Sword of Truth/Characters

Main Characters

Richard Cypher/Rahl:

The Seeker of Truth. Originally a woods guide from the mostly pastoral nation of Westland, Richard was drawn into the struggle against Darken Rahl when he met Kahlan and Zedd named him the Seeker to oppose the Prince of Lies. Since then, Richard has discovered himself to be The Chosen One, the first War Wizard born in 3000 years, and the next in line to the throne of D'Hara.

• Accidental Athlete
• Accidental Marriage: Twice. Neither one was really more than a formality that Richard mostly ignored from that point on, but they caused some trouble in the long term by making it possible for Kahlan, as Richard's third wife, to summon the Chimes.
• Agent Mulder: Particularly in Soul of the Fire and Chainfire.
• A God Am I: When he uses the boxes of Orden. However, he does give the power up shortly after.
• The Archer: He's established as having preternatural ability with a bow, explained as an expression of his Gift. It's important in the second book, but isn't mentioned much afterward until Confessor, when he sinks an arrow into Jagang's chest in the middle of a riot.
• Arrow Catch: Done using his magic to help.
• Badass
• Badass Boast: He gets a few of them, occasionally calling himself the Bringer of Death, and once with, "I am the weapon."
• Batman Gambit: His attempt to break the Maternity Spell on Kahlan by invoking Love Redeems on Nicci, which turns out to be unnecessary.
• Bed Trick
• Berserk Button: Anyone trying to harm Kahlan. Or following beliefs that Richard doesn't agree with.
• Black Magic: He is one of the first in 3000 years to be born with Subtractive Magic.
• Brought Down to Normal: During Phantom when he is hit by Six and Violet's Power Nullifier.
• Bullet Time: Bringer of Death.
• Cain and Abel: He's Abel . . . several times over.
• Character Filibuster: He makes some very long speeches. Very, very long speeches. Especially in Naked Empire, where he manages to become the first character to keep talking for more than a whole chapter.
• Character Tics: Running his hand through his hair.
• Child by Rape
• The Chosen One
• Combat Pragmatist
• Determinator
• Deus Ex Machina: His unreliable magic suddenly working and allowing him to blast every problem out of his way, most notably in the eighth book where he recreates an antidote by apparently letting his gift guide him.
• Dragon Rider
• Either/Or Prophecy: With both options being bad. He manages to pick the one that's less bad and fulfill it in a manner that doesn't involve his death, however.
• Gray Eyes
• Heroic Bastard
• Heroic BSOD: During the Chainfire Trilogy, while Kahlan is missing and no one will believe him. Also during Faith of the Fallen," when he seems to realize how pointless it is to struggle against the dystopian Imperial Order, but he soon snaps out of it.
• Hot-Blooded: His main tool, the Sword of Truth, works through anger. This is sort of to be expected.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Most of the time, he can't even use his magic. However, when he needs to, it snaps into working order and he becomes pretty much unstoppable.
• I Just Knew
• I Just Want to Be Normal: He never wanted his magic, and denied he had the Gift until it was undeniable.
• Instant Expert: The Dance with Death, using the Sword of Truth, lets him tap into the fencing knowledge of everyone who had used the sword.
• Kick The Bitch: He kicks a 10 year old girl as hard as he can, shattering her jaw, knocking out her teeth, and severing her tongue. However, given what said girl was like, and the fact she was actively torturing him at the time, it's hard to blame him.
• Last of His Kind: The last true Seeker, and the last war wizard.
• Let's Get Dangerous
• Lie to the Beholder: While under the enemy web.
• Magic Knight: He prefers using the Sword of Truth, but his magic is, if anything, even more deadly.
• Merlin and Nimue: He's the younger pupil.
• Mister Big: Taller than most men, but can look small next to his enormous bodyguards.
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The Bringer of Death.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands
• Neuro Vault
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Let's take a tally, shall we? Killed Darken Rahl in the wrong way and ripped the veil to the underworld, ripped the veil even farther and freed Darken's ghost by calling a gathering at the wrong time, destroyed the barriers that were keeping the Imperial Order at bay, etc. Pretty much every book's resolution leads directly into the next book's conflict.
• Out-of-Clothes Experience: Going into the underworld. That said, he expected it. He didn't like it, but it's apparently what you have to do.
• Person of Mass Destruction: When he manages to get his magic working.
• The Philosopher
• Rape Is Love: Richard being the rape victim.
• Refused the Call: Initially, he didn't want to be Seeker, or the Lord Rahl. In the latter case, he eventually becomes . . .
• Resigned to the Call
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: The Sword of Truth protects him from the effects of the Chainfire spell.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Too many to count, but most of them involve Kahlan being somehow in danger.
• Self-Made Orphan: Though he doesn't find out until well after it's happened.
• Screw Destiny: He hates prophecy and goes out of his way to avoid it, though he often ends up accomplishing what prophecy predicted in an entirely different way.
• Sociopathic Hero: He can certainly come across this way, given his eagerness to slaughter all those who "choose death" rather than "life" in the later books.
• Sorcerous Overlord: As the Lord Rahl of D'Hara.
• Take a Third Option: “I don't like your rules. I choose neither.”
• The Power of Love
• The Scottish Trope: Defied.
• To the Pain: How he convinces the Bantak not to go to war with the Mud People; if they do, he'll use magic to bring ruin to them.
• Unnamed Parent: His mother.
• Unstoppable Rage: Given that it's the whole point of the magic of the Sword of Truth, it's to be expected.
• Victory-Guided Amnesia
• Workplace-Acquired Abilities: His skills as a woods guide come to be invaluable in his larger quest.
• You Will Know What to Do: Subverted in the first two books, played more straight in the later ones. Pretty much the basis for how his War Wizard powers work.

Kahlan Amnell:

The Mother Confessor, leader of the Confessors and final authority in the Midlands. After escaping the genocide of the Confessors at the hands of Darken Rahl, she fled to Westland, where she met Richard and Zedd and recruited them to help save the lands of magic from Rahl's grasp. She is Richard's primary love interest and one of the main characters, second only to Richard in importance.

