Series / Legend of the Seeker

Legend of the Seeker is a Live-Action TV adaptation of the Sword of Truth series of books. Executive produced by Sam Raimi (who also served as an executive producer for Hercules: The Legendary Journeys), Robert Tapert, Joshua Donen, Ned Nalle and Kenneth Biller.

The first season roughly follows the plot of Wizard's First Rule: there's an evil wizard named Darken Rahl, who wants to use the Boxes of Orden to Take Over the World, and opposing him are Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander, wise and sarcastic wizard of the First Order; Kahlan Amnell, a powerful, determined and idealistic member of the mighty order of the Confessors; and Richard Cypher, a kind woodsman full of compassion who is also an extremely capable fighter prophesied to become the True Seeker, using the mighty Sword of Truth to kill Rahl and save the world.

While the characters, setting, and central conflict are the same as the book, other aspects of the story were changed in adaptation. The series was canceled after its second season (and Disney (who produced the show through their distribution arm, Disney-ABC Domestic Television) later admitted that it was due to Sword of Truth fans complaining about every little change made while adapting the book), but a fan campaign is going strong to try and fund a movie adaptation of the show.

Now has a character sheet.

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Legend of the Seeker provides examples of:

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• Abusive Parents: Kahlan's father forced her and her sister to use their powers for evil, punishing them whenever they refused.
• Acquitted Too Late: In "Confession", a man is proven to have been framed using Fake Memories only after he was hanged for murder.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the books, Darken Rahl is heavily scarred on half of his body (due to Zedd's Wizard's Fire), and had killed more than a few lovers for failing to ignore it. Here he's unblemished, making for more tasteful shirtless scenes.
• Adaptation Dye-Job:
  • Darken Rahl and Nicci (well Nicci-ish... she's reborn in a body that's blonde later), among others.
  • Panis Rahl and Walter's white hair is possibly a nod to the original hair color of Darken Rahl in the novels.
  • In the books, Kahlan's eyes are green. However, Bridget Regan's eyes are such a stunning shade of blue, they decided to make use of them.
  • The prequel Debt of Bones shows us that the young Zedd had brown hair. Here, he's portrayed as being blond in his youth.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: The Sword's power to imbue the wielder with the skills off all the past Seekers. In the source, Richard was the first one to have figured out this particular power, and that in the second book.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication: In the first book, the title of The Book of Counted Shadows^note an in-universe book that serves as the instruction manual for the Boxes of Orden refers to how the boxes each cast a different number of shadows when they're in direct sunlight. In the series, the boxes display no such quality, but the book keeps its title.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • In the Sword of Truth series, Richard's step-brother, Michael, is a villain of the first book, who's willingly in league with Darken Rahl, and executed after his treachery is found out. In this he is instead tricked into serving Rahl, and when push comes to shove he sides with his brother, dying in a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • James is a villain in the books who works for Queen Milena as her court artist, painting pictures of people that affect them. Here he's mostly good, though still some somewhat sketchy since his art magic creates paintings that trap people inside when he paints them into there, and he wants Livia to stay inside one with him forever so she'll be safe, but he makes a Heroic Sacrifice to get them out in the end.
  • Panis Rahl is dead by the time of the books (at Zedd's hand) and a brutal tyrant without any redeeming qualities. Here he's never seen to be anything but a mildly corrupt king. Zedd teaches him magic, heals his infertility, and appears to be his friend. Panis tries to stop his son Darken Rahl when he sees his evil by fathering a second son, Richard, who's prophesied to defeat Darken. Then, after Darken killed all newborn boys in Brennidon to kill Richard, he fathers a daughter for the same purpose, who also plays a part in Darken's defeat. The only questionable things we see him do is to kill Caracticus Zorrander, Zedd's father (which was in revenge for Caracticus' attempt to murder his son), plus seducing Richard and Jennsen's mother in the guise of another man. He later spends decades as a monk atoning for what he did wrong, helps Richard to find the Stone of Tears in the form of a scholar, and after this he sacrifices his life for Zedd's.
• Adaptation Title Change: Legend of the Seeker is based loosely on the Sword of Truth novels.
• Adaptational Villainy: Giller was a good wizard in the books who helps steal one of the Boxes of Orden and then kills himself rather than give up its location to Darken Rahl under torture. Here he is one of Rahl's servants, working to replicate the Confessor's power.
• Aerith and Bob: The series mixes real names (or ones close at least) with fantasy ones, e.g. Richard, Cara or Leo vs Kahlan, Dennee, Darken etc. Zedd is a bit in between as this is short for Zeddicus.
• Age Lift: Giller is old in the books, but young here.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Denna takes an arrow in the back from Cara and falls off a cliff literally seconds after it seems Zedd has talked her into leading a better life and letting him go.
• Alternate Reality Episode:
  • The result of Magic Misfire, when Zedd uses a spell to undo Cara's conditioning. Just as he warns, it has unpredictable consequences, meaning Cara never became a Mord-Sith, resulting in her never stopping Richard from using the Boxes of Orden to force Rahl's obedience. Zedd, being the caster, has Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory and is dumbfounded when he realizes he is the best man at Richard and Kahlan's wedding... with Rahl marrying them, since Richard controls him with the power of Orden. Zedd then hits the Reset Button by using the same spell on another Mord-Sith.
  • In the last episode in the first season, in which Richard and Cara are sent into a future where Rahl won, and his and Kahlan's son, a male confessor, took over the world by confessing everyone, the sort of thing the other Confessors had warned Richard about earlier in the series.
• Always Chaotic Evil:
  • In-universe, it is believed that all the male Confessors become monstrously evil. Richard defies this belief... but we never learn whether he is right or wrong, as the male Confessor in question gets killed offscreen before he can grow up to show it either way. However, played straight in the alternate universe son of Darken Rahl and Kahlan Amnell, Nicholas.
  • The Keeper of the Underworld.
  • The Boxes of Orden would always corrupt the user unless the power is tempered by a Confessor.
• Amazon Brigade: The series has three groups of this type.
  • The Confessors are an all-female order with the power to brainwash people by touch so they'll fall helplessly in love with them. Often they use this power on enemies in battle, making them come to their side, but are also adept with daggers.
  • The Mord Sith are the Bodyguard Babes of the D'haran Empire's ruler Lord Rahl and his torture technicians. With their agiels, magical weapons that inflict pain, they're formidable opponents, and also use bows ably. They can also rebound spells back on sorceresses or wizards, making them feared among even the most powerful magic users.
  • The Sisters of the Light (plus the Dark faction among them) are powerful sorceresses who train young magic users. Many are very skilled at fighting with spells and bladed magical weapons called dacras which can kill instantly if they will it.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: Darken Rahl's and Taralyn's mothers were mentioned, though never seen, with what's become of them left unexplained.
• An Arm and a Leg: One of the Confessors had her hand cut off by the D'Harans, though thankfully Zedd can restore it.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: Season one finale, Darken Rahl captures Kahlan after Zedd is killed and Richard was seemingly vaporized by an explosion (actually sent into the future), and offers her a chance to be his queen to end the rebellion. She refuses at first, but when she learns about Richard's whereabouts, she agrees so that she can use Rahl to give birth to a confessor child that could help Richard return home.
• The Anti-God: The evil Keeper of the Underworld wants to destroy all living things, in contrast to the benevolent Creator.
• Anti-Magic:
  • Jenssen is completely immune to any kind of magic, but can't use any either.
  • The Margrave of Rothenburg has a powerful spell preventing anyone from using magic inside his castle. As a result, the heroes go undercover to infiltrate it as this leaves Zedd out of commission.
• The Archmage: Zeddicus Z'ul Zorrander, Wizard of the First Order, the most powerful type which exists. By the second season, he's the Last of His Kind.
• Armor Is Useless:
  • Richard and Kahlan wear no armor whatsoever, yet suffer hardly a scratch while fighting dozens of enemies. The D'Harans, on the other hand, almost always show up in mail or plate armor and get mowed down by the dozens. D'Harans dying by Kahlan's knives are particularly egregious since mail is designed specifically to withstand edged weapons.
  • Mostly averted in Kahlans's case, especially in the first season. Although she is seen slashing across the chest of somebody wearing chainmail this only staggers him, rather than killing him. Kahlan's actual killing moves with the knives tend to fall into three categories: Punch Thust to the chest, where Narrow, Sharp, Pointy End beats Armour of Holes; slash across the throat where the target hasn't worn a coif or gorget, possibly for fashion reasons; and when all else fails an upward slice starting at the inside thigh and ending at the groin, aiming for the big artery in the leg.
• Artistic License – Space: The episode "Home" features an enchantment that can only be cast when a constellation of three stars is encircled by the moon's crescent. It gets even worse, though-the spell ends when all three stars are eclipsed by the crescent portion of the moon. Not quite as bad as it seems, though: until pretty recently, the term "star" meant "any celestial object not the Sun or the Moon." "Planet" and "comet" are from old terms for "wandering star" and "hairy star" after all.
• As Lethal as It Needs to Be: The Dakras wielded by the Sisters of the Light and of the Dark. Their lethality is directly proportional to whom they hit: if it hits a Sister of the Dark, she's dead before she hits the ground. If it hits a main character, the thrower will have to release its magic to make the kill. In the latter case, the Dakra can be removed without any ill effects, even if it was previously embedded in the character's ribs.
• The Atoner: Panis Rahl, after seeing how Darken turned out. He fathers Richard specifically to stop Darken, and then Jennsen as well after Richard is believed to have been murdered.
• Attack Reflector: The Mord-Sith can deflect wizard magic, making Zedd virtually helpless when confronted by them.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: The second season's battle theme has much more electric guitar to it than the first season's.
• Babies Make Everything Better: Attempted by Darken Rahl in The Bad Guy Wins Bad Future of "Reckoning" when Kahlan gives birth to his son, Nicolas. She suggests killing him since male confessors are most likely to be corrupted by their power and even offers to have a second child with him, a daughter. Squeezing his son's foot to make him cry, he gives him to Kahlan to comfort their child, and she bonds with him. Unfortunately for him, it gets subverted. While she grew to love her son, she still decides to kill him when he abuses his powers and it doesn't make her love her husband. If anything, she hated him even more for being the one who got her pregnant. As for Rahl, while one could argue he did grow to love Kahlan and cared for his son, he still ordered her executed for the attempted murder.
• Back from the Dead:
  • The Mord-Sith can do this by using the Breath of Life. It seems to heal the fatal wounds suffered, but it won't save you if your windpipe was severed, or if your body was too badly damaged, and it has to be used within a short amount of time after the death.
  • The banelings are people who made a bargain with the Keeper in exchange for coming back to life and escaping his clutches-kill one person a day, or else rot away into dust, dead again.
  • Zedd tries to bring a woman back in the episode "Wizard" and appears to succeed. However, it is revealed that it was the Keeper who brought her back as a baneling. Apparently, even wizards of the First Order are not strong enough to defeat death.
  • Darken Rahl reveals to Richard that he has been a baneling for decades, slaughtering thousands to appease his master, the Keeper.
  • In the finale, Cara, Dahlia, Leo, Nicci, and Richard. Keep in mind that the second season revolves around the barrier between the world of life and the underworld breaking down, so it fits with the overall theme.
