Line #67 Literature/TheKingkillerChronicle


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Kvothe_at_the_University_small_for_TVTropes_7401.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:''"Vorfelan Rhinata Morie"'']]
3
4	->''"I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep."''
5
6	->''"You may have heard of me."''
7
8	''The Kingkiller Chronicle'' is set to be a trilogy of {{Heroic Fantas\|y}}ies by Creator/PatrickRothfuss.
9
10	Kvothe, the eponymous kingkiller, is a [[ShroudedInMyth living legend]] after having given up his former life and gone into hiding as the innkeep [[MeaningfulName Kote]]. He is being sought out by Chronicler, a famous scribe, who wishes to write down Kvothe's [[TheHerosJourney life story]]. Kvothe declares that telling this story will take three days, thus providing a FramingDevice for the trilogy, the vast majority of which is told in [[PointOfView first-person narration]]. While this oral discourse is the main focus of the novel, frequent interruptions make it clear that his journey is not yet at an end.
11
12	* ''Literature/TheNameOfTheWind'' (2007) is the first day. It describes Kvothe's youth with his parents in a band of traveling entertainers, who are killed when Kvothe's father begins to do research into a band of [[ShroudedInMyth semi-mythical destroyers]] called the Chandrian. He travels to [[WizardingSchool The University]] to not only further his education, but to attempt to learn all he can about them.
13	* ''Literature/TheWiseMansFear'' (2011) details Kvothe's travels abroad during a sabbatical: in Vintas, where he courts the patronage of a rich if somewhat egotistical nobleman; with the Adem, a ProudWarriorRace; and with Felurian, a [[TheFairFolk fae seductress]] who leaves her lovers either dead or mad.
14	* The third book has a working title of ''The Doors of Stone'' and no set release date, but it will presumably wrap up Kvothe's recitation.
15
16	A shorter novel, originating as a UsefulNotes/NaNoWriMo, set in Modeg and featuring a new protagonist will appear sometime before book 3. [[note]]As mentioned from about 1:38:30-1:42:00 in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjlJDzpQn5c[[/note]]
17
18	Two short stories were published in anthologies: "How Old Holly Came To Be" (2013) and "The Lightning Tree" (2014).
19
20	The novella ''Literature/TheSlowRegardOfSilentThings'' (2014), published separately, centers around the character of Auri. Rothfuss thought the story was a train wreck and that no one would want to read it. However, Creator/{{Vihart}} convinced him that the inner life of a profoundly different person like Auri is something that ''must'' be shown to the world.
21	->'''Rothfuss:''' Readers expect certain things. People are going to read this and be disappointed. It doesn't do what a normal story is supposed to do.\
22	'''Vi:''' Fuck those people. Those people have stories written for them all the time. What about me? Where's the story for people like me?
23
24	In 2020, [[http://oneshotpodcast.com/one-shot/360-kingkiller-one-shot-part-1/ a podcast mini-series]] set in the world started being published. It is produced in partnership with Podcast/OneShotPodcast and is an early playtest of an in-development Kingkiller Chronicle role-playing game.
25	----
26	!!The series as a whole provides examples of:
27	* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: Owing to the novels' lengths, the framing device for the stories doesn't actually work. Each is supposed to be Kvothe reciting the story to Chronicler over the course of a single day, after they wake up and including breaks from interruptions and finally going to bed after. Unless Kvothe speaks very, very quickly, this is impossible. In particular, the audiobook for ''Wise Man's Fear'' is a whopping 43 hours long, yet is told in perhaps 18 hours in-story.
28	* TheAce: Young Kvothe excels at just about everything he tries to do, from music to magic to fighting to performing arts. A great portion of the story so far is Kvothe learning various useful skills far more quickly than most anyone in the world. He has difficulty only with things that bore him, like higher math, and extraordinarily difficult things, like Naming. The trope is made palatable by the foregone conclusion that, for all his knowledge and talent, [[BrokenAce Kvothe has lost much of what made him great.]]
29	* AerithAndBob: Most of the characters have unusual names such as Kvothe, Abenthy, Arliden, Fela, Meluan, Skarpi and so forth. However, there are a handful of minor character names like Basil, Benjamin, Carter, Graham, Ellie, Jake, Jason, Pete and Seth, who have standard real-world names.
30	* AllAccessibleMagic: The magic of Sympathy requires extraordinary strength of will and careful study of the [[FantasticScience metaphysical principles involved]], but is theoretically accessible to anyone. [[RunicMagic Sygaldry]] and {{Alchemy\|IsMagic}} aren't known to require any innate gift either. Despite this, the high skill requirement makes magic a rare trade that's treated with superstition by many.
31	* AllFirstPersonNarratorsWriteLikeNovelists: Kote recounts his story very poetically, with well-thought out pacing etc.
32	* AllMythsAreTrue: Partially averted. Most of the myths mentioned in the book have some shade of truth to them such as the weaknesses of the [[TheFairFolk Fae and Mael]]. However, others such as the number of Chandrian and their origin vary from place to place and by necessity some of them must be wrong.
33	%%* AlphaBitch: Ambrose fits this trope to a T, except he's a dude.
34	* AlternativeCalendar: Weeks are eleven days long in this world and called a span. Months are 44 days long, but still called months. Days have names like Felling, Cendling, and Mourning, etc.
35	* {{Animesque}}: Literary example. The series shares a number of common tropes with Japanese LightNovels. Kvothe was in many ways a StockLightNovelHero in the past due to his overpowered abilities and plethora of LoveInterests. A teenaged yet substantially powerful protagonist attracting a {{Harem\|Genre}} of women who want to bed him isn't something seen often in western fantasy but it's a ''ridiculously'' common in light novels. Even present day Kvothe has a number of similarities with this kind of character, most specifically Willem Kmetsch from ''Literature/WorldEndWhatDoYouDoAtTheEndOfTheWorldAreYouBusyWillYouSaveUs'', as both were once legendary heroes who are introduced living in miserable isolation following some great failure that led to their respective worlds going to hell. The fact that Willem works as an innkeeper at one point in his story makes the comparison even more striking.
36	* ApothecaryAlligator: Caudicus, the Maer's arcanist, has a stuffed crocodile hanging from his ceiling.
37	* ArcNumber:
38	** [[RuleOfThree Three]] has particular relevance in stories and traditions as well as expressions. Bast states that he owns Chronicler three ways. Simmon shows he's serious when he says to Kvothe, "I'm telling you three times..." There is a much-quoted expression "Third time pays for all." The three things all wise men fear. Giving three gifts is considered proper, especially in stories. Most notably is the "silence of three parts" passages.
