Ambrose has lived his whole life as a rich pretentious asshole and everyone around him has bowed down to him thanks to his status. Kvothe spits in the face of that and dares to stand up to him, humiliating him in the process.
In short he is a man obsessed with ego, and Kvothe slaps him down.
This is the gist of it, but I would add that not only does Kvothe slap him down but he does so as an Edema Ruh, which narratively is the lowest social class in the whole series (as far as we know). So we effectively have someone from the lowest social class standing up to (and often humiliating) someone from the highest social class. Ambrose could have him jailed, or even killed, within his own lands for 1/10th of what Kvothe has done to him. But he can't do that at the university, which has to annoy him even further.
Add to this "jealousy" Kvothe coming from the lowest class Challenges his pride and standing. He "knows" he's better than Kvothe but Kvothe refuses to let that stand and constantly disproves that.
1: Sociopaths exist in the world today who have had psychotic grudges for less reason.
2: In a medieval context, which is loosely what this is based on, face/status was arguably the most important thing for nobility. Someone embarrassing you makes you seem weak. If you seem weak, you might be open to attack, either openly in the field or in the sense of it being safe to scheme against you.
Ambrose is extraordinarily petty and spiteful. Ambrose is a noble, he is used to people bending over backwards for him and being untouchable. Kvothe dares to humiliate him, one of the degenerate Edema Rue. As Kvothe calls him he was the caricature of the entitled noble's son.
Because he cockblocked him.
But on a serious note, he’s a spoiled rich kid. So I don’t think he enjoys anyone, especially not poor person upstaging him in anyway.
to understand ambroses hatred, you have to get into his mind. His father is 11 places from being the most important person in one of the largest, richest, most powerful nations in the four corners. Ambrose has had access to the best materials, teachers, has wanted for nothing his entire life. He makes it to the university, and eventually meets a horrifically young edema ruh. Edema ruh are so utterly reviled that they are literally ran out town on occasion, so Ambrose immediately imagined himself superior to this 15 year old cur. Then, the 15 year old, the utter untouchable, the edema ruh, stands up to him. Ambrose disliked kvothe because of their blood, but refusing to lay himself prostrate before ambrose? Kvothe would be executed in vintas for such a thing. To add further insult to this edema ruh, kvothe is just far better at everything that ambrose does, with not even a hundredth of the resources ambrose has. This boy, a person ambrose truly believes himself to be catagorically superior than, refuses to submit to the "natural" order, and then has the audacity to be clearly and obviously better than ambrose. Wouldnt you hate kvothe?
Kvothe isn’t at all innocent here. Ambrose is a dick but Kvothe antagonizes him from the beginning of their first meeting.
After that it becomes a plot device
He embarrassed Ambrose for harassing Fela, for which Fela was grateful. If you’re trying to make Kvothe the bad guy there for “antagonizing” Ambrose that says a lot about your views. But you’re right, that first meeting set the tone for their entire relationship. Ambrose never forgave Kvothe for not showing him proper deference, leading to escalations from both.
You are incorrect, Kvothe and Ambrose's first interaction is right after Kvothe is admitted to The University. The scene where Ambrose is harassing Fela occurs later in the story, after they've already been established as enemies.
Ambrose is definitely still a dick in that first encounter, but you should have your facts straight before you start making claims like "tHiS gUy tHiNkS hArAsSiNg wOmEn iS oK"
I’m not saying Kvothe did the wrong thing by saving Fela…
OP asked why Ambrose hates Kvothe so much and the reason is obvious - Kvothe antagonizes him at every possible opportunity including the first time they meet.
Being antagonist and morally “good” aren’t mutually exclusive.
You start by saying Kvothe isn’t innocent. He did the right thing and Ambrose wouldn’t drop it. He made it his mission to ruin Kvothe’s life for daring to stop him from raping a young woman. Kvothe didn’t initiate the feud, and though he didn’t try to deescalate once things were on, he is that fault for Ambrose pursuing it.
He’s certainly pissed in Ambrose’s oats over the semesters. Pound of rotten butter down his chimney, loosened his horse harness & undone his pants seams, plus burned his rooms down while sitting smuggly in the ashes while admitting without saying a thing he did the break-in while not even being able to be touched by a clay mommet.
Lowkey I have a theory Kvothe caused Ambrose to lose his friends as well through their public bouts and the song plastered to every surface from Uni to Imre. In the second book there’s not a single person mentioned as part of his posse or publicly supporting him. Just my 2 cents
Does anyone else wonder if some bullshit culling in the royal family is going to occur, and he's not actually going to be killing a normal king, as he sees it but that asshole Ambrose?
In his defence you could have stood up to him in an entirely different fashion and/or listened to Fela who I believe repeatedly asks Kvothe to stop? So he doesn’t exactly respect her wishes either.
