My Goodkind Experience

The covers range from excellent to cringe-worthy. All contents are the latter.

It's time to talk about what happened to me when I tried reading Terry Goodkind's epic fantasy to end all epic fantasies, The Sword of Truth.

So I was somewhere in my mid twenties and I hadn't read fantasy for some time, but I did still love reading and as I've already said, I still had a love for the fantasy I'd grown up with. I already talked about the experience of seeing the cover of Wizard's First Rule, hearing a section or two from it and realizing I wanted to experience fantasy again.

Now we'll talk about what happened when I actually started reading it. At the time, Naked Empire was the most recent release, and I bought all the books in the series up to that one shortly after beginning Wizard. Now, it probably looks like I'm leaving a book out in the series, as this photo includes the prequel novella Debt of Bones, which I didn't buy and haven't read. Debt of Bones was written several years later and details the backstory of the mentor character, Zedd. More on him later. Muuuuuch more.

Let me do my best to cast my mind back about fifteen years and try to recall how I felt and what I experienced when I opened the book and began reading.

First, the good. It seemed to move very quickly, and I've heard a number of other reviewers say the same. I am not sure why it felt that way, exactly, as attempts to re-read even sections of it today make it seem very repetitive and draggy. But at the time it felt pretty kinetic and it wasn't long before I realized I was halfway through it. And it's a very large book. It's 297,250 words long, which works out to about 848 pages in paperback. That's monstrous. And it didn't take me long to read it at all. I'm not sure why, but I think I have an inkling, which I'll talk about more in the bad stuff section.

Other stuff I liked: I actually agreed with the main principle of the titular First Rule, which states:

People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

Okay, so it's a bit wordy and roundabout, seems a bit repetitive, but it's actually pretty true. Now, I've seen some Goodkind detractors get all worked up about this rule, suggesting that this is another way of Goodkind declaring himself the smartest man who ever lived. But I think they miss the central point here. It's not that people, as a rule, are brainless morons. It's that we are all of us susceptible to  various logical fallacies that we don't notice unless we someone else fall into them. Confirmation bias is one such trap that it's all too easy to fall into, no matter how well educated you are or how much common sense you usually have. Confirmation bias is a way we trick ourselves into believing we're right no matter how much evidence to the contrary is presented; we look only for the information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs and try to pretend the conflicting information either doesn't exist or doesn't matter.

Mark Twain has a couple of quotes that are pretty apropos: "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you're misinformed." As well as "It is easier to fool a person than to convince a person that they have been fooled." Smart man, Mr. Twain. Men in Black had this to say about the notion that "people are smart": "A person is smart. People are panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

All of which to say that I was able to agree with the rule, which is also the central theme of the book, and thus forgave a lot of stuff I wouldn't forgive if I had been a bit older and a bit more discerning.

Final "good" thing: somehow, maybe due to my age, maybe due to my not having read fantasy for a while, and maybe because I had a tendency at the time to get invested in a book's protagonist for no other reason than that they were the protagonist, I managed to get suckered into caring about Richard, Kahlan and Zedd. I don't just think, I know, that if I had read these books as a 40-year-old man, I wouldn't have been able to stand either character. But at the time, I wanted to see them succeed.

In fact, this touches on what I've already said; that many readers I've encountered over the years will tell you that the first book, or even the first few, are very good, and it's only later that the series goes off the rails. I haven't asked each one of them about this, but when I have, unfailingly I find that they started reading them as young teens or even children, and that they haven't gone back and read them again as adults. These "heroes" are the kind of heroes you can only enjoy if you're a child and define "hero" as "the main character". Or you've drunk the Goodkoolaid.

So now, the bad, and by that I mean stuff I noticed even then and forgave because I wanted to like what I was reading:

Much of the book felt like badly written fanfic. The dialogue and even much of the prose felt stilted and unnatural, like Goodkind was writing fantasy the way he thinks fantasy has to be written, and that he wasn't even trying to find his own voice. Contractions hardly exist. People don't smile, they "give a smile". Everyone talks like they're in a play written by a high school student who's trying to reproduce period-style dialogue. It's like Goodkind believes that Tolkien, who truly did know how to communicate in a poetic style, and Jordan, who was known for his florid language and description, were the way fantasy writers write, and did his best to imitate them. Heck, even the setting feels chosen because pseudeo-medieval invented worlds are where fantasy takes place. There's a dragon, because of course there is. The feeling of "it's fantasy, so I gotta do this" also showed up with Goodkind's tendency to play Fantasy Mad-Libs with place names. In order to get to the Palace of the Prophets one has to travel through the Valley of the Lost and past the Towers of Perdition. I'm making none of that up.

