!DROPPED | application for exsilium | kahlan amnell

[confesses]

» PLAYER INFORMATION
Player NAME: Robyn
Current AGE: 26! Just had a birthday, haha.
Personal JOURNAL: protostar
IM & SERVICE: aim • limitsbreaking, oathbrand
Player PLURK: farrons
Current CHARACTERS: Kyouko Sakura; Puella Magi Madoka Magica | invocation



» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Kahlan Amnell
Canon & MEDIUM: Legend of the Seeker (TV series)
Canon PULL-POINT: The end of episode 2x19; Extinction.
Character AGE: Unspecified. However, I'd peg her around her mid to late twenties: between the ages of 25-27.
Character ABILITIES: ❝ My power is a part of who I am. ❞

♕ Human Lie Detector: Kahlan is one of the Confessors, an order of women who are able to "ascertain the truth beyond doubt." She is able to pick up on whether or not individuals are lying. She's not infalliable, but seems to have an uncanny ability to pick up on non-vocal cues and eye movements to figure this out, so in other words, she's exceptionally good at reading people. It's notable though, that if the person believes what they are saying beyond a doubt, even if it is a lie, she'll read it as them telling the truth. In addition, if a person has received special training to hide their emotions, Kahlan has difficulty reading them. Related to this, Kahlan possesses a powerful, magical ability referred to as Confessing.

♕ Confession: By touching an individual (she wraps her hands around their neck) and staring deeply into their eyes, Kahlan is able to do something of an override of their soul. The person loses their sense of self completely, they fall in love with her, and submit to her entirely. They cannot lie to her, disobey any of her orders or requests if they are Confessed, and remain this way until they die or she dies. The ability drains her, however, and she can not use it over and over again in a short span of time -- she needs to recover. As Kahlan is the Mother Confessor, she seems to be more powerful than the other Confessors seen throughout the series, and requires less recovery time by the point in her canon I'm taking her from. If her hands are bound in any way, it appears to block off the power. I'm not entirely sure if this means it doesn't work because her hands need to make contact with a person for her to use the ability, or if the power itself is concentrated through her hands. Either way, if she's restrained, she can't Confess anyone. Kahlan, being a moral and upright individual, would not go around confessing anyone and everyone to make an army of love slaves either -- this ability is only used when she deems it necessary, and she has stated and exhibited more than once that she dislikes the power and the fear and revulsion associated with it. Because Confessors' abilities reside in the realm of love, they are essentially the anti-Mord'Sith (who gain their abilities via hatred and anger.) This means that, if they were to confess a Mord'Sith, the ability would cause said Mord'Sith to die a painful and agonizing death shortly thereafter. It is considered a particularly brutal form of execution.

♕ Con Dar: Also related to her confession ability, Kahlan has the ability to invoke a Super Saiyan level of Confessor powers, referred to as the Blood Rage, or Con Dar. Con Dar can only be used by the most powerful of the Confessors, and is triggered when someone they love deeply is in grave danger. In the TV series, it seems to also happen to Kahlan during moments of extreme emotional duress. Kahlan cannot invoke the Con Dar by her own will alone. It can only happen when the person she loves is in danger, and said person is the only one who can snap her out of it.

While in the Con Dar, Kahlan pretty much becomes Dark Phoenix. She flies into a beserker rage, brutally kills the ever loving bejeesus out of anything she perceives as a threat, and can Confess people just by raising a hand in their general direction. She's much stronger physically while in the Con Dar, able to hold her own against groups of opponents with relative ease. When she Confesses individuals while under the Con Dar, she does not need time to recover, and can basically do it indefinitely, until either the person responsible for bringing it on has calmed her down, or until every threat in the immediate area is deader than dead. It's terrifying.

♕ Night Wisps: Confessors appear to share some sort of bond or arrangement with fairy-like creatures called Night Wisps. The Night Wisps are able to find certain (usually magic related) areas, and act as magical compassess. They only emerge from their hiding places when they are in the presence of people they trust, and Kahlan is shown singing a four-note tune to lure out Night Wisps from their hiding places in order to enlist their help. They speak an odd, humming language that Kahlan and the other Confessors appear to understand. Cara does later understand it, but it requires a certain amount of patience.

♕ Combat Abilities: Kahlan's no slouch in the ordinary combat department. She has some skill in hand-to-hand, but her usual weapon is a pair of throwing daggers, and she kicks an obscene amount of ass with them. Her aim is incredible. She's been shown using longswords (Richard's weapon, the Sword of Truth), as well as a bow and arrow, so I assume she has at least a passing familiarity with those forms of weaponry as well. However, she is most adept with the daggers. She's able to easily best trained D'haran soldiers, and along with Richard and Cara, has totally decimated entire squads of soldiers.

