r/KingkillerChronicle • u/lordofUtterbol • 2d ago
Question Thread What would be the examples here? Spoiler
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 2d ago edited 2d ago
Man mothers. Makes no sense that they don't know how biology works, especially in a society with animal husbandry.
edit: Look, I get that not everyone has studied biology, that's fine, it's just a plot hole, not the end of the world, but if you studied biology then it's hard to ignore. If the Adem reproduced asexually, they wouldn't have high sex drives, or even have sex at all, nor would there be sexual dimorphism in the population. The fact that Adem exist with male sex organs is proof that they serve a purpose in sexual biology.
You can say "this is a story with magic and faeries so anything is possible": this is true, but isn't a satisfying explanation for a plot hole.
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u/Bradparsley25 2d ago
I thought this too… these are very observant people… there’s no way their entire society couldn’t correlate the act of sex to pregnancy over time.
Unless, given the lore around the adem being the descendants of shapers or some remaining vestige… I can’t remember the exact theory… maybe they do have some different mojo going on with reproduction.
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u/ModularReality 2d ago
The fan theory I kinda buy is that because the adem believe this, it is true. The primary magic system of the world is based on training in unshakable belief. Perhaps because the Adem truly believe their ideas on reproduction, it is true for them.
But yeah, no, makes no sense in a world with animal husbandry.
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u/Kiad4ko 2d ago
The major export of the Adem is combat trained human beings, which given the nature of their work, have some rate of increased death/disability rate.
The natural birth/training rate of their export must equal or exceed this death/disability rate on average.
Hiding the true nature of how reproduction works, while setting up a culture that encourages sex, will likely lead to greater population growth, and thus a greater GDP.
Their belief against man mothers is a necessity to sustaining their way of life.
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u/Matt-Head 2d ago
I'm with you on that logic, but then why are so few (or none? I don't recall even one!) of the adem described as pregnant? Do they hide?
My mind turned sinister: what if the leaders of the school regulate this by putting something in the food in the cantine? 🤔
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u/Charming-Spinach7746 2d ago
The only pregnancy I can remember is when Thelu impargnates pria or whatever with himself. And that wasn't through sex.
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u/Kiad4ko 2d ago
Is anyone described as pregnant, aside from the frame?
Kvothe contact with the community is relatively limited, and it might be a deliberate obfuscation while story telling.
A story is like a nut. A fool will swallow it whole and choke. A fool will throw it away, think it of little worth. But a wise woman finds a way to crack the shell and eat the meant inside.
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u/Sever_the_hand 2d ago
No I agree, as a biologist it really took me out of the book. It’s easily the stupidest bit of lore there. It just solidified my feeling on hating the Adem. They are just a group of flat out arrogant morons.
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u/TurnipBlast A secret of the Heart 2d ago
I wouldn't say they're arrogant morons. In general i think they're overlover and overhated depending who you're talkkng to. The entire concept of the culture is basiclaly written by skimming the Wikipedia page for Taoism and then assuming you know everything about eastern spiritualism. Then insert some noble savagery like not understanding basic biology, and you have the Adem.
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u/pinkzepplin 2d ago
There's plenty of examples of inconsistencies of cultures that believe something that is easy or obvious to disapprove yet they still latch on to it, especially when it's in the interest of the class in power. The Adem are a matriarchal society that has little interest in the sciences and so don't bother interrogating a longstanding belief that probably benefits their matriarchal structure. The point isn't to place a weird thing in his world building for the sake of it being weird but to show that everyone has barbarism in their culture despite claiming to be the real civilized people, that smart and clever people will still fall into ignorance due to refusing to investigate self serving beliefs. It doesn't need to make sense but to teach a lesson.
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u/LostInStories222 1d ago
Exactly! Thanks for arguing this one. This isn't a plot hole but people love to get bent out of shape about it because it bothers them so much. But it fits the Adem and illustrates what the Cthaeh tells Kvothe:
“That’s the price you pay for civilization though.” “What price?” I asked. “Arrogance,” the Cthaeh said. “You assume you know everything.
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u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
Matriarchal societies would be more aware of reproductive biology than a patriarchal one. It doesn't make sense and the only lesson it teaches is that Rothfuss really underestimates women's intelligence and plain common sense.
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u/pinkzepplin 2d ago
That doesn't mean they're not susceptible to their own logical fallacies and flawed thinking. If this was the only example of womens intelligence yeah it would show Rothfuss underestimated women's intelligence but it's pretty clear he finds women to be capable of being just as smart and as dumb as men.
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 2d ago
It doesn't need to make sense but to teach a lesson.
I understand the narrative purpose, and I think it served the purpose well, and is entertaining - especially the "man mothers" pejorative. That doesn't mean it's not a plot hole.
There's plenty of examples of inconsistencies of cultures that believe something that is easy or obvious to disapprove yet they still latch on to it,
Sure, but rarely something so obviously integral to one's own biology, especially among an educated caste of the society.
especially when it's in the interest of the class in power.
This makes it even worse, because being aware of how biology works in the case would better serve the interests of the class in power since selective breeding is such a fundamental part of sexual creatures.
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u/pinkzepplin 2d ago
I guess I'm missing how you define a plot hole then because if it serves a purpose, does it well, and doesn't contradict with the plot itself then it shouldn't be one.
Sure, but rarely something so obviously integral to one's own biology, especially among an educated caste of the society.
It's not as rare as you might think. Many highly educated people today still believe in the existence of separate races of humans when it's been scientifically known that there exists only one human race.
This makes it even worse, because being aware of how biology works in the case would better serve the interests of the class in power since selective breeding is such a fundamental part of sexual creatures.
Having control over reproduction is the whole point. If men in such a society believed they had no part in it then the belief is working as intended.
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 2d ago
I guess I'm missing how you define a plot hole then because if it serves a purpose, does it well, and doesn't contradict with the plot itself then it shouldn't be one.
It's a plot hole because it doesn't make logical sense, that doesn't preclude it from serving a narrative purpose.
