This is all great and I enjoy programming but I REALLY want to start working with graphics and move towards 2d games. I've started to look into libraries like SDL and some of it looks really weird and then other parts I can understand. Usually after I get past the initial "setting up the SDL screen" tutorial it gets way advanced and I lose it. I really want to start moving into something with graphics because it's starting to feel like the console just isn't doing it for me anymore. With what I've learned, I have been able to program a decent text based RPG.

Learn basics. Start small. Make games like pong, galaga, asteroids, tetris. Once you can do those... you'll be ready to move on to bigger things.

Patience.

I agree with IcedCrow on this one. Especially the part about "Patience".

RPG is not the "most difficult genre", it's probably the most scalable one in term of difficulty since you can do a quite basic RPG.

Your quite on mark, i should have given it a second thought, my apologies.

I would suggest taking a look at SFML as well. I tried both SDL and SFML and I liked SFML more. SFML in my opinion is easier to learn and get started with, as least that was the case for me.