Jump to content

Goodkind XXIV: Entertaining the Illiterate with Sweeping Epic Themes


ser jon stark

Recommended Posts

i've never read any of his book but from the responses on this board i don't think i will.

whats wrong with him?

it's seems as though he may have been popular but is now lower on peoples lists then even Robert Jordan.

what are his books about?

what went wrong?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mr. Goodking's work are the pinnacle of the genre- if it weren't for the fact that they're not fantasy, one would say that his books ARE the genre- in reality, however, his books are a deep cogitation on human themes and the nature of celery. The people who don't like his books are just too dumb to get them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You must understand that Goodkind doesn't write fantasy, and that's what makes him so great. Sure, there are dragons and wizards which keep misleading the least intellectually endowed among us into thinking they're reading fantasy, but they're wrong, since they lack moral celery/clarity. In Truth, Goodkind writes about deep, sophisticated, immensely challenging human themes, which means it isn't fantasy, for fantasy is mere childish and paper-thin fables about fairies and unicorns and worldbuilding. There is not a single work of fantasy that has even a plot, not to mention characters, or the most important of all, theme. As Goodkind's work has plot, characters, and theme, he most definitely cannot be fantasy. Goodkind is True Literature, and since he has dedicated himself into spreading knowledge of the Truth, he can also be classified into the noble subgrouping of Didactic Fiction.

Be warned, however that it may be that your feeble mind is too meager and corrupted to comphrehend the simple and obvious Truths engraved within The Sword of Truth, so that among other things you will not grasp the justness of punishment by gang-rape, the rich thematic implications of the heroine's constant almost-rape, the nobility of goats and the diabolical evil of chickens, or why democracy equals gang-rape in action so that therefore a fascist dictatorship is the only True form of government. In that case you know that you are and forever shall be nothing but a pathetic soul who wants to destroy Terry Goodkind's masterpieces because they are good and epitomes of the Truth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Goodkind is a god amongst men! Don't be fooled by nay sayers and lemmings of discord who merely follow each other blindly over cliffs. Goodkind is probably the single greatest author to ever live. Tolstoy, Dostoevski, Hugo, Cervantes, Hesse, Mann, Goethe; these men were mere pretenders compaired to Goodkind. But don't take my word for it, check out the 22 official threads dedicated to him and see for yourself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i've never read any of his book but from the responses on this board i don't think i will.

whats wrong with him?

it's seems as though he may have been popular but is now lower on peoples lists then even Robert Jordan.

what are his books about?

what went wrong?

Dude, there are 21 threads of 400 posts each detailing the wonder and horror that is Tairy Goodkind. None of the feeble posts on this mere stub of a thread can approach the reality of the situation.

Keep in mind that 99.632% of the posts are... somewhat less than complimentary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

well i kind of get that he was well like but i want to hear from the people that don't like him now about why they don't

I don't know if there was a mainstream shift in his popularity. He still has his fans, his next book will probably sell rather well, and he has his own forum - as in, really his, dissent is quashed.

But I can tell you why I think he's a terrible author. His prose is akward, his charactes are two dimensional yet are hailed as brilliant, his plots are full of magical contrivences that get solved by other magical contrivences, his characters fall weeping at speaches about banning fire, and there are obvious rip offs of other authors (notably Robert Jordan) that he dismisses by saying those who see the rip offs are "too young" to be reading his work.

Which brings us to Goodkind himself. He claims he never reads other fantasy while saying all fantasy other than his is crap, except those times when he's saying he's not actualy writing fantasy.

His books are infused with objectivism, a pseudo-philosophy usualy attributed to Ayn Rand. I never really got far enough into the books to get to the 10 or 20 page speaches delivered against strawmen characters made up ad hoc to lose the arguement to his protagonist, a spokesman of objectivism, but I'm told from my fellow lemmings of discord they become quite common in the series.

Oh, and once he had a character rip out the spine out of another character, who then got another swing at his opponent - you know, after having his spine ripped out.

For more info, just check out here, and the 20+ Goodkind threads. Join the fun :grouphug:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Goodkind is the High Priest of the Church of the Erect, Celerious, Life-Choosing, Jaw-Kicking, Non-Fantasy, Penners of Lore. All must bow down to his superior intellect and intimitdating masculinity. The many threads decrying Goodkind are mere byproducts our our questionable taste, limited intelligence, and yeard envy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a serious note, just so you don't actually start thinking you should read him to see what all the hype is about:

It is Goodkind himself that people object to most strongly. The man writes fantasy books, complete with wizards, dragons, magical artifacts, et cetera, yet claims he doesn't write fantasy because fantasy is a mere genre for weirdos while his work reaches beyond the bounds of such pettiness to speak for Truth. He believes Objectivism (the crappy philosophy that can't stand up to scrutiny) is the Truth. And his characters haven't changed at all over the course of nine/ten books, because their adherence to Objectivism makes them perfect already. The main character, Richard Rahl, is never wrong, even when he obviously is (like when he kicked a little girl in the face and nearly killed her---I'm still waiting for his apology), and he makes sermons, like actual preacher-ly sermons, about the philosophy to other characters.

