Goodkind 51: Kahl Scratch Fever

[Souran]

There are people who say that the "Star Wars" movies are really about the rise, fall and redemption of Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker.

Going all the way back to the first book, people compared narative elements of "The Sword of Truth" to "Star Wars." Whats extremely sad is that Richard ends as a less heroic person than DARTH VADER. Thats remarkablly hard to do, further when you consider that they both Characters are motivated basically by the desire to shape the universe into the mold of their own design Richard and Darth get to be even more similar.

Sadly, as you have expressed, Terry thinks Richard is the height of true nobility and heroism when he has become EVERYTHING he ever fought against.

At this point I am not sure you can say that Richard is more heroic than KELLHUS. That is something that probably makes both author's livid.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Tormunds own reviews of the "chainfire trilogy" reveal that all this stuff about the book of counted shadows being a fake and the sword of truth being God's phallis actually originates at the end of the "1st series" where Richard used the Boxes of Orden.

Yeah, I didn't review those. I didn't even read the last book in SoT.

Other than that, fantastic stuff. I might let you do the summaries from now on.

[Datepalm]

Souran, I couldn't get through the whole of that post, and yet it still made me want to cry.

[Souran]

Yeah, I didn't review those. I didn't even read the last book in SoT.

Other than that, fantastic stuff. I might let you do the summaries from now on.

Why? What did I ever do to you? I don't think its fair for you to just haul off and treaten me like that when all I did was post a tiny important-human-theme related correction!

I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I own hardback (mostly first editoin first printings) of every one of his....not-fantasy-novels up to the conlusion of of the "1st sequence." Do we know what the Yeardites call the first 12 books now? However, I have not read the last three of them myself (only skimmed them some, read online etc) I actually had an outline for my complete rewrite of "faith of the fallen" sothat it wouldn't be so much like Ayn Rands "anthem"

I know a lot of people find Terry to be a joke because of his bombastic tone in interviews and the medocrity of his writting. What I find humerous about him is his objectivist claptrap. I sometimes wonder if Terry isn't actually a machine designed to combine dragonlance novels with sections of atlas shrugged.

As a way of compromise Tormund, when Terry writes his "Not-Sci-Fi techno human theme thriller" where "Randchard Rhal develops a machine to leap into the past and save John Galt and take him into a fantasic future where the two of them set out to stop all the almost-rapists/defiantly communist alien forces from destroying the galatic freedom bank and abolishing personal property" I promise to review that.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

I actually had an outline for my complete rewrite of "faith of the fallen" sothat it wouldn't be so much like Ayn Rands "anthem"

This needs to be posted here. Immediately. This is not negotiable.

[Souran]

Sorry Tormund, this outline is long last to the winds of digital history. I put it together while reading the "faith" in 2000 when I was still in high school. Actually, I had read "anthem" the semester before Terry put out FOTF and so when I read it had bad flashbacks to having to write an essay about anthems take on human individuality. The computer on which this mystical text was written is barried in a landfill somewhere most certiantly.

I do remember that I made the header of the outline read "RICHARD WILL NOT BE KIDNAPPED AND ENSLAVED BY A WOMAN WHO WANTS TO SLEEP WITH HIM EVER AGIAN."

I guess that even as a 16 year old boy I understood that "captured by a beautiful woman and forced to be her plaything" appearing once in a book series is kinda kinky, twice means that the author has a fetish, and three times means that the author draws their inspiriation from the the hustler letters to the editor.

You will never convince me that Faith of the Fallen does not begin "I never thought this would happen to me but..."

[Arthmail]

So Richard is the new anti-hero? Taken in a different concept, it is too bad that Tairy didn't actually produce a sequence of books where the hero starts out fine but ends up being the person he killed. It would have been literary genius of the highest order.

But the namble-cock says no.

[Souran]

So Richard is the new anti-hero? Taken in a different concept, it is too bad that Tairy didn't actually produce a sequence of books where the hero starts out fine but ends up being the person he killed. It would have been literary genius of the highest order.

But the namble-cock says no.

I completely agree. Richard is not an anti-hero. He is an a jerk and an every other vile thing you can think of. Some people think that is like an anti-hero. It just means he is a horrible person.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

I completely agree. Richard is not an anti-hero. He is an a jerk and an every other vile thing you can think of. Some people think that is like an anti-hero. It just means he is a horrible person.

The fact that he is the author's masturbatory self image is yet more disturbing.

[Grack21]

I read the first 12 Sot books. I am not proud. I THOUGHT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY.

