Wizard 2

Chapter 2
Richard decides to help the woman in the dress (who wears a dress when hiking though the woods?). He catches up with her, and we get this description:
“Her brown hair was full, lush and long, complimenting the contours of her body. She was tall, almost as tall as he, and about the same age. The dress she wore was like none he had ever seen: almost white, cut square at the neck, interrupted only by a small, tan leather waist pouch. The weave of the fabric was fine and smooth, almost glistening, and bore none of the lace or frills he was used to seeing, no prints or colors to distract from the way it caressed her form. The dress was elegant in its simplicity. She halted, and long graceful folds regally trailing her gathered about her legs.”
What an amazing...dress. Seriously, we get two sentences describing this woman (who will prove to be a major character), and four describing her dress. Her simple, off-white dress. \~/
Meanwhile, we have no idea what Richard himself is wearing. He could be buck-naked for all we know.
And who the hell wears a WHITE DRESS for wilderness travel? That thing should be so stained with grass and mud it looks like camouflage, especially if it's long enough to “regally trail...her.” Burrs and grass stains and mud and brambles.
It's a wedding gown. This woman is wearing a wedding gown. A Teflon wedding gown. \~/
Finally, what do we know about the woman herself? She has long brown hair; she's tall; she's about Richard's age (which we were never told...he could be twelve or he could be fifty, but I'm guessing he's around twenty). And...that's it. She wears a dress that “compliment[s] the contours of her body” and “caress[es] her form.”
Dammit Richard! Stop ogling the girl! Eyes are up here, buster! \~/
We find out that she has green eyes and “Her eyebrows had the graceful arch of a raptor's wings in flight,” which is just...odd. I'm seeing feathery eyebrows here.
And then, this: “Her green eyes came unafraid to his. The connection was so intense that it threatened to drain his sense of self. He felt that he had always known her, that she had always been a part of him, that her needs were his needs. She held him with her gaze as surely as a grip of iron would, searching his eyes as if searching his soul, seeking an answer to something.”
RUN RICHARD! SHE”S A MIND VAMPIRE!!
What the hell? She nearly destroys Richard's “sense of self” by looking at him? It's a very strange and disturbing image. The Good Guys don't usually threaten each other's sense of self, do they? Maybe she's a medusa. \~/
Until she gets an official name, I hereby dub her the Wedding Medusa.
Oh wait; we're not done.
“In her eyes he saw something that attracted him more than anything else. Intelligence. He saw it flaring there, burning in her, and through it all he felt an overriding sense of her integrity. Richard felt safe.”
People, the eyes are not literally the window to the soul. You cannot look in someone's eyes and determine their I.Q., or their morality. I cannot begin to describe how much easier life would be if everyone had little gauges in their eyes that measured smarts and honesty. \~/
Also, what's with the fire imagery? “Flaring,” “burning”...these sound odd when applied to eyes. Or qualities of a person's character perceived through their eyes.
Regardless, Richard offers to help the Wedding Medusa escape from the Four Mysterious Guys. They head down the side trail, Richard pantomiming the way. Really. He notices that the Wedding Medusa wears “good boots of soft leather, the kind of boots worn by one used to traveling.” They go great with her wedding gown. 9_9
Richard and Wedding Medusa keep going. Richard hides their trail. They're safe (yeah, right). They're heading along a cliff trail when OH NOES! The evil barbershop quartet has caught up with them! Using their Voorhees Unreality Engine, apparently.
Richard is a native of this area. He's spent most of his life in the woods. He's a “woods guide.” He was specifically hiding their trail These four men (we'll find out) come from a hell of a long way off, yet SOMEHOW they manage to not only follow Richard and the Medusa, but split up and get two of their party ahead of Our Heroes. On a narrow cliff trail. How?
Offscreen teleportation. \~/
The bad guys are like, Give us the girl. Richard's like, No. They're like, Okay, we'll kill you both.
Richard has no weapon. He didn't bother to pick up a club or a stick or anything, because he's an idiot. \~/ So he executes a rather...unusual maneuver.
“As [the bad guy] came crashing forward, Richard fell back against the wall and with both feet hit the man square in the chest as hard as he could. It knocked him clear of the path, into midair.”
Richard hits the guy in the chest with both feet. Is he levitating? Grabbing onto a convenient tree? Sitting on a barstool? Doing a handstand? Normally you need at least one foot to stand on, so he must be supporting himself in some other way. \~/
Anyway, SOMETHING happens, and one of the men attacking the Wedding Medusa kills the other one. Then he grabs the last guy and throws them both off the cliff.
Mind vampire. Told you.
Richard gets a last name. It's Cypher. Which is like cipher, but with a Y. I actually kind of like that as a name.
Wedding Medusa gets a name. Yay! It's Kahlan Amnell, which is...odd. Or maybe not so odd, given that one of the people Terry Goodkind refers to in the Acknowledgments is Rachel Khalandt. It's not an author-insert, but it's an author's friend-insert. What do you call that?
It's not necessarily bad, but it's kind of weird.
Kahlan gives Richard a smile (again with the “giving smiles!”) “It was an odd sort of smile, a special smile, not showing any teeth, but with her lips pressed together, as one would when taking another into one's confidence. Here eyes sparkled with it. It was a smile of sharing.”
First, that sentence is suffering from bloat and overdose of commas.
Second, tight-lipped smiles aren't usually referred to as “smiles of sharing.” They usually seem to indicate fake happiness, a character forcing themselves to smile when they don't feel like it. Thus, this description rings false. We're told she's “sharing,” but the image described doesn't match that concept.
OH WAIT! I'll bet she doesn't want Richard to see her vampire fangs. It all makes sense now. \~/
Richard and Kahlan decide to be friends. Kahlan has Secrets. Richard tells her she doesn't have to share, he'll still be her friend. Kahlan's never had a real friend before. I'm thinking she's a Poor Little Noble Girl on the run.
The four men after Kahlan were called a quad, which is like “squad” but means “four.” So it's kind of silly. Couldn't the Evil Overlord (these guys so work for an Evil Overlord) come up with a better name for his teams of assassins?
We learn that the quad tracked Kahlan out of the Midlands and through the boundary. This makes Richard angry, because no one can cross the boundary. Also, the Midlands is a land of MAJEEK!
Drinks: 8
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