Streams of Silver - Chapter Five
Mar. 8th, 2020 12:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatThis one's later than it ought to be. My excuse is that I'm recovering from a cold. But also, it's very difficult to be enthusiastic about a book that turned my favorite character into a would-be rapist, and had two others assault and rob a woman because they weren't willing to pay what she wanted.
It'd be one thing if the characters were MEANT to be seen as assholes, but they're not. But I'll suck it up. Perhaps they can redeem themselves. Except Regis, he's dead to me.
So our "heroes" have left Luskan. Drizzt has taken the lead, and we're told "their encounters" have filled them with adrenaline. Yeah, they would, wouldn't they. We're told there's "something magical" hanging in the air that's leading all of them to lower their guard. Bruenor is thinking of Mithril Hall, our tiny rapist is thinking of Calimport, and Wulfgar, who was apparently despondent about his ill-fated encounter with civilization is feeling uplifting and thinking about the tundra.
Aw, poor Wulfgar, don't feel bad. There's nothing to be ashamed of in not realizing that the lady was selling her trade, or trying to protect your friends. Everyone else should be ashamed, but not you. Salvatore has apparently decided that he hasn't done enough to seed a romantic plotline, so out of the blue, Wulfgar wishes that Catti-brie, "the woman he had grown to cherish" (and y'know, hasn't thought about this entire book) was here to see it too.
Oh, hey, this is fun, while Bruenor and Regis get a sentence, and Wulfgar a few lines, Drizzt gets:
If the others had not been so preoccupied with their own enjoyment of the evening, they would have noticed an extra bounce in Drizzt Do'Urden's graceful step as well. To the drow, these magical nights, when the heavenly dome reached down below the horizon, bolstered his confidence in the most important and difficult decision he had ever made, the choice to forsake his people and his homeland. No stars sparkled above Menzoberranzan, the dark city of the black elves. No unexplainable allure tugged at the heartstrings from the cold stone of the immense cavern's lightless ceiling.
"How much my people have lost by walking in darkness," Drizzt whispered into the night.
The pull of the mysteries of the endless sky carried the joy of his spirit beyond its normal boundaries and opened his mind to the unanswerable questions of the multiverse. He was an elf, and though his skin was black, there remained in his soul a semblance of the harmonic joy of his surface cousins. He wondered how general these feelings truly ran among his people. Did they remain in the hearts of all drow? Or had eons of sublimation extinguished the spiritual flames? To Drizzt's reckoning, perhaps the greatest loss that his people had suffered when they retreated to the depths of the world was the loss of the ability to ponder the spirituality of existence simply for the sake of thought.
I love how the narrative judges the others for being preoccupied, but I don't see Drizzt thinking about anyone else either. And while I think Drizzt's musings here are natural for someone in his position to have, I still think it's funny that Drizzt gets almost an entire page for his own musings.
The trio camp. We go into a tangent about why Bruenor actually wanted Regis along, and why he had actually been overjoyed that Regis decided to come with them at the last-minute. Regis knows the southern lands better than anyone, since Bruenor hasn't been outside of Icewind Dale in two centuries (when he had been an unbearded child), Wulfgar had never been, and Drizzt's only traveling experience involved sneaking about by night and avoiding the kind of locations our heroes will have to visit.
This is a nice acknowledgment I would have enjoyed seeing before Regis became a comic-relief rapist. Also, it still makes no sense then why Bruenor didn't bring Regis to talk to Whisper.
Regis is using his expertise now to help figure out their next destination, via the maps. Bruenor favors the mining city of Mirabar, since Mithril Hall is in the mountains. Regis suggests a village called Longsaddle and no. NO. NOOOOOOO.
Not fucking Longsaddle. Not the fucking Harpells. Of course this is Regis's fault. Of fucking course. I don't remember very much about this blasted series, but I remember the fucking Harpells.
Anyway, they discuss some of the dangers along the way: orc filled crags, Uthgardt (barbarian) burial mounds. Meanwhile, Drizzt reclines by a tree, and Wulfgar is eating a third helping of breakfast. They discuss their destination a bit more.
Wulfgar, of course, balks at going to a wizard town, and this happens:
"Who asked ye?" growled Bruenor, and Wulfgar found himself backing down from his resolve, like a son refusing to hold a stubborn argument in the face of a scolding by his father.
1) you did invite him along, Bruenor.
2) It's not like this anti-magic thing is new. Obviously you're going to go, you don't have to be a dick about it.
3) This sort of instant cowing at a hint of displeasure is reminding me of the very unpleasant connotations in you having enslaved this kid for five years. (Reminder, he is seventeen now).
Anyway, Regis is again encouraging, telling Wulfgar he'll enjoy Longsaddle, and the Harpells (Nooooo) will show him a side of magic that he would never expect.
