Legend of the Seeker Review

The Legend of the Seeker is the name of the mini series based on a set of books by Terry Goodkind.  The actual novels have different names; I believe the first one is called "Wizards First  Rule".  This series is hard to describe; it is fiction, it is a fantasy, action, adventure, swashbuckler, love story - all of those things but also something much more.  I believe Mr. Goodkind is trying to make a point here:  several, actually. For instance, the Wizard's First Rule is:  People believe what you tell them.   

There are basically two kinds of people in this story:  the "gifted", which is almost everyone, because most people are at least a bit clairvoyent and I don't think it's too much of a leap to believe that if we allowed ourselves to evolve, a lot of us, to varying degrees, might be "gifted".  Some may only have a little telepathy but may have other traits up to and including magic.  And then there are those whom they refer to as the "pristinely ungifted", which it turns out  is way more rare than being gifted.

There are Sisters of the Light, who serve the Creator, and Sisters of the Dark, who serve the Keeper of the Underworld.  There is a fellow named "Jagang" who is trying to wipe out magic completely because he believes it is evil.  Jagang is a dream walker who can inhabit your mind while you are asleep and make you do things for him.  He enjoys capturing Sisters of the Light and converting them to Sisters of the Dark.  Jagang's Imperial Order believes that everyone should work for the common good and no one should be paid any more than anyone else; regardless of their ability and exlperience.  If you have wealth you should go around trying to help people, (who may or may not want any help), and give away your money and anything else you have because it's not "fair" that some should have more than others.  Under the Imperial Order, in the name of the betterment of mankind, anyone caught trying to save a little of their money or get ahead a little would be hauled off and tortured until they understood that everything had to be for everyone's "common good". 

There are witches and warlocks, wizards and a dragon or two, the very colorful "Mud People", the Sisters of both Light and Dark, there are women who served the former ruler, Darken Rahl, as "Mord-Sith".  These Mord-Sith were trained in the ways of torture and intimidation as children.  They wear red leather outfits (so the blood doesn't show) and they carry an exquisite torture device around their wrists known as an Agiel.  Depending on the wishes of the Mord-Sith in question, her Agiel could deliver something like a moderate electric shock, or could kill a person right on the spot. 

And then there are the heroes of our tale: Richard Cypher, who later finds out he was adopted by the Cyphers and is in reality the bastard son of the diabolical Darken Rahl.  Richard's grandfather, Zeddicus Zul Zor'ander, is First Wizard and has trained Richard as a wood's guide and later gives  Richard the Sword of Truth and tells him that according to prophecy, Richard is the Seeker.  Richard inadvertantly stumbles upon a break in the barrier between the Underworld (the Keeper's) and the rest of the world (the Creator's), which is allowing some pretty nasty characters to get thru and harass regular people.

 Meanwhile Ann, the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light, is worried the break in the barrier between the two worlds is indicative of an apocolypse which is due to come about according to prophecy.  Ann is always trying to make sure that the prophecies in her dusty old books come true, but Richard feels that there are always forks in any prophecy which can cause the whole process to be by-passed and not ever actually happen.  Richard feels that Ann, having studied the books of prophecy her whole life, just couldn't accept any other outcome and was therefore (consciously or not) affecting circumstances and orchestrating things to make sure that the prophecy goes down the way it was written, hundreds, or possibly thousands of years ago.  Richard feels that this is a sheep-like acceptance of circumstances that could almost surely be changed by the application of a little free will, and accused the Prelate of kind of spiritually "cooking the books".

And the real star of the whole series, (most people would say that was Richard, because he is the Seeker) in my opinion, is the  Mother Confessor, Kahlan Amnell.

At one time in the history of the Midlands, Mother Confessors were considered more powerful than any kings or wizards and there were a lot of them.  They lived in the Palace of the Light and always wore white dresses and were allowed to not ever cut their hair.  No one else was allowed to have hair as long as a Mother Confessor's.  The Mother Confessor was the last word in justice.  If there was a murder case to be solved, the Mother Confessor need only put her hands on the suspect and he would immediately tell her the truth about anything she asked.  The problem with this method was that once touched by a Mother Confessor in this particular way, any man was so impressed by her and devoted to her that now there could be nothing else in his life except his devotion to her.  If the Mother Confessor commanded a person so touched to "drop dead", he would literally, voluntarily do so out of a simple but incredibly powerful need to please her.  The problem, of course, was that if such a person were touched by the Mother Confessor and then turned out to be not guilty (as he was completely incapable of lying to her), this rendered him pretty much useless for anything else from then on.  If he had a family before, it was as though he never heard of them.  He could no longer think of anything except how he could possibly further please the Mother Confessor.  Usually a person in this condition did not last long, and in Kahlan's case, she was lonely.  The only way a Mother Confessor could touch a man at all instantaneously reduced him to a completely loyal, blithering idiot.  Therefore, it was pretty much impossible for any Mother Confessor tohave any normal relationship with a man.

However, Kahlan is the last living Mother Confessor, all the others having been hunted down and tortured and killed by the Imperial Order.  She meets and falls in love with Richard, and together they figure out a way that they can touch each other without leaving Richard a brainless idiot in the process.

There are lots more details and other races of people and plot twists, but the story is one of the indomitable spirit of the human race as a whole and it should be required reading for everyone and Mr. Terry Goodkind, in my opinion, has the right idea and it is BRILLIANT!