39	** [[RuleOfSeven Seven]] is an explicitly supernatural and lucky number within the world. Trip has a knack for rolling sevens. There are seven Chandrian. "Seven things stand before the entrance to the Lackless door." Threpe gives Kvothe seven talents as a lucky number. Kvothe notes that the 21 balls of denner resin is a good number, being three groups of seven. Elodin states that there are seven words to make a woman fall in love with you. Denna also jokes that Kvothe is always saying things to her in sentences made up of seven words, presumably because he is trying to find those seven words to use on Denna even if he does not realize it.
40	* AristocratsAreEvil: Most aristocrats are stuffy, elitist and selfish. Ambrose is a particular example, but Kvothe meets quite a number more like him. The Maer, though by no means a cruel person, is selfish and used to getting his way. There are some aversions, such as Bredon, Threpe and Simmon, and even they can have some ugly quirks.
41	* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking:
42	-->I was one of ''those''. I meddled with dark powers. I summoned demons. I ate the entire little cheese, including the rind.
43	* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: The monstrously effective martial art practiced by the Adem runs on artistic license. It's powerful enough for a little girl half of Kvothe's size to defeat him with little effort. It is also founded on the principles that moral clarity makes a person a better fighter, that size and strength matter little in a fight, and that women are more moral than men and therefore better fighters -- all of which is, of course, just artistic invention.
44	* AsYouKnow: Somewhat inevitable, since in-universe the story is being told by a legendary figure about his own life, so many events are things that his audience would be somewhat familiar with. That said, he explains Sympathy in detail twice (when Abenthy teaches it to him in ''Literature/TheNameOfTheWind'', and when it's demonstrated for Denna in ''Literature/TheWiseMansFear''). To further this, his immediate audience consists of a full-fledged Arcanist and Kvothe's own student, both of whom are well versed in Sympathy.
45	%% * BadassBoast
46	%% ** Kvothe begins his story with one
47	%% ** Bast's threat to Chronicler, made even more badass because it's implied that this is NotHyperbole.
48	* TheBard: The Edema Ruh are a society of traveling entertainers including many bards.
49	* BarefootLoon:
50	** Auri; she is a classical example of TheOphelia who never wears shoes.
51	** Kvothe also spent three years barefoot in Tarbean, a time where a good portion of his psyche was scabbed over and hidden from him because of trauma, a kind of madness.
52	* BarefootPoverty: Kvothe bitterly remembers this from his time in Tarbean.
53	* BarefootSage: Elodin, a wise and talented magician with a prominent aversion to shoes; this is one of his many [[EccentricMentor eccentricities]].
54	* BeamMeUpScotty: In-universe; things said by other philosophers are often attributed to Teccam.
55	* BerserkButton: Don't mess with Kvothe's lute. The only person who ever gets away with it is [[spoiler: Denna]], and he still has a minor HeroicBSOD over it.
56	* BigBad: Lord Haliax and the Chandrian. However, in the second book it's implied that [[spoiler: the Cthaeh may be TheChessmaster behind everything.]]
57	* BilingualBonus:
58	** Bast calls Kvothe "Reshi". "Rishi" is Hindi/Sanskrit for the composer of Vedic poems/hymns or a seer - a Rishi is understood to be a very wise person.
59	** Aleph, the briefly mentioned creator-god who Named all things, is probably named after the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
60	** The demi-gods are called the Ruach, Hebrew for spirit/wind/breath.
61	** In both Gaelic and in-universe, "Deoch" means "drink."
62	** In the second book, Kvothe tells a story about a man named Sceop who knows stories even the Edema Ruh have never heard. "Sceop" is an Old English word that can be loosely translated as "bard."
63	** In Latin, the word manet means "he/she/it remains."
64	** Kvothe says the name "Auri" means sunny, but can't think in what language. "auri-" is the prefix form of the word for gold in Latin and the given name "Ari" means "sun-like" in the Dravidian language Badaga.
65	* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: A male example with Simmon, Wilem and Kvothe.
66	* BookEnds
67	** Both books in the trilogy so far have both opened and closed with a prologue/epilogue about "A Silence of Three Parts." Each chapter varies slightly in mood, but they all conclude with "the patient, cut-flower sound of a man waiting to die."
68	** Bast reciting the "Elderberry" counting rhyme in ''Literature/TheWiseMansFear''. At the beginning, it's to choose what bottles to pick for a mixed drink. [[spoiler:At the end, it's to decide which of the soldiers to kill first, with which random implement about the camp.]]
69	* BrickJoke:
70	** In the [[Literature/TheNameOfTheWind first book]], Elodin asks Kvothe, "Do you know the seven words that will make a woman love you?" Several examples pop up: [[spoiler: "I was just wondering why you're here," "I need you to breathe for me," "You know, I could have carried you," "For all that, she lacked your fire"]]. The lesson is that the right words depend entirely on context. As does most of Naming magic.
71	** Whenever Kvothe encounters a tinker on the road, you can be sure that whatever he decides against buying is the exact item he'll be in dire need of a few chapters later.
72	* BrokenAce: Kvothe is brilliant and excels at everything he tries, but tears himself apart so badly in the process that by the time Chronicler finds him, he's a shadow of his former self.
73	* BrokenBird: Denna hides her brokenness behind a shell of witty banter, but it becomes clear that she's been hurt many times in the past.
74	* ButterflyOfDoom: Implied to be somewhat literal by the fact that the Cthaeh spends its time killing butterflies, if it's not pure sadism. This is also what the Cthaeh, metaphorically, spends all its time setting up.
75	* BunnyEarsLawyer: Master-Namer Elodin, who appears at first to be quite insane, is actually very good at what he teaches, which is the mysterious and difficult skill of knowing the true names of things. Still possibly insane.
76	* CallARabbitASmeerp: A wide, wide variety of things (and people, countries, currencies, holidays, etc.) all seem suspiciously familiar, but under a different name.
77	** "Ophalum"/"denner resin", which grows in a tree, but has effects resembling a mishmash of several real drugs, notably opium.
78	** Even graduate students and post-docs have their own names at the University.
79	** As seen when Kvothe writes the mocking song "Jackass Jackass," the tune "Turkey in the Straw" is called "Squirrel in the Thatch," presumably because turkeys don't live in this part of the world.
80	** Zombies are shamblemen, though the description also has similarities with revenants and traditional vampires.
81	** Birds resembling hummingbirds are called sipquicks or flits in Vintas.
