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Drax: Companion, what were you retrieving? *hands cassette over* Drax: You're an imbecile. That, but not in a movie with a talking raccoon and instead written by best selling not-fantasy-author Terry Goodkind. Jesus Christ.
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Dec 17, 2014 19:51
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 07:51 |
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DARKSEID DICK PICS posted:
This is doubly hilarious coming so close on the heels of "This woman is lying, actual poverty doesn't exist because of charity.". Why yes, there'll always be people able and willing to take care of the truly needy. Just, well, other people, obviously 
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Dec 17, 2014 19:57
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Neville? Really? Neville?
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Dec 17, 2014 20:12
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Mors Rattus posted:Neville? Hyper Crab Tank posted:By the way, it's still mystifying how names like Kahlan, Fyren, Zorander and Darken Rahl can coexist in the same culture as names like Richard, George, and Ranson. Heck, Sanderholt is a real world name too. Also what the hell, back to ye olde rape pit? It was awful the first time and it sounds even worse now. Where are we, anyway? Somewhere in the midlands? I ask because there was a map I didn't look very closely at before but I don't recall it having a lot of thought put into it. Truth be told, I'm not sure where any of these events are taking place other than Dick and Kahlan are not in the same location.
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Dec 17, 2014 20:39
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While the Spirits with a capital 'S' are demonstrably existent, unlike their angelic real world counter parts, I have to wonder at Kahlan's reasoning here. Nothing in her past with Spirits has shown them to have purposeful agency in the living world baring very particular situations (such as summoning them). Why is she so pissed they aren't helping her? What does she expect them to do? Fight off the guards? Teleport her to safety? They can't help you like that, idiot, they're dead! They are in the underworld. At best they would inspire the living to know what they need to do to save themselves. Such as helping the Oracle find her pet noble savage to come rescue her. Oh wait... And Kahlan absolutely knows this. She has seen them summoned to answer questions, such as the Mud People's ancestors Spirits. She has seen them come to the living world of their own volition when able, such as Denna taking Dick's place in hell. She has seen them physically protect her when bound to an object, such as Chandalen's 'grandfather knife'. For the non-readers, Chandalen is the remaining Mud Person escort after one turned out to be a baneling. Earlier in the book he had given Kahlan a knife, made from the thigh bone of his grandfather, to protect her. It was strongly implied that the baneling was killed because the spirit-bound knife moved on its own. But outside of their purview, the Spirits are impotent. Kahlan needs to stop bitching about their efforts. They've done a lot to help her. Hyper Crab Tank posted:Also what the hell, back to ye olde rape pit? It was awful the first time and it sounds even worse now. Where are we, anyway? Somewhere in the midlands? I ask because there was a map I didn't look very closely at before but I don't recall it having a lot of thought put into it. Truth be told, I'm not sure where any of these events are taking place other than Dick and Kahlan are not in the same location. Chekhov's Rape Pit! 
TheSmilingJackal fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 20:47
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quote:Well, no more. She was finished with the good spirits, as she was finished with trying to help the ungrateful people of the Midlands. What had it gotten her? She had learned in the council chambers what it had gotten her. It had gotten her the undying hatred of her people. The very people she fought for thought she harmed children. People didn’t like Confessors, and were afraid of them for a variety of reasons, but she had been stunned to learn what people really believed about her.  This tantrum reminds me a bit of Bruce Nolan, but I doubt Morgan Freeman is going to show up and knock some sense into her.
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Dec 17, 2014 21:01
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When you guys keep mentioning the rape pit as if we'd been there, I was so confused until I read back. I'd honestly already blacked out the first incident.
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Dec 17, 2014 21:02
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Where are we, anyway? Somewhere in the midlands? I'm 99% sure this is the city of Aydindril, where the Wizard's Keep is, and, apparently, the Confessor's Keep, the entire Midlands Council, and also a rape-dungeon are. It's very conservationist in design, making one of the only named cities contain EVERYTHING IN GOVERNMENT IN THE MIDLANDS all at once. edit: Actually, I'm thinking on this now and I have absolutely no idea how the gently caress the Midlands works. So we have the council, which is supposed to be a UN-style thing, with the Mother Confessor representing lesser nations/independents (like the Mud People or "smaller kingdoms"), but then there are lands which have a bunch of royalty and those people don't go anywhere near the council? Or was Violet's kingdom just completely divorced from the council/"smaller"? Or... God, this loving world sucks. claw game handjob fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 21:05
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quote:rape pit Does Goodkind play FATAL?