  • Combined with an unwilling Grand Theft Me Dennee is brought back into the body of another woman.
  • In "Princess", combined with a willing Grand Theft Me: Nicci is brought back into the body of another Sister who sacrifices herself for this purpose.
  • Richard in "Resurrection" is brought back by a wizard with shadow water.
  • Both Cara and Thaddicus in "Hunger".
  • In "Walter", Darken Rahl is brought back in the body of a double.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Happens a lot. One notable example is Richard and Darken Rahl in "Extinction".
• Bad Future: The first season finale shows one where Rahl won, and the future is ruled over by his and Kahlen's son.
• Battle Couple: Richard and Kahlan, even if they can't consummate their relationship. Until the series finale, that is, and earlier in "Torn" when she was split apart.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Kahlan and Richard are both suitably dirtied after most battles (Richard especially gets it after the Mord Sith torture), and Jensen gets one hell of a black eye after she's attacked in "Fever". Cara also looks suitably beaten and dirty after the other Mord Sith turn on her. Finally, Nicci gets some real injuries and bruises in "Bound". However, despite being on a long-ranging quest through the woods almost constantly, everyone always has fantastic hair, though they're in pretty wet climates-after all, most fantasy worlds take place in forests, and this one seems to have a decent amount of rain. So they can probably wash every few days (we see Kahlan washing once, when Richard accidentally stumbles onto her). Not to mention that magic probably helps a bit...
• Because Destiny Says So: There are tons of prophecies in the show. Somehow, they all end up working out in one way or another. How does Richard defeat Darken Rahl at the end of the first season, as he is prophesied to do? He doesn't. Rahl dies trying to break up a ritual set up by Richard and Kahlan to mind-control all of D'Hara. The second season is resolved in an even more improbable manner. Richard ends up unknowingly handing the Keeper the Stone of Tears, which would ensure the end of the world. Then Kahlan kills Richard, snaps out of her "blood rage", and sheds a tear on Richard, which somehow turns into another Stone of Tears. This is how it worked in the source material as well: the prophecy always comes true, but rarely how you'd expect.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • The Mord-Sith's slave Mika rescues Walter in his eponymous episode because, when he was posing as Lord Rahl, he ordered the Mord-Sith to be gentle with her.
  • Cara in the latter episodes of season 2 for Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd.
• Bed Trick: Panis Rahl disguised himself as a young shepherd to seduce Richard and Jennsen's mother before they had sex.
• Better to Die than Be Killed:
  • The Sisters of the Light kill themselves rather than face what they believe is certain death at the hands of the banelings during one of Richard's dreams induced by magic in "Perdition".
  • Mentioned as happening in the Battle of Aldamont. The defeated soldiers threw themselves in the waters rather than surrender, as recounted in "Torn".
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Captain Krimmel in "Mirror" is apparently "heavily armed", according to Gwyldor, the man who impersonates him with magic.
• Black Shirt: Marianna, who was "waiting all her life" to help the Keeper tear the veil.
• Blessed with Suck: The king in "Cursed" who was given, by Shota, the power to defend his kingdom forever which involves transforming into a monster by night.
• Bloodless Carnage: Almost every episode includes Richard and Kahlan fighting and killing Darken Rahl's soldiers, but while blood is sometimes shown on the blades afterward, little if any blood seems to be gushing from wounds during battle. Even when people get their throats cut, there's often no blood gushing from the wounds.
• Blood Magic:
  • The journey books need to use blood as ink to work. Rahl apparently likes to use the blood of people who've failed him.
  • The Keeper also uses it to create banelings, who stay alive only if they kill someone every day.
  • In an Alternate Reality Episode the Sisters of the Dark use Jennsen's blood as an Anti-Magic potion so they can get past the spells protecting the People's Palace.
• Bodyguard Babes: The Mord Sith are beautiful women trained in combat with magic and multiple weapons to protect Lord Rahl. He also sleeps with many, and some like Cara have born him children.
• Body Double: Played for laughs when an officer brings a beggar to the throne room, saying the man looks a lot like Rahl and could be used as a decoy. Rahl nearly has them both executed on the spot, screaming that the beggar looks nothing like him...despite the fact he's played by the same actor. Eventually, Rahl agrees (although the beggar has to undergo a painful procedure to increase his height) and it ends up helping as Rahl is killed but manages to put his spirit into the body of the beggar and forced to admit the resemblance is "passable." Meanwhile, the beggar finds his spirit put into another body and talks of how he's much happier to be able to live without Rahl's face.
• Bounty Hunter: A bunch of them go after Richard in "Bounty" after a reward is offered to kill him by Darken Rahl. One in particular manages to get ahold of his pendant and use it to have a magic map created that shows Richard's location. The bounty is not brought up again until "Mirror".
• Bowdlerization: Some of the darker things from the books have been toned down, mostly stuff that just wouldn't make it onto TV.
  • Most notably, there's considerably less nudity (though still some for Fanservice), the Mud People are nowhere to be seen, and while rape was a common tool of pretty much every villain in the books, it's only been alluded to-except with the case of Nicci, whose Rape as Backstory appears to have set her on the path to evil as she lost faith because of this.
  • In a season one episode, Darken Rahl claimed that his father raped Richard's and Jennsen's mother. However, this was a part of an attempt to deceive Jennsen, so it is unknown if this is true. General Trimack later offers a slightly different story, that Panis had seduced their mother in disguise. This is still rape by fraud, if not by force, since she consented to sleeping with a young shepherd, not an old man in the form of one.
• Brainwashed:
  • Everyone subject to Confession turns into a completely devoted slave of the Confessor. This is only broken with the Confessor's death or losing their magic (in the books, it's permanent, and Confessed people die of despair if they witness the Confessor dying).
  • Mord-Sith are broken psychologically by torture as girls, Forced to Watch their mothers die from torture, then fatally torture their own fathers and begin the training after that. Some break free, like Cara, but only with great difficulty. Darken Rahl captures and "rebreaks" her as well.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: The Confessors' magic is used to make criminals confess so there will be no doubt about their guilt. It can also make villains aid the good guys.
• Bullet Time: The series loves this one. It shows up about 30 seconds into the pilot, and is present in nearly every fight scene, of which there are a lot.
• Bus Crash: We learn from Cara that Dennee and her son were killed by order of Darken Rahl. Technically, Dennee killed her own son so that Rahl wouldn't get him, and then Cara killed Dennee, leading to a Heroic BSoD from Kahlen, Dennee's sister.
• But I Would Really Enjoy It: Richard and Kahlan would love to sleep together, but if they do, Richard will essentially become a mindless slave, and would be unable to save the world. They manage to find a few ways around it (i.e. the anti-Confessor potion, the painter-world where magic doesn't work) but it always gets snatched away before they can take advantage of it. Kahlan does get the chance to do this when Richard is confessed by Annabelle, but she realizes that he is not doing this out of love for her and stops him. But then they sort of do, when an amulet splits Kahlan into two beings-one that embodies her sense of duty along with her Confessor power, and one that does not have the Confessor power or reasoning abilities. The interesting thing is, all throughout Season 2 they seem to be in a relationship anyway, hugging, kissing, holding hands, etc. at every opportunity. They just can't have sex although the season 2 finale reveals that, since Richard already loves Kahlan unconditionally, her Confessor power doesn't affect him, so presumably they can after that.
• Came Back Wrong: All the banelings. They have to kill people each day in return for living again.
• Cannot Spit It Out:
  • Cara refuses to admit her feelings for Leo until after he dies, believing love to be a weakness.
  • Kahlan from the beginning of the series, until either "Identity" or "Denna".
• Canon Discontinuity:
  • Darken Rahl claims he was the first baneling. However, in the Alternate Reality Episode, he has somehow survived without killing for nearly a year. The most likely possibility is that he simply lied. Alternatively, as the first baneling, and as a direct conspirator with the Keeper, it could be that his deal works differently from the usual "kill one person a day or you die" banelings.
  • The rada'han is said to prevent someone from using magic. Zedd still manages to cast a spell with one on though. This might be a reference to the books, where Zedd is just that good and is able to figure out how to get around the rada'han's enchantment and even take it off at will shortly after being collared.
• Can't Have Sex, Ever: Richard and Kahlan can never consummate their love, as Kahlan's Confessor powers would be unleashed in the throes of passion which then would leave Richard "Confessed" or a slave to Kahlan's will. There are numerous flirts with intimacy, but the trope holds fast except in "Torn", when Kahlan's depowered half has sex with Richard (which only sort of counts). Until the second season finale, that is, when Richard and Kahlan discover that she can't Confess him because he's already so deeply in love with her that it makes no difference.
• The Casanova: Richard has to impersonate one in "Princess". Zedd notes "his reputation isn't the only thing that precedes him into the room."
• Cat Fight: Between Cara and Triana. The fact it takes place at a bath house (while Cara is bathing, no less) increases the Fanservice by a couple orders of magnitude.
• Character Development: Cara slowly transforms from being a cold-hearted Mord'Sith into a kinder woman over the course of the second season, with the help of realizing that her father didn't betray her (the Mord'Sith tricked her into killing him by making her think this), finding love the first time, and being around compassionate people.
• Child by Rape:
  • As in the Sword of Truth novels, all children of Confessors are conceived this way, as their mates have lost all free will and do as the Confessor wishes. They come back to their senses at the Confessor's death, with poor reactions: Kahlan's father forced her sister and her to use their powers for evil, binding their wrists if they refused. The only other living Confessor was locked in a tower all her life by her father out of fear.
  • Richard and Jennsen, due to Panis Rahl seducing their mother while disguised as a young shepherd-a rape by fraud.
• Child Mage: Renn is a Listener, meaning he can read minds. He's been a victim of Superhuman Trafficking as a result, and compelled to use his gift serving an evil queen. It turns out there are many other children with magical gifts like him, with Renn sent to a refuge for them after Richard saves him.
• Children Are Innocent: Oh, very subverted.
  • First, there's Princess Violet, who's just as much of a royal bitch as she was in the books, at about 10 years old.
  • In the first season finale, we meet Nicholas Rahl, who Confesses a playmate and forces him to cut off his own finger because the boy didn't want to play the same games as him. Later Nicholas kills his own mother and then confesses Darken Rahl's trusted general and has him kill his father.
  • Then in the second season, we meet a young boy whose mother became a Baneling in order to stay around and take care of him. After she dies (again), the boy is taken in by a monk. The kid then reveals himself as a Baneling, kills the monk, and cheerfully walks to the settlement he was just told has lots of other kids his age...
    • It's possibly not as bad as it seems though. IIRC, he was headed to the Valley of Light, and one of the people living there is the Listener from Season 1 (See below). As soon as the Listener takes one look at the Baneling kid, the jig will be up, so the rest of the inhabitants are probably safe.
  • The Listener from Season 1 plays with this. He can Read thoughts and is sold to different people, he even sees himself as an aversion until the Power of Friendship from Richard causes a Heel–Face Turn.
  • In the final episode The Keeper takes the form of a helpless child, to trick a blind Richard, into handing over the Stone of Tears, which he absconds with to the Underworld.
• Child Soldiers: The Mord-Sith start out as the gentlest girls to be found, tortured and forced into murder so they'll become bodyguards/torturers fanatically serving the Lord Rahl.