Yes. A STUPID SIDE.
They'll even accept Drizzt, Regis starts to say, and cuts himself off apologetically. Drizzt is of course Drizzt about it:
But the stoic drow just smiled. "Fear not, my friend," he consoled Regis. "Your words ring of truth, and I have come to accept my station in your world." He paused and looked individually into each uncomfortable stare that was upon him. "I know my friends, and I dismiss my enemies," he stated with a finality that dismissed their worries.
Ugh.
Anyway, as angry as I am at Regis, I'm still annoyed that Regis remains the only person to even try to talk to Wulfgar like a person. It's getting really tiresome to see these characters treat the guy who UNITED THE BARBARIAN CLANS UNDER HIS OWN NAME as though he's some stupid child. He's ignorant, yes, because he has never had access to information and no one has bothered to teach him what they know. Regis isn't really any less patronizing than Drizzt or Bruenor, but he at least bothers to listen to what Wulfgar is saying and answer his concerns or acknowledge his abilities.
Wulfgar deserves better friends.
So they camp by day and travel by night. Not sure I understand the logic, but okay. Regis has the bright idea to steal horses, which the others disapprove of, but really they only dubiously have the moral high ground here. Whisper had every right to raise her price when she learned more information, damnit. They also can't argue with his logic: horses might outrun orcs, and they could return the beasts afterward. Bruenor puts Regis off by saying they'll make the choice when they find the opportunity.
...do any of the characters actually know how to ride?
Later, when they spot signs of a settlement, Bruenor decides to put Regis's plan into action. Wulfgar is confused because he wasn't part of the conversation before, and he definitely doesn't like the thought of Regis (who looks less than thrilled) going in alone. I really dislike how Wulfgar's ignorant protectiveness is played for laughs. Regis is happy that Bruenor is allowing him to appropriate the horses, but also by sending Regis alone, Bruenor is absolving himself of involvement in the trickery."
...it doesn't work like that, Bruenor.
So anyway, Regis musters his nerve (with a needless line about having to pull his belt "over the hang of his belly"), and approaches the farmhouses. There are dogs, which makes Regis nervous because the pendant probably won't work on them, and a very hostile farmer.
The others watch from a distance as Regis pulls out the pendant, then goes inside. A few hours later, he emerges and is given two horses and two ponies by very friendly farmers.
...it probably says negative things about me that this bothers me less than what Drizzt and Bruenor did to Whisper. I think it's just that the narrative is willing to call this thievery and isn't trying to pretend that Regis has some righteous entitlement to what he's stealing.
Apparently the delay hadn't been Regis's fault, the farmers just insisted he join them for supper first. Regis is not a terribly reliable narrator though, it should be noted. The agreement with the farmers though is that Regis leave the horses with the wizards of Longsaddle when they leave from there.
Happily everyone seems to have bought the ride skill at their last level up. They make enough progress that Bruenor is willing to start traveling by day and sleeping by night instead...still not sure why they weren't doing that all along. Regis is happy, noting that nighttime makes it difficult for horses to see holes and rocks.
Drizzt apparently has a slender, well-muscled black stallion by the way. How convenient that Regis found a color coordinating horse for him. Regis has a white pony. And we don't know what Wulfgar and Bruenor ride.
The trip continues: there are signs of an orc band, then Wulfgar detects that the group is being followed. They end up stopping at a small copse, keeping their horses protected and in the center of the group. Bruenor waits. Drizzt climbs a tree. And Wulfgar starts sharpening sticks to use as traps. Regis, wisely, stays out of the way. We're told that bravery comes to him spontaneously and is nothing he ever planned.
...what about when he went into Akar Kessell's tower essentially unarmed?
We get the usual Drizzt shilling, as Wulfgar notes that Drizzt's "lust for battle outweighed even his own, and he had never seen the whirring scimitars outdone by any foe". And the party waits for the orcs to attack, so they can turn the ambush back on them.
Then we enter into what is blatantly the surprise round of a D&D battle, where Wulfgar smacks two orcs to the ground with a hammer, Bruenor cleaves another and beheads a fourth, and Drizzt picks off a few with arrows, before drawing his scimitars and dropping down instead. After this point, the battle thankfully stops reading like a D&D campaign and we get the usual flowery descriptions.
Long and the short: Drizzt is awesome, Wulfgar and Bruenor are also awesome if not quite as flowery described. Regis gets his moment of bravery when Bruenor gets into a spot of trouble, as the horses bolt and he gets clipped in the head by a pony. Regis sneaks behind one of Bruenor's attackers and gets him in the crotch with a mace.
More trouble: Wulfgar is surrounded, Regis is knocked down by a sneaky orc, and things start looking bad when a huge barbarian, almost as large as Wulfgar but black haired instead of Icewind Dale blond, joins in the fray. He may not be friendly though as, when Regis is about to say thank you, the barbarian kicks him in the face.
