Legend of the Seeker/Headscratchers

Be warned, spoilers ahead.

• As mentioned in the Sword of Truth's Just Bugs Me page, the Sword itself has received a power-down for the purposes of showing cool sword fights. Whenever I, a big fan of the books, although I readily admit that Pillars Of Creation needs to DIAF and Goodkind has a stick up his ass about it not being a "Fantasy" series, see scenes such as the slicing of crossbow bolts from midair, say "Now that is the Sword of Truth!"
• Why did Sam Raimi feel the need to power everyone down so much? If you're curious as to what I mean, apart from the obvious sword-that-cuts-through-anything part.
  • Let's see, the effect of a Confessor's power goes away after her death? Um... no. The entire point is that it is absolute and eternal and it utterly destroys the personality of the one touched. Why say that? Just so that Kahlan can have had some childhood trauma of her hands being bound? Seriously.
  • Zedd seems to only know a few tricks in the series and is waaay too fond of using Wizard's Fire, which is also a lame version of itself. Wizard's fire is supposed to be practically living, liquid fire that clings to everything it touches and cannot be extinguished unless the original caster cuts it off...and even then that's not a guarantee. Wizard's fire also draws a nice amount of attention. They don't want to be found, and the Zedd is supposed to favor much more devious magic than just "throw a fireball at it".
  • Chase...if the Chase in the books saw a guy holding his daughter hostage with a knife to her throat, the situation would be resolved within a moment. He'd give a subtle signal to his daughter, who'd acknowledge it subtley...and the D'Haran soldier would've found a knife through his eyeball before he suspected communication. Y'know, if Chase's wife hadn't already dispatched him before her hubby got home.
  • I understand trying to reduce Richard's Mary Sue-ness from the books, since that is one of the things that annoys most of the complainers, but does he have to carry the Idiot Ball 95% of the time? Ooh, I've been caught in a rabbit trap and my sword fell out of it's scabbard. Um...knife? You're an f*ing woods guide, pull out your knife and cut yourself down. Oh, hey, look Kahlan kicked your sword up to you...reach up and cut yourself down...please...it'll take less time and be less dangerous than trying to swordfight upside down while a targeting-challenged wizard in a stressful situation tries to burn you down.
• Ok...what was with the Very Special Episode about drugs? I'm talking about Elixir if you're wondering. There are so many many other social messages contained within the pages of the books, why did you need to hit that one so early? The thought doesn't show up until late in the third book, and that's with a bit of an addiction to the invisibility cloak of the Mriswith, which is specifically designed to be addicting. In the same episode, you introduce the Quillan...probably one of the darkest, most disgusting pieces of magic in the entire series...as a simple sort of magic-sucker. Do you know how one takes the magic away from a Wizard? It's not a simple matter of killing him with that thing near, nor any sort of incantation. No...you need to skin him alive...slowly. What does a Rada'Han do? It enables the one who put it on you/made you put it on to suppress your magic and give you pain...sometimes enough to kill you and is almost impossible to get off on your own, although Zedd figures out how in the books. With these two truly horrendous things introduced in this episode...the bad part is the drugs? Puh-leaze
• Adrenaline Time and Bullet Time are all well and good, but there is such a thing as overuse of it. There are times that I want to just punch Sam Raimi (whom I do like) in the face and say, "PICK A F*ING SPEED."
  • The answer to a good number of those is: "It is not the books." If you can accept that they're going to change things for practical reasons (animating Wizard's Fire as it's described in the books would be very expensive, for one example), that solves a lot of problems. As for Elixir, it wasn't that magic was physically "addicting," it was that people were relying on it to solve all their problems. As for Zedd...watch "Puppeteer." As for Richard not reaching up with his knife, do you know how hard it is to do a sit-up while you're hanging upside down? How about folding yourself completely in half, which is what he'd have had to do to cut that rope with a knife. It's a lot harder than you'd think.
    I think I have to agree with you on the Adrenaline Time/Bullet Time thing, though. It's a bit overused.
  • And on the subject of death ending the Confessor's spell, toward the end of the first book, Kahlan says, when she thinks she's confessed Richard, that her death is "The only way you'll be free." I don't recall whether the later books specifically say otherwise, though.
