Legend of the Seeker: Conversion

The one where Kahlan gets a power upgrade...

One of the best things that can happen in fantasy-based stories which feature an intricate set of magical rules is the story itself growing out of this fictional groundswell of world-building that the writer has established.

Of course, it can also go in the other direction, in which random MacGuffins and Deus Ex Machinas are pulled out of thin air in order to get a plot resolved, basing it on the idea that “hey, this is fantasy, anything goes!” This episode of Legend of the Seeker takes a little from column A and a little from column B: they’ve got a fantastic setup that utilizes the power-set of the Confessors and how it can be manipulated, but once our heroes are backed up against the wall, the day is saved by a new super-ability that’s never been mentioned before.

Conversion is very much the second half of Chase’s story, following on from Hartland, even though he only features in the first act of it. Now they’re in search of his family, who have been taken to Keep of Edron for unknown but clearly ominous reasons. We know and like his family (first seen in the show’s premiere) so it’s a suitable level of stakes to hang this episode upon, even when things eventually escalate to our first face-to-face meeting between Richard and Darken Rahl.

Rahl makes another rare appearance, though the opening scene in which he waxes lyrically about how he actually wants to bring peace and harmony to the world makes one realize that we know very little about what he’s actually trying to achieve. What’s his game plan, exactly? He makes for a mixed bag of a Big Bad, as – thanks to Craig Parker’s restrained performance, and details like the fact he’s clearly not fooled by Richard’s “death” – he’s clearly more than a simple melomaniac dictator, and yet we never really crack who he is as a person or a ruler.

One thing though has been established and carefully seeded throughout the season to great effect: his interest in the power of the Confessors. A creepy tower called the Keep of Edron provides the location for this subject, along with the return of the wizard/scientist Giller from Home. Rahl is sanctioning experimentation on women with various potions and forced injections, a blend of magic and rudimentary science, hoping to create a Confessor of his own.

The possession of a woman who can control the minds of people with just a touch means Rahl will get the complete level of power that he craves... though it comes with an interesting wrinkle. This isn’t just about mind-controlling people, as the consequence of Kahlan using her power on people is love (or at least infatuation). Her victims are literally in love with her; they will throw themselves into any danger and obey any order she gives them out of this love for her. It’s horrifying.

It’s this detail that makes Rahl’s obsession so chilling – and one that will certainly come into play by the final episode. It’s not enough that Rahl be obeyed, he must be loved, with or without anyone’s permission (though this is where Parker’s restrained performance works against him – only the desperately narcissistic would require this specific kind of power). It fits in nicely with the show’s themes of free will and consent, and there’s a terrifying depth of depravity to it all.

It’s easy to draw a line between the Wormtongue-looking Giller and Joseph Goebbels, especially when one takes into account that an uncle/nephew team of D’Harans (the dubiously named Ericon and Bram) consider what he’s doing to be beyond the pale. Adding to our little collection of sympathetic D’Harans, these two have decided to do something about it: namely, to assassinate Rahl when he comes to visit the keep.

Meanwhile, Richard, Chase and Kahlan ambush a squad of D’Harans and one of them is duly confessed. Pumping him for information, they come up with the fairly neat idea that – because the keep is windowless – they can plunge it into darkness by having their confessed soldier sabotage the oil pipes that light the lamps. Once the place is pitch dark, they make their way to the dungeon (I’m going to assume the soldier told them where it was) and successfully break everyone out, including Chase’s family. It works like a charm.

But there’s more bad news: on being reunited with Emma and sharing a kiss with her, Chase’s eyes go black (as a confessed man’s would) and he falls unconscious. Turns out that Giller’s experiments have done something to Emma’s body, and so the entire party make the decision to seek out a healer in enemy territory. It’s there they run across the D’Harans, and in the ensuing scuffle, Kahlan’s confessed soldier takes the hit for her and ends up killing Bram. So there goes their best chance of defeating Rahl this week.

