Personalities and Naming (Spoilers)
"If you knew what names your enemy knew, you could guess his strenght, his weaknesses." Elxa Dal- WMF p.180
I've always found this quote interesting. Since the verb "guess" is used instead of "know" I think we can conclude that this is not as simple as: "Enemy knows name of water, prepare countermeasure for water".
So what I propose is that what names you find are directly linked to what kind of personality you have. This way, names could tell you what kind of person you are dealing with.
For example, Kvothe is a born traveller. He is resolute, adaptive, abbrasive and quick to jump into the lions den without thinking about consequences. Let's say that these are features of persons likely to discover the name of the wind. Going back to Dal's comment, if you knew that your enemy was a namer of wind, you could set a trap playing to the traits described above.
Furthermore, Elodin points out that travelling the world as a namer often resulted in learning the name of the wind. Abenthy, the other namer of wind we have come across is also an traveller who brushes off consequences (burning off his own eyebrowns) and turns to anger (his introduction)
Let's pick another example with Fela, who knows the name of stone. Fela is far more careful, quiet and avoids conflicts because she considers consequences. These could be traits belonging to namers of stone.
It logically follows then that expanding your knowledge of true names means embracing other personality traits. Kvothe has to learn patience and how to consider the consequences before he comes to learn the name of stone for example.
This is obviously only speculation, and I admitt that i have done a fair bit of biased interpretation, but all the same i stand by my first point. Why would Elxa Dal use the concept of "guessing" if it was as simple as avoiding being near flames when confronting a namer of fire or something like that.
Thoughts?
Posted Jul 21, 2017, 10:41 PM UTC