Elminster: The Making of a Mage Introduction and Table of Contents

[masterghandalf]

Elminster: The Making of a Mage

By Ed Greenwood

Alternate Title: The Making of a Stu
SPORKER: MasterGhandalf

SUMMARY

In a fantastical world, a young boy’s life is changed forever when his family is murdered by the agents of a tyrannical regime. Swearing revenge, he must embark on a journey in which he will discover his true heritage, learn to master his magical gifts, fulfil his destiny and ultimately overthrow the bad guys and bring freedom to his people. No, no, this isn’t Star Wars (or one of several dozen other things…), it’s the backstory of the Forgotten Realms’ most iconic wizard, which is totally different, I swear. Well, at least in terms of how obviously the main character is a vehicle for the author’s fantasies – both magical and sexual – it is, anyway. Not that we should expect anything less from Ed Greenwood. It’s just how he rolls.

Note: as this is a prequel, it shouldn’t require knowledge of my Shandril’s Saga sporkings in order to follow the plot.





Introduction

The Prequel in the Lost Age is a common SFF convention – common enough to have its own trope, even. After all, if there was a legendary age centuries before the main story takes place, whose events resonate to modern times, it’s very likely an author might want to end up exploring that period. Tolkien did it with The Silmarillion, of course (though it should be noted that the Sil, despite being published posthumously, actually came first, predating both The Hobbit and LotR in its earliest forms) and many others followed in his footsteps. However, despite other D&D settings getting in on the action – most obviously Dragonlance, where I’d estimate at least a quarter of the novel line takes place before the Cataclysm, and therefore centuries or millennia before the setting’s “present day” – Forgotten Realms only rarely ventured that deep into its own history in novels, preferring to keep that information to sourcebooks. There are a few exceptions – Cormyr: A Novel and Evermeet: Island of Elves both provide historical surveys of their eponymous nations with a present-day frame story (a similar novel was apparently planned for Waterdeep but got reworked into a story that took place exclusively in the present) and there was a trilogy set in ancient Netheril, but not a whole lot else.

One of the few other works in the setting’s distant past was by Ed Greenwood himself, the Realms’ original creator, covering the backstory of his gary stu creator’s pet signature character, the wizard Elminster. Elminster: The Making of a Mage, published in 1994, was Greenwood’s third Realms novel (following Spellfire and Crown of Fire, which we’ve covered previously) so we’re jumping back a bit in his publishing order if you’re following straight from the sporking of Hand of Fire. And, considering Elminster’s great age and the fact that the novel covers his childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, it takes us back more than a thousand years into Faerun’s past, after the fall of Netheril but before the rise of most of the nations and factions of the setting’s present day (which means we won’t be seeing any Harpers, Zhents, Red Wizards or Dragon Cultists in this one, as they don’t exist yet; nor will we be meeting any established Realms characters other than Elminster himself and Mystra… and maybe one other, who I’ll discuss when we get there). Note: The Making of a Mage is generally considered the first book of the Elminster Trilogy, which chronicles Elminster’s early life; the other two volumes are Elminster in Myth Drannor and The Temptation of Elminster (later Elminster books are set in the Realms’ present and aren’t part of the same arc). However, likely because it was written first and Greenwood didn’t return to the series until after doing the Shadow of the Avatar trilogy, Making of a Mage is largely self-contained. I may or may not do the other two at some point in the future; I’ve not decided one way or another yet.

Now, Making of a Mage is probably Greenwood’s most well-known novel, and the only one of his that I’ve regularly seen get recced to people looking to get into the setting (I think it’s very telling that, despite Greenwood being the setting’s creator, the list of novels recced to new readers tends to be dominated instead by RA Salvatore – of course – Elaine Cunningham, Paul S. Kemp and, especially in recent years, Erin M. Evans). But is it any better than what we’ve already seen in Shandril’s Saga? Well… yes and no. Yes, in that it actually has a mostly clear plot, with a distinctive beginning, middle and end, which actually holds together and makes sense, without wandering off aimlessly or getting bogged down in endless, repetitive fight scenes. And no, in that it’s still dominated by a lot of the same… Greenwood-isms we’ve seen before. The plot, despite being tighter, still meanders somewhat with important details being skimmed over frequently, including a lot of Elminster’s actual training as a mage, the thing the novel is literally about (for once, this may be an example of an epic fantasy novel that would’ve benefitted from being a few hundred pages longer!). The young Elminster himself isn’t the worst protagonist I’ve ever seen, but he can be fairly unlikable, and though he doesn’t start out overpowered, he gets there somewhere around the book’s halfway point and stays there. The core plotline is a fairly basic hero’s journey that, despite Greenwood’s efforts to the contrary, doesn’t end up bringing much new to the table, while the setting remains bafflingly underdeveloped and underused, despite Greenwood having created the damned thing himself and knowing its details better than anyone. Greenwood’s sexual hangups continue to crop up all over the story. And jumping a thousand years into the past has not improved Greenwood’s ability to write villains.