82	* CastFromHitPoints: Using the heat of your blood to power sympathy. Drawing too much heat can lead to shivers, hypothermia and death. Using body heat in general does this too, and is far safer, but blood provides more heat faster.
83	* CannotSpitItOut: Kvothe and Denna.
84	* CharacterWitness: Auri serves as one, in two different ways, for Kvothe to Elodin. First, the fact that Kvothe gave her a perfectly cromulent name convinces Elodin that he has a knack for naming. Second, the fact that Kvothe, though clearly terrified of losing his place at the school, is willing to threaten Elodin with actions that would be terrible for both of them if the latter turned Auri over to the University's not so tender ministrations, convinces him Kvothe's [[HiddenDepths more than just a reckless youngster]].
85	* ChekhovsClassroom: Most of the [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's Guns]] are presented as legend, folklore or instruction from Kvothe's studies. For example, the book ''The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus'' is mentioned so many times that if that information failed to come in handy eventually, Chekhov would be very angry. Kvothe is recounting the story with the benefit of both hindsight and potent storytelling expertise, so he might be purposefully mentioning lessons that became relevant later.
86	* ChemicallyInducedInsanity: Ambrose doses Kvothe with an alchemical concoction that leaves him TheSociopath for a few days, intending him to embarrass himself at an important moment. Although Kvothe runs his mouth in front of a younger student and has to be restrained from nonchalantly murdering Ambrose when Kvothe learns what's been done, his friends manage to get him to privacy before he does any real damage.
87	* CloakOfDefense: A powerful [[TheFairFolk fae]] weaves [[InsubstantialIngredients shadows and moonlight]] into a ''shaed'' cloak for Kvothe. It grants him camouflage in darkness and dampens incoming blows, making it a cross between this trope and InvisibilityCloak.
88	%% * {{Cloudcuckoolander}}:
89	%% ** Auri, Kvothe's friend from the tunnels under the University.
90	%% ** Elodin is a classic case.
91	* CompellingVoice:
92	** Learning the name of something allows people to use this on the objects ''or people'' that they know the name of.
93	** Felurian has a way of speaking that provokes instinctive obedience. Kvothe notes that it's as if she cannot conceive of you not obeying her.
94	* ContrivedCoincidence: Denna and Kvothe run into each other by chance a whole lot, which they both comment on.
95	* CoolSword: Kvothe has a sword named "Folly" hanging on the wall of his inn. Also, Kvothe's sword that he got in Ademre, "Saicere"/"Caesura".
96	* CourtPhysician: The Maer Alvaren retains Caudicus, a University arcanist and alchemist who doubles as Court Mage. He prepares a daily dose of medicine for the Maer, and [[spoiler: Kvothe cements his position at court by discovering that it's actually a slow poison.]]
97	* CrystalDragonJesus: Tehlu, and the whole religion based on him. The biggest piece of background on Tehlu is basically the Passion as if it were an Old Testament story, where the Satan figure is broken on the wheel and Tehlu dies to keep him there as he burns.
98	* {{Deconstruction}}: Kvothe deconstructs the MarySue protagonists that the fantasy genre is just lousy with; he was TheAce as a kid. Yet this sets him up for several [[FatalFlaw flaws]], [[{{Pride}} being too arrogant,]] [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge full of hatred]] and impatience because he's TheAce and knows it. [[ForegoneConclusion And we already know]] [[BrokenAce that he broke under the weight of his actions and the standards he set for himself]].
99	* DefeatedAndTrophified: This is the Maer's preferred punishment for bandits: put them in a cage above the city's main gate until they starve to death. The skeleton of the previous criminal is still there, serving as a reminder of the Maer's authority.
100	* {{Doublethink}}: While learning sympathy, a sympathist must be able to split his/her mind to believe contradicting beliefs at the same time. The most skilled sympathists such as Kvothe and [[spoiler: Devi]] can split their minds 6 or 7 ways to reinforce the strength of their will.
101	* DoubleStandard: Male and female students are treated differently, for better or worse.
102	** Only boys may be punished by whipping. Girls only pay the fine.
103	** Female students at the University also struggle with the relentless chauvinism of some of the professors. At one point, Hemme punishes tardy male students with writing essays (which is a standard, if nasty, punishment for being a few minutes late), but escorts a tardy female student in only to tell her, in front of the entire class, to cross her legs in order to "shut the door to hell."
104	* DubNameChange: Foreign translations of the books often change names of characters and concepts for no apparent reason. For example, the Blac of Drossen Tor is changed to "Nagra of Vessten Tor" in the Spanish translation. For the first word, it can be guessed that the translator identified "blac" as a corruption of the English word "black", and thus he changed it to a similar corruption of "negro" in Spanish, but this is ''not'' the meaning of the word in the book or anything semantically related (Skarpi says in the same sentence that it means "battle"); and for the second word, impossible to know. In the Italian translation, Ambrose's surname was changed to Somar, for its similarity to "somaro" (which means both "donkey" and "ignorant", thus allowing Kvothe's song to have the same derogatory tone).
105	%% * {{Elopement}}: Kvothe's parents in the BackStory.
106	%% * EveryoneCanSeeIt: Kvothe and Denna.
107	* EyeColorChange:
108	** Bast's blue eyes change, brightening and the pupil shrinking based on mood; this is explained by the fact that he's not human and the glamour is slipping.
109	** Kvothe's green eyes are observed and commented on multiple times through the book as changing shade depending on his mood. This is interpreted by many readers that his mother, a highborn runaway, was a fae.
110	* FailureHero: Kvothe believes this about himself which is why he is hiding out as an innkeeper.
111	%% * TheFairFolk:
112	%% ** Bastas, son of Remmen, Prince of Twilight and the Telwyth Mael
113	%% ** Felurian
114	%% ** Also implied to be the root cause of what most people call [[spoiler: demons]].
115	%% ** Technically the Mael also, though they're expressly stated as being completely different from the Fae.
116	%% * FallenHero:
117	%% ** Lanre/Haliax.
118	%% ** Possibly our eponymous Kingkiller as well.
119	* FantasticFightingStyle: The Ketan, a martial art practiced by the Adem. Kvothe only mentions its techniques by name and rarely explains them, but the style overall appears to be a fantastic counterpart to a mixture of UsefulNotes/{{Karate}} and UsefulNotes/{{Aikido}}: on one hand, it has kicks, punches, knifehand chops and a ''kata''-like system of solo training, while on the other hand, it also has armlocks, throws, swordfighting, and a deep philosophical base. Its naming convention for techniques, for its part, reminds of Chinese kung fu styles, where terms for them tend to be highly poetic rather than descriptive.
