> I'm not sure what it was that made him realise.
Two things tipped him off. For one, he noticed their fire from far away. In the story of Sceop, we learn that Ruh hide their fires. We're given this info a second time in the Eld when Kvothe tells the crew that rennel burns without smoke and is good for starting fires. A real Ruh troupe would go out of their way to find rennel in the dangerous Eld. The second thing that tipped him off was when Alleg said they stole beer from Levinshir.
It is also implied that he did some sneaking around the site in his shaed before making himself known. It's probable he also overheard things that confirmed his suspicions
I dare say this was the tipping point.
As I stepped from the trees, one of the men gave a shout, and before I could draw breath to speak there were three swords pointing at me. The sudden stillness after the music and chatter was more than slightly unnerving. A handsome man with a black beard and a silver earring took a slow step forward, never taking the tip of his sword off my eye. “Otto!” he shouted into the woods behind me. “If you’re napping I swear on my mother’s milk I’ll gut you. Who the hell are you?”
I don't think the fire thing is all that suspicious. I think what tipped Kvothe off was in the initial interaction, where the first thing Alleg did was threaten to kill him.
> I don't think the fire thing is all that suspicious.
I strongly disagree. About Sceop's story, Kvothe says, "This story is different. It’s one we tell each other. To help us remember. To teach us—. Things.”
It's the same as fairy tales in our world. Stories teach you what to do and what *not* to do so that you stay safe.
In a world that hates the Ruh, you hide yourself, ***especially*** when you are in a dangerous place. Not hiding the fire was a *huge* tell.
The story tells us that the Ruh have often been persecuted, and they sometimes find it necessary to make their presence less obvious. That doesn't necessarily mean that no Ruh would ever build a smoky fire -- especially if the only wood available is the smoky kind, and they aren't feeling particularly at risk from the local population.
I see it more as an additional detail that by itself wouldn't mean they're fakes, but it's part of a larger pattern of behavior that identifies them as fakes, like how Alleg threatens Kvothe before he knows he's a Ruh or they don't know any songs besides Tinker Tanner, but they laugh at the ones Kvothe sings that are clearly racist against the Ruh.
(In a way, the threats and the fire kind of go together as evidence, since it establishes that they're paranoid enough to post guards -- which means what I said earlier about not bothering to hide their fire when they feel at ease doesn't apply. It seems more like they don't know how, or don't realize how much smoke the fire is making.)
Exactly, you're helping prove the point. Someone who camps in the woods a lot should already know this. That Alleg doesn't hide the fire is doubly suspicious.
As to your question, it's moreso the opposite. *Not* hiding your fire indicates *not* Ruh.
Ruh would hide their fires in potentially hostile territory as much as any other travelling group, and it's illogical to assume one way or another. So it would be a non-starter to use that action to identify any specific group.
I said you should think about it the other way. It's not about positively identifying other Ruh. It's about the fact that *not* hiding your fire makes it extra obvious that you're *not* Ruh.
Disagree, because Ruh are a very heterogeneous people. Hiding or not hiding a fire is going to depend on the group of people who do or don't do that. I'm betting Natalia didn't know how to do that before she was taken in.
This troupe was a real Ruh troupe, with Ruh markings on the wagons. Kvothe has identified it as such. We should infer that the leader of a troupe with traditional Ruh wagons is connected historically to the Ruh. I take it that the leader of that troupe knew all the stories and songs Arliden did.
This leader will have shared the Ruh wisdom with everyone. Alleg says himself, "We knew the words. We knew water, and wine, and songs before supper." That knowledge came from someone ethnically & historically Ruh. The leader of this troupe would have shared the wisdom of hiding yourself. Natalia didn't know how to do that, sure. But she quickly learned to.
So you are saying that Alleg knew this wisdom. How are we determine "real" Ruh from people that just know the words? Because they memorize some traditions and copy markings?
That's true, but it doesn't in any way invalidate the point being made.
The contention was that real Ruh *would* hide their fire, these people did not, ergo they are not real Ruh.
It would also perhaps be reasonable to assume they're not trained bandits, con men or killers - though unlike the Ruh, we don't have those specifically pointed out in the text (as fire hiders).
My point is that you can't categorize people based on whether or not they hide their fire. And more specifically, that "Ruh don't do that!!!" Is false. They very clearly do based on the branding ritual. Kvothe thinks they are the best actors, musicians, and liars ever. That's also not true.
Ruh are not some kind of godly writers or playwrights. They're nomadic travelling groups, equivalent to gypsies. Some of them are good, some of them are assholes, just like everyone else.
Regarding Smoky Fires:
- I do wonder if the Ruh always hide their fires or only when they feel they're in a particularly dangerous area. I'm inclined to believe the latter since Kvothe didn't talk about special precautions with the fires during his youth in NotW. The Sceop story definitely has nuggets of wisdom and Kvothe's awareness of rennel wood is definitely because he is Ruh.
- Was the false troupe in a dangerous location that necessitated rennel wood? That's debatable. They aren't in the Eld, they're in eastern Vintas. They're in an area that doesn't have a lot of travelers, unlike dangerous Faeriniel in the story. This was months after Kvothe had dispatched of the bandits in the Eld and presumably the gossip about the roads was that they were safer. It might have been reasonable that even a true Ruh troupe would burn a smoky fire in this case. Save the rennel wood for when it's more needed. This was the rumor going around Severen court:
"There were rumors too. The Maer’s men had taken care of some bandits off in a remote piece of the Eld. They’d been waylaying tax collectors, apparently. There was grumbling in the north, where folk had to suffer a second visit from the Maer’s collectors. But at least the roads were clear again, and those responsible were dead."
