Goodkind the Plagiarist

Robert Jordan, your basic cuddly teddy-professor.

EDIT: I've been kinda ignoring this blog now that Goodkind has passed on, but I just realized today that several have commented on this post within the past year, even if it's pretty obvious they didn't read the entire post before commenting.

The claim is made in the comments section that I'm suggesting Goodkind plagiarized only because I refuse to see that all authors borrow from others. Toward the end of this post, I stated precisely the opposite, that I know all authors borrow, but when you borrow so heavily from just one source, and use the ideas you borrowed in the same way that source uses them, this is called plagiarism.

All authors borrow, this is true. But there are several key differences here. The chief one is that most authors acknowledge when they borrow, and whom they borrow from. Robert Jordan never suggested that he didn't want to evoke a feeling of Tolkien. Quite the opposite. He also acknowledged the numerous historical, mythical and traditional elements he used. Goodkind, on the other hand, claimed that he was writing something wholly original, and in fact, as I stated several times, claims to have never read Jordan. This is key, because the comments below seem to be admitting that yes, some elements of his are similar to Jordan, but it's okay because all authors borrow. Sure, and if Goodkind had been willing to acknowledge that he had done so, I would probably not have made this post. But he didn't, and in fact insisted up until his death that everything in his books, barring perhaps the Randian philosophy, was entirely his own invention.

Another key difference; you'll notice I spoke of cribbing elements from multiple sources. Jordan's work definitely has elements that harken back to a number of other authors, as well as well-known legends. But the story and characters are his. Rand might be the classic "orphan farm boy" but he's not immediately comparable to just one of the others that came before him. In fact, he stands out from that crowd, as they were usually either children, or very short, or not really men of action, while Rand is unusually tall, already on the cusp of adulthood, and very much becomes and action hero. This is also very true of Richard. At least in the early books, Rand and Richard have so much in common that they could almost be said to be the same character, except that Rand is better written.

Goodkind's work doesn't feel like the work of a man borrowing elements from his forbears and tweaking them, using them differently, creating something new with them. It feels like he read Wheel of Time, thought he'd write his own version, and did so.

Let's use a comparison; two designers of a new model of car.

The first designer studies automotive history, looks at their favorite elements of auto design from past models, and manages to tweak those elements, modify them, and mix them together with original design elements to create a vehicle that both harkens back to the best of the past but is also its own, original creation.

The second designer basically takes an existing model, repaints it, changes the chrome a little, uses different upholstery for the interior, and then tries to pass it off as his own design.

That is what I am accusing Goodkind of. Not just borrowing, but borrowing almost entirely from one source, using the ideas he borrowed in almost exactly the same way, and then trying to pretend he didn't. I have rarely seen another author do this so blatantly, with the possible exceptions of Terry Brooks and Dennis L. McKiernan, but again, in both cases the authors acknowledged what they had done. Goodkind is the only one I know of to so blatantly "borrow" from just one author and then claim not only had he not done so, he had never read said author.

Yep, I said we were getting here, and here we are. Today we're gonna talk about the rather blatant and obvious plagiarism Goodkind engaged in at least in his earliest volumes.

END EDIT

Before I go on, I want to address the elephant in the room.

Hello.

Terry Goodkind has made the claim many times that he does not read fantasy, never has, never will. He kinda, sorta walked that statement back a couple of years ago where he admitted fantasy was his "beloved genre", that somehow wasn't beloved enough for him to stop trashing it left and right for over a decade. But it was during the time he was speaking the most ill of it that he also insisted he had never read any of it.

This was a lie. But not as big a lie as you might think.

I'm not suggesting that I think Goodkind had read fantasy and then denied reading it. I mean there is simply no way that he had not. He's too consciously aware that he's writing fantasy and thus must include certain tropes. He's too aware of fantasy cliche's. And as we'll see in this post, he's too aware of some pretty major elements in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time.

Hello again, elephant.

If you're reading this blog at all you've likely at least heard of Robert Jordan, who is actually just the pen name for James Oliver Rigney, a writer who wrote in several genres and used a different alias each time. He published a western under the name Jackson O'Reilly and a historical fiction series under the name Reagan O'Neal. But for fantasy, he was Robert Jordan, and that is how the world remembers him.

