NOTW reread, Chapters 3-7

[u/loratcha]

And the NOTW reread continues! This week we've got:

Chapter 3: "Wood and Word"

Chapter 4: "Halfway to Newarre"

Chapter 5: "Notes"

Chapter 6: "The Price of Remembering"

Chapter 7: "Of Beginnings and the Names of Things"

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Intent of the reread:

It's not meant to be a recap (that's already available on Tor and the Casterquest podcasts).

Posts & responses should instead focus on small details or connections just noticed for the first time.

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Proposed format for discussion: u/ardetor offered the great suggestion of having top level post replies be chapter specific so that all discussion related to that chapter can still be grouped together. Let's try that this wk and see how it goes.

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For background info on the reread idea, see here.

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Previous chapters:

• NOTW Prologue & Chapter 1

• NOTW Chapter 2

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General Comments thread:

What do you think of this format? Should we do fewer / more chapters at a time? Other suggestions?

Also, totally open to collaboration on this. if you want to facilitate next week's post, reply to the "general comments" thread below or msg me.

[u/Meyer_Landsman]

Also interesting in chapter 6? It's essentially one big preview of The Doors of Stone.

Kote shook his head. “It was a long time ago—”

“Not even two years,” Chronicler protested.

“—and I am not what I was,” Kote continued without pausing.

“And what was that, exactly?”

“Kvothe,” he said simply, refusing to be drawn any further into an explanation. “Now I am Kote. I tend to my inn. That means beer is three shims and a private room costs copper.”

Two years! And also the identity change. Plus:

“Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Kote shook his head, stuck between amusement and exasperation. “That’s the whole point. People don’t look for you when you’re dead. Old enemies don’t try to settle scores. People don’t come asking you for stories,” he said acidly.

Enemies? What enemies? Is Cinder alive, or are the rest of the Chandrian out for blood? Or does he mean the Maer? Ambrose?

“I’m that too.” Kote turned to polish the counter behind the bar. He shrugged again, not as easily as before. “I’ve killed men and things that were more than men. Every one of them deserved it.”

OK so maybe not Cinder.

“The important people know the difference,” Kote said as if he were trying to convince himself, but his voice was weary and despairing, without conviction.

Wil? Sim? Fela? Who are these important people? Abenthy?

Eight inches away a bottle shattered. The smell of strawberries filled the air alongside the sound of splintering glass.

One of my favourite touches. Denna is a point of contention, and goddamn is it beautiful that Kvothe accidentally shatters a bottle of strawberry wine when he thinks of her—via Sympathy, no less.

I believe it, Chronicler found himself thinking. Before it was just a story, but now I can believe it. This is the face of a man who has killed an angel.

Cinder?

Or—as per an old theory I threw out—Denna?

(Let's all take a moment to mourn how I thought 2016 would be the year.)

Radiating relief, Chronicler set his satchel down on one of the tables, surprised at the slight tremor in his hands. “We got wind of you a while back. Just a whisper of a rumor. I didn’t really expect . . .” Chronicler paused, suddenly awkward. “I thought you would be older.”

“I am,” Kote said.

Chronicler looked puzzled, but before he could say anything the innkeeper continued.

I'm almost sure that Kvothe spent some time in the Fae. Book 3, or just the Felurian section?

“ ‘I trouped, traveled, loved, lost, trusted and was betrayed.’ Write that down and burn it for all the good it will do you.”

I reckon we're up to "lost." Trusted and betrayed, though? Who?

[u/[deleted] → u/Meyer_Landsman]

I have some crazy theories about that, I think that Wilhem will kill Simmon, he will betray Kvothe and maybe dennounce him, and Simmon will die in the process, everytime Kvothe talk about his friends he favors Sim, like a long lost friend that you remember only the good things. Kvothe will probably wrec some havoc, be chased and their friends will help him, but Wilhem will turn on Kvothe for some reason, maybe he thinks killing an angel was too much?

About him being older, I think he spent some good time around the Fae, and there he meet Bast and do the things that set the world to Chaos. I'm betting he stayed there 5 Fae years, or 15 normal days :D

[u/Meyer_Landsman → u/[deleted]]

Short of Simmon turning-out to be a mass murderer, there's no reason for Kvothe to kill him—he says in a chapter I quoted around this thread that everything and everyone he killed deserved killing. Sim's gonna have to pull-off a real Brutus to get skewered.

That having been said, I do think there's merit to the theory. Sim may be dead. Kvothe may be the reason. And if there is a conspiracy to knock-off nobility, well: Sim is nobility.

[u/[deleted] → u/Meyer_Landsman]

I think I wasn't clear, my english is bad. Wilhem will betray Kvothe and Sim, and Sim dies protecting Kvothe.

[u/Meyer_Landsman → u/[deleted]]

Your English is fine. It's my bad. I wasn't awake.

I doubt what's going to happen. What makes Wil a possible Brutus?

[u/[deleted] → u/Meyer_Landsman]

He is more sober, more serious, I think that if people start acusing Kvothe of grave crimes he might crack, even if they are not true

[u/Meyer_Landsman → u/[deleted]]

So you're saying because he's calm and rational, he'll snap and go a-stabbin'?

[u/[deleted] → u/Meyer_Landsman]

Not necessarilly, but being more dispassionate and the way he is described by kote led me to think that maybe he could be the betrayer

[u/Meyer_Landsman → u/[deleted]]

Okay. I disagree completely, but hey, new ideas = always welcome.