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| Despite the title, there are no Gelflings. More's the pity. |
No, don't worry, I'm not reviewing Twilight.
No, this ridiculous Marty Stu is not an immortal vampire who nevertheless can wander around in the sun and is the very soul of purity despite being a creeper.
No, this one is a so-long-lived-he-may-as-well-be-immortal dark elf who nevertheless wanders around in the sun and is the very soul of purity despite being a psychopath.
We're delving deep into the Forgotten Realms today, examining the novel line that spun off from the popular Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game. Specifically, we're looking at R. A. Salvatore's "The Crystal Shard", which is the first appearance of his most well known creation: Edward Cullen.
I mean Drizzt Do'Urden. That's who I meant.
The Crystal Shard takes place in the frozen tundra of Icewind Dale. If that sounds familiar, it's because they later made a video game based on this book, and its two sequels.
All you really need to know is that there are a collection of ten fishing villages known as Ten Towns, and a bunch of barbarian tribes who like murdering things.
Oh, and in the Forgotten Realms "barbarian" is not just a slur that you toss on anyone from a different civilization. No, the barbarians call themselves "barbarians". They're organized and everything. Ah, Dungeons and Dragons.
Anyway, our story opens up as the barbarians are preparing to raid Ten Towns, only to be opposed by Drizzt Do'Urden, the dark elf, and Bruenor Battlehammer, a dwarf who wields an axe. Not a hammer. An axe. I suppose calling him Bruenor Battleaxe would just be silly, though.
In order to unite the feuding Ten Towns against the barbarians, Drizzt, who is a political mastermind (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 1) has to make everyone work together. But they won't listen to Drizzt, because he is a hated dark elf and everyone in epic fantasy is racist.
Luckily, Drizzt has a secret weapon! A halfling (non-lawsuit-inducing generic version of a hobbit) named Regis, who has a magical gem that hypnotizes people! Much as I want to make a joke about the gem being called "Kathy Lee" (or "Kelly" for you younguns), I'm far more focused on the fact that Drizzt's brilliant plan is to... subvert the will of the town leaders through mind control.
And this brings up my first major problem with this novel. Drizzt Do'Urden is a good, moral, decent person, pure as the driven snow. We know this... because the novel tells it to us, again and again. Multiple times the novel harps on how Drizzt left his evil race's underground home, because he was too good and pure and decent to be evil like the rest of the black elves. I mean dark elves. Sorry, that won't happen again.
But except for the novel telling us so, there is really very little evidence that Drizzt has any morals at all. Oh, maybe he's not as blatantly evil as your typical Drow, but he has no problem associating with Regis, a known thief, and using him to mind control legitimately appointed political leaders.
Later on, he'll react with psychopathic glee at the thought of murdering a bunch of giants... for no reason other than that he really hates giants and wants to murder them. Okay, so they were the advance guard for the giant magical army I'll talk about in a bit, but still, the novel goes out of its way to point out how gleefully bloodthirsty he is. Later he sneaks away from his supposed "friends", so that he can find some treasure and take the best bits for himself without them knowing.
Oh, but we are told that this is not from greed, and he'll only take a little bit, he just likes taking his bits before anyone else gets a chance to see them. Because that totally justifies it.
I suppose you could say that he fights to defend Ten Towns, but he lives in Ten Towns. So really he's just fighting to protect his home. Even when dealing with those who would be considered "friends", he only does things for them based on his own sense of what he owes them. He does nothing out of pure generosity or altruism. He has a certain degree of honor, but very little goodness.
But the novel assures us he is the most good and pure and sweetest thing that ever set foot upon the Gods' green earth. So I guess we'll just have to take the novel's word for it.
And while we're talking about the novel's words, let me make one thing abundantly clear: Frank Herbert can get away with switching perspectives multiple times mid-scene, because he's Frank Herbert and he's earned it. R. A. Salvatore cannot. The perspective jumps around so fast it will give you whiplash. Each chapter is broken up into multiple scenes, presumably with one point of view character per scene, but then the perspective starts jumping around within a scene, and everyone's inner monologues are written out, and it's just lazy and confusing writing. And this is not even getting into the fact that his prose manages to be overly purple, and yet somehow not descriptive enough.
Anyway, the big battle between barbarians and the Ten Towns ends with a crushing barbarian defeat, mainly because Drizzt and Bruenor could easily murder everyone and everything in the world single-handedly.
Indeed, it's even worse than that. Because Drizzt is so awesome at everything he does, there is never any threat from the barbarians. Drizzt is so stealthy that he sneaks into the barbarian camp (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 2), at which point the barbarians helpfully spout their entire battle strategy within earshot. Then, because Drizzt is a master tactician (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 3), and the best swordsman on the planet (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 4), he leads the Ten Towns in routing the barbarians.
