Join me as I review The Annotated Legends: Time of the Twins, live! Share your thoughts on the continuation of the best selling trilogy and this new annotated edition. I share the insights I gleaned, how the annotations presented a new perspective and why I still love this novel.
You can pick up The Annotated Legends here: https://amzn.to/3e7YB7C
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. It is Bakukal, Fierswelt the 23rd, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review The Annotated Legends: Time of the Twins. I will be spoiling the story, so if you don’t want to know it, stop watching now! 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. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
Book One is the set up for the trilogy that follows. Raistlin wants to become a god, but he needs to be able to enter the Abyss. He doesn’t have the knowledge to do so yet, so he plans on traveling to the past to learn from Fistandantilus himself. He knows that he needs a holy cleric of good to willingly open the portal with him, and he considers Elistan, but alas, he is too old and frail at this point. Crysania is the next best thing. Raistlin uses his logic to play into her own sense of superiority and strength to try and eventually open the portal with him.
Kitiara and Lord Soth visit Raistlin and try to get him to help them with their plans to rule Krynn, but he refuses, explaining that he will make her queen if they help him. Kitiara defies him for her queen, Takhisis, and sends Lord Soth to kill Crysania. Crysania traveled to Solace to get help from Caramon. She is sure Raistin has good in him, very intentionally luke skywalker/darth vader storytelling here, and seeks to present the information to the Orders of High Sorcery at Wayreth. She sent Tas to collect Bupu from Xak Tsaroth, and Tanis guided her to Solace.
Caramon is a shadow of who he was. He is an alcoholic, overweight and worthless. Tika is embarrassed and ashamed of what he has become. He is addicted to being needed and when he is no longer needed his addiction takes over in the form of over eating and drinking copious amounts of dwarven spirits. Riverwind arrives in Solace just before Canis and Crysania and he tells Tanis that he can’t help. Tanis discovers the reality of Caramon and is sadly unable to help either. Crysania leaves without anyone in the morning, and Tas arrives late with Bupu in tow. Tika gives Caramon an ultimatum: Help Crysania, or dont come home.
Now my father was an alcoholic, and it’s something that I struggle with. My earliest memories of him was him assaulting my mother. I have a complicated relationship with alcohol now and I do everything I can to not repeat the mistakes of my father. Practicing indulgence rather than compulsion. So I connect with Tika in a strange way, as if she were my mother, and I her child, reliving my past. Addiction is more powerful than one can imagine and tackling it with any degree of authority here is folly. But there is enough groundwork laid that you can accept what is being presented. If this were reality, Caramon would have beaten if not killed Tika. He is a monster when we meet him.
Caramon is lost in his addiction and has to be pulled out of every inn they come across in their search for Crysania. They finally arrive at an inn filled with rangers who point Tas and Caramon in Crysanias direction, then the inn vanishes. I have no idea what this is supposed to represent. Is it a manifestation of a god, assisting them? Par-Salien pointing them in the direction? Or Raistlin acting as puppet master behind the scenes? Either way, they finally discover Crysania and Lord Soth shows up and kills her with a word. Paladine saves her soul, but her body is in a vegetable state.
Dalamar, Raistlin’s apprentice, tells him about Crysania and Kitiara’s treachery, and Raistlin calls on the tower and forest of Wayreth to find Tas and Caramon. He tells Dalamar that he is traveling back in time and to report it to his true masters, the orders of high Sorcery who sent him to Raistlin to spy on him. He then burns his fingers into Dalamars flesh, marking him forever as I am assuming a punishment, and a reminder of Raistlin’s true power.
Dalamar does as requested and arrives as Caramon and Tas present the body of Crysania to Par-Salien for help. Par-Salien decides to send them back in time. Crysania may be able to be healed by the powerful clerics of old, and Caramon is intent on murdering Fistandantilus to save his brother from his twisted designs.
I was distraught when Bupu scolded Par-Salien for calling her a creature, and shared how Raistlin was good because he called her little one and how her feelings were hurt by being bullied. I have always taken pride in helping those who were being bullied. I found myself in high school acting as a bully. Filled with shame in the awareness, I have gone out of my way to correct that dysfunction in myself, and that played a heavy role in my relating to her story.
The book closes with caramon and crysania being sent back in time, and Tas, polymorphed into a mouse, sneaking into the portal to Par-Saliens total dismay.
Annotations:
- Tracy Hickman was inspired by the indonesian Banyan trees during his mission and always loved tree houses, so with that in mind, he created solace.
- Neraka in indonesian means Hell. A young woman said her mother named her that and wondered what it meant. Tracy told her with apologies.
- Tracy stated that early Dragonlance designs were based on middle earth. The size of Ansalon matches the size of middle earth, which matched the size of Europe in WWI
- Darken Wood was inspired by Mirkwood
- Tracy notes that he originally called Dragonlance Sanction as the city surrounded by three volcanoes, the lords of doom, was his earliest design of the setting.