Fantasy has had at least two major "booms" where a novel or novels becomes a hit and sets off a wave of new authors being published and old authors being rediscovered (or having their latest works become hits). Terry Brooks started one in the late 70's with The Sword of Shannara, a novel even more blatantly plagiaristic than anything Goodkind wrote, and this gave rise to several of the giants of modern fantasy lit, including Steven R. Donaldson, David Eddings and Raymond E. Feist. In the early 90's, we had the "fat fantasy boom", which was kicked off by Robert Jordan and his novel The Eye of the World, the first volume in his massive series The Wheel of Time.

Fantasy had never seen a renaissance like the one Jordan kicked off. For whatever reason, and believe me there has been some controversy surrounding it, Jordan's books took off like wildfire. His sales were through the roof, and publishers began scrambling to find the next Robert Jordan. By the mid-90's every publishing house had a giant work of high fantasy on its release schedule, all hoping to cash in on Jordan's success. One of the earliest of these happened to be Wizard's First Rule, which also happened to be published by the same house that had made a hit out of Jordan, TOR Books.

It's safe to say that not a lot of the immediate attempts to produce another Jordan were successful, unless you count the re-discovery of some novels that had come before The Eye of the World and were suddenly gaining public interest due to being similar to it, such as Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, which was practically ignored until The Eye of the World and its sequel, The Great Hunt, took off. The Deeds of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon was a big hit for Baen Books, but that's like saying Plan 9 from Outer Space was a big hit for Ed Wood. JV Jones had some success with her Book of Words and Sword of Shadows series, though her books weren't as fat or as successful. But there's no doubt that Robert Jordan proving fat fantasy to be marketable paved the way for some of the more renowned authors of today, including Steven Erikson and his Malazan Book of the Fallen series (the fattest of fat fantasy), and even George RR Martin, though Martin had been publishing since the 70's and his idea for a fantasy trilogy (which became the A Song of Ice and Fire series) had been in the planning stages since before Jordan's series hit. There's just no doubt that more people paid attention to it due to Jordan's popularity.

Goodkind, as I mentioned, was one of the first beneficiaries of the search for the next Jordan. It's not really surprising, as Goodkind was a very Jordanesque author. I mean very.

I'll interject here with my own opinion that while I do have a fondness for The Wheel of Time, there's also no question that the series has a number of problems of its own. I may think it's a better series than The Sword of Truth but I do not consider myself a Wheel of Time "fanboy" nor does my opinion of WOT have anything to do with my overall opinion of SOT. In truth, I read Goodkind before I read Jordan. It wasn't until I read Jordan that I started noticing that Goodkind had ripped off The Wheel of Time to such a degree that I'm surprised there wasn't a legal battle.

Now, detractors of Jordan and/or fans of Goodkind have tried to laugh off this idea by suggesting that Jordan was a pretty derivative author himself, and both he and Goodkind heavily made use of well-worn fantasy tropes, so maybe they just cribbed from the same sources.

I won't let that stand. Goodkind can't claim to have never read fantasy and yet have somehow "cribbed from the same sources" that Jordan did. And even if he had, the simple amount of sameness between the two series is too much to be a coincidence.

Let's again compare this to something else. Let's say I'm a filmmaker and I set out to make a fantasy movie. I decide the hero should be a short guy, but not a dwarf, and one day he and his kids find a young boy hidden in the forest. They've never been outside their village, but realize this child probably comes from the large city that's a few miles off, so they decide to take him back there and give him to the first person from this city that he can find. He runs into all sorts of hi-jinks, including running afoul of a street thief who is the first person to show interest in taking the child. The thief has a hidden heart of gold and our hero and this thief eventually are told that by an elf that the child is the prophesied chosen one, and an evil king is trying to find him and kill him.

What have I just done? I haven't copied the movie Willow, that's for sure! I mean, heck, Willow borrows a lot of fantasy tropes anyway! Who cares that most of my story is just like Willow?

Let's take this one point at a time. I'm about to describe a fantasy protagonist. See if you can guess who I'm describing.