120	* FantasticLightSource: "Sympathy lamps" [[EquivalentExchange convert]] ambient heat into bright, steady light and can last almost forever. Their expense makes them uncommon outside the [[WizardingSchool University]], but they're a MundaneFantastic appliance to people who can afford them, and Kvothe makes easy money on the side by manufacturing them.
121	* FantasyCounterpartCulture:
122	** The Edema Ruh are clearly based on the Roma, or maybe, considering their light hair and complexions, Irish Travelers, with their performing, their nomadic lifestyles living in caravans, and their unfair reputation as thieves.
123	** Ademre has a lot of parallels with China. The Ketan is clearly based on Asian martial arts, and the concept of the Adem mercenary and and the schools that teach them parallel the operation of many historical martial arts schools in ancient China. Similarly, the Lethani is highly reminiscent of the concept of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Taoism}} Tao]], receiving at some points descriptions that seems pasted from Taoist texts. The descriptions of how the Adem language works (it's tonality, and its emphasis on deciphering meaning over precision) also strongly resembles Chinese, and he hand-gestures/facial-expressions may be a tip of the hat to [[InscrutableOriental Asian inscrutability]], the famed inability of Westerners to read Asian facial expressions. To top it all off, the Adem are all known for having the same hair color (only sandy instead of black). Only certain minor traits of the Adem (the sexually liberated, the matriarchal society) don't match China, and instead evoke a CultureChopSuey with Herodotian descriptions of Eurasian barbarians like the mythological Amazons.
124	** The ancient Aturan empire, with its centralized city, massive scope and spread of the series' counterpart to Christianity resembles the ancient Roman Empire, while the modern day Aturans seem to resemble the Holy Roman Empire of early modern times.
125	** The Yllish are a rather unique and fairly under-described culture, but the fact that they come from an island and are known for having red hair makes them similar to the Irish, which is intensified by the fact that Deoch has a Yllish background and a name that means "to drink" in both Yllish and Gaelic. Another aspect of their culture, the use of knots as a written language may be related to [[http://www.whats-your-sign.com/celtic-knots.html Celtic knots]].
126	* FantasyGunControl: Combined with a form of MedievalStasis. There are hints that there was a higher level of technology in the past, among them rusted and unrecognizable hulks in the tunnels and the remains of an extensive sewer system. Something seems to have knocked them back. Sections at the University suggest that science and technology is currently around early 19th century levels, possibly a little better in some areas and worse in others. For example:
127	** Kvothe knows that steel is an alloy of iron and carbon, rather than something you get from processing iron in a particular way with coke.
128	** Medicine in general is well developed in the Arcanum; Arwyl and Kvothe know that bleeding a person is almost never beneficial, and Kvothe repeatedly resorts to charcoal to counteract ingested poisons. He can also compute dosages by body weight. Kvothe knows enough about nutrition to know that sea salt contains chromium, bassal, malium, iodine, and other trace minerals. Simmon identifies the plum-bob drug as "lipid soluble" and knows that this means it will hang around in the body for a while, causing flashbacks. Kvothe adds that it removes "behavioural filters", very much a late 20th century expression. And people know what proprioception is, despite it being obscure enough in ''our'' world that most people have never even heard the word.[[note]]It's the seventh of your five senses--the sixth being your balance from your inner ear--and is what lets you know where your body parts are in relation to each other. Proprioception is what lets you clap your hands in the dark.[[/note]]
129	** The people also seem to have the laws of motion and thermodynamics worked out (except, possibly, entropy, as that may be negated by the magic in the books); at one point students attempt to solve a problem a Master sets to determine where a stone thrown with a particular force and at a particular angle will land using math, implying familiarity with some form of Newton's laws of motion, conservation of momentum, and the laws of gravity.
130	** Fire is described by Kvothe to a Master as "an exothermic chemical reaction". There are many other examples which could be cited. Yet despite all this no one seems to have discovered gun powder or built a steam engine. The teachers are, however, strongly against using combinations of magic with martial technology.
131	** Magnets are mysterious and rare objects in Kvothe's world, and Master Kilvin's lifelong quest for an "everburning torch" in a glass globe makes it clear that current arcanists have never heard of electricity.
132	** During Kvothe's traveling around Trebon with Denna at the end of the first book, he makes it clear that magnetism and naturally-occurring electricity (of the electric eel variety) are both aspects of the mysterious "galvanic force", which is odd: they have no idea how electricity and magnetism work, but they know about electromagnetism?
133	* FatalFlaw: Impatience seems to be Kvothe's fatal flaw. A hell of a lot of the trouble he gets himself into could have been avoided oh so easily if he only bided his time. Most of the rest of the trouble he lands himself in can be put down to his pride and refusal to back down in his feud with Ambrose.
134	* FearlessFool: Referenced. Kvothe says that only priests and fools are fearless.
135	* FictionalBoardGame: Kvothe plays Tak, a board game that's "simple in its rules, but complex in its strategy", with his enigmatic mentor Bredon in the Vintish court. The rules aren't described in the book, but the game later got an official {{Defictionalization}}.
136	* FightingFingerprint: One of the villagers concludes innkeeper Kote must be a wizard in hiding because when the inn is attacked Kote reaches for a specially prepared bottle instead of the sword he keeps behind the bar.
137	* FoodAsCharacterization: Kvothe's OrphansOrdeal and subsequent money troubles left him fond of {{Mundane Luxur\|y}}ies like snacking on fresh apples (rather than scrounging for discarded cores) and treating his friends to dinner at a nice (but not fancy) restaurant.
138	* ForegoneConclusion: From the framing story, we know that Kvothe comes out of everything infamous worldwide, [[BrokenAce deeply emotionally scarred]], and believed dead.
139	* FunctionalMagic: Sympathy and Naming. Sympathy is almost like a science, while naming requires a very particular view of the world that few can achieve, and can even drive you crazy.
140	* FramingDevice: Chronicler hearing the story from Kvothe.
141	* GenericCuteness: ''Every'' woman in ''The Name of the Wind'' is described as beautiful, good-looking, etc. {{Lampshaded}} by Bast ("All the women in your story are beautiful"), which indicates this trope might simply be Kvothe finding every woman he sees attractive, because at the time he was a fifteen-year-old boy who didn't meet many girls. ''The Wise Man's Fear'' eases up, introducing such characters as the old, practical Shehyn and the boyish Hespe.
