seriousfic

Okay, so since I'm working up to a picspam/review of the series Legend of the Seeker, I thought I'd give Wizard's First Rule (the first book in Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series) a reread and share my thoughts on the differences between the two, both for mocking purposes and because I always find it fascinating how adaptations work. When done poorly, adaptations can show you things to avoid in your own stories ("Maybe... less sex and edginess for the sake of sex and edginess?") and when done well, they can show you what's truly important to storytelling in each medium. And while neither SOT or LOTS is great literature/cinema, it's still worth examination. There will be book spoilers and a few TV spoilers for aired episodes, but I'll try to keep it down. I'll also give you guys some character profiles later, in case you're still wondering who's who.

So our story begins with Richard Cypher, a ranger who stands to inherit a kingdom if he acknowledges his dark lineage and who is most definitely not named Aragorn, finding a strange vine in the forest. A similar vine was in his father’s ye olde inbox when Dad went the way of all fantasy protagonists’ father figures, so Richard thinks finding this strange vine will lead him to his dad’s killer. In a fit of rage at the vine not spelling out the name of the real killer, Richard tries to tear it down and it bites him. Realizing he’s in The Ruins, RC decides to go into a different movie.

He notices a woman being pursued by four men and decides to get his justice on. He heads the woman off and then he jizzed in his pants.

Her eyebrows had the graceful arch of a raptor’s wings in flight. Her green eyes came unafraid to his. The connection was so intense that it threatened to drain his sense of self. He felt that he had always known her, that she had always been a part of him, that her needs were his needs. She held him with her gaze as surely as a grip of iron would, searching his eyes as if searching his soul, seeking an answer to something. I am here to help you, he said in his mind. He meant it more than any thought he had ever had.

Man, that guy needs to get laid.

After explaining the situation to Kahlan (the chick, and I mean that in a metafictional sense too), they try to evade the Quad, or four-man assassin band (Darken Rahl would’ve sent 20 guy, but what do you call that? A deca…penta…kill people?). Plan ‘Take A Left’ doesn’t work and the Quad surrounds them. Unarmed man and woman versus four trained killers. Did I mention RC and Kahlan are the heroes? They make short work of the quad, with a little help from… one of the Quad. I guess a certain someone shouldn’t have eaten a certain someone else’s last donut.

Now they have time to introduce themselves and Kahlan lets Richard get to Backstory First Base by telling him she came through the Boundary, which is… oh, you guessed as soon as I capitalized it? However, since it’s the first 300 pages of a fantasy novel and there’s no Wise Old Mentor Figure around, Kahlan says she has a headache and can they just Mysterious Hint Cuddle?

This is also where things get seriously gooey, as Kahlan says she’s never had a friend except for her sister, who—Hey, watch the exposition, mister! Richard appoints himself Kahlan’s bestie and all but makes a rudimentary friendship bracelet out of twigs and leaves.

In the TV show, we start with Kahlan and her sister in flight. Notably, there’s a lot more than four guys after them, but only the Quad follows through the Boundary while the others go for reinforcements. Richard’s father is still alive in this version, so we see RC building a bridge before coming to Kahlan’s aid. There’s also a fun bit where RC tries to be all “halt, evildoer!” and gets a punch in the snozz for his troubles. Also, Kahlan pulls a knife on him after he offers to help her (!) and threatens him not to follow her, so there’s some half-assed love/hate stuff. Given her later characterization as a peacemaker akin to a judge or police officer, this is pretty egregious, but I'll admit it beats Mr. Rogers of the Woods. In the TV show, this is where Kahlan and Richard part ways (since Richard's father is still alive and his brother is misguided, there's some characterization stuff with them) whereas in the book, this is where Kahlan and Richard have a surgery to join them at the hip.

RC and the Confessor (I’ll be calling them that because it sounds like an 80s cop show and the thought of Craig Horner doing a ‘you got busted’ finger-gun is truly irresistible) book it to the stone house of Richard’s brother, Michael, for the celebration of his election to the post of First Councilor. They’re gonna party like it’s 999 AD!

Michael shows up just as the sun hits the skylight he’s under for maximum douchiness, then gives a speech about how the voters will get everything they have coming to them and how his reign will be one the people shall never forget and how he intends to fix Social Security. Well, not really, but he’s got more bullshit hypotheticals than a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, so his speech is all “if the Boundary goes down, we should totally be at peace with the other guys” and “anyone who doesn’t like peace is a traitor who needs to be set on fire and then buried in manure and then the manure is set on fire”. Then he tells Richard that their dad probably died because he stole something, which is still theft even if it’s “from someone long dead” BTW, and then he gropes Kahlan. The only way this guy could be more obviously evil is if he were played by Jason Isaacs.

In the TV show, he’s just misguided, but he does believe in Richard turning evil based on the word of a stranger with no proof. So while the idea of Rahl getting a foothold in Richard’s hometown does raise the stakes, its hamfisted presentation is more likely to produce laughter than paranoia.

