GOODKIND VI: THE PHANTOM MENACING

[Moosicus]

Uhm, do I understand that correctly? The wizards eat each other? And their taste is determined by their moral clarity or something? There's rampant cannibalism in TG's world? Holy ***, TG is one messed-up person.

They don't eat each other. If one of them uses his "wizards life fire" to kill himself, the taste afterward is determined by the wizards motive. If he kills himself for others then his remains taste sweet.

[14th Dragon]

There's rampant cannibalism in TG's world?

Yes, but not in this particular context.

I keep lobbying for a QoTD where Richard has Zed, Kahalan, and Anne eat the special jerky at his wedding. Made fresh from commie I mean Imperial troops. Mm...good eatin.

[BranTheBuilder]

How about a snippet from one of G--dK-nd's great battles for the next QOTD? :fence:

[Jerol]

His gift is his abilty to do magic. His thing is the combo of his swords inherent magic with his gift magic thus combining to form the all mightly thing.

That has to be the lamest set of terms ever used in any novel, let alone fantasy. Not alone is he lacking in the most rudimentary prose style but also in any sort of imagination. It's a good thing that he claims he's not writing fantasy because he then would be dragging down the image of far better authors with him. We should be glad that TG (blessed be his name) does not count himself as a kindred spirit with Martin, Erikson, Bakker, China M, Tolkien, Wolfe, Leiber, Jordan etc.

The prose is truly insipid, not even up to the YA level. He makes JK Rowling look like Fritz Leiber. Hell, he makes Beverly Cleary look like Gene Wolfe.

[14th Dragon]

Hey, you want lame terms.

Try to figure out his definitions of sorcer and wizard. It is painful in the extreme.

Oh, also the gift comes in two flavors.

Additive, which is the abilty to add stuff together

and

Subtractive, the abilty to make stuff go away.

Somehow instead of cancelling each other out when used in conjuction, adding and subtracting at the same time results in immense power. Go figure. :shrug: More so even if you have no idea what you are doing. (War Wizard Status)

[Moosicus]

I keep lobbying for a QoTD where Richard has Zed, Kahalan, and Anne eat the special jerky at his wedding. Made fresh from commie I mean Imperial troops. Mm...good eatin.

I could probably do that one. At least its short.

How about a snippet from one of G--dK-nd's great battles for the next QOTD? :fence:

I think there's a good one in Chainfire that I'll probably get to sooner or later.

Hey, you want lame terms.

Try to figure out his definitions of sorcer and wizard. It is painful in the extreme.

Oh, also the gift comes in two flavors.

Additive, which is the abilty to add stuff together

and

Subtractive, the abilty to make stuff go away.

Somehow instead of cancelling each other out when used in conjuction, adding and subtracting at the same time results in immense power. Go figure. :shrug: More so even if you have no idea what you are doing. (War Wizard Status)

But wizards and sorcerers do cancel each other out.

[Watcher]

and also caused the Sword of Truth's power to fail me. I was doing it to myself."

Richard had violated the Wizard’s First Rule by believing a lie – that it was always wrong to kill

<snip>

What the hell is this a commercial break? The voice of god? I wanted to whip my head around to look for the announcer.

This section is just incredibly disjointed this section is.

If I ever teach English this is going to be exhibit A on, Terraprime’s theory about telling a story vs. explaining a story. (Actually I use the entire passage)

–In the end, he had fulfilled the Eighth Rule.

Back to the regularly schedule program

Richard shifted his weight to the other foot as he gazed at the faces watching him. “I had to come to understand that my actions are moral and need no balance,

My belief on this whole thing is that TG (BBHN) at first thought not eating meat was a bit like Superman’s kryptonite. Then he realized it wasn’t something real men do, so he wrote this torturous passage to get Richard to be a red-blooded American again.

Wow, TTL17, it constantly amazes me how good of a writer GRRM is, thanks for sharing that leak!

[BranTheBuilder]

I think there's a good one in Chainfire that I'll probably get to sooner or later.

Woot - I'm looking forward to it!

[Enguerrand]

Rationalising genocide? Murder, on any scale, is entirely justified, so long as Richard doesn't like the people he's killing? So, if you live anywhere near Goodkind, I'd be worried. In his mind he can go around and kill any of us, because we don't agree with his beliefs. Remember that he said we hate that good exists in the world. So according to his objectivism, he's entitled to come and kill every single one of us on this thread.

