OMG is this story ripping of the WoT or what?

[marcusadams]

There is this new book series i am reading that is driving me nuts!! it is a very good story called the seeker or the sword of truth but it is a complete and total rip off from the WoT. # 1 the main character finds out his father is not his father, there are no men that can use magic alive anymore, the main female magic character is called the mother confessor, his sword is magic and can cut through anything, anger is what gives him his power, the evil is called the nammless one, the sisters of the light live for a very very long time, there castle is on an island, they hold male magic useers prisoner, they use collars to control them, there are a group of people called the blood of the fold that wear shinning silver armor and blood red capes that believe they are acting on the better good by killing everything with magic. the list goes on and on driveing me nuts, oh and he just got his own group of female body gurads. the author is terry goodkind and i do like the story but my god is it agrivateing.

[Darth_Andrea]

Well to top it off for you the guy who Directed the Spider-man movies is turing Sword of Truth into a television series called Wizards First Rule, As shown in the post I made here. http://forums.dragonmount.com/index.php/topic,1097.240.html

 

 

 

[glow=green,1,500]Darth_Andrea[/glow]   

[Majsju]

goofkinds thefts has been brought up quite often around here. The kid is a retard who could not form an original thought if his life depended on it.

[Dragon21]

I must admit I have avoided reading Goodkind simply because I had heard from many sources that he was a Jordan rip-off. Might not be fair of me, but hey, i can do what I want. lol.

[SqueeEGA]

i made a point of not reading goodkind solely because my step-brother did, at least for a while.  looks like biggotry prevails for once...yeeee!

[Guest leebarr]

How in hell can a dick like goodkind who can not come up with his own ideas get a tv deal and the master (RJ) can not. Goodkind needs all his books burned and forgotten

[aevogt]

How in hell can a dick like goodkind who can not come up with his own ideas get a tv deal and the master (RJ) can not. Goodkind needs all his books burned and forgotten

 

Because television (at least in the states) is the medium of the mundane.

[wvlr]

Because television (at least in the states) is the medium of the mundane.

 

You rate it much higher than I do.    Mundane is about eight levels above what I would give it, and in election years it gets even worse.

 

Cartoons and comedy are the excruciating right now.  If they don't have at least 60% burping and farting they can't seem to come up with anything to make people enjoy them.

[Jelly]

You know, the Sword Of Truth books are rather good. Yes, Goodkind appears to have 'stolen' ideas, and maybe he's..borrowed..a few; but just you try and think of an idea for a story, then see how much looks copied from another book.

Every fantasy book is likely to have something in common. At least, that's what I've noticed. Of course; Sword of Truth will never, ever, be anywhere near as good as Wheel Of Time.

Though there are quite a few things about Sword Of Truth books I don't like as well; the violence and..other things can be very disturbing.

[wvlr]

Yes Jelly,

 

The Sword of Truth books (mainly the first few) had a pretty good side to them even though they borrowed a lot from WoT.    I actually liked some of the things that he did with the things he borrowed, he took it all in pretty much his own direction and added a few things of his own to make them unique.

 

If it had not degrated in the later books he could have been well up there overall.  Unfortunately, for me at least, the last few books took a dive getting overly diverted into political ranting without maintaining the plot and flow of the earlier books.

 

That said, I think that what really sinks Goodkind is his refusal to admit to borrowing things from other authors, especially RJ.    Yes!  Many/most authors do borrow either intentially and unintentially from other authors.    The difference is that most do admit to it.    RJ has stated that he got a lot from Tolkin and others.

 

I think that Goodkind's refusal to admit this when it is so, so obvious, that really turn people against him.

[DuDZiK]

You know, the Sword Of Truth books are rather good. Yes, Goodkind appears to have 'stolen' ideas, and maybe he's..borrowed..a few; but just you try and think of an idea for a story, then see how much looks copied from another book.

Every fantasy book is likely to have something in common. At least, that's what I've noticed. Of course; Sword of Truth will never, ever, be anywhere near as good as Wheel Of Time.