- Tracy noted that the gods, paladine specifically, are lesser god. The High god is all powerful. This is again very specific to his faith
- Tracy mentioned the tragedy done to the world by religion in reference to zealotry and a tyranny in relation to his studies and her prayer. It’s interesting to hear a religious man admit to the inherent flaws of religion.
- Time travel is meant only for study, not to change history. A mage once tried famously to prevent the cataclysm, but no one reveals his name, and Margaret Weiss notes that she will never tell.
Book Two deals with their time in Istar right up until the cataclysm. Crysania and Caramon are reclothed by Fistandantilus to look as though Caramon assaulted Crysania. Tas is confused by all of it, but then the city quard and a priest show up after having been tipped off by Fistandantilus, and they arrest Caramon and Tas, and take Crysania to the Temple for healing. Caramon and Tas are sold as slaves to the Fighting arena, per Fistandantilus’ wishes and Crysania is revealed to be without her soul, which is restored by the Kingpriest. Even after Caramon is proven innocent we are shown the true corrruption of Istar, as he is still sold into slavery.
This second half is steeped in religious parallels. According to Tracy Hickman, Lucifer’s fall from the grace of God is echoed in not only the Kingpriest, but in Raistlin and ultimately Crysania too! It is revealed that Raistlin killed Fistandantilus and took his place months prior. A massive anticlimactic move in my opinion. I would have loved to read more about that, and in my memory I thought I had read about it somewhere.
Raistlin needed to get Caramon in shape so that he could protect Crysania, which is why he sold him into slavery. This ultimately turned Caramon against Raistlin as he watched his twins desire doom his friends and Crysania. For most of the chapter Caramon came to the same understanding that we are all being force fed in this book. That change cannot come from without, but only from within. Caramon couldn’t change his twin, only Raistlin could and it would ultimately be his choice if he was ever to be redeemed. Until he realized that Raistlin would never be redeemed that is, undoing all the growth he just made.
Tasslehoff is used by Raistlin to break the time travel device, under the guise of stopping the cataclysm. We see Loralon, a cleric of Paladine come and remove all the true clerics, even offering safety to Crysania multiple times that she rejected.
Raistlin has found himself unprepared for his attraction and devotion to Crysania, his only apparent flaw in the novel, and she is as attracted to him. She obsesses that it is her purpose in life to turn him from evil, and then, when the Cataclysm is in full swing, she believes she can command the gods by following Raistlin into the Abyss!
This whole book is an exercise in being blind to reality by every single character except Raistlin, who has evolved far beyond a mere Dungeons & Dragons character into a demigod who is pulling everyone’s strings, at all times. It actually makes me like Raistlin less, as I was initially attracted to his character for its flaws. Now that he has none, it’s only morbid curiosity that keeps me attentive.
The kingpriest is a terrified puppet who lets his power hungry clerics run the government and church in his stead. Quarath is content in this role as he is the power behind the throne. His ultimate death by falling marble column, being turned into a pile of blood and gore is a joyous moment for me. Seeing the Kingpriest in his final destruction still believing he is commanding the gods in his fervent delusion is reminiscent of every religious zealot I have ever met, including some in my family who claimed that if God told them to kill their children, they would.
I am happy to report he never did.
I am torn by the heavy handed force feeding Tracy gives us with the biblical connections and annotations. The Abrahamic understanding of good and evil are bronze age ideals that in my opinion have no place in the 20th and 21st centuries. I can appreciate the connections they are making to relatable ‘Joseph Campbell’ mythological tropes, but it stops being an original tale when you are constantly reminding me of those connections through the annotations.
And the Annotations mainly consist of quotes from other books! He tries to deal with the complex emotions of a twin learning to accept the other, then ruins it by forcing one to try and murder the other, undoing all the growth that was made. Caramons journey from Alcoholic to acceptance of others’ choices is admirable. I cant even help myself from siding with him in his desire to murder Raistlin, but it doesn’t feel earned. He knew who his brother was in the Chronicles. Why repeat that process again then lead to aggression AFTER acceptance?
Annotations
- Beldinas, the kingpriest, is referred to as the lightbringer which in latin is translated as Lucifer.
- The central theme of the Legends trilogy is choice. It can not be forced from the outside, but only chosen from inside the individual. Tracy adds a log of biblical and religious connection to this trilogy, honestly, more than I appreciate, though I do enjoy the story.
- The language of magic is based on Indonesian according to Tracy. He was a missionary in Java in 1976.
- Margaret had no idea how to Save Tas and was convinced they just killed off one of their most popular heroes. Tracy claimed to know exactly how to save Tas.
Ultimately I do not recommend this Annotated version to fans of this book. It only made me frustrated in the end and almost, almost made it not my current favorite Dragonlance novel.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Annotated Legends: Time of the Twins. Have you read the Annotated version? Do you enjoy the reviews I am putting out there? Feel free to email me at info@dragonlance-saga.com or comment below.
I would like to once again invite you to consider becoming a patron or member of this channel, and you can pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate link, all of which are in the description below.
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 Slàinte mhath (slan-ge-var).
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