Lauralanthalasa Kanan | DragonLance Saga
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2024
- With one of, if not the best character arcs in the saga, Laurana began a spoiled brat and evolved into the Golden General and all because her love of Tanis Half-Elven allowed her to break free of her elven prejudice. Let’s take a closer look at Lauralanthalasa Kanan. Buy The Art of Dragonlance: www.drivethrur...
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Transcript
We first met her as a love sick, spoiled princess who turned into the Golden General leading armies against the Dark Queen herself. I’m talking about Lauralanthalasa Kanan of course...
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to dive into the life of Lauralanthalasa Kanan. I would like to take a moment and thank my collaborator patrons, the Heroes of the Lance, and invite you to consider becoming a patron or member of this channel by visiting the links in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate link. I am referencing the sourcebooks and novels for this information, but if you believe I misspeak or have something wrong, please leave a comment below.
Discussion
I get a lot of flack from Dragonlance fans about my perception of Laurana as a character. She is entirely defined by the state of the world, rising to the challenges set before her, but her beginnings were less than admirable. Tracy Hickman refers to her as transitioning from “'...[a] spoiled little girl' to the general of armies.” Tracy actually named her after his wife Laura. Laurana was one of the original three characters that Tracy and Laura Hickman workshopped to define Dragonlance. Kitiara as the paragon of Evil, Laurana as the paragon of good, and Tanis as the paragon of Neutrality. Just as the trio would have a love triangle and moral struggles between them, the campaign world itself would follow suit, echoed in the machinations of the gods, the Queen of Darkness, Paladine and Gilean.
The character herself notes that she behaved naively, chasing after a man who supposedly didn’t love her. Doing what she is doing, not for the greater good, or glory, but to earn the love of and prove herself to Tanis. This is of course halfway through her character arc, and by the time she arrives in Southern Ergoth, she is entirely caught up in the workings of the world, doing what she can, not for the selfish love of one man, but for the love of her friends and the good in the world. You can see this evolution in the writing, naturally, but also in the way the artists portrayed her. But before we can truly appreciate what she becomes, we have to take a trip down memory lane to where she began. Laurana is the youngest child and only daughter of the Speaker of the Sun Solostaran Kanan. Her older brothers are Porthios Kanan and Gilthanas Kanan. Laurana was taught to be a symbol of her people and act gracious in polite society, though she was a product of being pampered and spoiled. She learned ceremonial swordplay and to telepathically communicate with griffons. When her father took on Tanis Half-Elven as a ward, Laurana and Tanis would fall into a romantic though childish relationship, promising to marry when they reached maturity. She was a skilled diplomat, and even used her good looks and charm as a weapon to get her own way.
A week after confiding her love for Tanis to her brother Gilthanas, Tanis left Qualinost. Laurana was heartbroken. So when Tanis returned unexpectedly with an entourage heralding the changing world to come, Laurana was devastated by his rebuke of her affections and his confessions of loving Kitiara Uth Matar. This is also the beginning of the love triangle that would become a point of contention through the War of the Lance and after, leading to Laurana’s capture. Laurana was determined to win the affection of Tanis however and even chased after him when the companions left. This is the defining moment for her character, it broke her out of the protected womb and allowed her to see the state of the world, and get exposure to different perspectives and people that her insulated life sheltered her from. Exposure to different world views and personalities is essential for personal growth and we are afforded a front row seat to Laurana’s...
Thank you for watching today's Dragonlance Setting episode. Do you have a favorite moment of Laurana? How about a favorite painting? Leave a comment below!
She was so beautiful that even Raistlin’s « Ralenna cursed vision» resulting from his Test of High Sorcery wasn’t able to show her dying like everyone else.
Yea, it was a great scene.
The illustration of Laurana standing over the body of Sturm...I balled my eyes out the first time I saw it, and still do, 30 years later. 🤘😢🖖🇨🇦
It’s a great painting! I have it in my office.
