Goodkind: Political Pundit?

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I have just finished "Naked Empire" and as usual with the latest Goodkind books I resorted to skimming through it as Goodkind shares Jordan's problem of writing lots and lots of text about nothing.

What I wanted to point out here though is that Goodkind is becoming more and more of a political pundit. All writers have their values and perception, that is normal and to be expected but Goodkind's latest books are full of blatant political propaganda, crude and blunt one at that. His complete rejection of any kind of solidarity and social security in "Faith of the Fallen" is topped by his latest book "Naked Empire" which more or less tells the reader that any pacifist, solidirical person who dont think the world should be seen in black and white is evil and doesnt deserve to live.

"Naked Empire" goes hand in hand with the current US situation with the Iraq war and the general so called war on terror. Goodkind spouts the far rights rhetoric unashamedly and with very little effort to let it just wedge in smoothly in the story, oh no Goodking have Richard make long speeches about this and that so we are sure not to miss it. The entire book is just an excuse for Goodkind to voice his opinions, it is not like he has a story to tell anymore. "Naked Empire" use the method favoured by many writers and especially Goodkind: Everything goes straight to hell and there is no hope, Richard learns more about his gift just like that and fixes everything period, end of story.

I just had to get this out of my system, it has bugged me since I started reading the book and finishing it didnt make it bug me less. I should point out though that there are parts of Goodkind's propaganda that I dont disagree with, he does seem to not favour religious fanaticism and that is always a good thing. Even if I had agreed with all of his views though they are so crudely and bluntly presented and take over his whole work until there is nothing left but political speeches.

 

It was a while since I read "Faith of the Fallen" so I concede your point. That book was more of a large kick in the buttocks to socialism. A very crude and ineffective one at that.

You should read "Naked Empire" BTA, it is *all* about propagandizing. I would too have seen more of as a satire if not for Goodkind's, especially in "Naked Empire" vehement stance and quite obvious declaration that anyone not sharing his views are immoral and even outright evil and have more or less no justification to exist. Also in a satire they dont write their message on the readers nose, Goodkind does that. He doesnt let us experience a silly system, he just tells us what it is and how destructive and evil it is. His political structures are extreme, very much so, but I atleast have no problems seeing that for Goodkind they have their real world ecquivalents and for him it is just a matter of degrees and not a large one either.

 

The Naked Empire was portrayed as "stupidly evil" and more or less deserving of everything they got. What bugs me is that in my opinion the people of the naked empire represents in Goodkind's pacifism and in the extension everything remotely coloured by it. The notion of "true evil" also ties in to this, true, in most fantasy fiction there exist true evil but it is most the time portrayed by a "devil" like character and the footsoldiers are monsters like orcs or trollocs created evil at birth with no exception in those universes. Goodkind claims that true raw exist in man, which I do not doubt it does, but his conclusions of that is that all men who do wicked things are truly evil and have always been so with no hope for redemption and that all they deserve is a swift death. His utter rejection of any possibility of atonement or rehabilitatition honestly screams fascism to me.

As I see it so is The Order Goodkind's vision of any kind of socialism and the Naked Empire is Goodkind's vision of pacifism. Even his portraying them as an infection the world had to get rid of reminds of the renouncment of all anti-war people in all countries throughout history.

My interpretation of Goodkind is that his books, atleast the latest ones are viscious attacks on anything on the political spectrum left of Rush Limbaugh, albeit with a small dash of libertarianism which may explain why you dont see it as I do. =)

Note though that my bashing of Goodkind is not really for what he is saying but how it is done, many if not most authors let their politics colour their writing and that I personally do not agree with Goodkind's is not the main reason I started this topic, if it was I would have done so after his previous work. It is because in Naked Empire it becomes ridicously open, blunt and crude. A large part of the book is dedicated to having Richard give long political speeches which not only writes Goodkind's views on the nose of the reader but tries to tatoo it on his forehead with a rusty nail.

