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Lin-Manuel Miranda to produce film & TV series of Kingkiller Chronicle
- Thread starter BrokenFiction
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John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
This is so random... that I like it a lot!
Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!
Member
I'm interested to see if he's actually going to finish the story in three books. He seems to have a long way to go. The first two books moved at a glacial pace.
Then again Kvothe is only like 25 in the present day scenes.
Then again Kvothe is only like 25 in the present day scenes.
Yeah, I was fine with Name of the Wind, but the First Law is a much better book series, IMO.
With Miranda involved, I'll check it out, though.
The Maer stuff is going to have a big payoff in book 3 which should make the pace go faster. Maer ties into his parents + Ambrose + Chandrian.
Felurian didn't piss me off as much as sex ninjas did. If he had cut that Felurian section in half I don't think there would be as many complaints.
I found the sex ninjas' ignorance odd, but to be fair, some anthropologists claim there are (or at least have been) peoples that didn't see the correlation between sex and pregnancy. I'm pretty sure most anthropologists don't believe that but if Rothfuss only read reports from the first group, he wouldn't know the difference. I know he linked to some information about it on twitter or his blog a long time ago.
Rimon-hanit
Member
The guy is brilliant and deserve everything coming is way.
BrightLightLava
Unconfirmed Member
He may not have believed it either, but thought, oh, that's interesting let me include it in my fantasy world.
The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea are a matriarchal society that did/do not think men had a significant role in child conception. The study of them is what, to some degree, started the whole field of cultural anthropology if i recall correctly. At least the modern practice of spending 2 years living among the people you are studying as a field anthroplogist.
excerpt from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trobriand_Islands
No that's got to be one of the more absurd statements of reductionism I've heard.
It's not any more odd than how the greeks didn't think a women had any participation in the creation of people. They just viewed women as literal containers, but not providing any contribution to the making a person itself. I vaguely remember something stating that's the basis of the Athenia myth. Since Zeus is the perfect man, he'd be able to give birth himself without the help of a woman, so you get the myth of Athena bursting out of his forehead.
Also, I've yet to see an argument that explained why Rothfuss' hypothetical scenerio doesn't work if you accept the basic premises of the circumstances to be true.
But, even if you adamantly believe that there is just NO WAY JOSE that any culture could possibly not see the correlation, once you get past the impossibility of it happening, it's interesting to see what happens when a culture truly believes that man doesn't contribute to the world. It was a small taste of the sexism that women have to deal with basically for centuries because various cultures did think them worthless. Penthe, who likes Kvothe and is one of the kindest people in the village to him, still gently condescends him and alludes to his fundamental societal worthlessness, without him being able to make argument against it without really making a scene about it. Sound familiar? It also makes me curious about the rest of the culture, given it's origin story involves a man being the master bowman, even if he learns his morals from a woman.
Again, it's worth it to question the what of what is happening, but far too many people stop at that and don't look at how it actually works. The best thing I can say about the series is that it generally does interesting things with whatever premise it sets up. It's hardly the first time super warrior cultures with a blaise/ignorant attitudes towards stuff, sex and stuff other than sex. If you don't like it regardless, that's fine, but I wish people would not just stop at "LAWL SEX NINJAS GUYZ AMIRITE"
spootime
Member
no, people dont read it ironically
Er, but this is philosophical/metaphysical. They're not ignoring the consequences of sex, just interpreting it in a way that dismisses woman's role in genetic inheritance.
Homosexuality wasn't unknown in Greece either so they must have caught on that only women can get pregnant and it is only through the mechanism of sex.
BrightLightLava
Unconfirmed Member
Yet they still held false beliefs about women's contributions. They understood that a woman was needed as a container, but they just felt that was because they were manly enough or something. So they understood a woman was necessary, but not in any way that is based in reality. They thought women was a literal container, and didn't actually contribute her generic code. Like the Adem, they'd ignore observable facts like that children would often have features of females. They just felt women were the fertile ground the tree needed to grow, rather than being part of the tree itself.