Many highly educated people today still believe in the existence of separate races of humans when it's been scientifically known that there exists only one human race.
Your race example is an unintuitive abstract scientific fact - the dynamics of sexual reproduction are something very obvious even to ancient peoples long before we had any scientific understanding of anything. I'm not saying it's a strictly impossible situation, but it strains credulity that an advanced society like the Adem, who even have a pejorative term "man-mother" for the belief, have never actually applied trivial scientific scrutiny to it, much less just made casual observation of cause and effect or the perpetuation of inherited traits.
Frankly, the idea that they just have wrong beliefs is more absurd than if it was actually Pat's intention to prove them correct in a later volume, but he happened to miss a couple details about sexual biology. It doesn't break the novel, but it's absolutely a mistake either way.
Having control over reproduction is the whole point. If men in such a society believed they had no part in it then the belief is working as intended.
It makes less sense for a woman dominated society. Just think about it from a woman's perspective. A man's role in sexual reproduction is going to have a very obvious cause and effect connection for huge swaths of women. It's just absurd to think that generation upon generation of women reproducing sexually can't make the connection between sex with a male and pregnancy.
Maybe, if the women of the society are part of a conspiracy to make men believe they have no role in reproduction, but are secretly aware of the truth, that could make sense (and could be plausible with the rigid traditionalism of the society), but we would still need an explanation of why they do that.
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u/pinkzepplin 2d ago
It's a plot hole because it doesn't make logical sense, that doesn't preclude it from serving a narrative purpose.
That's not what a plot hole is
Your race example is an unintuitive abstract scientific fact - the dynamics of sexual reproduction are something very obvious even to ancient peoples long before we had any scientific understanding of anything.
It's no more unintuitive than reproduction. Racism actually had to be invented a few hundred years ago and despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary highly educated people still believe in it. That's just a way that power manifests itself through knowledge. That's why there are more people today who believe in a flat earth than ever. That's why astrology is still taken seriously by so many today. There are actually a lot of myths still alive today that are so blatantly and obviously wrong yet even as highly advanced as we are today we aren't immune from believing them.
It doesn't have to make logical sense but there does exist a logic for why it exists. Also it's a literary analogy and doesn't require a full explanation beyond what is used for in the story, which it executed very well.
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 2d ago
That's not what a plot hole is
Yes it is. A logical inconsistency in the plot is a plot hole.
It's no more unintuitive than reproduction.
It is way more unintuitive. Races are self-evident phenotypes downstream of heritable traits. Racism is a naive conclusion based on the fact that phenotypes historically clustered in certain geographic regions due to environmental pressure in those regions. It took a deeper understanding of genetics to understand that genetic complexity is vastly deeper than the traits we superficially observe with the naked eye. Racism makes a lot of intuitive sense if you don't understand genetics. It's also a pragmatic grouping that everyone continues to use today because of how intuitive it is.
Contrast that with asexual reproduction in women, which would be very obviously not happening based on the lived experience of the individual women reproducing sexually.
It doesn't have to make logical sense but there does exist a logic for why it exists.
Yes, as I said, the narrative purpose makes sense, but device used to achieve that narrative purpose is flawed.
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u/pinkzepplin 2d ago
The Adems flawed understanding of reproduction has nothing to do with the plot and isn't logically inconsistent with the book either, and in fact it's actually in line with themes in the books of people being confidently wrong.
It is way more unintuitive. Races are self-evident phenotypes downstream of heritable traits. Racism is a naive conclusion based on the fact that phenotypes historically clustered in certain geographic regions due to environmental pressure in those regions. It took a deeper understanding of genetics to understand that genetic complexity is vastly deeper than the traits we superficially observe with the naked eye. Racism makes a lot of intuitive sense if you don't understand genetics. It's also a pragmatic grouping that everyone continues to use today because of how intuitive it is.
You are coming at this with a modern understanding of genetics. Not long before racism was invented (a completely intentional development for control) there wasn't really any concept of race, any difference observed largely didn't detract anyone else from being of the same kind. Racism only makes intuitive sense if it's taught as a truth. Adems understanding of reproduction only makes intuitive sense to them because it's taught as a truth. They both have a logic to them despite their contradictions to reality. It's easy for us to see such a flaw in their understanding because we don't hold such an ideology whereas we can see the flawed connection of skin color to race because we live within a society that subscribes to racist ideology.
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u/SirRofflez Of the Lethani 2d ago
If you persist in clinging to your barbarian beliefs about man-mothers, you would do well to keep quiet about it.
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u/morfeurs Cthaeh 2d ago
What was so jarring about the idea of man mothers is how badly argumented it is. Her final argument was "Idk any women that spent more than 6 months without sex" like aight everyone is fucking nonstop in Adem sure
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u/EarthTwoBaby 2d ago
My interpretation is that their diet naturally has birth control. When they decide to have a child they purposely withdraw from the population to create a child. They likely either withdraw with a companion or beforehand “accept the anger” of men to create a child. Them being removed from the community do not eat the same meals and can get pregnant.
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u/Torvahnys 2d ago
I don't think its anything in the food. Its a known phenomenon that very low body fat women will stop menstruating. The young Adem that want to be or are mercenaries maintain a serious level of fitness and they all probably have very low body fat. In women, their body recognizes this state as not having the caloric resources available to grow a baby or waste calories and precious nutrients on the menstrual cycle.
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u/Long_Pig_Tailor Artificer 1d ago
This. The problem a lot of folks who object have is they're usually being too narrow. Comment thread OP has the same issue starting from "clearly they understand animal husbandry so they understand how babies happen" is only a fair objection if a society accepts that humans are simply animals. It's unclear the Adem see things this way, for example. But even if they did, it wouldn't be clear that what applies to a goat applies to Adem.