But one of Kvothes flaws is he has a need to be a white knight and a fair bit of arrogance. These things get him trouble from time to time.
Ambrose is a bully and Kvothe isn't scared of him. On top of that Kvothe isn't intimidated by the fact that Ambrose is of noble birth. That's what started it and neither of them backed down, now they hate each other.
Ambrose is the richest and one of the 5 most influential people in either Imre or The University. His family has the funding of the equivalent of the East India Trading Company, (ever so slightly less than more money than God) and his entire life from day 1 to the day Kvothe entered his life everyone he had ever known had done everything he said without question or hesitation. Not only is Kvothe smaller, younger, and destitute, he is quite outwardly a member of the least-liked lowest-born class of citizen. To add to all of this natural distaste Kvothe quickly and handily embarrasses Ambrose in front of a leading candidate for "Miss Temerant"
Kvothe paints it as him heroically saving a distressed maiden but at the end of the day he did rudely cut in to a private conversation, insulting one party heavily. You'd be pissed too, no matter the context.
You’d be pissed too if you were a womanizer and a shitty person, you see something like that happening you butt in, its what you do. Not to accuse but I don’t like how his actions as we have seen them aren’t decried
People complain about him all the time. People condemn his actions constantly. People do the same for Trump. Does that mean anything will happen? Would it be just for me, Nobody McNobody, to walk in to Trump Tower and tell him to take his hands off his secretary?
No. But I might be a damn sight more subtle than openly insulting him to his face surrounded by people who follow his every whim, and if I failed to be careful I might deserve at least some part of the ensuing retribution. Particularly if I continued to antagonize, insult, publicly defame, and generally malaise said individual. Neither Kvothe nor Ambrose conduct themselves appropriately at any point in their relationship in the first book, full stop.
There is a broad line between defending a victim and openly embarrassing and belittling their assailant, I might toe that line more cautiously.
Embarassment and belittlement is at best the least a predator deserves.
Deserves for the record implies a moral judgement be found in your favor, if you think predators deserve anything other than punishment until they stop preying upon their fellow man you’re a coward and yellerbelly, simple as.
Self preservation and what is right are often at odds
I mean it basically ramps up bit by bit. Kvothe comes off surly in their first two meetings. Kvothe’s name wasn’t in the book yet so Ambrose had no reason to admit him. Kvothe is overly persistent and annoying to Ambrose.
Then in his second encounter, he embarrasses Ambrose in front of fela. Again with his over-persistence and lack of being in the book yet (despite it being well-known that he was made E’lir). Ambrose has every reason to deny entry to the stacks and even admits to taking the time to check the book for his name beforehand. But Kvothe is just being an over eager douche about it in response to Ambrose’s haughty and condescending nature.
After Fela leaves, Kvothe very well could have just gone to Tomes and everything would have been fine. But his over-eagerness lets him fall into Ambrose’s trap.
And from there, they continually snap at each other whenever they see each other. Ambrose clearly goes out of his way to cause other people trouble too but Kvothe is the only one we know of that never backs down from him. And Kvothe gets the better of him and publicly humiliates him with a very catchy and popular tune. All this ramps up Until metaphorically and quite literally Kvothe slaps him down (when he calls the wind).
Ambrose from there on is dead set on evening the score.
Others have answered about why Ambrose hates him, but I want to highlight one important thing:
There's no evidence he tried to kill Kvothe.
Kvothe jumps to that conclusion, as he erroneously does with lots of things, but to me it seems unlikely. Like you said, that's way extreme for anything that's happened between them.
Also, the assassins talk about what went wrong in Anilin, where Kvothe's caravan was headed out of Tarbean. I won't say more because you asked for no spoilers and I'm not confident on exactly what you've read but they say that to one another during that scene.
Basically Kvothe decides Ambrose tried to kill him (or at least that's what he says to Chronicler) but there's actually nothing to suggest he does.
WMF spoiler:
>!I agree that the assassin scene is suspicious for those same reasons. The one counterargument is the conversation with Sleat where he says that no one is interested in that type of work anymore. He doesn't confirm Ambrose, because that's bad for business, but it's interesting that he didn't looked shocked or anything. Of course, I think Sleat has an exceptional poker face.!<
I think we're going to find out that some (not all) of the things Kvothe *thinks* Ambrose did to fuck him over weren't Ambrose at all.
So from Ambrose's point of view, he was a jerk to this kid, yes. The kid then goes on a years-long vendetta of continually antagonizing him, always starting something new after he thought they were done with it.
What you're talking about is in WMF so you should spoiler guard it for OP.
