The Dragonlance Chronicles Reread: Dragons of Spring Dawning, Chapters 5 and 6

Hazzah!  Laurana’s finally back!  (The novel was really starting to drag without her.)

Unfortunately, she is apparently not in the best of shape as she is clearly suffering from both exhaustion and severe stress.  (Tasslehoff specifically notes that her face appears wan and drawn from grief, worry, and lack of sleep.)  Now it certainly makes sense that Laurana would be both exhausted and stressed.  The battle at the High Clerist’s Tower was extremely demanding on her both physically (remember how drained she was after using the dragon orb) and emotionally (what with her seeing a dear friend killed right in front of her and then learning that the man she loves has not only seemingly rejected her for another woman but has also apparently gone over to the forces of evil), and she hasn’t had any time to recover since that battle given that she immediately took on responsibility for critical diplomatic negotiations.  And Laurana appears to be holding up well so far, skillfully managing the negotiations with the Palanthians despite having to deal with an absent minded lord, an obnoxious librarian, and sexist condescension from all the men she just saved    But even though Laurana is still performing well, the physical, mental, and emotional demands on her are only going to increase from this moment on which means her exhaustion and stress levels are also only going to get worse.  This is important because exhaustion and chronic stress will both severely impair judgment, so Laurana suffering from those afflictions goes a long way towards explaining the rather unwise decision she makes later in this novel.

And I really can’t stand Astinus.  I’ll get more into the why next time (when we see him go from merely being unhelpful to outright harmful), but he’s already pretty horrible in these chapters.  In particular you’re right that there was no reason for him not to tell Laurana that Raistlin was in Palanthas, and the ramifications if he had told her about Raistlin are staggering.  Laurana would certainly have gone to speak with Raistlin, and based on his past willingness to speak with her, it is probable he would have at least told her that Tanis had abandoned Kitiara.  (Which would effectively defang Kitiara’s subsequent plot against Laurana.)     

Otherwise, the one thing I never get about this chapter is why was it necessary to get told the story of the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas for a second time?  Admittedly, it does make sense it would be discussed here, but we were already told this exact history in Winter Night.   Also, what was Astinus smoking prior to him telling Laurana that her destiny was wrapped up with the tower?  She never has even the slightest bit of any interaction with that tower again after looking at it in this chapter.  Astinus is the worst!

@Aeryl

There are TONS of reasons why he can’t tell her(and Jared didn’t say that, he just noted it).  Whether he is Gilean, or just a servant, he is devoted to neutrality, and taking actions that haveramifications is the opposite of that. 

Being dedicated to the Gods of Neutrality doesn’t mean you have to be neutral in every conflict.  (On Krynn neutrality refers to a third moral system, different than good and evil rather than simply not being involved in a war.)  And it is in Astinus’s own best interest to see the Dragonarmies defeated.  After all his main concern is the recording of history right?  Military dictatorships aren’t exactly known for tolerating historians who don’t tow the dictatorship’s line.  Thus it is very unlikely Astinus and his Aesthetics will be permitted to continue their work unmolested if the Dragonarmies win.  As such he should want to see them stopped and helping Laurana here is the best way to insure the Dragonarmies are defeated.

And would have forced the heroes to fight a conventional war they couldn’t have won, with the two flying citadels and what not. 

Except Laurana was winning the conventional war hands down prior to her capture.  And flying citadels aren’t a threat to an army that has its own dragons because the citadels have no meaningful anti-dragon weaponry and thus have no way by itself to keep attacking dragons from devastating it.  (You’ll note that the Dragonarmy attacks on both Kalaman and Palanthas failed despite being supported by flying citadels, and that’s because flying citadels simply aren’t that effective as warcraft.)  

Dalamar was master of the Tower, and he had a HUGE impact on Laurana’s destiny, what with his plotting putting Gilthas on the throne of Qualinesti.  And that Tower is also where Tanis made his final choice with Kit. 

Fair enough.  I withdraw that complaint. 

