Let's Read Eragon! (an Eragon read-through)

[Lord Seth]

Previously, I read through Twilight in a thread titled "Let's Read Twilight! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160798)" Now I'm going to do another, this time of Eragon.

Eragon is a fantasy series that some have called Twilight for males. And it's not hard to see why. Both series are popular among the teenage audience, both have a strong hatedom and both star Mary Sues (or so I'm told in the case of Eragon). But Eragon is written by a male chiefly for the male audience, whereas Twilight is written by a female and geared towards the female audience. Thus, the male version of Twilight.

Some people may have noticed that I've hated on Eragon in the past. But to be honest, I really haven't read that much of it. I read some critiques of it (including a chapter-by-chapter synopsis that broke down the problems in it), figured I'd give it a try, read a few chapters largely with the intent of just reading a little of it so I'd be able to rightfully hate it. But I feel like I should really read the whole thing and give it a fair chance. If nothing else, it means I can hate on it afterwards and know I really did give it a chance.

As I'm going into this knowing more about it (and more of the problems with it) than Twilight, things will be a bit trickier. I don't, after all, want to be pointing out problems that I only notice because someone else did. So, unless I'm pretty darn sure I would have noticed it otherwise, any errors I noticed because I read about them earlier will not be noted. For example, one complaint I've seen is that the horses in the story must be zombie horses because they go such distances and in such terrain without sufficient breaks that the only explanation for how they keep it up is that they're zombies. I have no idea if I would've noticed that by myself, so it won't be mentioned, except for in this paragraph, unless I do find it such an obvious mistake that I choose to mention it. The good news is that I haven't read any of those critiques for a while, so I've forgotten a lot of them.

So for the purposes of this Let's Read, I'm going to try to lay aside all my previous feelings of the book as well as previous knowledge; I'm also going to try to avoid listing any critiques of it that I've heard from other sources unless they leap straight out at me (and honestly, a lot of the criticisms I remember are sort of nitpicks; see the zombie horse bit above). This time I'm going to give the book a chance and see if maybe I do like some parts of it.

Plus, most of the really dumb things I've read about it (such as Eragon randomly turning half-elf just so he can become super mega ultra strong) happen in the later books. So hey, maybe the first one isn't so bad, right?

Another thing I'm going to try to do is make a more consistent schedule, probably one or two updates per week, which gives me more time to ponder it.

So, without further ado...let us begin.

Table of Contents for Those Who Just Want The Read-Through:
Prologue (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9725123&postcount=17)
Discovery (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9726297&postcount=39)
Palancar Valley (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9741001&postcount=185)
Dragon Tales (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9754326&postcount=315)
Fate's Gift (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9763660&postcount=417)
Awakening (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9779265&postcount=511)
Tea for Two (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9885751&postcount=604)
A Name of Power (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9994600&postcount=718)
A Miller-to-Be (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10018613&postcount=735)
Strangers in Carvahall (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10070061&postcount=744)
Flight of Destiny (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10101068&postcount=774)
The Doom of Innocence (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10140074&postcount=816)
Deathwatch (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10262128&postcount=857)
The Madness of Life (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10444187&postcount=924)
A Rider's Blade (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10574841&postcount=925)
Saddlemaking (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11018763&postcount=976)
Therinsford (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11301581&postcount=1007)

EDIT: As I write this edit on March 29, 2012, I feel it's finally time to make an announcement. At present we can consider this on indefinite hiatus. If I do return, my plan is to just read the rest of the book, write up a synopsis of that, and then maybe draw some conclusions (assuming I can reply to it--I attempted to contact a moderator on whether I could reply to this or not a while ago and received no response). Really sorry to disappoint people by finally calling it quits, but it's just become apparent I'm not going to finish this anytime soon. But if you need some kind of conclusion: Well, consider this. Twilight held my interest longer than Eragon did. Just think about that.

[Katana_Geldar]

And the best way to begin is:

A long time ago in a galaxy kingdom far,
far away...

[Haruki-kun]

Oh, man... Eragon's a guilty pleasure for me. It sucks and I read it anyway. This'll be fun. :smalltongue:

[Teln]

As if there wasn't enough distracting me from studying...:smalltongue:

[pffh]

And here we go again Lord Seth submits himself to the torture of bad books for our amusement.:smallbiggrin:

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

And amusing it is. Go get-em! :smallwink:

[Katana_Geldar]

I'm going to keep a running score of all the times Brom should hit Eragon.

[Knaight]

Further evidence of Lord Seth's masochism continues to accrue at a frightening rate. I'm looking forward to this.

[Lord Raziere]

eh, I'll keep track of this just because I need some new entertainment.

[Prime32]

I'm going to keep a running score of all the times Brom should hit Eragon.He clearly wants to do it.

[Starbuck_II]

The book is way better than the movie. Unlike Twilight.

I thought the books were okay, but I only read first two books.

[Mecharious]

Just stop reading when you get to the part with the elves.

[Morph Bark]

Eragon is a fantasy series that some have called Twilight for males.

You know, I honestly have never heard of this. I didn't come across any hatedom of it either until the movie, and that came from fans of the books.

[Maximum Zersk]

Eh, I thought this book wasn't bad. Still, I'll see what happens.

Wait, I still have to finish your Twilight Read-Through...

[SlyGuyMcFly]

This should prove quite amusing. Personally, I found Eragon to be some very forgettable fantasy and that was that.

[Helanna]

Lord Seth, I kind of love you. First Twilight to amuse me, now this?!

I am really, really looking forward to this, because in my opinion, Eragon is far worse than Twilight.

Twilight, like Eragon, features Mary Sues a-plenty. But unlike Eragon, it was never honestly meant to be anything more than a self-insert fantasy. However, Eragon tries to take itself seriously and the author clearly considers it a master epic fantasy on the lines of LotR, to the point where he talks down about JK Rowling. Also, stupid as some of Twilight is (sparkly vampires, etc.) at least nobody could say that those parts weren't original. In Eragon, any given scene can correlate to a) Lord of the Rings or b) Star Wars, with some Wizards of Earthsea thrown in. And also - you know what? I'd better stop here, or Lord Seth won't have anything left to do. :smallfurious:

Although yes, it is like Twilight that it is ultimately forgettable, but more fun to snark about than to simply forget.

[Lord Seth]

All right! Here we go. First, let's get some thoughts on the cover. The cover is of a bored-looking dragon, and the whole thing is just various shades of blue other than the title and author. It's a pretty bland-looking cover to be quite honest due to the lack of any real color contrast. I thought Twilight's cover looked kind of dumb, but it was at least eye-catching and, to the people who would possibly like it, maybe a bit enticing. Eragon's cover is amazingly generic.

In fairness, it seems the cover got a little better in re-issues (when they added the "New York Times Bestseller" onto it), at least judging by these Internet images.
This is the one my book has, I believe:
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/5943/eragoncover.jpg
This is the one the "re-issue" seems to have:
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/989/eragoncover2.jpgYou can see a definite improvement in the second. Still not great, but at least a little more striking. Of course, it might be scan quality and the increased size that's the problem. Still...

At the very start there's a map of the place the story takes place in, as I remember there being in Lord of the Rings and Redwall. One immediate problem I see is the names of the places, which all seem to be "forced foreign"; that is, by trying to make it seem foreign, it just ends up sounding silly. Here's a sample:
Ellesméra
Du Weldenvarden
Sílthrim
Buragh
Tarnag
Galfni
Urû'baen
Petrøvya
Kuasta
Vroengard

Ick. For comparison, let's take some random names from Lord of the Rings:
Harlindon
Minhiriath
Enedwaith
Nurn
Khand
Fangorn
Rohan
Anóren
Sutherland
Belfalas

Okay, a bunch of the Lord of the Rings names are a bit goofy also, but they seem--at least to me--to flow better than those of Eragon's. It's also an early sign that Lord of the Rings likely had a very strong influence on this book, but it also seems to be a case of overdoing it. Yes, many of the names of places in Lord of the Rings sounded quite foreign, but it didn't seem as forced as Eragon's; if nothing else, Tolkien didn't feel the need to constantly be inserting symbols like û or ø into the names. I can't really call this a rip-off of Lord of the Rings, but it shows that there's an attempt at imitation but not doing a great job at it.

All right, enough with that, onto the prologue.

Prologue: Shade of Fear


Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world. A tall Shade lifted his head and sniffed the air. He looked human except for his crimson hair and maroon eyes.That's the first paragraph of the book. Let's take a moment to analyze this.

First off, what is the point of the first sentence? It's completely superfluous. It would have been better to begin with the sentence about the Shade. I guess it does serve to show it's in the night, but that's expressed a few paragraphs later when it notes there's moonlight. As a note, I thought "maroon" was a purple color until I looked it up. Don't know what's wrong with using more regular colors. Still, as lavender prose goes, it's not that bad.

Okay, now for what's next:
He blinked in surprise. The message had been correct: they were here. Or was it a trap? He weighed the odds, then said icily, "Spread out; hide behind trees and bushes. STop whoever is coming . . . or die."

Around him shuffled twelve Urgals with short swords and round iron shields painted with black symbols. They resembled men with bowed legs and thick, brutish arms made for crushing. A pair of twisted horns grew above their small ears. The monsters hurried into the brush, grunting as they hid. Soon the rustling quieted and the forest was silent again."Bowed legs"? What does that even mean? Are they constantly bowing? Okay, Mystical Dictionary o' Mysticalness, do your stuff!

Okay, evidently it means to "bend the body in order to see or concentrate." So...is that supposed to mean their legs are just shorter or are their legs bent or what? I'm confused.

Anyway, the Shade is evidently able to see really well in the moonlight, which is "like sunlight" to him. Unfortunately, the Urgals can't see as well as the Shade and grope "like blind beggars, fumbling with their weapons." This does bring up the question as to why the Urgals are being sent rather than a bunch of Shades, but maybe there's a limited number of Shades or there just aren't any other good night-seers in the Legion of Terror (Evil Overlord List reference FTW! I wonder if I'll keep this running gag up?)

They wait around for what's evidently hours until what they're waiting for comes along. Which brings to mind the question of how the Shade is able to just sniff and know that "they were here" if "they" are so far away it takes hours to get there. I guess the Shade might be really good at smelling...but that still seems to be straining credibility.

Anyway, we find out who the "they" are as "they" are three riders on three white horses. The riders are evidently elves and we get descriptions of them, but I don't know if any are important so I'll just quote them here:
On the first horse was an elf with pointed ears and elegantly slanted eyebrows. His build was slim but strong, like a rapier. A powerful bow was slung on his back. A sword pressed against his side opposite a quiver of arrows fletched with swan feathers.

The last rider had the same fair face and angled features as the other. He carried a long spear in his right hand and a white dagger at his belt. A helm of extraordinary craftsmanship, wrought with amber and gold, rested on his head.

Between these two rode a raven-haired elven lady, who surveyed her surroundings with poise. Framed by long black locks, her deep eyes shone with a driving force. Her clothes were unadorned, yet her beauty was undiminished. At her side was a sword, and on her back a long bow with a quiver. She carried in her lap a pouch that she frequently looked at, as if to reassure herself that it was still there.I'm an English major. Is it bad that I had to look up the word "poise"?

EDIT: Judging by the responses, it seems it is, and that the word's more common than I thought. Though as a note, I was an English major in the Language and Linguistics emphasis, not the general Literature emphasis. At any rate, its usage does seem odd here, if nothing else.

The riders go by the Shade's hiding place and the first few Urgals without suspicion, but the wind changes direction "and swept towards the elves, heavy with the Urgals' stench." This alerts them to the trap and the female's horse goes forward quickly and leaves the guards behind, and the Urgals release a stream of black arrows. The Shade jumps up and blasts some red bolt from his palm towards "the elven lady" which hits her horse, causing it to collapse. So the elf jumps off the animal with "inhuman speed" and then glances back at her guards. However, they've already been killed by the arrows, and the Urgals rush toward them, much to the annoyance of the Shade who wants the female. Meanwhile, said female takes a step toward her dead companions, then "cursed her enemies and bounded into the forest." I'm not sure if the step towards them was a pointless insertion or maybe what someone would do under the circumstances before it sinks into them that they're dead, so I guess I'll call that even.

The Urgals crash through the trees in pursuit while the Shade climbs up some piece of granite and is able to see all of the surrounding forest. Again he realizes his hand and blasts out some flames, causing a quarter-mile section of the forest to catch on fire. He also shouts out "Böetq istalri!" to do so (previously he shouted out "Garjzla") and I have no idea how that's supposed to be pronounced. Is anyone else thinking of Dragonball Z here? Well, except that on Dragonball Z, things like "Kamehameha" were much easier to pronounce...

Anyway, the Shade makes a big ring of fire around the forest, presumably to try to keep the elf they're trying to catch trapped inside. Then the fire thickens, which contracts the area the Urgals have to search. I do have to say, this is an actually kind of cool way to try to ensure your target doesn't escape. The Urgals apparently catch up with the elf but three die (presumably killed by the elf) and then the elf is running from them again. Luckily for the Shade, she goes right towards him and he just jumps down and lands in front of her. Evidently "black Urgal blood drips from her sword" to kind of confirm that she did kill the Urgals. With the Shade in front of her the elf (man it's annoying to just write "the elf") tries to run away, but the Urgals come back and surround her, cutting off her escape. Uh, if she was able to kill three Urgals by herself, how are they keeping her from escaping?

Let's backtrack to the beginning of that paragraph and give a bit of a quote:
The horned monsters came out of the forst and hemmed her in, blocking the only escape routes. Her head whipped around as she tried to find a way out. Seeing none, she drew herself up with regal disdain. The Shade approached her with a raised hand, allowing himself to enjoy her helplessness.

"Get her."

As the Urgals surged forward, the elf pulled open the pouch, reached into it, and then let it drop to the ground. In her hands was a large sapphire stone that reflected the angry light of the fires. She raised it over her head, lips forming frantic words. Desperate, the Shade barked, "Garjzla!"This is a minor point, but I did enjoy the fact "Get her" was a singular paragraph and a short one. It really did give the reader an ominous feeling.

So anyway, the Shade's ball of red flame he fires from his hand (seriously, this IS Dragonball Z) goes towards the elf, but it doesn't hit her before the stone vanishes. I guess that was some kind of teleportation spell. At any rate, it causes the still-unnamed elf to collapse.

The Shade is annoyed and flings his sword at a tree, then shoots nine bolts of energy from his palm that kills the Urgals instantly. Um, why? Up until this point we've been given the feeling that the Shade is a calm, calculating enemy. I know we've only known it for 3 pages, but it just seems odd to suddenly have it go all psycho and kill its own minions. I know Darth Vader did it, but he only did it if someone was to blame and not just because he lost his temper because he was cold and calculating. It just seems out of place for it to happen here. Heck, even Visser Three, who was really trigger-happy when it came to killing minions, only seemed to do it if they had at least done SOMETHING wrong (even if "something wrong" just amounts to saying an order would be difficult to accomplish).

At any rate, the Shade calms himself down and looks at the unconscious self, and we get told that "Her beauty, which would have entranced any mortal man, held no charm for him." Is this character going to end up being the Edward of this story, in that we're constantly told about how super beautiful they are? Regardless, the Shade confirms the stone is gone, then ties the elf to his saddle and rides his way out of the woods, quenching the fire in his path but leaving the rest to burn. No idea how he quenched them, unless he's able to put out fires also. That ends the prologue.



Thoughts: This is a prologue I'm iffy on. On one hand, it does throw one into the action pretty quickly and pretty well. On the other hand, the lack of even any names makes it harder to care about the characters. There's really not that much else to say about it that I haven't already other than that some of the word choice is clunky.

Glad I finished this in time to watch Chuck.

EDIT: Oh, wait, they're not showing Chuck tonight. Bah. Never mind.

[Fri]

Actually, I liked the first book. It's not high literature, but entertaining and well written enough for a pulp fantasy story.

The next books though...

Still looking forward for your readthrough.

[Saph]

*wince* Man, I forgot how bad Eragon's writing was.

[Prime32]

Magic with incantations is DBZ now, Lord Seth? Really? :smalltongue:

And I must be some kind of super-genius, because I didn't need to refer to a dictionary once. :smallamused:


Side-note: I've seen a lot of complaints on how Paolini keeps describing the elf's "raven tresses", and that there's no way we'd forget something like that. Here's a pic of the elf from the movie:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qURiuWoC9BA/SGw-IH8f9FI/AAAAAAAAACQ/dTIyaXG_bD0/s320/Eragon-movie-31.jpg

[Reverent-One]

Actually, I liked the first book. It's not high literature, but entertaining and well written enough for a pulp fantasy story.

I'm of a similar opinion as Fri there.

You know, Let's Reads like this can be interesting, however, they also lead to hyper-analyzing and complaining about things that get blown out of proportion. Like, for example, this:


First off, what is the point of the first sentence? It's completely superfluous. It would have been better to begin with the sentence about the Shade.

It's a single sentence establishing time of day, weather, and attempting to be draw you in a bit with the whole "scene that would change the world" bit, it's surely not completely superfluous.


Okay, now for what's next:"Bowed legs"? What does that even mean? Are they constantly bowing? Okay, Mystical Dictionary o' Mysticalness, do your stuff!

Okay, evidently it means to "bend the body in order to see or concentrate." So...is that supposed to mean their legs are just shorter or are their legs bent or what? I'm confused.

Really? You never heard the phrase bow-legged before? It's bow like the thing that shots arrows, not like when you bend over to show respect, it means their legs look like this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genu_varum).


I'm an English major. Is it bad that I had to look up the word "poise"?

Yes.

[Lord Seth]

Magic with incantations is DBZ now, Lord Seth? Really? :smalltongue:I was referring to how you'd shout something, then have a blast come out of your hand to deal a lot of damage.

[Prime32]

I was referring to how you'd shout something, then have a blast come out of your hand to deal a lot of damage.Does it seem like DBZ when Vaarsuvius casts lightning bolt? :smallconfused: How many DBZ characters can create walls of fire around their enemies anyway?

[Katana_Geldar]

Really? You never heard the phrase bow-legged before? It's bow like the thing that shots arrows, not like when you bend over to show respect, it means their legs look like this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genu_varum).

The phrase "bow-legged" is rather archaic and seems to me a rather clumsy way of Paolini trying to appear old-fashioned. And it's not the last time he does it.

He also goes the other way and uses modern forms of expression.

And I agree with Seth, the first sentence makes no sense. Neither in it's choice of words or why it is there. And how the hell do we know that what's going to happen is going to change the world anyway?

[Reverent-One]

The phrase "bow-legged" is rather archaic and seems to me a rather clumsy way of Paolini trying to appear old-fashioned. And it's not the last time he does it.

Given that the phrase refers to legs shaped like bows, its seems like an appropriate way to describe something from a setting in which bows are a common item.


And I agree with Seth, the first sentence makes no sense. Neither in it's choice of words or why it is there. And how the hell do we know that what's going to happen is going to change the world anyway?

We know because we're told that, which would ideally make us what to know what exactly the event is, I suppose.

[Morph Bark]

Actually, I liked the first book. It's not high literature, but entertaining and well written enough for a pulp fantasy story.

The next books though...

I've read the first book in both English and Dutch, the translation admittably was easier due to being my native language, but other things might factor in too. I didn't mind the second that badly either, but the third? Ugh, I never even finished it. My sister did it in two weeks and by that time I had to struggle to get through it, picking and dropping it a few times over the next months, finally quitting just a few chapters before the end.


Does it seem like DBZ when Vaarsuvius casts lightning bolt? :smallconfused: How many DBZ characters can create walls of fire around their enemies anyway?

Directly of their own power? None. But presumably some can just fire some energy balls and hope it works out. But only hoping.

[Istari]

And how the hell do we know that what's going to happen is going to change the world anyway?

Because the author told us so, and it establishes the plot of the book? Also, if you read the cover summary, you'd probably be able to guess that this scene is rather important.

[Lord Seth]

It's a single sentence establishing time of day, weather, and attempting to be draw you in a bit with the whole "scene that would change the world" bit, it's surely not completely superfluous.Honestly, the "scent that would change the world" (I goofed up when typing it, it was scent, not scene, I went back and fixed that) was what rubbed me wrong. Just seemed really, really cheesy and unnecessary. It was, admittedly, a minor point, but I wanted to mention it because it's the first sentence of the book.


Really? You never heard the phrase bow-legged before? It's bow like the thing that shots arrows, not like when you bend over to show respect, it means their legs look like this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genu_varum).I've heard bow-legged (which the Mystical Dictionary o' Mysticalness does list), but I've never heard "legs were bowed" and it threw me off. It seems another case of, instead of using a perfectly fine and recognizable term, for some reason it's necessary to switch to a more "flowery" word or phrase.


Yes.Touché. I was more making the point that a book that's ostensibly for kids is using words that I had to look up to be sure the definition I was thinking of was right. I'd heard of the word before and knew it had something to do with elegance, but wanted to be sure I was thinking of the right definition. Actually, I can't remember the last time I ever saw that word used before the book.


Does it seem like DBZ when Vaarsuvius casts lightning bolt? :smallconfused: How many DBZ characters can create walls of fire around their enemies anyway?Well, the phrasing for some reason made me think of DBZ. Looking back and re-reading I guess it really wasn't. Still, I thought it was funny.

[Knaight]

I would agree that they deteriorated. The first was bad, but as a pulp adventure novel of the killing time variety, acceptable. The third managed to turn preachy, while simultaneously implying all sorts of nonsensical trivia regarding the setting, not the least of which being that, despite armies everywhere, nobody had figured out that ganging up on people in a fight provides an advantage. Curious.

[firemagehao]

*wince* Man, I forgot how bad Eragon's writing was.

I feel content now that I know other people think that too. I thought it might have just seemed bad because I had read Tolkien right before it.

[Reverent-One]

Honestly, the "scent that would change the world" (I goofed up when typing it, it was scent, not scene, I went back and fixed that) was what rubbed me wrong. Just seemed really, really cheesy and unnecessary. It was, admittedly, a minor point, but I wanted to mention it because it's the first sentence of the book.

Really? It's "scent"? Never mind, make fun of that sentence all you want.

[Katana_Geldar]

Given that the phrase refers to legs shaped like bows, its seems like an appropriate way to describe something from a setting in which bows are a common item.


If you are going to have a novel in the style of archaic prose, at least make it look like you know what you're doing and be consistent about it. For example, using "scene" in that sense is rather modern.


Because the author told us so, and it establishes the plot of the book? Also, if you read the cover summary, you'd probably be able to guess that this scene is rather important.

Um, show don't tell maybe? I don't need to be told this scene is important if the scene itself can do the job even better.

EDIT: Never mind, using "scent" in that way is rather dumb. It's almost like an advertising slogan

[Elfin]

Glad you're doing another one! I'll be reading eagerly.

[Lord Seth]

If you are going to have a novel in the style of archaic prose, at least make it look like you know what you're doing and be consistent about it. For example, using "scene" in that sense is rather modern.Scent, actually. I'm embarrassed that a typo on my part has caused this much confusion.

[Katana_Geldar]

Hey, you made it better! Not hard to do with Paolini.

[Starbuck_II]

Thinking back...I'm not sure why the shade just slayed the Urgals...
Maybe it gives the reader impression of how angry/upset the Shade was.

[Thrawn183]

Actually, considering the later books, I would say that that sentence involving scent turns out to true.

As for complaints about word choice? Come on, English Major, I expect better.

Edit: The shade killing the urgals does establish quite early on that he isn't exactly a nice guy. The elf is shown to actually care about her companions. I would say there is intent behind all this, even if you don't immediately know what it means upon reading it.

[Lord Seth]

As for complaints about word choice? Come on, English Major, I expect better.I had the Language and Linguistics emphasis, actually, not the general Literature emphasis. I actually was rather disappointed by it; I was expecting that we'd really be learning information about the structure of the language, why certain rules worked the way they did, and the nitty-gritty about where you use punctuation and that kind of thing, but it was all abstract theory stuff for the most part. Though, for what it's worth, English wasn't my only major; I was an English/Communication Arts (Radio-TV-Film version) major.


Edit: The shade killing the urgals does establish quite early on that he isn't exactly a nice guy. The elf is shown to actually care about her companions. I would say there is intent behind all this, even if you don't immediately know what it means upon reading it.I don't have a problem with the Shade killing his companions because he's not nice, my problem is that everything beforehand indicated that he was a calm and calculating individual, not one to get into a fit of rage to the point of killing his underlings over losing the stone. Yes, I know, it was only a few pages, but that seemed to be the guy's establishing characteristic.

Darn it people, stop replying. Here I am trying to get the next chapter's writeup done and I keep having to reply to posts!

[Lord Seth]

Well, Chuck's not on and the first chapter is really short (three pages; two if we count the first and last as combining into one) so here goes.

Previously, on Let's Read Eragon: Lots of replies, way more than I got when I did this for Twilight. I guess when you read over a fantasy book on a forum devoted to a fantasy comic, it tends to get more attention than reading over a romance book that happens to involve some fantasy.

Chapter 1: Discovery

I find it odd that it simply says "Discovery" at the top of the page. Not "Chapter 1: Discovery" or anything, just "Discovery. The table of contents doesn't list the chapter numbers either. It seems odd for those to be left out. I guess I'll number them, because the author apparently can't be bothered to.

