YMMV / Dragonlance

• Adaptation Displacement: The Chronicles Trilogy were originally just meant to be Tie-In Novels to the Dungeons & Dragons gaming modules, but thanks to the Chronicles Trilogy's massive popularity, even more novels were written by both Weis & Hickman and other authors as well. Now it has gotten to the point where there are quite a few Dragonlance fans who have no idea there is even a game tied to the novels. The game has almost always struggled in popularity, especially when it was quickly eclipsed by Forgotten Realms just a couple of years later. The relatively stream-lined nature of the setting (limited types of monsters and especially monstrous sub-races like goblins), only a few defined civilisations and a general history relatively easy to grasp made the setting work really well for novels but feel really constrained for tabletop games where it's like being handed a colouring book where the pictures are mostly already filled in.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Are the Gods of Good actually, Good? The Cataclysm was caused by the Kingpriest of Istar going Knight Templar but all they do is send a great number of signs to warn against his evils. Later, they send Lord Soth who utterly botches the job stopping the Kingpriest and was a terrible choice to begin with. The Cataclysm certainly destroys Istar but it also causes unimaginable suffering in the process. Many believe the Gods of Good are Jerkass Gods not that dissimilar to the Gods of Evil.
  • Is Raistlin actually a Byronic Hero tortured by his own genius as well as ambition or a Insufferable Genius who causes most of his own problems. Raistlin believes he is sexually undesirable, hated by normal people, and only has his magic to comfort him. Dragonlance Legends has him attract the beautiful Crysania and other mages not have nearly the same issues.
• Broken Base:
  • Fandom tends to be divided on either side of the Dragons of Summer Flame novel. On one hand, you have the old schoolers who generally refuse to accept anything that isn't connected to the original Heroes of the Lance and the original Chronicles and Legends trilogies. On the other hand, there are those who consider the Fifth Age a bold and innovative step away from the original characters and consider the first group to be hopelessly clinging to the past. For their part, the first group considers the Fifth Agers to have discarded everything that made the series popular in the first place. Both groups, however, almost universally revile Mina and her Cosmic Retcon Army, which over the course of a single trilogy managed to systematically destroy everything even remotely connected to the Fifth Age and return it to the status quo. Old school fans were slightly mollified, though even they were struck by the sheer meanness of it, reading between the lines that the entire War of Souls was an Author's Saving Throw writ large.
  • Are Takhisis and Tiamat (and likewise Paladine and Bahamut) the same being? Wizards of the Coast says yes, Margaret Weis says no. Who you side with likely depends on whether you primarily consider yourself a D&D player or a novel reader.
• Complete Monster: See Dungeons & Dragons.
• Designated Hero: The Gods of Good... really aren't that good, in a lot of ways. See Jerkass Gods on the main page. More than one reader thinks Strawman Has a Point when somebody like Tanis proclaims that the gods don't deserve mortal worship and that the gods were the ones who abandoned the people rather than vice versa. It doesn't help when the Gods of Good are determined to maintain the Balance Between Good and Evil whereas the Evil Gods don't have the same concern. The developers for Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen took note of this perception and included multiple more instances of the Kingpriests and mortals' actions that justified the Cataclysm more strongly to try and remedy it.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Raistlin is a misanthropic arrogant know-it-all who holds his brother in disdain for his popularity and good looks while emotionally abusing him. Oh and he becomes an Evil Sorcerer out to become a god. Many fans think he's hot and misunderstood.
  • Lord Soth had the chance to prevent the Cataclysm but gave up on it in order to accuse his wife of adultery (which she was innocent of—not that such matters given his Skewed Priorities). The gods punished him with undeath and eternal torment. Lord Soth voluntarily chose to attack his wife over saving the world, remains unrepentant, and helps the Queen of Darkness bully humanity with his undead armies.
