I'm not necessarily expecting the Chandrian to show up and the inn and Kote mysteriously finding his inner Kvothe to beat them, then pull Denna out of Fae where she was trapped the last ten years and ride off into the sunset with her.
But I also don't think we can take the words of a broken-spirited in-world character on his future as realiable. And I'm not sure the narrator is offering a look into the future when describing Kothe as a man waiting to die, that's current Kvothe.
As to PR's "this is not the story you think it is": I'm excited to find out what he means by that. There's a ton of ways to subvert the readers expectations, "the hero does'nt always win" is not the only one. We're simply missing too much information still to make any guesses imo. (For all we know Chronicler may be the real hero of this story who saves the day in the end. Or is it the Denna-trilogy really, told from the perspective of the bad guy, she's tragically in love with? Or....)
I only recently found these books and I really love all the characters and Pat's language, the plot though? We don't really know all that much yet. But when I read through forums, it seems everyone is 100% convinced the books will end badly and we're just waiting to find out how badly, always citing the same few lines, that, imo are either unreliable or don't really give away information on the end of the story. Now if you could find me a line from the Chtae that proves Kvothe's fate... :)
I don't know what kind of author PR is, I just hope he doesn't feel trapped in the expectations of his readers and tells his story however he wants to, good ending or bad (or ambivalent), without considering the fandom and their theories :)
Lasty, if I start my book with "here's a man waiting to die" and then end it with "stil waiting to die", next one "back to the man waiting to die" etc. and then in the end of the story he just.... dies? Idk, doesn't seem right. It would be a true greek-style tragedy, if in the end he can't die, even though he wishes nothing more than that or if he has to chose between love and revenge for his parents and then has to live with it. And that may be what we're getting, but until then I also think it possible, that the tragic events that have been hinted at for book 3 may be the "dark valley" the hero has to go through and unexpectedly emerge from in the end after having given up already.
Sorry for the long rambling, I love these books and I can't discuss them with anyone irl :)