    • I was also under the impression that death of the confessor released the spell on the confessed I'm sure there was a musing on this when the prevoisly confessed guy she had turned into a wolf turned up. Plus it doesn't actually destroy the person, just adds an overriding love of the confessor, the guy who hid his confessor daughter should show that. The thig that bugs me about Kahlan is thats she is only supposed to call the con dar in defence of richar, but in the show i'm sure she's done it when she was just angry.
    • Nope. Every time she's called on the Con Dar has been in the defense of Richard.

more to come as others add and I finish watching what's out of the show.

• So, what's with Richard? He's a Memetic Badass in the books, and is afflicted with Thou Shalt Not Kill syndrome here. In fact, it seems they've changed the political bias pretty much completely, making it an Anvilicious liberal story rather than the conservative one presented in the books. I can get making things more family-friendly since they're airing it on WGN and not HBO (though that's a Wall Banger in and of itself), but complete and utter emasculation of all the main characters and the story itself is not the way to go here.
  • "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? Richard kills easily a dozen or so people every time he pulls out his sword, for starters. And what are you talking about "complete and utter emasculation"? Are you watching the same show I am?
    • If you're talking about Mooks, it doesn't count. But when the main Villain of the Week is just allowed to escape alive, considering how slowly he would have died had Terry Goodkind been in charge, it's a Wall Banger.
    • Again, are we watching the same show? I can remember once or twice when Richard's "allowed" the main villain to escape, and one of those times was when he'd spent the whole episode getting to know him and his family. Other times, they escape because Richard's simply not in a position to finish them off. And before that part where he met the commander's family, he was perfectly willing to use those magic devices to wipe out the whole base.
      
      Hell, let's go through the episodes:
      1+2, Prophecy and Destiny: He pretty clearly kills the villain, after trying to do so for the whole time.
      3, Bounty: Traps the bounty hunters in a cave with a monster that he knows will kill and eat them.
      4, Brennidon: Richard participates in killing every D'Haran in the town.
      5, Listener: Dunno if he specifically kills the captain, but he does do his best to kill as many as he can, and he's got the added concern of taking care of the kid as mitigating circumstances if the guy did get away.
      6, Elixir: The wizard doesn't die, no, but he is depowered, and he's also an old friend of Zedd's. If it was an old friend of Zedd's who was still a threat, that's one thing, but at that point, you're executing some guy who can no longer defend himself.
      7, Identity: The only reason Nass gets away is because the whole place started exploding at an inopportune time.
      8, Denna: Richard clearly and graphically stabs Denna through the stomach, killing her. Just because she didn't stay dead doesn't matter.
      9, Puppeteer: Richard doesn't see Rahl face to face. Zedd was focused on getting the box, and couldn't have tipped his hand in attacking Rahl without getting killed himself.
      10, Sacrifice: The villain dies here too, sure, not by Richard's hand, but that's not for a lack of trying.
      11, Confession: The bad guy is run through by Richard, if I'm not mistaken.
      12, Home: It's a clipshow, Richard doesn't really have an adversary to face.
      13, Revenant: The villain's already dead, and possessing Richard most of the time.
      14, Hartland: The villain is confessed, which renders him as good as dead, and useful to boot.
      15, Conversion: Rahl escapes, but again, not for lack of trying on Richard's part. If he'd been a split second faster, this would've been a shorter season.
      16, Bloodline: Okay, Richard does let Denna go here, on to a life of hiding, knowing that if she ever surfaces again, Rahl will have her killed. Plus, he was feeling (understandably) remorseful after his experience with Orden.
      17, Deception: The aforementioned magic devices. He lets the villain live because he met his family, and learned he's not a dog raping bastard, and some guys on the other side are Not So Different.
      18, Mirror: They don't kill the "villains," but tell me that letting a two-bit thief be tortured to death by D'Harans because she looks like Zedd isn't a little bit harsh.
      19, Cursed: The villains are torn apart by the Calthrop, and Richard was quite earnestly trying to kill them before he's capture.
      20, Sanctuary: Priority here is getting the copy of the Book of Counted Shadows, and therefore, the goal is to escape, not generate a body count.
      21, Fever: No 'main' villain, except Rahl, whom Richard never sees up close. He does kill a dozen soldiers though.
      22, Reckoning: Richard kills Rahl (after a fashion). He lets Cara go because they came to an understanding. Also, because he was still outnumbered by Mord-Sith, and attacking them would be suicide.