Of the original trilogy, Laurana was easily my favorite character. She showed the most personal growth and change of any character in the series. She was the one who had to dig the deepest to find the steel in herself. And she was the one who. once she found it, wore it with the most dignity and passion of any of the companions. I'd follow the Golden General into the Abyss with a mouthful of spit to fight with. ^_^
Nicely put! Thanks for watching.
Thank you for doing this feature of Laurana - she is still one of my favorite characters in books to this day.
You're very welcome!
The previous comments have said it all. What a great character. She developed well and was criminally under used in dragons of summer Flame. Her and Gilthanas and Dalamar are my favourites.
And that art is sooooo good. Evokes a lot of emotions. Wonderful.
Thank you for watching.
*3 Laurana Fun Facts:*
1. She did all her Golden Generalling while no more than *5th Level.* According to 1st Edition AD&D, that's as high as elves can go as Fighters unless they have a Strength of at least 17 (when they can go to 7th Level), and Laura just wasn't strong enough...physically, that is!
2. *Dragons of Triumph,* (the Bard and my fave piece of DL art), which shows Lauralanthalasa being sacrificed to Takhisis, was inspirational for a number of other series' art, most-notably the opening for classic fantasy anime *Record of Lodoss War.* The character herself was the likely inspiration for the hero's elven lover Deedlit in that same series.
3. Laurana was originally black. According to the adventure *DL 2: Dragons of Flame* when she is first introduced, "her skin is a rich woodland brown." I guess they decided that wasn't "Kanan" after all! ;)
Thank you for the fun facts!
"Rich woodland brown" is only dark as paint. In skintone it would be more like Cedar, a reddish hue. Which ended up being Que-Shu. - I remember reading that the original indigenous coding for the Elven races in Krynn was to be more like American indians.
@@palpaladin315 Who - between Goldmoon and her - always seemed to have blonde hair! The rules for what exactly is ``black`` racially have expanded since those days, so I expect that the elves were also to have First Nations qualities. Indeed, it is often difficult to distinguish artwork depicting Goldmoon from artwork depicting Laurana!
The authors seemed to have changed their mind about Laurana's skin tone. Like you said she was initially described in both Dragons of Flame (and also in Dragons of Autumn Twilight) as having "rich, woodland brown" skin, but after that almost every subsequent description of her skin tone described her as being very fair skinned.
@@tiamatmichellehart6821 Artwork's neither here nor there. In one of the early pictures of Goldmoon she had red hair; when the description is silver-gold, thats we call 'platinum blonde'. - Look, I'd suggest staying away from todays id politics and I'll give you an easy example of why you should. 50yrs ago the catch phrase for people engaged in social politics was "Choose life", today that catch phrase is "pro-Choice".. Nothings changed except its become more 'radically politicised' in the last 4yrs, and degressed into the 'racial stereotyping' territory, we just avoided at all costs, 50yrs ago. - People define themselves. So while todays id politics look like its trying to bring people together (superficially), it works to split people up, because the main peddlers want that.
Now to address what seems like a discepancy about 'Lauralanthalasa': In Krynn, all elves originate from the 'Silvanesti' they are the first. Krynn is based on the D&D 1st edition ruleset, so "Silvan elves" according to the rules. - The Silvan skin type is a luminescent white, beyond albanism; something like the white of the moon. With dark hair. In our humanity, this is like, 1 person in 4 generations of Eastern Europeans; specifically the group west of the Ural mountains and its exceedingly rare.
Now, if the Silvanesti are all thing's, moon, stars and twilight; then the Qualinesti exiles were all things Golden, like the Sun. Its meant to be silver and gold elves, basically. - So Laurana is depicted as a kind of Surfer girl. Golden hair like spun honey, deep bronze tan, etc.. The South Eastern European skin type, like you get in the Balkans. - One has to keep in mind that the authors were writing their story, based on their experiences with the game, where racial characteristics are set. So the changes in the chronicles feel more like "clarification".
