Legend of the Seeker #10: Sacrifice

[Orius]

Kahlan disguises herself as a Mord Sith to free someone from her past held captive at a D'Haran prison.



Kahlan in tight red leather....mmm not bad, but not really my fetish. It's also good to see the producers tieing things together from different episodes.

As for the whole bit about the male chan, ahem, confessors needing to be killed because they turn all crazy and destructive and evil, that seemed a bit familiar to me for some reason. I don't see what the big deal is, I mean

Spoiler

saidin has been cleansed

, after all.

I'm assuming this is something else taken from Goodkind's books? If so I'm definitely seeing the WoT rip-off here. We've got bad dangerous male magic user, all-female order of magic that's dying off, etc.

 

[Shade]

Entertaining episode. I was surprised at a few of the plot developments, particularly Rahl's right-hand man burnt to a crisp.

 

[Pyrex]

I'm assuming this is something else taken from Goodkind's books?

Yeah, it's from the books. It's not that all male magic users are evil due to some taint in the magic but that male Confessors have had a strong tendency to abuse their power so it simply became more expedient to kill them at birth.

The constraints of what they take time to explain in the TV show make the WoT comparisons more apparent/prominent than they actually are in the novels.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

That episode decreased my intrest in the show as it just turned the fight into a battle between the lesser of two evils. The confessors seem to me just as dangerous and evil as anything else, and not because of the child. The confessers, even the female ones, seem to have issues with abuse of power that needs to be stopped. First there was the mord sith eopisode where the confesser friend had gone evil, then this one. One has to wonder as well about the inherent issues of allying with a group whose power is to remove free will and thier aparrent willingness to use whenever it is convienient for them. The've made Kahlen have moral quams, but it seems no others have those quams. In this episode either the seeker made a monumental mistake, or the confessors really should be hunted down.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm assuming this is something else taken from Goodkind's books? If so I'm definitely seeing the WoT rip-off here. We've got bad dangerous male magic user, all-female order of magic that's dying off, etc.

Regardless of "who did it first", it's a bit much saying that killing a male supernatural child is a rip-off of Wheel of Time or any other book. It's not an uncommon trope in fantasy, mythology, and even real-world religion.

Of course, the Wheel of Time crazy male channelers weren't killed as babies, in fact weren't killed at all but rather "gentled" (depowered in a mentally castrated sort of way). Also, their madness was the result of a curse, not an inherent bias towards evil.

 

[Dire Bare]

That episode decreased my intrest in the show as it just turned the fight into a battle between the lesser of two evils. The confessors seem to me just as dangerous and evil as anything else, and not because of the child. The confessers, even the female ones, seem to have issues with abuse of power that needs to be stopped. First there was the mord sith eopisode where the confesser friend had gone evil, then this one. One has to wonder as well about the inherent issues of allying with a group whose power is to remove free will and thier aparrent willingness to use whenever it is convienient for them. The've made Kahlen have moral quams, but it seems no others have those quams. In this episode either the seeker made a monumental mistake, or the confessors really should be hunted down.

The confessor who, well, "confessed" an entire village did not turn to evil. She abused her power and made a very bad choice that resulted in evil. In the real world, all evil is probably more of this nature . . . . but in a fantasy realm where evil people all wear black and/or red S&M outfits and desire to crush all freedom and hope everywhere . . . . we are not talking Sith conversion or even close.

Anyway, I didn't see the mental domination of an entire village episode as an example of a "magic-user" falling to the dark side but rather of the difficulty of wielding power and making choices that are not only moral but effective.

This theme played through the latest episode as well. None of the confessors was happy or gung-ho over the idea of killing the baby, but most were willing to defer to long-held tradition and fear of the unknown, which is very human. The mother confessor was also bolstered in her attitude by the very personal experience of her own confessor son turning to evil and the need for her to slay her own grown up child. Obviously, the point of the episode was to show how one person gave in to fear and made very wrong choices (mom confessor) and how the other women overcame their reliance on tradition and fear of the unknown to make the "right" decision. But what if baby confessor grows up to be the next Darken Rahl as tradition warns against?!?!

It's not always written the best or acted the best in the show, but it's pretty clear that the confessors feel that mentally dominating someone is a last resort and borderline evil even when used for good ends. But, as a cool groovy magic power, good and "correct" opportunities to use the power crop up just about every episode.

 

[Dire Bare]

Entertaining episode. I was surprised at a few of the plot developments, particularly Rahl's right-hand man burnt to a crisp.

Actually, I like this aspect of the show. Darken Rahl is the Big Bad that Richard won't face until much, much later and serves as the untouchable personification of evil hanging over the entire story.

But every couple of weeks we get a new, evil, despicable minion of Rahl to serve as the main antagonist that Richard and Co. actually do battle with.

