Patrick Rothfuss's "The Name of the Wind" was a remarkable work of fantasy when it came out in 2007.

It's the story of Kvothe, whose exploits have made him the subject of tales around every campfire, songs in every tavern across the land. But when we meet him, he seems to be a broken man, a shadow of his former self, living in hiding. The main body of the book consists of Kvothe narrating his life story to the King's Chronicler, over the course of three days. Most of "The Name of the Wind", then, consist of the first day of Kvothes narration.

It's an engaging book, constantly playing with stories within stories, with the nature of language, how meaning gets shifted and lost over the course of re-tellings. It's a book that rewards multiple readings. It's no wonder that it was an enormous success.

It's also has a narrative structure that practically promises a trilogy of books. And indeed, when he was promoting the original book in 2007, author Patrick Rothfuss promised that the remaining 2 books were already written, and would be published inside of a couple years.

That is not what happened.

Rather, after four excruciating years of revising, Rothfuss finally published the second book in his trilogy, "The Wise Man's Fear". Now, nine years later, no word has been heard of the third book, tentatively titled "The Doors of Stone"

I've got a pet theory. The book shall never be completed.

At the beginning of "The Name of the Wind", Kvothe compliments Chronicler on a previous work of his, "Mating habits of the common Draccus", a biological treatise on dragons. Chronicler replies

I set out to find a legend, and what I found instead was a lizard. An extraordinary lizard, but merely a lizard

Its a brief moment, but on a second reading I realized that its meant to be a metaphor for Kvothe himself, whose story Chronicler subsequently collects. He set out to find a legend, and instead what he finds is just a man: An extraordinary man, but merely a man

But the metaphor goes further. The climactic sequence of the book has Kvothe actually encountering a Draccus. The particular one he finds is gigantic, a living legend. However, it is brought low from its majesty because of a crippling addiction to Denner resin, a drug in this fantastic world which seems to have effects similar to methamphetamines. Its addiction drives it on a rampage, and Kvothe is only able to stop it with a scheme that... well, Kvothe knows the naturalistic explanation, but it appears to the townsfolk as if the dragon is directly struck down by God himself.

I suspect we have the key plot beats of "The Doors of Stone" foreshadowed right there.

Like the Draccus, Kvothe is meant to be a living legend, but with one, fatal, tragic flaw. As the Draccus was brought low by its addiction to Denner Resin, He will be brought low by his addiction to Denna, his sultry love interest. He will cause horrific destruction in pursuit of her, and then will eventually be struck down in a tussle with Tehlu himself (Who the book hints is not actually God, but a being of forgotten magic who people have come to equate with God).

That love between Kvothe and Denna is at the emotional center of the whole thing. It's meant to be an operatic tragedy, meant to move us with longing for what could have been. She's meant to be the Platonic form of the desirable woman: Beautiful beyond imagining, but just, always, out of reach.

But, that isn't the relationship that Rothfuss wrote.

Instead Denna comes off as a borderline personality, who treats Kvothe as the gay best friend she can always count on to help her bounce back from the lows of her tempestuous love life. Meanwhile, Kvothe dotes on her with the puppy love of nerdy teenager with his first crush.

At no point in the story was it romantic. But during the first book, when Kvothe really is an extraordinarily talented, nerdy teenager encountering women for the first time, it was at least queasily persuasive. In "The Wise Man's Fear", when Kvothe starts to mature, grows into his talents, and learns sexomancy from a primal lust goddess, it stopped even being believable.

Rothfuss appears to be consummate perfectionist, who revises his stories again and again for years until they feel just right. I suspect that he's written himself into a corner, and he knows it. The romance which seemed grandiose but tragically flawed when he started to write it more than 20 years ago now seems childish to his older self. It's a flaw at the core of the story that no amount of revising can fix. No matter how much he tinkers and rearranges, no matter how many scenes he adds or subtracts, he can never get his conclusion to feel emotionally satisfying.

Meanwhile, the greater literary world has moved on.

"The Name of the Wind" owes a great deal of its success to the perfect timing of its arrival. It appeared just as the kids who grew up on Harry Potter were entering college. Where Harry Potter is the story of life in a magical middle school and high school, "The Name of the Wind" smoothly picks up that baton to tell the story of a boy attending a magical college. "Wise Man's Fear" seemed to struggle desperately to have Kvothe's legend growing while keeping him in school for the entire length of the book.

The sheer number of pages devoted to the Magic University segments give me the impression that they were also Rothfuss's favorite parts to write. We might see a bit of art imitating life here, as Rothfuss was himself a perpetual student, who spent nine years working towards a bachelor's degree before he became a bestselling author. This is an approach which simply won't work for the final installment. The story requires Kvothe to DO amazing things, not just learn amazing things.

In short, with the wave of Harry Potter long past, the story no longer feels fresh and topical. A middle-aged Rothfuss no longer finds the romance at the core of the story compelling. And with the plot forced away from being a "Magical School" story, the piece of it he enjoyed most is over.

It is a story which will never be completed because it can't be completed, not in a way the author finds satisfying.