I mean his grand plan for rescuing whats her face in the end is to JOIN A FOOTBALL TEAM.

[Antonius Pius]

Why? What did I ever do to you? I don't think its fair for you to just haul off and treaten me like that when all I did was post a tiny important-human-theme related correction!

Now now, there's no relativism in important human themes, so you can't bow out now.

I read the first 12 Sot books. I am not proud. I THOUGHT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY.

I mean his grand plan for rescuing whats her face in the end is to JOIN A FOOTBALL TEAM.

Not to mention Nicci's method of approaching Jagang unopposed, when she takes it upon herself to rid the world of Jagang when Richard is chasing after Kahlan.

[Exa Inova]

Souran, great analysis.

Ill recommend it to part of the 'Lemming Compendium of the Ways of the Yeard'.

Many thread ago we (did we dare hope?) came to the same sad conclusion. The Yeard would have been a f*cking genius if he was able to pull a 'The Wave' on us Lemmings. Alas.

One word of criticism though; Panis Rahl is not the preferred nomenclature. 'Penis Rahl', please.

[Souran]

I just want to let everyone know, once again that one of my primary reasons for dislike of the SOT novels is that they are filled with objectivist "street-philosophy."

Objectivism for those who do not know is the philosophy developed by Ayn Rand whose core tennant is "rational self interest." A belief that all people can and should work solely towards their own ends with no moral/ethical/encomonic considerations of others. Unfortunatly, the applied version of her philosophy can be best expressed by Gordon Gecko's famous statement "Greed is Good." After her death her followers had a philisophical split over the nature of objectivism. There where those who followed one Mr. Leonard Perkoff who might be said to be the Orthodox Objectivist movement. While one David Kelley tried to bring the philosphy in line with other 20th century philosphies.

Ayn Rand was not just a philospher though. For those who know little of this she actually began as a novelist writting a half dozen novels and novellas about individuals who triumph over socieity. It is not hard to see how throughouly terry was influenced by Ayn Rand. Her own novels are somewhat known for the following elements:

A: A tendency towards long, pointed speaches often as the climax of the novel.

B: A somwhat bizzare set of character interactions

C: Scenes where sex is used as a weapon or where sex is a way for characters to dominate each other.

These elements are clearly strongly tied to Mr. Goodkinds work. I have been informed by Mr. Goodkinds previous forum master that Mr. Goodkind is part of the "Orthodox" objectivist camp.

For those interested I cannot reccomend any site more highly than Greg Nyquist's "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature" which addresses the issues with objectisim.

Now, I provided that background for this reason.

I belive it is time we did a higher oder analysis of Mr. Goodkinds works, his literary influences, and take a good long death-choosing look at his human themes.

I will begin:

TOPIC 1: RATIONALITY, LOGIC, AND RELIGION IN THE SOT NOT-FANTASY NOVELS

One of the most essential tenneants of objectivism is reason. Richard talks about making use of reason extensively. He demands that people use their reason to rise up and live their own lives. Richard shows how reaonable he is on numerous occuasions. In "Wizard's First Rule" shortly after he is captured he very reasonably kicks the petulant princess in the jaw so hard she severs her tongue. Clearly the action of a man who is able to think his way out of any situation. Later, at the end of Soul of the fire Richard decides that nobody in the world is worth saving and that all the people who are counting on his leadership against the armies of the old world should learn to be more thankful for his reaonsableness. Clearly this is his ONLY reasonable course of action. Further, it soldies him as one of the Great Objectivist characters becasue he independantly of reading atlas shrugged figures out that the only way to get people to realize how important the most important person in the world is for that person to "go Galt." However, probably the best example of Richard demonstrating his objectivist reasoning skills is in Faith of the Fallen. In that novel he is commisioned to build a statue for his foes. He builds a statue of such beauty that it stuns the crowd and makes them reconsider their entire belief system. He then destroys it because they are not worthy of his artistic vision. While you may think that destroying a life altering statue is not reasonable, Ayn Rand actually provides precedent for this as well.

In "The Fountainhead" Howard Roarke destoys a building that was based on his designs but that did not fullfill his artistic intent (instead it was adjusted so that it would sell the most copies and make the most money which is clearly NOT capitalist). He is put on trial where he gives a speach detailing the reaonsableness of destroying a building that he didn't own because it didn't meet his artistic standards (and if memory serves me correctly mr. roarke then proceeds to murder the jury and start a revolution just like Richard).

