Army of Evil Pacifists and Giant Chickens

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 2:21 am

The morality operates on the level of "you can do whatever you want to the bad guys, because they're BAD GUYS!"

nah, the morality operates on the level of "the good guys can do whatever they want because they are objectively good and therefore their actions are good."

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 2:47 am

So it's basically The Iron Dream without the parody?

souran · Post by **souran** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:09 am

Ok, if you really want to know about Sword of Truth you need to go to:

http://sandstormreviews.blogspot.com/20 ... odies.html

There you can find out everything you ever wanted to know about the gigantic Ayn Rand super shitstorm that is the Sword of Truth series.

There is not enough time or word space in a single thread to capture how terrible the existing books in the series are.

That is why the A song of Ice and Fire boards have had 50 freaking threads tearing the books apart.

No one here has yet discussed that the female lead has been almost raped in every book.

Nobody here has discussed the hero destroying a childs face with his boot because they were a brat.

His books have so many gramatical errors that they appear to have no editing. TG doens't feel this is negative though because sometimes it lets him create new words. Like YEARD which a beard tied into 2 poneytails. Misprinted in some editions of one of his early books, it became a form of fashion for his characters to wear.

The title refers of the thread refers to a book where the hero has to slaughter a whold bunch of unarmed pacificts because they are bad guys and he honestly freaking says "you are either with me or against me, and people hwo are against me should be murdered"

There is a book where a person has their SPINE ripped out through their stomach...and then continues to fight with a sword.

There is a book where the evil rulers of a fantasy kingdom given the initials of the Bill and Hilary Clinton.

There is a book where the female lead threatens to throw the queen of a different fantasy kingdom BACK into a pit full of rapists if they don't do exactly what she says.

There are a bunch of S&M nuns who have to use the magic of sex to convince a monster with a barbed phalus to give them evil communist magic knowledge.

There is a mode of travel based on the perfect whore. (A well with a magic quicksliver/water teleport spell thingy that can take you anywhere there is water but in order to travel with it you have to have sex with it and o yay the wizards who made it kidnapped the best whore in town to use as basis for it)

There are a bunch of super uberpowerful wizards who decided that having uber magic was not as good as being invisible monsters with knives for hands.

There is more...but I don't feel like getting into right now.

Lets just say that in the most recent book "the omen machine" the freaking cover blurb (and the Yeard is a total control freak so he writes his own freaking blurbs) says that "the machine's omens become increasingly omenous"

As a fervent member of the lemings of discourd I say do not feed the yeard!

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:27 am

I linked that already, but come on. Of course that a fantasy book series that wanks to Randism was going to be a poorly written power fantasy. In fact, I would be surprised if it wasn't.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:28 am

Hyzmarca: Only if the Iron Dream had an extra helping of women-in-refrigerators. Goodkind's favorite ideological whipping boys aren't anywhere near intrinsically vile enough that you can kill all their adherents just on principle without the readers turning on the protagonists. Goodkind's "solution" to this problem is having most of the villains rape their way across the countryside before he kills them off. As I said earlier, his use of sexuality is mind-blowingly exploitive.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:42 am

Whipstitch wrote:Hyzmarca: Only if the Iron Dream had an extra helping of women-in-refrigerators. Goodkind's favorite ideological whipping boys aren't anywhere near intrinsically vile enough that you can kill all their adherents just on principle without the readers turning on the protagonists. Goodkind's "solution" to this problem is having most of the villains rape their way across the countryside before he kills them off. As I said earlier, his use of sexuality is mind-blowingly exploitive.

Or he's just writing porn, and fitting a loose plot around it.

One of the weirder, and slightly disturbing (to me) things is how many more women than men I've met who like Sword of Truth, and how enthusiastic some of them are. I don't have any grand theories based on that, but as far as I've seen, it's a fairly strong pattern.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:53 am

fectin wrote:
Whipstitch wrote:Hyzmarca: Only if the Iron Dream had an extra helping of women-in-refrigerators. Goodkind's favorite ideological whipping boys aren't anywhere near intrinsically vile enough that you can kill all their adherents just on principle without the readers turning on the protagonists. Goodkind's "solution" to this problem is having most of the villains rape their way across the countryside before he kills them off. As I said earlier, his use of sexuality is mind-blowingly exploitive.

Or he's just writing porn, and fitting a loose plot around it.

One of the weirder, and slightly disturbing (to me) things is how many more women than men I've met who like Sword of Truth, and how enthusiastic some of them are. I don't have any grand theories based on that, but as far as I've seen, it's a fairly strong pattern.

