The Sword of Truth - Terry Goodkind, pt. 3

 

    Good day and welcome to the Empty Shelf, where we discuss and review fantasy and sci-fi novels and series. My name is Mike, and I’ll be your reader and reviewer. 

For the past two posts, we’ve been discussing Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series. There have been some good moments, and some really bad ones. Today, we’ll conclude the series with the Chainfire Trilogy. It consists of Chainfire, Phantom, and Confessor. They were originally written as a trilogy, due to the fact that they contain an overarching story.

By the time these came out, I had caught up with the series and I had to wait a while in between the three. At the time, the suspense was pretty agonizing. The three books really do read well as a trilogy. 

So we begin in Chainfire with Nicci and Cara trying to heal Richard from a grievous wound he sustained off page. Nicci uses subtractive magic to heal him, which sets off some interesting things. When he awakes, he asks for Kahlan, but no one knows who he’s talking about. That’s because a quartet of dark sisters cast a spell on her to erase her from the memories of everyone who knew her, including herself. Even Zedd.

So Richard begins a quest to prove what only he knows to be true, that Kahlan is real, alive, and has been taken. His quest leads him to the witch woman Shota, who gives him some sort of cryptic riddle of an answer. He’s also pursued by something called a Blood Beast. Every time he tries to use his gift, this beast finds him and attacks. It’s an inky black…thing.

Richard travels through the Sliph with Nicci and Cara to a place called the Deep Nothing. They rescue a young girl, and end up discovering a book called “Chainfire'' in the catacombs. And if that feels just a little bit meta to you, we’re in the same boat. Anyway, Chainfire is the name of the spell cast on Kahlan. 

Now, at this point we see that Kahlan is, indeed, alive and well, though she has no idea who she is, and she works as a servant for the 4 dark sisters. They use her to sneak into the People’s Palace in D’Hara and steal the boxes of Orden from WAY back in book 1. 

Richard and his merry band discover that the boxes have been taken and put BACK into play. Now, when Kahlan stole the boxes, she left a statuette that Richard had carved for her back during her injury in Faith of the Fallen, Book 6. Richard discovers that statue and deduces that Kahlan has been kidnapped and that the sisters are behind it. It’s a pretty wild leap, I think. But he’s right. Because of course he is. 

It’s also revealed that the Chainfire Spell was created in opposition to the Boxes of Orden. AND that Richard was protected from the spell’s effects because of the sword of truth. 

Now, if you feel like this is all just a little too convenient, I agree with you. It’s one of the ongoing problems with Sword of Truth, and even as a new reader of the series, it all felt just a little too easy to me. Magic created to make the story fit, as opposed to the other way round. He brings back a bunch of old macguffins from past books that he couldn’t POSSIBLY have intended for the new use. It’s just not written well enough. It’s crammed into a purpose and it feels clunky.

The Wizard’s 9th Rule is “A contradiction cannot exist in reality. Not in part, or in whole.” Which is great, except that these books are littered with contradictions. But that’s neither here, nor there.

Chainfire is followed by Phantom. Richard has now convinced his inner circle that Kahlan is, indeed, real even though they don’t remember her. Kahlan is still traveling with the Sisters of the Dark. They’re hastening to catch up with Sister Tovi. They don’t realize she’s dead. They head to the ruins of Caska in the Deep Nothing, where they think she’s gone. 

Back at the keep, Richard finds Nicci, Zedd, Ann and Nathan examining a piece of magic called a Verification web. It’s made manifest through a series of lines of light, like the threads of a pattern. Richard notices that the spell was corrupted, probably because of the chimes from back in book 5.

Shota shows up and convinces him that he must abandon his search and lead his people against the Order. In return for his capitulation, she tells him that a wizard called Barracus, who went to the Temple of the Winds eons ago and then killed himself, left a special book specifically for Richard. 

Richard travels to the armies of D’Hara and essentially disbands them. They break up into smaller units to wage a war of attrition in the old world. Richard has come to believe that this is the only way to defeat them, as they can’t possibly win a head on battle.

