Be awed, for I am deep.

Maybe I'm being picky, but in his dedication, Paolini says the book is for "my family, and also for the dreamers of dreams." I could give him a pass on this if every other damn thing that drips from his pen wasn't overly dramatic, but . . . dreamers of dreams? As opposed to dreamers of turnips? Having dreams makes you a dreamer, right? C'mon. It sounded pretty cool in the 1800s when O'Shaughnessy did it--in an ode that was framed for this kind of language--but in a dedication? Yug. It's as bad as if he was always telling people he hoped their swords would stay sharp or something.

And now, a detailed account of history. Without the details, or the history.

Paolini's fourth Inheritance book opens with a short history of what's happened so far. And we get this:

Then humans sailed to Alagaësia. And the horned Urgals. And the Ra'zac, who are the hunters in the dark and the eaters of men's flesh.

Notice he doesn't tell us where the humans and Urgals and Ra'zac CAME from. Elves come from across the silver sea, but humans and whatnot just kinda came there from, er, somewhere? Where did they come from, Paolini? If you're going to bludgeon us with unnecessary history lessons, why not come up with something other than "they came from across the sea"? At least the myth of dwarves being formed by a god from the stone is an attempt to establish origin. Ooh, you know what I want? Urgals from space. Humans as failed elf clones. Let's science this thing. That would be awesome.

What is this "summary," anyway?

Then the god Helzvog made the stout and sturdy dwarves from the stone of the Hadarac Desert.
[ . . . ]
And from each dragon they could, they took the heart of hearts--the Eldunarí--that holds the might and mind of the dragons, apart from their flesh.

At first, this "history" reads like it might be in a mythology/history book--possibly in a dwarf tome since parts of it suggest legitimacy for the dwarf god Helzvog and pretty much just said every other race came from somewhere else, though I doubt the dwarf race would acknowledge that elves were stronger than they were--but now I'm confused. This late-addition junk about the Eldunarí appeared part-way through the third book, Brisingr. When it appeared, a bunch of patchwork justification for why no one knew this stuff was thrown into the mix--because after all, dragons have to keep the knowledge of the Eldunarí secret or it could be used against them. This is so secret that Eragon's dragon Saphira never even shared it with him. And yet here it is written bald-facedly in a legend. The only explanation, then, is that this is not supposed to be any race's myth. It has to be narration. Which means, as it's from the omniscient narrator, everything in it is gospel. Which means . . . dwarf gods are real. QED.

And for that reason, it's kind of annoying to keep seeing reasonable doubt regarding gods and fake "mysteries" grafted into the story. Dwarf gods exist, or at least Helzvog does, and he literally made the dwarves out of stone. 'Kay.

And now, Paolini's how-to on removing all suspense from your novels.

Eragon's cousin Roran and several other members of the Varden (the story's rebel group) get crushed under a crumbling wall. Roran is the only one who survives because he happened to be underneath some kind of support thing when it fell. Roran relays the news of everyone else's death without any emotion--very matter-of-factly--and they don't even bother to extract the bodies or mention the names of the poor men who died.

Paolini, you see, you're trying to inject your story with reasonable doubt about who might die, but you're doing it really poorly if a wall collapses and EVERYONE DIES EXCEPT THE IMPORTANT GUY, who makes it out with a broken wrist that can be healed immediately. It doesn't fool us into thinking your main characters are actually in mortal danger. They are immune to death in silly ways. (Dude, and we even find out later that just before the collapse disaster, Roran narrowly escaped dying by crossbow because one of his men happened to step into harm's way and save him. And another time, he luckily escapes being assassinated because someone else happened to get killed first on the assassin's way to his tent.) Roran can't even get shit on himself. (I mean that literally. He happens to stand up just in time to avoid a woman dumping a chamber pot on him in an enemy city.)

Roran could not die under a wall. A character like Roran could only die in self-sacrifice because there was no other way, or in a prophesied scenario, or, I don't know, saving a disabled child who's holding a puppy or something. Nobody reading was scared in the least when Roran disappeared under a pile of rubble. Because Paolini is not the kind of author who puts important characters in actual harm's way unless they have been groomed for it all along and their death means something or isn't final. Don't think we ever believed it if you put important characters in danger and SAID they'd died, either, Chris. You tried that already with Murtagh in Eldest, and we didn't believe you then either. Do you really think we're going to think you changed your tune when you do it to Angela? Because yes, he pretends Angela died too, by having people report that she's dead despite not showing us a body, and surprise surprise, she walks in again at the end of the chapter. No, we didn't get taken in, man. We believe it if you kill your spellcaster, who dies in self-sacrifice and leaves behind no mysteries. We don't believe it if you kill Angela, who clearly still has a part to play.