This is a guess, but I've heard that masochism is the most common fetish in both sexes, and since Terry is basically writing porn, the targets of his Mary Sue's abuse would theoretically be the larger demographic. Or your anecdotal evidence is coincidentally weighted towards a demographic that isn't actually a significant majority of his fanbase.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:58 am

Those explanations both make sense, but are each a little disturbing. Especially since he writes more about flat out rape than any sort of light D&S.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:34 am

I think just calling it porn is underselling what kind of an ideologue the man is given that he's dedicated books to intelligence agencies, name drops Ayn Rand & Aristotle in interviews and has plotlines that frankly don't even qualify as thinly veiled when it comes to attacking communism or condemning United Nations style political entities. He's clearly a person who would be rather miffed if you called his work just porn. Beyond that, S&M and rape fantasy inspired fiction is not my bag but I can (somewhat grudgingly) accept that some people might use their writing as an outlet for those kinks even if they squick me out personally. I wouldn't hold back from calling such work shit, but on its own the quality of just being fetish porn doesn't hit me as being particularly noteworthy shit. No, to me what really separates Goodkind from the pack is how he cheerfully exploits the ugliness of many situations in order to make his precious li'l Richard Galt look better than the other vile pieces of garbage that exist in his setting. It's like he thinks S&M and straw men are two great tastes that taste great together.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:11 am

Oh, yes, Terry Goodkind is writing it to stroke his own ego and live out every single one of his fantasies, sexual and otherwise. But we're talking about the reasoning of his audience right now, and quite possibly they're just reading it for the porn and too self-righteous to look up actual porn.

K · Post by K » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:15 am

Anyone watch Legend of the Seeker, the show based on the books?

I thought it was mostly tastefully done, even if it had way too many women getting murdered and dominatrices with pain-producing dildos running around.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:21 am

It gets better. Goodkind's tried arguing that his work isn't fantasy because it transcends genre or some shit.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:21 am

From an interview :

Rochelle O'Gorman: There is a lot of enthusiasm for your work by fans of the fantasy genre. Do you ever go to the conventions and meet fans?

Terry Goodkind: No, I'm very isolated. And I deliberately keep myself isolated from comments. For example, I don't have a modem; I don't go on the Internet. In the first place, I have no time. In the second place, it's very easy to get distracted by people who, were it not for the Internet, would not be able to find an audience. The Internet is the CB of the '90's. Anybody can get on there and say anything. I have to keep what I hear in perspective. If someone says they hate the way Richard and Kahlan hold hands, then as I'm writing the book I have it in my head that fans hate the way Richard and Kahlan hold hands. Then I'm writing to satisfy an infinitesimal minority. So, I try to just ignore all that and I write to satisfy myself. I don't think about anybody else. When I'm writing my book it's a very private thing. No one reads it until I'm done. It's my world. I live there. I am god. I'm living the emotions of these people. I'm having a great time. And I'm not thinking about what other people want me to do. I know that fans are fanatical and I have two different comments about the enthusiasm of fans: I don't believe that the enthusiasm of fans for my books reflects the enthusiasm of fans for fantasy in general. And, I'm not writing fantasy.

Rochelle O'Gorman: Okay, what do you call it then?

Terry Goodkind: Well, it is defined as fantasy because the bookstores have to have some place to put it. Fantasy, to a large extent, is viewed as clichéd tripe. And fantasy has gone out of its way to earn that title, as most of it is clichéd tripe. Most of it is very bad writing. The thing that makes my books different, and I believe is the reason fans love them so much, is that I'm not writing about magic. I'm not writing about this fantasy element. I'm writing about characters who are real, who have the same kinds of loves, ambitions, desires, and longings that we all understand and share.
A good novel consists of four elements: theme, plot, characterization and style. To the extent that an author who holds ethical values understands those elements, his book will be enjoyable to many readers because it represents a sense of life they intuitively recognize as valid. That's what's missing out of fantasy. Most fantasies are sagas. A saga is not a novel. A lot of fantasy is like a role-playing game. The characters are cardboard cutouts and you just fill in the space with the action. And that's not what I do.

Rochelle O'Gorman: Well that would explain something. I understand you are very popular with college-educated women in their 30's, 40's, and 50's. That would explain why.

Terry Goodkind: I read some of these books and I am just absolutely baffled that some authors treat women as if they are a species from another planet. I just don't get it. They have no understanding that a woman is a human being just like a man. They think she is some kind of special creature that has these cliched attributes and that's all she is.

Rochelle O'Gorman: I'm laughing because I'm sitting under a slogan that says, "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."

Terry Goodkind: It has never once occurred to me, "How would a woman think in this situation?" It is always, "How would a human being think?" I love writing characters and I write women characters just like men characters. They run the gamut from nice, innocent people to very vile creatures.

Rochelle O'Gorman: But what about magic in your books? Do you use it as a metaphor for anything?