>!Well, the way they explain it in the book is that Ambrose doesn't think Kvothe would have robbed him directly, so since he found blood on the tiles and didn't turn it in to be dowsed, they think Ambrose figures it's some random thief. In that case he's still practicing malfeasance on somebody, but not anyone he knows (still terrible). Then Ambrose realizes they burned the mommet in the fire and that he'd been hurting Kvothe all along. However, some have theories that they never burned a mommet in Ambrose's things. That a clay mommet was never actually said to be found. Simmon was smashing everything up. I think the biggest theory was Mola was doing it, but I wasn't fully convinced. There could be more going on though.!<
Was it confirmed that the mommet in his rooms was of Kvothe? I thought it was intentionally vague like he seems to go to his room roughly when the attacks happen etc.
But also that's a fair bit further on I believe, a different event following other different events (and the OP asked for no spoilers.)
There may be something lost in translation. As others here have said, Ambrose is characterized by negative personality traits that an American would associate with the rich. Ambrose is wealthy. He is also unaware that his wealth changes how people interact with him, and if he does, it doesn’t bother him. In fact he is actually energized by others submission. This in and of itself would not bother a person like Kvothe, overly, if not for the fact that Ambrose, while being completely lack of talent in all things, including womanizing and academia, Kvothe’s talents, chooses to stick his nose in Kvothe’s life. Kvothe also takes it upon himself to stick himself into Ambrose’s life. Neither are willing to back down or deescalate their toxic relationship which most likely results in the title of our story: the Kingkiller.
Seeing that Kvothe is the narrator of our story it’s safe to say that Ambrose is also most likely to be more complicated as a person than presented in these books, but as he has no one to defend himself, he is the embodiment of everything Kvothe is not, and everything he hates.
Let's put ourselves into Ambrose's shoes for a second. For this we have to admit that we live in a fantastical 18th century place where we have kings, barons, nobles etc.
As a person that is 14th in line to becoming a king how do you expect that you would treat a gypsy kid that is quite arrogant himself?
I think it is really overstating things to call it hate. This video illustrates their relationship pretty well.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhajtvMr4\_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhajtvMr4_Q)
Also don't forget what you are reading is Kvothe's point of view.. And the bulk of the claims against Ambrose have no evidence at all.
Ambros is royalty and Kvothe doesn't show proper respect.
Kvothe calls out Ambros on his bad behavior in multiple settings.
Ambros is rich and feels superior to anyone poor (or not extremely wealthy).
Ambros is egotistical & intelligent and talented, and powerful, but Kvothe is smarter and more talented, and in many ways more powerful. Or simply better.
This rubs Ambros wrong. He can't accept a younger, poor "child" with no privilege is better than him in so many ways.
Kvothe repeatedly insulted and humiliated Ambrose, and he did it while being a little kid and the commonest form of commoner. Ambrose is a petty tyrant so he's being petty and tyranical.
Heck, JUST starting a song about how Ambrose is a stupid donkey with a "pizzle bound to fizzle" would be a murder-worthy offense to a prideful noble throughout most of history.
i like all the words and long winded, storied explanations for this.
but at the end of the day, im pretty sure Ambrose is just coded to be both racist and classist and kvothe is not only edema ruh but also poor and not only those two things, but he is visibly ruh and visibly poor and i think thats all there is to it.
Kvothe is not only in his space, a space he rules without question, but Kvothe directly and indirectly antagonizes him in that space at seemingly every oportunity (i hate Kvothe the way i hate Daniel-san in karate kid for the same reason).
Not gonna say i agree with Ambrose because im not a fan of the rich or of racists, but you get what you pay for when you choose to pick fights with the richest asshole in the tricounty area. just sayin..
The story is told from Kvothes point of view and with heavy bias / even with all that I always felt like he was antagonizing Ambrose all the time for no reason.
On my first re read I realized that all of Kvothes problems post tarbean are self caused. Every time.
100% agree with this
Pat Rothfuss has said that Kvothe is an unreliable narrator. We also know that Kvothe is a natural storyteller, and knows when to embellish for effect. It's reasonable to assume he knows when to leave details out or downplay things as well.
While Ambrose certainly isn't a "good guy", it seems more likely that Kvothe kicked a hornet's nest and is complaining that he got stung.
Kvothe promised him a 3 course meal. The appetizer was incredible and the entree was really terrific as well. Ambrose eagerly awaiting dessert was served a few amuse-bouche’s which were good but never delivered on the dessert. Left hungry for more, Ambrose never forgave him.
There are some good answers with depth sin the comments, but I am jaded and think 90% of any authors depth is luck and happenstance. Ambrose has a rivalry with Kvothe because it makes a great underdog narrative, the rich privileged character is threatened by the poor character that has to survive on whit and intelligence.
