Data Graham posted:

You know what still gets me about this series, is the title: The Sword of Truth. Sight unseen, it sounds like it's going to be a metaphor or something, like the titles of the Robert Jordan books — The Path of Daggers, A Crown of Swords, that sort of thing. Just poetic names with only the most tangential and figurative relation to the story. But then you read it and it turns out that no, it's literally about a sword that does Truth things. Like it has the loving word truth written on it

It'd be like if The Fires of Heaven turned out to be about the atmosphere catching fire and burning, and not like in a poetic way like if you shot a nuclear missile into them, more like if someone set a campfire in the troposphere and God got third degree burns

wizzardstaff posted:

What I remember from attending a Terry Goodkind signing in uhhh 2004 was that he grew to hate the sword imagery and saw it as a necessary evil to get people hooked and reading his message. He was proud of fighting with the publisher to remove the sword illustration from the chapter headings and the map from the front pages. These were the trappings of fantasy, and he did not view himself as a fantasy author but as a creator of provocative Literature.

Data Graham posted:

You know what still gets me about this series, is the title: The Sword of Truth. Sight unseen, it sounds like it's going to be a metaphor or something, like the titles of the Robert Jordan books — The Path of Daggers, A Crown of Swords, that sort of thing. Just poetic names with only the most tangential and figurative relation to the story. But then you read it and it turns out that no, it's literally about a sword that does Truth things. Like it has the loving word truth written on it

It'd be like if The Fires of Heaven turned out to be about the atmosphere catching fire and burning, and not like in a poetic way like if you shot a nuclear missile into them, more like if someone set a campfire in the troposphere and God got third degree burns

Mr. Prokosch posted:

For most of my life I thought "Sword of Truth" was "Sword of Shannara" which features a sword that literally reveals the truth. That's until I read this thread and discovered that "Sword of Truth" is far worse than the fantasy schlock of my youth and doesn't even have a Sword of Truth. It has a Sword of Beserker Rage with "Truth" scratched on the side by some rear end in a top hat.

Mr. Prokosch posted:

For most of my life I thought "Sword of Truth" was "Sword of Shannara" which features a sword that literally reveals the truth. That's until I read this thread and discovered that "Sword of Truth" is far worse than the fantasy schlock of my youth and doesn't even have a Sword of Truth. It has a Sword of Beserker Rage with "Truth" scratched on the side by some rear end in a top hat.

Shaking lemur butt posted:

How about you show some respect for The Sword of Truth! (which only lets you harm people if the wielder, subjectively, believes them to be wicked)

gschmidl posted:

There's an illustration of the sword hilt as drawn by a 7-year-old in at least one of the books.

Here's a replica someone made from that:

gschmidl posted:

quote:

Zedd held no illusions about ending the threat of the Imperial Order simply by killing Jagang. Jagang was merely the brute who led other brutes in enforcing blind faith in the Order, a blind faith that embraced death as salvation from what it preached was the corrupt misery of life, a blind faith in which life itself had no value but as a bloody sacrifice upon the altar of altruism, a blind faith that blamed the failure of its own ideas on mankind for being wicked and for failing to offer sufficient sacrifice in an endless quest for some illusive greater good that grew ever more distant, a blind faith in an Order that clung to power by feeding off the carcasses of the productive lives it ruined.

A faith that by its very beliefs rejected reason and embraced the irrational could not long endure without intimidation and force— without brutes like Jagang to enforce such faith.

While Emperor Jagang was brutally effective, it was a mistake to think that if Jagang were to die that very day it would end the threat of the Order. It was the Order's ideas that were so dangerous; the priests of the Order would find other brutes.

The only real way to end the Order's reign of terror was to expose the naked evil of its teachings to the light of truth, and for those suffering under its doctrines to throw off the Order's yoke. Until then, they would have to fight the Imperial Order back as best they could, hoping at least to eventually contain them.

quote:

For a time, after Jagang's army had moved on, they had wandered into the city, sometimes alone, sometimes in small groups, half starved, to search for food and to loot. Zedd had lost count of how many such men he had killed.

He was reasonably sure that all of those stragglers were dead, now. The Order was made up of men mostly from cities and towns. Such men weren't used to living in the wild. Their job was to overwhelm the enemy, to kill, rape, terrorize, and plunder. A whole corps of logistics personnel provided them with support, delivering and dispensing a constant stream of supplies that rolled in to feed and care for the soldiers. They were violent men, but they were men who needed to be tended, who depended on the group for their survival. They didn't last long on their own in the trackless forested mountains surrounding Aydindril.

But Zedd hadn't seen any of them for quite some time. He was reasonably sure that the stragglers had starved, been killed, or had long ago headed back south, to the Old World.