• Action Girl: Especially after Richard teaches her to Dance with Death.
• Attempted Rape: Many, many times, by many different people, including, quadsmen, Demmin Nass, a red-haired man from Westland, Prindin, several D'Haran and Imperial Order commanders, Darken Rahl, Drefan Rahl, Oba Rahl, Emperor Jagang, and Samuel. No one actually manages to succeed, though, unless you count the time when Nicci linked herself to Kahlan and then got herself raped, forcing Kahlan to feel every sensation as if she were the one getting it.
• Badass
• Bad Powers, Good People: Her power is the ability to forever enslave a person to her will.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Consistently averted, as she gets injured and dirty repeatedly.
• Bed Trick
• Berserk Button: Anyone trying to harm Richard. The Con Dar turns this Up to Eleven and makes her damn near Unstoppable Rage.
• Bullet Time: "Time was hers", usually used to describe when she uses her Confessor powers.
• Can't Have Sex Ever: Or the man she sleeps with will be Confessed. Sorry, Richard, none for you. Until he finds a way around that pesky problem, that is.
• Combat Pragmatist: Her approach to combat and war. She advises others to take this approach as well, on the logic that an enemy is just as dead if you kill him in his sleep as if you kill him in battle.
• Compelling Voice: Her Confessior's touch. And it lasts.
• Cover-Blowing Superpower: Using Confession, before Richard knew what she was.
• Cunning Linguist: Being that she, like other Confessors, are diplomats and are expected to travel the Midlands to settle disputes, she can speak almost every language in the Midlands, including Nicobarese, Mud Person, Bantak, the common language also spoken in Westland and D'Hara, etc. The only language she hasn't been able to understand and translate so far is High D'Haran, likely because it's been out of common use for centuries.
• Convenient Miscarriage
• Cute Bruiser: She is so strong that she can snap a metal sword in half over her knee, and possesses nearly superhuman stamina that is sufficient to keep up a traveler's pace for three days without food or rest, and still set a hard pace, use her power (which exhausts her more when she does), and hold a conversation.
• Deuteragonist: Definitely in the first five books and in the eighth. Debatably in the sixth book and the final three, where she could be considered the tritagonist.
• Dress Code: She wears a white dress and keeps her hair long as a symbol of her rank.
• Emotionless Girl: Her Confessor's face, which serves as her public image. Averted in her actual personality and interactions with Richard.
• Full-Frontal Assault: She leads an attack on an army of Imperial troops completely in the nude, partly on the basis that a beautiful naked woman on a horse is, at the very least, going to be a bit of a distraction for the enemy.
• General Ripper: She was apparently raised by one, if her father's quotes about warfare are any indication. She has quite a few traits of this herself.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: She does, but doesn't avoid the Convenient Miscarriage.
• Green Eyes
• Groin Attack: What she does to Demmin Nass . . . isn't pretty.
• Heroic BSOD: When Shota prophecizes that Kahlan will use her power against Richard, she becomes severely depressed and repeatedly tries to kill herself. It takes a lot of time and effort on Richard's part to bring her out of it.
• Hot Chick with a Sword
• I Am What I Am
• I Just Want to Be Normal: There are times she really doesn't like having her Confessor magic. Particularly since they get in the way of her being with Richard.
• Knife Nut: In the last few books.
• Knight Templar
• Lady of War
• The Lancer
• Last Of Her Kind
• Line in the Sand: Everyone loyal to her goes on one side. The ones who question her authority go on the other. Later, the ones on the first side have to kill all the ones on the other side, on Kahlan's order, based on the (eventually proven correct) assumption that the dissenters were going to sell them out.
• Living Lie Detector: The purpose behind the Confessors' magic.
• Magic Knight: She's a capable combatant and uses physical combat in addition to her magical abilities.
• Mugging the Monster: Messing with a woman who turns out to be a Confessor is a bad idea, as anyone who's attacked Kahlan at some point can attest to.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She often beats herself up about it, too.
• No Periods, Period: Averted once, as a plot point.
• Plucky Girl: To an almost insane extent. Her willingness to die for Richard, or for her cause, is a little extreme to say the least.
• No Pronunciation Guide: Without it, her name can be a little tricky to pronounce. According to the author, it's "KAY-lan".
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The Con Dar.
• Show Some Leg: Part of the aforementioned Full-Frontal Assault. She also has to do this, to a squicky extent, to escape a cell full of convicted murderers and rapists planning on having their way with her.
• Sociopathic Hero: If anything, she's even more bloodthirsty and willing to Shoot the Dog than Richard is, and that's saying something, considering that she isn't using a magical sword that draws on her anger. Except in Faith of the Fallen.
• Sorcerous Overlord: A more benevolent example than most, but still.
• The Power of Love
• The Scottish Trope: She really shouldn't have spoken the names of the Chimes out loud...
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "Remove. Your. Hands."
• Traumatic Haircut: When Neville Ranson cuts her hair.
• Unnamed Parent: Her mother.
• Unstoppable Rage: The Con Dar.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?
• Witch Species
• Woman in White
• Woman Scorned: When in the Con Dar.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: As stated by Richard in the first book. She gains some competition from Stone of Tears onwards, when Merissa and Nicci appear.

Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander:

The former First Wizard of the Midlands, who led the battle against Darken Rahl's father Panis when he tried to invade the Midlands years ago, earning himself the nickname, "The Wind of Death." After the war, he became furious with the Midlands council for their actions, and decided to go into hiding, erasing everyone's memories of his name and posing as a harmless but eccentric old man in Westland. When Kahlan comes to Westland seeking the aid of the great wizard of legend, he returns from retirement to help in the struggle against Darken Rahl. He is also Richard's grandfather on his mother's side.

• The Archmage: As the First Wizard, he's the most powerful magic user in the Midlands and one of the strongest Additive wizards alive. However, his powers are later surpassed when users of Additive and Subtractive magic, such as Darken Rahl, Richard, and Nicci start to show up.
• Agony Beam: Wizard's Pain.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Especially when they're Imperial Order troops.
• Badass
• Big Eater
• Blood Magic: Some magic requires blood, which as the First Wizard, he is familiar with.
• Bullying a Dragon: Zedd points out to a an angry mob attacking them that they must be extremely brave to attack a person they believe commands vast magical power.
• Burn the Witch: An angry mob figures he has magic and tries to do this. They fail, obviously.
• Casanova
• Cool Old Guy
• Eccentric Mentor
• Empathic Healer
• Go, Ye Heroes, Go and Die: Used intentionally on an angry mob bent on killing him.
• Hellfire: Wizard's fire, his favorite spell.
• Insistent Terminology: He's a wizard, not a witch(they're girls), and not a warlock(which is a male witch). However, warlock is preferable to witch.
• Kill It with Fire
• Person of Mass Destruction: Would you believe that this skinny old man earned the title, "The Wind of Death" and was feared even by his own side during a previous war? Or that he is almost singlehandedly responsible for the death of several hundred thousand Imperial Order troops?
• Pity the Kidnapper
• Playing with Fire
• Magi Babble
• Mundane Utility: Magic comes in handy for cooking.
• My Greatest Failure: His young apprentice, who turned out to be The Mole and defected to Panis Rahl during the war.
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The Wind of Death.
• Naked People Are Funny: He prefers to use his wizard's rock naked, because clothes interefere with the experience.
• Nuclear Option: He finds a colossal light spell in the Wizard's Keep, while the Imperial Order army is nearby. Awesomeness ensues.
• Old Master
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He mentions this in his backstory after his wife was killed.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When the Midlands council began mishandling the boxes and naming Seekers on their own, Zedd went off to Westland and left them to "suffer the consequences of their own actions."
• Something Only They Would Say: “True as toasted toads, my boy!”
• The Smart Guy
• The Trickster
• Unusual Euphemism: "Bags."
• Wizard Beard: Averted, and then later parodied when Richard brings him to task for daring to be a wizard without having a proper beard.

Cara:

A Mord-Sith, former servant of Darken Rahl, who pledged her loyalty to Richard starting in the second book. She now serves as Richard's bodyguard.

