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I'm reading it,
Chatterbox: Blab About Books
Brisingr
I'm reading it,...
I'm reading it, because I was curious. I'm on page 114 of my PDF, and thus far I have come to four conclusions:
1. Eragon is a sociopath.
2. The Varden is a fear-mongering terrorist organization.
3. Galbatorix is a good if mildly ineffectual king.
4. Elva is the real mastermind behind the Varden, and she's just using Nasuada as a convenient puppet.
I mean, good grief, take a look at this passage:
Eragon and Arya are traveling through the Empire to rejoin the Varden when they are stopped by a patrol of soldiers. The soldiers intend to make sure they aren't smugglers/traitors and ask a few questions as such. They discover Eragon's armor, leaving our "heros" with little choice but to fight:
The horses had scattered. Only three soldiers remained alive. Arya was grappling with two of them some distance away while the third and final soldier fled south along the road. Gathering his strength, Eragon pursued him. As he narrowed the gap between them, the man began to plead for mercy, promising he would tell no one about the massacre and holding out his hands to show they were empty.
When Eragon was within arm’s reach, the man veered to the side and then a few steps later changed direction again, darting back and forth across the countryside like a frightened jack -rabbit. All the while, the man continued to beg, tears streaming down his cheeks, saying that he was too young to die, that he had yet to marry and father a child, that his parents would miss him, and that he had been pressed into the army and this was only his fifth mission and why couldn’t Eragon leave him alone?
“What have you against me?” he sobbed. “I only did what I had to. I’m a good person!”
Eragon paused and forced himself to say: “You can’t keep up with us. We can’t leave you; you’ll catch a horse and betray us.”
“No, I won’t!”
“People will ask what happened here. Your oath to Galbatorix and the Empire won’t let you lie. I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to release you from your bond, except . . .”
“Why are you doing this? You’re a monster!” screamed the man. With an expression of pure terror, he made an attempt to dash around Eragon and return to the road. Eragon overtook him in less than ten feet, and as the man was still crying and asking for clemency, Eragon wrapped his left hand around his neck and squeezed. When he relaxed his grip, the soldier fell across his feet, dead.
...
What.
...
WHAT.
...
I mean, seriously, what the [self-censor] was that?!
And Eragon is supposed to be a good guy?!
WTH.
This... this kid is totally unarmed, terrified out of his wits, begging for mercy and promising not to betray them (not that that's possible, betraying someone whilst on opposite sides).
Not to mention his earlier treatment of Sloan, which essentially was that (a) Sloan will never ever get to see his beloved daughter again, and (b) Sloan has to walk across a huge desert, blind, whilst relying on what animals there are in said desert to bring him food. Where he's going to get water, I don't know. This is considered more merciful than just killing him.
;adfja;lsfjka;klefjnaioarweg *headkeyboard*
Ahem.
Rant over.
submitted by TNÖ, age 16, Deep Space
(January 21, 2010 - 12:15 am)
(January 21, 2010 - 12:15 am)
Oooh.
Ouch.
That is sad.
(January 21, 2010 - 9:42 pm)
Yes. And thus far no one has called him out on yet. It's like, he's the designated hero, therefore he gets to commit horrendous acts (i.e, genocide (the Ra'zac), psychological torture (Sloan's punishment), cold-blooded murder (the above passage), etc.) of the type the Varden claims Galbatorix has performed (well, in the case of genocide I suppose Galby nearly wiped out the dragons, but for all we know the Riders were a oppressive, militaristic that "kept the peace" by forcing people to live in fear and Galby wiped them out, only people are now misremembering the riders a la the elves in Lords and Ladies), and E can walk away without so much as a moral blemish.
Stupid moral dissonance.
(January 22, 2010 - 11:46 am)
What does dissonance mean?
It means harsh, unharmonious sound.
Old Cricket
(January 22, 2010 - 6:45 pm)
You know what? That's a really good point. I actually enjoyed the Eragon series, but it really has been a while since I read it. Perhaps I was too young to really understand what was really going on. I actually think you may be right, even though I've always loved the entire series until now. Eragon couldn't let the man go, but there were solutions other than murder. He could've forced the man to promise to break his promise to Galbatorix, and threaten him with death if he did not do so (which is cruel, but better than killing him straight out), so the man could be loyal to his instincts instead of Galbatorix. Then, he could've offered the man the chance to take an oath to them, and if he said yes, he would officially join the Varden. If he said no, he could've taken the man 'prisoner', but still treated him really well. He could've even allowed the man to write letters to his family, as long as there were intelligent, trustworthy people hired to read his letters and make sure that they didn't give away where the man was (then they could come get him; all he could be allowed to say is that he is safe, and cannot reveal his location), or have anything that looked like a code in them—reading other peoples' mail is rude, but still better than murder. Or maybe there's a kinder solution that I can't think of. Who knows?
(January 22, 2010 - 10:20 pm)
Umm. Wow. I definitely do not want to read that series now.
(January 23, 2010 - 9:33 pm)
Question: Did you read the other two books? Just curious.
They are all pretty poorly written, with totally unoriginal plotlines, but you can mock the characters of any book, so just because you can here too doesn't say a whole lot. What you're saying is true, and I don't even know why I'm playing devil's advocate here, but you sound a little too biased, not objective enough. Anyway, I'm done defending an author who's barely more than a kid himself and still writes like one.
Random quote from somewhere (maybe one of you put it on the quote thread, actually): The funny thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
Cheers,
lavendershy
(January 23, 2010 - 3:30 pm)
Yeah, that's Robert Graves. The quote.
On topic, TNO (umlaut) has more patience than I do... just the first book took me fahevah and I detested it for reasons already stated, so until I have nothing else to read, no.
(January 24, 2010 - 10:46 am)