Objectivists can kill anyone they want! Objectivists cut off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this objectivist who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the objectivist killed the whole town. And that's what I call REAL morale clarity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't believe that Objectivist have REAL morale clarity you better get a life right now or they will chop your head off!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.

[14th Dragon]

But wizards and sorcerers do cancel each other out.

Which is highly convient. Allows them to pass each other in the hall while never suspecting anything about the other. Though Richard does have the power to look at a guy and know if he has any sort of magical abilty. So there is that.

[Moosicus]

Well, being the Seeker has its advantages. He just instinctively knows stuff about everybody. And chickens.

[BranTheBuilder]

He just instinctively knows stuff about everybody. And chickens.

that's icky! :sick:

[Tagot]

They don't eat each other. If one of them uses his "wizards life fire" to kill himself, the taste afterward is determined by the wizards motive. If he kills himself for others then his remains taste sweet.

That reminds me... I thought that a basic principle of Objectivism (according to Goodkind) is that one's own life and pursuit of life are more important than the lives of others, and one should never allow oneself to make a sacrifice without getting something in return. Doesn't self-sacrifice contradict this?

[niamh]

I have realised there is something called Naked empire before Chainfire. No wonder it didn't make sense to me

I can't remember where the dang battle is, but I found this quick résumé of what the soviets Order is about, to enlighten you heathens on true freedom:

Men milling about outside saw him stepping out of the small house and rushed in from all around. These men were not soldiers, in the strict sense. They were wagon drivers, millers, carpenters, stonemasons, farmers, and merchants who had struggled their whole life under the repressive rule of the Order, trying to eke out a living and support their families.

For most of these working people, life in the Old World meant living in constant fear. Anyone who dared to speak out against the ways of the Order was swiftly arrested, charged with sedition, and executed. There was a steady stream of charges and arrests, whether true or not. Such swift "justice" kept people in fear and in line.

Continual indoctrination, especially of the young, produced a significant segment of the population who fanatically believed in the ways of the Order. From birth, children were taught that thinking for themselves was wrong and that fervent faith in selfless sacrifice for the greater good was the only means to an afterlife of glory in the Creator's light, and the only way to avoid an eternity in the dark depths of the underworld in the merciless hands of the Keeper. Any other way of thinking was evil.

The properly devout were only too eager to see things remain as they were. The promise of riches to be shared with the common people kept the ever-pious supporters of the Order perpetually waiting for their quota of the blood of others, waiting to share in the loot of the wicked, who, they were taught, were their selfish oppressors and therefore sinners who deserved their fate.

From the ranks of the righteous came a flood of young men volunteering into the army, eager to be part of the noble struggle to crush the nonbelievers, to punish the wicked, to confiscate ill-gotten gains. The sanction of the plunder, the free rein of brutality, and the widespread rape of the unconverted bred a particularly vicious, and virulent, kind of zealotry. It had spawned an army of savages.

Such was the nature of the Imperial Order soldiers who had poured into the New World and now rampaged nearly unchecked across Richard and Kahlan's homeland.

The world stood at the brink of a very dark age.

It was this very threat that Ann believed Richard had been born to fight. She and many others believed it was foretold that if free people were to have a chance to survive this great battle, have a chance to triumph, it would only be if Richard led them.

These men before him saw through the empty ideas and corrupt promises of the Order, saw it for what it was: tyranny. They had decided to take back their lives. That made them warriors in the struggle for freedom.

A surprised upwelling of shouted greetings and cries of delight broke the early-morning stillness. As they gathered in close, the men all talked at once, asking if he was well and how he felt. Their sincere concern touched him. Despite his sense of urgency, Richard forced himself to smile and clasp arms with men he knew from the city of Altur'Rang. This was more the kind of reunion they had been hoping for.

Besides having worked beside many of these men and having become acquainted with others, Richard knew that he was also a symbol of liberty to them, the Lord Rahl from the New World, the Lord Rahl from a land where men were free. He had shown them that such things were possible for them, too, and given them a vision of the way their lives could be.

To his own mind, Richard saw himself as the same woods guide he had always been-even if he had been named the Seeker and now led the D'Haran Empire. While he had gone through many trying times since leaving home, he was really the same person with the same beliefs. Where he had once stood up to bullies, he now had to face armies. While the scale was different, the principles were the same.

But right then, all he cared about was finding Kahlan. Without her, the rest of the world-life itself-didn't seem very important to him.