People also object to the fact that his writing is rather juvenile. It's not complicated enough to be thought-provoking (which is what he's going for and fails at), there's a whole lotta gratuituous violence, mainly towards women. See Kahlan, the female lead: she's been almost-raped (but not actually raped, so she can continue to be nice and pure for Richard) I don't know how many times, and in the third book, women had their nipples cut off for an evil spell. The good characters are always right and always good and never make a mistake, and the bad characters are always bad and always wrong and everything they do is evil. Unfortunately, their motivations are a complete mystery: apparently they just like to be good/bad. You know, because it's fun and you get good laughs with your friends when you kill lots of people and try to unleash the Keeper of the Underworld on everyone.

That said, the earliest books (1-4, with the exception of number three) have some good ideas and decent storylines that with another author at the helm would have been pretty good. They're even worth reading if you're bored and have nothing better to read. Keep in mind that you're going to laugh at his actual prose skills while enjoying the plot to some extent. The sixth book, which nearly everyone here objects to, has some really wonderful themes, even if they're carried out in a ludicrous fashion.

So, to truly answer your question: what happened? He made some money and forgot what fiction was for. His head is too big for his spinal column to support at this point, which is probably why his writing has started sucking so badly: he's dictating to a computer that doesn't understand him because he can't move anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, i started to get the idea that it was more about him than his books, and i hate Ayn Rand so if he's anything like her i think i might pass up on his books. Besides theres only one man who can write fantasy well who doesn't have many fantasy elements to it and that Martin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reading these posts, it occurred to me that somebody in registration office probably misspelled guy's family name. It should be Godkind, rather than Goodkind.

Maybe he did it himself. He IS dyslexic after all.

Ser Jon:

I have little to add to the criticisms mentioned above, other than his storylines are nearly non-existent. Faith of the Fallen is exaclty like Stone of Tears, only with communism added in. Soul of the Fire and Chainfire have nothing to do with the main plot whatsoever, etc. etc. It's all just a milking cow for his objectivism, and an outlet for his masochism (the amount of rapes and violence in these books is rather disturbing, if you ask me. As is the author's apparent delight in cruelty).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

*In fetal position*

'Its happening again, it's happening again...'

I'd like everyone to know that I've placed an Irish curse on this thread. As such you will all now become incredibely wealthy and I will die of syphulis. Irish curses are just damn useless y'know.

OP, unless you want to read books so incredibely bad that people read them for the sole purpose of mocking them please God do NOT touch these. I only learned to walk again a few months back. It's been a long recovery.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, i started to get the idea that it was more about him than his books, and i hate Ayn Rand so if he's anything like her i think i might pass up on his books. Besides theres only one man who can write fantasy well who doesn't have many fantasy elements to it and that Martin.

Oh no, no no nonononononono. It's not just about him. Goodkind himself is like a bleach-filled cherry on a shit sundae - his over-the-top speechifying, delusional, laughable protestations of aspirations towards literature and desperate claims of writing something meaningful just makes it all the sweeter when you read the books. His books are trite, poorly-written derrivative puff-fantasy with approximately one novel idea per book. Said novel idea is then taken and twisted into a contrived plot device designed to extract maximum distateful sadism from characters and situations. His plot resolutions are almost invariably derrived from obscure pieces of magic that appear for the first time when the characters need to solve a problem. The wikipedia entry for deus ex machina should be his picture and no words. The man can't write, and when he does write, it's usually unnecessarily cruel, bloody and sexualized. See the namblesex scene for a primo example. Also, Inchoatus walks you through the first couple books with some tasty reviews and a really lovely essay pointing out what a fucktard he is. And as a final treat, his fans, his 'dedicated' fans, the ones that read the books for the 'meaningful philosophy' are disturbed, disturbingly psychotic yes-men, led by an abrasive dictatorial jackass who uses the cut and paste function to recycle the ad hominen attacks he pulls out to 'defend' Goodkind, whom he worships as the Return of the Annointed One.

So no, it's not just about Goodkind, it's also about his awful, awful books.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

eh, it's NOT about him. I couldn't care less if he fucked 15 goats - he's just a terrible terrible writer.

It's funny... I actually couldn't tell whether or not you were joking when I read your quote at the beginning of the thread. I am glad to see that you were.

I came to this thread with the intention of giving you a brief summary of why not to read Tairy's crapfest, but it seems like everybody here summarized it extremely well. I would also suggest that you click on the second link WLU posted and read the critical essays.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...