GOODKIND VII, The sword of truthiness

[MinDonner]

You know what, I'm so very glad that Mr Goodkind (BBHN) is such a bigoted arsehole. If he wasn't, I'd feel pretty bad about ripping the piss out of him to this extent, but as it is, frankly it's fair game.

Today's fanfic to follow later, probably.

[Eurytus]

I was interested to see the Seagal as Rahl suggestion a page or two back. The Seagal of 10-15 years ago would have been perfect. Just the right blend of self importance and psychosis to pull it off. Anyone who has seen the ending of Out For Justice (or indeed most of his films) will be aware of the fact that Seagal is no stranger to tormenting completely outmatched foes. In many respects he resembles Jason Voorhees with a cause. But now he is likely to be too old. Unless of course a CGI Seagal could be used.

A cast iron guarantee of suckiness could be had if you cast Ben Affleck and J-Lo as Rahl and Kahlan. Not only do both have an impressive resume of disgracefully bad films under their belts but if Gigli is anything to go by, when combined their awfulness goes supernova.

Alternatively Jean Claude Van Damme is self important enough and terrible enough at acting to pull it off. Plus it would be interesting to see where he shoehorns in the splits he gets into every single movie he stars in.

[Agulla]

You know, with all this talk about a SOT movie I keep thinking about the reaction of the movie industry executives when they actually read Terry Goodkind books (or have them read by someone from their staff).

Movie Honcho 1: "All right, next point. Have you read the part when he kicks that little girl, Violet, in the face?"

Movie Honcho 2: "Yes, my PR assistant says that we should tone that part down".

Movie Honcho 3: "I agree, I've been told that [insert actor's name here] was very upset when he read about this, he said that a scene like this would be poison for his career".

Movie Honcho 2: "My PR assistand suggested me to make some changes in the story. Violet must be grown up".

Movie Honcho 1: "Yes a grown up, fat and ugly maybe?"

Movie Honcho 2: "Better if she is beautiful and slim, polls indicate that the public is more used to violence done on young women, posing as teenagers in slasher movies".

Movie Honcho 3: "Your PR assistant has told you this, right?"

Movie Honcho 2: "Yes, she is good, I detect a hint of envy in your words".

Movie Honcho 3: "I could have used her advice in that adaptation The Vellum".

Movie Honchos 1,2,3 laugh as they remember that disaster.

Movie Honcho 1: "It's decided then, we leave Richard speeches for the five hour long Director's cut DVD. We cut off that silly part about outlawing fire, and Violet is a woman, not a little girl.

Movie Honcho 2: "All right".

Movie Honcho 3: "It's ok with me".

Movie Honcho 1: "Now for the part of the peace protestors. They cannot be peace protestors".

Movie Honcho 3: "Never".

Movie Honcho 2: "My PR assistant tells me that they must not be protestors after all. Killing peace protestors would have certain appeal in some states but we would lose most of our public".

Movie Honcho 1: "What do you suggest?"

Movie Honcho 2: "My PR assistant suggested me an army of heavy armoured CG orcs. After LotR the public is used to them as "the enemy".

Movie Honcho 3: "[instert actor's name here] would like this, provided he kills more orcs than Aragorn and Legolas put together. He would look good"

Movie Honcho 1: "There are no orcs in SOT"

Movie Honcho 3: "Who cares, they are cheap to make now, we could use that old WETA software".

Movie Honcho 1: "It's decided then. Who is explaining Terry all these changes?"

Movie Honcho 2: "My PR assistant"

[MinDonner]

OK, instead of a pastiche today, I'm honouring the fact that I've now finished Stone of Tears by providing a plot synopsis, so no-one else has to read it. If you actually want to subject yourself to this torture, then please look away now.

Some boxes of evil were opened in the previous book by Darken Rahl, which has breached the veil to the underworld. A screeling escapes and kills lots of people. Zedd (an old wizard) destroys it, then finds the Stone of Tears, which is a source of evil. He gives this to Rachel (a small girl) and sends her off somewhere with Chase (a man with lots of weapons).

Cut to a faraway place where the Sisters of the Light live. There is a prophecy that Kahlan will have to be executed to save the world. Some Sisters of the Dark are secretly murdering wizards and stealing their power, using a tacky pewter figurine. They also have sex with nambles. :sick:

Richard and Kahlan have gone back to the village of the mud people. Richard has headaches. They prepare to get married. Some Sisters of the Light turn up and say Richard will have to come away to be trained, or his headaches will kill him. They want to put a collar on him for some contrived reason but Richard refuses, because he had to wear a collar while being tortured by the Mord Sith (and presumably Princess Violet). Richard also does the Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves thing with arrows, and also grabs arrows out of the air before they hit him.

