Terry Goodkind is judging me. :'(

[el Nynaeve]

Someone always does. :D It's a controversial topic, with a majority of people loving it or hating it and a few somewhere in the middle.

[Barmacral]

No, the plot itself is not the same, but many of the idea's that he has are very very similar to that of other authors, such as RJ. To quote Doselan:

 

Ok guys.  I need Taymist in here to help me out. 

 

I've been trying to give Goodkind an honest shot on this whole "not copying RJ" deal.  And to be fair, his overlying plot and theme don't seem to copy RJ's.  But certain elements are so similar and it's hard to ignore, y'know? 

 

Now I know that certain elements are going to be similar in this genre, I read you.  But when I look at authors like GRRM, I never once thought he was copying RJ in his series.  I mean honestly... The Sisters of the Light?  Novices?  Collers that control those with magic?  (I'm currently on book 2 btw).  Sisters of the Dark?  I mean, come on.  Richard was raised by a foster parent after being brought to a farm-like land from a very mystical magical place?  (not unlike one of our favorite young men).  I'm just saying, a few different choices of naming would have been in order perhaps.  And those darn male confessors... Able to destroy the world if not controlled?  Idk... It's getting hard to say he's not copying RJ.  :-\

 

Also, some of his naming conventions are very flat, like he twisted the names of other things so they wouldn't be exactly the same as where else he read the stuff.

 

I actually enjoyed the first few books, but grew to hate the series as it dragged out, had a terrible ending and I read comments made by TG in interviews and such.

 

Granted, he's not the worst I've read for plaigarising (Terry Brooks, Paolini), but I don't think that anything he put is original. In a genre where many ideas are similar anyways, I think he was able to get away with lifting ideas off of other authors without giving credit where due. Calling it plaigarism may be a bit of over-kill, but not by much.

 

Also, since we don't know what his sources are for sure, this is pretty much a battle of personal opinion, and I think kind of pointless. I doubt either of us is going to sway the other.

[Doselan]

Lol.  Well I'm really enjoying the series so far.  It's kept my attention and kept me reading.  I just do find myself stopping sometimes to say, "Really?" about some of the themes and names of certain things.  Lol.  But I agree with what everybody's saying, it's hard to write a fantasy series and not have some cross-over elements.  

 

I know that RJ wrote several elements of LOTR into WoT as a tribute to Tolkien.  Who am I to say that Goodkind wasn't just doing the same thing in honor of RJ.  I know if any of my stories ever make it to publication, I certainly will honor my favorite author (RJ) with certain allusions to his work.  I just hope to make them quite subtle.  Lol.

[Talya]

considering the word 'Novices' is used for women that join a nunnery, I don't see that as copying RJ. AS for the Sisters of Light, their role what they did, the way they were are completely different from AS. In fact I find the Sisters of Light more human in their qualities than AS.

 

We aren't going to convince each other, but in no way do I see where it is plagerism, RJ wasn't inventive with his at all, He stole all his from Myths and stories, as did Tolkien. It's easy to say something is plagerism, but unless there is a lawsuit to prove it, then it isn't so. If RJ had felt that he would have sued.

[el Nynaeve]

"What I have done with my work has irrevocably changed the face of fantasy. In so doing I've raised the standards. I have not only injected thought into a tired empty genre, but, more importantly, I've transcended it showing what more it can be-and is so doing spread my readership to completely new groups who don’t like and wont ready typical fantasy." - Terry Goodkind

 

This is exactly the kind of thing that bothers so many people about Goodkind. As Doselan asked 'who am I to say he wasn't honouring RJ', well that's not honouring, that's trashing the works of a lot of other author who, by his own admission, he hasn't read. This quote is of course from the same man who says he doesn't write fantasy. :P

 

Having said that, there are a lot of very similar themes running through his books that RJ and other authors have used, while not plagarism, he could have done a lot more with it to make less...stereotypical if you know what I mean.

[Talya]

Limke I said he sounds like he is full of himself. But I enjoy the books. If you want to say that he has similar themes running through his from other books, I think you could easily say the same of RJ and others. He is no different from them. Unfortunately, in fantasy most have similar things, but it is the story telling and the plot and other things that make it different.

[Doselan]

I agree, m'lady.  It's not the tools that matter when you're building a house.  It's the craftmanship. 

[Verbal32]

It bothers me as well.  He's a jerk, but he no more plagiarized than Jordan.  We can all argue this until we're blue in the face, but the simply fact remains that if you must say Goodkind ripped off Jordan because the WoT came first and they have very similar traits, then you MUST say that Jordan ripped off Herbert, because Dune came before WoT and they also have very similar traits.  Some of these traits are even more closely related (Dune & WoT) than the ones within WoT & SoT.

 

Just because Jordan had class and Goodkind doesn't, that doesn't mean you can say Goodkind plagiarizes.  Yes, the Dark Sisters and the Black Ajah are very similar -- again, so are the Aiel and Fremen.  Ignoring one side of the coin because you hate the other is not proper.  You must take the whole coin, or none of it.

