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A review by fieldofhats
The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
This book can be neatly divided into two very distinct books — the first third when he’s at the university, and the rest of it when he’s (mostly) not. The first book is an easy 5 stars, I LOVE the daily life of Kvothe in the university and I love reading about everything that goes on. Rothfuss, it seems, is really fantastic at writing magic schools and not much else. So this review will be split in two, and I’ll talk about the first third first.
The first arc of this book is set at the university and it doesn’t really further the plot, but it does give us more development and growth for Kvothe and the other cast of characters, and provides fun little stories that are infinitely entertaining (like when Ambrose poisoned Kvothe — truly one of the funniest bits I’ve seen in a fantasy novel). This whole novel could have been small details and further development of the university and the characters there and it would have been a million times better.I would have loved if this book closed out the university arc, with Kvothe getting expelled at the end — but alas, that is not the book we got.
One great thing about the first third is the development of side characters. Simmon and Devi get to shine, as well smaller characters like Fela and Masters Elodin and Kilvin. We see Simmon pushed to his limits when Kvothe is on the Plum Bob, and we witness how good of a person and friend he is with how much he’s willing to do for Kvothe. He’s also funny and a general joy to have on the page. In short, he’s the perfect best friend archetype. Devi doesn’t have “development”, but her story and motivations become clearer which I really enjoyed seeing. Elodin, Kilvin, and Fela don’t have arcs per-say, we just get to see more of them and witness how they interact with what’s going on, which is nice.
Willem and Denna are pleasant additions to the story, but they don’t quite grow or develop as much as the others. In fact, both characters are pretty flat and uninteresting, they’re just there to provide Kvothe with a best friend and a girlfriend, respectively. They don’t feel as alive as the other characters.
The rest of the book takes a gradual progression downward. I was prepared to not like the Vintas arc as much as the university arc, but I also didn’t think it would go on for more than half of the novel. The more we stayed in Severen, the more I hated it. When we got to the endlessly slow bandit hunt, I was irritated. I ended up not reading most of it, instead opting to read the cheeky chapter-by-chapter reviews of this book on the (now disbanded?) Doing in the Wizard blog. I read a couple of chapters here and there, but once the book became badly written fairy porn, I just stopped reading it altogether. I watched some reviews and got the spoiler gist of what happened, and then I skipped to when he goes back to the university and read that whole epilogue arc because that’s all I care about with this book.
The issues with the second half of the book go far beyond the fact that it’s boring, though — it’s sexist in about fifty different ways, it’s poorly written, and it’s just not very fun. For example, he almost calls Denna (Denna!) a whore — Felurian r*pes Kvothe and then he has a flashback of when some boys r*ped Kvothe in Tarbean (which is not something we saw in the first book) — after saving a group of women who were assaulted by men, Kvothe pulls the “not all men” card on them — and probably so much more than I can’t attest to because I didn’t read it.
Now, I understand narratively why he had to go to Vintas and have adventures, but that’s doesn’t change the fact that they were poorly written, unexciting adventures.
And then, when he goes back to the university, it’s still bad!For some reason everyone is over-the-moon about his return. I get that Simmon and his friends would be happy, but Elodin’s reaction seemed really weird. He didn’t leave the university in great terms with Elodin, so why is Kvothe suddenly his star student, especially when he hasn’t even learned to call the wind on command? He even gets private tutoring sessions from the chancellor, which is weird since the chancellor was such a non-character before this. He’s actually still a non-character; Rothfuss doesn’t go into any sort of detail about their tutoring.
The thing that really ground my gears the most was that Fela is/was in love with Kvothe. You know, Fela who Rothfuss set up to be in a relationship with Simmon at the beginning of the novel. That Fela. God, why does every woman in this book have to be either a whore or in love with Kvothe, or both?
