The Dark Elf Trilogy/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Chaotic Evil - The entire dark elf race, excluding Drizzt and Zaknafein.
    • The Drow have laws and at least show a semblance of respect for them, generally engaging in outright evil behavior only if they can get away with it and condemning those who are caught breaking the law--this makes them closer to Neutral Evil than Chaotic Evil (and indeed NE is the canonical alignment for Drow society).
      • Curiously enough, at the time the series was written all Dark Elves were canonical Chaotic Evil. Their behavior didn't change between editions; just their stated alignment, with the writers apparently realizing the highly organized society didn't fit the Chaotic mold very cleanly.
      • Chaotic Evil doesn't mean no laws and everyone's butchering everyone. That's Chaotic Stupid with a healthy dash of Stupid Evil. Drow society is meant to be a game played by the matron mothers, with the laws being how the game is played - the first rule being you can get away with anything as long as nobody catches you.
      • Yeah, after all, surface elves are chaotic good. And they have rules too.
  • Narm - Unfortunately, from Exile, towards the end:

"Who are you? You are not my father!"
"No. I am your... Mother!"

    • And from Sojourn. It is really freaking hard to take the villain seriously when his name is Roddy McGristle.
      • I don't know, that's a good "mountain man" name, which is exactly what he is and where his evilness comes from.
  • Wangst: Some think his guilt/self-pity in Sojourn was pretty whiney. He looks practically cheery compared to subsequent novels, though.
  • Fridge Logic - Alright, this troper can accept that people born in a society of sociopaths can randomly be good people with aversions to senseless violence. But when Drizzt turns down sex with the priestess, he tells his sister that he "cares nothing for her". How does he even have the concept that sex and love go together?
    • It was more of a way of knocking her down a peg. The scene where it's said is during an orgy, where everyone was taking on people to show their status. The fact that Drizzt left his sister alone with no one to sex showed that she had no power as a priestess.
    • At the rate they kill each other, the Drow would need to reproduce like bunnies (or at least something close to a normal rate) to maintain a stable population. However, one Matron seems to, on average, produce about the same amount of children as a human mother—except spread out over a few hundred years. They could not maintain their population as long as they have, let alone grown strong.
      • Well, the killing rate is actually not that high. Among the over sixty houses, there is one ascension attempt every decade. And some sources imply the struggle among commoners is not as wasteful - at least the families are stated to be larger.
    • This troper 100% agrees with the fridge logic and thinks it should go on the main page. If the book had been written 50 years ago, Drizzt would probably be saying "No! It's immoral to have sex before marriage!" Add to that that there is apparently no word for "love" in the drow language, the closest one being something that means "selfish lust". So how Drizzt was even able to express his feelings is a mystery too. Unless what he actually meant was "I'm not attracted to her"??
    • While he may not have the "sex = love" idea in his mind, being less sociopathic than the others COULD lead him to the "I just don't want to sleep with my sister" conclusion.
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