• Cliffhanger: After the series' cancellation, we can only wonder what Rahl will do to Nicci. He made it clear she was going to get a very hot bath at minimum.
• Clip Show: Once per season: "Home" and "Creator".
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Darken Rahl, while bathing, refuses to tell Nicci where Richard is taking the Stone of Tears, and then attempts to seduce her. Nicci responds by superheating his bath water, nearly boiling him alive, and forces him to tell her where Richard is taking the stone. He plans to do the same later in revenge. Also the Mord-Sith's standard practice.
• Color-Coded Characters: In several cases. D'Haran soldiers wear dark red and black, and the Sisters of the Dark wear brighter red. (Of course, Sisters of the Light do too, as Sisters of the Dark are rogues). Additionally, Kahlan wears white up until Denna appears in white, then she switches colors to a dark scheme.
• Continuity Nod:
  • General Egramort's questions in "Walter" to determine if the lookalike is the real Darken Rahl are both references to Season One episodes.
  • In the Season 2 episode "Broken", Zedd uses the magical mirror he gained in the Season 1 episode "Mirror" to disguise himself.
• Court Mage: An episode has Zedd accidentally rewriting history with a spell and making Richard the ruler of not only D'Hara but also all of the known world. Apparently, Zedd is his court wizard. Interestingly, while Darken Rahl himself had a powerful wizard and hundreds of sorcerers in his employ, they don't really fit, as they were never present in his court. Rahl himself could cast some spells.
• Courtroom Episode:
  • Two of them. One where Cara is put on trial for her crimes as a Mord-Sith, and one where Richard is put on trial by a woman claiming to be the Creator herself.
  • Also in the episode Torn, where Head!Kahlen takes over Aydindril and dispenses "justice".
• Crazy Jealous Guy: The (apparent) Creator says the Keeper is intent on destruction of all life due to jealousy. Before she created living things, they were lovers, with no other beings in existence. When she created life, and especially lavished love on humanity, the Keeper became enraged by this due to her affections no longer solely being his. He created death as a start, as she'd originally made them immortal, and the Creator refused to be with him ever after. The Keeper thinks by destroying all life she'll be forced to return. Whether or not she's the Creator isn't certain, as she might be a delusional woman. However, he does attempt to draw her down into the underworld after learning her location so they're together again, thus at least his love for her is apparently real.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Creator's portrayed as far more similar to God here, even coming in human form (at least, so it seems), somewhat like Jesus. Unlike in the books as well, the Creator's portrayed as female (human avatar too), unlike God is traditionally. She's believed to be far more benevolent as well, with the Keeper her evil counterpart, who created death along with all bad things in jealousy after she lavished affection on humankind (who were originally immortal), though this dualism also departs from Christian belief. The Sisters of the Light, who worship the Creator, also say suicide is an offense to her (which also accords with traditional Christian belief).
• Curse Cut Short/Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Cara, who'd been forced to speak in rhyming couplets while posing as a Princess, delivers this gem to the Margrave in "Princess":
  Dear Margrave the sight of your face makes me sick.
  You decadent, pompous, self-satisfied-(socks the Margrave)
  • Partially subverted-if you listen "very" carefully, you can hear her say "dick" as she punches.
• Cyanide Pill: Jennsen is given a poisonous stone to swallow if she's captured by the D'Harans, to spare her from suffering at their hands in "Fever". Unfortunately she had it knocked out of her grasp as she tried to take it and was beaten so severely by D'Haran soldiers she temporarily lost her memories, letting Darken Rahl almost trick her into leading him to the Box of Orden that she had hidden.
• Dark Magical Girl: Cara, for the entire series, but especially after she's "rebroken" by Darken Rahl and arguably before she follows Richard. She even comes to full blows with Kahlan.
• Deal with the Devil: Rahl has long ago made a deal with the Keeper. After his death, he offers deals to the recently deceased people in the Keeper's name. Those who accept (most do) become banelings, having to kill someone every day to stay alive.
• Death Is Cheap: Just about every main character has died at least once in the series.
• Death of a Child:
  • Dennee's son is killed offscreen by her, to keep him from the Mord Sith.
  • Later the episode "Deception" begins as several children finding a mysterious device. The next we see of them is their dead bodies having fallen around the device, along with everyone else in the village.
• Defector from Paradise: In "Eternity" Kahlan and Richard are trapped inside a magical land which has many immortals living happily without hunger or want. However, they break out in spite of the immortals urging the two to stay, because the world still will be destroyed otherwise.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Cara. She slowly warms up to Leo, who actually gets her to smile for the first time. It's only after he dies that Cara admits she had feelings for him though.
• Demon of Human Origin: Unlike the source material, Banelings are dead people whom the Keeper allows back into the realm of the living, provided that they kill at least one person every day. The first day they don't, he takes them back.
• Demoted to Extra: Adie is a prominent character in the books, who at varying points is even a love interest for Zedd. So far, she's shown up only in the pilot, and is probably trapped in Westland beyond the boundary.
• De-power: The quillions can remove magic from a person (unlike the books, it doesn't require them to die).
• Designated Girl Fight: Completely averted. The characters regularly fight enemies of both genders, with no indication that they try to focus on their own. Helps that there's no shortage of women who are just as dangerous as any man. And when there is a girl on girl fight, it's no less brutal than any other.
• Destroyer Deity: The Keeper of the Underworld wants to destroy all living things, and originally created death in pursuit of this.
• Determinator: Cara manages to keep fighting despite having her throat cut. Sure, she dies a few moments later, but she still holds on a lot longer than you'd expect. And she then comes back from the dead to keep fighting.
• Deus ex Machina: In the final episode all seems lost, Richard was tricked into giving the Stone of Tears to the Keeper, and Kahlen kills him while under the control of Nicci. However, her tears turn into another Stone of Tears for some reason (perhaps divine intervention by the Creator) and they are able to seal the rift after Cara revives Richard with the breath of life. Apparently it was the Power of Love that made the Stone of Tears-that was pretty out of the blue to say the least. Justified somewhat, by a prophecy saying that as long as the Mother Confessor lives, the keeper will fail.
• Devil, but No God: Unlike in the book series, the Creator does show up.... maybe. The Keeper, however, is far more prominent overall, regularly intervening or giving minions' orders in the second season.
• Distracted by the Sexy:
  • At the beginning of "Elixir", Richard sees Kahlan bathing by a river and fails to notice his horses getting stolen less than 10 feet away from him.
    Richard: I was... distracted.
    Zedd: What on the Prophet's good earth could have distracted you?!
    (sees Kahlan walking up in her bodice, her hair still wet)
  • In "Mirror", Richard again gets distracted by "Kahlan" (a thief disguised by a magical mirror which gave her the appearance of Kahlan) when she takes her clothes off and gets into a lake with Richard.
    Kahlan: Someone stole the Sword of Truth? How did that happen?
    Richard: I was distracted!
    Kahlan: By a naked woman you went swimming with..
    Richard: I thought it was you.
    (Beat)
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • In the sixth episode, "Elixir", the heroes fight potion peddlers.
  • The murder of the newborn sons of Brennidon is almost exactly the same as the Massacre of the Innocents in The Bible.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Deconstructed and then reconstructed in "Sanctuary." James can't manage to get Livia's attention, so he traps her in a magical painting partly to spare her from the hardships of the real world and partly so that she'll have to pay attention to him and hopefully learn to like him. Kahlan gently but firmly explains to him that that's not a healthy way to express your affection for someone, and James ends up not only releasing Livia and the heroes but committing a Heroic Sacrifice to let them escape the painting before Rahl sets fire to it. Apparently he really was a nice guy, just amazingly lacking in common sense and social skills.
• Doing in the Scientist: In the book series, the "breath of life" that the Mord-Sith use is clearly just rescue breathing and CPR. In the TV series, however, it's straight up magic that brings the dead back to life, even from things like being stabbed through the heart.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male:
  • The Confessors father offspring by men who are "Confessed", i.e. turned into the Confessor's lifelong love slave. No one cares since sleeping with any man would automatically confess them anyway and the confessed were usually enemy soldiers in their former lives. Also doubles as Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi. Even consensual sex with a Confessor is out as it will make them lose control of their power in the heat of passion, Confessing the other person. While this isn't treated as completely good, neither the show or the books ever use the word "rape" for it.
  • Deconstructed by Kahlan's and Annabelle's fathers, both of whom became abusive parents after their mothers had died, the former using his daughters' ability to Confess people and make them give him money (or in one case, have sex with him), binding their hands if they refused to comply, the latter locking her in a tower from birth out of fear.
  • Averted and then discussed when Kahlan declines to have sex with Richard when he's been Confessed by Annabelle, who orders him to so that the line of Confessors can continue, specifically citing that he can't refuse in that state.
• The Dragon: General Egremont to Darken Rahl; Darken Rahl himself to the Keeper in Season 2.
• Driven to Suicide: The conjurer Cormac in "Desecrated", having unleashed an ancient mummy to kill the sons of the men who let his own sons die for them, kills himself to be reunited with them.
• Dual Wielding:
  • Kahlan typically fights using two daggers, which she's quite skilled at.
  • Cara has been seen wielding two Agiels.

E - M

• Early-Bird Cameo: Though the seasons have been based roughly on the first and second books, they've used characters and plot points from much later in the series.
  • Jennsen and the Priestess of Caska.
  • Triana is first seen in the season 1 finale-as a skeleton. Cara identifies her in the Bad Future.
• Egocentrically Religious: Discussed when a woman who may or may not be the Creator incarnated as a woman warmly compliments Kahlan for not acting like this, saying she'd always prayed only for her mother or sister's wellbeing and not her own.
• Emotions vs. Stoicism:
  • The emotional half of Kahlan vs the rational half of Kahlan in "Torn", with both displaying negative extremes.
  • Cara versus Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd.
• Empathic Healer: Zedd's healing is similar to the books, though here he takes part of not only the patient's pain, but also the disease itself. In "Fever" this becomes a grave problem, as he has to heal himself as well periodically, plus recovering his strength.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Defied. Darken Rahl tries to talk Richard into one when he is killed, but Richard flat out refuses. However, Darken Rahl tries this strategy again in "Vengeance" and "Extinction" with quite a bit more success.
  • Played straight with Richard and Cara in the first season's finale.
• Enfant Terrible:
  • Nicholas Rahl who, among other things, has a playmate's finger cut off because he didn't want to play the same games as he did.
  • Taken to an extreme in the finale, when the little boy Richard is protecting turns out to be The Keeper.
• Epiphanic Prison: The Valley of Perdition, which makes people's worst fears come true. Any harm which comes to them in the dream will affect them as if it were real. Richard only breaks free when he realizes it's All Just a Dream.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first time we see Cara, she criticizes and subtly mocks Darken Rahl to his face for the failed efforts to stop Richard, saying he would have had him long ago if he'd sent her. Rahl tolerates this and seems to appreciate her spirits.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Throughout "Vengeance", Darken Rahl is trying to get Zedd and his brother to kill Panis Rahl. When he is killed by a Sister of the Dark and goes to the underworld, Darken...gives him a hug, and asks if he forgives him. We don't get to hear the answer, but Panis is clearly moved.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: A D'Haran captain in "Deception", who's used magical weapons of mass destruction to massacre entire villages and praises Richard's willingness (disguised as a D'Haran) to do the same, is shown bringing food from army supplies against regulations to his family, whom he obviously loves. He later thanks Richard for saving his family from some rebels who were about to mass-murder his village, though he still tries to kill Richard as it's his duty.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Rahl and the Mord-Sith are completely caught off guard by just how bad Nicholas Rahl is. Well, they didn't seem surprised at what he'd do, just the fact that he did it to them.
