So like I am not a Drizzt fan in the slightest. I gave the books a chance, decided they weren't for me. The most I tend to engage with them is by trying to stay relatively caught up with how the events of them effect the lore (listening and looking for authors interviews, ect), and having a friend give me a verbal retelling of whatever they recently read over dinner.
In fact, my larger, complicated feelings on the series is that I think that while it undeniably caused a lot of popularity to be given to the drow, it also caused a lot of undue attention to be granted to one really specific corner of their lore. (Menzoberranzan) And that people dont have an idea of what theyre like outside of the city state as a result of only engaging with it through that lens. But Bleh Bleh Bleh this post doesn't have to be about that.
But sometimes when I'm snooping around you'll see a comment that says something like "RA doesnt like Eilistraee and the non-evil bits of drow lore because it takes away from Drizzt being the specialist guy in the world" and guys. It is so important to me that you all know that that isnt true at all. RA has gone on record saying that he has a lot of empathy for the drow in his story even seperate from Drizzt.
I would be curious to know how you feel about the xhabfss they've made to the Drow lately. Moving away from "All or most Drow are Evil" to that being mainly the Cult of Lolth
It was always the cult of Lolth in my mind. "Nurture not nature" makes sense to me for reasoning beings. The idea of hereditary evilness just doesn't make sense. Also, in my books, the drow were no more evil than the magistrates and audience at Luskan's Prisoner's Carnival. Wulfgar's tribe sought to wipe out Ten Towns.
"Evil" as a concept is hard to separate from perspective, I guess.
Menzoberranzan was based on Mario Puzo's "The Godfather" because I wanted a society that looked simply evil from the outside, but really was much more than just that in reality.
Even in my earliest books, Drizzt was hardly alone in not being evil, or not wanting to be. Many of the drow around him - Vierna, Maya, Zak, Jarlaxle - were simply trying to survive in an untenable society dominated by an immortal demon queen whose clerics punished in ways worse than death those who didn't conform.
The concept of "Starlight Enclave" didn't just pop up for convenience. I had hoped to write about a non-Lolthian drow society for many, many years.
I know the game books presented things differently, but again, I stand by my work on this.
He further gets into it in his interview here
But the other way to rehabilitate the drow and the one that i always thought was way more interesting is-
i never liked the idea that Drizzt was unique. Yeah. And not only did i not like the idea that Drizzt was unique i liked it even less when it first came out that because of the god Eilistraee there are good drow. Which became kind of-
No. Zaknafein wasn't evil. Vierna wasn't evil. Jarlaxle wasn't evil. They were surviving in brutal territory and when I get to go back finally go back in the new series and show what you what you see is priestesses like - they hate Lolth. They don't even know why she's giving them power. But there's nothing they can do with it so they're never going to say they hate wealth. The matron mothers are in complete control
And that's-
So this has been a process from me from that point it started with the companions and really has been the theme of the books was the clarification. Honestly rehabilitation, but the clarification of the drow. Because first of all i never thought of them as any more evil as the magistrates of Luskan- the pirate. I mean the and the pirates yeah- right and the- and the lords who go to war on whim.
And then in the same interview gets into his thoughts on writing gods, which is similar to the thoughts Greenwood has expressed on them in the past;
i'll unwind it for you.
When Drizzt found Mielikki what did he say? He didn't feel like he had found a god, right. He felt like he had found a name to put that on that which was in his that essence. So in essence Drizzt is agnostic. Yeah. He hopes and believes there's something better but it doesn't matter because it's his conscience that matters for this existence, this experience in the first book of the companions codex
Drizzt and Cattie-Brie are arguing about orcs. Drizzt says "How do we know they're all evil. People thought drow were all evil - we're not. And Cattie-brie says Mielikki told me that. What did Drizzt say? Mielikki's wrong.
The reason he doesn't like Eilistraee isn't because she takes away from his special boy, it's because he thinks that the drow shouldn't have to find god, or even really leave Lolth, to be granted sympathy and narrative kindness for the situation they're in. I think that's such an important distinction in tone for the lens and framework of which he's writing in, and understanding drow lore and the intention behind it (due to the aforementioned echo effect of how influential Drizzt was on the drow.)
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