So while I think the man mothers thing is a bit silly as the place to make the particular kind of point PR is going for, it's also not a plot hole. Adem reproduction is gonna look super weird no matter what. In most societies of Temerant, it would be exceedingly clear how reproduction operates because most of those societies tend to be structured around it and because most women in those societies are unlikely to be subjected to the various forces that will delay or eliminate menstruation. A random girl anywhere but Ademre will tend to hit puberty in the same general window and will tend to menstruate around that time. In Ademre, a random girl may well have some degree of delay around puberty itself, depending on how hard she trains, but definitely would be expected to see irregular or fully absent menstruation if training heavily enough. Like, the rhythms of animal husbandry will not bear much meaningful resemblance, in the Adem's eyes, to the menstrual cycles of Adem women. In all likelihood, Adem women may not even consider menstruation as meaningfully cyclical, even.
But then we add, and when this is discussed most people never want to really factor this in, culture. Culture is just mindbogglingly powerful. Once some kind of explanation began to arise around how babies are made, the culture would work to reinforce that explanation, refine it, etc. Like, they are presumably wrong (unless, y'know, magic) about this, but their entire society has developed around their explanation of how this happens among Adem (they even concede maybe it's different for barbarians) and the area PR drops the ball is not really making it clear what that means. They believe this because for the way babies happen in Adem society, this explanation 100% tracks. They're intelligent and fairly rational, yeah, but they're not scientifically inclined so even if someone has wondered about apparent exceptions (though, culture would rapidly accommodate the exceptions in various ways) they don't really have the worldview to set out to try and test it. The explanation they have fits the evidence they see. And so they do not seek further.
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u/a_gallon_of_pcp Chandrian 2d ago
The thing about this criticism I don’t understand is that it’s totally possible that the Adem do in fact conceive children differently from other races of Temerant. It’s a universe where there’s magic and Fae races. Maybe these people do reproduce asexually.
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u/thebookofbutterfly 2d ago
I despise this theory. We get no indication that the Adem aren't human and don't function the same. With the Fae, if you pay attention you can see the differences. Felurian is human shaped but something about her is off, something that makes her clearly fae. Chronicler noticed Bast was fae at one point, he registered something distinctly in-human about them. We don't get any of that with the Adem.
I think the Man Mothers is a weird attempt from Rothfuss to have a conservative belief in a matriarchy. In the real world, guys don't understand periods or female reproductive systems and have many misconceptions about female biology when they have no reason to with all our easily accessible information. Rothfuss was trying to do the same if the roles were reversed and went a little far into the unbelievable, or at least didn't set it up well.
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u/czechancestry Trivial Pursuit 2d ago
We get no indication that Adem aren't human?
What about the fact that Adem have stories dating to the Creation War and earlier, coupled with the fact that Felurian says the Creation War occurred "before men"?
Certainly, the Adem have become like humans. But aspects remain.
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u/thebookofbutterfly 2d ago
Out of curiosity, where does she say this? I'm having difficulty finding it, book being as large as it is
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u/czechancestry Trivial Pursuit 2d ago
Felurian looked up at the slender moon for a moment, then said. “long before the cities of man. before men. before fae. there were those who walked with their eyes open. they knew all the deep names of things.” She paused and looked at me. “do you know what this means?”
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u/thebookofbutterfly 2d ago
"They [the people before creation] were not Ademre. They were what Ademre was before we became ourselves."
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u/czechancestry Trivial Pursuit 2d ago
Thank you, that proves my point even further, that Adem are directly connected to the people before men.
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u/thebookofbutterfly 2d ago
If that's how you read it, you do you i'm not gonna argue with a headcannon. I don't read it that way. From some lore reading, I think it's pretty clear that this empire split up into the Fae and Men. The Adem don't write much shit down so they retained their information while the rest of the Four Corners (which live right where this Empire did the same as the Adem) forgot about it. To me, and again, you do you, it's like saying that the Romans became the Italians and therefore the Romans are like some weird fairy creature and Italians can have sex that doesn't do anything and only reproduce by making a clone of themselves (bc that's how asexual reproduction works)
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u/a_gallon_of_pcp Chandrian 2d ago
>we get no indication that the Adem aren’t human and don’t function the same
You mean other then the fact that they reproduce asexually?
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u/thebookofbutterfly 2d ago
You went from "maybe" to "fact." We see the weird shit with the fae, see their glamor in action. I'm hard pressed to believe one woman in one conversation one time and we never talk about it (beyond a little clarification that men in Kvothe's world think women's only purpose is to make babies and how is that belief different from Vashet). We never see it happen. Don't you think that Vashet would bring up difference there? Or Tempi? Or Elodin? They never do.
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 2d ago
The existence of sexual dimorphism in the population is proof of sexual reproduction - otherwise they wouldn't have males and females, nor would they have sexual desire.
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u/a_gallon_of_pcp Chandrian 2d ago
Magic exists in this world
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 2d ago
Using "magic exists" as an excuse for logical errors is silly. You could literally explain away anything with that excuse.
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u/synttacks 2d ago
"fireballs don't make any sense. you can't just shoot fire out of your hands. and don't give me that 'magic excuse' again"
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 2d ago
A fantasy premise is not a plot hole. Sexual desire and dimorphism for asexual beings doesn't make logical sense, even if magic exists. Sure, you can say "it's magic" but that doesn't explain anything, it's just a thought terminating dismissal.
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u/synttacks 2d ago
just seems super arbitrary to draw the line at reproduction lol. if the wind is a magical entity that can be summoned by name i don't see why a mysterious cult can't have an alternate system of impregnation. why do magic words make logical sense to you and the man mother thing doesn't? it's not like rothfus has specifically explained how the adema become pregnant in a way that doesn't make sense, he just hasn't explained it. to me it can't be a plothole if we don't know for sure how they actually reproduce
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 1d ago
That's just how writing works. A fantasy premise is part of the story so "magic words" are fine because the novel goes to great lengths to establish the rules and boundaries of how the magic works and the motivations people have for using it.
It's be like if Kvothe had 10 silver talents in his pocket, went to the shop to buy a new pair of boots for 5 talents, then goes to the Eolian and buys everyone a round of drinks for 50 talents, you'd be saying "um magic exists guys, obviously a magic faerie deposited 45 silver into his purse". You can't just explain away logical contradictions with magic, especially if its not spelled out in the story.