Oh, did I mention that Drizzt is helped in his battle by a magical, mystical murder-panther who he summons via a small statue? And that he got this panther as an ally because he alone, of all the drow, was good and kind and sweet to animals (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 5). And this revelation triggers an extended flashback where we learn that Drizzt alone, of all the Drow, is a good guy, and this allowed him to daringly and heroically escape from his people because Drizzt Is Seriously Awesome, Why Don't You Believe Me, I Guess I'll Have To Keep Telling You That Again And Again And Again!
The problem with the whole battle is that there is never any threat. Drizzt, and occasionally his friends, are so skilled that it never feels like anything can harm them. They always know exactly what to do to foil their rather stupid enemies. Furthermore, there is no suspense in the novel anywhere. Neither villainous nor heroic plans are ever kept secret to build suspense in the reader, they are blatantly described before they happen. While there are some battles that should be epic, the fact that we already know all the plans and can logically surmise how those plans will interact kills any sense of dramatic tension.
During the battle a young barbarian named Wulfgar is captured by Bruenor, who like any typical good guy, proceeds to make Wulfgar his slave for five years and send him to the mines. Because that is totally what good guys do. It's okay, though! Because the goodness and purity and kindness of his slavemasters is enough to teach Wulfgar to rise above his savage, sub-human barbarian roots, and embrace the civilized ways of... okay, this sentence is now making me extremely uncomfortable.
What the hell, heroes?
To be fair, Bruenor does end up treating Wulfgar as his son, and even makes him a masterwork hammer that he can throw away and which returns back to him, and at this point we may as well just call him Thor for the rest of the book, because that is who he is.
So five years pass. Bruenor gets Drizzt to teach Wulfgar how to use his hammer, because Drizzt is best at teaching all kinds of combat no matter what the weapon is (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 6). Regis is now fat and wealthy, mostly because he's been hypnotizing people into doing pretty much whatever he wants. Because this is somehow... heroic?
But unknown to the Ten Towns, a whiny, egotistical wizard's apprentice accidentally stumbled upon the most powerful magical artifact of chaos and evil known to man: The Crystal Shard. Finally, the title makes sense! The Crystal Shard turned him into Akar Kessel, Tyrant of Icewind Dale! He will be our main bad guy, not because he's clever (because he's really extraordinarily stupid), but because the artifact gives him tremendous power and the ability to mind control others.
Apparently this is a theme in the novel.
He uses mind control to unite all the orcs, and trolls, and giants, and the tattered remnants of the barbarian tribes under his banner, transforming them into a powerful army, and also to get a lot of hot girls to lounge around naked so he can rape them repeatedly and WHAT?
Woah. Woah. WHAT, novel?
Okay, I get that the shard has corrupted him and made him completely irredeemably evil, but do we have to show that through rape?
It gets worse, though! When he's finally defeated, his crystal tower collapses in on itself. The heroes manage to escape... but they lift not one finger to save the poor, innocent women he has brainwashed. They're all killed. Indeed, the heroes barely think of them at all, except for a passing note of disgust. Not pity. Disgust. And they are never mentioned after their death.
Indeed, they comprise the only women in this entire novel, except for Bruenor's adopted daughter Catti-Brie, who mostly exists to have romantic tension with Bruenor's sort-of adopted son Wulfgar in "they're adopted so it's okay" incest, and to get damseled off screen during the final battle to justify Bruenor leaving the scene to save her. So other than Catti-Brie, the only women in the novel are the mind-controlled rape victims.
For Cthulhu's sake, R. A. Salvatore, you wrote this novel in 1988, not the 70s. Were you reading a lot of John Norman or something?
Anyways, back to the plot.
So Drizzt and Wulfgar find out about Kessel's giant magical army when they stumble upon some giants who were serving as scouts. Drizzt gets full of bloodlust, and proceeds to murder their whole encampment along with Wulfgar. This is the point I mentioned earlier, when Drizzt sneaks off to get the treasure before Wulfgar sees it. The novel points out that even though Drizzt is not a trained thief, his fingers are as dextrous as any master burgler's, and he can easily pick locks (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 7).
Wulfgar decides he needs to be leader of the barbarians, to get them away from Kessel's army. To do this he has to commit a great deed, so he almost gets killed slaying a dragon before Drizzt saves him, because this is Drizzt's novel, dammit, and he'll be damned if he lets anyone else show skill when he's around!
So with the dragon slain, Wulfgar makes claim to the kingship of barbarians (because barbarians are organized enough to have a king, you see). He kills the previous king in single combat, and tells the barbarians that they are going to defend their mortal enemies in Ten Towns.
