Join me as I review The Seventh Sentinel by Mary Kirchoff, live! Share your thoughts on this final novel in the Defenders of Magic trilogy, released on February 1, 1995. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/3Zj1hqZ
Transcript
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Kirinor, Darkember the 27th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of The Seventh Sentinel by Mary Kirchoff. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members, 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.
We return to the soap opera of the DiThon’s and Lyim the renegade. I am less thrilled at the beginning of this novel than of the past two, which is a bit worrisome. Bram is overseeing the funeral of his verbally abusive drunk of a father and accepting lordship of his estate. Kirah and Guerrand are not even really in the novel much initially. The emperor of Ergoth, Mercadior Redic, traveled to DiThons funeral slash coronation to celebrate how well they are doing and confirm reports that fairies have helped redevelop the town. Bram neither confirms or denies it, and the emperor shares his affection toward magic and his desire to reunify and build up Ergoth. When he leaves Guerrand takes Bram aside to tell him of his supposed ancestry, of being a changeling or part Tuatha.
In order to determine the truth of this rumor they seek an audience with the tuatha dundarael king, Weador. They leave a gift and are presented with tokens to enter their realm. They pass through it, which always reminds me of the Wizard of OZ and following the yellow brick road. This is not a bad thing. And they meet with the king. He confirms that Bram is half tuatha, on his mothers side, which is not what they expected at all. He is in fact his fathers son. His mother, a tuatha named Primula left the king’s realm years ago to forge her own way. Bram asks to find out how to find her, and he is offered a guide and asked to have her speak with the king again.
In the Plains of Dust, in a city named Qindaras, Lyim has successfully evaded the Orders of High Sorcery for years and is not a high profile Anarin, or tax collector in the city, vying for more power. This is probably the most frustrating part of this novel. How could the Orders not be able to find and kill him? It makes them look like idiots. There is a half-baked excuse about treaties between the city and the Orders, but I find it incredulous. More to the point, the description of this city is like it’s in Khur, not the plains of dust. It just doesn’t feel like Dragonlance at all to me, but rather some random walled city mesopotamia. It has truly taken me out of the novel and has me shaking my head.
In any case Lyim sets up one other anarins death in front of the city ruler which gives him clout and is brought into his inner circle. At a party he walks the halls to discover a ghostly being named Ventyr who is a magical manifestation of a magical gauntlet which absorbs magic. It has been used to magically construct the city, but it is running out of power as the current ruler refuses to use it out of ignorance. It beseeches Lyim to help and use it. This would follow Lyim’s own grand scheme of getting rid of magic forever and laying low the Orders. Awfully convenient, but hey, that’s what stories are. So he further arranges for the ruler to travel without his usual escort through the streets, which I believe is where Lyim will kill him and steal power.
Back in Fayville, Bram leaves the King to find his mom, and Rand is nowhere to be found. I don’t recall him going anywhere, he’s just no longer in the tale. So Bram finds his mom thanks to a centaur guide, which, if he knew where she was, why was she missing from the king’s knowledge? Anyway, he talks to her and she is indifferent to him, even though she is his mother, and he asks her to teach him the tuatha way. He wants to understand his heritage and to choose which path to follow going forward with knowledge. She accepts but tells him it may cost him his life. Again, a very rough start in my opinion to what has been a fantastic trilogy thus far. Fingers crossed it picks up.
Lyim staged the murder of the current potentate and took his place, murdering all who were loyal or worked for him, and used the gauntlet to protect the city from the wild environment of the Plains of Dust, outlawing all weapons. Years pass. As Lyim adopted the role of Potentate Aniirin IV, Bram was studying with the tuatha. He finally returned to Thonville to find Kirah and Rand talking about how magic had started to fail, an obvious reference to the gauntlet Lyim was using to steal arcane magic. And now we finally get to the sorcerer info I have heard about. This is only important because sorcery wasn’t a thing in Dragonlance until the 5th age, but this is clearly set in the 4th. And I remain insistent that sorcery isn’t a thing, not even in this book. You see, all magical creatures took their magical powers from the world, there were some who got it from the gods, but most magical beings all used it from Krynn. Is that sorcery? maybe.
But the humans and demi human races couldnt access it, and they can’t in this novel either. The only reason Bram can access it is because he is half tuatha. He is a creature like them. That is not the wild sorcery of the 5th age. Or of D&D 5e. The sorcery of D&D 5e or fifth age cannot be used by human or demi human races till it was taught to them by a god, Takhisis, in the fifth age. This may all be semantics, but it is integral to the development of this story, and the roleplaying game itself. Now you can do whatever you want in your home games, but sorcery was not accessible by PC’s till the fifth age, period. Now that that is done, Bram also used divine magic of Chislev. So as the tuatha found magic disappearing, it didn’t affect them, only wizards, as they relied on magic from the gods Lunitari, Solinari, and Nuitari. The gauntlet only sapped magi from them.
