KKC Theory Wiki

Was Kvothe Skin-Danced When He Walked Into His Troupe's Massacre?

fringe mechanism · popularity 68 · 1 source thread

A drifting cloud of smoke Kvothe walks through before finding his slain troupe may signal a skindancer entering him.

About: Kvothe

Also involves: The Chandrian, Edema Ruh, Haliax

The theory§

This theory raises the possibility that a skindancer entered Kvothe at the site of his troupe's slaughter. In The Wise Man's Fear, skindancers are described as appearing like a dark shadow or smoke when they leave a body, and in The Name of the Wind's chapter 'Hope,' Kvothe steps out of the forest and walks directly through a wafting patch of smoke just before he discovers the bodies of his family and finds Cinder and Haliax at the fire. Against this reading stands a meta-textual objection: if Kvothe were skin-danced, his guilt and the entire narrative that follows would lose their meaning, since the story would no longer be following Kvothe. A related line of thought instead casts the smoke and Kvothe's subsequent vision of the standing stones not as possession but as a sign that he has been drawn into an older conflict between otherworldly powers, the same pattern in which Lanre returned from death with a demon walking in his shadow.

Evidence§

  • They’re supposed to look like a dark shadow or smoke when they leave the body, aren’t they?
    OP's premise: skindancers appear as smoke, the book detail the theory hinges on. — u/Jandy777
  • wafted a patch of smoke like a low cloud toward me. I stepped out of the forest and … through the smoke, heading into the camp
    OP's core observation: Kvothe walks straight through a cloud of smoke entering the camp. — u/Jandy777
  • He goes *right through it*. And we all know what he finds on the other side.
    OP ties the smoke directly to discovering the massacre. — u/Jandy777
  • There is something I find more satisfying about the skin dancer at the inn if we have seen this magic before, but we didn’t realize it yet.
    Supporter: prior unnoticed skindancing would enrich the later inn scene. — u/PlaytheBoard
  • If Kvothe was skin-danced, his killing of the troupe meant nothing. It has no effect on his character, because Kvothe didn't do it. … So the likelihood that Kvothe has been skin-danced as a twist is effectively zero.
    CounterTop counter: meta-textually, possession would void the story's meaning. — u/Khajit_has_memes
  • I have never took the smoke Kvothe walks through on the way to the camp to indicate anything other then natural smoke, for one, it's not described as moving un-naturally.
    CounterCounter: the smoke reads as ordinary, not unnaturally moving. — u/TheLastSock
  • Kvothe would have almost certainly been covered in blood in this scenario, which he would have remarked on.
    CounterCounter: a skindanced killer would be bloodied, which Kvothe never notes. — u/TacticalDo
  • I subscribe to the notion Kvothe has been cast into or is somehow prophetically connected into a going battle between otherworldly powers. If any of that is remotely accurate I would be hard pressed as to how an unidentified skin dancer possessing Kvothe advances the notion.
    Alternative reading: the smoke and vision signal a larger conflict, not possession. — u/luckydrunk_7

Book refs: WMF ch 2, NOTW ch 16

Tier reasoning§

tier kept: smoke detail is a thin hook, heavily countered

Contributors§

Source threads§