So lastly, there are Dark Elves on Krynn - but theres a twist, and I'm not sure if they are playable. Only Silvenesti that are corrupted by evil, then become 'Dark Silvanesti'. - but they are not black. Their skin loses its luminosity and becomes a medium grey, with bleach white hair. The polar opposite of Silvanesti; and Dark elves are very dangerous and evil.
"If I die in this quest, tell my wife I said... hello..."
-Tanis, Paragon of Neutrality
Nice
I never noticed on that image of Laurana standing over Sturm's body (my favourite) that she's wearing wyrmslayer.
Laurana's my favourite after Sturm. My favourite moment is when she empathises with Tanis over what its like to be a leader. Why is everybody depending on her, she doesn't know what she's doing but she has to be strong for everyone, is this what it was like for Tanis.
It had to be I imagine. Great thoughts!
My favourite character in Dragonlance. Maybe because it was my first D and D game as GM then later player. I remember relating to her because she led a sheltered life almost like a reader from our world looking into a fantasy realm, then suddenly being forced to live in it. I think her rejection of Tanis briefly was important to her development for several reasons. If she was pursuing him from start to finish it would be her defining motivation. I felt her character was maturing and understanding herself as a whole person in a world she was still discovering. To me it signified the end of her immature puppy love and the realisation of her mature true love. I was glad to see a woman stand and face ultimate evil because of her inner strength and goodness even in the face of despair, rather than the typical trope of the love of a man being the solution to all problems. The love after is more a decision based on mutual respect rather than emotional dependency. Overall, I never got over her as a character and have played many homages to her in other games ever since.
This is fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
A wonderful tribute to a brilliant character!
Laurana is awesome! (My all time favorite character not just in Dragonlance but in all of fiction.) Her growth arc is amazing, her heroics are epic, and her love and loyalty to her friends is so endearing. (In particular I loved her relationship with Sturm which is just the perfect male-female friendship.) I also really liked how she was such a capable combatant not because she was the strongest or the most technically skilled at arms or had the best gear but because of how tactically smart and pragmatic she was with her being willing to "fight dirty" (i.e. conduct ambushes and use deception, surprise, favorable ground, and any other advantages she can find to enable her to defeat enemies who were otherwise more physically powerful than her.) It's really gratifying to see a hero who wins fights by using their brains. And I loved the duality of her character in how she was both this fierce, capable warrior while also being such a loving and gentle soul. And yes she had flaws and sometimes made mistakes, but like you said those just made her feel more real and relatable. Best character ever!
As for your questions:
Favorite scene-That's a really tough question because there are so many great Laurana moments, but I think I would actually have to go with the scene in Neraka that you mentioned where she breaks free, and takes down both Kitiara and Tanis. It really highlights her growth as a warrior (in that she can now defeat a vaunted warrior like Kitiara in a one on one fight) and as a person (in that she has overcome her emotional dependence on Tanis), and it's just so satisfying to see her beat down Kitiara and tell off Tanis after all the crap both of them have put her through in the series.
Honorable mention to well pretty much the entirety of her scenes at the High Clerist's Tower as everything she does there from shooting Bakaris, to controlling the Dragon Orb, to comforting a grieving Tas, to confronting Kitiara on the tower wall, to her funeral speech for Sturm was just wall to wall awesome.
Favorite painting- Larry Elmore's "The Ransom Note." It's the one DL painting that really gives Laurana the perfect beauty she's described as having in the books (you can absolutely believe the woman in that painting would be called the most beautiful woman in the world), and it also really makes you feel her love and concern for Tanis. (It's just a shame you didn't include it in the images for the video.)
