Wizard Intermission

Intermission - Wizard's First Rule
Time for a confession, folks. When I first read Wizard's First Rule, back in the late 1990s...I actually liked it. The setting was interesting, the magical powers were unusual, and I liked the fact that there was more philosophizing and less hack-n-slash. Sure parts of it were cliché or derivative, but it's hard to find a fantasy novel that doesn't use some clichés. Wizard's seemed like a decent book to my teenaged self.
So I followed the series, and noticed it start to get weirder and less good. The fifth book, Soul of the Fire (the one with the Clintons) was the first book that I honestly disliked. It was unsatisfying to read, unnecessarily graphic, the magical parts made little sense, and the moral seemed to be that democracy is wrong. Faith of the Fallen (the one where a statue destroys Communism) followed, and finding hardcover copies in the overstock bin for $5.99 really should have tipped me off. I persevered, half hoping the series would improve again, half because I was determined to see how the crazy thing ended.
Well, I did...and I came to understand why the Sword of Truth series is one of the most widely hated fantasy series around. And now, re-reading Wizard's First Rule for the purposes of this sporking, I am amazed that I actually enjoyed it as a teenager. I sure was a lot less cynical and critical back then.
The Good Parts
Let's start off by giving credit where credit is due, and mentioning the aspects of the book I actually still like. First, this is no Eragon. Terry Goodkind actually knows how to write, and while he's no Tolkien, his prose isn't the chore that Christoper Paolini's is to read. No, the problem with Goodkind's writing is in the ideas and the genre, both of which I will touch on in a moment.
Goodkind also has a fair number of decent ideas. The Confessors' power is interesting and unique, as is their place in society. The Mord-Sith have another unique magical ability, which could have proved quite interesting if not for the whole dominatrix thing they're stuck with. The gars – flying, carnivorous Bigfoots who hunt symbiotically with swarms of flies – are fairly cool monsters, despite the ridiculous name.
The Bad Parts
This promises to be a much larger section >:D.
Morality: This is the number-one problem with all of Terry Goodkind's books: the sense of morality he espouses through his characters. Frankly, it scares me. Unlike Paolini, who has the excuse that he started the book as a teenager and didn't know how to write a believable fantasy hero, Goodkind was forty-six when Wizard's was published. Furthermore, he has made it abundantly clear that this is no mistake: the philosophies Richard espouses are, essentially, Goodkind's own.
Richard repeatedly demonstrates his willingness to murder innocents in order to achieve his goals. He demonstrates no remorse or regret for the killings he does perform. He is unshakably convinced of the rightness of his cause. This will be expanded on in later books, but it certainly isn't a good start,
Evil: Terry Goodkind professes not to be an author of fantasy books, but rather of “novels that deal in important human themes involving the faculty of reason,” using fantasy tropes as a method of communication. He specifically mentions that “Fantasy usually takes conventional values as a given. For example, the evil being battled is commonly a dark force that wishes to do evil- without any reason beyond that it is evil.” This is particularly ironic given the actions of Goodkind's villainous characters.
Goodkind's villains seem to be not merely evil, but cartoonishly evil. It's not sufficient for them to have goals that are in opposition to those of the heroes; they must indulge in antisocial behavior at every opportunity, wallowing in their wickedness. Darken Rahl, the Evil Overlord, maintains an entire cadre of torturers, punishes the most minor of infractions with torment or death, practices anthropomancy, and has various sexual proclivities which are unhealthy – if not lethal – to his partners. His multiple, unwilling partners. His henchman, Dennim Nass, is a pederast...presumably so we understand that he's evil. Sympathetic villains are generally the most interesting, but the villains of Wizard's seem determined to prove their evil.
