Was doing a bit of "research" lately on the pre-Catacloysm era of
Ansalon, and re-read Roland Green's four "Knights of..." novels after
the better part of a decade, the ones focusing upon Sir Pirvirt the
Wayward. What particularly struck me was the fact that there were very,
very few explicit chronological data-cues present within any of the
four books, apart from the general overall setting of perhaps a couple
of centuries P.C.
Now, what I'm trying to determine here is, what would the *precise*
dating-lock for these stories be, as envisioned by the author and/or
TSR at the time? Over at DL Nexus, the chronological novel-listing
dates the events of the first Sir Pirvirt novel ("Knights of the
Crown") at 181 PC, yet on that very same site's "formal" timeline, the
novel is instead dated at circa 280 PC, a full century(-ish)
beforehand.
Having trudged laboriously through multitudes of postings both in this
newsgroup, the official DL boards, and on other websites, I can't find
one scrap of information that OFFICIALLY locks down the dating once and
for all, one way or the other. At best, it's a total tossup between the
181 and 280 PC dates, and at this juncture, I have zero insight into
Roland Green's own thoughts on this matter, quotes, you name
it...nothing. Nada. Bupkus. Zilch.
Where these two datings come from are, in fact, quite apparent...the
camp favoring the 280 PC date seems to go by the fact that the
Kingpriest of Istar is not mentioned once anywhere in KotC, but
suddenly becomes a semi-major player in the second book, set 10 years
later. We know from Weis and Hickman (and Chris Pierson's trilogy) that
Istar's first Kingpriest -- Symeon I -- was installed right around that
very same year, and nowhere in KotC or KotS is the notion of a very
recent "off-screen" ascension ever truly ruled out.
Nor is it defined as to whom truly holds the topmost rung of power in
the Lordcity in that novel...Green establishes that "kingpriest" was in
fact a title used by the clergy long before Symeon's time, but that it
only became a truly regal moniker upon his rise. By the same token, the
warlords who ruled Istar prior to the Kingpriests aren't mentioned
(being Pierson's own later retroactive addition to the history, of
course), yet nothing in the book contradicts their hypothetical
presence during Pirvan's thief-years. It could rightfully go in either
direction.
The other school of thought on this subject (those using the 181 PC
dating) appears to utilize the concept that the Kingpriests were indeed
around during the events of the first novel, but simply not massively
important enough to the plot of the story to even warrant an offhand
mention...it's like, yeah, he's there, but, like, big whoop -- we're
goin' *sailing*, man.
The later novels in the series (particularly "Knights of the Rose")
play up the growing "Istar =DCber Alles" direction over the next few
intervening decades, and the fact that it was slowly but steadily
metamorphosing into the Istar that we see in "Legends" and Pierson's
trilogy, but it was still fundamentally different enough in several
areas (the Kingpriest using priests of Zeboim in his navy, mages
residing in his court, et cetera) that it's clear that at least a
century-and-a-half (if not more) lay between the Pirvan books and the
Cataclysm itself. Yet, for all this, the novels never take a decisive
stand on the timeline at any major point.
So...what have you folks heard on this whole thing? What would be some
other subtle -- or even obscure -- data-cues in other works that I
might be overlooking which might refine this window even more (Knights
of Solamnia politics/heraldry, et al)? Obviously, I'd prefer to have
this matter settled once and for all, either by official TSR/WotC fiat,
authorial statement, or whatever, but considering that these novels
seem to fly lower on most folks's radars than several of the other
major DL works, it goes without saying that hard details have been
scarce to come by.
|