Do I believe she was a spoiled little girl?- Maybe at the beginning but being spoiled in and of itself isn't a sign of bad character. It's only when being spoiled makes you mean or ungrateful or haughty that it is problematic, and Laurana was never like that. Even in Dragons of Autumn Twilight that "spoiled little girl" was still a total sweetheart who treated Tika very kindly, was grateful to Flint for the toys he once made her, didn't show any trace of the racism and classism that were so prevalent amongst the elves at the time, and accepted valid criticism when she received it. Laurana's subsequent growth made her stronger, more independent, and wiser about the world, love, sacrifice, leadership, and herself, but she was always a good person.
Who would I choose to spend time with between Laurana, Tanis, and Kitiara?- Laurana of course. She's incredibly beautiful, heroic, kind, and passionate, and she's had a remarkable life where she's done almost everything (just consider she's been a princess, an adventurer, a dragonslayer, a general, a prisoner, a diplomat, a wife, a mother, and a resistance leader), so she would be fascinating to talk to about her life.
And while I mostly liked your video, I do have to disagree with a couple of the points you made.
As to her exchanging Bakaris, why do you think that was "illegal"? She was the commanding general, so it was certainly within her authority to agree to a prisoner exchange. (Something that was a common and expected part of medieval warfare.)
As for her breaking free on her own in Neraka and her changing attitudes about Tanis, I really, really don't get why you think that is implausible. Laurana only gave up on Tanis in Neraka when everything she saw from him indicated he had genuinely become a monster. He treated her with cold indifference, literally kowtowed before Takhisis, said nothing in protest (that Laurana could hear) when Takhisis proclaimed that Laurana's soul was to be given to Lord Soth, murdered a man, claimed the Crown of Power (and thus leadership of the Dragonarmies) for himself, and then grabbed her and ordered her to come with him without telling her where he was taking her or giving her even the slightest bit of encouragement that he was there to help her. (And remember the last thing Laurana had heard about her own fate was Takhisis ordering her to be taken to the Death Chambers, so I think it's understandable she would not want to go off with the man that was literally worshipping Takhisis just a few moments before.) Under those circumstances it made perfect sense that Laurana stopped believing in Tanis. She believed in him as long as she could (and indeed probably longer than she should have), but when literally everything he was doing was screaming that he was evil, she did the smart thing and gave up on him and went and saved herself.
Likewise as to her taking Tanis back a little later, that's because the circumstances had changed dramatically in those ten minutes. Tanis faced down a death knight for her and rejected Kitiara for her even when Kitiara was offering him rulership of the world if he came with her and promising death if he did not. That was pretty conclusive evidence that Tanis wasn't evil and actually was trying to help her.
So Laurana gave up on Tanis when the evidence appeared overwhelming that he was evil and took him back when the evidence became overwhelming thatshe had been mistaken, and he wasn't actually evil. What is implausible about that? She changed her mind when the information available to her showed that her prior beliefs were wrong. That's what smart people do.
Great response! To answer your questions, She did not follow proper protocol to exchange prisoners and she and Flint acknowledged that she was breaking the law. She snuck Bakaris out, she did not exchange him in a legal sense. Looking at this is a military prisoner exchange is stretching the reality of events and dialog beyond reason.
Laurana suspected Tanis for a long time but knew in his heart that he was not an evil man, which is why she willingly broke the law to get him. She is not stupid either and should've been able to see that Tanis wasn't acting of his own volition after having grown up with him her whole life and knowing him as she did. Tanis has never wanted to be the leader, he just adopted the role, and for him to take the crown of power to rule the dragonarmies is not a logical conclusion for his friend or lover to hold.
I find people are blinded to her faults and credit her more because she is noted as being so beautiful and successful, but even she didn't feel like she deserved the credit she received. She was an incredible character, but its her faults that make her a worthwhile one.
I do not expect to change anyones mind, I am simply sharing mine.
@@DLSaga Not following proper protocol doesn't make something illegal. (Generals get to decide what the protocol is after all.) And can you provide the quote as to where either her or Flint acknowledges she was breaking the law because I certainly don't remember either of them saying that. Frankly I don't even know how Laurana would be bound by Solamnic protocol. Gunthar appointed her to command the army unilaterally, so it's not like she took an oath to be bound by the Measure before accepting command. For all intents and purposes it's her private army.