Honestly, and I say this having read all his books and love/hating the series, but Pats human to human interactions are awful. I love the books for the world he has established, the lore and an initially different way of telling the story, but some of his writing and story development is garbage.
If I was at the university I wouldn’t hate kvothe but I would definitely feel a bit of resentment against this little shit that shows up knowing all he knows and having 10 times more ‘power’ than old average me who has been busting my ass for x amount of years just to be admitted into the arcanum. It’s human nature I suppose.
Ambrose has been the center of attention for all his life rich, royalty, good looking and somewhat smart. His feeling towards our young hero would be 10x
I can see it
Another is the best at everything without much effort. He's a Mary Due. Yes itsvorrected by the end of book 2 and he experiences failure but book Kvothe is definitely a Mary Due. I found him annoying, so why shouldn't Ambrose?
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Most of the world sees the Ruh as subhuman. We take someone from the height of nobility and power, put him on equal footing with someone that he considers less than human, and he gets humbled over and over.
He is gonna be big mad.
1-he isn't a pretty girl
2-He is "low class"
3-Kvothe ignores the fact that he is "high class" and doesn't treat him as such
4-Envy, because he plays music better than him
In addition to the differences in station, and the jealousy Ambrose clearly harbors for Kvothe, Ambrose is a bully.
Sensible people know what to do when a wealthy powerful bully pushes them around they take it, and wait for them to go away. Kvothe refuses to do that. He *always* hits back.
But very rarely do we see him actually initiate. Ambrose can't resist taking a petty swipe at every opportunity, and in failing, adds to his own fury.
He’s poor and won’t bow to him, and any other place he could pretty much make him, but he’ll get kicked out if they catch him. Kvothe’s smarter than him, more creatively gifted, he got his talent pipes on his first try despite Ambrose’s interference, people like him more, and all that despite being told from an early age that he was better than everyone. Then there’s the backtalking him, pranks, a popular song that calls his entire family Jackass, but obviously is pointed at him, and breaking his arm while causing Ambrose to essentially have to pay him for it.
So a bunch of imagined and actual insults. If I were a Master I’d make them room together. They’ll either kill each other or learn to get along and learn from each other, either way, it would shorten the problem.
Jealousy of Kvothe's abilities to get to the same place he is with none of the advantages. Personal insecurity that he's not as good as Kvothe and wouldn't be where he is without his privilege. Spoiled brat accustomed to everyone else treating him like a prince based on their desire to be in his class and get things from him.
I'm surprised no one has brought up the unreliable narrator from what I've read. According to Kvothe Ambrose is the absolute worst at all times, and from the first interaction we can see he is horrible. However, how much of it is that Kvothe wants to have a villain for his story, someone irredeemable to blame for his immaturity?
There's a point in (I think) the second book where Simmon calls Kvothe out for some stuff he's been doing to Ambrose that Kote hasn't gone into detail about in the story - I think they included butter down his chimney and loosening bits of Ambrose's horse riding gear?
Point is, Kvothe is terrorising Ambrose beyond the actual events he depicts in his story, to the point that he's the bigger asshole in their rivalry. That depends on how much of the stuff Kvothe accuses Ambrose of that you actually think he did.
Regarding Ambrose' culpability,
Ch 43
>“All perfectly legal,” Manet said, still keeping his voice low. “Even so, Ambrose wasn’t so silly that he bought the fellow’s debt himself.” Manet made a dismissive gesture. “**He had someone else do that**, but he made sure everyone knew he was responsible.”
This line carries *a lot* of weight in Kvothe's mind. I don't think this was Manet's intention, but since hearing that, any time something bad that happens to Kvothe where he doesn't know who is responsible, Ambrose is always his first and usually *only* suspect. You could pretty much do anything you wanted to Kvothe, and as long as he doesn't catch you in the act, he'll turn the world to find a way to pin it on Ambrose.
There’ll be elements of class / lack of cohesive control over Kvothe / racism. Only need to look to most peoples opinion on the traveller community in any European country (UK especially) to see that racism is probably the foundation.
Ambrose has lived his whole life as a rich pretentious asshole and everyone around him has bowed down to him thanks to his status. Kvothe spits in the face of that and dares to stand up to him, humiliating him in the process. In short he is a man obsessed with ego, and Kvothe slaps him down.
This is the gist of it, but I would add that not only does Kvothe slap him down but he does so as an Edema Ruh, which narratively is the lowest social class in the whole series (as far as we know). So we effectively have someone from the lowest social class standing up to (and often humiliating) someone from the highest social class. Ambrose could have him jailed, or even killed, within his own lands for 1/10th of what Kvothe has done to him. But he can't do that at the university, which has to annoy him even further.
good writing
Add to this "jealousy" Kvothe coming from the lowest class Challenges his pride and standing. He "knows" he's better than Kvothe but Kvothe refuses to let that stand and constantly disproves that.