And she's not above improvisation -- she killed some dudes with a dinner plate once. The lady is not a pushover.

♕ Acting/Espionage Skills: This is not really a fighting ability, but Kahlan has gone undercover as the following: A Mord'Sith, a prostitute, and an angry, shrill soldier's wife, all with pretty high success rates. She'd be able to work well in a situation where characters had to do some undercover sleuthing.

Character HISTORY: ❝ Well, if you're going to need to rescue every damsel in distress, there's no time to waste. ❞

♕ wikipedia
♕ legend of the seeker wiki

The LotS wiki is kind of shoddily written though, so I'll outline it here.

Kahlan and her younger sister, Dennee, were born as a result of the union between their Confessor mother and their father, a former D'haran soldier. Their father was Confessed to their mother during a battle, and remained this way until their mother died when Kahlan was five and Dennee was three. Unconfessed, and appalled, angry and horrified at the path his life had taken during Confession, Kahlan's father took out his feelings on his two children. He forced them to Confess people for money and riches, and when they were not doing his bidding, he would bind their hands. It's revealed later on that he did indeed love the girls, but he was too afraid of their powers to express that openly. Eventually however, the two girls were rescued from their father by another Confessor, and they were both sent to Aydindril to train and hone their abilities as Confessors.

The first season of the TV series begins with Dennee and Kahlan undergoing a treacherous journey to pass a magical barrier that separates their part of the world, the Midlands, from Westland, and find the Seeker, a legendary hero who is meant to vanquish evil -- particularly that of a man known as Darken Rahl, a tyrannical ruler and powerful wizard. The women are pursued by D'haran soldiers, and Dennee appears to perish during the escape, but she passes on the Book of Counted Shadows to Kahlan and implores her to find the Seeker and give him the book on her own. She does indeed do so, so she and the Seeker, Richard Cypher (later Rahl) and one of the last wizards of the First Order, namer of the Seeker, Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander (called Zedd by Richard, Kahlan, and eventually Cara), go on a magical journey beyond the barrier to stop Darken Rahl. It's all very exciting and mystical and full of sidequests.

Kahlan starts off as a bonafide hardass, dismissing all other things, helpful sidequests or otherwise, as distractions that keep Richard from his quest, but eventually his shonen hero protagonism softens her some and they fall in love. Even with that, Kahlan may waver in her convictions to helping Richard along his journey, but she never really dismisses those convictions. She's angry and deeply disturbed in an episode where a fellow Confessor has Confessed an entire village, but when Richard is captured by the D'haran army and a Mord'Sith known as Denna, Kahlan is (reluctantly) willing to use those people in order to rescue Richard. Even with her pragmatism, Richard's idealism is able to sway her a few times. In an episode where her sister, Dennee, is revealed to be alive (and pregnant with a male child), Kahlan initially agrees with her fellow Confessors that the infant has to die, as a male Confessor inevitably gives in to his power and bloodlust and becomes an uncontrollable force. However, Richard, who sees the practice as barbaric, is able to convince Kahlan (and the other Confessors) to spare the child.

The first season ends with Kahlan, Richard and Zedd obtaining the Boxes of Orden, a set of magical artifacts which allow the user to mind control every person in the world. However, the power corrupts the user, turning them into something of a knight templar (as seen in a previous episode with Richard). The power is tempered by the touch of a Confessor, and so the three heroes concoct a plan. The moment Richard connects the three boxes, Kahlan confesses him, and her power is meant to meld with that of the boxes, preventing Richard from being Confessed and losing himself to the power of the Boxes of Orden, but allowing him to exert his mind control over others. The plan seems to work -- up to a point.

Darken Rahl and his Mord'Sith show up at exactly the wrong time, and a Mord'Sith named Cara attacks Richard with her magical Agiel (which is most accurately described as a torture baton). The power of all that powerful magic flying around everywhere pretty much sends everything to hell. Zedd is killed by the Mord'Sith, Richard and Cara disappear (into an alternate future timeline), and Kahlan is made Darken Rahl's prisoner. Wow this show is dumb, why am I even playing from it. Anyway! While Richard and Cara are traveling through time and space, Kahlan agrees to become Darken Rahl's wife and mother any children they have. She does this because she is sure Richard will return eventually, and plans to have the child help Richard in the event that she dies. However, the kid ends up being a male Confessor, which puts a wrench in that plan. The boy kills Kahlan and Rahl, and begins a reign of terror...which happens to be the time period Richard and Cara end up in, 57 years in the future. Richard and his surly friend reverse the events of the timeline by performing the same magic they used to begin with (Agiel + Boxes + Touch of a Confessor -- Kahlan's crazy son, in this instance) and return to the correct timeline. Rahl, in a fit of desperation, tries to split the boxes apart using Richard's sword, but that backfires and he dies. Rad!