Genre: Goodkind does not consider himself to be a fantasy author, as indicated by the above quotation. In truth, despite writing stories set in a world of magic and swords and dragons, he really isn't. He demonstrates no real grasp of the tropes of the genre, instead throwing clichés into the story and calling it good. From the Sword of Truth that has nothing whatsoever to do with truth, to the Zany Wizard, to the Evil Overlord, the outlines are there but they aren't filled in. To use Tolkien as an example, Anduril was an impressive sword because it cut the Ring from Sauron's finger. Sauron did not appear “on-camera” in The Lord of the Rings, but his hatred of Gondor and the Elves was logical based on his history. Gandalf may have appeared bossy and impatient, but he had good reasons for everything he did. Wizard's reads like a fantasy Mad Lib: “[Hero] is given [Sword] by [Wizard] to fight [Evil Overlord].”
Motivation: Richard is the hero of the book, selflessly taking up the mantle of the Seeker to oppose the tyrannical Darken Rahl. The problem is, he has no real reason to. He has never heard of Rahl until Kahlan appeared and told him how evil Rahl was. Yes, Rahl killed his father (or so he believes), but Richard demonstrates a determination to oppose Rahl that borders on fanaticism. It strains disbelief that a “simple woods guide” would move heaven and earth to topple an incredibly powerful wizard simply on the word of a woman he just met.
This problem is not limited to Richard; Darken Rahl himself suffers from it. He appears to be trying to conquer the world simply because that's what Evil Overlords do – he has no real motivation beyond desiring vengeance on the wizard who killed his father. Furthermore, it appears he has been successful in conquering the world – D'Hara is his, the Midlands are faltering, and the Westland hasn't given any hint that it can hope to oppose him. This makes Rahl's premature activation of the McGuffin magic boxes even less believable – why risk it all when you've almost won? There seems to be no time pressure and nothing to gain from doing so.
Names: Names are very important to storytelling, perhaps especially in a fantasy setting. Names help establish distinct cultures and are our primary means of identifying characters. Terry Goodkind seems to have a Paolini-esque problem with mixing normal and fantastic names, including Richard, Michael, George, Adie, Bill and Randy in the same setting as Kahlan, Darken, Panis, Zeddicus, Dennee and Dena. With the exception of the Mud People (itself a horribly ill-considered name that verges on a racial slur), there seems to be no attempt at cultural naming conventions; put simply, it's impossible to guess someone's culture by their name. This makes the world as a whole feel much more bland and homogenous.
Description: Goodkind seems to have a problem with descriptions. For example, after reading the entire series I can tell you that Richard is muscular and has gray eyes. That's it. I have no idea what his face looks like, how tall he is, or any other details of his appearance that aren't based on his clothing. Likewise, Darken Rahl has soft blonde hair and blue eyes...and that's all I'm sure of. His features are alluded to, but never described. I can't even tell if the ill-named Mud People have black skin (making them an even more unfortunate stereotype) or white (making them merely confusing).
Conversely, there is sometimes too much description. For example, in most of the fight scenes, Richard's actions (and often Kahlan's) are described in “bullet time,” where the characters seem to move with agonizing slowness, allowing them to ponder and philosophize as they strike a single blow. This smacks of a kind of fight-porn, especially given the attention lavished on Richard and his awesomeness.
Sexuality: There are an alarming number of hyper-sexualized scenes, from the initial description of Kahlan to the entire existence of the Mord-Sith torturers/bodyguards/dominatrices/bedmates. The villains are all sexual deviants, and the nameless, faceless minions of said villains indulge in rape at every opportunity. Rather than make me cheer for the heroes, this tends to repulse me from the entire books, as well as inevitably wondering about Goodkind's own sexual kinks. It's not something I'm truly interested in, but it seems inevitable that an author who pens a sex scene (let alone dozens of them) opens himself to speculation regarding his own proclivities. 
Oh, and for the record: we're on page 269 of my hardback copy, and we're up to 125 drinks. That's a drink ever 2.152 pages.
Enough speechifying, or you'll have to take a drink. Back to the sporking.
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