(no subject)

[ellestra]

The last statement in yesterday’s post was of course Prima Aprilis joke.

It’s also something I secretly hoped for since like The Sword of Truth book five (or something – don’t remember much – didn’t read to carefully and it was long time ago). The story of Richard Rahl is a perfect example how totalitarizms get started and how revolutions turn on their followers. In more cheesy, SM pulp-fantasy retelling.

Richard starts as s typical fantasy hero – a seemingly unimportant guy from a village who is forced to stand up against forces of evil and discovers his special destiny to save the world. The most stories usually end there – world saved – everyone lived happily ever after (at least until next time the world needs saving and the author need sequel). Noone however ever explains how this happily ever after looks like.
This one turned out to be a nightmare.
The choice between him and Jagang is like choosing between Hitler and Stalin. I know, I know – Goodwin’s law, but I don’t compare Richard to Hitler. His more like Stalin. Good only because he fights with evil. People look the other way when he commits atrocities because there’s another bad guy in town. Stalinism cost 50 million people their lives. Those who disagreed with the ideology were imprisoned and often killed during interrogation or sent to stalags to die slowly. Yet, when Stalin died people cried on the streets.

And to think communism started so nice. After all on the surface it’s such a noble idea – everybody should have equal resources, everything belongs to everybody and everyone can have access to what they need. Noone dieing because someone else monopolised all resources.
But the execution turned that idea into one of the greatest nightmares of 20^th century. After all
building paradise needs sacrifices and if somebody’s not willing to make them they sabotage the whole thing. They were evil. And they deserved it all.

It is funny how in Sword of Truth objectivism, that as philosophy is/ was created as complete opposite of communism, gets the same results. It only shows that no matter the ideology professed by its leaders all totalitarian regimes are virtually all the same. If you’re not with us you are against us and have to be destroyed with extreme prejudice. Human nature always stays the same.

So Richard starts sort of noble and then as he gains more power he’s righteousness quotient goes up till it takes over the books. He turns into real Rahl – rules over all his subjects and punished all the recreants. The free speech obviously means to agree with the leader. After all opposing the truth – THE TRUTH – means you must feel suicidal.

Through my skipping through SoT books (I think I got as far as book 8) this was the most interesting part. If only Goodkind then tuned it into tale of how power corrupts. But from quotes I know it only got worse. He still tries to depict Richard as best thing that ever happened, sage, never wrong. Everybody loves him. Except those who don’t but they are on the cull anyway so who cares.
Richard turns into what he started fighting – a tyrant – and in his righteousness he doesn’t notice and is unable to acknowledge he is one. It’s either follow him or be considered evil and useless. And the believers will be happy to take care of you. Nothing like the belief in one’s infallibility to absolve all, even most evil, deeds.
The study of such a leader and how he still believes he’s good and fighting the evil and all those people who oppose him are just distractors stopping the coming of the perfect society, the apex of civilization. Richard as Fidel Castro or Idi Amin.

I’ve been craving for such a story. The Sword of Truth could’ve been such a story.
Wish some better writer did it.

I want a story where bad guys win. After all if evil is so strong and capable wouldn’t that be most probable outcome?
Or what if the people who fought against evil turned to be even worse?

After all it doesn’t take that much imagination to describe what happens then – there are multiple examples of that through history – just use it as template e.g. partitions of Poland, the October Revolution.

The reviews tell me Bandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series deals with something like that. I think I’ll try it – the first part just got published in Polish.