This all becomes even funnier when you realize that Goodkind is apparently under the impression that he's not writing fantasy.

Much of this is subjective, and I will be discussing this more as we go, so I'm just gonna leave it at that for now. I will say, however, as I promised I would, that this style of writing seemed to encourage me to just accept what was going on and not think too much about it. "Don't take it too seriously; it's fantasy, after all". I think this is what greatly contributed to how fast I read it. It also contributed to how easily so much of the bad escaped me.

Then there were the characters. Now, as much as Goodkind suckered me into getting invested in Richard, Kahlan and Zedd's quest, the fact is that I could tell from the start that the characters in this thing just don't act like people. How do they act? However Goodkind needs them to at any given moment.

This shows up in minor ways in the early sections of the book. Richard gets a poison thorn in his hand practically on the first page, and yet we're several chapters in before he even tries to have it removed. When he takes Kahlan to his brother Michael's house, where he's holding a gathering, there's a scene where she thinks some men are following she and Richard as they walk through the crowd, so to test this, she asks Richard to get her some cheese. He walks to the food table and gets her a wedge, and this confirms to her that it was Richard who was being watched, as they keep their eyes on him as he goes to the table. When he brings back the cheese, she drops it on the floor and explains that she hates cheese, and that the whole thing was to test the men.

Let me go into detail on this one because it's just so stupid. It turns out the men are household guards of his brother Michael, and that they have been ordered to watch him in case anyone tries to harm him. Richard knows this. He could have explained this to Kahlan, or if he didn't think to, she could have just whispered "don't look now, but there are men watching us", or if she absolutely had to ask him to go to the food table, she could have asked for food she liked, or at the very least not just dropped the freakin' cheese on the floor! People don't act this way!

Then there's Zedd, an eccentric old man who when we first meet him, Richard thinks about his "reason chair", which is where he sits when he tries to come up with reasons why things happen. Once he apparently sat in the chair for three days trying to come up with a reason why people count the stars.

Is this really such an issue that it's worth the effort of pondering it nonstop for three days? Are people really arguing that much about the number of stars in the heavens? Or at all? Was that a thing even back in the equivalent time period? Is this such a common argument that Zedd just had to know why people want to know the answer?

Later in the book, Kahlan learns a prophecy that she will at some point use her power on Richard. We'll discuss later what her power is, because it's worthy of its own post (hint: it's gonna be bad), but she is so overcome with guilt knowing that some day she will use her power on him that she...she...

She immediately becomes suicidal. Now, there's a ton of evidence that Goodkind has not spent much time around people who don't share his interests and outlook on life, but this is just weird. People don't become suicidal because they think something bad is going to happen if they live. Suicide is usually, in fact pretty much always, caused by a mental condition like anxiety or depression. Hearing a prophecy that you're going to something you know you'd never willingly do under normal circumstances should have caused Kahlan to try and figure out whether the prophecy's wording allowed for leeway in her actions, or if there might be a set of circumstances in which she would do so. Instead she just starts looking for ways to kill herself.

I was also put off by the sword from which the series draws its title. Richard is judged to be the new Seeker, and again, we'll detail what a Seeker is in a future post but right now all that's important is that the Sword of Truth is basically the Seeker's badge of office, but it's more than that because it's a magic sword that allows one to seek the truth.

See, the Seeker is supposed to be someone who can instinctively see the truth, and the sword is how he enacts justice. The sword will only work if he is 100% certain that the person he's using it on deserves to be killed. If he does judge so, the sword kills quickly and efficiently, whereas if he doubts the justice the sword will stop itself short of even touching the person. This...this isn't truth. It's just perception. And forget about whether or not truth is decided by the Seeker; Richard shows himself unable to see even some absurdly simple truths several times in the story for the sole reason that Goodkind needed him to be fooled in order for him to get past a certain plot point.

There were other touches that threw me as well. Quite a few times scenes took a sudden swerve because Goodkind didn't know how to write scene direction in a natural or organic way. Conversations between characters suddenly take a weird direction because Goodkind wants the subject brought up. Many times a character, plot device, etc., that hadn't been mentioned for several chapters would suddenly be on a character's mind (usually Richard's) which was how you could tell it/they were about to make another appearance. That's how Goodkind does foreshadowing.