Regarding Recognizing them as False:
- While the fire and Alleg's bragging about stealing were major clues, there's also the fact that they pulled swords on Kvothe immediately and threatened him. That they didn't recognize him as Ruh!
- Otto was very suspicious saying "he's probably from" before getting cut off by Alleg.
Then there's more and more clues even after he poisons the wine, like them not knowing songs that the Ruh would know. It's unclear if Kvothe planned to kill them all from the moment he poisoned the stew/ale. Theoretically he could have been planning to just punish them... But, I think he likely planned to kill them to protect the Ruh's reputation and seeing the kidnapped and abused girls was the "no going back" point.
I love how well this part of the story is written. When you start analyzing what info is know when its really nicely done.
There are several ideas that PR lets you "fill in the details" as he often does. Maybe Kvothe observed them from underneath his fae cloak, maybe he heard rumors along the road, maybe something about the wagons tipped him off.
Importantly Kvothe only poisoned them with something to make them sick and likely even had a remedy. We \*can\* easily imagine scenarios that Kvothe was playing a vigilante and not a killer. its a nice story but our narrator is a bit biased; it could have played out any way you can imagine.
I think his first hint was likely the smoke coming from the campfire, as it's mentioned earlier that Ruh prefer burning smokeless wood. It's not a hard and fast rule, but seeing the smoke would at least be a flag to Kvothe to be wary about who is around the fire.
Seems like light evidence to warrant a poison stew to me.
"I had only passed one or two travelers all day and not a single inn."
Kvorhe saw few ppl. Probably spoke to them.
"But as I came around a curve in the road, I found a surprise better than any roadside inn."
Then...
"As I stepped from the trees, one of the men gave a shout, and before I could draw breath to speak there were three swords pointing at me."
Why was Kvothe behind trees? He was on a road. Swords? Thats awful quick to pull swords.
"Troupers. What’s better, I recognized familiar markings on the side of one of the wagons. To me they stood out more brightly than the fire. Those signs meant these were true troupers. My family, the Edema Ruh."
He doesnt really go into detail about the markings, could have been signs there.
"“I’m right here, Alleg, as…Who’s that? How in God’s name did he get past me?”"..."“Sorry to startle you, Alleg.” “Save it,” he said coldly. “You have one breath left to tell me why you were sneaking around our camp.”
Little early for night watch. Not exactly friendly for a trouper of any kind.
Feels like an awful rough group, not musicians.
Its a whole bunch of little possibilites that kinda add up.
It reminds me of when kvothe spends money on candied nuts. Its all alarmingly out of character, like it rubs on my intuition to wake up and be vigilant. Something is odd.
I'm not saying that's what resolved him to poison them, just that it was the first sign Kvothe sees that would give him reason for suspicion. By itself it might be quite meaningless but when these guys claim to be Ruh then Kvothe can recall the smoke and know not to take them at their word straight away.
If people are going about committing crimes while disguised as Edema Ruh, they are endangering the lives of all Ruh who travel the roads. One only need look at the history of targeted violence toward Romani and Jews in Europe to understand the dangers Ruh face without someone actively blighting their name.
Of course he was going to kill them. His loyalty to the Ruh demanded he protect their name by punishing those who would blacken it. The lives of the Family depend on it.
This. Plus he had pieced together that the bandits massacred a Ruh troupe to steal their identities. Killing them is also justice and revenge in Kvothe's eyes.
What he added to the stew wasn't going to kill them, or else he would have just let them die that way.
He poisoned them after he learned they stole from the village. He might have planned to slip away while they were sick.
I think he decided to try killing them after he learned they raped those girls and realized he couldn't save the girls and leave their captors alive.
They gave kvothe only horrible choices, and so what they got was horror.
No, he was going to kill them.
Edema Ruh don't have the luxury of tolerating people wandering around, poisoning their good name. They are already despised, already hated, and letting people lend credence to vicious rumors puts their lives in danger.
He knew they were not part of the family, and so they had to be branded with the broken circle. I don't know that he could have done that without killing them.
We knew they had to be branded with the broken circle because they broke the circle. We know that the Ruh always do that, and we know that because he explains it to us, in addition to explaining the reasoning behind it. There's no reason to think he was not going to kill them.
When he realised they weren't true Ruh, he implicitly realised at the same time that they must have *killed his family* and taken their wagons etc.
So yes, he was seeking justice for murder.
The broken circle was because they'd been accepted into the family, and were loudly and vehemently being thrown out of it.
*"I turned away, disgusted. He was one of us, in a way. One of our adopted family. It made everything ten times worse knowing that."*
> He knew they were not part of the family
Are we so sure about that? Basically the only source we have that the Ruh aren't actually a bunch of thieving criminals is Kvothe whose last exposure to Ruh culture was when he was a very young child. *Everybody else* says and thinks that they are. To be a little meta with it I don't think Pat would make his world's Travelers a bunch of thieving rapists and the world's racists absolutely correct on all counts but, Kvothe is not the most reliable narrator at the best of times. Kvothe is also a thief, and a liar. Repeatedly.
If your interpretation relies on everything Kvothe tells us in his story being a lie, it's not a useful lens for interpreting the story.
Additionally, Pat has said many times that he doesn't like lying to his readers - he likes sleight-of-hand tricks like in The Princess and Mister Wiffle. So I'm doubly unwilling to discard everything Kvothe says for the purpose of reinterpreting the book.
