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'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...

[dorothydeath.livejournal.com]

Ooh, discussion! :D

I don't think the writers given much thought to the guards as people. They needed lots of action and fights and other epicness so guards were just there. Convenient.
I don't even remember any D'Haran characters other than Egremont and Nass... o_O Maybe if I try reeeaaally hard I can think of someone. O_o

BTW it constantly astounded me how Richard and co could kill people so easily and never ever stop to feel even slightly bad about it.

We never get to see D'Harans POV on the war and Richard's 'heroic deeds' (or am I just forgetting something?) which is sad. It would have put things into perspective. I mean Richard and his cause do have flaws why couldn't they just admit it?

Oh noes, I'm indulging into my favorite Richard rant again. *shuts up now*

[brontefanatic.livejournal.com]

What a great topic!

I'll have more to say later as this is a subject dear to my heart and which I have tried to address in some of my fics. In Serpent's Tooth, both Jonathan Egremont and Margaret are loyal D'Harans who I tried to flesh out as three dimensional and sympathetic characters, because I didn't like the way the D'Harans, especially the men, were little more than cannon fodder.

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).

General Egremont is treated somewhat differently and given a little more respect and individuality by the writers, although we never find out if he has a family, etc. Trimrack is also an exception, although of course he's a "good" D'Haran who revived Panis and was the first to swear loyalty to Richard after Darken's death.

With regard to the soldiers, there's also confusion for me because of the distinctions - we hear about the Dragon Corp which seem to be the Elite of the Elite, and then we hear about the Third Battalion, who seem to be loyal to Darken Rahl even after his death.

I can't imagine that there wouldn't be enormous tension between the DC, the Third Battalion and the Mord'Sith. I'm sure the men resent the special status and favor the MS hold with Darken Rahl, and that the MS look about the men with more than a little contempt. Denna treats them with complete contempt and orders them about without hesitation, and when Kahlan is impersonating a MS, she does also - and the men are totally unsurprised by this.

It would be interesting to see that tension/rivalry be the centerpeice of a fic someday.

(Just a rather funny side-note: In their Puppeteer commentary on the first season DVDs, Craig Parker and Bruce Spence laugh about how the same actors playing D'Haran soldiers get killed one week, return to get killed all over again 2 or 3 episodes later, and nobody ever notices because they are all so annonomous and interchangeable).