 

Jelly has it right.

 

People always say that SoT 'steals' ideas from WoT, and others say that WoT 'steals' ideas from LotR, and LotR in turn 'steals' many ideas from Celtic Myth and Folklore (a little known fact is that Tolkien was a Celtic Philologist; thats where he got his inspiration for all his languages; that and old Norse and old English).

 

# 1 the main character finds out his father is not his father,

 

That's not an uncommon motif in myth/folklore or fantasy

 

there are no men that can use magic alive anymore,

 

Actually there is. The idea is that they are dying out, whereas in WoT men are actually VERY numerous as we find out when Rand starts recruiting them.

 

the main female magic character is called the mother confessor,

 

I fail to see how this was a theft from WoT...

 

his sword is magic and can cut through anything,

 

Again, magic swords that can cut through anything is something that is EXTREMELY ancient. If you accuse Goodkind of theft in that manner you'll also have to include Robert Jordab.

 

anger is what gives him his power,

 

Again, how is this a theft from WoT?

 

the evil is called the nammless one,

 

That, again, is a common mythological and folk motif

 

the sisters of the light live for a very very long time,

 

First of all, they can live for 1000 years as opposed to a few hundred tops, and second of all that is because of a magic spell on the palace they house not because their being magical extends their lifespan, and third of all once again people living for such a long time is an ancient idea in myth and folktales.

 

there castle is on an island,

 

There's lots of castles on islands... not only in myth but in reality.

 

they hold male magic useers prisoner,

 

They are not technically 'prisoners' in the conventional sense, they keep them there to teach them how to use their gift so they don't die.

 

they use collars to control them,

 

Another common motif

 

there are a group of people called the blood of the fold that wear shinning silver armor and blood red capes that believe they are acting on the better good by killing everything with magic.

 

Witch trials? Fairy changelings (for you Gaels out there)? These all reflect actual historical and mythological motifs, Goodkind isn't the only one who's 'stealing' these things.

 

the list goes on and on driveing me nuts, oh and he just got his own group of female body gurads. the author is terry goodkind and i do like the story but my god is it agrivateing.

 

It's funny... I read WoT before SoT, and as I was reading it I had a similar reaction only I saw Jordan as stealing all these ideas and such from Tolkien. I thought all those things: "Jordan doesn't have an original thought in his head," etc etc. I still read the whole series, such as it was. Eventually I came to two realizations:

 

1) I started reading other series, like SoT, and started studying myth and folktales, and I realized just how common some of these ideas and motifs were.

2) I realized that these 'copied' ideas were but a drop of water in a bathtub compared to all the other original and innovative ideas.

 

So Jordan might have copied or borrowed a few things (Fades, ravens being used as spies, many names and character motifs from Arthurian myths) but he also used them differently and in new ways, and he created many different things like shadowspawn (except the Fades) that were original. Goodkind might have borrowed some ideas, but he also used them in different ways, and created new things like confessors, gars, mriswith, witch women, dreamwalkers etc.

 

So if you're going to judge a story by its originality, you might want to look deeper than the superficial surface and delve into the things that mean more to the story. Either that, or judge it more on the quality of the story by itself. By keeping an open mind you'll enjoy yourself much more. This isn't to say you shouldn't take note of such things, just that you shouldn't make such a big deal about it, or let it ruin the story for you.

[Majsju]

The problem I have with goofkind is not his numerous thefts from RJ, but that he is such an incredibly poor writer. He has the language of an illiterate 15 year old. A whiny little gothkid who desperatly wants to be "special" even though he can't even spell the word 'original'.

[DuDZiK]

The problem I have with goofkind is not his numerous thefts from RJ, but that he is such an incredibly poor writer. He has the language of an illiterate 15 year old. A whiny little gothkid who desperatly wants to be "special" even though he can't even spell the word 'original'.

 

The beauty of subjectivity; you see a 'whiny little gothkid' who is an 'illiterate 15 year old', where I see a good writer who wove together a marvelous story.