And yes she snuck Bakaris out, but that was because she knew if she did it openly Gilthanas and the knights would stop her from going, not because what she was doing was illegal, but because they would be worried about her safety and would never let her risk her life for Tanis. (Laurana knows perfectly well the knights are male chauvinists, and that her brother is overprotective, so she knows if she wants to go to Tanis, she is going to have to sneak out to do so.)
As for it not resembling a military prisoner exchange, the commander of the Whitestone Army received a missive from the command of the Blue Dragonarmy offering to exchange a Dragonarmy officer (who wanted to defect) for a captured Dragonarmy officer being held by the Whitestone Army. How is that not a military prisoner exchange? The fact that the commanders in question have a personal connection to the officers to be exchanged doesn't make it any less of a military prisoner exchange since ransoms in medieval warfare almost always were someone trying to get a close relative back.
And why would Laurana possibly believe that Tanis in Neraka was not acting of his own volition? Remember that even prior to her getting captured all the information she had was that Tanis was willing serving Kitiara. Kitiara knew details about the Dream that only Tanis (or Raistlin) could have told her, and then Gilthanas told her how he overheard Kitiara asking Ariakas to promote Tanis to General in exchange for information he was going to give. With her already having very good information that Tanis was serving the Dragonarmies and then seeing the truth of that with her own eyes in Neraka, it would have been crazy for Laurana at that point to continue to have faith in Tanis. And yes Tanis wanting to take command of the Dragonarmies might seem out of character to her, but then I'm sure Laurana never thought Tanis would cheat on her, or that he would join the Dragonarmies, so she had already learned by that point that a lot of her assumptions about him were wrong, so why would she be so sure that this assumption about him was right that she would ignore what she was seeing happen right in front of her? You're asking Laurana to put blind trust in a man who is acting incredibly suspicious when the price to her if she's wrong is being tortured to death and then having her soul enslaved by a death knight. That doesn't seem like a very fair ask.
As for Laurana not feeling like she deserved all the credit she got, I really wouldn't credit that as she was clearly in a depressive funk throughout much of Dragons of Spring Dawning. Just consider everything she was dealing with at that time. She's having to command an army in the field (with all the extreme physical, mental, and emotional stress that comes from that), she had been disowned by her family (with her own father calling her a whore), she had seen her best friend killed right in front of her just a month before, and she had found out that the love of her life and a man she admired as a hero had not only rejected her for another woman but had defected to the other side in the war she was fighting in and was now basically a Nazi. Any one of those would be a heavy burden to bear (and especially for someone as young as her), and she's having to deal with all of them at once, so it's not exactly a surprise that her head isn't exactly in a good place during Spring Dawning. (I always feel so bad for her in that scene at the festival, where she's clearly so tired and lonely but is having to hold it together for the good of everyone else.)
But regardless we know that her feeling that she was just a game piece for the knights was incorrect, because the omniscient narrator flat out tells us she was the one who devised the strategy for the knight's offensive and then also tells us how she won the respect of the knights for "her bold ideas and firm, decisive actions." Thus even if stress induced depression was keeping Laurana from realizing how important she was and how much good she was doing, her deeds speak for themselves, and her deeds show that she was The Hero of the Lance as she struck all the heaviest blows against the Dragonarmies and ended up doing more to win the War of the Lance for the good guys then any other character.
I fully agree with you though that her faults help make her an even more interesting and endearing character.
And yeah, odds are no one is going to change anyone's mind in these kind of discussions, but it is still interesting to hear different viewpoints, so I do appreciate you sharing your thoughts even when I disagree with some of them.