Let me hint at something repeatedly, then present it as a revelation!

Paolini doesn't trust his audience. He thinks we're kinda oblivious. (And I guess we are, if we're still reading these books expecting to get some kind of pleasure out of the experience.) Anyway, I've noticed it's very common for him to say something that we can completely understand, but then just in case we need our sweet little hands held, he'll have an ignorant character show up and ask questions so he can explain stuff to us that was usually pretty obvious.

A good example would be when the king of the werecats shows up, and in a speech about fighting capability, he notes that "the one-shapes" follow werecats' orders even though they're just dumb animals. It's pretty clear, coming from a werecat, that he's talking about regular cats here (even though theoretically every creature that can't shapeshift should theoretically be a "one-shape" to them). Despite that, Varden leader Nasuada parades her ignorance and is all like "gee, what's 'one-shapes' mean?" and the king werecat gets to dump more exposition on us about what their relationship is with cats. This would have been SO much more effective if he just let us see it once it was relevant. . . .

Eragon is horny in a really creepy way.

This isn't really major because it could be taken a couple of ways, but during a moment when elf princess Arya shuts her eyes and isn't aware of what Eragon is looking at, he . . . and I quote . . . "took the opportunity to study her with an openness and intensity that would have been offensive otherwise." This is kinda like sneaking in to watch somebody sleep, which is brought up frequently as one of the creepiest things Edward does in the famous Twilight series. (I will not be reading that series. I do not need another Inheritance on my hands, and believe it or not I normally do my very best to stay AWAY from bad books.) With this, we realize Eragon knows he's not supposed to be looking at Arya that way . . . but as long as she isn't aware that he's doing it, HE'S GONNA DO IT. It rubs me the wrong way. Especially considering her entrance inspired the narration to say "an ache of longing filled him." Paolini is still not making very good choices when it comes to his romantic language attempts. If he's going for compelling beauty when describing Arya, he's not going to get there by making Eragon's internal dialogue sound like a horndog. (I wouldn't mind, actually, if that's what he was supposed to be, but the pedestal worshipping "omg she's a goddess" overly respectful vibe seems to be what Paolini is trying for most of the time, so Eragon's hardon sort of spoils it.)

Oh, Roran, truly you are a friend of the womenfolk!

But wait, there's more! I thought it was kinda cool initially when Roran didn't care that doing the laundry is supposedly "women's work," because he wants to help his wife and whatnot. And I guess it's okay, considering their society, for a woman to protest that laundry is women's work. But then, in the midst of Roran trying to convince Katrina to let him have a turn and take a little rest, he starts to sound abusive. It's played as cute. He may be arguing that he is going to DO this "women's work," dag blast it, and who cares what people think, but in convincing her to let him take over he calls her names ("stubborn"), barks commands ("Move." "Shoo." "Get out of here." "Now go!"), and finally threatens to tie her up if she doesn't take a rest and let him scrub. It bothered me because Roran's saying stuff like "I'm not going to argue" and throwing his weight around like a MAN'S MAN, but all in the name of doing a favor for his wife while giving the finger to gender roles. It's sort of dissonant. If someone decided he was going to do one of my chores and I had to say I wanted him to leave it to me more than once, I would kick him the hell out of my house. I don't appreciate people FORCING me to accept chivalry. It isn't something I consider honorable. It's something a guy does when he thinks he's honoring a woman but is actually dominating her. (If she expresses that she likes this behavior, or is cute and coy about it, or whatever they establish, fine. But if a guy tells a girl repeatedly how things are going to go no matter what she says--and "jokes" that she's gonna get tied up if she doesn't let the man do what the man wants--I get a really horrific taste in my mouth.)

And Chris still hasn't figured out the difference between writing a strong hero and writing an antisocial bastard.

Eragon is still being written as the hero, but displays actions and attitudes that are mean and petty at best, sociopathic at worst.

At one point when Arya wants to offer assistance and the people who need help won't let her help because they don't trust her magic, Eragon suggests that she use the ancient language to tell them she means no harm, because "they'll have no choice but to believe you." He advocates using this truth-speaking language to MAKE people believe what he wants? (Well, in the last book he tortured a guy into swearing he would separate himself forever from his loved ones before sending him blinded into the wilderness, so I guess that's a silly question. Of COURSE he would do that.) Another time he starts wishing in gruesome detail that he could completely destroy a city and--and I quote--"indulge in every savage urge and leave behind him nothing but a pit of smoking, blood-soaked ashes." Nice hero, eh?