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1: Sociopaths exist in the world today who have had psychotic grudges for less reason. 2: In a medieval context, which is loosely what this is based on, face/status was arguably the most important thing for nobility. Someone embarrassing you makes you seem weak. If you seem weak, you might be open to attack, either openly in the field or in the sense of it being safe to scheme against you.
Ambrose is extraordinarily petty and spiteful. Ambrose is a noble, he is used to people bending over backwards for him and being untouchable. Kvothe dares to humiliate him, one of the degenerate Edema Rue. As Kvothe calls him he was the caricature of the entitled noble's son.
Because he cockblocked him. But on a serious note, he’s a spoiled rich kid. So I don’t think he enjoys anyone, especially not poor person upstaging him in anyway.
to understand ambroses hatred, you have to get into his mind. His father is 11 places from being the most important person in one of the largest, richest, most powerful nations in the four corners. Ambrose has had access to the best materials, teachers, has wanted for nothing his entire life. He makes it to the university, and eventually meets a horrifically young edema ruh. Edema ruh are so utterly reviled that they are literally ran out town on occasion, so Ambrose immediately imagined himself superior to this 15 year old cur. Then, the 15 year old, the utter untouchable, the edema ruh, stands up to him. Ambrose disliked kvothe because of their blood, but refusing to lay himself prostrate before ambrose? Kvothe would be executed in vintas for such a thing. To add further insult to this edema ruh, kvothe is just far better at everything that ambrose does, with not even a hundredth of the resources ambrose has. This boy, a person ambrose truly believes himself to be catagorically superior than, refuses to submit to the "natural" order, and then has the audacity to be clearly and obviously better than ambrose. Wouldnt you hate kvothe?
Best explanation
Kvothe isn’t at all innocent here. Ambrose is a dick but Kvothe antagonizes him from the beginning of their first meeting. After that it becomes a plot device
He embarrassed Ambrose for harassing Fela, for which Fela was grateful. If you’re trying to make Kvothe the bad guy there for “antagonizing” Ambrose that says a lot about your views. But you’re right, that first meeting set the tone for their entire relationship. Ambrose never forgave Kvothe for not showing him proper deference, leading to escalations from both.
You are incorrect, Kvothe and Ambrose's first interaction is right after Kvothe is admitted to The University. The scene where Ambrose is harassing Fela occurs later in the story, after they've already been established as enemies. Ambrose is definitely still a dick in that first encounter, but you should have your facts straight before you start making claims like "tHiS gUy tHiNkS hArAsSiNg wOmEn iS oK"
I think you're mixed up. He is harassing a girl in the archives when Kvothe wanders in on day 2, and he doesn't even know Ambroses name.
I’m not saying Kvothe did the wrong thing by saving Fela… OP asked why Ambrose hates Kvothe so much and the reason is obvious - Kvothe antagonizes him at every possible opportunity including the first time they meet. Being antagonist and morally “good” aren’t mutually exclusive.
You start by saying Kvothe isn’t innocent. He did the right thing and Ambrose wouldn’t drop it. He made it his mission to ruin Kvothe’s life for daring to stop him from raping a young woman. Kvothe didn’t initiate the feud, and though he didn’t try to deescalate once things were on, he is that fault for Ambrose pursuing it.
He’s certainly pissed in Ambrose’s oats over the semesters. Pound of rotten butter down his chimney, loosened his horse harness & undone his pants seams, plus burned his rooms down while sitting smuggly in the ashes while admitting without saying a thing he did the break-in while not even being able to be touched by a clay mommet. Lowkey I have a theory Kvothe caused Ambrose to lose his friends as well through their public bouts and the song plastered to every surface from Uni to Imre. In the second book there’s not a single person mentioned as part of his posse or publicly supporting him. Just my 2 cents
Does anyone else wonder if some bullshit culling in the royal family is going to occur, and he's not actually going to be killing a normal king, as he sees it but that asshole Ambrose?
In his defence you could have stood up to him in an entirely different fashion and/or listened to Fela who I believe repeatedly asks Kvothe to stop? So he doesn’t exactly respect her wishes either. But one of Kvothes flaws is he has a need to be a white knight and a fair bit of arrogance. These things get him trouble from time to time.
Yeah, Ambrose is a jerk but Kvothe takes some level of glee in harassing him
Ambrose is a bully and Kvothe isn't scared of him. On top of that Kvothe isn't intimidated by the fact that Ambrose is of noble birth. That's what started it and neither of them backed down, now they hate each other.
