Holy shit, Atlas Shrugged light.

Goodkind really stresses the Objectivist ideals set out by Ayn Rand in many of her books, though he does it in a fantasy setting and in more straightforward (for the most part) terms. Many of the characters that are central to this book can be directly compared to characters in Atlas Shrugged.

John Galt, I mean Richard Rahl, is forced to part from Kahlan in order to be taken to the Old World so he can see what the purpose of the Order truly is. Goodkind does a good job of showing you how people in the Old World are forced to live while also effectively conveying Objectivist Ideals. It can be sort of over the top at times, but that may be just because I have read Atlas Shrugged.

Of course Objectivism manages to overthrow the Imperial Order in one of their major cities and bring Richard and Kahlan back together. I am curious to see if Goodkind will stick with the message presented in this book through the rest of the series.