Warning: this may perhaps contain spoilers.
I’m a fairly big fan of Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, which just concluded with the release of the book “Confessor”. Although at first glance fantasy, the series is actually more of a Objectivist philosophical treatise (at least towards the end) than a collection of fantasy novels. Each book states its theme rather clearly in the form of a “wizard’s rule”, which can sort of be viewed as the “take-home lesson” from the book.
Anyway, the last book threw us all for a loop because the wizard’s rule, and thus the theme, is not given to us. It’s introduced as the “secret of a war wizard’s power”, but the book by that name in the series is discovered to be blank.
After some thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is not only intentional, but that this IS the rule. It’s also how Richard (the protagonist) ultimately triumphs at the end of the book – the antagonists did not understand the rule, but he did, which is why even their moment of triumph was ultimately defeat.
I believe it is this:
Truth is sought internally. Truth handed down is insufficient; truth reasoned out is not. You must come to your own conclusions.
Not only does it fit the nature of the rule itself (nothing written down), but it is also a recurring theme in the book: why the antagonists could not accomplish their objective despite having precise instructions to do so (they didn’t think, they just obeyed) and why Richard and Kahlan’s love could endure (because it was twice discovered independently rather than simply told).
all right now all of you have good ideas but the only reoccurring saying that is only said by richard is “your life is yours alone, rise up and live it”
this is the rule unwritten i mean c’mon this is the only one that makes sense
The rule unwritten is all of these, yet none of these. It is all the rules,The rule OF the rules. It is think for yourself and all others. It is what you think it is.
The rule unwritten since the dawn of time is basically this:
You have the power, it is within yourself.
I like your line of thought. I’d have to say though that instead of “You must come to your own conclusions,” it should read more as “Think for yourself.” While you’re basically saying the same thing, I think the first one seems like an understatement of the profound nature of the unwritten rule. Even “Think for yourself” doesn’t quite smack you in the face as much as “People are stupid” or make you ask questions as quickly, but taken into context with all of the things that happened throughout the series, it seems to be the overall theme of not just the last book, but of all of them. It seems to me that at every turn Richard succeeded where others failed because he refused to accept the truth as truth without seeing it for himself. Richard always challenged and questioned the known and only accepted something as an absolute truth if he personally knew it to be so. This doesn’t mean you can’t trust other people’s observations and conclusions, but that you should always leave room for healthy doubt.
Reading the observations of others on the unwritten rule has helped me understand it more and direct my own thoughts so that I can do as it suggests and think for myself, coming to my own conclusions about what it is. 🙂
Oh and about the quick deaths, I think he was making a point with those as well. From the very first book, main characters died off just as quickly as the unnamed soldier, which is how real life is. Just because you’re famous or important doesn’t mean death can’t come swiftly and without warning or fanfare. I think he was trying to get away from the Hollywood style overblown death scenes. As they said towards the beginning: Dead is dead, you are no more or less dead by the method of death.
doesn’t anyone else find that its kinda against the unwritten rule to be reading up on it online? lol…. the meaning of the unwritten rule is supposed to be understood via reading the book…a truth found by oneself… not googling it haha…
I loved the Sword of Truth books and i continue to read them every couple of years, but I wonder. Does anyone think that Terry Goodkind made the rule an “unwritten rule” because he was just being lazy?
(kind of like the deaths throughout the book and moments concerning Gratch or Scarlet)
The way I see it is all encompassing. All of you had great ideas, without you guys I was totally lost, but now reading each and every word of your writings I have come to see that each of your ideas for the final rule can fit together. Creating the rule unwritten, the rule unspoken. I was just about to explain how they all fit together, but then I realized that would be breaking the rule itself. Although I won’t lay it all out for you I will say that if you truly want to understand the final rule you should read, word for word, all of the previous comments and most definitely the comments to come, for they will revel to you the final rule.
I believe the rule to be along the lines that you can’t find the secrets to power of life in a book, therefore it can’t be written down, spoken or otherwise so communicated. When Richard realized that Barracus “said” by the blank pages that you won’t find or unlock the power of war wizard’s power from a book, Richard then realized that neither will the Sisters be able to unlock the power of life (Orden) from a book. You’re looking in the wrong places.
Recall how much Jagang and the Sisters relied on prophetic and magic books and how limiting Richard thought of them. Richard had better success with historical records, his compassion and moral sense. Also, reread the message Barracus left for Richard thru the Silph after he passed the test.
The power of life is yours when you seek and find truth based on rational thought (apologetics, evidence, as opposed to blind faith based on emotion), compassion toward others, and justice upon the deserving. Like the Sisters of the Dark, so many hope or trust that the power of life can found in a book (self-help books sell by the millions!) or told by others (“power” speakers). Sometimes it comes down to trusting relationships and yourself – “You passed the test, Master.” said the Silph before being allowed to discover the secrets.
All of you are right and wrong in a sense. The unwritten rule is like the others. They go hand in hand and can go against each other like all things in the universe. If we stop to think on just this one rule, you letting the wizards third rule “Passion rules reason” control you. You must think outside the very nature of life itself and embrace all the rules as one. “Your life is yours. Rise up and live it.” could be it or it could be “There is no truth in hate.” You must think for yourselves in order to achieve anything. Don’t let things or beliefs or somebody else rule you and tell you how to think. Live your life the way you choose.
I’m becoming yet more convinced that this is the right answer. I found this on page 930 of Atlas Shrugged:
“No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. It is only with your own knowledge that you can deal. It is only your own knowledge which you can claim to possess or ask others to consider.”
