The Icewind Dale Trilogy

The Icewind Dale Trilogy:

Continuing my exploration of the Drizzt series, the second trilogy stands at a disadvantage to the first. That is, the Dark Elf Trilogy was written after this one as a prequel. This leads to some unfortunate side effects.

Let me start by saying that this is probably the least strong trilogy of the series. Not to say that it is bad, but it simply does not live up to the others.

What we find here is an author's first published work. As is often the case, the first published work is rarely the best. Looking at Eragon, we see something similar. It borrows from a lot of other stories and lacks any true creative spark.

In this respect Salvatore actually wins out. Although there are many stereotypical fantasy aspects to these books we see a creative spark, mostly in the main character. As I mentioned in my piece on the Dark Elf Trilogy, Drizzt is one of the most fascinating characters in the fantasy genre.

The series starts with The Crystal Shard. The main plot revolves around an arrogant, weak minded wizard named Akar Kessel. He stumbles upon a crystal shard that gives him great

power and he wreaks havoc on the land of Icewind Dale.

The stereotypes begin with the crystal shard itself, which falls very neatly into the same category as the one ring. It is a sentient artifact that wills it's wielder to do evil and it has great power. There are a lot of other basic fantasy, Lord of the Rings'ish, aspects to the story as well. Bruenor is a typical dwarf and Regis is a typical halfling.

Stereotypes aside, this does tell an intriguing story. The action is very well displayed and it is written in a manner that is both enjoyable and accessible. Drizzt becomes a great action hero, but with a deeper side to him, as he struggles to fit into a world where people of his kind are disdained.

The next book approaches another strong stereo type in fantasy. Bruenor wants to find his lost home, Moria, I mean mithral hall. While this premise is nothing new to the fantasy world, the actual events of the story are intriguing and unique in many ways. I think this book was where Drizzt's character really starts to flourish. In Icewind Dale, Drizzt was treated with disdainful tolerance, but as he sets out into the wide world, tolerance is lost and only disdain remains. This delves into some interesting themes about the character himself and how he reacts to situations where his life is unjustly threatened.

The story delves even deeper into his character as it introduces his antithesis, Artemis Entreri. Entreri quickly becomes another fascinating addition to the array of characters in the Drizzt

series as Drizzt begins to see himself as he would have been, had he stayed in the under dark. This view scares and disturbs him, providing another angle into the character's point of view.

The trilogy ends with an epic journey to save a friend. I'm not going to lie, this book contains one of the cheesiest things I have ever read in fantasy, and were it not for the fact that the rest of the story was so good I would have stopped reading the series. It all begins when Drizzt is heading south on a ship and Bruenor and Cattie-brie have been left behind. They are then provided with a magical flying chariot of fire that sweeps them across the sky back to Drizzt and Wulfgar.

From the moment I read that, I didn't like it and I couldn't believe it actually made it into the story.

Other than that the story is a grand adventure, with pirates and thieves, chases, escapes, torture, true love...

All in all, the Icewind Dale Trilogy is a good adventure and an interesting ride. Though it fails in comparison to the Dark Elf Trilogy, it is still worth reading a provides a bridge to the rest of the series.

There are problems with spelling on occasion that will take you out of the book for a moment, and because the Dark Elf Trilogy was written as a prequel, there are some continuity issues, but if they are sufficiently ignored, the story will still hold you until the end.

Why I hated the end of Harry Potter

I will start this by saying that I like the Harry Potter books. I think they are good, creative books that are well written and portray and interesting story with well built characters. However, the epilogue of the book would have best been left out. Do show why I think this, I would like to compare with another series, The Hunger Games, a series that I felt ended right.

Warning: There will be spoilers in this article.

For those who don't know, the last chapter of the Harry Potter series shows Harry, Ron and Hermione when they are older and have kids of their own. In the scene they are dropping the kids off to go to Hogwarts. They have such sickening names as Albus Severus Potter. They're all a happy family and everything is just perfect, but oh wait, young Scorpius Malfoy looks like he may play the part of bully, just like his father.

I have several problems with this chapter, but I would like to start from the most agreeable and slowly progress to the opinions that will cause more controversy.

My first issue is that it leaves nothing to the imagination. This single chapter covers the lives of pretty much every character that anyone cares about and gives you a rather solid idea of how their lives are. This is usually a sign that the author wished to control the story to much. The best part about writing a story is that people will always have their own interpretations for it. This give a story flexibility and makes it accessible to everyone, because it will mean something different to each person. If too much is explained then it leaves little or no room for interpretation, which limits the audience and the mental requirement of the reader.

My second issue is that of hokum. The names are cheesy, the explanations of the characters' stories are weak and follow pretty much the same lines as the parents' stories, and the scene has a sense of lightheartedness that does not match the tone of the rest of the book.

My third issue, and perhaps the most important, is that there is no sense of realism in the scene. This is where I would like to draw the comparison to Hunger Games. In Harry Potter, a lot of people die. Harry's friends are slaughtered around him and many other scaring experiences transpire. In Hunger Games we see the same. The main character, Katniss, is forced to kill, and watches many people that she loves get killed around her. Despite these similar backgrounds, their are two very different approaches to the outcome of these characters.

In the case of Harry, there is no hint in that last chapter that anything bad had ever happened to Harry. He kills Voldemort, then apparently goes on living his life as though half the people he knew hadn't just been killed. No PTSD. No regrets. No pain.

In the case of Katniss we are given a similar view into her future, though not as far. In this view we see the scars though. We are shown that some things never fade and that people are never the same after going through such horrible experiences. This not only provides an interesting philosophical view into the character, but also provides a strong sense of reality and believability, a feeling of continuity, and still provides room for the imagination to wander.

The end of Harry Potter falls short of all of these aspects. The lack of acknowledgement that what happened effected the characters gives only a feeling of outrageous fantasy and discontinuity, and destroys all suspension of disbelief that the rest of the story spent so long building.

This is my problem with ending. If there are any who disagree, feel free to post and let me know.

Addition: My cousin, Jinelle Piereder, had some good insights on this that I would like to add:

"I was so disappointed! It felt really naive, the fact that evil seemed to have disappeared altogether now that Voldemort was dead... Seriously? not one of those thousands of death eaters kept up their dark arts habits in 19 years? I felt like the books had really matured as they went on, and then there's this total reversion to the cheesy innocence of the very first book. I suppose she could've done that one purpose, but I don't think it was very effective."