Our hero is a young woodsman from an isolated village that rarely has contact with any other villages. He's never left the village itself except for the surrounding forests. He's nonetheless pretty skilled at surviving in the wild. He's been raised most of his life by a single father, a loving man. One day a beautiful woman shows up in his life and everything changes. Flying creatures begin attacking and the young man learns he might very well the the subject of a prophecy, and he ends up acquiring a special sword and title that he's not sure he's earned. In a short while, shorter than is likely, he becomes very skilled in the use of that sword. He's swept away by this woman on a quest to save the world, a quest he is the only one who can fulfill it. He maintains his composure by means of picturing a flame into which he casts all his doubts, worries and fears. He and the beautiful woman are accompanied, at least at first, by a scrappy old man who likes to eat and has a personality that is both irascible and good-humored, as well as a powerful warrior. In the course of time, he learns that the man he thought was his father is not his father, and that his true parentage makes him heir to a secret magical destiny. He meets a tribal society that has a prophecy of an Ultimate Leader that will come and lead them out of bondage to reclaim what is theirs, and he is the one who fulfills that prophecy as well. He is also pursued by well-meaning but misguided magic-using women who seek to bind him to their will, and later he ends up in the hands of an evil version of the same women. But despite his setbacks, he grows in both magic power and political power, becomes emperor of one nation and then another, and all the while has to cope with an ever-growing temper.

If you've been reading this blog, you might think I'm describing Richard again. But I'm not. I'm describing Rand al'Thor, the protagonist of Jordan's Wheel of Time.

Okay, but the young rustic hero from an isolated village is a time-honored fantasy trope! Sure, but look at how specific all that information is, coupled with the fact that Goodkind insists he's being 100% original. While there are lots of "young orphan farmboy" heroes in fantasy, no two are so alike as Richard and Rand. I mean, the whole "flame and void" concentration method is a dead giveaway even if the rest isn't. When you pair all that up and add this very specific character trait, it's simply impossible to suggest that Goodkind was not ripping off Jordan, even if only subconsciously.

But we're not done. I'll give Goodkind this much and this much only: Kahlan, Zedd and Chase could possibly all be said to just be the latest in a long line of fantasy love-interests, wizards and warriors. Sure, when you put them together with Richard, they do seem a lot like Moiraine, Thom Merillin and Lan, especially when you account for Goodkind's economy of characters and tendency to have one character seem like a combination of many from other sources. I've already talked about Zedd's similarity to Gandalf, Fizban and Belgarath, but I haven't talked about how similar he is to Thom Merillin until now. Thom isn't a magic user, but he definitely fills the mentor role, and his personality and Zedd's are almost carbon copies of each other. Zedd's a wizard, Thom is not, but Thom was heavily based on the legendary character of Merlin, who was known as a wizard. So...would it be a stretch to say that Goodkind was ripping off Jordan by consolidating Moiraine with Rand's love interests to make Kahlan, or that Chase is a Lan parallel, or that Zedd is an alternate Thom? Maybe. But it sure is interesting that Richard is surrounded by similar people to Rand, while on a similar journey.

But let's really delve into the rip-off territory. First, let me describe a bit of Jordan's world. In his story, magic is referred to as the One Power, and those who can use it are called channelers. The One Power has two halves, one that only males can use and one that only females can. The male half was tainted by the resident Dark Lord ages ago, and now any male channeler is cursed to go mad, lose control of his abilities and die. Thus, only women are allowed to channel the One Power, and the organization of One Power users, called the Aes Sedai, is now an all-female group, whereas it once used to be made up of both genders. The Aes Sedai are the main brokers of power in this world, even if they don't overtly rule any nations (they're supposedly there to serve), and are generally feared by the populace.

Over the ages, Aes Sedai in general have developed a dismissive, disdainful attitude toward the male gender in general. They see all men as inferior to all women, and in particular male channelers as immediately dangerous, even if they have not succumbed to the madness. One of their practices is hunting down men who can channel and "gentling" them, a process that strips them of their link to the One Power, but also leaves them a shell of what they once were.

Hidden within the Aes Sedai is a secret sect calling themselves the Black Ajah, who worship the Dark One and are trying to bring down the Aes Sedai from within. At first the leader of the Aes Sedai denies there is such a thing as the Black Ajah, until various members are discovered to be just that.

Also, One Power users are longer lived than regular humans, and older Aes Sedai have an "ageless" look.

Goodkind didn't rip this off wholesale, like he did with Gollum and Samuel, but let's just say that he definitely stole Jordan's car, even if he did switch the plates, put on different rims and switch the interior upholstery. It's still the same car. In his world men can use magic without issue, and there is no need to cut them off from their source and make sure they're left unable to access it.