  • Istar and the Kingpriest are often accused of being victims of Jerkass Gods who didn't spell out that they were doing evil in their name. This ignores the fact the Gods of Good did send numerous signs, took away Istar's priests powers, and sent multiple heroes and champions (including Lord Soth) to try and stop him. Istar also was a xenophonic genocidal slaving imperialist state that forbid all other gods being worshiped but Paladine as well as outlawed the practice of magic. Even if you think the gods overreacted or were wrong, it is a theocratic fascist state. It also overlooks the fact that had the Kingpriest's plan succeeded, he would've committed genocide on everyone he deemed evil and become an all powerful tyrant, and thus just as many if not more people would've died had the gods not caused the Cataclysm to stop him.
  • Chemosh's character design in the Dark Disciple trilogy seems to be made to invoke this trope. His devotion to Mina and charisma make you temporarily forget he's unleashed a sexually transmitted plague of undeath. He's also originally an Expy of Orcus.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kang, Slith and The Doom Brigade, who's popularity lead to an unplanned short story, two novels, and an appearance in Vanished Moon. Slith made a solo cameo in Highlord Skies and Hourglass Mage as well.
  • Lord Soth. Even Margaret Weis has said she has to use him sparingly in order to resist the temptation to let him take over the story.
• Epileptic Trees: The theory that Raistlin was really a woman.
• Even Better Sequel: Dragonlance Legends is generally considered to be superior to Dragonlance Chronicles in terms of stakes, characterization, and worldbuilding.
• Evil Is Cool: Who else but Lord Soth? There's a reason he's considered one of the definitive DND villains.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Some fans consider any novels not written by one of the original three creators as out of continuity stories.
• Growing the Beard: Chronicles is a solid but unspectacular High Fantasy epic. Legends, the next trilogy, is a character-driven drama about family, the nature of evil, and Time Travel that cements Raistlin as one of the best Magnificent Bastards in modern fantasy literature. Easy to see why it's considered the high point of the whole saga, and one of the classics of the genre.
• Ho Yay:
  • Many possible instances, but blatantly Raistlin and Dalamar - the Master/Apprentice relationship, the fact that they're both scrawny, evil bishounen wizards, the passionate way Dalamar refers to his "Shalafi", and who could forget Raistlin burning his fingerprints into Dalamar's chest to punish his betrayal. Whew.
  • In the first book, Tanis' quickly-developing friendship with Riverwind and Goldmoon reads a lot like the budding of a bisexual throuple. The second book also sees Riverwind and Goldmoon both giving Tanis a Cooldown Hug after a particularly traumatic experience.
  • If it weren't for the fact that they're brothers, Raistlin and Caramon would have this in spades. It still doesn't stop some people.
  • Then there's Flint and Tasslehoff. They even shared a house while living in Solace. Tasslehoff is utterly heartbroken at Flint's death and is only comforted when he learns that Flint is in his own private Heaven which he reserved to share with Tas when he dies.
  • When Caramon becomes a general in the Legends series, it frequently seems like many of the young knights he leads are crushing hard on him. There are many instances of them "flushing with pleasure" when he praises them.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Raistlin treats everyone around him like crap, especially his eternally-loyal twin brother, but on the other hand, he suffered greatly to get his powers, and is in constant pain and poor health, and the few times he actually tries to be friendly towards others, he's treated with distrust.
  • Chemosh got some fans feeling genuinely sorry for him in the Dark Disciple trilogy, but he is still a God of Evil who would turn every living soul into an undead creature that serves him if he could.
  • Lord Soth during his imprisonment in Ravenloft.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Raistlin Majere starts as a frail, sickly magician, cursed by god and mage alike. Desiring ultimate power, Raistlin goes back in time, to study under the most powerful dark wizard ever, Fistandantilus, murdering him when he tries to steal Raistlin's life force. Raisltin then proceeds to organize a war to get himself close to a gate leading to the abyss, manipulating a holy cleric named Crysania into falling in love with him to help him open it. With this achieved, Raistlin intends to lure out the supreme Dark Goddess Takhisis so he can kill her, take her place and then usurp the rest of the gods, all while abandoning Crysania to death when he needs her no longer. Raistlin manipulates countless people along his path, from the forces of darkness to the armies of light, coming within a hair of achieving his goals. The only thing that stops him is a pang of conscience when he sees his brother Caramon, instead opting to sacrifice himself to rescue Caramon and Crysania in the end. Even after his death, Raistlin occasionally resurfaces to pull off a new gambit to assist his family, being feared even by the gods themselves.