There was always the possibility, though, that Jagang had sent assassins to Aydindril; some of those assassins could be Sisters of the Light, or worse, Sisters of the Dark. For that reason, Zedd rarely left the safety of the Keep, and when he did, he was cautious. Too, he hated poking around the city, seeing it so devoid of life. This had been his home for much of his life. He remembered the days when the Keep was a hub of activity— not as it once had been, he knew, but alive with people of all sorts. He found himself smiling at the memory.

quote:

"More importantly, after eliminating those who resisted the Order's teachings, he filled the minds of children, who didn't know any better, with blind faith in those teachings, turning them into zealots eager to die for what they were taught was a noble cause— sacrifice to some all-consuming greater good. Those young men, their minds twisted with the teachings of the Order, are now off to the north conquering the New World, butchering any who will not take up their altruistic tenets."

quote:

Cara wasn't pleased to find such a thing and didn't want to leave a representation of Kahlan lying about for anyone to find and to pick up for who-knew-what. Cara snatched it up, then, even though Richard started to yell at her to leave such a thing be. When she picked it up, it started turning translucent. In a panic, Cara set it back down.

That was when the right arm had lifted and pointed east.

That was when they could begin to see through the thing, to see the sand inside trickling down.

The implied danger of the sand running out had them all upset. Cara wanted to pick it up again and turn it over, to stop the sand from falling. Richard, not knowing anything about such an object and doubting that so simple a solution would have any beneficial effect, hadn't allowed Cara to touch it again. He had piled rocks and brush around it so no one else would know it was there. Obviously, that hadn't worked.

He knew now that Cara's touch had nothing to do with what was happening, except to initiate the warning, so he thought to confirm his original belief. "Cara, put it down."

"Down?"

"On its side— like you wanted to do the last time— to see if that will stop the sand."

Cara stared at him for a moment and then used the toe of her boot to tip the figure over on its side.

The sand continued to run as if it still stood upright.

"How can the sand do that?" Jennsen asked, sounding quite shaken. "How can the sand still fall— how can it fall sideways?"

"You can see it?" Kahlan asked. "You can see the sand falling?"

Jennsen nodded. "I sure can, and I have to tell you, it's giving my goose bumps goose bumps."

Richard could only stare at her staring at the statue of Kahlan lying on its side. If nothing else, the sand running sideways through the statue had to be magic. Jennsen was a pillar of Creation, a hole in the world, a pristinely ungifted offspring of Darken Rahl. She should not be able to see magic.

And yet, she was seeing it.

quote:

The magic did not come out with the sword.

quote:

Kahlan's vision focused on the man bearing down on her. His arms lifted like a bear lost in a mad charge. His teeth were gritted with determination. A grimace twisted his face in his wild effort to reach her before she could dodge to the side, before she had a chance to escape. She knew he was too close for her to have that chance and so she didn't waste any effort in a useless attempt.

This one had made it past the killing. He had avoided Jennsen and Sabar. He had figured his attack to skirt Richard's blade while making it past Cara's Agiel as she turned to another man. He hadn't charged in madly like the rest; he had delayed just enough to time his onslaught perfectly.

This one knew he was on the verge of having what he sought.

He was far less than a heartbeat away, plunging toward her at full speed.

Kahlan could hear Richard's scream even as her gaze met the gleam of the man's dark eyes.

The man let out a cry of rage as he lunged. His feet left the ground as he sailed through the air toward her. His wicked grin betrayed his confidence.

Kahlan could see his eyeteeth hooked over his cracked lower lip, saw the dark tooth in the front of the top row between his other yellow teeth, saw the little white hook of a scar, as if he had once been eating with a knife and had accidentally sliced the corner of his mouth. His stubble looked like wire. His left eye didn't open as wide as his right. His right ear had a big V-shaped notch taken out of the upper portion. It reminded her of the way some farmers marked their swine.

She could see her own reflection in his dark eyes as her right arm came up.

Kahlan wondered if he had a wife, a woman who cared for him, missed him, pined for him. She wondered if he might have children, and, if he did, what a man like this would teach his children. She had a momentary flash of the ugliness it would be to have this beast atop her, his wire stubble scraping her cheek raw, his cracked lips on hers, his yellow teeth raking her neck as he lost himself in what he wanted.

Time twisted.

She held out her arm. The man crashed in toward her. She felt the coarse weave of his dark brown shirt as the flat of her hand met the center of his chest.

That heartbeat of time she had before he was atop her had not yet begun. Richard had not yet managed to take a single frantic step.

The weight of the bear of a man against her hand felt as if it were but a baby's breath. To Kahlan, it seemed as if he were frozen in space before her.

Time was hers.

He was hers.

The rush of combat, the cries, the yells, the screams; the stink of sweat and blood; the flash of steel, the clash of bodies; the curses and growls; the fear, the terror, the heart-pounding dread... the rage... was no longer there for her. She was in a silent world all her own.

