Goodkind XX: Pitying the Guilty

[PhelanArcetus]

Damnit. Forgot that. I'll just assume that's Goodkind's fantasy of still getting laid when he's old.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Adie is referred to at least 10 times as a "handsome woman".

[The Real Will]

Adie is referred to at least 10 times as a "handsome woman".

I suspect that handsomeness gets you a goodish bit of justice in a Goodkind world... but nothing buys moral immunity like bra sizes.

[rado907]

There was a Seinfeld episode about this. The waitresses in a restaurant all had big boobs, and Elayne was angry about that, but in the end it turned out the girls were all the daughters of the proprietor.

Maybe the Mord-Sith really are Dicky's daughters or sisters?

[Jaxom 1974]

There was a Seinfeld episode about this. The waitresses in a restaurant all had big boobs, and Elayne was angry about that, but in the end it turned out the girls were all the daughters of the proprietor.

Maybe the Mord-Sith really are Dicky's daughters or sisters?

Now there's a ret-con I'd like to see!

[whelp]

Maybe not true Mord-Sith, but still...inspiring

[rado907]

Maybe not true Mord-Sith, but still...inspiring

This picture is yeardtastic.

[Antonius Pius]

Also they tried to seduce him by screwing his brother. Seriously, explain that logic to me. I've understood trying to make someone jealous so that they acknowledge or make a move... but this doesn't fit at all.

Is it just me, or does Tairy go out of his way to create unlikely situations in order to indulge his own fantasies? Seriously, how often does Cara come running by buck-naked? How is it evil always attacks when she's taking a bath?

What Goodkind and/or the fans seem to want is not justice, but just vengeance. Not even Hammurabi's "eye for an eye" justice, which, while not just by my definition, was at least a consistent, codified set of rules, but just arbitrary vengeance, often exceeding the crime in violence, conducted in whatever manner the author / characters feels like.

Aye, there's more justice to Hammurabi than there ever was to Tairy's day-dreaming... You've put your finger on it exactly: Tairy's (and Ol' Dicks) idea of justice is simple arbotriry vengeance. Every perceived slight must apparently be punished to the extreme.

There's a known punishment for a given crime, and also there's an apparent presence of people whose job it is to find criminals and make sure they are punished according to the law.

With Tairy it's even worse: Richard himself is the source of all justice. Same with his "policies": they're right because they're his. Which sets up this great juxtaposition (a word Tairy loves) between making your own choices and following the great leader. How can you do both? Ol' Dick 'll kill you if you against him. "But seriously, make your own choice: follow me or die, but don't follow me because I say so. No seriously!"

Oh it is not. That's a bald faced lie. Nicci was rehabilited 100%, and the Mord Sith almost never torture people anymore. Almost, 71% of the time, absolutely no torture, and I think we can all agree that the clear line between good and evil is a 62% torture rate.

You are forgetting the inherent 18% torture-rate of Empire-builing. You can't set up en empire without torturing at least 18% of the people (an advisor of Baldric Rahl [an earlier Lord Rahl] by the name of Floggorilicin [called Floggy by certain scholars] actually suggested 22%). Those 18% have to be tacked on to your more high-brow average of 62%. Seriously.

Meh, I say no mercy.

Tairy seems to agree with you.

[WLU]

Actually, I think the Facebook thing may have died - or at least the Goodkind side seem to have stopped posting in that thread - and I have a sinking feeling that it was me who broke it. For some reason, 3000 word arguments have a tendancy to take away people enthusiasm for a debate.

That's pretty amusing when you consider how much we make fun of Richard for his far-too-long oratory.

Of course, it could also have been your use of logic rather than emotional appeals.

Other than destroying a lot of other things, this lack of codification and consistency in punishment also destroys one of the foundations of the criminal justice systems I'm aware of. Effective deterrence. There's a known punishment for a given crime, and also there's an apparent presence of people whose job it is to find criminals and make sure they are punished according to the law. And add in the idea of rehabilitation, which is definitely ignored...

My limited understanding of things is that the punishment is almost irrelevant in the decision-making process of most criminals. The idea of prison may work, and it may deter already-law abiding citizens, but for lifetime criminals prison almost certainly not an effective deterrant. Now, I have to sources, but trust me. If the wikipedia page doesn't say so, it will very shortly

In my mind, and I've got nothing to back this up, you hit on the good reason for set penalties earlier - so we can't unfairly persecute individuals, instead we have a standard based on the crime.

My congratulations to you all on your 20th thread of Yeardlyness.