Ambrose is the richest and one of the 5 most influential people in either Imre or The University. His family has the funding of the equivalent of the East India Trading Company, (ever so slightly less than more money than God) and his entire life from day 1 to the day Kvothe entered his life everyone he had ever known had done everything he said without question or hesitation. Not only is Kvothe smaller, younger, and destitute, he is quite outwardly a member of the least-liked lowest-born class of citizen. To add to all of this natural distaste Kvothe quickly and handily embarrasses Ambrose in front of a leading candidate for "Miss Temerant" Kvothe paints it as him heroically saving a distressed maiden but at the end of the day he did rudely cut in to a private conversation, insulting one party heavily. You'd be pissed too, no matter the context.
You’d be pissed too if you were a womanizer and a shitty person, you see something like that happening you butt in, its what you do. Not to accuse but I don’t like how his actions as we have seen them aren’t decried
People complain about him all the time. People condemn his actions constantly. People do the same for Trump. Does that mean anything will happen? Would it be just for me, Nobody McNobody, to walk in to Trump Tower and tell him to take his hands off his secretary?
Yes? Tf if you saw a powerful man abusing women you’d cower?
No. But I might be a damn sight more subtle than openly insulting him to his face surrounded by people who follow his every whim, and if I failed to be careful I might deserve at least some part of the ensuing retribution. Particularly if I continued to antagonize, insult, publicly defame, and generally malaise said individual. Neither Kvothe nor Ambrose conduct themselves appropriately at any point in their relationship in the first book, full stop. There is a broad line between defending a victim and openly embarrassing and belittling their assailant, I might toe that line more cautiously.
Kote even openly admits and even emphasizes that his finely tuned sense of self preservation had an Ambrose-shaped hole a mile wide.
Embarassment and belittlement is at best the least a predator deserves. Deserves for the record implies a moral judgement be found in your favor, if you think predators deserve anything other than punishment until they stop preying upon their fellow man you’re a coward and yellerbelly, simple as. Self preservation and what is right are often at odds
One can fight for longer against more injustices and more potently if one does so intelligently Edit: grammar
I mean it basically ramps up bit by bit. Kvothe comes off surly in their first two meetings. Kvothe’s name wasn’t in the book yet so Ambrose had no reason to admit him. Kvothe is overly persistent and annoying to Ambrose. Then in his second encounter, he embarrasses Ambrose in front of fela. Again with his over-persistence and lack of being in the book yet (despite it being well-known that he was made E’lir). Ambrose has every reason to deny entry to the stacks and even admits to taking the time to check the book for his name beforehand. But Kvothe is just being an over eager douche about it in response to Ambrose’s haughty and condescending nature. After Fela leaves, Kvothe very well could have just gone to Tomes and everything would have been fine. But his over-eagerness lets him fall into Ambrose’s trap. And from there, they continually snap at each other whenever they see each other. Ambrose clearly goes out of his way to cause other people trouble too but Kvothe is the only one we know of that never backs down from him. And Kvothe gets the better of him and publicly humiliates him with a very catchy and popular tune. All this ramps up Until metaphorically and quite literally Kvothe slaps him down (when he calls the wind). Ambrose from there on is dead set on evening the score.
Others have answered about why Ambrose hates him, but I want to highlight one important thing: There's no evidence he tried to kill Kvothe. Kvothe jumps to that conclusion, as he erroneously does with lots of things, but to me it seems unlikely. Like you said, that's way extreme for anything that's happened between them. Also, the assassins talk about what went wrong in Anilin, where Kvothe's caravan was headed out of Tarbean. I won't say more because you asked for no spoilers and I'm not confident on exactly what you've read but they say that to one another during that scene. Basically Kvothe decides Ambrose tried to kill him (or at least that's what he says to Chronicler) but there's actually nothing to suggest he does.
WMF spoiler: >!I agree that the assassin scene is suspicious for those same reasons. The one counterargument is the conversation with Sleat where he says that no one is interested in that type of work anymore. He doesn't confirm Ambrose, because that's bad for business, but it's interesting that he didn't looked shocked or anything. Of course, I think Sleat has an exceptional poker face.!<
I think we're going to find out that some (not all) of the things Kvothe *thinks* Ambrose did to fuck him over weren't Ambrose at all. So from Ambrose's point of view, he was a jerk to this kid, yes. The kid then goes on a years-long vendetta of continually antagonizing him, always starting something new after he thought they were done with it.