He frequently acts like a tyrant and no one even acts like they resent it, and sometimes he acts like he doesn't grok normal emotions. (For instance, at one point someone is sad that a spellcaster she's known for over a thousand years is dead, and Eragon's response is to be surprised she feels that way because he didn't think she really knew him very well. He doesn't get it when someone's sad that a person is DEAD? He does the same thing when Glaedr the ancient dragon becomes morose when visiting the home of long-dead dragons and Riders; Eragon only "starts to feel sad" because Glaedr is mourning while he's in mental contact with him, not because the place's sentimental value affects him at all. He reacts to the old dragon's sorrow by diminishing the mental contact so he won't have to deal with it.) And when he threatens people, he's rewarded with respect or information, not resentment and desertion.

Roran's no better as he also fantasizes about war (and declares the rush "better than love"), and uses a woman's protectiveness against her as he threatens to cut her companions to pieces if she doesn't tell him what he wants to know, then hits a woman in the chest and threatens to knock out her teeth and keep them as a trophy if SHE doesn't talk. And of course Saphira gets off on people being afraid of her, at one point taking pleasure in the screams of humans because "She was a dragon. It was only right that they should fear her."

Poor disabled people! They really should have been born dead.

Here's a clip from the story after a baby is born with a minor congenital abnormality. Note how sensitive the narration is to such disabilities.

Children cursed with a cat lip were rarely allowed to live; they were difficult to feed, and even if the parents could feed them, such children would suffer a miserable lot: shunned, ridiculed, and unable to make a suitable match for marriage. In most cases, it would have been better for all if the child had been stillborn.

I understand we're in a pseudo-medieval time here, but does the narration have to go there? Does the NARRATION have to recommend that it's better to be dead than have a facial abnormality? I think this was a terrible choice. And of course the solution here is to fix the baby, since nobody's going to be able to love such a person, I MEAN REALLY.

Are you sure Eragon isn't you, Paolini?

Wherever he looked, he saw an overwhelming amount of detail, but he was convinced there was even more that he was not perceptive enough to notice.

I found this sentence kind of ironic. Eragon's been told that he's not actually SEEING what he's looking at--a wise old dragon told him so, so it must be true!--and therefore he's trying to see more. However, very much like his author, Eragon doesn't seem to understand that detail is NOT what you need in order to fully and properly understand something. What I'd like is for Paolini himself to stop fixating on details and understand essence.

I did too do the research! Let me show you. Everything.

In the past, Paolini has been accused of not really doing the research when it came to discussing medieval-type towns and whatnot. We can excuse him somewhat if he's writing in a world that is not ours which clearly evolved under different influences, but he got some criticism over making the supposedly poor town that Eragon grew up in have various features that only rich towns had. Now I've encountered a chapter that suggests he's done some research; in discussing a settlement called Aroughs, suddenly we get a metric ton of explanation of how exactly the place functions, using only medieval-type technology. This strikes me as overkill: okay, he did the research, and then he feels compelled to prove it to us by . . . reciting it? We honestly don't need to know about how a canal is this far away and then it's divided here and that powers the mill which grinds the flour and then the peasants cart their grains to the mill and then the sacks of flour go on barges and then they get floated down the river and oh by the way they use this to move other goods; shall I list the local exports? DON'T SAY NO, BECAUSE I'M GOING TO, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. Considering even Roran, after hearing this recitation, believes that none of this information is helpful, I'm confused as to why it's there, unless he's just trying to show us he did research.

Dirt ball. More dirt ball. Should I describe the dirt ball? DIRT BALL!

There's an exceedingly boring chapter in which Eragon talks to the dwarf king Orik and they pretty much say nothing. Usually I appreciate character development in quiet "non-action" chapters like this, and I think that's what he was trying to do by having these old friends discuss the perks and the disadvantages of their positions. Unfortunately, the conversation Paolini chose for them didn't flow, because he used it to shoehorn in more crap he came up with. We get over seven HUNDRED words about Orik making a ball of dirt. Apparently it's a dwarf custom and has this tie to religion and Orik's doing this because none of his friends want to play with him anymore now that he's king. (Notice how I summarized that in thirty words. Dude.) And just in case you were wondering about dwarf facial hair, you get some details about which dwarves wear freaking beads in their beards. Good stuff.

Being a victim of mind control makes you a bad person.

I'm annoyed that Paolini keeps writing brainwashed half-brother Murtagh as though he's a traitor through his own devices. Murtagh, when he was introduced in Eragon, HELPED Eragon's worthless ass quite a lot, and he only became a problem once his VERY WILL was ripped from him through mind control. And yet Paolini insists on including lines in the book like "Roran was the only family he had left--Murtagh did not count, as far as Eragon was concerned." Excuse me? Murtagh is his half-brother, and though they don't share a past, they certainly have shared some valuable interaction and, previously, they shared loyalty. It's not like Murtagh betrayed him. I wouldn't mind if Murtagh "didn't count" because of lack of a shared childhood, but he sure seems to consider Brom his true father even though he didn't lift a finger to raise him as a son, and he doesn't spend ANY time in this book mooning over the loss of his uncle Garrow (who raised him). This is really inconsistent and silly.