@7

Except that in the section covered this week, he says exactly that, stating a doctrine of non intervention.

But he is remarkably inconsistent in applying that doctrine of non-intervention.  In these last few chapters alone we’ve seen him interfere by:

1) Imposing himself in the debate on whether Laurana could command the Knights;

2) Giving Laurana a decidedly confusing answer in response to her question about where Tanis is; and

3) Telling the people of Palanthas the good dragons will not hurt them.

If he could intervene in those circumstances then why can’t he tell Laurana that Raistlin is at the Library?  It’s not as though he would be controlling the outcome of that encounter.  That would be entirely between Laurana and Raistlin, so it would actually be a lesser act of interference than the other things he has done.

Well then it’s a good thing he didn’t tell her Raistlin was with him or where Tanis actually was, or else she would never have turned herself over to Kit, therefore leading to the defeat of the forces of evil by the power of love.

And again the forces of evil were well on their way to defeat prior to Laurana getting captured.  (Furthermore, Astinus explicitly notes that he can’t see the future, so it’s not as though he knew everything was going to work out ok despite him screwing Laurana over in these chapters.)

Except other dragons.

Yes, but in a dragon on dragon fight, the good dragons have a massive advantage due to their side having the dragonlances.  And once the evil dragons are routed or killed by the good dragons, the flying citadel is just a slow, lumbering target kind of like an aircraft carrier after its air wing has been shot down and all its escorting vessels have been sunk.

Kalaman was loosing when Kit withdrew, and Palanthas won because they stole it.  You are not making a definitive case.

Where are you getting that Kalaman was losing prior to Kit withdrawing?  (Kit would hardly have withdrawn from the battle if she had been winning it after all.)  The description of the Kalaman battle in the Legends series shows that the flying citadel at Kalaman was defeated in much the same way as the citadel at Palanthas was.  Gilthanas and Riverwind led a force of Knights up to the citadel and captured it in the middle of the battle.  The Dragonarmies were able to eventually retake the citadel, but only by diverting forces from their attack on the city, which caused that attack to fail.  Hardly a showcase for flying citadels being some all powerful weapon, since the citadel did not win the battle and was in fact captured twice during the battle.  And by the same token the fact that Tanis, Caramon, and Tas were able to steal the citadel in the Palanthas battle shows just how ridiculously vulnerable these citadels are.

Also remember that the battles at Kalaman and Palanthas both occurred under very favorable circumstances for the Dragonarmy forces.  At Kalaman the Whitestone Army was horribly demoralized because of the loss of the Golden General, and at Palanthas the Dragonarmy forces had significantly more dragons present than the Whitestone forces.  If the flying citadels weren’t able to carry the day even under such favorable circumstances, they certainly aren’t going to be prevail against the Whitestone Army at its peak under Laurana’s command when her army’s morale is excellent, and she has a large force of good dragons complete with dragonlance wielding dragon riders available. 

I agree Astinius isn’t consistent, he’s as capricious as all the other gods, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an internally justified reason for doing so.

Sure, but if Astinus doesn’t take his own rules seriously then there isn’t much reason for us to respect them either.

If she wanted to consolidate her hold on the dragonarmies, yes she would.  Kalaman was holding, but even then they knew they couldn’t hold out indefinitely, that’s pretty clear in the chapter where Tanis & Co leave for Neraka. 

Wouldn’t destroying the main Whitestone Army and capturing a key city be an excellent way to consolidate her hold on the Dragonarmies?  And the battle hadn’t even started yet at the chapter when Tanis’s group left for Neraka, so I don’t see how that can establish that Kalaman was losing the battle.  Here’s the relevant quotes about the battle from Test of the Twins. 

“Kalaman survived a citadel’s attack by waiting until most of it’s troops had been dropped, then good dragons carrying men-at-arms on their backs flew up and took control of the citadel.”

