The Analysis of "The Wise Man’s Fear" By Patrick Rothfuss
‘The Wise Man’s Fear’ is a 2011 novel, the second book of a trilogy named ‘The Kingkiller Chronicles’ written by Patrick Rothfuss. The genre of this book is heroic fantasy and adventure. The book is simply about overcoming the odds. The novel is about a man named Kvothe who has mysteriously gone into hiding with a new name - Kote with his apprentice/assistant named Bast. There is also a scribe who was the king’s Chronicler.
The Chronicler ‘accidently’ found out his actual identity and is collecting Kvothe’s story from when he was a youthful student and a daring and lucky adventurer. The title is a reference to one of the many famous quotes of an ancient philosopher in the book, Teccam, who said, ‘There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.’This book is intended for young adults.
The reasons of why I say this because it has a unique narration. The story itself has two different time settings - present (current) and past (Kvothe’s student life) and it has many places where the scenes took place. The novel is also written from the point of views of a wild inexperienced teenager (Kvothe’s life) and third person (current).
The main character, Kvothe, learns from his journey and the journey affects him, both ways - good and bad. Another reason of why I like this book is due to its writing style. The writing style stands out as Patrick wrote this in both narrative and descriptive style. While I read this book, I could see the sceneries that Kvothe saw, I could smell the food that Kvothe ate, I could feel the objects that he touched and the emotions that he felt throughout his journey. I could see things clearly from Kvothe’s perspective. This amazed me. The fact that these such great action-packed books can be written by humans amazed me. To me, this is a great work of art, worthy of being preserved in museums as one of the best books ever written. The story starts with Kvothe and Bast opening the inn and serving the customers. Then, when the Chronicler woke up, they continued the story of Kvothe’s student life in private, when no one was present apart from Kvothe, Bast and the Chronicler, from when they left it off from yesterday.
There were a number of pauses in the story that Kvothe told, including one that has left him injured and in desperate need of stitches. By night, Kvothe has finished telling Bast and Chronicler two-thirds of his story and left the tale in one of the very few good moments of his past. At the end, Bast went outside to have his revenge to those people who hurt his teacher, even though Bast was the person who called the people to bully his teacher, in hopes that the current innkeeper will be saved from himself and turn back into his former self – the most renowned arcanist.
In the story, Kvothe found many difficulties and he passed these obstacles with incredible smartness and luck. In this tale, the main character is Kvothe and he did his research on the Amyr and the Chandrian stealthily and there are many side characters such as Faelurian, The Maer Alveron, Master Elodin and so on. However, among these side characters, there are 6 important people. They are Bast, Chronicler, Wilem, Simon, Auri and Ambrose. The main antagonists are The Chandrian, consisting of seven people.
The reason why Kvothe is rising rapidly through the ranks of the Arcanum is because of the desire to have vengeance upon them for killing his parents. My favorite character is Kvothe as he is quick-witted and sharp. He was also able to grasp unfamiliar things easily and his knowledge is superior to other people. In some ways, this series resembles to the Harry Potter Series and in some ways, the Kingkiller Chronicles differ from it.
The Kingkiller Chronicles are much more logical, and more descriptive. In Harry Potter, the wizards and witches use spells which seem ridiculous to me. However, in the Kingkiller Chronicles, the arcanists use Alar, the mental ability to believe something firmly enough to the point where it affects reality. This makes much more sense to me.
The book itself is believable and it is logical. It is partly science, partly historical and partly magical.To let the reader understand the whole book, the author, Patrick, makes you understand his made-up words such as Tehlins and Fae. This makes the reader think of what these words mean, thus engaging the reader into a deeper zone into which they can enjoy to their fullest. If this book was read first, then the whole book would make no sense to you. I, myself, had to reread this novel twice, to fully decipher both its implicit and explicit meaning.
This book, unlike many others, teaches you many things so valuable in life. For instance, this quote from the book - “It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers.” - seems to be very valuable to me. Most people say similar things like that too, but Patrick has a thing that most people don’t. Patrick has examples which he has to offer to readers throughout the journey of Kvothe.
The authors goal, I believe, was to successfully show the difficulties faced by Kvothe throughout his journey to achieve his goal which is to have his revenge upon the Chandrian. The author successfully does this by making Kvothe travel in search of answers to his unanswered questions such as when he went to the Maer’s court and he found some hints that got him closer to the answer. He also found the same in the Fae land. The book left out the main answers to the questions which will possibly be available in the third book. The only thing that I disliked about the book is about Denna. Her identity is secure, so fluid that it is hard to say anything about her, Her patron is unknown. Her real name is unknown. Even her origin is unknown. I, for one, like knowing things.