• Action Girl
• Agony Beam: The Agiel, her primary weapon.
• Anti-Magic
• Badass
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Well, it makes you a Mord-Sith. In Cara's case, she was at least redeemable.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She was apparently one of the nice ones when she was young. Her training was an extended effort to invoke this trope.
• The Big Guy
• Blue Eyes
• Bodyguard Crush: On Richard. Kind of.
• Broken Bird
• Cold-Blooded Torture: It's her area of expertise. She also volunteers to do this to an Imperial Order assassin who knifed one of their wizards. They hear his screams all night long.
• Combat Pragmatist
• Combat Sadomasochist
• Dark and Troubled Past: Given that she's a Mord-Sith, that goes without question.
• Deadpan Snarker: Especially as the series goes on.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: She gradually becomes less stoic and serious and begins expressing her emotions more openly.
• Good Is Not Nice
• Happiness in Slavery: She decided to stay in Richard's service, even though he had publicly disbanded the Mord-Sith, because she thought he was a leader worth serving.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Red leather, specifically. A lot of red leather.
• Hero Secret Service: To Richard.
• I Am What I Am: Though she defrosts, she is a Mord-Sith.
• Intimate Healing: She gets some from Richard, of the body warmth variety with magic, in the final trilogy.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique
• Kiss of Life
• Love At First Punch: With Benjamin Meiffert. Their first meeting was when she ambushed him on his way to deliver a message to Richard and "tickled" his ribs with her Agiel. Shortly afterwards, Richard made a joke about offering Meiffert Cara's hand in marriage.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She insists she didn't know what it was going to do until after she touched it, though.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: She usually advocates killing as a solution first, particularly in Temple of the Winds.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Drifts in this direction in the later books.
• Plucky Girl: She starts to have lighter moments as the series goes on, but if anyone threatens Richard, she morphs into a Determinator.
• Self-Made Orphan: She was forced to kill her father, as part of her training to be a Mord-Sith.
• Shipper on Deck: In the Chainfire Trilogy, when Kahlan is missing, she starts supporting Richard/Nicci.
• Shoot Your Mate: Again, part of her training. And she did.
• Taking the Bullet: In Temple of the Winds, she throws herself in front of an attack directed at Richard. This worked out to her favor due to her immunity to magic.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Unless the process involves rats, of course.
• Torture Technician
• Training From Hell
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid
• Why Did It Have To Be Rats

Nicci:

A Sister of the Dark who served as one of Richard's instructors while he was at the Palace of the Prophets in the Old World. Nicci was the daughter of one of the members of the Fellowship of Order, and thus was indoctrinated from an early age in their ways, and experienced a very unpleasant early life. She has served the Fellowship of Order, the Sisters of the Light, the Keeper, and the Imperial Order at different points in her life. She eventually took Richard prisoner by casting a maternity spell on Kahlan, in an attempt to learn from him. Ultimately, being with Richard changed her mind, and she renounced her previous affiliations(including to the Sisters of the Light) and became one of Richard's primary supporters.

• Abusive Parents: Her mother.
• Affably Evil: How she appears at first. Even when she's working on behalf of the Imperial Order, rending Mooks with violent magic, casting dangerous spells on Kahlan, and taking Richard prisoner, she maintains a calm and polite presence, never raises her voice, and in general acts like she's dealing with old friends. Richard finds her friendly and respectful exterior to be much more disturbing than the arrogant, sneering ones of the villains he's faced in the past.
• Anti-Villain
• Ascended Extra: She was originally a minor character in Stone of Tears, a secondary antagonist, but when Faith of the Fallen came around . . .
• The Atoner
• Badass
• Badass Boast: Several, to Richard, in Faith of the Fallen, driving home the point that she is not like any enemy he's faced before and is not going to be outsmarted easily.

My dear boy, I was born into this wretched world one hundred and eighty-one years past. You know that. Do you suppose I have not learned a great deal of patience, in all that time? Though our bodies may look about the same age, and in many ways I am no older than you, I have lived near to seven of your lifetimes. Do you honestly believe that you would have patience to exceed mine? Do you think me some young foolish girl for you to outwit or outwait?

• Badass Bookworm: She was a Sister of the Light for well over a hundred years before she appeared in the series, and it shows.
• The Baroness: Of the redeemable variety.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted very, very hard.
• Berserk Button: Nicci is somewhat . . . touchy regarding matters of sex. On one hand, men "assuming they had a right to her body" really, REALLY pisses her off.(Though she doesn't ever complain, seeing it as her duty to sacrifice herself for others.) On the other hand, she also explodes in anger when she makes an advance on a male character and he refuses her.
  • Also lice. She hates lice, to the point where upon seeing a peasant girl with lice on the side of the road, she had to stop and scrub the little monsters off of her.
  • Pink, Nicci's least favorite color. Just seeing it usually provokes mutters of "I hate pink" at the least. On one occasion, being put in a pink nightgown annoyed her so much that she used Subtractive Magic just to get rid of the color.
• Black Magic: She is one of the few who actually wields Subtractive Magic.
• Blondes Are Evil: Subverted.
• Blue Eyes: Piercing, lucid, intelligent, and often remarked upon.
• Character Filibuster: Aside from Richard, there is no one in the series who can go on a filibuster like Nicci can. Her particularly specialty is deconstructing the Imperial Order inside and out.
• Combat Sadomasochist
• Combat Pragmatist
• The Comically Serious
• Cunning Linguist: She can speak multiple languages, including High D'Haran. Not surprising, since in the Chainfire Trilogy, she's pretty much replaced Kahlan in every way that matters.
• Dangerously Genre Savvy
• Dark Action Girl – Action Girl
• Dark and Troubled Past: A really, really big understatement.
• Deadpan Snarker: No one seems to find it funny, though.
• Deal with the Devil: She joined the Sisters of the Dark, but not out of a desire for power, or immortality, or rewards. She hated herself so greatly that she actually wanted to be damned for all eternity, and didn't think she deserved anything more. This turned out to work to her advantage, as she renounced the Keeper, getting out of that "eternal torment in the underworld" bit, while still getting to keep the Subtractive Magic that she got as part of the bargain.
• Defrosting Ice Queen
• Deuteragonist: In Faith of the Fallen and the Chainfire Trilogy, though it can be argued that she is actually the protagonist of Faith of the Fallen and the tritagonist during the Chainfire Trilogy.
• Distracted by the Sexy: When she locks her eyes with Richard, he has difficulty remembering how to breathe. Imperial Order troops have the same problem when Nicci uses a slightly more . . . obvious invokation of this trope.
• The Dragon: To Emperor Jagang.
• The Dreaded: As Death's Mistress, she's more feared than Emperor Jagang himself. An entire town of hundreds of people committed mass suicide at the news of her approach, the children taking poison first, then the adults. Even after her Heel Face Turn, her reputation still frightens many of the people who are now on her side.
• Emotionless Girl
• Expansion Pack Past: Nope, she wasn't just some Sister of the Light who Richard met. Turns out she is a lot more conflicted and has a lot more backstory than the previous books would indicate.
• Extreme Doormat: Her ideology requires her to selflessly sacrifice herself for the needs of others, so this is a given. She gets better.
• Femme Fatale
• For the Evulz, For the Lulz: Subverted. She tends to deflect questions about her motives as "It amuses me," and Annalina gives "because she is evil!" as an explanation for why she would kidnap Richard. The truth is quite a bit more complicated.
• Freudian Excuse
• Good Is Dumb: Averted.
• Heel Face Revolving Door
• Heel Face Turn
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique
• Knight Templar
• Lady of Black Magic
• The Lancer: In the Chainfire Trilogy.
• Let's Get Dangerous: When Nicci refers to herself as Death's Mistress, it's a sure sign that she isn't playing around.
• Little Black Dress: Her preferred outfit.
• Love At First Sight: For Richard. She only had to look into his eyes once.
• Love Redeems: Defied and doubly subverted. Even though she is in love with Richard from almost the moment she first sees him, she doesn't let her feelings get in the way of her mission and goals, and keeps in mind that she will still likely have to kill him eventually. However, in the end, she decides on her own to switch sides when his actions help her figure out what was missing in her life, and her love for him becomes the driving force of her loyalty for the rest of the series.
• Lust: Subverted. According to Richard (right after meeting her for the first time), Nicci is "the embodiment of pure, unadulterated lust." However, Nicci herself is not a particularly lustful person at all. She has little in the way of personal ambitions and desires, and doesn't even particularly like sex.
• Magi Babble
• Merlin and Nimue: She plays the role of the older mage.
• Mommy Issues
• Mundane Utility: Subtractive Magic is not just useful for combat, but also for getting that nasty pink color she hates so much out of the nightdress they put her in.
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Death's Mistress.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She worries that she is responsible for Richard's, “delusions.”
• Number Two: She has a habit of playing Number Two on whatever she she is currently on.
• Person of Mass Destruction
• Plucky Girl: Drifts in this direction after Faith of the Fallen. Before that, she was a straight up female Determinator.
• Put on a Bus: For two books.
• Rape as Backstory
• Razor Wind: And so skilled with it that she can decapitate multiple armed soldiers without a sound.
• Really Gets Around: She doesn't seem to enjoy it, though.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: 181.
• Romantic Runner-Up
• Shock and Awe
• Show Some Leg: Or just go topless.
• So Beautiful It's a Curse: "My mother used to tell me that being beautiful was only useful to whores. Perhaps she was right."
• Stalker with a Crush: Towards Richard.
• Synchronization: The maternity spell.
• The Stoic
• Too Kinky to Torture: She likes being in pain, being punished, and feeling agony, because she's so emotionless and depressed most of the time that being in pain is the only way she can feel anything at all.
• The Unfettered: She is like this in operation, willing to do just about anything to accomplish her goals.
• Unnamed Parent: Her mother.
• Up to Eleven: She is so beautiful that Kahlan feels "as ugly as a clod of dirt" just by standing in her presence.
• Unstoppable Rage: When Richard refuses to sleep with her, and again when she thinks that he's "profiteering."
• Villainesses Want Heroes: Does she ever.
• Villain Protagonist: In Faith of the Fallen she is given a comparable number of her own chapters as Richard and Kahlan, and her personal development is about one half of the story of that book, the other half being the continuation of the war against the Order. At this point, she is still very much a villain.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Lice.
• Woman in Black: Always. Black is the only color she wears.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds
• Workplace-Acquired Abilities: "I used to teach young wizards how to behave at the Palace of the Prophets. I know how to create locks that can't be picked."
• World Half Empty: How she views the world. Until Richard changes her mind.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: She is described as absolutely, completely, 100% physically perfect, and even Kahlan seems awed. Towards the end of the series, there seems to be some dispute over whether she or Kahlan is more beautiful.

