The Illustrated Dragonlance Reread

[diplomancer]

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Again that is inconsistent with Tanis's statement in Dragons of Dwarven Depths where he describes himself as having broken his engagement to Laurana. He was talking to Flint in that particular conversation not Laurana, so there was no reason for him to describe himself as having been engaged to Laurana unless he genuinely believed he had been engaged to her.

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Whether a novel written 30 years afterwards with probably about a 100 different novels by dozens of different authors in between actually indicates what the writers thought was the legal situation between Laurana and Tanis is an interesting literary question. When Chronicles was first published, there was no such doubt. (I.e, this is a "han shot first" situation.) Laurana cannot have property, we know that from the Dragon Orb question. It is preposterous to say she could choose to marry a bastard over the will of her father, the King. Tanis might have mistakenly believed, at first, that she could, but Gilthanas makes the situation painfully clear, which is why Tanis leaves.

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When Laurana was reunited with her people on Southern Ergoth their affection for her was obviously greatly diminished, but they still fully considered her to be a princess. (She still had private quarters in the royal residence, could see the Speaker in private whenever she wanted, was called "Princess" by the guards and so forth.) Since she was still their princess even after running off after Tanis it seems very unlikely that her family suddenly stopped caring about who she would marry.

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Their supposed claim to the Dragon Orb, for which they were willing to go to war, was through Laurana. It did not serve their interests to fully disown her. We simply don't know how they would have reacted if no Dragon Orb was involved, but the shocking word her father (almost) used gives a strong indication of how they felt; also, the fact that they later raise no objection to her marrying a bastard (though a war hero) is also very strong indication of her status in the family. The situation is still explosive when Legends starts

Also, Sturm is the lawful-goodest of lawful-good characters, and he clearly does not think that Tanis is a rogue who goes around seducing young elf women and then dumping them, ghosting them, and cheating on them, even though he knows all of Tanis's score with Kitiara.Literally the only person that feels that Tanis has done something wrong towards Laurana is Tanis himself (because he is self-doubting that way, and because he is divided, and because he is a tender person who never wanted to hurt her).