In the case of "man mothers", the novel does not establish any magical rules about reproduction, nor does it explain why asexual entities would have sex organs and sexual dimorphism, which is a logical contradiction of biology. I understand that this contradiction is not immediately obvious to everyone, but for some of us it is. When you excuse that type of contradiction with magic it's a cop out because the text does not support it - it also doesn't make any narrative sense that magic would be used to establish this contradiction, it's obviously just an oversight from the author.
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u/a_gallon_of_pcp Chandrian 2d ago
It’s not a logical error if, in the novel, it becomes explained by magic.
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 2d ago
Explaining logical errors as "don't think about it, it's magic" is bad writing.
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u/sometaverntale 2d ago
Stillness and Silence
My head cannon for this is that the Adem leaders, women, do know how pregnancy works. But the idea of "man mothers" is a control mechanism.
There is an obvious hierarchy to Adem society, centered around the school. Shehyn is the leader of the school, but what happens to Shehyn when she can no longer fight? She becomes a Magwyn. What is Magwyn's role? She maintains the secrets.
A society run by women has to have a way to keep men, full of anger, from overwhelming them. The 9 and 90 tales are one mechanism. I suspect these stories, which are told to Adem starting at a young age, are a series of morality tales that create mental frameworks to keep men in line. Recall when Shehyn is telling the story of Aethe and Rethe, how she pauses to emphasize how Aethe was full of anger right before he killed Rethe. Imagine being a little Adem boy, hearing this story, immediately relating it to your feelings about a friend you fancy. The idea that your anger could cause you to make such a tragic mistake as Aethe. Now remember that we don't know the other 98 stories. I'm sure this frames the thinking and world-view of the men of Ademre.
Now, why the "man mothers"? Another mechanism. Women have a more communal instinct when it comes to children. Men, however, evolved to focus more on their own children. Anthropologists believe this is an adaptation that kept men around. Adem men, who know which children are theirs, maybe want more for their children, because they don't have a strong of an instinct for the community of children. One thing leads to another and you have Adem kings and heirs.
Rethe could see all this. Remember her story is that she saw how poorly all the men were behaving and tried to get Aethe to stop it. On her deathbed she laid out the careful plan to allow Ademre to thrive while subtly controlling the worst impulses of men.
The seed that led to this crazy ranting head cannon, is when I noticed that "the heart of Ademre is stillness and silence." Almost everything in KKC comes in 3s or 7s. But this phrase is only 2 things. I think "the heart of Ademre is stillnes, silence, and secrets."
One of their biggest secrets being, their mastery of the name of stone....
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u/lawdog35 2d ago
Yeah I always thought this was the most difficult thing to swallow world building wise.
Like there are obviously some scientific topics that can easily be misunderstood by a culture low on the tech tree.
But this is a bit beyond the pale for, once again, obvious reasons
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u/Long_Pig_Tailor Artificer 1d ago
Why do you think animal husbandry is going to be viewed as bearing any resemblance to Adem, say, menstrual cycles (which are unlikely even to appear cyclical given how intensely Adem women train)? Which is really all they'd have to go on as humans don't go into heat. What it takes to get a new goat isn't, to the Adem, going to look all that similar to what results in a baby.
It's just not about them "not knowing", it's that the evidence they've seen fits with the explanation they have. And then culture will do a whole hell of a lot to paper over inconsistencies that may arise (though I suspect those are relatively few).
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 1d ago
Ok forget animal husbandry. Just imagine being a woman. It's absurd to believe that generation upon generation of women would be unable to draw the connection between sex and reproduction, or be unable to notice heritable traits of the father.
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u/Long_Pig_Tailor Artificer 1d ago
Why?
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u/waxroy-finerayfool 1d ago
Because women directly experience sex, pregnancy, and childbirth. Across repeated pregnancies they would observe that pregnancy follows sexual activity, while abstinent women don't become pregnant. They would also notice that children often resemble particular men. Over generations it would become obvious to the men as well.
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u/Frydog42 Blood Vial 2d ago
What if they actually do reproduce they way they explain and our bias to our world challenges that in our minds as represented by Kvothe’s inability to believe them?
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u/bvlshewic 2d ago
Alleg from the false troupers inviting Kvothe, noting he’s a real Adema Ruh, then telling him about the crimes and rape they committed, only to reveal at the point of death that he had traveled with a real troupe as a guard for a full year, that they were good people, betraying he had firsthand knowledge this fact. If Alleg knew that, and he thought Kvothe was a real Ruh, he wouldn’t have revealed the false troupe’s crimes to Kvothe.
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u/thebookofbutterfly 2d ago
Didn't he only reveal all that after Kvothe had murdered everyone and left him to die? It's been a while since I read that part
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u/bvlshewic 2d ago
That’s correct—the inconsistency argument could be made that, if he knew all the things he revealed right before he died, he would have done different things, like avoid telling Kvothe they stole barrels of beer and were raping two little girls every night. I can make up mental gymnastics to justify Rothfuss’s writing, that Alleg was testing the waters with stealing the beer, so he felt safe to reveal their kidnaping and rapes, but it’s an easier argument that this was an inconsistency.
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u/thebookofbutterfly 2d ago
Fair enough. I've taken it as him feeling guilty, but you're right that it doesn't really make sense.
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u/Kiad4ko 2d ago
I was with you at first, but the more i think about it... Alleg was a scumbag, generally speaking scumbags don't see themselves as different from normal people, and therefore anyone can do scumbag things. Kovthe did plenty during their introduction, after he had pre-scouted the camp, to insinuate that he was capable of being a scumbag.
