opinion you have with another to the level of a life or death struggle over the morality of murder is, in itself, an unacceptable level of self centered, self righteousnesses that does, indeed, cross the line between 'live and let live' and 'attempt corrective behavior via applied peer pressure.' Because, you know, internet, procrastinating blahdeeblahdeeblah. In short, "this feeling is how I feel," is insufficient justification for assuming the moral high ground and application of judgement.
Translation: I think you might be right, but would like to see more justification.
To that end:

Application of Rational Thought to Morality, to Create Justification of 'feelings':
What, exactly, down at the roots of your morality, is it about open discussion of sexuality you find so threatening?

Confirming the Bounds of the Dispute:
What level of discussion is and is not taboo. Would informing an interested party that I am currently in an exclusive arrangement with a third party be unacceptable? Does acknowledgement of romantic feelings toward one person to aforementioned person's friend in an attempt to sound out acceptability of advance in that direction, and in the interest of avoiding 'things getting weird' constitute a grave violation?

Since I can't actually sit here thinking up hypothetical, and in the interest of furthering understanding of the specifics of your argument, perhaps you could offer a definitive delineation on acceptability.

What open discussion causes is it ruins the closeness. If you are just going to let everyone into that room with you, even to the lesser degree of merely hearing about it... instead of something that you shared with the person, it's something you and the person shared with everyone who hears.

That's alright, saying you are claimed is one thing, asking a friend if they might be interested in going out with you is as well. Talking about what happens in the bedroom is unnaceptable, except in extreme circumstance.

If it's necessary go ahead.


This is the basis of tolerance:

Believing someone else is wrong is common. Many of of them believe things you do and feel are morally wrong, just as you find their actions morally wrong. There are several solutions to this problem:

One is for one side to force the others to follow their morals. The other is to live and let live.

Telling people that they have something better to do, and sneering at them, leans towards the first. Telling them you aren't interested, you aren't comfortable, please stop, leans towards the second.

As long as one is not hurting another person, one should live and let live. After all... you don't want them interfering with your life for things that aren't hurting anyone, do you?

Addendum: You have strange definitions of medical. None of them were about medical problems, all of the examples in the first set were purely about relationships. I'm curious which one is "something one should think of themselves," and is thus not something one should tell another person.

It was the first, what they should do if they don't care as much as they thought. Which is why you hesitate, you wait. A slow spiral towards one another... But I suppose not everyone has my insane patience.

Anyway, as I said, normally I ignore the offending person. Not like cold shoulder ignore but act like they hadn't spoken about sex.
If they push it I might say something along the lines of "I don't talk about that." Usually people don't push it. Now if it's someone I'm really good friends with, they might get more.

It helps when your six foot tall and creepy. :smallwink:

And no a couple were psychological, one was abuse, which falls on the same level.

[Kageru]

It's not my place to tell you how to make your moral rules, but I think one should avoid generalizing personal preferences to rules for everyone. What you consider private others don't. If you think not talking about something is necessary for closeness, it doesn't mean that it will destroy the closeness for others (who might view relationships quite differently from you). Disrespectful is another quite subjektiv thing, if both/all partners in a relationship consider talking about their sex life as acceptable or normal to whom exactly is it disrespectful?
I think considering such things rules instead off mere preferences only serves to annoy oneself and others. Oneself because it's more annoying to see others break those "rules" if you consider them something which everyone should follow and others well I don't think I have to explain how it could be annoying (though only if you tell them about it).
Just my two cents.

Hmm maybe I should say somethign about the actual topic^^Concerning Felurian, I don't mind that they had much sex and that he mentioned it several time. It's a sex goddess I would have been surprised if that hadn't been their favorite pastime. The problem for me was that felurian was quite boring. She seemed kinda like a human who happens to have a sex appeal super power. She wasn't different and mysterious nor was she witty(which isn't an inhuman trait, but good banter would have entertained me). I didn't find that arc all that long, but it wasn't very interesting.

[warty goblin]

What open discussion causes is it ruins the closeness. If you are just going to let everyone into that room with you, even to the lesser degree of merely hearing about it... instead of something that you shared with the person, it's something you and the person shared with everyone who hears.

For you, sure that's fine. It's absolutely your right to not discuss your sex life. It is absolutely not your right to restrict the speech of others merely because you disagree with it, and that's what you are doing here.

