LEGEND OF THE SEEKER #9: Dark/Season 2/2010

[Orius]

In fantasy fiction aimed at young adults, good-hearted adolescents seem to have a knack for being the one-in-a-million soul desitned to wield awesome power that they never asked for.

The fantasy genre doesn't see that much innovation. People are always running around playing capture-the-flag with some powerful artifact. And that artificat is a relic of some bygone age of high sorcery and vast empires. It fixes something or kills something or seals something or frees something.

Fantasy just doesn't have a high bar set for itself in this area. Watch LotS and you'll see some scenes of guys fighting with swords and magic powers isntead of guns, and that seems to be the chief thing people look to the genre for.

And hot babes - it's called fantasy for a reason you know.

It's just a set of genre conventions, really. Just look at a genre like the Western, it has a whole boatload of conventions that make it familiar. Are some of them stale? Yeah, but the further away you get from convention, the more unfamilar the work becomes, and the narrows the audience. It's not just the story you're telling but how well you tell it that matters, I think.

It gets even more magnified with television or film. A lot of the mundanes out there have a hard time grasping even the stalest conventions in speculative fiction, so the producers tend to keep it simple. It's easy for people to relate to basic themes like heroism, good triumphing over evil, and stuff like that. Some people like the escapism in it. Complicate it too much, and there's always the fear that it'll interest fewer people, and sf is the most expensive genre to produce.

 

[Merkuri]

The fantasy genre doesn't see that much innovation. People are always running around playing capture-the-flag with some powerful artifact. And that artificat is a relic of some bygone age of high sorcery and vast empires. It fixes something or kills something or seals something or frees something.

If you're talking about the Sword of Truth books being similar to Wheel of Time, it wasn't the grand plots that were similar, it was all the little details (or a whole bunch of little details). I've read plenty of fantasy novels to understand how similar they all are, but one of the things I love are the little details that make the world different. This world is a disk on the back of a turtle. In that world there's a huge wall made of ice on one edge. In another world the power of a male magic-user is forbidden and apt to drive him mad.

One thing in common between SoT and WoT wouldn't be bad. But there were just too many, at least in the early books. SoT had its own unique things (women who know when people are lying and can make anyone fall insanely in love with them, lizard-like people who wear invisible cloaks and wield three-pronged daggers) but it really felt like Terry Goodkind was reading the WoT books when he was writing and taking notes about things he thought were cool.

 

[Orius]

lizard-like people who wear invisible cloaks and wield three-pronged daggers)

Hey were those the guys in the previous episode?

 

[Merkuri]

Hey were those the guys in the previous episode?

Yes, they were. And they were a lot cooler in the books, if I recall. They were one of the few things I remembered after all these years, aside from the bits that felt like they were stolen from WoT.

 

[fba827]

just now watching this episode. going on a theory -- could this new seeker be the one that does the "bad stuff" mentioned in the prophecy tablets?

Also I noticed it last episode, but why did the confessor change clothes out of the white robes (aside from the 'tight armor' factor) was it explained?

 

[Merkuri]

Also I noticed it last episode, but why did the confessor change clothes out of the white robes (aside from the 'tight armor' factor) was it explained?

She doesn't always wear white. She's worn other non-white outfits before. She usually wears white when she's doing something in her official capacity as a confessor (or as the Mother Confessor), but other times she can wear other things.

 

[fba827]

She doesn't always wear white. She's worn other non-white outfits before. She usually wears white when she's doing something in her official capacity as a confessor (or as the Mother Confessor), but other times she can wear other things.

Ah-ha! makes sense.

I only started watching it this season (and even then I missed a couple at the start of this season) and every episode I'd seen, save the last one, had her in the white gown. I even kept thinking "Can she really wear that white gown all the time? It must get dirty from travels or blood!"

 

[Dire Bare]

She doesn't always wear white. She's worn other non-white outfits before. She usually wears white when she's doing something in her official capacity as a confessor (or as the Mother Confessor), but other times she can wear other things.

While it's true that she didn't always wear the white dress in Season 1, she usually did. I don't think she's worn it at all in Season 2, unless I'm forgetting.

There is definitely a change in style, and I like it! Bridget Reagan looked great in that white dress, but the new "default" outfit is pretty sexy!!! And that's what's important!

 

[Orius]

There is definitely a change in style, and I like it! Bridget Reagan looked great in that white dress, but the new "default" outfit is pretty sexy!!! And that's what's important!

But they should get rid of all the eyeshadow -- yuck.

 

[Dog Moon]

Yes, they were. And they were a lot cooler in the books, if I recall. They were one of the few things I remembered after all these years, aside from the bits that felt like they were stolen from WoT.

I thought I remember them being cooler in the books too, though I also cannot recall them all that well. However, when I was watching the episode, I remember in the books that at some point he actually kept the cloak of invisibility for himself and used it on occasion. I was surprised he didn't keep it in the show.