So we know that our heroes are the epitome of being reasonable. However, what about Richards enemeies. Well we know that they are unrasonable because the heroes tell us that they are unreasonable. One thing to clarify is that there is a distinct difference between acts of evil and acts that are unreasonable. A character may perform an unreasonable act because they are unreasonable but all evil acts of themselves do not say anything. Fortunatly Mr. Goodkind gives us numerous examples to prove that his villiians are not just immoral cartoon strawmen, but actually people whose unreasonable actions are the source of their vile philsophy. For instance remember that time when Darken Rhal did that unreasonable thing? Or Maybe the time Jagang did that other thing. Just as Star Trek has proven that Warf is the best warrior in the galaxy, unbeatable in physical combat, so too does Terry make sure we understand that his villians are not just using cobra commanders playbook but actually people whose thought process is skewed so as to be able to think in an effective way.

One might think that as a consequence of all this reasonableness that the SOT world would be extremely logical and fact driven. However, this would be a terrible missunderstanding of SOT, Objecvisim and Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand famously did not think that there were any health risks to smoking, that women shouldn't be president, and that resonable people would never disagree. This is actually an area where Terry exceeds the work Rand and his works show the next step of that kind of influence. For instance, Richard famously spurns the role of prophesy through the series. This is extremely illigocal because time and again it is shown that Richard's choice of action fulfills the prophesy in a way that fullfills all the technical requirements while still turning out fine for himself. Further, it is a demonstrated FACT that any prophet can acess prophesies and demonstrate how the transcribed text is in error and give him a clearer view of the situation. However, Richard continually tells prophesy to suck it.

However, while there are other in-novel examples to give I think its important that we step back and examine the series as readers. See, Mr. Goodkind understands that logic and fact are things that are always changing, and so he does not bind himself to the consistance of presentation that a fantasy author or even comic book writer does. The first thing to consider are Richard's dietary restricitons. In the earlier books Richard is unable to eat meat because of all the violence he has to do. This is shown to be in line with the sort of Crazy restrictions that all the other wizards have. For instance Zedd cannot "substract" anything from existance and he is always hungry. Later on these restrictions are removed from Richard because Richard is awesome. They are not removed from Zedd using the same logic because F Zedd. Also note that these restrictions and important ancilary details never effect ANY OTHER WIZARD SHOWN because.

The elements of reason and Fact is in the way characters in SOT novels express their spitual side.

See, throughout all 12 books of the first sequence, characters repeadetly talk to Ghosts, travel to and through parts of the underworld, fake death, be dead, comminicate with "the keeper" and otherwise interact with the supernatural and "post-living" realm. For Characters in the SOT world the after-life is a matter of FACT, and not BELIEF. However, by the later novels of the series all the charcaters are, by and large, athiests. This is, of course, only right and proper when you consider that Ayn Rand was herself an athiest. This is the truely where Terry shines. To be reasonable cannot mean somthing else in a fantasy world than in reality because then that would mean that the important human themes of your not-fantasy-novel are not 100% directly applicable. This would be crazy talk because reason is an absolute. Therefore, the characters in Terry's world do not believe in a divine being or have an active spiritual life even though they converse with spirits on a regular basis and in "stone of tears" went up against a malevolent evil force that controls the souls of the dead.

In this way we can see that through the sword of truth novels terry has managed to write convincingly of the power of reason as the core value of peoples lives in his SOT novels.

[Sci-2]

great stuff, one caveat:

Just as Star Trek has proven that Warf is the best warrior in the galaxy, unbeatable in physical combat,

Actually, what DS9 showed with Warf vs. Jem Hedar was:

"Enough. I cannot defeat this man [Warf]. Only kill him."

[Jaxom 1974]

Objectivism for those who do not know is the philosophy developed by Ayn Rand whose core tennant is "rational self interest." A belief that all people can and should work solely towards their own ends with no moral/ethical/encomonic considerations of others.

That's all good stuff...but on this fact, this is the 51st Goodkind thread...the core tennants of Objectivism aren't unknown to us... :P

[Arthmail]

That's all good stuff...but on this fact, this is the 51st Goodkind thread...the core tennants of Objectivism aren't unknown to us... :P

He was just building up his thesis. It was a warmer, starter fluid, if you will. I can understand the need to have a strong opening.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

See, throughout all 12 books of the first sequence, characters repeadetly talk to Ghosts, travel to and through parts of the underworld, fake death, be dead, comminicate with "the keeper" and otherwise interact with the supernatural and "post-living" realm. For Characters in the SOT world the after-life is a matter of FACT, and not BELIEF.

