Drowtales/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Angst? What Angst? - Khal'harror is surprisingly perky for a member of his clan, and some fans were angered by his apparent lack of reaction to Naal's death, where he seemed more concerned about having lost Bob, the undead chicken. There is, however, a level of Fridge Brilliance to his behavior, since he already lost many members of his clan at once and the same incident left his sister forcibly tainted and later gets taken over by her seed as well as see his clan's power decline as many members simply gave up hope, so his attitude may in fact be a front and his lack of reaction to Naal's death may be simple denial, and note that he does in fact appear to be crying right after.
  • Base Breaker: Given the Grey and Grey Morality of the setting, this was perhaps inevitable, but there are a few things in particular that divide the fanbase:
    • Even though Syphile is dead, bringing her up on the forum is a surefire way to start a flame war. It's also fairly common for people to compare new flame wars to the Great Syphile Flame War of '09, when this reached its peak during the chapter where she dies.
    • Quain'tana Val'Sarghress. Like Syphile, since she's seen as either a Complete Monster or a horrifically realistic depiction of her brand of conqueror.
    • Some fans are vocally annoyed by Shinae's abrasive personality, while others like her very much.
    • And though it's not really a character, any time humans versus elves comes up half the fandom excitedly starts debating it while the other half groans at the fact that they're talking about it AGAIN. There was even a Daydream story designed to specifically address this out of continuity with drow coming into contact with the modern world, though it wound up not lasting very long.
    • Yet another Base Breaker; when Wafay turned up, the subject of drowning babies came up in the forums, thus her popularity with the fans is based on whether they're for or against on the topic.
    • And pretty much any time the subject of Mel'arnach versus Quain'tana comes up, the forum tends to explode. Amusingly, Ariel herself seems sick of this in-story.
    • Diva'ratrika is another major base breaker. Was she a character who had to do bad things to keep her empire stable or was she a bad ruler with an inflated sense of self importance which led to Chel's current state and her own eventual downfall at the hands of her daughters? Her actions towards the defeated in the Sharen/Sullisin'rune War? A necessary step to keep the peace, or is Ash'waren justified in wanting revenge? If the shoe were on the other foot, who is to say that the Sullisin'rune would not have done the same (or worse) to the Sharen?
    • Another point the forum disagree on is whether her possession of Ragini can be justified or not. Many who think this event to be a Moral Event Horizon for her discount the fact that she obviously did not take the decision lightly and even gave Ragini her freedom beforehand. Others who see the event as justified tend to dismiss Ragini because she was a slave and supposedly unimportant to the story on the whole.
    • Snadhya'rune causes this as well. See also Draco in Leather Pants for one reason, and a major topic of debate is whether she really loves Mel and both sides of the debate have long lists of why their theory is correct and the other side is full of it.
  • Non Sequitur Scene - The dwarf seen dressed as Santa Claus with "Merry Christmas Elven Bastards" carved into his cannon. Besides being a rather bizarre fourth-wall breaking moment outside of a chibi page (where such things usually occur), he never shows up again after this page. Word of God is that it was a joke since the page was published around Christmas.
  • Complete Monster - The Human King and Queen who were kidnapping and killing possibly hundreds of elves, both light elves and drow, and cutting their throats and wrists to try for immortality by bathing in their blood. Most of the characters in the comic who do bad things have some sort of sympathetic motivation, but not these guys, and the epic beatdown Chiri gave them is generally agreed to be exactly what they deserved.
    • Sene'kha is also one of the few characters almost universally agreed to be one of these. Her plan to take over Chel puts her here, if nothing else, as did the fact that she turned the Vloz from a weird but harmless Ragtag Bunch of Misfits into its current form by setting up Kiel's mother for death and using Kharla, who had been getting better, for her own purposes and planning on turning her into even more of an Eldritch Abomination.
  • Crack Pairing: Quite a few, among the weirdest are Kessen and Sang'oro, whose only interaction was fighting each other not to mention that one is now dead and fanart has been drawn of Sarv'swati and Quain'tana making out in a prelude to "the most epic of hatefucks."
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: - Many, and the chibi pages in particular tend to be full of them.
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming - Courtesy of Ariel and Faen, Mel, and Vaelia, also Kiel and Naal. Basically, any moment where two characters are shown to truly care for one another.
  • Designated Villain - Syphile fits this, much to many fans' ire.
