My most solids theories, so far.
Hello all.
Considering M. Rothfuss does not write a scene for nothing, here are my most solids theories so far. I'm open to debate. (Sorry for the spelling, English is not my main).
- Cinder is Master Ash. Way too many solid clues when Kvothe try guessing his name.
- Cinder is Fae. He can cast an illusion to appear normal to Denna just like Bast can.
- The University is full of Amyr. The farther away you are from it, the less protected you are.
- Bredon is an Amyr. The game of Tak is an analogy for Kvothe's research. He thinks he is very close from finding them (or winning a game), but Bredon is showing him he is very far from it. He plays the game with Kvothe to check on him, see if he doesn't "fall to the dark side".
- Master Lorren is an Amyr.
- The friendlier a master at the university is toward Kvothe, the less likely he is to be an Amyr. So Kilvin and Elodin definitely are not.
- Kvothe is watched over very carefully because he could be the next Taborlin, or the Next Lanre.
- Kvothe's mom is a Lackless.
- Arliden was a "natural caster". Like a sorcerer in D&D. Not sure if he knew it, probably not. Lorren knew or strongly suspected it.
- This one is a big one.... Some artists are able to "cast" magic infused art. Like songs, stories, pottery depicting Lanre and Lyra, made from about the same tech as the Shaed. And it is a poorly understood magic system, or hidden. Denna/Cinder tries to figure it out (Written magic).
- Since Kvothe got the Charisma stats of his mother and the natural casting ability of his dad, the few songs he writes are imbued with magic property.
- "Casted" materials are easier to remember. Like when Bredon tell his story by the fire. That makes Arliden song about Lanre all the more problematic.
- Chronicler is probably employed specifically for that, unknowingly. When Chronicler try telling to farmers a little bit of a tall tale concerning Kvothe, Kote gets really mad. He know Chronicler could potentially make BS real.
- Arliden not only found the true name of Lanre and Lyra, but infused his song with magic, ence the killing of the troup.
- Everyone is trying to kill Lanre, except that idiot Kvothe. That include Haliax. To kill Lanre, you need to erase it from memories, forget his name. If Kvothe finds it, everyone will be big mad.
- Lanre is an untalented namer. He though he had the true name of Lyra, and bring her back from the doors of stones, but he did not. So he could not bring her back. The story of the boy chasing the moon and only finding part of her name is this analogy.
- The Chandrian are the Hammer that is required to crush Lanre resurfacing. They are the necessary evil and everyone agrees with this. Except Kvothe.
- That is why Kote's sword is called Folly: you can't kill a story with a sword.
- Kvothe is stuck on Kote mode.
- The university probably got a bunch of forbidden magic books locked away. They probably prefer destroying reference to Lanre, or at the very least, destroy the materiel with the true names in them.
- Kvothe probably break Caesura (it reeds "is going to break" in french).
- The Cthaeh is a giant POS. fck him. I don't have a ton of proof for it but I think the Cthaeh can simply reads your thoughts and troll you really bad. He does not provide Kvothe with actual new info. And it makes zero sense that Cinder would attack the Maer's tax collectors. He is just doing cold reading but with mind reading.
- IMO, the Lackless box is a macguffin, for book 3. I don't care much about it.
- So far, the only baddies i've found is the Church of Thelu. They lost the plot a long time ago. They should be more on the look out for the next Lanre.
The rest, IMO, is a bit too hard to figure out. The cities could be any ancient ones. Maybe Denna is casting Yllish magic with her knotted hair. I'm not sure what the skin walker was trying to tell chronicler and Kote before being attacked. He did nothing wrong so...
Also, consider the books D&D 5E compatible.
Ho, and book 3 is going to come out and be bigger than book 1 and 2 put together. way too many plot lines to close. Also, it is 10x harder to properly finish a story than to start it.
Posted Jun 3, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC
2013