• Everyone Hates Hades: Not actually everyone (for some reason he has followers), though most people do loathe the Keeper of the Underworld and with good reason, as in contrast to most death gods he wants to destroy all living things permanently. In the meantime he visits misery on them when alive or under his control afterward.
• Evil Brit: The series seems to invoke this with having Darken Rahl speak in a high-class English accent (while of course he's not actually British, nor is his actor, the New Zealander Craig Parker).
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The D'Haran officer whose family Richard saves in "Deception" is mystified as to why he'd go out of his way saving the loyalist village where they live, which some extreme rebels were intent on destroying. Richard has to explain that his mission doesn't involve killing innocent people before letting him go.
• Evil Overlord: Darken Rahl is a brutal, sociopathic conqueror intent on world domination, who it even turns out is a servant of the Keeper, the god which wants to destroy all life. He rules the D'Haran Empire and is also the main antagonist in the first season.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Panis Rahl, though he was much better than in the books.
• Evil Power Vacuum: After Darken Rahl is killed, D'Haran officers start fighting over the throne since he had no heir. General Trimack comes and reveals Richard is the true heir, but he doesn't take the role, not wanting to follow Darken's path (unlike in the books). This is not resolved until Darken comes Back from the Dead and takes up his throne again.
• Evil Sorcerer: Darken Rahl, the Big Bad of the first season who has some magical abilities, not that we see many of those. The one we see several times is his ability to do an Offscreen Teleportation during sword battles to stab the opponent in the back. He also has many sorcerers serving him, including a Wizard of the First Order named Giller. The Bad Future season finale also features Nicholas Rahl, the son of Darken Rahl and Kahlan Amnell, combining his parents' abilities to become an even worse tyrant than his father.
• Exact Words: Used whenever Darken Rahl or a D'Haran "give you what's coming to you" in regards to a bounty. Played with in Season 2 at Cara's trial.
  Elders: She [Cara] has shown no remorse. It is our will that she also die by Confession.
  (later)
  Kahlen: I have looked into this woman's eyes and I see now that she is truly remorseful.
  • Of course the rest of the town didn't see things the same way...
• Fake Better Alternate Timeline: Changing the past so that Cara never became a Mord-Sith (and thus wasn't there to lead the charge for Darken Rahl) leads to a timeline where Richard succeeded in using the Boxes of Orden without being corrupted by them, the Veil was never torn, and he and Kahlan are now married and ruling D'Hara together. Zedd, who is the only one to remember the original timeline, initially sees no reason to restore it since this one seems preferable to a world where the dead walk among the living and the end of all life seems imminent. However, the Keeper turns out to also know that time has changed, and to be able to make use of the situation to get even closer to victory than he was in the original timeline, forcing Zedd to restore it after all.
• Fake Memories: Used to frame people and fool Kahlan in "Confession."
• Familiar: The Keeper sends a spider to free Nicci from her Rada'Han in "Perdition." Nicci then uses a crow to retrieve some of Kahlan's hair in "Bound". In the same episode, Marissa sends a spider to kill Nicci.
• Fanservice Extra: In the first five minutes of the pilot, we have Dennee's heaving bosom. The fanservice by minor characters continues throughout the series with sexy backs and shirtless scenes all around, while the Mord Sith provide the most-gorgeous women in very tight red leather bodysuits.
• Fantasy Contraception: Zedd claims to have used "magical protection" while having sex with a woman in the past, so he couldn't be the father of her son. When pressed though, he admits to not having used it every time. The woman also had sex with another man around the same time. Kahlan eventually concludes he isn't the father after all.
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • Characters in Season 2 that die are shown/implied to enter the underworld, which is described as waking up in "a pit of unimaginable suffering".
  • Though it may depend on the person, being a baneling and having to kill others every day to stay alive. As time runs out, a baneling's body begins to rot and feels a gnawing hunger before death. Before dying, a baneling said she found going to the Keeper's domain preferable to continue what she had become.
• Final Solution: Nearly all Confessors have been hunted down and murdered by Darken Rahl's soldiers when the series starts. Kahlan and her sister Dennee are ultimately the only ones who escape.
• Fire Keeps It Dead: In season 2 the team starts having to burn the corpses of their foes as a matter of course because it keeps them from coming back as banelings, and keeps existing banelings from being resurrected. Zedd's Wizard's Fire gets a lot of use out of this.
• Flash Step: Darken Rahl demonstrates this ability at least twice. He disappears and then reappears right behind his enemy (Richard in "Deception", and three Sisters of the Dark in "Unbroken".) He then proceeds to kick some serious ass on both occasions.
• Forced Transformation:
  • In his arrogant younger form, Zedd turns a lovely young prostitute's customer into a mouse so he can have her for himself.
  • In a benevolent case, while disguising himself as "Grannak the Great" to get in league with the D'haran Dragon Corps, Zedd finds among the party a bound and chained D'haran traitor named Masslar, who is being delivered to Lord Rahl after his secret thoughts of him being slain by the Seeker had been hear by Renn the Listener. Zedd even uses Masslar to get in closer with the Corps, by setting him free, then using his magic to recapture him, causing Masslar to hate him all the more. However the commander becomes annoyed with Masslar and his constant odes towards the Seeker, and arranges for him to be executed on the spot. Zedd, knowing he cannot allow an ally of Richard's cause to die, let alone a good man who turned against D'hara after seeing their cruel and bloodthirsty ways against innocents, uses his magic to turn Masslar into a raven before he is beheaded by the axe. Later Masslar in raven form finds Zedd who turns him back into man, and thanks Zedd for saving his life, and vows to join in the Resistance's fight against Darken Rahl.
• Foreshadowing: The prophecy that Kahlan will betray Richard is mentioned early in the first season. It may refer to events in the final episode but the prophecy is actually a reference to the fourth novel, Temple of the Winds, which sadly the show never got to...
• Forgot About His Powers: Zedd, as lampshaded by Flynn, who says them seem inconsistent. There are many times when turning invisible or just burning an enemy would be very useful, but he doesn't.
• Fountain of Youth: Zedd is turned into a young man by Shota in "Wizard", so that he can do her bidding. It doesn't work out as intended, when it all goes to his head. Both Zedd and Shota can make anyone, including themselves, young, which means that they could live forever if they wished. Shota appears to make use of this power, as she's implied to be Zedd's age at least, while Zedd does not. She's shown to be very old when her magic is lost in "Reckoning".
• Frame-Up: The plot of the episode "Confession", after Kahlan finds a man she had confessed to killing resistance members somehow was not really guilty. Richard, along with another woman, also suffer this before it's over.
• Freudian Excuse: All of the Mord-Sith were kidnapped as girls, tortured until psychologically broken, and forced to kill their fathers as part of the training they underwent.
• Funny Background Event:
  • In "Mirror", as a Mord-Sith goes to inspect a fake "Zedd" tied to a tree in the foreground the real Zedd looses a blast of Wizard's Fire that throws back nearby D'Haran soldiers dozens of feet away.
  • In "Wizard", if you listen carefully when Richard and the others are discussing how to turn Zedd back to normal, you can hear Zedd making a hilariously pompous speech in the background.
• Gambit Pileup: The season 2 finale has just about every named villain's plans colliding, with nearly disastrous results.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: In Season 2, Cara joins the group. She is the second woman, with Kahlan. On the male side there is Richard and Zedd. Even when Richard is temporarily away, they add another man who is the new Seeker.
• Gender Flip: In the books, everyone refers to the Creator as "he". Here, it's the opposite, and her (apparent) human avatar is a woman.
• Geometric Magic: Kieran, an ancient Seeker who's possessing Richard, draws a Grace spell which will bring his lost lover's spirit back and possess Kahlan, so they can live together again.
• God: The Creator is the benevolent being who made humanity, and eventually (probably) is born a mortal woman to guide things against her evil counterpart, the Keeper of the Underworld, which is similar to Jesus in Christian belief.
• God in Human Form:
  • In Season 2, a woman shows up and claims to be the Creator reborn in a mortal body. Later in the episode, it is revealed that she got her powers from all of the Sisters of the Light transferring their Han to her. She then disappears at the end of the episode, and it is intentionally left ambiguous as to if she was an incarnation of the actual Creator, though she knows things which are inexplicable otherwise.
  • In the Season 2 finale, the Keeper enters the mortal realm in the body of a boy.
• Godiva Hair: Salindra in "Wizard" when she's gone into the underworld has her long hair falling down over her breasts.
• God of the Dead: The Keeper of the Underworld doesn't just rule over death, he created it (as the Creator originally made humans immortal). Unlike in some examples, he's unambiguously evil.
• God of Evil: The Keeper of the Underworld, who caused all death, suffering and darkness, in contrast to the Creator. He did this to spite her when the Creator lavished so much on human beings.
• God of Good: The Creator, who has made all life and light. Unlike in the books, this deity is portrayed as female.
• Good Costume Switch: Borderline example with Cara. She still wears the Mord-Sith's trademark red leather, but early in Season 2 she modifies the outfit, removing the chestpiece and showing some cleavage. Though this may be a "practical" Good Costume Switch-Cara isn't really allowed to torture people, and her secondary weapon is seduction, so it does make life easier when she shows off a bit. (Not to mention that red leather is not the most comfortable of outfits.) The other Mord-Sith also cut off her braid, so from then on she sports short hair. Also discussed during the aforementioned chestpiece removal when her sister offers a more normal dress. "I think this suits me better," is her response.
• Grand Theft Me:
  • In "Revenant", all three of the spirits take possession of people, Kahlan and Richard included.
  • In "Resurrection", Dennee is brought back and possesses the body of a recently deceased woman, and then later in the same episode, the same thing happens with Richard and a D'Haran commander.
  • In "Princess", Nicci possesses the body of another Sister of the Dark.
  • Then, in "Walter", Darken Rahl steals the body of the title character, while Walter survives in the body of a D'Haran warrior. Interestingly enough, each is also an example of Back from the Dead.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Darken Rahl acts as the Big Bad of the first season. After his defeat, it's revealed that all this time he has been serving the Keeper, who now takes a more active role in the world. Rahl becomes the Keeper's Dragon in Season 2, although he plots to escape the Underworld and manages to do so with Richard's help.
• Green-Eyed Monster: The woman who claims she is the Creator during the episode of the same name says the Keeper was originally her lover at the beginning of time, but grew jealous of the love she bestowed on humans (including making them immortal) so much that he introduced death out of spite and now wants to wipe out the rest too.
• Hairpin Lockpick: Used by Lily in "Bounty". On a D'Haran dungeon door no less.
• Hannibal Lecture: Cara, while tied up, tells Richard that they both know he doesn't have the stomach to kill her.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Just as it seems that Zedd has talked Denna into changing her ways and setting him free, she is shot in the back with an arrow by Cara and falls off a cliff.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: The Confessors' magic can make an evil person become good if commanded so by the Confessor that touched them.
