[Shgon Dunstan]

Taken such a long break from DT that I started a reread to refresh myself on the details... Man is Quai's total bitch-ness and all the indoctrination going on not making it easy going.

First time through there were people to root for and even hope for. This time through there is... A sense of pity for Mel? And... That's about it.

Snad on the other hand by and large has "is the villain" immunity from such things... Which I guess just goes to show a failing with DT "not heroes or villains" thing, as it goes out of it's way to have anyone who gets too close to "hero" kick about a dozen puppies, but seems to have little issue with Snad wearing the villain cap with little more then "well she's nuts so it doesn't count".

... Honestly, a part of me fears something along the lines of a nBSG ending for DT. Where you muscle through all the grim-dark and plots to get to the end and just... Find that nothing is left of whatever reason you just did all of said muscling for. Leaving you just setting there wondering what was even the point.

Personally, I always thought that Quain and the Sharen Trio (Snad, Zala, and Sarv) should have a run-in with these fellows:

Hell, a good deal of the drow's problem is that they are doing a mighty find job of that all on their own. That just don't seem to get that their so-called "nature" and "morals" and their acceptance of them as simple fact are the actual problem.

At the end of the day the drow are typical "elves" in one respect. As powerful as they might seem at the moment... They're doomed. Like, they are royally screwed. As is they civilization just isn't sustainable.

[Gunbird]

Wait, What dose this got to do with this debate?

[Shgon Dunstan]

Wait, What dose this got to do with this debate?

What doesn't it???

Mel... She might not be perfect, but she really doesn't rise to the level of the other two. Honestly her greatest "sin" is being born a drow, Quai's daughter, and a character hand tailored to invoke pity.

Snad... It's not that she isn't "bad" it's that she is the Bad Guy, and insane to boot, and thus pretty much just forfeits the "worst person ever!" contest because... So? She is supposed to be like that. If anything it is any "nice" moment on her part that is remarkable.

Which leaves Quai... As far as I can tell, the retcon did a bloody number on Quai. All drow really, but she perhaps got hit the worst. The drow went from blatantly out and out evil, to... "Attempting" some kind of gray on gray/other then human morality thing going on. The issue being that... All those things she did for the LOLs and because she was an evil spiteful bitch?... She still did, only not for the LOLs, and less spiteful... Which basically ends up with her ether A. being an incompetent emotionally retarded fool that has never met a problem she can't make 50x worse(and triple down on should it ever rears it's head again), B. not honestly meaning even half the bullshit that comes out of her mouth.

Added to by the fact that her so-called "motive" for everything... Comes off as more then a little bullshit itself. Because... Drow morality is less "gray on gray", "gray on black", or even "purple on orange" then it is "gray on freaking insane"... Half the time it's like they are tossing dice in order to decide if something is a good thing, a natural thing, or one of the worst things known to drowkind... Past roles need not apply.

[Cladriah]

After reading the story.


Snad is pretty much the villain. Quai should've never been a parent. Great warrior, but terrible parent. Mel has my sympathy.

[Moric]

After reading the story.


Snad is pretty much the villain. Quai should've never been a parent. Great warrior, but terrible parent. Mel has my sympathy.

To an extent. Mel did herself no favors on a number of occasions...

Then again, an underlying theme of drow society is that the good guys aren't good people, and the villains are just that much worse.

[Ardan Styyx]

an underlying theme of drow society is that the good guys aren't good people, and the villains are just that much worse.

Yet, once your set aside the 'murder is ok 'cause it's part of the society' thing, most of the major characters appear as good as they could be, inside a world where everyone is bathed in violence since their childhood.

Thus, it is somehow a miracle Mel did not turn out to be a sociopathic monster after the ordeals she went, through and through, mainly inflicted by her own mother. Her being caring, idealistic (the dialogue she has with Luliann'e during their first encounter is fascinating!) and loving makes it even sader she fell into Snad's web. But both have a lot in common, and the side story about them in Daydream is very telling to this extend (soooo sad there was only one chapter...).

Snad is the perfect villain one loves to hate. Yet again, besides her manipulative, murderous megalomany, her original goals are the same of a rebel, wanting to put down a fossilised system where ever-living mothers impose their iron rule upon their entire progeny, without any hope for self achievement or freedom.

It is the same straightjacket that Quain wish to blow up, because if Drow life may not be a paradise for the Vals, it offers even less hope for comoners (some are reduced to cannibalism to survive!). But again, the blind pursuit of her ambition, coupled with the harshness of her early life that made her cruel and heartless, is another form of madness in which she lost herself.

Would they be a rebel traitcherous daughter, oblivious of her lover's machinations, a deadly unscrupulous manipulator, matricidal and infanticidal, or a cruel heartless war dog, devoured by her own ambition, all these 3 women are the product of the crushing grinder of a society they want to escape from, yet fail to change. They are therefore very tragic figures...

