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Rothfuss Reread: Speculative Summary 9: “That sparked the entire Creation War”: Speculations on the Creation War

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Rothfuss Reread: Speculative Summary 9: “That sparked the entire Creation War”: Speculations on the Creation War

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Published on February 2, 2012

The Patrick Rothfuss Reread on Tor.com: Speculative Summary 11: Te Rhintae?
The Patrick Rothfuss Reread on Tor.com: Speculative Summary 11: Te Rhintae?

We’re half way through our no moon left unturned re-read of Patrick Rothfuss’s The Wise Man’s Fear, and we’re going to pause here for another speculative summary. After we’ve summed up some of the speculation we’ll be moving on. These posts assume you’ve read all of both books The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear, and they are absolutely full of bizarre speculations and spoilers for all of both books. Please don’t go beyond the cut unless you want that!

Abbreviations: NW = The Name of the Wind. WMF = The Wise Man’s Fear. DT = Day Three, the forthcoming final volume. K = Kvothe or Kote when I can’t figure out what to call him and I’m feeling Kafkaesque. MT: Myr Tariniel. D = Denna

Useful links: The Sleeping Under the Wagon post, in which there are lots of theories. The re-read index. The map.

This is different from the other speculative summary posts, where I’ve mostly been quoting from discussions that have arisen and pulling things together.

As I’ve been doing that, for all four together, I kept coming again and again on the Creation War and how significant it is and how little we know about it.

 

A brief summary of the Creation War as I understand it

What I think happened was that there were people — neither human nor fae. Some of them were very powerful, and they lived in the seven cities plus Myr Tariniel. Felurian was one of them, the Ctheah was one of them, as were Iax, Lanre, Lyra, Selitos, Aleph, Tehlu and the other angels. We do not know if Cinder and the other Chandrian were among them. Teccam may have been one of them. We don’t know if they were immortal but killable or what.

There were two sides, Namers and Shapers. Shapers included Iax. Namers included Lanre, Lyra, Aleph, and Selitos. There were also neutrals — Felurian and presumably others.

The Shapers created Fae in some way, along with a lot of other cool stuff. There was a war, but there could have been a peace except that Iax stole the moon. He may have spoken to the Ctheah first — Bast says he did.

At the battle of Drossen Tor, the Namers won and shut Iax beyond the Doors of Stone, whatever the heck that means. (Waystones? The Four Plate Door? The Lackless door?) Lanre died killing an uber-draccus. Lyra called Lanre back from the dead.

Then Lyra died — we have no idea how. Then Lanre talked to the Ctheah and became Haliax and destroyed six cities and MT, leaving one city, probably Tinue. Selitos cursed him.

Then the remaining Namers got together and divided. One lot, led by Selitos, became the Amyr, out for revenge against Haliax and the Chandrian. The other lot, led by Aleph, set out to avenge evil done in future and became angels. Tehlu was one of this lot, and the confusion of Tehlu with an actual deity is just that, confusion. The Amyr and the angels are still out there.

There were now two worlds with the moon divided between them and moon-operated gates between them near Waystones. There were two lots of people, mortals in the 4C world and immortal Fae in Fae.

There are also tinkers, who may be related to or working for the angels. We don’t know if they are mortal or what. We don’t know if they existed before the Creation War — there’s one in Hespe’s story, but Hespe’s story is oral tradition. (I think it’s possible that it wasn’t a tinker but the Ctheah who set Iax longing for the moon for his created world.)

We do not know the relationship between Selitos and his Amyr and the human Order Amyr that was connected with the Church and the Aturan Empire.

We do not know of the Creation War went cold, or whether it’s all really a case of the war being won by one side and the survivors of that side being the new side, with the other side beyond the Doors of Stone. (That’s how it looks to me.)

We also don’t know if Kvothe is going to let them out, but I strongly suspect he is.

More thoughts, anything I’ve missed or got wrong?

I should be home by the time this is posted, and we’ll get back to normal and carry on with WMF and Felurian next week.

 


Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published two poetry collections and nine novels, most recently Among Others, and if you liked this post you will like it. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here regularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied.

About the Author

About Author Mobile

Jo Walton

Author

Jo Walton is the author of fifteen novels, including the Hugo and Nebula award winning Among Others two essay collections, a collection of short stories, and several poetry collections. She has a new essay collection Trace Elements, with Ada Palmer, coming soon. She has a Patreon (patreon.com/bluejo) for her poetry, and the fact that people support it constantly restores her faith in human nature. She lives in Montreal, Canada, and Florence, Italy, reads a lot, and blogs about it here. It sometimes worries her that this is so exactly what she wanted to do when she grew up.
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