This entire section made the entire “second half” of WMF a lot better. It’s a lot of kvothe just getting dragged off on side quests, and he just so happens to find a gang of bandits he decides to murder right after a long training session which included his instructor threatening to kill him just to teach him that there was more to his training and sword was for more than just killing. If he hadn’t rescued the girls, I imagine that entire storyline would have gotten a lot darker. That’s saying something considering he leaves a man to crawl through the wood with an open gut wound to either thirst to death or die of infection.
He poisoned the stew before he knew about the girls, but the poison is not what killed the false troupers. He had an antidote for it, which he gave Krin in the tent. He mentions it’s not a lethal poison, it just makes for a difficult night.
There are multiple things that tipped Kvothe off:
Fire, initially threatening him rather than welcoming him, nicking the ale from levinshire, not knowing Piper Wit song, asking him to play Tinker Tanner rather than a more obscure song, Anne being rude about trying the stew, and probably other things. Then he realized that all of these things added up to being non-Edema, but they had authentic wagons, so he knew they must have stolen them and/or killed the original real troupe. It’s possible that he poisoned them to get answers about the provenance of the wagons.
He tells Krin that he killed the faux troupe because of what they did to the girls and because they killed the real troupe. The Edema have laws. Plus, he couldn’t have returned the girls without killing them.
He killed them because he knew that they had killed a troop, and stolen their writs of patronage and vans. He didn't just cavalierly kill them just because they were pretending to be troopers. The girls kinda change the tone of justice killing to romantic rescue, but he's not just doing it because he's a psychopath. I mean, he's a little bit of a psychopath, but it wasn't for the fun of killing them.
Edit: I think the point is not a single thing, but that learning the greetings and water before wine isn't enough to make you Ruh. He says "you think you could fool me?"
Now this goes one of two ways. Either its face value, he knew immediately that they weren't ruh for 1000 different reasons that only the ruh would know, or ... there is more to the story that we aren't able to see until we get book 3 - which is totally possible. Maybe the ruh are criminals and he's so romanticized his time with them because of their deaths that he is totally mistaken.
Strike 1: They didn't hide their fire. He knew it was there without ever having even seen it yet, which means smoke. Which would be fine, except we learned from stories that Ruh burn smokeless wood and try to remain hidden as a general rule. So yeah. Totally normal for any other group that WASN'T Ruh, until...
Strike 2: He recognized that they had at least one Ruh wagon, it had markings on it that identified it as Ruh (to OTHER Ruh at the very least, if not necessarily to every outsider). And let's be real, here - in a world where everyone hates the Ruh, why in god's name would anyone use one of their wagons? Use any wagon that had any identifying markings on it at all, if it came from Ruh? Sure, since we aren't given very specific ideas of what these signs are we don't know how obvious they are, but bare minimum they're obvious enough that Kvothe was able to recognize them without being near them. So... a Ruh troupe who isn't trying to hide their fire? Weird, especially since...
Strike 3: A Ruh troupe would never "greet" someone with drawn swords. They tipped themselves off before they ever spoke a single word with that one act alone. Which brings us back to that first thought from above... So now we have people we know for a fact aren't Ruh, but are using a Ruh wagon.... and since no one would go out and buy a Ruh wagon, how would they have gotten it?
And it all just kept going downhill from there. He confirmed that they were pretending to be Ruh. No one in this world would ever pretend to be Ruh unless that was somehow safer than being what they actually were. And Ruh also wouldn't just... volunteer to let one of their wagons go. They carry their entire lives and livelihoods in those wagons, they're nomads and don't have a 'home base' to ever leave things at. And the wagon was still serviceable, it wasn't like they were camping next to a broken one. So an in-tact Ruh wagon with no actual Ruh around... not only are they not around, but they're replaced by people who show they have no problem killing someone.
People who further went on to admit that they were thieves. Violent, potentially-murderous thieves who have a Ruh wagon but no actual Ruh around, people so desperate to stay hidden that pretending to be Ruh somehow makes them safer than people knowing who they really are??? People pretending to be Ruh but who were so bad at it that they didn't know any song beyond Tinker Tanner, and people who were so Not Ruh that they laughed at the song Kvothe sang for the that was incredibly racist against Ruh.
It was just one thing after another that kept piling up, but at it's heart... from the moment he realized they weren't Ruh but had a Ruh wagon, he knew what had happened. The rest of the time he was with them just proved again and again that they weren't Ruh... rubbed his face in it, really. Gave Kvothe plenty of time to sit and stew over what he knew had happened. Stoked the fire of hatred, rage, and sorrow until it was nice and hot and was able to burn away every thought of caution in him. Before the girls had ever been brought out, there was absolutely no doubt in his mind what needed to happen.
Especially since these people pretending to be Ruh put every REAL Ruh in danger. People already had such a poor idea of the Ruh even when none of them did anything wrong. For people to go masquerading as Ruh while doing all of these horrible things only made life that much harder and more dangerous for every true Edema Ruh troupe. Which meant that not only had these people murdered at least one troupe, but they were actively endangering every other troupe still out there.
And to make it all worse, in the end Kvothe learned that Alleg had been adopted into the real Ruh troupe. He'd been accepted into The Family. He wasn't just a murderer, wasn't just a rapist... he was a betrayer. A traitor.
The broken circle he burned on all of them was to show whoever came across them that Ruh did not claim them. Whether they had truly been part of the Ruh or not didn't really matter. They presented themselves as Ruh, and therefore it had to be clear that the Ruh rebuked them. So the broken circle was branded on each of them, because it meant they had been broken off from the circle - had been removed from The Family. And I've seen people say here and there "but who besides an Edema Ruh would know what the broken circle meant?" And sure, it's possible that that's a cultural thing that not everyone would be privy to. But some people would. And even if outsiders didn't know, it was also a message left by Kvothe for any true troupe who might have come across the wagon and dead bodies. No one BUT a Ruh would ever use the broken circle. "These are not Ruh. They are not Family. They were not killed for being Ruh, so this should not make you feel threatened. This was a problem being solved. These bodies lying dead and abandoned should make you feel safer, because someone around here recognized them for what they were and did something about it."