Put simply, you know neither me nor my (hypothetical) partner. While discussing your sex life may be bad for it, it very well may be good for ours. Perhaps we're a tad exhibitionist, and describing such things to a willing audience is exciting. Perhaps I'm having trouble satisfying my partner, and want to ask for advise. Perhaps we're simply uninhibited, and don't care what other people know about us. That is our call to make, not yours.


That's alright, saying you are claimed is one thing, asking a friend if they might be interested in going out with you is as well. Talking about what happens in the bedroom is unnaceptable, except in extreme circumstance.

If it's necessary go ahead.
Again, unacceptable to you. Last I checked however being unacceptable to one person is not a reason for society wide censure. Unless you've got compelling evidence that it causes actual harm, this strikes me as less a reasoned stance, and more a gut reaction to something that makes you uncomfortable.

[druid91]

For you, sure that's fine. It's absolutely your right to not discuss your sex life. It is absolutely not your right to restrict the speech of others merely because you disagree with it, and that's what you are doing here.

Put simply, you know neither me nor my (hypothetical) partner. While discussing your sex life may be bad for it, it very well may be good for ours. Perhaps we're a tad exhibitionist, and describing such things to a willing audience is exciting. Perhaps I'm having trouble satisfying my partner, and want to ask for advise. Perhaps we're simply uninhibited, and don't care what other people know about us. That is our call to make, not yours.


Again, unacceptable to you. Last I checked however being unacceptable to one person is not a reason for society wide censure. Unless you've got compelling evidence that it causes actual harm, this strikes me as less a reasoned stance, and more a gut reaction to something that makes you uncomfortable.

I have never once said that everyone should do so, Merely that I'd prefer they do so with someone not me.

It'd be nice if everyone followed my morals, but it ain't going to happen. So I content myself with not getting involved.

Yes it irritates me, but I have self control. I don't have the time nor inclination to try and change people.

[0Megabyte]

It'd be nice if everyone followed my morals...

No, actually, it wouldn't. Not any more than it would be nice if everyone avoided pork, for example.

[druid91]

No, actually, it wouldn't. Not any more than it would be nice if everyone avoided pork, for example.

Why not?

From a vegitarians point of view that would be nice.

To me it would be nice.

[0Megabyte]

I am not a vegetarian. That is why it wouldn't be nice. I enjoy eating pork, and some arbitrary law against it (barring religious reasons) would be unnecessarily antagonistic to my desires and freedoms, for no public benefit other than your or a vegetarian's personal pleasure.

How about banning the "waste if time" that table top RPGs are, to some? It would make those people happy, afterall. From their viewpoint it is immoral to play such games. Why shouldn't they get to impose their morality on you?

Hint: same reason it is wrong for your morality to be placed on someone else who has not agreed to it.

[druid91]

I am not a vegetarian. That is why it wouldn't be nice. I enjoy eating pork, and some arbitrary law against it (barring religious reasons) would be unnecessarily antagonistic to my desires and freedoms, for no public benefit other than your or a vegetarian's personal pleasure.

How about banning the "waste if time" that table top RPGs are, to some? It would make those people happy, afterall. From their viewpoint it is immoral to play such games. Why shouldn't they get to impose their morality on you?

Hint: same reason it is wrong for your morality to be placed on someone else who has not agreed to it.

... Either you aren't listening, are misunderstanding me, or you are deliberatly antagonizing me.

I said, that it would be nice if everyone shared my morality. Not it would be nice if I could force everyone to go along with it whether they like it or not.

They don't. In fact many are the exact opposite, So I must content myself with not participating.

[Helanna]

Yes it irritates me, but I have self control. I don't have the time nor inclination to try and change people.

I think this is your major problem here. You sound kind of condescending, like your way is obviously correct and everyone else should definitely change, you just don't have the time to convince them of that. I'm pretty sure you don't mean to be, but that's how it's coming off.

Also, at first I thought you did mean that no one should do it because you personally thought it was wrong, but you cleared that up. I agree that if it's making you uncomfortable, people should be polite enough not to talk about it to you.

[druid91]

I think this is your major problem here. You sound kind of condescending, like your way is obviously correct and everyone else should definitely change, you just don't have the time to convince them of that. I'm pretty sure you don't mean to be, but that's how it's coming off.

