Wizard 13

Chapter 13
Richard is standing watch. Everyone gets a turn at watch except Kahlan, presumably because she has tits and thus can't do important stuff. \~/ 
We learn that Zedd sleeps with his eyes open, which is a blatant rip-off of Gandalf. \~/ Then we learn that all wizards do that. Har har.
Richard and Kahlan share a Moment, where Richard asks if she has someone special waiting for her at home. She sidesteps the question and says she has Obligations. My theory is that mind vampires, like praying mantises, eat their mates. We shall see.
Zedd come up to Richard and they have a chat, which boils down to Zedd saying Don't fall in love with Kahlan and Richard saying, Too late. I mean, he's known her for a whole...what, three days now? Four or five, if you count the time he was unconscious from vine-bite.
More chatter about how you can't save everyone, a good soldier has to fight the enemy rather than stopping to help a fallen comrade, etc. It's not very interesting, but we do learn why all the red fruit in the Midlands is poisonous. It's because Penis Panis (snicker) Rahl once cast a poison spell, keyed to color, that made red fruit poisonous. He chose red because children like red fruit, and he's evil and likes to hurt children and stomp puppies and pop balloons and knock over birthday cakes. \~/ So there's that.
But now I'm wondering: are green apples still poisonous? If I peel a red apple, is it poisonous? What if I dye it blue? Or roast it so the skin turns black? What if I dye some other food red; does it become poisonous? Hey, what if it's one of those apples that's mostly yellow, but has a little blush of red on one spot; is that poisonous?
I'm giving way more thought to this than Mr. Goodkind did, aren't I?
So Richard asks if there's any way to reverse the spell, which is apparently “thinking like a wizard.” Zedd says there might be, but he'll have to wait for the sequel to find out. Then Richard asks Zedd (oddly addressing him as “wizard,” which seems kind of rude to me) to get rid of the snake cloud that's following him around like a big Fickle Finger of Fate.
Rahl has apparently placed a spell on the snake cloud, “hooking” it to Richard, and placed a second spell on it that repels other clouds to make it easy to find. Richard's solution to this is for Zedd to place a cloud-attracting spell on the snake cloud, which will draw other clouds in and hide the snake cloud. “If [Darken Rahl] does use stronger magic to move the clouds away to find this one, he won't know what you have done, and the stronger spell that pushes the clouds away will break the hook.”
I have a number of problems with this plan. First, why is Richard – who has lived his entire life without magic of any kind, and who up until a couple of days ago didn't even know Zedd was a wizard – suddenly the expert on spell interactions? Why not Zedd, the “great and honorable wizard?” Second, who's to say messing with the snake cloud won't alert Rahl? He cast at least two spells on it; it seems entirely possible than screwing around with those spells would draw his attention. Third, why would Rahl dispersing the surrounding clouds automatically break the hook that links the cloud to Richard? Richard isn't a cloud. If the “clouds-away” spell is cast ON THE SNAKE CLOUD, it shouldn't have any effect on said cloud being “hooked” to Richard, should it?
\~/
This is the problem when you try to write “thinking” fantasy. Heroes who mindlessly hack their way through the enemy and essentially kill whatever they're pointed at are easy to write. Heroes who use brainpower and outwit the enemy are harder, because the author must first create a reasonably intelligent problem, then create a way for the heroes to solve it. Done well, this is very satisfying; done poorly, it results in plot holes and illogic. Here, Goodkind is trying to demonstrate Richard's intelligence and “Seeker-ness” by having him solve a magical problem that is rightly the domain of Zedd. The problem is, Goodkind himself either didn't think the problem through logically enough, or he failed to clearly explain why Richard's idea is so great. Either way, the result isn't that I admire Richard more; it's that I admire Zedd less \~/ and Richard less as well.
So Zedd pulls out his cloud rock and re-embiggens it, and we learn that it's a “wizard's rock.” I get the feeling that whatever Zedd owns is a “wizard's [blank].” Wizard's chair. Wizard's codpiece. Wizard's shaving mirror.
Richard stands on the rock and gets high on magic sparkles. “His mind felt a buoyant, timeless connection to everything around him. He was one with the trees, the grass, the bugs, the birds, the animals all around, the water, the very air itself...” It goes on like this for a while before Zedd does the actual magic of enchanting the snake cloud. Richard comments that “now I know why you stand on this rock all the time,” to which Zedd “gleefully” replies, “Now just try to imagine doing it naked.”
O_O
Umm...yeah. The chapter ends with the old man putting his arm around the young man's shoulder and promising to let him climb onto his “wizard's rock” while naked.
There's no way to keep that from sounding bad. \~/
Drinks: 5
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