Which is the actual point here. In KKC, women being part of the process is a well known fact to most people. The Adem are the exception, and they outlined why their circumstances led them to being the exception, but as a result of those circumstances hold wrongful beliefs. It's really not that different from real life cultures, but this time the shoes on the other foot and men are the ones who are thought to be worthless. It makes for an interesting situation.
Edit: and if you're just going about talking about the consequences of sex itself, that too the circumstances explain the disparity. Like you said, the greeks were situationed in such a way that they could not ignore that women get pregnant and men do not. The adem are not in such a position. The sex they have is so frequent that they it's not a controlled variable for distinguishing who gets pregnant and who doesn't. That brings up the possibility of overpopulation, but that is just as easily countered by the idea that their food contains contraceptives to help protect them from pregnancy. In fact, it would also explain the frequency of the sex itself, since with contraceptives in place, they'd need to have lots of sex to keep the population up.
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
At this point I'm convinced Lin-Manuel Miranda's career is a series of bar bets.
And there are real-life examples such as the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, which is a matriarchal society. I actually used Penthe's description of to answer a quiz question in my Cultural Anthropology course that covered an ethnography we read about them.
FrontalMonk
Banned
Let's just say I'm holding my breath about as much as I am for GoT to finish. Which is to say I got tired of waiting years ago and I have lost all desire for the epic conclusion.
Hell, I ended up waiting like over a year after ADWD came out to get around to reading it because I had totally lost interest, and I'm not reading Winds of Winter until someone else reads it and tells me if it's any good or not.
An isolated island society. Surely you see the difference between them and a culture that lives more or less on the border of Europe, whose economy revolves around exporting mercenaries?
This just in: Fantasy culture needs a well-defined and historical context to believe the ignorant things it believes. It's not too far of a leap to say that a culture without much biological knowledge, and one that's pretty freewheeling about sex, AND one that doesn't exactly want outsider knowledge to come and taint their culture remains ignorant about how babby is form.
I genuinely believe people's brains shut off when they're asked to examine the culture of sex when it's used beyond, "huurbdurrrh bing bang bonin'," like it's often presented in Game of Thrones.
(Read: I like the series but it's incredibly normative in its displays of sexuality.)
Re the whole Felurian thing: Do people really read that as a 25 year old being completely honest about his sexual conquests? Really? Most of the story is an exercise in learning to find the truth in highly unreliable narration. It's literally the point of the Chandrian!
I genuinely believe people's brains shut off when they're asked to examine the culture of sex when it's used beyond, "huurbdurrrh bing bang bonin'," like it's often presented in Game of Thrones.
(Read: I like the series but it's incredibly normative in its displays of sexuality.)
Re the whole Felurian thing: Do people really read that as a 25 year old being completely honest about his sexual conquests? Really? Most of the story is an exercise in learning to find the truth in highly unreliable narration. It's literally the point of the Chandrian!
The Adem are seperated by a huge mountain range with the people of the four corners having no reason to travel to, while the adem are completely uninterested in the outside world. They export their mercs, sure, but that's the only line of communication they have with the outside world, and it's not like trade or other businesses that require any great interaction with the cultures. The adem may revere body guarding, but the rest of the world just finds it useful and not much else. Which is why you get very few people speaking Kvothe's language, because if communication was actually important, they'd have to have lessons on the common tongue. As it is, as long as an Adem understands basic commands, that's good enough.
So you have culture that is cut off as much as can possibly be while still connected via landmass exporting a product that requires little in way of communication with another culture, and they're mutually uninterested in advancing relations beyond that. It's not unreasonable that seperate beliefs would form outside of that. I mean, think of how interconnected countries in Europe are, and they still managed to develop langauge that are wholly independent from each other, even though they all come from the root langauge.
Honestly the problem is not the culture itself but the reasons they exist in the narrative, which was, in my opinion, to provide Kvothe more sexy time.
You have:
1) A freely promiscuous society
2) Low chances of pregnancy apparently because the women, despite having sex all the time, aren't always pregnant
3) 1% STD rates among the populace
And this is right after Aphrodite fucks him senseless. Sorry, but it's beyond transparent. There might be a legitimate exploration of the role of sex in gender power balance with the Adem, but Rothfuss is not the author to tackle it. LeGuin, or Bujold, yeah, sure, their brand of sci-fi is more or less cultural anthropology fiction. Rothfuss? Nope. Not buying it.