Don't mind me; I'll just be over here making insensitive comments about the disabled.

I've noticed Paolini makes a lot of unfavorable comparisons to ill, elderly, or disabled people. In my last essay I already noted his tendency to overuse "blind" as a synonym for "foolish," but in this one I noticed a lot of similes along the lines of "forcing him to stand hunched over like a cripple" or "Eragon had to hunch like an old man with rheumatism." I guess this is just an extension of his usual tendency to compare EVERYTHING to SOMETHING ELSE, but this goes a little beyond annoying. I don't see why using "an old man with rheumatism" helps us at all while being told that the tunnels are low and therefore Eragon has to bend over. What if I'm an old man with rheumatism? (I'm not, but . . . what if?) What if I'm blind listening to the audio version? What if I'm a "cripple"? If I were an amputee, would you jokingly refer to a foot injury making you a "gimp" in my presence? If you wouldn't, why is it okay to do it as long as you assume no "gimps" can hear you? I think it's unnecessary.

BLOOD LIKE RUBIES, BONES SNAPPING LIKE TWIGS. Want to know what intestines smell like?

There's way too much torture in this book. I won't say much about it, but there's quite a lot of gruesome description that really isn't necessary, and with Paolini insisting upon describing the texture of blood and the sounds of snapping bones and comparing destroyed body parts to gemstones or elements of nature, it's extremely hard to stomach. Try this on for size:

The iridescent blue blade cut through bone and flesh as if they were equally insubstantial. Blood trailed from the tip in long, twisting ribbons that slowly separated into glistening drops, like orbs of polished coral, while the men he cut doubled over, clutching at their bellies as they attempted to hold closed their wounds.

You know what? Forget this. Paolini just watched 300 (and he's clearly the type of person who thought it was OMGTOTALLYBADASS LOOKIT ALL THE DEATH IN SLO-MO HEHEHEHEEH), and he's forgotten that real life doesn't have special effects. Good thing if you're Eragon you can feel like time slowed down for no apparent reason in the middle of battle, so that your author can slide in disgusting descriptions like this.

Who do you think you are, Dan Brown?

Paolini displays a new tendency to insert incredibly short chapters in this book (as short as around 300 words). I mean, some of his weapon descriptions are longer than that. I'm not sure why he does it, but at one point, Eragon had just been told that he was going to magically forget something very important--a well-guarded secret--as soon as he emerged from a chamber. The chapter "Return" begins and ends within a page or so, and the only thing it's about is Eragon indeed forgetting the very thing he's just been told he was going to forget. It's written as if this is supposed to be powerful and dramatic. I didn't get it. I thought it was pointless. Why didn't he just write the scene and continue a chapter instead of trying to make it seem poignant? (It didn't work.) And now that my bitching about it is about as long as the chapter was, I'm going to shut up.

Maybe I shouldn't have suggested we "science this thing":

I don't really have a great reason for objecting to this, but it bothered me that Paolini threw in modern science references several times. What he describes as having occurred on Vroengard Island is clearly mutation, the result of a nuclear explosion (apparently set off by magic). Radiation has changed the place in a remarkably short time (I'd say unrealistically short, but I don't really give a crap if this is fantasy and the radiation might have been magically enhanced). And then an ancient dragon tells Eragon some crap he doesn't understand that appears to be about a) light waves/particles and b) the nature of the atom. There's not really a reason for an old dragon to be randomly sciencing Eragon. It's just to show how wise they're supposed to be I guess. The references to science without the characters having any science understanding was kind of obnoxious.

AN ARMY OF CATS FORCED TO FIGHT TO THE DEATH

And it makes me sad that the werecats can command/brainwash/hypnotize regular cats to do their bidding. They force them to fight the enemy soldiers--yes, kitty-cats, ordinary cats--and I'm sure plenty of them died. It's one thing to go into battle based on your own choices, but . . . is there an Alagaësian humane society I can report this to?

Let's symbolize a new beginning by giving the blind guy pretty eyes!

Annnnd . . . I'm trying to figure out what point Paolini might have been trying to make when he healed blind traitor Sloan's eyes and pointed out that he'd made them BLUE eyes, rather than whatever (presumably dark) color he'd had when he was born. Now don't get me wrong. I love blue eyes. Perhaps I'm biased, of course. . . .

