The Narrow Road Between Desires

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse.

Rothfuss examines the tension between freedom and obligation through Bast’s inner conflict. This theme connects to the novella’s title, as Bast walks the narrow road between his desire to be completely unbeholden to anyone and his desire to preserve his relationships with the other characters, particularly Kote. Bast’s Fae identity strongly impacts his experiences of liberty and obligation. Members of the faen folk are “ruled according to their own heart’s desires” (49), meaning that they usually indulge their longings for things like pleasure and revenge freely. However, Bast’s duty to his master requires him to act with unprecedented self-restraint:

He had never been in conflict with his own desire before this place. It used to be so easy. Want and have. See and take. Run and chase. Thirst and slake. Now everything was complicated. So much of what he longed for he could not pursue, and every day he felt more turned from his own true (53).

Bast’s struggle between freedom and obligation causes him to feel disconnected from himself and his desires, lending his character complexity and inner conflict.

The gift that binds Bast to Rike deepens the novella’s exploration of this theme.