• Heel–Face Turn: Cara-Heel–Face Revolving Door before settling on Good.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • James the artist manages to paint everyone out of his enchanted painting before it burns, dying in doing so.
  • Leo diving in front of Nicci's lightning to save Kahlan.
  • Richard finally meets his biological father Panis Rahl. Unfortunately, Panis and Zedd don't get along, since Panis killed Zedd's father long ago (to be fair, though, Zedd's father had been trying to kill Panis's infant son Darken) and then used a disguise to seduce and impregnate Zedd's daughter, producing Richard. Near the end of the episode, the group is attacked by Sister of the Dark, and one of them hurls her Dacra (a large shuriken) at Zedd, whose back is turned. Panis calmly takes a step, interposing himself, and receives a fatal wound. He's able to make amends with Zedd and Richard before expiring.
  • Kahlan lets herself fall when she's left hanging from Richard after she slips when going up a cliff, so he can take the Stone of Tears off to stop the Keeper in "Eternity". Luckily it turns out to be just a magical illusion and she's fine.
• Heroic Suicide:
  • The Calabrans killed themselves rather than reveal their great secret- where their three Boxes of Orden were.
  • Amfortas persuaded the Confessor Viviane to kill herself so Kieran, her Seeker and lover whom she Confessed by having sex with him, would be freed so he could continue his mission in the backstory of "Revenant". This completely backfired, however, as Kieran then went off the deep end and started killing innocent people in a rage over her death. Amfortas had to kill him in the end.
  • The king in "Cursed" tried to kill himself many different ways so the beast he turns into wouldn't attack his people anymore, but it doesn't work since he's immune to ordinary harm.
  • Richard planned to do this after he used the power of Orden in "Fever" to make Rahl give up the cure for a plague, so that using it wouldn't turn him into a Knight Templar. Thankfully he didn't have to though, since Jennsen showed up with the cure instead. She'd tried to do this herself earlier with a poisonous stone after hiding the cure, to prevent herself being taken captive and forced to tell them its location. However, it was knocked from her grasp and the D'Harans beat her severely enough to temporarily cause memory loss, so Darken Rahl almost managed to trick her into delivering it.
  • Thaddicus throws himself on Cara's knife as she's become a baneling (and has to kill every day) so they'll have time to find shadow water, the cure, in "Hunger".
  • An example of a villainous inversion in "Princess". Sister Portia, a Sister of the Dark, willingly gives her own life in a ritual in order to bring Nicci Back from the Dead. For the rest of the show, Nicci is using Portia's body as her own.
  • In "Desecrated" Cara tries to kill herself so Kahlan will have more time when they are trapped in a tomb with the air running out. Kahlan stops her though.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Zedd in the first season finale, when he tries to use wizard's fire against a Mord-Sith, who simply deflects it back at him, killing the old man. Richard hits the Reset Button thankfully.
• Hot Witch: Shota who is noted as using her magic to keep her youth and good looks intact. She is finally shown as an old woman in a Bad Future episode, as the episode's Big Bad has put a Rada'Han around her neck.
• I Am Not Your Father: After Ren asks how his father could sell him to the D'Harans, this is the response he gets. It seems he only married Ren's mother (though were not told why-perhaps he was promised a high dowry as a bribe to cover up her extramarital pregnancy).
• I Am Spartacus: In the episode "Brennidon" multiple women claim to be the Seeker's mother after the D'Harans demand she reveal herself.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All of the episode titles are one word.
• Idiot Ball: Darken Rahl trying to seduce Nicci in Tears. He didn't know about her past, but still, it was pretty hamfisted.
• I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: Though not used directly, it's somewhat lampshaded by Lily in "Bounty".
  Lily: The D'Harans don't need to send an army. All they need is a few tears and an ample bosom.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: After drinking a potion that renders him immune to Kahlan's Confessor touch, Rahl takes advantage to admire her beauty and strokes her hair and brings up how she and Richard can never have sex, all in front of Richard. Then there's the alternate future where he marries Kahlan to have a Confessor son.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Richard at one point uses the Sword of Truth to parry arrows out of the air. It gets even worse when he gets a case of Temporary Blindness in the last episode. He still fights as well as he does normally, killing enemies and parrying thrown daggers. Magic of the sword, apparently... Possibly a Call-Back to a season 1 episode in which Richard learns to fight things he can't see.
• Improvised Weapon: When the Sisters of the Dark blow Zedd and Richard's cover in "Princess", a fight naturally breaks out. Richard grabs a knife from the table, while Zedd starts hurling plates at the Sisters.
• Incompatible Orientation: Clayre (disguised as Kahlan) tries to seduce a D'Haran guard to escape, but he's actually attracted to Frytss (disguised as Richard) instead in "Mirror".
• Infinite Supplies: No matter how many Sisters of the Dark are killed, there are always more that show up out-of-nowhere. It must be why they always wear red.
• Internal Reveal: Richard doesn't learn why he can't be with Kahlan (it might cause the release of her power during passion, Confessing him) until long after the audience does (aside from book readers of course, who already know).
• Involuntary Shapeshifter: The king in "Cursed" turns into a monster by night to stop the D'Harans invading. He can't stop it, even killing his wife unknowingly. After he dies, his daughter receives the curse.
• Kick the Dog: Rahl and his men do it several times an episode.
  • After he finds out that Richard has all three Boxes of Orden, Rahl responds to this bad news by killing a kitten with his bare hands.
  • Late in season two, he draws Cara into a trap by lying to her that the son she bore him years ago is in danger. Cara takes his betrayal philosophically, because at least it means her child is safe... and then Rahl casually informs her that he had their son killed the same day he was born, so that he wouldn't pose a threat to Rahl's not-even-conceived-yet rightful heir. If we didn't know before that that Rahl was a complete and utter bastard...
• Kill It with Fire:
  • Zedd loves torching things with Wizard's Fire, though he does have other tricks. Especially starting in season 2.
  • This is the only way to truly kill a baneling, torching its body so it can't rise from the dead yet again. You could also freeze it and then break it (which is how Zedd kills another undead creature).
• Knight Templar:
  • Richard quickly goes down this route when he first uses the magic of Orden, but snaps out of it.
  • Also note: Darken Rahl, a little more so than he was in the books, and the cold-hearted Kahlan created by the amulet.
• Landmine Goes Click: One unfortunate Sister of the Dark finds this out in "Bound" and has just about enough time to realize it before she goes boom. Richard explains a moment later that these types of mines only go off when you step off them, which is what saves Nicci from the same fate. This also holds for some Real Life land mines, but as the trope page mentions, these are a minority.
• La Résistance: There's an ongoing underground resistance in the Midlands, though a few are shown to go a little overboard in their fight against Rahl.
• Last of His Kind:
  • Kahlan, eventually. At least, until Dennee is brought back from the dead.
  • Zedd is the last wizard of the First Order alive. Kahlan killed Rahl's wizard in a fit of "blood rage", and Rahl killed another one years ago.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Touched upon. When Cara died, Darken Rahl said that time could not be built up to live week to week. The clock reset with every kill.
• Lighter and Softer: Compared to the book, which got pretty damn dark. Best examplified in the first episode after the pilot, where Richard decides that he will help even those who have done nothing to deserve it, in the hopes that that will inspire them to follow his example - a hope that seems to be born out in the episode's final scene. Compare this to the novels, where one central theme is that people need to be worthy of a hero's efforts before he commits himself to helping them. ^note It's not quite as passive-aggressive as it sounds, mind you - the idea is at least partly that saving people who won't even try to pull their own weight, or worse actively fight against being rescued, is simply unrealistically difficult even for a hero, so he should focus his efforts where they might actually do some good. That's still a pretty dark and cynical way to look at heroism, though, and the show takes a far more traditional and idealistic one.
• Light Is Not Good:
  • In Season 2 Denna changes her leathers and Agiel from the usual Mord Sith red to white. But she's still evil.
  • Nicci tries to invoke this against the Sisters of the Light, in order to trick Richard into giving up his powers to her.
  • Nicci is blonde after coming Back from the Dead.
  • Panis Rahl... sort of. He is nowhere near as evil or sadistic as his son, Darken. Panis may have been corrupt, but not to an extent that is unusual of a stereotypical king. Also, he seems to be genuinely looking for redemption when he finds Richard. He gets it.
• Literally Shattered Lives: How the Screeling is killed in "Marked".
• Literal Split Personality: Kahlan in "Torn" gets split into two bodies, representing her "heart" (i.e., love for Richard) and her "head" (i.e., her powers and duty as a confessor).
• Living Lie Detector: Kahlan is trained to detect lies from studying people's faces and tones of voice, even without her Confession power. Mord-Sith give her trouble though, due to their own training.
• Logical Weakness: Casting spells requires making hand gestures and sometimes incantations. Thus wizards have their hands tied and/or are gagged to prevent this.
• Long-Lost Relative: Richard learns he has a half-sister he never knew about, Jennsen.
• Love Makes You Evil:
  • Kieran, a previous Seeker, went mad with grief and started killing innocent people after his wizard had persuaded his Confessor lover Viviane to kill herself so he would be freed from Confession to her (which happened when the pair had sex), forcing his wizard to kill him with his own sword and trap his spirit in his remains as he threatened to wreak havoc in the afterlife unless he was reunited with Viviane. Worse, he possessed Richard's body and got Viviane's spirit to possess Kahlan's, obviously not caring what either of them thought.
  • The Keeper was originally the Creator's lover at the beginning of time, but he grew jealous over the gifts that she gave their children, human beings, including immortality. So he made all of them mortal and introduced suffering to spite her.
• Love Potion: One of the potions in the episode "Elixir" appears to have this effect, since it makes a girl immediately kiss a boy who takes it. However, she recovers quickly and slaps him.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Rahl tells Richard he is his brother, though at first it's unclear whether he's telling the truth. And before that revelation, Richard learns Zedd is his grandfather. Confirmed at the start of season 2 by a former servant of Panis Rahl and Darken Rahl's ghost. Also confirmed by the fact that Cara's Mord-Sith powers fail when Richard dies and return when he is resurrected (Mord-Sith only have their powers as long as a Rahl is alive). Panis Rahl in his disguised form later reveals he is Richard's father as well.
• Mac Guffin Superperson: Renn is a little boy with telepathy, called a Listener. He's been sold to multiple people for use of his abilities, before Richard finally rescues him, who sends Renn off into a refuge for children with magical gifts like him where they can have safe and relatively normal lives. He later helps Richard however when called on with his gift.
• Mage Killer: The Mord'Sith, who have the ability to turn magic against whoever wields it.
• The Magic Goes Away: Not magic as a force, but the practice of magic seems to be on the wane. Zedd is the last wizard of the First Order, and it's stated that there aren't even many wizards of the Second Order left. Most magic-users we meet in the series are dabblers who either have weak powers or impressive but strictly defined capabilities.
• Magicians Are Wizards: In "Desecrated" the gang watched some stage magic in a village. Then it's revealed the stage magician knows some real magic too. He uses this to seek revenge on others.
• Magic Knight:
  • Jeziah, a former student of Zedd's, who turns out to be the enemy in "Elixir", turns himself invisible and fights Richard with a sword.
  • Zedd becomes this after becoming young again and naming himself the Seeker in "Wizard".
