#tsrost

[kkcreadalong]

SCHEDULE:

Starting September 1st, 2025, here's the weekly breakdown :D read at your own pace within the week, and come look at this blog each sunday for a checkup! Also feel free to tag this blog for any discussion post, and use the #kkcreadalong25 so I can find your posts ;)

Sep 1st - Sep 7th: NOTW Prologue to Ch 25

Sep 8th - Sep 14th: NOTW Ch 26 to 65

Sep 15th- Sep 21st: NOTW Ch 66 to Epilogue

Sep 22nd - Sep 28th: WMF Prologue to Ch 27

Sep 29th - Oct 5th: WMF Ch 28 to 64

Oct 6th - Oct 12th: WMF Ch 65 to 101

Oct 13th - Oct 19th: WMF Ch 102 to 135

Oct 20th - Oct 26th: WMF Ch 136 to Epilogue + TSROST

Oct 27th - Oct 31st: TNRBD

I'll ask that everyone tags their spoilers with #kkcreadalongspoilers when discussing stuff that are ahead of the schedule, just in case we have some first time readers joining us!

[twostepsfromtemerant]

Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller novella The Slow Regard of Silent Things may be the least epic fantasy ever published. This year, as the story reaches its fifth anniversary, let’s take a look at why …

I love this strange little non-story about Auri. I can barely remember what it was like the first time I read it 4 1/2 years ago, but TSRoST is beautiful and lovely and important

[kote-the-inn-keeper]

I just finished The Slow Regard of Silent Things. It took me a long time to read because at first I waned to read if for everyone here. Not for myself. But that changed rather quickly and I wanted to read it at my own pace, take in all I could, and pick at the book myself. 

So, that’s what I did and why it took so long for me to finally finish it.

I have so much, yet so little, to say about the book I don’t know where to start. I suppose the so much is emotions, and the so little is the ability to put it all into words. What I can say with easy and in one breath: This book was beautifully done and I loved every minute of it to the bottom of my heart. 

There wasn’t a moment that I didn’t I love and cherish and relate too. Everything was natural and soft, really hard to describe other than that. I’m not the best at words, but I can say I loved this book and it is easily a favorite of mine; and will keep a favorite forever.

Below the cut are some points and things I caught along the way. I didn’t do page numbers because I was reading. But, perhaps I’ll do that another time.

Auri is very small. Not just in the way she conducts herself, but height and size wise. It’s referenced a ton throughout the book. Notably comparing her height to tables and shelves. Tables are too tall for her, which leads me to think he’s 5′1″ - 5′4″ ! Very petite and small -- though her slenderness very clearly comes from the lack of steady meals she has. 

She is brilliant. Not a protege, but she is very intelligent and knows what she’s talking about. She talks and rambles about mathematics, chemistry, balances of chemicals, and more through the book -- more notably at the end. Which feeds into her being someone who ACTUALLY attended the university. If naming masters on several occasions wasn’t enough for you to believe that one, look at all the chemical names she knew. Look at the way she knew how to make soap and candles and the names of tools.

Leading from that point, she was clearly at the university as a chemistry student. Naming might have been an accident, or something she later perused. Naming probably wasn’t the first thing she went for.

Auri is a namer -- that’s just fact. You can see it through her finding and giving names to items, naming the places all through the Underthings, and the more notable portion of her being “cracked”. She is a namer and knows the names of things, but which things we still don’t know. I have a few guesses on what names she tried to take hold of, but, I can talk about that later.

There is a small suspicion I have of her having something close to, if not, OCD. And she definitely has some sort of panic/anxiety disorder. I don’t have OCD, so I can’t say this is a definite yes, but from the way she has to have things in a neat and specific order, things have to be arranged specifically, and how she not only double checks, but will triple check her belongings and things around her, it leads me to the possibility she has OCD. If something isn’t right, she will mess with it and move it around until it’s int he right place. This is through ALL the book. Along with her cleaning everything until it fits her needs -- herself a well. She also washes herself in a specific order: face, hands, feet. Every time.       As for the anxiety/panic disorder, I can speak on that. Very notably in the section when she’s making soap for herself, she “freaks out”. Has an anxiety attack. Somethings wrong and she can’t figure out what, and starts to feel like everything is crumbling around her and she can’t fix anything. Which throws her into more of a panic and making it hard for her to move and breath. It isn’t until she finds something stable around her she can calm down; and from my experiences that’s generally how it goes. She’s stressed about being dirty and things not cooperating, she’s trying to find gifts for Kvothe, and the day started off sour and was getting worse. It caved in on her and she broke down. There have been other moments int he book where she had started to panic, but found something to calm herself down with and get herself back together.