      
      So, let's review...22 episodes, and in the majority, the villain is either killed, confessed, or is Darken Rahl, who obviously can't be killed until the last one. If the villain gets away, it's because of circumstances beyond Richard's control, or because he's come to an understanding with that person in particular.
  • The Objectivist stuff doesn't show up until the fifth or sixth book in the series. Legend of the Seeker is based on the first book, which was written, you know, before Goodkind got high on Ayn Rand.
    • Richard's still far more willing to Shoot the Dog in the first book than he is in the first season of the TV series. And Kahlan even moreso.
• In the episode "Revenant" the dead wizard Amfortas muses how odd it was that Viviane death did not release Kieran from loving her. While it probably would've lengthened the episode a bit too much, it does irk me that no one mentioned the obvious reason. Kieran already loved her intensely and the confessing that happened was a redundant thing. If memory serves, something similar happens in the books with Richard. Also, why on Earth did Amfortas even bother with binding Kieran? I mean will Kieran stay as a vengeful ghost, or pass on and be with a loved one... Gee though choice.
  • Dunno about the binding, but I imagine the reason they were vague on Kieran already loving the Confessor was because of what happened in the books. Sort of setting up the Chekhov's Gun for the resolution of Richard and Kahlan's romantic feelings.
    • Can you elaborate a bit on this? From what I've seen it's quite obvious Kieran and Viviane had strong feeling for each other even before magic entered the equation. Isn't it the same thing with Richard and Kahlan? I only read a tvtrope article on the latter book couple, so apologies if I got anything wrong.
    • It is the same thing. For the entire first book, that's what keeps Kahlan and Richard from getting together romantically, even though it's clear they both really want it, and it's resolved when it turns out that Richard loved Kahlan soooooo much that her magic wouldn't change him. I'm saying that the backstory of Kieran and Viviane is there as a set-up for that same resolution in the series. Like, when/if Kahlan confesses Richard and he's unaffected, expect someone to say something like, "Oh, that's what happened with Kieran and Viviane." The difference is, in the books, Zedd knew it could happen the whole time, while here it appears he doesn't know. They're just dragging out the romantic tension a bit longer, is all.
    • It actually makes a weird kind of sense. Kieran wasn't affected by the Confession from Viviane like Amfortas thought he was. He was in love just like any other person might be, except it showed itself with him being simply off his game (he wanted his loved one to be safe, so he was unfocused in combat; Richard is just a bit more reasonable in that regard). And after she died, it wasn't magic that was preventing the spell from being broken, it was simple grief and rage at what had happened, which drove the Sword of Truth to amplify it beyond all reason. And because he never managed to remaster it like Richard did in his own rage issue incident, Amfortas killed him. Zed just wasn't willing to kill Richard, so they tried overcoming the Sword's power.
• Can they get rid of the slow motion? This troper prefers sword fights without the slo-mo to emphasize how very cool they are, thanks.
• I understand that Kahlan's dress is the mark of a Confessor and all, but why the hell does she wear it all the time, as opposed to just when she's doing some Confessor-related duties, or at least only when they're visiting a town? Seriously, talk about Awesome but Impractical. It's pure white and floor length, and she lives on the road, does a lot of running around, and gets in fights a lot, so it would get absolutely filthy in no time at all, and then it'd be really difficult to get the dirtstains out, because it's so white, so her official Confessor dress would be ruined. The floor-length and those long strips that hang from the sleeves would get in her way during the running around and fighting, too.
  • Uh, she doesn't wear it all the time. At least, she didn't in the first season, where she did only wear it while doing Confessor related things. I believe she still does sometimes wear that green dress, but maybe not as often. The main reason she stopped wearing it full time was to hide; with Darken Rahl gone, she doesn't need to hide her status as a Confessor anymore. Being a Confessor isn't just a job she can turn on and off; it's what she is, and part of that is wearing the dress. As for cleaning it, they're traveling with a Wizard of the First Order, remember.
    • This troper is only five episodes in, but so far, most of the time, she's been wearing that dress, whether she's doing Confessor-related things or not.
    • The 'long strips that hang from the sleeves' would actually be very helpful in a fight, distracting the opponent in the same way the strips or fur tails tied to spearheads did (e.g. the first fight in Hero). If, y'know, the opponent wasn't already distracted by the tasteful cleavage.
