Warty goblin vs. Terry Goodkind, also known as Warty Goblin is a damn genius

I just read this on a thread, and while i didn't ask his permission, i hope WG will forgive me for using this excellent summery of the series i hate so much
from
EE

"The thing to remember about Goodkind books is that their quality is inversely porportional to their series number. Wizards First Rule is a good book. The sex and violence might be a bit offensive for some, but it's not really perverse yet, the world is, if not startlingly original, at least competantly executed.

The second book is decent, but could be edited with a chainsaw. Seriously, you could beat somebody to death with the paperback. I'd be afraid to even own the hardback in case somebody tried to pick it up, broke their back and sued me. It's also here that the real rot sets in, although this doesn't become apparent until a few books later.

It's been a while since I read the series, so after that they all sort of start blur, which is more or less the problem. It takes detailed scientific analysis to tell them apart. Until Faith of the Fallen or thereabouts, the following algorithm gives a fairly good representation of a Sword of Truth book.

1) The Bad Guy, Jagang, tries to do something. Often this involves that harbinger of originality's death in fantasy: prophesy.

2) Richard, our strapping hero armed with powers of plot, a very large sword and enough homoerotic imagery to stop a gay pride parade in its tracks, finds out about this. Often he's also kidnapped at this step.

Fill out the next four or five hundred pages with the following, mixed to taste.
A) Jagang has Bad Guy Sex. You can tell because he's into S&M, among other things.

B) Richard Kills People. This always occurs in the written equivilent of slow motion. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that Goodkind only knows how to write about three fight scenes: Richard kills people with a sword, Richard kills people with an axe, and Richard kills people with his hands. All of these involve something that damages the brain, be it blood that apparently has the consistancy of hemp (it's always described as flying about in ropes), or ripping people's spines out through their stomach.

C) Kahlen, Richard's very powerful yet often useless Mandatory Love Interest With Absolutely Enormous Boobs, is almost raped. In the first books this was actually effective, because it showed a certain amount of grit and added tension to the narrative. After the fifteen time or so however one becomes aware that it's really just an excuse to talk about how Kahlen has Ladyparts again. Just in case we'd forgotten. Don't worry about Kahlen ever actually being raped in the SoT series, that only happens to Bad Women and your brain.

D) Something horrible happens to a lot of people. This gives Richard, Kahlen and the rest of the troup of 'good guys' a chance to appear good by figuring out who they need to kill next in order to stop the horrible thing.

E) Richard does something horrible to a lot of people. He then proceeds to explain, in mind violating detail, how he's got the moral clarity neccessary to understand why he had to kill everybody, or collect their ears or something like that, because it's for the Greater Good and Freedom and when the enemy does it it's Wrong and for Slavery. This coming from a guy who rules a kingdom where everybody has to pledge their lives to him every day.

F) Somebody else 'good' does horrible things to people for the Greater Good. This is supposed to make us realize how Absolute and Moral the conflict is, but in fact makes us wonder what the difference between the bad guys and the good guys is, since they both enslave and treat other people's bodies as fashion accessories. At one point an enemy is tortured to death over the course of night or more because he killed somebody one of the main characters liked. That's the sort of 'good guys' we're talking about here.

G) A Kahlen and Richard 'sex' scene. This almost never works out. Sometimes it's because the pair of them are neurotic as hell, sometimes it's because even though they are having sex with each other, neither recognizes the other and thinks its somebody else. Once they do manage to get it on, but it Doesn't Count because it happens on a different plane of existance, so Kahlen's still a virgin. Or something. Honestly that never made any sense to me, I mean either you've had sex or not, right? Or is Kahlen the new Bill Clinton?

At this point Goodkind notices that his word processor is on three or four suicide watch lists, and decides to wrap things up before the pain of containing his afront to the language becomes too much to bear.

The ending will consist of Richard killing somebody, pulling some new powers out of his ass*, waxing moral, and then explaining how they didn't really win because the enemy still controls all this land and there needs to be a sequel so Goodkind can buy a private island, or possibly hire an editor.

*Not literally. Although given Richard, if he ever did need to kill anybody with poop, he'd do in slow motion and sickening detail.

Things change around a bit with Faith of the Fallen wherein Richard builds a statue so beautiful it causes riots and the overthrow of a government. Then things get really, really bad with Naked Empire wherein Richard kills peace protestors because they're filled with hate for Moral Clarity. Richard, of course, is driven by hatred of those who hate Moral Clarity, because Richard loves Moral Clarity, which lets him butcher unarmed people and feel good about it. I stopped reading the series when a major character was erased from existance, causing reality to unravel, because my brain can only take so much abuse."