Shota turns up and tells Richard he has torn the veil (oops); Richard thinks it will be a good idea to contact the spirits and find out how to fix it. Unfortunately, Darken Rahl (dead) shows up and tries to kill Richard, but Denna (dead) also appears and saves him. Denna also tells Kahlan that she has to force Richard to wear the collar or he will die.

The Sisters of the Light return. Kahlan has a huge hissy fit and makes Richard wear the collar. Richard is upset about this for several hundred pages. Richard and Sister Verna head off into the wilds. Kahlan recruits some mud people to help her find Zedd and attempt to save the world. Richard meets Gratch.

Zedd goes to find Adie, who says things like "That be the one you be wanting" - Adie knows stuff about fixing the veil, but they are attacked by a skrin who injures Adie. Zedd tries to heal her and contracts the infection, which stops them from using magic. They disguise themselves as merchants and try to find some sorceresses who can heal them.

Kahlan finds a city that has been sacked by the Imperial Order; several pages of atrocities are described. She catches up with a small army that want to attack the IO and tries to persuade them to stop, but then realises that they are doing the right thing. She enters the enemy camp under a flag of truce and murders their wizard; strangely, she is not then captured and tortured to death, but returns to her small army and comes up with that cunning whitewash plan. The IO forces are defeated, and Kahlan narrowly escapes rape twice.

Richard and Sister Verna travel through a magic barrier to the Old World. On the other side of the barrier, some savages want them to sacrifice a captive, but Richard pretends the spirits have spoken to him and persuades them to stop sacrificing people. The rescued girl (Du Chaillu) then summons her own tribe who try to kill Richard. Richard defeats them all with the power of the sword, and it turns out that this was only a test to see if he was the true saviour or something. Du Chaillu then claims Richard as her husband and the new leader of the tribe.

Richard arrives at the sisters' temple, fails to discover his power, yawn yawn, has to chase Gratch away, discovers that Kahlan is prophesied to be executed in a few weeks and also the world will end at about the same time, oh no! The Sisters of the Dark try to kill him and then they head off on a boat, Richard goes off on a horse and breaks the magic barrier, turning it into a green and pleasant land where Du Chaillu and her tribe can go and live. He meets Chase & Rachel and it turns out that the Stone of Tears is actually not evil any more because Zedd cried on it. He then summons Scarlet the Friendly Dragon and flies off to save the world.

Meanwhile, Kahlan goes back to the Midlands HQ and tries to get everyone to go to war against the IO. Unfortunately, they have already managed to infiltrate the council quite thoroughly. Someone pisses on Kahlan's bed in front of her, then she is accused of murder and thrown into a dungeon (see the Kahlan Is A Whore QotD). She escapes by using her Power, then finds Zedd, who has been cured of his illness but has lost his memory. The shock of hearing Kahlan's news about Richard and the Sisters of the Light restores his memory, and he decides that Kahlan deserves to be executed after all for sending Richard away.

Richard's dragon is shot down by the minions of Darken Rahl, but with the aid of the Mord Sith he manages to close the evil box and save the world. But, it's too late to save Kahlan! Despite this, he kills several horses by riding them into the ground on his way back to Aydindril (Midlands HQ). He finds that Kahlan was beheaded 2 weeks previously, but then he finds a clue that tells him that she's actually alive after all, it was just a trick by Zedd to make everyone think she was dead. Some spirits transport him and Kahlan to a spirit world where they finally get it on.

The End.

[theMountainGoat]

Good work Agulla. I imagine the honchos as being the guys from the Orange adverts (non UK folks are unlikely to get this reference -sorry).

Wow Min, thanks for the recap. I had forgotten how good that book is. I must go and read it again immediately.

[Sad King Billy]

Oh. My. God. I'd forgotten about, well, everything you said. And I wish I could reforget them. Damn you, Damn, damn, damn...

:sick::sick:

[Slick Mongoose]

She enters the enemy camp under a flag of truce and murders their wizard

You must be joking.

Good work Agulla. I imagine the honchos as being the guys from the Orange adverts (non UK folks are unlikely to get this reference -sorry).

Aha, me too.

Movie Honcho1: How about he wields the phone of truth?

Movie Honcho2: Yeah. And he could be aided by the sisters of orange.

[Zadok]

what's the deal with Zedd and the "bags" stuff? is this just nonsense that he says or is there some kind of hidden meaning?