You have:
1) A freely promiscuous society
2) Low chances of pregnancy apparently because the women, despite having sex all the time, aren't always pregnant
3) 1% STD rates among the populace
And this is right after Aphrodite fucks him senseless. Sorry, but it's beyond transparent. There might be a legitimate exploration of the role of sex in gender power balance with the Adem, but Rothfuss is not the author to tackle it. LeGuin, or Bujold, yeah, sure, their brand of sci-fi is more or less cultural anthropology fiction. Rothfuss? Nope. Not buying it.
It... is literally trade, and business, which frequently involves staying for prolonged times with their clients. Jesus christ.
Get the Gentlemen Bastards done at the same time for a double confused man-child feature.
Per the bolded, the idea is a result of their diet containing chemicals that act as contraceptives. Now as for the Ademere, Kvothe eats a common native plant that acts as a contraceptive, which is a nice detail that could imply an analogous situation. Throughout all the books the Adem are very enigmatic and the isolation of their culture is consistently emphasized (many of the "europeans" think of them as demonic). Those details should satisfy any armchair cultural anthropologist about a fictional civilization.
This argument would be more convincing if we actually spent time with Kvothe's Sexytime.
By that I mean, actually describing sex, or atleast physicality. This is actually pretty rare. You get a few descriptions of Felurians bossum. That's as explicit as it gets. Most of the time, it fades to black, and when we come in on intimate moments, it's usually to discuss stuff other than sex. Most fanservice revolves around lingering on the sex, since that's what the actual service is, the viewers get the a voyeuristic view of carnal delights. And we mostly just don't get that.
I mean, tell me this: other than the sheer fact that he's having a lot of sex, what is the fanservice aspect of these scenes? Most of the time with Felurian is spent him learning about her, or the Fae world. When he has sex with his teacher, it's so matter of factly and then done. When he has sex with Penthe, he goes on about appreciating her company far more than her body. This is a significant step down from, say, ASoIaF, who spends several pages detailing the sexual physicality of sex scenes.
Also, for points 2 and 3. Point 3 is justified by some magical place that the Adem have hidden that seems to be a cureall. I actually think it might have ties to the Cthaeh, which is said to have a panacia. And the book doesn't justify point 2 by my knowledge, but it's likely it's the same justification that real world Troiband societies have: they have contraceptives in the food.
I mean, it is trade, sure, but the system of it is simple. "Guard that" "Protect him", etc. When I say trade, I mean stuff like "Lets ship several hundred crates of sugar to wherever". That stuff will involve math, agreement, legal expenses and other possible social exchanges. In contrast, guarding is a very simple task. I mean, you generally don't see people forming close bonds with the people they hire to guard them, and the Adem are happy to not associate with the barbarians. Tempe, for example, could barely speak a word of the common tongue, but he functioned because all he needed to know is "Find bandits in forest, bring back gold". Worst case scenerio, they had someone more fluent explain it to him before hand. For that alone, they might have a small department of people who can communicate efficiently. But other than the mission briefing, there isn't as much of a need for communication for the people who actually do the guarding duty, and the Adem have no interest in outside culture outside of that. So even if I buy that there does need to be a set of people familiar with the Four Corners, which I don't think I ever denied, why would that lead to the entirety of the Adem assimilating or even understanding their culture?
ha... ha... ha... *cries*
If your standard is ASOIAF, then I don't know what to say. You should try reading more fantasy and sci-fi written by women, I suppose.
Not every writer can be Ursula Le Guin!
Freyjadour
Member
More interested in LMM than the source material nowadays. Book 2 pretty much killed my interest.
I read plenty. My point is that if you want excessiveness, ASoIaF is what I'd term excessive. And not just because there is a lot of it, but how it's presented.
The basic point here is that Kvothe's sexy time doesn't arouse me in any sense except Felurian, which is the only real time he goes into any detail about the actual act you're arguing Rothfuss is flaunting, and even that is fairly minimal when you actually look at all Kvothe does in the Fae Realm.
