Goodkind XXVII: Welcome to the Yeard Reich

[Jaxom 1974]

A horrible thought occurred to me. What will we ever do when Tairy stops writing? How will we survive when there are no more jaw-kicking, spine-removing O-ist Dicks to mock? I need a drink and I haven't even looked at the words of the Yeard today.

Well, first of all, TG's work will endure, but just not for the reasons he, or his minions, think they will. There are a lot more lemmings out there than his O'ists and there's also the huge (Bigger than TG O'ists and lemmings put together) group of people who simply read TG for the escapist fantasy works they believe his books to be. That's not the legacy I think he's looking for. Poor guy.

Second, he'll never stop writing. He'll say Confessor is the last Book of Rahl, but he'll be back. They always come back.

[From that One Book]

Personally, I think it's a parody. I seem to remember seeing that before in the threads, but I don't recall where. :idea:

Add my vote to the parody camp. Although the piece is fairly subtle, I think the person who wrote it spends a little too much time emphasizing the fact that SoT isn't fantasy for it to be Tairy. Also, I doubt Tairy would have responded that quickly to what is, for all intents and purposes, a small argument in a distant corner of the internet he purports to never visit.

That said, I'm sure his response, were he actually to wade through the McCalmont ("but it's full of big words and I don't read good!") post, would read rather similarly.

Edited August 29, 2007 by From that One Book

[Agulla]

Yes, of course, it's a parody. In fact this is my third parody about Terry Goodkind discussing important matters. :P The fist one had been about that M. John Harrison controversy about World building vs. style, the second was about what Terry Goodkind thoughts of advanced reader copies.

I wanted to add something to that "Conservative Fantasy" controversy but then realized that most of the things that I wanted to say had already been said by people who could explain them better than me. It was then when I decided to channel the Yeard.

Edited August 29, 2007 by Agulla

[Ecchi-Oni]

Agulla that parody is good enough and true to the material to nominate you for the Prophet of the Yeard title in the Lemming Church of Discord.

[whelp]

Agulla that parody is good enough and true to the material to nominate you for the Prophet of the Yeard title in the Lemming Church of Discord.

Seconded.

Agulla, be careful: channeling too much of The Yeard's power can fry your remaining brain cells :)

Edited August 29, 2007 by whelp

[The Pita]

He obviously does not have brain cells if he can emulate the Yeard so perfectly.

Don't choose death, whelp.

[The Wolf Maid]

I knew it.

:cheers: for you, Aqulla.

[The Pita]

He doesn't need it... he's brain wiped anyway.

WHY DON'T PEOPLE LISTEN TO ME?

except on the TG.net boards where Mystar is hating me and the rest is just disliking and reading.

[whelp]

He obviously does not have brain cells if he can emulate the Yeard so perfectly.

Don't choose death, whelp.

Hey, I can choose death if I want to! If you want to hold me back, then you are just a pinko commie lemming, who might very well be a peace protestor as well! Don't make me rip out your spine!

ETA: Actually, I think I'll rip out your spine just because I feel like it :D

Edited August 29, 2007 by whelp

[Agulla]

Channelling the Yeard is something risky. There are dangers involved, dangers that should not be taken lightly. Because of this a special mental training is needed before and during the process of linking your mind to the most celerous brain of all. It takes long years of meditation in the secret psionic arts known only by the Inner Circle of the Order of the Ninja Lemming to attempt a direct channelling with the Yeard Itself.

I'll summarize this process in ten easy steps for your enlightment. Be careful; do not try this at home.

1. Cleanse your mind of any disturbing thought.

2. Partition your mind in order to keep the useful parts safe. You must dedicate just two neurons to channel the Yeard the rest are to be kept in the other partition.

3. Enter a trance through repeating endlessly the first sentence of Debt of Bones in your mind like a mantra: "What do you got in the sack, dearie? What do you got in the sack, dearie? What do you got in the sack, dearie? What do you got in the sack, dearie? What do you got in the sack, dearie? What do you got in the sack, dearie? What do you got in the sack, dearie? What do you got in the sack, dearie?..."

4. Sooner or later your guide spirit will appear, it will take the form of a noble goat. Make no mistake you should never follow it if it looks like a namble or a chicken. Follow the noble goat.

5. In front of you a coffin shaped door will appear. You must open it and then the link with the Yeard will have been achieved.

6. To break the channel you must intone the descending mantra. "Eiraed, kcas eht ni tog uoy od tahw. Eiraed, kcas eht ni tog uoy od tahw. Eiraed, kcas eht ni tog uoy od tahw. Eiraed, kcas eht ni tog uoy od tahw. Eiraed, kcas eht ni tog uoy od tahw. Eiraed, kcas eht ni tog uoy od tahw. Eiraed, kcas eht ni tog uoy od tahw. Eiraed, kcas eht ni tog uoy od tahw..." This weirdo cultural diversity jibber jabber is the safer way to sever the link.

