Dragonlance/Headscratchers


 * What bugs me is the MarySueness of Coryn. Any one else bugged by this?
 * Nothing wrong with her character in general, though it might have been better for her to have not gone from hedge witch running on instinct to Head of the White Robes all in one book. The fact that he came through the Test unscathed is a big Berserk Button of the fandom, though. A Test works by finding and correcting (often painfully) character flaws so that the wizard can be better dedicated to the magic. Justarius, a proud athlete, had his leg crippled. Dalamar dreamed that he could have saved the Dragon Orb from Lorac but didn't, choosing the magic over the fate of his homeland. A Bishonen Black Robe had his face permanently scarred. And so on. The fact that Coryn was left untouched by the Test means that she has no flaws. It doesn't get more textbook than that.
 * A lot of the fandom (Okay, some people over at the Dragonlance Forums) are annoyed by it. It is interesting to note that Margaret Weis herself approved of Coryn and said she was like a "Magical Mozart".
 * It Just Bugs Me that there will be no more novels for Dragonlance for the foreseeable future.
 * Arguably, that's not a really bad thing. While I love the War of the Lance and the Twins series, the War of Souls Trilogy was rather awful, in my opinion. And you never know, a book was just released last year I think, Dragons of the Hourglass Mage
 * What really bugs me is how I feel that Fistandantilus' potential was wasted. He seemed like such a cool character to have get killed.
 * Define "Fistandantilus". The original may have died, but most of his awesome lived on in Raistlin. It's pretty explicit in War of the Twins that while Raistlin's personality was dominant, he absorbed most if not all of Fistandantilus's memories, knowledge, and power, to say nothing of his identity.


 * Anyone else bothered by the fact that things would have been way easier if Paladine would have NOT granted Crysania and Raistlin entrance to the portal? Yeah yeah yeah, Elistan said something about that, but still.
 * Way easier for whom? Don't forget that when Raistlin and Crysania are trudging through the Abyss, Takhisis sends out legions of dark wizards and clerics, among other things, to stop them. The implication is that these are Takhisis' followers whose souls went to the Abyss when they died. Presumably Raistlin's soul would also have gone there when died. So Takhisis would have had the most powerful wizard in the history of Krynn as her servant for eternity. Instead, Raistlin repented at the last moment, so Takhisis didn't get his soul. Presumably either Gilean or Paladine did. So Paladine gets his two pawns to eliminate legions of his archenemy's most powerful followers, after which, Paladine possibly gets Raistlin's soul in the end. Paladine wins.
 * Interesting point. Of course, it depends on where souls go and whatnot, but your explanation seems pretty sound.
 * Also by denying them entrance to the portal wouldn't Paladine be violating his freedom of choice stance? I forget how exactly Paladine could have denied them entrance but Paladine is pretty big on personal freedoms and by denying them access he would be violating that in a big way.
 * All Paladine would have had to do would be to not grant Crysania the power to cast her part of the spell. Paladine is himself free to deny the requests of his worshipers when it suits him. He certainly did so with the Kingpriest and the other clerics of Istar.
 * The Kingpriest still had his powers until the very end, as shown in the Kingpriest Trilogy. I think this is because he actually was a good man who was horribly misguided by his advisers.
 * The Kingpriest had his powers at the end because he was Crazy Awesome enough to basically force Paladine to give them to him. He managed to use resurrection magic on Cathan Twice-Born for just about the first and last time in history through sheer force of will, which inspired his plan years later to entrap Paladine within his own body. Paladine can't (or won't) revoke his clerical powers because, technically, the Kingpriest is still working toward his tenets, though in a massively Knight Templar fashion. Other priests who are corrupt or only pay lip service to the faith get diddley squat.
 * The fact that wizards have to choose an Order bugs me. If you are a Wizard of the Black Order you are pretty much saying to everyone that you're evil. None in his right mind would attack you in plain view, but still I don't think the poor town people would care if one obviously evil mage died.
 * Most Black Robes seem to consider themselves Above Good and Evil, and join up with that order so they can have a chance to learn powerful Black Magic no one else would teach. Most of them wouldn't care about what the townsfold thought, because they don't care if a bunch of peasants die either, though they could probably still worm their way into their good graces if they had too (see Dalamar, who was certainly feared but also a very respected citizen of Palanthas- though admittedly, that respect mostly came from fear''). And there have been several cases of evil mages who were actually members of the Red or even White to throw off suspicion (Fistandantilus himself started out a Red, and only switched to Black because the Deal With the Devil he made with Takhisis and Nuitari demanded it). Finally, keep in mind that the wizards are basically a religious order, and Nuitari wants his followers to acknowledge their allegiance to him.
