Terry Goodkind

[nightsavior]

He mentioned he had a Ferrari? That has no barings on philosphy or being a good person. Geez Jenna it was that bad at the signing? I've already read his answers to questions which was hard enough to endure but now the man's in mid life crisis!

 

[jenna]

He was just so arrogant! He rolled his eyes at genuine questions by fans - I'm sure he's heard them all before, but that's just part of the deal.

He said great things like "The thing about fantasy.... Not that I read fantasy... But the thing about fantasy is etc etc" I wish I had come out of my shock long enough to ask him how the hell he knows what all other fantasy books are about when he's never read any! He reckons that in ALL other fantasy magic is just this background thing with no real thought given to the laws and workings of it, that his is the ONLY world in which magic is a character of it's own.

It was just cringe worthy, I was actually embarrassed for him..

 

[the_faery_queen]

his magic was rubbish though!
he does use rape as punishment, a clear sign he has NO idea what rape is actually about. and the fact that all his villians want to rape makes them less scarey. this is my opinion, and though i fear being attacked by men, i dont' think men who rape are scarey. i think they're cowards. these men that goodkind invented are meant to be eeeeevil, horrigle bad people. but to me, they're a bunch of animalistic cowards, with no self control who like to rape anything that moves. a real evil person would be calm, controlled and sadisitic, not a sad rapist. and they wouldn't just target women, who are automatically weaker than men. cos that annoyed me a fair bit abotu goodkind, that his women suffered SO much, and the men hardly did at all. richard was raped, apparantly, but i really don't remember it. it can't have been as graphic or as vivid cos i think i would have otherwise. and the women suffered so much more, continually, for ridiculous reasons. the girls at the school annoyed me the most. so they teased some other girl and weren't nice to her, they all got gang raped and that other girl was let go? god, i just found that so digusting. the idea that being human, that teasing and being a little bit catty, the way we can ALL be (as we can tell by thsi thread ) warrants that sort of punishment? he really has no idea about rape.

peter morwood in his horse lord series had a villian who was pretty cold. he did rape a girl, but he was fairly calm about it, he was doing it to put her in her place, not as punishment for being a bit of a meanie, or as was said, less like the heroine. he also employed a healer to be his torturer. he raped the hero as well (again, to put him in his place) but didn't seem to enjoy it, it was more abotu control and power, about hurting people to get the job done, treating people as nothing, just things to use. THAT to me was pretty evil and sadstic, someone who doesn't care about anyone else. not all the raping pedophile bullies that goodkind had running around.

 

[nightsavior]

Well also as has been said villians have different psychological profiles. Not all villians would rape a girl. Some would use other psycholigical war tactics or maybe even try befriending or seducing a woman to get what they need. Others may just threaten her life directly to coerce the info out of her. Then of course you have villians that oppose the heroes but they are really good people deep down.

Every Sot fan says "rape is used as symbolism for domination through power" as if it is supposed to represent a country being occupied. There are however other ways to symbolize this struggle.

Terry is a strange man...he encourages the war in Iraq yet critiques it and says if someone has experimented with drugs even once they are awful. So I suppose he likes how our free democratic society lets him rant yet he still wants to change it. Also he fails to see the point sometimes we become good people from making mistakes and learning from them.

Even if he does believe he is doing a great service to man-kind he could "act" nicer in public. It's not like Mother Teresa ever sat on laurels and exploded at her supporters or Martin Luther King drove around in a porshe waring expensive designer shades.

 

[the_faery_queen]

i think goodkind is lazy, in honesty. he goes with what is easy and obvious, and having his females raped is easy and obvious. i also think it pleases his perverted streak, because i think he has one! his obessession with pure virgins, and bad girls being punished through sex is proof of that. and i don't think raping women symbolising anything, really! least of all domination through power. ok it shows that these rapists can dominate these women and have power over them. ok. so what? what does that prove? women are often in an inferior position, in fantasy, in the real world. raping them doesn't show that, it just shows that rapists are cowards because they pick on someone physically and positionally weaker. and an occupied country? why not HAVE an occupied country as a symbol for it? or why not have men raped and tortured as a symbol, or hell, why not just use it as a symbol ONCE why does it have to be driven home time and again?

i think that's a weak excuse on behalf of the fans. one of many, to be honest.

