#drizz't

The thing is, R.A. Salvatore writes two things particularly well - fight choreography and complex/compelling spiritual journeys. His writing is at his best when it focuses on the latter interspersed with the former. Note that The Crystal Shard - the first Drizz’t book written -  is all about those kinds of conflicts. We get more than just Drizz’t’s conflict over trying to cast off the (justified) hatred of his evil kind and live a free and wholesome life on the surface. We also get Burenor and Cattie-Brie struggling with the cultural difficulties of a dwarf raising a human child, Wulfgar seeking a way to honor the principles of his people and ancestors without falling into cruelty, and even Akar Kessel struggling both for dominance over Crenshinnibon and with his own inferiority complex as a mage.

Salvatore writes all of these narratives well both in isolation and weaving them together, having each character’s journey in proximity to each other impact their perspectives and influence the way they think about their own struggles. Drizz’t is a very compelling character for the Companions of the Hall (and their enemies - Artemis Entreri in particular) to revolve around. The problem is that these sorts of conflicts can become stale if they go on perpetually and never resolve, but if they do resolve the character must necessarily change with their resolutions or else they fall flat.

Now bearing in mind that I have only read up through the Sea of Swords before my childhood money ran out, but for my money at least up to that point Salvatore does a good job resolving old conflicts and creating new ones. But by the end I was getting the sense that, because those internal conflicts are what he is best at, he was hitting a point where he’d have to either keep messing up his characters internal lives in new and increasingly contrived ways or else let them resolve conflicts for a while and have to hang his books purely on fight choreography and his weaker external conflicts for narrative development, which would not be nearly as compelling.

I wish, dearly and deeply, that “Legend of Drizz’t” could be allowed to end, not because I don’t like it, but because I found the Cleric Quintet to be an order of magnitude more powerful and satisfying an experience than any Drizz’t series because of the finality and closure Cadderly was able to reach in his spiritual journey. And it isn’t as if closing the book on Drizz’t’s series would mean the end of him - Cadderly shows up as a supporting cast member in at least one or two Drizz’t novels where he is able to use his completed character journey to provide advice and wisdom to Drizz’t and others still on theirs. Moving the focus away from Drizz’t’s story would still allow him to be around, but would also enable him to become a more mysterious and mentor-like figure to other protagonists, which we know from earlier Drizz’t books is a role he fits well into.

I feel like this is part of the frustration some elements of the fanbase have with him. His internal arcs are what draw people to him, but after a certain point that becomes impossible to sustain and keep a character recognizable. Like I said, I haven’t read far enough to know if Salvatore manages to walk that line or if he falls into exhausting character arcs or empty external conflicts as things go on, but even in the best case scenario of him nailing it and having Drizz’t continue to grow and change as a person as time goes by . . . this means a ton of fans are going to eventually lose the character they fell in love with because he has grown into an entirely different person. And if Salvatore didn’t nail it, well then it’s easy to flanderize and dismiss him due to the botched development and as a result tarnish memories of the past.

I think there’s also an issue where, because Salvatore is so good at writing those internal conflicts, you get people wanting to play that sort of thing in games. And it’s really hard to write that in a fun and compelling way if you have absolute narrative control and a way to peek inside a character’s head. In a tabletop game where the dice can dictate narrative beats and you can’t share internal conflict easily without rambling to people about your character it becomes even more difficult to land that kind of story without being at least a little grating to your friends.

This is where the whole “the entire race of drow are made up of chaotic good loners trying to escape the reputation of their universally evil kin” snark comes from - frustration with players who earnestly want to tell what could be a very compelling arc but are not great at doing so, at least within the complex narrative confines of a collaborative dice-based game and so default to doing it with more traditional narrative trappings that make things all about them and bog down play time.

I feel like a lot of (though definitely not all) the criticism thrown at Drizz’t is projected frustration with players who want to play that story but wind up frustrating their fellows. More of it is usually some frustration with some aspect or another of the drow as a concept and society, which I could talk about for probably as long as this post so I am gonna say anyone who wants that can send another ask because this is long enough.

So yeah, that’s . . . most of my rambling thoughts on Drizz’t, which were way more fun to talk about than I would have guessed, so thanks! Apparently I can infodump about all kinds of tabletop minutia if prompted.