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The Three Things Wise Men Fear Are Literally Enacted Across The Wise Man's Fear

plausible symbolism · popularity 167 · 1 source thread

Storm-sea, moonless night, and a gentle man's wrath each play out as lessons Kvothe lives through in book two.

About: Kvothe

Also involves: Felurian, Denna, The Moon, The Adem, The Cthaeh, Maer Lerand Alveron

The theory§

The proverb that names the second volume holds that there are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a moonless night, and the anger of a gentle man. Read against the events of The Wise Man's Fear, the three fears unfold as a sequence of lessons Kvothe lives through. Forced to cross the sea to reach Severen, his ship is wrecked in a storm; carried into the Fae by Felurian, he is taught to dread the moonless night, both in his taking and later when she nearly drowns him to drive the lesson home. The third fear, a gentle man's wrath, remains the unspent prophecy, with the Maer Alveron its most natural candidate: outwardly controlled and tactful, his quiet displeasure can ruin a life with the wave of a hand, and Kvothe later admits he badly underestimated that power. Other gentle men are nominated as the fear's true face or its recurring shape across the books, including Trapis, Simmon, Lorren, Stapes, Kilvin, Elodin, Bredon, and Kvothe himself, the last in keeping with Rothfuss's habit of seeding a prophecy with one obvious meaning that is wrong and a quieter one that is right.

Evidence§

  • all wise men fear the sea in storm, a moonless night, and a gentle man's wrath. I just got to thinking, and realized it somewhat conforms to the story we are told in the second book.
    OP's core claim: the proverb's three fears map onto events of book two. — u/SOURCECODE01
  • First, Kvothe is forced to cross the sea, and a storm wrecks him. So he learns why you fear the sea in storm. Next, he travels to the land of the Fae, and Felurian teaches him the reason he should be fearful of a moonless night, both in his abduction and later when she nearly drowns him to specifically teach him this thing.
    OP enacts the first two fears: shipwreck, then Felurian's moonless-night lesson. — u/SOURCECODE01
  • All that is missing in the third thing. Who is the gentle man? There's a number of possibilities: Kvothe himself, Elodin, maybe Bredon, and probably others I've not considered.
    OP frames the third fear as unspent prophecy with multiple candidate gentle men. — u/SOURCECODE01
  • I thought the “gentle man’s wrath” was an obvious reference to the Maer. He is very controlled and methodical, he’s tactful and smart. … Kvothe also talks specifically about how he underestimated the power the Maer had to potentially ruin his life, so it’s definitely something to be feared.
    Top comment nominates the Maer as the gentle man, citing Kvothe's own admission. — u/yeeah_suree
  • Lorren is the gentle man, the quote “there are three things all wise men fear...” is brought up right after kvothe is found with a candle in the stacks.
    Refines candidate: textual placement of the quote points to Lorren. — u/Archeriize
  • Rothfuss is notorious for setting up a prophecy or foreshadowing or whatever that has one obvious meaning that is wrong but also a much less obvious meaning … "gentle" can also mean "of noble birth," … "like the sea in a storm" is *exactly* how Devi describes her alar, word for word
    Adds the double-meaning frame: gentle as noble, and Devi's alar as the real sea-in-storm. — u/AbacusWizard
  • we formed a pretty solid theory that there is a double entendre for each of the fears. … The sea in storm is the sea that Kvothe's ship was wrecked in BUT REALLY it was Devi's alar that he should have feared. … The wrath of gentle man is the anger of someone who seems gentle at first, like Lorren or someone similar BUT REALLY what Kvothe should fear is the wrath of a gentleman
    Synthesizes a hidden-meaning reading for all three fears: real dangers are Devi, the Lackless box, and powerful gentlemen. — u/boars_b4_whores
  • I agree with the shipwreck part, but if he was really foreshadowing the second book then the fae part dosent make sense because it really isn't scary for kvothe, it was sad and and madenning but not scary
    CounterCounter: the Fae moonless-night episode wasn't actually frightening, weakening the mapping. — u/-gaspnoise-
  • I feel like this whole “the world fears a gentle man’s wrath” thing is a thing gentle men tell themselves when they feel powerless. The world fears the bullies. Gentle men tend to have great containment and bad fighting skills.
    CounterCounter: dismisses the premise that a gentle man's wrath is genuinely fearsome. — u/otter6461a

Book refs: WMF, WMF ch22

Tier reasoning§

no change; the storm-sea and moonless-night beats are textually present, plausible fits

Contributors§

Source threads§