Legend of the Seeker: Bound

It’s taken me this long to notice that Legend of the Seeker doesn’t have any opening credits, just a quick montage of the main characters set to Zed’s voiceover (and the clip they chose for Cara is just awful). Does anyone else miss the art of the opening credits? With a tableau of clips and cast credits played to a proper theme song that set the tone? Nobody does that anymore.

In any case, this episode starts with the Sisters of the Dark standing in their trademark circle and engaging in a little chanting. They do that a lot, though it never seems to do them much good. A mutiny against Nicci is a-brewing (even though they brought her back from the dead only last week) as well as some backstabbing when the ringleaders enhance their own power (or Han) by stealing energy from others as part of a predetermined plan.

Now they have the strength to take on Nicci, though – still in possession of Richard’s Han – she disappears before they can kill her with their increased odds, and clocks in some facetime with Rahl through a campfire to get advice on what to do next. To redeem herself, she must find the Stone of Tears (I’ve totally forgotten what this does by now) and bring it to the Keeper, though she points out the compass that leads to it only works in the hands of the Seeker.

Therefore, she must find a way to control the Seeker. The exposition is a little clunky, but it neatly lays out Nicci’s objectives for this episode: control the Seeker, find the Stone, and kill the Mother Confessor (as you’ll recall, there’s a prophecy that states the Keeper is doomed to fail while Kahlan’s “pure heart” still beats). And that’s this week’s set-up!

That night Nicci casts a spell, and the following morning Kahlan wakes up feeling mysteriously unwell. The question is answered when Cara returns to camp with a docile Nicci as her prisoner – as when she uses her agiel on her, it becomes apparent that any pain inflicted on Nicci also affects Kahlan in equal measure. According to Zed, it’s called the “maternity spell,” which replicates the bond between a mother and a child in the womb.

The spell has depleted the rest of Nicci’s power (making her vulnerable to the Sisters still chasing her) but her demands are simple: Richard leads her to the Stone of Tears, or else she kills herself and takes Kahlan with her. Unable to argue or think their way out of this stalemate, Richard hurries after Nicci.

Rather stupidly, Nicci demands that the others not follow them – even though by leaving them unsupervised, nothing is stopping them from trying to break the spell. Which naturally they immediately attempt to do. Zed tells Kahlan that the only way to destroy her bond with Nicci is to reassert the greater bond between Kahlan and her mother – though since she’s dead, Zed would have to bring her back from the underworld. To do that, he needs an object that was precious to Kahlan’s mother, and to get that, they have to track down Kahlan’s father.

So, while Nicci and Richard run from the pursuing Sisters of the Dark (hilariously, they try to evade them by very slowly crossing a field full of landmines while being chased by people with projectile weapons – and did I mention Nicci is still dressed in bright red robes?) Kahlan, Zed and Cara make for the last known location of Kahlan’s father.

They find Frederick Amnell in a prison cell, and he admits that Kahlan’s mother’s jewels are now in the possession of a warlord called Aramis (was someone reading The Three Musketeers while writing this script?) – though he doesn’t even know it. Frederick buried them on the grounds of his estate before Aramis took over, and he only agrees to divulge their location if Kahlan organizes his release from prison.

Kahlan refuses to go along with Frederick’s plan for her to confess one of Aramis’s guards and have him kill the rest of the men (you can tell he’s testing/baiting her by suggesting it), though there’s a really nice scene between Kahlan and Cara in which the latter reminds the former that she thought the worst of her father before learning the true context of the decisions he made in life. Hey, are these women like... friends now?

This whole time, Kahlan has been feeling the breathlessness, wounds and exhaustion of Nicci as she quick-marches with Richard across the countryside, and Nicci is well aware that his concern towards her is vicariously about Kahlan. Just to fuck with them both, Nicci orders a tavern brawler to punch her repeatedly, thereby injuring Kahlan as she attempts to retrieve her mother’s jewels.

As Richard tends to Nicci’s wounds (which Kahlan also feels) we get a little of her backstory, and we learn that she turned to the Keeper after she was raped by a man she was attempting to heal – twice, after the Prelate sends her back to him for the express purpose of forgiving him. Rape as Backstory? Really, Legend of the Seeker? You’re better than this.

