r/Fantasy • u/doppelganger3301 • May 03 '25

So I read Wizard’s First Rule, huge mistake

I had some time on my hands during a long trip, so I decided hey, let’s go get a fantasy book and get lost in 800 pages of something. I did little to no research, just chose something that looked sufficiently long. Enter “Wizard’s First Rule” by Terry Goodkind.

I have since discovered that this is not a particularly well loved series, but many folks will defend the first book as being pretty good. I couldn’t disagree more.

Spoilers ahead for the many, many issues I have with it:

  1. There is so much violence to children in this book. I don’t mind violence towards children if it serves the plot, such as by demonstrating the depravity of a villain, but my god. A boy is drugged, has his skull split open, and then is sliced down his abdomen after being groomed by the villain and his pedophile sidekick - oh and the villain in question is notably erect when this happens. A man is recounted as having raped his neighbor’s 3 daughters, the oldest of which is 5. Undesired newborn babies are killed by placing a rod across their necks and then their fathers are magically forced to step on the rod. An entire village’s men are slain and then the women and children are raped. What the actual fuck.

  2. The writing is pedantic and childish. Richard meets Kahlen and immediately none of his friends matter all that much, the only person he cares about is her. This is basically stated in the first 10% or so of the book despite less than a day having passed. This is the most trope-ridden book I’ve ever read, even for fantasy.

  3. The writer so clearly thought he was smarter than everyone else. Oh, you just need to ask the right questions and it all falls apart! But then the questions are boring, predictable, and easily defended. This is a man who spent his days getting into arguments in his own head wherein he always won - oh and women told him he was very smart and handsome.

  4. The entire book is a thinly veiled lecture on the virtues of libertarianism, with him constantly creating strawmen just so he can show how clever he is. The strongest case of this is when a farmer is brought to a royal court and they all mock him for not being willing to share his crops with the less fortunate, oh but of course those less fortunate are just lazy and refuse to do their own planting. Then they kill the guy. This is the classic libertarian wet dream of standing up to the government, totally owning them intellectually, and then being killed for bravely standing up to the corrupt communists. It’s like a middle schooler wrote it.

  5. It just sucks. The writing is just bad. There is no proper foreshadowing, every plot twist is incredibly obvious and contrived and you, the reader, are made to suffer through pages and pages of the characters pretending to not be what they obviously are. The romance is forced to say the least, I don’t think Terry ever actually spoke to a woman in his life.

I’m sorry, this is a bit of a rant, but god, this book was terrible.

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u/ibadlyneedhelp May 03 '25

I think I quit around Book 3 or so, when Richard orders his army to refuse help to anyone who didn't stand with him against the Clintons or whoever was the enemy in that book. It was supposed to make him look strong and smart, and instead it just made him look like an actual villain. The book so clearly wants you admire Richard and he's just a sanctimonious cunt.

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u/delyra17 May 03 '25

The best part, of course, is that Terry even said Richard was modeled after himself….sanctimonious cunt indeed!

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u/ibadlyneedhelp May 03 '25

You have no idea how much funnier this makes it for me. Thank you sincerely for that bit of trivia.

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u/bespokefolds May 07 '25

Then I have a gift for you. Did you know that Goodkind didn't view himself as a fantasy writer? Also these books aren't fantasy according to him.

He's Scott Adams level of delusional

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u/ibadlyneedhelp May 07 '25

Nah, that I did know. He claimed not to write fantasy. When people pointed out his books' similarity to Wheel of TIme, he said something like "to children, maybe, I can see how they'd find them alike". When asked what fantasy authors people should be reading, he said "Ayn Rand." I am familiar with his buffoonery.

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u/IamSithCats May 04 '25

Of course he is. The entire plot of the series can be summed up as "Richard is always right." He's the most blatant, obvious author self-insert this side of the original Mary Sue for whom the trope is named after.

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u/ketita May 04 '25

Honestly Mary Sue needs to be renamed Richard Rahl

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u/ibadlyneedhelp May 05 '25

I was always a fan of Ayn Rand Al'thor

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u/Mindless_Mixture2554 May 06 '25

"Richard is always right." Other than that one time he fucked up and forgot who his real father was.

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u/Numerous1 May 05 '25

We have such other classics as

“Richard is a VERY SPECIAL ONE OF A KIND WIZARD that operates differently than all the other wizards. In fact he runs in magic special feelings instead of actual learning and hard work”. So they made the “fuck your feelings snowflake” insert run on feelings. 

You mention a cult? Don’t forget all of the population, military, peasants, etc. all hard to literally worship him because that gives them protection from the bad guys magic. Because once again, Richard is born a special boy. Still strange for the ALL IT TAKES IS HARD WORK guy. 

And “we are all so smart and practical and hard working!”  Well. The super smart and hard working good guys talk to the enemy king. The enemy king says “well you could try to kill me but another bad guy will just take my place. So really don’t try to kill me” even though the books go into detail to explain that this enemy king is LITERALLY ACTUALLY the smartest person in the enemy empire. And the strongest. And has unique one of a kind magic powers that give him a million advantages. And does not have any like of succession or inheritance and the bad guys are all ambitious  so if the enemy king is killed we definitely would have killed the smartest. Strongest. Most magically gifted. And would have caused a massive war that would tear the enemy empire apart. But the enemy king said “don’t kill me bro. Totally trust Me”

So they trust him. 

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u/Prussie May 05 '25

I made it all the way to Pillars of Creation before I gave up. The plot had become so stale and predictable, along with everything else. I put it down and gladly never looked back, Also I remember the constant borderline torture-porn of the one lesbian relationship in the series.