I found the ideas of rational self interest, objective knowledge gained through measurement, capitalism, and fierce opposition to communism (go live in a socialist/communist country and you’ll get my drift here) very appealing to me.
Turns out that Terry Goodkind considers himself an Objectivist, and cites Ayn Rand (originally Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum) as his major influence.Īt that point, I decided to learn more about Ayn Rand and the Objectivist philosophy and found it rather to my liking. I googled the author’s name and found some sort of his biography (I think it was a wikipedia entry).
Aside for reading the books, I decided to find out more on this mysterious philosophy that I agreed with so much (or to be honest about it – to find out if I can find something that I disagree with). So, for the first time in my life, I found a philosophy that I didn’t discard almost right away as a piece of garbage. Other thing was, that the explanation given by the author through the dialogs and characters’ thoughts, was something that I agreed with. What were the reasons for his actions? What was the outcome? Was it right or wrong? What would I do differently? In other words, the book got me thinking (ouch, that hurt). So, how was the philosophy in The Sword of Truth different from what was preached by Plato/Kant/Locke/etc.? Well, for starter I didn’t know that I was reading a philosophy book, until I started questioning things myself.
More to the point, I hated the very idea of some arrogant little philosopher telling me how to live my life like he knew everything and I knew nothing(yeah? if you’re so smart and I’m so dumb, why am I alive and why are you dead, pal?). I just never could find a philosopher that I could agree with (No Kant, you didn’t cut it either with your Categorical Imperative and Duty everywhere). It’s not that I didn’t understand what those all-so-mighty philosophers were trying to write in their ancient text. They do what they do because they believe that their actions are right and serve the common good of the people (Commie Alert!), but that is not an excuse, just another layer of grey between white and black.But what got me sold on the series was not the plot, characters (although that played a big part in my affection for the saga), but the philosophy behind it.ĭon’t get me wrong here, I never liked philosophy, although I always had A’s from my philosophy classes. They are not bad, because they want to be bad. We get to know the reasoning behind their actions.
Even when we get to the Coalition of Evil of the books, the antagonists are portrayed more in-depth. Nobody’s totally good (maybe excluding Richard Cypher, the protagonist, but even he gets a little mud on his shoes) in the series. evil, turns out to be layered with lots of gray areas. The plot might seem standard for fantasy at the first sight (mighty protagonist as the champion of all that is good, waging battle upon the evil forces of the whoever the main-bad -guy is).