If you can't give me more than the sheer fact that he has sex, it's just not much of an argument. Sure, lots of guys would love to have casual sex, but there's a lot of things Kvothe does that a lot of guys would love to do that would be unreasonable to call fanservice, or alternatively something being fanservice does not mean that can't hold beyond the pure id delight of sexytimes. Merely that sex is something people want isn't enough to qualify it except in the broadest, most meaningless definition of the word.
The basic thing about it is that I can think of other reasons why Felurian or the Adem's attitude/acts of sex are interesting beyond that they are just sex, something I can't say for all series, even ones I like like ASoIaF. Sometimes, their sex scenes are just unncessary. But when you get down to it, KKC just doesn't have that many sex scenes. It's typically happening in the background and is just noted and moved past to discuss something else. I don't know about you, but that just doens't scream "HOT!" to me.
Puck Beaverton
Banned
If only
To be honest there isn't a lot of "sex" in ASoIaF either. Most of the sex, be it consensual or not, often happens "off screen". I believe the most actual sex happens in the first book with Khal Drogo and Dany and a few other notable scenes. Most of the time though its characters talking about an act happening in the past or discussing rumors or some such. Its rarely something presented to the audience directly as its happening and its even more rare for it to involving one of the characters whose perspectives we get first hand.
Its actually one of the things I noticed about the show after the first two seasons is how it really played up the sex when it was often mentioned in passing in the books. That and all the added sex scenes, Little Finger hanging out in the brothels all the time and so on. I remember being called prude when I thought it was getting to be a bit much and detracting from the more interesting and relevant events in the story.
The world of Kingkiller Chronicles, at least in book 2, conspires to give him sex, instead of him acting as an agent and seeking it out for his own ends. Do you disagree with me on this?
Because that's the real sin. Not the sex, nor how graphic it is, but how it seems to be served up on a silver platter for Kvothe. And, despite that, he still hasn't advanced significantly with Denna, the aloof, unattainable object of his unquenchable, pure love. Which means:
1) He gets to pine and yearn after the person/object/idol of Denna
2) At the same time he gets to get laid, and apparently is quite good at it now.
Do you not see the conflict of interests here? He is the shy lovestruck "virgin" and Casanova at the same time.
Goldenroad
Member
Hm, I'll have to reread them soon then. Maybe around the tiem Winds comes out. At the very least, I am pretty sure ASoIaF is quite physical about it. Like, one line I remember people debated about is Dany describing how her breast feels against her shirt, for no real reason. Some women say they never think like that, other women said they sometimes do, but that to me is more sexually minded than what happens in KKC.
Even if we include passing mentions, then there are still only a few allusions to sex. The first introduction to Felurian is the major one, then every other time is "And then we had sex". The only major instance, iirc, is Kvothe being distracted by her breast when she's trying to tell him something important and they just agree to have sex afterwards if he listens. Then that redhead barmaid who flirted with him before, but rejected him afterwards, but it mostly focus' on their flirtation. After that, sex with his mentor with the Adem, and Penthe once he's finally not deemed a barbarian. Both instances aren't really described in detail. Then when he goes back to the university, he starts dating, which then leads to sex. It's important to note that more emphasis is placed on dating rather than the sex.
And since all these are glossed over so matter of factly, it's hard to get a sense of "Wow, this is sooo pandering to my base instincts". Which, again, is what I feel when I read ASoIaF a lot of the time. Like that Knight that Arianne seduces. That could have just as easily been him falling in love with her, but we have them naked and him betraying his vows based in his sex with her, and he describes her rather lividly. KKC, in comparison, even if they had sex before, would probably frame this more as a romantic relationship. Not chaste, but not sex focused.
Inferno313
Banned
Yeah. I think there's only two people who have the EGOT and a Pulitzer. Lin would be the third if he wins an Oscar.
I just googled and apparently the actual term is PEGOT. So, apologies for the confusion!
CopperPuppy
Member
From a quick Google and Wikipedia search, this series appears, dare I say, "Witcher-esque."
Accurate, or no?
Accurate, or no?
God no.