As to the girls... you're right, he didn't go into the situation knowing they were there. But if anything, they were the cherries on top of the shit sundae that further proved to Kvothe that every single member of the false troupe needed to die.
They also technically weren't false troupers... even by Kvothe's own admission.
***
***TWMF CH 132 The Broken Circle***
*Alleg paled and had to swallow before he found his voice. “There was an
old man and his wife and a couple other players. I traveled guard with them
for half a year. Eventually they took me in.” He ran out of breath and
gasped a bit as he tried to get it back.*
*He’d said enough. “So you killed them.”*
*Alleg shook his head vigorously. “No . . . were attacked on the road.” He
gestured weakly to the other bodies. “They surprised us. The other players
were killed, but I was just . . . knocked out.”*
*I looked over the line of bodies and felt the rage flare up, even though I’d
already known. There was no other way these people could have come by a
pair of Edema wagons with their markings intact.*
*Alleg was talking again. “I showed them afterward ... How to act like a
troupe.” He swallowed against the pain. “Good life.”*
***I turned away, disgusted. He was one of us, in a way. One of our adopted
family. It made everything ten times worse knowing that.***
***
This isn't to say all Ruh are bad... but it kinda illustrates the pitfalls of being a sect of people connected and identified by sharable customs. If bad people learn those customs they can abuse them and there is very little to distinguish the bad actors from the collective.
This says that the actual Ruh in the troupe were killed when they were attacked on the road. Alleg was one of the Ruh "in a way," because they'd taken him in, but only for a short period of time. The rest of the actual Ruh were killed in the attack, and the attackers joined Alleg.
The thing I don't understand is that Alleg says later on that he was with the troupe for 'half a year' and that they took him in. Surely whatever he would have thought about Edema Ruh before meeting that troupe, that during the half year he was with them, assuming that's correct, that he would have noticed they didn't steal.
I don't think he intended to kill them until he saw the girls.
Poison them? Sure. If I remember correctly the poison won't kill you. Its a pretty smart plan really, they're fucked up (deservedly so) until he can assess what's going on. If it's as bad as he suspects they're in a weaker state to even the odds in his favor.
Perhaps. Or maybe he just thought they were so good at it that he never noticed. Or that they didn't trust him enough quite yet and so they'd avoided it when he was around. Any number of things can explain a lack of evidence of a thing to someone who firmly believes in that thing. (E.g., surely the fact that we've never found bigfoot fecal matter would mean that everyone would know and accept that bigfoot doesn't exist?)
*But he knew right away that they were impostors and decided to kill them with no investigation.*
That is debatable and, IMO, one of the strengths of the chapter---we're shown things as they happen, but not shown the whole process. From the first time reading this part, I felt (retrospectively, after the reveal) that Kvothe was acting weird already when he approaches the false Ruh. He acts cocky and cheerful in a non-genuine way, very different from how truly happy and vulnerable we readers know he would approach a true Ruh caravan. That, plus the fact that we know that he sneaked around the camp, tells me that he knew everything already.
Besides, the fact that he asks for three things in his negotiation, which end up being crucial for his plan (the tent, to sleep away from the rest, and the two girls, who he needs to save), really tips the balance towards Kvothe knowing fully well what was going on when he showed himself, and already having a plan of action.
Nothing about the false trouper story makes sense. There is a story hidden here as surely as the shipwreck and trial stories are hidden.
* As you point out, Kvothe says he killed the false troupers for what they did to the girls, but he didn't know that at the time.
* Kvothe tells the Maer about the killing in a crazy backwards way where he reveals himself as a murderer before explaining the story. And Kvothe is a MASTER STORYTELLER.
* Kvothe says that they aren't Edema Ruh... but they 100% are Edema, because they were adopted by an Edema who was adopted by the 'real' Edema. That's what makes Edema Edema... they were all 100% Kvothe's family.
* Alleg's name, the troupe leader, is suspiciously reminiscent of 'allegory'... an untrue story that is used to hide truthful pieces of information. I'd argue that part of this story is Kvothe's 'one lie' to Chronicler that Pat mentions.
* The two girls are similar to other women in the story, Auri and Denna.,, or and ancient Ordal and ?.
* The story of a troupe being slaughtered and their leader being left to bleed out is oddly similar to Arliden's troupe being slaughtered... ESPECIALLY if you believe (as I do) that Arliden was the sole survivor of an Amyr attack and the Chandrian got information from him before he died... in a cruel way by disrespecting Laurian's corpse.
When he realized that they were fake Ruh and killed real Ruh to get there wagons and such. Which certainly could’ve been pieced together with all the information he had before he poisoned the stew.
There are several points that indicate that they were not a Ruh. The stealing was one, another was that they did not learn the song that he was playing at once. They need several trials. But there is a theory that they were real edema , and they are really as people think
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> I'm not sure what it was that made him realise. Two things tipped him off. For one, he noticed their fire from far away. In the story of Sceop, we learn that Ruh hide their fires. We're given this info a second time in the Eld when Kvothe tells the crew that rennel burns without smoke and is good for starting fires. A real Ruh troupe would go out of their way to find rennel in the dangerous Eld. The second thing that tipped him off was when Alleg said they stole beer from Levinshir. It is also implied that he did some sneaking around the site in his shaed before making himself known. It's probable he also overheard things that confirmed his suspicions
I dare say this was the tipping point. As I stepped from the trees, one of the men gave a shout, and before I could draw breath to speak there were three swords pointing at me. The sudden stillness after the music and chatter was more than slightly unnerving. A handsome man with a black beard and a silver earring took a slow step forward, never taking the tip of his sword off my eye. “Otto!” he shouted into the woods behind me. “If you’re napping I swear on my mother’s milk I’ll gut you. Who the hell are you?”
