Right for the uneasy expression <| sep |> Many of these instances do suggest a disparity between present Kvothe and the Kvothe of the story I really don ' t want to give anything away here . Except that it ' s heavily implied that whatever ' s to come in book 3 is the reason Kvothe is so despondent in the present chapters . Without having knowledge of what ' s to come in the next book , there ' s no reason to think that the tonal difference between the past and present is due to Kvothe lying about his past . I think it ' s safe to assume that , from the way Bast idolizes Kvothe , the mythic Kvothe did exist to some degree , at least at the point that he met Bast , unless Bast is embellishing his own experiences as well .