KKC Theory Wiki

Bast's Patchwork Blanket Echoes Taborlin's Cloak of No Particular Colour

fringe connection · popularity 80 · 1 source thread

Bast's ill-matched blanket with a bright red heart mirrors Taborlin's famous cloak, hinting Bast may have known Taborlin.

About: Bast, Taborlin the Great

Also involves: Kvothe

The theory§

In The Wise Man's Fear, Bast's blanket is described as a chaos of ill-matching fabric and faded colour except for a bright red heart sewn at its centre. The phrasing echoes the cloak of no particular colour attributed in story after story to Taborlin the Great, and from that echo the theory proposes that Bast may once have known Taborlin personally, which could deepen his fixation on Kvothe and his story. The link rests wholly on the shared wording; there is no firmer textual support. A competing reading holds that Taborlin's cloak is of no particular colour simply because early tellers each gave it a different colour and later storytellers gave up reconciling them, which would make the detail an artifact of oral retelling rather than a deliberate parallel to Bast's blanket.

Evidence§

  • noticed Bast’s blanket near the “It was a chaos of ill matching fabric and faded colour except for a bright red heart sewn in the center.”
    OP's core observation: the verbatim description of Bast's blanket. — u/SnooCookies5199
  • This description very much reminded me of how someone “I think Kvothe” describes Tabolrins cloak of no particular colour.
    OP draws the parallel between blanket and Taborlin's cloak. — u/SnooCookies5199
  • Now I don’t think Bast is Tabolrin but he certainly could’ve known him and it could add to why he’s so obsessed with Kvothe and his story.
    OP's central claim: Bast may have known Taborlin, explaining his obsession. — u/SnooCookies5199
  • There’s no real evidence for this the wording just struck me.
    OP concedes the link rests wholly on shared wording. — u/SnooCookies5199
  • Interesting, but i dont see any other lead to this
    CounterCommenter notes lack of corroborating evidence. — u/Better_Law2050
  • The best explanation I've heard about Taborlin's cloak of "no particular color" is that all the early stories mention a cloak of a different color and folks got tired of figuring out which color should best represent him. So they went with a collective "whatever."
    CounterCounter-reading: cloak's colour is an artifact of oral retelling, not a parallel. — u/Kit-Carson
  • Sometimes things can be like other things without being those things.
    CounterCautions that resemblance does not imply a deliberate connection. — u/Stythys38491
  • He's prolly just a taborlin fanboy
    Alternative explanation: Bast simply admires Taborlin. — u/geynikka

Book refs: WMF

Tier reasoning§

single page; fringe tier confirmed, rests only on shared wording with a counter-reading

Contributors§

Source threads§