Here the story begins, as we meet our hero, Eragon, who's going hunting. Here's our first paragraph:
Eragon knelt in a bed of trampled reed grass and scanned the tracks with a practiced eye. The prints told him that the deer had been in the meadow only a half-hour before. Soon they would bed down. His target, a small doe with a pronounced limp in her left forefoot, was still with the herd. He was amazed she had made it so far without a wolf or bear catching her."They would bed down"? I don't know if maybe I'm just out of touch or something, but that seems like a really weird phrase. Yeah, I know it's just one oddly-used word, but when I see things like that it takes me out of the novel because it seems so out of place.

Next we have a paragraph set to describe the environment of the area:
The sky was clear and dark, and a slight breeze stirred through the air. A silvery cloud drifted over the mountains that surrounded him, its edges glowing with ruddy light cast from the harvest moon cradled between two peaks. Streams flowed down the mountains from solid glaciers and glistening snowpacks. A brooding mist crept along the valley's floor, almost thick enough to obscure his feet.You know that this reminds me of? A MUD's room description.

Y'see, when I was younger, we didn't have fancy graphics like on World of Warcraft or Everquest. No, our online games were in text. The games were essentially a large collection of rooms you could walk around (there's a lot more to it than that though). And each room had a description. For example, here's one from a game I played:
A long hallway filled with door after door after door extends into the distance. The floor is made of stone, and an old, worn carpet lines the floor. The air, while cool, stays a constant temperature, despite the lack of sunlight. Which makes you wonder how the place is lit, for their are no torches, fires, or sun inside this high-ceilinged set of corridors.This specifically is from the Hall of Worlds, an area on the MUD Lands of Aethar. Specifically it's an area that has doors leading to all the other areas of the game, so it can provide quick movement around. To get it, though, you have to kill a guy named Mordekai and hope he teaches you hallwalk when you kill him, and he has a notoriously low chance of doing so (though he's not that hard to kill, although you have to pretty much fleekill him; that is, attack, run when you get low on health, heal up, then go back in and repeat until he's dead). I was really lucky though, and got hallwalk in like 1-5 tries on all my chars. Man, I had some good times on that MUD...sadly, due to going down for a while and then being brought out at a different address without much advertisement of it, there aren't that many people on it anymore. For those curious, it's now on rayne.divineright.org, Port 6565 (accessible via Telnet). My handle is Lang. Man, we had some good times there on Aethar...

Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. With a small amount of editing, this could actually work as a room description for one of the areas on the MUD. Actually it might fit better on the MUD Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands, which has more complex room descriptions; Aethar was often pretty brief in them.

Wait, darn it, I've devoted this much time to just two paragraphs? Gotta hurry up! Okay, last time I'll do quoting for a while:
Eragon was fifteen, less than a year from manhood. Dark eye-brows rested above his intense brown eyes. His clothes were worn from work. A hunting knife with a bone handle was sheathed at his belt, and a buckskin tube protected his yew bow from the mist. He carried a wood-frame pack.Not really much to comment with here, but figured I might as well share it as it's our first description of our hero.

Eragon's in the Spine, a range of untamed mountains that extended up and down the land of Alagaësia. Why is there those two dots above the e? It's so completely unnecessary, not to mention annoying to type. Speaking of the Spine, part of Aethar was a mountain range called the Northern Spine. Evidently, "strange men and tales" often come from the mountains, usually boding ill, but Eragon isn't afraid of it and is the only hunter near Carvahall who "dared track game deep into its craggy recesses."

Eragon has been hunting for three nights and his food is half gone. This reminds me of NetHack. Did you ever wonder why some roles in the game start with food and some don't? The reason is supposedly that each role took food for their journey to the Dungeon of Doom, but some only brought enough to get there while some brought so much that they had food left over when they entered. Darn it, I got sidetracked again. Anyway, Eragon's hunting to get meat for his family as they can't afford to buy it.

Eragon finds the deer sleeping (at least I think that's it, the wording is a little unclear) and creeps closer slowly, ready to fire his bow at it. We're told that "all his work of the past three days had led to this moment." I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but I find it an interesting parallel that in the prologue the Shade noted that "it had taken many plots and much pain to bring himself to this moment." Unfortunately for Eragon, an explosion shatters the night, causing the herd to bolt. He tries to shoot the doe but barely misses. He spins around and behind him, where the deer had been, is a a large circle of smoldered grass and trees. In the center of it is a polished blue stone. Nothing moves for a few minutes so Eragon goes over and picks up the stone. Then we get a description of it!
Nature had never polished a stone as smooth as this one. Its flawless surface was dark blue, except for thin veins of white that spiderwebbed across it. The stone was cool and frictionless under his fingers, like hardened silk. Oval and about a foot long, it weighed several pounds, thought it felt lighter than it should have.How can it feel frictionless? If it feels frictionless, by definition he can't hold it.

Okay, okay, I admit I am getting a bit nitpicky about word usage, but it keeps happening and I keep noticing it. I keep seeing words that make me think "wait, that doesn't work here" and it takes me out of the story. This is, oddly, something that rarely happened to me when reading Twilight.

Eragon has no idea where the stone came from or what its purpose is, then ponders whether it was an accident he found it or if he was supposed to. He considers that according to the old stories, it was to treat magic and those who use it with caution. He considers leaving it there as it would be tiresome to carry, and there was a chance it was dangerous (well, it did leave a giant scorch mark on the land). However, something stays his hand from dropping it, and he tucks it into his pack, thinking it might at least pay for some food. He goes back into the forest (the glen is too exposed to make a safe camp), eats dinner, then falls asleep wrapped in blankets, pondering what had occurred.


Thoughts: Well, we were introduced to Eragon. Not really much else to write about. He finds the stone (well of course he did, the story would've been about someone else if someone else had found it) and takes it with him. We don't really know much about him at all at this point.

So far a good amount of mystery has surrounded the stone, and we don't know what it is. This is actually pretty good, though somewhat diminished by the fact that the book jacket flat-out tells you what it is. Other than that, there's nothing particularly special about it other than some odd word usage. The prose isn't as bad as I thought it was when I first read this chapter a while ago, but maybe that's because I'm not going into it trying to find reasons to hate it this time. Still, the word usage is problematic, and I keep noticing it.

[Fri]

You know, maybe the reason on why I enjoy the book more than I should be is because I read the translated version. Translated books cut down purple phrase considerably. Normally, this is bad, since there are a lot of nuance, phrase, and wordplay that can only be felt in the original language. But simplistic translation might do good on Eragon.

[Katana_Geldar]

That's right Seth, odd choices of worse or phrasing should not bring you out of the story.

[Astrella]

You know, maybe the reason on why I enjoy the book more than I should be is because I read the translated version. Translated books cut down purple phrase considerably. Normally, this is bad, since there are a lot of nuance, phrase, and wordplay that can only be felt in the original language. But simplistic translation might do good on Eragon.

Yep, I read the Dutch versions of the first two books myself, and they were written a lot more readable then I've come to understand of the English versions.

[Katana_Geldar]

No chance of getting a translated verion BACK into English for the less linguistically inclined?

[Astrella]

An entertaining read might be the Eragon sporkings (http://eragon-sporkings.wikispaces.com/eragon_sporkings_page).

[Knaight]

Well. It seems that Twilight has considerably better prose than Eragon. It seems I've been too harsh on it and too light on this one. That will be rectified.

[Katana_Geldar]

There's a different between bad prose from a bad writer and bad prose from an inexperienced writer. I see Eragon as something that could very plausibly come out of a high school creative writing course. There's promise in it, but it lacks form and polish.

But given that Paolini was comparatively young when he wrote it, he can be excused. For back then though, not now as he hasn't improved, he's gotten worse.

A lot of the fault in Eragon lies with Paolini's editor, and that the book was vanity published to begin with.

[Haruki-kun]

Well. It seems that Twilight has considerably better prose than Eragon. It seems I've been too harsh on it and too light on this one. That will be rectified.

I disagree. At least Paolini doesn't spend several paragraphs describing Eragon's perfect face. When reading the first Twilight book, I got bored of that all the time, so I finished it and didn't pick up the later books.

[Fjolnir]

my biggest issue with the entire Eragon series comes in the first book slightly later, though I guess that's a bit of a spoiler...
When they capture Eragon for a time and bring him to the weird mountain redoubt the villains are Closer to the BBEG's home base than they are to the supposedly unconquerable mountain base, concidering the level of magic mindscrew that one of the other characters gets at the hands of the BBEG they could EASILY have won, and made the chase that much shorter too because the journey to the mountain took several EXTRA DAYS, during which the heroes use magic to heal up and travel quickly towards them. This is gathered from reading the map in the front of the book and simple logic, the BBEG is supposed to be the strongest magician in the land as well as an experienced dragon rider and all sorts of other mean nasty...

[Haruki-kun]

my biggest issue with the entire Eragon series comes in the first book slightly later, though I guess that's a bit of a spoiler...

Use spoiler tags, then? :smalltongue:

@V: Or a physics book.

[Katana_Geldar]

One thing we can say about Paolini, he hasn't read Hitch hikers. He'd know what frictionless meant then.

[Maximum Zersk]

One thing we can say about Paolini, he hasn't read Hitch hikers. He'd know what frictionless meant then.

I am extremely curious as to what would happen if instead of a gem, a couch appeared in the glade instead.

[Helanna]

As for complaints about word choice? Come on, English Major, I expect better.


Well, it seems to be something that Lord Seth has already picked up on - Paolini cannot use the English language properly. It only gets worse from here. It's just that so many words don't quite fit - it seems like he grabbed random words out of a thesaurus. They mean the same thing, but there are subtle, nuanced differences between them that Paolini just can't grasp, and it ends up being really jolting because those words don't belong there.


I disagree. At least Paolini doesn't spend several paragraphs describing Eragon's perfect face. When reading the first Twilight book, I got bored of that all the time, so I finished it and didn't pick up the later books.

Well, we haven't met Eragon's love interest yet. I swear to the gods if there were any more references to her lithe, curvy, black-leather-clad body in that freakin' book . . . At least Meyer managed to keep the focus above the neck. And at least the prose was okay doing it. Paolini's prose is . . . not okay. At all.

[Haruki-kun]

Well, we haven't met Eragon's love interest yet. I swear to the gods if there were any more references to her lithe, curvy, black-leather-clad body in that freakin' book . . . At least Meyer managed to keep the focus above the neck. And at least the prose was okay doing it. Paolini's prose is . . . not okay. At all.

Agreed on Paolini's prose. Disagreed on Meyer's. A) She did describe his body a lot. B) Her prose was not OK doing it.

But either way, I suppose we should just go back to focusing on Eragon in this thread.

[warty goblin]

The phrase "bow-legged" is rather archaic and seems to me a rather clumsy way of Paolini trying to appear old-fashioned. And it's not the last time he does it.

It's not really that archaic. It's pretty much the only term I've ever read for that particular appearance actually.



I would agree that they deteriorated. The first was bad, but as a pulp adventure novel of the killing time variety, acceptable. The third managed to turn preachy, while simultaneously implying all sorts of nonsensical trivia regarding the setting, not the least of which being that, despite armies everywhere, nobody had figured out that ganging up on people in a fight provides an advantage. Curious.

If people in heroic fantasy started ganging up in fights, the hero would always end up with an Orc shiv through the spine halfway through the first fight scene. It's hard enough to beat one person in combat. Two is much worse. Two people who coordinate their attacks effectively are extremely difficult to defeat.

Either that or develop absolutely implausible combat prowess even earlier. Yes, that's what would happen. Dammit, I liked the first visual better.



Here the story begins, as we meet our hero, Eragon, who's going hunting. Here's our first paragraph:"They would bed down"? I don't know if maybe I'm just out of touch or something, but that seems like a really weird phrase

I'm pretty sure it actually is just you here. Deer bedding down is pretty much the term for that phenomena*. Unless you're talking about the construction of the future tense, in which case yes, it's rather awkward.

*More disturbing is the main character's poor knowledge of hunting tactics. The best time for deer is dawn or dusk, when they are moving and feeding. Then one can strike from concealment and have much lower chance of making a noise and being spotted. Furthermore him being a hunter, it really should be termed a 'hunter's moon' not a harvest moon.




Eragon finds the deer sleeping (at least I think that's it, the wording is a little unclear) and creeps closer slowly, ready to fire his bow at it.

Pet nitpick of mine. One does not fire a bow. Fire in the sense of launching a projectile does not appear until after the invention and proliferation of firearms. Bows are shot, arrows are loosed or released, but neither is fired.

[Mystic Muse]

I think it's somewhat unreasonable to expect him to have a vast command of the english language since he was 15 when he wrote the first book.

[nihilism]

{{scrubbed}}

[warty goblin]

{{scrubbed}}

[Fri]

looks like someone is envious because he didn't managed to publish his own writings :smallwink:.

On more serious tone, I do believe that a lot of the more seething criticism are from people who are annoyed that their (supposedly better) writing failed to get published, and Paolini got published because his parents got a publishing house.

It's just fate, in my opinion. Lots of legendary actors or writers got famous because they meet the correct person at a correct time. And connection is the way of life. You can't blame him for using connection.

[Katana_Geldar]

I think it's somewhat unreasonable to expect him to have a vast command of the english language since he was 15 when he wrote the first book.

It may be, but... Paolini did have a professional editior who DOES know these things.

[Mystic Muse]

It may be, but... Paolini did have a professional editior who DOES know these things.

Good point.

So, we should be blaming the editor, not the author on the first book from now on.

[Katana_Geldar]

They are both at fault but in different ways. The editor should really have helped Paolini with the crafting aspects of it, such as the language things we have picked up on. More importantly, it's their job to know these things and furthermore they should know what they are doing.

But Paolini as the author is just as guilty, though I am willing to excuse him for his simple lack of experience. And I know this to be true not just because of his age, but the fact he's still in love with his own work. A writer must be their own worst critic in order to begin anywhere, Paolini clearly isn't there yet. And there's only one way to get there...to write, a lot, and more, and more.

[Raistlin1040]

I think it's somewhat unreasonable to expect him to have a vast command of the english language since he was 15 when he wrote the first book.First of all, there a number of 15 year olds who have a better grasp of the English language than Paolini did at the time of his writing, so don't be condescending to teenage writers. Secondly, he started at 15. He didn't finish until he was 16, and he didn't finish his first round of rewrites until he was 18. By the time it was first published by his parents' company, he was 19. There was sufficient time for editing on his part, and contrary to what you might think, the editor's job isn't to fix a novel completely. It's the responsibility of the author to submit a reasonably edited novel beforehand.

It's one thing to be a poor author. It's another thing entirely to be a poor author who hides behind inexperience. If you've gone through the trouble to write a novel, go through the editing process, and have seen a book through print, I expect that you have some skill with your craft. Saying that Paolini is a poor writer because he was 15 is not only somewhat inaccurate, but also dismissive of the fact that he is actually a fairly poor writer. If he'd improved over the next two books, then we could discuss if he was just inexperienced, but he hasn't. He is 26 now and still a poor writer. There's no need to make excuses for him.

[Mystic Muse]

A writer must be their own worst critic in order to begin anywhere.

I keep trying to write a book and I know I'm my own worst critic. Everything I write I end up hating and deleting.

[Syka]

Lord Seth, I don't have much time to comment, but you do need to buck up on vocabulary. Poise is fairly common, in particular. Bowed legs and using "bed down" meaning to sleep isn't entirely uncommon in my experience, either.


Reading these Let's Read things has made me appreciate just READING a book. I read both Twilight and Eragon and limited how I let what I'd heard affect it. I'd heard questionable things about the prose of both books. I could hardly get through Twilight (I succeeded though!), but I actually enjoyed Eragon. I'll admit, the prologue was funky, but the rest of Eragon I enjoyed and didn't have a problem with the vocabulary. Even with the descriptions of the future love interest, it still didn't grate on me as much as Twilight's dwelling on Edward.

Also, the below is spoiled for a reason; it's my thoughts regarding love subplot.

I think this is because it's handled in a realistic manner. The attraction grows over a period, and is even rebuffed several times. It's not just they fall in love with each other, end of story. It's he fell in love with her, she isn't in love with him. Oh, and other stuff is actually the focus of the story and this is just a subplot that's examined over more than one book. I'm actually more of the mind that Nasuada and Eragon will end up together, personally.

[Prime32]

I think this is because it's handled in a realistic manner. The attraction grows over a period, and is even rebuffed several times. It's not just they fall in love with each other, end of story. It's he fell in love with her, she isn't in love with him. Oh, and other stuff is actually the focus of the story and this is just a subplot that's examined over more than one book. I'm actually more of the mind that Nasuada and Eragon will end up together, personally.:smallconfused: I don't know... I thought Nasuada was afraid of Eragon. (specifically, afraid that he'll do something so stupid that everything is screwed up forever)

That describes most of Eragon's allies, actually...

[Helanna]

I think it's somewhat unreasonable to expect him to have a vast command of the english language since he was 15 when he wrote the first book.

RAEG! :smallfurious:

Seriously, that's one of my pet peeves when it comes to this series. First, as has been explained, Paolini was 15 when he started it, and 19 by the time it was finished. I'd certainly expect a 19 year old to be a far better writer than a 15 year old, and he should have been able to go back and see all the flaws with his writing.

Second, why the hell does it matter? If Paolini can't write, why would you publish him at any age? Being young doesn't just give you a free pass to publish crap. Saying "Yeah it's bad, but it's okay because he was young!" is just ridiculous - bad writing is bad writing, regardless of the age of the writer, and probably shouldn't be published.


Lord Seth, I don't have much time to comment, but you do need to buck up on vocabulary. Poise is fairly common, in particular. Bowed legs and using "bed down" meaning to sleep isn't entirely uncommon in my experience, either.

I do agree with this . . . there's so much worse vocabulary coming up, don't pick on the [I]ordinary[I] language!



I think this is because it's handled in a realistic manner. The attraction grows over a period, and is even rebuffed several times. It's not just they fall in love with each other, end of story. It's he fell in love with her, she isn't in love with him. Oh, and other stuff is actually the focus of the story and this is just a subplot that's examined over more than one book. I'm actually more of the mind that Nasuada and Eragon will end up together, personally.

But he did just randomly fall in love with her because she's hot, as far as I recall he didn't really know anything about her. Just that she looked hot in black leather. And I'm pretty sure it'll be Arya and Eragon, because apparently Arya is or is falling in love with Eragon because of how much he's changed . . . namely, he became an elf. Nothing else about him mentally has changed, but she falls in love with him because . . . that's what love interests in fantasy books do.

Still is better than Twilight as far as plot goes, but again, Twilight was never meant to have much in the way of plot. Eragon does, so I expect a better quality out of it.

[Salbazier]

Heh, I always found it funny that I like Eragon so much when the world seems hellbent on hating it :smallamused:. It's quite fun to be different :smallwink: Well, like Fri, that's partly maybe because I read the translated version. Me being younger at that time may contribute as well (haven't read as many fantasy novels as of now).

I never interested to read Twillight though. Vampire romance are just ... well, it spark less interest in me than fantasy with dragons. That, and I've read the bad reviews first.

As for falling in love because someone looks hot... at least it was a sensible reason to be attracted to someone. Dunno about true love or whatever but I think there could be worse reasons.

[Haruki-kun]

And I know this to be true not just because of his age, but the fact he's still in love with his own work. A writer must be their own worst critic

Does that mean I'm a good writer? :smalltongue: This gives me hope.

[warty goblin]

But Paolini as the author is just as guilty, though I am willing to excuse him for his simple lack of experience. And I know this to be true not just because of his age, but the fact he's still in love with his own work. A writer must be their own worst critic in order to begin anywhere, Paolini clearly isn't there yet. And there's only one way to get there...to write, a lot, and more, and more.

You do have to be your own worst critic yes, but there's nothing wrong with loving what you are writing. Otherwise why bother to write it and go through all the trouble of dragging it over the coals? You've gotta believe something worthwhile is going to result from all that work.

Even if 'worthwhile' means 'makes me money.'

[Theodoriph]

For those who have read the book, is the fact that Eragon's eyebrows are dark relevant in any way?

Unless Eragon is a blonde, in which case the dark eyebrows may give us insight into his personality and hint that he's insecure about his body image and thus uses peroxide to become more aesthetically pleasing.

[Prime32]

But he did just randomly fall in love with her because she's hot, as far as I recall he didn't really know anything about her. Just that she looked hot in black leather. And I'm pretty sure it'll be Arya and Eragon, because apparently Arya is or is falling in love with Eragon because of how much he's changed . . . namely, he became an elf. Nothing else about him mentally has changed, but she falls in love with him because . . . that's what love interests in fantasy books do.

Still is better than Twilight as far as plot goes, but again, Twilight was never meant to have much in the way of plot. Eragon does, so I expect a better quality out of it.What? :smallconfused: First, while looking good in leather can't have hurt, his infatuation came partly from the fact that she was a mysterious woman who had been entering his mind at night to beg for help (it's my personal theory that elves have a Glamer and that this would make him more vulnerable to it). Second, it was more like:

Eragon: "Arya you are so beautiful to me."
Arya: "That's just creepy, especially since an elf your age would be considered a toddler."
Eragon: "I've been keeping cuttings of your hair."
Arya: "...I'm going to be polite here and just ask you to drop this, 'k?"
Eragon: "I promise. For you."
*later*
Eragon: "HAVE MY BABIES ARYA!"
Arya: *screams*
Queen: "Arya... Don't. Make the Chosen One. Emo. If you keep this up we're all f***d."
Arya: "..."
Arya: "...let's just be friends."

Plus it's possible that Arya is his half-sister. (An elf hesitates when Eragon asks Arya's age, then says she was born around the fall of the Riders. Plus, Star Wars parallels.)

The only way I could see them falling in love is if Arya bonds with the green dragon and it falls in love with Saphira. Which, admittedly, seems quite possible, but it hasn't happened yet.

[Mystic Muse]

RAEG! :smallfurious:

Seriously, that's one of my pet peeves when it comes to this series. First, as has been explained, Paolini was 15 when he started it, and 19 by the time it was finished. I'd certainly expect a 19 year old to be a far better writer than a 15 year old, and he should have been able to go back and see all the flaws with his writing.

I wasn't aware it took four years to write the story. My mistake. Yeah, I agree, at that point there really is no excuse.



Second, why the hell does it matter? If Paolini can't write, why would you publish him at any age? Being young doesn't just give you a free pass to publish crap. Saying "Yeah it's bad, but it's okay because he was young!" is just ridiculous - bad writing is bad writing, regardless of the age of the writer, and probably shouldn't be published.

For some reason I got it in my head that Paolini just did Eragon for fun and his parents decided to publish it anyway.

[Lord Seth]

Lord Seth, I don't have much time to comment, but you do need to buck up on vocabulary. Poise is fairly common, in particular. Bowed legs and using "bed down" meaning to sleep isn't entirely uncommon in my experience, either.Poise is certainly not "fairly common." My point, however, was that it keeps unnecessarily going for more "artsy" descriptions that are more confusing. I've seen "bow-legged" several times; never "bowed legs" that I remember. "Bed down" is an even more obvious case where there's just no reason to use a better0known phrase, especially considering the book is supposed to be written for a younger audience. Heck, to confuse even further, the phrase "soon they would bed down" immediately follows a sentence about footprints, giving the feeling that it has something to do with footprints disappearing or something.

[Erts]

This is... Great. Seth, you never fail to amaze. Thank you, this help's me look back at a book I read because a bunch of friends said it was pretty good.

[Fri]

Poise is certainly not "fairly common." My point, however, was that it keeps unnecessarily going for more "artsy" descriptions that are more confusing. I've seen "bow-legged" several times; never "bowed legs" that I remember. "Bed down" is an even more obvious case where there's just no reason to use a better0known phrase, especially considering the book is supposed to be written for a younger audience. Heck, to confuse even further, the phrase "soon they would bed down" immediately follows a sentence about footprints, giving the feeling that it has something to do with footprints disappearing or something.

Sorry to bringing this up again, but, uh, poise is somewhat common. I'm not even an english/french speaker, but have that word in my basic english vocab.

[Lord Seth]

Sorry to bringing this up again, but, uh, poise is somewhat common. I'm not even an english/french speaker, but have that word in my basic english vocab. What's a simpler word for it then? Because actually, I can't find a word with that description with a 'more common usage' from the top of my mind so I usually have to use that word. I have to look at thesaurus now if I want to find another word for it.Confidence, elegance, balance (if you're using the archaic definition), grace, dignity, and calmness all come to mind pretty quickly. Actually now that I think about it, "surveying one's surroundings with poise" just plain sounds a little weird regardless of whether you know the word or swap it out for something else.

But okay, I'll give you that maybe the word is known a bit better than I thought; maybe it's just my personal experience that I haven't seen it used much. There's bigger vocabulary problems in the first two chapters that I noted anyway.

For those wondering about schedules, I'm currently planning to do a chapter every other day, by the way.

EDIT: I've decided to add a "table of contents" to the first page for people who want quick links to my posts in the read-through. I'll probably go back and do that for my Twilight read-through sometime this week.

