The Name of the Wind, Chapter 5 - Notes

I'm so stupid. In chapter 2, I figured that Chronicler was on his way to find Kvothe (to interview him?), but in his confusion upon meeting him... I suddenly forgot. And because I forgot, I didn't piece together that "Newarre" was the name of the town where Kvothe's inn was located.

An extremely short chapter, but even in this small chapter I think Rothfuss is showing a little too much of his hand. Keep reading because my predictions about the rest of the book and the series are about to start rolling out.

(FYI: As I write this, the second book in the trilogy has just been released about a month ago and the third book as yet to be released.)

Chapter 5: Notes

With Chronicler slung over Kvothe's shoulder, they stumble into town and are met by an angry man by the name of Bast. Apparently, Kvothe left in the middle of the night and he left without warning, leaving nothing but a note:

"If you are reading this I am probably dead."

Kvothe swears that Bast wasn't supposed to find the note until the morning and didn't just leave it to worry him... of his death. Taking Chronicler to a room in the inn, they tuck him away to rest and heal. After getting his own wounds tended to by Bast (after having already tended to Chronicler's wounds) Kvothe gets some shuteye himself.

Hours later, Bast creeps into Kvothe's room as he slept. After drawing a chair and watching his master sleep, he begins to softly sing a lullaby.

* * *

Kvothe the Bloodless

"I thought you weren't supposed to bleed, Reshi," Bast said, "bloodless and all that."
"Don't believe everything you hear in stories, Bast. They lie to you."

For these characters, they speak of "Kvothe the Bloodless" as if it were the title given to him from a tabloid newspaper (a.k.a. songs, fables, and stories). But for us, this is a call back to the drunken man who recognized Kvothe in chapter 3. This is one of the references I forgot to mention in chapter 4. In the moment, it's just an interesting call back and inserts the question, "Why is he called 'the Bloodless'?" But for the overall story, it's just another example that reinforces the importance and power of these tabloid reports in the world they live in.

Kvothe's response is even more interesting than the inquiry: "They lie to you," he says. But we've already seen in the previous chapter that the words in some of their songs contains information that is based in reality. Which begs the question: How to decipher the reality tucked away in these tabloids through the lies of the tabloids?

My Prediction: Not only will there be much more of this to come, but through these riddles will be the key to the entire book. It's going to be a through the piecing together of various songs, fables, and stories that "the truth" is revealed and helps our heroes emerge victoriously at the end of the book.


The Lullaby

Once again, now in this chapter, we're introduced to another song. I'm convinced that the secrets of Kvothe's past and the future of the book and this series plays out through the secrets found in these riddles:

How odd to watch a mortal kindle
Then to dwindle day by day.
Knowing their bright souls are tinder
And the wind will have its way.
Would I could my own fire lend.
What does your flickering portend?

I take special care in examining this song because as you may have also noticed, this is only the second time "The Wind" was included in the tabloids of their time. (The first was from Old Man Cob in the story of "Taborlin the Great" from chapter 1.) The first two lines speak of mortality and the aging of men through time. The next two lines speak of the belief in souls and the release of that soul by the wind once a person dies. And the last two lines speak of sacrificing your own life to save another's who's life may be fading.

Upon first inspection, it looks as straight forward as it reads: Bast would have been willing to sacrifice his own life to save his master's life and his anger is born from Kvothe robbing him of doing exactly by not telling him where he was going. Upon further inspection, meaning is now given to "The Wind" for the first time. In this song, The Wind isn't just a natural phenomenon and not even a magical spell. The Wind is a collector of souls. The Wind is death.

My Prediction: "The Name of the Wind" is referring to the collection of the king's soul as he died. It was his name on that wind.


Speaking of Chronicler

Now that the two main heroes (?) of the story have been established, I think the worst thing Rothfuss could do to the story is to make Chronicler turn out to be someone from Kvothe's past. You know, the kind of guy that's been watching Kvothe for all these years and has been in the shadows, all leading up to his meeting with Kvothe now. And instead of an over-educated, under-experienced, bumbling writer, he turns out to be "the ultimate badass."

It's the kind of surprise ending that "edgy" producers and writers like to include in their movies. Most of the time it ends up being terrible because all it amounts to is a writer's device. It's a trick in service to itself instead of to the overall story. When used it becomes the focus of the story in hindsight and everything before it is cheapened. And all of this effort is in the name of hyping a "surprise ending."

My Prediction: "The truth" deciphered through various songs, fables, and stories at the end of the book will not reveal a hidden agenda on the part of Chronicler.


Note(s)

"If you are reading this I am probably dead."

Kvothe left a note (singular) for Bast to find and yet the chapter title is "Notes" (plural). Was the lullaby a note in itself? Is there another note to be found? Was this not the first time Kvothe has left a note like this for someone else? (From the sounds of anger in Bast's voice, it sounded like this was the first time Bast ever received a note.)

My Prediction: This was in fact not the first time Kvothe had left a note of this type for someone else. Another time, most notably, was the time he left one for a friend as he sneaked out late one night to kill a king.

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