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
Not at all.
fredrancour
Member
nope. the protagonist, as he exists in the framing-story time period, is almost witcher-like, but the practice of listening to the story of his adventures is nothing like the witcher at all, and that's what nearly all of the books is. it's the story of a young dude going on adventures and trying to become not-useless and winding up in magic school.
Geralt don't need no sex goddess to bone half the women in the land.
Yes, I do disagree to a large extent. Sure, Felurian got him because she wanted sexytimes, but he's the one who chased after her, while Tempe just stared and the Big guy had to be held down by the female merc. After that, he goes after the redheaded barkeep girl who embarassed him the first time on his own initiative. After that, his teacher gives him the option of going to go jack off in the woods or just have sex with her, so he persued it as his own agency. Penthe also sought out Kvothe, but she didn't just jump his bones, she brought him flowers to woo him. If he had tried to pursue sex before he was cured of his barbarianism, he would have not only been rejected, he may have faced serious consequences for doing so. Felurian and the Adem held the danger of killing or maiming him. In that situation, other things take priority. What your really asking is "do girls persue him", and yes, they do, since he's handsome, heroic, witty, charming and so on. Maybe that much is somewhat fanservicey, the idea that you're the guy whose wanted by women and maybe it sometimes lingers on in ways that overstay welcome...but at the same time, I'm friends with a lot of attractive guys and I see women showing interest A LOT around them....but honestly, it's hard to parse the idea that a handsome guy wouldn't have women trying to charm him. If that's fanservice, how do you write a situation wherein your character is handsome in a normal setting? Also, if that's the argument your making, then the sex is irrelevant, since it's based on girls wanting him (something happening since the first book) rather than him satsifying that want.
Anyway to your point about agency, while the world around him presents interest, but he still actually has to go for it for anything to happen. It's actually not assumed that Kvothe would say yes to every act, because, well, he doesn't. There was one girl in particular in NotW that showed interest so open "even he could read the implications" but nothing came of it. Because he wasn't interested. And when he finally does give in, there is an imbalance of power in his circumstances. Felurian is not Kvothe's equal, and as far as Adem Culture goes, he was inferior for much of the time. It's only once he starts back to the unverisity, where he has peers to interact with on equal terms, that he is active in his persuits. There is only one time where Felurian pursued him without his consent, which triggered rape flashbacks, something he is very touchy about. Even when that drug removed all his behavior filters, he still believed rape to be wrong. It's likely that this is his reasoning for why he is so touchy and reluctant to satisfy his desires until Felurian all but forced him into giving in.
So his dilemma isn't just generic, it's character based. He had reasons to not pursue girls, and then he got past them, but was in bad situations where he didn't have the power to pursue sex, but once he was among equals, he did. The only unusual thing is that he attracted more attention than he knew what he could do with in the early days, but since he's got all sorts of attractive qualities, is it really inherently fanservicey that a handome, witty, charming, and goodnatured guy would be desirable, or is that just human nature?
As far as Denna goes, Denna actually made several statements that he could, in fact, go further with her than he does. The reason he hasn't gotten as far as he has with her is more his fault than hers, since he handles her like a china doll so much. She's probably just have sex with him if he went for it, but she'd also run away from him afterwards, and he doesn't want that.
But honestly? When you get down to it, no, you're trying to dress up a trope as inherently fanservicey, and I don't buy that. Even the 'casanova with one REAL love' is inherently fanservicey. It's not the first time it's happened, and I've read incarnations of it that aren't fanservicy, or even desirable. For me, fanservice is ALL on the presentation, and negative fanservice is based on the fact that there is little narrative justification for it. That's just not what I see with KKC.
It's inherently chauvanistic. Sorry, but thems the breaks. It's intertwined with the "white knight" concept. Admittedly my sci-fi/fantasy reading is not wide as it could but I never see this trope applied to female characters, or by women. It only comes from men, usually about a man, written for men.
EDIT: Actually no that's not quite true. It occurs regularly in shoujo manga, because then the girl gets to the be the one that tames the sexual deviant with her pure heart.
And honestly it's just as sexist there.
EDIT: Actually no that's not quite true. It occurs regularly in shoujo manga, because then the girl gets to the be the one that tames the sexual deviant with her pure heart.
And honestly it's just as sexist there.
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