...I see no reason to dislike this guy yet.
It'd be one thing if the characters were MEANT to be seen as assholes, but they're not. But I'll suck it up. Perhaps they can redeem themselves. Except Regis, he's dead to me.
So our "heroes" have left Luskan. Drizzt has taken the lead, and we're told "their encounters" have filled them with adrenaline. Yeah, they would, wouldn't they. We're told there's "something magical" hanging in the air that's leading all of them to lower their guard. Bruenor is thinking of Mithril Hall, our tiny rapist is thinking of Calimport, and Wulfgar, who was apparently despondent about his ill-fated encounter with civilization is feeling uplifting and thinking about the tundra.
Aw, poor Wulfgar, don't feel bad. There's nothing to be ashamed of in not realizing that the lady was selling her trade, or trying to protect your friends. Everyone else should be ashamed, but not you. Salvatore has apparently decided that he hasn't done enough to seed a romantic plotline, so out of the blue, Wulfgar wishes that Catti-brie, "the woman he had grown to cherish" (and y'know, hasn't thought about this entire book) was here to see it too.
Oh, hey, this is fun, while Bruenor and Regis get a sentence, and Wulfgar a few lines, Drizzt gets:
If the others had not been so preoccupied with their own enjoyment of the evening, they would have noticed an extra bounce in Drizzt Do'Urden's graceful step as well. To the drow, these magical nights, when the heavenly dome reached down below the horizon, bolstered his confidence in the most important and difficult decision he had ever made, the choice to forsake his people and his homeland. No stars sparkled above Menzoberranzan, the dark city of the black elves. No unexplainable allure tugged at the heartstrings from the cold stone of the immense cavern's lightless ceiling.
"How much my people have lost by walking in darkness," Drizzt whispered into the night.
The pull of the mysteries of the endless sky carried the joy of his spirit beyond its normal boundaries and opened his mind to the unanswerable questions of the multiverse. He was an elf, and though his skin was black, there remained in his soul a semblance of the harmonic joy of his surface cousins. He wondered how general these feelings truly ran among his people. Did they remain in the hearts of all drow? Or had eons of sublimation extinguished the spiritual flames? To Drizzt's reckoning, perhaps the greatest loss that his people had suffered when they retreated to the depths of the world was the loss of the ability to ponder the spirituality of existence simply for the sake of thought.
I love how the narrative judges the others for being preoccupied, but I don't see Drizzt thinking about anyone else either. And while I think Drizzt's musings here are natural for someone in his position to have, I still think it's funny that Drizzt gets almost an entire page for his own musings.
The trio camp. We go into a tangent about why Bruenor actually wanted Regis along, and why he had actually been overjoyed that Regis decided to come with them at the last-minute. Regis knows the southern lands better than anyone, since Bruenor hasn't been outside of Icewind Dale in two centuries (when he had been an unbearded child), Wulfgar had never been, and Drizzt's only traveling experience involved sneaking about by night and avoiding the kind of locations our heroes will have to visit.
This is a nice acknowledgment I would have enjoyed seeing before Regis became a comic-relief rapist. Also, it still makes no sense then why Bruenor didn't bring Regis to talk to Whisper.
Regis is using his expertise now to help figure out their next destination, via the maps. Bruenor favors the mining city of Mirabar, since Mithril Hall is in the mountains. Regis suggests a village called Longsaddle and no. NO. NOOOOOOO.
Not fucking Longsaddle. Not the fucking Harpells. Of course this is Regis's fault. Of fucking course. I don't remember very much about this blasted series, but I remember the fucking Harpells.
Anyway, they discuss some of the dangers along the way: orc filled crags, Uthgardt (barbarian) burial mounds. Meanwhile, Drizzt reclines by a tree, and Wulfgar is eating a third helping of breakfast. They discuss their destination a bit more.
Wulfgar, of course, balks at going to a wizard town, and this happens:
"Who asked ye?" growled Bruenor, and Wulfgar found himself backing down from his resolve, like a son refusing to hold a stubborn argument in the face of a scolding by his father.
1) you did invite him along, Bruenor.
2) It's not like this anti-magic thing is new. Obviously you're going to go, you don't have to be a dick about it.
3) This sort of instant cowing at a hint of displeasure is reminding me of the very unpleasant connotations in you having enslaved this kid for five years. (Reminder, he is seventeen now).
Anyway, Regis is again encouraging, telling Wulfgar he'll enjoy Longsaddle, and the Harpells (Nooooo) will show him a side of magic that he would never expect.
Yes. A STUPID SIDE.