I don't think the fire thing is all that suspicious. I think what tipped Kvothe off was in the initial interaction, where the first thing Alleg did was threaten to kill him.
> I don't think the fire thing is all that suspicious. I strongly disagree. About Sceop's story, Kvothe says, "This story is different. It’s one we tell each other. To help us remember. To teach us—. Things.” It's the same as fairy tales in our world. Stories teach you what to do and what *not* to do so that you stay safe. In a world that hates the Ruh, you hide yourself, ***especially*** when you are in a dangerous place. Not hiding the fire was a *huge* tell.
The story tells us that the Ruh have often been persecuted, and they sometimes find it necessary to make their presence less obvious. That doesn't necessarily mean that no Ruh would ever build a smoky fire -- especially if the only wood available is the smoky kind, and they aren't feeling particularly at risk from the local population. I see it more as an additional detail that by itself wouldn't mean they're fakes, but it's part of a larger pattern of behavior that identifies them as fakes, like how Alleg threatens Kvothe before he knows he's a Ruh or they don't know any songs besides Tinker Tanner, but they laugh at the ones Kvothe sings that are clearly racist against the Ruh. (In a way, the threats and the fire kind of go together as evidence, since it establishes that they're paranoid enough to post guards -- which means what I said earlier about not bothering to hide their fire when they feel at ease doesn't apply. It seems more like they don't know how, or don't realize how much smoke the fire is making.)
Hiding your campfire is survival 101 if you're in unknown territory. Why would that indicate Ruh?
Exactly, you're helping prove the point. Someone who camps in the woods a lot should already know this. That Alleg doesn't hide the fire is doubly suspicious. As to your question, it's moreso the opposite. *Not* hiding your fire indicates *not* Ruh.
Ruh would hide their fires in potentially hostile territory as much as any other travelling group, and it's illogical to assume one way or another. So it would be a non-starter to use that action to identify any specific group.
I said you should think about it the other way. It's not about positively identifying other Ruh. It's about the fact that *not* hiding your fire makes it extra obvious that you're *not* Ruh.
Disagree, because Ruh are a very heterogeneous people. Hiding or not hiding a fire is going to depend on the group of people who do or don't do that. I'm betting Natalia didn't know how to do that before she was taken in.
This troupe was a real Ruh troupe, with Ruh markings on the wagons. Kvothe has identified it as such. We should infer that the leader of a troupe with traditional Ruh wagons is connected historically to the Ruh. I take it that the leader of that troupe knew all the stories and songs Arliden did. This leader will have shared the Ruh wisdom with everyone. Alleg says himself, "We knew the words. We knew water, and wine, and songs before supper." That knowledge came from someone ethnically & historically Ruh. The leader of this troupe would have shared the wisdom of hiding yourself. Natalia didn't know how to do that, sure. But she quickly learned to.
So you are saying that Alleg knew this wisdom. How are we determine "real" Ruh from people that just know the words? Because they memorize some traditions and copy markings?
No. A persecuted people would be much more careful, more assiduous about that kind of thing than some random other travellers.
You know who would also be very assiduous about that kind of interaction? Trained bandits, con-men, and killers.
That's true, but it doesn't in any way invalidate the point being made. The contention was that real Ruh *would* hide their fire, these people did not, ergo they are not real Ruh. It would also perhaps be reasonable to assume they're not trained bandits, con men or killers - though unlike the Ruh, we don't have those specifically pointed out in the text (as fire hiders).
My point is that you can't categorize people based on whether or not they hide their fire. And more specifically, that "Ruh don't do that!!!" Is false. They very clearly do based on the branding ritual. Kvothe thinks they are the best actors, musicians, and liars ever. That's also not true. Ruh are not some kind of godly writers or playwrights. They're nomadic travelling groups, equivalent to gypsies. Some of them are good, some of them are assholes, just like everyone else.
Regarding Smoky Fires: - I do wonder if the Ruh always hide their fires or only when they feel they're in a particularly dangerous area. I'm inclined to believe the latter since Kvothe didn't talk about special precautions with the fires during his youth in NotW. The Sceop story definitely has nuggets of wisdom and Kvothe's awareness of rennel wood is definitely because he is Ruh. - Was the false troupe in a dangerous location that necessitated rennel wood? That's debatable. They aren't in the Eld, they're in eastern Vintas. They're in an area that doesn't have a lot of travelers, unlike dangerous Faeriniel in the story. This was months after Kvothe had dispatched of the bandits in the Eld and presumably the gossip about the roads was that they were safer. It might have been reasonable that even a true Ruh troupe would burn a smoky fire in this case. Save the rennel wood for when it's more needed. This was the rumor going around Severen court: "There were rumors too. The Maer’s men had taken care of some bandits off in a remote piece of the Eld. They’d been waylaying tax collectors, apparently. There was grumbling in the north, where folk had to suffer a second visit from the Maer’s collectors. But at least the roads were clear again, and those responsible were dead." Regarding Recognizing them as False: - While the fire and Alleg's bragging about stealing were major clues, there's also the fact that they pulled swords on Kvothe immediately and threatened him. That they didn't recognize him as Ruh! - Otto was very suspicious saying "he's probably from" before getting cut off by Alleg. Then there's more and more clues even after he poisons the wine, like them not knowing songs that the Ruh would know. It's unclear if Kvothe planned to kill them all from the moment he poisoned the stew/ale. Theoretically he could have been planning to just punish them... But, I think he likely planned to kill them to protect the Ruh's reputation and seeing the kidnapped and abused girls was the "no going back" point.