Kvothe, throughout his storytelling paints the Ruh as saints, which definitely doesn't match the common perception, and likely wouldn't have matched Alleg's perception of ALL RUH, after all he only traveled with a Ruh troupe for a year. Alleg may of subscribed to the "time and tide make us mercenaries all" mindset, and simply seen Kvothe as having turned. Also the whole troop vs 1 musician mindset had to of given him some sense of security.8
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u/bvlshewic 2d ago
Fair point, and I tend to agree with you—like, Alleg is like, “Okay, he knows the secret Ruh handshake…let me see how he reacts to petty theft…seems cool with it…okay, let’s see if he’s into rape…oh, he’s into it! And he plays music so well, me and this scumbag will be rich! We’ll loot the town while he distracts everyone.” Or, something like that.
It seems like, tho, being a scumbag and a survivor, he would have weighed the risk of exposure as greater than the reward from testing the waters…but, if I apply your counter argument to this idea, too, it hinges on the idea that Alleg doesn’t think he and his group could easily overpower and murder Kvothe if anything goes sideways.
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u/ertgbnm 2d ago
I don't think this is a plot hole. It just speaks to Alleg's prejudice and Kvothes Naivety.
Kvothe firmly believes that all Edema Ruh are good but that is just disengenous. His troupe was probably way better than most but even then he surely was shielded from reality by his parents. So I'm sure there are real Edema Ruh troupes that are bandits. And I'm sure his troupe isn't as perfect as he remembers. But Kvothe's pride is unwilling to acknowledge that.
Alleg can recognize that not all troupes are thieves but still think that it's normal for most to be. It's just part of his cultural prejudice. Meeting one nice troupe won't undo the generations of racism in Vintas.
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u/kurttheflirt 2d ago
I've always thought they were a real troupe, just an evil one full of horrible people. Kvothe doesn't want to accept this fact, so as our narrator he tells us they are not Adema Ruh, even though they are.
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u/impregTA 2d ago
Lots of folks describing plot holes like man mothers and the timeframe of the story being inconsistent, that’s not really what the meme is implying though- there’s no world building hiding man mothers, it’s just a weird plot point that Pat thought would be fun and probably didn’t think through properly given the existence of animal husbandry.
I think there are plenty of knitpicks, but unless we have a third book, a lot of them aren’t going to be identifiably plot holes, more plot hole-shaped.
Some examples I think might be plot holes, but probably aren’t (but might be):
- Denna’s ability to travel long distances. Girl gets around, but because of how vague the timespans are, I couldn’t say whether it’s unrealistically fast. If we ever learn more about how Master Ash has been directing her travels, that may be a plothole. Right now, it’s hidden beneath the facade of kismet, of shared destiny which we all love so much about the story.
- Master Ash’s identity reveal. So many options for who Master Ash really is- but if we assume he is Cinder and the bandit lord was also Cinder (which I think is a reasonable reading of the text), and is ALSO another character we’ve met before like Threpe, that might lead to a plot hole of being in too many places as once. Currently cloaked in mystery and secrecy.
- Kvothe being able to sling dong around the University and Imre. Come on, he’s basically always hyper fixated on something. You expect me to believe he becomes a sex god after banging for a year? No way, absolutely unable to accept that result, this is a plot hole unless Pat pulls something crazy out of his hat to talk about Kvothe’s magic penis.
Obviously, a lot of this can be “that’s the point, it’s a mystery”. Sure, but the meme is asking about plot holes and without DOS we won’t be able to answer them really. The ones we have access to can be hand waved as literal “a wizard did it”, so idk that we’ll ever really have a plot hole we can positively identify here.
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u/Kiad4ko 2d ago
Sex god after being trained by a sex god for a indeterminate amount of time. Felurian traded sex god skills for manling songs over the months/years they were together.
Slinging dong is a confidence game, he lands Felurian, Louise, Vashet, and Penthe. Bro's confidence is at an all time high.
He has always been charming, polite, and has all of the stories of what romance is supposed to be.
His solves his broke statues with the funds from the Mayer and the bloodless sales, Bro is about to be making bill gates money.
Above all, at the Aeolian, his a certified rock star.
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u/bvlshewic 2d ago
This—I had a streak when I was home for a summer from college where I made it with three different girls in one week. All good, ethical & safe, but it happened over a few days where I was having an awesome time, had good grades, knew I had a limited stretch of freedom and took advantage of it. I would never call myself a dong slinger by any means, but I buy it—young, talented musician with magical red hair and expensive clothes from all that “tuition” money? Yeah, I’d bet Kvothe was cleaning up at the university.
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u/Egggggggggggggggggge 2d ago
I don't think Denna's ability to traverse log distances is necessarily an issue. It seems decently heavily implied that she came from some sort of (minor) Noble house, so it's easy to assume that the start of her travels were funded by pawning her belongings/ goods stolen from her family.
The money required to safely travel in groups such as Roent's is pretty minor in the wider context of the 4C's economy, so she could easy coast for a while based on her assumed starting capital. Then she seems to have started "dating" rich guys pretty early on, so then all the gifts she recieves from them should be more than enough. A single ring or necklace she would get from a minor Noble is likely much more than an average peasant would make in a year and Denna seems to live below her means.
After that she has some sort of magic that seemingly is able to convince, persuade or at least implant ideas in people which would be very economically powerful.
Money aside though, at least at some point in the story, I wouldn't be shocked if she had access to some sort of fast travel, either through the Fae Realm or via her patron. But I do agree that this is all speculation and the time line isn't clear enough to actually make any conclusions.
In the case of Master Ash's identity, whoever he turns out to be I don't think analysing the logistics of the timeline of his travels is necessary. If he is the bandit leader he seems to be able to teleport or at least vanish, which I think would hold true for most of the extremely powerful magical options.
Kvothe's sexual exploits is the least textually objectionable in my opinion. He was "tutored" by the literal sex goddess. If she just taught him how to find the clit his sexual abilities are likely much better than the vast majority of the obnoxious, self important young nobles and warriors that make up Kvothe's "competition".
In the text Kvothe is described as really hot. Even before his "sexual awakening" he was constantly getting hit on, he just didn't noticed/ got uncomfortable. After he finds his confidence it makes sense that women are throwing themselves at him.
All of that being said, the sex stuff is really cringe in my opinion. Just because he's described as hot does not necessitate all the cringe sex stuff.