Even though she had been born with it and had always felt it there in the core of her being, the awesome power within, in many ways, seemed incomprehensible, inconceivable, unimaginable, remote. She knew it would seem that way until she let her restraint slip, and then she would once again be joined with a force of such breathtaking magnitude that it could only be fully comprehended as it was being experienced. Although she had unleashed it more times than she could remember, no matter how prepared she was the extraordinary violence of it always still astonished her.

She regarded the man before her with cold calculation, ready for that violence.

As he had charged in on her, time had belonged to this man.

Now time belonged to her.

She could feel the thread count of the fabric of his shirt, feel his woolly chest hairs beneath it.

The heart-pounding shock of the sudden attack, the violence of it, was gone now. Now there was only this man and her, forever linked by what was to happen. This man had consciously chosen his own fate when he chose to attack them. Her certainty of what was called for carried her beyond the need for the assessment of emotion, and she felt none— no joy, not even relief; no hate, not even aversion; no compassion, not even sorrow.

Kahlan shed those emotions to make way for the rush of power, to give it free run.

Now he had no chance.

He was hers.

The man's face was contorted with the intoxicated, gloating glee of his certitude that he was the glorious victor who would have her, that he was now the one to decide what was to become of her life, that she was but his to plunder.

Kahlan unleashed her power.

the_steve posted:

Isn't the only "Truth" revealed the knowledge of which Box of Orden is the one that activates Godmode?

END ME SCOOB posted:

THERE'S MORE PAGES OF THIS BEFORE IT'S DONE.

the_steve posted:

Isn't the only "Truth" revealed the knowledge of which Box of Orden is the one that activates Godmode?

Torrannor posted:

They talk so much about how killing Jagang would not stop the Order, because they're an evil communist death cult, but this has always been bullshit. He's a dreamwalker, by far the strongest weapon in the Order's arsenal. The Sisters of the Light might very well have put a serious dent in Jagang's forces (when Zedd comes and rescues them from loving all up), but he has mages of his own to counter them. And most of these mages very much don't believe in the Order's teachings, but they're slaves to Jagang's dreamwalker powers.

END ME SCOOB posted:

Nobody comments on this, but holy gently caress, they're straight up genociding an entire generation of the Old World. I really, really want to get into his post-failure R&K novels just to see if he does anything with the aftereffects of "I sent a mass of the world's population to another dimension and with it, most of the youth of a land mass the size of Russia". Probably not, but hey.

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

This isn't a very good communist parallel with all the religion.

as I recall when they do kill Jagang the IO falls apart

Torrannor posted:

Hmm. The book pretty much ended like 10 pages after they killed Jagang IIRC, so when do we see the Order fall apart? In the sequels?

Torrannor posted:

Hmm. The book pretty much ended like 10 pages after they killed Jagang IIRC, so when do we see the Order fall apart? In the sequels?

Data Graham posted:

You know what still gets me about this series, is the title: The Sword of Truth. Sight unseen, it sounds like it's going to be a metaphor or something, like the titles of the Robert Jordan books — The Path of Daggers, A Crown of Swords, that sort of thing. Just poetic names with only the most tangential and figurative relation to the story. But then you read it and it turns out that no, it's literally about a sword that does Truth things. Like it has the loving word truth written on it

It'd be like if The Fires of Heaven turned out to be about the atmosphere catching fire and burning, and not like in a poetic way like if you shot a nuclear missile into them, more like if someone set a campfire in the troposphere and God got third degree burns

Mr Phillby posted:

I've been catching up with the thread on and off for a while and now I'm finally caught up I'd like to say thanks for your cathartic comentary on this trash.

Also why can't Dick's sister see the invisible man's 'shadow' in the sand? She definitely saw the fireball that she blocked in the last book. Ignoring that, as described wouldn't she have to be seeing the grains of sand where they would have been if the man wasn't there? Why doesn't she just see the man if she's unafected by the magic? This poo poo hurts my brain.

silvergoose posted:

Well um.

The crown of swords is, in fact, the name Rand gave to the laurel crown. Cause there's swords in it, pointing down, making you feel them when you wear it.

It's funny to me that the iron throne and the crown of swords both debuted in 1996.

I don't know that any of the other books did that though. Towers of midnight are, y'know, some towers named that, but they're not literally midnight or made of pitch black magic essence of nightmare put there by wizards to protect the midnight castle or someshit.

Dirk the Average posted:

If the spell was some sort of astral projection type thing where he wasn't physically there, but magically projected an illusionary/ethereal copy of himself, then she wouldn't see him because he isn't there. Of course, he shouldn't see her either...

JcDent posted:

Types of Magic:
Additive
Subtractive
Sand

END ME SCOOB posted:

This tracks what with Jennsen being able to see the hourglass when it gets turned sideways. Sand: Magic for Everybody.

END ME SCOOB posted:

I mean, a Stand is just Sand with tea.

...I'll see myself out.

TF CURES GENERATOR posted:

Isnt that all of them