The whole thing reeks of a first draft, and oddly enough, even Goodkind admits that's more or less what it is. Of course, when he says it, it's bragging. "Look at how great my first draft is!" But it's not great if a layperson like yours truly can tell it's (almost) a first draft. We'll discuss more about this in a post that covers Goodkind's path to being published, but it's still kind of a mystery to me how it happened, let alone how his series became such a hit.

Then there are the scenes that had me sit up and go "oh come on!"

For starters, there's a scene wherein Gollum is introduced. Okay, so his name is Samuel, not Smeagol, and it's the Sword of Truth that is his precious, not the One Ring, and he repeatedly screeches "Mine! Gimme!" instead if "My precious!" but come on, he's Gollum. He's so Gollum that you can't even suggest he's based on the idea of a Gollum-esque creature because all he is is Gollum, lifted wholesale from The Lord of the Rings, re-named and used in exactly the same way, but with no actual point to the character. It would be the same as if I was writing a book and included a weaver named Rear End who was given the head of a donkey by a faerie but denied I was copying Shakespeare. Some of Goodkind's defenders say this was clearly meant as an homage to Gollum, or even a parody, but one doesn't pay homage to or parody something merely by copying it. There isn't a single original twist on Samuel except that he doesn't actually appear again after his introduction, and the only lesson Richard takes from him is that he's now worried the Sword will do the same thing to him, and wondering why he wasn't told this when he took the Sword. Never mind that the Sword up until now has displayed absolutely none of the narcotic traits that the One Ring had from almost the moment it was introduced. And never mind that it becomes clear as the series goes on that Goodkind has no intent of even threatening to turn Richard into a Gollum.

Believe me, I'll have far more to say about Goodkind and plagiarism.

Then there's almost the entirety of the scenes taking place in Tamarang, a nation (state?) ruled by Queen Milena, who is cartoonishly evil. We meet her vile daughter, Princess Violet, who is worse than her mother at seeming like she was created to be a Disney antagonist, and there's Rachel, Violet's personal slave who is just the most pwecious widdle fing in all the wowld. Rachel is shamelessly meant to provoke reactions of "awwwww!" from readers, combined with "that poor little girl!" but all she inspired from me was nausea, because she's written as being so saccharinely adorable that the kids from Full House and Dondi from the funny pages look like Hell's Angels in comparison. Kids like this don't exist, and every time we had a scene from her point of view, I was gagging repeatedly over her use of words like "bestest" and "mean" (anyone who's evil is "mean" in her words), not to mention how she was blatantly used as a way to tell good people from bad, because all the characters we're supposed to like instantly love Rachel, and all the villainous characters mistreat her.

I also have to mention that Richard and Kahlan fall in love over the course of the course of...oh, who am I kidding, over the course of the first few chapters. Richard's practically in love with her moments after meeting her. It doesn't feel real or natural in the slightest, but well before this book is over you're clearly supposed to think of Richard and Kahlan as being a picture of what real love looks like. There will be far more on this in the posts where I talk about the characters.

Late in the novel, there's a torture scene that goes on for 80 pages, give or take. Now, I'm no prude. I've read some dark stuff before. But that's the problem; the repetitive torture isn't written like we're supposed to be horrified, nor is it used to show that Richard has been brought to his lowest point. It's written like torture porn. I'm serious. Richard's torturer is a hot, sexy woman who tortures him with a phallic symbol while we're given lurid descriptions of her bangin' bod and the way her tight leather outfit hugs her curves. And on top of that, her torture of Richard involves sexual situations. It's a BDSM-lover's wet dream, and it goes on and on and on. I only kept reading because I'd been forewarned, but even I got to the point of skipping ahead to see how much longer this was going to take. And what was the point? Hardly anything. Certainly nothing that justified 80 pages. During this time, however, there's an infamous scene of Richard kicking a little girl in the face.

This gets talked about a lot by detractors. "There's a scene where the hero kicks a little girl almost to death and we're supposed to be on his side!" Well, yeah. But the kid he kicks is Princess Violet, who I've already said is so evil she's a cartoon, and he kicks her because his torturer lets Violet take over at one point. Violet takes great joy in tormenting Richard, and at one point tells him that once they've captured Kahlan, she's going to give her to her soldiers for them all to take turns raping her. Yeah. A kid says this. So, while I can see why Richard would kick her, I can't believe this kid would ever exist anywhere but in Goodkind's imagination, and increasingly it became less and less a place I wanted to be.

Which leads me to another huge issue: rape. I hate even typing that word. Rape is the worst sort of evil one can commit. It's worse than murder. And Goodkind is obsessed with it.