Now, this is another interesting moral dissonance. In the first part of the novel, the barbarians are shown as bloodthirsty. They are strong, and have their own sense of honor, but that code of honor does not stop them from the whole murdering and pillaging thing that they do. Wulfgar changes none of that. He just becomes king, and tells them to join with Ten Towns because they will get to murder orcs and goblins and giants and stuff. Nowhere in the novel is it implied that he is making the barbarians anything different than the bloodthirsty killers they have been portrayed as.
That whole thing is just swept under the rug, and at the end of the novel they live with the people of Ten Towns in peace. Just sort of... ignoring the fact that their entire economy is based on murdering and pillaging those same Ten Towns.
Anyway, Drizzt gets a shiny new scimitar from the dragon's horde (because again, he likes to steal the best treasure before anyone else gets to it, like the hero he is), which will be important in a bit. Because he finds out Kessel has a demon general, and it just so happens that Drizzt knows the true name of this demon, because Drizzt knows everything (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 8).
So Drizzt summons the demon, and manages to trick the demon into telling him how to destroy Kessel's power, because Drizzt is the best at tricking demons (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 9). Then the demon attacks, and Drizzt finds out that the scimitar he picked up just so happens to be a scimitar of murdering the hell out of demons! What a fortuitous and completely random circumstance that is in no way forced or insulting to the intelligence of the reader!
Ugh. At this point I am so ready for this to be over. So there's a big battle, and Drizzt sneaks into the crystal tower and destroys it (murdering all the innocent women in the process, because hero!) And then the villain is so stupid that during his last stand he brings an avalanche down on his head and dies. And everyone lives happily ever after, except for the mind controlled women, and the orcs and goblins and giants and trolls who are all murdered down to the last creature, and the reader who is scarred for life from this piece of dreck.
Apparently this was only part one of a trilogy, but you can have your trilogies. I'm done. Drizzt Do'Urden can suck Edward Cullen's cock (I hear Drizzt is best at cocksucking).
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| Like this, but with fishing and snow instead of farming and Japan. |
Oh, and in the Forgotten Realms "barbarian" is not just a slur that you toss on anyone from a different civilization. No, the barbarians call themselves "barbarians". They're organized and everything. Ah, Dungeons and Dragons.
Anyway, our story opens up as the barbarians are preparing to raid Ten Towns, only to be opposed by Drizzt Do'Urden, the dark elf, and Bruenor Battlehammer, a dwarf who wields an axe. Not a hammer. An axe. I suppose calling him Bruenor Battleaxe would just be silly, though.
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| If you had to deal with adventurers killing your people and taking your stuff, you'd join up with Sauron too! |
Luckily, Drizzt has a secret weapon! A halfling (non-lawsuit-inducing generic version of a hobbit) named Regis, who has a magical gem that hypnotizes people! Much as I want to make a joke about the gem being called "Kathy Lee" (or "Kelly" for you younguns), I'm far more focused on the fact that Drizzt's brilliant plan is to... subvert the will of the town leaders through mind control.
And this brings up my first major problem with this novel. Drizzt Do'Urden is a good, moral, decent person, pure as the driven snow. We know this... because the novel tells it to us, again and again. Multiple times the novel harps on how Drizzt left his evil race's underground home, because he was too good and pure and decent to be evil like the rest of the black elves. I mean dark elves. Sorry, that won't happen again.
But except for the novel telling us so, there is really very little evidence that Drizzt has any morals at all. Oh, maybe he's not as blatantly evil as your typical Drow, but he has no problem associating with Regis, a known thief, and using him to mind control legitimately appointed political leaders.
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| Impressive, but has he ever set fire to a military base? |
Oh, but we are told that this is not from greed, and he'll only take a little bit, he just likes taking his bits before anyone else gets a chance to see them. Because that totally justifies it.
I suppose you could say that he fights to defend Ten Towns, but he lives in Ten Towns. So really he's just fighting to protect his home. Even when dealing with those who would be considered "friends", he only does things for them based on his own sense of what he owes them. He does nothing out of pure generosity or altruism. He has a certain degree of honor, but very little goodness.
But the novel assures us he is the most good and pure and sweetest thing that ever set foot upon the Gods' green earth. So I guess we'll just have to take the novel's word for it.
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| It can also get away with morally ambiguous heroes. Because it's better. |
Anyway, the big battle between barbarians and the Ten Towns ends with a crushing barbarian defeat, mainly because Drizzt and Bruenor could easily murder everyone and everything in the world single-handedly.
Indeed, it's even worse than that. Because Drizzt is so awesome at everything he does, there is never any threat from the barbarians. Drizzt is so stealthy that he sneaks into the barbarian camp (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 2), at which point the barbarians helpfully spout their entire battle strategy within earshot. Then, because Drizzt is a master tactician (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 3), and the best swordsman on the planet (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 4), he leads the Ten Towns in routing the barbarians.