7. Drink some whisky or other alcoholic beverage (The Mad Moose Method) to destroy the two neurons used in the process. You wouldn't want them with you, really, even if they were still alive.

8. Read carefully what you have been writing automatically when you were linked with the Yeard. If it's a plenty of spelling mistakes you may better disregard this message: it's not from the Yeard but from someone close to Him, it's a near miss but useless anyway.

9. Cleanse yourself reading some good speculative fiction. Free online e-books and stories should be recommended because they are rich in Altruism.

10. Post the message in case its from the Yeard.

Now please, would you kindly bow to my superior wisdom? :smug:

Thanks.

[word]

Hey, I can choose death if I want to!

This made me think of safety dance for some reason. You can dance if you want to, you can leave your friends behind...

Agulla, be careful: channeling too much of The Yeard's power can fry your remaining brain cells

To replenish those brain cells, just drink a copious amount of alcohol.

A horrible thought occurred to me. What will we ever do when Tairy stops writing?

First, as funny as these threads are and as much as they help me get through my day at work, it would NOT be horrible if Tairy stopped writing. It would in fact be the complete opposite. As for Tairy stopping writing, he will not stop as long as there are still books to be copied.

He'll say Confessor is the last Book of Rahl, but he'll be back

I don't even think he said its the last book of Rahl, I think just the end of this specific series. Pretty sure he plans on doing something else in the same..."world"...for lack of a better term.

While you are right, you fail to follow me blindly, and that makes you a death chooser.

Yes because following blindly = choose life, working together = choose death, as set down by the Yeard in the Book of Rahl, chapter 8, verse 16.

I very much doubt that Terry Goodkind (who apparently doesn't visit the internet) would use 'palp' so soon after Mystar mocked Jordan for it.

Well I mean the copyright dates of Stone of Tears and The Dragon Reborn are only 4 years apart, so who knows how long he would wait.

[Muttering Bill]

except on the TG.net boards where Mystar is hating me and the rest is just disliking and reading.

That's what happens when he loses an argument. "You just don't get it!" is his faithful old standby. Come to think of it, that usually his argument beforehand as well. I really must commend him on how many ways he can come up with to say the same thing.

But enough of that.

I can always appreciate Agulla's parodies, mostly because they are so out of sync with what the rest of us come up with. That said, this one wasn't quite as believable as previous efforts. Too much emphasis on SoT not being fantasy. It was funny all to same, but the last one stirred up a little frenzy of Lemmings thinking it was real. Of course, maybe it wasn't as convincing because we know your tactics now. Regardless... :cheers:

First, as funny as these threads are and as much as they help me get through my day at work, it would NOT be horrible if Tairy stopped writing. It would in fact be the complete opposite. As for Tairy stopping writing, he will not stop as long as there are still books to be copied.

:lol:

I don't even think he said its the last book of Rahl, I think just the end of this specific series. Pretty sure he plans on doing something else in the same..."world"...for lack of a better term.

As I've stated before, my bet is on him exploring the Confessor/Wizard son that Dick and Klan were supposed to have. I figure, that's why he put an end to it in this series; just to save it for later.

But as to that, I have a serious question to anybody whose read all of these books. I've only read the series up through FotF. At that point there was a certain hopelessness to the cause. The Old World is many times bigger, can gather a greater army, and will inevitably roll over the New World for it's sheer unrelenting size.

Here I started thinking that maybe he'd finish the series with the defeat of the New World, and pick up a second series with a revolution. Of course, at the same time, he seems to already have started a revolt. So my question, finally, is this still a plausible case? Or will the revolution tie up this series leaving the sequel series, posibly, to my original assumptions?

(Oh no! I'm in danger of spoiling the later books for myself. :/ )

Edited August 29, 2007 by Muttering Bill

[word]

As I've stated before, my bet is on him exploring the Confessor/Wizard son that Dick and Klan were supposed to have.

Anybody want to place bets on what the Confessor/WarWizard combo in a son in Tairy's books will do? My guess is that it will turn him into an uber sex machine that women are unable to resist and throw themselves at. So basically like father like son.

Here I started thinking that maybe he'd finish the series with the defeat of the New World, and pick up a second series with a revolution. Of course, at the same time, he seems to already have started a revolt. So my question, finally, is this still a plausible case? Or will the revolution tie up this series leaving the sequel series, posibly, to my original assumptions?