[Smokehammer]

Mel's never been traitorous though. It was a groundless accusation by Quain all along. She didnt share Quain's vision but she never did anything to stop it either. She never gave secrets to Snad, nor did she "pander" to being Val. She hated her mother because she never stood up for her, but she ever considered herself Sarghress anyway, more so than Quain who took the mantle of "Ill'haress" and ran with it. After all, Quain formed an alliance with Zala for everyone's benefit, just as Mel had maintained was doable all along. Was Quain a traitor to herself? Arguably yeah. She didnt really want to lead anybody to freedom, she just wanted to run off and adventure like Ariel does. Once she had enough money from being a Merc thats what she shouldve done. Then she'd still have her life, her family and her own self respect. Instead she played into the Val concept of honor -doing something great now matter how futile or evil is bitchin' ! right? People will build big assed statues and sing your praises for ages! She claims she didnt want that, yet did everything she could to ensure exactly that would happen. Thats why she fits into the category of "evil" rather than "tragic". After 600++ years she shouldve known better.

[Ardan Styyx]

After 600++ years she shouldve known better.

Yep, that's the whole thing : aging for a Drow doesn't seem to imply beeing wiser, on the contrary!
Quain is no exception their, neither is Snad, and what should one say about Diva!

[Smokehammer]

Well, Diva seems to have just been worn out. Did she go left when she knew she shouldve gone right over and over? We dont know. We dont know enough about her as Empress or even as Diva to know. Given what we have seen of her though, she seems to take life's lessons to heart.

Now Snadhya is crazy. By definition she lacks the ability to grasp normal societal functions. Age is only going to compound that, not make it miraculously better. Should Diva have grown wiser about that? Yes, but hope springs eternal and it isnt like she had better options. Khaless was too loyal to Snadhya, Sarv'swati's ass was made out of adamantium and again - too loyal to Snadhya, Sillice makes Snadhya look sane, Nishi's backwards and indecisive, Zala's spineless and Ashu is a guy. I suppose she couldve left her crown to a granddaughter or changed society to accept Ashu(assuming there's nothing wrong with Ashu beyond he's deadpan practical) but Im not sure she had a frame of reference with which to make such a leap ....and she thought she had time to figure it out.

[Doom Chinchilla]

After 600++ years she shouldve known better.

Yep, that's the whole thing : aging for a Drow doesn't seem to imply beeing wiser, on the contrary!
Quain is no exception their, neither is Snad, and what should one say about Diva!

The thing with drow is, their leadership is made of ruthless survivors. They reach the top and stay there by being too hard to kill and powerful enough, and willing, to obliterate rivals and enemies... And they become more and more powerful as they age, so they become more and more entrenched in power, and more difficult to oust...

So any stable, long lived, powerful drow illharess/illhar/de'vess/matriarch/queen/empress/whatever will eventually be several generations removed from most of the clan, with different sensibilities, priorities, morals, ideologies and even cultures than most of their subjects. Imagine if George Washington were ruling modern Americans, or Simón Bolivar ruling modern Venezuela/Colombia/Ecuador/Perú/Bolivia, or Napoleon ruling modern France...

So they become increasingly isolated and solitary. And they become paranoid, because they have to stay on guard all the time. And they become more and more tyrannical, because they become used to rule through strength. And they stop hiding their quirks, because their subjects see them as weird old people, anyways, and they are keeping them in place using strength and fear, anyways, so, why bother yourself with caring about what they think about you?

So you end with a shut-in, excentric, quirky, paranoid autocrat, disconnected from their own people, as leader...

[Moric]

Mel - On the drow spectrum, she's one of the few people with a heart. That said, she has some glaring flaws. I don't hate her, though I facepalm at least once every couple of pages that she's in. For all the good that she wants, she doesn't get off her keister and actually work on a way to achieve it. Ideals are great, but they will never amount to anything without blood, sweat, and tears. Her bitch mother stole her baby to become a new heir? Syphile is going to care for her!? We get it, men are gross, and yes, you hate your mother, but you play with the cards that are dealt. Pouting doesn't help. If any of my children were abducted in such a way, there's no telling the lengths that I would go to in order to get them back. In the end, I have to write her off as a hedonistic brat.

Quain - You know, what really bothers me about her is, "how the ^&*$ did Kel'noz and Leale turn out sane?"

Snad - She's evil, but if you just pull back a couple of layers, you find... ...more evil.

Diva - You spent the past few centuries mostly alone, brooding over politics, punctuated with bitching at your daughters and going on the occasional parade? Okay, that's a waste. What? All this time you had access to Sharess's own grimoire, filled with the most potent magic of the Moon's Age, and you never tried to study it until after your daughters beat the crap out of you and sealed you in to die in your own throne room? You could have blasted Quaintana and the whole of Sargress into dust four hundred years ago, but didn't even take a peek? Yeesh, there's no fixing stupid.

[Shgon Dunstan]

If any of my children were abducted in such a way, there's no telling the lengths that I would go to in order to get them back. In the end, I have to write her off as a hedonistic brat.