It made sense Tanis admitted to himself.  That much of the battle of Kalaman Riverwind had told him.  But Tanis also knew that Kalaman had been unable to hold the citadel.  They had simply driven it back.  Kitiara’s troops, giving up the battle of Kalaman, had been able to easily recapture their citadel and fly it back to Sanction where Kit, had apparently, once more put it to good use.

“They’ll do what they did at Kalaman.  Bring the citadel as close as they can get.  At Kalaman, that wasn’t very close.  The dragons held them back.  But”- he shrugged- “we don’t have near the number of dragons they did.”

None of those quotes suggest that Kalaman was on the brink of falling and was only saved by Kitiara giving a recall order.  They instead show that the attack failed because the Knights were able to successfully capture the citadel, and the Dragonarmies had to break off the attack on the city in order to retake the citadel.  And again if the Whitestone forces could drive off the citadel even when they were horribly demoralized, they will certainly be able to defeat it when their morale is sky high.  (Just remember Napoleon’s maxim that “the morale is to the physical as three is to one.”)

And don’t forget, if Laurana doesn’t get captured, setting of the entire chain of events in motion, eventually Berem is captured and Takhisis is freed. 

How do you figure that?  If Laurana isn’t captured then the very next day Tanis shows up at Kalaman with Berem in tow.  Berem can then be escorted to Neraka behind the shields of the entire Whitestone Army.  

And besides it is heavily implied in the novels that Laurana was tortured and/or raped while a prisoner in Neraka.  It is certainly not fair to expect her to undergo that kind of torment.  There are other ways to get Berem safely to the Foundation Stone.  

@11:

There are 5 key points that strongly suggest that Laurana was tortured and/or raped while Kitiara’s prisoner.

1. The Dragonarmies routinely horribly abuse their prisoners.

We saw back in Autumn Twilight that Toede intended to make Goldmoon and Tika sex slaves for Verminaard after capturing the party in Solace, and in the current novel we were just told that Gilthanas and Silvara were tortured after being captured in Sanction, so clearly the Dragonarmies don’t have any scruples against raping and torturing their prisoners and in fact seem to regularly employ such practices (which makes sense given that they are literally an army of evil). Therefore, it would have to be expected that normally any prisoner that falls into their hands will be tortured and/or raped.  And while Laurana is an extremely valuable prisoner (which might normally be expected to protect her from the indignities the Dragonarmies inflict on most of their prisoners), in this case Laurana’s rank offers her little protection because her captor has a personal vendetta against her and wants nothing more than to see her suffer.

2. Kitiara already previously set Laurana up to be raped.

This is made obvious in this novel by the fact that Kitiara sicced Bakaris on Laurana. We know from Gakhan that Kitiara knew perfectly well that Bakaris hated Laurana and was likely to seek his own personal revenge on her if given the chance.

Gakhan hesitated, his dark reptilian eyes regarding Bakaris wearily. Kitiara had warned him something like this might occur. He guessed what Bakaris had in mind- his own private revenge.

And yet Kitiara still required Laurana to bring Bakaris with her as part of the Tanis deal and did not give Gakhan any instructions about what to do if Bakaris tried to get Laurana to himself. (It would have been very easy for Kitiara to give Gakhan instructions of “don’t let Bakaris be alone with the elfwoman no matter what” if Kitiara didn’t want Laurana raped.) Furthermore, Lord Soth was obviously shadowing the group (look at how quickly he shows up after Laurana killed Bakaris), and yet he did not interfere when Bakaris dragged Laurana off to the cave with obvious evil intent. It would have been in Soth’s interest to stop Bakaris there given that both Kitiara and him had plans of their own for Laurana, and even if Bakaris wasn’t intending to kill her, a violent rape could easily lead to her getting killed, so the fact that Soth didn’t intervene to stop Bakaris in that moment only makes sense if Kitiara gave him explicit orders not to interfere with whatever Bakaris did to Laurana.