  • Designated Hero - To prevent this page from devolving into Natter (again) let's just say the fanbase is extremely vocal about pretty much everything in regards to morality within the Drow world.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Practically a given with the setting.
    • There are a few fans out there who love to gush about how awesome, badass, and honorable Quaintana is, while either excusing or forgetting the disgusting things she's done to her own children. It even gets to the point where some think her treatment of Mel is totally justified because of how stubborn and naive she's been - never mind that Quain broke Mel's arms with a hammer.
    • Zala is also subject to this, in part because she does have some redeeming characteristics, mainly her treatment of her children, which puts her in stark contrast to Quain. That doesn't excuse her participation in the Nidraa'chal coup, but some fans overlook this part or try to present it as Zala being press-ganged into it, even though during the event she was pretty gung-ho about it, and in fact was downright giddy at the thought of stripping Diva naked and hanging her body from the gate and laughs at Snadhya's plan to let their mother die a slow painful death trapped in her throne room. Some of the Zala apologists can get pretty extreme.
    • Snadhya'rune also has a minor case of this, though most of the people who like her also admit that she's done many, many bad things. The fact that she's unapologetic about what she's done and upfront about it (at least to Sarv'swati) does make her interesting.
      • Part of it may be due to the Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful trope. When Chapter 25 was released, this was one of the first times readers got to see Snadhya'rune from her personal perspective and she was featured in no fewer than six different outfits throughout the chapter. Her stylized depiction gained her fans when previously most just saw her as a snake in the grass. If she wasn't as pretty as she appeared in that chapter, opinion of her might well be different.
      • And in-universe Mel seems to think of Snadhya'rune this way.
    • Amusingly, the only thing funnier than watching individual DILP fans of a particular character is watching them collide with DILP fans of another character and start arguing with each other. The Quain'tana versus Snadhya'rune arguments are especially amusing in light of the fact that Quain and Snadhya are really Not So Different when you think about it, so when a character someone likes does something terrible it's justified, but if the other one does pretty much the same thing they're a Complete Monster. Watching their fans twist themselves into knots to try to explain this is pretty entertaining.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • The entire Beldrobbaen clan, through combining equal parts Goth, The Woobie and Dark Is Not Evil, to the point that on the forums the Beldrobbaen clan has more "members" than even the Sarghress, to the point that even the creator of the strip lists himself as a member! Lampshaded near the end of one anniversary animation where the Beldrobbaen members can be heard muttering that they're too Emo to get anything done.
    • Kiel. She even narrates the new reader guide!
    • The Balvhakara are quickly turning into this, especially since they possess suits of armor that essentially let them become Iron Drow.
  • Evil Is Sexy - By virtue of the world they live in a good amount of the cast arguably applies. Perhaps the best example is that of the Sharen Sisters, particularly Zala.
  • Fan Disservice - It's a pretty safe bet that almost any time nudity shows up outside of Daydream there will be an aspect of this.
  • Fanon: While it's not known what Zala'ess' original eye color before being tainted was, most fans who draw pre-tainted Zala make it the same shade of blue as the dyed part of her hair, following the pattern of her sisters.
  • Game Breaker - The fae, especially the drowolath/drowussu/vanir (light elves). Drowtales is not a setting that is aimed to be balanced in terms of power between factions and species. Period. The humanoid fae are not only dominant in terms of power compared to other species who can't use mana, they are also unbalanced (in terms of gaming) within their own species. It is mentioned in the immortality podcast that very old dokkalfar or drow can reach a point where they are so powerful that they could literally wipe out a small army (drow size army, granted) of 'normal'/young (60-200 y.o.) fae. Waes'oloth, the Beldrobbaen Ill'haress is the example used. Of course, by that time their aura has grown so huge/dense that they literally need a whole clan or even city to sustain their bodies in a prime condition. This is why Diva's 'ordinary' mana blast blew an entire mutlistory building down. Within the city of Chel she had sufficient mana to fuel her attacks to nearly godlike power levels. This disparity in power, both in relation to other species and within their own species, is what makes the fae dominant. Only their comparative absence from the surface for a millenia has allowed the goblin races (halmes, kotorcs, ferals, naga) to become dominant there. A dominance that can be wiped away if the fae (drow or vanir in this case) makes a concentrated effort to do so. (Luckily for the goblins, so far they seem to prefer trade and limited raids.) It is not balanced, it is not fair and it might rub people the wrong way but it is the fait accompli in the Drowtales setting.
    • This is why you're not allowed to play a too old character in the forum RPG.
