Shairwin MendozaViolet McKeonWritten 39BApril 20, 2014On Kvothe: the anti-heroThere are heroes in every story: fairy tales, fables, epics, films, video games, etc. and they all share many characteristics together, which set the standards for what a traditional hero is supposed to be: brave, selfless, strong, triumphs over evil, and saves the damsel in distress. “The definition of the hero depends on the society from which these characters come.” Most high fantasy stories take place in medieval times where “knights ideally embodied the role of the traditional hero…thus the traditional hero of these fantasies set in a medieval society became the knight”1. However, modern authors choose to depart from the typical conception of the fantasy hero and center it around an unlikely hero, such as Frodo in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, who possesses the opposite attributes of a hero. The Name of the Wind challenges the fantasy genre by deviating from many typical fantasy elements and Rothfuss does this well through the protagonist, Kvothe. Kvothe possesses many of the characteristics of a hero, but deviates from the typical conception of a hero through his mysterious character, rogue actions, cowardice, and selfishness in order to survive. In the prologue, Rothfuss decides to present the hero of our book as the innkeeper, without naming him. him, so there is no hero revealed yet. We learn a few things about the innkeeper in this chapter; his descriptions were interesting and brought him out in a subtle way. The man has “real red hair, red like a flame.” He kept “the greatest silence of the three” and he is “a man waiting to die”3. These are all contrived and mysterious descriptions of a hero, based on what a hero is supposed to do...... middle of paper ...... this young boy was being attacked, he hesitated and think about the consequences of what might happen. come if he helped. He thought he was safe there and that if he hit any of them, they would invade his house. So he decided not to compromise his safety and “put down the tile…and cowered…in the shelter.” He has cowardly and selfish characteristics, which makes him an anti-hero because he lacks the physical and mental characteristics that a traditional hero would have. Although our hero in The Name of the Wind lacks qualities, he nonetheless remains an unscrupulous hero of many names, defined by his dark experiences of the death of his troop. Kvothe is claimed to have "stolen princesses...burned down the town of Trebon...kicked out of college at a younger age than most people are allowed to enter", making this character even more sympathetic to the reader of modern fantasy..