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Dec 17, 2014 21:13
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The Rape Pit Gambit is different and maybe a little worse than I remembered. 
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Dec 17, 2014 21:58
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DARKSEID DICK PICS posted:edit: Actually, I'm thinking on this now and I have absolutely no idea how the gently caress the Midlands works. So we have the council, which is supposed to be a UN-style thing, with the Mother Confessor representing lesser nations/independents (like the Mud People or "smaller kingdoms"), but then there are lands which have a bunch of royalty and those people don't go anywhere near the council? Or was Violet's kingdom just completely divorced from the council/"smaller"? Or... God, this loving world sucks. While we're on that topic, let's look at the map again.  So we've already established that it's completely ludicrous for everyone in the Westland to have apparently forgotten everything about the Midlands and magic in the what, 40 years since the boundaries went up? But what bothers me is the huge, largely unpopulated area where the Mud People live. Westland doesn't border any of the nations we've been spending most of our time with, but which seem to be culturally similar (enough to speak the same language, it seems). So what exactly happened here? Was there a civilization where the Mud People are now at some point that's the missing link between the Westland and non-Mud People Midlands? Was there a diaspora of westlanders/midlanders that crossed those plains and decided to settle on the other side? Also, note that the Old World is on the map there. Didn't Richard and that sister go through some kind of valley full of wizards towers to get there? According to the map there's just a river that looks to be several miles long. Does the valley flank the river all the way down? Tanimura (which means "valley village" in Japanese, by the way) looks to be a coastal town. Can you go there by boat? Actually never mind, no one else seems to have bothered building any cities on the coastline, or by the rivermouths, despite such locations being of critical strategic and commercial value to most big cities in time periods with this level of technology. Hyper Crab Tank fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 22:19
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The map is apparently mostly relational. It doesn't even convey Goodkind's own grasp on distances and regions.
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Dec 17, 2014 22:42
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Tanimura (which means "valley village" in Japanese, by the way) looks to be a coastal town. Can you go there by boat? Yes. This comes up in a bit.
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Dec 17, 2014 22:43
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So in other words the whole "you can only cross through the death valley of nuclear wizard fallout twice" is completely pointless since you can just, y'know, circumvent it via boat? I guess there might be some plot contrivance we haven't heard of yet preventing that.
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Dec 17, 2014 22:51
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:So in other words the whole "you can only cross through the death valley of nuclear wizard fallout twice" is completely pointless since you can just, y'know, circumvent it via boat? I guess there might be some plot contrivance we haven't heard of yet preventing that. No, that's literally it.
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Dec 17, 2014 22:54
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TheSmilingJackal posted:It would be hilarious if killing that rear end in a top hat ahead of schedule, and in and in front of several witnesses, would have really hosed up a bad guys plans. It's so stupid! Her power is literally to force people to tell the truth, and she knows these people are lieing. If ever there was a time to use her confessor power...
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Dec 17, 2014 22:56
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Meanwhile, across the world, Richard is actually being clever. He has some of the younger boys make a racket for him while he uses the invisibility cloak to sneak past the Prelate's guards into her office.quote:An old woman, one of the cleaning staff, in a heavy, dark gray work dress, was standing on a stool, dusting a top bookshelf. She turned with surprise as he came to a halt. She glanced to the door, and then back to him. Similar to some other tough broad I could name from a fantasy series, Prelate Annalina (henceforth "Ann") is pretty no-nonsense and paranoid about all her closest advisors, trapped by the rules she has to follow to avoid tipping off every single Baneling in the building. So her revenge is pretty sweet. quote:One of the Sisters took a step toward him. She angrily pointed a stout rod at him. “You are going to have your own punishment to worry about.” gently caress it, that's enough for one update, this is the first one in ages to leave me smiling. Sister Ann is basically a female Zedd and it's great.
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Dec 17, 2014 23:17
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quote:The woman told of how her children had to go to bed hungry, because she had no money. She said she had been forced into prostitution to feed her children. Kahlan knew it was a lie. There was no scarcity of charitable people and groups who would help anyone truly needing it. our female hero ladies and germs
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Dec 17, 2014 23:29
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Mors Rattus posted:Neville? loving Kevin the guard from a couple of updates back. At least Neville is a vaguely old-fashioned-sounding name. Kevin is a name with very modern connotations, at least in the UK, and it feels amazingly out of place.
