Anticipation

Every year I donate to Pat Rothfuss' Worldbuilders annual fundraiser for Heifer International. My motivations are probably equal parts charitable altruism and anticipatory greed. Every $10 donated gets you entered in a lottery for thousands of fabulous prizes. Companies donate books and games, as do authors and individuals. This year the prizes also potentially included jewelry and collectibles.

Usually I don't win. This is my fifth year donating, and I've only gotten a book once. It ended up being a lackluster book. But there's always a chance that I would win a complete series by an author I'm interested in, or the collection of everything Del Ray published over the last year, or an autographed first edition of something cool. So I keep donating and being mildly disappointed when April rolls around and I realize that once again I haven't won anything.

Not super disappointed. I still donated a chunk of change to a good cause, and that's something to feel nice about. But prizes are nice, too.

This year, I got an email in late December letting me know that I'd won something but had forgotten to fill out my mailing address and could I please provide that. I got excited, sent off my mailing address and settled in to wait.

This is a long process. I cycled around from wondering what I had won to wondering if I'd been taken in by a phishing hoax to wondering if I'd even remembered to fill out the form or if I'd just been meaning to and forgotten about it. The organization finally announced that they were beginning to ship out prizes, and I resigned myself to the fact that I hadn't won anything after all.

Until my shipping notice came.

This is a new feature this year, and it's nice, because it pushed my anticipation right back up. I have no idea what I won, but I won something. And it will be here sometime in the next month (with all the prizes they ship out, they use the cheapest, slowest shipping available, which I can't even fault them for).

I'm incredibly excited to find out what I won, even if it ends being another book that I'm only lukewarm about. But maybe it'll be something exciting. It's a bit like Christmas, except I don't entirely know when my present will get here. This anticipation will probably be more exciting than the prize itself, so I'm going to savor it.

Kingkiller Chronicle: Names Were Important to Him

As I said in the last post, I spent the month of August doing a pretty in-depth re-read of the first two books of Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle. I used color-coded post-its to keep track of a variety of things, and as you can see in the picture it got a little intense

I used blue to track the Chandrian and any stories concerning Lanre and Haliax. Red tracks Kvothe and any hints to his past or what he's been up to between the story he's telling and the present-day frame. Green tracks Denna, who remains a mystery. Yellow is for any mention of faeries and the moon. Orange tracked stories and history, and especially things connected with Tehlu and the Amyr.

So I have several blog entries planned. There's a lot in these books that I want to start. I'm going to start with something pretty straight-forward, though: Kvothe's various names.

Fairly straightforward, but I wanted to gather Kvothe's names. We get a list of them right at the beginning and then discover the stories behind them over the course of the book.

Kvothe - Kvothe's given name. He claims that it means "to know", which is certainly fitting.

Maedre - The name given to Kvothe by the Adem. It's supposed to be his true name and has a triple meaning.

• The Flame - Kvothe says that this refers to his hair, which makes sense and is pretty basic. I wonder if there will be a deeper meaning in the third book.
• The Thunder - Kvothe says that this refers to his baritone voice. It's also a nice parallel to the fact that the Chandrian are said to "strike like lightning". Thunder follows lightning, and Kvothe always seems to be a step behind the Chandrian, following Cinder around the Four Corners.
• The Broken Tree - Kvothe says that he doesn't understand this part of his Adem name, but thinks that it could be slightly prophetic. He then offers no explanation, leaving the audience to work this out once they know his story. But we do know how his story ends - with him in an Inn unable to fight or perform sympathy and unwilling (or unable?) to play music. So I think the broken tree is Kvothe himself. Something will break him (or perhaps he'll break himself) in the third book. This also fits in with what his studies in Ademre. When he meets Shehyn, she talks about his body in terms of a tree. I'll have to wait and see how this plays out in the third book.

E'lir - This is the nickname Ben gives Kvothe because he "was clever and [he] knew it". It's also the first rank of the Arcanum at the Univerisity, meaning seer.

Dulator - Kvothe says his first lover gives him this name. We know that's Felurian, but we never see her call him this in the story. I have no idea what this could mean.

Shadicar - There's no mention of this in the first two books. I guess it will come up in the third book.

Lightfinger - Another name that isn't mentioned in the book. Although I suspect it could be a reference to his lute-playing ability

Kvothe to Bloodless - It's revealed early on that Kvothe earns this nickname by getting whipped and not bleeding. He repeats this act later, solidifying the nickname. It's also a bit of an underhanded compliment. Kvothe is Edema Ruh, lowest of the low. He has no noble blood in his veins (to his knowledge anyway), and is therefore "bloodless". Ambrose was probably partially responsible for how quickly this nickname spread.

Kvothe the Arcane - This nickname is a reference to Kvothe's ability in the Arcanum. He mentions it first when he talks about his duels with Fenton and the other students in his Sympathy class. However, he later says that the first time he hears this name is when he's listening to stories about himself in Tarbean near the end of the second book.

Kvothe Kingkiller - This is the name of the entire trilogy, so it will clearly be important, though not until the last book. I expect the king will be Ambrose, as he and Kvothe have a nasty history and Ambrose keeps getting closer to the throne. By the end of the second book he's about ten people away from being king.

Kote - Kote is the name Kvothe chooses for himself, and a careful reading of the book reveals that it is Siaru for disaster. For a while I did think that it could mean expect. The first time it comes up is when Kilvin says "Chan Vaer edan Kote" which translates to "Expect disaster every seven years". We already know that Chan means seven, so kote could mean a few things. But later Kilvin curses "Kist, crayle, en kote", which definitely points to the theory that kote means disaster.

Reshi - This is Bast's nickname for Kote. We have no hints about why he chose this name or what it means. Perhaps it translates to "teacher" or "mentor" or something similar.

I believe that's a complete list of the various names Kvothe gathers over the course of the story. I'm almost positive I missed a couple of double and triple meanings, since Rothfuss is extremely fond of word-play.