She was one of my favorite character arcs in the series. I mean the whole cast except for maybe Riverwind or Kitiara had amazing character arcs to them but hers was the one with argrebably the most growth to it. She gave Tanis's story a much deeper fleshing out and helped complete Sturm's arc in the story. I didn't read any other books of Dragonlance save the second trilogy about the twins so finding out she died is a bummer to hear. It's probably why I never wanted to read anything else other then those 6 books because eventually they would cover all of their ends.
Thank you for watching! I completely agree about her wonderful character arc.
Laurana died killing a Dragon Overlord. Her death was justified. I thought that she would be the sole survivor of the Dragon Lance Saga main. Kitiara, Goldmoon, and Laurana were the killer ladies of the 80's.
ok....@@khagen50
Laurana was defiantly a lovesick spoiled brat in the beginning but matured fast on the road of unknown danger and travel. She molded herself to be a leader of slaying evil and won the respect of good and evil. I have a copy of Larry Elmore's work of Laurana standing over Sturm's body. Her on Silvara is cool too.
Yep. She’s the reluctant general.
Larry Elmore painted her the best.
100%
I've always loved Laura n have always thought Tanis was very lucky
You are not alone in that.
i really like her story...i see some artwork of laurana riding silver or golden dragon...is it mentioned somewhere if she was in fact a dragon rider? or it is just artistic liberty to things i saw? thanks
She fought on dragonback in the Kalaman campaigns in Dragons of Spring Dawning I believe..
@@DLSaga oh cool ty is there any information on her dragom? what colour he was name etc?
oh ok in case anyone else is interested i searched into it..apparenlty during the dragons of spring dawning laurana rode a silver dragon (no name given or no name i could find). however in all other sources during the war of the lance/ the dragons ) she rides a gold male dragon named Quallathon...
Bravo, loved this
Question: Around 7:22 you use an image of Laurana and two other people, one of which I assume is her son, just wondering what this image comes from as I have never seen it before, can you supply a link to it please
That is the cover of the last Elven Exiles trilogy novel. It is Gilthas, the lioness and other elves.
@@DLSaga oh ok, thank you
Her best moment was defending Sturms body and using the orb
Yea, her using the orb was amazing!
She sounds clingy
Maybe at the start but part of her character growth is overcoming that.
Yea initially she was but she found herself and her independence.
There is nothing wrong with being a loving woman. Laurana was she being too easy. Tanis wanted to chase, a challenge. Things that are easy are usually not worth having.
@@Je_suis_Jefe I think what you are not considering is that Tanis left Qualinesti and then broke his engagement with Laurana not because he didn't love Laurana but rather because of the opposition of Laurana's family to their relationship. (Even at the time when he broke their engagement, he still loved Laurana, but he dismissed her as a naïve, pampered princess and did not believe she would be strong enough to defy her family for their love.) Laurana's decision to follow him to war was thus her trying to show him that he was wrong about her and that she did have the strength and commitment to be there for him. (And indeed as soon as Tanis sees that Laurana is much stronger than he believed, and is willing to defy her family and give up a life of luxury to be with him, he very quickly realizes how much she means to him and that he does want to be with her.)
I would also disagree with the idea that just because something is easy that means it is not worth having. Laurana even at the start of the series is shown to be a very sweet, passionate, kind-hearted, and brave, impossibly gorgeous and devoted to Tanis. Rejecting a wonderful woman like that just because she knows what she wants and gives her love willingly and doesn't make you chase after her, would be incredibly foolish.
@@bwg4608 it is incredibly foolish in fact. Tanis is that fool. It took nearly loosing Laurana for Tanis to realize how much of a fool he was being. Tanis the loveable buffoon. The Moral is guys can be so stupid sometimes.
Sooooo hot ❤ i married my golden general 😅❤
Nice!
I never really liked her, I always saw her as a spoiled girl. I didn't like Kitiara, either. I didn't understand Tanis for falling for either.
Wow, those three are the pillars of the whole world. Good evil and neutrality and the struggle of that balance. Did you think Laurana was spoiled even after the battle of the High Clerist’s Tower.