Sentences aren't Christmas trees. Stop decorating them. NO! Just--BAD CHRIS! HAND OVER THAT TINSEL RIGHT NOW.

"Even so . . . And to what do we owe the unexpected pleasure of this visit, Your Highness? Werecats have always been noted for their secrecy and their solitude, and for remaining apart from the conflicts of the age, especially since the fall of the Riders. One might even say that your kind has become more myth than fact over the past century. Why, then, do you now choose to reveal yourselves?"

Thank you, Ms. Exposition!

LORD OF THE RINGS

Then the elves sailed to Alagaësia from across the silver sea.

That's where Tolkien's elves came from too. "Across the sea." There's an elf factory over there, didn't you know?

There's a bit where Eragon and Saphira are tearing into a long-awaited meal (and Eragon, despite preaching vegetarianism in previous books, has suddenly become a carnivore). For no apparent reason--considering they're mind-linked and all--Saphira decides to ask Eragon whether he's enjoying his meal. That's not how she asks, though.

Is it good? Is it scrumptious?

That sounds kind of weird, doesn't it?

In the introductory ramble about the history of Alawhatsia, we get this:

[A]ll who gazed upon [the dragons] despaired, for their beauty was great and terrible. And they lived alone in the land of Alagaësia for ages uncounted.

Yeah, so, if dragons "lived alone," who is looking upon them in despair exactly? ARE THEY ALL AFRAID OF EACH OTHER?

. . . Michelle, where WERE you? Were you really the executive editor of this book? I thought professional editing did still involve fact-checking and content review.

Arya sent the egg away with magic, toward one who she hoped could protect it.

If Arya could use magic to teleport the egg, why didn't she do that in the first place? Seems a lot more practical than a wild goose chase physically bringing the egg to random people to see if it would hatch while traveling in constant danger for twenty years. Strangely enough, right after this the narration claims that Arya's spell "went awry," which doesn't really make sense because a) it didn't say how it was "awry," and b) it did get to Eragon who became a person for whom the egg hatched, right? How is that "awry"? Sounds pretty much exactly like what she wanted to happen. And though the narration claims she had been trying to send the egg to Brom, what good would that have done? Would it have hatched for him? Why didn't she do that originally, anyway? Why didn't they all just pretty much teleport the egg around to trusted people so they could test who it would hatch for? Later in the story we get yet another switch-up, where a secret weapon--I mean, a bunch of dragons who hid themselves, waiting for the right moment--turns out to have been responsible for making the spell "go awry," on the off chance that the egg might hatch for Eragon. (They thought there was a "small chance," so they didn't know. Just once in a book like this I'd like to see one of those gambles not pay off.)

After much thought, Eragon discovered Sloan's true name in the ancient language, the language of power and magic.

Has Paolini actually read his own book and stuff?

Here's the passage wherein Eragon "discovers" Sloan's true name "after much thought."

There occurred to him, then, three words in the ancient language that seemed to embody Sloan, and without thinking about it, Eragon whispered the words under his breath.

That is not "after much thought." It just CAME TO HIM, and he discovered it was Sloan's true name specifically "without thinking about it." Because Eragon has Protagonist Powers. And, as mentioned in my last essay, the ability to randomly know someone's true name is unprecedented, yet when Eragon and Arya discuss it later she claims it's silly to worry that Galbatorix might learn Eragon's own true name through a similar process. Even one of Paolini's own characters recognizes how silly that would be. Yet here, Eragon just sorta figured it out for no apparent reason with no apparent provocation--this is his cousin's fiancée's dad, not a close friend--and I don't appreciate this rewriting of how it happened to make it seem like he actually put in effort.

Later in the story, for a plot-relevant reason, Eragon and Saphira are forced to try to figure out their own true names as a password. And not only do they allocate three DAYS to the undertaking, but they sit there and discuss it and try to help each other and tease out the elusive hidden names. I want to know how the heck Eragon can have Sloan's true name suddenly occur to him on the first try if he has trouble figuring out his own or that of his soul's closest companion. This pretty much proves that he had to have gotten extraordinarily lucky when guessing Sloan's true name. To his credit, Eragon does actually begin to wonder about this, but concludes that the explanation is something like "Sloan's identity was simpler." Well, how convenient. Of course someone who isn't the protagonist is just a construct whose entire identity can be uncovered easily. Eragon and Saphira, despite behaving like puppets approximately 98% of the time, are ever so much more layered and complex than that. Nope, not buying it. I've spent time in both of their heads through their narration. There's not that much to them.

Still in the intro here. . . .

Eragon went to the sentient Menoa tree in Du Weldenvarden. He spoke with the tree, and the tree agreed to give up the brightsteel beneath its roots in exchange for an unnamed price.