So obviously Kitiara set Laurana up to be raped there, and if Kitiara wanted Laurana to be raped why would Kitiara give up just because Bakaris failed? She still hates Laurana and wants to see her humiliated and defiled, and despite Bakaris’s failure she still has Laurana as her prisoner, completely at her mercy, with nothing to stop her from doing whatever she wants to Laurana.  Therefore it is very difficult to believe that Kitiara wouldn’t finish what Bakaris started once Laurana was fully in Kitiara’s custody.  

3. Kitiara was perfectly willing to risk Laurana’s life in order to torment her.

This should already be obvious from that fact that Kitiara previously set Laurana up to be raped by a psychopath, but in case that’s not enough evidence for you, there’s also the highly dangerous manner in which Kitiara had Laurana presented to the Dark Queen: wrapping her up tightly in a cocoon of winding cloth.

This is obviously an incredibly reckless way to bring Laurana before Takhisis, as Laurana very easily could have suffocated while wrapped in the cocoon (and indeed she very nearly did suffocate.)

Then drawing her sword, Kitiara leaned down and slit the bindings that wrapped the figure like a cocoon. Giving them a yank, she pulled them loose, then stepped back to watch her captive struggle in the web.

Tanis caught sight of a mass of tangled, honey-colored hair, the flash of silver armor. Coughing, nearly suffocated by her constricting bindings, Laurana fought to free herself from the entangling white cloths. There was a tense laughter as the troops watched the prisoner’s feeble thrashings-this was obviously an indication of more amusement to come.

Thus Kitiara was willing to endanger Laurana’s life just so that Laurana would suffer a little extra humiliation and physical discomfort.

And Kitiara was clearly risking more than just Laurana’s life by being so reckless with Laurana’s safety. If she cuts open the cocoon, and Laurana is dead inside due to having suffocated, Kitiara will look like a fool before Takhisis and the entire assembled Dragonarmies (which pretty much kills any chance Kitiara has of being awarded the Crown of Power.) Furthermore, Kitiara has already promised Laurana’s soul to Lord Soth. We don’t know exactly how that is done, but presumably it involves some sort of magic ritual where you trap the victim’s soul at the time of her death. That means if Laurana is already dead then there is no way to trap her soul and thus Kitiara cannot honor her deal with Soth. Thus Kitiara was risking greatly antagonizing two extremely powerful beings, both of whom she needed, just so that she could bring Laurana before her in a particularly humiliating manner. That shows Kitiara values tormenting Laurana even above her own ambitions, and if tormenting Laurana means that much to Kitiara how likely is it she would refrain from having Laurana tortured and/or raped during the time that Laurana was her prisoner?    

4. Laurana was clearly afraid of the area where she was kept prisoner:

Laurana is repeatedly shown to be an incredibly brave person. She takes on a Dragon Highlord, dragons, and even a dragon orb without hesitation, and even being a prisoner of her worst enemy while surrounded by thousands of evil troops and with a literal evil god towering over her doesn’t stop her. Yet she exhibits a fearful reaction to even the thought of the place where she was kept prisoner.      

 Laurana stared at him. “Come on,” she urged, pointing to the east. Seeing him hesitate, looking north, she shuddered. “You don’t want to go down there! That is where they… took me-” She turned away quickly, her face growing pale as she heard cries and shouts coming from the prison cells.

 For the normally indomitable Laurana to be so afraid of an area that she shudders just at the thought of reentering that place, it suggests something horrible must have happened to her there.

5. Laurana herself alludes to being tortured while Kitiara’s prisoner.

The final key piece of evidence is from outside the Chronicles, as it comes from something Laurana said to Gerard in Dragons of a Fallen Sun.

When Gerard mentioned this to Laurana, making some comment on what he considered boorish human behavior, she smiled and urged him to be patient.

“I was a prisoner once,” she said, her eyes dark with memory, “a prisoner of the Dark Queen. Unless you have been a prisoner, Sir Knight, until you have been shut away in darkness, alone in pain and in fear, I don’t believe you can understand.”

