Temple 5

**Chapter 5**

Kahlan is ranting that she's going to kill Shota, and we get a brief infodump as to who she is. Cara suggests that it might be best if she, ah, made Nadine disappear, but Kahlan won't have it, saying that Nadine is just Shota's pawn.

Then Cara senses Richard's approach. Berdine appears and announces Richard, listing off a bunch of titles including *“commander of the gar nation.”* Okay, sure. Anyway, Richard makes an entrance, and what an entrance it is.

*“His black boots were all [Kahlan] recognized. The tops of the boots were wrapped with leather thongs pinned with silver emblems embossed with geometric designs, and covered new, black wool trousers. Over a black shirt was a black, open-sided tunic, decorated with symbols snaking along a wide gold band running all the way around its squared edges. A wide, multilayered leather belt bearing several more of the silver emblems and a gold-worked pouch to each side cinched the magnificent tunic at his waist. The ancient, tooled-leather baldric holding the gold and silver wrought scabbard for the Sword of Truth crossed over his right shoulder. At each wrist was a wide, leather-padded silver band bearing linked rings encompassing more of the strange symbols.. His broad shoulders bore a cape that appeared to be made of spun gold.*

*“He looked at once noble and sinister. Regal, and deadly. He looked like a commander of kings. And like a vision of what the prophecies had named him: the bringer of death.*

*"Kahlan would never have thought he could look more handsome than he always did. More commanding. More imposing. She was wrong."*

Oh, saints preserve us. Say hello, ladies and gentlemen, to Richard's war wizard outfit. That's it's actual name, and it is amazing. It's as if Goodkind heard my complaints about the lack of description for Richard and replied “You want description? I'll choke you with description!”

That . . . well, I suppose it's possible something like that could be made to look good, but it sounds like something a professional wrestler wears as he struts into the ring. Dramatic, yes; eye-catching, certainly. Dignified? Um, no, not so much.

Hereafter, we will be taking a drink whenever the war wizard's outfit is mentioned.

Also, those second and third paragraphs are a lovely bit of ego-stroking for Richard. Granted it's from Kahlan's perspective, but we're never given any reason to suspect it's not true, and as such, it feels like . . . how to say this delicately? Like Goodkind masturbating over his own author avatar.

Okay, that wasn't delicate at all. Whatever; it's still true, and I'm taking a couple of drinks for it. \~/\~/

Nadine emerges, interrupting this scene, and Richard looks at her. Kahlan observes his expression, a process that takes several paragraphs, and . . . well . . .

*“This wasn't a deadly rage that gripped his eyes, or a lethal commitment. This was somehow worse. The depth of disinterest in that empty smile, in his eyes, was frightening.”*

Okay, Richard is a sociopath. I mean, yes, we already knew this, but here's some more confirmation. Richard was abruptly torn away from his home, the town where he'd lived his entire life, and has been in strange lands surrounded by strange people ever since. He was tortured, raped, imprisoned, fought monsters, confessed his love for Kahlan, and went through all sorts of dramatic experiences. Now he meets someone from home – someone he seems to have been on good terms with – and his reaction isn't joy, or happiness, or fellowship, or even anger or sorrow: it's *disinterest.* Richard **does not care** about Nadine, about this connection to his former life. Here's someone he knew, someone he grew up with, who can tell him about his hometown and his old friends, and Richard just plain doesn't give a damn.

Sociopath. \~/

Nadine runs over and hugs Richard and starts rambling about how he and Zedd disappeared and people were worried and so forth, as well as how various people Richard knew are faring. She then tries to boss Richard around, ordering him to change out of that ridiculous outfit (no argument here, Nadine) and they'll go home and get married.

Richard wants to know where she got the idea that he was going to marry her, but Nadine is off and running again, like a pushy, henpecking wife in an old sitcom. She wants to know where Richard got a sword, deciding that they can sell it. This goes on for a bit, conveying the impression that Nadine may not be the sharpest pickle in the pickle barrel, if you know what I mean. That, or Goodkind cannot write women, so he resorts to tired stereotypes from the 1950s, but what are the odds of that?

Richard finally manages to hammer into Nadine's head that *he* is the Lord Rahl she's heard about, and he doesn't intend to return to some podunk town with some small-town girl. Before anything can be resolved, one of Richard's generals appears, a General Kerson. Kerson tells Richard that over half his army is out of action due to debilitating diarrhea.

Richard wonders what the big deal is, apparently not grasping that when *over a hundred thousand men* in one city are dealing with the runs, you just *might* have a health crisis on your hands. Being the polymath that he is, Richard of course knows exactly what to prescribe, and to my amazement it's not generic “herbs.” No, Richard recommends garlic and blueberries, as well as tea made from *“quench oak bark.”* A quick Google search suggests that blueberries are indeed good for the digestion, and garlic of course is an antiseptic, so it appears Goodkind actually did a shred of research here. Good for him.

However, since Kerson doesn't know what a “quench oak” looks like (and God forbid Richard delegate, or anyone else have a chance to be useful), Richard volunteers to lead a detachment of five hundred wagons, since as he says, *“I know where the trees are.”*

And the chapter ends.

Drinks: 3

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