*The following content is truthful as I see it. Politically correctness was not a consideration. There are also exceptions.
Remember the Terry Goodkind books I spent 2013 reading?
There was this question on the author's website that's been bothering me since I first read it 2 years ago.
Tonight, in the shower, I think I got it.
I think it's to do with men and women.
Masculine characters are seekers or anti-seekers, Feminine characters are confessors or anti-confessors.
In layman terms,
1.
Men are resource gatherers. There are two ways to gather resources - through natural truth, or through force, coercion and compulsion.
In the books, the Seeker is a role with certain magical powers created by ancient wizards. The seeker's job is to ensure that human society can prosper free from immorality.
On the other hand, the anti-seekers are the evil villains which use brutal means to achieve their ends.
From the standpoint of biological reproduction, the purpose of males is
to provide resources for the mother and children. Required in the gathering of resources is the
correct interpretation of reality - natural truth. Like how an
accountant must recognize math and arithmetic or programmers must understand algorithms and obey the rules of their programming language.
Women also like getting what they want, but their main strength is through social and bio-psychological means.
In the books, there are Confessors and Mord Sith. Confessors have the magical ability to destroy a person's free will and make them do whatever she wishes. Confessors can also tell if one is telling the truth. The power of Confessors is based on love.
Confessors make more confessors by mating with high status men. Of course, the men become confessed in the process, their minds destroyed. This is kind of tragic, because it means they cannot have sexual relations with men they really love without destroying them.
Mord Sith are the opposite of Confessors. While Confessor magic is love, Mord Sith use hate, pain and emotional manipulation to enslave.
In reality, interacting with attractive women generally leaves men cognitively impaired and less able to express free-will. And if there is any doubt as to this, well, male sexual arousal (signs such as erection) are essentially involuntary and easily triggered. On the other hand, women do not experience this effect.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-interacting-with-woman-leave-man-cognitively-impaired/
Have you ever been with some female you consider so attractive you feel like you are melting, and you need your mindpower to go for it? That's what it means.
Sometimes, long term exposure creates the stereotypical guy with a nagging wife/girlfriend which has him by the balls.
2.
Love is fundamentally emotional reactions to common values, beliefs, virtue.
The Sword of Truth series is revolves around Richard and Kahlan, who share common goals of defeating the baddies and discovering the nature of the magical world around them.
When they first realize they are in love, Kahlan realizes that they can never have sex, because that would be the end of Richard. Richard ponders for about half the book, then realizes that it actually was possible, because they already love each other so much it would make no difference whether he was confessed or not.
Love needs to be clearly defined and not confused with physical attraction, attraction to resources, but a spontaneous genuine response to common virtues. Failure to recognize this leads to disaster when the relationship is ever tested.
3.
Men do, women are.
Men select women based on her being. What is she? Does she look after herself? What's her personality? Is she kind or mean, generous or selfish, faithful or unfaithful, open or uptight, introverted or extroverted? Males start from the physical and go into the psychological, intellectual, personal qualities.
Women select men firstly based on what and how well he does. The reproductive reason needs no explanation - the young take up vast resources. Pregnancy, child-rearing are time and resource intensive
. (Modern feminists may have you think otherwise, but even if one opts for childcare services, there is still increased cost.)
Richard was
named a Seeker. Kahlan was
born a Confessor.
If there is anything to take away from this post, it's this.
Males Seekers and female Confessors has been the natural way of things, because this strategy has worked for millions of years. But we can do better if only they...
1. Don't be "confessed".
2. Choose partners based on their virtue first and foremost. Don't settle for anything less.
3. Be sure what other people love you for. Be in-dispensable. Don't be expendable.
