It's all gonna be okay

[seriousfic]

So, like many of you, I was devastated by the cancellation of Legend of the Seeker. Really, LotS and Dollhouse get the same number of episodes? LotS had, like, 200% less rape. But then, after an ill-advised attempt to overdose on baby animals…


Season three or the puppy-pillow-squirrel gets it!

I decided to look on the bright side. There's always a bright side, right? Every cloud has a silver lining (except the cloud of smoke rising from your home after Columbian drug dealers chop up your family with machetes and then set fire to your DVD collection and then the fire spreads to your comic books and those pants that make your ass look good and then everything burns, EVERYTHING ALWAYS BURNS).

*five minutes of continuous sobbing later*

So aside from drug-deal-machete clouds, SILVER LINING!



1. Craig Horner can finally shave off that hipster stubble.


Not pictured: Skinny jeans.

Season two brought us many amazing sartorial choices, like Cara's new catsuit, Kahlan's new dress, and, umm… this. I know it's supposed to look like he's manning up and Growing The Beard (it's a real TV Trope, just take my word for it), but instead it looks like he really has spent months in the forest, traveling hard roads and killing people every step of the way. Thus clearly breaking the rule that every fantasy character gets time off from their quests for make-up application and manscaping. What WOULD Tolkien say?

2. Bridget Regan free to play Wonder Woman


Pictured: Fandom's second choice. Save us, Bridget!

Yes, she'd be perfect. We all know it. Plus, Craig and Tab could cameo as Steve Trevor and Artemis! (Shut up, I'm using my imagination!) And don't worry, they would stretch their acting muscles because the dynamic is completely different from Kahlan and Cara. While some may point to how Wonder Woman is all about peace and justice, and Artemis is all about amoral brutality and not having a Twitter account, and they have this "sisters with benefits" vibe, I should point out that Artemis has red hair. Ridiculously long red hair. In a ponytail.

So, yes, it'd be Legend of the Seeker with Batman. But it would also be Legend of the Seeker with Batman.

3. In fact, now we get to play "hey, it's that guy/chick from Legend of the Seeker!" for the rest of our lives or until 2012

Picture this: Our heroes join the cast of Spartacus as sexy evil Romans. Clearly, someone needs to fill the void left by naked Xena. Of course, it's Spartacus, so someone needs to go full frontal, but I'm sure we could flip a coin or…


AH! AHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And honestly, a lot of shows need Tabrett Bethell pointing out how silly the plots are. She could be in Flashforward as a sarcastic FBI agent! Or in Caprica as a sarcastic Cylon. Or in Castle as a sarcastic copy-editor. Or in True Blood as a sarcastic vampire. Or hey, they don't have a Yeoman Rand for the next Star Trek movie, do they?

Chris Pine: Hey, Rand, why don't you yeoman me up some coffee?

Tabrett Bethell: How about you call the transporter room and have them teleport it straight up your ass, if Spock isn't there already.

Kahn: THIS IS CETI ALPHA 5!

Man, this shit writes itself.

4. Better to go off on a high point then fall off a cliff. Or something.

Assuming we don't get some insane cliffhanger…


"Richard, I'm with child! And Cara's the father!"

And assuming it's anything like the books, this is a pretty good place to leave off. The Keeper is defeated, Richard is king, and everyone's one big happy family. After that we meet Emperor Jagang, and he takes like a million books to beat.

And really, how much funnier can they get than Princess? How more in love can Richard and Kahlan get? How many more faces can Cara make? Who knows, maybe season three would look like this…

Richard: I must avenge Kahlan's death! With brooding!

Cara: Have I mentioned I am heterosexual today? Tee-hee! Look at my long feminine hair? ! I love babies!

Zedd: This magic… isn't very powerful at all!

*shudder*

There are lots of series that stretch out their central dramatic question long past when they're viable. And Legend of the Seeker only has two big dramatic questions: "Will Richard and Kahlan get together?" (yes, and deal with their difficulties in a mature fashion) and "Will Cara and Kahlan spoon?" (does dying while holding hands count? It should). Why not end things before they get too crazy trying to spice things up?

5. At least we won't have to suffer through a "budget-conscious" third season.


"Watch out, Kahlan, a monster!"

6. No, seriously, it could really start to suck.

Obviously, every show has weak episodes once in a while. But, well… picture Legend of the Seeker as The Princess Bride. No, stop thinking about the Dread Pirate Cara, you'll just work yourself up. Now, the Xena people are telling us the story without all the kissy bits. Only here, replace kissy bits with batshit libertarianism, rape, and evil chickens.

So now imagine a sequel to The Princess Bride where Corey Feldman asks for his grandpa to skip to the good bits, and Peter Falk can only stare at this horrid eldritch abomination in his hands and say "There are no good bits!"


Make that very few good bits.

Okay, so Richard becomes king, he and Kahlan get married… aaaaaand this new guy Emperor Jagang attacks from the East. Remember all that uncomfortable racial subtext in Lord of the Rings about the Men of the West fighting subhuman haters from the East? Now, imagine someone did that on purpose. Jagang's forces, the Imperial Order, is basically the Soviet Empire meets Al Qaeda. Yes, it's a soulless atheist bureaucracy staffed by religious extremists. I guess there was a two-for-one sale at Evil Overlords R Us or something.

So Jagang invades the Midlands, slaughtering civilians and burning villages whole. And Richard fights back by… slaughtering JAGANG'S civilians and burning JAGANG'S villages. Pretty much the only difference between the two of them is that Richard has a hot wife and that he doesn't rape people. Because Jagang rapes the shit out of everything. The Imperial Order's national motto is probably "No means yes." He rapes his enemies, he rapes his allies, hell, if you put him on trial for war crimes, he would probably point at a map of the Midlands and say "Look at how that landmass is dressed, she was asking for it!" Then he'd start humping the map while saying that if it told on him, everyone would think it was a map-slut.


Me too, kitty, me too.

Of course, our heroes are paragons of moral virtue, so they only threaten people with rape. Like Kahlan's sister, who gets threatened with gang rape. By Kahlan. Richard sparks a rebellion in the Imperial Order by carving a really good statue (that's literally an entire book, so one season. Even if they made it into just one episode, we do not need 44 minutes of revolutionary stonework). Richard has an evil brother, and he kills him by ripping his spine out. Afterward, his brother still tries to kill him. There is an entire book in which Richard urges people to vote against obvious caricatures of the Clintons. People are tortured to death by the good guys because they're angry.

In short, you know how the series generally makes a point of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions? In the later books, the characters just say 'screw that' and do whatever they feel like to win, and it's okay since they're the good guys.

Admittedly, the showrunners have proven crazy good at turning sow's ears into silk purses, but there's only so much bad crack you can cut away in favor of generic fantasy bullshit, and so it's probably best *five minutes of continuous sobbing* okay to end the story on a high note.