But that just makes the theft more obvious and therefore worse, because Goodkind copies several elements of Jordan's Aes Sedai without giving those elements reasons to be there.

His organization of magic users, called the Sisters of the Light, is an all-female group, and always has been because reasons. Actually, it's because women are naturally better at controlling the Gift (why? reasons) and thus are the natural trainers of the magic world. The Sisters are the main brokers of power in the Old World, even if they don't overtly rule it (they're supposedly there to serve), and are generally feared by the populace.

For no good reason whatsoever,  the Sisters in general have developed a dismissive, disdainful attitude toward the male gender in general. They see all men as inferior to all women because...they do. One of their practices is hunting down men who can use magic and training them, a process that makes them slaves to the Sisters for as long as the Sisters deem necessary.

Hidden within the Sisters of the Light is a secret sect calling themselves the Sisters of the Dark, who worship the Keeper of the Underworld and are trying to bring down the Sisters from within. At first the leader of the Sisters denies there is such a thing as the Sisters of the Dark, until various members are discovered to be just that.

Also, the Sisters of the Light live on an island trapped in time, giving them a kind of "ageless" look.

In both stories, the Aes Sedai/Sisters of the Light capture Rand/Richard, insisting that without their help he will never fulfill his prophecy and will definitely go mad/lose control of his powers and kill himself. Later he is captured by the Black Ajah/Sisters of the Dark as a direct result of his having been captured by their more well-meaning other side.

I should also note that in Goodkind's world, men are naturally more powerful than women at using magic. All men. Why? Reasons. But it does parallel nicely with Jordan's idea that men who use magic are naturally more dangerous than women, and he made the women better at controlling it and thus able to instruct in its use just like how Jordan's female magic users are almost instinctively better at control than men are.

The Confessors also have Aes Sedai parallels. Less obvious, but still there. For one thing they, too, are feared by the populace, and they, too have a major city that they rule utterly, and control other nations from. The Aes Sedai city is called Tar Valon, and the Confessors' city is called Aydindril. Just as there cannot be male Aes Sedai because male Power users will eventually go mad, lose control and die, there cannot be a male Confessor because a male Confessor would be more powerful than a female, and would eventually be driven mad by that power.

As for the Black Ajah? Well, several members of it are sultry and seductive and try to control Rand (and others) with their sexuality. This is also a favored technique of the Sisters of the Dark, not to mention Shota the Witch Woman, who I've said little about but perhaps should elaborate on at some point.

But we're still not done. In Robert Jordan's world, there is a Church Militant parallel called the Children of the Light (yes, of the light, which Goodkind stole, then moved) who have made it their mission to hunt down all magic users or anyone caught aiding them, and kill them, as they believe there is no such thing as a Power user who isn't also a "darkfriend" (essentially, Satan worshipper). They do, however, often employ magic users themselves, even if they hate having to do so.

In Terry Goodkind's world, there is a Church Militant parallel called the Blood of the Fold who have made it their mission to hunt down all magic users or anyone caught aiding them, and kill them, as they believe there is no such thing as a magic user who isn't also an agent of the Keeper. They do, however, often employ magic users themselves, even if they hate having to do so.

In both worlds, there is a nation where the local dialect is essentially talking like a pirate, and in the same manner exactly. Adie, who's from Nicobarese, talks like this: "Bah. I be fine. My head be thicker than Cara's." or "That be a lie." Captain Bayle Domon, from Illian, talks like this: "My name be Bayle Domon, captain and owner of the Spray, which be this ship. Now who be you?" Notice the similarity? And in both cases, anyone from that nation speaks the same way.

In the second volume of Jordan's series, The Great Hunt, we're introduced to the invading Seanchan, who are naturally distrustful of any form of magic and feel it should be controlled utterly. Some have drawn parallels between the Seanchan and the Imperial Order, which seeks to obliterate magic, but I can't agree here. The Order is more like Goodkind's version of militant Communism, so I'll let him have that one. But the Seanchan use a special collar to capture and control users of the Power. It goes around their neck and leaves the wearer utterly under the power of their captor, who uses it to do such things as inhibit and direct their abilities, and bring them pain should they try to disobey. The collar is called an a'Dam.

The Sisters of the Light use a special collar to capture and control users of magic. It goes around their neck and leaves the wearer utterly under the power of their captor, who uses it to do such things as inhibit and direct their abilities, and bring them pain should they try to disobey. The collar is called a Rada'Han.