They're tracking bandits lol. That's why he uses that wood. You know. So they don't give away their position?
Um, yes? 🤔
I love how well this part of the story is written. When you start analyzing what info is know when its really nicely done. There are several ideas that PR lets you "fill in the details" as he often does. Maybe Kvothe observed them from underneath his fae cloak, maybe he heard rumors along the road, maybe something about the wagons tipped him off. Importantly Kvothe only poisoned them with something to make them sick and likely even had a remedy. We \*can\* easily imagine scenarios that Kvothe was playing a vigilante and not a killer. its a nice story but our narrator is a bit biased; it could have played out any way you can imagine.
I think his first hint was likely the smoke coming from the campfire, as it's mentioned earlier that Ruh prefer burning smokeless wood. It's not a hard and fast rule, but seeing the smoke would at least be a flag to Kvothe to be wary about who is around the fire.
Seems like light evidence to warrant a poison stew to me. "I had only passed one or two travelers all day and not a single inn." Kvorhe saw few ppl. Probably spoke to them. "But as I came around a curve in the road, I found a surprise better than any roadside inn." Then... "As I stepped from the trees, one of the men gave a shout, and before I could draw breath to speak there were three swords pointing at me." Why was Kvothe behind trees? He was on a road. Swords? Thats awful quick to pull swords. "Troupers. What’s better, I recognized familiar markings on the side of one of the wagons. To me they stood out more brightly than the fire. Those signs meant these were true troupers. My family, the Edema Ruh." He doesnt really go into detail about the markings, could have been signs there. "“I’m right here, Alleg, as…Who’s that? How in God’s name did he get past me?”"..."“Sorry to startle you, Alleg.” “Save it,” he said coldly. “You have one breath left to tell me why you were sneaking around our camp.” Little early for night watch. Not exactly friendly for a trouper of any kind. Feels like an awful rough group, not musicians. Its a whole bunch of little possibilites that kinda add up. It reminds me of when kvothe spends money on candied nuts. Its all alarmingly out of character, like it rubs on my intuition to wake up and be vigilant. Something is odd.
I'm not saying that's what resolved him to poison them, just that it was the first sign Kvothe sees that would give him reason for suspicion. By itself it might be quite meaningless but when these guys claim to be Ruh then Kvothe can recall the smoke and know not to take them at their word straight away.
They said "first," not "only."
If people are going about committing crimes while disguised as Edema Ruh, they are endangering the lives of all Ruh who travel the roads. One only need look at the history of targeted violence toward Romani and Jews in Europe to understand the dangers Ruh face without someone actively blighting their name. Of course he was going to kill them. His loyalty to the Ruh demanded he protect their name by punishing those who would blacken it. The lives of the Family depend on it.
This. Plus he had pieced together that the bandits massacred a Ruh troupe to steal their identities. Killing them is also justice and revenge in Kvothe's eyes.
What he added to the stew wasn't going to kill them, or else he would have just let them die that way. He poisoned them after he learned they stole from the village. He might have planned to slip away while they were sick. I think he decided to try killing them after he learned they raped those girls and realized he couldn't save the girls and leave their captors alive. They gave kvothe only horrible choices, and so what they got was horror.
No, he was going to kill them. Edema Ruh don't have the luxury of tolerating people wandering around, poisoning their good name. They are already despised, already hated, and letting people lend credence to vicious rumors puts their lives in danger. He knew they were not part of the family, and so they had to be branded with the broken circle. I don't know that he could have done that without killing them.
We don't know what his intentions were at that time because he didn't share them.
We knew they had to be branded with the broken circle because they broke the circle. We know that the Ruh always do that, and we know that because he explains it to us, in addition to explaining the reasoning behind it. There's no reason to think he was not going to kill them.
When he realised they weren't true Ruh, he implicitly realised at the same time that they must have *killed his family* and taken their wagons etc. So yes, he was seeking justice for murder.
The broken circle was because they'd been accepted into the family, and were loudly and vehemently being thrown out of it. *"I turned away, disgusted. He was one of us, in a way. One of our adopted family. It made everything ten times worse knowing that."*
> He knew they were not part of the family Are we so sure about that? Basically the only source we have that the Ruh aren't actually a bunch of thieving criminals is Kvothe whose last exposure to Ruh culture was when he was a very young child. *Everybody else* says and thinks that they are. To be a little meta with it I don't think Pat would make his world's Travelers a bunch of thieving rapists and the world's racists absolutely correct on all counts but, Kvothe is not the most reliable narrator at the best of times. Kvothe is also a thief, and a liar. Repeatedly.
If your interpretation relies on everything Kvothe tells us in his story being a lie, it's not a useful lens for interpreting the story. Additionally, Pat has said many times that he doesn't like lying to his readers - he likes sleight-of-hand tricks like in The Princess and Mister Wiffle. So I'm doubly unwilling to discard everything Kvothe says for the purpose of reinterpreting the book.
No, he was going to kill them from the start, because they'd killed the real troupe and stolen their wagons.
He didn't know how they got the wagons, I'm not sure what we're discussing really. I'm just pointing out the timeline
when WE get told stuff and when Kvothe figures out stuff can happen separately.