  • Darken Rahl may also qualify, as he possesses magical powers and is an experienced sword fighter. He used both to defeat Richard during their first encounter.
  • Nicci, who is a capable combatant as well as the most powerful sorceress in the series.
  • The Mord-Sith, who are elite women warriors, have magical powers, including the ability to resurrect recently dead people.
• Magic Map: One episode had a mapmaker selling maps to bounty hunters that revealed Richard's location as a glowing point of light.
• The Maker: The Creator, of course, who made all living things.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right / Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Manages to be both at the same time. The first part of the Season Two finale takes place in what is, by all appearances, a much, much better world than the "real" one. As a result of the Spell of Undoing, Cara was never a Mord-Sith (and thus lived the peaceful life of a schoolteacher with two small children), and thus didn't arrive in time to interrupt Richard when he put together the Boxes of Orden. As a result, the veil of the underworld was never torn, Orden and Confession tempered each other, Richard was marrying Kahlan, and Darken Rahl was now his trusted friend, brother, and adviser. Zedd, having Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory, is the only one who remembers how things were "supposed" to be... but comes to accept, at first, that this might be better. It's only once the Keeper, who also has Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory, throws things out of whack that he decides to hit the Reset Button again.
• Male Gaze: Many shots of women linger on their breasts, helped by them wearing low-cut dresses.
• Marshmallow Hell: Richard gets this from the Margrave's (rather large) sister in "Princess".
• The Master: The male confessor son of Darken Rahl in the final episode of season 1 was referred to as The Master.
  • This seems to be a side effect of confessor powers, as female confessors are usually referred to as "Mistress" by those they've confessed.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's unclear if Maya really was the Creator's human incarnation or not, though Kahlan believes that she is.
• The Medic: Bizarrely enough, Cara, the Mord-Sith, whose Breath of Life has saved at least one plot-important extra from death.
• Medieval Stasis: In "Revenant", a seeker, Confessor and wizard a thousand years earlier have the same kinds of clothes, with apparently no change in the intervening time.
• Mega Manning: Nicci, to great effect. So far, she has stolen Richard's Han, Sister Ulicia's Han, Sister Merissa's Han, Kahlan's Confession powers, and the Han of well over a hundred other magic users, due to killing and stealing the powers of several Han-buffed Sisters of the Dark.
• Memory Gambit: The episode "Confession" centers around one, in which a spy of the Big Bad kills a bunch of rebels and uses a magical orb to plant false memories of the murders into the minds of others, including Richard. This was mostly done to fool the suspects into falsely admitting their guilt during Confession. One ended up being hanged for a murder.
• Mercy Kill: Nicci claims her desire to destroy the world stems from this, comparing it to putting down a horse with a broken leg.
• Miscarriage of Justice: In "Confession", fake memories are used to frame a man for murder into confessing to Kahlan, and he gets hanged for it. Another miscarriage is averted later when Richard and Kahlan figure out who really did it.
• Missing Mom:
  • Darken Rahl's mother never appears, though his father mentioned "the queen" one time in a flashback. It isn't clear if she died prior to the events of the series.
  • Erylin, Taralyn's mother (Richard's grandmother) is mentioned, but what became of her isn't.
• Mr. Fanservice: Richard. His first scene has him chopping wood, while sweaty and shirtless.
• Ms. Fanservice: Kahlan is the usual source of this, dressed in a cleavage-revealing bodice and appearing nude twice (from the back or the shoulders up). Cara later gets in on the act as well.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Over the course of Season 2, a couple characters express regret that they hadn't killed Darken Rahl, or allowed him to be killed, when he was a child. One of these people happens to be Zedd, who in the books has a brief inner monologue on the subject, before realizing he couldn't have wished for the death of a child, even one who would grow up to be Darken Rahl. Much the same feelings are expressed in the show.
• Mutual Kill:
  • In the season 2 finale, Kahlen goes into Con Dar and instantly confesses four Mord-Sith. She then orders them to kill each other. They do so by touching each other's heart with the agiel simultaneously.
  • It also happens in Richard's nightmare in the Valley of Perdition with Kahlan and Cara. And earlier in the first season when he uses the power of Orden.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: A D'Haran who plans to kill Darken Rahl appears in the episode "Listener", while multiple ones with the same plan, disgusted by his horrifying magical experiments on innocent people, show up in "Conversion." They join with Richard et al. in attempting to kill him.
• My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: In "Listener", a young mind-reader rescued by Richard and Kahlan informs them both that yes, their to-date undiscussed feelings for each other are mutual, which opens an important can of worms.
• Mythology Gag
  • The first time you see Jennsen is her tending to her goat, and in the second season Richard develops a beard, like he wore during the second book.
  • In the first part of the season 2 finale, Sister Marianna is naked when she hears the voice of the Keeper in her dreams and rises to serve him. In the books, the Sisters of the Dark were always naked when they sat in the circle to speak with the Keeper in their dreams.

N - Z

• Naked People Are Funny: Like in the book, Zedd is introduced stark naked.
• Named by the Adaptation: Richard's mother is never once named in the original books (they oddly seem to go out of their way so she's unnamed). Here, she's given the name Taralyn.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Darken Rahl is a baddy? No shit.
• Near-Rape Experience: Kahlan almost has sex with Richard when he's been Confessed and commanded to be with her. She changes her mind at the last minute though, realizing that it's wrong.
• Never Split the Party: Meta version, by way of Pragmatic Adaptation-in the books, while Richard and Kahlan were nearly inseparable after the second book, they often went two or three books without seeing Zedd, who was off doing other plot-important things elsewhere, and it was rare to have all the main protagonists in one place for an extended period of time. In the TV series, though, they're never separated for more than a two-parter episode at a time.
• Never Suicide: Sister Brenna is said by the Prelate to have killed herself in "Dark." However, Richard soon discovers it was really murder. Additionally, a Resistance member had apparently killed himself as related in "Confession", but no one believes this, and it's soon revealed to have actually been murder.
• New Super Power:
  • When entering Con Dar (the blood rage), Kahlan gains the ability to Confess anyone she wants without even touching them, and with no need to recharge. When applied to Mord-Sith, they no longer die within minutes but remain loyal slaves.
  • Nicci also gains a host of new powers after absorbing Richard's Han.
  • Subverted in that neither needed to learn how to use these.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • After realizing what his oldest son would become, Panis made sure to fulfill his part in the prophecy to stop him. Problem is, after doing so, he gloated to Darken about everything. Darken responded by killing him.
  • The wizard Amfortas from the backstory. His meddling to try to prevent the Seeker Kieran from being Confessed resulted in exactly that happening, followed by the Confessor dying and Kieran going into a frenzy of violence against innocents and forcing Amfortas to kill him, meaning that the Seeker failed his quest because of Amfortas' meddling. Then he trapped Kieran's spirit in his corpse, resulting in the possessions of Richard and Kahlan. He even planned to trap Richard in the tomb to prevent Kieran from escaping, nearly handing victory to Darken Rahl.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Herod: As soon as he learns of the prophecy, Rahl orders every first-born son in the town where the Seeker is to be born killed. Turns out he missed one...
• Of Corsets Sexy: Kahlan, the Mord-Sith and a fair number of female characters all wear corsets which make them look more sexy with their breasts pushed up. It's mocked by Zedd however in his brief magical disguise as a woman in "Mirror" (though he could have been referring to her having large breasts).
  Zedd: How anyone gets around with these... things on is entirely beyond me.
• Offing the Offspring:
  • As in the books, the Confessors kill male confessors at birth out of fear of them growing to abuse their powers. In the first season, Richard successfully convinces the Confessors to spare the life of a newborn male confessor. We don't get to see how he would turn out, as he's killed offscreen to keep him from the Mord-Sith. Then the season finale shows us a full-grown male confessor, and despite his parents' best efforts, he's just as bad as they'd feared.
  • After luring Cara into a trap with a threat to her (and his) son, Darken Rahl reveals that he had been killed at birth, just as she originally thought.
• Offstage Villainy: Cara's misdeeds (killing Dennee and participating in the slaughter of the other Confessors) happened entirely offscreen. Accepting her Heel–Face Turn would've been much more difficult if we'd seen these actions.
• Oh, Crap!: When Kahlan goes through the Con Dar (aka Blood Rage) for the first time, everyone has this look on their faces. Even Richard is scared.
• Once a Season: Like the books, both seasons featured different Wizard's Rules. The pilot had Zedd briefly quoting the Wizard's First Rule⁺ People will believe a lie if they want it to be true, or if they're afraid it might be true, and the second season opener has him quoting the second⁺ Sometimes you do the most harm by trying to do the most good.
• One-Hit Kill: The dacras can kill instantly with magic if they hit someone (at least when this isn't a main character).
• Only One Afterlife: Like in The Salvation War, everyone who dies goes to a Fire and Brimstone Hell. However, Darken Rahl implies at one point that it's only because the veil has been torn that everyone who dies goes there — in the normal course of things, only bad people go there, while good people go on to some unspecified but presumably much nicer place to "bask in the Creator's light forever".^note In the books it's explained that the underworld has levels of a sort, with the righteous becoming "good spirits" that dwell on the top near the light, while the wicked plunge down into the depths where they're tormented by the Keeper forever.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Craig Horner (Richard) and Tabrett Bethell (Cara) occasionally let their Australian Accents slip. Many New Zealander actors don't even bother to hide it.
• Outliving One's Offspring:
  • Zedd has to watch helplessly as his daughter Teralyn is killed.
  • Cara learns, to no surprise on her part, that her son by Darken Rahl was killed after birth at his orders.
• Out-of-Clothes Experience: People who die consistently wake up naked in the underworld.
• Patricide: Mord-Sith are forced to kill their fathers as the final part of the training they undergo.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage:
  • An odd non-marriage variant. Annabelle was afraid that Flynn would stop liking her after he was no longer Confessed, but he ended up liking her anyway. It probably helps that he seemed interested in the first place.
  • A first season episode featured one with an actual marriage.
• Perfect Pacifist People: One episode has the heroes happen upon a village of these, who are being raided by a local warlord. However, when Richard attempts to train a few volunteers on how to fight, they go into a coma-like state. Zedd discovers that any attempt to cause violence is blocked by a spell cast long ago by a powerful wizard. When Richard convinces him to lift the spell (despite Zedd's objections), they very quickly realize why the spell was there. The trained villagers develop a magically-fueled bloodlust resulting in a slaughter of a garrison of soldiers of the warlord, with Richard (who has succumbed to the same bloodlust), leading the assault. After the situation is resolved peacefully, Zedd explains that, long ago, an evil sorcerer bound a group of people to his will, giving them a bloodlust like no other. For their own good, a wizard put a spell on the people and their descendants that required them to abstain from violence. Oh, and that evil sorcerer is Richard's ancestor (a Rahl), which is why the berserk villagers were following him.
• The Power of Love:
  • In the season 2 finale it manages to keep Richard from being Confessed by Kahlan, make Kahlan snap out of the Con Dar, and makes a completely new stone of tears. The first bit is a nod to the end of the first book, and was in fact foreshadowed by Richard himself in "Eternity".