Why're we pirates? I'd rather be a ninja, but I gave mine to Will.

Is it just me, or does Tairy go out of his way to create unlikely situations in order to indulge his own fantasies?

The thrust of all my arguments criticizing the series is based on that assertion

Can we get a posting of any reasonable discussion that occurred over on facebook? Is it worthwhile? Myself, I'd like to see Will's ninja-prose in action

[The Real Will]

You are forgetting the inherent 18% torture-rate of Empire-builing. You can't set up en empire without torturing at least 18% of the people (an advisor of Baldric Rahl [an earlier Lord Rahl] by the name of Floggorilicin [called Floggy by certain scholars] actually suggested 22%). Those 18% have to be tacked on to your more high-brow average of 62%. Seriously.

So, you are suggesting that we need to take a base, background level of torture, which will natural exist in any efficiently run empire, as our zero point. If we accept the conventional figure of 18% and allow for 62% of additional personal torture per citizen (presumably one could write off charitable donations and other morality-based activities which would help to counter-act the states overall torture burden) then, for strictly personal purposes (presumably business related torture would be tabulated differently and may be added back into the gross personal torture at a slightly reduced rate where applicable), torturing up to and including 80% of all persons met would bring you to the Significant Moral Divide (or SMD). As the Morde Sith, with a 71% non-torture rate (29% torture rate), which in reality translates to only 27 Gross Whole Tortures per Hundred, are well below the SMD they are reasonably safe. In addition to this, as we have established that a bust size much above C would certainly significantly reduce their Net Inclusive Torture Index by as much as 47% we can see that even at her peak under Daken Rahl, when her GWT was as high 92 per hundred Cara's DD cup would still have brought her safely back to around 68% (adjusted for inflation) and really only 64 Net Whole Torture per Hundred. Not really even close to the SMD, although it may have got her flagged for auditing.

[Antonius Pius]

So, you are suggesting....

Yes, you've got it. Your moral celery is working fine!

[The Real Will]

Myself, I'd like to see Will's ninja-prose in action

Well, I won't post the whole thing here unless people really want it since it's longer than it should be and not even remotely amusing (I can occasionally spot a good time to employ tact). But I will share one pleasant surprise I've had. One pro-Terry poster over there summerised my entire post thusly:

"Your main grievance is that Goodkind creates situations in which normal morally incongruent acts, are made acceptable by the unbelievable situation, and as such they are not applicable to real life."

Now while I didn't say it was my main grievance, it was the grievance I was arguing at the time, and to give the guy his due, he's actually summerised it accurately and succinctly. Of course he doesn't agree with me, but at least the summary is fair.

If you want the whole post I'll put it here. But I warn you that there is no talk of tabulating bust sizes in it anywhere... This may actually be a relief to some people.

[WLU]

Well, I won't post the whole thing here unless people really want it since it's longer than it should be and not even remotely amusing (I can occasionally spot a good time to employ tact). But I will share one pleasant surprise I've had. One pro-Terry poster over there summarised my entire post thusly:

"Your main grievance is that Goodkind creates situations in which normal morally incongruent acts, are made acceptable by the unbelievable situation, and as such they are not applicable to real life."

Now while I didn't say it was my main grievance, it was the grievance I was arguing at the time, and to give the guy his due, he's actually summerised it accurately and succinctly. Of course he doesn't agree with me, but at least the summary is fair.

That is a good summary. I'm impressed, that summarizes a lot of my objections to the series. What was their follow-up, in on sentence or less? Who was it? Can we invite them over here?

Summary has 1 'a' and no 'e'. Grasshopper argumentation ninja, though spelling still need work

If you want the whole post I'll put it here. But I warn you that there is no talk of tabulating bust sizes in it anywhere... This may actually be a relief to some people.

Yeah, at least it hasn't reverted to a discussion of gang rape, but I will admit that the bust to morality ratio discussion was giving me a headache. I mean, you can only take so much visualization before you need pictures. Naked pictures. Sweaty pictures.

[Mad Monkey]

Are the pictures themselves are sweaty, or are the people being photographed in them sweaty?

Actually, in Goodkind's case, it doesn't really matter.

[PhelanArcetus]

I don't mind pictures of sweaty naked chicks... but sweaty pictures of naked chicks? That one is a bit weird. And hard to accomplish for me, seeing as how I'm used to jpgs, not 8 x 10 glossies. How does a jpg become sweaty?