 * Also, not every wizard walks around in his wizard robes all the time. A wizard of any of the three orders is free to live in secret, concealing the fact that he's a wizard from the general public.
 * Besides, what are the "poor town people" going to do? Cut the Black Robe's throat in his or her sleep and invite retaliation from all wizards for murdering a legitimate member of one of the three orders? Not exactly a wise move either...
 * They don't actually do that; white and red robes don't want to antagonize the commoners further with retribution that might lead to another war against wizards, while black robes have little respect for any of their own who falls to the attack of mere peasants. The prequel trilogy mentions one black robe who made the mistake of forging money through magic, and got burned at the stake for her troubles, abandoned by Nuitari for being Too Dumb to Live. The Conclave just retrieved her spellbooks and closed the file on her.
 * Kender. Just... Kender. The characterization given in the sourcebook makes it impossible for them to survive through a single winter, and the sheer Sueishness revolts me. The fact that they're responsible for the whole Age of Mortals by turning the setting into a Bad Future is icing on the cake.
 * YMMV. Personally, Tasslehoff is by far my favorite character, and I really like the kender as a race. It's nice to see that even in the times of darkness, there's a race that just can't help being innocent and upbeat.
 * Yup, I think too that Kenders are great, honestly I'm more annoyed at the fact that Paladine choose Elves as the "Good" race. I can't actually remind them doing anything useful in the whole settings.
 * Why does everyone treat Sturm's "sacrifice" at the end of Dragons of Winter Night like it was the most noble and heroic thing ever? I thought it was a Stupid Sacrifice and the biggest Idiot Ball in the series...the guy was offered a Dragonlance by Laurana (which they'd spent the last two books trying to get) two minutes before he went to face Kitiara and TURNED IT DOWN! He said that he wouldn't know how to use it. Surely an intelligent chap like Sturm could figure out that you use the Dragonlance by sticking the pointy end in the dragon!!! What better opportunity to restore the honor to the Knights of Solamnia than to be the first Knight since Huma to duel a dragon with a Dragonlance? Sigh....
 * Yeah, it seemed pretty pointless. To be honest, I never really liked Sturm, and I didn't really care too much when he died. Flint, on the other hand...*sob*.
 * Even with the Dragonlance his odds wouldn't have been very good.
 * Also, remember that Sturm's sword Brightblade is also a powerful magical weapon, in which he had probably put a lot of weapon mastery ranks (or had spent a lot of feats on, in later edition mechanics, etc.). In D&D mechanics, a weapon with which you are very skilled is often a better choice for most applications than even a somewhat more powerfully magical weapon with which you are not skilled. Which was precisely Sturm's reasoning.
 * Elistan's sudden conversion to Paladine in the original series. This troper wouldn't have minded so much if he and Goldmoon had gone through some kind of great debate or he had witnessed an undeniable miracle, but instead his conversion comes after Goldmoon gives him a quick (and weak) parable about a gem in the woods to which his reply is pretty much "how could I have been so blind?"
 * My memory of this might be a bit fuzzy, but didn't Goldmoon heal a lot of people before that? I assume that someone told him about Goldmoon's healing powers and I guess he's just trusting and assumed she wasn't lying. Besides, the parable isn't exactly weak when it's completely proven that the gods do exist.
 * Pretty sure he was dying before they met, and he was one of the ones that got healed. I think that's probably grounds for a religious experience...
 * He was dying when they met, and he was the first one to be healed. However it was only after he had his 'how could I have been so blind' moment that Goldmoon confirmed to Tanith that Elistan would be saved. It's true that Goldmoon had invoked her goddess' power a few times before, but not when Elistan was around. Not exactly much evidence of the gods when they only save a guy after he suddenly starts believing in them for no apparent reason (and had literally no reason to think that they existed beforehand).
 * Elistan had also been searching for something to believe in his entire life, hence joining the Seekers, so he was pretty open to new ideas.
 * How do you pronounce Raistlin?
 * I've always went for something like "Ricestleen". Then again, English is not my mother tongue so...
 * I've read that Raislin's name was supposed to sound like "Wasting Man", so I pronounce it as "Rayst-lin".
 * Is there any connection between the Majere family and the god Majere? I've only read a couple of novels and sourcebooks and it always baffled me.
 * Their family name is named after the god, but other than that there is no connection.