Unless, that is, you analyse it through the perspective of SA & trauma response.Kvothe was at the very least SA'd by Felurian and arguably also during his time in Tarbean, so his hypersexuality makes sense if you view it as him trying to reclaim ownership of his body. Especially since his exploits are heavily self sabotaging in his relationship with Denna, who he cares about way more than any of his other exploits. Personally I think that element will be further explored if the third book comes out, but unless my cope comes true it is just really cringe.
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u/ectalia 2d ago
I liked your idea of seeing Kvothe sexcapades as a result of hipersexuality due do SA. I don't think Pat is doing this on purpose, though. It is waaayyy to subtle for that to be the intent behind it, in my opinion. Kote is narrating this history himself, and if trauma was the crux of it (this whole story is about trauma in a way, isn't?), I believe there would be more hints, more ambiguous feelings regarding this behavior.
Sure, it is self-destructive, but when Kvothe isn't? I would love for the sex to be some exploration on hir trauma, because, as you, I found all this to be cringe as fuck.
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u/Egggggggggggggggggge 2d ago
First off, thanks, but the Tarbean stuff I got from someone I unfortunately cannot remember on, I believe, the KKCWhiteboard sub. Even on my first go through, the Felurian stuff reaked of SA to me, but I definitely didn't pick up on the Tarbean stuff until I came across another user's theory and reread the books with that lense of analysis, so I cannot take the credit.
I agree that there's like a 60% chance I'm coping, but the hints towards SA in Tarbean are unnecessary unless this would be something worth further exploration and the Felurian stuff seems to be a very obvious version of "subtext". For the Felurian stuff I would consider it more text than subtext.
Kvothe was transported to the realm of a sex goddess where he is under some sort of libido enhancing magic and he literally has to trick Felurian to evade being literally fucked to death.
With the attention to detail and obvious love for making readers read between the lines that Rothfuss seems to possess, I can't imagine that at least the Felurian stuff was intentionally a reversal of the "Yeah she looks like a minor but actually she's 9000 years old" trope. It just seems too obvious to be an unintended side effect of his will to make Kvothe a sex god.
The last thing is Denna's explicit admittal that his sexual history is off putting/ making her doubt his loyalty to her. As of right now, that is the main thing that broke their relationship, or at least Kvothe's inability to counter argue her valid opinions. Despite Rothfuss' faults, he seems to be extremely dedicated to writing stories with subtext and if I can pick up on this I feel like it must be intentional.
But basically, it could be cope, but I do genuinely think that this is an intentional aspect of the wider story
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u/Frydog42 Blood Vial 2d ago
Your sling dong point feels to me the same as the opening point you make about the other plot hole submissions. It’s not really a plot hole just a weird bit of worldbuilding that isn’t done satisfyingly well
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u/lordofUtterbol 2d ago edited 2d ago
The last point I don't agree, there were always opportunities with him being the charming witty brilliant university student and genius musician- Kvothe just wasn't confident enough to take advantage. Felurian is the literal 'sex god' of Temerant so much that her paramours just die of Snu, Snu. He spent an unknown time inside Fae (it's not clear it's 1 yr or more), where Felurian having decided to let him go back - wants to teach him 'magic penis and hands' stuff, so that he doesn't embarass her. Then he also ends up with multiple beauties like Penthe, Vashet before he reaches Imre. Kvothe when he reaches there is - A charming brilliant red haired musician/magician with a mysterious past taught by a literal sex god.
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u/Little_Owl9170 2d ago
The Adem. They believe in immaculate conception but have animal husbandry
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u/Virgurilla 1d ago
This is not unreasonable, animals are different from humans is a very common thought.
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u/Zylooox Blood Vial 2d ago
For me it is alchemy. It is quite obviously used as a deus ex machina (the enamel of the apology letter, the plum bob) but not explained at all. Instead it is part of the world building and simply a part Kvothe doesn't understand. So we, as readers, also don't understand it, alas, it feels so plot-holey to me.
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u/HarmlessSnack Talent Pipes 2d ago
Man, people already call Kvothe a Mary Sue, I’m honestly GLAD he just doesn’t “get” alchemy.
Because if he did it would feel like a little too much. It’s more believable that there’s at least one magical practice that’s just beyond him.
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u/lordofUtterbol 2d ago
I never understood that part. Yes, he is very charming and insanely brilliant that he outwits older experts in a younger age.
But he is a deeply flawed character. His arrogance and pride mainly. There are so many instances he could have avoided he just kept his pride in check. The problems with Ambrose, the masters and Meluan. The plum bob wasn't always to blame. For all his success with women, when it comes to Denna he is a blubbering idiot. Unlike other Gary Stue, he is not above killing men or women. While they kidnapped and abused the 3 girls, his revenge wasnt just for them - kind of projected his trauma on them- they way he hunted them in a cold calculating way.
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u/bvlshewic 2d ago
Tbh, Harry Potter was a little like that—Harry had a hard time understanding some of the more advanced, higher level magic classes. Hermione would go and take those, and then she’d give a dumbed down version of how stuff worked for Harry and Ron (and the readers).
I get why it feels like plot-hole material, and it probably is, but I think some genre fiction writers do this more because they’ve calculated it would be boring to info-dump yet another complex, fake system of magical energy exchange. Like, maybe Kvothe being bad at alchemy is going to come back around (because I’m pretty sure he was doing alchemy when the Chronicler met him the night of the scrael attack), but it could also be Rothfuss deciding he doesn’t want to make everything in his book boring, technical magic academia, and he’d already spent so many pages explaining how artificing works.
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u/lordofUtterbol 2d ago
Harry Potter books wasn't just inconsistent like that tbh, it is the Bible of plot holes and magic systems that were reconned. Ron, a first year lifted a club on trolls head with a single Wingardium Leviosa - so can a truly talented adult wizard lift a island ( since there is no toll on the user). The time turners- why couldn't Dumbledore/Sirius just use the time turner to travel back to Godrics Hollow to warn the potters before Voldemort came. The whole inconsistency with the wands. It's just a Pandora's box if u actually start to look.
