Legend of the Seeker: Desecrated

We start with another of those patented camping scenes in which the characters are ribbing each other over the fire (it’s a staple of this show by now) when Kahlan emerges from the forest and announces that gars are attacking a nearby village. They all race off to lend their assistance... only for it to turn out to be a surprise party for Richard’s birthday.

Aww. But also – enjoy it while it lasts.

The gang meets Duke Anders and his son Eric, who welcome them to the festivities: eating, dancing, kissing (that is, Kahlan and Richard kiss each other). There’s a poignant mention of Brennidon, in which it’s noted that the day Richard celebrates his birthday is also the day in which dozens of families mourn the slaughter of their infant sons, but it’s brought up for an important thematic reason...

Everyone settles down for a magic show hosted by a performer called Cormac, which requires Cara and Kahlan to come up to the stage as volunteers. I could feel a Body Swap Episode coming on, especially when they’re asked to step into two identical-looking boxes, but instead the women disappear, and Cormac asks that for the next part of his trick, a list of young men in the audience have to get to their feet.

It's kind of weird that no one smells a rat, but once all the listed men are standing, Cormac announces that if Richard ever wants to see Kahlan and Cara again, he’s going to have to kill the five “cowards”, after which he disappears in a billow of smoke.

It’s a great set up, as not only do we have a mystery to solve (why is Cormac doing this?) and an ethical conundrum to untangle (whose lives are worth more?) but only a limited amount of time in which to act. According to Cormac, the women have twenty-four hours before they run out of air.

Just to prove to Richard and Zed that they’re still alive, Cormac leaves behind a journey book so that they can communicate with each other, which makes it apparent that their adversary has thought out all the details of this plan. In fact, he’s even more clever than this single scene demonstrates, but we’ll get to why in a bit.

(Oh, and very quickly, Zed notices that Cormac made his escape with the help of a powder called Wandering Dust – this will also be important later).

Richard is obviously not the sort of person that would immediately kill people for no reason in order to save his friends, and so the initial plan is to investigate Cormac and try to figure out why he has it in for this particular group of young men, which includes Eric.

Meanwhile, Cara and Kahlan find themselves in what appears to be an underground tomb, with an hourglass to mark the time and another journey book to communicate with Richard.

In scrabbling for answers, Richard learns more about how this community chose which of their young men would join the fight against Darken Rahl and the D’Harans (with another mention of Brennidon and the massacre that took place there). Each year they relied on a Hunger Games–type lottery in which every eligible man had a tile with their name on it placed in a large cauldron. Duke Anders would draw out names while wearing a blindfold, making sure it was a fair and random way of choosing who would go away to war – and unfortunately, all of Cormac’s five sons found themselves answering the call of duty.

While the Duke’s men search the nearby necropolis, which seems to be the most likely place where the women are stashed, Zed and Richard go to Cormac’s cottage, finding the table set for five sons, with five medals of honour on the wall, and five identity tiles next to each one. Richard picks them up, and having already handled Eric’s, quickly realizes that they are considerably lighter.

In other words, the system was rigged, with Duke Anders simply having to drop any tile he picked from the cauldron that was noticeably heavier than the others.

It was a clever idea, though not as clever as Cormac is currently being. It turns out that he has a third journey book in play, one that he’s using to intercept Richard and Kahlan’s messages to each other: he reads from one, and then omits to write anything that could give away the latter’s location in the other (while still being able to maintain the women’s distinctive “voices” in the relating).

It’s a very good play on the magical components of journey books that have already been established in the show, and allows Cormac to lead our heroes on a wild goose chase when he deliberately leads them to a specific tomb bearing a crest that the women have apparently seen from inside. Because it’s guarded with a powerful spell, Zed assumes it’s the correct location, and uses his own magic to pull down the barrier.

But the women aren’t inside, only what looks like an undead mummy who immediately takes off into the night. It doesn’t take a genius to guess he’s going to find and kill the five men who were spared from active duty, and Zed delivers the necessary exposition. The creature is called a Nygaax, an instrument of vengeance that people would pay a sorcerer to create by wrapping a living man in ensorcelled bandages, who would then stop at nothing to destroy those that its master wanted dead.

