The Wise Mans Fear

I recently started reading the sequel to the The Name of the Wind. This being: The Wise Mans Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Let me preface this by saying "I couldn't finish this book." (Or have yet to depending on if I can grit my teeth for that long without requiring dental reconstruction.)

The story is told from Kvothe's point of view. He, as an older man is telling us the tale of his youth and how he becomes a wizard of Gandalf-like proportions and all the drama that goes hand in hand with such a story. Mostly it is told first person from Kvothe as a lad with occasional forays into the "present".

I have two big problems with the book, world building and characterisation.

The world building is cut and paste fantasy. Over the course of our adventure our protagonist Kvothe(pronounced Quothe for some reason) pinballs around his generic fantasy world. (Under some farily flimsy pretenses I might add.) None of these locations are connected to one another, he spends two pages on a boat for his longest journey (which from the state of the character at the end of said pages was action packed) and yet a section trekking into the forest lasts roughly 50 pages and all we learn is that two of the guards travelling with him are oafish and that the grizzled old tracker is both grizzled and old.

The big spooky, secretive university (while it has some interesting moments, specifically the engineering/smithy type area) is basically Hogwarts, but with 20 year olds. The cities are all the same albeit with different numbers of taverns, the outposts and towns could be in any number of high/low fantasy series. Its terribly boring.



The world building is second to characterisation in terms of the amount of blistering rage I feel. Kvothe is a Mary Sue I scrape to find something the character is weak at. He is effortlessly brilliant, a genius lutist, he has untapped magic SUPERpowers (THE MOST MAGIC), he's the best magic duelist at the normal "anyone can do it" magic, he doesn't ever break his stupid fucking neck when hes climbing on wet/icy roofs in the middle of the night AND all the ladies love him. Women, actual female characters with an attempt at more than one dimension are all over him. On account of him being the dogs bollocks you see? The icing on the shitcake is of course, that he's 15. Fifteen. I could barely tie my own shoelaces at fifteen. The very suggestion of female interaction broke me into a sweat. Study? At fifteen? Whenever I thought about studying I quite sure I climbed a tree instead. Now Kvothe is suitably bashful with all this female attention, that is of course until he meets the Felurian, now Felurian is some kind of fairy siren, who lures men to her with the her supa-hotness and keeps them with her because you know she's lonely or some shit. It was at this point that my eyes could roll no further. I may have permanently damaged my vision. Kvothe, our now sixteen protagonist. Has a mindblowing fairysexfest with the Felurian. He does sex, does it hardcore. (THE MOST SEX). This was the scene where I put the book down. (Another four hundred or so pages to go.)

Rothfuss is not writing a story. He is writing horrible wish fulfillment fantasy. Kvothe is a paragon and every other character is merely there to be in awe of him.

This style of character development can work. A good example to my mind (and keeping things fairly recent and within the "genre") is the character of Locke from Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora. Locke is similar to Kvothe in many ways. He's described as slight, below average height, handsome in a sharp kind of way. He is extremely quick when thinking on his feet. He is an actor beyond compare (unless one is to attempt to compare him to Kvothe of course omigawd **Kvothe**). He is undoubtedly a genius and he is immensely strong willed. Of course, Lynch had the good sense to make Locke a character with a few foibles. He is utterly useless in a physical confrontation. Locke makes (avoidable) mistakes that cause him and those around him grief. The list of character flaws could continue for another few hundred words. The point being made is that the flaws lend depth an otherwise "unbeatable" character. (Unbeatable due to always having a trick up his sleeve. The only character who gets away with this sort of thing is Batman, on account of all the brooding.)

Finally, there is the hype surrounding The Kingkiller Chronicles. I'm a big picture kinda guy and I was of the opinion that from the insight we get into Kvothe as an older man during the occasional 3rd person scene would be part of the big pay off. How does this arrogant snotty punk become the emotionally/magically crippled wreck that is telling us this tale? My original thoughts were that the author was going for a grandiose rise/fall style story. This may still be the case by the time book three comes along. I maybe right. However I won't be reading it. If it was Rothfuss' intent to create a dislikable character that grows into the sort of guy we can get behind, albeit at a glacial pace, then he has been too successful. His paragon is intensely dislikable. I'm not even going to go into detail on the equally hateful love interest, Denna. We are never given sufficient explanation about what makes her great enough to put up with her shit. Denna's a massive bitch, all the time why are you chasing her you moron? Shack up with one of the half a dozen other floozies who are pining over you and have done with it.

In conclusion, Patrick Rothfuss tricked me into buying his latest book by having lots of respected authors/reviewers praise him. The Wise Mans Fear is adolescent wish fulfillment written by a cloistered manchild.


P.S Kvothe has red hair and we all know what they are like.