History Literature / SwordOfTruth

* UnnamedParent: This trope is all over the place in the series, particularly in regards to mothers. To name a few unnamed mothers: [[TheHero Richard's]] mother, Kahlan's mother, [[OldMaster Zedd's]] mother, Darken Rahl's mother, Rachel's mother, Drefan's mother, Oba Rahl's mother, Jennsen's mother, Shota's mother, Chad Rencliff's mother, [[TheJoffrey Prince Fyren's]] mother, and Six's mother. There is even a point in ''Phantom'' where Goodkind goes ''out of his way'' to avoid naming a single person's mother; Richard is told his mother's name, and we aren't; we only get something like "Richard heard his mother's name." Those are nearly all {{Posthumous Character}}s though. Oba kills his in the chapter the two are introduced.

** The Mord Sith, a group of [[AmazonBrigade female warriors]] who serve as bodyguards and [[TortureTechnician torturers]] to D'Hara's Lords Rahl, wielding the agiel, a magical weapon capable of causing [[AgonyBeam intense pain]]. Additionally they're able to turn magic [[AntiMagic back against its casters]].

* ''Debt of Bones'' (1998)

* FantasticNuke: The colossal light spell. When it goes off, the casualities can end up in the ''hundreds of thousands''.

* FreudianExcuse: The Mord-Sith's "training."
* FunctionalMagic: Additive and Subtractive magic.

* FinalSolution: When the series begins, all Confessors except for Kahlan have been murdered on orders of Darken Rahl. She's nearly murdered too but is saved by Richard.

* ''Debt of Bones'' (1998)

* NoPronunciationGuide: Kahlan's name is, rather unintuitively, pronounced by WordOfGod as "KAY-lan".

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The Confessors' hierarchy is based on whose gift is the most powerful and requires the least recovery time after each use.

** Played painfully straight: Richard [[ItWasHisSled Rahl's]] gift (ability to do magic) qualifies. At the end of a book, expect him to know how to perfectly use it to get out of the dire situation of the week, while at the beginning of the next book he's so clueless about how to use it that the events of the last book [[BagOfSpilling might as well have not happened]].

** Confession is also literally the most feared punishment in the setting, to the point that people are more prone to flee at the sight of the uniform than they are when they see a wizard coming, and most wizards are essentially walking weapons of mass destruction with 'maim' as their lowest setting. Enough people commit suicide rather than submit to confession, guilty or innocent, that it's a large practical problem for the legal system. If anything, the setting takes rape a bit ''more'' seriously than real life values would actually require.

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: At the end of ''Wizard's First Rule'', Kahlan [[spoiler:goes after Darken Rahl, resolving to do everything she can to kill him even if she dies herself.]]
** [[spoiler: The way she does it is, according to Zed, something she shouldn't even know is possible, never mind being able to do it. She enters a state known as the Con Dar or Blood Rage. While in this state she is TheUnfettered, and has unlimited access to her Confessor powers.]]
* RomanticRunnerUp: Nicci is a female example.

* PersonalDictionary: Goodkind is so scared of the SciFiGhetto, he wants to pretend his books aren't fantasy, so he changes the definition from having fantastic elements to having no philosophical discussion, [[InsaneTrollLogic so his books magically won't count.]] They're still kept in the fantasy section, though.

* CommieLand: ''Faith of the Fallen'', being inspired by Creator/AynRand's work, involves the protagonist being forced to live in a collectivist dystopian city of TheEmpire (though their bureaucratic command economy is even worse than real communism).

* UltimateEvil: The Keeper of the Underworld.

** The Confessors themselves hate the effect of their power, too, and specifically take mates they ''don't'' have feelings for since they can't bear to do that with a man they love. Which still carries some UnfortunateImplications, since they ''do'' take mates.

* CommieLand: ''Faith of the Fallen'', being inspired by Creator/AynRand's work, involves the protagonist being forced to live in a collectivist dystopian city of TheEmpire (though their bureaucratic command economy is [[UpToEleven even worse]] than real communism).

* {{Brainwashed}}: The effect of Confession. Anyone who undergoes it loves the Confessor who does it without limit over the rest of their life, will do anything they're ordered to, and die from grief without them.

* ConceptsAreCheap: The heroes use the word "Freedom" to justify a whole bunch of brutal actions and atrocities including [[MoralDissonance using confession to take away people's free will and kill people who disagree with them.]]

* MoralDissonance:
** The tactically sound but morally questionable strategies employed by Richard's armies on his instructions.
** Using glamour spells to have sex with men is treated as rape. Confessors doing the equivalent to their mates is not though.
** Richard frequently slips into this due to his omniscient morality staying in play across books with some very disparate themes. The insistence that he is immune or opposed to destiny, especially, fluctuates between a technical distinction and a real moral position depending on whether the author wants to make [[TheProphecy a prophecy]] a major plot element in a given book.

* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: The series has shades of this, where there are several drastic and questionable actions the hero takes [[PayEvilUntoEvil (having a prisoner tortured,]] [[KickTheDog mowing down peace protesters,]] imposing total war). Sometimes averted, where it's [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality treated as if the hero doing this is ''completely right and just'' (the peace protesters)]], while in other places it's justified as the only option he has left (the total war).

* RetGone: [[spoiler:The Chainfire spell]] does this to a person. Unfortunately, it also has the rather unfortunate side effect of [[spoiler:causing TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.]]

* VillainessesWantHeroes: Denna, Nicci, most of the Sisters of the Dark... every evil female character at least attempts to throw themselves at Richard.

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** Also of note are female Confessors. Male Confessors are much, much stronger than female ones to the point where it becomes impossible to control them; according to the backstory, every one was a complete monster, using their powers to get whatever they wanted, and sparking off decades of war before they were wiped out. So, all female Confessors are ''forced'' to have their mate kill any of their male children immediately at birth, while the Confessor herself tends to be overcome with grief for some time afterward.

* RapeAsBackstory: Cara and maybe all the Mord-Siths; Darken Rahl raped them often in the past. Along with them being taken from their families and horribly trained to become Mord-Sith, it's all most get as backstory. It mostly serves to make them sympathetic, along with Richard by comparison, since he would never do such a thing.