  • And in the episode featuring Kieran, Viviane and Amfortas (a previous Seeker, Confessor and Wizard), Kieran's rage can simply be explained as the result of grief at her death being magnified by the Sword of Truth, his own love protecting him from Viviane. Unfortunately, he just wasn't able to focus in battle like Richard can.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: In the book series, the Sword of Truth instantly slices through anything its wielder wants it to, including other swords. But sword fights are cooler on TV, so this ability isn't brought up.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Anyone confessed can be ordered to off themselves. While this normally doesn't happen (though we see Kahlan order one murderer to do this), a variant happens in the first season, where Richard, with the power of Orden, orders four Mord-Sith to kill each other. They do so in unison. Richard also orders some D'Haran soldiers to do this with the same means.
• Psycho Lesbian: The series has one in Dahlia, Cara's ex-girlfriend who betrays her, kidnaps her and tortures her into becoming one of the screwed up family again. When she kisses Cara (who is chained up, bruised and bleeding) and Cara head butts her, she does not respond to the rejection well, though fortunately all we get is her statement/threat that her previous torturer was 'being too gentle.'
• Punch-Clock Villain:
  • A surprising amount of D'Haran soldiers fall into this. At least one has raised a loving family in the Midlands. They are conscripts, after all...
  • Two D'Haran officers plan to kill Rahl, but are accidentally foiled by Richard and Kahlan.
• Race Lift: Chase was played by a Samoan, while in the books he's white so far as can be seen. General Trimack is black here. Commander-General Trimack doesn't get much of a physical description, but in the books Darken Rahl only allowed pureblooded D'Harans into his elite Praetorian Guard-the First File which Trimack commands-and in positions of high rank. Purebloods are almost universally blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan phenotypes. There are now other people of color as minor characters (such as Chase's family, some villagers, a Mord'Sith) too, while in the books this wasn't so.
• Rape and Revenge: Nicci killed her rapist in revenge.
• Rape as Backstory: Nicci reveals that she had been raped by a criminal. Instead of helping, the Prelate had told her to forgive him. When she tried, he raped her again. She then was visited by the Keeper in a dream, offering her revenge if Nicci joined him. She did, and became a Sister of the Dark, killing him in revenge with subtractive magic from the Keeper.
• Red Shirt:
  • The Sisters of the Dark. Every time they show up, Richard and company end up slaying at least a half dozen of them, and that they actually wear red dresses makes it even worse. This is particularly egregious considering that in the books, the Sisters of the Dark were some of the most powerful, intelligent, and dangerous of the Keeper's servants, and even one was considered to be a critical threat.
  • D'Haran soldiers.
  • Anyone who Kahlan Confesses has a 90% chance of being dead by the end of the episode.
• Refuge in Audacity: How Cara wins over the Margrave in "Princess".
• Regal Ringlets: Princess Violet sports this hairstyle.
• Related Differently in the Adaptation:
  • In the books, Darken Rahl turns out to be Richard's father. Here, they're revealed to be half-brothers, giving them a Cain and Abel dynamic.
  • This in turn results in Panis Rahl being Richard's father, rather than his grandfather. Panis is also the father of Jennsen Rahl, making her Darken's sister, whereas in the books Darken is her father.
• Reset Button: Zedd tries an in-universe version in the form of the Spell of Undoing after Cara is brainwashed into turning against them. Naturally, it all goes wrong...until he tries it again at the beginning of the next episode.
• Restraining Bolt: The Rada'Han, which prevents a magic user from using their powers.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: In "Deception", a rebel group proves itself quite ruthless, killing an unarmed D'Haran prisoner of war who's been Confessed by Kahlan already simply to vent their rage when one of their own is killed, and then attempt to use the same magical weapons of mass destruction the D'Harans had used on their people against D'Haran loyalists.
• Rhymes on a Dime: All women are expected to do this in the presence of the Margrave. Cara has trouble with it at first, then spontaneously composes a whole poem about torturing and killing a slave. The Margrave's sister impressively manages one while complaining to him between sobs.
• Rule of Cool: Much like the other New Zealand-based fantasies of that time period, armor is apparently not required for main characters to go head first into mobs of enemies every week.
• Secret Test of Character: In "Mirror" a man tests his lover while magically disguised as another, happily seeing she doesn't cave to threats or seduction attempts from someone else.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: "The Seeker will deliver the Stone of Tears into the hands of the Keeper." Well, yeah, but only because just about everyone opposed to the Keeper interfered with Richard's quest.
• Sex Slave: The mates of the Confessors, who desire only to serve them.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: All of the sex scenes get this treatment.
  • Zedd has sex with a woman offscreen after they have some intimate conversation.
  • In "Torn" both halves of Kahlan have sex offscreen with different men at the same time, after some foreplay.
• Sexy Surfacing Shot: In "Marked", we get a shot of Cara emerging out of the water in her pool-sized bath. When Triana interrupts her bath and challenges her for command of the Mord-Sith Cara slowly steps out of her bath then backhands Triana, throws her into the bath and almost drowns her, all while completely naked (covered by filming from the shoulders up and back.
• Shapeshifting Seducer: Panis Rahl, who took the form of a young shepherd to seduce the mother of Richard and Jennsen.
• Shirtless Scene: Richard ends up shirtless with almost alarming frequency in the first season.
• Shoot the Messenger: A monk trying to deliver a message to Kahlan meets Nicci at the wrong time and hears something he really shouldn't. Being Nicci, she decides not to take the risk of him telling anyone else.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: In the first season, Richard saves a male Confessor baby (it is believed that all the male Confessors are Always Chaotic Evil, and as such they are killed at birth), hoping that the baby can grow into a decent person. But we never learn whether his belief is right: in the second season the child is killed off-screen along with all the other Confessors.
• Skinny Dipping: In "Mirror," a thief (disguised as Kahlan via a magical mirror) convinces Richard to go skinny dipping with her in a lake so he gets distracted and doesn't notice while the other thief is stealing his Cool Sword. She has him completely hooked the moment her Dress Hits Floor.
• Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: The show has a good mix of genders, and no clear gender distinctions or roles. The only exception is Rothenburg, a strict patriarchy that tightly controls women with the "Law of Right and Good". Naturally, they're on the evil side.
• The Smurfette Principle: Kahlan is the lone woman of the trio in Season 1, along with Richard and Zedd.
• Solitary Sorceress:
  • When he's first introduced Zedd is living by himself outside the village, considered a crazy old man who's possibly a wizard.
  • The witch woman Shota lives alone in the woods, giving out advice to the heroes based on her visions of the future (whether they want it or not) and influencing events when she thinks they're doing things wrong.
• Sorcerous Overlord: Darken Rahl, an evil sorcerer who's ruler of the D'Haran Empire. Richard also becomes this briefly when possessed of the power of Orden in an alternate reality. With its magic he can make everyone obey his word. He quickly turns evil with its influence, ordering people to kill each other, before the Boxes are again separated, and this restores him to normal.
• Spared by the Adaptation: A partial example. While Darken Rahl dies at the end of the first season, just as he does in Wizard's First Rule he's then still a major character from the underworld as the Keeper's main servant. Then he's resurrected entirely into a lookalike body and starts life in the mortal world again during Season 2.
• Spotting the Thread: Richard realizes something is wrong when Darken Rahl, in the guise of his former flame Anna, says something she would not have known in "Home".
• Squishy Wizard: Zedd, though he still occasionally manages to knock an enemy out with a blunt weapon from behind in cases where he can't use his magic.
• The Starscream: Both Darken Rahl and Nicci (independently), during season two turn against the Keeper and try to stop him, after deciding they aren't cool with his end of the world plan.
• Start of Darkness: Nicci's turns out to be her rape by a criminal she was sent to counsel, only to be told she should forgive him by the Prelate, at which point he raped her again. She then gave herself to the Keeper in exchange for killing the man in revenge. It's hard not to sympathize with her turning on the Sisters of the Light once we learn this.
• Straw Misogynist: The Margrave of Rothenberg, who allows women almost no rights within his realm, allowing Kahlan to anviliciously lecture his wrongly imprisoned wife on fighting for herself in "Princess".
• Succession Crisis: After Darken Rahl's death at the end of the first season, his generals start fighting over his throne and the D'Haran Empire.
• Suicide is Shameful: The Sisters of the Light believe suicide is an offense to the Creator. Thus the Prelate claims she covered up a Sister's apparent suicide to save her reputation (it turns out that she was actually murdered).
• Suicidal Pacifism: The episode "Fury" has a warlord threaten a peaceful village whose people never fight, even if threatened with death or slavery. Some of the younger ones get tired of this, however, and Richard teaches them to fight. However, it turns out they are under a magic spell which enforces this, rendering them catatonic if they act violently toward anyone else. Zedd breaks it, but they end up going berserk when fighting along with Richard. It turns out that they are descended from warriors who served a Lord Rahl, one of his ancestors, tied to his will, and went off the deep end in the same way long ago. This spell was placed on them to stop it happening in the future.
• Superhuman Trafficking: Renn, a young boy, can read minds. He was sold by his own (apparent) father to a brutal queen, who used his ability to ferret out people who were plotting against her, then had them all beheaded, which haunts him. Then he was sold to the D'Harans for his ability. After being rescued though things look up as Renn is sent to a refuge for children with magical gifts.
• Sympathetic Magic:
  • Sebastian's magic maps in "Bounty" work this way-they can track an object using part of it, or if a person, an item belonging to them, ground up in the ink used to print it.
  • In "Bound", the maternity spell Nicci casts on Kahlan uses a strand of her hair, retrieved from her brush by a crow in Nicci's control.
• Synchronization: The maternity spell Nicci uses to hold Kahlan hostage makes them share every sensation, being called this as a link like a mother has with her baby in utero. She forces Kahlan to do whatever she wants this way, by hurting herself so the pain is shared. For instance, she tortures Kahlan by being beaten (at her wish) by a man.
• Taking the Bullet: Leo, for Kahlan, when he jumps in front of a lightning bolt .
• Telepathy: Renn, a young boy, has an ability to read people's minds. In the series' world he's called a "Listener" because of this.
• Teleporter Accident: One made two Kahlans in "Torn".
• Tell Me About My Father: Richard asks his sister to tell him in "Bloodline," but unfortunately she knows nothing because their mother refused to discuss it-not even whether they have the same one. His father is later revealed to be Panis Rahl. It's then inverted and gender flipped in the same episode when he laments he never got the chance to talk to his mother, and it ends with Zedd saying, "Then let me tell you about her."
• Temporary Blindness: Nicci blinds Richard with shards of broken glass in the season two finale, which doesn't stop him from fighting the Sisters of the Dark and blocking their dagger throws with his sword. Fortunately, Zedd is there to heal him.
• Tempting Fate: Happens in "Torn". Actually, it happens a lot. [Especially since so many of them can instantly recognize the Seeker, the Mother Confessor, the Wizard of the First Order, and a Mord-Sith.
  Richard: Let them go!
  Mook: Or what?
  (Richard knocks him out in a single punch)
• There Is Another:
  • A meta-version, and a semi-straight version. In the books, Kahlan is the last of the Confessors; here, there's still a handful left. Semi-straight version in that we see Dennee apparently get killed in the pilot, only for it to turn out she's still alive halfway through the first season.
  • The handful of surviving Confessors get killed off screen over the course of the next season, leaving Kahlan to indeed be the last of her kind... At least until Dennee comes Back from the Dead. She's a hard woman to keep down, Dennee.