So the Orders invited Bram and Rand to Wayreth Tower after having sent multiple assassin attempts, including their latest, an assassin named Isk who was turned to Lyim’s service, which all failed. Again, I simply don’t believe Lyiam could have bested wizards without using magic before he had the gauntlet, which was years on the run. The Orders told Brand and Rand that they are the last and best hopes of defeating Lyim. So they make their preparations, and hide Bram in the mirror Rand has been using in the previous books. When Bram goes inside, he discovers Kirah in there, she snuck in after overhearing them talk. She wants to help but you can all guess how this goes.
As Lyam is rallying his citizens to go out to murder mages all over Ansalon, Bram enters and seeks an audience. Naturally Lyiam believing he is undefeatable meets with him, and Bram leaps out of the mirror and casts a spell to intertwine Bram with vines and thorns. It nearly worked perfectly, but the guards were cutting through them to stop Bram as Lyim was breaking through them then Kirah popped out of the mirror. Lyim grabs her as a hostage and the guards break through and knock Rand out….
This final third needs to do a few things. 1. Explain the cover. The lost citadel hasn’t been in the story yet, only the second bastion, and if it is the bastion, where is Rand or Bram, depending on who is on the cover. 2. Nuitari has to get involved to pay off the mark Rand has on his robes since the last novel, which was brought up earlier. And 3. Lyim needs to die. I would do it myself if I could. He is frustratingly douchey, and I want to beat his ass. This is a testament to the author’s writing and character development, and ultimately shows how much better this novel got in the second act from the first.
I am not sure how I feel about the end of this novel. Bram and Rand wake up in a prison cell. Lyim and Kirah are in his room after sex, presumably. Kirah has sworn to be with Lyim if he releases Rand and Bram. The gauntlet reaches out to Rand and they both break out of the prison and follow her to Lyims room, where they confront Lyim yet again. This time it ends with Rand being held over a balcony with Lyim telling Bram to surrender or Rand will die. Rand finally understands his vision and dreams. He is to give over to the magic, which means to sacrifice himself for it. He cuts off Lyim’s hand with a flaming scimitar and falls to his death. His body crushed a magic potion that unleashed a demon that collects Bram and transports him to the Bastion where he meets Dagamier.
Bram and Dagamier immediately connect with each other on an emotional level as they talk about what happened. The Orders are arriving to discuss the outcome of their failed attempt. Back in Qindaras, Lyim uses a wish spell to restore his hand and again don the gauntlet. Weakened as the palace crumbled without the gauntlet used, he forms his army and they begin to march from the Plains of Dust to the forest of Wayreth to bring down the Tower of High Sorcery. There is so much that frustrates me in this bit. 1. The Tower doesn’t actually reside in Krynn, but in a pocket Dimension, though that wasn’t written till after this book. 2. If Lyim can cast a wish spell he is an incredibly powerful wizard, more than we have ever been shown before. Which belies his desire to erase magic. 3. It makes Rands sacrifice pointless. And 4. It makes Kirah the worst type of character out of nowhere. She would be a traitor to her brother and nephew to be with a murdering son of a bitch? She actually watched him murder innocent men, women and children, and still stays with him voluntarily. It’s sick.
So the Orders plan to rally the dwarves and elves to attack Lyim’s army and Bram returns home to sign over control of the castle to the gnome, but finds the Emperor there. He tells him everything and the Emperor promises three hundred cavaliers to the fight as well. So they all meet the army in the Khalkist mountains, and decimate it. Lyim is flying demons and they all flee to the tower, which apparently is just waiting there to be taken over. They battle outside the tower before the army filters through the feywild to it and Bram finally turns Lyim into a tree, so the glove falls off, the demons flee, and magic is restored. It ended so suddenly it was like the author realised she only had twelve pages left and had to wrap things up.
Par-Salien offered Bram an apprenticeship to him and a position as the seventh sentinel in the Bastion, which he took him up on. Kirah was killed by Bram in the fight trying to protect Lyim and is sent home to be buried, and Dagamier and Bram are going to be a couple. In the end, I am unsatisfied as I feel that the storytelling was much weaker in this final novel than the preceding two. It’s nice to know the end, but I am just left frustrated. I would recommend this novel only to those who have read the first two, otherwise, you could skip it.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Seventh Sentinel by Mary Kirchoff. What did you think of the gauntlet and its powers? Was Rand’s death earned or a waste? And finally, if you ever find yourself in an abusive or toxic relationship, get out as soon as you possibly can. Call the police if you have to. But don’t stay and be a victim. Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or 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 Slàinte mhath (slan-ge-var).
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