Also, at first I thought you did mean that no one should do it because you personally thought it was wrong, but you cleared that up. I agree that if it's making you uncomfortable, people should be polite enough not to talk about it to you.

I believe myself to be right, otherwise why would I continue believing the way I do?:smallconfused:

It follows that if I believe myself right, then they must be wrong. Now, I don't think like them. So I don't know whether it's right for them or not.

All I have is myself as a point of reference. To me they are wrong. And in my experience, many have believed me wrong and tried to convince me otherwise.

[warty goblin]

I believe myself to be right, otherwise why would I continue believing the way I do?:smallconfused:

It follows that if I believe myself right, then they must be wrong. Now, I don't think like them. So I don't know whether it's right for them or not.

All I have is myself as a point of reference. To me they are wrong. And in my experience, many have believed me wrong and tried to convince me otherwise.

Only if you accept the premise that this is a matter for which universal truth exists. This strikes me as an extremely poor assumption. Logical results are entirely dependent on your starting point. Thus they may only correctly be extended to other areas with the same starting conditions.

Given this, one must then assume that all humans are sufficiently homogeneous in their sexuality that a single set of true assumptions* governs all human sexual actions; further that this set is specific enough to justify your result. Spending a reasonable amount of time observing humans with some degree of distance and objectivity would tend, I think, to put the lie to this.

Even granted that however, one must further grant that you have, somehow, stumbled upon the one correct answer out of all possible answers. Now I'm fairly certain most people think this to some degree or other. However we are also humble enough to entertain the possibility that we are wrong. Thus we are content to see other views as different, and not to our preference, but not ours to call out as universally wrong.

This seems to me to be the shape of why we are arguing against you. Firstly you suppose a universal truth which may not exist; and secondly that you have this truth and therefore all others are wrong. While logical, it is so only in a shallow way; without a rigorous justification for this belief (that must show both the existence of a universal truth and the correctness of your result) it is woefully incomplete. Without this justification, or a acknowledgement of its absence, your views appear as personal preference and bias transparently masquerading as empirical truth.


*Obviously one has to slightly extend the idea of true assumption here to include things like 'activity X is harmful.' This should not present a problem however, as it's easily done and, modulo one's definition of harmful, still creates a system of boolean statements.

[The_JJ]

Essentially, yes. You assume a position of moral authority without sufficient justification. Regardless of your actual desire to enforce the assumption of that position offends.

'It's the way I feel' or 'I think it's right' is not sufficient justification for 'therefore it's okay to consider everything else wrong.' You see, this closes out the possibility of you being incorrect. You become right because you are right, others become wrong because they are wrong. Such thinking breeds insulation, intolerance, and arrogance.

Again, I do not wholly disagree with you; there are boundaries in the bedroom I personally feel ought to be respected, secrets that should not necessarily be shared.

However, your failure to properly defend these points while simultaneously assuming an attitude of inherent superiority is upsetting.

[Knaight]

Only if you accept the premise that this is a matter for which universal truth exists. This strikes me as an extremely poor assumption. Logical results are entirely dependent on your starting point. Thus they may only correctly be extended to other areas with the same starting conditions.

Given this, one must then assume that all humans are sufficiently homogeneous in their sexuality that a single set of true assumptions governs all human sexual actions; further that this set is specific enough to justify your result. Spending a reasonable amount of time observing humans with some degree of distance and objectivity would tend, I think, to put the lie to this.
I'd go so far as to say that there is a fundamental flaw in the reasoning. The objection made has consistently been one of sharing being disrespectful to those who are having their private information shared. Which means that it is not sex that is relevant, merely the respect of other people. In short, it is dependent entirely upon the importance of privacy in one aspect, to one person, as contrasted to whatever motivation exists to share that information.

Even granted that however, one must further grant that you have, somehow, stumbled upon the one correct answer out of all possible answers. Now I'm fairly certain most people think this to some degree or other. However we are also humble enough to entertain the possibility that we are wrong. Thus we are content to see other views as different, and not to our preference, but not ours to call out as universally wrong.

This seems to me to be the shape of why we are arguing against you. Firstly you suppose a universal truth which may not exist; and secondly that you have this truth and therefore all others are wrong. While logical, it is so only in a shallow way; without a rigorous justification for this belief (that must show both the existence of a universal truth and the correctness of your result) it is woefully incomplete. Without this justification, or a acknowledgement of its absence, your views appear as personal preference and bias transparently masquerading as empirical truth.
However, there are cases where it makes sense to believe one right and others wrong as a result, and morality falls within this. One might believe that people do not have the right to deliberately harm each other to a certain degree, thus they would consider their position right over one which makes exceptions for certain groups of people. How this manifests specifically have huge variance, nonetheless that others are fundamentally wrong is a part of it.