More planning commences, and they decide to use their inside D’Harans to plant a stash of dragon’s breath (gunpowder) to blow up the keep with Rahl inside it. Kahlan reminds them they need Giller alive to reverse the effects of his potion on Emma, offering to get inside, confess Giller, and leave safely with him. And then Ericon chips in, telling them that he’s been ordered not to return without the prisoners – so Kahlan dirties herself up, and against Chase’s protestations, Emma and Laura decide to go too, pointing out that Giller won’t be fooled by the return of just one unfamiliar prisoner – he’ll need to see people that he knows.

It’s a great episode for logical-based planning with the resources and information that are available to them, and it’s always nice when shows like this take the time to structure missions like this, complete with on-the-fly opportunities and occasional pitfalls. And there is almost immediately a pitfall: when Kahlan grabs Giller’s throat she finds he’s immune to being confessed, and she’s immediately knocked out and tied up.

It’s at this point that the story starts cheating a little bit. We learn that Giller wants to harvest Kahlan’s abilities and inject them into Rahl so that he becomes a Confessor, but how the whole thing is revolved involves a previously-unheard of power of Kahlan’s coming to the fore.

After Richard stops the explosives from going off to save her (and Emma and Laura), he and Rahl get into a swordfight that I suspect was meant to up the latter’s credibility as a physical threat, considering he’s just been wandering around corridors of his castle and sitting on window seats so far. Yet interestingly, it’s an illusion that finally bests Richard (Rahl clearly can’t win in a fair fight) and he’s tied up alongside Kahlan so that Rahl can taunt them about not ever being able to have sex with each other. Because yeah, that’s what’s on everyone’s minds at this precise moment.

Seriously, it’s genuinely hilarious that this is the angle Rahl takes. I laughed my head off. It’s like that incredulous Tumblr post that questioned why any immortal would want to dive right into a teenage love triangle. Why on earth would Rahl care?

But shit gets pretty dark here, and the scene itself is fraught. The bad guys have what is unrefutably the upper hand, and there’s no way out for our heroes beyond a convenient Deus Ex Machina. Kahlan is strapped down and jabbed with what look like evil acupuncture needles, only to wrench herself free due to something called “the blood rage” coming over her. Her eyes turn red and she manages to confess the D’Harans and Mord Sith without touching them, turning them on Rahl and killing Giller with his own tools.

After putting up a reasonably impressive fight, which at one point includes him fending off two agiels with his bare hands, Rahl cuts his losses and runs. There’s a cool little sequence in which Rahl prepares to disappear in the burst of blue fire he arrived with (it looks just like Floo powder), but not before Richard manages to give him a cut on the face with his sword in the second before Rahl disappears. It’s worth the reminder that this is technically Richard and Rahl’s first face-to-face meeting, and all things considered the writers took the opportunity to milk it: each getting the upper hand over the other at various points, and a nice teaser for what’s to come as they part ways.

Richard goes to give Kahlan the necessary Cooldown Hug and they salvage one last potion, but of course give it to Chase so that he can be safely with Emma. The Brandstone family go off to join the Resistance, and I’m pretty sure that’s the last we see of them. Which is a shame, since Chase was a great character, and they certainly left the door open for him to return.  

But the most important thing to come out of this episode is the fact that Rahl takes one of Giller’s potions, one that makes him immune to Kahlan’s power. This is going to be crucial later, though for now Rahl choses to turn his attention back to the Boxes of Orden, and the episode end with Richard and Kahlan getting a coded message from Zed – to meet him in D’Hara itself.

Miscellaneous Observations:

The existential horror of what Rahl is trying to achieve can’t be understated: not only that everyone be enslaved to his will, but that they are happy slaves, completely devoted to and in love with him. I clearly have Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows on the brain at the moment, but this reminded me a little of that story’s use of jurda parem, a drug that intensifies a Grisha’s powers but also makes them instantly addicted to the substance, rendering those who use it as the helpless pawns of those that control it.

It’s a genuinely distressing prospect, one that creates far more horror than the usual “conquer the world with military force”, as it’s free will and bodily control that’s really at stake here; the ultimate violation of a person’s soul – to make them love Big Brother.

It makes up the crux of this story in its entirety, and is never felt more keenly than when Rahl simply shrugs off Richard’s insistence that his death doesn’t matter, that the people will rise up and another Seeker take his place – because Rahl doesn’t plan to kill him, but to confess him. Like I said, it’s chilling.

