If some of my favorite books were made into TV shows, I'd probably go back and reread the books before watching them. In this case? Not so much. I did re-read the Sword of Truth series last year, as I'd not read the final, concluding book, and wanted to be done with the series. A quick summary of my thoughts:

1. Wizard's First Rule: Not bad at all! Neat world!
2. Stone of Tears: Wow, this is really violent. Okay. Neat world.
3. Blood of the Fold: What is with all the violence? The world's still kind of cool. Oh, wow! That villain from the first book is awesome now! Yay!
4. Temple of the Winds: Didn't we all think this was the coolest book ever when we first read it? Why was that again? Hello, violence against women. Wait, does every woman really get threatened with rape over the course of the series? Hmm. Okay, done now...
5. Soul of the Fire: In which we discover that Terry Goodkind doesn't like the Clintons. Also, yeah, I guess his female characters are just kinda doomed to sexual harassment and assault. ALL OF THEM. O_O
6. Faith of the Fallen: I *ow* already *OW* own *ow* a copy of *OW OW* Atlas Shrugged! I *ow* read it *ow* in college! *OW* You don't *ow* have to *ow* beat me over the *OW OW OW* head with it! OW! STOP THAT!
7. The Pillars of Creation: Who are these people and why do I care? ...ow. Hey, sneak attack from Atlas Shrugged. PUT THAT DOWN.
8. Naked Empire: In which it is explained to us why we have to go fight Iraq. Wait, were we still in the Sword of Truth series? Oh, we were? Really? Okay...
9. Chainfire: WHOA. Okay. Cool concept.
10. Phantom: I... think we just did this in the last book?
11. Confessor: JESUS CHRIST WOULD YOU STOP WITH THE RAPE THREATS AND RAPE SCENES ALREADY. NO, REALLY. I GET THE POINT. The point being "bad guys rape women" and, apparently, "really heroic women don't get raped, because the bad guys can't bear to assault their heroic virtue". I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. (When you can learn a thing or two about treating women like human beings from the Mike Harmon books by John Ringo...) Also, OMGWTFBBQpolarbear ending? Huh?

So in all fairness to the TV series, I'm approaching it with some curiosity and some pretty low expectations. Working from the source material, it can only be so good. That said, it's more a revisioning of the story than an actual word-for-word translation, and it's interesting seeing what gets changed.

The guy they've cast to play Richard is Craig Horner, a guy who's 25 and seriously doesn't look it. On one hand, I keep looking at him thinking, "Oh, he's way too young..." On the other hand, he's older than Richard is really supposed to be in the series right now. QQ! Apparently I'm the old one.

The actress cast as Kahlan (Bridget Regan) is awesome. She can act, she's lovely, and she kicks all manner of ass. \o/ I am very pleased -- now I just hope the series as a whole is good to her, because she really needs to continue that level of asskickery and takecareofmyselfitude in order to have me not throw things at the TV.

Jury's still out on Zedd. I'm predisposed to like both Chase (Jay Laga'aia) and the guy who plays Darken Rahl (Craig Parker), though it's throwing me for a loop that he's not blond. Parker looks just fine blond! Didn't you guys cast him because of Lord of the Rings?

As for the show itself, a quick, spoilery rundown:

We have the same basic plot the first book had. Kahlan comes through the boundary that separates the Midlands from Westland (er... Hartland?), and Richard stumbles across her as four D'Haran soldiers attack her. We see her use her power (though we don't know quite what it is yet), they take out three of the four soldiers, and the last one immediately goes to the governing authority of WestHartland in order to convince people that Kahlan is a witch and he needs to bring her back to D'Hara.

Along the way, we meet Chase (awesome guy of asskickingness) and Zedd (crazy old wizard guy who talks to his chickens). Magic is extremely flashy in this world, complete with big special effects and slow-motion. (Fights are also full of slow-motion stuff, which is really excellent when Kahlan's fighting with two weapons and her dress is all flowy and <3.)

After a lot of crap happens, Richard's father is killed, which convinces him to take the Sword of Truth and accept the name of Seeker, which makes him a Big Important Dude according to Kahlan and Zedd. Richard agrees to go help fight Darken Rahl.

We meet Adie, who is coming off looking like a Magical Negro so far (I was afraid of that, given her dialect in the book >_<). (To explain a bit further, the actress is part Maori, and her differences from the [white] major characters is being played up big-time.) This is rather frustrating, given that Adie has quite a long history in the books and does have an independent motivation for helping everybody, but such is TV casting. My frustration is primarily that they chose the single most "unlike the others" character for an actress of color, as opposed to Shota, say, or any of the Mord-Sith. Apart from the occasional sentence about hair color, Goodkind is quite sparing with his physical descriptions, so it's not even like they're breaking canon to cast actors of color in these parts, damn it. On the other hand, if they're remotely true to the books, Adie is a pretty big role, and Shota isn't... I don't know. I have no clear answer on what I'd have liked here. We're not supposed to get Adie's backstory until book two. :( On the balancing side, they chose Jay Laga'aia (also Maori!) for Chase, which is pretty awesome. There was a time that role would've just gone to a white actor, no questions asked. (On the other other hand, Chase has always been muscle over strategy, a follower rather than a leader. While I love Chase, I'm... a bit frustrated by that, too.)

Less awesome is Chase's daughter, who gets held at knifepoint and proceeds to go all hysterical on people. Okay, in the books? One of Chase's adopted daughters, after he adopts her, is capable enough to actively help rescue people, and carry and use weapons effectively. At about age 11. I am not seeing Chase as the kind of guy who would let any of his kids be that helpless and defenseless ever. I am cranky that the revisioning of Sword of Truth gave us a Chase whose family isn't as kickass as he is. *grumpy face*

Balancing that, though, I feel compelled to point out that AT NO TIME in this series so far has any woman been overtly threatened with rape! Indeed, although there have been cleavage shots galore and corsets out the wazoo, the women have not been treated like objects! And did I mention no women have been overtly threatened with rape, or even blatantly sexually harassed? This is WAY WAY WAY WAY WAAAAAY better than the books! I'm not sure how long it'll last -- my guess is by episode 4 we'll have seen it -- but so far so good.

All in all, I've got no reason to stop watching yet. We'll see how I feel in the long run!

Tags: fantasy, sword of truth, television