 

You missed something in your reading BTA, it was openly stated to teh end of the book that they were not banished because of their (lack of) magic as they first had thought but because of their philosphy and the fact that in Goodkind's mind that kind of philosophy would doom everything.

As for D'Hara my problem with this did not really spring up until Faith of the Fallen and did not truly bug me until Naked Empire, not that there were not other things which were odd with his work but not what I whine about here.

Well, I think Goodkind's choice in philosophies not to follow blindly speaks volumes are not done out of chance by any means. As I see it it is his way of depicting it which consists his attacks. What you wrote about socialism as a question is what Goodkind writes as a statement. That is his vision of socialism as I see it and not how I see reality.

 

I am not sure but I think it was towards the end fo teh book where Richard finds out that the taint and danger which lead to the magicblind people's exile from the old world was not their lack of magic but their philosophy. They were exiled from the new world due to their magical status but in the old world they locked them in due to their philosophy. I will have to check it.

As for the socialism I think we wont reach an agreement here. I see Goodkind's Imperial Order as his view of socialism and not as randomly picked philosophy to make the readers think for themselves and not follow blindly. In my mind it becomes more obvious in Naked Empire when I see Goodkind attack pacifism as something bad and more or less evil as he then have picked out two "leftist" philosophies to as you say "illustrate his point".

I might be reading way too much into thnigs though.

 

Hi Guys, I've just been reading Naked Empire and remembered this thread from way back. Glad to see it's been resuscitated in time for me to chime in.

I agree 100% with Terry Goodkind's political opinions, and at the same time I agree 100% with Joacqin that he has been WAY too blatant about them in his last few books. It reminds me of what someone once said about Heinlein: "He sold his birthright for a pot of message". I keep wanting to throw the book and shout, "stop with the ranting and tell the story already!" But then, I'm pregnant, which makes a woman even grumpier than PMS. So I have an excuse.

I read a Terry Goodkind interview a little while ago and thought that he actually might be developing a mental illness. He sounded acutely paranoid. Among other things, he doesn't use the Internet because he believes that the government will use it to break into his computer and find out what he has been writing. So the guy might actually be losing it, which would explain a lot about the way his writing has (in my opinion) degenerated into zealous ranting. It's disappointing, because his first book was SO GOOD, and all the subsequent books have been a big letdown. But I keep buying them... hope springs eternal.

 

Oh, yes. The stories are all still quite good. But not as good as the first book, which packed in a huge number of interesting and different storylines alongside the main one. Increasingly the books just have one main storyline, diluted with endless Richard speeches or descriptive passages about how this community or that one (all of them left-wing dystopias) is Evil. I find I skip pages to get back to the plot. I guess my point is that the pacing is really suffering with what seems to me to be irrelevant digressions into political philosophy. It is possible to make a point a lot more subtly; Ursula Le Guin, for example, is good at political propaganda that is not too overt.

I forgot to mention that, while I agree that the Imperial Order does not necessarily represent "Socialism" in general, I think that the whole Nicci storyline does show that Goodkind is trying to make a point about socialism in general - that it can abstract the notion of human rights and liberty, thus leading good people to do evil things. I agree with that, by the way, but I felt that he was really shoving it down the reader's throat unnecessarily. But maybe I'm just grumpy. Sorry if I sounded too critical in my last post; I didn't mean to poop all over the poor guy. Just expressing disappointment.

 

Well in general his books have lost a lot in quality in my opinion. I really liked the first one but they seem to have more and more lost focus, no real goals or anything. Also Richard's hero problem is a bit more obvious than in most other books. He is powerless until the story demands that he has powers and then he can do anything. This is present in many if not most stories but it is quite extreme for Goodkind. The many different big bad baddies also detracts from the story in my opinion. Goodkind should have written three different "series" first against Darken Rahl, then the devil thingy and then Jagang and kept each story a bit more focused.

Sometimes brilliance shines through though but it have got rarer and rarer. In the Pillars of creation it didnt shnie through at all, not as political as Naked Empire but a helluva lot more boring.

I have been off topic, I apologise.