[Helanna]

What? :smallconfused: First, while looking good in leather can't have hurt, his infatuation came partly from the fact that she was a mysterious woman who had been entering his mind at night to beg for help (it's my personal theory that elves have a Glamer and that this would make him more vulnerable to it). Second, it was more like:

Eragon: "Arya you are so beautiful to me."
Arya: "That's just creepy, especially since an elf your age would be considered a toddler."
Eragon: "I've been keeping cuttings of your hair."
Arya: "...I'm going to be polite here and just ask you to drop this, 'k?"
Eragon: "I promise. For you."
*later*
Eragon: "HAVE MY BABIES ARYA!"
Arya: *screams*
Queen: "Arya... Don't. Make the Chosen One. Emo. If you keep this up we're all f***d."
Arya: "..."
Arya: "...let's just be friends."

Plus it's possible that Arya is his half-sister. (An elf hesitates when Eragon asks Arya's age, then says she was born around the fall of the Riders. Plus, Star Wars parallels.)

The only way I could see them falling in love is if Arya bonds with the green dragon and it falls in love with Saphira. Which, admittedly, seems quite possible, but it hasn't happened yet.

Sorry, it's been a while since I read the last book, so I might be wrong. When I read it last it seemed to me that she was definitely softening to his advances. Which she shouldn't, because Eragon is still extremely young and immature by elven standards, her original objections all still stand, and he has, as you pointed out, been rather creepy in his single-minded pursuit of her, which is mostly based off her looks. Seriously, as I recall (and again, it's been a while so correct me if I'm wrong) he very rarely says anything that he actually likes about her, other than that she's a beautiful elven princess. It just feels rather forced. Although I've been hoping that I'm wrong and they don't end up together - like I said, it was just my impression of what was happening.

Actually, when does the next book come out? It's been a couple of years, hasn't it?



For some reason I got it in my head that Paolini just did Eragon for fun and his parents decided to publish it anyway.

Yeah, his parents owned a publishing press and decided to publish their son. Which I can certainly understand. Then a representative from a bigger, 'official' publishing business picked up on it and decided that it was going to be a big money-maker that they should own. And somehow they were right.

[Syka]

Sorry, it's been a while since I read the last book, so I might be wrong. When I read it last it seemed to me that she was definitely softening to his advances. Which she shouldn't, because Eragon is still extremely young and immature by elven standards, her original objections all still stand, and he has, as you pointed out, been rather creepy in his single-minded pursuit of her, which is mostly based off her looks. Seriously, as I recall (and again, it's been a while so correct me if I'm wrong) he very rarely says anything that he actually likes about her, other than that she's a beautiful elven princess. It just feels rather forced. Although I've been hoping that I'm wrong and they don't end up together - like I said, it was just my impression of what was happening.

Actually, when does the next book come out? It's been a couple of years, hasn't it?


I just read Brisingr a month or so ago, and I don't recall Arya really 'softening' to his advances. Last I recall she was still ":smallconfused: You're being a creeper, dude. Back off." but nicer about it.

As I said, it just feels more real. Eragon is a besotted teenager (I never said he doesn't focus on looks, he does) and Arya calls him on it (which is why I don't mind it as much). I really hope Arya sticks to her guns, even if Nasuada isn't a potential love interest.

Also, anyone else amused that the illustrator's last name looks similar to the name of Eragon's home valley?

[Salbazier]

I just read Brisingr a month or so ago, and I don't recall Arya really 'softening' to his advances. Last I recall she was still ":smallconfused: You're being a creeper, dude. Back off." but nicer about it.

As I said, it just feels more real. Eragon is a besotted teenager (I never said he doesn't focus on looks, he does) and Arya calls him on it (which is why I don't mind it as much). I really hope Arya sticks to her guns, even if Nasuada isn't a potential love interest.

Also, anyone else amused that the illustrator's last name looks similar to the name of Eragon's home valley?

He did name it for the illustrator.

[Syka]

Well, I feel silly now. :smalltongue: I blame it on accounting.

[Mystic Muse]

Actually, when does the next book come out?

Eragon came out in 2003, Eldest came out in 2005 and Brisingr came out in 2008. So, it could easily be another year before the last one comes out just off that.



Yeah, his parents owned a publishing press and decided to publish their son. Which I can certainly understand. Then a representative from a bigger, 'official' publishing business picked up on it and decided that it was going to be a big money-maker that they should own. And somehow they were right.

So the moral of today's lesson is "everybody should have known better"

[Haruki-kun]

So the moral of today's lesson is "everybody should have known better"

Not really.

Writing is an art. Publishing is a business. The book sold, which means the publisher made good business.

So I don't think it was for them to have known better. *shrug*

[The_JJ]

"surveying one's surroundings with poise"

Yeah, it's not the word, it's just the use that's weird. "I look at stuff... with balance!" Doesn't jive well. I mean, I can look at stuff while being poised, but not with poise.

[Haruki-kun]

Yeah, it's not the word, it's just the use that's weird. "I look at stuff... with balance!" Doesn't jive well. I mean, I can look at stuff while being poised, but not with poise.

Actually (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/poise?r=75&src=ref&ch=dic) it can mean steadiness or composture. Or a dignified self-confident manner.

Still, it's true it doesn't sound well. She could have poised and surveyed her surroundings... Or just surveyed her surroundings, really. With her eyes instead of with poise. :smalltongue:

[Katana_Geldar]

Loving your work is not the same as being in love with it. Writers need to be able to look at their work constructively to the point where they can take criticsm, admit the faults and try to fix them. Paolini doesn't show this, he's too close to his work to look at it objectively.

As for the word "poise", used as an adjective it's usually used to describe a person's demanour, not how they do something. "She carried herself with poise" works much better. It looks as if Paolini was trying to do two things at once and not succeeding at either. The best way to describe his prose would be pretentious and awkward, his lack of skill with writing gets in the way of his story. He tries to tell his story in a style similar to Tolkein and never gets there. There is no try in writing and Paolini seems to forget that he's not an Oxford professor.
Really, if you are going to imitate the style of a writer there are easier ones to go from. And you can even get away sometimes with a relatively modern style of prose in a fantasy novel. It's easier to read and more suited to younger audiences.

[The_JJ]

Actually (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/poise?r=75&src=ref&ch=dic) it can mean steadiness or composture. Or a dignified self-confident manner.

Still, it's true it doesn't sound well. She could have poised and surveyed her surroundings... Or just surveyed her surroundings, really. With her eyes instead of with poise. :smalltongue:

The balance thing was a hyperbolic joke pointing out the absurdity, and indeed, I was attempting to make the second point.

And I don't know if poised is a really a personal verb anymore. State of being, perhaps. Pose is a verb.

[Megaduck]

You know that this reminds me of? A MUD's room description.

That’s because it is, for all intents and purposes, a MUD’s room description. Paolini is painting here, which he tends to do every time he wants to describe something.

Basically what that means, is that he stops the story, and then throws every detail he can think of at the audience in one big static chunk like he was trying to paint a picture. In a MUD the works because the game needs to get as much information to the player as possible so the player can get an idea of the area and make decisions. In writing it doesn’t work because it stops the flow of the writing to get a big chunk of exposition in.

A better way to do it would have been to break the description into pieces and scatter it all over the page. That way it’s mixed in with the action and it’s much less noticeable.

The other problem with the description is that it’s chunky. If you look at it again you might notice that the sentences don’t have to be sitting next to each other. You can take say,


The sky was clear and dark, and a slight breeze stirred through the air. and
A brooding mist crept along the valley's floor, almost thick enough to obscure his feet. And put them just about anywhere because they’re not really well connected.

The only one that does connect a little bit is this one,

A silvery cloud drifted over the mountains that surrounded him, its edges glowing with ruddy light cast from the harvest moon cradled between two peaks. Streams flowed down the mountains from solid glaciers and glistening snowpacks.

Sentence one ends with the peaks and sentence two begins with the water flowing off the peaks. It gives this two sentences a logical reason to be together.

Also the description of Eragon is a POV violation. Most of the story is told in third person limited with Eragon as the POV. Unfortunately, he can’t stand outside himself to look at himself.

Now, these aren’t really major issues but they are amateurish ones. It indicates Paolini wasn’t getting much feedback when he was writing this. They’re things a writing teacher or editor should pick up on in a heartbeat and they’re relatively easy fixes.

[Dr.Epic]

Eragon; not to be confused with Aragorn.
E-Ragon: the electronic Ragon

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Yeah, it's not the word, it's just the use that's weird. "I look at stuff... with balance!" Doesn't jive well. I mean, I can look at stuff while being poised, but not with poise.

I think that's what bothers me about that sentence. Not being a linguist, I can only say I wouldn't do things with poise, but rather have poise (or be poised) while I'm doing things.

[Knaight]

If people in heroic fantasy started ganging up in fights, the hero would always end up with an Orc shiv through the spine halfway through the first fight scene. It's hard enough to beat one person in combat. Two is much worse. Two people who coordinate their attacks effectively are extremely difficult to defeat.

Oh, its worse than that. People gang up on Eragon all the time, usually to no effect. The one time he gangs up on an opponent with Arya, having two people there suddenly has the sort of effect one would expect.

As for two people in combat, its doable, but yes, extremely difficult*. Three is the edge of plausible, four possible against the inexperienced. But any book that tries to be realistic then throws in a six on one is lying to itself.

*Particularly certain weapon combinations. A two handed polearm is enough of a pain to fight against as it is, if there is a guy who can get in the way of any attempt to rush them who has a shield and a weapon, its all sorts of difficult.

Next point. Regarding how this reads like he pulled out a thesaurus, assumed all the words had exactly the same meaning and not highly related ones with variety in implication, and used whichever sounds the most flowery. Why are we assuming this isn't actually the case?

[Helanna]

I just read Brisingr a month or so ago, and I don't recall Arya really 'softening' to his advances. Last I recall she was still ":smallconfused: You're being a creeper, dude. Back off." but nicer about it.

As I said, it just feels more real. Eragon is a besotted teenager (I never said he doesn't focus on looks, he does) and Arya calls him on it (which is why I don't mind it as much). I really hope Arya sticks to her guns, even if Nasuada isn't a potential love interest.

Huh, okay, I must just be mis-remembering then. Even more reason to hope that they don't end up together, then, I guess! Although his prophecy states that he's going to leave the land with royalty of some sort, doesn't it? So maybe Nasuada's still an option.


Oh, its worse than that. People gang up on Eragon all the time, usually to no effect. The one time he gangs up on an opponent with Arya, having two people there suddenly has the sort of effect one would expect.

As for two people in combat, its doable, but yes, extremely difficult*. Three is the edge of plausible, four possible against the inexperienced. But any book that tries to be realistic then throws in a six on one is lying to itself.

Well don't forget the battle scenes! What about the one from the second or third book where

Roran kills nearly 200 men, by himself, over the course of a couple of hours? I think maybe it was mostly one-on-one, but that just brings up the question of how the hell that even happened in the middle of the battle, when Roran was fighting rather isolated from everyone else. And also everything else that was wrong with that scene.


Next point. Regarding how this reads like he pulled out a thesaurus, assumed all the words had exactly the same meaning and not highly related ones with variety in implication, and used whichever sounds the most flowery. Why are we assuming this isn't actually the case?

I am assuming that this is the case.

[Syka]

I think I realized why I'm sympathetic to his language usage. My vocabulary is...well developed from several years of reading (my recreational reading includes many books that many of my peers wouldn't touch unless required, mostly older books) and Latin/Greek classes. I use big words more than I think I do, according to Boyfriend. So perhaps that's why I haven't got the whole "out of place" language thing overall (I'll admit some of the phrasing is apparently awkward, but when I just read it through, I didn't catch that). It's completely unintentional, it's just how I talk, and I'm definitely not a pompous person or trying to show off.

I think I just forget people don't tend to read as much as I do. >>'

[HalfTangible]

Magic with incantations is DBZ now, Lord Seth? Really? :smalltongue:

And I must be some kind of super-genius, because I didn't need to refer to a dictionary once. :smallamused:


Side-note: I've seen a lot of complaints on how Paolini keeps describing the elf's "raven tresses", and that there's no way we'd forget something like that. Here's a pic of the elf from the movie:
[IMG]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qURiuWoC9BA/SGw-IH8f9FI/AAAAAAAAACQ/dTIyaXG_bD0/s320/Eragon-movie-31.jpg[IMG]

What i cannot understand is why the people next to me liked that movie >.> It was total CRAP! Why did Saphira come up with her own name when she was named after somebody else's dragon? How did she grow up in six seconds? Why did the audio cut out partway through one of the scenes (i checked, it wasn't isolated to the theater i was in, it happened to others in the same scene >.>)


I hate it, HATE it, when a fantasy book is called out on the idiocy of events in the world based on the idea that it's the real world. If i wanted a realistic story i wouldn't go buy a book with a friggen DRAGON on the cover :smallannoyed:

I liked the Eragon books, really did. This might have been because i never thought even once he was trying to imitate Tolkien's style of writing (though that itself might be because i stopped trying to understand Tolkien only partway through the fellowship) The 'moral lessons' were annoying, (particularly with the Urgals >.>) but it's still a good read... well, that and i have a dragon fetish =/

I wish i could comment on the writing but i'm not a very good writer either, so... :smallfrown: Moving on.

@The fight in the second or third book: I assumed he was a warrior of high skill, experience and strength up against mostly wet-behind-the-ears rookies that didn't know what they were doing (if I'm thinking of the right scene, anyway)

Honestly? I was most annoyed by the soldiers in the third book described as painless. Somehow this made them invincible, that they could not tell when their heart stopped? The heart still STOPPED, you'd still DIE!

But i let it slide since 'painless' was a description given by one of the soldiers himself.

[Haruki-kun]

Why are we assuming this isn't actually the case?

We are? :smallconfused:

[Helanna]

I think I realized why I'm sympathetic to his language usage. My vocabulary is...well developed from several years of reading (my recreational reading includes many books that many of my peers wouldn't touch unless required, mostly older books) and Latin/Greek classes. I use big words more than I think I do, according to Boyfriend. So perhaps that's why I haven't got the whole "out of place" language thing overall (I'll admit some of the phrasing is apparently awkward, but when I just read it through, I didn't catch that). It's completely unintentional, it's just how I talk, and I'm definitely not a pompous person or trying to show off.

I think I just forget people don't tend to read as much as I do. >>'

See, I do the same thing, and I didn't notice it at first either . . . but once I noticed it I just couldn't stop getting distracted by it. This isn't 'Oh noes Paolini is using big words!' It's 'Oh noes Paolini is using big words incorrectly and just for the sake of using big words, not because it's actually the best word to use!'



I hate it, HATE it, when a fantasy book is called out on the idiocy of events in the world based on the idea that it's the real world. If i wanted a realistic story i wouldn't go buy a book with a friggen DRAGON on the cover :smallannoyed:

What exactly do you mean by this? Do you mean people who are like "This is stupid because there's dragons and magic in it and those aren't real"? Because those people are obnoxious. Or do you mean people who are like "This scene is illogical, full of plot holes, inconsistent, and doesn't make sense?" Because being fantasy doesn't excuse crap writing, and I HATE complaining about legitimate flaws in a book only to be told "Well, what were you expecting? It's fantasy, of course it's not realistic." I was expecting half-way decent writing, gorramit. :smallfurious:


I liked the Eragon books, really did. This might have been because i never thought even once he was trying to imitate Tolkien's style of writing (though that itself might be because i stopped trying to understand Tolkien only partway through the fellowship)

He specifically is trying to imitate Tolkien (another bad thing for a writer to do - don't 'try' to imitate anyone. Everyone has their own style. Find yours and use it.) He once said he was striving for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Beowulf and Tolkien at his best . . . he doesn't quite make it.


I wish i could comment on the writing but i'm not a very good writer either, so... :smallfrown: Moving on.

Doesn't mean you can't comment on someone else's writing. I'm not a good cook but I know when someone else's cooking is bad.


@The fight in the second or third book: I assumed he was a warrior of high skill, experience and strength up against mostly wet-behind-the-ears rookies that didn't know what they were doing (if I'm thinking of the right scene, anyway)

Nothing excuses that scene. That is just absolutely over-the-top and ridiculous, and doesn't make sense however you look at it. Roran is not a warrior of high skill or experience. He's a farmer. And anyone facing 200 enemies in the space of a couple of hours is going to be overwhelmed even if the people they're fighting aren't very experienced either. Eventually, someone's gonna get a lucky blow in, or you'll face multiple people at once, which as has already been pointed out, is generally a death sentence.

And come on. It ends with him standing atop all the bodies of the people he's killed. Apparently, they all managed to fall exactly on top of one another, even after the pile got too high for that to actually be happening, and Roran didn't move once while fighting. :smallmad:

[Theodoriph]

He specifically is trying to imitate Tolkien (another bad thing for a writer to do - don't 'try' to imitate anyone. Everyone has their own style. Find yours and use it.) He once said he was striving for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Beowulf and Tolkien at his best . . . he doesn't quite make it.


Somewhere between Beowulf and Tolkien....I think that just made my week. :smallbiggrin: I will now sit here and giggle with poise.

Also...why are the Urgals bow-legged? I looked it them up on wiki and it doesn't mention them all being horsemen...did they all have rickets or something?

[warty goblin]

See, I do the same thing, and I didn't notice it at first either . . . but once I noticed it I just couldn't stop getting distracted by it. This isn't 'Oh noes Paolini is using big words!' It's 'Oh noes Paolini is using big words incorrectly and just for the sake of using big words, not because it's actually the best word to use!'
[QUOTE]
Right, I don't think anybody is complaining that he has a large vocabulary. The complaints seem to be that he has little to no idea how to use it effectively. Vocabulary is like a toolbox, it's good to have a lot in it but all the tools in the world won't help you if you don't know how to use them.

[QUOTE]He specifically is trying to imitate Tolkien (another bad thing for a writer to do - don't 'try' to imitate anyone. Everyone has their own style. Find yours and use it.)
I wouldn't say never go for imitating someone else's style, but certainly not for your first major written work. Once you actually have a style and understand it, looking at other people's works and trying to incorporate some of what they are doing into your own can be perfectly valid, but again you have to know what you are doing first.


He once said he was striving for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Beowulf and Tolkien at his best . . . he doesn't quite make it.
Understatement of the century there. Tolkien at his most lyrical could knock the wool off of a sheep. Christopher Tolkien's edited version of his father's translation/interpretation of Sigurd and Gudrun is probably the most beautiful thing I have ever read.


Nothing excuses that scene. That is just absolutely over-the-top and ridiculous, and doesn't make sense however you look at it. Roran is not a warrior of high skill or experience. He's a farmer. And anyone facing 200 enemies in the space of a couple of hours is going to be overwhelmed even if the people they're fighting aren't very experienced either. Eventually, someone's gonna get a lucky blow in, or you'll face multiple people at once, which as has already been pointed out, is generally a death sentence.

And come on. It ends with him standing atop all the bodies of the people he's killed. Apparently, they all managed to fall exactly on top of one another, even after the pile got too high for that to actually be happening, and Roran didn't move once while fighting. :smallmad:


If nothing else, you'd get tired. Every estimate I've read puts the time a strong, experienced and trained soldier could remain in continuous, active hand to hand combat at twenty minutes absolute tops. I've seen videos of fit people being almost unable to move after three minutes of sustained combat in armor. Armor is heavy, weapons take a lot of energy to move, and it's not like you can ever afford to be giving less than everything you've got.

[TheLaughingMan]

So, in conclusion: Eragon= Slightly Less Inexcusable Masculine Edward.


The 'moral lessons' were annoying, (particularly with the Urgals >.>) but it's still a good read... well, that and I have a dragon fetish. =/

...

Too much information there, bro.

[Mystic Muse]

Too much information there, bro.

I think he means he likes dragons a little more than his friends. Not that he thinks they're attractive.

[Katana_Geldar]

But dragons ARE cool though.

[HalfTangible]

What exactly do you mean by this? Do you mean people who are like "This is stupid because there's dragons and magic in it and those aren't real"? Because those people are obnoxious. Or do you mean people who are like "This scene is illogical, full of plot holes, inconsistent, and doesn't make sense?" Because being fantasy doesn't excuse crap writing, and I HATE complaining about legitimate flaws in a book only to be told "Well, what were you expecting? It's fantasy, of course it's not realistic." I was expecting half-way decent writing, gorramit. :smallfurious:

Well, yes, I hate that too, but here I mean i hate it when people attack details in a fantasy story that are ridiculous on the basis that they're ridiculous. That it makes no sense with the plot, or previously established canon events, or God-of-War 2+3 style story screw ups, i can get behind. But telling me 'why would he be able to fight this long' isn't going to get me to listen to you.


He specifically is trying to imitate Tolkien (another bad thing for a writer to do - don't 'try' to imitate anyone. Everyone has their own style. Find yours and use it.) He once said he was striving for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Beowulf and Tolkien at his best . . . he doesn't quite make it.

Maybe that's why you don't like it? You expect it to be something like either one of those things when in fact it's his own style, whether or not he realizes it.


Doesn't mean you can't comment on someone else's writing. I'm not a good cook but I know when someone else's cooking is bad.

I can say 'gawd this is awful' but i can't discuss WHY, which was the point.

That, and I liked the writing >.> Yeeeeah. Convinced i can't comment on it yet?


Nothing excuses that scene. That is just absolutely over-the-top and ridiculous, and doesn't make sense however you look at it. Roran is not a warrior of high skill or experience. He's a farmer. And anyone facing 200 enemies in the space of a couple of hours is going to be overwhelmed even if the people they're fighting aren't very experienced either. Eventually, someone's gonna get a lucky blow in, or you'll face multiple people at once, which as has already been pointed out, is generally a death sentence.

And come on. It ends with him standing atop all the bodies of the people he's killed. Apparently, they all managed to fall exactly on top of one another, even after the pile got too high for that to actually be happening, and Roran didn't move once while fighting. :smallmad:
So basically, because it's ridiculous >.> in a world with giant flying lizards.

I'm sorry, but this is what i was talking about. Roran's strength and skill in the book is idiotic and inhuman, yes. But this IS fictional. And more importantly fantasy.

Roran WAS experienced. He'd fought soldiers in Carvahall, in the burning plains, commanded men from one side of the spine to the other (and through it, for that matter >.>) And through most of the latter half he was crippled. Then he got his arm back.

I'll concede the corpse thing, though as i imagined it, it was on a downward slope and the bodies were being used to help form the wall previously mentioned in the scene.

Also: i sincerely doubt that kill count was accurate >.>

@Kyuubi: Yes. uh-huh, yep. Totally platonic. Definitely not physically attracted. Nope. Not at all..

...

:smallbiggrin:

Seriously though. Kyuubi's got it right.

[Mystic Muse]

But dragons ARE cool though.

Yes. yes they are. In fact, they're about my favorite monster ever. There are tons of other ones I like but dragons take the cake for me.

[Klose_the_Sith]

And come on. It ends with him standing atop all the bodies of the people he's killed. Apparently, they all managed to fall exactly on top of one another, even after the pile got too high for that to actually be happening, and Roran didn't move once while fighting. :smallmad:

I thought that whole scene was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Warhammer-esque corpse mounds and heavy metal album covers ...

You don't mean to tell me he was SERIOUS?!? :smalleek:

[Haruki-kun]

Well, yes, I hate that too, but here I mean i hate it when people attack details in a fantasy story that are ridiculous on the basis that they're ridiculous. That it makes no sense with the plot, or previously established canon events, or God-of-War 2+3 style story screw ups, i can get behind. But telling me 'why would he be able to fight this long' isn't going to get me to listen to you.

It's a very good point. It's just that when someone doesn't like something, their willing suspension of disbelief drops a lot.


And come on. It ends with him standing atop all the bodies of the people he's killed. Apparently, they all managed to fall exactly on top of one another, even after the pile got too high for that to actually be happening, and Roran didn't move once while fighting. :smallmad:

SEXY SHOE-WEARING GOD OF WAR!

Sorry, I had to.

[HalfTangible]

Forgot to mention: writers generally start out imitating the style of their favorite authors and then work their way into their own style. Paolini probably hasn't gotten into that last stage yet.

Example: I started writing when i was in the second or third grade (first story was about a time traveling lizard) and I take after the Animorphs books (thought process), as well as Eragon (descriptions), Harry Potter (foreshadowing), and a bunch of other literary works with large amounts of dislike. But it's sort of like having an apprentice or child: eventually you just grow out of those forms. In my case, i tend to show thought process by actions, facial expression and words rather than direct thought, I keep descriptions detailed but few, and I make the foreshadowing as subtle as possible to make improvisation easier.

[Lord Raziere]

You know, it IS kind of strange, that while Paolini made Eragon a Mary Sue escapist character in almost every other aspect.....Arya still refuses his advances, no matter what he tried.

I mean he gets the dragon, the sword, the magic, the appearance, and pretty much everything else......all except the women he is crazy over, the one thing in the world he might truly want :smalltongue:

I mean think about it, isn't it funny that he didn't even consider the possibility of the strange stone being a dragon egg, never even thought about opposing the empire before he got the dragon, never thought we would wield magic before he fired the explosive arrow, never really wanted his uncle to die or really get revenge on the Ra'zac and later on, never even asked for all the gifts and boons he receives later on......he never really asked or wanted those things, and he seems to view opposing Galbatorix as more a necessity than anything else.