For some reason I've found myself thinking about justice and crime deterrence a lot recently. Probably these threads. As I see it, there are three parts to deterrence. The first is an attempt to instill a particular system of morality (the one on which the definition of what a crime is is based on) in the people as they grow. So we know (or believe) that killing is wrong and don't do it because of that. (To some, that includes eternal damnation as a punishment, to others just our own conscience.) Second, a penalty is defined for each crime. If you do X, you will suffer Y when caught. And third, promoting the belief that a criminal will be caught and punished.

Deterrence obviously doesn't work on everybody, but I think those three elements are what lead to the people who don't commit crimes (but might consider doing so) to not commit them.

I am impressed that, despite a spelling error or two, an accurate, coherent, and even somewhat eloquent summary was produced. It's something. At least we can say that one of the issues is described adequately by the other side. Maybe we can get to that point with various other issues as well.

Aren't we all zombie ninja pirates riding mechanical dinosaurs with laser eye beams? Except wait... I'm more of a samurai pirate.

[Moosicus]

One of the more absurd quotes from the facebook discussion regarding the hippies: (said in all seriousness, apparently) "They weren't unarmed, they were armed with very dangerous ideas."

I think I may need to review that part of the book, just to refresh my memory of how well those "dangerous ideas" fared against Big Dick's magic sword. "Be careful Dick, they've got really dangerous ideas. Do you think your magic sword and powerful rage will be able to take on all these pacifists and their dangerous ideas?"

edit: Fuck me sideways! people are so fucking stupid. :mad:

[The Wolf Maid]

...never has peace seemed more threatening than it was then, when Richard Rahl confronted these communist hippies with his magical sword.

....God, that thing was so fucking stupid. I remember being in a demonstration once for an article for a journ class, and when we drifted out to where the police were, with their sticks and shields, one of them asked, smiling, "Hey, aren't you the one's we're going to disperse [rather violently] later?"

Richard would have been proud.

[AverageGuy]

Is it just me, or does Tairy go out of his way to create unlikely situations in order to indulge his own fantasies? Seriously, how often does Cara come running by buck-naked? How is it evil always attacks when she's taking a bath?

It's not indulging in fantasy, it's exploiting his audience.

[Mad Monkey]

Richard would have been proud.

Nah. The copper should have killed you, your classmates, your family, innocent bystanders, people in the surrounding neighborhoods, random stray animals, and then made their ears into a stylish decorative necklace. And after that, he should have raped your corpses.

Otherwise, he'd be a commie Death-chooser.

[The Real Will]

That is a good summary. I'm impressed, that summarizes a lot of my objections to the series. What was their follow-up, in on sentence or less? Who was it? Can we invite them over here?

I am not strong in the ways of summation, so I thought I'd post the response in its entirity - it's not too long. To give some cnotext. I was basically arguing at sammarised above, basically that Goodkind's arguments are not presented fairly. The example of choice was the peace protest, and I did mistakenly claim that the protesters and the people who poisoned Richard were one and the same. The raply was as follows:

"OK I’m back. First of all I would like to take your post piecewise, so that I don't get confused.. And so you will actually read it. Your main grievance is that Goodkind creates situations in which normal morally incongruent acts, are made acceptable by the unbelievable situation, and as such they are not applicable to real life.

"I would first like to say that in this type of FANTASY book, many of these situations are created through elements of reality which do not exist in our reality, such as Kahlan's Confessors power. For this reason, it is difficult to have a situation mired in moral ambiguity simply because it is a new concept to all of us. Take for example Wizard's First Rule, when Kahlan commands Demin Nass (a creepy pedophile/murderer) to eat his own testicles. At first it might seem that this is morally unjustified since he no longer is who he once was. But upon closer inspection and understanding of the Confessors power, it is apparent any chance of acquiescence to Kahlan's demands, would give him unsurpassed joy. In fact, Goodkind makes it clear, that men have died out of sorrow for not being commanded, through their yearning to please the confessor. So it would seem then that the punishment he was given was for our benefit.

"Secondly, the scenario you paint about the protestors is slightly incorrect. Richard did indeed know that those protestors had NOTHING to do with his poisoning, and had previously given a speech about how, during the liberation, fellow villagers would side with the order, and that they must be killed so that they will be unable to resort to violence later, or spread the orders ideals.

"I think the appeal of these books to most of us is exactly the opposite of what you think. It is Richard’s ability to seek out moral clarity when confronted with moral ambiguity that appeals to me."

So, there it is. Again, be nice. As you can see. I didn't kill the debate. My powers of hyper-extended post making are not quite so... powerful. As to inviting them over, there seemed to be very little reaction to Min's first invitation. I'm not sure if a follow up would get us anywhere or not.