Secondary Characters

Dell "Chase" Brandstone:

The leader of the boundary wardens in Westland, and an old friend of Richard Cypher and his father. He is the husband of Emma Brandstone, and the father of several children. Chase and his men serve the Westland government publicly, but their true loyalty is only to the true Seeker.

• Badass
• Badass Normal: Probably the deadliest non-magical person in the entire series.
• The Big Guy
• Determinator
• Friend to All Children:
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: “I've twisted a few fingers. Twisted hard.”
• Lotus Eater Machine: Gets trapped in one with Rachel in the second book.
• Made of Iron: Boundary wardens are tougher than they have a right to be.
• Knife Nut
• Papa Wolf
• Put on a Bus: Until Naked Empire.
• Unnamed Parent: His mother.
• Walking Armory
• With My Hands Tied: Kills a quadsman, someone who would give most characters trouble at their best, while beat up and tied.

Rachel:

An orphan in the Midlands who was taken by the government to be Princess Violet's "playmate", which pretty much meant she was a punching bag to be bossed around and abused. By a combination of guile and help from the wizard Giller, Rachel escaped her position, delivered the third Box of Orden to Richard and Kahlan, and became Chase's adopted daughter.

• Badass Lolita: Considering that she was adopted by Chase, it's no surprise.
• Badass Normal: No magic, no powers, no antimagic, no magic weapons, and still a major piece in the overall plot.
• Geometric Magic: She had no magical training or upbringing, but managed to learn how to use the written magic of Tamarang by listening to Six and Violet talk about it.
• Guile Hero
• Hair of Gold
• Lotus Eater Machine: Becomes trapped in one with Chase in the second book.
• Put on a Bus
• She Is All Grown Up: Well, not all the way, but it's invoked, in a non-romantic way. When Zedd is captured, he sees a girl who looks like her, only a little older. He chalks this up to his mind playing tricks on him...until he spots the "guard" with her, recognizes him as Chase, and realizes it is Rachel a couple years older, since he hasn't seen her in that long.
• Unnamed Parent: Her mother.

Brophy:

A trader with a soft spot for children, who was framed for murder by Demmin Nass, Darken Rahl's right-hand man. He submitted to a Confessor, Kahlan, to prove his innocence, and after it was done, was turned into an animal by Giller to give him back some measure of free will. He choose to live his life out as a wolf.

• Berserk Button: If anyone thinks they can cheat a trader, they had better stay away from Brophy. Also, just the thought of Demmin Nass. And the claim he might have hurt a child.
• Big Badass Wolf
• Friend to All Children
• Happiness in Slavery: To Kahlan, after being Confessed.
• Heroic Sacrifice
• Honest John's Dealership: According to Kahlan, he was once a trader who dealt with things at the gray edges of law.
• Noble Demon: He cultivated a tough-guy image before being Confessed, and hated the idea of any softness being attached to his image, but was squarely a good person who donated money to orphanages.
• Our Werewolves Are Different
• Papa Wolf: Both literally and figuratively.
• Unstoppable Rage: He was a big man before he was transformed into a wolf, with a temper as big as his muscles.
• A Wizard Did It: Giller turned him into a wolf by magic.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child

Adie:

A sorceress from the Midlands who know lives at the mouth of the pass of the Narrows, right on the boundary. She is blind as a result of being tortured by the Blood of the Fold when she was young, but still manages to see but use of her gift.

• Blind Seer
• Cold-Blooded Torture
• Dark and Troubled Past
• Life or Limb Decision
• Living Lie Detector: She can tell truth from lie with perfect accuracy.
• Mutilation Interrogation: Has had it done to her, and also did it to someone else herself.
• Put on a Bus
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: She has this in her backstory as well.
• Super Senses: Though missing her eyesight, she's learned to compensate using her other senses, including some magical ones.

Chandalen:

One of the most skilled hunters and warriors of the Mud People, who later becomes the acting "general" of his people and an honorary elder. He initially dislikes Richard and Kahlan, blaming them for the trouble brought to the Mud People, but eventually relents in this policy after journeying with Kahlan for a time.

• The Archer: He's a professional marksman and hunter among the Mud People, and can make shots that most people think are borderline impossible.
• Back for the Finale: He appears briefly in Confessor.
• Combat Pragmatist
• Heel Face Turn
• I'm a Humanitarian: He will occasionally participate in ceremonial Mud People rituals, which often involve eating a small amount of human flesh.
• Noble Savage
• Poisoned Weapons: He puts ten-step poison on his arrows, and also carries around the cure for said poison.
• Put on a Bus
• What the Hell, Hero?: He repeatedly calls Richard and Kahlan out on what happens.