    • Or in other words, the fae are a bit like the Greek or Norse gods compared to the various goblin species, with all the Jerkass Gods tendencies that implies. It's suggested that the dark elves were so powerful that they're the ones responsible for cracking a moon open.
    • Why this might rub people the wrong way? Well, see the Goblin Kingdom? It was taken down by 4 children and a group of six Highland Raiders. It was explained that his occurred because they cut that plot rather short but still; a King and his castle taken down with ease by a somewhat competent child. A Kingdom that had ransacked and sacrificed light elves for who knows how many months.
      • Some Fridge Brilliance may come here when you realise that the Light Elves had restricted their use of mana over the centuries and this could be why they were able to be raided by halmes frequently in the first place. Mind you, the Light Elves were also mentioned early in the Prologue to be masters of swordfighting so why several members were able to be kidnapped by the halmes might suggest that such skills were lost over time.
    • The sheer power-level in of the drow pretty much eliminates any tension or sense of conflict in any chapter where drow are doing anything other than infighting. Exploring, caravan escort, invasion of a human kingdom - it basically becomes waiting to see how the drow can walk all over the problem of the week, rather than being an engaging and nail-biting conflict.
  • Growing the Beard - Though opinion varies on when exactly this happened, the release of the Prologue in 2007 marked a major shift in the comic's story and set up much of the overarching plot and worldsetting, as well as demonstrating the high quality of the art delivered consistently since it was first published.
  • Harsher in Hindsight - The entire series thus far is falling to this, due to recent revelations that every tainted character except for a select few are doomed in 25-50 years.
  • I Knew It! - The theory that Drowussu are descended from light-elves though this had been foreshadowed fairly heavily.
    • And at least one person guessed that Mel'arnach was Kalki's father before the actual reveal.
  • Iron Woobie:
    • Waes. Herwoobieness isn't as obvious as her daughter's, but if you stop to think about it, a combination of losing all the girls of a single generation save one in a single day and knowing that said surviving daughter is going to die any day now, on top of the pressure of keeping her clan together must take a toll on the woman. Word of God says that if she died the entire clan would basically implode, but even with that there are factions within the clan who would get rid of her if they thought they could get away with it. Poor Waes.
    • Kiel has plenty to be woobiefied over, but takes it all in stride until Naal dies.
  • Jerkass Woobie - Most Woobies count as this (with a few exceptions, including Faen). In particular:
    • Ariel Val'Sarghress has done some pretty awful things which may or may not set her over the Moral Event Horizon, but she's also had horrible stuff done to her.
    • Syphile Val'Sarghress may be a bitch, but her life sucks
    • Diva'ratrika Val'Sharen may not be very likeable but no one seems to think she deserved what happened to her at the hands of her daughters.
    • Sil'lice Val'Sharen is a pretty nasty person who specialized in torture and abused Syphile essentially for shits and giggles, but damn, did her life suck during and after the War.
    • Her daughter Kadara as well, since it's obvious that the War and the death of her child left her in a very bad mental state, not that it mitigates her terrible treatment of Chrys'tel and Nau'kheol.
    • Shinae. It's hard not to feel sorry for her in this scene, even though the situation is partly self-inflicted.

Shinae: You are not to go on your own. I am supposed to be your shadow. We were finally getting back to the good days...

  • Mary Sue - Pre-remake Ariel suffered heavily from this due to being the central character in a Dungeons & Dragons game. This was mostly fixed as the world setting changed, downplaying her specialness.
    • Arguably, compared to the other races of the world, Drow themselves.
  • Magnificent Bitch - Snadhya'rune, who so far takes the cake in manipulation. Though with recent revelations Sha'sana may take the crown from her.
  • Memetic Badass - The fans have turned Quain'tana into this. Chuck Norris fears Quain's abs.
  • Memetic Molester - Farasank. Not surprising since his canon behavior is that of a sex offender.
  • Misaimed Fandom - Syphile wasn't originally intended to be sympathetic, but a lot of people take her side. Since the world exists in Grey and Grey Morality she does have some valid points, but not the point that the creator intended.
  • Moe:
    • Ariel herself
    • Faen too, especially after her bout of Break the Cutie
    • Myou Kyorl'solenurn
    • Freyja
    • Desmonde Kyorl'solenurn
    • Ae'theriss Kyorl'solenurn
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • For Quain, we have this, which has caused several readers to declare that not even death is a good enough punishment for her now. Even before that, the revelation that she stole Ariel from Mel, and the heavy implication that she had Mel raped to try and concieve put her here.