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Dec 17, 2014 23:54
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DARKSEID DICK PICS posted:No, that's literally it.  Well I'm glad at least the portrayal of the sisterhood as having half a brain cell between them is consistent?
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Dec 18, 2014 00:00
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:
I think its wonderful that you somehow expected more.
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Dec 18, 2014 00:04
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It literally takes the thousand year old man who can see the future to point that out to the good guys, and the Keeper I guess tells the villains. Oops, spoilers, the SotD get away by boat.
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Dec 18, 2014 00:12
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DARKSEID DICK PICS posted:It literally takes the thousand year old man who can see the future to point that out to the good guys, and the Keeper I guess tells the villains. Maybe thats why people join the Keeper, because hes keeps losing his poo poo at how dumb everyone who professing to be a good guy he has to catch people and carefully explain to them whats right in front of their faces. As a result people just seem to arbitrarily worship him and he cant be bothered trying to explain to them why thats a dumb idea.
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Dec 18, 2014 00:15
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DARKSEID DICK PICS posted:gently caress it, that's enough for one update, this is the first one in ages to leave me smiling. Sister Ann is basically a female Zedd and it's great. However, by dint of not being Zedd, I imagine she's not long for this world.
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Dec 18, 2014 00:35
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kingcom posted:Maybe thats why people join the Keeper, because hes keeps losing his poo poo at how dumb everyone who professing to be a good guy he has to catch people and carefully explain to them whats right in front of their faces. As a result people just seem to arbitrarily worship him and he cant be bothered trying to explain to them why thats a dumb idea.
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Dec 18, 2014 00:38
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Chaltab posted:If I cared enough about this series to have a headcanon it would be that even though the Keeper is the ultimate evil, he STILL feels bad about taking advantage of the unspeakable stupidity of the people of this world. Or alternatively he looks at how completely terrible everything is on the planet, how nonsensical everything is, and how stupid the vast majority of the population is and has just come to the conclusion to wipe the world clean and start from scratch.
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Dec 18, 2014 00:41
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It's a good conclusion. Alright, I'm a convert. Consider me a baneling, Mr. Keeper.
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Dec 18, 2014 01:06
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DARKSEID DICK PICS posted:I'm 99% sure this is the city of Aydindril, where the Wizard's Keep is, and, apparently, the Confessor's Keep, the entire Midlands Council, and also a rape-dungeon are. From what I understand Ayndrindril in its entirety is an independent city that houses all the diplomatic mechanisms of the midlands so no one nation is more powerful than the other. The Mother Confessor is the chairwoman and independent arbitrator between the nations so they can resolve disputes between nations in an unbiased way. Wizards are the same. It kind of makes sense except it seems real loving stupid to have people who a bred for their ability to absolutely mind control wield any kind of political power. The magic in this series is mind wrenchingly stupid. Wait until we find out where Mriswith come from
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Dec 18, 2014 01:23
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Glazius posted:However, by dint of not being Zedd, I imagine she's not long for this world. Well, Zedd's not Zedd right now, so I guess she gets to be Zedd until he takes it back.
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Dec 18, 2014 01:30
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Paragon8 posted:The magic in this series is mind wrenchingly stupid. Wait until we find out where Mriswith come from That's right, that IS in the next book, isn't it. I'm beginning to remember more of that as I flip through the opening chapters.
