real
How Dragonlance Relates to Real Life
Have you ever noticed that perhaps Dragonlance isn’t so far fetched as we think? Let’s take a look at how it relates to our lives by comparing it to some very possible fiction.
Of coarse one of my favorite analogies is Raistlin and the Historical fiction piece The Phantom of the Opera. Raistlin is a genius, a wonder. Smart, talented, dryly humorous, yet physically unattractive he raptures in his magic as Eric (The Phantom) in his music, yet thinks badly of himself because of the way he looks. Eric’s quote from Susan Kay’s Phantom, “My mind has touched the farthest horizons of mental imagination and reaches ever outward to embrace infinity. There is no knowledge beyond my comprehension, no art or skill upon this entire planet that lies beyond the mastery of my hand…But as long as I live no woman will ever look on me in love.” mirrors his feelings. People fear him merely because he’s different, strange, and brilliant, and as with Eric, this ostracizing from society leads to his becoming evil. As Eric does he gains recognition in far lands, and as with Eric one of his parents dies before he even gets to meet them, and he must be raised by the other, his father, who understands him no more than Eric’s mother understands her son. The same tragic love story of Christine and Eric is played out with Raistlin and Crysania. She is draw to his power and talent and thinks him supernatural, she fears him slightly but can not turn away and follows this flow of power wherever it leads. In the end Eric and Raistlin die, but never die in the memory of their ladies. (And of coarse Dragonlance feels the need to bring Raistlin back several hundred times…)
How else does Dragonlance compare to our own society? The book Spirit of the wind by Chris Pierson mirrors the movie Deep Impact. The kender of the movie are like the people who were unable to get to the caves, with the ogres taking the place of the tidal wave, killing those unable to get to safe ground. Malys is, of coarse, the nuclear winter that would destroy them all if she can not be stopped. Riverwind and Brightdawn are of coarse the astronauts who go in to destroy the asteroid and stop the nuclear winter-at the expense of their own lives, by killing Malys’ egg and lowering her power. The readers are as the movie watchers, awed as the scene unfolds before them. And as in the movie, we exult as the day is saved and cry as half the main characters die, our consolation in the saved population and the married couple.
Another piece of fiction Dragonlance connects to is act four of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragons of Autumn Twilight the companions have a magical feast while in Darkenwood. The table is made and set by magical creatures. In The Tempest, Prospero commands fairies or spirits to set a magical feast for his daughter and the prince. In both plays the feast is a spot of resting from the constant action madly whirling around.
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