The Legend of the Seeker

Yesterday I fell victim to one of the worst headaches I’ve had in a long time. We’re talking migraine here. In an intentional effort to not use my brain, but while I couldn’t sleep, I did what every other red-blooded American girl does, I watched TV. And seeing as how we do not have cable, I had to watch it online, no big deal there. I looked up my favorites to see if there were any new episodes posted. Bones, Fringe, House, How I Met Your Mother, Monk, Psych, and NCIS. Nothing new there and I finished the last season of Doctor Who a while ago. In my search for something to hold my pained interest but not get me hooked; because I don’t have time to get hooked on anything else, I stumbled upon a little show called The Legend of the Seeker. This show is loosely based on The Sword of Truth fantasy novels by Terry Goodkind. I say “loosely” not based on my own evaluation, since I have never read the books, but based on the reviews I have read online by people who have read the books and are now watching the series and are having some canonical issues with the series.

I have nothing to say about the books, I haven’t read them. But there are aspects of this show that caught my attention and hasn’t let go. The premise is that there are three lands in this fictional world: D’Hara, Midlands, and Westland. The magical, evil ruler of D’Hara (Darken Rahl) is trying to take over the Midlands and is working on unleashing a terrible power that will give him complete control over every single person in the world, regardless of their strengths, beliefs, or previous allegiances.

Now, let me say here that I do not believe in magic, faeries, or any of that fantasy stuff, although I do like to read it and think about it, but I know reality from fiction so let's not even get into that. Imagination is a wonderful thing, people should use it more often- especially adults.

Twenty three years previous to the beginning of the show, there was a prophesy told of one who would come to destroy evil, one who would have the power of good to overcome the darkness, he is called The Seeker. The Seeker wields the Sword of Truth and fights not only with his power and strength, but with the power of all the Seekers before him. He is called “seeker” because he will seek out evil and destroy it, he will seek out truth and justice wherever he goes. It has been proven that he cannot use his power or the power of the Sword of Truth for personal gain, only for the “greater good” of the people.

With him is a woman known as a Confessor. She held a special interest for me because her powers are very important to the Seeker’s mission to fight evil and injustice. She can look into someone’s eyes and know if they are being truthful or not (she, however, is a horrible liar). She also has the power to “confess people”, which means that she can hold them under her influence and make them do whatever she desires or needs. The only drawbacks to that are that it takes a considerable amount of strength from her to perform the task and that the person will fall hopelessly in love with her and there’s nothing she can do to change that short of one of them dying. The Confessor is sworn to protect the Seeker with her life and remain with him throughout his mission to destroy the evil that would take over the world.

The Seeker (Richard) and the Confessor (Kahlan- pronounce kay-lan) are in love, but their love can never be requited because the moment that they… ya know… she will no longer be able to control her power and will inadvertently take his soul from him and he will be her slave. They know the mission is more important than their love. At the end of the last episode I watched, they had mutually decided to bury their love deep inside themselves and never speak of it or act on it, though they both know that they love each other (it was a sad ending).

There is also a Wizard with them who is the Seeker’s grandfather, even though the Seeker does not know it, but I don’t really have much to say about him right now.

The author of the books and the writers of the show claim to be making NO religious overtones, to have no affiliation of any sort, but come on! Sword of Truth that fights evil with no intention of personal gain; the Seeker who fights injustice with no thought to himself, only to the people; and the Confessor who sees the truth in every person and cannot be fooled…. Can anyone else see or correlation to the Bible, the Christian, and Jesus? How often has the Bible been referred to as the Sword of Truth with which we fight? Or how about the Christian who fights Satan’s attacks and reaches out to others so that they might also be saved? And Jesus, who sees everything about us, still loves us, and fights constantly at our side?

I tried to not use my mind yesterday, but I watched at least six episodes of this show and one after one I saw the parallel to Christianity. Even the three parts of the world, D’Hara, Midland, and Westland are equivalent to Hell, Earth, and Heaven respectively. I might write more on this as I go, but I think that’s enough for now. I know the author says he intends objectivity in his stories, but I think this is an example of how not much is truly objective anymore.