    • Fans are also now saying that, related to the above, Snadhya'rune may have landed herself here if she knew the above was going to happen but sent Mel back to the Sarghress anyway. Assuming you didn't already think she crossed it because of her responsibility for the Nidraa'chal War.
    • Sate'ja seems to have definitely crossed it with the fans after stabs Naal. And then a page later she literally twists the knife in. Slightly mitigated by the fact that it's heavily implied that she's not in complete control of herself anymore, what with being a summon.
    • For Balsii, after being told that the Balvhakara and Jie'yen will not accept her as the Queen, stabbing Nega'fanae in the throat and ordering her guards to kill Sandaur. Also a case in-universe.
  • Narm Charm - The chibi parody pages frequently include this.
  • Nausea Fuel - The Body Horror often involves this, especially the various ways that demons mutate their victims.
  • No Yay: Kharla x Anyone automatically draws this reaction from most fans, if only because her idea of a "date" would probably involve a trip to her dollhouse, and even fans who are otherwise comfortable with Toy Shipping are squicked by the fact that she's mentally a child.
  • Pacing Problems - Drowtales is generally focused on story and characters more than action. However, people being people, the choices of the creative team in how to tell the story fairly regularly end up in They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot, Get On With It Already, Offscreen Moment of Awesome, Battle Discretion Shot, a kind of Relax-O-Vision, They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste, or Take Our Word for It. Or Gushing About Writing You Like. The creative team has acknowledged some of these problems and have been attempting to fix some of them with newer chapters, and it seems that it's working.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • Chirinide seems to have undergone this after what happened to her on the surface and in Vanaheimr, since it made her realize just how hypocritical and destructive her bigoted behavior was.
    • Some fans expressed surprise that when Nau'kheol appeared to have died in Chapter 32 they were honestly worried about him and then relieved that he was okay, given where his character started and how it evolved.
  • The Scrappy - Several.
    • Chiri is considered to be this by some fans of the comic, mostly because of her abrasive personality and the hypocrisy of a lot of the Fantastic Racism she spouts, considering that she's half light-elf herself but she appears to have been Rescued from the Scrappy Heap in recent chapters, especially after coming to grips with her own heritage and her beatdown of the human king who was killing elves.
    • Syphile is for one section of the fandom, especially since bringing her up in any context tends to start a flame war, prompting an Oh, No, Not Again reaction from those who've been there during previous flame wars.
    • Quain'tana as well, because some feel she's a Karma Houdini and an all around terrible person.
    • Sil'lice's daughter Kadara got some of this after her rough treatment of Nau'kheol and Chrys'tel, especially since even Sil'lice, who's not exactly the nicest person herself, seemed to think she went too far. There's a reason some fans refer to Kadara simply as "Bitch" now.
    • Nir'naya is widely hated due to her role in Diva'ratrika's death and her complicitness in the Sharen Sister's schemes, as well as the fact that she apparently threw fan-favorite Mikilu under the bus to get her current position.
    • Even Ariel gets this at times, though it depends on how forgiving you are considering that she's still mentally a child for much of the story. And now that she's all grown up, she's getting on people's nerves for still being naive and ignorant when she's definitely old enough to know better by now. She even says Quain 'does what she must' to Mel, of all people, who Ariel practically rescued from being left in a oubliette with broken arms that Quain smashed herself.[1] Some fans are just relishing the day when Ariel's adoration of Quain is finally shattered.
      • That said, some of the Fan Dumb towards Ariel can be... well, dumb. For instance, blaming her for not knowing things that the audience only knows about due to being on the other side of the fourth wall and acting like not immediately accepting such a life-altering, shocking revelation as finding out that your mother isn't really your mother without a hint of hesitation or doubt is proof that she's mentally retarded, and acting like they wouldn't be just a little doubtful if such a revelation was dropped on their lap (from their perspective) out of the blue and they were forced to make a life-altering choice right then and there. Yeah, right. Especially when the last person who tried to make the same claim attempted to murder you. Twice.
    • Yafein has never been particularly popular, but his post-timeskip appearance and smug attitude cemented it for many people, especially his squick-tastic relationship with his slave, who's heavily implied to be a Replacement Goldfish for his slave Maya, which adds an uncomfortable Oedipal aspect since she was basically his Parental Substitute. Quite a few people laughed their asses off when, after his smug statement that the invaders wouldn't bother with him since he was a Sullisin'rune rather than an Illhar'dro, he was shown tied up with the rest of them.
