He was a paragon of the Knights of Solamnia. His tragic fall from grace could be blamed on his own ambition, his lack of self control and giving into his baser instincts, but there is no mistake that he is the cause of his downfall. Let’s learn more about Lord Loren Soth. Buy Lord Soth” https://amzn.to/3aTqhe8
Transcript
Cold Open
His tragic tale is widely known because he had the opportunity to prevent the Cataclysm from taking place, and instead returned to Dargaard Keep to confront his wife over his own insecurities.
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about Lord Soth. I would like to take a moment and thank my collaborator patrons, the Heroes of the Lance, and invite you to consider becoming a patron or member of this channel by visiting the links in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate link. I am referencing the many novels and sourcebooks for this information. If I miss anything or misspeak, please leave a comment below.
Discussion
As a veteran I know what it means to be a good leader to your soldiers, and what it takes to get acknowledged by your leaders and rise in the ranks of a military. The very passion for defeating your enemies, the dedication to your order, and the responsibility you command over your subordinates are traits that are admired as a soldier and leader, but in your personal life, they are often the very things that break an otherwise healthy relationship with family, friends and loved ones if you are unable to turn them off. I learned early on to roleplay the soldier while I was training and on base, but when I came home, I stopped playing and returned to the man my wife married and loved. It meant that I had to choose whether to be a good soldier or a good husband. I watched otherwise good soldiers drown themselves in alcohol when home, abuse their spouses or treat their household as an extension of the base. The mentality of all military all the time is not always a bad thing, it doesn’t always end in tragedy, but I saw that it could, and at times did. This is the downfall of Lord Soth to me. Not the doomed soul, but a man who focused on his public persona over his private connections, and was drowned by the very passions that made him an amazing Knight, and a terrible husband.
When I was first married over two decades ago to my wife, I was young and if I am honest afraid. I was afraid that she would see me as the phony my insecurities tried to convince me that I was. I was afraid she would find someone better, who loved her more, who she was more connected to. My fears and insecurities nearly drove us to divorce in our first decade of marriage. Because of this, because I am a creature of my passions and faults, I can connect with Lord Loren Soth. I understand his fears, how he overcompensates and his desires. Everything in him is human and relatable, even as a Death Knight. This is of course, by design as when outlining the Dragonlance modules, Tracy Hickman recalls in The Art of the Dragonlance Saga and the Annotated Chronicles, that the story of Lord Soth just came to him, whole cloth one day. He needed a powerful foe to pit against the knights in the High Clerist’s Tower, and suddenly, there he was! They quickly realized that because he was such a powerful and romantic figure, he would steal the show. He is a tragic figure, a villain whom we can sympathise with. A villain whose background is mired in changes with each retelling over time.
The tale of Lord Soth would be told in the modules and novels, each time with both minor and major revisions. When the novel Lord Soth by Edo Van Belkom was released in 1996 it became the de facto true history. Lord Soth had his seneshal Caradok murder his two half siblings so that he would be uncontested in inheriting Knightlund. After he was elevated to a Knight of the Rose, he married a wealthy Palanthian merchant’s daughter Korinne Gladria, which nearly tripled his landholdings. He did marry her out of love, but like his father, though it’s a cop out to blame on genetics, his eye wandered when he rescued a group of revered daughters of Paladine from a band of ogres. He was so overtaken by the beauty of one Isolde Denisse, a Silvanesti maiden, that he insisted she return to Dargaard Keep for healing, knowing inside it was unnecessary for her health, but she was an intoxicating distraction from, as he saw it, his wife’s inability to become pregnant. Lord Soth claimed to want nothing more than a son, an heir, yet when the first opportunity presented itself, he forsook Korinne to find comfort in the embrace of Isolde.