She specifically mentions being in pain during her captivity. If Laurana was in pain while in the Dark Queen’s dungeons then it obviously follows that she was tortured and/or raped during that time.

So from those five points  it seems pretty clear that Laurana was horribly abused while Kitiara’s prisoner.

Any anyway even if by some miracle Laurana was not tortured and raped despite being the prisoner of a sociopathic woman who utterly despises her, Astinus certainly could not know that Laurana wouldn’t be tortured and raped if she was captured. Thus it would still be an incredibly callous action on his part to help set Laurana up to be captured just because he thinks that in the long run her capture will set in motion the events that lead to the Dragonarmies’ downfall.

I don’t disagree that she was horribly abused.  But I find the idea that because she’s a woman, that abuse HAD to be rape, to be a pretty damn sexist one.

And where did I say that the abuse Laurana suffered HAD to be a rape?  It could have been torture, it could have been rape, or it could have been both.  The text (thankfully) is not graphic enough about what happened to her to know the specifics of what she suffered.  

And anyway if Laurana was raped, it wouldn’t have been because she’s a woman but rather because she’s a prisoner of a violent sociopath with a massive vendetta against her.  That isn’t a gender specific condition.  A man that Kitiara hated as much as she hated Laurana who found himself in Kitiara’s clutches would be in just as much danger of being sexually assaulted as Laurana was.  What matters isn’t the victim’s gender.  What matters is Kitiara hating the victim and having power over them.    

 And to get back to the original point, if you agree that Laurana was horribly abused while Kitiara’s prisoner (regardless of the specifics of that abuse) then how can you be so blasé about Astinus helping to set Laurana up to be captured?

@15:

Well thank you for explaining your viewpoint.  I disagree with almost all of it, but at least now I understand where you are coming from.

So the good guys don’t win by conventional warfare, because you can’t out evil the forces of evil, and conventional warfare is evil.

Here’s where you first lose me.  How exactly is conventional warfare when done in defense of innocents and fought under reasonable rules of armed conflict evil?  And if your objection is to the killing involved, the good guys still win their victories at the end of both Chronicles and Legends with an awful lot of killing, so how is that any morally better than winning a conventional military victory?

The good guys win through sacrifice in the name of love.  Laurana, Silvara, Raistlin these are the actual heroes of the story. 

Agreed, but I don’t think they are heroes because of sacrifices they made for love.  Indeed Laurana is at her best and does the most good when she puts aside her love in favor of her duty (while still drawing on her love for strength, inspiration, and courage.)       

As for Silvara and Raistlin, what sacrifice do you think they even made?   Silvara gave up… being duped by Takhisis, and Raistlin gave up… being trapped alone in a void for all eternity.  Not exactly big sacrifices from those two.

So there is no way this story ends in victory, unless Laurana is willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING, her very self and soul, possible victory over darkness, EVERYTHING, for love. 

The problem with that theory is Laurana wasn’t willingly making a sacrifice when she accepted Kitiara’s deal because she honestly did not realize it was a trap.  Sacrifice requires a conscious choice.  It’s not a sacrifice if you get tricked into doing something.    

Also, from a meta-standpoint, I don’t think the narrative intends for us to approve of what Laurana did in trusting Kitiara.  Here’s Laurana’s own words on that particular decision:

“I was a leader.  I had responsibilites.  Flint told me that.  But I threw it all away.  I fell into Kitiara’s trap.  I realized- too late- how shallow my love really was.  Riverwind’s and Goldmoon’s steadfast love brought hope to the world.  Our petty love came near to destroying it.”

So Laurana clearly believes her decision there was wrong, and I think the reader is meant to agree with her.    

And yes, there is a risk.  Laurana makes the sacrifice, and if Tanis doesn’t agree to the same sacrifice, it all falls apart.  Takhisis wins.  But this entire story is nothing more than a gamble between which is more powerful, love or power. 