What made you think of her as a spoiled? I did not see that at all. Even in the first book she's very friendly and generous towards Tika (treating her as an equal despite their class difference and even giving Tika a family heirloom in gratitude), she's also appreciative towards Flint for the toys he once made her, and she accepts legitimate criticism when she makes a mistake. All of them seems the exact opposite of being spoiled, and in the later books Laurana is consistently heroic and self-sacrificing with her repeatedly putting aside her own desires and taking on great danger to help others.
As for why Tanis fell for Laurana: she's passionate, kind, intelligent, brave, impossibly beautiful, and heads over heels in love with him. How could Tanis not fall for a woman like that?
@@DLSaga
First: SPOILERS!! I know all this information is already out there, but if you haven't read Dragonlance Chronicles, stop reading. Also, if you haven't read them, GO READ THEM! BEST BOOKS EVER! Anyway...
I always saw the struggle for balance in Caramon, Raistlin and Tas. Good, evil and just a force of chaos to keep everyone on their toes. I feel the battle of the High Clerist Tower was the wake up call everyone needed who wasn't already awake. Most of the heroes understood the gravity of it all, but Laurana was still too focused on chasing her non-boyfriend all over the place. Most Palanthians thought the siege of the Tower was like the cataclysm, "nah, it won't hit us, we're safe, it's all politics to rile us up to support the war!" I feel Laurana was still playing Princess, that it didn't really hit her until she saw the devastation, one of her companions fall (okay, she heard about Goldmoon getting burned to death by acid previously but she was resurrected -- did she feel the loss?), so many knights fall before a dragon ARMY (Sturm!). Even after she stood up for Sturm at the Whitestone Council, she still wanted to go find Tanis! She wasn't in Xak Tsaroth for Onyx or Silvanesti to challenge Cyan Bloodbane, though she did "meet" Sleet after leaving Icewall. I just don't feel like she stepped into leadership until it was far too late. I mean, they won the War of the Lance and all, but... it wasn't her great leadership that did it. Even after she became the Golden General, she still left the campaign to go chase Tanis but was then overwhelmed by Lord Soth and taken prisoner to become a damsel in distress again. Okay, except she freed Tanis instead of the other way around. Laurana was definitely a force of good, but I feel she was the leader they got, not the leader they needed. I think this is why I love Dragonalnce so much, they were all flawed, but didn't stop trying. There wasn't a "Paragon of Good," the "Great Leader." They were just doing their best to make the world a better place, stepping into roles as they were needed. All of them struggled which made them all relatable. Tanis and his divided love, Caramon and watching family slip away, Raistlin and his addiction, Flint trying to find where he fits in, Sturm trying to do his best with his hands tied by politics, Tika, STILL trying to just get through the day, Tas his childlike spirit faced against the realities of adulting. All of us have felt these struggles throughout our life.
There was a scene in Criminal Minds where Hotchner says, "Do you know why we tell children fairy tales? It's not to teach them that dragons exists, children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell them dragons can be killed." This flawed band of people from all different backgrounds stacked against every conceivable odd, still met every challenge one at a time and emerged victorious! Now THAT'S a story of hope that needs to be told over and over again.
Also, please bear in mind, I read the books like 25 years ago. I've always had a piece of my heart stay on Ansalon, (thank you, esrtwhile friends for running the War of the Lance campaign even though we only made it to DL4) but it's been a minute, so I may have remembered events incorrectly. I may need to re-read them to straighten some memories out! I did get some help from Dragonlance wikis too, to help me remember.
@@briandaniels7493 I appreciate you giving a thoughtful answer, though I think you are still being rather unfair to Laurana. In the time between when she joined the party and the High Clerist’s Tower, she repeatedly put aside her feelings for Tanis in order to help others.