He probably feels like he's illustrating how bad rape is by repeatedly having the villains of this piece threaten or actually commit rape. I mean all the villains, even random mooks Richard and Kahlan encounter in a bar. The central villain commits so much (thankfully off-page) rape that he has bastard children throughout his empire, and his right-hand man isn't just a rapist but a pedophile. In later books, villains who think of themselves as heroic are shown as perfectly willing to commit rape, and not just commit it but talk about their plans to rape women and laugh and joke about it with their fellows. This isn't how rapists operate. Rape is so wrong that everyone knows it's wrong including those who commit it. That's why they come up with reasons why what they did doesn't count as rape. People don't laugh or joke about the rapes they've committed.

After a short while it starts to feel like rape is just a way to tell who the bad guys are. This does the exact opposite of showing rape to be a serious issue. Instead it cheapens it. Several times throughout the books, a person makes a face-heel turn, and the first thing they do upon revealing themselves to be evil is to attempt a rape. I'd say it's the one crime our heroes aren't guilty of, but I haven't gotten into just what a Confessor is yet. Trust me, there's plenty to say about all this and more about the atrocities committed by the heroes that will be coming in later posts.

The last thing I noticed right off is Goodkind's odd manner of naming his characters. Most of them have simple, straightforward names like Richard, Michael, George, etc. but one of the men from Richard's village is named "Dell Brandstone" which sounds like a soap opera bad boy, and his friend, the mysterious Zedd, is actually named Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander, which is a name that sounds not just made up, but made up on the spot. At one point, Kahlan comments on how his name doesn't sound like he's from around these parts, but it turns out the place he's from has names like Milena, Violet, Rachel, Giller, Harold, Neville Ranson, Bradley Ryan, etc. There's no attempt to make the names he comes up with sound remotely like they have any rhyme or reason to them. Tommy Callahan and Ordivan Griste can come from the same village. Harry and Simon can be two people from opposite sides of the world and completely different backgrounds.

But the worst of the names has got to be our central bad guy: Darken Rahl.

Did Goodkind come up with that name for the character after rejecting Mustacious Twirlio or Baddy McBadderson?

Then there's the way the first book ended. All I'm gonna say for now is:

This is stuff I noticed even on my first reading. It doesn't get better with time. As for the other books, it was more of the same but with more insulting of the reader's intelligence. By the second book Stone of Tears, Richard is already acting like he's the Head Man in Charge and giving fiery speeches about what he will do to people if they don't comply with him, something he would become all too known for in later volumes. You'd never know that just a year prior he was a simple woods guide who shouldn't even be able to read (yet can) or understand concepts more complicated than what it takes to survive in the woods.

But when Goodkind needs him to grab the idiot ball, grab it he does, and with both hands. Throughout the second book, Richard believes that Kahlan no longer loves him. This is because at the start of the book, three sorceresses show up saying that Richard has innate magic abilities that he can't control and that if he doesn't learn to control, will kill him. The problem is that in order to train him, they insist he wear a collar that they can use to keep him utterly under their control. Thanks to Richard's torture in the last book, he has no intention of ever wearing a collar again, but Kahlan angrily insists that he wear it and that he go with them. This is transparently because Kahlan doesn't want him to die. We do get a scene from Kahlan's perspective where she confirms this to the reader, but we don't need it. Richard, evidently, does, as it takes him most of the book to realize that Kahlan was trying to protect him because she loves him.

Actually, it's less that Richard gribs the idiot ball and more like he carries it around with him and only occasionally misplaces it. Kahlan as well, for that matter, despite how both of them are frequently described as being very intelligent. Goodkind has to tell us this, rather than show it, because to write intelligent characters requires intelligence on the part of the writer, and Goodkind is the sort of man who's always having to explain and re-explain what he "really meant".

By the time I got to Blood of the Fold, the third novel in the series, I was really noticing these flaws, and the effect of reading quickly and not thinking too much about what I was reading was exhausted. I was already not crazy about continuing to read when I got to the third book, and only stuck with it out of a sense of obiligation; I'd spent the money, and now I had to read them. This was the case for the fourth book, Temple of the Winds, as well. I hated it from page one, and kept finding excuses to do anything except read it. I eventually did get through it, months later, and I've already told you that by the fifth book, Soul of the Fire, I was done.

In the next few posts, I'm going to give you some character study for the central character, Richard Cypher, his love interest Kahlan Amnell, their mentor Zedd and the villainous Darken Rahl (dun DUN DUNNNNN!). I want to compare and contrast how they're written vs. how Goodkind thinks of them and how we the readers are supposed to think and feel about them.

It's gonna be sooooooo much fun.