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| The cat has whatever powers the plot needs. |
The problem with the whole battle is that there is never any threat. Drizzt, and occasionally his friends, are so skilled that it never feels like anything can harm them. They always know exactly what to do to foil their rather stupid enemies. Furthermore, there is no suspense in the novel anywhere. Neither villainous nor heroic plans are ever kept secret to build suspense in the reader, they are blatantly described before they happen. While there are some battles that should be epic, the fact that we already know all the plans and can logically surmise how those plans will interact kills any sense of dramatic tension.
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| I haven't seen this movie yet, but I assume it's about how being a slave built character and led to a close, familial relationship between the slave and his master, right? |
What the hell, heroes?
To be fair, Bruenor does end up treating Wulfgar as his son, and even makes him a masterwork hammer that he can throw away and which returns back to him, and at this point we may as well just call him Thor for the rest of the book, because that is who he is.
So five years pass. Bruenor gets Drizzt to teach Wulfgar how to use his hammer, because Drizzt is best at teaching all kinds of combat no matter what the weapon is (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 6). Regis is now fat and wealthy, mostly because he's been hypnotizing people into doing pretty much whatever he wants. Because this is somehow... heroic?
 |
| Who wouldn't be mind controlled by the Bee Gees? |
Apparently this is a theme in the novel.
He uses mind control to unite all the orcs, and trolls, and giants, and the tattered remnants of the barbarian tribes under his banner, transforming them into a powerful army, and also to get a lot of hot girls to lounge around naked so he can rape them repeatedly and WHAT?
Woah. Woah. WHAT, novel?
Okay, I get that the shard has corrupted him and made him completely irredeemably evil, but do we have to show that through rape?
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| Here's a picture of Wonder Woman kicking Superman's ass. I just thought this was necessary. |
Indeed, they comprise the only women in this entire novel, except for Bruenor's adopted daughter Catti-Brie, who mostly exists to have romantic tension with Bruenor's sort-of adopted son Wulfgar in "they're adopted so it's okay" incest, and to get damseled off screen during the final battle to justify Bruenor leaving the scene to save her. So other than Catti-Brie, the only women in the novel are the mind-controlled rape victims.
For Cthulhu's sake, R. A. Salvatore, you wrote this novel in 1988, not the 70s. Were you reading a lot of John Norman or something?
Anyways, back to the plot.
So Drizzt and Wulfgar find out about Kessel's giant magical army when they stumble upon some giants who were serving as scouts. Drizzt gets full of bloodlust, and proceeds to murder their whole encampment along with Wulfgar. This is the point I mentioned earlier, when Drizzt sneaks off to get the treasure before Wulfgar sees it. The novel points out that even though Drizzt is not a trained thief, his fingers are as dextrous as any master burgler's, and he can easily pick locks (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 7).
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| I'm sure those bones were there when the dragon moved in. |
So with the dragon slain, Wulfgar makes claim to the kingship of barbarians (because barbarians are organized enough to have a king, you see). He kills the previous king in single combat, and tells the barbarians that they are going to defend their mortal enemies in Ten Towns.
Now, this is another interesting moral dissonance. In the first part of the novel, the barbarians are shown as bloodthirsty. They are strong, and have their own sense of honor, but that code of honor does not stop them from the whole murdering and pillaging thing that they do. Wulfgar changes none of that. He just becomes king, and tells them to join with Ten Towns because they will get to murder orcs and goblins and giants and stuff. Nowhere in the novel is it implied that he is making the barbarians anything different than the bloodthirsty killers they have been portrayed as.
That whole thing is just swept under the rug, and at the end of the novel they live with the people of Ten Towns in peace. Just sort of... ignoring the fact that their entire economy is based on murdering and pillaging those same Ten Towns.
Anyway, Drizzt gets a shiny new scimitar from the dragon's horde (because again, he likes to steal the best treasure before anyone else gets to it, like the hero he is), which will be important in a bit. Because he finds out Kessel has a demon general, and it just so happens that Drizzt knows the true name of this demon, because Drizzt knows everything (Drizzt Is Best At Things Count: 8).
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| Look at his face. He knows he's in a terrible story. |
Ugh. At this point I am so ready for this to be over. So there's a big battle, and Drizzt sneaks into the crystal tower and destroys it (murdering all the innocent women in the process, because hero!) And then the villain is so stupid that during his last stand he brings an avalanche down on his head and dies. And everyone lives happily ever after, except for the mind controlled women, and the orcs and goblins and giants and trolls who are all murdered down to the last creature, and the reader who is scarred for life from this piece of dreck.
Apparently this was only part one of a trilogy, but you can have your trilogies. I'm done. Drizzt Do'Urden can suck Edward Cullen's cock (I hear Drizzt is best at cocksucking).
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| Again, just... felt this needed to go here. For reasons. |
I'm now both morbidly curious about this novel and grateful that I won't have to waste my time on it.
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