notw: Two-dimensional characters

[Nathan]

Elodin did tell Kvothe to jump.

"What do I have to do" I asked, "to study naming under you?"

He met my eye calmly, . . . "Jump. Jump off this roof."

Elodin's speech to Kvothe up to that point was about the risks in what he was asking of the Master Namer. The request to jump was a test to see if Kvothe was listening to what Elodin was teaching him, and he failed spectacularly.

Kvothe, who learns everything so quickly, can not learn wisdom, the ability to make good decisions. That is his greatest, perhaps tragic, flaw and that is why he is not a two dimensional character (hello OP!). I do not like Kvothe. I think he is a genius, and all the more a fool for it. But I love reading about him.

[Richard]

@Nathan

Kvothe's visit to the library is one of the things that made me feel the way I do about his character, really - it's almost like the only way that he could make a mistake necessary to drive the story and create some narrative tension was to have him pumped up on drugs!

(Which isn't to say he doesn't have any character flaws - I don't really see Kvothe as "flat," so much as very idealised: his character flaws seem contrived to allow people to sympathise with a superman character, IMO)

[Ions]

his character flaw is the reason he took "drugs". he, for reasons given to the head medic took a substance that wouldn't make him look weak in front of those older than him. his whole life, up to this point, he's existed as the youngest among the brightest... so he had to play along... the consequence was banishment from the place he WANTED. sure, it had to happen so other things could happen... but that's how story goes...it needed to happen or else we have a book about a boy in a library the whole time...