This particular Nygaax was created hundreds of years ago during a feud between two local families, which would hunt down its prey and bring their corpses “to the feet of its master” afterwards (that last detail is important). It was stopped only when another wizard sealed it in this tomb, and now it’s on the loose again.

So Zed and Richard have been played like a fiddle. Cormac never really believed that the Seeker would kill those five men for the sake of his companions, so instead he used the journey book to lead them to the tomb where he knew the Nygaax was waiting. It was never a wild goose chase, but a deliberate ruse to get Zed to destroy the magical barrier around the tomb, he being the only one with enough power to do so.

Now he controls the Nygaax with its amulet, and has obviously sent it after the men on his list. Is Cormac the smartest and most prescient antagonist these characters have ever come across? Maybe!

Back at the village, the targeted men are getting jumpy, and when the truth about how Duke Anders rigged the lottery, one makes a run for it. Naturally, this makes him an easy target for the Nygaax, who waylays him in the forest. Though Richard manages to “kill” the creature, its bandages only unfurl themselves and wrap around Zed instead, who continues the rampage. So yeah, the man whose life Richard has just saved is immediately killed. Talk about Cheated Death, Died Anyway!

But this gives Richard a slight advantage – as Zed rushes off, dragging the dead body behind him, Richard recalls that the creature is instructed to bring the corpses to his master’s feet. All he has to do is follow it, and he’ll find Cormac.

Which indeed he does, just finishing up with the digging of five graves. Yikes, that’s dark.

Having already achieved his goals, Cormac promptly kills himself so that Richard is unable to get the incantations needed to control the Nygaax via the amulet. Again, this may well be the best villain of the show (certainly the best one-shot villain). He can’t really lose at this point, and two of his chosen targets are already dead.

But that means we need another antagonist to fill the space left behind, and Duke Anders is more than ready to step up to the plate. Knowing that the Nygaax is coming for the remaining men (including his son) he plans to lure it into the great hall and blow up the doors, killing Zed in the process. Eric argues against this, repeating Richard’s message that Zed is still alive underneath those bandages, but Anders is in no mood to hear it. Like many people whose crimes have been revealed, he's planted his feet in the ground and is now digging in deeper with his justifications. Eric has no chance of talking him out of it.

Having searched Cormac’s robes, Richard finds a pouch of Wandering Dust, the journey books, and a map with the location of Kahlan and Cara on it. Just as it looks like lights out for the women, Richard breaks through the tomb door and frees them.

But what have they been up to this whole time? At first engaging in a little Teeth Clenched Teamwork in order to conserve the air by dowsing the torches, they eventually reach the point where each is offering to die so the other can live. Almost as though this is the theme of the episode or something...

In any case, Cara rejects Kahlan’s idea to kill her and then restore her with the Breath of Life, pointing out that there’s no way she’ll know how long to wait before Richard gets there (if he ever does). Instead, Cara decides to sacrifice herself so that Kahlan can live, but not before giving her a lovely speech: “there’s no one a Mord Sith should hate more than a Confessor. I was trained to hate you, but I don’t. And I don’t want to die without you knowing that I consider you to be my friend.”

Then they hug, and then they fight, à la Hawkeye and Black Widow on Vormir, over who gets to die so the other can get a few extra seconds of air. Though naturally, they’re pretty easily matched, and they only end up using up more air until they collapse on the floor, with Kahlan helpfully stating: “there’s no air left!” Yeah, thanks Kahlan. We got that.

But naturally Richard comes to the rescue, and the day is saved... or it will be after they get to Zed. Having realized that the bandages will only unwrap themselves from their host body once said body is dead, Richard realizes that Zed must be killed in order to free him – but luckily, they have a Mord Sith on hand to reverse that condition.

Now it’s Eric’s turn to be a hero as he escapes the guards escorting him from the village, returning just after Richard, Kahlan and Cara arrive to prevent the great hall from being blown up with Zed trapped inside. The plan is for Cara to use her agiels to take Zed to the brink of death, which will force the bandages to unravel. They can’t hurt her, as a Mord Sith repels all magic – but unfortunately, Duke Anders gets a little too close to the action and becomes the Nygaax’s next victim.