One of the D’Harans says that Rahl has: “waged his war in the name of peace,” and again – I really wish the writers had done more world-building in this respect. What exactly are the benefits of D’Haran rule? Why are they motivated to conquer? What are Rahl’s political objectives, exactly? Towards the end Rahl again speaks about how he’s just trying to create peace and harmony, and I’d like a little more meat to that sentiment.

You’ll recall at the beginning of the season that Kahlan confessing someone took a serious toll on her: she usually fainted or took some time to recover before she could start giving orders – now, either through practice or because the writers just want to get on with the story, she’s doing it in her stride.

Put of interest: our heroes were aided throughout this little adventure by a Resistance fighter with the unlikely name of Devlin. Yes, Devlin. Even more extraordinary, he survives the episode despite being a perfect candidate for a Red Shirt death, and is surprisingly helpful throughout And sharp eyes will notice that he seemed a little taken with Laura at the end there...

Bram is described by his uncle as Rahl’s “oldest friend”, which – wow, that’s difficult to picture. Was this really the best thing they could think of to make his uncle’s plan feasible (that is, Bram could get close enough to Rahl to kill him)? Eh, okay. It doesn’t really matter because this guy was clearly doomed anyway.

Nice detail I liked: it’s the freed women who carry Chase’s stretcher through the forest on their way to the healer.

Giller apparently once swore an oath to the Confessors before offering his service to Rahl. We don’t find out why, and so he reminds me of all those Merlin villains who were given one tantalizing fact about themselves before their potential was squandered.

Commander Ericon was almost astonishingly intelligent: ordering the D’Harans to stay close to the river as the escaped prisoners would need a water supply, and telling his nephew that they had to be recaptured or else Rahl would have no reason to visit the keep. Later he thwarts Giller’s suggestion that he’s been confessed by Kahlan by pointing out that if he were confessed, he’d be desperately trying to defend her, and when Richard once again decides to sabotage the greater good in order to save his friends, he gets in a decent line about how his nephew and men were sacrificed for this plan to work. They should keep this guy around!

There’s some rather dodgy world-building throughout, especially as it pertains to Confessors. Kahlan states that a Confessor’s power comes from love, which is certainly news to me. It creates love (or at least infatuation), but nothing about how the Confessors use this ability suggests that love is involved in any way.

Likewise, Giller tells us about the Shurkia, ancient instruments that created the first Confessor (huh??) and which were discovered in much the same way the Dead Sea Scrolls were (shepherd boy follows lost sheep into secret cave). It’s a little muddled all things considered, and I don’t think we ever get back to exploring some of the implications of all this. And if love is what initiates the Confessors, and therefore Emma’s power, aren’t her children in danger when she touches them?

But whatever, I loved Emma’s determination to go back into the Keep of Edron to keep up the ruse, even if it was a little pointless in the end. But she was a lovely character, and embodied a certain type of bravery you don’t see lauded very often.

Bridget Regan is such a good actress that when she’s being impaled with the Shurkia, she doesn’t just cry out in pain, but makes the sounds of that specific type of pain. If a sharp object was being slowly pushed through your skin, you would certainly scream, but it would be a sustained, controlled sort of scream – like the small cries and groans of agony that Regan demonstrates.

I had to laugh when Richard picked up the potion and says to Kahlan: “You realize what we could do with this?” Uh, yeah – Rahl spelt it out pretty clearly. We were there.

Not sure if I mentioned it, but there are two Mord Sith in this episode, though they’re not given any lines and are seemingly dead by the end credits.

In many ways, this was a game-changer of an episode. Once again we learn that Kahlan’s powers aren’t infallible, and get the important plot-point that Rahl is now immune to them. It fits well into the overarching plot of the season, what with its themes of control and free will, how Rahl treats people as commodities, his obsession with Confessor powers and the implications of what he could do with them – all of which will pay-off massively in the season finale.

Our heroes have enjoyed so many wins so far that this episode felt like a real setback, even if they achieved their main objective and got away relatively unscathed. But the ending is a bittersweet one, with Richard once again demonstrating optimism in the face of Kahlan’s uncertainty... and with the next episode, we start to enter the endgame.