History Literature / TheIcewindDaleTrilogy

''The Icewind Dale Trilogy'' is the first ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' trilogy of books by R.A. Salvatore written in the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' setting. Although originally intended to focus primarily on the barbarian Wulfgar, by the end of the third book it has shifted to a character who was originally meant to be Wulfgar's mentor/sidekick: the ChaoticGood dark elf ranger [[BreakoutCharacter Drizzt Do'Urden]]. Drizzt became so popular that he would [[Literature/TheDarkElfTrilogy get his own prequel series of books]] and would become the star of pretty much every novel in the series set afterwards. This trilogy also introduces Drizzt and Wulfgar's friends: the dwarf king Bruenor Battlehammer, his adopted human daughter Catti-Brie, and the halfling Regis.

The story begins in Icewind Dale, a frozen wasteland that's populated by settlers who have established fishing towns around the three lakes, barbarian tribes, monsters, and sometimes visiting wizards. Some of these wizards trick an inept apprentice into killing his master (and their rival) for them, and then they leave him behind to freeze to death, which is when he comes across an artifact that gives him the power and desire to conquer the whole place. After he gets defeated, Bruenor decides to go on a quest with the others to find the lost dwarven kingdom of Mithral Hall, which he is the heir to but was abandoned when he was still a child. On this adventure, they have to deal with all sorts of obstacles including, but not limited to: finding out where the hell the place is, orcs, barbarians, racist humans, trolls, bog blokes, evil wizards, dark dwarves, invincible golems, a dragon, and a certain master assassin by the name of Artemis Entreri. Entreri has been hired to hunt down Regis, who had stolen something from his employer years ago. Entreri is impressed with Drizzt's combat skill, which seems to equal his own. Thus, he becomes determined to fight Drizzt to the death in order to find out who is better. He doesn't just grab Regis, but another friend of Drizzt's, and tells Drizzt to come and get him if he cares about them. The chase is on until it ends in the desert city of Calimport, where the story concludes.

* BackToBackBadasses : Drizzt and Entreri in the second book.

** A notable example is in ''Streams of Silver'' after the Companions have come to the aid of riders from Nesmé (see UngratefulBastard below), one of the riders attempts to kill Drizzt. The rest of the riders later make several verbal jabs at Drizzt based on his race and threaten him. Drizzt takes this with his usual quiet stoicism. However, he spots one of the riders going for his bow and immediately whips out his own, taking out the guy's cap and tells the rest of them that if anyone of them make another move against him or his friends, they ''will'' die.
* BrandishmentBluff: Drizzt bluffs his way past a Duergar guard by pulling his cloak over a hand and pretending he has a Drow Hand-Crossbow with its poisoned arrows.
* BringMyBrownPants: A citizen of Ten Towns decides to provide intelligence to the attacking barbarians in return for future considerations. Heafstaag doesn't trust him, and swings his axe as if to [[RewardedAsATraitorDeserves decapitate him]]. The guy's been told not to flinch or struggle, that this will be a test, and he doesn't. So he lives, but tries very hard to make sure nobody notices the puddle he's created...
* BreakoutCharacter: As mentioned in the main description, Drizzt. He's the reason chaotic good dark elf rangers were practically a character class of their own at one point.

** When Drizzt is fighting Entrer in Mithral Hall, he falls down a pit trap and his friends assume he's dead. Bruenor finds one of Drizzt's scimitars, the one enchanted with ice magic, and takes it with him. This later comes in handy when Bruenor is prepared to make a HeroicSacrifice to kill Shimmergloom, and ends up covered in flames.
** It's later invoked ''again'' when Bruenor escapes Mithral Hall and tries to flee the evil gray dwarves by running through the red-hot furnaces of the dwarves' forges. He actually extinguishes the flames as he runs through them.
** And then there's when the blade saved Drizzt himself from Errtu. Our hero had found the scimitar in the treasure hoard of a dead dragon, and the blade kept Drizzt from being incinerated by Errtu's fires, and eventually extinguished the demon himself.

* CombatPragmatist: Everybody, really, but Entreri take the gold here when he fights Drizzt in a sewer and collects some of the water in his mouth to spit into Drizzt's eyes.
* TheCorruption: Akar Kessel isn't a monster to start out with; although he murders his master, he does that because the other wizards manipulated him and exploited his desperation and frustration, and later on he feels remorse for it. After first finding Crenshinibon, all he really wants is a nice, warm place to call home and maybe some female companionship. The shard corrupts him to the point that he wants to kill or enslave everybody in the whole world.

* FreudianTrio
** TheSuperego= Drizzt: rational, coolheaded, lives his life with strong moral principles.
** TheId= Wulfgar: [[HotBlooded Hot-blooded]], proud, always [[BloodKnight ready for a fight]].
** TheEgo= Bruenor: almost as proud and hot-headed as Wulfgar, but far more seasoned and experienced, keeps the balance.