In general, Making of a Mage probably is a better work than Shandril’s Saga and one of Greenwood’s stronger novels overall (as a piece of writing, at least, it’s definitely the best of the Greenwood novels I’ve read or re-read since I started sporking his stuff, but that’s a phenomenally low bar to clear), but ultimately that mostly just means that while that trilogy just turned into a tedious slog by the end, this one has enough actual substance that the real problems stand out more, and rises to the level of being the kind of bad that’s more worth engaging with. So, let’s dig into the backstory of one of the most famous – or rather, infamous – characters in the Forgotten Realms, and I hope to see you there soon!

WARNING: In addition to the expected violence and sexuality, parts of this book contain Ed Greenwood’s attempts to engage with issues of gender and identity, with about the level of subtlety and nuance you’d expect from him. I’ll post content warnings where appropriate.




Table of Contents

CHAPTERS

Prelude
Prologue

Part I: Brigand
Chapter One: Dragon Fire – And Doom
Chapter Two: Wolves in Winter
Chapter Three: All Too Much Death in the Snows

Part II: Burglar
Chapter Four: They Come Out at Night
Chapter Five: To Chain a Mage
Chapter Six: Squalor Among Thieves

Part III: Priest
Chapter Seven: The One True Spell
Chapter Eight: To Serve Mystra
Chapter Nine: The Way of a Mage

Part IV: Magus
Chapter Ten: In the Floating Tower
Chapter Eleven: A Blue Flame
Chapter Twelve: Hard Choices, Easy Dooms
Chapter Thirteen: Spells Enough to Die
Chapter Fourteen: No Greater Fool

Part V: King
Chapter Fifteen: And the Prey is Man
Chapter Sixteen: When Mages Go to War
Chapter Seventeen: For Athalantar
Chapter Eighteen: The Price of a Throne

Epilogue

Final Thoughts

Comments

[torylltales]

> _No, no, this isn’t Star Wars_

Although this particular novel was published in the 90s, it's _possible_ that Elminster was created as a character contemporaneously (or there's a slim possibility, even before) the Star Wars movies. The Forgotten Realms setting was in development by Ed as early as 1975, and A New Hope came out in 1977. However, Elminster's first appearance in a published work wasn't until 1986, so anything prior to that is speculation.

I highly doubt Greenwood deliberately set out to mimic the Star Wars plot but, and I hesitate to say this because of how Paolini and his fans have weaponised it against his critics, it IS a fairly generic story outline, and Star Wars was certainly not the first to use it.

[masterghandalf]

Oh, I'm not accusing Greenwood of ripping off Star Wars directly (the parallels are there, but they're more general and much less on-the-nose than, say, Inheritance); that was just me snarkily lampshading the genericness of the plot, using probably the best known modern incarnation of the Hero's Journey as a recognizable reference. Though I don't know when Greenwood worked out Elminster's backstory in detail (none of the events in this book are alluded to in the first two Shandril novels, though I don't know if that's because Greenwood hadn't come up with them yet or just because he still wanted to keep Elminster's past a mystery, so I don't know how much of the IRL timeline works out anyway). Just wanted to clarify that.

[torylltales]

I didn't imply you were. It's just fascinating to think how there could be parallels, developed independently at roughly the same time, but bearing striking similarities in their use of the hero's journey formula.

It is entirely possible that Elminster's character and background weren't codified until after A New Hope, though.

[epistler]

All right, time to get on and read this spork at last. Hopefully now I've at least watched the D&D movie some of the stuff in it should make more sense to me. At least now I know what Harpers and Red Wizards are.

[masterghandalf]

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!