Berdine:

Another Mord-Sith, and Richard's bodyguard along with Cara. She was one of Darken Rahl's advisors, and knows some High D'Haran, so she serves as a translator for Richard when they find old records. Of the Mord-Sith, she is by far the cheeriest and most amiable.

• Boobs of Steel: Of Richard's personal bodyguards, she's noted as being the bustiest.
• Cunning Linguist: She can read High D'Haran, and thus ends up working more closely with Richard than the other Mord-Sith while he's around.
• The Glomp: On seeing Richard return toward the end of Blood of the Fold, she's described as divetackling him like an excited squirrel.
• Plucky Girl: Despite being as much of a Torture Technician as her Sisters of the Agiel, she's by far the most cheerful.

Jennsen Rahl:

Also known as Lindie, Jennsen is the illegimate, pristinely ungifted daughter of Darken Rahl, and half-sister of Richard, Oba, and Drefan Rahl. Due to Darken's policy of eliminating all ungifted offspring of the House of Rahl, Jennsen has spent her life running and hiding from quadsman. As a pristinely ungifted one and Pillar of Creation, Jennsen cannot be harmed by magic. She is convinced by the Imperial Order that Richard, as the new Lord Rahl, is out to kill her just as Darken Rahl was, and as such, plans against him. After meeting Richard in the flesh, she realizes she has been deceived, and becomes his ally.

• Action Girl
• Anti-Magic: As a Pillar of Creation, she cannot be affected by Additive Magic. According to Word of God, Subtractive Magic still works fine, though.
• Back for the Finale
• Badass
• Blue Eyes
• Dark and Troubled Past
• Deal with the Devil
• Enemy to All Living Things: Temporarily.
• Fake-Out Make-Out: With Sebastian, to keep the D'Harans from getting suspicious.
• Fiery Redhead
• Guile Hero
• Heel Face Turn
• Heroic Bastard
• Heroic BSOD: When her mother is killed.
• The Load: In Naked Empire.
• Plucky Girl
• Properly Paranoid
• Put on a Bus
• Sixth Ranger
• Unnamed Parent: Her mother.
• Unwitting Pawn: Of Emperor Jagang's plan. She manages to escape his plan for her at the last moment, though.
• Walking the Earth: She and her mother have been traveling all their lives, and she continues to do it with Sebastian after her mother is killed.

Annalina Aldurran:

The Prelate, leader of the Sisters of the Light. Ann is a major political player who carefully watches and enforces prophecy to ensure events turn out the way she wants them to.

• Be a Whore to Get Your Man: She advises Nicci to seduce Richard.
• Because Destiny Says So: Her philosophy. She is not shy about enforcing it.
• The Chessmaster
• Dropped a Bridge on Him
• Flanderization: She becomes more and more fanatical as the books progress, until she mostly just shouts, "Prophecy demands it!" and "There is no way you could know such things!" at random intervals.
• The Man Behind the Man
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero
• Pity the Kidnapper
• Plucky Girl
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old
• Shipper on Deck: For Richard and Nicci.
• Omniscient Morality License
• What the Hell, Hero?: Kahlan eventually brings her to task for what she's been doing, and actually manages to dent her conviction a little.
• Would Hurt a Child: Including an unborn child, just because the mother happened to be in the way and could "possibly" have been a Sister of the Dark.

Nathan Rahl:

The prophet held prisoner by the Prelate Annalina and the Sisters of the Light, delivering prophecies to them. He is also a descendant of the Rahl family, and a distant relation of Richard's.

• Adult Child: At times. When he first buys a sword, Annalina mentions in a Journeybook entry that he is busy fighting imaginary monsters, calling him a thousand-year-old child.
• Badass
• Because Destiny Says So
• Casanova
• The Chessmaster: Because he can see events, he's also exceptionally good at influencing them. On one occasion, he simultaneously started one war and prevented an even bigger one while imprisoned by whispering something to a consort.
• Cool Old Guy
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Given his usual cheerful, bright demeanor, it's easy to forget that he's a wizard and just as capable of throwing fire and lightning around as any of them.
• Genius Bruiser
• Gilded Cage: The Sisters of the Light have him in one.
• Magic Knight: He is a wizard, but also likes carrying a sword with him.
• Obfuscating Insanity
• Obfuscating Stupidity
• Old Master
• Omniscient Morality License
• Playing with Fire:
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: He's nearly a thousand.

Shota:

A powerful witch in the Midlands, greatly feared by everyone who has heard of her. She has prophetic visions, and often works to enforce or prevent them. She is both a powerful ally and a dangerous enemy, and can be either at the drop of a hat.

• Because Destiny Says So: A firm believer in this, particularly in her own visions.
• Berserk Button: Just the thought of a male Confessor does it for her.
• Charm Person: Explained as something that witch women just do naturally, without even trying to.
• Enemy Mine: Why she helps Richard.
• Fantasy Contraception: She creates an amulet that fulfills this purpose for Richard and Kahlan.
• Flaying Alive: What she does to a wizard who briefly drove her out of her home.
• Master of Illusion
• Mind Rape
• Shock and Awe
• Unnamed Parent: Her mother too.
• Wild Card
• Witch Species

Villains

Darken Rahl:

The Master of D'Hara, heir to the throne of the House of Rahl, Prince of Lies, and the Player for the power of Orden. Darken Rahl seeks to rule the world, and intends to use the Boxes of Orden to this end. He appears as a benevolent man promising peace and security between all the nations. In secret, however, Darken Rahl is a rapist, a sadist, a cannibal, a child molester, a tyrant and a demon workshipper. He secretly serves the Keeper.