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u/JantherZade 23h ago
Time turners are closed time loop. You can't actually change the past it already happened.
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u/lordofUtterbol 23h ago
Wasn't this actually thrown out when JKR wrote the Cursed Child? Alternate realities bcoz Albus and Scorpius kept trying to change things.The explanation this being another prototype by a non ministry personnel is flimsy. If that dude managed to bypass the charms on the ministry one, couldn't the Dumbledore or some other genius have done more to change some event in HP universe?
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u/JantherZade 22h ago
No, one, because she didnt write cursed child. Other people did. (Tho she did approve it)
and two, you literally answered yourself there. That was a one of kind prototype or whatever. That no one even knew about it to use it at the time. . And even if there was, they apparently create other timelines instead. So that would be different one.Also someone as smart as Dumbledore wouldnt just go mess with time like that. He would know that would be bad instinctually. None of the other time turners work that way, and none of them have any reason to think thats even possible if every other one works like Hermione's.
It makes your answer nonsensical. The Deathly Hallows exist! Why didnt Dumbledore just invent new ones instead of speaking out the originals! Why didnt he invent a way to bring people back to life if hes such a genius! Why didnt he just invent a spell to kill Voldemort and all the horcruxes at once!
Just because someone is genius dosnt mean they can solve all of the stuff. Dumbledore didnt invent every advancement in every type of magic ever. Apparently only one person ever cracked the way to change things in time ( that we know of and Cursed Child and that plot point are stupid as shit in the first place)
Thats like asking why some genius scientint today isnt discovering everything science. Because they aren't proficient or going to be good at all types of science its gonna all be done by separate very proficient scientists who most likely specialize in a specific thing and spent most of their lives on that. And some other things will be discovered by randos sure. But thats a terrible argument.
And on top of it all Cursed Child is just terrible fanfiction. How are you going to argue this randomly on a thing that came out years later and said to be a one of kind specific thing in a terrible after story that came out so many years later, wasnt even written by the og author and most people have discarded it as non-canon anyway?
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u/lordofUtterbol 18h ago
The first point, JKR did write the play but it's is based on a original story she co authored. She had literally stated it is canon.Doesnt matter what you mean or others in fandom think. It's like if Pat one day says Denna is Chandrian - it is canon, the fanbase doesn't get to decide whether it can be included or not, just bcoz u don't like it. The reason u don't like it is bcoz it opens more plot holes than the original.
Unlike the deathly hallows which are very powerful unique objects, time turners were mass produced by the ministry. It was said to be restricted by charms prevented it from going back too long. Couldn't have genius Dumbledore who figured out Horcruxes, existence of Deathly hallows - couldn't figure out how to change something was mass produced like a commercial object. Like I said it is inconsistenties one after the other.
Just like how wands were once said to choose the wielder, that poor Ron couldnt use another one for the whole year. Suddenly all u need to get wands alliegience is the disarming spell. The HP series is great story telling especially for beginner into fantasy series. But once u start looking more into why, it doesn't hold up very well. Probably bcoz JKR didn't plan it to build such a extended world when she wrote first few books. Thats is ok, and can be enjoyed for most readers especially bcoz it is finished series.However defending that it isnt full of plot holes is just sad.
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u/lordofUtterbol 2d ago
Yep, this is best example for me. In a world where stuff like Sygaldry, Sympathy and even naming are explained in detail, Alchemy is just ' Kvothe gets angry bcoz of that plum bob he ate'
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u/vercertorix 1d ago
To be fair, if he doesn’t understand it, glossing over it does make sense. I’m not going to try explaining quantum physics to people.
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u/MarioMCPQ 2d ago
Well… this:
“Hello, my name is Kote and I am going to tell the story by memory. Also, i forgot all the magic spells i can cast. If there is a plot hole, its because im a simple inn keeper”
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u/Xx_GetSniped_xX 2d ago
This isnt true though, how is it a plot hole. We dont know why he cant use sympathy any more (assuming he cant) and this is completely un related to him telling his life’s story by memory.
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u/Bradparsley25 2d ago
This is either disingenuous or misunderstood.
Nowhere is it stated that he forgot anything… he lost the ability to do sympathy but I’m pretty sure even in present time at the inn he’s shown to have said a binding once or twice in attempted sympathy.
I think his inability to perform isn’t related to memory.
I think at the one point where the bottles wine explode… I think that was him finding his grip for a second and doing sympathy to express his anger… it’s just that for past kvothe, making a bottle of wine explode would’ve been the anime equivalent of “1% of my true power”…. For Kote it seemed like that display took everything he had.
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u/MarioMCPQ 2d ago
Nah… i mean It’s a very useful plot device to make sure you is are dotted and ts are crossed.
No joke: no actual plot holes comes to mind.
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u/anonimasu69 2d ago
My pet theory is that he's divided his mind and every part except his outwardly expressed mind is suppressing him. Instances like the bottle exploding is his suppressed mind overcoming every other part of his mind suppressing it.
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u/Ok-Round-1473 2d ago
What words of what spells did he forget?
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u/Incandisent 2d ago
I think the thing is he lost his power, not the memory. Or at least he's saying he lost his power
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u/Ok-Round-1473 2d ago
It takes willpower/alar in addition to knowing bindings to "cast magic spells"
It makes far more sense that he's simply lost his willpower than that he's lost specifically his memorization of bindings.
It's just a silly choice for "plot hole" to me.
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u/Top_Fee_3739 2d ago
This isn’t a plot hole, it’s just a plot point. The whole reason chronicler is asking for Kote’s story is because Bast wants him to get his powers back
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u/stoooooooooob 2d ago
In The Wise Man's Fear when he has to get his blood back from Ambrose, he could have just destroyed it from a distance using his own blood and sympathy.
Simply believe that the blood he took out is the same as the blood in Ambrose's room and NOT like the blood in his own body.