.....but the elf women he goes crazy over and tries to woo and court and such.....turns him down and the only thing he seems to truly desire is the only thing in the world that is out of his reach, he could use his magical powers to have all the riches he wants, bed any women he wants, and do almost anything.....

but all he really wants is to love Arya and she turns him down. The one thing in the world, and never seems to get it, the one thing he desires, denied.

Why is that, I wonder?

[SensFan]

I personally think the Inheritance series is one of the better ones I've read, and I find that most of the random hate is either incorrect, or else biased. I only have time to point out one example right now, so I'll go with this one. Don't take it personally, Helanna, it's just a massive peeve of mine how often this seen is hated on.


Nothing excuses that scene. That is just absolutely over-the-top and ridiculous, and doesn't make sense however you look at it. Roran is not a warrior of high skill or experience. He's a farmer. And anyone facing 200 enemies in the space of a couple of hours is going to be overwhelmed even if the people they're fighting aren't very experienced either. Eventually, someone's gonna get a lucky blow in, or you'll face multiple people at once, which as has already been pointed out, is generally a death sentence.

And come on. It ends with him standing atop all the bodies of the people he's killed. Apparently, they all managed to fall exactly on top of one another, even after the pile got too high for that to actually be happening, and Roran didn't move once while fighting. :smallmad:
1) He is described as an exceptional human fighter.
2) The entire fight is set up so that his conditions are ideal. The 200 men are forced to charge him, then get funelled in by wagons so that one at a time can reach him. As the fight goes on, and he tires, not only does he sustain several pretty serious wounds (as you say he should), but he also gets a serious height and terrain advantage over his opponents (which explains how he keeps killing them). And yes, given the entire point of the fight is to force the army to be funelled to him, it makes quite a bit of sense that he doesn't move much, and that he ends up on a large pile of bodies.

I prefer the Harry Potter series, but I wouldn't fault anyone who prefered Inheritance over HP. I've admittedly never read LotR; that's my goal for next semester.

[warty goblin]

So basically, because it's ridiculous >.> in a world with giant flying lizards.

I'm sorry, but this is what i was talking about. Roran's strength and skill in the book is idiotic and inhuman, yes. But this IS fictional. And more importantly fantasy.

Roran WAS experienced. He'd fought soldiers in Carvahall, in the burning plains, commanded men from one side of the spine to the other (and through it, for that matter >.>) And through most of the latter half he was crippled. Then he got his arm back.

I'll concede the corpse thing, though as i imagined it, it was on a downward slope and the bodies were being used to help form the wall previously mentioned in the scene.

Also: i sincerely doubt that kill count was accurate >.>



Roran however is, insofar as I know, human and not possessed of any reason to have inhuman strength. I don't think anybody posting in this thread has a problem with the fantastic when there's at least some reason given for it. Having a normal human capable of feats of arms like that without explanation isn't fantastic however, it's just plain stupid.

In short writing fantasy doesn't give you free reign to do whatever you want just because It's Fantasy! It means you can use fantastic elements to do things otherwise not possible when the fantastic is clearly shown to be present.

[Salbazier]

You know, it IS kind of strange, that while Paolini made Eragon a Mary Sue escapist character in almost every other aspect.....Arya still refuses his advances, no matter what he tried.

I mean he gets the dragon, the sword, the magic, the appearance, and pretty much everything else......all except the women he is crazy over, the one thing in the world he might truly want :smalltongue:

I mean think about it, isn't it funny that he didn't even consider the possibility of the strange stone being a dragon egg, never even thought about opposing the empire before he got the dragon, never thought we would wield magic before he fired the explosive arrow, never really wanted his uncle to die or really get revenge on the Ra'zac and later on, never even asked for all the gifts and boons he receives later on......he never really asked or wanted those things, and he seems to view opposing Galbatorix as more a necessity than anything else.

.....but the elf women he goes crazy over and tries to woo and court and such.....turns him down and the only thing he seems to truly desire is the only thing in the world that is out of his reach, he could use his magical powers to have all the riches he wants, bed any women he wants, and do almost anything.....

but all he really wants is to love Arya and she turns him down. The one thing in the world, and never seems to get it, the one thing he desires, denied.

Why is that, I wonder?

You know that was quite interesting interpretation. :smallbiggrin:

[Lord Raziere]

So maybe under that interpretation....its not mary sue getting everything he wants and living out his fantasies..

...he is just a normal love-sick person going through life without any real purpose, just doing his hero job because he has nothing else to do and accepting all these gifts and powers, because hey why not? then he finds the woman of his dreams, goes crazy over her and is denied the one thing in life he will ever truly desire, for to him, the rest of the world is gray and uninteresting, explaining his sociopathic tendencies as he doesn't value anything but the woman he loves.

[dgnslyr]

I might be a bit late to the party, but didn't Tolkein refer to orcs as "bow legged" somewhere?

On the Eragon series, I liked it when I first read it during elementary? early middle school? Now that I've read a lot more, I'm not particularly impressed with it.

[Darklord Bright]

Personally, anyone who thinks that "It's fantasy!" excuses things that don't make logical sense for no explained reason loses all credibility with me. It's not even comparable with "There are dragons" or "There is magic". Those things are explained as being present in the universe and typically have their own laws and rules applied to them.

When an ordinary human being does something downright impossible, not just for human beings, but for the character as they have been established? That is not cricket, mister, nor is it excusable with "It's fantasy!". "Ordinary humans" are still ordinary humans.

That said, being a Fantasy story does not excuse a lack of internal logic in the story. Willing suspension of disbelief is what it's called. There are things a reader is supposed to be made to believe can exist or happen (at least within the context of the story) and things a reader simply cannot.

Eragon does not know where that line is.

Edit: also, good job with the riffing, I'm finding it thoroughly enjoyable!

[Smiling Knight]

Out of curiosity, for those of you who actually do like Eragon, what other fantasy do you read?

[Salbazier]

Out of curiosity, for those of you who actually do like Eragon, what other fantasy do you read?

Let see,... Lord of the Rings (who doesn't?) & Silmarillion & The Hobbit, Wheel of Time, Harry Potter, Drizzt books (Haven't read all yet, bored after ten books or so), Cormyr, Empires, Some of Magic the Gathering novels (Artifacts Cycle, Oddysey, Darksteel, Guildpact). Do Dresden files count? Ah, speaking of it, Codex Alera. Swords of power, Song of Ice and Fire, Plus a bunch of Japanese light novels.

Hmm, looking again, it wasn't that many.

[Prime32]

So maybe under that interpretation....its not mary sue getting everything he wants and living out his fantasies..

...he is just a normal love-sick person going through life without any real purpose, just doing his hero job because he has nothing else to do and accepting all these gifts and powers, because hey why not? then he finds the woman of his dreams, goes crazy over her and is denied the one thing in life he will ever truly desire, for to him, the rest of the world is gray and uninteresting, explaining his sociopathic tendencies as he doesn't value anything but the woman he loves.I interpret Eragon as being somewhat like Emiya Shirou, wanting to be a superhero without understanding what that means. This is mostly Brom's fault for making Eragon fall in love with the Riders out of his own half-mad nostalgia. Hence he does things because "it is an epic and heroic thing to do" rather than because they make sense.

In D&D, Eragon would have high Int and terrible Wis.

[Fri]

Out of curiosity, for those of you who actually do like Eragon, what other fantasy do you read?

I'm more a sci-fi person myself. There's a book recommendation thread for me one or two pages below.

I only like the first book tho.

[Lord Raziere]

In D&D, Eragon would have high Int and terrible Wis.

So, just like Paolini?

[Klose_the_Sith]

Out of curiosity, for those of you who actually do like Eragon, what other fantasy do you read?

Spoiler'd for length
Me? I dunno. What is and isn't fantasy?

Y'see, I learnt to read with Harry Potter at age five I've read through the entire series and am somewhat fond of them, though as I've read other series I become a little more jaded against Rowling each time. First book I read on my own impetus that I'd consider Fantasy would be 'The Hobbit' which is probably still my favourite to this day. Beyonds that I read various tellings of Arthurian legends, struggling through "The Once and Future King" while still in primary school wasn't too easy, but worthwhile. At the same age I read "The Arabian Nights" from an old book my dad had. Which I loooooooved. Still do, for that matter. The Arabian Nights just had some original mystique for me which has translated into nostalgia and general happiness. That book calms and cheers my mind so well these days.

Also in primary school I hacked through the Deltora Quest series, which is a fine series of adorable baby-novels with an actually intriguing setting and some surprisingly decent characters. I also read through Rowan of Rin and Lion, Witch, Wardrobe both of which I enjoyed, but didn't really compel me to go further through the series. I read another Rowan book, but didn't get too excited by it and never made it any further into dem Narnia books. Still haven't to this day.

In High School I hacked through the Redwall series and Lord of the Rings initially (that is to say, in year seven) and then in year 8 I discovered Eragon. Why I liked it? I dunno. In no small part I think it was due to the girl I was into/courting/eventually dating at the time also being into Eragon and so now I associate that book with the fun I had with her (good ol' naive idiot fun). When I was done with those I didn't really read Fantasy for a while. I read through Sherlock Holmes books, Biggles books and Star Wars books. I became interested in military novels and sci fi and the like, though I did keep reading through Redwall.

It was at this point that I started reading Dianna Wynne Jones, which led to an explosive revitalisation in my fantasy interest. The Chrestomanci series and Howls Moving Castle became my world, as I rekindled an interest in magic and etc.

All of this happened before year 9 of high school :smalleek:

In year 9 I started reading the Rangers Apprentice series by John Flanagan. They're well written romps with a sketchy connection to medieval Europe. And by sketchy I mean that he sketched it and then started setting strange adventures inside. I started playing DnD sometime around this, which was another pretty cool break-through in terms of my Fantasy-ness. And at some point I got the new Eragon book and I was able to actually re-kindle conversations with ex-chick about it. Which was good because I had missed her and left me developing a sort of affection towards the book (probably unhealthy but eh). I devoured what Artermis Fowl books I could as well as "The Book of Lies" which is really quite a bad book, but one that I could enjoy anyway.

You see, Klose has a confession to make. He loves 'terrible' writing. Not writing that's particularly ugly or such, but utterly bizarre and overwrought pomp. He can also enjoy pretty much anything just for the spectacle of it - Gimli and Legolas keep up a pretty ridiculous kill tally in the LOTR movies, but I don't remember anyone complaining then, because it was awesome. Maybe people just expect different kinds of entertainment from their books? Well it's all the same to me.

Now in years 11-12 I've cut through large amounts of HP Lovecraft, as well as started up on George RR Martin's epics and some of the Dragonlancey business. Oh and I also have a book entitled "His Majesty's Dragon" which looks utterly fantastic and is thus being saved for my upcoming holidays.

I like to think I read a decent amount of Fantasy and I like to think that I'm not too bad a judge of it. I still, however, enjoy pretty much anything set in a magic-powered world with ridiculous heroism occurring. It just seems fun, naive and precious - much like the original nights I spent reading Arabian Nights under the covers with my little light all those years ago.

Okay, wow. That was a pretty serious wall of text answer. Still, if you want me to answer "What other fantasy do you read" I don't really feel my position on Fantasy would be justified by a list. Maybe a shorter re-telling, but I'm a little afraid of this monster post I've created :smalleek:

[Syka]

My fantasy pedigree is similar to Klose's. I don't have any exact times, for most though.

I know in middle school I read the Hobbit and Fellowship, and Mists of Avalon. That was also when I got into Redwall. In high school I read the first three Tortall series' by Tamora Pierce, got through Two Towers and most of Return of the King, among other stuff. I've got three of the Scifi and Fantasy "Best of the Year" collections. I also read more of the Avalon series', I've got assorted other fantasy books I can't remember off the top of my head (does the Abhorsen triology count?). I've read Harry Potter ever since it first came out in the States.

I've also read Wizards of Earth Sea (I have the four books in the cycle plus...I think one short story collection), I read both Alice books by Lewis Carroll. I've read a bunch of other Fantasy that, frankly, I just can't remember at this point in time. Oh yeah, some Terry Pratchett, too.

My preferred recreational reading is supernatural and horror (Frankenstein, Dracula, I'm loving the Dresden Files and I love the Anita Blake series through Obsidian Butterfly, HP Lovecraft is awesome, etc.). But I'm heavy in to sci-fi and fantasy, as well. It kind of goes hand in hand.


I'd have to look through my library records from my middle, high school, and public library to probably name all the fantasy books I've read. But I've read a lot and still managed to enjoy Eragon.

[Haruki-kun]

Out of curiosity, for those of you who actually do like Eragon, what other fantasy do you read?

I like Pratchett, Harry Potter, went through a couple of Garth Nix's books, and read several by Eoin Colfer.

I also read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I hated everything after book 3 (Life, the Universe, and Everything).

[Helanna]

So basically, because it's ridiculous >.> in a world with giant flying lizards.

I'm sorry, but this is what i was talking about. Roran's strength and skill in the book is idiotic and inhuman, yes. But this IS fictional. And more importantly fantasy.

Roran WAS experienced. He'd fought soldiers in Carvahall, in the burning plains, commanded men from one side of the spine to the other (and through it, for that matter >.>) And through most of the latter half he was crippled. Then he got his arm back.

I'll concede the corpse thing, though as i imagined it, it was on a downward slope and the bodies were being used to help form the wall previously mentioned in the scene.

Also: i sincerely doubt that kill count was accurate >.>

See, this is what I'm talking about. Like other people have already explained, being fantasy doesn't give you a free pass to throw in whatever you want. Sure, I'll suspend my disbelief and go with the flying fire-breathing lizards, because that's a part of the setting. But super-human strength/endurance is not a part of the setting, so I won't suspend my disbelief for it. If everyone in the entire world had super-human strength and endurance and they could all do that, then I would accept it as part of the setting. But saying "It's fantasy, you shouldn't expect realistic characters/plots/interactions/fights/whatever is just stupid and insulting.


I personally think the Inheritance series is one of the better ones I've read, and I find that most of the random hate is either incorrect, or else biased.

For some reason, this series seems to have a disproportionate amount of fans who absolutely refuse to admit that it has any flaws. Not that this necessarily applies to you, SensFan, it just made me think of it. But this is like the number one series where criticism will get you "You're just jealous you're not published!", "Well, can YOU write any better?" (YES I DAMN WELL CAN!), or "That's not a flaw. That's good writing, because I personally like it." I mean, I get that liking a series is subjective, but I just see SO many people who insist it's a fantastic series when it's just not. *See spoiler below before starting the "good writing is subjective" debate*

I don't want to spark another debate about how what makes 'good' writing good is subjective, so I'm assuming we're using a rubric of 'things generally considered good or bad in writing' - i.e., Mary Sues are bad (means the writer can't write realistic characters), inconsistencies are bad (means the writer can't even keep track of his own plot, or is so poor at writing he has to ignore his own plot in order to make things work the way he wants).

I'm also assuming people are going to cooperate. I mean, if anyone wants to say that Mary Sues are absolutely a sign of good writing, or that plot holes and inconsistencies within the plot aren't flaws, I'm just not even going to argue with them. That's your opinion, fine, but it's not the generally held one, and it makes decent discussion extremely difficult. But way too many people, especially with these books, assume that "I like these books" = "These books are fantastic!" and "I don't like these books" = "These books suck." THEY ARE NOT EQUIVALENTS DAMMIT


1) He is described as an exceptional human fighter.
2) The entire fight is set up so that his conditions are ideal. The 200 men are forced to charge him, then get funelled in by wagons so that one at a time can reach him. As the fight goes on, and he tires, not only does he sustain several pretty serious wounds (as you say he should), but he also gets a serious height and terrain advantage over his opponents (which explains how he keeps killing them). And yes, given the entire point of the fight is to force the army to be funelled to him, it makes quite a bit of sense that he doesn't move much, and that he ends up on a large pile of bodies.

[quote]But there are so many problems with that scene! Like someone pointed out, he simply should not have been able to fight for that long, no matter how many advantages he had. And he's not exceptionally skilled, or at least he SHOULDN'T be - how long has it been since he first handled a sword, a couple of months? Of course, that's another major problem with Paolini's work - all his characters just pick up whatever skills they need instantaneously. Eragon becomes capable of defeating a blade-master, with his off-hand, in like, 6 months, maybe less. And if you're standing on a pile of bodies, you're going to do even WORSE, because you don't have any solid ground! The pile would be slipping and falling. I can't really envision it the way it was written, because the only reason it was written like that was because Paolini thought it would be cool.

Basically, however you try to justify it, this scene is impossible at best and stupid at worst. If nothing else, he should have collapsed from exhaustion or his wounds, and he shouldn't have been skilled enough to even last that long anyway. Although I forget, who was he fighting in that scene? Was it the Empire's soldiers? Because they would definitely be more skilled than a farmer who picked up a sword a couple of months ago.[/spoiler]

[Syka]

See, this is what I'm talking about. Like other people have already explained, being fantasy doesn't give you a free pass to throw in whatever you want. Sure, I'll suspend my disbelief and go with the flying fire-breathing lizards, because that's a part of the setting. But super-human strength/endurance is not a part of the setting, so I won't suspend my disbelief for it. If everyone in the entire world had super-human strength and endurance and they could all do that, then I would accept it as part of the setting. But saying "It's fantasy, you shouldn't expect realistic characters/plots/interactions/fights/whatever is just stupid and insulting.



For some reason, this series seems to have a disproportionate amount of fans who absolutely refuse to admit that it has any flaws. Not that this necessarily applies to you, SensFan, it just made me think of it. But this is like the number one series where criticism will get you "You're just jealous you're not published!", "Well, can YOU write any better?" (YES I DAMN WELL CAN!), or "That's not a flaw. That's good writing, because I personally like it." I mean, I get that liking a series is subjective, but I just see SO many people who insist it's a fantastic series when it's just not. *See spoiler below before starting the "good writing is subjective" debate*

I don't want to spark another debate about how what makes 'good' writing good is subjective, so I'm assuming we're using a rubric of 'things generally considered good or bad in writing' - i.e., Mary Sues are bad (means the writer can't write realistic characters), inconsistencies are bad (means the writer can't even keep track of his own plot, or is so poor at writing he has to ignore his own plot in order to make things work the way he wants).

I'm also assuming people are going to cooperate. I mean, if anyone wants to say that Mary Sues are absolutely a sign of good writing, or that plot holes and inconsistencies within the plot aren't flaws, I'm just not even going to argue with them. That's your opinion, fine, but it's not the generally held one, and it makes decent discussion extremely difficult. But way too many people, especially with these books, assume that "I like these books" = "These books are fantastic!" and "I don't like these books" = "These books suck." THEY ARE NOT EQUIVALENTS DAMMIT



But there are so many problems with that scene! Like someone pointed out, he simply should not have been able to fight for that long, no matter how many advantages he had. And he's not exceptionally skilled, or at least he SHOULDN'T be - how long has it been since he first handled a sword, a couple of months? Of course, that's another major problem with Paolini's work - all his characters just pick up whatever skills they need instantaneously. Eragon becomes capable of defeating a blade-master, with his off-hand, in like, 6 months, maybe less. And if you're standing on a pile of bodies, you're going to do even WORSE, because you don't have any solid ground! The pile would be slipping and falling. I can't really envision it the way it was written, because the only reason it was written like that was because Paolini thought it would be cool.

Basically, however you try to justify it, this scene is impossible at best and stupid at worst. If nothing else, he should have collapsed from exhaustion or his wounds, and he shouldn't have been skilled enough to even last that long anyway. Although I forget, who was he fighting in that scene? Was it the Empire's soldiers? Because they would definitely be more skilled than a farmer who picked up a sword a couple of months ago.

I think they'd established at that point, most of the Empire's soldiers were nothing more than farmers and all conscripted to service and not even fighting a battle they wanted to fight. Roran had experience on them (if only by a few months) and a better reason to fight. Not saying that is a full excuse, but it does make some sense. Everyone else is really amazed by him, though. It's not like everyone ignores the fact the he's doing superhuman stuff, it is recognized. And he still gets punished for stepping out of line, at least.

[SensFan]

The series certainly has flaws. Among other things, the character Eragon easily has the least depth of any of the even semi-important characters. But I feel similarily about this series as I do about the movie Juno, for instance. It seems to me that both were considered to be fairly good (above average, but not brilliancies), but then Eragon got fanboy hype and Juno was nominated for way too many awards, and all of a sudden everyone was hating on them that they sucked.

On the subject of character depth:
Eragon is just too 'perfect'. There's a whole bunch of characters that would make way more interesting main characters: Murtagh, Roran, Arya, Oromis, Galbatorix, Islanzadi, Orik, Elva to name but the ones off the top of my head.

[Prime32]

Continuing with "the implausible fight scene", I think Brisingr is the result of Paolini listening to the criticisms of his work but doing a terrible job of fixing things.
Eragon's too powerful? Everyone is immune to his powers now.

Things are too much like Star Wars? Fine, that guy wasn't really Eragon's father.

Roran is awesome and there should be more focus on him? Well...

[SensFan]

Continuing with "the implausible fight scene", I think Brisingr is the result of Paolini listening to the criticisms of his work but doing a terrible job of fixing things.
Eragon's too powerful? Everyone is immune to his powers now.

Things are too much like Star Wars? Fine, that guy wasn't really Eragon's father.

Roran is awesome and there should be more focus on him? Well...
I really don't see where you're coming from here. I don't understand what you mean by the first point, the second was obviously foreshadowed the hell out of in the first and second books, and I don't see the problem with the third point.

[Altaria87]

I liked Eragon, personally. I know it's not paticularly 'Lord of the Rings-Level' (even though I, personally, didn't like Lord of the Rings, I myself see the main quality a book can have is being able to hold the reader in from start to finish, Lord of the Rings is just, in my opinion, too boring. I know reading it is worth the effort, but it still takes more effort than I'm willing to devote to reading), but it's still acceptable, maybe even good.
However, I didn't like Eldest, either, if anything it made Eragon even more overpowered, and I lost interest about halfway through the book. But Brisingr was really quite good in my opinion, solving a few of the series' flaws and also showing that people [spiler]Like Oromis[/spoiler] can die.
And, for all those complaining about the 'guy kills 200 people' scene, do you do the same to the 'Sexy Shoeless God of War' scene. Probably not, as it is the Rule of Cool, as TV Tropes puts it, and I, for one, was willing to suspend disbelief just because the scene was amdittedly cool.
[Incidentally, sorry if the grammar is bad in this post, I'm pretty sure it is, as I tend to write on Forums as I would speak, but I can't quite put my finger on where my mistakes are]

[TheLaughingMan]

And, for all those complaining about the 'guy kills 200 people' scene, do you do the same to the 'Sexy Shoeless God of War' scene?

...Yes. A thousand times yes. But regardless of personal opinion, Belkar would still be better off at fighting the (from memory) 50+ orcs than What's-His-Face at 200+ men.

1. Belkar is smaller, presumably nimbler, has a home-field advantage, and only has around 50 guys to deal with. (He's also the comic-relief at this point, so he's generally given more leg-room)

2. What's-His-Face has heavy armor, is presumably man-sized, and is fighting a whopping 200+ minions.

[Haruki-kun]

But this is like the number one series where criticism will get you "You're just jealous you're not published!"

Actually, I AM jealous because I'm not published...

[Lord Seth]

...Yes. A thousand times yes. But regardless of personal opinion, Belkar would still be better off at fighting the (from memory) 50+ orcs than What's-His-Face at 200+ men.

1. Belkar is smaller, presumably nimbler, has a home-field advantage, and only has around 50 guys to deal with. (He's also the comic-relief at this point, so he's generally given more leg-room)

2. What's-His-Face has heavy armor, is presumably man-sized, and is fighting a whopping 200+ minions.Other things to note:
1. Order of the Stick is a drama/comedy comic. And let's face it, that scene was funny. You can get away with things like that more easily in such a comic. Granted, we may not be at the same level of goofiness as when a mind flayer was defeated by lawyers coming and arresting it, but only a few strips before that Redcloak was using Titanium Elementals.
2. Order of the Stick is based on Dungeons & Dragons, which uses a leveling system. Belkar is level 12-ish, right? Now my knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons is a bit scanty, but that seems like enough to be able to handle a bunch of low-level hobgoblins. Eragon, as far as I know, has no such "leveling system" that can explain giant gulfs of power like that.

Never read the scene personally so feel free to take my notes with a grain of salt, but there do seem to be some crucial differences between Order of the Stick and Eragon (well, Eldest I think) in this matter.

[Sholos]

Other things to note:
1. Order of the Stick is a drama/comedy comic. And let's face it, that scene was funny. You can get away with things like that more easily in such a comic. Granted, we may not be at the same level of goofiness as when a mind flayer was defeated by lawyers coming and arresting it, but only a few strips before that Redcloak was using Titanium Elementals.
2. Order of the Stick is based on Dungeons & Dragons, which uses a leveling system. Belkar is level 12-ish, right? Now my knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons is a bit scanty, but that seems like enough to be able to handle a bunch of low-level hobgoblins. Eragon, as far as I know, has no such "leveling system" that can explain giant gulfs of power like that.