Even more obvious is data detached from morality. If someone believes that acceleration due to gravity on earth is 5 m/s2 considering them fundamentally wrong is entirely expected. An objective look at pretty much any data for falling objects says that this is wrong, and the belief that acceleration due to gravity on earth is 9.8m/s2 is thus fundamentally more valid. This concept of validity applies elsewhere, with the end result being that the belief that some opinions are better than others is only natural, and if one can identify those opinions then one would hold the more valid opinions. Given that many beliefs are opinions, holding beliefs viewed as better than others makes perfect sense, if all beliefs are equally valid why hold any?

[Mattias]

I have found the discussion here very interesting. I also think that it is decidedly American the way that the topic of sex is handled here and also the way that so many people seem to take issue with Kvothe's adventures with (and after) Felurian in 'Wise mans Fear'. One poster here even took issue with the description of the attraction that Kvothe's parents had to each other in the beginning of 'Name of the Wind'. It seems that the topic of sex, even when only alluded to, harvests very strong emotions of discomfort.

To me as a reader it never entered my mind that the whole Felurian plot-line might be offensive until I saw the reactions on this forum. I personaly agree with the person responding above who's main issue with the Felurian plotline was that is was a bit long-winded (but that really can be said about any of the sub-plots). Rothfuss never actually gets explicit about any details. All that happens is that we find out that they do have a lot of sex and that this changes Kvothe. It is part of his personal develpoment (for better or worse) and this development is one of the main themes of the whole trilogy. Now I get the feeling when reading through this thread that many people feel that Kvothe should be punished for his sexual behaviour. This attitude is really completely alien to me.

In the books we see many different cultures that all take a different approach to sex. Kvothe describes them and follows in their footsteps, taking care not to judge too harshly about this. There is a lesson in that I think. Especially when I consider that Kvothe is actually highly respectful to woman in the entirety of the books. There appear many strong woman in the books and disrespect to woman is for Kvothe akin to cardinal sin. In this context I found the topic of sex in the books very maturely handled and therefore I was very surprised to see that it still caused such a stir. I wonder if that has anything to do with the strong (and often rather orthodox) Christianity in the US. Would anyone care to comment on that?

This brings me to the story of druid91.
It seems to me that most of the heavy responses to him were not because of the point he was trying to make, but because of the manner in wich he tried to make it. The word 'condencending' has been named. I think that his point can be summarised as:
1) Sex is something deeply personal and almost a sacred thing.
2) Openly talking about sex makes me feel extremely uncomfortable
3.1) Because sex is so deeply personal I find open talk about it to be undermining that personal and sacred aspect
3.2) Therefore it is disrespectful to all parties involved to openly talk about it

Now none of these points are the reason of why this whole debate started, because that was that druid91 implied that working on making the perfect D&D game is morally superior to trying to get laid. This attitude is never really justified other then with a rather weak argument that D&D is, in the long run, more productive then sex (nearly 7 billion people might disagree on this :smallwink: ).

Now here a lot of confusion starts. First of all it doesn't seem to me that druid 91 is actually against sex per sé. If it is something nearly sacred, as he claims, then trying to 'get it' or appreciating it can't be a bad thing in itself. Rather it seemed to me that he takes issue with the whole culture of 'loose sexuality'. I wonder if he is of the 'saving myself for the right one'-type. That would explain a lot.

Secondly there is the 'moral' issue of the thing. This discussion has taken a turn towards morality-discussion. Now druid91 has been very honest in his assesment of things. He tells us that he believes to be right and others to be wrong and that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this attitude. This is a position of tolerance. Thinking you are morally right but not intervening with people who think otherwise is the very definition of tolerating something. What people seem to argue against him is that he should also be more understanding about other viewpoints (especially because he might be in the minority).