There you go. Paolini doesn't read his own books.

Sure, the Menoa tree "agreed" to give up the brightsteel. After Eragon spoke with the tree. You left out the part where the tree didn't frigging answer him and Saphira attacked it and it freaked out and it tried to kill them. That's fine, though, Paolini; rewrite history and pretend this was civil. Don't acknowledge that your protagonists are tyrants.

No fair! You don't have a ridiculous sword that catches on fire!

During the first battle of the book, Eragon complains when Arya is still able to use the "brisingr" fire spell and awwwww he can't anymore because his sword bursts into flames ridiculously every time he says that word. So, number one: So? Why should he care if it does that during a battle? And number two: are you telling me there's no other way to conjure fire when you need it without lighting your sword up too, even though it's kind of your own fault since you were the dolt who decided on its name? It's acknowledged that "fire" and "flames" are different words in the ancient language. He could just use the other one and conjure fire if that was what he really wanted. This totally isn't cute.

Pregnancy, at your convenience.

Early in the book we see pregnant Katrina hurrying out of a tent, and the narration notes that the wind is blowing her clothing so that the shape of her "growing belly" is visible beneath. (Guess we needed a slick way to remind readers that she's pregnant, in case we forgot.) My first thought was that a significant amount of time must have gone by between the end of the last book and the beginning of this one, which seems contradictory because this book's first battle appears to be the very next one they'd planned in the last book. But then I remembered that I can't really expect Katrina's pregnancy to develop by normal standards. Paolini already demonstrated that he does not understand how pregnancy works in the last book. Which, if I must remind you, involved Roran and Katrina hurrying to get married quickly enough that no one would suspect she had already been pregnant during the wedding, yet despite their getting married fast enough to avoid suspicion, Roran "felt the bulge of her growing belly" that very damn night. So apparently in Paolini's mind ladies start bulging outward as soon as it's convenient. Katrina's baby bump being visible to Eragon is probably author fail like in the last book, not a signal that time has passed.

In danger? Your husband on the front lines of the war? Oh, you silly woman.

Eragon reassures Katrina that Roran's fine, even though an enchanted ring designed to tell her when he's in danger gave her a ping an hour before. He just kinda waves her off like it was no big deal--"nicks and bruises," he said, rather than explaining that he got stuck under a collapsing wall. What I think he really ought to have told her at this point is that her husband cannot be killed because he is a main character, and therefore if a wall collapses he will always be standing under a support beam that will shield him or whatever. No big deal; he only lived through the experience because of pure chance and shitty writing. Katrina, why do you bother having that ring on at all? Nothing's going to happen to the guy, and it will only serve to make you hysterical so that men have to come over and remind you that you're a silly woman for fretting. Just go sit in your chair and do some sewing and be pregnant and stuff.

And girls, no matter how "strong" you are, you will be kidnapped.

And speaking of The Ladies, Paolini's still directing female characters to remove weapons from the mysterious "folds of their dresses" (where? WHERE? folds of dresses can't hold weapons without some kind of strap!), and Eragon's still saving Arya in weird "swinging to the rescue" ways. It seems a bit more balanced than in the previous books, because she helps him avoid injury sometimes too, but the scenes are never set up like "Arya to the rescue!" the way the "damsel in distress" scenes are set up when Eragon rescues her, and at one point when he runs to assist her when she's being attacked by twenty soldiers, they beat the bad guys and she follows it with her "you didn't have to save me, I was fine to beat them by myself!" protest. Arya, your strength is admirable, but your author is far too traditional to let your efforts go uncommented. I'm afraid you're going to continue to be portrayed as thinking you're a lot more capable than you actually are in practice. Nasuada has to be rescued too. She's a good target for kidnapping, sure, because she's the leader of the rebel army, but why doesn't anyone ever kidnap King Orrin or Roran or Eragon? It'd be pretty kickass if Arya had to rescue one of them.

You hit like a girl! Oh, I'm sorry, was that politically incorrect?

Of course, despite all the ass-licking he gives to Arya for being ever so beautiful and lust-inspiring, it's fair game to call someone a woman as an insult. The phrase "you hide behind these children like a frightened old woman" appears in this book when Eragon's trying to call Galbatorix out on being a coward. Lovely.

She's having a baby! EXPLOSION IMMINENT!