I think its a bit more than that.
The first post has it right, Truth is sought internally. Think about the countless millions that were brough up like we were, being TOLD what is the truth what is right what is wrong, do this, don’t do that. Lives are built upon ideals that are just passed down from one generation to the next never following that one basic rule and never teaching it to their kids.
Think for yourselves…
This is so crucial in todays day and age, the internet puts SO much knowledge right at your fingertips, I am amazed at how many close minded and plainly stupid people I come across lol
I think both ideas go hand in hand and both are viable.. basically that you must reach your own conclusions about truth (use reason to find the truth) or your idea of it would be flawed. We know that hate is irrational and therefore has no reasoned thinking behind it so as Richard says; hate has no truth. This explains why the book was blank and why the sisters and Jagang failed at the end.
Basically though this explains the rule I agree with tom
The Unwritten Rule must be;
“There is no Truth in Hate”
and the original post is the explanation behind the rule.
Tom,
It does fit (in particular, I can see that being the reason why Richard didn’t kill the soldiers of the Imperial Order outright after opening the box of Orden), but isn’t it redundant given the sixth rule: “The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason”?
Maybe I missed the whole mark. But I thought the 11th rule was fairly obvious:
There is no truth (read life, happiness, victory, success, etc) in hate. I thought Richard explained that out pretty well. Its why the Sister’s weren’t able to unlock Orden, why Nicci was able to defeat Jagang, and why Richard ultimately triumphed. His actions were not based on hate, just the ideas that reason and logic supercede all. Jennson’s world world was a world initially governed by hate and emotion, and truth could not exist there, hence the churches being built and everybody reverting back to religion.
Although I really like the opening rant about the internal truth bit, my first impression was that the rule unwritten (and for the most part 75% of the last five books listening to Richard reiterrate how precious life and truth was) summed up Goodkind’s objectivist philosophy.
This certainly does seem a better idea for the rule unwritten than anything other people are saying.
My initial thoughts on it were based on a quote from the book dust jacket and on the website:
“It started with one rule, and will end with the rule of all rules, the rule unwritten, the rule unspoken since the dawn of history.”
From which I thought the rule would be the literal ending of the book—“Your life is yours. Rise up and live it.”—but that seems a little too shallow for Terry.
Hmmm… Thinking about it, maybe I should have just left this post blank!
A thing that always intrigued me, about the way goodkind wrote his stories, is the way evil seems, always to be several steps ahead of the hero, about how evil or the antagonist seems overwhelmingly unstopable and yet, even with those surmountable odds, richard, through his logic and inginuity was able to defeat evils efforts. So this last unspoken rule or rather the fact that it seems that even if richard was not involved, it seems to me that evil(the sisters and jajang) would have eventually failed to obtain the power of orden because it was doomed to begin with because of the violation of A RULE. so just like always, it seems, evil was defeated by its own short sitedness. I would have loved to read, instead of the overly long winded account of richards involvement in the ja la tournament, how he finally understands his ability and is able to wield awsome power, earth shattering Goku* type power. I mean for god sakes, a war wizard-not a very war like ending. the temple of the winds has very exciting mysteries that should have been further explored, when he was there, he knew how to wield his power and wove his magic into a tapestry, combining this and that element to create a SWORD OF TRUTH!!!!!! shit! where is that kind of thing. I dont know anything about writing a book, since mine is basically like victors marble chunk-laying about in its unfinished state, but i do know one thing, its your story, so long as you do not violate the logical progression of the storyline and keep it withing the believability of its reality….you can get pretty creative with your character, and in this last novel, richard failed to leap off the page. a very well written novel for an in between novel but not at all very saticfying for the cap, the last books should have been as eyepopping as the first in the series…….
They did die quickly in the end, and like you, I suspect that this was not due to the rule but either because Goodkind was running out of pages (publishers usually impose a limit) or because he didn’t believe that they deserved a dramatic execution.
What does have to do with the rule, however, is what happens when the Sisters attempt to open the boxes. They have everything they need: the garden, the original book, all three boxes, both sides of the Gift… and yet they failed because they didn’t stop to think about whether the instructions in the book really made sense – which, as Richard later discovers, they don’t.
They contain a reference to a confessor, but they were written before confessors existed. That’s a contradiction, and “a contradiction cannot exist in reality. Not in whole, not in part”. If the Sisters knew the ninth rule and bothered to think for themselves about the instructions, they would have realized that the books could not have truly been valid.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see what Goodkind does next. I’ve heard that he plans on writing more books set in the Sword of Truth universe (though not part of the Sword of Truth series), so we will see.
wow, your comment and view should be added to the books ending so that idiots like me can better piece together what happened. i could not help but feel rather apprehensive while reading through this latest book because as each hundred pages i covered, there seemed to not be enough of the book to carry out its testiment toward the completion of its goals. six was dispatched quickly as was jajang, i understood the lack of cerimony was the proper execution for someone that would otherwise expect something grandeose. the blank pages however seem more to do with the restriction of time or space in the story than to do with the profound nature of the rule unspoken, in other words there are elements to this last volume that (through shear coinsidance) seem to quicken the story as if the author just wished to end it as quickly as possible. after dieing to see the gar and scarlet come alive in the other volumes, finally appear(to some degree) in this vol., i expected more than just mention, richard did not actually meet up with either, and i would have enjoyed that rapour with scarlet………this last book read to me like a school text book, terry is very wise and i hope for whats next for him, for us…..