A better understanding of other viewpoints might lead druid91 to believe that points 2, 3.1 and 3.2 are not absolutes but apply to him personally only and that therefore he is in his full rights to draw his own boundaries, but not to be condecending towards other people who think that points 2, 3.1 and 3.2 are not absolute but gradual. Point 1, that sex is deeply personal and almost sacred can still stand for people who think that points 2, 3.1 and 3.2 are gradual. After all, if something is really sacred, then shouldn't we tell everyone about it? (hallelujah! :smallbiggrin:)

Well, that was my rant of the day. Cheers.

[Helanna]

Now I get the feeling when reading through this thread that many people feel that Kvothe should be punished for his sexual behaviour. This attitude is really completely alien to me.

I don't think many people really have the attitude that he should be punished, and most people weren't offended by it. It was just very long, very drawn out, and nine tenths of it was completely unnecessary. It's not that I mind that he had lots and lots of sex, I mind that so much time was spent focusing on it when I really didn't care one whit about how much sex Kvothe had.



I wonder if that has anything to do with the strong (and often rather orthodox) Christianity in the US. Would anyone care to comment on that?

Probably not, as that would be skirting extremely close to forum rules. :smallwink:


He tells us that he believes to be right and others to be wrong and that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this attitude. This is a position of tolerance. Thinking you are morally right but not intervening with people who think otherwise is the very definition of tolerating something. What people seem to argue against him is that he should also be more understanding about other viewpoints (especially because he might be in the minority).

I think the main point is that being tolerant doesn't necessarily mean that you're right. druid91 is claiming that his way is the right way, for everyone, and any other way is wrong, for everyone, while ignoring the fact that people are vastly different from one another and that what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another, and that this is a matter in which there's not really an absolute 'right' or 'wrong' way to do anything. It all comes down to personal preference. He views sex as extremely sacred and private, and that's fine. Other people may view sex as fun and open and that's fine too. Neither way is 'better' than the other way, it just depends on how each individual feels about it.

[The_JJ]

Now I get the feeling when reading through this thread that many people feel that Kvothe should be punished for his sexual behaviour. This attitude is really completely alien to me.

Not for the sex, no, but the fool ought to at least be aware that Denna does not cross that particular line, unwilling to trade her body for money, and was pleased that Kvothe did, indeed, face some consequences for not aligning his sexual mores to that of his one true love. To be otherwise, I feel, would be to unrealistic favor the protagonist, trading actual characterization in order to facilitate author 'insertion' fantasies.

Re Americanness: I find rather irrelevant. As a Swedish and American citizen (but mostly America) I find the American's uncomfortable with sex/okay with violence a handy generalization, but by no means absolute. We're the internet here.

[0Megabyte]

Yes. I've heard someone else describe it as "gleefully waltzing back and forth over the one line Denna will not cross." He's definitely being a fool for not realizing that. I wouldn't be surprised that Barkeep!Kvothe knows it, but...

Well. His actions are definitely screwing up his chances with Denna. Oh, well. I'm more of a KvothexDevi guy anyway. There. I said it.

[Weezer]

Yes. I've heard someone else describe it as "gleefully waltzing back and forth over the one line Denna will not cross." He's definitely being a fool for not realizing that. I wouldn't be surprised that Barkeep!Kvothe knows it, but...

Well. His actions are definitely screwing up his chances with Denna. Oh, well. I'm more of a KvothexDevi guy anyway. There. I said it.

I agree, I like Kvothe and Devi far better than him and Denna. The whole ''I'm clearly in love with you but am afraid of commitment so I'm not letting anything happen'' thing that Denna has bothers me to no end. Devi on the other hand is awesome, she's badass, red haired and can put Kvothe in his place when he gets too arrogant.

[0Megabyte]

Yes. As cool as Denna can be, her issues are way too serious for it to be a good idea to be in a relationship with her.

And Devi is just rad, for all the reasons you said. She might be my favorite character in either book, and I am happy any time she is on the page.

They also have this weirdly pleasant chemistry. It's very different from what Kvothe and Denna have, but I like it better. I dunno why. Also, their last real scene together in the second book was really, really sweet.

[The_JJ]

Yes. I've heard someone else describe it as "gleefully waltzing back and forth over the one line Denna will not cross." He's definitely being a fool for not realizing that. I wouldn't be surprised that Barkeep!Kvothe knows it, but...

Well. His actions are definitely screwing up his chances with Denna. Oh, well. I'm more of a KvothexDevi guy anyway. There. I said it.


I was not okay with the man-hoing... until he got called on it. Not just called on it, but lost points with Denna for it.