• Why would Kahlan ever use her power in battle? Sure, that one guy would become her meat puppet, but then she'd be completely vunerable to any other enemy for the rest of the fight. She's pretty damn good with those short swords, better off just using them the entire battle.
  • Watch the fight scenes a little more closely. She mainly uses her power as a last resort; she starts every fight just using her knives, and most of the time she doesn't use her power; she mainly seems to do it if she's looking to be in trouble, or if they need one of the other soldiers for a specific purpose.
• In "Resurrection" if the Mord-sith's magic doesn't work when the Lord Rahl is dead how come the breath of life still works? Also in the books I'm sure they could only resurrect somebody killed with the Agiel which makes sense, but they seem to be able to bring back anyone here. And if the Keeper gets pissy about the magic to bring the dead back in that ep, why hasn't he been pissy about the mord-sith breath of life ability?
  • The Mord-Sith's agiel loses its power. The Breath of Life is a separate thing. In the books, the Breath of Life was just mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
• After spending the whole episode telling a woman the Margrave's laws are wrong so she'll help her escape, Kahlan and co. leave the Margrave, oppressor and enactor of intensely misogynistic laws woman can be killed and imprisoned for disobeying, in charge.
  • To be fair, what could they have done? In his castle, it would be Richard, Kahlan, Cara, and Zedd against every guard he has, without the benefit of the magic of the Sword of Truth, Cara's agiel, Kahlan's Confessor powers, or Zedd's magic. Sure, you could just kill him, but that would probably just complicate matters more, being that there doesn't seem to be an heir and all.
    • Yes. It would be truly tragic to get rid of one misogynistic tyrant and not be able to replace him with one groomed to replace him. They escape without note and kill dozens of guards in the prison, no problem.
    • Remember what happened when Rahl died and nobody was around to take control? Power struggles, people dying, all sorts of unpleasantness. It'd be a considerably smaller scale in this case, sure, but it's still not the sort of situation Richard et al would want to leave behind. Just killing the guy on top isn't going to solve all the problems.
• This may have been explained in the books, but in the show it seems to go without saying that everybody, regardless of who they are, goes to an eternal writhing naked pile of misery when they die. Everybody seems to be aware of this, yet nobody has a problem with this in a world supposedly created by a benevolent god, and they've still treated going to the underworld as a peaceful and natural end to life.
  • According to the books, when a person dies, they can end up anywhere from down in the Keeper's clutches to being one of the "good spirits" close to the Creator, and the latter are not under the Keeper's influence; he rejects one particular spirit sent to him, and she was freed from him to join the good spirits. This, however, doesn't seem to be honored in the series, where even super-pious Sisters of the Light seem to end up in the Keeper's clutches.
  • One possible explanation is that the rift means that spirits that otherwise might go to the creator are being dragged down to the Keeper instead. In "Creator", the Creator (or the woman claiming to be her) does say the Keeper is getting stronger because of the rift.
  • The book's explanation was implied in "Extinction" when Rahl talked about the possibility of sealing the rift and returning to "The Creator's Light" when he eventually died.
  • In one of the later episodes Darken Rahl explains it. It seems that this is a temporal thing: every dead person goes to the Keeper due to the Keeper screwing around with the Veil or something like that. Rahl hopes that after the Veil is repaired, all the good souls of the dead (including, eventually, himself) will be going to the Creator, not the Keeper.
• How Nicci was handled in the season 2 finale.(Spoilers follow for those who haven't seen it.) Sure, it was awesome finally seeing her in a black dress, but there were too many quirky issues to overlook. First, she's changed to being an Omnicidal Maniac who wants to let the Keeper destroy everything so she and Richard can be the last survivors in the world and create a new race in their image. Then, Cara manages to deflect a lightning bolt from her, despite that it was previously established that a sufficiently powerful sorceress can overwhelm a Mord'Sith, and Nicci is the strongest of all of them, plus she has Richard's Han, the most powerful seen in 3000 years. There was no way Nicci could have failed to destroy a Mord'Sith if what we were told previously was true. Plus, isn't anyone catching on to the idea that she is still carrying Richard's Han? That he hasn't gotten it back yet?
  • Was it ever shown that a sufficiently powerful Sister could get through a Mord-Sith's defenses? I remember it being speculated on, but I don't remember it actually happening. As for that last bit, well, the series got canceled. Presumably they were planning to resolve that later on.