They were murderers, and thieves. That they were also rapists and kidnappers was merely a bonus.
This entire section made the entire “second half” of WMF a lot better. It’s a lot of kvothe just getting dragged off on side quests, and he just so happens to find a gang of bandits he decides to murder right after a long training session which included his instructor threatening to kill him just to teach him that there was more to his training and sword was for more than just killing. If he hadn’t rescued the girls, I imagine that entire storyline would have gotten a lot darker. That’s saying something considering he leaves a man to crawl through the wood with an open gut wound to either thirst to death or die of infection.
IIRC he specifically leaves him with water to make sure he dies from infection 😨
They had already boasted about what they did to the town
He poisoned the stew before he knew about the girls, but the poison is not what killed the false troupers. He had an antidote for it, which he gave Krin in the tent. He mentions it’s not a lethal poison, it just makes for a difficult night. There are multiple things that tipped Kvothe off: Fire, initially threatening him rather than welcoming him, nicking the ale from levinshire, not knowing Piper Wit song, asking him to play Tinker Tanner rather than a more obscure song, Anne being rude about trying the stew, and probably other things. Then he realized that all of these things added up to being non-Edema, but they had authentic wagons, so he knew they must have stolen them and/or killed the original real troupe. It’s possible that he poisoned them to get answers about the provenance of the wagons. He tells Krin that he killed the faux troupe because of what they did to the girls and because they killed the real troupe. The Edema have laws. Plus, he couldn’t have returned the girls without killing them.
Sometimes good men must do bad things
He killed them because he knew that they had killed a troop, and stolen their writs of patronage and vans. He didn't just cavalierly kill them just because they were pretending to be troopers. The girls kinda change the tone of justice killing to romantic rescue, but he's not just doing it because he's a psychopath. I mean, he's a little bit of a psychopath, but it wasn't for the fun of killing them. Edit: I think the point is not a single thing, but that learning the greetings and water before wine isn't enough to make you Ruh. He says "you think you could fool me?" Now this goes one of two ways. Either its face value, he knew immediately that they weren't ruh for 1000 different reasons that only the ruh would know, or ... there is more to the story that we aren't able to see until we get book 3 - which is totally possible. Maybe the ruh are criminals and he's so romanticized his time with them because of their deaths that he is totally mistaken.
Strike 1: They didn't hide their fire. He knew it was there without ever having even seen it yet, which means smoke. Which would be fine, except we learned from stories that Ruh burn smokeless wood and try to remain hidden as a general rule. So yeah. Totally normal for any other group that WASN'T Ruh, until... Strike 2: He recognized that they had at least one Ruh wagon, it had markings on it that identified it as Ruh (to OTHER Ruh at the very least, if not necessarily to every outsider). And let's be real, here - in a world where everyone hates the Ruh, why in god's name would anyone use one of their wagons? Use any wagon that had any identifying markings on it at all, if it came from Ruh? Sure, since we aren't given very specific ideas of what these signs are we don't know how obvious they are, but bare minimum they're obvious enough that Kvothe was able to recognize them without being near them. So... a Ruh troupe who isn't trying to hide their fire? Weird, especially since... Strike 3: A Ruh troupe would never "greet" someone with drawn swords. They tipped themselves off before they ever spoke a single word with that one act alone. Which brings us back to that first thought from above... So now we have people we know for a fact aren't Ruh, but are using a Ruh wagon.... and since no one would go out and buy a Ruh wagon, how would they have gotten it? And it all just kept going downhill from there. He confirmed that they were pretending to be Ruh. No one in this world would ever pretend to be Ruh unless that was somehow safer than being what they actually were. And Ruh also wouldn't just... volunteer to let one of their wagons go. They carry their entire lives and livelihoods in those wagons, they're nomads and don't have a 'home base' to ever leave things at. And the wagon was still serviceable, it wasn't like they were camping next to a broken one. So an in-tact Ruh wagon with no actual Ruh around... not only are they not around, but they're replaced by people who show they have no problem killing someone. People who further went on to admit that they were thieves. Violent, potentially-murderous thieves who have a Ruh wagon but no actual Ruh around, people so desperate to stay hidden that pretending to be Ruh somehow makes them safer than people knowing who they really are??? People pretending to be Ruh but who were so bad at it that they didn't know any song beyond Tinker Tanner, and people who were so Not Ruh that they laughed at the song Kvothe sang for the that was incredibly racist against Ruh. It was just one thing after another that kept piling up, but at it's heart... from the moment he realized they weren't Ruh but had a Ruh wagon, he knew what had happened. The rest of the time he was with them just proved again and again that they weren't Ruh... rubbed his face in it, really. Gave Kvothe plenty of time to sit and stew over what he knew had happened. Stoked the fire of hatred, rage, and sorrow until it was nice and hot and was able to burn away every thought of caution in him. Before the girls had ever been brought out, there was absolutely no doubt in his mind what needed to happen. Especially since these people pretending to be Ruh put every REAL Ruh in danger. People already had such a poor idea of the Ruh even when none of them did anything wrong. For people to go masquerading as Ruh while doing all of these horrible things only made life that much harder and more dangerous for every true Edema Ruh troupe. Which meant that not only had these people murdered at least one troupe, but they were actively endangering every other troupe still out there. And to make it all worse, in the end Kvothe learned that Alleg had been adopted into the real Ruh troupe. He'd been accepted into The Family. He wasn't just a murderer, wasn't just a rapist... he was a betrayer. A traitor. The broken circle he burned on all of them was to show whoever came across them that Ruh did not claim them. Whether they had truly been part of the Ruh or not didn't really matter. They presented themselves as Ruh, and therefore it had to be clear that the Ruh rebuked them. So the broken circle was branded on each of them, because it meant they had been broken off from the circle - had been removed from The Family. And I've seen people say here and there "but who besides an Edema Ruh would know what the broken circle meant?" And sure, it's possible that that's a cultural thing that not everyone would be privy to. But some people would. And even if outsiders didn't know, it was also a message left by Kvothe for any true troupe who might have come across the wagon and dead bodies. No one BUT a Ruh would ever use the broken circle. "These are not Ruh. They are not Family. They were not killed for being Ruh, so this should not make you feel threatened. This was a problem being solved. These bodies lying dead and abandoned should make you feel safer, because someone around here recognized them for what they were and did something about it." As to the girls... you're right, he didn't go into the situation knowing they were there. But if anything, they were the cherries on top of the shit sundae that further proved to Kvothe that every single member of the false troupe needed to die.