Never read the scene personally so feel free to take my notes with a grain of salt, but there do seem to be some crucial differences between Order of the Stick and Eragon (well, Eldest I think) in this matter.

There's also the fact that OotS runs on D&D rules, which make it very possible for a single person to slaughter 200 low-level enemies in a short period of time without tiring (there being no rules for short-term fatigue). Eragon is supposed to be "realistic" and thus has no such excuse.

[Darklord Bright]

People erroneously assume that I detest Eragon simply for being popular. I do not. I detest the novels firstly because they are incredibly and increasingly bad at just about everything from characterization to keeping the plot consistent. It's going to sound silly, but "I disliked the books before it was popular to do so!", and on top of reading a lot of better fantasy to compare it with, I'm a very vocal person.

Also, Legolas and Gimli did have large kill-tallies in Lord of the Rings, and if we're talking about the books, the difference is that Lord of the Rings was at least written well enough to make us believe it could happen. Let's not forget that Rohan had very nearly lost the battle of Helm's Deep despite the kill-counts, because there's a difference between two people getting almost 100 kills between them and one person getting over 200. One stretches willing suspension of disbelief but doesn't go too far, because it almost seems plausible for those characters. The other just goes way above and beyond ridiculous.

[warty goblin]

Also, Legolas and Gimli did have large kill-tallies in Lord of the Rings, and if we're talking about the books, the difference is that Lord of the Rings was at least written well enough to make us believe it could happen. Let's not forget that Rohan had very nearly lost the battle of Helm's Deep despite the kill-counts, because there's a difference between two people getting almost 100 kills between them and one person getting over 200. One stretches willing suspension of disbelief but doesn't go too far, because it almost seems plausible for those characters. The other just goes way above and beyond ridiculous.

And it was a siege. Sitting on top of an enormous carefully crafted force multiplier goes a very long way.

[Darklord Bright]

And it was a siege. Sitting on top of an enormous carefully crafted force multiplier goes a very long way.

This is very true! When all you have to do to get another kill is stab a guy as he comes up a ladder, it's pretty easy!

[Rainbow Servant]

Also Legolas is an elf and Gimli is a dwarf, and explicitly have way more experience and skill than most humans, as well as having super-human stamina (and strength? It has been a while since I read the books.)

[Katana_Geldar]

You know what's funny? A lot of fans of Inheritance can't take the sometimes well-meant criticism of the books in the same way that inexperienced writers can't take well-meant criticism.

I think the so-called "anti" take the time to analyse Eragon and the others from a writing perspective because they see the potential the series had...that never followed through.

Personally, I think Eragon is the work of an inexperienced writer who needs more milage. But here and there I can see gems hidden in a similar way I saw this when I read the creative writing of kids at school. There are elements that I like, Murtagh, Brom, Saphira at times and there are quite a few scenes that are surpisingly well-written. If Paolini had potential as a writer when he wrote Eragon, he has clearly lost it since or gone in the wrong direction since. Or so I heard, as I have not read Eldest.

[Darklord Bright]

You know what's funny? A lot of fans of Inheritance can't take the sometimes well-meant criticism of the books in the same way that inexperienced writers can't take well-meant criticism.

I think the so-called "anti" take the time to analyse Eragon and the others from a writing perspective because they see the potential the series had...that never followed through.

Personally, I think Eragon is the work of an inexperienced writer who needs more milage. But here and there I can see gems hidden in a similar way I saw this when I read the creative writing of kids at school. There are elements that I like, Murtagh, Brom, Saphira at times and there are quite a few scenes that are surpisingly well-written. If Paolini had potential as a writer when he wrote Eragon, he has clearly lost it since or gone in the wrong direction since. Or so I heard, as I have not read Eldest.

Certainly the largest source of my personal issues with Eragon is that, at least to begin with, Paolini seemed like if he had spent a little more time reading over his writing for mistakes and having it checked by his publisher, he might have written something good... if he had also been writing something that was more original Eragon.

But then he got worse, and it saddens me to see a potentially good but inexperienced writer do the opposite of learn from his rather beginner mistakes, and simply get worse over time out of some delusion of grandeur. It also opened up the writing world to the realization that "Anything can be published and become inexplicably successful!" which I dislike.

[Helanna]

And, for all those complaining about the 'guy kills 200 people' scene, do you do the same to the 'Sexy Shoeless God of War' scene. Probably not, as it is the Rule of Cool, as TV Tropes puts it, and I, for one, was willing to suspend disbelief just because the scene was amdittedly cool.

OotS is a comedy, first and foremost, and Rich has said that Rule of Funny precedes anything else. And since part of the setting is that it runs on DnD rules, I can well believe that it happened for reasons described above: fewer, easier-to-defeat enemies, no fatigue rules, etc. However, in Eragon, Rule of Funny does NOT generally precede everything else, and there are no rules mitigating the effect, and it ends up being WAY too over-the-top for the setting.

tl;dr: Order of the Stick is a comedy. Eragon is not. Don't try to compare the two - I know this game all too well.


Actually, I AM jealous because I'm not published...

Well I didn't say you can't be jealous. Just that being jealous doesn't invalidate the criticisms. :smalltongue:

Edit: @^ This is really one of the saddest things about the series. If Paolini wasn't so incredibly arrogant, and if he could actually handle criticism, the series might not suck. Or at least, maybe he could write something in the future that wasn't so bad. Instead, just because he got published by his parents and then a random fluke, he thinks he's fantastic and untouchable, to the point where any and all criticism on the official Eragon boards gets deleted and users banned.

[Katana_Geldar]

I know, and the fact that something amateurish like Eragon and the others not only can be published but is widely popular and successful and has a film adaptation just makes me want to vomit. I'm not jealous, but what's the point in trying to be a good writer if noobs like Paolini can get published? He's not even worthy of being called a hack in the likes of Stephen King. I like to think of him as an ascended fanboy of his own series.

EDIT: Helanna, that just further makes my point about Paolini's inexperience. Writers need to be able to take well-meant constructive criticism, whether they use it or not is up to them but they need to consider that the other person could be right.

[Darklord Bright]

...is widely popular and successful and has a film adaptation...

I have a feeling that this is actually simply due to the fact that after the success of the Lord of the Rings movies, directors and producers realised that they could make money off a genre that people wanted more of (Especially people who had not been introduced to as much of it) and milked the fantasy genre for all it was worth. We're actually only just in recent years coming off the rush of fantasy or medieval-based movies.

[Katana_Geldar]

Yeah, but he still got a film deal. I can think of many books I'd like to see film adaptations for even if it's a mixed blessing.

[Salbazier]

I'm going to say that it is it turn also insulting to call people who intentionally ignore realism in reading as stupid. On that scene, (personally) I never bothered. It quite a cool scene and didn't touch any of my pet peeves.

[SensFan]

I know, and the fact that something amateurish like Eragon and the others not only can be published but is widely popular and successful and has a film adaptation just makes me want to vomit. I'm not jealous, but what's the point in trying to be a good writer if noobs like Paolini can get published? He's not even worthy of being called a hack in the likes of Stephen King. I like to think of him as an ascended fanboy of his own series.

EDIT: Helanna, that just further makes my point about Paolini's inexperience. Writers need to be able to take well-meant constructive criticism, whether they use it or not is up to them but they need to consider that the other person could be right.
See, now to me, this comes off as jealousy and biased bashing of CP for no good reason. His writing, while not brilliant, is certainly not terrible. Do his books have flaws? Of course they do! But even the Harry Potter series has some pretty heavy flaws in it, and I doubt you'd go around bashing Rowling like this - though I suspect you might if it was 'the cool thing to do'.

Eragon, Eldest and Brisngr are good novels, each better than the one before it, which is to be expected with a young author. 90% of the critisicm out there is people looking with a fine-tooth comb for something to criticize, because they know its such a terrible book series. And of course they know it's so terrible because they've heard so many complaints from other people. Who went looking for stuff to complain about because they heard it was OMGWORSTBOOKSEVER.

[Katana_Geldar]

*resists urge to drill holes in the side of my head*

JK Rowlings books have nowhere near as many fundamental writing flaws as Paolini's do. There flaws in books and there's flaws in writing, Paolini is the latter.

And I didn't go looking for stuff to complain in the books, I just happened to find it. I read Eragon wanting to enjoy the story but couldn't get around the amateuish mistakes that I expect to see in a story coming out of a classroom, NOT a published novel.

If you can remove the scale from your eyes for five seconds, you'll see that I do not bash the novel and said there are elements that I like. I said it has potential that sadly went in the wrong direction.

It is very, very easy to inanely bash a book, my dear child. And that is what I have not done.

[Darklord Bright]

See, now to me, this comes off as jealousy and biased bashing of CP for no good reason. His writing, while not brilliant, is certainly not terrible. Do his books have flaws? Of course they do! But even the Harry Potter series has some pretty heavy flaws in it, and I doubt you'd go around bashing Rowling like this - though I suspect you might if it was 'the cool thing to do'.

Eragon, Eldest and Brisngr are good novels, each better than the one before it, which is to be expected with a young author. 90% of the critisicm out there is people looking with a fine-tooth comb for something to criticize, because they know its such a terrible book series. And of course they know it's so terrible because they've heard so many complaints from other people. Who went looking for stuff to complain about because they heard it was OMGWORSTBOOKSEVER.

I have already explained, I disliked the series for being an obviously bad series long before it was popular to do so. The first book had only just come out, in fact, and I read through it under the whims of a friend who spewed nothing but praise.

I later put down the book wondering how it ever got published. It isn't just full of mistakes, it's full of many blatant mistakes that the editor or Paolini himself had plenty of time to fix. It's plot was shamelessly stolen from more successful books and done badly. Its characters were overpowered, just plain badly written, or both. There was literally nothing redeeming about the book that I could see, save for the potential for the writer to get better and learn from his mistakes, which I hoped for...

And found to be in vain. The books got worse, and the writer got arrogant. The fans worse - suddenly I wasn't allowed to have legitimate gripes with the author's work for fear of being attacked by ad-hominem responses and claims that I was "Just jealous" which are laughably false, so until this thread in fact I had actually simply pretended the series didn't exist to avoid contact with the fanbase.

The assumption that people who dislike the series do so simply because it was successful is ridiculous and insulting.

[warty goblin]

Yeah, but he still got a film deal. I can think of many books I'd like to see film adaptations for even if it's a mixed blessing.

Although given how horrendously and monumentally bad the Eregon movie is, I'm not sure it can really be used as a measure of success.

[Katana_Geldar]

The assumption that people who dislike the series do so simply because it was successful is ridiculous and insulting.

The fact it is successful merely adds insult to injury. These books should never have been published in the state they were in.

[The Tygre]

The assumption that people who dislike the series do so simply because it was successful is ridiculous and insulting.

It's not stupid because I hate it, I hate it because it's stupid. Basically the gist, eh?

[Darklord Bright]

In any case, it would probably be best if we refrained from derailing the conversation any further. Sure, discussion of Eragon is relevant, but I'm not sure if Lord Seth appreciates the arguments that are slowly rearing their heads in his thread.

Best to calm down and wait for the next installment of the read-through, eh?

[SensFan]

I think my post has been misinterpretted. I never said there was anything wrong with having problems with the books - I myself listed several fairly large faults with them. I never said anyone who dislikes them does so because they are popular, I simply said 90% of the hate I've encountered is completely ridiculous and illogical. What I did have a problem with is the notion the books shouldn't have been published, or that somehow, because you don't like his books, it means he is an insult to the profession of authors. That's simply nonsense and ridiculous.

[ThunderCat]

It's strange how one hears so much about fanatic Twilight fangirls who can't stand criticism :smallsigh:

[TheLaughingMan]

Eragon, Eldest and Brisngr are good novels, each better than the one before it, which is to be expected with a young author. 90% of the critisicm out there is people looking with a fine-tooth comb for something to criticize, because they know its such a terrible book series. And of course they know it's so terrible because they've heard so many complaints from other people. Who went looking for stuff to complain about because they heard it was OMGWORSTBOOKSEVER.

...Paolini? Is that you? :smalltongue:

[SensFan]

It's strange how one hears so much about fanatic Twilight fangirls who can't stand criticism :smallsigh:

It's even stranger that people make comments like that in a thread where I haven't seen a single person who has been opposed to the criticism of the books.

[Katana_Geldar]

It's not nonsense and ridiculous, and the fact that a lot of the fans can't accept that Paolini's writing is not bad but fundamentally flawed and inexperienced says more about the fans and about Paolini than it does about us. There are websites (like the erstwhile anti-shurtugal) which go into some detail as to why Paolini's writing doesn't work, but for some reason a lot of the fans are deluded (like you say antis are deluded) that Paolini's books are good and that any one who criticises them (even constructively) just hates them and wishes to bash.

You want to talk about bias and delusions, look no further than yourself.

But I digress, doubtless we will see more examination as SDeth goes through the book.

[warty goblin]

I think my post has been misinterpretted. I never said there was anything wrong with having problems with the books - I myself listed several fairly large faults with them. I never said anyone who dislikes them does so because they are popular, I simply said 90% of the hate I've encountered is completely ridiculous and illogical. What I did have a problem with is the notion the books shouldn't have been published, or that somehow, because you don't like his books, it means he is an insult to the profession of authors. That's simply nonsense and ridiculous.


So riddle me this: the books are (as you yourself admit) deeply flawed. They also contain no ideas of weight, bring exactly nothing new to the genre, and aren't even more polished or better told than most other fantasy works.

Why should they have been published? 'Cause I'm certainly not seeing a reason here...

(Incidentally, what exactly is illogical about saying that something bad is an insult to the profession? It may be slightly hyperbolic, but it seems to me it's got a fairly reasonable basis for the conclusion and is therefore reasonably logical.)

[TheLaughingMan]

@Katana:

Gonna take five seconds off discussion to say stop bolding your inflections. Inflections are italics, bolding is for shouting. :smalltongue:

[ThunderCat]

It's even stranger that people make comments like that in a thread where I haven't seen a single person who has been opposed to the criticism of the books.Hopefully you're talking about Twilight, not Eragon.

[SensFan]

The series certainly has flaws. Among other things, the character Eragon easily has the least depth of any of the even semi-important characters. But I feel similarily about this series as I do about the movie Juno, for instance. It seems to me that both were considered to be fairly good (above average, but not brilliancies), but then Eragon got fanboy hype and Juno was nominated for way too many awards, and all of a sudden everyone was hating on them that they sucked.

On the subject of character depth:
Eragon is just too 'perfect'. There's a whole bunch of characters that would make way more interesting main characters: Murtagh, Roran, Arya, Oromis, Galbatorix, Islanzadi, Orik, Elva to name but the ones off the top of my head.


See, now to me, this comes off as jealousy and biased bashing of CP for no good reason. His writing, while not brilliant, is certainly not terrible. Do his books have flaws? Of course they do! But even the Harry Potter series has some pretty heavy flaws in it, and I doubt you'd go around bashing Rowling like this - though I suspect you might if it was 'the cool thing to do'.

Eragon, Eldest and Brisngr are good novels, each better than the one before it, which is to be expected with a young author. 90% of the critisicm out there is people looking with a fine-tooth comb for something to criticize, because they know its such a terrible book series. And of course they know it's so terrible because they've heard so many complaints from other people. Who went looking for stuff to complain about because they heard it was OMGWORSTBOOKSEVER.


I think my post has been misinterpretted. I never said there was anything wrong with having problems with the books - I myself listed several fairly large faults with them. I never said anyone who dislikes them does so because they are popular, I simply said 90% of the hate I've encountered is completely ridiculous and illogical. What I did have a problem with is the notion the books shouldn't have been published, or that somehow, because you don't like his books, it means he is an insult to the profession of authors. That's simply nonsense and ridiculous.

---

Clearly I'm so completely biased that I think there's nothing wrong with critisicm of the books... :smallannoyed:

[Katana_Geldar]

I know, but that post of sensfans made me see red for a second. Don't take it personally, sensfan, but some of us here do know what we're talking about in terms of writing as we have actually come from places where we can contribute worthwhile commentary.

Like Lord Seth, I have a degree in English and have specialised in creative writing. Though that was partly an accident as my uni didn't offer any other english courses BUT creative writing.

[SensFan]

Warty Goblin - I disagree with you. I think the series is very good, though far from perfect.

ThunderCat - If you could be so kind, could you point to posts of people who are saying the books are beyond critisicm? I've seen only people who dislike the books, and then a couple people who like them, though admit the flaws.

---

If Education is important, then I'm a semester away from finishing my degree in English, with a focus on Modern Literature and Children's Literature.

[Salbazier]

So riddle me this: the books are (as you yourself admit) deeply flawed. They also contain no ideas of weight, bring exactly nothing new to the genre, and aren't even more polished or better told than most other fantasy works.

Why should they have been published? 'Cause I'm certainly not seeing a reason here...

(Incidentally, what exactly is illogical about saying that something bad is an insult to the profession? It may be slightly hyperbolic, but it seems to me it's got a fairly reasonable basis for the conclusion and is therefore reasonably logical.)

Oh I can give you one. It sells well. The editors probably the type that can recognize that and did not care much about other things

[ThunderCat]

ThunderCat - If you could be so kind, could you point to posts of people who are saying the books are beyond critisicm? I've seen only people who dislike the books, and then a couple people who like them, though admit the flaws.I didn't say people claimed the books to be beyond criticism (but then again, I haven't heard any Twilight fans say that either), but when people have to resort to arguments like "It's fantasy" in regards to a fairly inexperienced soldier doing something not even the best warriors in the world could hope to accomplish, with no explanation giving, "It was written by a 15-year-old" which is not even a defence, and "You're just jealous", I'll say they start to rival the mythical twilight fangirls in inability to handle criticism. No offence.

[Katana_Geldar]

Oh I can give you one. It sells well. The editors probably the type that can recognize that and did not care much about other things

Which only says more about the industry if it was just for money. :smallfrown:

[Starbuck_II]

But money buys the cheese. And cheese makes the world go round. Behold the power of cheese. :smallbiggrin:

So how long till next Eragon Reading?

[SensFan]

I didn't say people claimed the books to be beyond criticism (but then again, I haven't heard any Twilight fans say that either), but when people have to resort to arguments like "It's fantasy" in regards to a fairly inexperienced soldier doing something not even the best warriors in the world could hope to accomplish, with no explanation giving, "It was written by a 15-year-old" which is not even a defence, and "You're just jealous", I'll say they start to rival the mythical twilight fangirls in inability to handle criticism. No offence.
I think I and others have explained quite well how it is possible that Roran killed 193 men in the way he did. Not likely. Not even plausible. But possible.
And please reread the jealous quote, if you're talking about my post. It was a response to a specific statement, something to the effect of 'There's no way these books should have been published, and Paolini disgraces authors everywhere by being succesful'.

You want ability to handle criticism, I'll say it again:
ERAGON IS A BAD MAIN CHARACTER, WITH JUST ABOUT NO DEPTH. MOST OTHER CHARACTERS OF AT LEAST MINOR IMPORTANCE WOULD MAKE FOR BETTER MAIN CHARACTERS.

[Katana_Geldar]

At least you're not one-eyed about it, SensFan, as some are. :smallbiggrin:

But the faults in Eragon are not just about characterisation, even though Eragon is an annoying git who needs his head smacked. Constantly.

[ThunderCat]

I think I and others have explained quite well how it is possible that Roran killed 193 men in the way he did. Not likely. Not even plausible. But possible.
And please reread the jealous quote, if you're talking about my post. It was a response to a specific statement, something to the effect of 'There's no way these books should have been published, and Paolini disgraces authors everywhere by being succesful'.I'm not making any judgement here (just disagreement), but I still think it's striking that we hear so much about the horrible, horrible Twilight fangirls who can't accept any criticism of the object of their obsession, and yet, while the Twilight thread was mostly met positively, even by those who actually read and enjoyed the book, criticism of Eragon immediately sparks a huge debate, with 6 pages of discussion about why it is/isn't a bad book before the second chapter.

[Helanna]

I'm going to say that it is it turn also insulting to call people who intentionally ignore realism in reading as stupid. On that scene, (personally) I never bothered. It quite a cool scene and didn't touch any of my pet peeves.

I'm not calling anyone stupid. I'm saying that equating fantasy with "anything at all can happen and make sense" is a stupid mistake.


See, now to me, this comes off as jealousy and biased bashing of CP for no good reason. His writing, while not brilliant, is certainly not terrible. Do his books have flaws? Of course they do! But even the Harry Potter series has some pretty heavy flaws in it, and I doubt you'd go around bashing Rowling like this - though I suspect you might if it was 'the cool thing to do'.

Eragon, Eldest and Brisngr are good novels, each better than the one before it, which is to be expected with a young author. 90% of the critisicm out there is people looking with a fine-tooth comb for something to criticize, because they know its such a terrible book series. And of course they know it's so terrible because they've heard so many complaints from other people. Who went looking for stuff to complain about because they heard it was OMGWORSTBOOKSEVER.

See, this is insulting. You're basically saying that we all have no idea what we're talking about and that we're all just doing it to be cool and popular. You're saying our arguments aren't valid and all yours are, even though you haven't really defended them besides "Well, I liked them". Even if that's not what you mean, that is what you're saying.


I think my post has been misinterpretted. I never said there was anything wrong with having problems with the books - I myself listed several fairly large faults with them. I never said anyone who dislikes them does so because they are popular, I simply said 90% of the hate I've encountered is completely ridiculous and illogical. What I did have a problem with is the notion the books shouldn't have been published, or that somehow, because you don't like his books, it means he is an insult to the profession of authors. That's simply nonsense and ridiculous.

Except earlier, that is basically what you were saying - that virtually everything you heard was "OMG it's popular so it's crap". You've toned it down a bit but you still come off as saying that they're absolutely fantastic books and anybody finding fault with them is just looking for problems.


Warty Goblin - I disagree with you. I think the series is very good, though far from perfect.


So what do you find so good about them?


I think I and others have explained quite well how it is possible that Roran killed 193 men in the way he did. Not likely. Not even plausible. But possible.

. . . except that's it's really, really not, and even if it were even the least tiny bit plausible, it doesn't mean that it's a good idea to throw it into the book.

[Salbazier]

I'm not making any judgement here (just disagreement), but I still think it's striking that we hear so much about the horrible, horrible Twilight fangirls who can't accept any criticism of the object of their obsession, and yet, while the Twilight thread was mostly met positively, even by those who actually read and enjoyed the book, criticism of Eragon immediately sparks a huge debate, with 6 pages of discussion about why it is/isn't a bad book before the second chapter.

I see more people being angry with Eragon here than defending it. Just saying.

Well, Either GitP is just not the place Twillight fangirls come to or there is far more Eragon-hate than Twillight-hate.


I'm not calling anyone stupid. I'm saying that equating fantasy with "anything at all can happen and make sense" is a stupid mistake.


Okay, fair enough. Though I don't think anybody has said 'anything at all'.

[SensFan]

So what do you find so good about them?



. . . except that's it's really, really not, and even if it were even the least tiny bit plausible, it doesn't mean that it's a good idea to throw it into the book.
1) I like the characters very much, with the exception of Eragon. Saphira, Oromis, Glaedr, Nasuada, Arya, Islanzadi, Galbatorix, Brom, and others are all fairly well written. And Murtagh is absolutely amazingly written; the series would be vastly improved is Eragon was more like him and less 'flawless'. I also enjoy the plot, as long as I'm willing to suspend disbelief somewhat, much the same way as I do when I read Harry Potter and realize that if Voldemort is capable of The Taboo, he's clearly capable of taking over the world trivially.

2) I still contend that given:
a) A series of 1-on-1 fights;
b) where Roran is the most skilled;
c) where the enemy is fighting because they're forced to fight to the death;
d) where Roran has a height advantage; and
e) where the enemies had to climb soft usntable ground to reach him
that it is well within the realm of possibility that he could kill 193 soldiers.

[DeadManSleeping]

Guys, isn't the entire point of Let's Read to go through the book, chapter by chapter, and simply give off impressions after each, treating it as just any other book?

In other words, all this discussion is cluttering up a thread with stuff I didn't come here for, and obscuring the stuff I want to find quickly. Those of us who are here for the read-through would appreciate it if you took this general Eragon discussion to a separate thread and restricted comments to the chapters that have been reached in the read-through.

[ThunderCat]

I see more people being angry with Eragon here than defending it. Just saying.I do too. Doesn't change that very few people defended Twilight, while criticising Eragon has obviously resulted in more controversy. Besides, most of the anger with Eragon is a result of the controversy itself (and the insults you receive for criticising the book), and despite all this, there doesn't seem to be much rage against the fanboys (individual fans perhaps, but not this horde of unidentified fanboys that aren't even present).

At least most people who criticise Eragon here has read the book. And unlike what has been suggested, several of us had the same opinion of the book before it got popular to hate. Not me though :smallamused:, I found it utterly forgetful, and since I was reading entertaining, low quality books at the time, I didn't even notice the purple prose, blatant exaggerations, and plot holes, so there wasn't a lot to criticise.

