Anonymous asked you:Hi there! I’ve just finished watching all the episodes of Legend of the Seeker, and I saw it listed on your “Shows” page. It’s always great to read your character analyses, so: thoughts on Cara Mason’s arc? :D
Hello! I love Cara’s arc. It’s this lovely slow-burn development that you don’t realize is happening until suddenly you realize that Cara’s making choices differently at the end of the season than at the beginning. That’s what’s so great. In 2x04, Kahlan needs Cara to torture her with her agiel so that it looks like she’s been taken captive, and Cara is all too willing to oblige. We only get a “this is going to hurt” as any measure of care or hesitation, and then Kahlan swiftly gets an agiel to the face. Fast-forward to the finale, and Cara can’t go through with shooting Kahlan long-range with an arrow even when she knows full well she can revive her with the breath of life. She not only hesitates, but she completely falters and opts not to do it. If that choice weren’t enough of a marker on how much this character has evolved, we also hear her voice why she hesitated: what if she couldn’t revive her? This is Cara actively choosing non-violence, on account of self-doubt, and TALKING ABOUT IT. It’s a huge change.
That’s what’s great about Cara’s arc - she is the odd man out in that awfully self-righteous group of Zedd, Richard, and Kahlan. And so she’s constantly being put in situations where she’s out of her depth, or being forced to do something she wouldn’t normally. It’s built-in development! We get gems like “Princess,” or “Extinction,” where Cara has to save the night wisps for Kahlan. Cara is pushed into these situations, she continues to demonstrate her loyalty to Richard & Co. and she becomes a character who has changed her ways a little bit because she cares about her friends. Not that she’d ever tell them, though. Which of course means that this setup is also ripe for comedy, because Cara has to get in a fancy dress and be coquettishly charming and traipse through the forest talking to a fairy as a favor for half an episode. She may hate it, in which case she bitches and moans hilariously, and if she doesn’t hate it, her not hating it and trying to hide it is hilarious in and of itself. It’s so great.
The capper on all of this is the construct at the end of Season 2, which canonically highlights the fact that Cara Mason is an extremely important fixture in this show’s story. Of course, this conceit comes on the heels of the introduction of Dahlia, which serves to highlight Cara’s capacity for feelings and loyalty beyond what we’ve seen with Richard & Co. Then Cara gets tortured for half an episode, and breaks, which I find a heartbreakingly interesting decision. Obviously, it goes against arc. We’d all love to see Cara withstand the torture and bust out of her chains and keep her loyalty. But at the same time, I think it’s a realistic turn of events considering Cara’s history as a Mord-Sith and the amount of sheer torture she’s being subjected to. It’s a bold choice by the writers, to paint themselves into that corner and create a moment of failure for the anti-hero. Of course, how they get out of it is a sort of “Ctrl+Z” in fantasy world storytelling, but whatever. I appreciate that they went there, and made it so that Cara was no less likeable for crumbling under torture. In fact, she’s just kind of more sympathetic and heartwrenching.
Anyways, it’s much more rewarding to watch Cara’s journey through Season 2 than paying any attention to how long it takes those dummies to find the Stone of Tears. The basic existence of the Mord-Sith spices up the kinds of stories they can tell in this universe, and the fact that Cara got major development as a sort of Rogue Mord-Sith in exasperated cahoots with the Good Guys is fantastic. The show would be far worse without her.
• 27 February 2012 • 28 notes • Cara Mason Legend of the Seeker ask box this post is pregnant don't ask how or why it just is