142	* GoldSilverCopperStandard: Due to his perpetual money troubles, Kvothe frequently discusses coin currency from a variety of lands. While each nation has its own currency, it all follows the "gold, silver, copper" standard, with Caeldish currency also featuring two denominations of iron coins that are worth less than copper coins.
143	* GoodScarsEvilScars: Kvothe is covered with attractive, smooth and pale 'good guy' scars that are hidden under his clothes. "All the scars were smooth and silver [[ChekhovsGun except one]]."
144	* HeroicFantasy
145	* TheHerosJourney: The overall point of the story.
146	* IKnowYourTrueName: Probably the most difficult branch of magic, with most arcanists knowing no names, and a very few knowing one or two. Searching for names has the potential to drive you insane.
147	* ImmortalityPromiscuity: The two [[TheFairFolk Fae]] characters, for whom ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty, are depicted in this manner:
148	** Bast is [[FaunsAndSatyrs faunlike]], at least 150 years old, and dedicated to living according to his own desires, which, while he and Kvothe are holed up in Newarre, largely means trying his luck with almost every adult woman in town.
149	** The TimeAbyss WorldsMostBeautifulWoman Felurian passes the centuries by taking mortal lovers, who invariably either go OutWithABang or literally go insane with desire for her after she tires of them.
150	* ImposedHandicapTraining: Students learning [[SympatheticMagic Sympathy]] at [[WizardingSchool the University]] often practice using less than ideal links, such as trying to set a hair on fire by burning a straw.
151	* InfallibleNarrator: Being TheAce as well as a trained storyteller, Kvothe recollects every detail of his story (he says). Before he's even willing to begin, he demands proof that Chronicler will be able to transcribe every detail perfectly.
152	* InsistentTerminology: While many are okay with the common folk referring to the art of sympathy as magic, arcanists among themselves take great pains to point out the large difference between [[TheFairFolk the fairy tale magic of Fae]] and the more rigorously studied [[MagicAIsMagicA sympathy]].
153	* InsultBackfire: Given that women dominate the top ranks in most Adem combat schools, the mercenary Tempi is quite pleased to be told that he fights like a girl. Similarly, [[spoiler:he thinks someone calling his mother a whore is also a compliment: in Adem culture, casual sex is extremely common, so it would indeed be rather flattering to be so good at it that someone would ''pay'' you.]]
154	* TheKingslayer: Kvothe alludes in the telling of his story to this happening, though it does not occur in the first two books. Some regard him as a hero, some as a miscreant, but whatever public opinion, he had a role in starting a war and is living under a false identity.
155	* LampshadeHanging: Throughout the story, Kvothe and various characters give nods to some common fantasy tropes from time to time. Kvothe is quite GenreSavvy due to growing up as part of a performing troupe.
156	* LeftJustifiedFantasyMap: The map is similar to Europe; the places that Kvothe initially inhabits such as the University and Tarbean are to the west. Kvothe later travels eastward, first to Vintas, and then onward to Ademre.
157	* TheLegendOfChekhov: The stories about that weird kid who somehow captured the moon? That happened.
158	* LivingLegend: Kvothe and the yet-to-be-seen Oren Velciter.
159	* LoyalPhlebotinum: The [[WizardingSchool University]] creates AntiMagic "Grams" and issues "Guilder" {{Membership Token}}s to its fully accredited arcanists, both of which are tokens bound to their owner with SympatheticMagic. If anyone else touches one, it numbs their hand, making it impossible to fake being an Arcanist.
160	* MagicAIsMagicA: Knacks, Sympathy, and Naming all work by concrete rules, which are explained at length. Alchemy is pointed out as being distinctly different from chemistry, but Sympathy and Sygaldry bear more in common with physics and calculus than traditional magic.
161	* MagicalBarefooter: An aversion to shoes may be the general trait of those who have the knowledge of things' true names. Auri and Elodin both have a penchant for going barefoot, and another character from ''Literature/TheWiseMansFear'' (a wise old Listener) also PrefersGoingBarefoot. Kvothe also spent three years barefoot in Tarbean.
162	* MagicByAnyOtherName: Sympathy, not to be confused with "Naming". If you know the true name of something you can command it, but if you don't then you can find something to represent it and use your willpower to force what happens to this to happen to that. Sympathy is seen as magic by many people in-universe, but people who actually use it insist that it isn't.
163	* MagicalUnderpinningsOfReality: The moon disappearing from the sky isn't caused by the moon being between the sun and the Earth, it's because when it's not in the sky, the moon is actually elsewhere, serving as the moon of Fae. This phenomenon may have been caused when a boy named Jax (Actually Iax, a long-dead Namer, and purportedly the greatest of them all at the time.) learned the moon's name and partially trapped it in a box, hence the JustSoStory of why the moon waxes and wanes.
164	* {{Magitek}}: Sympathy lamps and clocks, a sygaldry fridge. Most common in the Commonwealth because its only source, the University, is located there. [[spoiler:Kvothe designs and builds one of his own at the University, a hanging ball that uses sympathy and a powerful internal spring to "catch" any fast projectiles that move near it, making them stop. In his absence it becomes extremely popular and profitable.]]
165	* TheMagnificent: Kvothe the Bloodless/the Arcane/Kingkiller.
166	%%* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Denna
167	* {{Matriarchy}}: The Ademre are a ProudWarriorRace ruled by women. All members practice their FantasticFightingStyle, the Ketan, which makes even a mediocre Adem fighter the match for several normal soldiers. The Adem believe that morality is more important for skill in the Ketan than any physical advantage. They also believe that women are more naturally moral than men. Therefore, women are both better fighters and better people than men. All of their leaders are women for this reason.
168	* MeaningfulName: Many of them, some in-story (see also BilingualBonus):
169	** The barkeep Deoch is named for the Irish word "deoch" -- a drink.
170	** Kvothe calls himself "Kote" when playing the role of an innkeeper. A conversation with one of his teachers towards the end of The Name of the Wind reveals that ''kote'' is an in-universe Siaru word meaning ''disaster''. He's also currently hiding in the village of Newarre, in the middle of '''nowhere'''.
171	** Denna. [[spoiler:Kvothe compares her to a wild thing: skittish, and drifting about like the wind. At one point in the book, Kvothe mentions "the ever-changing name of the wind." Denna changes her name constantly. Her name is also very similar to denner, and Kvothe is arguably addicted to her]].
172	** Kvothe at one point says that the Adem called him "Maedre", which means either "The Flame, The Thunder or The Burning Tree, depending on how you pronounce it." That sounds relatively innocuous until you find out that the trilogy ''itself'' was originally named "The Song of Flame and Thunder," until being given its current title to avoid confusion with ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Kvothe's own name was formerly a TitleDrop.