  • In "Touched", the Night Wisps find another Confessor. She's unaware of her power, having been kept by her father in a tower all her life, since he was her mother's sex slave and fears being Confessed again. When she's freed and meets the party, she ends up accidentally Confessing Finn, then Richard deliberately after they try to abscond together. Finally, they have to remove her magic with a quillion, leaving Kahlan as the last Confessor again.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The Sword of Truth gets used as a projectile quite often. Knives are thrown with perfect accuracy at least once an episode.
• Token Evil Teammate: Cara in Season 2; the "evil" bit is eroded away, though, over the course of the series.
• Token Minority: Chase is portrayed by a Samoan actor, with many other minor male characters on the show played by Maori actors.
• Too Dumb to Live: Many, but one of the most notable is in "Cursed", at the battle in the throne room after the D'Haran invasion. Sounds of fighting can be heard from the throne room for a good 15 seconds before the D'Haran soldiers arrive yet the two guards at the door are standing with their backs to the door and with their weapons not drawn. Unsurprisingly, they are cut down within seconds when the D'Harans come in.
• Toppled Statue: At the start of Season 2, after Darken Rahl's death, people in the Midlands can be seen taking down his statute to great fanfare.
• Tracking Spell: In "Bounty" Sebastian the mapmaker creates a map which serves as one by getting Richard's pendant from a bounty hunter after him when it's lost. He grinds it up and mixes this with the ink used for making the map. When it's made in a magical machine afterward, Richard's shown on the map as a glowing gold dot, since an item the target had is connected to them somehow.
• The Trains Run on Time: After Darken Rahl is defeated at the end of the first season, his empire and armies start falling apart. A couple characters point out that while Rahl was a tyrant, at least he kept things orderly. Of course, a lot of the chaos is caused by D'Haran soldiers becoming bandits and then preying on the citizenry in the social breakdown.
• Tranquil Fury: Richard in "Bloodline", after Denna kills his mother and Richard gets the power of Orden.
• The Trickster: When he's not blasting things with fireballs, Zedd displays quite a bit of cunning; see "Puppeteer" for him at his best.
• Truth Serum: This is the purpose of the Confessor's touch. It causes the person touched to feel love toward the Confessor so overwhelmingly that they will tell them anything which they did, or do anything else asked. Thus, it's used to insure a person accused of capital crimes is really guilty, gaining true confessions.
• Tsundere: Cara, whose tsun side generally involves threatening to torture people to death, and whose dere side involves threatening to torture people to death less vocally. Defrosting as of season 2. Hell, near the end of season 2, she has a 10-minute-long walk where she talks to a wisp (that we can't hear, conveniently) and pretty much goes through every Tsundere dialogue trope around. Well, that's just VERY rapid character development. This trope shows more through Mord'Sith's different methods of torture (i.e. pain vs. pleasure), which isn't limited to Cara alone.
• Turn Out Like His Father: Richard accidentally time travels to a Bad Future. The flashbacks reveal that, after Richard's apparent death in his own time, Darken Rahl forced Kahlan to become his consort. She agreed, having found out from a witch that Richard is in the future and hoping that being Rahl's consort will allow her to survive long enough to provide Richard the necessary information in order to go back and change things. She ends up getting pregnant with a son and begs Rahl to allow her to kill him in accordance with Confessor custom, as male Confessors always turn out to be abusers of their abilities. Rahl refuses, excited at having a male heir, figuring that he ought to be able to mold a Confessor/sorcerer to his own ends. However, Nicholas Rahl turns out to be exactly like Rahl himself, killing his parents (just like Darken killed his father Panis) and becoming an even worse tyrant than his father, using his Confessor powers to force his people to adore him and attack anyone who doesn't. Fortunately, Richard is able to go back to the moment he left and stop it from happening.
• Twofer Token Minority: We see a single black Mord'Sith (the all-female Torture Technician order serving Rahl), and one played by mixed race actress Katrina Law, the rest being white (in the books, they all were). Some other minor female characters are played by Maori women.
• The Un-Favourite: The series gives Zedd a younger brother, Thaddicus, like this. It's mostly because he can't do magic, unlike Zedd, as their father was also a great wizard. Their mother doted on Zedd too though-Thaddicus is resentful of the fact that while on her deathbed, it's Zedd she kept asking to see, even though he was caring for her at the time. He spitefully claims to have given away their most treasured possession in revenge, however Thaddicus relents after Zedd tells him how important it is. Slowly their relationship improves over the course of the series.
• Unstoppable Rage:
  • Kahlan's Con Dar (the blood rage), accidentally activated by an evil wizard. Kahlan gets a mini one in "Extinction" where after a group of D'Haran soldiers ruthlessly burned down the Night Wisps' forest there are several long pans over her going wild on them with an uncharacteristic brutality.
  • Richard and the Minders after Zedd removes their binding spell.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Cara, as well as Nicholas Rahl. Nicci also claims to Richard that this is true of her as well.
• Vain Sorceress: Shota is revealed to eventually be much older than her appearance suggests, having used magic to keep herself youthful-looking and beautiful. After he comes back from temporarily being made into a youthful version of himself, Zedd admits that he could do the same, but doesn't since being a youth once was enough for him.
• Villain Teleportation: Darken Rahl teleports by passing from one of his fortresses to another through green fires. It may also explain his flash step.
• Villainous Breakdown: Rahl goes through a few of them when he realizes Zedd tricked him so thoroughly and later finds out that Richard has all three Boxes and the means to use them. It's generally not a good idea to be in the immediate area when he gets bad news.
• Virtual-Reality Interrogation: "Home" is driven by this. Darken Rahl has his pet wizard trap Richard in a dream about his home. Inside the dream, Rahl takes on several different characters to try and convince Richard that the goings-on of the series so far were All Just a Dream to learn the location of one of the Boxes of Orden from him. Ultimately, The Power of Love combined with Rahl pushing too hard breaks the spell at the last moment.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: It turns out that both Shota and Zedd can make their bodies young again. Only Shota is vain enough to do this all the time. Zedd only does when he's bewitched by her. When her magic is taken, she's revealed to be old like him.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Rare is the episode that doesn't feature a shirtless Craig Horner at some point.
• Walking the Earth: One of the last of its kind after the great Reality TV invasions of the aughts.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • The Mother Confessor Serena, who Confesses Zedd and nearly kills Richard in her determined efforts to kill Dennee's Confessor son.
  • The Prelate in Season 2, who leaves Richard to die in the Valley of Perdition, almost kills Zedd, and tries to trap Kahlan in the Palace of the Prophets, all because of her interpretation of prophecy.
  • The wizard Amfortas in the past, whose attempts to stop Kieran from being Confessed ended up causing exactly what he was trying to prevent.
• Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?:
  • Cara is usually the one to ask this, and almost gleefully volunteers to pull the trigger, so to speak. She's usually talked out of it by Richard, though. Kahlan also advocates this as a solution occasionally, and again, Richard usually comes up with something that'll work without killing.
  • Averted in "Resurrection". Someone has their soul put into Richard's body while his soul is in the Underworld. They need to bring Richard's body back to town to revert the spell and the simplest solution would be to kill "Richard" and carry his body back. So Kahlan stabs him.
• Women Are Wiser: All male Confessors have always been killed as infants since on growing older they will prove too bloodthirsty for restraining themselves from wanton use of their power. The one baby boy who's spared is killed anyway, and so we never learn if he would be an exception.
• Workplace-Acquired Abilities: Richard's experience as a woodsman comes in handy on a number of occasions, such as being able to track which horse Annabelle and Flynn took because the tracks were deeper. Exploited in one episode where this is used against him, when a murderer framed a man by leaving seeds from a particular area beside the body of a murder victim, knowing Richard would recognize them and implicate the man that lived near where they were found.
• World of Action Girls: Kahlan, Nicci, Cara, the Confessors, Sisters of the Dark/Light and Mord Sith are all very skilled women warriors, frequently displaying their skills. These are most of the female characters, and they outnumber the guys in the main cast.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Cara the Mord'Sith... and probably all Mord'Sith for that matter, by their conditioning.
• Would Hurt a Child: Darken Rahl, unsurprisingly. Not only ordering every baby boy in a village massacred, but he also promises to have Princess Violet be Made a Slave as punishment for her mother's failure. He ordered his own son with Cara killed at birth as a potential threat (in the books he wanted a gifted child as his heir, and killed his children because they were ungifted).
• Write Back to the Future: Kahlan's failed plan to get a message to Richard in the future in the first season finale.
• Xanatos Gambit: Richard delivers a surprisingly simple one in the first season finale. He has the assembled Boxes of Orden while in the alternate Bad Future, but does not activate them. The Boxes would give him almost unlimited power and authority, but would not let him return to his proper time. For that, he needs a Confessor's power while activating them. So he sends Nicholas Rahl, a male Confessor, an ultimatum to appear before him using the threat of the Boxes as bait. If he doesn't show up, Richard activates the Boxes. If anybody else besides Rahl shows up, he activates the Boxes. If he so much as sniffs any sign of a trap, he activates the Boxes. The only chance Rahl has of stopping him is by using his Confessor power on Richard, and the only chance he has of using his power on Richard is to show up face to face. There is a chance that Richard will have to use the Boxes and lose nothing but the chance to get home, but there is no chance Nicholas Rahl gets to walk away with his mind-raping empire intact.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Much as Richard goes on about not believing in prophecy, every single one of them comes true. Well, for a given value of true...
  • Here is the list of the prophecies that came true: Richard killed Rahl; Richard delivered the Stone of Tears to the Keeper; Kahlan's heart never stopped beating, so the Keeper lost; Leo was named Seeker; Darken Rahl became a tyrant.
  • One prophecy did not come true, however. Shota stated that Richard would fail in his quest. He didn't. Well, there seems to be a difference between the prophecies that the Sisters get from the Creator, and the ones Shota gets. We don't always see what Shota sees, so we mainly have her interpretation of things to go by.
    • Richard's quest is to stop Rahl. And Richard doesn't stop Rahl. Did Richard succeed in his quest? By the technicality, Rahl stopped himself.
    • Shota also prophesied that Kahlan would betray Richard. The closest we get to a fulfillment of that one is Kahlan's tentative, and never confirmed, guess that her leaving Richard for an episode (which she did to keep the prophesy from coming true) was the "betrayal" in question. This betrayal is actually a reference to events in the fourth novel, ''Temple of the Winds''.
    • It was proven a couple of times that, although the prophecies that the Creator gives to the Sisters of the Light can't be averted, Shota's visions can. Hell, the first episode we're introduced to Shota is all about her trying to avert her own vision (and it does end up being averted completely).
    • It is explicitly said in this episode that Shota's visions show "possible" futures.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Averted, surprisingly enough, in the first season. While Rahl gets one or more of the Boxes despite the heroes' best efforts in the beginning of the plot, they eventually succeed in stealing all three Boxes and use them before Rahl can. After that, things go downhill for Rahl-though he certainly puts up one hell of a fight right up to the bitter end.
• You Have Failed Me:
  • Rahl has a bad habit of executing and/or torturing those in his employ who screw up. Even people who do help Rahl are also double crossed, presumably so that they don't have to pay them a bounty.
  • The Keeper also does this, even to Darken Rahl himself!

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