  • She didn't... Nicci faked it so Kahlan would try to confess her... That was kind of the point of half the episode.
  • As to Richard's han, well, I've got an impression that Richard simply doesn't want it back. As far as I can remember, they never tried to take it back (even Sisters of the Light never did... perhaps they just haven't got around to it?).
• Now, I could overlook the rest of Nicci's issues as minor, but what really bugged me was the ending. Nicci is killed and brought back to life, again, and then captured by Darken Rahl. It was already seen in "Princess" that she retains her Han after coming Back from the Dead, even when coming into a different body. Therefore, she must have still had Richard's Han when was brought back, along with all the other sorceresses she'd killed and stolen Han from. She should have been able to crush Rahl and his Mord'Sith easily after they'd revived her, but she didn't even resist! Plus, Darken Rahl, Complete Monster that he is, is still alive at the end! A much better ending would have been for Rahl to think he'd won, but then for Nicci to just blast the sonuvabitch away like he deserves. Of course, since it cut off there, that might have been what happened, but we didn't see it . . .
  • If you look carefully, you'll see a Radahan around Nicci's neck when she stands up and stares at Rahl... Not that I disagree with the complaint in general. Just saying...
  • You'll have to blame the series getting canceled for that. Presumably they were planning for a third season.
• Shouldn't Darken Rahl be dead in the alternate reality in which Cara never became a Mord-Sith? Being that he was the first Baneling, I doubt Richard would have been fine with him killing someone every day just to keep him around. Why bother keeping him around at all? Because it would show your followers, who had to serve under the evil tyrant for a generation, that you were merciful? The bastard was evil! Man this show has a lot of plot holes.
  • As I've mentioned elsewhere, it's possible because Rahl was the first Baneling, and a direct collaborator with The Keeper rather than just a grunt, his deal might have worked differently. As for why Richard didn't kill him, um, did you miss the part of the episode where Zedd asked Richard that exact question and Richard told him exactly why? Maybe before you declare the show is full of plotholes, you should pay a little more attention to it.
• It just now occured to me that Darken Rahl's entire scheme from "Walter" was completely redundant- If he had Walter in his custody for 6 monthes, then why the hell did he wait until that point to execute his whole plan for ressurection? The way the show portrays it, it's as if he's waited until: A) He got his hands on the scroll Richard and co. needed (which he didn't even know existed until the previous episode) and B) For Walter to escape. Of course, this makes no sense, as logically, Rahl would have all the means to ressurect himself (Mord-Sith, Sisters of the Dark) long before this episode. Maybe he had to wait until Kahlan confessed a sister? Since normally ressurecting himself would go against the Keeper's agenda, so the sisters probably wouldn't agree to it so readily, so he had to wait until he had a bargaining chip to convince the Seeker and co. to help him do it? Still, counting on a sister to be confessed and to have the means to force Richard's hand is one hell of a Xanatos Roulette...
  • Rahl wasn't planning to be resurrected at first. He might have had Walter kept around as a contingency, but up until the Creator episode, he was perfectly okay with remaining in the Underworld serving the Keeper. It was only after he received the You Have Failed Me... punishment from the Keeper that he decided it was in his best interests to GTFO--and Walter and the confession of the sister provided that opportunity. He hadn't planned for it, he was just seizing the chance.
• The previous episode, "Vengeance", has one of the most pointless sacrifices I can recall- Panis sees Zed is about to get Dakraa'd, so he steps in the way very slowly so that it will hit him instead. If he had that much time to react (seriously, he moves VERY slowly), then why didn't he shout a warning to Zed, or tried to bat it in the way, or AT LEAST tried to jump in so that it wouldn't hit him fatally? Even ignoring that, why didn't Cara bring him back immediately after?
  • Possibly because Panis Rahl felt guilty about killing Zedd's father and wanted to atone for it. Perhaps he figured that Death Equals Redemption.
• Incoherence : In one of the last episodes we learn that Darken Rahl was the first baneling, hence his endless bloodlust. But then, we have the events of Unbroken : Suddenly, Darken Rahl has been able to survive a whole year without, presumably, killing anything or anyone, and certainly not killing on a daily basis the way he used to. Does not compute.
  • This troper just put that down to the power of Orden being strong enough to overwhelm the baneling status. Orden was, after all, the only thing capable of tearing the veil in the first place, so it repressing Rahl's baneling side seems reasonable.