 

[nightsavior]

Fans would counter the whole "Richard was raped by the Mord sith" jazz but come on Denna was drop dead gorgeous. Was he being raped? Tortured yes, raped pfft whatever. In truth urban gangs will even rape and humilate men too. It is done for the same reasons as raping woman, a show of power. The men raping other men aren't always homosexaul. They do it to make a statement.

I even saw "rape biasm" with Kahlan's friend confessor. She obivously wasn't as pretty as Kahlan or as smart as Kahlan so sure enough a quad broke her arms,had a marry gang bang,and were on their way! I think if you're not a leading character in Goodkind's universe "being screwed over" is a way of life.

The problem is these books are "moral guides" not to be taken as fantasy yet it is so easy for naive readers to just be seduced by the brutality and depraved sexaul scenarios in the books and think that is the meaning instead of say Richard's crusade. (Which in some ways isn't a great moral guide either.)

As I said you're all talking to a first class perv here. lol. I love doing erotic art and even letting out my anger and frustrations through my art but I'm not saying I'm preaching a just philosphy. To me writing and drawing is venting if anything or just personal fantasy day dreams. I'm not going to try and "sell the idea" everything I do has a higher meaning.

 

[the_faery_queen]

i never noticed the rape of richard, so in my mind it wasn't as graphic or as bad as what happened to the women. and he never seemed to have an issue with it, he didn't seem upset or hung up over it. i do remember in a book i read, well even in peter morwood's horse lord, where the hero was raped. it had happened to him before, he was upset, it had lingered with him, he didn't just get over it (granted it was a man who raped him not a woman, maybe that is less traumatic? i would say no, not in real life, but in fiction world maybe) either way, he remembered it. did richard? not that i saw!

and richard's crusade is a selfish one where he is just after himself, so not really a moral one at all.

sides, one rape of one man, doesn't counter the amount of rapes against women, especially when you add the sex with monsters so the women bleed, the women tortured into becoming lesbian bondage women and even the detail of kahlan giving oral sex and tasting her own blood, which was just a nasty detail for no apparant reason. which says to me, goodkind likes to hutr and humilate women and it has nothing to do with dominace or power being used allagorically

 

[nightsavior]

Yeah, he does obivously have issues. Could be simple sexaul frustration or it could be worse and I'm not going to a book signing to find out Faery Queen. lol. His shrink can handle his problems not me.

 

[the_faery_queen]

he won't see one. he thinks he's great and powerful and SUPER!

blurgh. his editor or wife should have knocked sense into him. editor really. they published his rubbish. they shoulda said, NO! get rid of this misognistic nonsence! get some plot and characterisation! or else!!! *shakes fist* i'd have done it

 

[Brian G Turner]

Okay, let's try and cool the thread somewhat - ideally, we want to discuss books and writing, rather than dedicate an entire thread to trashing someone's personality, as it's reading kind of ugly.

Probably better to close the thread at this point.

 

[nightsavior]

Alas such an action maybe for the best Brian. I think we all got out what we wanted to express.

 

[the_faery_queen]

other than my last comment, which i would admit is rather goodkind bashy, i thought we were discussing his work. nightsaviour was telling me what fans would say to justify why his books were as they are, and i was arging the response that i dont' think that adds up.

*shrug* but you're the boss

 

[nightsavior]

Well there is a fine line between bashing and critiquing. Honestly some of my responses were outright derogatory to GoodKind then again they were based mostly on his actions or how he writes.

Regardless of what Faery Queen or I say however ALOT of people love the man's books and that's not going to change for sot fans. Even my best friend continues reading them though in honesty he is delibertly steering away from the Goodkind site so he can stomach the last few books without becoming disgusted like I did. My friend is a great person and I don't think less of him just because he enjoys sot. Also no, he is not an objectivist.

Regardless at this point I confess there maybe better topics. lol. I'm glad Faery Queen took her time to describe her views on things though. I venture to say it helped me on key issues.