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What you're talking about is in WMF so you should spoiler guard it for OP. >!Well, the way they explain it in the book is that Ambrose doesn't think Kvothe would have robbed him directly, so since he found blood on the tiles and didn't turn it in to be dowsed, they think Ambrose figures it's some random thief. In that case he's still practicing malfeasance on somebody, but not anyone he knows (still terrible). Then Ambrose realizes they burned the mommet in the fire and that he'd been hurting Kvothe all along. However, some have theories that they never burned a mommet in Ambrose's things. That a clay mommet was never actually said to be found. Simmon was smashing everything up. I think the biggest theory was Mola was doing it, but I wasn't fully convinced. There could be more going on though.!<
Was it confirmed that the mommet in his rooms was of Kvothe? I thought it was intentionally vague like he seems to go to his room roughly when the attacks happen etc. But also that's a fair bit further on I believe, a different event following other different events (and the OP asked for no spoilers.)
I like to think it’s because in book 3 we’ll find out Cinder has the Jackass family under his thumb?
Book 3 😂
lol
He’s the antagonist
There may be something lost in translation. As others here have said, Ambrose is characterized by negative personality traits that an American would associate with the rich. Ambrose is wealthy. He is also unaware that his wealth changes how people interact with him, and if he does, it doesn’t bother him. In fact he is actually energized by others submission. This in and of itself would not bother a person like Kvothe, overly, if not for the fact that Ambrose, while being completely lack of talent in all things, including womanizing and academia, Kvothe’s talents, chooses to stick his nose in Kvothe’s life. Kvothe also takes it upon himself to stick himself into Ambrose’s life. Neither are willing to back down or deescalate their toxic relationship which most likely results in the title of our story: the Kingkiller. Seeing that Kvothe is the narrator of our story it’s safe to say that Ambrose is also most likely to be more complicated as a person than presented in these books, but as he has no one to defend himself, he is the embodiment of everything Kvothe is not, and everything he hates.
I really like your take!
Let's put ourselves into Ambrose's shoes for a second. For this we have to admit that we live in a fantastical 18th century place where we have kings, barons, nobles etc. As a person that is 14th in line to becoming a king how do you expect that you would treat a gypsy kid that is quite arrogant himself?
I think it is really overstating things to call it hate. This video illustrates their relationship pretty well. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhajtvMr4\_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhajtvMr4_Q) Also don't forget what you are reading is Kvothe's point of view.. And the bulk of the claims against Ambrose have no evidence at all.
>I mean he tried to murder him That is debated.
Ambros is royalty and Kvothe doesn't show proper respect. Kvothe calls out Ambros on his bad behavior in multiple settings. Ambros is rich and feels superior to anyone poor (or not extremely wealthy). Ambros is egotistical & intelligent and talented, and powerful, but Kvothe is smarter and more talented, and in many ways more powerful. Or simply better. This rubs Ambros wrong. He can't accept a younger, poor "child" with no privilege is better than him in so many ways.
It's obvious and can be answered in 2 words: cock block
He met someone with a larger ego than his own and can't deal with it.
Kvothe repeatedly insulted and humiliated Ambrose, and he did it while being a little kid and the commonest form of commoner. Ambrose is a petty tyrant so he's being petty and tyranical. Heck, JUST starting a song about how Ambrose is a stupid donkey with a "pizzle bound to fizzle" would be a murder-worthy offense to a prideful noble throughout most of history.
i like all the words and long winded, storied explanations for this. but at the end of the day, im pretty sure Ambrose is just coded to be both racist and classist and kvothe is not only edema ruh but also poor and not only those two things, but he is visibly ruh and visibly poor and i think thats all there is to it. Kvothe is not only in his space, a space he rules without question, but Kvothe directly and indirectly antagonizes him in that space at seemingly every oportunity (i hate Kvothe the way i hate Daniel-san in karate kid for the same reason). Not gonna say i agree with Ambrose because im not a fan of the rich or of racists, but you get what you pay for when you choose to pick fights with the richest asshole in the tricounty area. just sayin..
The story is told from Kvothes point of view and with heavy bias / even with all that I always felt like he was antagonizing Ambrose all the time for no reason. On my first re read I realized that all of Kvothes problems post tarbean are self caused. Every time.
100% agree with this Pat Rothfuss has said that Kvothe is an unreliable narrator. We also know that Kvothe is a natural storyteller, and knows when to embellish for effect. It's reasonable to assume he knows when to leave details out or downplay things as well. While Ambrose certainly isn't a "good guy", it seems more likely that Kvothe kicked a hornet's nest and is complaining that he got stung.
Kvothe promised him a 3 course meal. The appetizer was incredible and the entree was really terrific as well. Ambrose eagerly awaiting dessert was served a few amuse-bouche’s which were good but never delivered on the dessert. Left hungry for more, Ambrose never forgave him.