The three remaining dark sisters reach Caska only to find Jagang waiting there. He captures Kahlan, whom he can see and remember because he’s a dreamwalker.

Richard is attacked by the bloodbeast while traveling through the sliph. He’s jettisoned out in a place far from really anything, and has to pass a test before the sliph can be “woken up” again. He visits the night wisps, which are essentially fairies, and retrieves the book Barracus left for him. It is very cleverly titled, “Secrets of a war wizard’s power.” 

Now at some point, an old character called Violet, from the first book, has learned a form of magic revolving around art from the witch woman Six. She draws a spell around Richard to cut him off from his gift. 

He’s captured at this point by Six, and taken to Tamarang, where his initial torture took place Way back in book 1. He hides the book, which is blank, in the room where Denna tortured him. He attempts to escape, killing dozens of order soldiers in the process, but he’s unsuccessful. The commanding officer has him shipped off to become a player of Ja La d’Jin, which is an ultraviolent sport sort of like Rugby meets soccer.

Phantom is the weakest of the three books in The Chainfire Trilogy. Rather than tell its own story, it sort of serves as a bridge to get from book 1 to book 3. Its rule is “Wilfully turning aside from the truth is treason to oneself.” I’m not 100% sure what that means. 

Lastly, we come to Confessor. The final book of both the trilogy and the primary series. Richard is still a captive of the order, playing on a Ja La team and doing so quite well. Zedd and Nicci travel to the caves where Violet drew her spell and release Richard from the block. They are not successful

In D’hara, Jagang has decided to bypass the natural defenses of the Palace and orders a ramp built up to the plateau where it sits. While digging up dirt for the ramp, they discover a secret way into the palace. Nicci is captured there. 

Back on the Ja La fields, Richard’s team has been selected to play Jagang’s team. To disguise himself, he paints various spellforms on his face, and those of his teammates, whom he has, of course, won over through the sheer fact that he’s him. They win the game, but Jagang invalidates it, which causes a riot during which Richard and Nicci both escape. They enter the catacombs beneath the palace and eliminate the order soldiers there.

Now WAY back in the first book, there was a character called Rachel. I didn’t mention her because she was more or less useless then. Well she makes another appearance here, where she erases the spell binding Richard, granting him access to his gift again. 

Nicci teaches him spell forms and other magics related to Orden. The use of his gift attracts the blood beast which he destroys. In doing so, he is projected to a gathering of the Mud People.

Jagang goes to the dungeons to get Nicci, who rather unceremoniously kills him. Richard opens the correct box and…some stuff happens that I won’t give away. The 11th rule is “the rule unwritten.” It’s never expressly stated, but the gist is “Embrace life, seek strength without hate.” As with many of the rules, that doesn’t really make sense. And the method by which it is “revealed” is moronic at best. 

This book is probably the best of the 11. There’s some of the typical circular talk, but in general it moves at a decent clip and the series has a satisfactory ending.

Ok. Deep breath, people. It’s time to rate 11 books in one fell swoop.

Story/Conflict - Well, the overarching story is pretty good. Young man discovers magical powers, and has to save the world from the evil empire. Fairly basic stuff. Suitably high stakes. As I said in a previous episode, most stories have already been told. Your job as a writer is to put the freshest spin on it that you can. This take isn’t all that fresh, as we discussed a couple episodes ago when we talked about the series being derivative. So this works well enough if you look at the beginning and the end.

Unfortunately, it’s the middle that gives us trouble, and the middle is 7 or so books long. The sub plots and secondary stories across the whole series are…challenging. There’s a thing called a try/fail cycle. This is when the Protagonist of a story tries to solve the conflict and fails. He needs to go through this a couple times in order to earn the ultimate victory. Richard never really fails tho. He always solves his problem through the dubious use of magic. Poorly explained magic, at that. 