  • Fistandantilus the Dark was one of the greatest mages who ever lived, and his ambition and scheming would shape centuries of Krynn's history. As told in the Kingpriest Trilogy, he carefully masterminded Beldinas's rise to power over the course of decades in order to create a suitable pawn to help him become a god; though Beldinas ultimately proved unsuitable for the role, Fistandantilus was able to quickly adjust his schemes and find a suitable replacement. Failing in his goals only due to random chance, his spirit nonetheless persisted and was able to groom Raistlin into a suitable successor - and even when Raistlin turned the tables and consumed Fistandantilus's soul, he was unable to escape his legacy and continued to carry out the schemes Fistandantilus had laid down to their bitter end. From the rise of the Kingpriest to the War of the Lance, Fistandantilus's subtle hand shaped much of Krynn's history, cementing his legend as its most powerful, cunning and feared wizard.
  • Kitiara uth Matar rises from humble village girl to Dragon Highlord of the Blue Army via wits and grit. Ruthless from a young age, Kitiara outwits and kills the man who conned and drove her mother to her death, later seducing the knight Sturm Brightblade to get him to forget his vows. Later becoming part of the army of Takhisis and becoming a Highlord, Kitiara proves herself a nightmare on the battlefield while also attempting to manipulate the feelings of her old lover Tanis Half-Elven to lure his beloved, Laurana the Golden General to her own death. Later uniting the remnants of the armies under her banner as the Blue Lady, Kitiara nearly takes the City of Palanthas in her never ending quest to satisfy her ambition.
  • Hotak de-Droka is a general of the Minotaur empire who grows dissatisfied with the corruption inherent under the rule of Chot Es-Kalin. With his wife Nephera, Hotak launches a brilliantly planned purge of all of Chot's allies and family known as the Night of Blood, killing Chot himself and establishing control over the Minotaur Empire while using his charisma and political skill to establish complete control. Planning to invade the continent of Ansalon and strengthen his empire, Hotak proves to be one of the most effective and dangerous minotaurs on Krynn.
  • The Best: The red dragon narrator disguises himself as a human to find the best adventurers who have a chance of destroying him. Luring them into a treasure hunt, the dragon brings them to his lair, only to ambush them and wipe them out completely while they barely have a chance to fight back so the dragon may simply enjoy his treasure without fear of pesky dragon slayers, distinguishing himself via incredible charm and wit in the narrative.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • From Raistlin, "Farewell, Revered Daughter. I need you no longer." Or, before that, agreeing to let the dark dwarves have his brother's head. Or before that leaving his brother to die on a ship. Guy seems to do this a lot, at least until he dies to keep Takhisis locked up. And he becomes better after death.
  • Lord Soth crossed it, both inuniverse and out, when he chose to abandon his quest to stop the Cataclysm by defeating the Kingpriest to confront his wife on possible adultery. This directly resulted in millions of deaths.
• Once Original, Now Overdone: The books are often criticized for being one more cliched sword-and-sorcery series built on the D&D model. Except the series made or at least codified those cliches.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • In canon, Kender are treated as a "good" race, with many of the sourcebooks chatting up their pure hearts and innocence. However, years of "borrowing" the wizard's spellbook and the cleric's holy symbol has led to them becoming, in fanon, a despicable blight of inconsiderate thieves who are either brain-damaged or playing dumb. On some boards, killing Kender is considered to be Poke the Poodle-level evil at worst, as opposed to canon, where it's treated with about the same weight as murdering children. And straight up Genocide against the Kender is seen as a Good Thing in many circles. This is primarily because a Kender's more distasteful traits in canon are because they truly don't know any better, whereas the player sitting across from you with a smug grin on his face most certainly does. Most people who play Kender are doing so because they want to be disruptive to the game, and hence the race is attractive to them. It's a minority of players who say "I want to play a Kender, but I promise he won't be disruptive to the gaming group and I'll try to make sure you all will have a good time".