Terry Goodkind: I use it two ways. The first way is as a metaphor for technology. Most of the things that are done with magic are things that are in our everyday life. That's one of the reasons that the books relate to people in everyday life. I'll give you an example. There's something called the journey book. These books are twinned and two people at distant points from each other can communicate. One person writes a message in one of these books and it will appear in the other one. Well, big deal. E-mail. The metaphor of magic as technology is a surface element -- the true underlying theme of magic and the basic conflict of the entire series of books is that magic is a metaphor for individualism. The bad people want to stamp out magic and our ever-suffering hero or heroine wants to preserve magic in this world. The reasons they want to get rid of magic throughout this series of books makes it clear that it is individualism they are really trying to stomp out. They want sort of a gray collective society in which everyone is the same. They don't want anyone to be able to be better than anyone else, and the use of magic is simply someone using their own abilities to be the best they can be; to strive for excellence.

Rochelle O'Gorman: What about love in your books? Do you think love conquers all, because that seems to come through in your work.

Terry Goodkind: No, I don't think love conquers all, but I think love is a very important part of being a human being. It is a central part of our lives and therefore a central part of the lives of the characters. When you have someone that you love, you are, in essence, admiring in them what you admire about yourself because the things that you value they also value, so you can see those values reflected in them.

Rochelle O'Gorman: Can you tell me about the "Legends" collection?

Terry Goodkind: Yes. That book was a collection of short novels; each story was set in the separate world of the contributing author. My story ("Debt of Bones") was set in the world that my series is set in, but about 40 years before it begins. The Sword of Truth series starts out with these two people -- Richard and Kahlan -- who meet and go through a lot of trials and tribulations throughout the books. So, it is the story of their lives. Until now every book starts about five minutes after the last one ended. I don't leave any gaps between the books. My editor is very frustrated with me for doing that because he says it's a very difficult task and I am making it hard on myself, but I don't care. I like readers to know everything that's happened. That's kind of hard to do, though, as you can imagine. You have to dovetail things and the chronology gets very complex and hard to keep in order.

Rochelle O'Gorman: You said that you started creating characters in your head when you were a kid. Do you have any idea where these ideas came from? Have you had any specific influences?

Terry Goodkind: Writing is a re-creation of reality according to the writer's value judgement. So the characters are invented to fit my view of life and the books are a reflection of my view of life.

Rochelle O'Gorman: Do you want to do another series? Are you going to try something different?

Terry Goodkind: Well, for me, writing is an act of fruition, not of whim, so I feel that I can write any kind of book that I set my mind to do. Right now I'm having a tremendous amount of fun writing this series and writing about these characters and I'm not tired of them. But I may like to write something else, I don't know. I don't know if it would be fantasy or what. It's just that right now my mind is focused on what I'm doing. I don't think ahead because I try to put everything that I have into the book I'm writing. I don't hold back stuff, save it, hoard it for the future. If I think of a good line, I put it in there, I don't save it. What I'm working on is the whole focus of my world and I put 100% of my effort into that and trust that in the future, when it comes time to write the next book, I'll be able to do it again.

Rochelle O'Gorman: It must be difficult to keep up the momentum. You can tell when an author of a series has run out of steam and is just writing for the paycheck.

Terry Goodkind: That's one reason that I introduce new characters all the time, even though a certain vocal minority gets very upset with me. They want me to go back and do the old ones. Well, I've done the old ones; I want to have new blood. Every person has a view of their world. For example, in the second book there was a scene where Richard goes to the Palace of the Prophets and gives a speech. It's not very long, but he says something to them all. In the book that I am writing now, someone who was there recalls that scene and you see it from her eyes. It is a completely different take on what happened. That makes it fun for me.

So love is what you see of yourself in other people? Insert penis joke here.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:36 am

That's right, he did try to make up a new definition of the word novel so he could claim the fantasy genre had no novels.

Honestly, Sword of Truth strikes me as being set in the FATAL system.

Prove me wrong.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:38 am

I use it two ways. The first way is as a metaphor for technology. Most of the things that are done with magic are things that are in our everyday life. That's one of the reasons that the books relate to people in everyday life. I'll give you an example. There's something called the journey book. These books are twinned and two people at distant points from each other can communicate. One person writes a message in one of these books and it will appear in the other one. Well, big deal. E-mail.

hack author doesn't understand metaphors, news at eleven

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:56 am

Maxus wrote:Prove me wrong.

FATAL wouldn't have gotten distracted from the S&M Devil Nun orgies and testicle cannibalism related violence to go off on endless "individualist morality" lectures on a constant, boring, grating, painful basis?

Best I can manage. And it gives FATAL a redeeming feature in comparison to Terry and his, ugh, "works".

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:03 am

PhoneLobster wrote:
Maxus wrote:Prove me wrong.
FATAL wouldn't have gotten distracted from the S&M Devil Nun orgies and testicle cannibalism related violence to go off on endless "individualist morality" lectures on a constant, boring, grating, painful basis?

