On Sun, 14 Apr 1996, Ross McKenzie wrote:

	What I was trying to get at was that when Goodkind defined his 
fictional world, he made some choices _just because_ he, Goodkind, needed a 
conflict.  In my opinion, the decision to have the bad guys curse all red 
stuff was a bad one, particularly since there was no hint of this curse 
until after the conflict.  If I remember the chronology right, it was: 1) 
hero offers heroine an apple, 2) she freaks and gets mad, _then_ 3) she 
explains the curse, which then gets dropped, never to be mentioned again 
in the book.

  It is mentioned again once, when they're with the Mud People and Richard 
is being told to choose a bride.  He asks Kahlan to bring him an apple, 
knowing what the people's reaction would be when he ate it, and uses that 
("well, they're not poisonous to _me_, but I don't know how they'd affect 
my seed") to avoid having to marry one of the Mud People.
  I do agree that he could have done more with it, though, and a 
color-based curse did initially strike me as kind of odd.

	Goodkind could have done a lot more with the story and the 
development of their relationship, but instead he pulled this red fruit 
curse out of thin air, then dropped it.  To me, that's lazy.  He could 
have used a real-world reason for one person to get mad at another, _or_ 
he could have developed the curse more.  He did neither.

  I personally was glad that Goodkind didn't explain the curse before the 
scene where Richard first offers Kahlan the apple.  It would have taken 
away the suspense of the scene for me.  And Kahlan's reaction (I think 
she put a knife to his throat) served to help show how wary, determined, 
and physically capable she was.

	The point I've been trying to make is that readers expect the 
world of a work of fiction to be, for the most part, identical to the 
real world.  The _author_ is the one who has to justify any changes that 
they make.  Changes made to set up a world are fine, as long as any 
consequences are logically thought out and followed through.  Changes 
made because you've written yourself into a corner are not.

  This I agree with totally and completely.
  We're differing in that you don't think that all of Goodkind' changes fit 
with this, and I do.  Okay.
  As far as I can remember, in WFR Goodkind ended up shooting all the 
guns he showed.  
  Also, remember: It's the first in a _series_ of books.  The second one 
is already out, but due to finances, I haven't been able to get it yet :(
I'm sure that he'll develop stuff from the first book in this and later ones.

I love _Wizard's First Rule_...~sigh~ I bought it in hardback, and it 

      	I, on the other hand, was very disappointed in the book.  The only 
good thing I have to say about _Wizard's First Rule_ is that it offered 
me hope: if _this_ was published, then I have hope that someday _I_ may be 
published.

There are quite a few other books out there that have given me that 
hope... ^_^

-joyce, Disciple of Kasumi and Goodkind
Joey-kun no iinazuke!