This is something that has always stuck out to me, in this and other books. Here you have a proven afterlife. There is absolutely zero question on what happens to you when you die. Yet, this doesn't affect the characters at all. If someone could prove without any doubt right now on television the existence of life beyond death, it would re-write all of history, science, religion, and philosophy. It doesn't seem to affect any of these things in the SoT books.

[Arthmail]

This is something that has always stuck out to me, in this and other books. Here you have a proven afterlife. There is absolutely zero question on what happens to you when you die. Yet, this doesn't affect the characters at all. If someone could prove without any doubt right now on television the existence of life beyond death, it would re-write all of history, science, religion, and philosophy. It doesn't seem to affect any of these things in the SoT books.

Because in SoT, no one can hear you believe.

[Grack21]

It's WORF. WORF. Not WARF.

[Souran]

I am sorry if my above essay was to pedantic and I realize that after 51 threads it is likely that most people have a fair grasp of objectivist philosophy. However, I also realize that there are many people who do not realize that Mr. Goodkind is the WORLDS BEST SELLING OBJECTIVIST AUTHOR (at least according to Mr. Goodkind).

@ Tormund

Again, that is the core brilliance of Goodkinds works. He tells us striaght out that A is A. He also tells us that reason is to be our guide. Sadly, we do not live in a world as rich and fullfilling as dickland. However, because A is A we KNOW that our reasoning must be the same HERE in real life that would be utilized in the world of SOT. One of the fundamental premises of modern physics is that its immutable. The "rules" of physics apply to the whole universe in the same manner as they apply to our tiny little directly effectable section. A IS A. Ergo, we KNOW that reason cannot be different anywhere else because then there would be two reasons and that would mean that A is not A. So, do not let yourself get wrapped up in the minuatia of the facts. Dickland obviously has a different history, culture, geography, ready access to magical powers, and a verifiable afterlife that are all different from realiity. However, that doesn't change what it means to act rationaly in dickland because a is A.

A is A holds forever and ever and that means that even though in dickland you could play chess with the keeper while you create a new living being to use for travel from the world's best whore that athiesm is the only reasonable stance. A is A.

Topic B: Langauge in SOT and the power to shape thought

One of the things we know about Mr. Goodkind is that his ability to set a scene and bring it alive with his diction and word choice is extraordinary. Indeed, when you begin readng the words of Mr. Goodkind your gaze is held to the page, an outside observer might almost believe that the reader had become a hawk, or an eagle, or even a velociraptor. Indeed the very first words of Mr. Goodkinds series are "it was an odd looking vine." Read that again, now, hold that image in your head. I am certain it is identical to mine, the level of detail, the choice of words why you can practically smell and see the forest around Richard.

Similarly, by this point who amounst us could not craft their own war wizards outfit. We know practically every stich. This is why Terry does not do world building. Terry, as a master forester who once wrestled paul bunyon, is a great and well respected naturalist and friend of nature. However, Terry also realizes that nature is there for men to extract resouces from. Man's realsonship to Nature is one of Terry's most important human themes. When Terry says he does not do world building its because his world is a living outgrowth of his words. A SOT book is like a direct conduit to Terry's imagination. The world is organic, you cannot "build" a world that exists and moves so clearly based on the author's imagrey.

Unfortuntely, this does create some issues for the literature critic. As readers we might want to describe sections of his various works as focused on world building. Yet, we know for a fact that they are not world building but instead the organic outgrowth of a living story. Therefore we are forced to invent new langauge for the purose of identifying elements of goodkinds works.

This is the genesis of many of our important Lemming terms. We know that Terry does a fair amount of "Not-World-Building." We know from interviews that he does not read other fantasy authnors. Therefore, we must assume that any time his works bear resemblance to the works of other fantasy author's it is a "not-coincidence." Further, we know that Terry clearly cannot be writting in the fantasy genre because genre aurhor's are all trashy hacks. Terry very clearly writes "Not-Fantasy-Novels."

By creating a story so vivid and so chocked full of human themes Terry FORCES us to develop new language to discuss it. While some of this langague may seem or even sound like Orwellian Doublespeak that is because there is no other way for us to discuss Terry's position without holding two positions at once.

I think that this is because the reasonable way to approach Terry's human themes is to absorb them without qustion. Any attempt to analyze them as literature will inevitiablly result in a person being lead astray and choosing death. This is because there is only one reasonable interpretation of anything.