Most of it is unwittingly pretty ironic

[Brys]

Why is it that quotes like this make me think most libertarians are closet autocrats who want the individual right to rule over us all in the marketplace of political power, free of government intrusion into their actualizing of the nobility of the human spirit through their right to the free expression of the creation of a murderous fascist cult of personality?

You know I used to consider myself a libertarian. Then I realised that what most people used the word "libertarian" for was actually something almost the opposite of what I believed. Libertarianism actually seems to involve complete freedom only for the dictators, though economic liberalism for everyone else, while what I believe is in social libertarianism (freedom in all social choices for people - civil liberties, toleration, killing cannot be justified etc) but with a role for the state economically. Which seems to be the exact opposite of Goodkind's libertarianism, which seems much closer to facism, but without the socialist elements.

Somehow instead of cancelling each other out when used in conjuction, adding and subtracting at the same time results in immense power. Go figure. :shrug: More so even if you have no idea what you are doing. (War Wizard Status)

Goodkind's dyslexic isn't he? He also complained a lot about his school - I assume he never learnt the difference between adding and subtracting.

Doesn't anyone else think that the Order is incredibly similar to Richard's empire. I didn't really see any distinguishing features - repressive, kill everyone who disagrees, lots of propaganda, justifying it all by claiming how terrible the others are. Sounds like Richard to me.

[Moshe Goldberg Rubinshteyn]

Somehow instead of cancelling each other out when used in conjuction, adding and subtracting at the same time results in immense power. Go figure. :shrug: More so even if you have no idea what you are doing. (War Wizard Status)

So, it's like dividing by zero? Such as in '+' + '-' = '/0'?

Mmh G*dk*nd (BBHE, WLHHTO) not only revolutionizes philosophy and literature, he also does math at the same time!

[Zadok]

You know I used to consider myself a libertarian. Then I realised that what most people used the word "libertarian" for was actually something almost the opposite of what I believed. Libertarianism actually seems to involve complete freedom only for the dictators, though economic liberalism for everyone else, while what I believe is in social libertarianism (freedom in all social choices for people - civil liberties, toleration, killing cannot be justified etc) but with a role for the state economically. Which seems to be the exact opposite of Goodkind's libertarianism, which seems much closer to facism, but without the socialist elements.

Goodkind's dyslexic isn't he? He also complained a lot about his school - I assume he never learnt the difference between adding and subtracting.

You're going to run into this problem with most any political affiliation you can think of. The terms and ideas like "freedom" and "justice" are so nebulous that a person could twist them to mean whatever best served their purpose. For example in the US a "republican" might be a strong support of states rights, the constitution, and not want a whole lot to do with the federal government. Or it could mean a Bush-loving, war-supporting, mini American flag on the car, "Go Team USA!" type of person.

[The Wolf Maid]

Now don't be going around and insulting bad hentai by lowering it to Goodkind's level. At least hentai is honest about being mysognistic.

True. Well, apologies to hentai, then.

Therein lay the fundamental purpose behind the sword’s essential, indispensable requirement for rage. Rage blunted the horror of killing, stripped away the natural reluctance to kill, leaving only its naked necessity if there was to be true justice

This absolutely the stupidest thing I've ever read. How can it be true justice when you act in a rage? Justice requires rational thought. Without rational thought, you'd just be going beserk and going on a killing rampage.

I couldn't bear reading the other quote, I didn't understand a damn thing they were discussing (about balance and all-what does food have to do with it? If you're a SoTand magic wielder, you can't eat certain stuff? You have to be a vegetarian or something?)

And it was too sickening how Richard was justifying his killings as being okay, because he's moral and they're not. WTF.

[Werthead]

Met Scott Bakker today. Cool dude. Inevitably, the discussion turned to Goodkind. Scott is not a fan. I was interested to learn that Ayn Rand and Objectivism are not taught on many philosophy courses or discussed in many textbooks on the field and that both are regarded as something of a joke. However, I always thought Objectivism was a Big Deal, at least in the US? I know that as a concept it is limited to the US (I'd never even heard of it before in the UK), so it is possible Scott was merely talking about Canada's take on Rand (maybe this leads into the whole Goodkind 'Canada is a Commie, freedom-hating state where you can be shot at dawn for criticising the government' thesis?).

[Xray the Enforcer]

Inevitably, the discussion turned to Goodkind.

Because, you know, one can never have a discussion about books, religion, meat, statues, chickens or rising things without mentioning Goodkind.