Legend of the Seeker: Discussion; what about the D'Harans?

[meridian_rose]

There's two major driving points behind this; the first is hrhrionastar's fic Rescue.

I fell in love with it when it was up for voting and was impatient to see who wrote it; all of the entries were fantastic, but what stood out for me in this fic was the character of Ashgar. I had forgotten he was a canon character. In fact the only D'Haran guard/Dragon Corps beyond the Generals Nass and Egremont that I could recall was Captain Ensor who was a well-rounded character.

The other was a challenge at legendland where the world should be mirrored in some way. Before the rules were relaxed, people were expressing concerns about male Mord'Sith and female Corps – that it made no sense for women to be armed guards since they are weaker. Yet the D'Haran guards are, for the most part, weak and incompetent. One Mord'Sith is worth two Quads of male guards.

Some of this is the fault of the writers, using the guards and the Sisters of the Dark as redshirts, cannon fodder for the heroes to overcome. But until these two things made me think about it, I was just as guilty of failing to make the guards actual characters, as seeing them as people when I wrote them at all. This contrasts with the 'Robin Hood' fandom, where the BBC production used always incompetent castle guards as the fall guys to the Sheriff's disappointment. However several writers, myself included, have indulged in short fic that's sometimes crack and plays on the dim-wittedness of the guards, but also drama and angst that creates real characters who just happen to be guards.

So, are the Corps just redshirts? Do you try to sympathise with them? Should we try and include more about them sometimes? Are they incompetent or is the Seeker just that good? How do they feel about being inferior in skill and in Rahl's favour when compared to the Mord'Sith?

Comments

[hrhrionastar.livejournal.com]

I really love how much thought you give to this subject - Margaret and Jonathon are both such great characters :D

The only D'Harans who are developed in any respect as characters are the ones who see the light and swear loyalty to Richard or those confessed by Kahlan (who almost inevitably die). Yes - and then Richard and Kahlan accidentally killed that guy in Conversion who was a childhood friend of Darken's and was plotting to assassinate him, and his uncle was all, 'you've just killed the one person who might actually have got close enough to kill Darken Rahl' instead of 'you murdered my nephew, why would I help you?'

(And that's even without the whole creepiness factor of the childhood-friend-assassin...)

In Unbroken, Orden!Richard uses the Third Battalion as his personal guard...in his place I think I would have tried to gain the loyalty of some of the other soldiers, who might respect Richard as a Rahl, and who might be happy the Mord'Sith are all Ordenified - although again, Richard then trusts them with everything important. I know he doesn't expect to lose Orden, but that behavior seems like tempting fate to me.

I think you're right about the tensions between the Mord'Sith, the Third Battalion and the Dragon Corps - the whole thing is so beautifully complicated ;)

I certainly never noticed the D'Haran soldiers getting killed, and coming back to get killed again! That's sort of sad, really.