KKC Theory Wiki

Kvothe May Be Wrong About Lanre Being the Villain of the Tale

plausible motive · popularity 57 · 1 source thread

The conflicting tellings of Lanre's fall suggest Kvothe has only heard one biased side of the story.

About: Haliax, Selitos

Also involves: Kvothe, Skarpi, Denna, The Chandrian, Myr Tariniel, The Amyr, Ademre

The theory§

The fall of Lanre reaches Kvothe through several mouths, and no two tellings agree on who was hero and who was monster. Skarpi's account in Tarbean casts Lanre as a fallen champion who betrayed and burned Myr Tariniel, with Selitos as the grieving witness who pronounced his doom; Denna's song inverts the roles, painting Lanre as a tragic figure and Selitos as a cruel zealot who 'cleansed' a sinful city. Shehyn's Adem telling, which names the Chandrian truly and again calls the city Tariniel, sides with Skarpi in marking Lanre and his followers as betrayers. Because the Four Corners is a world where stories are deliberately bent in the retelling, the theory holds that Kvothe has absorbed only one biased face of a far more tangled history, and that the truth may flatter neither Lanre nor Selitos. If Selitos was no better than the man he condemned, then the moral architecture Kvothe has built his hatred upon is unreliable.

Evidence§

  • When Kvothe hears the story from Skarpi in Tarbean, he hears of Lanre as a fallen hero becoming a villain and burning Myr tariniel … with selitos being the tragic hero.
    OP's starting point: Skarpi's version, the one Kvothe and the reader absorb first. — u/CanadianBac0n2
  • When Denna tells her story Lanre is the tragic hero and selitos is the cruel villain who "cleanses" the sinful city of "mirinitel". … We obvipisly are inclined to believe skarpis story but Rothfuss is pretty clear that things are not always as they seem, particularly with stories.
    Denna's telling inverts the roles, showing Kvothe heard only one biased side. — u/CanadianBac0n2
  • Then, in Ademre he hears the tale of the chandrian and they name the city as well, again called tariniel
    Shehyn's Adem telling aligns with Skarpi, deepening the conflict between versions. — u/CanadianBac0n2
  • In the book we receive at least 4 version of Lanre's tale. … Out of these 4 examples we can split them into two groups fairly easily. In Skarpi and Shehyn's version of the story Lanre and other are described clearly as betrayers.
    Catalogs four tellings and splits them into anti- and pro-Chandrian camps. — u/Sandal-Hat
  • I think Cinder as Master Ash is using Denna as his second attempt to seed a pro-Lanre song into the world in hopes to end the curse still placed on Lanre as Haliax and the rest of the Chandrian.
    Refines theory: the pro-Lanre version is being deliberately seeded by Cinder. — u/Sandal-Hat
  • I think what really happened is probably more complicated than lanre=bad selitos=good or vice versa.
    Supports that the truth flatters neither side of the binary. — u/Timullin
  • In Skarpi’s story, the city is called Myr Teriniel and in Sheyen’s story, it’s also Teriniel. Deanna calls it Mirinitel, which since she gets the name backwards, I took to imply that she has the story backwards too.
    CounterCounter: Denna getting the name wrong implies her whole version is wrong. — u/Enjoyschess2
  • Kvothe and readers basically dont care if the city is called myrintiel, tariniel or some else. Kvothe basically dont care if Lanre or Selitos were monsters or heroes 5000 years ago. … Kvothe knows for a fact that his parents were killed and he wants to avenge them.
    CounterCounter: the historical truth is irrelevant; Kvothe hunts proven murderers. — u/MikeMaxM

Book refs: NOTW, WMF, NOTW ch 26

Tier reasoning§

distinct theory; conflicting in-book tellings give it solid grounding at plausible

Contributors§

Source threads§