173	** The Master Artificer is Kilvin, and among the things he deals with are lamps and fire, heat and chemistry. The real life Lord Kelvin was a physicist/chemist, who dealt extensively with thermodynamics, the movement of heat, and other things. Kilvin is introduced as being unable to solve the problem of an ever-burning lamp. The real Lord Kelvin was, somewhat famously and retroactively, completely stymied by the problem of the sun, as nuclear physics was as yet undiscovered and there's no purely chemical way for the sun to burn for billions of years.
174	** Elodin, the Master of Names. The god Odin is possessed of more than 200 names.
175	** The music hall where Kvothe performs is called the Eolian. "Eolian" means "relating to, caused by, or carried by the wind" in English. This is the origin of the name of the wind-played [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_harp Aeolian/Eolian harp]].
176	** Master of Alchemy Mandrag probably gets his name from Mandragora, the Latin word for the mandrake species of plants, which carries much superstition and ritual significance due to their oddly-shaped roots and many botanical properties.
177	* MembershipToken: The [[WizardingSchool Academy]] famously issues lead "Guilders" to its fully accredited arcanists. They have the advantage of being LoyalPhlebotinum bound to their owners through SympatheticMagic, so anyone else who touches one has their hand go numb.
178	* MemeticBadass: Kvothe himself, InUniverse. People are telling tales about him, and getting it wrong due to hearsay distortion, ''in his own inn, to his face''.
179	* MenDontCry: {{Defied\|Trope}} by the Adem people. They usually consider it childish and uncivilized to emote openly, so they present themselves as TheStoic and use UsefulNotes/SignLanguage to communicate most emotions; however, they laugh and cry freely, believing those emotional reactions to be too basic and primal to suppress.
180	* MrFanservice: Bast, [[http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/panel-5.jpg as lampshaded in a comic summary of the novel posted on Rothfuss' blog.]]
181	* MsFanservice:
182	** [[HotLibrarian Fela]] is one in both books. Kvothe often makes mention of her attractive features in great detail and she has quite a few {{fanservice}} moments, such as when Kvothe visits her late in the night and finds out she SleepsInTheNude, as she answers the door clad only in a ModestyBedsheet, or when she dressed up in a PimpedOutDress with an ImpossiblyLowNeckline in order to play HoneyTrap for Ambrose for a few hours.
183	** Felurian is a supernaturally beautiful {{Fa\|irySexy}}e who is [[ShamelessFanserviceGirl nude for all of her appearances]]. Kvothe keeps describing how gorgeous she is during his whole time with her.
184	* MundaneLuxury: Kvothe greatly appreciates simple comforts after spending three years as a [[OrphansOrdeal miserable, traumatized]] StreetUrchin. He lives happily in a small room over an inn and savors snacking on whole apples because he used to have to scrounge for the cores. When he comes into a respectable amount of money, things like treating his friends to dinner and buying extra sets of clothes feel like an utter luxury to him.
185	* NarrativeProfanityFilter: The narrative is light on profanity in general, and rarely anything harder than a "damn" or "hell." Kvothe will sometimes state that someone cursed. When Simmon and Fela act out Ambrose's argument with Fela, Simmon calls Fela a "bint" and admits later that Ambrose used [[CountryMatters another word]] that shouldn't be repeated even in fun.
186	* NestedStory: Kvothe's dictation of his autobiography contains a number of stories. Storytelling is a major motif in the series.
187	* NoConservationOfEnergy: {{Averted\|Trope}}. One of the main premises of Sympathy is that you need energy, and the weaker the link, the more energy is lost in the process. As already mentioned, when in a pinch, some characters (mostly Kvothe) have used the heat from their own [[BloodMagic blood]] for an energy source -- though only in a pinch, because over-doing it induces hypothermia.
188	* NoFathersAllowed: The Adem nation doesn't recognize "fatherhood" as a concept at all. To them, men and sex play no role in reproduction, and women instead just naturally "[[SpontaneousGeneration ripen]]" at times and bear children (part of it has to do with the Adem in general being [[ReallyGetsAround very liberal about sex]]). Their language doesn't even have a word for "father", instead translating it as "manmother" when they have to communicate with other cultures.
189	* NoPoverty: Kvothe visits the homeland of the Adem, a society funded by their world-class mercenaries. He notes that everyone lives simply, but in great comfort.
190	* ObliviousToLove: Just about the ''only'' thing Kvothe isn't naturally good at is handling female emotional attention. Even after he learns bed skills and starts sleeping his way around, he's still completely unaware of being the target of two long-standing crushes (from [[spoiler:Denna and Fela]]). His reluctance to fully court Denna, however, comes from her history of rejecting suitors that pursue her directly.
191	* ObsessiveCompulsiveBarkeeping: Modern-day Kote keeps his inn studiously clean, and never fails to wipe down the counter and polish the bottles.
192	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome:
193	** Kvothe's trial, during which he allegedly learned enough Tema in a day and defended himself brilliantly. He glosses over it because it was tedious to live through, and the transcripts would be available as a matter of public record.
194	** The "unfortunate complications" of the journey to Severen probably could have filled half a book...
195	---> In brief, there was a storm, piracy, treachery, and shipwreck, although not in that order. It also goes without saying that I did a great many things, some heroic, some ill-advised, some clever and audacious.
196	* ThatOldTimePrescription: The world has relatively well-researched medicine, in particular at the University, some of which, like the metallurgy and other science-y bits, might even be over the head of a general reader. That being said, Kvothe spends a lot of time chewing willow bark, due to getting his butt kicked a lot and never having enough money for more pure medicine.
197	* OurAngelsAreDifferent: In the Tehlin Church, angels are heavenly beings rather similar to generic Judeo-Christian angels, although with some pantheon-like elements. According to Skarpi, however, the beings who became the angels were originally [[spoiler:survivors of the Creation War who forswore their earthly lives to gain great power to mete out justice]].
198	* PerpetualPoverty:
199	** A continuing theme is that Kvothe is nearly broke and just barely manages to get his tuition paid and his survival needs met. [[spoiler:As of the end of ''Wise Man's Fear'', this plot point is resolved via an unlimited scholarship from the Maer and royalties from selling his Bloodless devices.]]
200	** [[spoiler:After Kvothe pays off Devi's loan for the final time, he realizes that she carefully picks her lending rates to keep debtors in this state, hoping they will cave and barter in illegal favors instead.]]
