The Realm of Fantasy Forum

hello everyone.

I love fantasy. Epic, high, space, almost anything that I usually read is fantasy in some way. That being said, I would like to bring up a topic, the "Damsel in distress" storyline.

I debated holding onto this for my turn at tempting to be an editor for our newsletter (and it maybe still a topic, I still have a while to flush out what I will do with it ) but I wanted to find other opinions on this topic.

I will say, growing up I did like reading about the prince/knight saving the princess. That lasted maybe a year. Usually no character had to much devolvement, just hero, bad guy save, happily ever after. It's a Disney movie. No real motivation, no saving the person because they know each other, none of that. Now for kid books this probably okay, but as I grew up I started wanting more. Why would this guy risk his life? why is the female character always need to be rescuing? I wanted reasons, and books where not giving them to me.

Now, fast forward to when I was in Junior high (grades seven and eight in my hometown ). Everyone was reading Harry Potter. Everyone was loving Harry Potter.... I did not.

When I heard about Harry Potter, I was already reading about another wizard who knew nothing about his powers, but acted more grown up about everything, was more to the world than just a school, and to be honest, I never could get though reading the first chapter of The Sorcerers Stone. It did not appeal to me in the least. It was to hard for me to read something for young adults when I was reading at a college level back then.

The Sword of Truth Series I found to be compelling. Both Male and female characters had motivation. The antagonist had his own motivation besides just being evil. I spent sleepless nights reading these long books with some being close if not over a thousand pages. As I sit here typing this out the book Temple of the Winds is sitting here on my desk, It weighs in at eight hundred twenty two pages and is the fourth book in a long series.

This was one of the few series I would go out when it was released to buy the next book in the instalment, until what I will call the "Guy complex" started kicking in.

about three fourths of the way though the series, these fleshed out men and women became, how to stop man capture woman. The last three books of the original series was all about this woman being captured, and her mind wiped and invisible but to very few people. This was a woman who had fought armies with a fourth of there size, who time and again if she was captured would rely on herself to fight to get out of it. Planning, fighting intelligently, for last fourth of the series fall into the cycle of be caught be rescued or the old Mario line "sorry but your princess is in another castle routine.

I still read till the finishing of the arc, and there are moments, but I felt myself pushing not to just skip parts of the book that dealt with who I would have before considered one of the best female leads in storytelling.

Years pass, he tried his hand at rewriting the story for modern times with the book called Law of nines. It was interesting, but take all of the sword of truth series and condense it into a three hundred page book, with the female lead once again needed rescued. Several more years past, the series was made by Disney into a television series that got everything wrong and for the longest time nothing came from the author Terry Goodkind.

Then he announced Omen Machine. No longer a sword of truth series, but a Richard and Kahlan book. I bought the hardback the first day it was out thinking I would once again see these characters be what I thought they where, and see what happens to the world after,( something I always like to think about is the world after the story )

I was disappointed. The book took everything from the sword of truth series and threw it out, Richard didn't act like Richard, and Kahlan whole capture and release was done in about three chapters. Witch if you had to end with the princess is in the castle shorter is better. I remember the characters even saying something to the lines of "your wife is captured, go make them pay" and off this leader of the worlds greatest army goes, no bodyguards, no troops, nothing "smart" about it but walk in defeat bad thing, save the day.

I have never read another one of Terry Goodkind's books after that.

I recommend his early works, and if you like it I think the last fourth of the books you will want to read to see what happens in the Sword of truth Series. But it got to the point of the princess is here plot was just overdone in one storyline.

There are other books, and some topics that run along the same lines, but I'll save them for another time as I have rambled on for a while. I would like to hear other opinions on this? what do you think? any examples of a series done well? or some you want to warn others with the Princess is in another castle syndrome?

Thanks for the time,

flier.