[wvlr]

Glad that you like Goodkinds work DuDZiK.    Like I said it does have some good stuff.    I have seen MUCH worse authors get more praise.    Most authors admit that they get things from other authors or historical references or whatever.    The fact that Goodkind has so, so many obvious take-offs from WoT but denies ever having read the series is just not believable.    That is what irks most people.

 

I am not one of the poeple that think that he is without some talent.    I actually liked what he did with many of the things that he got from WoT.    He created something unique.  I just wish that he would stand up and admit the obvious AND I also wish that he would have put the same effort in the later books that he put in the first half.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

We've discussed whether or not it Goodkind is a liar, and there was no resolution to that.

 

But suffice to say that no matter where any of these ideas came from, the number of similarities makes it impossible for me (and a lot of people) to enjoy both series.

[Galad]

Silly people, SoT can't be a rip-off of WoT, because WoT is fantasy, and Terry Goodkind has stated many times that SoT is not a fantasy series. ::)  ;D

[Luckers]

I agree with Maj. If you've ever read an interview with Goodkind and looked at the way he reacts to questions, and compared it with the way in the later books with characters repetedly telling Richard what an idiot he is to even possibly think of suggesting [insert eight page speech subject here] only to go on to be proven wrong by Richard and beg profusely to kiss his feet for daring to oppose him--it is so obvious that Goodkind thinks of himself as Richard.

 

He's such an overt douche. When he's not telling people that his books arn't fantasy, that there literary discourse that will change the world, he's calling some kid a coward who hates and fears the truth simply because the kid said he thought the books got worse once they moved into the Ayn Rand preachiness.

 

But that being said he did copy from the Wheel of Time--its true that these sorts of elements (collars that bind magic, female sorceresses who live long and worship the Light, etc) appear frequently in Fantasy books, the number of them appearing in the Sword of Truth combined with their role within the story are simply to great for me to conclude anything else.

 

The sad thing is that Goodkind's theiving from RJ made the early books bareable. When he stopped it just became the worst sort of wanky drivel.

[Guest Dreadlord]

And...the trilogy that ends the Sword of Truth series is called Chainfire, which is a spell that can erase memories.

 

10 points for the first person to point out what the Wheel of Time equivalent is.

[Luckers]

Direfire? Naughtyfire?

[Jelly]

Ha...thanks for the spoiler, Dreadlord! :D

[wvlr]

Ripfire?

Stealfire?

Borrowfire?

 

[hapazard]

Yeah, the first books of Sword of Truth was pretty nice, yes they declined and YES I quit reading them after pillars of creation!

 

But to be fair, they DO have something that WoT doesn't. That something is exactly what makes them adaptable to television.

-Every book is a story in itself! Perfect for television as you then can make a series where every season runs one book. No way you could do that with WoT, it's simply to complex and the whole series is interconnected. To me this is exactly whats made Jordan such a grossly better writer than Goodkind ever was. (i wrote 'was' as in my opinion his writing's been deteriorating steadily from book one. :-*)

[DuDZiK]

We've discussed whether or not it Goodkind is a liar, and there was no resolution to that.

 

But suffice to say that no matter where any of these ideas came from, the number of similarities makes it impossible for me (and a lot of people) to enjoy both series.

 

Out of curiosity, how many different fantasy series have you read, read and enjoyed, and which series was the first you ever read?

[Harmless Bandit]

I only read the first three books or so of SoT, and I think I found them bearable.

 

Some elements are kinda funny, like that wizard Zed for instance. But I could never stand the Richard-Kahlan relationship. That I found positively disgusting. >:(

 

If I want to read 'romance' I'll pick up Danielle Steel (I think that's her) or watch a cheap soap.

 

[safwd]

I read the first 3 or 4 books of The Sword of Truth, and while i liked them i quickly realized that these books were The Wheel of Time, just not nearly as good. I stopped reading them soon after.

I think that if i would have read TSoT prior to WOT i would have liked them fine but after then were no comparison.