Many of the story beats in the middle books don’t really affect the overall arc of the conflict. They’re just sort of there to, I don’t know, to shoehorn in another Wizard’s rule, which may or may not have any bearing on the story. 

As an overall arc, I'd give this a C+. Nothing particularly exciting, but nothing really heinous either. But, when I get into the nitty gritty of the sub plots and sub-arcs, there’s some really bad stuff. That stuff would get a super low score. D or D-. I’m going to take an average and give the Sword of Truth a C for story, and I think that’s being generous.

Pacing. Oh. My. God. I think I mentioned in the last episode that there are places where the pacing becomes simply inert. I’m standing by that. Books 1-4 are uneven, but they do move. Stone of Tears, specifically, probably could have been told in half as many words. Books 5-8 are glacial in their pacing. Uneven is a vast overstatement. The final trilogy moves pretty well. I just don’t feel like that can make up for the lack of movement earlier in the series. D+ for Pacing.

Magic System: No Stars. Would not recommend. It’s poorly conceived, poorly executed, and poorly utilized. There’s so much here that is just shoehorned in. The magic is crammed into the story to solve problems with no explanation or learning curve. It just happens. Magic should serve the story. Not the other way round.

Also, the use of all the magical macguffins just became too much. The sword of truth itself became the key to do almost anything at any time. It made no sense. There are books and bottles and boxes and who knows what else that all seem to serve some purpose so obscure, it makes you wonder what use they had in the first place. 

Goodkind has some good ideas here, but he either can’t or doesn’t see them through. D-.

Character: I’m sure Mr Goodkind thought he was writing flawed heroes. People who overcome their limitations and contribute to the betterment of the world. Alas, that’s not what he actually did. Instead, he wrote heroic archetypes with no room for growth who are essentially infallible in every way. For 11 books, there’s barely so much as a change of underwear. Richard and Kahlan, specifically, are exactly the same after 11 books as they were after chapter 1. The only real difference is Richard can SORT OF use magic now. 

Nicci and Cara grow and evolve, as I mentioned in the last episode. Their characters at the end are different from the way they are at the beginning. That’s great. It’s what’s supposed to happen to main characters in a novel. Unfortunately, those changes aren’t gradual, so much as abrupt. On a few occasions I had to re-read certain passages, afraid that I'd missed an important story beat. I hadn’t. 

Now, all that to say, I do like some of the characters in this series. Zedd is great. Apparently the Grumpy Old Wizard trope appeals to me. He’s no Belgarath, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, but he’s serviceable in the context of Sword of Truth. Cara is a good character, and so is Nicci. Nathan has his moments. And Warren is one of my favorites. But did you notice that I didn’t really name any MAIN characters there? Zedd, maybe, but the others are all side pieces, despite their screen time. 

The villains and antagonists in this are absolutely irredeemable. And entirely too powerful. The villains you love to hate are the best ones. The ones who have motivations that make sense in a larger world. And “Wanting to conquer the world” is not an acceptable motivation. We can do better than that. 

Think of your favorite villains across all media. Is it Darth Vader? Redeemed. Besides, all he wanted to do was safe those he loved from death. Is it Sauron? He wanted to do good, just wasn’t going about it the right way. Perhaps it’s Thanos. Well in the comics he was in love with the goddess of death and trying to impress her, and in the MCU, he wanted to prevent life’s inevitable demise by stabilizing over population. That’s why there was a “Thanos was Right” movement in that canon. I’m oversimplifying all this of course, but I hope you can see my point. 

I DO want to address naming conventions. In my experience, the names of characters and places in fantasy series all have a certain fantastical element to them. Obi-Wan, Gimli son of Gloin, Kaladin, and so on. We get SOME of that in Sword of Truth. Zeddicus, Kahlan, Nicci, Jagang. All good fantasy names. Even Darken, as much as I hate it, is on the right track. Then you have…Richard. Tom. Marlin. Warren. Nathan. It took me out of the story a little. THERE’S A DRAGON NAMED GREG! I’m not going to factor this into the score for this category, but I needed to say something.

