meridian_rose

I'm certainly guilty of making the guards red shirts in my fics, but I like to think that even in stories not focused on them, they still have whole lives and motivations and opinions of their own - or what's the point?

The problem with Richard and particularly Kahlan's attitude toward not only the D'Harans and the Sisters of the Dark but also the people of the Midlands they're supposedly protecting is that they never ask what those people want or think. Kahlan is the Mother Confessor, which means (as far as I understand it) that she is the rightful ruler of the Midlands, both in terms of actual power and also moral superiority. How can she be defending the People, without listening to the individuals?

Or, to use a quote from Lois McMaster Bujold, "How can she be answerable to all, and yet not to each?"

And it's the same with Darken and the D'Haran soldiers. How much does he ever think about each individual one? He's so paranoid I'd think he must give their motivations and opinions some thought. In the very beginning of the show, Kahlan says Darken has thousands of soldiers and wizards, etc, loyal to him, which suggests to me that he can't command their respect only with dark magic. They would have revolted before the Seeker ever appeared.

So I think the D'Haran soldiers are villified as part of pro-Midlands propaganda, at least somewhat.

The Sisters of the Dark are different, though, since they're working to destroy all life and must therefore be more than usually evil or insane...or so it seems to me.

Are they incompetent or is the Seeker just that good? A little of both - and yet, I think we are supposed to think the Seeker is just that good. After all, he fights with the strength and skill of all the previous Seekers - and many, many times he escapes certain death at the hands of the D'Harans only because of some timely Wizard's Fire from Zedd.

I do wonder about the relationship between the soldiers and the Mord'Sith. It would be easy to resent the Mord'Sith's possession of Lord Rahl's favor and their success rate - or would the average D'Haran soldier be grateful not to attract Lord Rahl's personal attention?

Ooh, long comment is long...