[Moosicus]

what's the deal with Zedd and the "bags" stuff? is this just nonsense that he says or is there some kind of hidden meaning?

"Bags" is what passes for an obscenity in Terryland (AynRandLand?) as Zedd is always being told to stop saying it when there are children around.

[Slick Mongoose]

What word do they use for, umm... bags?

[14th Dragon]

What word do they use for, umm... bags?

Thing. Have you not been paying attention. It is like the smurfs, thing is the universal placeholder for any sort of noun.

"Hey, could you hand me that thing, with the things that I can carry things in."

See how simple it is?

[Zadok]

What word do they use for, umm... bags?

Revealing that would be world building, and render Goodkind's novels mere fantasy. I'll give him this, "bags" is slightly less lame then "frack" on Battlestar Galactica.

[Plessiez]

Does anyone else find it odd that Goodkind seemingly has no problems with graphic descriptions of rape and torture but doesn't want to warp the minds of his readers by using nasty words?

[MinDonner]

My favourite bit of inappropriate censorship was in the video of Apocalypse Now I rented in Japan. Near the end, they are going down the river and there are dismembered corpses lying around and hanging from trees. The censors saw fit to put a bit of blurry pixelation over the naughty bits of one of the corpses! Yeah, you can look at severed limbs, but heaven forbid you should get a look at a willy!

[The Wolf Maid]

Does anyone else find it odd that Goodkind seemingly has no problems with graphic descriptions of rape and torture but doesn't want to warp the minds of his readers by using nasty words?

...We all have to draw the line somewhere, even Goodkind.

And yes, it is very, very odd. But then, this is TG.

MinDonner, that was just hilarious. I've never read the book, and thanks to your summary, I don't intend to, ever. The bit about Kahlan murdering someone under truce just made me go WTF!

Agulla, you just . Violet as a teenager...perhaps Rachel McAdams from Mean Girls or Paris Hilton. I could so see Paris Hilton being kicked in the face.

[Zadok]

If I had to guess I'd say that Fizban Zedd is supposed to be Goodkind's intentional comic relief. From what I've heard he's pretty much the doddering old wizard all the way. I don't think the Yeard's artistic integrity or moral clarity would allow him to self-censor himself.

[theMountainGoat]

Inspired by the last QotD, a brief fanfic/parody for your entertainment:

Imperial General: "What is best in life?"

Jagang: "To crush your enemies balls, to see their testicles eaten by your followers, and to hear the lamentations of their women as they get shafted by broom handles."

The same question put to Richard:

Kelton General: "What is best in life?"

Richard: "To crush little girls jawbones with a good sharp kick for to do so is an affirmation of life and to do otherwise is to seek death which is morally wrong, (2) to see them all bow down before you and recite the ritualist worship of me for to do so not only protects them from the Dreamwalker but can allow my fellow objectivists to have a spiritual moment of white light even though it is raining and it is totally not because I get off on the hero worship, no shut up it's true, (3) and to hear the lamentations of their women as they cry out at the nobility of the human spirit which is the purest nobility there is, except for goats of course which are almost as equal in nobility, (4) and also to destroy chickens who are not chickens for they are evil incarnate . . . ."

<snip snip 20 more pages snip snip>

Richard: ". . . only morally right thing to do you see, (235) and another thing . . ."

Kelton General: "He really won't shut the fuck up will he? I think I'd rather be on the side which has bollocks rammed down the mouth than through the ears. I'm out of here!"

[Moosicus]

My favourite bit of inappropriate censorship was in the video of Apocalypse Now I rented in Japan. Near the end, they are going down the river and there are dismembered corpses lying around and hanging from trees. The censors saw fit to put a bit of blurry pixelation over the naughty bits of one of the corpses! Yeah, you can look at severed limbs, but heaven forbid you should get a look at a willy!

Obscenity laws in Japan are very odd. Japanese pornography will show graphic (and truly horrific and convincing) depictions of rape, but they have to blur out pubic hair.

[The Wolf Maid]

Kelton General: "He really won't shut the fuck up will he? I think I'd rather be on the side which has bollocks rammed down the mouth than through the ears. I'm out of here!"

Wait for me, I'll join you shortly.

Obscenity laws in Japan are very odd. Japanese pornography will show graphic (and truly horrific and convincing) depictions of rape, but they have to blur out pubic hair.

It is indeed. I think that's 'consession' to viewer sensibilities, or something...

[MinDonner]

Strangely, the nastiest and most horrific porn available in Japan is the stuff written (& drawn) by women for the housewife market. Not that I made a study of it or anything.

Funny old place.