Kvothe's friends: "Dude, she doesn't want to hang with you because you are gleefully hip-thrusting your way back and forth over the one line she refused to cross. Dumbass."

Kvothe: "... oh."

If you must quote my awesome... :smalltongue:

Yeah, I'm a Devi/Medico girl whose name escapes me right now/Fela/Denna/Auri

Let awesome and sane cure wounded and crazy.

Also, pillowfights.

[Lord Raziere]

yea, Kvothe seems to be wasting himself on Denna. dude, if she ain't gonna be around, show up or anything, I don't think she will be worth it after a while

that and if Kvothe truly loved her....

then why did he say that Dennas song was inaccurate? He could've said anything, just complimented it on how beautiful it was or something or suggested how she could've improved on it, but no he took the pedantic scholar route and gone "it didn't happen like that."

I like you Kvothe, but that was the stupidest thing you ever did.

yes even stupider than jumping off a roof.

[Helanna]

yea, Kvothe seems to be wasting himself on Denna. dude, if she ain't gonna be around, show up or anything, I don't think she will be worth it after a while

that and if Kvothe truly loved her....

then why did he say that Dennas song was inaccurate? He could've said anything, just complimented it on how beautiful it was or something or suggested how she could've improved on it, but no he took the pedantic scholar route and gone "it didn't happen like that."

I like you Kvothe, but that was the stupidest thing you ever did.

yes even stupider than jumping off a roof.

Well, I think it's mostly that his issues with the Chandrian overtook his feelings for Denna for a while. The Chandrian and their story are extremely important to him, and to hear Denna mutilating the story like that probably just made him instinctively react.

But yeah, I don't like Denna much. She just really annoys me. Devi is much, much better.

[druid91]

If you must quote my awesome... :smalltongue:

Yeah, I'm a Devi/Medico girl whose name escapes me right now/Fela/Denna/Auri

Let awesome and sane cure wounded and crazy.

Also, pillowfights.

Mola.


yea, Kvothe seems to be wasting himself on Denna. dude, if she ain't gonna be around, show up or anything, I don't think she will be worth it after a while

that and if Kvothe truly loved her....

then why did he say that Dennas song was inaccurate? He could've said anything, just complimented it on how beautiful it was or something or suggested how she could've improved on it, but no he took the pedantic scholar route and gone "it didn't happen like that."

I like you Kvothe, but that was the stupidest thing you ever did.

yes even stupider than jumping off a roof.

More like instinctive recoil. Imagine a freind of yours, someone you've known for a long time suddenly sung you a song praising the nazis. And didn't know that they were wrong. It wasn't a pedantic scholar, it was more a horrified kid.


Well, I think it's mostly that his issues with the Chandrian overtook his feelings for Denna for a while. The Chandrian and their story are extremely important to him, and to hear Denna mutilating the story like that probably just made him instinctively react.

But yeah, I don't like Denna much. She just really annoys me. Devi is much, much better.

Exactly.

[0Megabyte]

You know, a thought. Barkeeper!Kvothw isn't that old, right? I mean, isn't he still in his early to mid twenties? I hope he is. Because if he's still alive, he could still hook up with Devi. She wouldn't be that old either! Because, you know, why not?

[The_JJ]

I think he's around mid/late twenties as a barkeep. Devi's got a few years on him though...

[Lord Raziere]

Well, I think it's mostly that his issues with the Chandrian overtook his feelings for Denna for a while. The Chandrian and their story are extremely important to him, and to hear Denna mutilating the story like that probably just made him instinctively react.

But yeah, I don't like Denna much. She just really annoys me. Devi is much, much better.

aaaah... I see......

now it just seems sad. but I standby it: if he actually loved Denna....he would've looked past that......

as for Devi, he definitely has more chemistry with her than with Denna, I mean with Denna he is constantly going "oh I don't want to be bold like all the other men cause she will run away."
I mean it doesn't sound like Denna is looking for someone to love....it sounds like she just plain doesn't want to play the game. she runs so often, she keeps so many secrets and is so unreliable that I doubt anyone in real life would date her for long, love needs trust, reliability and Denna doesn't have that, plus her disdain for men "always reading out of the same book"....just sounds to me like she just doesn't like men or is just unpleasable.

too bad Kvothe never saw Devi right in front of him....

[0Megabyte]

Well there's still a whole third book! You never know!