In my life I have come to trust my intrinsic instincts. I will simply have a ‘feeling’ and know what I must do. This week there is one thing that I know I must do. I must return to Drizzt.
Since we last checked in with the legendary dark elf warrior, the story of Drizzt has taken many twists and turns which I will try to summarize. Drizzt entered the the ‘surface world’ where he has struggled to adjust. His eyes, which are used to the near perfect darkness of the under dark struggle with the surface light. His clothes and weapons have began to almost dissolve as their magic is worn away by the intense sunlight of the surface. The surface world which is perhaps more recognizable than the underworld still has its own peculiarities and strange creatures. Drizzt stumbles upon a group of goblins, the look to form an alliance with Drizzt in order to attack a small farmhouse of a human family. Drizzt, in typical fashion, slaughters all the goblins with his scimitars. This leaves Drizzt with a strange moral dillema that becomes a theme for the book. In this strange world known as the ‘Forgotten Realms” there are generally two distinctions of “goodly races” and “evil races” as they describe them. Drizzt who is a gifted warrior is often called to protect these goodly races in order to defend his own morals but he begins to wonder who he is to judge others intention. He wonders if he should continue to act as the judge, jury, and executioner.
This internal turmoil follows Drizzt as he continues to explore the surface world. At this point he find his first friend on the surface, Montiolo is a blind human ranger that can, more or less, speak with animals. Montiolo removes some of this emotional burden by telling Drizzt to observe the children of a race in order to determine if it is a goodly race or evil one. Where the human children played together, worked together, and loved each other the goblins, even as children would fight and hurt one another for personal gain.
I found this lesson to be an interesting one. In the real world we lack these clear distinctions but I also believe that the strength and morals of a community can be judged by the lesson they teach their young.
I am super intrigued by this series that I just might go out and get a copy. In regards to the judgement of good or bad, I think the judgement of children is albeit odd but surprisingly a good indicator of value. If a culture values it’s young it shows that growth and development are a central portion of their society. If they do not value them, then it’s a static and archaic society that is waiting for change or some revolution.