And I had to just chuckle sadly when Eragon is summoned for his magical skill because "Mother's birth pains have just begun!" Eragon PANICS and rushes to bury something he's hiding and throws his cloak on and he's like AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

Um . . . so did someone fail to mention that CHILDBIRTH TAKES HOURS AND HOURS? I mean, unless by "birth pains" they meant that it's actually the part where she's pushing, you've got a LONG wait ahead of you, boy. You can take a second to get dressed properly. This is a Paolini fail, though, not a character fail . . . I could see clueless men/boys being all like OMG SHE'S IN LABOR WE HAVE TO GET THERE RIGHT NOW, and I can even see a woman (especially one who's not given birth before) kinda freaking out and wanting reassurance, but considering Roran and Katrina act like the woman needs emergency care too, this seems goofy. (Furthermore, Elain HAS given birth before. She has two sons. Unless there's some reason to believe this birth might be weird, there's no damn reason to panic like this at the beginning of labor!)

And of course when the child is less than a day old she "smiles" because of something Eragon did that pleased her. Dude, babies that young don't smile yet. It was probably gas.

All women want to have babies. Even if they never thought of it before or since this paragraph.

And speaking of babies. I think Paolini is doing his best to get into the female mindset when he narrates from the only female (non-dragon) perspective in the book, and I'm annoyed at the simplicity of what he's doing. When Nasuada wakes up after being kidnapped, she immediately believes she's about to die, and the first thing she focuses on . . . for two paragraphs . . . is how much she regrets that she didn't have babies.

This is not an entirely unlikely scenario, by the way. But considering a) Nasuada never expressed this before (and didn't do so again for the rest of the book), and b) no one else who thought they were about to die (you know, all the males) focused on wishing they had spawned, I think this was an attempt to make Nasuada seem feminine. It seems flat, though. Because the "gee I wish I'd had babies" schtick lacks emotion and has no connection with any sense of the idea. It's like he was just phoning it in and you can tell.

Women's rights apparently can't exist in a land this rife with umlauts

Ah, and then there's Elva, who actually points out how sexist Alagaësia is while acknowledging that she'd like to keep her curse (even though Eragon has figured out by the end of the story how he can remove it):

"I am still an oddity, but I can be useful as well, and I have a power that others fear and a control over my own destiny, which many of my sex do not."

Though she says this while sitting in the palace of a female monarch, what she says is true about the ladies. Too bad it never occurs to Eragon that his ultimate magic word which could have cured Elva completely could also probably do some good to alleviate the sexism of the land, but I doubt he (or Paolini) would see women's powerlessness as a bad thing. He'd probably just point to tokens (like Nasuada, and Arya) and suggest that women CAN be more than they are. It's easier to just say that's the way things are (and, therefore, the way they should be). But if you're wandering around the land trying to put everything right, that kinda strikes me as a biggie. . . .

If we weren't meant to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat?

To finish off a chapter that started when Eragon was hungry, the boy and his dragon chow down on meat.

Yep. Moralizing vegetarian Eragon chows down on meat.

I wouldn't have a problem with it if he'd actually gone through a phase of questioning his beliefs and the practices he wanted to uphold and ultimately decided eating meat was best. But I don't remember him coming to the conclusion that now he's an omnivore. I do remember him sobbing over dead grass and trees and feeling horrible when he accidentally killed birds while sucking energy from the forest. And I do remember him saying "I cannot in good conscience eat a beast whose thoughts and feelings I've shared." Does that mean it's okay for him to devour an animal with "thoughts and feelings" as long as he didn't personally mind-meld with the particular animal? And though I do remember him thinking maybe it's okay to eat an animal's flesh if nothing else is available or it would be rude to refuse, he then proceeds from that point to eat it when plenty of other food sources ARE available and acceptable, as if he's never agonized over this. Actually, this inconsistent reasoning sounds a lot like how he approaches killing other people, too. This switch to carnivore might make it difficult for the elves to respect him as their darling.

Healing a baby's face vs. killing Galbatorix. Which one takes longer? The answer may surprise you. . . .

So at one point Eragon heals a baby's facial deformity, closing her cleft lip/cleft palate. This takes him all night--quite a bit longer, methinks, than a modern surgeon without magic takes. It seems a little weird, considering the extent of the healings he's managed in the past, but I could actually at least buy that this is somehow different because it's not really "healing" so much as changing how the baby's face had naturally been made. I don't honestly understand why he has to so intimately understand her facial structure to heal it when he's been able to heal dragons and men without singing or creating special spells, but okay, fine, Eragon has to invent a special spell for this because that's Just How Things Are in Paöliniland. But then when the elves examine the baby they absurdly praise him for being OMG THE BEST EVAR. Arya comments as follows:

"Not even our most skilled enchanters could improve on your gramarye. It is a great thing, what you have given this girl."

