Prism Pentad and scale

I recently finished The Prism Pentad, the series of novels by Troy Denning, which are a narrative introduction to the Dark Sun D&D setting.

One thing that stood out for me throughout the novels is how little they made me want to play this world in D&D. Every time D&D impinges, as when describing the magic system, or the use of stock D&D races, it seems out of place. Reading the corresponding boxed set, neither the magic nor the psionic elements were represented very well, either.

Instead they made me want to play in a supernatural Mesopotamian setting like that in Blood & Bronze. Although maybe that's also because I finished reading the Torah all the way through last year for the first time, and it describes a very similar setting in many ways.

A recurring theme towards the end of the book which I thought was interesting was distinctive changes of scale. Explaining what I mean will require some significant spoilers.

A significant type of antagonist introduced in the second novel, The Crimson Legion, is the shadow giants, huge beings made of shadow who are impossible to kill with regular weapons and capable of drawing all warmth and life from most creatures. They reappear en masse in the third novel, The Amber Enchantress, where they are able to provide a protagonist with incredible power, which relates her to shadow. Eventually, in the last novel, The Cerulean Storm, it turns out that they were originally halflings (although, considering that they were the original intelligent beings of the planet Athas, from which all the others were formed through a type of mutation, perhaps it's humans who should be called "doublings"). This is explicitly called out by one character, to whom one of the shadow halfings responds: "Shadows play strange tricks with size, do they not?"

Another element introduced in The Crimson Legion is the history of the dwarves, and in The Amber Enchantress we learn of Sa'ram and Jo'orsh, two dwarves who stole an important artifact, the Dark Lens. In the next novel, The Obsidian Oracle, we find that these two dwarves transformed into giants, and gave birth to two tribes of giants.

In both The Obsidian Oracle and The Cerulean Storm, there are many scenes with the protagonists being held by giant creatures, first giants, then the Dragon, Borys, and finally Rajaat, the ultimate villain.

I'm not sure what the significance of all this is. Perhaps a metaphor of how looks can be deceiving, and how people are held by forces beyond their control.