... She literally only had two choices towards that. Mope in her cell, or die... Exactly what are you expecting her to "do" against her bitch mother and her entire fanatical army, that mind, themselves don't even like Mel in the first place?... Again, while locked up in the cell.

"I'd go to the ends of the earth for my kids" is a nice sentiment, but... There is nothing she could of done at that point. Hell, Quai being Quai, even trying to become the perfect daughter would at best, maybe, allow her to actually keep the tenth kid she popped out.

Perhaps she could of realized the depth of Quai's bitchiness and lack of shit given about her earlier in life, but by that point she had already lost.

[Ardan Styyx]

If any of my children were abducted in such a way, there's no telling the lengths that I would go to in order to get them back. In the end, I have to write her off as a hedonistic brat.

... She literally only had two choices towards that. Mope in her cell, or die... Exactly what are you expecting her to "do" against her bitch mother and her entire fanatical army, that mind, themselves don't even like Mel in the first place?... Again, while locked up in the cell.

"I'd go to the ends of the earth for my kids" is a nice sentiment, but... There is nothing she could of done at that point. Hell, Quai being Quai, even trying to become the perfect daughter would at best, maybe, allow her to actually keep the tenth kid she popped out.

Perhaps she could of realized the depth of Quai's bitchiness and lack of shit given about her earlier in life, but by that point she had already lost.

I do agree Mel didn't have a lot of choice while under Quain's iron boot. Plus she was recovering from Ariel's birth, locked down in a cell, and under constant watch. Her options were limited to say the least.

Now, maybe she considered Ariel "lost" to Quain, or it was too late for both of them to recreate a mother-daughter bond, but I have to admit her not trying more to reach out with Ariel during all the years she was "free" was disapointing. And her passivity during the almost fatal meeting in Felde was frankly appaling (but at least she admited it).Zohr on the other hand could have been a hell of a father...
Yeah, Mel seems to have become an hedonistic brat... but maybe that's exactly what Snad wanted. And despite her stubborness and hot temper, she is really infatuated with the dangerous, highly manipulative Villain.

But you know what? Despite all her flaws, she remains one of my favorite character. The Gods know why...
I really wonder what has happened to her and Zohr.

[Shgon Dunstan]

Now, maybe she considered Ariel "lost" to Quain, or it was too late for both of them to recreate a mother-daughter bond, but I have to admit her not trying more to reach out with Ariel during all the years she was "free" was disapointing.

... How? Ariel was lost to Quain. Ariel was raised to be downright fanatically devoted to Quain. Quain could literally just walk into the room and randomly murder Mel right there in front of her, and Ariel would do her damnedest to mentally justify her doing it. She might or might not succeed at doing so, but she would certainly try with all her might.

If Mel says a word against Quain, Ariel would just emotionally withdraw from her, so... Exactly what does that even leave Mel to talk about? The weather? Snad? Pretty much any topic of Mel's life leads back to talking about Quain. Is she just supposed to pretend to be over it all, thereby pushing Ariel even more towards Quain?

[Ardan Styyx]

... How? Ariel was lost to Quain. Ariel was raised to be downright fanatically devoted to Quain. Quain could literally just walk into the room and randomly murder Mel right there in front of her, and Ariel would do her damnedest to mentally justify her doing it. She might or might not succeed at doing so, but she would certainly try with all her might.

If Mel says a word against Quain, Ariel would just emotionally withdraw from her, so... Exactly what does that even leave Mel to talk about? The weather? Snad? Pretty much any topic of Mel's life leads back to talking about Quain. Is she just supposed to pretend to be over it all, thereby pushing Ariel even more towards Quain?

Let's not be too extreme there. Ariel, despite the undeniable influence Quain (and Kel) had on her is not the perfect brainwashed little drone one would think : http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=7897. And although very impressed by her grandmother and craving for her approval, she also showed on countless time that she was able to think by herself.
This episode http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=10133 happens rather late during their - lack of - mother-daughter relationship and is quite telling on how appart they've grown and how under Snad's spell Mel was.

However, during the time Mel was obediently carying "Quain's children" (my god, what a heartless monster this one could be... ), while being safely sheltered by Ash (http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=8410), she could have tried to link a little more with her daughter, the same way she did during their first real encounter (http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=5048) : smoothly, subtly, listening to her love instead of her (justified) hatred for Quain. Inviting her to have a talk sometimes, listening to her adventures, showing kindness and care... basicaly everything Quain was unable to do. And if it was impossible to see her, maybe write to her?
I mean, Ariel was enlisted yes, but she wasn't imprisonned, was she? Reaching out, at least a bit, couldn't have been THAT complicated or deadly. I think, it is more her stubborness and her profound hatred for Quain that prevented her to try more, rather than the threat of being punished or rejected : http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=8418

Anyway, her not trying more to link with her daughter is probably part of what allowed Ariel to become who she is now (and by the way, she is not forgetting Mel : http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=12174). And maybe if she had, Ariel would have been less determined to fight Snad.

But maybe, she could also have had another model to follow; and Mel could have been less entangled into Snad's influence.

Let's hope now that these two will be able to find themselves again.