KKC Theory WikiGranted Power and Group Belief: A Person Can Owe Fealty to Himself
Noble ranks, taxes, and group Alar are all granted power, and a key figure may be one man who is legally more than one person.
About: Alar
Also involves: Maer Lerand Alveron, Laurian, Naming, Kvothe, Bredon
The theory§
This theory traces a distinction the Maer Alveron draws between inherent power and granted power: a noble's authority, the taxes and tithe owed to those above, are forms of power lent upward by many to one. It binds this to the concept of group Alar, in which a mass of people holding the same belief lends that conviction real weight, and to Bredon's observation that 'sometimes a person is actually more than one person, technically speaking.' The hinge is Kvothe's anecdote of a man who owed fealty and a share of his own taxes to himself, an apparently absurd legal arrangement read here as a closed loop of self-granted, potentially limitless power. The recurring 'Folding King' figure and coin and penance-piece motifs are taken as further hints that recursion of identity and granted power is a hidden mechanism in the world, possibly tied to how a figure like Lanre or the Chandrian acquired or became trapped by power.
Evidence§
Following that trail leads you to the Maer's lessons on the type of power, inherent and granted. The lesson that granted power *has no limits*, and how paying taxes is a form of granted power. Similar to group Alar, getting the masses to believe in the same thing with their "riding crop belief", lending you their power.
OP's core premise: granted power (taxes, group Alar) is unlimited power lent upward. — u/SmurphiliciousSometimes a person is actually more than one person, technically speaking … One man, but two different political entities.
Bredon (quoted by OP): one person can legally be more than one entity. — u/SmurphiliciousMy mother once told me she knew a man who owed fealty to himself … Owed himself a share of his own taxes every year
Kvothe's anecdote (quoted by OP): the hinge example of self-granted power loop. — u/Smurphiliciousbecause one person is two entities, a man who owes fealty to himself, ***he owes himself taxes***, it's recursion. The best presentation for this is the computer science version of recursion
OP reads the self-fealty as recursion, a finite statement defining infinite power. — u/Smurphilicioussince energy cannot be destroyed, the only way to defeat it is to loop it in a circle. The recursion, calling his own Name from within himself, becomes the trap. Cursed by his own name, bound to a great wheel. Folding in on himself
OP ties recursion to Lanre's power and the Folding King trap. — u/SmurphiliciousWhat if you take the group alar and maybe sing a song about specific people? … Everyone everywhere singing a song, granted power as you have it
Comment extends group Alar: Denna's famous song as mass granted power. — u/NRichYoSelfI swear to God I don't know how many times I have to say it but *if* you are going to divide something by infinity … then you get 0 not infinity.
CounterCounter: the divide-by-infinity math underpinning the theory is wrong. — u/123josephxare we saying recursion grants infinite power to the recurser, like the man who owes himself taxes, or that it forms a prison? … How can power be a zero sum game and also infinite through recursion?
CounterCounter: theory's claims (infinite power vs trap, zero-sum vs infinite) are contradictory. — u/Khajit_has_memes
Book refs: WMF
Tier reasoning§
tier kept: speculative magic-mechanism thread from scattered clues
Contributors§
- u/NRichYoSelf — extended · 13 pts