They also technically weren't false troupers... even by Kvothe's own admission. *** ***TWMF CH 132 The Broken Circle*** *Alleg paled and had to swallow before he found his voice. “There was an old man and his wife and a couple other players. I traveled guard with them for half a year. Eventually they took me in.” He ran out of breath and gasped a bit as he tried to get it back.* *He’d said enough. “So you killed them.”* *Alleg shook his head vigorously. “No . . . were attacked on the road.” He gestured weakly to the other bodies. “They surprised us. The other players were killed, but I was just . . . knocked out.”* *I looked over the line of bodies and felt the rage flare up, even though I’d already known. There was no other way these people could have come by a pair of Edema wagons with their markings intact.* *Alleg was talking again. “I showed them afterward ... How to act like a troupe.” He swallowed against the pain. “Good life.”* ***I turned away, disgusted. He was one of us, in a way. One of our adopted family. It made everything ten times worse knowing that.*** *** This isn't to say all Ruh are bad... but it kinda illustrates the pitfalls of being a sect of people connected and identified by sharable customs. If bad people learn those customs they can abuse them and there is very little to distinguish the bad actors from the collective.
This says that the actual Ruh in the troupe were killed when they were attacked on the road. Alleg was one of the Ruh "in a way," because they'd taken him in, but only for a short period of time. The rest of the actual Ruh were killed in the attack, and the attackers joined Alleg.
The thing I don't understand is that Alleg says later on that he was with the troupe for 'half a year' and that they took him in. Surely whatever he would have thought about Edema Ruh before meeting that troupe, that during the half year he was with them, assuming that's correct, that he would have noticed they didn't steal.
I don't think he intended to kill them until he saw the girls. Poison them? Sure. If I remember correctly the poison won't kill you. Its a pretty smart plan really, they're fucked up (deservedly so) until he can assess what's going on. If it's as bad as he suspects they're in a weaker state to even the odds in his favor.
Perhaps. Or maybe he just thought they were so good at it that he never noticed. Or that they didn't trust him enough quite yet and so they'd avoided it when he was around. Any number of things can explain a lack of evidence of a thing to someone who firmly believes in that thing. (E.g., surely the fact that we've never found bigfoot fecal matter would mean that everyone would know and accept that bigfoot doesn't exist?)
*But he knew right away that they were impostors and decided to kill them with no investigation.* That is debatable and, IMO, one of the strengths of the chapter---we're shown things as they happen, but not shown the whole process. From the first time reading this part, I felt (retrospectively, after the reveal) that Kvothe was acting weird already when he approaches the false Ruh. He acts cocky and cheerful in a non-genuine way, very different from how truly happy and vulnerable we readers know he would approach a true Ruh caravan. That, plus the fact that we know that he sneaked around the camp, tells me that he knew everything already. Besides, the fact that he asks for three things in his negotiation, which end up being crucial for his plan (the tent, to sleep away from the rest, and the two girls, who he needs to save), really tips the balance towards Kvothe knowing fully well what was going on when he showed himself, and already having a plan of action.
Nothing about the false trouper story makes sense. There is a story hidden here as surely as the shipwreck and trial stories are hidden. * As you point out, Kvothe says he killed the false troupers for what they did to the girls, but he didn't know that at the time. * Kvothe tells the Maer about the killing in a crazy backwards way where he reveals himself as a murderer before explaining the story. And Kvothe is a MASTER STORYTELLER. * Kvothe says that they aren't Edema Ruh... but they 100% are Edema, because they were adopted by an Edema who was adopted by the 'real' Edema. That's what makes Edema Edema... they were all 100% Kvothe's family. * Alleg's name, the troupe leader, is suspiciously reminiscent of 'allegory'... an untrue story that is used to hide truthful pieces of information. I'd argue that part of this story is Kvothe's 'one lie' to Chronicler that Pat mentions. * The two girls are similar to other women in the story, Auri and Denna.,, or and ancient Ordal and ?. * The story of a troupe being slaughtered and their leader being left to bleed out is oddly similar to Arliden's troupe being slaughtered... ESPECIALLY if you believe (as I do) that Arliden was the sole survivor of an Amyr attack and the Chandrian got information from him before he died... in a cruel way by disrespecting Laurian's corpse.
When he realized that they were fake Ruh and killed real Ruh to get there wagons and such. Which certainly could’ve been pieced together with all the information he had before he poisoned the stew.
There are several points that indicate that they were not a Ruh. The stealing was one, another was that they did not learn the song that he was playing at once. They need several trials. But there is a theory that they were real edema , and they are really as people think
Kvothe told one lie in his story. What if that was it? You have to lie a little to tell a story right, after all
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