Yeah, yeah, welcome to two years ago, but I'm just now reading this and it's not like this place is wildly active anyway. Nai's book-bashing thread, I guess. 
OK, first of all, this trilogy is awful and the only reason I made it through the first two books is because Q'arlynd is awesome and Karas in book 2 is also awesome and I constantly wanted to brofist the guy.
I don't like Eilistraee or her followers to begin with, and the way they're written here makes me hate them even more. I don't like any of them at all.
Resurrection in this series BUGS THE HELL OUT OF ME oh my gods. See, reading other books, I might ponder while reading, say, Evermeet, why Amlaruil doesn't just have Zaor or Amnestria or any of the billion other kids brought back, but it's immediately brushed away with 'because what elf in their right mind would ever, under any circumstances, pull another elf's spirit away from the joy of Arvandor? Amlaruil's not a complete *prat*'.
Here? Anybody dies for any reason, bam, Raise Dead or even Resurrection. How many 14th-level clerics do these people have to be churning these spells out, and they're still getting owned all the time? How the hells are they getting all these diamonds? Why the hells are they so damned casual about ripping their fellows away from Eilistraee?
And nothing at all happens in book 2, or at least it sure as hell felt like it reading the thing. Yeah Kiaransalee, but that felt massively anticlimatic and Q'arlynd realising the meaning of his House's symbol was more interesting to read.
Now I'm the prologue and one chapter into book 3 and I look at the book and want to throw it across the room. I know the trilogy is kind of named for Halisstra and all that, but I really don't care at all about this random new subplot with T'lar and I kept wanting to scream in annoyance at there being a temple to *Araushnee* on Toril. That somehow survived the Sundering, apparently. And apparently has been there longer than elves have actually been on Toril since I'm pretty sure Lolth got kicked out of the Seldarine before that, and she certainly seemed to not know about Toril before whatsherface Amarillis went to the Abyss to retrieve her boytoy.
There's also the whole mask thing, with pretty much every other mention of Vhaeraun or Vhaeraunites having the mask cover the *upper* part of the face, and there additionally being no reason at all for a Vhaeraunite to feel strange or 'naked' without his mask since they don't even need to have the mask on their person, let alone worn, and frequently don't do either.
And there in the first couple of pages of chapter two is yet another person brought back from the dead for no apparent reason. Well crud, without Jub who the hell is going to help fish? Time for a Resurrection spell.
Sell me on why I should keep torturing myself with this and finish this last book.
I should note that the writing at least is good and when the subject isn't something that makes me twitch(Q'arlynd) it's actually enjoyable. Throw everything else out and make it a single novel about Q'arlynd and I'd probably love it.
18DELTA(YES YOU GUYS KNOW THE DEAL!)
how they are written to be as equally biggoting as lolth's beyatches
I can understand that, buy Nais hatred of Eilistraee predates him reading that book. Personaly I think shes a hottie.
Of course I think Lolth is quite the looker too!
Then again I am not going to get my liver in a quiver, and my panties in a wad just because Lisa went against the 'Most Holy of Canon'.
I could really care less about the Realmslore. I take what I need and I leave the rest.
Plus its a bunch of stinky smelly elves anyways.
I could really care less about 'E' and her screwed up clergy anyways.
Then again I am not one of those Drow or Elf fanboys, that gets upset, because WotC decided to do something different with them.
Sorry if I offend anyone, just tired of the whining about anything and everything WotC, or an author does.
how they are written to be as equally biggoting as lolth's beyatches
This, seriously. It's Lolth without the spiders and eval. Still the same garbage sexism.
I'm of the opinion that Eilistraee just plain damages her own cause. You have the Eilistraeeans, and you have the Vhaeraunites(Well, you USED TO grr). Let's see, you're a male drow, you're not somehow pure and shining good despite your horrific evil upbringing, you want out. Gee, I *wonder* which is going to appeal to you. Another goddess' matriarchy you still won't have any power or advancement in, or the faith of a god who tells you that you, yes you, are every bit as worthwhile as any woman, and yes, you can have power and be the master of your own destiny. Derp.