She doesn’t see herself as worthy of owning items and pampering herself. She says this a lot; calling herself selfish quite often. She never has more than what she thinks she needs, or allows herself too. There are times when she denies herself to use something because it’s “too good” or “to special” for her to use.

Auri is an adult woman. A lot of people LOVE to forget this and make her a child and stupid. Which annoys the living hell out of me!! She is referred to as a lady, a woman, a healthy adult, several times in the book. She has passion and lewd thoughts [at least twice in the book, a third with the underthings joke in the KKC books to Kvothe]. This doesn’t mean Auri isn’t/can’t be trans, non binary, agender, ace, aro, demi, or anything else-- SO DON’T TAKE THIS THAT WAY. My point here is that she is feminine aligned in some manner and does have adult thoughts. She does think like an adult, talk like an adult, and has the body of an adult. She is not a child -- and if you need more evidence of that there has only been two people to attend the university as teenagers. Elodin and Kvothe. That’s it. Auri is easily in her early twenties. Stop making her a child.       * For you shit heads out there that are prolly gonna run on in and say ace people “can’t have” sexual thoughts or the like, you’re an idiot. Anyone can make lewd jokes and have thoughts about things. Asexuality is a sliding scale and it doesn’t mean people feel nothing ever. Grow up.

She ventures outside above the underthings. She isn’t reclusive to the underthings, since there is a whole chapter about her running around on someones farm in the middle of no where and tricking a kid into thinking she’s fae. She knows the outside world -- since she used to be in it more often -- and Auri goes out into it during the night. It’s not like she doesn’t understand what the above world is, she’s not Ariel from the little mermaid.  

TW SE/XUAL ASSA/ULT AND VAUGE R*PE MENTIONS: There is a specific line in the book that actually made me have to put it down for a minute and take a breath. It shook me and placed me in thoughts I’m personally yet to cope with. “Like a wrist pinned hard beneath a hand with the hot breath smell of want and wine. . . .” [133]. Direct quote. If you notice that section, that’s the last thought on that subject she has, and instead of just 3 periods, there are 4. A longer, drawn out thought that was stopped and left in that moment, no longer to be discussed. As she was thinking about bad and angry things, this thought came to her. A bad and angry, terrible and horrendous thing.      Before you say it’s a stretch, look through the book for a minute. There are plenty of examples where she will be thinking a string of things and towards the end or middle there will be things about her specifically that come in. Her name, how she sees herself, being in a class or stumbling across something, and even about Kvothe. All things outside what she was comparing and thinking of to describe an object or feeling something was emitting to her.      And that’s what happened on that page. She quickly and clearly shoves that thought and memory aside. And, not to mention, such a situation is more than damn well possible. The University is largely male/male aligned, 100 to 10 [if I recall right]. All the women/ women aligned individuals are said to know one another by one of the main women in the KKC books. With so many men, Imre not far off where people go to drink and stumble back, and so few women, the possibility of someone happening to be so disgusting and subhuman spells itself out.     You could try and say “oh but not all men--” or “but this is fantasy!”, but listen. Such an act as canonly occurred in the KKC universe that Kvothe has experienced -- TWICE. Se/xual assa/ult on him is very loudly laid out in NOTW when the kids “cut the clothes” from his body, and in WMF when he rescues the two girls from the fake Edem who stole them and were very clearly going to sell them as sex sla/ves. If not keep for themselves. This shit happens in real life all the time; universities and college are NO EXCEPTION. And I have no damn doubt in my mind that that man got away with it too, which probably and more likely than not furthered Auri’s process to “cracking”. It also explains why she is VERY CLEARLY WARY OF MEN. It took kvothe moths for her to warm up to him. Mola shows up? Bam. Instantly chill and fine. It’s not that he was a stranger [though it could have played into it], it’s that he was presenting as a male. Mola was a stranger, and she was fine. A little caution was taken, but it melted away quickly. 

[languagemischung]

The Twelve was one of the rare changing places of the Underthing. It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to be itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true. It was nearly unique in this regard, and while it was not always safe or kind, Auri could not help but feel a fondness for it.

Patrick Rothfuss, The Slow Regard of Silent Things

[kote-the-inn-keeper]

All under the cut again!! When I’m done with a full read through, I’ll take and organize things into sections. Like... good quotes, visuals of her, visuals of place / set up [those there is a map someone made on my other TSRoST post!! Check that out], etc. 

