Exile - Part Four (Interlude)
Oct. 10th, 2022 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalinara posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
i_read_whatSo we're heading into another major part, which means that we get to completely disrupt all plot momentum to listen to Drizzt's blathering! Who-hoo!
Honestly, I'll never really understand the point of these entries. As I complained two seconds ago, they really disrupt the plot momentum, and the teasers might be enticing, but they're arguably also kind of spoilery.
To be fair, this is a prequel series, so it wasn't like we were SURPRISED that Zaknafein was probably doomed.
But still, teasers make sense if the story is being released episodically, but why bother when we literally just need to read the next chapter to confirm them? Especially since we would be reading said chapter, if not for this interlude.
Oh well. Let's here Drizzt pontificate about captivity:
There have been many times in my life when I have felt helpless. It is perhaps the most acute pain a person can know, founded in frustration and ventless rage. The nick of a sword upon a battling soldier’s arm cannot compare to the anguish a prisoner feels at the crack of a whip. Even if the whip does not strike the helpless prisoner’s body, it surely cuts deeply at his soul.
We all are prisoners at one time or another in our lives, prisoners to ourselves or to the expectations of those around us. It is a burden that all people endure, that all people despise, and that few people ever learn to escape. I consider myself fortunate in this respect, for my life has traveled along a fairly straight-running path of improvement. Beginning in Menzoberranzan, under the relentless scrutiny of the evil Spider Queen’s high priestesses, I suppose that my situation could only have improved.
So yeah. I'm assuming this next part of the book will involve being a prisoner. I couldn't possibly have guessed that from how the last chapter ended with our heroes being captured.
The next part Drizzt's college enrollment essay talks about how he once believed he could stand alone, but only now he realizes that he was never REALLY alone and always had friends:
Zaknafein, Belwar, Clacker, Mooshie, Bruenor, Regis, Catti-brie, Wulfgar, and of course, Guenhwyvar, dear Guenhwyvar. These were the companions who justified my principles, who gave me the strength to continue against any foe, real or imagined. These were the companions who fought the helplessness, the rage, and frustration.
Okay, that IS kind of sweet. It reminds me a bit about how fans love to point out that "loner" Batman has at least six kids of various levels of legality and an entire league's worth of superpowered friends. And Alfred. We all should be so lucky. We recognize most of those names, and the last one will be introduced in the next book in the trilogy.
I still think "Mooshie" is a silly nickname though.
Anyway, the action will resume next week.
Honestly, I'll never really understand the point of these entries. As I complained two seconds ago, they really disrupt the plot momentum, and the teasers might be enticing, but they're arguably also kind of spoilery.
To be fair, this is a prequel series, so it wasn't like we were SURPRISED that Zaknafein was probably doomed.
But still, teasers make sense if the story is being released episodically, but why bother when we literally just need to read the next chapter to confirm them? Especially since we would be reading said chapter, if not for this interlude.
Oh well. Let's here Drizzt pontificate about captivity:
There have been many times in my life when I have felt helpless. It is perhaps the most acute pain a person can know, founded in frustration and ventless rage. The nick of a sword upon a battling soldier’s arm cannot compare to the anguish a prisoner feels at the crack of a whip. Even if the whip does not strike the helpless prisoner’s body, it surely cuts deeply at his soul.
We all are prisoners at one time or another in our lives, prisoners to ourselves or to the expectations of those around us. It is a burden that all people endure, that all people despise, and that few people ever learn to escape. I consider myself fortunate in this respect, for my life has traveled along a fairly straight-running path of improvement. Beginning in Menzoberranzan, under the relentless scrutiny of the evil Spider Queen’s high priestesses, I suppose that my situation could only have improved.
So yeah. I'm assuming this next part of the book will involve being a prisoner. I couldn't possibly have guessed that from how the last chapter ended with our heroes being captured.
The next part Drizzt's college enrollment essay talks about how he once believed he could stand alone, but only now he realizes that he was never REALLY alone and always had friends:
Zaknafein, Belwar, Clacker, Mooshie, Bruenor, Regis, Catti-brie, Wulfgar, and of course, Guenhwyvar, dear Guenhwyvar. These were the companions who justified my principles, who gave me the strength to continue against any foe, real or imagined. These were the companions who fought the helplessness, the rage, and frustration.
Okay, that IS kind of sweet. It reminds me a bit about how fans love to point out that "loner" Batman has at least six kids of various levels of legality and an entire league's worth of superpowered friends. And Alfred. We all should be so lucky. We recognize most of those names, and the last one will be introduced in the next book in the trilogy.
I still think "Mooshie" is a silly nickname though.
Anyway, the action will resume next week.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-11 01:19 pm (UTC)I fucking hate the Illithids. Even if the sound effect that was used for their assault was kinda funny. I think it was "Fwoop?" maybe?
no subject
Date: 2022-10-11 01:38 pm (UTC)(I think Zuggutmoy supposedly does exist in FR, but I've never seen her get much focus. Ed Greenwood seems far more into his gorgeous magical goddesses and demigoddesses than in visceral pseudo-Lovecraftian horror.
And there's nothing wrong with that! But it does make the illithids fit oddly.)
no subject
Date: 2022-10-11 02:09 pm (UTC)Not sure about Zuggutmoy though, may have to look into that myself.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-11 04:10 pm (UTC)She's a fungal goddess who gets involved in all the Grazzt/Iggwilv/Iuz shenanigans in the Greyhawk setting. Alternate form is a beautiful woman, of course, but she seems to spend most of her time as a gross pulsing fungus that rules over a very sludgy layer of the Abyss.
I think she might have been name dropped in the prologue to Crystal Shard, but my review does not elaborate.