* GeneralFailure: In "The Crystal Shard", Akar Kessel might have conquered Icewind Dale if he didn't shoot himself in the foot more than once. In the end, the titular artifact stops responding to his commands and lets itself get buried in an avalanche because it's tired of watching him screw things up and wants a more worthy wielder.
* GroinAttack: Just before the bar fight, Wulfgar did a two-prong attack. One hand to the challenging fat man's face, and the other to the groin.
* HeelFaceTurn: At the beginning of the story, Wulfgar and Bruenor face one another in battle when Wulfgar's tribe is trying to pillage Ten Towns. Wulfgar gets his ass kicked and is taken prisoner, finds himself in indentured servitude for a number of years, and during that time becomes friends--and in a couple of cases, family--with the people his tribe had been trying to kill.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The death of Dendybar the Mottled. [[spoiler: At the end of ''Streams of Silver'', his apprentice is dead and his Flesh Golem is destroyed and he doesn't even have a better idea of where Crenshinabon is, which was his whole goal in this endeavor. He teleports to the golem's location intending to retrieve and repair it, when the ghost of Morkai the Red, (Whom Dendybar engineered the death of at the beginning of the previous book and had been summoning as a spectre ever since) whom Dendybar hadn't realized he had not properly bound or dismissed this time, animates the golem and uses it to kill Dendybar.]]

* IThoughtYouWereDead: Drizzt is seen by his friends falling victim to a trap that they're sure he didn't survive...except he does and rejoins them later. Also, Bruenor (see HeroicSacrifice ).
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Artemis Entreri, who beats Catti-Brie and threatens her with death in order to ensure her cooperation, cuts off two of Regis's fingers, and leaves them behind as "gifts" for Drizzt in order to further goad the drow into a fight to the death, murders a ship full of people and burns the captain alive ForTheEvulz...and by the end of the story, he's still alive, not seriously injured, and capable of causing more mayhem, death, and suffering later on. So Entreri escapes karma...at least in ''this'' trilogy...]]

* PlayAlongPrisoner: Regis only pretends to be under Kessel's mental control until he can throw a monkey wrench into the villain's plans.

* ShoutOut: [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Where else]] have we seen a small group of heroes invade a long-forgotten dwarven kingdom where the previous occupants have DugTooDeep, unleashing/awakening a demonic creature that massacred their entire civilization? With a character apparently [[spoiler: performing a HeroicSacrifice by falling down into a giant underground chasm with said creature while defeating it]]? [[Literature/TheHobbit Or for that matter]], an exiled dwarven king leading his companions (including a reluctant sneaky halfling) to reclaim his kingdom from the clutches of a dragon?

* SpoilerOpening: Or spoiler-book cover, to be precise. The third book, ''The Halfling's Gem'', shows the heroes fighting demons in Tartarus, which only happens at the very end of the book. Also, it shows [[spoiler: Bruenor]], who is still thought dead at the beginning of the book, alive and well.

** The Companions come to the aid of a group of riders from Nesmé who are being attacked. The rider that Drizzt saves immediately tries to kill him (and would have, had Wulfgar not intervened) once he gets a good look at him. The riders then surround them, refuse them entry into their town, threaten them, and make several verbal jabs at Drizzt. The only reason things don't come to a head is because the riders decide they really don't want to fight them.

* WeakWilled: Akar Kessel.
* WorkOffTheDebt: When Bruenor captures Wulfgar after the invasion of Ten-Towns, he puts the young man to work as a weaponsmith to repay the dwarf for sparing his life.
* TheWorfEffect: Happens to ''Drizzt'', of all people, when he fights King Heafstaag, one of the leaders of the barbarians' invasion of Ten Towns. Drizzt seriously injures Heafstaag, but realizes that Heafstaag will recover. Heafstaag himself nearly kills Drizzt, and leaves the drow helpless on the field. The bigoted Ten Towns leader Kemp and one of his thugs find Drizzt and are about to finish the job when Bruenor luckily interferes.
* WorfHadTheFlu: Drizzt manages to defeat Errtu because the demon wanted to sadistically tear Drizzt apart in melee. Drizzt gets a lucky hit in with Icingdeath and manages to banish Errtu before he can use any of his magical powers. As ''Passage To Dawn'' shows, Drizzt wouldn't have stood a chance if Errtu had gone all out against him.

* BrandishmentBluff: Drizzt bluffs his way past a Duergar guard by pulling his cloak over a hand and pretending he has a Drow Hand-Crossbow with it's poisoned arrows.

%%* FiveManBand: Drizzt, Bruenor, Wulfgar, Cattie-Brie, and Regis, later known as "The Companions Of The Hall."

* MoralDissonance:
** Really weird case in ''Streams of Silver,'' where Regis uses his magical gem to try to brainwash a prostitute into sleeping with him out of "loneliness," becoming the first halfling main character in the Forgotten Realms to be an attempted rapist. Oh, and he tries it ''in front of Wulfgar'', who is described as being too shocked to do anything. It doesn't work because a bar fight breaks out immediately afterwards and no character ever mentions this incident again, as if even Salvatore is trying to forget that he wrote that scene.
** The way Bruenor tricks Drizzt into going on the search for Mithral Hall is just downright mean. And no one of his friends reproaches him for that. Not even Drizzt himself. That's made all the harsher if one considers that Bruenor was the first 'true' and longtime friend Drizzt had since his father's sacrifice. Granted, in ''Streams of Silver'' Bruenor at least acknowledges, that it was a dirty trick.
** At the end of the third book, the friends leave Regis in control of the thieves' guild, apparently quite comfortable with the idea that he would make a living of organized theft.

* BunglingInventor: The Harpells, an extended family of wizards with their own town, experiment a lot with magic, sometimes with disastrous results. One of them has even turned himself into a dog by accident, and the others can't figure out how to reverse it, so they just keep him around as a pet. (He ''does'' eventually regain his humanity in a later book.)

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: How yhe plot of the ''Shard'' kicks off. Once Akar Kessell kills his teacher, he is abandoned in the snow.