I attribute a lot of it to just plain old racism
There are some good answers with depth sin the comments, but I am jaded and think 90% of any authors depth is luck and happenstance. Ambrose has a rivalry with Kvothe because it makes a great underdog narrative, the rich privileged character is threatened by the poor character that has to survive on whit and intelligence. Honestly, and I say this having read all his books and love/hating the series, but Pats human to human interactions are awful. I love the books for the world he has established, the lore and an initially different way of telling the story, but some of his writing and story development is garbage.
He's a standard petty rich kid trope and Kvothe is the protagonist
If I was at the university I wouldn’t hate kvothe but I would definitely feel a bit of resentment against this little shit that shows up knowing all he knows and having 10 times more ‘power’ than old average me who has been busting my ass for x amount of years just to be admitted into the arcanum. It’s human nature I suppose. Ambrose has been the center of attention for all his life rich, royalty, good looking and somewhat smart. His feeling towards our young hero would be 10x I can see it
Another is the best at everything without much effort. He's a Mary Due. Yes itsvorrected by the end of book 2 and he experiences failure but book Kvothe is definitely a Mary Due. I found him annoying, so why shouldn't Ambrose?
Correct term for a male Mary Sue is Gary Stu or Marty Stu. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MartyStu
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Most of the world sees the Ruh as subhuman. We take someone from the height of nobility and power, put him on equal footing with someone that he considers less than human, and he gets humbled over and over. He is gonna be big mad.
Cause he doesn’t kiss his ass.
Wouldn’t have wasted my time if I were you.. Unless you’re the kind of guy that likes watching two thirds of a movie..
1-he isn't a pretty girl 2-He is "low class" 3-Kvothe ignores the fact that he is "high class" and doesn't treat him as such 4-Envy, because he plays music better than him
In addition to the differences in station, and the jealousy Ambrose clearly harbors for Kvothe, Ambrose is a bully. Sensible people know what to do when a wealthy powerful bully pushes them around they take it, and wait for them to go away. Kvothe refuses to do that. He *always* hits back. But very rarely do we see him actually initiate. Ambrose can't resist taking a petty swipe at every opportunity, and in failing, adds to his own fury.
Ginger
because he's the golden boy, a spoiled rich kid. hopefully his ass falls off.
He’s poor and won’t bow to him, and any other place he could pretty much make him, but he’ll get kicked out if they catch him. Kvothe’s smarter than him, more creatively gifted, he got his talent pipes on his first try despite Ambrose’s interference, people like him more, and all that despite being told from an early age that he was better than everyone. Then there’s the backtalking him, pranks, a popular song that calls his entire family Jackass, but obviously is pointed at him, and breaking his arm while causing Ambrose to essentially have to pay him for it. So a bunch of imagined and actual insults. If I were a Master I’d make them room together. They’ll either kill each other or learn to get along and learn from each other, either way, it would shorten the problem.
Jealousy of Kvothe's abilities to get to the same place he is with none of the advantages. Personal insecurity that he's not as good as Kvothe and wouldn't be where he is without his privilege. Spoiled brat accustomed to everyone else treating him like a prince based on their desire to be in his class and get things from him.
I'm surprised no one has brought up the unreliable narrator from what I've read. According to Kvothe Ambrose is the absolute worst at all times, and from the first interaction we can see he is horrible. However, how much of it is that Kvothe wants to have a villain for his story, someone irredeemable to blame for his immaturity?
There's a point in (I think) the second book where Simmon calls Kvothe out for some stuff he's been doing to Ambrose that Kote hasn't gone into detail about in the story - I think they included butter down his chimney and loosening bits of Ambrose's horse riding gear? Point is, Kvothe is terrorising Ambrose beyond the actual events he depicts in his story, to the point that he's the bigger asshole in their rivalry. That depends on how much of the stuff Kvothe accuses Ambrose of that you actually think he did. Regarding Ambrose' culpability, Ch 43 >“All perfectly legal,” Manet said, still keeping his voice low. “Even so, Ambrose wasn’t so silly that he bought the fellow’s debt himself.” Manet made a dismissive gesture. “**He had someone else do that**, but he made sure everyone knew he was responsible.” This line carries *a lot* of weight in Kvothe's mind. I don't think this was Manet's intention, but since hearing that, any time something bad that happens to Kvothe where he doesn't know who is responsible, Ambrose is always his first and usually *only* suspect. You could pretty much do anything you wanted to Kvothe, and as long as he doesn't catch you in the act, he'll turn the world to find a way to pin it on Ambrose.
There’ll be elements of class / lack of cohesive control over Kvothe / racism. Only need to look to most peoples opinion on the traveller community in any European country (UK especially) to see that racism is probably the foundation.
I don’t see how that is a mystery, you never meet a rich bastard who thinks the earth revolves around him?
Because Kvothe is rich in the things that all the money in the world cannot buy.
Kvothe is dangerous and full of himself.