 

I agree, m'lady.  It's not the tools that matter when you're building a house.  It's the craftmanship. 

 

Couldn't have said it better myself.  ;)

[Sayerin]

I think it's unavoidable that some of the stuff may look similar, as most of it is based on mythology, rituals of nations and creatures too. It does not mean they plagiarized. It's sometimes the same thing interpreted in different ways.

[Werthead]

I think there is a key difference. We know Jordan was in his teens when DUNE came out, so if he did read DUNE and LotR it would have been whilst fairly young, decades before writing WoT. I think taking on board some influences from those sources would have been unavoidable.

 

Furthermore, the Fremen are basically a mash-up of the Bedouin and a couple of other Arabian desert cultures. They are not an especially original creation themselves. Jordan suggested that he went to the same source and ended up with a similar product. I'm not sure how much of that I buy, but I give RJ the benefit of the doubt because taken the 'accursed messiah' concept and applying it to a fantasy backdrop, as opposed to an SF one, is an interesting and artistically valid variation on the theme. Maybe it did end up a little close to DUNE, but given that elsewhere the stories are vastly different. It's not a huge problem to me.

 

What is a concern is that Goodkind's borrowings from Jordan took place VERY close to when RJ wrote them (only a couple of years later) when the author was in his forties, coming up on fifty. The concepts on their own seem reasonable - he also developed a nun-based magic-using society, he also developed a magic-fearing crusading order, he also had a Stone of Tears etc - but combined in the structure that they were, a much closer derivation of Jordan's work can be detected.

 

Or to put it more simply, if Jordan took stuff from Tolkien and Herbert, it was done at a very young age long before he became a writer and falls squarely under the 'influences' bracket, and when he did write his version of DUNE (for lack of a better phrase) at least he came at it from a different angle and the story went in a different direction. What Goodkind did in his second novel was a colder, more deliberate act by a middle-aged writer who'd already published one novel just a couple of years after Jordan has published his ideas.

 

We'll probably never know for sure, but on the surface Goodkind's behaviour seems somewhat more dubious than Jordan's.

[Sayerin]

I've been thinking the sisters of Light and Dark are quite similar to Aes Sedai, then the wizards remind me of the Asha'man..

[Ashaman Kovan]

Yeah, but they're also so different that it's really moot. :)

Fantasy series...An order of women with magic most good, some evil. An order of men with magic with the same potential to be turned to evil. It's really almost unavoidable.

[Doselan]

I must say, one way or another the series has my attention and it's keeping it.  But I think that Goodkind is one of those writers that if his characters could ever meet him they'd kick him square in the crotch.  lol  He's mean to these people!

[Sayerin]

Very well stated, Doselan ;D He treats them in a rough way.

[Doselan]

Poor Richard and Kahlan. :'(

[Ashaman Kovan]

I know. And everyone thinks Randlanders have it rough.....

[CUBAREY]

Let me say that What Goodkind has done does not fall under the legal definition of Plagarism. That being said what bothers me about Goodkind is his assertion that his works are totally original. RJ indeed borrowed several themes and plot lines from LOTR and Dune but RJ was upfront in admitting that he modeled the first book after LOTR and he has tipped his hat to Hubert on several occasions.

[Sayerin]

Goodkind says somewhere that he is better than RJ :D

 

[Dark Justice]

I read the books up to "pillars of creation" or something like that (the main charackters of the series were not even in the book untill last chapter...). I got so pissed off by his "free market is great, everything else is evil!" way of writing. So I stopped.. Then I picked up Wheel of Time, and never picked up another SoT book.. and I never will.. and Goodkind (or goofkind as majs calls him  ;) )is a silly silly man, and should be burned as a witch...

[OptimusPrime]

Gratch was Goodkinds only original idea. Richard is Rand, but not as good. Theres a bit where Richard cant take his sword with him, so what does he do with it? He rams it into the floor, exactly how Rand does. The fighting scenes were ok in Sword of Truth, and the first few wizard rules were good, but the rest annoys me.

[Doselan]

Goodkind says somewhere that he is better than RJ :D

 

 

You've got to be kidding me.  I mean, I'll give the man kudos, he's got a decent-pretty good series going on so far.  But better than RJ?  That's straight blasphemy! :o 

[Sayerin]

Well, it's not a joke in fact, he has said this.. I was angry at the time, so his last book lay untouched for a while before I read it  ::)

[Doselan]

I mean first off, it's way obnoxious to say you're better than anyone.  It's prideful and obnoxious.  But to say better than RJ?  Pssshhh.  If he'd said better than Stephanie Meyer or something... lol

[Ashaman Kovan]

Not that I would call you a liar Sayerin but i'd like to see the quote or where it's recorded that TG said he was better than RJ. :)

[Sayerin]

You can call me a liar if you wish lol I read it long ago in some mag interview when Chainfire appeared. Sorry, never thought of keeping it  ;D