Best I can manage. And it gives FATAL a redeeming feature in comparison to Terry and his, ugh, "works".

FATAL wallowed in gratuitous violence, too. And that a dude had his spine ripped out and kept fighting? C'mon, that's a Fatal Critical hit!

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:22 am

fectin wrote:Those explanations both make sense, but are each a little disturbing. Especially since he writes more about flat out rape than any sort of light D&S.

I have found that people who enjoy light D&S tend to enjoy pornography that is over-the-top rape and even guro. Porn isn't real so people tend to want it to depict things that are more extreme than what they would actually like experiencing. I know that I personally would probably not enjoy a five way with four women - but I do like watching something like that in pornography.

As for there being a bunch of female fans of Sword of Truth, that doesn't really surprise me. I was done being surprised by that sort of thing when I found out that there were a bunch of women who liked the Gor series enough that they made and wore the slave outfits described in those books.

-Username17

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:38 am

Maxus wrote:FATAL wallowed in gratuitous violence, too.

I'm just saying FATAL wouldn't have ever detracted from said violence by going off on constant ranting Ayn Rand lectures.

Or maybe it did and I missed that. But if it didn't. Then 1 Point FATAL 0 Points Terry Goodkind.

jadagul · Post by **jadagul** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:19 am

I'd also suggest that you can really look at the whole thing as porn, in the same sense that a Jet Li movie is "fight porn" or a fashion catalogue is "clothes porn" (and I have friends who refer to both that way). Some of it is over-the-top descriptions of sex with no redeeming value other than titillation. And some of it is over-the-top descriptions of how much better the protagonist (and by extension the reader who supports the protagonist and imagines himself to be the protagonist) is than everyone else, with no redeeming value other than that. (see also Stephen Bond's critique of Ender's Game as nerd wish-fulfillment porn).

Basically, the books allow the target audience to spend the entire volume sitting there thinking, "yeah, I'm awesome, just like Richard. And some day I'll get to beat the shit out of my enemies and torture them to death, just like Richard."

That said, the first book in the series is quite good, dominatrices with magic dildoes and all.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:29 am

FrankTrollman wrote: I have found that people who enjoy light D&S tend to enjoy pornography that is over-the-top rape and even guro. Porn isn't real so people tend to want it to depict things that are more extreme than what they would actually like experiencing. I know that I personally would probably not enjoy a five way with four women - but I do like watching something like that in pornography.

-Username17

Thank you for reminding me why I yell out "YOU SICK FUCK" every time I see a person like that. I am disgusted by rape, be it fictional or real (despite a fondness for the occasional D&S), but that is beside the point. What was the issue before this derailed to comparing some idiot who can't write shit to the horrid mass of terrible that is FATAL?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:47 am

Did someone just mention Orson Scott Card in a thread making fun of ludicrously bad writers with a crazy ass preachy agenda?

You realize that guy has a great deal more in common with Goodkind than wish fulfillment protagonists. A HELL of a lot more. Card is a total nutjob, in his case a religious one. His books largely evidence that in strange, disturbing and generally wrong bad ways.

If this is becoming a wrong bad author thread can we mention Robert Jordan next? I hate that dead guy.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Sep 12, 2011 12:00 pm

My dad had read all the Gor novels. He was surprised when I was vaguely familiar with the series. He wasn't particularly pleased when I said "It's mocked on the internet".

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 12:32 pm

Chamomile wrote: But we're talking about the reasoning of his audience right now

Well, given the way Fectin quoted me, I suspect it's just a case of parallel conversations since I had the "Goodkind's use of sex is manipulative" explanation rolling before the thread started to include talk about what's in it for Goodkind's audience.

In any case I don't really think there's any huge disagreements going on anyway. My assertion isn't really that Goodkind's work isn't porn, but rather that it is S&M, rape fantasy AND ideology porn. In Goodkind's crapsack fantasy world things have finally gotten so bad that Objectivists and hawks can finally cleave those hippie pacifists and not feel guilty about it, which is just another form of wankery, when it comes down to it. But since it also basically doubles as propaganda I take more issue with it than if some horny fan just decided to write some Xena slashfic.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 12:51 pm

I was making two points originally, that are only tangentially related.
First was on your point, and that you shouldn't read too much into porn. I mean, it's also slanderous to pizza delivery guys that they are portrayed as so ready to take advantage of women so destitute they can't even afford a tip. Furthermore, and I dont know if you've noticed this, but they often don't wait for explicit consent before acting: that's rape propaganda right there. Seriously though? It's porn. Don't get your panties in a twist.

Second was related, but separate: fans of his particular brand of porn weird me out. (Goreans confuse me instead: "I like bondage, but it just can't fill my deep need for beaurocracy.")

Now, a new separate point: you dont like Objectivist propaganda, but you're totally okay with e.g. basically other fantasy's subscription to the great man theory of history?