But did Tanis really even make a sacrifice?  After all his big planned “sacrifice” would have allowed him to be with the woman he loved guilt-free despite her being an evil warlord.  That seems less like a sacrifice and more like Tanis trying to find a rationalization for sexy times with Kitiara.  About the only sacrifice Tanis actually made was that he wasn’t willing to be with Kitiara at the cost of Laurana’s life and soul, and it’s hard to really score that as a sacrifice since Tanis would have to have been a complete monster to let an innocent woman be killed (and her soul be given to a death knight) just so he could get with Kitiara.       

So by that logic the Allied soldiers who liberated Nazi death camps were doing something evil…  Wow!  That is a viewpoint so utterly alien from mine and that I find so abhorrent that further discussion on this point would seem to be pointless.

That makes her sacrifice more meaningful not less.

And again how is it a sacrifice at all if Laurana didn’t know what she was agreeing to?  Laurana did not expect or intend to be captured and as such she wasn’t making a sacrifice.  She honestly believed that she was just going to be away for a few hours to comfort Tanis in his last hours after which she would safely return to her army.  (If things had gone as she expected then probably no one would have even realized she was ever gone.)  The only thing she thought she was giving up was a single prisoner (and lets face it, getting an impulsive hothead like Bakaris back isn’t exactly a strategic triumph for the Dragon Empire.”)  So this wasn’t Laurana sacrificing everything for love.  And in fact the novel clearly established that Laurana wasn’t willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING for love as she was not even willing to go see Tanis if the price was her being away from her army for an unreasonable amount of time.

“Where is Tanis?” Laurana demanded.

“He grew worse,” Gakhan answered. “If you want to see him, you must come to Dargaard Keep.”

“No,” Laurana drew back, only to feel Bakaris’s hand close over her arm in a firm grip.

“Don’t call for help,” he said pleasantly, “or one of your friends will die. Well, it seems we’re taking a little trip to Dargaard Keep. Tanis is a dear friend. I’d hate for him to miss seeing you.”   

That scene makes it clear that Laurana was not willing to travel beyond the area in the immediate proximity of Kalaman (which would require her being out of contact with her troops for an extended period of time) even when she believed such travel was the only way she could see Tanis.  Laurana desperately wanted to see Tanis at that time, but even in that moment with her believing Tanis was dying and that this was her last chance to ever see him, she still wasn’t willing to give up everything just to see him.  (Unfortunately, by that moment she was already caught too deep in the trap and thus no longer had a choice.)

Do people not have souls to you? 

That’s rather a bizarre non-sequitur.

Even if they don’t, I’m not hear to debate your personal ethos, they do in Dragonlance, and it’s made pretty clear that acts that tarnish your soul can have far reaching consequences *cough*Lord Soth*cough*. So to say Tanis wasn’t making a sacrifice here is laughable, and ignoring the text in favor of your own interpretation.  Again. 

And again how is it a sacrifice if the thing Tanis has to do as his part of the “sacrifice” is something that he wants to do anyway? Tanis wants to be with Kitiara (repeatedly established throughout the novels), but he doesn’t want to feel like a horrible person for loving a Dragon Highlord (which is why he ultimately ran out on Kitiara in Flotsam). “Sacrificing” himself for Laurana on the terms Tanis (repeatedly) proposed to Kitiara solves this problem for Tanis. He gets to be with the woman he wants and doesn’t have to feel like a rotten person because he can tell himself he is actually doing something heroic.  It’s a win-win proposition from Tanis’s perspective and thus it isn’t any sacrifice at all.

As for Tanis’s actions at the very end of the novel when he tells Kitiara she will have to kill him to get to Laurana there is a much stronger argument for calling that a sacrifice. However, in that instance you can’t say that Tanis’s sacrifice for love was necessary to win the war because the war was already won at that point. Ariakas was already dead, the Dragonarmies were already fighting each other, and Takhisis was already banished. Thus even if we accept that scene as a sacrifice for love, I don’t see how it supports the idea that it was sacrifices for love that won the War of the Lance.