I know the organizations that use the collar are different, but really, does that matter? It's still a collar used for exactly the same purpose, and in both cases a major heroic character ends up wearing one.

And here we come to an undeniable bit of plagiarism:

In The Great Hunt, Egwene is captured by a Seanchan sul'Dam (what the call the magic-controlling captors) named Renna and fitted with an a'Dam. The a'Dam is attached to a chain leash that Renna holds. Renna tells her that as long as she wears the a'Dam, she is utterly under Renna's control, even if Renna isn't holding the other end of the chain. To prove this, she tells Egwene to pick up the chain and run, Renna won't try to stop her. Egwene does so, and takes only a few steps before doubling over as a lancing pain runs through her stomach.

In Wizard's First Rule, Richard is captured by a Mord-Sith (because everything must happen to Richard) named Denna and fitted with a collar. The collar is attached to a chain leash that denna holds. Denna tells him that as long as he wears the collar, he is utterly under Denna's control, even if Denna isn't holding the other end of the chain. To prove this, she tells Richard to pick up the chain and run, Denna won't try to stop him. Richard does so, and takes only a few steps before doubling over as a lancing pain runs through his stomach.

This...this can not be a coincidence. It's just too specific. This isn't "cribbing from the same source" or "using the same well-worn tropes". And it just gets worse the more you tally up the comparisons.

Both series have a woman who can see visions around a person that pertain to that person's past, present or future.

Both series have characters called "Dreamwalkers" who are able to, you guessed it, walk in other's dreams.

Both, as I already mentioned, make the main character the subject of a prophecy from a remote tribal group that he will be their Ultimate Ruler. The Aiel in The Wheel of Time call him the "Car 'a carn" while the Baka Ban Mana call him the Caharin.

Hell, both of them include a horse named Bella! As this is not a name that naturally says "horse", such as the name "Spot" or "Rover" or "Fido" naturally says "dog", this is more fuel for the plagiarism fire. If there were horses in both named "Princess" I would likely let it slide.

I'm sure there are other comparisons I could make, if my memory of either were clearer. Yes, in both cases I'm going off memories that are several years old. I also noticed the same terms and names being used here and there, which by themselves wouldn't be enough for me to cry "plagiarism" but when coupled with the information above just stands out as more proof that Goodkind definitely read Jordan. There are characters in both named Fitch. There are evil creatures in both called "lurks". There's a "Stone of Tear" in Jordan's books and a "Stone of Tears" in Goodkind's.

And it's with that last one that I will transition into Goodkind's defense of himself when it comes to how obvious his plagiarism is. He claims to have never read the series and as we've already seen, brushes off the similarities by suggesting that if you notice them, you're "probably not old enough to read my books". I still am not sure how he comes to that conclusion. Perhaps he's saying that only a young child would notice that two different authors have, say, a blonde-haired warrior in their stories and start shouting "you copied him!" Maybe, I dunno. But once he got more specific.

Apparently at a fan Q&A session, which I can't find online anymore, he was directly asked again about the comparisons, and suggested that perhaps there are some surface similarities, but when you examine them, you find they're nothing alike.

As an example, he chose the Stone of Tear/Tears. I will admit that besides similar-sounding names, they're not the same thing at all. The Stone of Tear is a fortress in the nation of Tear, and the Stone of Tears is a small stone from the Underworld that ends up on the mortal plain in the second book.

So, in other words, he deliberately chose the example most easy to dismiss and acted like it was the same thing for all the rest. We can clearly see that's not the case. But allow me to share an anecdote from my past:

When I was a kid, my favorite TV show for a while was MASK, which I won't bother to describe except that the lead character wore a mask named "Spectrum" which was described in the theme song as having "super vision". I was obsessed with MASK, and my brother knew it, and wished I could occasionally want to play something else.

One day he convinced me to play Lego with him. At the time, Lego wasn't releasing licensed playsets and the sets we had were one outer-space set and another medieval knights set. We combined them to form the Space Knights! But, here's the thing. I decided to name my Space Knight character "Spectron" and described his superpower as "supervision". Was it a direct parallel to MASK? Not really, as MASK didn't take place in space, the lead character's name wasn't Spectrum, and "super vision" was a function of technology, not superpowers. But was I cribbing from my favorite TV show? You bet I was.