  • As noted under Draco in Leather Pants, the Gods of Good get this a lot. From how some fans talk, you'd think they caused the Cataclysm without warning or justification, whereas in canon they made very clear that they did not approve of Istar and the Kingpriest's actions, as well as the severity of what would happen if they had to step in, going as far as to strip all the priests of Istar of their divine powers (something that would make any sensible people at least consider the possibility that the Gods are pissed). It's also been shown had they not destroyed Istar, the Kingpriest would've become a genocidal God-Emperor and wiped out everyone and everything he deemed evil (including entire species). Not to mention they gave Lord Soth an extremely easy and merciful Last-Second Chance to stop the Cataclysm and save everyone… an act of mercy that Soth proceeded to piss away out of petty jealously. While certainly there is argument to be made that they did not handle the situation as well as they could have, they also cut mortalkind a lot of slack before breaking out the divine punishment. The Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen event took note of this and made it a point to show the Kingpriests' desired ascension and Soth's failure were just the straw that broke the camel's back and they'd given mortals even more chances than originally believed.
• The Scrappy:
  • There are also large sections of the fanbase that intensely dislike Crysania, Usha, and Mina.
  • The races of Kender, Gully Dwarves and Gnomes are often this. All are intended to be Plucky Comic Relief races, but many instead find them just annoying for the traits that are supposed to be funny — Kender are a race of childlike, Curious as a Monkey kleptomaniacal Fearless Fools, Gully Dwarves are dirty, ugly, slovenly, and so stupid that they can't count past two, and Gnomes are Motor Mouthed Bungling Inventors who fail to grasp concepts such as simplicity in technology and actually prize failure over success. Kender are particularly hated amongst the tabletop gaming sect because their racial description gives them borderline carte blanche to be played as Chaotic Stupid.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • Tanis states that it was really the gods who abandoned humanity, not vice versa. The thing is, while the gods were definitely right that Kingpriest of Istar and his priesthood went too far, they didn't make it clear what angered them, gave very cryptic hints which really can't make it known, and took all faithful priests with them. So, no wonder that people curse the gods!
  • The sourcebooks mention that some people display Fantastic Racism against Kender - which, considering that the exact same sourcebooks mention that Kender are Chaotic Stupid, known for stealing things and lying about it and trying to act innocent. (see The Scrappy). It makes sense that people would find them annoying.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A lot of fans did not like the changes that came with the Fifth Age. Some fans of the Fifth Age books and SAGA RPG did not like the changes made by the War of Souls trilogy.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Caramon's other sons, Sturm and Tanin fall into this as they only feature in two short stories and then they get killed off-screen at the start of Dragons of Summer Flame. They never even get to meet their cousin Steel which would've had plenty of dramatic potential considering they're from opposing orders of knights and Sturm was named after Steel's father.
• Values Dissonance: The cosmology of the setting borrows quite heavily from Tracy Hickman's own personal attitudes towards theology, and their beliefs palpably bleed through in much of their writing. Most of the conflicts between what the books say and what the readers feel is due to this dissonance, most notably in regards things like the "goodness" of elves & kender or the righteousness of the gods.
• Wangst:
  • Plenty of it from almost everyone at some point, but Tanis Half-Elven comes off as the greatest offender, primarily because the thing he whines the most about is his inability to choose between his Betty and Veronica relationships with two stunningly gorgeous women (one a bratty but pure-hearted elven princess who grows into a great hero and leader and the other a wickedly sensual human warrior)... while he's leading a party embroiled in an epic struggle for the fate of the world. Priorities, man. Add to it that he's a half-elf but neither of his love interests are and you get extra Wangst owing to Mayfly–December Romance.
  • Raistlin deserves an entrance here too. Yes, his brother was more popular than him. Yes, he was bullied as a kid and has difficulties forming relationships, but still... it is a lot moping.
  • Thankfully averted with Tas. On the rare occasion he does angst, something is seriously wrong.

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