Join me as I review The Inheritance by Nancy Varian Berberick, live! Share your thoughts on this fourth novel in the Dragonlance: Classics series. You can pick up Dragon Spell here: https://amzn.to/3Wn9hTg
About The Inheritance
The Inheritance depicts the origins of one of the greatest heroes of Krynn and provides detailed information about this point in history. Fans will be interested in filling in the history of Dragonlance with this novel.
Kidnapped by outlaws, an elven princess places her faith in her husband and the gods to save her. Lord of a ragtag band, her human captor has no faith in anything but his keen wits. The princess and the outlaw forge new definitions of trust and faith and from their love will spring one of the greatest heroes Krynn has ever known-Tanis Half-Elven, Hero of the Lance.
Review
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Majetag, Frostkolt the 20th, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of The Inheritance by Nancy Varian Berberick. 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 the members of this YouTube channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
First off, it is so refreshing to read a good Dragonlance novel after The New Adventures books. This story is about Tanis Half-Elven’s mother, Elansa, and ultimately, how Tanis was conceived. It is not the tale we were originally told, and it’s a book I have had for years that I totally forgot about until I picked it up at the time of writing this. The setup is that Elansa Sungold is the wife of Prince Kethrenan, or Keth. Keth is the youngest brother of the Qualinesti Speaker of the Sun, Solostaran. Elansa is a woodshaper and was called to Bianost to heal some trees suffering from a blight. On the way she was attacked by a band of brigands who killed all the elves except Demlin, her guardian, and they took Elansa hostage, demanding Demlin to bring two wagons filled with weapons in exchange for Elansa. The brigands leader Brand then cut off Demlin’s ear to show how serious he was about killing Elansa if they didn’t deliver the ransom.
Then we are shown the band’s life. This is during the Age of Despair and in the rocky lands between Qualinesti and Thorbardin, where brigands ruled. There are warring factions of goblins and brigands, and Brand allows his elven follower to cut the head off a goblin, returning it to the goblin leadership as punishment for not delivering their ransom. We see this is a hardened group with no concern for anyone or anything other than their own survival. But there is a rivalry with the goblins. Recently a hobgoblin named Gnash took over three goblin towns to fill his growing goblin army. He now claims three towns looking for a fourth. They want revenge on Brand’s brigands as much as the elves will.
Demlin delivers the news to his king who calls Keth and informs him. They ready sixty elven warriors to retrieve Elansa, and head out. We are introduced to Keth and his cousin Lindenlei, or Lin. She is second in command in the army and best friends with Keth. At the same moment, the brigands move their camp to avoid the goblins searching for them. But they are ultimately seen, and when news gets back to Gnash about Brand having an elven hostage, Gnash makes plans to ambush the brigands and steal the elf for themselves. Or the ransom if it’s worth it. I am really enjoying the setup for this story and getting to know the different faction leaders and personalities.
Keth delivers the weapons and it’s a wonderfully tense scene, as if two gunslingers waiting to draw. They pass the wagons over, Elansa is drawn toward Keth just as the Goblins set fire to the forest nearby and attacked the two groups. Brand believes Keth sent the Goblins to attack his band, so he quickly takes Elansa back threatening to kill her as he withdraws from the area. Keth and his warriors kill over fifty goblins before they withdraw as well. With Elansa back with the Brigands, and Keth returning home without his wife or the ransom, he is not sure how to get his wife back. Gnash returns to his goblin town and sits on his treasure hoard thinking how he can grow his army.
Elansa is protected by Brand from the other brigands who obviously want to have their way with her. Since they already have her ransom, there is no other use for her according to them. Brand refuses as he is thinking of what to do with her. They split the ransome cache of weapons into a bunch of piles and store them in random caves they frequent in the area. Ultimately as winter hits, the coldest in memory, Elansa realizes she has missed her period for two months. She is with her husband’s child, but the lack of food and cave living, in addition to constant physical abuse from the brigands causes her to lose her child. Elansa withdraws into her mind. Acting as she needs to in order to survive, by being a good captive, all the while hoping Keth will save her.
In Qualinost at the birthday of Gilthanas’ celebration, a goblin is brought to Keth claiming that he wants to kill Brand for him cutting the head off their former goblin leader’s son. He leads Keth to the weapons caches and lets him know about the brigands movements, but they don’t know exactly where they are now. So they map out all the caches, and Keth sends Lin to gather warriors and collect the weapons while he and Demlin hunt for the brigands with the goblin. The weapons caches are collected and Brand eventually learns about it, deciding to leave the area rather than be caught by Keth. Char the dwarf takes them deep underground and Brand claims Elansa as his own, this provides her protection from the others, but it means she is his sex slave. Elansa just lets him have his way with her as she has no other course of action.
