This is part eleven of a multi-part series exploring how I, Lise, see the drow of D&D. For more info, see part 1’s introduction. Also worth reading is the post where this all started: “On making the drow less problematic.”
Additional note: currently I have limited arm movement due to an injury. Thankfully I wrote a lot of these ahead of time. Please excuse any textual infelicities that may result.
- Introduction + the banality of evil and social Darwinism
- The law of “don’t get caught”
- The ultimate in “guess” culture
- Chosen ones
- Connoisseurs of sensual pleasures
- Sexual orientation
- Gender identity and trans-ness
- Yes, heat vision
- Drow language
- Consent in the matriarchy
- No one is born knowing their society is fucked (you are here)
- Drow cuisine
- Etc etc
This has always bothered me about the Drizzt novels — there is zero explanation for why he, or his father Zaknafein, know how bad their society is and want to escape it. Drizzt is always a cinnamon roll, even from his earliest days, and we learn in the Generations trilogy that Zaknafein hated priestesses long before he ever met Malice, for some reason that is never explored.
Basically we’re only seeing the author’s (and our own) outside view that “hey murder and xenophobia and misandry and abuse is bad,” not the inside view from the drow.
Look, no one is born knowing they have it unusually bad. Look at generational abuse situations. Look at cult deprogramming situations. If you have no point of comparison, then all that bad behavior is just Tuesday for you.
And the situation of the drow makes that even more likely to be true. One, they are incredibly isolated from other races. They seem themselves as superior to every other race, and, in fact, lucky that they are not them. They think themselves the masters of the Underdark. And they have official, state-sponsored propaganda reinforcing that, which all (noble?) young adults go through as part of their education.
When we meet Jorlan in Bright Future, he’s already somewhat disillusioned with drow society — but it took some two hundred years for him to get there.
Not only due to the canonical lead-up to Out of the Abyss (where he helps the PCs at first because he’s been spurned by his lover), but also because of other backstory I gave him:
A thoughtful pause, more splashing. “Do you not get tired of this?”
“Of baths?”
“Of being looked down upon.”
“Mmm.” That was a more difficult question. His initial response was Of course. Looking back on his life from this perspective, he was infuriated by all the things that were denied him because of his gender. But at the time? “If it’s all you’ve ever known, it’s very hard to imagine that things can be any other way. Would you miss sight if you were born blind?”
“I suppose not.”
“It wasn’t until I was stationed in drow-occupied Blingdenstone that I started to understand that other races didn’t live like that.” His mouth twisted into a sour expression. “My matron mother would say that was when I grew… headstrong.”
Bright Future, chapter 15, “Siltrin.”
(Also I decided he learned Common by reading romance novels that he confiscated from the prisoners under his charge, so that probably helped, too 🤣)
This is also why, I like to think, Jorlan bears a (mostly performative) grudge towards Drizzt, when the topic of him comes up. Jorlan bought into the chaotic drow lifestyle for a long time, so he really just doesn’t understand someone who never did, and moreover, survived the Academy with his soul mostly intact. It’s like being envious of someone who grew up with healthy family relationships.
Come to think of it… all of Bright Future is about Jorlan unlearning the painful lessons of drow society, including those of “all trust is foolish” and “do as you are ordered and live,” to quote two common drow sayings.
Anyway. I wish canon had done more to tell us why these characters are so atypical for the society they were raised in. They didn’t just wake up with an ethical conscious — and in fact every factor was against that happening! So why?
And while I ended this to be the last single-topic post, I realized that I had many words to say about drow cuisine — too much to include in my final “etc etc” post. So next time: drow cuisine!