[TheLaughingMan]

Guys, isn't the entire point of Let's Read to go through the book, chapter by chapter, and simply give off impressions after each, treating it as just any other book?

In other words, all this discussion is cluttering up a thread with stuff I didn't come here for, and obscuring the stuff I want to find quickly. Those of us who are here for the read-through would appreciate it if you took this general Eragon discussion to a separate thread and restricted comments to the chapters that have been reached in the read-through.

Isn't Lord Seth putting all the Let's Read chapters in the OP anyways?

[warty goblin]

I see more people being angry with Eragon here than defending it. Just saying.

Well, Either GitP is just not the place Twillight fangirls come to or there is far more Eragon-hate than Twillight-hate.


I suspect the later. This board is, I believe, male-dominated while Twilight appeals mostly to females. Taking this board, let alone this thread, as a random sample of anything is statistically dubious in the extreme.

[Maximum Zersk]

-Looks at the rest of the thread-

Too much arguing and not enough Let's Reading. :/

[Fjolnir]

I personally don't think Eragon was the worst book/series ever I have read some real stinkers. My big problem with the series is it reads like a very bad D&D group, though as I previously pointed out his lack of geographical knowledge also bothers me (when the BBEG's capital [and by extension dungeon] is CLOSER than the place you're hauling him, you need to bring him to the BBEG instead)

[Partysan]

Just to comment on the 200-kill Roran scene: besides all kinds of reasons why this doesn't work out for most people in terms of fighting realism, I doubt there are a lot of people in the world who could even swing a hammer to a deadly blow 200 times in a row!

[Haruki-kun]

You want ability to handle criticism, I'll say it again:
ERAGON IS A BAD MAIN CHARACTER, WITH JUST ABOUT NO DEPTH. MOST OTHER CHARACTERS OF AT LEAST MINOR IMPORTANCE WOULD MAKE FOR BETTER MAIN CHARACTERS.

You didn't have to say it so loud! :smalltongue:

[bluewind95]

I like ALL my stories realistic (yes, even fantasy) for a certain interpretation of "realistic". Realistic, in the sense I apply it to literature means "realistic for the world being portrayed". If you establish that there are flourescent mosquitos that sing haunting tunes that put people to sleep and there's little to no resistance to the effect, then I will find it realistic if you use it.

But if you have established that and then say, I dunno, that this character suddenly is immune to the song of the mosquitos and then goes around saying "RAWWWWR!" and killing all the mosquitos in the glade... when you'd already established that *can't* happen... well, then you lost the realistic side. And that, for me, is bad. And I think it's plain bad either way, for it's a lack of consistency.

Similarly, if you establish that your humanoids may look like humans but, I dunno, are like Superman, then I'll find it quite realistic if they pull off insane feats of strength. But if you go for the "they're ordinary humans" route and THEN have one of them go all Superman just because "it's cool"... then I will find it bad.

[Helanna]

1) I like the characters very much, with the exception of Eragon. Saphira, Oromis, Glaedr, Nasuada, Arya, Islanzadi, Galbatorix, Brom, and others are all fairly well written. And Murtagh is absolutely amazingly written; the series would be vastly improved is Eragon was more like him and less 'flawless'. I also enjoy the plot, as long as I'm willing to suspend disbelief somewhat, much the same way as I do when I read Harry Potter and realize that if Voldemort is capable of The Taboo, he's clearly capable of taking over the world trivially.

2) I still contend that given:
a) A series of 1-on-1 fights;
b) where Roran is the most skilled;
c) where the enemy is fighting because they're forced to fight to the death;
d) where Roran has a height advantage; and
e) where the enemies had to climb soft usntable ground to reach him
that it is well within the realm of possibility that he could kill 193 soldiers.

Yes, but what of the fact that you simply cannot fight for that long without getting so exhausted you would be completely unable to move? And with that many people, SOMEBODY should have managed to maneuver behind him.


I suspect the later. This board is, I believe, male-dominated while Twilight appeals mostly to females. Taking this board, let alone this thread, as a random sample of anything is statistically dubious in the extreme.

True. Not to mention that Eragon is simply more interesting than Twilight - at least it HAS a plot and characters to discuss besides "OMG SO HAWT".

Any, I don't really see the point of moving all discussion to a new thread - one of the points of a Let's Read is to discuss the book. A new thread would just clutter up the board instead. So I'm going to list what I think are the major flaws of Eragon here, in spoilers for Lord Seth's benefit, and I would be interested in hearing rebuttals, because I really don't so much redeeming in this series. I can see how it could be enjoyable, but not how it could be labeled good.

1) Mary Sues. Hard to refute this one, and many fans here haven't really tried or have just admitted it themselves.. Everyone just loves Eragon, anyone who doesn't like him is either evil or 'converted' by the end of the series, the whole 'getting turned into an elf' bit, the way he becomes a master swordsman within months and learns to read in under a week . . . the list goes on. Other characters have elements of this, but not so strong.

2) No character development. For example, at the end of one of the books, Eragon gets a huge scar across his back that occasionally acts up and makes him pass out. This could be interesting, since it's a major thing he has to deal with. How will he cope? How can he handle the pain, both physical and emotional, that comes from being so crippled? Surely we'll see how the experience changes him for the better and - Nope! Magicelfhealing. Scar's gone!

3) Eragon is a freakin' psychopath! Seriously! He cries whenever he kills a rabbit, but he mercilessly slaughters hundreds if not thousands of people and is never once affected by it, even though it's been repeatedly shown that he could totally have taken them prisoner, since they were forced into service! And I don't even WANT to start discussing what he did to Sloan (http://eragon-sporkings.wikispaces.com/Brisingr_Nine) in the third book. THAT was just . . . euurghgh. He's never once affected by what he does, except for the occasional paragraph when Paolini needs him to be angsty and emo - because that's what character development is, right?!.

4) Plot holes and things that happen just because Paolini needs them to. For example, in the third book, Eragon and Arya hear a group of soldiers coming, and say that there's nothing they can do to avoid them. The soldiers don't reach them for another hour. And ERAGON CAN MAKE HIMSELF INVISIBLE. They could have run, or hid, or done pretty much anything but keep walking towards them. And then we go back to 3) as Eragon hunts down the last soldier, who is crying and begging for his life, and strangles him to death. Because apparently there was nothing else he could have done like a)let him go, because he wasn't a threat, b)made him swear in the old language not to betray them, c) use one of the MANY, MANY ways he knows to give him a painless death instead of STRANGLING A DEFENSELESS MAN TO DEATH . . . There's also the part where Eragon figures out Sloan's true name. It's ridiculous. Why did it happen? Because Paolini needed it to.

5) Paolini. Cannot. Write. He consistently uses words completely incorrectly. It happens far too often to be simple mistakes - he sounds exactly as though he's using a thesaurus and is totally missing that words can mean the same general thing but have different specific or nuanced meanings. This isn't something you can really defend - it does happen, and this is something that any decent author (or editor for that matter) should have picked up on.

[Knaight]

Just to comment on the 200-kill Roran scene: besides all kinds of reasons why this doesn't work out for most people in terms of fighting realism, I doubt there are a lot of people in the world who could even swing a hammer to a deadly blow 200 times in a row!

Weapons actually made for war could be swung, stabbed, etc. for quite a while. Swinging a war hammer hard enough to kill someone 200 times in a row is quite reasonable, a sledge hammer is going to be a bit more difficult. The more valid points are that Roran shouldn't have been nearly as good as many of the people he was fighting, and should have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers or a brief streak of bad luck long before 200 people were killed even if he was virtually guaranteed to win a fight against any one of them.

Now, onto general criticism. There are elements with some potential throughout the books, its simply all squandered. That's probably where most of the argument comes from, sure, the books are awful, but there are just enough flashes of creativity that makes it as unfortunate as it is. Murtagh had a lot of potiential as a character, industrialization of luxury goods as economic stimulus is a good idea and the portrayal of conflicts a positive development, if shallow. So on and so forth. Its just that the books are also punctuated with scenes of immense stupidity. Roran and the two hundred soldiers, Eragon's sudden realization of the value of teamwork (TM), and so much else.

[The_JJ]

Weapons actually made for war could be swung, stabbed, etc. for quite a while. Swinging a war hammer hard enough to kill someone 200 times in a row is quite reasonable, a sledge hammer is going to be a bit more difficult. The more valid points are that Roran shouldn't have been nearly as good as many of the people he was fighting, and should have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers or a brief streak of bad luck long before 200 people were killed even if he was virtually guaranteed to win a fight against any one of them.

No, the real problem is that we are told he is capable of these feats and not properly shown it. Also, it turns one of the semi complex characters into another Sue. Well, more of one. I started hating right about the whole 'convince the town to go through the mass exodus' bit. Or maybe it was the 'in love with a girl but her daddy doesn't like me.'

Which I know seems kinda weird, but I'm a fan of stories whose characters problems are a. in some way internal. And not 'OMG I'm to awesome for this world' angst but genuine issues, or b. characters properly caught up in a world beyond their control. Or both. The difference is subtle, but the main point be that the trials do not come because the main characters happen to be at the center of the plot, but they become the center of the plot because they are well realized characters.* If that makes sense? No? Well hell, it's late.

Also, his prose is hamfisted and reads like poorly done fanfic. It's a hard thing to describe but I think the best writers have it. Hemingway, much as I dislike his novels, had it in truly massive quantities, much like Ray Bradbury, actually, who I think is very under rated. Pterry finds his it in the inventive lies and careful exaggeration of reality. Arthur C. Clarke is good at getting his it out there with out making you realize it, while Tolkien and le Guin throw it in you face to be appreciated and upheld. Gaiman's good at it, and good at many kinds of it. Martin's pretty good, but his it is secondary to his mastery of messing with the its of the past. He shows a lot of it in Fevre Dream to be sure. In the middle of the crazy magic and spells of the Black Company series Glen Cook exudes the it of experience and reality, and he manages to even lay some of this on in his Instrumentalities of the Night, even if it is a bit like a Crusader Kings LP on a really bad trip. Dan Simmons grabs it and goes straight for the emotional gut punches to great effect in Hyperion but I think he loses it later. Scott Lynch writes lesser books perhaps, but he hits it out of the park.

CP want's it. Specifically, he wants Patrick Rothfuss' it. And he does not have it. Patrick Rothfuss has it. He does not.

* Ah, but what about the WoT, ta'vren? Well, yeah, I knida hate Rand. He's far to much defined by his role in the story. Which may be sort of the point but we've been waiting a while for the punchline. I'll withhold judgement until I read the next books. Mat I like, Perrin just bores me.

[Katana_Geldar]

JJ, you hit on a very important point here. Good writing is hard to define, but it is very easy to define what isn't good writing.

[Pie Guy]

Can we stop bashing Eragon and watch Seth do it more painstakingly?

[Katana_Geldar]

We're not bashing Eragon, we're criticising it! There is a difference!

[Lord Seth]

Previously, on Let's Read Eragon: I'd like to clarify a few things given some of the discussion that's been going on. First off, any criticism of the book is directed towards the book. I'm not out to figure out whether it's Paolini or his editor or someone else that deserves blame for any problems in the book. Also, things like "well he was young when he wrote it" also don't matter. If something is bad (and I am not saying Eragon is, I have not read enough to make a strong judgment), then no matter how unavoidable it being bad is, it's still bad. To paraphrase what Chuck Sonnenberg (http://www.youtube.com/user/sfdebris) said about Star Trek V: "It seems everyone has an excuse as to why this movie sucks. The problem is, it still sucks!" If something in the book is a problem, it's a problem. I am not looking to either try to blame people for it or find excuses. I am judging the book. I probably will have more to say on the subject of blame or excuses or the author himself at the end, but for now, what I am doing is evaluating the book.

Also, I am putting links to the individual parts of the Let's Read in the original post, as there seem to be a lot of posts between my readings, so this will allow people to more quickly find them.


Chapter 2: Palancar Valley

In the words of Blogger Beware (http://www.bloggerbeware.com/), Great Prose Alert:
The sun rose the next morning with a glorious conflagration of pink and yellow.Eragon has a breakfast of porridge then goes back to the glen to examine the charred area. He finds nothing new even with the morning light, so he leaves for home. We're reminded again of the dangers of the Spine:
The Spine was one of the only places that King Galbatorix could not call his own. Stories were told about how half his army disappeared after marching into its ancient forest. A cloud of misfortune and bad luck seemed to hang over it. Though the trees grew tall and the sky shone brightly, few people could stay in the Spine for long without suffering an accident. Eragon was one of those few—not through any particular gift, it seemed to him, but because of persistent vigilance and sharp reflexes. He had hiked in the mountains for years, yet he was still wary of them. Every time he thought they had surrendered their secrets, something happened to upset his understanding of them—like the stone's appearance.Two things are re-established here: The Spine is really really dangerous, and Eragon is either really skilled or really lucky for going around the Spine (and possibly very stupid).

It takes a few days, but Eragon makes it home to Carvahall, the only village in Palancar Valley aside from Therinsford. Evidently it's secluded and surrounding "by harsh, beautiful land" and that few come there except merchants and trappers. Eragon heads to the butcher's shop and we get another MUD room description:
The spacious room was warm and well lit by a fire snapping in a stone fireplace. A bare counter stretched across the far end of the room. The floor was strewn with loose straw. Everything was scrupulously clean, as if the owner spent his leisure time digging in obscure crannies for miuscule pieces of filth. Behind the counter stood the butcher Sloan. A small man, he wore a cotton shirt and a long, bloodstained smock. An impressive array of knives swung from his belt. He had a sallow, pockmarked face, and his black eyes were suspicious. He polished the counter with a ragged cloth.Sloan asks Eragon if he's found anything somewhat rudely, asking "Well, the mighty hunter joins the rest of us mortals. How many did you bag this time?" Eragon tells him nothing, and Sloan ("with affected astonishment") says that he's amazed. Any reason why it's "affected" astonishment rather than simply "fake" astonishment? At first I thought it meant that he was astonished and that said astonishment was affected by what Eragon said, but then figured out it meant "affected" as in "fake."

You know, I can't help but recall what I said in an MST I did (link here (http://www.lemmykoopa.com/lksection.php?ThisSection=26&Submission=1282) for the curious, do be warned that music plays on that page):
"Yes, why bother with a simple word that everyone understands, when you can get everyone confused by using a word they've never seen before in some lame effort to look scholarly?"

The more I read of Eragon, the more this statement seems to apply.

Anyway, Sloan deduces that the lack of catching animals means Eragon is there to buy meat, and asks for money. Eragon says he doesn't have any, and Sloan gets angry, saying it's ridiculous for Eragon to be trying to get meat without money. He also says that Eragon should come tomorrow anyway, as it's late. Eragon glares at Sloan and tells him that he can't wait until tomorrow and will make it worth his while because he has something to pay him with. He pulls out the stone and asks if it's enough. Sloan admits it's pretty but asks what it's worth, and Eragon admits he doesn't know, but that no one would have gone to the trouble of shaping it unless it had some value. Sloan says that that means Eragon still doesn't know how much its value is, and unless he finds a trader who does, he's only going to offer him three crowns (presumably the unit of currency). Eragon responds with:
"That's a miser's bargain! It must be worth at least ten times that," protested Eragon. Three crowns would not even buy enough meat to last a week.For some reason, Eragon's usage of the phrase "a miser's bargain" just rubs me the wrong way. Is it because Eragon is still young and it seems odd that he'd use a phrase like that rather than just saying "rip-off"? I don't know, it does seem a small thing, but for some reason it stands out at me.

Sloan just shrugs and says that if Eragon doesn't like his offer, he should wait until the traders arrive, and that either way he's tired of the conversation. So, what are the traders? The next paragraph helpfully explains:
The traders were a nomadic group of merchants and entertainers who visited Carvahall every spring and winter. They bought whatever excess the villagers and local farmers had managed to grow or make, and sold what they needed to live through another year: seeds, animals, fabric, and supplies like salt and sugar.Okay, again this is a case where something seems odd to me about the paragraph, but I'm not quite sure. I guess it seems kind of out of place...Sloan mentions the traders, and then in the next paragraph (the quoted one) we get told that. I guess it's just that it seems randomly inserted to tell the reader information, rather than it seeming to evolve naturally from the story. I don't know...something just seems off about it. Or am I getting upset over nothing?

Right after that paragraph (if it helps to give context), Eragon doesn't want to wait until they arrive because it could be a while and his family needs meat now. He angrily accepts, and Sloan says he'll get him the meat, but is curious about where he found it. Eragon says he found it two nights ago in the Spine, and Sloan immediately rejects it, saying he doesn't want anything from the mountains. Eragon responds with "You refuse to sell to me!" No, really, that's his exact words. And I hate to be a broken record, but this is again a case where it seems off, but I can't figure out what it is. It just sounds like such an awkward thing to say. If it had a question at the end, it would at least make some sense, but saying it as an exclamation just seems...off.

is it just me? Am I just feeling things are off when they shouldn't be? And if it's not just me, what is so wrong about these things? Because I didn't experience this during Twilight. A bunch of the dialogue was cheesy or stupid, but none of it seemed quite as off as the dialogue in Eragon.

Sloan confirms that he won't sell to Eragon unless he pays with coins, then tells him to go away and appears to threaten him with a knife. Just then Horst and Katrina come in. Katrina is Sloan's daughter (who we were previously told is apparently the only person he cares for), and Horst is described as a hulking man and is Carvahall's smith. Horst asks what Sloan's done now, and Sloan says Eragon came in and started badgering him, and that he asked him to leave but he wouldn't budge, even after being threatened. Eragon denies this, saying that he offered his stone as payment for some meat and Sloan accepted it, but rejected it when Eragon said he found it in the Spine, and asks what difference it makes where it came from.

Weren't we told repeatedly how dangerous the Spine was, how supposedly unlucky it was, and how so many people (even including Eragon) were wary of it? Why is it treated as so odd that Sloan would reject it based on that? Especially given that Eragon knows about the fact it arrived in a big burst of flame? Incidentally, it's notable that Eragon hasn't mentioned this. Obviously saying that would make Sloan even more reluctant to get it, but it does show that Eragon is apparently unconcerned with Sloan's safety, given that he knows the stone could be dangerous. Granted, we've been told that Sloan supposedly hates Eragon, but still, it's pretty jerkish of Eragon when you think of it.

Horst takes Eragon's side, it seems, asking Sloan why he won't trade with Eragon. Horst admits he doesn't like the Spine himself, but if it's a problem of the stone's worth he'll back it with his own money. It's unclear what he means by this, unfortunately; I assume it means he'll buy it from Eragon and Eragon can use the money to buy the meat, but it's still unclear. That's what I'm going with, anyway. There's a brief silence and Sloan just says "This is my own store. I can do whatever I want." Then:
Katrina stepped out from behind Horst and tossed back her auburn hair like a spray of molten copper. "Father, Eragon is willing to pay. Give him the meat, and then we can have supper."Here's another case where someone immediately takes Eragon's side, but it also is yet another case of using a more uncommon color name rather than a more common one, but I guess I'll give the specific colors a pass because maybe he wanted to really leave no doubt what it was like. However, "like a spray of molten copper"? Huh?

Sloan gets angry at her for this, and just tells her to get back to the house as it's none of her business. Katrina's face hardens and she leaves. Horst then tells Sloan that "fine, you can deal with me." He asks Eragon what he was going to get and Eragon says as much as he could, so Horst takes out a lot of coins and asks Sloan to give him the best roasts and steaks, and make sure it's enough to fit Eragon's pack. Sloan hesitates but Horst just says "not selling to me would be a very bad idea." I'm not really sure whether he's supposed to be threatening Sloan or whatever, but Sloan goes back and gives him a bunch of meat. Sloan then starts cleaning a knife and tries to pretend Horst and Eragon aren't there.

Horst picks up the meat and leaves, Eragon following him. Eragon thanks him, and Horst says not to, as he's wanted to do that for a long time, as Sloan is a vicious troublemaker, so it does him good to be humbled. He adds that Katrina heard what was happening and ran to fetch him, which is good because it looked like Sloan and Eragon might have been about to come to blows. He notes that, unfortunately, it's unlikely that Sloan will serve Eragon or any of his family the next time they go in there, even if they do have coins."

Eragon's confused as to why Sloan exploded like that, as while they've never been friendly, he's always taken their money, and that he's never seen him treat Katrina like that either. Originally after Sloan told her to leave I wrote up how it seemed like it had forgotten the character trait established two pages earlier about how Katrina's the only person he cares about and how he dotes on her and how that seems to contradict with his actions, but I am glad to see that that hasn't been forgotten after all, as shown in Eragon's statement.

Horst tells Eragon to ask his uncle, as he knows more about it than he does. Eragon says that gives him another reason to hurry home, so he can solve the mystery. He offers the stone to Horst as payment, but Horst says Eragon can keep it and that for payment, Eragon can work as his assistant in his spare days, as one of his sons is leaving for Feinster next spring. Eragon thanks him, and is glad that he has a way of paying him back as his uncle wouldn't accept charity. He also then remembers what his cousin told him before he went on the hunt, which was to give Katrina a message. As Eragon can't do it, he asks Horst to tell her that Roran (his cousin) wants her to know that he'll come into town as soon as the merchants arrive and that he will see her then. Horst asks if that's all, and Eragon, slightly embarrassed, adds "No, he also wants her to know that she is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen and that he thinks of nothing else." Okay, that was a bit funny.

Horst grins at this, and notes that Roran is getting serious. Eragon also asks Horst to thank her for standing up to her father and he hopes she isn't punished. Horst says not to worry as Sloan didn't know it was her that called him anyway. The two part and Eragon heads for home. Their home is a fair amount away from Carvahall, a full ten miles, and some people consider the distance dangerous because the family couldn't rely on help from the village in times of trouble, but Eragon's uncle wouldn't listen. Garrow (Erragon's uncle) lets him in and tells Eragon that Roran's asleep. Garrow sees all the meat Eragon has and gets angry when he finds out Horst paid for it, as he doesn't want to beg for food, but Eragon says he didn't accept charity and will work off the debt this spring. Garrow's still annoyed, asking when Eragon would manage that given how many things he has to do at the house, and Eragon admits he isn't sure how he'll do it, but does bring up the stone and says it could be worth some money.

Garrow asks if he found it in the Spine, and Eragon says yes and explains what happened. Garrow asks how the weather was and Eragon says it was cold and froze each night, even though it didn't snow. Garrow's worried and says they'll have to hurry in harvesting the barley and squash before frost sets in (they live on a farm, if I didn't make that clear) and gives the stone back to Eragon, saying they should just sell it when the traders come, as it's better to not be involved with magic. He then asks why Horst paid for the meat, and Eragon explains his argument with Sloan, and that he doesn't understand why Sloan got angry. Garrow says it's because Sloan's wife "went over the Igualda Falls a year before you were brought here. He hasn't been near the Spine since, nor had anything to do with it. But that's no reason to refuse payment. I think he wanted to give you trouble." I'm not quite sure why refusing an odd stone from a place thought by some to be cursed is no reason to refuse payment, but whatever.

Eragon then goes into his room and falls asleep, ending the chapter. I've heard some jokes about how frequently chapters in Eragon and its sequels end with Eragon falling asleep, and I'm beginning to see why.


Thoughts: So far Eragon is turning into a "hey, wait a minute..." book. It's when you read something, then think about it and realize there's either something off of it or it doesn't make sense. And the thing is, most of these things are relatively minor, but the problem is they're all over the place. I keep noticing things, whether they be prose problems or things like Eragon getting flustered that Sloan won't take it as payment while knowing it could be dangerous. It keeps having things that take me out of the story. In contrast, there were plenty of times dumb things happened in Twilight, but it always kept me in the story that I can remember.

[Helanna]

A fantastic update! I really am going to enjoy this, I always like watching other people review and analyze stuff. And Eragon really is much more fun to snark/analyze than Twilight.


Can we stop bashing Eragon and watch Seth do it more painstakingly?

Why would we do that? It's a thread about reading Eragon. We're talking about Eragon. Unless Lord Seth feels that we're hijacking the thread a bit and wants us to stop, there's not really a reason to not discuss the subject of the thread. Although Seth, if you do want us to stop I'd have no objections to moving or stopping the discussion.

[The_JJ]

The traders were a nomadic group of merchants and entertainers who visited Carvahall every spring and winter. They bought whatever excess the villagers and local farmers had managed to grow or make, and sold what they needed to live through another year: seeds, animals, fabric, and supplies like salt and sugar.

It's off because it's hammered in world building. Poorly. F'r instance, they periodically come in with the seasons. So we know they're nomadic, we don't need to be told this. It's a tautology. Likewise, the traders were merchants. Shocking. Then we get a list of goods the farmers need. It's not so bad as the other bits, but something like that should be used to create a sense of what the town is like. It's hard to say, but here it just seems like more... being told information without being shown it. Though it might work better in context. Likewise, we should need to know that farmers need these thing to live throughout the year, this information should come from the text itself.