The drow would have been better off with a small but dedicated faction of Corellon's church who worked to bring as many of their lost brethren back into the fold as possible. No stupid matriarchy, no weird halfway houses, just 'No, wait, think for a minute, this is stupid, we're both elves, both Corellon's children, and he loves his children, come back home to the surface where you belong'. Would have made more sense, IMO. Obviously they'd be mostly Moon elves and previously rescued drow since I doubt most Sun Elves would stop hating every other kind of elf long enough. :P (I actually did this sort of thing in my homebrew world. Broke a few PC's brains when they were wandering around the big important elven holy city and there were drow just casually walking around on the surface like they'd been there their whole lives, which some of them had. >D )
And yeah, I know Corellon puts in an appearance at the end, I've read the ending before in the past. Part of my problem, I think. I know how this all ends, and I've flipped through the book at points and read little bits of pieces and it's like 'oh gods'.
Studies of cultures in the realms are (used to be) my most common lore generating exercise around. Elven and drow culture is one thing in Fearun that is pretty well grounded in older sources. Newer sources -do- make conflicting and dubious claimes though. I got used to some of those
From the tidbits this particular series gave I take some things I like (Temple of Aurushnee found on the surface, the Masked Lady mysteries) but disregard most (Lolths silence, deaths of Selvetarm, Vhearaun and Kiriansalee and Eilistraee). In my local realms games there is more story to the tales spun about all this.
I did enjoy the LP series. I found some outcomes questionable in design though. High magic seems way too easy: you put on a tiara and then you can cast deity-killing magic? Huh.
I liked Quarlynd, and Halastra, who kept going back and forth betwen who she felt most loyal to. The Eilistraeeans were bugging me though. Resurrection gallore, which is nice at some point when you get to see the return of a character you liked, but otoh... death is not much of a threat any more. Still, it IS what the average PC adventurer does... so you cant *really* blame them, right?
The sexism was puzzling. It shows that Eilistraee isn't flawless. The religion is one bix exercise in contradiction: you - males - are 'equal' to us, so we won't force you to rutt with us as we wish. Oh, but you *can't* be priests. Or participate in our rites. Or see us dancing naked...
Now, on one hand, that could be intersting. But it is also doomed as a 'rebellion' faith. And it does mean you get to dislike the haughty priestesses as much as the devas from the Odeysee trilogy.
I did draw a few differnt conclusions from the end than other people, i.e. that the crescent blade does not destroy the souls of those it kills - despite what some people thought - and that not all Eilistraeans were transformed.
Neither of those concusions were what Lisa originally intended, but both can be made, and I already used at least *one* conclusion in my adventures.
Gomez
Nai, I see you survived reading these books.
Vhaeraun's followers have a different attitude in this series too, they accept Shakti Hunzrin as a traitor-priestess and offer Liriel Baenre a place as agent or brood mare!
Anyway, my interpretation of LP is that the mergence of Eilistraee and Vhaeraun led to a being of unstable morality, hence the confusion amongst his/her/their followers. Eilistraee couldn't murder her brother, she wanted to convert him, which is why she accepted the seed of evil to enter her soul. Her death by the Crescent Blade and the alteration of certain drow to dark elves is significant of the separation of good and evil. Eilistraee had the gift/curse of foresight, she foresaw that she had to make many sacrifices. Her ultimate goal was to free the drow from Lolth's clutches and lead them back into the light. At some point, she must have seen that Vhaeraun could not be saved, so instead merged with him. Its not a coincidence that Halisstra and Qarlynd are descendants of her worshippers! Qarlynd enabled certain drow to be transformed into dark elves, free of the taint of Wendonai. I think that Halisstra was always intended to be a distraction. She enabled Eilistraee to merge with Vhaeraun, and her wavering between two faiths was a futher distraction to Lolth!
I think that the Crescent Blade was meant to distinguish between good and evil, despite its wielder. So, even though it killed Eilistraee, it could distinguish between her soul and Vhaeraun's. I think that Corellon hid his daughter's soul, perhaps waiting for the right time to ressurect her. It's possible, both Amaunator and Bane died and were reborn/reincarnated. Lolth, at any rate, thinks she was destroyed, so taking over her portfolio makes sense, its also a great cover.
I haven't had a chance to read the trilogy but if you are suffering greatly after just one novel then I'd be very interested, in a purely scientific sense, to see how much agony you can endure. That way I can decide if I'm willing to endure a pain similiar to forcing a lemon through a hole the size of a number 2 pencil. That and the suffering of others is amusing. 