This way, Richard can win battles without the need to kill off the main bad guy. But the battles don't have to be easy and it can take work and time to defeat the more present nemeses.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

The confessor who, well, "confessed" an entire village did not turn to evil. She abused her power and made a very bad choice that resulted in evil. In the real world, all evil is probably more of this nature . . . . but in a fantasy realm where evil people all wear black and/or red S&M outfits and desire to crush all freedom and hope everywhere . . . . we are not talking Sith conversion or even close.

Anyway, I didn't see the mental domination of an entire village episode as an example of a "magic-user" falling to the dark side but rather of the difficulty of wielding power and making choices that are not only moral but effective.

As I said, the lesser of two evils. I seem to have a different opinion about the morality of taking peoples free will. So acording to you she made a bad choice that resulted in evil. That says evil to me. While I still think that takings someones free will is inherently evil, Kahlen seems to only do it when the person is irredemamably evil to begin with (debateable maybe), but the village confesser took out an entire village. Kahlen had some issues with that, but not enough.

If she wern't a confesser that could have been an entire episode to stop the magic-user who had enslaved an entire village. As for the leeser of two evils Kahlen and Zed while having quams went ahead and were willing to sacrifice all those slave to rescue the seeker. My understanding of the seeker would be that he would have dissagreed with that. The show took the easy way out in the end and didn't force them to deal with that problem by having the "real" enemy kill her.

Yes, in the real world there are shades of grey, but this to me falls squarely in the evil category. This is a show about fantasy good and evil, and I expect black and white hats. The entire premise of the show is about a pure white hat trying to free the world. If I was interested in shades of grey, there are far better written shows out there that cover that.

This theme played through the latest episode as well. None of the confessors was happy or gung-ho over the idea of killing the baby, but most were willing to defer to long-held tradition and fear of the unknown, which is very human. The mother confessor was also bolstered in her attitude by the very personal experience of her own confessor son turning to evil and the need for her to slay her own grown up child. Obviously, the point of the episode was to show how one person gave in to fear and made very wrong choices (mom confessor) and how the other women overcame their reliance on tradition and fear of the unknown to make the "right" decision. But what if baby confessor grows up to be the next Darken Rahl as tradition warns against?!?!.

By very bad decisions you mean confessing a wizard of the first order and willingness to kill the seeker so that she could kill the baby at that instant. If the mother confesser can betray the seeker and turn evil, what hope is there really for the order of confessers. Confessers have major power and seem easily seduced by it. So far Kahlen seems the only one who looks at the true morality of it. The other sisters were more than willing to go along with the mother confesser until Kahlen taked them out of it.

Then as I said, either the seeker is very wrong by letting the baby grow up and the mother confesser was justified in doing what she did, or The confessers are too easily seduced by thier own power and are very dangerous in thier own right.

It's not always written the best or acted the best in the show, but it's pretty clear that the confessors feel that mentally dominating someone is a last resort and borderline evil even when used for good ends. But, as a cool groovy magic power, good and "correct" opportunities to use the power crop up just about every episode.

And there seem to be plenty of oportunities where the show has confessers abusing thier powers. Even Kahlen in the magic potion episode abused her power. This episode just demonstrated how dangeous the confessers can be, both power wise and in making thier own decisions. Taking someones free will is tantamount to killing them (to me) and should only be done as an absolute last resort. I hope the show uses this as an oportunity to further limit Kahlen because right now the seeker is playing with fire.

 

[Felon]

Over in a thread asking whether or not anyone watches Smallville anymore, several people expressed the sentiment that most shows don't warrant a thread for every episode. Bearing that in mind, it strikes me as interesting to see Legend of the Seekri s amongst that select few. I watched the first few episodes and found it be of middling worth, with a heavily derivative set of tropes, a tired "chosen one" theme, and scripts that offered a preteen-accessible level of sophistication. Yet now it's evoking philosophical discussion. Did I give up too early? Has the show really matured so much already?

 

[Dire Bare]

Over in a thread asking whether or not anyone watches Smallville anymore, several people expressed the sentiment that most shows don't warrant a thread for every episode. Bearing that in mind, it strikes me as interesting to see Legend of the Seekri s amongst that select few. I watched the first few episodes and found it be of middling worth, with a heavily derivative set of tropes, a tired "chosen one" theme, and scripts that offered a preteen-accessible level of sophistication. Yet now it's evoking philosophical discussion. Did I give up too early? Has the show really matured so much already?

Heh, I think it's more complex than some give it credit for . . . . but I wouldn't describe it as an overly complex and mature show. It's fun, reasonably well written and acted, uses many standard fantasy tropes (as do the books it's based on), but does play around with the morally gray areas and also plays a bit deeper than Raimi's earlier efforts Xena and Hercules (not that those two shows set the bar high).

I dig the show. YMMV.