• Abusive Parents
• Animal Wrongs Group: This is the man who protests that he doesn't approve of slaughtering helpless animals and consuming their flesh, but will also kill a horse and drown a soldier in its guts for daring to eat meat in the People's Palce, or ritually consume the organs of a sacrificial victim.
• Ax Crazy
• Bastard Bastard
• Big Bad: In the first book.
• Black Magic: He managed to acquire limited use of Subtractive Magic.
• Blood Magic: An expert of anthropomancy. That would be getting answers by slicing open living people.
• Blond Guys Are Evil
• Blue Eyes
• The Casanova: A very dark version of this trope. He takes numerous women to his bed, and the ones who bear ungifted offspring or laugh at his scars are killed.
• Character Tics: Licking his fingers and rubbing his eyebrows, as a result of being horribly burned as a child.
• Cold-Blooded Torture
• Deal with the Devil: How he got that Subtractive Magic.
• Dystopian Edict: Fire is bad. Fire was used against Darken Rahl's father. Fire is a sign of disrespect to the house of Rahl. Fire is outlawed. Except, oddly, for the candles in his father's tomb, which have to be kept lit or else.
• Eats Babies
• Eat the Dog
• Ephebophile: His appetites have been known to include teenaged girls as well as adult women. Jennsen's mother, for example, was fifteen when her daughter by him was born.
• Eunuchs Are Evil: Not quite a eunuch, but Darken Rahl is implied to have a serious scarred, nearly burnt-off penis. But it's damn close.
• Evil Overlord
• False-Flag Operation: His soldiers dress up as Westlanders, committ horrific atrocities against his own people, and Darken Rahl gets to make himself look like the savior.
• Finger-Lickin' Evil
• Gone Horribly Right: He spent a lot of time and effort trying to get a gifted, male heir. He does. It's Richard, so things don't quite work out how he'd wanted.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He could be quite affable and personable at times, then Ax Crazy at others.
• Heir Club for Men: He has had quite a bit of trouble getting just the right gifted heir, and he has plenty of bastard children as a testament to his efforts.
• I'm a Humanitarian: He's normally a vegetarian, and he considers eating meat distasteful, but when the ritual calls for it, he'll still devour the organs of a child.
• Lie to the Beholder: He can cause this effect by casting “enemy webs” on others.
• Luke, I Am Your Father
• Manipulative Bastard: Though for someone called the Prince of Lies right on the back cover of the first book, it's pretty much a given.
• Mind Rape
• More Than Mind Control
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast
• Offing the Offspring: He won't tolerate any ungifted offspring remaining alive.
• Plot Armour: Thanks to the magic of Orden, Rahl cannot be killed until he opens a box, or the first day of winter arrives.
• Politically-Incorrect Villain
• Pragmatic Villainy: He may be evil, but he's not entirely unreasonable. To one Mord-Sith's surprise, he doesn't have her executed after her pet breaks free, because he realizes that the failure was not her fault, as the task was, in hindsight, impossible, and it would be pointless to get rid of his best Mord-Sith because of it.
• Red Right Hand: His body is scarred in embarrassing places.
• Sorcerous Overlord
• Straw Misogynist: From his point of view, women are just the dirt that a man's seed grows in, unworthy of higher recognition. Those that don't bear gifted heirs are barren soil, and done away with.
• Take Over the World: Why he wants the Boxes of Orden.
• Unnamed Parent: His mother. Of course, to the house of Rahl, women aren't considered important anyway.
• Would Hit a Girl: Yup. In fact, he would rip one apart with his bare hands as well, if she has the nerve to laugh at his equipment during sex.
• Would Hurt a Child

Demmin Nass

The commander of the quads, right hand of Darken Rahl, the lightning of the Master's dark thoughts. His loyalty and devotion to the house of Rahl is matched only by his dedication to cruelty and sexual sadism. He has a weakness for young boys, and definitely not in the good way.

• Abusive Parents: It is not-so-subtly implied that he was sexually abused by his father as a boy.
• Arch Enemy: To Brophy.
• Armored Closet Gay: He cultivates the image as the biggest, meanest, nastiest man in D'Hara. Insulting his manhood is a definite Berserk Button.
• Attempted Rape: Tries to rape Kahlan. Fails horribly.
• Berserk Button
• Blond Guys Are Evil
• The Brute
• Depraved Homosexual: He mockingly tells Kahlan, about the most beautiful woman imaginable, that she isn't his type. His preference seems to be for young boys. He claims to have molested and killed somewhere between 80 and 120 boys in his life, but can't remember the exact number. The dead ones, according to him, are the minority.
• The Dragon
• Dumb Muscle: He isn't very smart, particularly in matters of magic, so Darken Rahl keeps him around mainly for their twisted friendship and this purpose.
• Evil Gloating: "Problem, old man?"
• Freudian Excuse: Apparently, he was molested as a child himself. However, it is nowhere NEAR enough to even begin to justify half of his actions.
• Giant Mook: Like his quadsman, only a lot bigger and meaner.
• Groin Attack: Ouch...Kahlan shows no mercy.
• Hard Gay
• Just Add Bitch: His dialogue when talking to women contains generous helpings of the word.
• Karmic Death: He is confessed by Kahlan, leaving him utterly consumed with devotion to a woman. Kahlan than castrates him and makes him eat it, then bashes his head in with a mace.
• Kick the Dog: While he does plenty of puppy-kicking all through Wizard's First Rule, the moment that stands out is when he kills Brophy in a fight.
• Large and In Charge: One of the biggest men in D'Hara, and the highest ranked servant of the house of Rahl, giving orders to all but Darken Rahl himself.
• Murder, Inc.: He's the leader of the quads, D'Hara's professional hitmen and anti-Confessor units.
• Nigh Invulnerable: Darken Rahl put webs around him that block all magic and attack, making him immune to Additive Magic and Confession. But not to the Con Dar.
• Rape as Drama
• Unstoppable Rage
• Would Hit a Girl: "Shut up, bitch."
• Would Hurt a Child: Oh, yeah, about a hundred of them or so. Fatally. More than that non-fatally.

Denna:

Darken Rahl's favored Mord-Sith and one of the most skilled and relentless Torture Technicians in D'Hara. She is charged by the Lord Rahl to trap Richard and torture him into insanity so that he will reveal the secrets of orden to Rahl. She does.

• Agony Beam
• Anti-Magic: As Richard discovered when he tried to attack her with the Sword of Truth for the first time.
• The Baroness
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Part of the reason she ends up redeemed. Richard, though he's brainwashed and tortured into submission, is the first person in her whole life since becoming Mord-Sith who is selflessly nice to her.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil
• Berserk Button: Richard, out of a confused sense of caring for her, attempts to relieve her of the pain of having to "train" him (which causes the Mord-Sith constant pain just by holding the Agiel), asks her to let a different Mord-Sith take over his training. She explodes into an Unstoppable Rage and launches a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on him.
  • To clarify, at first he just asks that another Mord-Sith (Denna's friend/rival) train him without explaining why. She beats the tar out of him because she thinks her "pet" likes the other Mord-Sith better. It's only afterward that she asks why Richard made the request and he explains, which puts her into a minor Villainous BSOD and is the start of her redemption.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She was an exceptionally kindhearted girl, which made it all the harder to break her in the beginning, and resulting in an even crueler Mord-Sith at the end.
• Broken Bird
• Brown Eyes
• Combat Sadomasochist: Pain, killing, near-death experiences . . . "It can have a pleasure all its own."
• Dark Action Girl
• Dark and Troubled Past: One of the darkest and most troubled in the series. When she reveals some of it to Richard, he simultaneously feels sympathy, and an increased sense of hopelessness as he realizes just how profoundly messed up a madwoman he is dealing with.
• Double Standard Rape (Female on Male): Denna's physical and sexual abuse of Richard is shown negatively, but he ends up falling in love with her anyway.
• Dying as Yourself: Right before Richard kills her, she strips herself naked. She explains then, that all of her clothing and possessions are those of a Mord-Sith, and she wishes to die the way she was born, simply as Denna, not a Mord-Sith.
• Freudian Excuse: She was abducted as a young girl and forced to become a Mord-Sith, repeatedly broken, forced to watch her mother die and kill her own father, and eventually became the twisted Torture Technician that she is today.
• Hair-Trigger Temper
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Red leather, like other Mord-Sith. She briefly puts on white leather to show that she has such power over Richard that she doesn't need to make him bleed. Shortly after, she stains the entire outfit with his blood.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: With Constance, another Mord-Sith. The "heterosexual" might only be on Denna's half of the relationship, however, as Constance hates men and generally acts like a Psycho Lesbian.
• High Heel Face Turn
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: She was torturing Richard worse than anyone, hoping he'll be the one to kill her.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: She does not show Richard any mercy, regardless of whether he is standing up, lying down, or passed out at her feet and unable to move.
• Kick the Son of a Bitch: What she does to Queen Milena, who quite thoroughly deserved it.
• Kiss of Life: She uses to technique to make sure her pets don't die during training.
• Last Request: She asks Richard to take her last breath before she dies.
• Love Redeems
• Mutilation Interrogation: Her attempts to get Richard good and ready to answer Darken Rahl's questions involve slowly breaking his ribs one by one, dragging her Agiel across his flesh to raise blood-filled welts, an implied Groin Attack, sticking the Agiel inside his ear, and a lot of other things, all described in excruciating detail.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: A beat-down on Richard that lasts for several chapters and is bloody as all hell.
• Pet the Dog: During his torture by and virtual slavery to her, Richard still seems to care for her and want to keep her from being in pain. Denna is extremely confused by this for awhile, but afterwards Pets The Richard several times.
• The Power of Love: Richard, while his magic is held by her, finds out he can still use the magic through love. He later uses it to kill her, using his own sympathy and forgiveness for her as the fuel.
• Rape Is Love: Richard being the victim, and Denna being the rapist.
• Redemption Equals Death
• Self-Made Orphan
• Shoot Your Mate
• Spirit Advisor: In Temple of the Winds and Confessor.
• Torture Always Works
• Torture Technician
• Training From Hell: She got it, now she gives it. And when we say training from hell, we really mean it.
• Unstoppable Rage: Up to Eleven.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid

Emperor Jagang:

The leader of the Imperial Order, and the first Dreamwalker born in 3000 years. His goal is to enforce the doctrine of the Imperial Order by conquering the world with his massive armies and placing himself as the leader of it.

• Badass
• Bald of Evil: No one can imagine him with hair on his head. It would only make him look less menacing.
• Big Bad: For the last 8 books of the series.
• Black Eyes of Evil: The mark of a Dreamwalker.
• Blood Sport: Ja'la is his favorite sport, and he likes the bloody aspects of it.
• Casanova: Either the darkest version of this imaginable, or a horrible subversion. As the emperor, Jagang has a whole army of women who would be all too happy to be with him, but instead of sleeping with any of them, he deliberately chooses women who are slaves or unwilling captives, because being a serial rapist is more fun.
• The Chessmaster: It turns out being able to read the minds of most of the planet really helps in this regard.
• Cold-Blooded Torture
• Dirty Communists
• Dream Weaver: He has this power as a result of being a Dreamwalker, and he uses it to great effect.
• Evil Overlord
• Forced to Watch: He's rather fond of his tactic for people he knows won't break from being tortured themselves. Once, in an attempt to get Zedd to divulge important information, he brought in a group of children captured from the Midlands, and made him listen while his best torturers went to work on them. He also used a similar tactic as a threat on Kahlan, to keep her in line; since she more or less does stay in line, he never has to go through with it.
• Genius Bruiser: He appears heavily muscled, with arms thicker than some people's waists, and an enormous bull neck. However, he's a scholar and a tactician as well as a warrior and a leader, and as Kahlan admits, he is far from being just some stupid brute. "He was a very smart brute."
• Green-Eyed Monster: Towards Nicci. The first thing he said after reencountering her in Confessor was, “So, do you love him?” referring to Richard.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Like most of the other villains, he's prone to murderous rages at the drop of a hat, but can also be calm and polite and even forgiving at other times.
• Hypocrite: When Richard sends his armies to ravage the Old World and deprive Jagang of supplies, Jagang rants in anger and talks about Richard as if he's a Complete Monster for doing this, despite that this is exactly what Jagang has been doing to the New World since the early books of the series.
• Knight Templar: According to several characters, he honestly believes he's doing the right thing.
• Last of His Kind: The last Dreamwalker in the world, the only one in 3000 years.
• Lust
• Mind Rape: His specialty. He regularly practices the physical kind, as well.
• Mister Big: He's not that tall, so when surrounding himself with gigantic brutes, this is inevitable.
• Monochromatic Eyes
• More Than Mind Control: Even when the Chimes deprive him of his ability to control the captured Sisters of the Light, they still don't rebel out of fear.
• Names to Trust Immediately: Jagang the Just, taken on Nicci's suggestion because it made him sound more heroic and less evil.
• The Napoleon: Of average height, small compared to most of the characters in the series, but plenty mean.
• Obviously Evil: He still thinks he's on the side of good, though.
• Politically-Incorrect Villain
• Pragmatic Villainy: He's willing to listen to others, particularly when they know more about magic than he does, rather than just asserting his opinion.
• Psychic Powers
• Rape Is Love: He believes it is, apparently. Towards Nicci, at least.
• Rape, Pillage and Burn: Pretty much the Imperial Order's MO.
• Red Right Hand: His eyes, which mark his status as a Dreamwalker.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: By virtue of piggybacking on the Sisters of the Dark when they invoke the Chainfire spell.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Sealed from entering the New World until the barriers are brought down.
• Stalker with a Crush: Towards Nicci.
• Straw Misogynist: Not to the same extent as Darken Rahl, but still.
• Take Over the World
• Unstoppable Rage: When he sees Brother Narev's head.
• Villainous Breakdown: Ditto.
• We Have Reserves: Millions of soldiers, and he expects to lose a lot of them. That being said, he is still severely pissed when he loses hundreds of thousands.
• Would Hit a Girl
• Would Hurt a Child: Would torture them as well.
• Xanatos Gambit: Invoking a certain Either/Or Prophecy left Richard pretty much screwed whatever he did.

Drefan Rahl:

A bastard son of Darken Rahl, though not pristinely ungifted, who works as a healer for the Raug'Moss order. He, like his father, is a sexual sadist and servant of the Keeper.

• Badass Normal
• Bastard Bastard
• Blond Guys Are Evil
• Blue Eyes
• Cain and Abel: He's Cain.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: He enjoys doing it in his spare time.
• Combat Medic: What he seems to be at first.
• Deadly Doctor: After his evil side is revealed.
• Deal with the Devil: It seems to run in the family.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: He throws knives into a wall. They all hit within an inch of each other. Oh, and the wall was behind him.
• Knife Nut
• The Medic
• Nightmare Fetishist
• Pet the Dog: he seems to genuinely care about stopping the plague, and shows concern for those afflicted.
• Smug Snake
• Son of a Whore
• Straw Misogynist: Given that he's a villain in a Sword of Truth novel, that's almost mandatory.
• Unnamed Parent: His mother.
• Would Hit a Girl: To put it mildly.

Oba Rahl:

Another bastard son of Darken Rahl, pristinely ungifted, who serves the Keeper in exchange for "invincibility" or so he believes.