The revolution is still going on in Naked Empire etc, but then in Phantom Richard orders all their armies to go into the Old World and just kill everybody (women, children, old people) and to torture all the priests (...). So I'm not really sure what the state of the Old World is right now, probably like 1/5 revolution, 1/5 destroyed by Dicko and 3/5 to either join the revolution or destroyed by Dicko. The revolution will probably end with the series, as its against the Old World, and the chances of Richard not winning are like 1 in a million. Deus Ex Machina takes care of Richard like its his baby brother.

[MinDonner]

I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with... S! Yes, it's another Speech by Our Yearded Master, and I don't think it has yet been pillioried. The link is here, and it's a corker. Handily written in life-choosing easy-to-read of-course-it's-still-1998 centre alignment with white words on black text, it contains gems such as:

"Take a beautiful painting like the cover of Faith of the Fallen - this painting of a sculpture of two people. A painting of such people does not show volition; the act of painting them does, because when you choose to paint the best life can be, you are acting of volition.

When an "artist" presents you with a non-objective painting, or story, what he is proclaiming is that there is nothing objective upon which to base anything."

"Non-objective art is a rejection of reality, of thinking, and instead attempts to set non-thinking as the standard. Non- thinking is eating poison mushrooms. When an artist presents you with a non-objective view of life, whether painted or written, when he abdicates his responsibility to think, he is rejecting life itself. He is embracing death. And asking you to do the same."

Enjoy!

[Muttering Bill]

Anybody want to place bets on what the Confessor/WarWizard combo in a son in Tairy's books will do? My guess is that it will turn him into an uber sex machine that women are unable to resist and throw themselves at. So basically like father like son.

Except that it's not actually Dick's son at all... but half confessor/half Gar! :stunned:

I'll bet that he has twins - just like Rand.

(EDIT - and thank you for the explanation, word.)

"Take a beautiful painting like the cover of Faith of the Fallen - this painting of a sculpture of two people. A painting of such people does not show volition; the act of painting them does, because when you choose to paint the best life can be, you are acting of volition.

When an "artist" presents you with a non-objective painting, or story, what he is proclaiming is that there is nothing objective upon which to base anything."

Where I don't know Keith Parkinsons motivations, my guess is that he painted that for the paycheck. He took the scene that Tairy asked him to paint, and painted it. That he happens to be a talented artist has nothing to do with Tairy's 'objectivity.'

Edited August 29, 2007 by Muttering Bill

[Deornoth]

Second, he'll never stop writing. He'll say Confessor is the last Book of Rahl, but he'll be back. They always come back.

But who will he plagiarise once Jordan stops writing?

Min - I would love to say how much I enjoyed the speech but I found myself laughing so hard at all the stuff he was saying (about how his body language was important but you can't see it) that, well... I chose death and stopped reading. I don't think I'm old enough mentally to really appreciate the great things that he is saying :rolleyes:

[From that One Book]

Some thoughts from the speech:

Ayn Rand said, " Art is a selective recreation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments." What this means is that an artist, whether he intends it or not, betrays his philosophy. His values are going to come out in what he does.

Huh. Who knew that Jonathan McCalmont was an objectivist?

Ultimately, your life is all you have to give toward values, so how much of your life you choose to give determines the value of something.

Actually a rather depressing thought. How much time have I wasted reading SoT books? Somehow I don't think that specific example was what he had in mind.

When I write a book, it's unconditionally the best book I can write. You can decide for yourself if it's worthwhile to you or not. What you can't argue is whether or not I put in my best effort. You may judge my best effort to be insufficient for your time, but the thing you are not entitled to judge is whether or not I've done my best, because I know I have.

This doesn't seem to jive with a lot of the Objectivist literature I've read. Ayn Rand was a firm believer in a piece of art being objectively good or objectively bad. She had no patience for artists who produced inferior art but maintained that the piece of art was "the best they could do." I think towards the end of her life, one of the things that disgusted her most with Western culture was its embrace, at least in her eyes, of a "everyone's okay" mentality. Some people simply can't perform on the same level as their "superiors." Those people can find ways to express their individuality, but if they produce inferior art and hide behind the shield of "I tried my best," they are choosing a non-objectivist ethos. I feel like Tairy's trying to have his cake and eat it too: "My books are objectively good! But even if they're not, I tried my best!"

[Jaxom 1974]

Anybody want to place bets on what the Confessor/WarWizard combo in a son in Tairy's books will do? My guess is that it will turn him into an uber sex machine that women are unable to resist and throw themselves at. So basically like father like son.

Kinda like Rocky? Who'll play Frankenfurter?

I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with... S! Yes, it's another Speech by Our Yearded Master, and I don't think it has yet been pillioried. The link is here, and it's a corker. Handily written in life-choosing easy-to-read of-course-it's-still-1998 centre alignment with white words on black text, it contains gems such as:

Question: In the first book, the night wisp told Richard "tell the other night wisps my name, Shar, and they will help you." Is that ever going to happen in one of the future books?