Book!Michael also talks some shit about fire, bringing up that Momma Cypher died in a fire caused by an angry man. Richard thinks to himself, no kidding, that fire didn’t kill his mom, anger did. And they can have his candle when they pry it from his warm, dead hands! See, this is why broad social satire is not a good mix with material that’s otherwise played straight. I’m a lot closer to Charlton Heston than Michael Moore when it comes to gun control, but I just can’t take a foe with aspects this patently ridiculous seriously. And I don’t care how libertarian you are, guns in a modern society are nowhere near as important as fucking fire in a medieval one. It’d be like a band of terrorists in 24 taking a school hostage because they want alternatives to the theory of gravity taught.

RC and the Confess (does that sound better?) go to Richard’s house, which they find has been ransacked in the same manner as Dad’s house and the calls are coming from inside the house! Richard just has time to grab an amulet which was his family’s certificate of ownership for the Book of Counted Shadows, which Richard memorized than destroyed on order of his father. In the show, Kahlan brings the Book across the Boundary with her and it’s destroyed at the end of the pilot episode, its contents never having been memorized..

They also run afoul of a long-tailed gar

No, more AD&D. Luckily it’s one of those monsters you have to hold really still to avoid, so no big. They hole up in a convenient tree shelter where Kahlan lets Richard get a hand under her backstory shirt. There are three lands, Westland in the West, the Midlands in the middle (thought I was going to say Easy, didn’t you?), and D’hara to the East. Darken Rahl’s father, Panis Rahl (son of Assholis Rahl, no doubt) decided his empire was going to conquer the world, because if evil overlords didn’t, we’d never have any fantasy novels (they should just call their empires ‘alliances’ or ‘federations’ so people will join up willingly). A “great and honorable wizard”

No, nobody sees that wizard, not no way, not no how. GAHW joined the fight and pushed Panis back to D’Hara. Since Panis used such terrible magic, some people wanted to live without magic entirely. They went to Westland and then the great wizard

--getting closer—put up chunks of the underworld between the three lands and called them the Boundaries. But now the Boundary between D’Hara and the Midlands has fallen. Kahlan used magic to cross the Boundary, but seeing her dead family traumatized her so much that she has a full-blown freak-out at the thought of it, wailing “I’m so alone!” and such.

”My… mother,” she sobbed. “I haven’t seen her in so many years… and… my dead sister… Dennee… I’m so alone… and afraid…”

Big girls don’t cry-y-y-y-y, Kahlan. Luckily there’s a Big Strong Man about, which as we all know is like hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del on feminine hysteria. He tells her she’s not alone, he won’t leave her, and, yes, gives her a hard shake to snap her out of it. And behind him, everyone from Arwen to Sorsa to TV!Kahlan is lined up with boxing gloves, wrenches, revolvers, and baseball bats to help her get a hold of herself. Even Susan Pevensie is like “hey, sister, you’re setting back the movement.”

So, after some Healing Cock dry-humping, Kahlan is right as rain. How those big girl panties treating you, Kahlan? They comfy or d’ya wanna go back to Huggies?

To be fair, it’s implied that this is some supernatural effect of the Boundary and she’d just been through a bad break-up and she was feeling really hormonal that day, alright?

There’s also a neat bit with Shar, the fairy who guided Kahlan through the Boundary. After letting RC know they’re on a deadline, Shar has a private talk with Kahlan, who doesn’t want to tell RC the truth of her SEKRIT PAIN because he’d stop being her friend/prospective orgasm buddy. Shar also asks Kahlan to use her power to ease the fairy’s passing, which she reluctantly agrees to. This bit is a lot more subtle and nuanced than the previous ‘big scenes’, so thank God someone turned off the melo on this drama.

Now RC and the Confessor go to visit Zedd, who in the books is an old friend and teacher of Richard’s, while in the TV show RC thinks of him as a crazy old man (to go with how TV!Richard and TV!Kahlan initially mistrust each other). This makes the show a lot more like Star Wars, with a princess seeking help from an old wise men who went into exile to protect an infant Chosen One, so thumbs down on that change.

Our twosome finally arrives at Zedd’s house, RC burning up with fever from the vine bite (in the TV show it’s just a beastie that came through the Boundary, while in the book it’s a pretty far-fetched trap Rahl left for RC to sicken him until Rahl could get back to him and find out where the Book of Counted Shadows was. Dude, you’re an evil emperor. Just send a couple hundred guys to fix his shit). Zedd, your basic wizardly mentor with a side order of eccentric, fixes Richard up, then tells him he’s the Seeker of Truth… basically, a one-man Jedi Order kinda thing and the Only One With The Power To Slam Evil (although in the book, he’s unable to use the sword on Darken, which is a nice twist, but I can see how having a baddie you can’t sword-fight would make the TV series less fun). Richard accepts and is Named. In the TV show, this is heralded by RC posing for a Dio album cover

while in the book he simply feels the sword come alive while Zedd and Kahlan pledge their lives to him. Zed also gets a pretty badass line that I’m sorry they cut out.

”Fair warning to those living and those dead! The Seeker is named!”

The chapter ends with Richard asking what a Seeker is (and I’ve been leaving out a lot of exposition, so we’re sticking with one-man Jedi Order. Want more, read the book) in a line that I get is supposed to be funny, but the “by everything good” ruins it for me for some reason. IDK.

More to come later, when I'll get into how the series and the books really divide.