Whatever foxes is made out of responds kind of like fire

    Auri blew on him while heading to Borough to brighten him

Auri likes balance -- Going twice left and twice right through Rubric (page 25)

Greely after route through Rubric

     Smells like sulfur there. Why????

     walls crumbling there

leads to Crumledon

     narrow dirt tunnel, steep

     ladder down leads to another room of stone

        oak door down there. room size of closet 

Door leads to Wains

     wide enough for a wagon o go through, high ceilings

         crystal chandelier in there. why???????? HOW?????? (pg 26)

         Odd paintings and marble floors

         Both ends of Wain is blocked by rubble

12 oak doors lining hall

     3 she had opened

“Long years in the underthings” (pg 26) So more than 5 years at least living under the world...

9th door belonged to the key

     sitting room

“nothing like Sit Twice or Faceling” -- other places in underthings???

Tons of bottle in there, a silver gear, a ring, and coins

found a retiring stone under the couch

     calls it a doll

found bone button

     left it there under the carpet tho

Another door in the room

     leads to stairs

     leads to a door on a landing

     a second flight of stairs; many loose and crumbling

     Gap in wall to climb through

        Called this place Tumbrel

            half fallen in, ceiling collapsed, no damp tho

            four post bed in there, mirror, wardrobe, and vanity

                 Clothes in the wardrobe! SO many!!!!

                  Makeup on the vanity still, along with jewelry, brushes, and bottles

Another door 

     closet, small, looks to be a bathroom

Omg Auri just starts sweeping everything to have it clean this cutie

Tied foxen to a lock of her hair aww

     so foxen is a solid of some sort... hm....

Found a loose stone in the floor while moving furniture

    small leather sack and bit of wool padding

    aND SHE JUST MOVED IT BACK. AURI. OMG

Found clean sheets in bottom of wardrobe while re-arranging dresses

    Wont take sheets even though no one is using them :((((

Delving has a warm earthy smell to it

    Went through Mantel to Rubric to Woods (time worn beams from roof in there)

Unheard of to bring things into Mantel apperantly

Second fav dress has deeper pockets

Went to put the buckle in its place, but it didnt belong. She was going to get the sheets, but the buckle didn’t belong so she didn’t. So what I’m thinking is that she plays on an equivalent exchange type of rules: one thing for another. 

Applecourt = apples. apple tree perhaps? where she first meet kvothe???

Going to tree instead

     More tools than food in tree

     Sack of salt, four fat figs, withered apple, handful of peas, some butter

Gear not happy in Mantel, or Umbrel, or Cricklet, or Darkhouse

    Took it to Grey Twelve again 

Auri knows her metals (hearing a bird crack something against an iron pipe)

She always kisses things in apology and that’s super adorable

Ran back to Borough cause of a bird???

     Doorway

     Inside are tables, shelves, bottles, boxes, and containers.

     Another door on the other end

        Light coming through??????

UM AURI WHAT HAPPEND????????

    super pissed about the light and the boot prints

    “Auri glared at the spot here they crossed the threshold....They moved to tables, shelf, and out the other door. They made a circle of sorts... Were not new bootprints. Still, they told a story Auri did not love. They told a story she did not want to see repeated” (pg 47).

      WHO ARE ‘THEY’?????????

      WHY COMING BACK?????

moved into Tenance (place above’s name)

careful to only step in boot prints

     grabbed a brush and ran

Found a broken pipe

ran off to go fix it!

“Just as Master Mandrag said so many years ago.” (pg 50)

     uM WELL THAT’S CONFIRMED SHE WENT TO THE UNIVERSITY AT SOME POINT. LITERALLY CANON. SHIT DUDE OH MAN.

(Basically what I’m getting from these last few pages so far was that Auri was a student, cracked, and was in a scuffle to get away from being put in that one place. Which also explains her paranoia of hearing boots all the sudden as well on page 50. saying “not now” “not yet”. Which also makes me think they looked for her for quite some times before giving up possibly.)

Doesnt know where borkn pipe leads too per-say

     Guesses the Masters Hall

      sHE WAS A FUCKING STUDENT THIS CHAPTER IS JUST CONFIRMING THE SHIT OUT OF THAT YOU GUYS

Hates people being in the underthings

     they don’t care about things as much as she does in the space

Nice. Name of the book on pg 51 B) “Better still, the slow regard of silent things had wafted off the moisture int he air.”

[lightlistenerwindwatcher]

Anybody know some good quotes about brokenness? I'm gonna look through the Slow Regard of Silent Things, but if you have any other quotes or sources please share.

[logarithmicpanda]

Am I the only one who thinks "Chandrian" at every mention of blue light? (The slow regard of silent things, A quite uncommon pleasant place)

[logarithmicpanda]

The book sleeve is finished :D