201	* PrefersGoingBarefoot: Kvothe and Denna have walked around barefoot voluntarily in at least two separate times (in Kvothe's case, it's probably due to the memory of his lack of shoes during his life in Tarbean), and characters like [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Auri and Elodin]] have it [[BarefootLoon as a habit]].
202	* PunctuationShaker: The University's ranks. At least they confine themselves to just apostrophes, no accents or umlauts lurking about.
203	* {{Reconstruction}}: The book does a wonderful job of answering [[{{Deconstruction}} questions about the genre]] before they're even ''asked''. For example, the FramingDevice involves Kvothe dictating the story to Chronicler. Well, people can't write as fast as they can talk, but most books just quietly ignore that. Here, however, Chronicler has invented a shorthand cipher specifically for the purpose of allowing him to write faster than people can talk, justifying something so omnipresent we don't even have a trope for it.
204	* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Kvothe certainly thinks so. Indeed, he feels so strongly on the subject that even when he's been alchemically rendered unable to feel or even comprehend moral restraint, he instinctively knows that he mustn't rape anyone, in the same way he knows he mustn't try to eat a rock or walk through a solid wall.
205	* RecapByAudit: For the first two books, it's unknown how Kvothe became a BrokenAce and a FailureHero as both ''The Name of the Wind'' and ''The Wise Man's Fear'' center around how he became the stuff of legends in the first place. As a result, all clues to his fall from grace are hidden in the mess his life is now--he's a recluse barkeep in the middle of nowhere (the shame he feels at having failed his goal is unbearable) who cannot perform Sympathy magic anymore (so the event probably crushed his will) and has taken a Fae as his apprentice of sorts (so he's returned to the land of the fae at least a second time).
206	* RedRightHand: It's implied that all of the Chandrian have one. Cinder has white hair, black eyes and a SlasherSmile. Lord Haliax is described as being totally shrouded in shadow, even in bright light. They also leave signs of their presence in the area, such as fire turning blue, iron rusting, wood rotting, etc.
207	* RetiredBadass: Kvothe fakes his death, moves to small village, opens an inn, and retires into his "Kote" persona. Notably, he's an almost-mythical legend and retired well before thirty.
208	* RichBitch: Ambrose is a wealthy bully.
209	* RuleOfSeven: Seven is an ArcNumber , both in the story and in the world itself.
210	* RuleOfThree: Three is another ArcNumber, coming up a lot in the story and narration.
211	* RunningGag: Kvothe can't seem to keep a shirt whole. Also, he needs lots of little pockets in his cloaks.
212	* SelfMadeMyth: Kvothe came to the University under unusual circumstances, being very young, very intelligent, and too poor to afford the usual tuition. He knew from the start that people were going to spread rumors about him based on that alone. So, being a trained actor and performer, he decided to take an active hand in creating the legend of Kvothe, so that when people talked about him, they'd at least be saying impressive stuff.
213	* ShowWithinAShow: A main motif. The trilogy starts off telling the story of the Chronicler and his mishaps with thieves and monsters as well as a growing threat of evil encroaching upon the land. While on the road, he happens to meet the legendary hero Kvothe who agrees to allow the Chronicler to record his story. The rest of the trilogy is Kvothe's story, which also contains many, many smaller stories. They often provide {{Infodump}}s on the history of the world.
214	* ShoutOut:
215	** A character at the Arcanum using "thaums" as a unit of measurement (for heat in this story) might be a reference to ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''.
216	** At one point, a girl begging for a story about "the dry lands over the Stormwal, with sand snakes and dry men who drink blood" sounds like a reference to ''Franchise/{{Dune}}''.
217	** On more than one occasion, the word "Edro!" is used as an attempt to open something - the Elven word for "Open" in Tolkien's Middle-Earth (shouted by Gandalf in frustration at the Doors of Moria).
218	** Kvothe leaves Trebon via the [[Series/{{Firefly}} Evesdown docks]].
219	** Kvothe mentions that among the Fae story heroes Felurian told him about was one named Mavin the Manshaped, which may be a reference to Mavin Manyshaped of Creator/SheriSTepper's ''Literature/TheTrueGame''.
220	* ShownTheirWork: Many have lauded Rothfuss for his descriptions of music in his books. Despite this, he claims that he can't play an instrument to save his life.
221	* ShroudedInMyth:
222	** Starting soon after his acceptance into the University, Kvothe began starting the rumors about himself that would grow into this. By the time he tells Chronicler his story, patrons of the inn are telling tales about him in ''front'' of him without knowing it. Some people even think that he's ''only'' a myth and never really existed.
223	** The Chandrian, partly because they kill people who learn too much about them. No one seems able to agree on who or what the Chandrian are, and even the ways to identify them vary from story to story.
224	** To illustrate a point, Kvothe starts a few myths about Chronicler himself. Immediately, the villagers pick up their cue and start embroidering "Lord of Stories" tales on their own.
225	* SignatureInstrument: Among his [[TheAce many talents]], Kvothe is an acclaimed lutist. His [[TragicKeepsake only memento]] of his murdered family was his father's lute, which he learned to play with incredible skill, even with multiple broken strings. The Adem mercenaries use his lute as his most meaningful personal possession during his UltimateFinalExam, which annoys him more than the test's very real threat to his life.
226	* SlidingScaleOfGenderInequality: Women are not disparaged or overtly forced into roles, but they tend to be in traditional or support positions while men do all the real work. There are no female public figures, traders, crafters, or instructors, but several barmaids and artists. A common criticism of ''Literature/TheNameOfTheWind'', is that all of the women Kvothe encounters are [[HeadTurningBeauty attractive]], and so some attempts were made to rectify this in the sequel, ''Literature/TheWiseMansFear'', which makes some clear attempts to create females to directly equal and occasionally exceed male counterparts, and also some that aren't described as physically attractive. Nevertheless, the males are always more powerful and prominent in the end.
227	* SnicketWarningLabel:
228	** The Fae have a custom whereby dark, tragic plays begin with the malicious oracle known as the Cthaeth depicted in the scenery as a warning to the faint of heart. The Cthaeth appears in ''Literature/TheWiseMansFear'' which [[SchmuckBait just happens]] to end at a HopeSpot.
229	** Kvothe tells the Chronicler in before telling his story that it can be boiled down to, "I lived, I loved, I lost."
230	* SpeakOfTheDevil: The Chandrian have some sense of when and where their name is spoken and ''might'' even be able to locate their depictions in art. Kvothe's father massacred with his troupe when he tries to compose a song about them, and the Adem only reveal the Chandrian's true names to Kvothe after warning him to "travel 1000 miles and wait 1000 nights" before speaking them again.
