“The background of the tale was known to her, though not less bitter for that: the story of Kaen and Blod, the brothers who had led the Dwarves in search, forty years ago, of the lost Cauldron of Khath Meigol. When the Dwarfmoot had voted to aid them, Matt Sören, the young King, had thrown down his scepter and removed the Diamond Crown and left the twin mountains to find another fate entirely, as source to Loren Silvercloak.”
This quote which occurs in the first chapter illustrates two elements of the novel commonly pointed out in criticism of the book. The Darkest Road is the third book in a trilogy known as The Fionavar Tapestry. This trilogy was the first original fantasy fiction published by the author who gained notoriety after being personally picked by the son of J.R.R. Tolkien to assist in editing his father’s final published work, The Silmarillion. Critics often complain that there is too much similarity to Tolkien in The Fionavar Tapestry and not enough originality. Further compounding this critique is the equally abundant complaints that too much of The Darkest Road—especially the first third—is taken up recounting events that happened in the first two novels. This paragraph offers a glimpse into the reasons for both these criticisms. The language here is so robustly Tolkienesque as to almost verge on parody. References to dwarves, Cauldrons, twinned mountains, and even the biblical “forty years” all point specifically to a writer arguably overinfluenced by the Lord of the Rings. The other complaint is also on display here as this entire paragraph is just a summarizing of past events with which readers of the third book in a trilogy would already be familiar.
“All the roads are dark, Guinevere. Only at the end is there a hope of light.”
The complaints of too much Tolkien also arise because this is not a straight-up invented fantasy world, but introduces established legendary figures into the mix. If one can get past the jarring commingling of dwarves co-exiting with Arthurian knights, one should have a little problem with the plentiful allusions to dark roads in the novel. This is a novel that does not take its title lightly. Throughout the narrative can be found both direct and indirect references to roads that grow dark and promise, as Lancelot points out here, on the hope of light. It is the possibility of light at the end of the darkest roads that allow characters to keep going and not the certainty. The most significant divergence from the titular path made in this philosophical observation by Lancelot is that he is speaking within the pure metaphor. The reality, however, is that there is literally the darkest road that must be traveled by one particular individual. As indicated with this quote, however, the title also works as a relentless motif pushing at the back of many characters and located within many different scenes.
“There is a choice for you to make, and everything I know tells me that you must make it freely and unconstrained, or it will never have been made at all. If I bind you to me now, or even try, I strip you of what you are.”
In addition to the dark roads and the hope of finding light at the end, two other motifs persistently show up throughout the narrative. One is the idea of choice and free will. The other is the iteration of the idea of love as a binding contrast. The repetition of choice being available as simply a matter of will is situated primarily in the relationship between Jennifer and the son she had no choice in conceiving but did choose to raise, Darien. The actual act of “binding” is a complicated affair upon which much of the trilogy is founded, but suffice to say that at times it is presented as the dark side of love connections. The full implication what of it actually means “to bind” is suggested in this quote in which Jennifer hints that it has ontological implications impacting the very essence of one’s being and identity.