They'll even accept Drizzt, Regis starts to say, and cuts himself off apologetically. Drizzt is of course Drizzt about it:
But the stoic drow just smiled. "Fear not, my friend," he consoled Regis. "Your words ring of truth, and I have come to accept my station in your world." He paused and looked individually into each uncomfortable stare that was upon him. "I know my friends, and I dismiss my enemies," he stated with a finality that dismissed their worries.
Ugh.
Anyway, as angry as I am at Regis, I'm still annoyed that Regis remains the only person to even try to talk to Wulfgar like a person. It's getting really tiresome to see these characters treat the guy who UNITED THE BARBARIAN CLANS UNDER HIS OWN NAME as though he's some stupid child. He's ignorant, yes, because he has never had access to information and no one has bothered to teach him what they know. Regis isn't really any less patronizing than Drizzt or Bruenor, but he at least bothers to listen to what Wulfgar is saying and answer his concerns or acknowledge his abilities.
Wulfgar deserves better friends.
So they camp by day and travel by night. Not sure I understand the logic, but okay. Regis has the bright idea to steal horses, which the others disapprove of, but really they only dubiously have the moral high ground here. Whisper had every right to raise her price when she learned more information, damnit. They also can't argue with his logic: horses might outrun orcs, and they could return the beasts afterward. Bruenor puts Regis off by saying they'll make the choice when they find the opportunity.
...do any of the characters actually know how to ride?
Later, when they spot signs of a settlement, Bruenor decides to put Regis's plan into action. Wulfgar is confused because he wasn't part of the conversation before, and he definitely doesn't like the thought of Regis (who looks less than thrilled) going in alone. I really dislike how Wulfgar's ignorant protectiveness is played for laughs. Regis is happy that Bruenor is allowing him to appropriate the horses, but also by sending Regis alone, Bruenor is absolving himself of involvement in the trickery."
...it doesn't work like that, Bruenor.
So anyway, Regis musters his nerve (with a needless line about having to pull his belt "over the hang of his belly"), and approaches the farmhouses. There are dogs, which makes Regis nervous because the pendant probably won't work on them, and a very hostile farmer.
The others watch from a distance as Regis pulls out the pendant, then goes inside. A few hours later, he emerges and is given two horses and two ponies by very friendly farmers.
...it probably says negative things about me that this bothers me less than what Drizzt and Bruenor did to Whisper. I think it's just that the narrative is willing to call this thievery and isn't trying to pretend that Regis has some righteous entitlement to what he's stealing.
Apparently the delay hadn't been Regis's fault, the farmers just insisted he join them for supper first. Regis is not a terribly reliable narrator though, it should be noted. The agreement with the farmers though is that Regis leave the horses with the wizards of Longsaddle when they leave from there.
Happily everyone seems to have bought the ride skill at their last level up. They make enough progress that Bruenor is willing to start traveling by day and sleeping by night instead...still not sure why they weren't doing that all along. Regis is happy, noting that nighttime makes it difficult for horses to see holes and rocks.
Drizzt apparently has a slender, well-muscled black stallion by the way. How convenient that Regis found a color coordinating horse for him. Regis has a white pony. And we don't know what Wulfgar and Bruenor ride.
The trip continues: there are signs of an orc band, then Wulfgar detects that the group is being followed. They end up stopping at a small copse, keeping their horses protected and in the center of the group. Bruenor waits. Drizzt climbs a tree. And Wulfgar starts sharpening sticks to use as traps. Regis, wisely, stays out of the way. We're told that bravery comes to him spontaneously and is nothing he ever planned.
...what about when he went into Akar Kessell's tower essentially unarmed?
We get the usual Drizzt shilling, as Wulfgar notes that Drizzt's "lust for battle outweighed even his own, and he had never seen the whirring scimitars outdone by any foe". And the party waits for the orcs to attack, so they can turn the ambush back on them.
Then we enter into what is blatantly the surprise round of a D&D battle, where Wulfgar smacks two orcs to the ground with a hammer, Bruenor cleaves another and beheads a fourth, and Drizzt picks off a few with arrows, before drawing his scimitars and dropping down instead. After this point, the battle thankfully stops reading like a D&D campaign and we get the usual flowery descriptions.
Long and the short: Drizzt is awesome, Wulfgar and Bruenor are also awesome if not quite as flowery described. Regis gets his moment of bravery when Bruenor gets into a spot of trouble, as the horses bolt and he gets clipped in the head by a pony. Regis sneaks behind one of Bruenor's attackers and gets him in the crotch with a mace.
More trouble: Wulfgar is surrounded, Regis is knocked down by a sneaky orc, and things start looking bad when a huge barbarian, almost as large as Wulfgar but black haired instead of Icewind Dale blond, joins in the fray. He may not be friendly though as, when Regis is about to say thank you, the barbarian kicks him in the face.
...I see no reason to dislike this guy yet.