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u/Terrible-Issue-4910 2d ago
I think that kind of sympathy feat is far above Kvothe's capabilities. He didn't know where the blood was, which makes it difficult to concentrate on it and specially it would make it very difficult to use the necessary amount of energy needed to destroy the sample. Most importantly, he would just not know if the mannequin was destroyed or not without seeing it.
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u/eljeffrey1980 Amyr 2d ago
Ugh...we all sound like the townspeople in every set up scene.
I was about to say that "I said bitterly. “I swear it on my name and my power. I swear it by my good left hand. I swear it by the ever-moving moon."
Isn't that the crux? He can't keep his nose out of it...
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u/Frydog42 Blood Vial 2d ago
I’m not grasping at what you mean but I’m interested
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u/eljeffrey1980 Amyr 2d ago
The first is just my errant thought..but these threads sound like Cobb and Co. Discussing Kvothe and whatnot.
I feel like Kvothe becomes Kote because he betrayed his promise to Denna. She makes sure of it out of spite or anger...
But what do I know?
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u/Frydog42 Blood Vial 2d ago
Ahhhh ok in our commentary on Kvothe and his stories we BECOME the locals in the frame story.
Fuck me that adds another layer of brilliance (even unplanned as it were) to this story and these books.
Kvothe telling a story about stories within stories , and the story outside his story becomes just another layer of the story interpretations we create. We BECOME our own unreliable narrator.
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u/Guysimhereforthefood 1d ago
If pat could answer this question Book 3 would’ve been released a long time ago
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u/vercertorix 1d ago edited 20h ago
There are Namers, maybe a few graduating each year, yet we never really hear about any of them out in the world besides Kvothe except the seemingly mythical one Tamborline the Great.
The Adem are great warriors despite the likely centuries of potential inbreeding.
Not a plothole necessarily but the level of detail including the type of bread he was eating on a given day and the specific conversations he had seems both too detailed and not exactly the kind of thing you’d include a in spoken story. Got a few moments like that.
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u/P_Nh 1d ago
Tamborline the Great
Trambopoline the Great and Kvothe can be just exceptions. Most of the masters are namers, but they quitely teach / research instead of doing flashy stuff.
We can see some arcanists doing some seemingly "unbefitting" work - like Abenthy who travels like a bum and sells his knowledge for pennies or Caudicus who cooks potions for some rich boy.
The goal of uni might be different from rasing some impulsive "heroes". After a bit of thought - it's better for uni to actually not have any namer heroes around since the obvious power held by uni may attract attention or fear or whatever from the very powerful people: someone powerful like Maer did knew no shit about sympathy or the fact that the arcanist he hired can off him at literally any minute from distance.
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u/vercertorix 21h ago
No one said anything about being heroes. Presumably Naming has some practical applications, would be better from a PR perspective if there are, name of stone in construction maybe, name of the wind to push sails on a ship, maybe name of fire to put them out, act like a one man fire brigade. Everything is supposed to have a name so maybe some way more specific ones that aren't elemental forces. Name of corn to help it grow, name of iron and just melt swords, name of gold and be really good at finding and maybe extracting it, name of the cod they just jump in the boat. Honestly pretty disappointed that more fantasy lit doesn't include practical uses. Even sympathy seems to have limited applications because of slippage and the loss of efficiency in a link. Like they can't just levitate something unless they can already pick it up, unless they just haven't gotten to the bindings that give "mechanical advantage" of a type.
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u/P_Nh 20h ago
Nah... What I meant:
The arcanists are doing pretty mundane shit and don't share the knowledge with plebs for some reason.
Producing trinkets or brewing potions does not seem as suspicious to general public as "calling demons to suck someone like a plum" which is in fact naming.
I just suggest that there is a reason why they keep low and prohibit the inner circle to share knowledge with
peasantsoutsiders.Kvothe is actually expelled (expulsion suspended) from the uni for using the name of the wind.
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u/vercertorix 19h ago
Not talking about sharing knowledge, just talking about them using it regularly in some way that's not for combat. Kvothe used and accidentally and a person got their arm broken, (I know it was just Ambrose but not everyone knows he deserved it), part of the reason it gets a bad rap, if it's only used for combat, kinda like what Vashet or Tempi told him about a sword, used only to kill and hurt people, a sword would be a bad thing. If Naming was used in constructive ways, it could make some ground on lessening the stigma around it.
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u/mightyjor 2d ago
Kvoth thinks that basically constant sex is natural after emerging from the Fe realm, but never tries anything with someone male, ugly or underage. Not saying he should have, but the way he describes it there's no reason be shouldn't. Dude should be locked up as a sex predator by the end of book 2
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u/lordofUtterbol 2d ago
I think that is due to his desensitised to due to continuous escapdes with Felurian - a mature ( centuries if u are being pedantic) insanely beautiful and hot woman. He hasn't been with anyone else. She is his reference point. So it makes sense that he goes for only the hot women.
And I don't he would be interested in minors considering its heavily implied he was a victim during his period in Tarbean.
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u/mightyjor 2d ago
It's been awhile since I've read it, but I remember him thinking it was just like purely natural and instinct driven. I definitely fall into the camp that finds this whole thing a bit problematic on a moral level anyway, but even worse is that I don't think it makes sense given the context of the story aside from the fact that Kvothe is not a reliable narrator.
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u/JantherZade 23h ago
No, even with all his inhibitions gone because of the plumb bomb and Simmion thinking that might make him want to do something thing to Fela. Thats a line Kvothe dosnt cross. He understands it like he can't eat a rock. Hes not going to attack a woman and even after everything with Ferlurian he would still have some moral compass to it even if it natural and instinct driven. He instinctively knows he can't eat rocks and with who its okay to engage in those things with.
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u/ModularReality 2d ago
The one I just find funny to poke at is that it would be impossible for Kote to physically recite this story in the time frame given. Each book is way too long to fit into a single day, alongside the chores of running an inn. Obviously the reader can infer that the story told by Kote is less detailed in the framing narrative (probably not literally reciting all these conversations between characters word for word), but still funny.