231	* SpontaneousGeneration: The Adem culture believes that babies just sort of happen and are completely unable to accept the idea that men have anything to do with their creation, to the point of openly mocking and logically (for a given value of logic) rejecting Kvothe's assertion to the contrary. This belief is maintained by their culture's [[ReallyGetsAround frequent casual sex]], as well as seeing outsiders as disease ridden thus keeping their genepool unchanged.
232	* TheStoryTeller: All over. The Edema Ruh love telling stories (they're a traveling troupe). Skarpi, who told stories in an inn in Tarbean in exchange for money. Cob tells stories at the inn in Newarre. Kvothe is telling the trilogy as the story of his life.
233	* SympatheticMagic: One of the main forms of magic practiced in the world. The physical properties of sympathy are well defined, following the Laws of Correspondence, Consanguinity, and Conservation. The more similar two materials are, the stronger the link between them; two objects that were once one object have a stronger link; and energy is neither created nor destroyed in the sympathetic process. The result is that even if you had a person's hair, you'd still have to have rigidly-trained focus and a great deal of energy to do anything to them.
234	* TakeThatCritics: When Kvothe glosses over an OffScreenMomentOfAwesome, he goes into an angry rant about how this is ''his'' story, and so he's going to tell it they way he wants. This is clearly Patrick Rothfuss' own pre-emptive attack on readers who would criticize how the story is unfolding.
235	* TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: The magic of [[IKnowYourTrueName Naming]] requires the Namer to gain an intuitive understanding of the target, grasping everything in its history that shaped it into what it is. This is explicitly impossible for the conscious mind to handle. Namers slip into a passive state of HyperAwareness to manage it, but the powerful ones tend to live a bit at odds with what most people consider real, and the University has a sizable asylum for the people who get too close to the subject material.
236	* TheyreCalledPersonalIssuesForAReason:
237	** A great deal of the problems that Kvothe has with his close friends and Denna stem from the fact that the Chandrian aren't just terrifyingly powerful and to all appearances immortal, but so determined to staying secret that most people think they're mythological bogeymen. As such, none of his friends know the secret that is driving him.
238	** Kvothe also hides his [[PerpetualPoverty money troubles]] and his history as a [[OrphansOrdeal miserable, orphaned street child]] from his friends for fear of it coloring their relationships; for their part, they know he has some sort of DarkAndTroubledPast but choose to respect his privacy.
239	* TitleDrop:
240	** All three book titles have already been dropped, though this does not rule out Rothfuss changing the working title of Book 3 at some later point.
241	** The title of every chapter is usually dropped within a few pages. They serve as [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's Guns]] in that sense.
242	* UnreliableNarrator: Kvothe gives a glowing description of the Edema Ruh that is obviously colored by his personal prejudices. He's deliberately lied on at least one occasion and has certainly omitted parts of the narrative. Bast also counters that Denna isn't ''quite'' as perfect as Kvothe seems to think she is, but love is blind.
243	* UpperClassTwit:
244	** Ambrose is a dangerous version of this, being an entitled scumbag with enough money to never have to suffer repercussions for his bad behavior.
245	** Sovoy is a nice guy from a noble family, but he has no sense of perspective and doesn't see the problem with complaining about his lot in life among students who are far worse off than him.
246	* {{Utopia}}
247	** The Edema Ruh are the greatest performers in the world. They treat each other like family, with no petty rivalries or distrust between groups. They're always kind and generous to fellow travelers. And they ''never'' commit crimes. It's not clear how much of this characterization is due to Kvothe being an UnreliableNarrator.
248	** The Adem, an entire society of warrior-philosophers. They're ruled by their elite mercenary schools whose martial arts secrets are several orders of magnitude greater than any other society's, to the point that their lowliest, stupidest members look like superheroes compared to other people. They seem to lack crime, corruption and poverty, while all of them have iron-clad composure, and their leaders are selected purely on merit. They have absolutely no sexual inhibitions, yet also no venereal diseases, which is somehow unrelated to having a medicinal skill that inexplicably rivals the greatest academic institutions. They live in great wealth and comfort, but without needless frills or vanity. Their language is far more subtle and elegant than any other and does not even need verbal action. Heck, even their food is delicious. While they do have a number of oddities, those are all justified for how perfect they are: their culture believes that women are inherently better than men, but they are a meritocracy, so their sexism is basically justified by the presumable evidence of this conclusion; and they also disapprove of music played in public, but only because they cherish it so much.
249	* ViewersAreGeniuses: We all know what a stanchion is, right?
250	* WanderingCulture: The Edema Ruh, Kvothe's culture, are a FantasyCounterpartCulture to the Romani, who travels in wagons their entire lives and values storytelling and keeping old stories alive.
251	* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Learning sympathy and Naming puts a lot of strain on a person's mind. This can result in anything from developing minor, temporary personality quirks, to falling into permanent, full-blown, need-to-be-strapped-down-to-avoid-hurting-yourself insanity. People like [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Elodin, Auri, Puppet, and some of Elodin's gillers]] fall somewhere in between the extremes.
252	* WizardingSchool: The University includes the Arcanum, which teaches various magical skills. Some students, however, come to the University just to study less exciting subjects such as math, chemistry, sculpture, and so forth.
253	* WordsCanBreakMyBones: The right names can.
254	* WretchedHive: Tarbean is filled with crime and poverty.
255	* WriterOnBoard: Whenever the mistreatment of women comes up, Kvothe tends to get particularly worked up about it even though it doesn't have any specific link to his past or upbringing. It does, however, coincide with Rothfuss' own feminist leanings, so it's easy to see its point of origin.
256	* YankTheDogsChain: Done with Kvothe's money problems and especially with Denna.
257	* YourNormalIsOurTaboo: In ''Literature/TheWiseMansFear'', Kvothe learns about the [[ProudWarriorRace Adem culture]], who has no sexual taboo or inhibitions. They [[ReallyGetsAround screw so frequently]] that they've never figured out that sex causes pregnancy. On the other hand, they find [[TheStoic any public display of emotion]] or even facial expression to be unseemly, to the point that they use HandSignals rather than voice or facial cues to add subtext to their words. For related reasons, music is considered something done only with loved ones behind closed doors, which leaves TheBard Kvothe frustrated that they see his profession as akin to prostitution.
258	* YoungerThanTheyLook: By the time he tells his tale, Kvothe is no older than 25, but gives the impression of being much older.

Context Literature / TheKingkillerChronicle