-She insisted on continuing her work with the refugees even with Tanis throwing a jealous fit. (Showing she was willing to give up any chance of reconciling with Tanis to help others);
-In Tarsis, she pushed through her grief at the apparent death of Tanis when Tas was hurt and needed her;
-In Southern Ergoth, she passed on Sturm’s offer to accompany him to Sancrist (with Sturm even suggesting to her that Tanis might be there) because she was worried about leaving the rest of the group alone with the suspicious acting Silvara;
-In Sancrist, she put aside her desire to go and find Tanis to instead go to the High Clerist’s Tower. (Yes, she wanted to go find Tanis, but she set aside that desire for the good of Sturm and the world at large. Character isn’t shown by never being tempted. Character is shown by overcoming temptation.)
And she certainly wasn’t chasing Tanis around in that time. She was helping refugees, and killing Dragon Highlords, and driving off dragons, and defying her father’s bigotry and greed for the good of the world, and getting justice for Sturm. Thus she stepped up in a big way even before the High Clerist’s Tower.
Also for what’s it worth. She was present (in spirit if not in body in the Dream.) Indeed her action there in rushing forward to protect Sturm’s body from Cyan Bloodbane is her first really heroic action. (Yes, it was all a “dream”, but it was real to the characters at the time, so I think it still counts as an impressive heroic moment for her, since it shows even at that early stage she was willing to throw herself into harms way for her friends.)
As for her leadership, I think you are greatly understating her importance there as well. She took charge of the group on Southern Ergoth (keeping them from getting into a bloodbath with the elves and bringing back the Dragonlances.) She devised and executed the battle plan that won the Battle of the High Clerist’s Tower (absent her leadership there, Solamnia falls to the Dragonarmies and the war is lost.) She convinced Palanthas (the largest and wealthiest human city on Ansalon) to enter the war. And she lead the counteroffensive that devastated the Dragonarmies and liberated most of Solamnia. Her leadership had a huge impact, and absent it the war would certainly have been lost. (After all it hardly matters if Takhisis finds Berem or not if her armies have already conquered all of Ansalon.) Nor is there any other character in the story that could have plausibly have done even half as well as she did as a leader. Therefore she was definitely the leader they needed.
And in regards to her leadership coming too late, we see in both Dragons of Winter Night and in the Lost Chronicles that she was already starting to bring her ideas forward for the group as early as during the Icewall Quest. (Indeed the party only survived Icewall due to her stepping up there.)
And yes she didn’t assume a formal command role over an army until rather late in the story, but really how could she have taken charge any earlier? No one would have taken an inexperienced young girl seriously as a leader of an army. She had to get battlefield experience and prove her courage and decisiveness (through her numerous heroic actions), her smarts (by devising the plan that won the Battle at the High Clerist’s Tower), her charisma (as shown by her testimony before the Knight’s Council and her funeral oration for Sturm), and her character (by being willing to stand against her own family and people for the good of the world) before anyone was willing to give her for command of an army.
As for the trap incident, her army was secure in a fortified city (indeed the army seemed so safe that they literally spent the entire previous day partying), and she had good, logical reason for believing both that Tanis was dying and asking for her and that she could go and comfort him without putting herself or her army at risk. So yes she made a mistake there, but it was an understandable mistake, and it certainly wasn’t her chasing after Tanis on a romantic whim but was rather her showing compassion for a dying man.
At any rate what really matters about the trap plotline is how Laurana reacted to that mistake. She didn’t just roll over and die after realizing she screwed up but instead picked herself up of the floor and kept fighting and thus, far from ending the story as a helpless damsel in distress, she instead rescued herself, and took down the entire assembled Dragonarmies as she did so. (Which perfectly illustrates your point about how the Dragonlance story is not about perfect invincible heroes but rather about flawed people who sometimes make mistakes but who never stop fighting and trying to do better.)
Awesome character. She’s no Mary sue that’s for sure. Upset of Tanis for denying her. He’s mad I tell you, lol
Absolutely, she earns everything.