It’s a disappointing “answer” to her characterization, for unless they delve a bit deeper into the story later down the track, we’re being told to believe she’s evil because she avenged her own rape. Urgh.

Meanwhile, Kahlan is having trouble identifying which of her mother’s jewels were of particular value to her, so Frederick hands over a necklace and pair of earrings, telling her he bought them on the occasion of Kahlan and Dennee’s births. The spell can be cast come the morning, but that night Nicci is bitten by a spider (our little friend from “Perdition!”) which poisons both her and Kahlan.

There’s only one cure: the nectar of the Midnight Blossom which only grows in a cave network they passed just the other day. Clearly this is not a coincidence, which means that the Sisters of the Dark have set up a trap there to steal Nicci’s Han.

For whatever reason they’re nowhere to be seen when Richard arrives with an unconscious Nicci, who doesn’t respond when he squeezes the nectar of the flowers into her wound. Since he knows Kahlan must also be succumbing, he holds Nicci and tries to comfort her in her final moments, who is Not Quite Dead enough to feel what it’s like to be genuinely loved.

There’s no time for Nicci to break the spell and regain her Han before the Sisters start dacra-throwing, but thankfully Zed has things in hand. The maternity spell is broken when the spirit of Kahlan’s mother is summoned, and she manages a few encouraging words for her eldest daughter before returning to the underworld – which means that Nicci now has the power to either kill Richard or dispatch the other Sisters. She goes for the latter (which includes a hilariously badly-rendered beheading) and decides to let Richard go.

I wasn't kidding.

Ostensibly this is because she believes in the prophecy that says Richard will find the Stone and give it to the enemies of the Light, but there’s something different about her now...

Kahlan bids goodbye to her father on slightly better terms, giving him the box of jewels so that he might pursue an honest life, and in return, he gives her the necklace and earrings that belonged to her mother. It’s a sad scene in many ways, as these two will never be able to have a healthy, functioning relationship, but at least a semblance of peace has been made.

Miscellaneous Observations:

Nicci was able to cast her maternity spell by using a crow to steal a strand of Kahlan’s hair from her brush while she was sleeping. You’re telling me that Kahlan manages those perfect, luscious tresses with a mere brush??

Wasn’t it rather stupid of Nicci to demand Zed, Kahlan and Cara stay behind while she and Richard went to retrieve the Stone? I suppose she may have thought they’d make better time, but of course they’re going to try and break the spell while unsupervised – which they do.

The writers are continuing to struggle a little with the strands of world-building that they’ve established, which leads to a lot of exposition – for instance, Kahlan suggests that they kill Nicci and have Cara resuscitate Kahlan with the Breath of Life, which in turn requires an explanation that this won’t work – it’ll just bring Nicci back as well. Later, Richard questions why the Sisters of the Dark don’t just kill Nicci with a stronger poison – it’s because they can only retrieve her Han if she’s killed with the dacras. There’s a lot to keep track of here...

Kahlan’s family history has been brought up in the show before, especially in “Listener” – namely that her and Dennee’s father was a loving family man until their mother died, at which point the power of the confession ended and he reverted to his original self. Who was not a nice person; forcing his daughters to use their powers on others in order to build his own fortune. She even recalls being made to confess a married woman so that he could take sexual advantage of her.

Kahlan looks back on what he did with horror and disgust, though this obviously doesn’t take into account what was done to Frederick. The way in which Confessors procreate in this show has long been a point of contention with me, as it’s made very clear that the fathers of their children are mindless slaves to their will; confessed men who don’t have any choice about the women they’re attached to.

We’ve already seen dodgy examples of this happening in “Sacrifice” (Dennee’s confessed mate is a man who was originally sent to kill her) and “Touched” (Annabelle was the daughter of a man who lost the woman he loved after her mother confessed him) but this is the first time that a man freed of a Confessor’s power is actually given the opportunity to voice his grievances.

From Frederick’s point-of-view, he was made to marry a woman he didn’t love, forced into fathering children he didn’t want, and mind-controlled into a stupor that robbed him of his free will for six years. Only with the death of his wife was he finally freed from her power. The idea that a formerly-confessed man would be bitter and angry about what happened to him is an interesting concept, and not one that the show has ever been that interested in exploring.