Answer: Maybe. (Laughter.) I don't mean to evade your question; it's an honest question. I intend to give you the best answer I can give you, which is to say that, at this moment, I don't have a clue as to what the next book is about because I've devoted myself entirely to writing Faith of the Fallen. This is the way I write each book. I don't think about what's down the line because I'm thinking about this individual book. I have to work on the plot, the structure, the characters and the integration of all the themes into this one book. That's a very difficult task. It's fun, but it's hard work. So, I don't think about what's on down the line. I don't know if Richard is going to say Shar's name in another book. That's the first part of the answer.

The second part of the answer is that even if I did know, I couldn't tell you. (Laughter) Not because I'm trying to be evasive, but because the act f writing is a very personal dramatic undertaking. If I tell people things, t takes the fire out of that act of creation. When you're writing, you call upon your subconscious to give you the information you need to complete consciously directed goal. That may sound complex but you do it all the time, for instance, when you say to yourself, what's my phone number? Your phone number is stored in your subconscious mind. You don't think about it until you consciously need the phone number, then you call it into your conscious mind.

It's good to see he kept his answers short and to the point.

Edited August 29, 2007 by Jaxom 1974

[From that One Book]

Let me clarify my terms, here. When we write, we naturally build a world for our characters, and this isn't at all what I'm talking about in this context. I'm here using the term world building to mean books that are driven by the details of the world, in which characters are only incidental. These books are measured by, and appreciated for, the complexity and details of the world, not the characters. They also lack the fundamental requirement of a good novel: a coherent plot. The story is incidental.

And yet ASOIAF manages to have extraordinary world building, great characters and spectacular plot. Huh.

World-building to me is no better than holding up the drug dealer as an ideal because it is holding up as a normative value a world in which humans do not exercise volition, but instead is a history lesson of when this person was born 300 years ago and had 12 daughters with unpronounceable names who had offspring who went on to have this and that convoluted history, which may be entertaining, but is not a novel.

Wow. I don’t think I even need to respond to this.

In the manuscript of Wizard's First Rule, which is twice as long as the book because it's double-spaced, there's a little tiny bitty torture scene with a woman named Denna, which lasts 70 pages. (Laughter) When my editor first saw this, he said, "Well, Terry, this is way too much and we need to cut down the explicit torture and violence."

The reason he said this is because I was successful in accomplishing my goal, and my goal was not to write about torture. My goal was to write about the true nature of abuse. The true nature of abuse is not violence or torture. What I was doing in that scene was showing you graphically the true nature, the true terror, of abuse.

This should have been his editor’s first clue that he should RUN FOR HIS LIFE AND HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THESE BOOKS!

Question: In the first book, the night wisp told Richard "tell the other night wisps my name, Shar, and they will help you." Is that ever going to happen in one of the future books?

Answer: Maybe. (Laughter.) I don't mean to evade your question; it's an honest question. I intend to give you the best answer I can give you, which is to say that, at this moment, I don't have a clue as to what the next book is about because I've devoted myself entirely to writing Faith of the Fallen. This is the way I write each book. I don't think about what's down the line because I'm thinking about this individual book. I have to work on the plot, the structure, the characters and the integration of all the themes into this one book. That's a very difficult task. It's fun, but it's hard work. So, I don't think about what's on down the line. I don't know if Richard is going to say Shar's name in another book. That's the first part of the answer.

I guess this explains why the series lacks internal consistency. Then again, I’m sure he would say that internal consistency is the same as world-building - unnecessary for novels about the nobility of the human spirit.

Question: In Stone of Tears, there was a scene after Richard had been captured where he destroyed the bits of Sister Verna's horses because he felt they were too harsh. To me that seemed symbolic of what would later happen with the Rada'Han and how they controlled boys by force. Were you writing that scene with the horses' bits, thinking about what would happen later? Or was that something that developed as you wrote it?

Answer: I wrote that with clear, conscious forethought and intent. Symbolism, to be effective, must be legible. If I write something symbolic and no one gets it, then it's pointless. That scene was symbolic, showing Richard's feelings about control and the collar. It symbolized the larger theme of control. You understood it perfectly well.

At least he admits that he isn’t subtle. MY NAME IS TAIRY. I WILL BEAT YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH THE STICK OF SYMBOLISM. On a related note, I can’t believe the person had to even ask if that was supposed to be symbolic.

[Jaxom 1974]

On a related note, I can’t believe the person had to even ask if that was supposed to be symbolic.

Despite claims by some to the contrary, most true TG fans are unable to think for themselves. That's why what TG writes speaks to them so totally.

Dontcha know that? :P