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Dec 18, 2014 01:37
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Ann has about as much disdain for her entire organization as I do, and it's wonderful. She seriously is Lady Zedd, because if you find/replace "Wizards" with "Sisters of the Light", you could probably reuse his speeches straight out.quote:“Ann, there is great trouble in the world. I need your help. I need this collar off so I may go help.” I mean, I could just make entire updates out of quoting Prelate Ann's Greatest Hits. quote:Richard continued, “So, what about the Keeper? What about the Stone of Tears?” Also, remember that plot thread we dropped way at the beginning of the novel and never came back to? Let's go back to that. quote:She glanced up. “How is your mother doing?” He actually listens and I love this. What I do not love: this poo poo. quote:“So what part do the living play in this?” Okay. No. I'm sorry. You cannot say "The Keeper is not evil" WHEN HE IS LITERALLY AN IMMORTAL GOD-KING OF SOUL RAPE WHY DID THAT SENTENCE EVER GET WRITTEN IN THESE NOVELS IF THIS WAS THE ANGLE YOU WERE GOING WITH quote:“Just for the sake of argument, what if I did have both kinds of magic? What is my power for?” So here we are. Now we know what a War Wizard is, and apparently it's to be a peacekeeper. Also I find the unintentional balance here really, really funny: just as Kahlan is going "gently caress THIS gently caress ALL Y'ALL", Richard is having to learn that he's the sole guardian of all the little people.
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Dec 18, 2014 01:42
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Chaltab posted:If I cared enough about this series to have a headcanon it would be that even though the Keeper is the ultimate evil, he STILL feels bad about taking advantage of the unspeakable stupidity of the people of this world. Nah, I always figured the opposite. In my headcanon, the Keeper is a god. Even as a god of the Underworld he still need living worshipers for power, à la a whole bunch of fantasy novels. BUT he is the god of death and destruction, and is compelled to keep doing his thing. So how is he to try and destroy the world, while not really destroying the world and his only source of worshipers? Get the stupidest people on your side.  Wanna worship me? What do I get out of it? I give you a whole bunch of power by way of horrible monster rape. Also, despite the fact that I am a death god, I totally promise to grant you eternal life, with absolutely no way that could go all monkey's paw on you. Am I a god of lies too? Pretty sure I am. Anyway. That's how you know you can trust me! Yay!
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Dec 18, 2014 01:56
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quote:“It is we, the living, who separate, and define the worlds to each side of life. Magic is the element that gives this world the power to do that. Magic is the balance point.” That's why.
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Dec 18, 2014 01:57
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Kahlan seems more like the Randian ubermensch now, not least for the fact that she's decided to stop trying to be altruistic at all. How does Goodkind reconcile that bit with this whole 'Richard, you are the protector of all the weak people'? Isn't protecting the weak antithetical to Randian thought?
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Dec 18, 2014 01:58
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You know, that lady is probably the closest anyone has come to sounding reasonable in this series so far. I mean, the...okay, yeah, the "The Keeper is actually a horrible demon thing that rapes magic into people" thing kind of undermines the point it looks like she's trying to make. But the basic idea that underworld gods don't have to be evil rapey monsters is at least fine in theory. Someone needs to care for the dead, y'know? Also goddamnit I hate when authors casually break out monstrous time scales like "three thousand years". Do you have any idea how long that is? Do you even have reliable records stretching half that far back?
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Dec 18, 2014 02:08
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:You know, that lady is probably the closest anyone has come to sounding reasonable in this series so far. I mean, the...okay, yeah, the "The Keeper is actually a horrible demon thing that rapes magic into people" thing kind of undermines the point it looks like she's trying to make. But the basic idea that underworld gods don't have to be evil rapey monsters is at least fine in theory. Someone needs to care for the dead, y'know? I'm still rooting for the Keeper to kill everyone to be honest.
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Dec 18, 2014 02:11
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Mors Rattus posted:Kahlan seems more like the Randian ubermensch now, not least for the fact that she's decided to stop trying to be altruistic at all. How does Goodkind reconcile that bit with this whole 'Richard, you are the protector of all the weak people'? Isn't protecting the weak antithetical to Randian thought? There's always that contradictory "genius hermit" versus "shining hero" thing in pretty much all of Randian Objectivism. I think it's the root of US libertarianism's delusion that Good Men would step forward and Show Us How It's Done when we abolish all regulations, instead of the world reverting to the early atrocities of industrialization. I guess all those robber barons were just cranky because they were still paying some taxes, so they took it out on the kids?
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Dec 18, 2014 02:13
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War Wizard would be a pretty good name for a power metal band.
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Dec 18, 2014 02:25
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I always like to play the game what's good about this series? Zedd and Chase are pretty neat? Anybody else have anything?
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Dec 18, 2014 02:25
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Basically the lead roles, villians, and general public all suck monkey balls. Supporting roles, though, are a sweet spot where Goodkind has to write you as flawed and/or limited in power, but sympathetic.
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Dec 18, 2014 02:33
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