But then Season 2, otherwise known as Sidequest 2: Sidequest Harder happens, and it seems that the journey of our intrepid heroes is not yet complete. See, when Darken Rahl attempted to break the Boxes of Orden with Richard's sword, a magical sword known as the Sword of Truth, it backfired on him, but it also opened up a bunch of cracks in the ground that led to the Underworld. Yeah, it's dumb, I'm sorry. The imbalance of the worlds begins causing a bunch of problems, mainly being the dead are rising everywhere, and the Keeper of the Underworld wants to plunge everything into chaos. Richard and Co. can avert this by finding a, you guessed it, magical artifact known as the Stone of Tears. HOWEVER, a prophecy later reveals that while the Confessor's pure heart still beats, the Keeper will never succeed in his quest. So a lot of the season revolves around sidequests and Kahlan nearly getting murdered all the time. The Mord'Sith, Cara, joins the party during this season, and she and Kahlan get off to a rocky start on account of Kahlan hating the Mord'Sith as a rule, and also because Cara killed her sister and all the other Confessors during a mission. Oops! But the two have a bunch of bonding experiences and Cara's really sad and awful past is revealed, so Kahlan eventually forgives her and over time they become friends. Dennee comes back to life anyway because this show is ridiculous, so yeah. It's all good.

Kahlan will be taken from episode 19 of Season 2, Extinction, where all but one of the Night Wisps is killed by Darken Rahl's armies, and she and Cara go on a friendship and tsundere filled adventure to take the last Night Wisp (which is conveniently with child) to some mystical fairy birthing grounds. This show.

Character PERSONALITY: ❝ Being a Confessor is about certainty, about knowing the truth. ❞

Kahlan's personality centers around balance. Picture a pair of scales weighted down with smooth, white pebbles. Each side has the same amount of pebbles, and so each side is guaranteed to remain equal. Her personal desires are (usually) kept on a short leash so that she is able to efficiently perform her duties without allowing emotion to completely cloud her judgement. On the other hand, her enormous capacity to love and forgive and her ability to emphathize with others, in turn, (again, usually) prevents her from acting out her duties at the expense of sacrificing her compassion and sense of ethics.

Speaking of ethics, Kahlan has...a lot of them. In her canon, she's the Mother Confessor, meaning that she's pretty much the moral standard by which all other individuals in the Midlands are meant to adhere to, and boy, does she ever take this seriously. She firmly believes that the Confessors have a duty to protect the people, to use their powers for the greater good, and she has been shown on several occasions to shirk her own personal desires in favor of this greater good. This is most evident in her intense love and dedication to Richard. She spends a long time resisting her feelings and attempting to ignore his own, to the point of trying to leave and return to Aydindril and hand over her task of protecting the Seeker to a fellow Confessor.

She loves Richard, but it's notable that her dedication for him to succeed in his quest of freeing the Midlands from suffering and pain overrides this love at times. She's willing to sacrifice anything -- even herself, to achieve this. In the Season 1 finale, she agrees to Darken Rahl's marriage terms and gives him a child despite the fact that she so utterly despises him, all because she knows that the terms will put an end to D'hara's war against Westland and the Midlands, granting the rebels and civilians some well-earned peace, and, most importantly, because she intended to teach her child the importance of protecting and assisting Richard upon his return. This backfires on her in the worst of ways, but it offers some notable insight on her character. Kahlan can seem harsh at times -- her resolve and faith in Richard's ability to succeed make her take some pretty stone-cold actions -- but the thing is, she feels a lot, all the time. She's full of a lot of complex feelings warring for dominance, and takes great pains to control herself, her powers, her desires, her fear and rage and love. One of the reasons for this is because of the nature of her powers. She's spent a long time controlling herself: for example, if she takes a lover, even Richard, consummating that love will Confess him and bind him completely to her will. So she holds back, for his sake. She wishes the best for him, and at least thinks that what's "best" for him isn't her. She's not afraid to lecture Richard on his actions either -- she understands that he means to do the right thing most of the time, but she believes very strongly in tempering emotion with reason and foresight.

She's afraid of her Con Dar for a long time because it wrenches away the control that she's spent so long depending on, and it takes her a while to accept her powers as a part of herself. Kahlan's had a lot of difficulty trusting people throughout her life because of the abuse she suffered while under her father's thumb, and it seems to extend to herself as well. She doesn't always trust her ability to keep things in balance, and it takes her a while to get comfortable with all the aspects of herself, powers included. The balance that forms the backbone of her personality is what keeps her from becoming too harsh and ruthless, but it also prevents her feelings from making her have rash emotional reactions. This is clearly outlined in the episode "Torn," where her main desires (wanting to stay with Richard vs. needing to perform her duty), cause her personality to literally split in two. This creates two extremes: an overemotional, weepy, submissive, very loving Kahlan and an arrogant, dominant, harsh, draconian ruler Kahlan, who sees romantic ventures as completely trivial. In addition to being completely ridiculous and hilarious, the episode drives home the fact that Kahlan really...really needs both sides of herself to function properly, otherwise she's an emotional wreck or a total asshole.

Another important aspect of her character is her enormous -- and I do mean enormous -- capacity to forgive. When she Confesses most individuals, she tends to believe they've changed for the better and offers them another chance at redeeming themselves, often telling them to "go and live an honest life." In a later episode of Season 1, she Confesses a D'haran soldier and cook, and is incensed at the rebels (the rebels she's technically on the side of) for killing the man when he was Confessed and unarmed, and truly regretful for the actions he'd taken as a soldier. She wants to bring the man that killed him to justice regardless of their standings in the world. To Kahlan, it didn't matter if the man had been a D'haran and his murderer had been a rebel assisting the Seeker. The point to her was that a great wrong had been committed, and it was her job to fix it. At the end of the episode, she even kills one of the rebel leaders herself, as his resolve to punish the D'harans had warped into a fanatic desire to kill the innocent women and children in a D'haran village, just because they were D'harans.

The biggest example of her forgiveness, however, is seen in her relationship with Cara, the Mord'Sith who joins them on their quest to find the Stone of Tears. Initially, Kahlan hated Cara on principle, and her hatred was later justified when she discovered that Cara had killed her sister Dennee during a raid. Naturally, she's out for blood, and gets her chance when a neighboring village captures Cara and requests that she oversee and act out the execution herself, as is her duty as the Mother Confessor. Richard, of course, demands that Cara receive a trial, and is reluctantly granted this concession. While Kahlan is supposed to be impartial, she struggles with her own feelings toward Cara and the Mord'Sith versus the information about Cara's past that Richard and others outline during the trial. In the end, when the level of emotional, mental and physical anguish Cara (and the other Mord'Sith, by extension) suffered through as a child to warp her into a bloodthirsty Mord'Sith, is revealed, Kahlan cannot bring herself to kill her, stating:

❝ I have looked into this woman's eyes and I see now that she is truly remorseful. Her life was taken from her as a child. I will not take it from her again. ❞

Over time, as the two learn about and grow through one another, Kahlan is eventually able to forgive Cara for what happened with her sister, and views her as an ally and friend. The fact that she can do this -- something most people would find completely impossible, really speaks to her capacity to love and care for others.

So, on one side of the coin, Kahlan can be the severe and cold Mother Confessor, administering justice and punishment to those who would do wrong, but on the other, she has a very kind, loving and warm nature. She has a sense of humor, and pokes fun at Zedd, Richard and Cara (especially Cara), when she's in a good mood. She's fond of children, and wants children of her own despite the difficulties involved. She forgives a woman who committed a terrible crime toward her and her family, and comes to see her as a family member in her own right. She even eventually forgives her father, when they meet up again at last. It's these two aspects of Kahlan that make her who she is, powers included, and without one or the other, she isn't really whole.

» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: Her twin daggers. Some ways I would like it to evolve!

♕ Gradually I'd like the weapons to give her better control over her Confession. To remove some of the godmoddy aspects of Confession, I'd like her weapons to eventually allow her to be able to remove the Confession without...her dying or the person dying. This would take a huge weight off her shoulders and prevent her from godmodding her way through a lot of stuff.

♕ I'd also like her Con Dar to eventually be somewhat controllable (since as of now, she cannot invoke it by her will alone and she completely loses her sense of self when it happens) or...less extreme, but if that's too much, just allowing her Confession to be more easily controlled would be rad.

Chosen SKILLSET: Kahlan is essentially a diplomat and judge in the context of her canon, and a capable strategist in her own right, but she will and can fight if necessary. She'd be good as either a mentor/mediator or as a fighter, depending on what the situation was.

» SAMPLES
First PERSON: ♕ an older meme thread. Some parts of it are ridiculous, my apologies.
♕ a newer meme thread.
♕ and another!
Third PERSON: here. Kahlan and Cara help villagers, with expected results.

» ADDITIONAL NOTES
Nope, she is directly from canon.