Whew! That’s Eric’s cue to jump on the nearest horse and gallop away to the tomb from whence the Nygaax came, counting on it to follow him. Which ironically – given that the Duke did all this to spare his son’s life – is what happens. Richard joins Eric in the tomb, instructs Zed to seal it shut, and then uses the Wandering Dust to transport himself and Eric to safety. Nicely done!

This whole time Richard has been accompanied by a soldier that the credits tell me was called Rankin, who assures Eric that their people will follow him in his father’s stead, having proved himself worthy of leadership for being willing to sacrifice himself for their safety. No mention is made of the fact Duke Anders is still technically alive within that crypt, wrapped up in the Nygaax bandages, but hey – his attempt to kill Zed is apparently enough reason to leave him there.

Happy birthday, Richard.

Miscellaneous Observations:

This episode took place in a brand-new location with some brand-new characters, though it seems like it would have been easy to recycle some material from season one. Brennidon was mentioned a lot throughout this episode, and it could have easily taken place there (surely there would have been men both younger and older than Richard to chose from) or with the characters from “Identity” with Gryff in the place of Eric (maybe earning that character a little bit of redemption). Ah well.

A journey book can only be used by writing in blood, and both Richard and Cara do that immensely frustrating thing when a character cuts their hand in order to use their own blood as ink. Use your elbow or earlobe or something! Somewhere that won’t require maiming the part of your body that is most useful to you in times of danger. Take my word for it, I cut my finger a few weeks ago and was completely incapacitated.

And yes, I’ve seen that Tumblr post extolling the symbolic value of using one’s hand, but this is clearly not one of those situations. They could have cut themselves anywhere and it would have made no difference.

This was a good episode for further exploring the fact that the defeat of the D’Haran Empire hasn’t magically solved all the world’s problems. People are still grieving and suffering the after-effects of their rule, and this was a perfect example of that ongoing trauma. Enough so it possibly should have been placed earlier in the season...

This episode had a very clear theme, and that was: “are some lives worth more than others?” The kneejerk reaction of any decent person is no, of course not... but in the interests of this discussion, there’s always a “but.”

In the face of his son’s outrage, Duke Anders insists that: “your life is worth more than others” because he’s the future leader of the community, having been raised and groomed for that specific role. Without him, there is no one else to take charge after Duke Anders. It’s not a point anyone can completely dismiss, especially when he points out that Zed only saved ONE infant from Brennidon – the one that would grow up to be the Seeker. In other words, the most important one.

Likewise, Cara and Kahlan spend most of their subplot squabbling with each other over who should die to give the other more air. Again, it’s pretty clear that Kahlan is significantly more powerful, and therefore more valuable, than Cara. I mean, she can argue against it, but if you’re trying to defeat something as powerful as the Keeper, you’re going to need Kahlan far more than Cara. The fate of the world depends on it.

And even when confronted with the fact that Duke Anders also spared the sons of other rich families in the village, he points out that the bribe money was used to fill the communal coffers and pay for weapons and supplies to keep everyone safe.

It all makes for a good meaty subject. We’ve all been raised (well, most of us) to believe that everyone is important, everyone is special. It’s almost taboo to suggest otherwise. But in the dark places of our mind, we all think about whether or not that’s true. If you had the choice between saving an infant and saving a geriatric, who would you chose? What about a priceless piece of artwork versus a convicted rapist? A prince or a peasant? A family member or a stranger? Who gets to decide the difference?

It's a conundrum that the show can’t really answer, because nobody likes the question. But in that, it reminded me of “Deception,” another good episode that raised a difficult moral equation, and refused to answer it.

There are some great details throughout the episode, such as Cormac telling Zed before everything kicks off that it’s an honour to perform for him, as his magic is so much more impressive than his own. Which of course explains why he couldn’t pull down the magical barrier around the Nygaax’s tomb himself – he needed Zed to do it.

As usual, this show is exceptionally good at not only remembering the rules of its complex magical system (journey books, Mord Sith abilities, Wandering Dust) but utilizing them in clever and surprising ways.

This may end up being one of my favourite episodes of season two: a villain with a solid plan, plenty of twists and turns, and some emotional clout when it came to Kahlan and Cara facing a prolonged death together. I perhaps would have liked a bit more from the women and their enforced-bonding exercise, but on the whole, this was a great one.

Only six more episodes to go! We’re in the endgame now.