Also, since the farmers are buying seeds I guess we can add GMA patents to Galbatorix's litany of sins. Farmer's buying animals is likewise confusing. What exactly are the merchant's buying from the farmer then? Salt, that's a good detail, an underrated trade good (salary, neh?) but sugar is a bit... odd. I didn't notice any tropical territories in the Empire, though I guess large scale forced/semiforced labor pools would be in keeping with the theme.

So yeah, a lot wrong with just that little bit. And all of it unnecessary.

Better:
"You'll have to wait for the caravans then, heh heh heh evil laugh. See look, I'm a bad person."
"Damn it Sloan, you know they won't come until after the (local festival commemorating change of the seasons.) That's weeks away! We can't last that long."

Bam. See? In five seconds and two lines of dialog I just established the relevant information on nomadic traders, arrival times, and Eragon's concerns, and tossed in some bullpucky flavor about a festival. Which is kinda important because seasonal festivals/symbolisms really are some of the things that almost all human cultures have. It's kinda a big deal.

The fact that farmers get necessary supplies from the merchents can be infered or, at worst, have someone go "what's some farmer like you doing with a luxery item like this ohohoho" if 'peasants worried about winter harvests and desprate for money = mildly hardscrabble' still seems a little to heavy for the reader to get. As another plus, no false world building research fail wails. Congrats!

[Lord Seth]

Why would we do that? It's a thread about reading Eragon. We're talking about Eragon. Unless Lord Seth feels that we're hijacking the thread a bit and wants us to stop, there's not really a reason to not discuss the subject of the thread. Although Seth, if you do want us to stop I'd have no objections to moving or stopping the discussion.I've no problem with discussion, in fact I wish I had a little more of it in my Twilight Let's Read. And it's not like it's making it hard to find the posts of the Let's Read, as I'm putting them in the first post now.

I am interested in thoughts on the Let's Read itself though. Things I'm doing right, things I'm doing wrong, that kind of stuff is useful to know.
Though it might work better in context.Here's more full context if you're interested:
Sloan shrugged. "If you don't like my offer, wait until the traders arrive. Either way, I'm tired of this conversation."

The traders were a nomadic group of merchants and entertainers who visited Carvanhall every spring and winter. They bought whatever excess the villagers and local farmers had managed to grow or make, and sold what they needed to live through another year: seeds, animals, fabric, and supplies like salt and sugar.

But Eragon did not want to wait until they arrived; it could be a while, and his family needed the meat now. "Fine, I accept," he snapped.

[TheLaughingMan]

I am interested in thoughts on the Let's Read itself though. Things I'm doing right....

You've stayed vigilant in the fight against bad prose so far. Go for it lad, we believe in you.


...things I'm doing wrong....

You're far too optimistic, comrade. Here, two chapters in, and I already would've slaughtered Paolini's reputation and crafted it into a nifty hat. :smalltongue: Harden your defenses, or there may be no happy end for you.

*evil laugh, swiftly followed by awkward silence*

[Darklord Bright]

I've no problem with discussion, in fact I wish I had a little more of it in my Twilight Let's Read. And it's not like it's making it hard to find the posts of the Let's Read, as I'm putting them in the first post now.

I am interested in thoughts on the Let's Read itself though. Things I'm doing right, things I'm doing wrong, that kind of stuff is useful to know.Here's more full context if you're interested:

You said "Spire" instead of "Spine" quite a few times in this recent update, but otherwise it was quite entertaining, and I've been agreeing with most of your assessments about the wording just feeling clumsy in general. Keep up the good work!

[The_JJ]

Here's more full context if you're interested:

Oh god it's worse than I thought. It's just so... unnecessary. Totally disrupts the flow of the dialog. Agh. Toss some righteous indignation/explain the urgency onto Eragon instead of having him... well... spitefully let the man have his way and doom himself and his family to starvation? Or is he just rolling over to take what he can get?

[Sholos]

I laugh at that scene because it makes it sound like meat is some vital part of their diet and if they don't get it right now they're going to die. People can live on veggies, which if you're living on a farm you should have plenty of. Screw the butcher if he's trying to rip you off and go without meat for the few weeks it will take for the traders to get there!

[SensFan]

I laugh at that scene because it makes it sound like meat is some vital part of their diet and if they don't get it right now they're going to die. People can live on veggies, which if you're living on a farm you should have plenty of. Screw the butcher if he's trying to rip you off and go without meat for the few weeks it will take for the traders to get there!
If you read the scene again, you'd see that it's not for right now, it's to get the family through the winter. Repeatedly over the course of the first few chapters, we're told about how poor Eragon's family is and that they just barely get by every year (specifically, this year they couldn't even afford a pig, I think it was). I'm not expert on farming, but it seems to me that they probably don't get enough of a harvest to sell what they need to buy supplies from the traders, and still have enough to get through the winter without meat.

Which brings up perhaps the biggest reason I'm a fan of the books. I've heard many people say "The fighting scenes are completely unrealistic!", or "There's no way there could be [natural formation] here, because of [reasons]!". I do math and English, and not much more, and frankly don't know much about medeival swordplay or geography, and the way it happens in the book seems reasonable enough to me that it doesn't bother me that it works that way.

As for the events during the Agaetí Blödhren, I don't mind the change Eragon goes through nearly as much as some of you seem to. It just makes sense from the perspective of Saphira and the companion of Togira Ikonoka to change him the way they do, or else Galbatorix wins trivially. And given the magic they're capable of, is it that unrealistic they do what they can for him?

[Helanna]

If you read the scene again, you'd see that it's not for right now, it's to get the family through the winter. Repeatedly over the course of the first few chapters, we're told about how poor Eragon's family is and that they just barely get by every year (specifically, this year they couldn't even afford a pig, I think it was). I'm not expert on farming, but it seems to me that they probably don't get enough of a harvest to sell what they need to buy supplies from the traders, and still have enough to get through the winter without meat.

Yeah - so Eragon should just wait for the traders to arrive, and then buy meat for the winter. That just makes it worse! He thinks the stone is worth a lot. Why take less than one week of meat for it when you need meat for months, and there are going to be traders who'll probably give you a lot more for it in just a couple of weeks?


Which brings up perhaps the biggest reason I'm a fan of the books. I've heard many people say "The fighting scenes are completely unrealistic!", or "There's no way there could be [natural formation] here, because of [reasons]!". I do math and English, and not much more, and frankly don't know much about medeival swordplay or geography, and the way it happens in the book seems reasonable enough to me that it doesn't bother me that it works that way.

Then it's good for you that you can ignore stuff like that, but it doesn't mean the book isn't bad because of it. Failure to research (or even use common sense) is a pretty major flaw, and it doesn't matter if you personally can overlook it.


As for the events during the Agaetí Blödhren, I don't mind the change Eragon goes through nearly as much as some of you seem to. It just makes sense from the perspective of Saphira and the companion of Togira Ikonoka to change him the way they do, or else Galbatorix wins trivially. And given the magic they're capable of, is it that unrealistic they do what they can for him?

Doesn't change the fact that it's terrible storytelling.


If they have enough power to change the guy's species, why is Galby still winning? That was some massively powerful magic there. And the problem from a story-telling perspective is that Eragon never went through any character development either to earn the change or because of the change, it's just a MASSIVE Deus ex Machina that magically solves all of Eragon's problems (like his back, which apparently regular magic COULDN'T fix) and the only reason to put it in was because Paolini a) thought it was cool and b) oh crap, Eragon has a flaw that could be interesting! Quick, get rid of it! And also make him into a totally over-powered super-elf-human that's EVEN MORE AWESOME and Mary Sue-ish than he was before!

[SensFan]

Assuming you've read the Harry Potter series,
the fact Voldemort can create The Taboo makes it trivial for him to take over the world. Yet he doesn't. Because The Taboo is crucial to the plot, and yet so is a result that isn't LOLVOLDYWINS.

Similarily, Eragon needs to be human for the plot. And yet, if he's a human who can't fight, LOLGALBYWINS. So Paolini uses a way that is logical, internally consistent, and does the job.

Hell, assuming you've read the whole Inheritance series, if you don't like cop-outs, surely the bigger issue is the massive forshadowing to the fact that Eragon is going to find a massive hoard of Eldunari. :smallfurious:

[Helanna]

Assuming you've read the Harry Potter series,
the fact Voldemort can create The Taboo makes it trivial for him to take over the world. Yet he doesn't. Because The Taboo is crucial to the plot, and yet so is a result that isn't LOLVOLDYWINS.

Similarily, Eragon needs to be human for the plot. And yet, if he's a human who can't fight, LOLGALBYWINS. So Paolini uses a way that is logical, internally consistent, and does the job.

Hell, assuming you've read the whole Inheritance series, if you don't like cop-outs, surely the bigger issue is the massive forshadowing to the fact that Eragon is going to find a massive hoard of Eldunari. :smallfurious:

What does Harry Potter have to do with this at all? I'm a fan of the series but I'm not going to deny that the Taboo was a horrible mistake on Rowling's part. The ritual in Eragon is not logical or really even internally consistent - that magic basically comes out of nowhere and just does random stuff to Eragon in order to make him win. That is terrible storytelling. It is bad and makes the book bad. A good writer with a good book would have been able to accomplish the same task in a logical manner that requires the main character to prove his worth, develop his character, and/or solve a problem. Paolini is not a good writer, so instead we get LOLMAGICELVESFIXEVERYTHING, and the result is that Eragon is simply not a good book. (This being combined with everything else, of course.)

[Prime32]

Doesn't change the fact that it's terrible storytelling.

If they have enough power to change the guy's species, why is Galby still winning? That was some massively powerful magic there. And the problem from a story-telling perspective is that Eragon never went through any character development either to earn the change or because of the change, it's just a MASSIVE Deus ex Machina that magically solves all of Eragon's problems (like his back, which apparently regular magic COULDN'T fix) and the only reason to put it in was because Paolini a) thought it was cool and b) oh crap, Eragon has a flaw that could be interesting! Quick, get rid of it! And also make him into a totally over-powered super-elf-human that's EVEN MORE AWESOME and Mary Sue-ish than he was before!Riders already become elf-like over time. Or maybe it should be said that elves are Rider-like - they receive most of their "elvish" traits from their bond with dragons. The living tattoo contract dragon thing just sped up the process.

Interesting note:
The dragons' "cousins" can terrify people through mental powers. Dwarves are resistant to it.

Elves get powers from dragons. Everyone loves elves and dragons... except dwarves. And the people who love dragons the most are the ones mentally bonded to them. And Eragon falls in love with an elf who he had a sort of mental link with.

In Brisingr, an elf with a beastlike body that produces pheremones does not realise that he affects the minds of people around him.

Do you see a pattern here? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Glamour) :smallwink:

[Lord Raziere]

Assuming you've read the Harry Potter series,
the fact Voldemort can create The Taboo makes it trivial for him to take over the world. Yet he doesn't. Because The Taboo is crucial to the plot, and yet so is a result that isn't LOLVOLDYWINS.

Similarily, Eragon needs to be human for the plot. And yet, if he's a human who can't fight, LOLGALBYWINS. So Paolini uses a way that is logical, internally consistent, and does the job.

Hell, assuming you've read the whole Inheritance series, if you don't like cop-outs, surely the bigger issue is the massive forshadowing to the fact that Eragon is going to find a massive hoard of Eldunari. :smallfurious:

worse: for all we know the Kuthian or whatever could be this weird thing that has these spirits of dead riders coming out to help him or something...
or something like that.......

but y'know whats interesting? if indeed he finds a bunch of Eldunari and he uses them, it practically cements him as being no better, or at least no different from Galby, it will just be Eldunari-King vs. Eldunari-Sue, whichever wins, there is no happy ending.

[Lillith]

Hmm... Eragon. I do have to admit that I loved and devoured the first two books and for a while couldn't wait for the third (which I still haven't read due to sheer lack of time). I think I finished both books somewhere when I was 16-17 and really liked the story.

I've seen the movie too, though I had low expectations of it due to my experiences of books turning into movies. The movie was horrible.

It wasn't until later that I started to think through the story that I had read and figured it probably wasn't the high quality story I thought it was. I can spot a lot more mistakes in them then I did back in the day. Which also happened to me with the books about Nicolas Flamel (The Magician, The Sorceress etc.). First two books I devoured, couldn't wait till the third one, but during the waiting I was mincing the story in my head and when actually starting the third one something about the story was bugging me. That the characters were a bit Mary Stueish.

Though I still like the books, then again I have to admit I barely remember the writing or the story and that it's more nostalgia that I seem to harbor it happy feelings in general. So who knows what this analyses makes me think of it. :smallbiggrin: Maybe I should start reading that third book... after I've finished all school required material for several projects and the other pile of books that I have that are waiting for me to read.

Edit: Other fantasy books that I read... Discworld novels, Harry Potter, Harry Dresden, some local authors about witches and fantasy, Nicolas Flamel books... Do Roald Dahl horror stories count? I don't really have time to read a lot anymore and I can't remember the books I read when I was younger.
Edit 2: forgot to mention, I didn't read the English version. So the whole 'weird language' thing got filtered out during translation.

[warty goblin]

Eragon responds with "You refuse to sell to me!" No, really, that's his exact words. And I hate to be a broken record, but this is again a case where it seems off, but I can't figure out what it is. It just sounds like such an awkward thing to say. If it had a question at the end, it would at least make some sense, but saying it as an exclamation just seems...off.

is it just me? Am I just feeling things are off when they shouldn't be? And if it's not just me, what is so wrong about these things? Because I didn't experience this during Twilight. A bunch of the dialogue was cheesy or stupid, but none of it seemed quite as off as the dialogue in Eragon.



I can tell you exactly what's wrong with 'You refuse to sell to me!' It's a statement of fact, and nothing else, there's no emotion (except for the exclamation point!), commentary, or anything else. It's essentially null, and people don't respond in a blank fashion like that. Most of the time they don't even describe events to a third party in such a passive way.

If, as SensFan argues, this meat is vital to their survival in the next year, you'd expect him to be really pissed off, try reasoning, lowering the price, getting upset, something.


If you read the scene again, you'd see that it's not for right now, it's to get the family through the winter. Repeatedly over the course of the first few chapters, we're told about how poor Eragon's family is and that they just barely get by every year (specifically, this year they couldn't even afford a pig, I think it was). I'm not expert on farming, but it seems to me that they probably don't get enough of a harvest to sell what they need to buy supplies from the traders, and still have enough to get through the winter without meat.

But if they don't need the meat right now, they have to preserve it right now. Without refrigeration you can't exactly let the stuff sitting around. And what is it that the traders sell? Ah yes, salt. The stuff you preserve meat with.


Which brings up perhaps the biggest reason I'm a fan of the books. I've heard many people say "The fighting scenes are completely unrealistic!", or "There's no way there could be [natural formation] here, because of [reasons]!". I do math and English, and not much more, and frankly don't know much about medeival swordplay or geography, and the way it happens in the book seems reasonable enough to me that it doesn't bother me that it works that way.
Here's the thing, my actual experience with sword combat is extremely limited. I do however know that it is not something that one masters in six weeks. Why? Because people were extensively trained in sword combat for years, something of which anybody familiar with even a minuscule amount of historical knowledge should be aware. I'm not asking that authors correctly identify guards and the transitions between them, or how to execute Talhoffer's 'murder strike.' A little cursory research and basic knowledge however is something I do expect.

It's not even like some minimal research is hard. Amazon has literally dozens of books on period sword combat covering a wide varieties of styles and techniques. For well under $50 you can have an illustrated, systematical breakdown of everything from sword and buckler to longsword to sabers, rapiers and smallswords. The only excuse for not having a cursory knowledge of this stuff is outright laziness, and that's something that should absolutely be condemned.

Everybody should know you can't learn to read in a matter of weeks, because they, and pretty much everybody they know, spent years learning how to do it in school.

And there's reasons to do this research besides simple accuracy. For one thing increasing one's knowledge is never a bad thing. For another it gives you the ability to put some nice detail in the world, make it come alive, give it even an iota of the quirks that reality has.

[Syka]

I'll be the first to say, by the way, that it's not a great book. It's not even that good, when you examine it. But achieved exactly what a book is supposed to for me- it was entertaining. Like SensFan, I don't know much about warfare or geography or whatever, and I read it recreationally before going to sleep each night and the writing didn't bother me horribly either.

Is it wonderful? No. But, unlike Twilight, I didn't spend the entire book going "when does it get interesting?" Twilight just bored me, this had a plot for me to follow, and an enjoyable one at that (for me).

The people I talk to about Twilight who recognize it isn't a fantastic piece of literature but who enjoyed it anyway, I'm fine with. I have issue with the people who fanaticize it. I liked Eragon, no apologies there. But I also won't say it's really literature, as such.

[SensFan]

worse: for all we know the Kuthian or whatever could be this weird thing that has these spirits of dead riders coming out to help him or something...
or something like that.......

but y'know whats interesting? if indeed he finds a bunch of Eldunari and he uses them, it practically cements him as being no better, or at least no different from Galby, it will just be Eldunari-King vs. Eldunari-Sue, whichever wins, there is no happy ending
Adding spoilers since, unlike the Roran scene, this is actually the climax of the first 3 books.

I disagree. It's obvious from the lack of depth Eragon has that it's impossible for power to corrupt him. If he finds a hoard of Eldunari and uses them to defeat Galby, he's going to remove the bonds from Murtagh and Thorn, set all the Eldunari free again, and live happily ever after with Murtagh as his bff. Eragon will need to leave Allagaesia to find a mate for Saphira anyways.

[DeadManSleeping]

Eragon tells him nothing, and Sloan ("with affected astonishment") says that he's amazed. Any reason why it's "affected" astonishment rather than simply "fake" astonishment? At first I thought it meant that he was astonished and that said astonishment was affected by what Eragon said, but then figured out it meant "affected" as in "fake."

You know, I can't help but recall what I said in an MST I did (link here (http://www.lemmykoopa.com/lksection.php?ThisSection=26&Submission=1282) for the curious, do be warned that music plays on that page):
"Yes, why bother with a simple word that everyone understands, when you can get everyone confused by using a word they've never seen before in some lame effort to look scholarly?"

Not only is that a near-perfect use of the word "affected", it is actually a better word than 'fake' in this case. When you "affect" an emotion, you're putting a deliberate effort into it. And not only are you faking it, you're making it SOUND fake, which is exactly what this guy's doing.

I'm not defending the language of the book as a whole, but this very specific instance is rather effective at what it means to do. I'm sorry that it gave pause to some people, but you can't blame the writer for using a widely-accepted phrase in the exact manner that it is intended to be used just because you don't generally use it.

"Spray of molten copper", though...that's just awful.

[Lord Raziere]

Adding spoilers since, unlike the Roran scene, this is actually the climax of the first 3 books.

I disagree. It's obvious from the lack of depth Eragon has that it's impossible for power to corrupt him. If he finds a hoard of Eldunari and uses them to defeat Galby, he's going to remove the bonds from Murtagh and Thorn, set all the Eldunari free again, and live happily ever after with Murtagh as his bff. Eragon will need to leave Allagaesia to find a mate for Saphira anyways.

you call the Sloan scene not being corrupted? he basically did what Galbatorix did to Murtagh, only with less of a point to it, he could have dragged him back to the Varden and let him be judged there, but instead he forced Sloan to walk the length of the empire facing who knows what dangers to be a prisoner of the elves.

[SensFan]

you call the Sloan scene not being corrupted? he basically did what Galbatorix did to Murtagh, only with less of a point to it, he could have dragged him back to the Varden and let him be judged there, but instead he forced Sloan to walk the length of the empire facing who knows what dangers to be a prisoner of the elves.
Instead of dragging him with him to the Varden, which has a 99% chance of getting them both killed and a 1% chance of letting Sloan be executed in front of the entire Varden (and therefore the villagers from Carvahall), he put spells on Sloan that would ensure him safe passage to the Elves, where he could enjoy the rest of his life until natural death, without having to face the people he betrayed. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

[Lord Seth]

Not only is that a near-perfect use of the word "affected", it is actually a better word than 'fake' in this case. When you "affect" an emotion, you're putting a deliberate effort into it. And not only are you faking it, you're making it SOUND fake, which is exactly what this guy's doing.

I'm not defending the language of the book as a whole, but this very specific instance is rather effective at what it means to do. I'm sorry that it gave pause to some people, but you can't blame the writer for using a widely-accepted phrase in the exact manner that it is intended to be used just because you don't generally use it.The thing is though, I can't remember the last time I ever saw the word "affected" used in that way; in fact, I'm not sure I ever have seen it used that way (at least with "poise" I could remember that I saw it somewhere, just couldn't remember anytime I did).

Though an alternative--and better--would be "clearly fake" or "deliberately fake" astonishment if you need that emphasis. Maybe it is just me (I wouldn't rule it out), but it "affected astonishment" just seems unfamiliar and awkward. I'd hardly call "affected" (in this definition) to be widely-used, but again, maybe that's just my experience.

[The_JJ]

The thing is though, I can't remember the last time I ever saw the word "affected" used in that way; in fact, I'm not sure I ever have seen it used that way (at least with "poise" I could remember that I saw it somewhere, just couldn't remember anytime I did).

Though an alternative--and better--would be "clearly fake" or "deliberately fake" astonishment if you need that emphasis. Maybe it is just me (I wouldn't rule it out), but it "affected astonishment" just seems unfamiliar and awkward. I'd hardly call "affected" (in this definition) to be widely-used, but again, maybe that's just my experience.

Meh. Affected I'm okay with. Use it myself, sometimes.

[warty goblin]

The thing is though, I can't remember the last time I ever saw the word "affected" used in that way; in fact, I'm not sure I ever have seen it used that way (at least with "poise" I could remember that I saw it somewhere, just couldn't remember anytime I did).

Though an alternative--and better--would be "clearly fake" or "deliberately fake" astonishment if you need that emphasis. Maybe it is just me (I wouldn't rule it out), but it "affected astonishment" just seems unfamiliar and awkward. I'd hardly call "affected" (in this definition) to be widely-used, but again, maybe that's just my experience.

In general I'd be the last person to stand up for Eregon's fermented sunset prose, but this is about the perfect use of 'affected.' It's not a terribly common word, but hardly a major case of thesaurus abuse.

It feels out of place here because the setting is rustic, and affected is usually associated with airs put on by society, but it's used completely correctly. Exaggerated or sarcastic might be better choices for the sake of atmosphere I suppose, but that's a pretty minor stylistic quibble.

[Lord Seth]

Maybe I'm not communicating well. Affected's meaning works here, it just seems like a weird thing to write rather than a more common word or phrase for it.

[warty goblin]

Maybe I'm not communicating well. Affected's meaning works here, it just seems like a weird thing to write rather than a more common word or phrase for it.

And like I said, it's not that uncommon a word. I'd certainly have never complained about its use here. It's certainly less damaging to the atmosphere than the fact that the clearly supposed to be quasi-medieval town runs nothing like a medieval town.

[SensFan]

And like I said, it's not that uncommon a word. I'd certainly have never complained about its use here. It's certainly less damaging to the atmosphere than the fact that the clearly supposed to be quasi-medieval town runs nothing like a medieval town.

I'm afraid I know nothing of the workings of medieval villages. What's missing and/or wrong?

[warty goblin]

I'm afraid I know nothing of the workings of medieval villages. What's missing and/or wrong?

The entire economic structure.

To expand that concept somewhat, most villages through the middle ages were in some capacity owned by a manorial lord*, who was entitled to the money and labor rents of the peasants inhabiting it. The 'lord' might also be an organization such as an abbey, but the structure remained the same in either case. Peasants owed rents of money (if free) or labor (if unfree). The distinction between free and unfree is deeply murky, but that's the basic idea. Regardless of economic status everybody owed the lord some form of rent for the lord's upkeep.

Furthermore agriculture was not exactly an individual or family unit endeavor. A village might have only two or three fields, which were then subdivided. Pieces of land within the field were held individually (or owned by the lord), but their cultivation was subject to a plethora of rules laid down and enforced apparently at the village (not manorial) level. There seems to be evidence that decisions about what to plant and matters of that nature were reached by consensus among the adult males of the village, and much of the labor of agriculture seems to have been undertaken cooperatively.


Eregon, to the best of my remembrance, did not have a manorial lord, did not owe rents of labor or money, and famed fields isolated from those of the other villagers. The very fact that he starts the book out hunting and is willing to admit it shows some fairly serious deviation from the Medieval norm, where forested land and all contained within was the property of either the King or a lord. Peasants might have rights to exploit the forest in some capacity, but would naturally owe rents on that privilege.

From what I remember the military structure is also completely wrong. In the middle ages military service was one of the things a lord of a manor owed his feudal lord (who owned the manor) in exchange for receiving most of the rents of said. Usually this service was sold out to knights or mercenaries, who were a reasonably distinct socio-economic unit separate both from lords and peasants. There was also, in the early middles ages - particularly France - a sort of indentured knight, who fought for a lord but did not own his equipment, but this did not last particularly long.



*It is important to distinguish between manorialism and feudalism. The first was an economic system by which lords exploited peasants, the second was broadly speaking a system of military service

[Katana_Geldar]

The town could be a free one, lords sometimes "sold" the town to raise money for war. But that hardly explains the status of Eragon's family as nothing is ever explained. They could be freeholders, having bought themselves out of serfdom. But this is hardly possible as they're poor, the Empire is relatively recent and they would need the protection of the lord anyway.