• Abusive Parents: His mother.
• Anti-Magic: Because magic doesn't affect him, he takes this as a sign that he is invincible.
• Attempted Rape: Of Nyda, along with some more successful attempts on women he meets along the way.
• Bastard Bastard
• Blond Guys Are Evil
• Blue Eyes
• Brother-Sister Incest: Hilariously discussed by Oba himself. He thinks about how hot Jennsen is and is implied to be getting turned on, but then reminds himself that they have the same father. "Oba was too principled to consider her as a lover. Despite her ravishing looks and the way thinking of her made his groin wake, his integrity wouldn't allow such a breach of decency. He was Oba Rahl, not some rutting animal."
• Cain and Abel: He's Cain.
• Deal with the Devil: "Surrender, Oba, and you will be invincible."
• Dumb Muscle
• Enemy to All Living Things
• Evil Counterpart: To Jennsen. They are both pristinely ungifted bastard children of Darken Rahl, and are the two main characters of The Pillars of Creation, and are repeatedly contrasted. Jennsen's mother was seduced by Darken Rahl when she was fifteen, while Oba's mother intentionally seduced Darken Rahl as a plan to increase her status.(It didn't work.) Jennsen is horrified and shocked when her mother is murdered by quadsman, while Oba kills his mother personally and shows no remorse. They both visit Lathea and Althea, Jennsen getting information and help from them while Oba tries to kill them. However, it is Jennsen, not Oba, that the Keeper chooses to play the pivotal role in his master plan.
• Evilly Affable: He doesn't have a single redeeming trait compared to his numerous Kick the Dog moments, but his self-righteous and blatantly disturbed way of thinking still makes him incredibly amusing.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: He was originally fairly well-behaved, if obviously weird and with traits of the potential sociopath, before he began dealing with the Keeper.
• Self-Made Orphan: He kills his abusive mother after joining the Keeper, with a shovel.
• Shovel Strike
• Smug Snake: He likes to think of himself as a cunning Warrior Poet with a healthy curiosity who likes to learn things, and thinks he's got the whole cast wrapped around his finger and will become the ruler of D'Hara in time. In reality, he's a blundering, sociopathic idiot who's being manipulated by the Keeper.
• Straw Misogynist: His favorite thing about women? Raping and torturing them to death.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He is very similar to Drefan and goes a similar path, and he isn't introduced until Drefan is already dead.
• Unnamed Parent: Yes, his mother.
• Would Hit a Girl: Noticing a pattern, yet?

Sebastian:

Emperor Jagang's strategist, a very high ranking man in the Imperial Order, and Jennsen's companion throughout The Pillars of Creation.

• Affably Evil
• Anti-Villain: He's well-intentioned, Affably Evil, seemed to genuinely be in love with Jennsen, and is still utterly devoted to the Imperial Order and willing to commit any number of atrocities in its name.
• Badass Normal
• Big Damn Heroes: He appears and kills the last men of a quad and saves Jennsen from them, though not in time to save her mother. It turns out, they weren't a quad, but Sebastian's own men, disguised so that he could eliminate Jennsen's mother, make himself look like a hero to her, and turn her against Richard.
• Blue Eyes
• Driven to Suicide
• Evil Genius: He's one of Jagang's primary advisors and tacticians, and the strategist for the Imperial Order as a whole.
• Evil Will Fail: The conflict between his love for Jennsen and his loyalty to the Imperial Order's beliefs is one of the primary factors that leads to him killing himself.
• Face Heel Turn
• Manipulative Bastard
• The Unfettered: He isn't as sadistic as most other villains, but he is still very much on the Imperial Order's side and has little compunction to "sacrificing" numerous innocent people in the name of winning the war.
• Utopia Justifies the Means
• We Have Reserves/ You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He doesn't seem to have a problem with causing the deaths of his own men along the way, once they do their part.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: Though he isn't that old, he has a full head of stark white hair.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: He consumes a certain plant in a dangerous quantity to give himself a fever, so that Jennsen will be encouraged to offer him shelter for the night.

Princess Violet:

The Princess of Tamarang. Though only a child, she already orders beheadings, keeps a "playmate" who she regularly slaps and punishes for no reason other than her own enjoyment, enjoys torturing prisoners, and makes plans to have women she does not like gang-raped by the castle guard.

• Cold-Blooded Torture
• Enfant Terrible
• Everything's Better with Princesses: Subverted.
• For the Evulz: Many of her horrific deeds are done just because she was feeling spiteful or because she thought it was fun.
• Geometric Magic: Although it takes so long to teach her, that Rachel gets the hang of it just from listening.
• Kick The Bitch: The kickee in this case. In any other book, the hero knocking the teeth out of a 10 year old girl's mouth would be a horrible thing to do. But in any other book, said 10 year old girl probably wouldn't have been torturing him at the time while threatening to have his love interest gang-raped and executed.
• It's All About Me
• Royal Brat
• Royally Screwed-Up
• She Is All Grown Up: Used in a very negative way.
• Smug Snake
• Unstoppable Rage
• Villainous Demotivator: She really should have treated Six better.

Michael Cypher:

The adopted brother of Richard Cypher, son of George Cypher. Michael plans to unite the three kingdoms...by any means necessary.

• Cain and Abel: He's Cain.
• Dystopian Edict: To prepare the Westlanders for when Darken Rahl takes over, he makes a speech about the dangers of fire. To his credit, though, he never says outright that fire should be banned, only that mishandling of fire is a very real trouble that needs to be corrected somehow.
• Face Heel Turn
• The Mole
• Smug Snake
• Visionary Villain
• Well-Intentioned Extremist

Tobias Brogan

The Lord General of the genocidal Blood of the Fold.

• A God Am I
• Church Militant: Believes he's doing the Creator's work.
• Hunter of His Own Kind
• Knight Templar
• Mage Killer: Believes that magic is inherently evil, and needs to be purged.
• Manipulative Bastard
• Mutilation Interrogation
• Rage Against the Heavens: He thinks he will, but given that the Creator is entirely off screen, he doesn't get a chance.
• Smug Snake
• Villainous Breakdown: When he comes to believe that the Creator "has gone insane".
• Would Hit a Girl
• Would Hurt a Child
• You Are What You Hate: He turns out to have the gift.

Nicholas The Slide

A Slide, a creation of Emperor Jagang and the Sisters of the Dark. He was once a wizard, but was transformed into a Slide through horrific magical experiments. He now serves Jagang, and secretly plots to rule as Emperor himself.

• Character Tics: Running his fingers through his oiled hair.
• The Dragon: After Nicci left.
• Fate Worse Than Death: Becoming a Slide in the first place.
• Last of His Kind: By virtue of being the only one created since the Great War.
• Sixth Ranger: A villainous example.
• Smug Snake
• The Starscream

The Chimes of Death:

A soulless, demonic force that destroys magic, beginning The End of the World as We Know It. They take different forms and kill their victims through either wind, water, or fire. One of those forms happens to be a chicken that is not a chicken.

• Anti-Magic: While they're in the world of the living, Magic just stops working.
• Blow You Away
• Even Evil Has Standards: They aren't hurting the people who summoned them.
• Feathered Fiend
• Kill It with Fire
• Kill It with Water
• Making a Splash
• Nobody Here but Us Chickens
• Playing with Fire
• Speak of the Devil: Don't say their names out loud; that's how you summon them.
• Would Hurt a Child

The Keeper of the Underworld:

The ultimate evil force of the universe, the antithesis to the Creator, imprisoned in the underworld. The Keeper of the Underworld torments the dead who do not earn their place with the good spirits, and wishes to exterminate all life.

• Black Magic
• Deal with the Devil: He often makes pacts and agreements with his mortal servants.
• Devil but No God: The Keeper takes an activate role in trying to exterminate the living. Aside from sealing him away in the first place, the Creator doesn't seem to do much at all.
• For the Evulz: He hates that you live. Your life is the crime.
• God of Evil
• Speak of the Devil: Turns out to be just superstition, though.
• The Dreaded: The Keeper served as an in-universe example of this when a young Kahlan heard a poem about him. "The Screelings are loose and the Keeper may win, his assassins have come to rip off your skin!"
• The Man Behind the Man
• The Scottish Trope