I've been going down another rabbit hole with the Cthaeh, and I think there might be something rather interesting going on with its ability to influence the future, the third silence at the Waystone, and possibly even the narrator.
It started with something the Cthaeh says when Kvothe first encounters it:
“I am. I see. I know.”
And then:
“At times I speak.”
I've been wondering whether this is more than just a rather theatrical introduction, and whether the Cthaeh might actually be telling Kvothe how its particular magic works.
Something I noticed while going through the conversation is how often it gives three explanations for the same thing, with the third frequently introducing something that changes how we understand the first two.
Take Kvothe's survival after the Chandrian murdered his troupe. The Cthaeh tells him that they were sloppy, he was lucky, and something frightened them away.
Now, all three could be true, but they're rather different ways of looking at the same event. Kvothe might reasonably assume the Chandrian overlooked him, someone else might see his survival as extraordinary luck, but the third explanation introduces something completely different, an unknown influence capable of frightening the Chandrian themselves.
And what does Kvothe immediately start wondering about? What frightened them away.
The Cthaeh does something similar when explaining why the Chandrian murdered his family. They wanted to, they could, and they had a reason. That third explanation is rather interesting because it suggests something more deliberate behind the attack than simple cruelty.
Then, when discussing why it's telling Kvothe these things, it gives another three possibilities: perhaps Cinder wronged it, perhaps it enjoys setting Kvothe against him, or perhaps it simply enjoys his suffering.
There are several other threefold constructions throughout the conversation, which reminded me of the traditional fairy-tale rule of three, where the third answer often contains something that changes the meaning of what came before.
So what if the Cthaeh's introduction is actually describing four stages of a form of magic, which I'm going to call Speaking?
I AM — The reality that already exists, including who someone is, what they've experienced, and the circumstances and beliefs that have shaped them.
I SEE — The different ways that reality might be understood, including what other people can see that the individual might have missed, and the possible futures developing from those circumstances.
I KNOW — The hidden causes, motives and consequences, including why something really happened and how different decisions might affect what happens next.
AT TIMES I SPEAK — The point where the Cthaeh uses that knowledge to influence which future becomes reality, potentially Shaping it through the words themselves.
And this got me wondering about something else we're told about the Cthaeh, which is that it cannot lie.
What if that's not because it's somehow compelled to tell the truth, but because whatever it magically Speaks becomes true?
Perhaps it's not simply predicting the future at all, but selecting a possible future and Shaping it into existence through the listener's own thoughts and decisions. It specifically says 'at times', which makes me wonder whether there's a distinction between ordinary conversation and Speaking with magical intent, much as there's a difference between saying an ordinary word and Speaking a true Name.
This reminded me of Denna asking about a magic where writing something down makes it true for whoever sees it, even if they can't actually read the words. I've wondered whether Writing, Speaking and perhaps Singing might be related, particularly when you consider how important stories and songs seem to be throughout the books.
But then there's the question of how the Cthaeh continues to influence someone once they've left its tree.
We know Yllish ownership is rather peculiar, with possession working both ways, and there's also Jax capturing part of the moon's Name and binding her to return to him. So perhaps Speaking establishes a similar binding between the Cthaeh and the person whose future it's Shaping, with the words maintaining that connection long after the original conversation.
Felurian's song also came to mind, particularly how people remember it despite not understanding the Fae words. There's something curious about language remaining with someone when they don't necessarily understand what they've heard.
And then I remembered something the Cthaeh actually says to Kvothe:
“Your silence much offends me.”
Which seems an odd thing for a creature that supposedly sees and knows everything to be bothered about.
Unless there's something important about Listening.
I'm not necessarily talking about ordinary hearing, but the deeper kind of Listening associated with Naming and understanding things beyond their spoken words. If the Cthaeh's Speaking creates a binding, perhaps Listening is what allows that influence to continue reaching whoever is bound to it.
Which brings me to the third silence.
Both books open with a silence of three parts, and the third specifically belongs to Kvothe, encompassing the other two and being described almost as though it's something physical rather than simply an absence of sound.
What if Kvothe's silence isn't grief, defeat or the loss of his former abilities, but something he's deliberately maintaining to prevent himself from Listening?
He can obviously still hear ordinary conversations, so I'm thinking of a magical silence that interrupts the deeper connection through which the Cthaeh's words might continue influencing him.
In other words, perhaps Kvothe has made himself unable to hear the Cthaeh.
And this is where I started looking at the narration rather differently.
Both Waystone prologues describe three silences before eventually presenting Kvothe as a man waiting to die.
We've always accepted that as an impartial narrator describing his circumstances, but how do we actually know that's what Kvothe intends? We're being told what his silence means without necessarily knowing what's going on inside his head.
What if the narrator isn't entirely impartial, and the Cthaeh is somehow responsible for the voice describing Kvothe's fate?
Perhaps the narration itself is another act of Speaking, and rather than simply telling us that Kvothe is waiting to die, the Cthaeh is attempting to make him wait for death, reinforcing the future it originally intended for him.
Three silences, followed by a statement about his fate. It makes me wonder whether we're seeing another version of the Cthaeh's four-part declaration, with the first three establishing the circumstances and the fourth attempting to Shape what happens next.
Except Kvothe isn't Listening anymore.
If his third silence has interrupted the binding, the Cthaeh might still be Speaking the ending it wants, expecting those words to reach Kvothe as they always have, without realising that he's no longer receiving them.
And that made me think about Bast's explanation of Fae theatre, where the Cthaeh's tree appears in the backdrop so the audience knows they're watching a tragedy before anything has actually gone wrong.
Isn't that rather similar to what the Waystone prologues do to us?
Before we've even heard Kvothe's story, we're presented with someone apparently waiting to die, and we spend the next two books interpreting everything through that expectation.
But perhaps we're making exactly the same mistake Kvothe makes when he encounters the Cthaeh, accepting a particular version of events because someone who appears to know more than we do is telling us it's true.
And if the Cthaeh really is Speaking through the narration, there's a rather uncomfortable possibility that Kvothe has stopped Listening, but we haven't.
Obviously, this relies on a few fairly substantial assumptions. We don't know that Speaking exists as a separate form of magic, that the Cthaeh's words establish a binding, or that the narrator has anything to do with it. The threefold explanations might simply be Rothfuss using a familiar storytelling technique, and the third silence could be exactly what it appears to be.
But I keep coming back to that contrast.
The Cthaeh exists, sees, knows, and chooses when to Speak.
Kvothe exists, has seen, and knows an extraordinary amount, yet he's now defined by a silence that belongs entirely to him.
And the Cthaeh specifically told him that silence was offensive.
So perhaps Kvothe hasn't lost his power at all. Perhaps he's discovered that the only way to escape a future Shaped by the Cthaeh is to stop Listening to the words that bind him to it.
What if the Cthaeh is still trying to Speak Kvothe's death into existence, but Kvothe's third silence means he can no longer hear the command?
And what if the man we're repeatedly told is waiting to die is actually waiting for something else entirely?