Discovering this infidelity through a maid, Korinne sought out a hedge witch to magically impregnate her. The witch reluctantly agreed, tying the health of the child to Lord Soth’s honor. This is where we have to consider that Lord Soth is not the only guilty party in this situation. Isolde was the one to come onto Lord Soth, knowing who he was. Korinne knew he cheated on her and wanted to stay with him, even bet the health of their future son on her husband’s honor that she knew was corrupted at best. It’s easy to put all of the blame on Lord Soth, and he does deserve the responsibility, but Korinnes death could have been avoided by leaving him. Isolde could have returned to Silvanesti, as her matron tried time and time again. If we are to force lord Soth into being responsible for his decisions, we must do the same to those who enabled him. Of course as the story unfolds, this is what the gods in fact do, as Korinne delivers a monster of a child, Lord Soth is overcome with horror and rage. He insists that she cheated on him, a huge fear of his, primarily present because he in fact is the unfaithful one, and murders her and the child. He burns the bodies blaming disease and death in childbirth.
After six months he marries Isolde who becomes pregnant, but Lord Soth is called to answer for his wife’s death. Magic cast on his healer reveals the truth and he is sentenced to die. On the day of execution he is broken out by his loyal knights and he rides to Dargaard Keep. Isolde learns of his evil deeds and is given a vision of redemption. Lord Soth has the same vision and begins to travel to Istar to destroy the Kingpriest, and die in the process. He is stopped by agents of the Kingpriest. The elf maidens of Paladine who are protecting the Kingpriest sow seeds of doubt into the fidelity of Isolde and as rage and fear rise in Lord Soth, he rides back to Dargaard keep as the mountain is hurled onto Krynn. He confronts Isolde, and the shockwave rattles the keep as fires begin raging within. A chandelier falls on Isolde and their son, and Lord Soth turns his back on them, letting them burn. Isolde curses Soth, and he returns to his throne, consumed by the flames, and reborn as a Death Knight, known as the Knight of the Black Rose.
Lord Soth remained tortured by the elf maidens turned banshees nightly as they sang his downfall. He is protected by his loyal knights turned undead army. When Takhisis approached him to join her army in the War of the Lance, he refused until Kitiara Uth Matar dared to stay a night and even face him in battle. Kitiara is the only warrior that he saw in command of her passions, and as even Lord Soth fell victim to his, he respected her for her control. He joined her as an ally, requesting Lauralanthalasa’s body as reward and when he was denied, he grew to covet Kitiara herself. As she began falling victim to her own passions with Tanis Half-Elven and Dalamar the Dark, as he had in life with Isolde, he began to chide her, and desire her more. He even schemed to set her up to fail, and he ultimately claimed her corpse and soul in the end, after raising Palanthas during the Blue Lady’s War in revenge for his attempted execution over three hundred years before. There are times when Lord Soth feels like a mix between Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith and Pinhead the Cenobite. And other times, he is a creature lost in his own failures and history. Yet somehow through it all, he is more real than the myriad elements themselves.
Now whether you subscribe to his traveling to Ravenloft and his storyline there or not, he was returned to Dragonlance in time for the War of Souls and when Mina on behalf of the One God entreated him to give her his army, he refused time and time again. Eventually Takhisis, furious at his refusal, stripped away the magic that bound him, and the Death Knight Lord Soth slipped away into oblivion. This end is presented as Lord Soth’s redemption, as he finally accepted his fate and mistakes of his past, but the character was doing that from the beginning of his unlife. He was reminded of it nightly, and referenced it and a form of honor in all of his dealings. It seemed a reward rather than a punishment for him, though I do find a small amount of pleasure in seeing a character arc that begins in a position of supposed righteousness, then is followed by a fall from grace, and finally a catharsis of acceptance for wrongs committed. It is truly the theme of Dragonlance: Good versus Evil, balanced by Neutrality.
Outro
And that’s all the time I have to talk about Lord Soth. Was he overpowered in the novels? Should he have bowed to Raistlin Majere? And finally was his obsession with Kitiara Uth Matar justified? Leave a comment below.
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This channel is all about celebrating the wonderful world of the Dragonlance Saga, and I hope you will join me in the celebration. Thank you for watching, this has been Adam with DragonLance Saga and until next time, remember:
Then we shall make you remember, shall make you live again through the long denial of body.
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