Legend of the Seeker Season 1 Finale: Reckoning
1.22: Reckoning
This is probably my favorite episode. It and Season 2's Princess vie for the top spot. What I want to talk about briefly, though, is the portrayal of Kahlan and Darken Rahl's relationship.
Richard has disappeared into the future, but Darken Rahl is convinced he has died. He captures Kahlan and asks her to be his Queen, strangely. It's like he said - were he to simply take what he wanted, she would already be in his bedchamber. He could have still gotten a child from her by raping her. And yet he did no such thing. He asked her to be his wife, and when she refused, he only tried to convince her. Then he had her thrown in a dungeon, but by Rahl's standards, that was like giving her candy.
Kahlan eventually agrees to be his Rahl's wife, if only to sire a child that will assist Richard 58 years in the future. And so Rahl and Kahlan are married, and Kahlan becomes pregnant. What strikes me is how Rahl goes to such lengths to show love for her - Darken Rahl, a man famed for his cruelty, sits by his wife's side, strokes her pregnant belly, and tells her how happy she has made him. Calls her "my love." Was this Rahl coming to care and respect a woman or was he simply out of character in this episode?
When she enlists Alice's help, Kahlan is convinced that Rahl is going to kill her after she gives birth. That, or she was using this as a ruse to convince Alice of how dire their situation was, but I don't know that Kahlan felt like Rahl would keep her around. At the very least she probably thought he would send her away or mistreat her. She certainly held no trust for him.
But after Kahlan gave birth, Rahl did not kill her. In fact, he treated her exactly the same way, left her with her comforts, and allowed her to be with her son for quite a while. When Kahlan was caught trying to murder Nikolas, Rahl's expression was not only that of anger, it was that of hurt. I imagine that, though Kahlan continued to despise him, Rahl himself may have come to trust Kahlan. In Season 1's "Reckoning," the second-to-last episode of the season, Rahl tells Jennsen to remember that Richard only "wants to be loved" when he is probably in fact referring to himself. Kahlan's presence by his side, whether voluntary or not, probably deluded him into thinking that she had come to care for their life together, just a little, and that made him happy. And when she refuted all that that by attempting to murder their child, Rahl was crushed.
Despite all this, he still offered her a merciful death. Anyone else would have been chained by their thumbs in a Mord-Sith infested dungeon, but for Kahlan, Rahl decreed a quick death. He claims it was because she was the mother of his child, but since when has Rahl ever been bound by such sentimental matters? No, he doesn't want to see Kahlan suffer, that's all.
Do I think Darken Rahl really fell in love with Kahlan? No. Not the way normal people fall in love, at least. Not the way Richard loved Kahlan. But I think that, in his own way, Rahl really did come to care for his wife, the mother of his child. I think he developed an attachment to her, got used to seeing her there, got used to her being in his bed. I think he was pleased with her (seeming) compliance and the fact that she gave him a son. I think Rahl had really come to believe that he had a family of his own that he could parade around with pride, and that they were there to stay. I think he had created a version of himself where he was a righteous, benevolent ruler and a loving husband and father happily living with his family and people. And I think that when Kahlan attempted to assassinate their son, the illusion was shattered, and so was Rahl.
So Kahlan is executed by her own son, who is very eager to get his hands bloody. Rahl stands over Kahlan's coffin, looking truly grieved. When he speaks, his voice cracks and sounds hoarse, as though he's been crying. This is what makes Series!Rahl so different from Book!Rahl - he's redeemable. He's actually hurt by the fact that he had to kill his wife for treason, while Book!Rahl would not have batted an eyelash. It's interesting how the directors go to such great lengths to distance this character from his book counterpart.
And then Rahl is also murdered by his son - indirectly. As he lay there beside Kahlan's coffin, bleeding out, his last thought was probably something along the lines of, "I should have listened to Kahlan."
Am I a Rahl/Kahlan shipper? Kind of. I think they had a very interesting dynamic and I wish it could have been explored more, although the directors played around with it quite nicely, especially with their portrayal of Rahl.