  • Squick - Drow in this series are cannibalistic (though they eat other races too) and lean heavily toward incest and pedophilia. And they were even worse pre-retcon, as demonstrated by the bottom of the page here.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character - How some fans felt about Sandaur.
  • Too Cool to Live - Alas, poor Sandaur, We Hardly Knew Ye.
  • Toy Ship - Ariel & Faen and Naal & Kiel are both very popular fan couples, though three characters are chronologically in their 20s but have the bodies of pre pubescents and Ariel is 15 but physically 7. There's also Ariel/Sillice's twins Kau and Shala, which despite the fact that they're technically related through adoption with their father Kor'maril hasn't stopped anybody. I wonder why.
  • Uncanny Valley - This naga lady, who looks normal from the front, but when she turns is revealed to have a flat face, like a snake.
    • And Kyo'nne's biogolem, seen here. The proportions are off just enough to be unsettling, not to mention the eyes and lack of ears. The fact that they're a biogolem helps explain some of it, especially since Word of God is that biogolems have No Biological Sex, even though this one looks externally male (and given that it belongs to Kyo'nne, it may be designed that way on purpose).
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic - Syphile, combined with Misaimed Fandom.
  • Unusual Euphemism - the phrase "going to live as a hermit", judging from what we know about fae biology and their dependence on mana. In other words, it might in fact be code for suicide by mana deprivation.
  • Values Dissonance - It's a casual fact that slavery is common in the drow world, and along with owning slaves several characters are slaves themselves. This has occasionally lead to fighting in the roleplays when some people want to free the slaves and take a modern perspective.
    • A played for laughs example is found in drow fashion, where Mel'arnach's dental floss doesn't garner much reaction, but Nibai's is considered risque. The reason? Ni'bai shows her neck. Which actually makes quite a bit of sense when you consider how warlike drow are and how the neck is a very vulnerable part of the body, and exposing it is basically asking for a knife to the jugular.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion - Given that many members of the cast are either muscular female warriors or feminine men and that drow gender roles invert human ones this was perhaps inevitable, but here are some notable examples:
    • Abyte Mae'yukir. Most of the comments on the concept art revolve around trying to figure out whether they're a man or a woman. In the main story it's eventually revealed that she's female.
    • Quain'tana can cause this as well, since she lacks the usual attributes associated with adult drow females, since they generally live in a World of Buxom.
    • Sil'lice's daughter Kadara (the one with the blue facial tattoos) also caused this, and many refused to believe she was, in fact, female until Sil'lice called her "daughter". The fact that she's very butch and has a foul mouth didn't help.
    • Nori'ga Vel'Sharen caused a bit of this too with his concept art, perhaps because of this his name was changed from the more feminine sounding Niro'ga and his facial features appeared more masculine in the actual chapter.
    • Koil'dorath and Suu'be invoke this as well. In Suu'be's case the author even poked fun at it in a podcast.
    • Also, Svala, one of Snadhya'rune's Feldian bodyguards. He or she has a more feminine figure than hir partner, Sin'cani, but hir gender still hasn't been revealed.
    • And An'jin, one of the Jie'yen who rescues Jal'na, is very hard to tell the gender of since most Jie'yen shave their heads and wear clothing that hides their bodies. A later character seems to be under the impression he's male, likely from the voice.
  • What an Idiot! - Six words: Syphile. Sneak attack. Doing it wrong. Could also be interpreted as Honor Before Reason if one is charitable.
    • Ariel has her moments too. Upon being told that Mel is her true mother (not Quain'tana), she responds, " Mel is Quain'tana?". Kel'noz's subsequent Face Palm spoke for the fans.
  • The Woobie:
    • Faen
    • Ariel
    • Syphile, according the artist, who says that the fact that since Syphile herself was abused by Sil'lice, it makes her mistreatment of Ariel less about maliciousness and more of a cycle of violence. There are disagreements on this however.
    • Naal'suul, considering that everyone is surprised that she's even still alive.
    • Khal'harror, after watching his sister get stabbed and taken over by her seed, looking absolutely terrified)
    • Mikilu. It's difficult not to feel sorry for her after seeing what she was put through.
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  1. ↑ there's also an Alternate Character Interpretation where her lashing out at Mel for this is actually some form of Survivors Guilt
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