Terry Goodkind or Robert Jordon, which series is better?

[Cleric of Hell's Brigade]

1. Sword of Truth or Wheel of Time, which one is better in the plot department?

2. Which has a better lead male character?

3. Better female lead charater(s)?

4. Better villians?

5. Which has the better (cooler) magic/supernatural abilities?


So, what's your opinion and why?

[Chuckg]

Ugh. "Both Mangled And Killed". :)

[Cleric of Hell's Brigade]

Ugh. "Both Mangled And Killed". :)


:) Sorry, that button's been disabled for this thread.

[Expletive Deleted]

God help me, I agree with Chuck.

[Corsair]

1. Sword of Truth or Wheel of Time, which one is better in the plot department?

Sword of Truth. Wheel of Time doesn't really have a plot so much as it has drama. I'm not sure I can really describe the difference. Basically, in Sword of Truth the characters are a part of the events that surround them while in Wheel of Time they are simply being dragged along, reacting to what's happening.

2. Which has a better lead male character?

3. Better female lead charater(s)?

Sword of Truth. The Wheel of Time leads, both male and female are just carbon copies of one another. Completely interchangeable. That could be interesting if there was some reason for it, but I get the impression it's more a matter of the author not being able to give diverse personalities to his characters.

4. Better villians?

I'm going to say Sword of Truth again. I'm not really sure who the villains are in Wheel of Time. Actually, are there any heroes? There are good guys and bad guys, sure, but I don't find myself rooting for or hating anybody in particular when I read the books.

5. Which has the better (cooler) magic/supernatural abilities?

This one I'll give to Jordan. What Wheel of Time lacks in character and story it really makes up for in the setting department. If he'd been creating a role-playing game (which, in a way, I suppose he did since there are several now) this would be a thing of beauty. As a novel, it's just "People do stuff. Things happen. Whoa! Cool! More stuff happens..."

[Arvandor]

1. Sword of Truth or Wheel of Time, which one is better in the plot department?
Sword of Truth. This one has the better story in terms of plot, and holds together better without meandering off in a thousand directions.

2. Which has a better lead male character?
Wheel of Time. Rand al'Thor is very much the badass, at least when not being bitched at by his girlfriends. But Richard Cypher is nothing more than a mouthpiece for Goodkind's political views, and in the later books barely a chapter goes by without Cypher going off on YET ANOTHER rant about the evils of socialism.

3. Better female lead charater(s)?
Sword of Truth, no question. As has been pointed out by just about everybody, Jordan CANNOT write women.

4. Better villians?
Wheel of Time. The Forsaken are very cool, as are the Myrdraal and ther monsters. Jordan's series just has more creativity when it comes to bad guys.

5. Which has the better (cooler) magic/supernatural abilities?
Sword of Truth takes this. Wheel of Time's magic is too formulaic, too D&D.


Overall, I prefer Wheel of Time. I'm still somewhat interested in seeing how that series ends. But Sword of Truth has become utterly unreadable, an ongoing political rant, and I couldn't care less how it ends.

[Surt]

SoT is a disgrace to the Fantasy genre. First of all, Goodkind steals from fantasy classics (e.g. WoT). Furthermore, his objectivistic (sp?) views are really annoying and, as the above poster mentioned, basically makes the books unreadable. The first two are kind of good, though.

WoT is not much better. The first 3-4 books were very good, but the series has since declined steadily in quality, and although Knife of Dreams is acceptable, it is still not as good as the first handful.

So, in answer to your question, WoT wins in all categories, but buy something from Martin or Erikson instead.

[Deathstroke]

I lasted longer with the Jordan series, but both have long been dropped.

Overly ponderous never ending plot got boring.

[Michael P]

This is like asking what's better, a punch in the gut or a kick in the face?

[leonaozaki]

This is like asking what's better, a punch in the gut or a kick in the face?


It reminds me of all those people running around saying that REVENGE OF THE SITH was 'better' than ATTACK OF THE CLONES or PHANTOM MENACE. To me, choosing between any of the Star Wars prequels or Jordan v. Goodkind is like choosing between a natural death or death by stoning.

rob