[The_JJ]

Basically, since they're surrounded by free land (slash and burn!) and only supporting three able bodied mouths and not paying any rents, Eragon and his family should be living well. Only they're not because... Luke was a poor farmboy, and it adds some drama.

Again, this could easily be fixed, or even made better, by 'ohoho I'm the Evil Empire guy come to collect rent, yahar.' I mean, it would make more sense, set a tone of Galbatorix being a bad person, etc. etc. Instead Eragon valley is remote and distant because... I dunno. Because Tattoine was far from the Galactic Core. :smallamused:

Maybe it was because we needed an excuse to infodump so we isolated Eragon from the world so Brom could tell him the Empire was Evil? But then, we could have been shown that if they were around, and still gotten to have Brom infodump about the dark secret history of the evil rent collectors. See? Still works. :smallannoyed:

God damn I should just rewrite Eragon and do it better.

Oh, also, the agrarian area is apparently an importer of grain and animals, which is just confusing as all hell.

[Thrawn183]

Well, Eragon does make a point somewhere about the tax collectors. I don't have a problem with a society that isn't particularly technologically advanced having a different economic set up from western europe when it was at roughly the same point.

Somewhere a ways back in the thread someone commented on Eragon making lots of mistakes and not getting hit on the head for them. Yet... that's exactly what does happen. Heck, the entire first book of the series is just Eragon making a bunch of mistakes and people getting upset with him over it.

[Katana_Geldar]

We do know one thing: that butcher shop is way cleaner than it should be so we can say that the Empire brought in health inspectors. Either that or it's a peculiarity to the butcher, which is unlikely when he wears a bloodstained apron! Really, if you want to see what a pre-modern butcher looks like then look to further than BTTF part 3.

[Adumbration]

We do know one thing: that butcher shop is way cleaner than it should be so we can say that the Empire brought in health inspectors. Either that or it's a peculiarity to the butcher, which is unlikely when he wears a bloodstained apron! Really, if you want to see what a pre-modern butcher looks like then look to further than BTTF part 3.

You ever butchered an animal? Just saying. (I have some experience with that kind of thing, so I can be fairly confident that you have absolutely none.)

While I agree with most of the criticism directed at Eragon, I think most of it could also be directed at the ones doing the critiqueing.

Actually, this fits quite nicely to some of the posts that I've read here.

So far Eragon is turning into a "hey, wait a minute..." book. It's when you read something, then think about it and realize there's either something off of it or it doesn't make sense. And the thing is, most of these things are relatively minor, but the problem is they're all over the place. I keep noticing things, whether they be prose problems or things like Eragon getting flustered that Sloan won't take it as payment while knowing it could be dangerous.


Just saying. If you want to be credible, don't get carried away.

[Lord Seth]

Just saying. If you want to be credible, don't get carried away.I'm a little confused, are you directing this at me, at other people, or both?

[SensFan]

I don't know if the books I read (well, mostly listen to, the last couple times anyways) are the same ones as you guys read, but the entire village of Carvahall is constantly cursing that Galbatorix is taxing the hell out of them, and that they wish they could live in a time/place where whatever you grew you kept for yourself, except for any extra you may want to offer to a rightful lord.

[Adumbration]

I'm a little confused, are you directing this at me, at other people, or both?

At other people, mostly. You've been fairly coherent and consistent in my opinion (although a bit too nitpicky to my tastes :smalltongue:).

[Lord Raziere]

Instead of dragging him with him to the Varden, which has a 99% chance of getting them both killed and a 1% chance of letting Sloan be executed in front of the entire Varden (and therefore the villagers from Carvahall), he put spells on Sloan that would ensure him safe passage to the Elves, where he could enjoy the rest of his life until natural death, without having to face the people he betrayed. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

He takes away his free will, sends him on a long journey to wind up having to live with vegan atheist elves who will probably torment with never ending lectures on how he is a bad person and makes humanity worse in general, along with all the racist elves who will crow out about how they were right to the heavens about those barbaric humans, oh and since he is a butcher, of meat, they will probably give him a tongue-lashing about that too, oh and he will forever feel guilt and grief over how he betrayed his only daughter and the rest of Carvahall and of course he is probably cursing to himself over if only he took the stupid blue stone then gave it the Ra'zac, none of this would have ever happened.

all of which would add up to make him wish he were dead anyways, it would've been more merciful to let him be executed, now he spends the rest of his life suffering over this.

[The Glyphstone]

Maybe I'm not communicating well. Affected's meaning works here, it just seems like a weird thing to write rather than a more common word or phrase for it.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day?Once a day if you're on military time

[Katana_Geldar]

You ever butchered an animal? Just saying. (I have some experience with that kind of thing, so I can be fairly confident that you have absolutely none.)


Never said anything about butchering, my "beef" as it stand is about the cleanliness.

[Prime32]

On the weird way Carvahall works, Palancar Valley is inhabited by the descendants of some old kingdom's court (one which predates the Empire and possibly the Riders IIRC).

[SensFan]

He takes away his free will, sends him on a long journey to wind up having to live with vegan atheist elves who will probably torment with never ending lectures on how he is a bad person and makes humanity worse in general, along with all the racist elves who will crow out about how they were right to the heavens about those barbaric humans, oh and since he is a butcher, of meat, they will probably give him a tongue-lashing about that too, oh and he will forever feel guilt and grief over how he betrayed his only daughter and the rest of Carvahall and of course he is probably cursing to himself over if only he took the stupid blue stone then gave it the Ra'zac, none of this would have ever happened.

all of which would add up to make him wish he were dead anyways, it would've been more merciful to let him be executed, now he spends the rest of his life suffering over this.
Methinks you haven't read the books very closely. The Elves are quite literally the epitome of niceness and politeness. Further, we are specifically told they are extremely nice to him; bringing him food, knives to carve, reading to him, and will even restore his vision if he ever feels regret. Which brings me to your next point: that he has to live in guilt and shame all his life. Did you miss the part where Eragon knows for absolute certainty that Sloan feels no remorse for his actions? Perhaps you disagree, but I'm of the opinion that any life is preferable to death. And as far as I'm concerned, Sloan is living one heck of a life right now. He never has to work or toil, and will be fed and entertained for the rest of his life, not to mention treated infinitely better than he was in Carvahal. Literally the only downside to his current life is his exile from his daughter, and I think we'd both agree that's a tiny price to pay for what he did to her, Byrd, and the rest of the villagers.

Eragon risked his life and the fate of the entire world to save Sloan's life. Call it stupidity if you will, but it's anything but corruption of power.

[The_JJ]

Methinks you haven't read the books very closely. The Elves are quite literally the epitome of niceness and politeness. Further, we are specifically told they are extremely nice to him; bringing him food, knives to carve, reading to him, and will even restore his vision if he ever feels regret. Which brings me to your next point: that he has to live in guilt and shame all his life. Did you miss the part where Eragon knows for absolute certainty that Sloan feels no remorse for his actions? Perhaps you disagree, but I'm of the opinion that any life is preferable to death. And as far as I'm concerned, Sloan is living one heck of a life right now. He never has to work or toil, and will be fed and entertained for the rest of his life, not to mention treated infinitely better than he was in Carvahal. Literally the only downside to his current life is his exile from his daughter, and I think we'd both agree that's a tiny price to pay for what he did to her, Byrd, and the rest of the villagers.

Eragon risked his life and the fate of the entire world to save Sloan's life. Call it stupidity if you will, but it's anything but corruption of power.
Removal of free will 'for the greater good' = slippery slope indeed.

[Darklord Bright]

Methinks you haven't read the books very closely. The Elves are quite literally the epitome of niceness and politeness. Further, we are specifically told they are extremely nice to him; bringing him food, knives to carve, reading to him, and will even restore his vision if he ever feels regret. Which brings me to your next point: that he has to live in guilt and shame all his life. Did you miss the part where Eragon knows for absolute certainty that Sloan feels no remorse for his actions? Perhaps you disagree, but I'm of the opinion that any life is preferable to death. And as far as I'm concerned, Sloan is living one heck of a life right now. He never has to work or toil, and will be fed and entertained for the rest of his life, not to mention treated infinitely better than he was in Carvahal. Literally the only downside to his current life is his exile from his daughter, and I think we'd both agree that's a tiny price to pay for what he did to her, Byrd, and the rest of the villagers.

Eragon risked his life and the fate of the entire world to save Sloan's life. Call it stupidity if you will, but it's anything but corruption of power.

Which totally excuses Eragon's mindrape of a tortured and blinded man.

[SensFan]

Seriously? I feel like everyone's trying to tell me that the sky is neon green right now.

I don't understand how anyone could interpret that scene as "mindrape", "torture", "corruption of power", or anything like that. His options were:
a) Kill him
b) Risk far worse than death to save his life and ensure he has a happy and long life

I'm not seeing the argument that (b) is terrible here. Especially since he by definition hasn't "mindraped" anyone, since unless I'm much mistaken he never enters Sloan's mind except to prove his identity to Sloan, and that's done by showing, not looking.

[Darklord Bright]

Seriously? I feel like everyone's trying to tell me that the sky is neon green right now.

I don't understand how anyone could interpret that scene as "mindrape", "torture", "corruption of power", or anything like that. His options were:
a) Kill him
b) Risk far worse than death to save his life and ensure he has a happy and long life

I'm not seeing the argument that (b) is terrible here. Especially since he by definition hasn't "mindraped" anyone, since unless I'm much mistaken he never enters Sloan's mind except to prove his identity to Sloan, and that's done by showing, not looking.

You're mistaken.

"Thrusting out with his mind, he engulfed Sloan’s consciousness in his own and forced the butcher to accept memories that confirmed the truth of his statements. He also wanted Sloan to feel the power that was now his and to realize that he was no longer entirely human. And while Eragon was reluctant to admit it, he enjoyed having control over a man who had often made trouble for him and also tormented him with gibes, insulting both him and his family. He withdrew a half minute later."

Sounds staggeringly like mind rape to me.

[Katana_Geldar]

You're mistaken.

"Thrusting out with his mind, he engulfed Sloan’s consciousness in his own and forced the butcher to accept memories that confirmed the truth of his statements. He also wanted Sloan to feel the power that was now his and to realize that he was no longer entirely human. And while Eragon was reluctant to admit it, he enjoyed having control over a man who had often made trouble for him and also tormented him with gibes, insulting both him and his family. He withdrew a half minute later."

Sounds staggeringly like mind rape to me.

You know what that reminds me of? Jacen Solo on his way to being a Sith Lord.

[SensFan]

You're mistaken.

"Thrusting out with his mind, he engulfed Sloan’s consciousness in his own and forced the butcher to accept memories that confirmed the truth of his statements. He also wanted Sloan to feel the power that was now his and to realize that he was no longer entirely human. And while Eragon was reluctant to admit it, he enjoyed having control over a man who had often made trouble for him and also tormented him with gibes, insulting both him and his family. He withdrew a half minute later."

Sounds staggeringly like mind rape to me.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the term, but doesn't "mindrape" have to do with invading someone else's mind and stealing/changing information within? Eragon is not described as so much as trying to look at anything in X's mind; he's showing X his memories.

[Darklord Bright]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the term, but doesn't "mindrape" have to do with invading someone else's mind and stealing/changing information within? Eragon is not described as so much as trying to look at anything in X's mind; he's showing X his memories.


A character is attacked by a villain in the most painful non-physical way possible. Their mind and soul are assaulted with painful, horrifying visions and memories, and broken until they're powerless and numb, but not dead, although afterward they may wish they were. No sexual contact occurs, but everything else is there to resemble a rape - violation, helplessness, and the poisoning of what could otherwise be a source of joy.

"He was a broken man, stripped of everything he valued in life, including his self-delusions, and Eragon was the one who had broken him."
Yep, what Eragon just did was mind rape.

[Lord Raziere]

Eragon spoke and used Sloan's true name without permission, just like what Galbatorix did when he captured Murtagh and got Thorn to hatch: used his true name to make him swear that he would obey him, Eragon isn't much better than Galbatorix now as he took away a man's free will, made him do it all against his will.....maybe Sloan has to enjoy the rest of his life against his will.......maybe he can't not enjoying it because of the orders.

You call living someplace against your will living? I'd calling it existing maybe. I would never call it living though.

[SensFan]

"He was a broken man, stripped of everything he valued in life, including his self-delusions, and Eragon was the one who had broken him."
Yep, what Eragon just did was mind rape.
That quote is remarkable out of context.

Lord Raziere, I'm no longer going to bother responding to you, as the way I see it, you're clearly reading everything with the intent of making Eragon look as bad as possible. Whether it is you who is wrong about the situation or I, it matters little when to me, it looks like you're arguing that a surgeon that fixes a man's broken leg is a power-corrupt bastard for taking away the man's ability to fully appreciate how important his legs are, since he isn't being made to live without one.

[Darklord Bright]

That quote is remarkable out of context.

Lord Raziere, I'm no longer going to bother responding to you, as the way I see it, you're clearly reading everything with the intent of making Eragon look as bad as possible. Whether it is you who is wrong about the situation or I, it matters little when to me, it looks like you're arguing that a surgeon that fixes a man's broken leg is a power-corrupt bastard for taking away the man's ability to fully appreciate how important his legs are, since he isn't being made to live without one.

Raziere is, surprisingly, reading that one exactly as it was written. Not only that but

Sloan never even suggests he wants his eyesight back. The only thing he says is that he's happy knowing his granddaughter is safe. Eragon then makes him swear on his true name that he can never see his daughter again and has to live "Knowing she is with Roran and they are happy without him". Exactly how is this a bad thing to Sloan? He has never expressed any sort of disapproval of Roran, and this whole time he's just been doing what he does to keep his daughter safe. He actually begs to be killed, and Eragon says he "Is not without mercy" and decides to not do the merciful thing and grant the poor man's wish as opposed to forcing him to never see the only person he cares about again.

[Starbuck_II]

The thing is though, I can't remember the last time I ever saw the word "affected" used in that way; in fact, I'm not sure I ever have seen it used that way (at least with "poise" I could remember that I saw it somewhere, just couldn't remember anytime I did).

Though an alternative--and better--would be "clearly fake" or "deliberately fake" astonishment if you need that emphasis. Maybe it is just me (I wouldn't rule it out), but it "affected astonishment" just seems unfamiliar and awkward. I'd hardly call "affected" (in this definition) to be widely-used, but again, maybe that's just my experience.

Just because we don't use the word right now adays does'nt mean it is used incorrectly.
Example would be the word "however" is wackernagelian. It should always be the second word in the beginning of a sentence not the first.
You won't see that much in writing because we don't use words correctly now adays.

[The_JJ]

That quote is remarkable out of context.

Lord Raziere, I'm no longer going to bother responding to you, as the way I see it, you're clearly reading everything with the intent of making Eragon look as bad as possible. Whether it is you who is wrong about the situation or I, it matters little when to me, it looks like you're arguing that a surgeon that fixes a man's broken leg is a power-corrupt bastard for taking away the man's ability to fully appreciate how important his legs are, since he isn't being made to live without one.

The idea of 'fixing' a mind as if it were a broken leg is a bit... off putting, to say the least.

[Darklord Bright]

The idea of 'fixing' a mind as if it were a broken leg is a bit... off putting, to say the least.

Exactly the point. It assumes that Eragon has the right to just push into someone's head and "Fix" them on a whim if he deems something is wrong with them. Whether there is or not, it's still not morally right.

[SensFan]

The analogy wasn't meant to imply anything about 'fixing' a mind. Just that Eragon is bending over backwards and risking far worse than death to help Sloan. It's insane, in my eyes, to suggest that he's 'forcing Sloan to enjoy life', or anything of that nature.

Spoilers added.

[Lord Seth]

Just because we don't use the word right now adays does'nt mean it is used incorrectly.As I've tried to clarify, there was nothing wrong about the word's usage, it just felt weird to use a not-used-very-much meaning of the word when you could use a more common word to use it.


Example would be the word "however" is wackernagelian. It should always be the second word in the beginning of a sentence not the first.
You won't see that much in writing because we don't use words correctly now adays.Huh?

As long as we're talking about using words correctly though, I should point out that "nowadays" is one word.

[The_JJ]

The analogy wasn't meant to imply anything about 'fixing' a mind. Just that Eragon is bending over backwards and risking far worse than death to help Sloan. It's insane, in my eyes, to suggest that he's 'forcing Sloan to enjoy life', or anything of that nature.

Spoilers added.

Good intent or no he's breaking into a mind and subverting free will.


Just because we don't use the word right now adays does'nt mean it is used incorrectly.
Example would be the word "however" is wackernagelian. It should always be the second word in the beginning of a sentence not the first.
You won't see that much in writing because we don't use words correctly now adays.

My problem with a lot of the dialog is not the use but the inconsistency. Mixing in language that can be just short of ye olde sterotypicallye fantasye ande forsoothe ande alle thate jazze with this bit here and that bit there and these misused words here. It's not great is what I'm saying.

Also, the made up languages bother me. Either be Tolkien, or use it well damn it. We're assuming (hopefully) a translation convention anyway, so why get all flat out ridiculous. If you're going to make up words, use them for the parts where their existance is significant. For instance Dune. We've got some made up words centering around assassination. Now, the term 'assassin' and 'assassination' are used, they aren't called Gojastabkillers and Bedethification. The terms created instead are for things that we currently can't sythesis into a single word. A world where "Formal Ritualized Murder Amongst the Upper Houses" is a single word, and where "Aforementioned Murder Via Poisoned Drink" and "Aforementioned Murder Via Food" are each given separate term speaks volumes about the setting.

All I get from Eragon's languages is 'look at me I found out how to do umlauts! And I fancy myself a clever conlanger!'

[Theodoriph]

Do sprays of molten copper toss back their hair?

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Do sprays of molten copper toss back their hair?

Cleeeaaaaarly.

[Pie Guy]

Do sprays of molten copper toss back their hair?

Wait, she's a statue? That explains so much.

[Helanna]

That quote is remarkable out of context.

Lord Raziere, I'm no longer going to bother responding to you, as the way I see it, you're clearly reading everything with the intent of making Eragon look as bad as possible. Whether it is you who is wrong about the situation or I, it matters little when to me, it looks like you're arguing that a surgeon that fixes a man's broken leg is a power-corrupt bastard for taking away the man's ability to fully appreciate how important his legs are, since he isn't being made to live without one.

That quote was not out of context, and you're the one that's refusing to look at this objectively. Let's take a closer look at this.

First off, Eragon mindraped Sloan. Rape is not about sex, it's about power. Rapists do it because they enjoy forcing and controlling other people. It states, right in the text, that Eragon's doing it because he's enjoying forcing and controlling Sloan. There were plenty of other alternatives to proving his identity - saying things only he could have known, or even just waiting it out - it's not so much that Sloan didn't believe him as that he was in shock. If nothing else, gently brushing his mind should have been enough. Instead, Eragon forces his way deep into Sloan's mind and bombards him with information, enjoying the power he has and the pain he's causing. The entire scene is written like a rape scene. I honestly cannot see any other way to interpret this scene other than Eragon being a complete bastard - he had several choices, and he chose the most painful and humiliating one in the name of petty revenge.

Second - what he sentenced Sloan to. If I recall correctly, this was that he had to go to the elves and live his life there in isolation, crippled and blind, and wasn't allowed to see his daughter again. The major problem here is that Eragon absolutely does not have the right to sentence this man. Here, Eragon takes it upon himself to be judge, jury, and executioner. There's a reason that most justice systems don't let one guy do all that. Eragon is not even the one who was most affected by Sloan's actions, so why does he get to sentence him? That right should go to the people of Carvahall, who could have a proper trial. Y'know, those things we have to prevent massive miscarriages of justice? Like this? There's also the question of whether Sloan deserves it. He did an evil thing, but for a good but misguided cause. In return, he's been tortured, crippled, blinded - he had his EYES PECKED OUT - starved, and now he knows the guy that rescued him was a guy he always hated (insult to injury). Don't you think that's kind of enough all by itself?! But even if you think it wasn't, it absolutely wasn't Eragon's place to add any more sentence.

Third - How he did it. He discovered Sloan's true name (Through a massive and blatant Deus ex Machina: he just knew. :smallmad:) and uses it to force him to do what Eragon wants. Galbatorix also does this, and it's one of the only things we ever see from him that makes him 'evil' - but Eragon does the same thing, and it's 'good and just'. Why? Because the hero (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle0z548336167v?from=Main.WhatTheHellHero) did it, of course! Seriously, he's basically mind-controlling Sloan here. Generally an evil superpower, and for good reason. Taking away people's free will is not a good thing. And don't even try to argue that it was for Sloan's own good - if Eragon had Sloan's good in mind, there were a LOT of other ways to achieve it that didn't involve forcing him to do so.

And fourth - is it true that Eragon gave Sloan a command that made it impossible to kill himself? I heard that, but I don't personally remember it. But if it is true, then it bears a strong resemblance to something that happened in the Wheel of Time series. Except then, it was a VILLAIN doing it. Because it is an EVIL thing to do. Basically, Eragon is doing the same exact thing Moghedien was doing in WoT - taking away someone's entire reason to live (seeing Katrina, in this case) but then forcing them to live anyway. The difference? Moghedien was doing it as a form of torture.

Seriously, I see absolutely no way at all to defend that scene. Either Paolini intended Eragon to be a crazy evil sociopath* (which would actually make that scene very good), or he didn't. In which case that scene is just . . . why would you write that? There's not any other way to interpret it! Seriously. Defend that scene with something other than "Well, I personally didn't mind it/didn't notice it/can justify it through a very loose definition of the terms 'justice', 'ethics', and 'moral'".

*I hold out hope that the end of the books are going to be Galbatorix revealed as a good and just king, with the majority of the Empire a big fan, and the Varden are just a crazed terrorist organization and Eragon is just plain insane. Maybe Paolini's just a massive troll?

[Thrawn183]

Also, the made up languages bother me. Either be Tolkien, or use it well damn it. We're assuming (hopefully) a translation convention anyway, so why get all flat out ridiculous. *snip* All I get from Eragon's languages is 'look at me I found out how to do umlauts! And I fancy myself a clever conlanger!'

I like that line, "be Tolkien, or use it well" because Tolkien didn't do it any better. So very true. So very, very true.

[TheLaughingMan]

The analogy wasn't meant to imply anything about 'fixing' a mind. Just that Eragon is bending over backwards and risking far worse than death to help Sloan. It's insane, in my eyes, to suggest that he's 'forcing Sloan to enjoy life', or anything of that nature.

Spoilers added.

Free will is a major issue here. Imagine you're Sloan. Your life's gone to hell, you'll never see your loved ones again, and your forced to live alone, crippled, for what's left of your life. And yet, you just can't stop being cheerful. There's no reason to be, there's no bright spot left in your life. You can't even be shed a tear for your family, or rage against the man who brought this upon you. You feel the happiness, and you feel the optimism, but it's become a shell for you. The man who was sent here died long ago. You're no more than a machine, and death has become a distant dream.

[The_JJ]

I like that line, "be Tolkien, or use it well" because Tolkien didn't do it any better. So very true. So very, very true.

:smallconfused: Not exactly the point I was getting at. See when we talk about Tolkien and languages, we aren't talking ye olde Englishe. We're talking, well the real deal. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#Academic_and_writing_career) I'd say that, yes, he did it much better.

[Lord Raziere]

The analogy wasn't meant to imply anything about 'fixing' a mind. Just that Eragon is bending over backwards and risking far worse than death to help Sloan. It's insane, in my eyes, to suggest that he's 'forcing Sloan to enjoy life', or anything of that nature.

Spoilers added.

and how is taking away his free will helping him? all it does is make him more miserable, do you really think Sloan would be truly happy knowing all that he went through, all that he done to try and make his daughter safe.......mess up completely, foiled by the person who started the trouble that led to the dangers that he tried to protect his daughter from, then when he begs of said person to kill him, grant him the mercy of death so that he doesn't have to spend the rest of his days being miserable knowing his daughter is happy and all he did was screw up and try to prevent that happiness?

Said person doesn't grant his request and sends him off to live with people whom he probably considers myths by using magic to twist his mind, a mans most sacred sanctuary, if said man cannot be safe inside their own mind where they can think what they will, where in the world are they safe?

Nowhere. Nowhere at all. :smallfrown:

[TheLaughingMan]

and how is taking away his free will helping him? all it does is make him more miserable, do you really think Sloan would be truly happy knowing all that he went through, all that he done to try and make his daughter safe.......mess up completely, foiled by the person who started the trouble that led to the dangers that he tried to protect his daughter from, then when he begs of said person to kill him, grant him the mercy of death so that he doesn't have to spend the rest of his days being miserable knowing his daughter is happy and all he did was screw up and try to prevent that happiness?

Said person doesn't grant his request and sends him off to live with people whom he probably considers myths by using magic to twist his mind, a mans most sacred sanctuary, if said man cannot be safe inside their own mind where they can think what they will, where in the world are they safe?

Nowhere. Nowhere at all. :smallfrown:

Stop coping my moves, man. :smalltongue: