Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander: The Wizard is Lame, and So is His Name

Zedd during his heavy metal frontman years

Oh, yeah, spoilers, I guess. We're not supposed to know that Zedd is the great wizard Kahlan came to Richard's country to find.

I mean, get this; Kahlan just happens to end up in Richard's part of the country, wandering aimlessly, and he happens to be the first person who sees her that isn't out to harm her. He happens to know Zedd, the very person she's looking for. And the reason she's looking for him is so he'll name a Seeker, who, of course, turns out to be Richard.

I despise plots that rely on coincidences in order to work.

But what would our heroes be without a wise wizard to be their mentor?

It's sort of hilarious how the first three chapters go. Numerous times throughout, Richard thinks about Zedd, what he would say if he were there, etc., mentions Zedd, talks endlessly about him, even as Kahlan describes the wizard and for whatever weird reason, neither of them seem to realize that Zedd is the wizard, and clearly we're not supposed to know this either, as the scene where this is revealed is written in such a way that Goodkind clearly expects us to be shocked and amazed.

If I had been hired to adapt this thing into a movie, I would have had Jason Bateman play Richard, and deliver the following line: "Don't worry, Kahlan, we'll find this wizard. My friend Zedd should be able to help. He's this eccentric old cloud reader I know who lives in seclusion in the forest, and has a lot of ancient knowledge and doesn't like to talk about his past and has an odd name and oh my god he's the wizard."

Goodkind does not know how to be subtle, so what he thinks of as foreshadowing is in fact blatant lampshade hanging.

As soon as Zedd is introduced, practically as soon as he was mentioned, it was obvious what role he'd play, and duly he is a fill-in for any number of other wise sage wizard mentors, with the most obvious three being Gandalf (naturally), Fizban of DragonLance and Belgarath of The Belgariad. Zedd is both wise, mysterious and fatherly, like Gandalf, has a strong "comic relief" feel like Fizban and is constantly hungry, like Belgarath.

Oh, wait, what am I thinking? He's nothing like those characters because he doesn't have a beard! Sooo original.

Alternately we're meant to be amused by and lectured to by him. The main way I managed to stomach this character was imagining him being played by John Cleese. In the TV series he was played by the Mouth of Sauron (that's him, above), and thus a good deal more annoying.

The funniest thing about Zedd is that he plays the mentor role but Richard hardly needs a mentor. He already knows everything, so Zedd's primary purpose is to constantly assure Richard that he's right, and tell him to buck up when Richard has the rare moment of self-doubt. He doesn't even instruct Richard in the use of his powers, because Richard is a War Wizard, which means his powers are activated by instinct (in other words, they only work when Goodkind wants them to, and in whatever way Goodkind needs them to).

The other way he keeps the Obi-Wan persona up is in the sheer amount of secrets this man keeps, apparently for no other reason than that Goodkind doesn't want the reader to know them until the proper time. Or he just now thought of them.

To be honest, Zedd as a character is mainly just annoying rather than outright anger-inspiring...until you get to his back story.

Essentially, during the war between the wizards and Darken Rahl's father Penis Panis, Zedd was known as the "Wind of Death" and inspired fear even in those on his side. He ended the war by creating the Boundaries, which are impassible walls between the three main nations (Westland, the Midlands and D'Hara, the only one worthy of an actual name) in order to "keep them safe". The walls are actually long portals to the underworld, and if you get too close, you're dragged right in, and nothing that goes to the underworld can return to the mortal plain...

...except the various monsters that can, and do, come out of the boundary all the time and attack innocent people. And Zedd's responsible. Think he feels a moment's remorse? Whaddaya think this is, typical fantasy? If it were typical fantasy, Zedd's principle spells could be summed up as "fireball" or "lightning bolt" or...uh...that's actually exactly what they are.

Once he put up the boundaries, Zedd became extremely angry at the way the ruling council of the Midlands was behaving (read: they weren't doing exactly what he wanted and only that) so he left them all to the consequences of their actions and cast a spell that made them all forget his name and face. Then he buggered off to Westland...somehow, I'm not entirely sure if the boundary between Westland and the Midlands was up yet, it's been a while since I read it. Don't ask me why he didn't just go by another name or something. Everything must be magic in these books.

And he's been Richard's mentor all his life. He's the reason Richard is the way he is.

Given what Zedd is guilty of, I don't see how we're supposed to believe him that Darken Rahl is the bad guy, other than the fact that his name is "Darken". In a book written by a more skilled writer, it would likely turn out that Zedd was really just a chessmaster trying to manipulate the heroes into doing his bidding, including taking out his main rival, Darken Rahl, who will turn out to be nothing compared to the threat of Zedd, but no. We're supposed to believe Zedd because Richard does, and Richard is always right. And he turns out to be "right" here, as well, in the sense that Zedd is right by Goodkind's insane standards.

The worst thing about Zedd is how he's literally never called on anything he does, or has done, unlike Richard, who at least is called on it by the bad guys. He created the boundaries, really dangerous magic that's probably cost hundreds if not thousands of lives, all to defeat D'Hara, but we're repeatedly asked to think of the Boundaries as good things, and the fact that they're falling is bad. He's committed genocide on a mass scale, but his "penance" is that he has to live with that. Not that he's learned from it; he commits genocide on a mass scale during the books, as well, but it's only bad guys he kills, so don't worry.

The chief way he's portrayed is as an eccentric old man who's meant to make us laugh. He has a series of catch-phrases like "Bags!" (as near as I can tell, a euphemism that means "da,mn"), "True as toasted toads!" which means...nothing, and "Nothing is ever easy" which is...I guess meant to be profound? He sure as hell says it a lot, like it's this Great Truth that no one realizes. Well, the thing is, some things are easy, Zedd. But I think the phrase is supposed to mean "Nothing worthwhile is easy to accomplish" and while this is usually true (true as microwaved frogs!), it's not exactly an original thought.

My final thought for Zedd is that his name is just plain stupid, and really highlights how little thought Goodkind puts into his names. It's like he picked the name "Zedd" out of a hat (or out of Police Academy) and then decided it had to be "fantasied up", so he went with Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander. Or Threezy, if you prefer. I prefer. No one else in this world has a name like that. While his name is initially pointed out by Kahlan as not sounding like something from Westland the fact is that people from Zedd's corner of the world have names like Neville Ranson.

I know this entry probably doesn't seem as crazy as Richard or Kahlan's, but it is part of the package. Next we're gonna talk about Darken Rahl, and trust me, he makes up for this entry.