The events that take place in the university epilogue section are also SO rushed. There were so many things that were glossed over that I think could have been really fun to see play out.Kvothe and Elodin getting stuck on the roof of the archives during a storm could have been really interesting (aside from the nudity bit), but we don’t get to really see it play out, Kvothe just tells us about it. He also calls the name of the wind THREE TIMES and we don’t get to see it??? And then Hemme becomes chancellor and he skips over it! Kvothe said that it doesn’t really affect his day-to-day life, but how?? It’s Hemme! Hemme hates him! It’s a fantastic setup for drama!
The gradual decline of writing in this novel is very clear. Comparing the prose, pacing, and character interactions from the first half of the book set in the university and the university epilogue at the end is like night and day, and it’s so sad and disappointing. My suggestion is to read this book up until he leaves the university, and then just stop altogether.
The first arc of this book is set at the university and it doesn’t really further the plot, but it does give us more development and growth for Kvothe and the other cast of characters, and provides fun little stories that are infinitely entertaining (like when Ambrose poisoned Kvothe — truly one of the funniest bits I’ve seen in a fantasy novel). This whole novel could have been small details and further development of the university and the characters there and it would have been a million times better.
One great thing about the first third is the development of side characters. Simmon and Devi get to shine, as well smaller characters like Fela and Masters Elodin and Kilvin. We see Simmon pushed to his limits when Kvothe is on the Plum Bob, and we witness how good of a person and friend he is with how much he’s willing to do for Kvothe. He’s also funny and a general joy to have on the page. In short, he’s the perfect best friend archetype. Devi doesn’t have “development”, but her story and motivations become clearer which I really enjoyed seeing. Elodin, Kilvin, and Fela don’t have arcs per-say, we just get to see more of them and witness how they interact with what’s going on, which is nice.
Willem and Denna are pleasant additions to the story, but they don’t quite grow or develop as much as the others. In fact, both characters are pretty flat and uninteresting, they’re just there to provide Kvothe with a best friend and a girlfriend, respectively. They don’t feel as alive as the other characters.
The rest of the book takes a gradual progression downward. I was prepared to not like the Vintas arc as much as the university arc, but I also didn’t think it would go on for more than half of the novel. The more we stayed in Severen, the more I hated it. When we got to the endlessly slow bandit hunt, I was irritated. I ended up not reading most of it, instead opting to read the cheeky chapter-by-chapter reviews of this book on the (now disbanded?) Doing in the Wizard blog. I read a couple of chapters here and there, but once the book became badly written fairy porn, I just stopped reading it altogether. I watched some reviews and got the spoiler gist of what happened, and then I skipped to when he goes back to the university and read that whole epilogue arc because that’s all I care about with this book.
The issues with the second half of the book go far beyond the fact that it’s boring, though — it’s sexist in about fifty different ways, it’s poorly written, and it’s just not very fun. For example, he almost calls Denna (Denna!) a whore — Felurian r*pes Kvothe and then he has a flashback of when some boys r*ped Kvothe in Tarbean (which is not something we saw in the first book) — after saving a group of women who were assaulted by men, Kvothe pulls the “not all men” card on them — and probably so much more than I can’t attest to because I didn’t read it.
Now, I understand narratively why he had to go to Vintas and have adventures, but that’s doesn’t change the fact that they were poorly written, unexciting adventures.
And then, when he goes back to the university, it’s still bad!
The thing that really ground my gears the most was that Fela is/was in love with Kvothe. You know, Fela who Rothfuss set up to be in a relationship with Simmon at the beginning of the novel. That Fela. God, why does every woman in this book have to be either a whore or in love with Kvothe, or both?
The events that take place in the university epilogue section are also SO rushed. There were so many things that were glossed over that I think could have been really fun to see play out.
The gradual decline of writing in this novel is very clear. Comparing the prose, pacing, and character interactions from the first half of the book set in the university and the university epilogue at the end is like night and day, and it’s so sad and disappointing. My suggestion is to read this book up until he leaves the university, and then just stop altogether.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Sexual content