And I don't think Terry Goodkind created the name "Stone of Tears" in an utter vacuum.

As far as I'm concerned, this puts to rest the idea that Goodkind has never read fantasy, or that his work can be considered 100% original, as is his constant claim. He has admitted to enjoying fantasy of late, but he has yet to admit to reading Robert Jordan. The only problem is that he clearly has. There's just too much that is the same between the two, and as Jordan did every bit of it first, Goodkind is the plagiarist.

In fact, I'm relatively sure that Goodkind decided to try his hand at writing fantasy after reading at least the first two, perhaps three volumes of The Wheel of Time and deciding he could do it better. But, as he doesn't have an original bone in his body, he ended up just aping the very series he was trying to one-up. It's also possible, even likely that Goodkind has read The Lord of the Rings, which he might not consider "just fantasy" as he admits Tolkien outpaced the other fantasy writers out there. He's definitely familiar with it, as he's talked a lot about some of the plot details, plus, like I already said, he copied Gollum from the ground up.

It's also possible that he's at least read portions of popular writers of the sort of fluff and candy that he says the entire genre is like. He seems to think that all fantasy writers are rehashing the same silly just-for-fun stuff that put RA Salvatore, Ed Greenwood and Dennis L. McKiernan on the map. He may have tried Eddings and Kay's Fionavar as both of them make heavy use of the idea of a "dark force that wishes to do evil because it is evil".

But I will say this; while there's no question he's read some fantasy, there's no way he's widely read. In fact he pretty much admits he doesn't read much fiction at all, aside from Ayn Rand and Dean Koontz, and as he's obsessed with the idea that protagonists must be "true heroes" and sees no value in moral ambiguity or anti-heroes (despite having inadvertently created one), it's likely that the most creative fantasy authors, before or after Goodkind began publishing, would be of no value to such a single-minded man. Of course, that might be part of why Goodkind thinks he's a breed apart; he has "true heroes" (read: sociopathic templars) and most other fantasy doesn't. Except it does. Ultimately, my point here is that Goodkind has no business telling us what other fantasy is like compared to him, and he should just shut up and be grateful that he's achieved the success he has.

Now, I will admit that I have not read past midway through Goodkind's fifth book. I understand that his more recent efforts are more distinctly his own. That's fine, but it doesn't mean even slightly that we can forgive him for building his foundation on another work, and then lying about it even to this day.

It's telling that I'm nowhere near the first person to notice this, that Goodkind has had to fend off these accusations more than once (unconvincingly) and that even Jordan himself noticed.

And no, Goodkind fanboys, you can't excuse this by saying "oh yeah, well Wheel of Time has just as many issues and Jordan is just as bad a plagiarist as you've ever seen! He copied Lord of the Rings and Dune!"

No, he didn't. There is a world of difference between what Jordan did and what Goodkind did.

Jordan, admittedly not the most original writer in the world, used elements from a number of classic myths and legends to create his world, including cribbing from Norse and Greek mythology (among others) the Arthurian legend, and yes, he deliberately included several references to The Lord of the Rings, but did he copy it? Absolutely not. If anything, he has more in common with Terry Brooks and David Eddings than he does Tolkien. Drawing influence from multiple sources is quite common among authors. As for Dune, which has had people drawing comparisons between the Bene Gesserit and the Aes Sedai, I will admit there are a few similarities, but also a ton of differences. Even so, if the Aes Sedai and the Bene Gesserit can be said to be copies, at least that was just one aspect of another work he copied, not multiple.

Plagiarism is when you steal multiple ideas from one source. Terry Brooks plagiarized The Lord of the Rings when he wrote The Sword of Shannara. Goodkind plagiarized The Wheel of Time with his earlier volumes of The Sword of Truth.

Again, I remind you that Goodkind can't be said to be drawing on well-worn tropes, as most of what he copied from Jordan was either Jordan's invention or was a device used in a certain way, that Goodkind later used in exactly the same way, changing only minor details or assigning the role to another character.

Whatever else is true of Terry Goodkind, he unquestionably plagiarized Robert Jordan.

Next time we're gonna talk specifically about two things Goodkind says he doesn't do: magic and world-building. We're gonna discuss whether or not that claim is true, and whether or not it's possible for a writer to apply proper focus to both while also producing a story that possesses literary merit.