That they essentially make him an abusive father and a rapist certainly doesn’t help, but as the episode goes on, they do afford him some degree of humanity. For starters, Kahlan says at one point that Confessors don’t chose “honourable men” as their mates, which is certainly the first time we’ve heard of this (though I supposed it’s been implied). But the way she says it presents the method of choosing a mate as a justification – if the Confessors want to continue their line, then they’re doing the world a favour by procreating with men who are “rehabilitated” by their control.

Yet this doesn’t justify stripping a man of his free will, and rather stupidly fails to take into account the consequences that may fall upon their children if she dies before he does – which is exactly what happens to Annabelle (locked in a tower), Dennee and Kahlan herself. The same potential for disaster was there if Dennee had died before her mate, for the outcome of a male Confessor baby in the hands of a man who was originally sent to kill her could have been catastrophic.

Later, he shares with Kahlan the story of a girl he really loved – a stonemason’s daughter who he tried to win by taking on the trade for himself. That’s a whole future that was stolen from him, especially when he reveals that his father forced him to join the army. It was in battle against the Confessors that he fell under the spell of Kahlan’s mother, and once it was broken, he was just as afraid of his daughters as they were of him (in a nice Continuity Nod, Kahlan mentions how he used to bind their hands at night, as first discussed in “Listener”).

And of course, a comparison is made between the Confessor power that he lived under for six years, and the maternity spell that Kahlan is currently suffering under; putting her entirely at the mercy of Nicci’s whims.

There’s no good answer to any of this, and the question it all boils down to is: to what lengths are the Confessors justified in their desire to have children and continue their bloodlines? The choice is to have none at all, or to confess a man into becoming a father – either by enslaving a man they genuinely love, or procreating with a less-than-savoury character to alleviate the crime of removing his free will.

The man in question may or may not be consulted on his participation in all this (you’d think there would be a fair number of volunteers who would be happy to bask in the love of a Confessor, even at the cost of their free will) but it also calls into question what the Confessor is getting out of all this. Do they enjoy being wives to men that don’t really love them? At one point Kahlan rejects her father’s fond memories of picnics when she was a young child, pointing out that he was confessed at the time, begging the question of why anyone would want a husband/father who was only there due to magical coercion.

(In fact, this episode is filled with some creepy consent implications. When Kahlan tries to secure her father’s help, he raises the possibility that she could confess him, asking: “would you make a love slave of your father?” Ew. Later on, Nicci propositions Richard after she’s deliberately beaten herself up, suggesting that they can viciously make Kahlan feel better by having sex. Wouldn’t that technically have been a rape? Double ew).

So Kahlan’s reunion with her father ends very bittersweetly, as there’s no changing the fact that neither one is the father or daughter that the other one wanted. All they can do is get one with their lives.

Though did anyone else think Frederick looked and sounded just like Alfred Molina?

There’s a mini-subplot in this episode that I skipped over the in the summary, in which Richard and Nicci stop briefly at a farmhouse, only to see the farmer destroying his own crop. According to his wife, they’re trying to rid the fields of snake vine, and Richard offers to help before Nicci forces him to stay on track to the Stone.

Amusingly, she points out the same thing I’ve been saying for a long time now: that Richard won’t hesitate to drop what he’s doing and help whoever needs assistance along the way, though the whole thing takes a very dark turn when Richard doubles-back on horseback that night, only to find that the elderly couple have been strangled to death by the snake vine.

It’s unclear where this battle against the Keeper is going precisely, at least not on a thematic level, for as Nicci points out, nobody can beat death itself. It will always win. With that in mind, helping people will only prolong their suffering, which feels like a commentary on her own miserable state of existence. Richard isn’t fully able to offer any rejoinder to this mentality, which means the writers may not have one either – at least not at this stage.

But in the episode’s final scene, Nicci asserts her independence from Rahl, the Keeper, the Creator, and the Seeker, even as she reiterates the words that Richard told her the previous night: “my strength is mine, and mine alone – and from now on, I serve only myself.”

So, we’ve either got a potential ally or a dangerous wildcard in play.