Homeland

R. A. Salvatore’s Homeland is religious fanaticism to the extreme. What really happened to the drow people to make them this way? There is no love or happiness or peace. There are only schemes and betrayal and the quest for power. There is no family loyalty as we see siblings killing each other for their places in the hierarchy.

In Drizzt, we find something different. Did Drizzt inherit some kind of innate goodness from Zaknafein? We see Zak as someone good who is trapped by the rules of drow society. He does what he can to stay true to his beliefs, but he trains warriors and kills for House Do’Urden. With no where else to go, Zak thinks this is all he can do. There is compassion in Vierna, we see it in scenes with both Drizzt & Zak. As Zaknafein thinks, if he had the time with Vierna that he had with Drizzt would she be more like her little brother?

Is this compassion in Zak’s blood? Are there any others who share his bloodline? Like Vierna, are there priestesses who must flail themselves for having “impure” thoughts? Are there males, like Drizzt, who don’t want to kill, but are forced to become warriors. Is this just an enigma? Or could all drow leave the ways of Lloth if they were given a different upbringing, a choice?

I see in the Academy children being given weapons and told to kill. They are berated with hate-filled rhetoric each day. Each day, they grow to detest peoples and races they’ve never even seen. When someone questions this “schooling” they are made an example of. I find this a familiar scenario in our world.