The antagonism between Kahlan and Cara over the past couple of episodes was building towards this story. Legend of the Seeker has now gone three for three this season — “Broken” gave us not only Cara’s history, but some awesome action scenes and Kahlan going into Con Dar!
Is Cara awesome or what? She can be pretty naive sometimes — or perhaps stupidly brave. I could not believe her guts when she told Kahlan that the Mord-Sith had killed Kahlan’s sister, Dennee. When the Mother Confessor goes into the Blood-Rage, forcing Richard to hold her down to keep her from tearing Cara apart, the Mord-Sith looks like she’s thinking, “What? Was it something I said?”
The show drew closer to Terry Goodkind’s books by finally making Kahlan the last of her kind. Also, this episode brought out a lot of the details about the Mord-Sith, such as the fact that the Mord-Sith chose the most tender-hearted girls to be trained. Or the fact that part of a Mord-Sith’s training involves killing her own father.
Cara’s a tough lady, but how sad is it that she has nowhere to go after Richard sends her away? I loved the scene in the inn where she takes on a whole bunch of guys twice her size, and leaves them on the floor, bloodied. But Cara’s steely exterior hides an inner conflict. Clearly, she wants to belong somewhere … why else would she return home? At the same time, she won’t show any sign of softness — she won’t even let her sister touch her face — nor will she show any regret or shame over being a Mord-Sith. So although the title of the episode may refer to her being broken by the Mord-Sith, I see it as really referring to her pride being broken in this episode, so that she is finally able to feel remorse for the things she’s done, particularly killing her father.
I never feared that Kahlan would confess Cara, but near the end of the episode, I was briefly worried that they might leave her behind (wouldn’t that just suck?). Thank God our Mord-Sith action hero is sticking around. I’m glad, however, that Kahlan tells Cara she will never forgive her for killing Dennee. I feel like Kahlan’s grief, which had to be intense, was not adequately addressed after the Con Dar scene.
Some thoughts and questions I have after viewing “Broken”:
Clacked by Ruby T.
on Nov 22, 2009 @ 13:00 EST5EDT
no, there was no school teacher/mord-sith in the book. in fact, it just explained the process of making a mord-sith, but never had a true back story for cara. not that i can remember anyway.
you are correct, kahlan can confess anybody close to her automatically when in the blood rage. they should really flesh out that a lil bit more.
what is with introducing characters from later books? first jensen & now the lil girl from caska with the raven? (forgot her name) she’s not supposed to be blind though.
sorry, but i’m really having a hard time separating the books from the show. normally i’m a lot better at it.
So the Confessor’s power is so deadly to a mord-sith because of the difference between power coming from love and hate.
I’m not sure if this is addressed in the books or not, but what would happen if a confessor confessed a mord-sith whilst in Con Dar, as that power comes from hate/vengenace, not love?
Like in this episode, when Kahlan went all dark on us, what would have happened if she were to confess Cara,would it be like a ‘normal’ confession?
yes that’s how the book explains what happens with a mord-sith being confessed, altho it’s supposed to be like an instant death.
Cara’s the “other” character (Spock, Seven of Nine, etc.) that doesn’t understand normal human emotion. She was confused because she just told Kahlan that she had given Dennee a painless death. Kahlan should have been happy at that news.
Kahlan confessed the two Mord-Sith last season without physical contact because they were nameless, low-level NPCs. Cara’s a named, high-level PC with an appropriately high saving throw, so she’s not going to be confessed at the beginning of an episode.