KKC Theory Wiki

The Chandrian's Signs of Decay Are Pockets of Accelerated Fae Time

fringe mechanism · popularity 124 · 1 source thread

Rust, rot, and spoilage around the Chandrian may be Fae time dilation catching up with the mortal world.

About: The Chandrian, The Fae

Also involves: Felurian, Kvothe, Simmon, Wilem

The theory§

The blight that accompanies the Chandrian, rusting iron, rotting wood, spoiling crops, is reinterpreted as accelerated time bleeding from the Fae into the mortal world. Because time in the Fae runs faster than in Temerant, the theory proposes the Chandrian carry a pocket of Fae with them, so that ordinary slow processes of decay are compressed into moments wherever they tread. The reasoning draws on Kvothe's stay with Felurian, where three days in Temerant may have been years in the Fae, and on the Fenian Cycle, in which Finn's son lives three years in the otherworld only to find three centuries have passed on his return. Counterpoints note this cannot account for the blue flame, the unnatural cold, or the mad animals, that bodies at Chandrian sites are not described as rotted, and that Kvothe himself stood before the Chandrian without aging.

Evidence§

  • What if the places the Chandrian show up, what if they're just bringing the Fae with them? The time dilation. Crops spoil, wood rots, metal rusts. All of those happen over long periods of time
    OP's core claim: Chandrian decay signs are slow processes compressed by Fae time dilation. — u/Sketheteretaavan
  • Time moves much, much faster in the Fae. Kvothe was gone from Temerant three days, but when discussing how much time really passed with Sim and Wil they suspect Kvothe might have been in there for *years*.
    Supporting premise: textual evidence that Fae time runs faster than mortal time. — u/Sketheteretaavan
  • what if it's like the Fenian Cycle story? Finn's son lives in the "Fae" for 3 years, but in the real world it was 300 years. He returns and time catches up with him.
    Mythic precedent: time catching up on return from the otherworld. — u/Sketheteretaavan
  • But when they step foot back on mortal ground, *time catches up* and everything rots and withers away?
    OP's mechanism: returning Chandrian let accumulated time catch up, causing rot. — u/Sketheteretaavan
  • since everything they show tends to be decay, and entropy is the law of the universe, that makes some sense.
    Supports plausibility via entropy, but flags it doesn't explain blue fire. — u/ProfessorMoosePhD
  • if each chandrian accelerates a different reaction they would each have different signs.
    Refinement: per-Chandrian accelerated reactions explain why signs differ. — u/Historical_Shop_3315
  • The problem with your theory is that Kvothe himself came face-to-face with the Chandrian. Why didn't he immediately wither with age and die?
    CounterCounter: Kvothe survived proximity to the Chandrian without aging. — u/taborlyn13
  • But that doesn't explain the cold, mad animals or blue fire. Also the corpses are never mentioned to be rotten, which they would be if it was just time dilation.
    CounterCounter: theory fails to explain cold, mad animals, blue fire, and unrotted corpses. — u/Stenric

Book refs: WMF

Tier reasoning§

tier kept: speculative mechanism contradicted by blue flame and Kvothe not aging

Contributors§

Source threads§