All in all, I have to give character a C-. There’s enough to achieve a couple points, if only for the sheer VOLUME of characters. But there’s not enough good character work to carry him over the “average” mark. 

World Building: Well, here’s where we may pick up a couple points. The world Goodkind created in Sword of Truth is large, with lots of different nations and peoples. Some of the cultures he created feel real, and the impoverished conditions of the old world feel realistic. 

There’s a nice history of the magical world. Some of it feels like it was created to solve a problem halfway through the narrative, but it doesn’t feel as egregious as the way the Magic is shoehorned in. The author gave an interview once where he said he wanted the reader to use his or her imagination when reading his books, so his map is left intentionally vague. There are very few cities named or located, and the old world barely exists there at all. It’s a valid tactic and I’ll give him some credit there. I didn’t need to keep turning back to the map to see where we are, cause it’s possible not even he knew exactly. 

All told, I like the world he created. It feels real, while still fantastical. It leaves plenty to the imagination, and that’s what reading is about. Terry gets B+ for World Building. Any more than that would give a false impression of the quality. 

Writing Style: I have no real complaints about the prose of Sword of Truth EXCEPT that he tends to write in circles. However, as annoying as it is, it’s not the fault of his ability to assemble a sentence. The descriptions are vivid where they need to be, the action scenes feel chaotic. It’s nothing spectacular. 

The huge issue here is that Goodkind has strong political views and he writes them into his stories. For those of you who don’t know, his primary influence is Ayn Rand, who was an Objectivist, a philosophy of her own creation. She describes it as “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute”. It has sort of mutated into Libertarianism, but with some differences. Whatever the case, Goodkind gets very preachy in these books. Everyone has at least one monologue, and the rest of the time, they’re up on their soapbox, talking down to everyone else, including the reader. There are long passages, and even entire books in this series that are very condescending, cringy, and in some cases, difficult to read. C-

FINAL THOUGHTS:

If you’re looking for something long and epic, Sword of Truth is both of those things. Then, of course, the story of the main characters continues in a couple sequel series, which I have not read. (Actually, I read the first book of the first sequel series and it was hot garbage. I’m not sure I finished it.) So if you like the world and you want to stay in it, you can. The overall story arc is good, if not all that fresh, and the conclusion is satisfactory. The writing style is not too bad, if you can get past the political bent. I’ve certainly read worse on that front.

The character development is almost non-existent, the pacing is very uneven, and the magic system is just plain wrong. There’s a slog in the middle that can be tough to get through. And if you don’t like being preached to, move on. 

I’ve read the books - more than once - I’ve seen the criticisms and I’ve heard the crappy interviews. When you compare this to the other major series out there - Stormlight Archive, Song of Ice and Fire, Wheel of Time, The Faithful and the Fallen, etc. - it really doesn’t hold up. Those are all superior in every conceivable way. The legacy of Sword of Truth has been forever tarnished by a series of unfortunate events. Some of which the author could control, some of which he could not. I realize this is not a great series.

Certain of these books I still re-read. They were integral, as I said, in my exploration of the epic fantasy genre, and I can still find things to really enjoy about several of them. Temple of the Winds is great. Faith of the Fallen is good, even if it is a preachy carbon copy of The Fountainhead. The point is, it’s ok to like what you like. Even if it’s not what I like, or it’s not all that great, you can still read it and enjoy it for what it is. No one should ever judge you. So don’t let them.

Final score? 44 points out of 90. That’s good for 48%. A justified E, and not a high one. Sword of Truth definitely has its failings. I’m the first to admit it. As I said, I can enjoy reading parts of it, but I doubt I’ll ever read the whole series from front to back again. There are so many better series and books out there.

I certainly thank you for stopping, and I hope you’ve enjoyed our discussion of Terry Goodkind’s The Sword of Truth. Drop me a line and let me know if you think my rating was fair. Until then, keep reading.