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If there's one thing that can be said about Legend of the Seeker, it's that it's not afraid to feature women in positive roles, depicting them as equals to men with their own strengths and weaknesses. Yes, the show does occasionally suffer from the 'evil is sexy' school of female characterisation and there are problematic elements to the whole 'if we have sex, my female power will devour your will' thing, but a lot of that is unfortunately inherited from the books, and it's what the show does with those themes that is important. The Mord'Sith may be leather clad dominatrices, but they aren't cardboard cut-outs and their motivations are not always as clear cut as they first appear. The Confessors may confess any man with whom they are intimate and rob him of his will, but the show doesn't gloss over that or pretend that it's not rape, even if it's clear that most Confessors will take as a mate a man they've already confessed in battle.
But, the clearest example of just how progressive the show can be is in the depiction of the romance between the two main characters - Richard Cypher and Kahlan Amnell. From the very first, the relationship between the two is one of equals, built not only on the classic romantic tropes but also on a very powerful, underlying theme of respect. The two love each other, yes, but they respect each other - each other's judgement, each other's beliefs and each other's strengths and weaknesses.
Kahlan is no damsel in distress – she is a Confessor, one of the most powerful orders in the Midlands, and Richard's awed by her strength from the first.
While in the beginning he suffers from Hero Syndrome, rushing to the rescue, it's not long before he learns that appearances can be deceptive and she's the one saving his hide. That's a theme that continues throughout the course of the show, with them saving and trusting each other.
When Kahlan rejects Richard's first tentative advances, he doesn't sulk and he doesn't push the issue. And when he finds out that they can never be together because of her powers, he doesn't resent her and he certainly doesn't reject her. He's sad, yes, but he doesn't blame her for it, even if he's disappointed that he had to find out from Denna.
In fact, he sucks it up and acts like an adult, valuing her friendship and being valued in turn, which is one of the reasons that I love his character on the show so much.
He doesn't feel like he's entitled to Kahlan's heart or body, and if he can't have what he wants, then he'll be satisfied by what he can have and respect her anyway. Unlike some other characters in media, he doesn't stray or give up on the idea of them being together in the long term, even if they can't be together right now. He loves Kahlan and he doesn't want anyone else. In other words, his relationship with Kahlan is more than about sex, and he'll stay faithful even if sex is something they can't have.
(Except, of course, when they almost can...
Which seems to happen a lot. I have no objections.)
It's not always grim - they have time to play and tease each other, especially in the first season, and there are moments of tenderness in amongst the longing and the not-overdone (thankfully) angst. They fight together, play together and love each other.
How can that be anything other than epic?
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i love how the female characters are all bamfs, and how the show is so unapologetically revolving around the women. it's so cool.
yes, it's not perfect. but i love all the strong female characters. do i want to read the books, or not? I came to the show first.
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I only managed to half-read the first book. They pretty much read (to me) as badly written fanfiction. I kind of enjoyed the first one in a trashy, overblown kind of a way (the whole thing with Denna is different than it is in the show), but it's nowhere near as progressive as the show. The problematic tropes around the Mord'Sith and the Confessors aren't handled as well, and it's very rapetastic. Plus, Richard gets progressively more pompous and dickish (imho) as the series progresses, and there are all sorts of underlying libertarian themes that come across as really right wing to me (sort of dog eat dog and people deserve their fates type stuff). It's very id-tastic, but I'm not sure I care for Goodkind's id very much.
And the monologues. Oh God. Richard can - and does - talk for pages, which I found quite dull. I much, much prefer show!Richard, who is a BAMF, too, but also sweet, kind and smart with it.
But then there are people who really do like the books as well as the show, and there's lots of complex world building and epic world spanning action, plus the Mord'Sith are very entertaining, so just because I didn't care for them doesn't mean that you won't as well :)
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Did they ever do anything with Nicci? She was the character who more or less single-handedly turned me off the books, to the point that I was reluctant to watch the show even when I was hearing good things about it.
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MINOR SPOILERS
In the show, she references a past rape - two actually - but it's clear that it's the hypocrisy of being sent back by the Sisters of the Light into a situation where she's already been raped and being raped again that drives her to become a Sister of the Dark, not the rapes per se. But there's no onscreen rape and it's not fetishised the way that I thought Goodkind did.
I wasn't joking when I said that Goodkind's id was showing. There are constant rapey themes throughout the book, but what squicked me more was the whole dominated by a woman, with bonus torture and female on male rape repeated theme that really left me feeling uncomfortable. I did not need to see his fantasies that clearly.
MORE SPOILERS
They do use the 'bound' plot with Nicci from one of the books, but they don't stretch it out over a full book the way Goodkind did and it's so much better for only being one ep. Especially given that they actually make explicit reference to the whole Confessor taking a mate thing being rape, which I actually thought was brilliant. They had a man who'd been confessed and become a mate asking Kahlan, "So you think I deserved what happened to me?" when she tells him that he was confessed for a reason. I thought it was a great way to highlight rape culture, particularly as the Midlands is a culture where men get raped and no one questions it, which I thought was a great way of subverting it and making viewers think about it the way they may not have done if a woman had been the victim.
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