I was led to believe through hearsay and others that she was attracted to Brand, but I am not getting that from this at all. I am nearly finished with the book, and yes, she allows him to rape her but she does not want it or like it. She is doing this for survival alone, leading me to believe that it was either misinterpreted by others, or they lied. In either case, I like that Elansa is a survivor and the choices she is making are echoed by Lin if she were in the same position. Life above all else, even though Keth believes a good elf woman would rather take her own life than be a rape survivor. This speaks to so many disparities of understanding and culture between men and women in this fictional world.
As the Elven warriors have not seen Brand’s band, and the goblin snuck away from Keth and Demlin to rejoin the Hobgoblin leader at Pax Tharkas, it becomes clear that the elves need to rejoin their forces. The Hobgoblin confronts the elves twice in battle before Keth rejoins them, and one was a rout due to the magical staff Gnash wields. They begin to speculate that as Gnash is leading his army toward Pax Tharkas, perhaps that’s where he found the staff. So the elves once again split their forces to try and flank the goblin army. Brand is also forced to head to Pax Tharkas as an ogre clan attacks his brigands in their cave and Elansa prays to her god to save them, when suddenly the cave starts to collapse.
Everyone flees and Char the dwarf leads them to Pax Tharkas. I had no idea we were going to get a bunch of historical information about Pax Tharkas but I welcomed it. We are shown that there are Kith Kanan’s guards in life, who remained behind in death to continue protecting the area. The skeletal minions kill a Gully Dwarf and seem to be ready to kill some goblins as well. We are at a point where Elansa doesn’t outright hate Brand, getting to understand him more these many months, but again, that is a far cry from liking him.
As the bandits in Pax Tharkas see the dust rising in the horizon, signifying the first half of the elven army they hear loud sounds coming from beneath them. This is the skeletal guards killing the goblins. The realization hits Elansa who makes a bargain with Brand. If she can have her sapphire of Habbukuk back that he took from her, she will deal with the undead, saving the bandits. If she survives, she gets to walk out of Pax Tharkas and be with her people in war. Brand agrees. On the way down, she is assaulted by one of the bandits, and saved by Char. Together they climb to the battlements as the skeletons break into the courtyard, attacking the bandits. Brand joins Elansa and Char up top as she calls out to Habbakuk. The god answers as a rising phoenix whirlwind, and the bandits take massive casualties and Elansa defeats the last of the skeleton guards.
Outside Ley sees Elansa and calls out to her, as the goblin army arrives. It is attacked from behind by Keth. Gnash is barely anything more than a flaming skeleton at this point, the magic of his staff taking over and acting wild. The goblins flee Keth’s pressing and run headlong into Ley’s army. As they battle Ley tells Keth about Elansa who looks up to see her, Brand and Char watching the battle. She rests her head on Brands shoulder and Keth is infuriated.
As the bandits are bandaging up Brand tells Elansa to leave and she refuses till she knows the goblins are dealt with. Then Keth enters. He tells Brand to stand and fight, but Brand tells Elansa to leave with her husband. Keth condemns Elansa seeing that she slept with Brand in her eyes and moves to kill her. Brand steps in taking the full brunt of the attack. Another bandit throws a dagger into Keth’s throat killing him. Brand tells Elansa he loves her and dies. The bandits all split up and Char and Elansa leave Pax Tharkas before the elven army enters.
They end up outside Qualinesti where Char tells Elansa that she must claim to have been raped and Elansa says that she chose Brand over being raped and that she actually liked him. This blows my mind. She had a choice of being raped by the bandits or Brand, she chose Brand, but she was not a willing partner when he had sex with her. This is an impossible choice that is rape regardless of what choice is made. Rape is defined thusly: unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person’s will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception. This is exactly the situation Elansa found herself in and her ultimate adoration of Brand sounds like Stockholm syndrome more than love or care.
Yes, her husband was a piece of trash who preferred her dead if raped. That doesn’t make Brand a good guy or an acceptable choice suddenly. Regardless, Char told the story about Elansa being raped and Elansa went through with it so she wouldn’t be exiled as a dark elf. This end is complicated, convoluted and one more reason why I love Dragonlance novels. Nothing is cut and dry, simple and easy. It’s messy, like life. And personally I appreciate it.
If you like Dragonlance novels or Tanis Half-Elven, you should read this novel. It is well worth your time.
Outro
But that’s it for my review of The Inheritance by Nancy Varian Berberick. What do you think about the fourth novel in the Dragonlance: Classics series? Did you have a favorite part of the novel? You can email me at info@dlsaga.com or 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 Slàinte mhath (slan-ge-var).
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