Are you freakin' serious? Eragon is a human kid, Dragon Rider or not, and he learned the ancient language of magic just mere months ago. And somehow HE IS OUTDOING ANCIENT ELVES WHO SPECIALIZE IN THIS SHIT. This is so ridiculous that it makes me sick. Unless Paolini is actually expressing that elves kind of suck at magic despite being there when it was invented, and unless he is saying that mending a cleft is a work of genius unrivaled by anyone ever, I simply don't get this. How have there not been elves who are better at magic than this hayseed?

Roran fantasizes about violence. 'Cause he's a soldier.

Roran is described as always calculating the chances that someone might try to kill him. In one scene, he's fantasizing about how exactly he might be able to kill guards who are ON HIS SIDE if by chance they were to attack him for some reason. This is supposed to show what an efficient--and obsessed, I guess--soldier he has become. But what I want to know is . . . WHY ISN'T HE THINKING ABOUT BIRGIT? In the last book I noted that a woman actually walked up to him, threatened his life, and came very close to using a weapon on him, before she walked away reminding him that they have a score to settle. Roran, this woman represents a very real threat to your life. Any particular reason you're not worried about that while plotting the demise of people who haven't ever even acted like they want to hurt you?

Eragon pretends he's not racist.

It kind of bothers me that Eragon has to suppress murderous instincts at one point when watching a bunch of Urgals walking around. He blames this on having visceral memories of having to face their kind in battle. Now, I could understand him being mentally accepting but physically uneasy around Urgals simply because for so long the humans from his village regarded them as enemies and thought of them like monsters. But Eragon's suggesting he feels uneasy because he's faced them in battle? How many humans have you faced in battle without feeling like you want to kill other humans, Eragon? I just didn't like how this was played off like he only hates them because of what was done to him by others of their kind.

Obviously I can't understand something if I don't know its name!

At one point Eragon philosophizes about how he doesn't know the NAME of the self-mutilation religion of Helgrind and therefore he cannot have true understanding. Being that NAMES of things are ever so important now. Well, considering you figured out the "true name" of a PERSON without doing much of anything, can't you conjure up a religion's name out of the ether with your Protagonist Powers? Or perhaps you could try asking someone, dumbshit.

"Buried" and "dead" are not actually synonyms.

This is a minor but puzzling contradiction: Roran gets attacked by an assassin, and escapes narrowly with his life after killing his assailant. Then he starts philosophizing about whether people have the right to take each other's lives and whatnot, who decides who should live and who should die, blahblah, and he refers to the dead guy as being "buried" while he himself is "above the ground at least for a few more hours." As these thoughts are being gnawed upon, the assassin is lying, very much NOT buried, outside his tent. I don't get why he referred to him as "buried" if he's, you know, NOT AT ALL BURIED. Ah, the mistakes we make in the name of pseudo-poetic philosophy.

Even pigs won't wallow in their own dirt.

Really?

I'm pretty sure pigs wallow in dirt. I'm not sure about "their own," but if Paolini is trying to say that they don't wallow in their own shit, well, yes, they do that too if they're forced to in absence of mud and whatnot, though they avoid it if they can. Please, Paolini, don't tell me you said "dirt" instead of "POOOOOOOOP" if that's what you meant. My thesaurus has around two dozen synonyms for "excrement" in it if you don't want to be too explicit. AND DON'T TELL ME YOU AREN'T ON A FIRST-NAME BASIS WITH YOUR THESAURUS, PAOLINI. You can deny "having relations" with your reference book all you like, but we've been directly observing this affair since Eragon came out in 2003. We have witnesses!

Now that the audience knows, secrets aren't secrets anymore.

In the previous book, Eragon finds out about the existence of the Eldunarí, a dragon's heart of hearts. The explanation for why Eragon never knew about such an important detail despite being soul-bonded to a freaking dragon is that somehow dragons keep this knowledge hidden for the sake of their own well-being. Well, fine and good, BUT . . . in this book there's a place where Glaedr, a dragon who's perished and only lives on through his Eldunarí in Eragon's possession, mentions Eldunarí in passing to Nasuada, who probably had less reason to know about this strength/weakness of dragons than Eragon ever did. My question is . . . WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OH-SO-GUARDED SECRET?

And speaking of dragon hearts:

• Galbatorix has given them too many Eldunarí for me to do that.
  
• Murtagh had dozens or more Eldunarí at his disposal
  
• Could the Vault of Souls contain Eldunarí that the Riders hid from Galbatorix?
  
• And if any Eldunarí had been left on Vroengard, we would have found them
  
• catch the Riders by surprise and capture the Eldunarí who were then living in the city
  
• they decided that all of the Eldunarí in Alagaësia should be taken to Vroengard
  
• we should have left the Eldunarí that were already in Du Weldenvarden where they were
  
• "Explain your mistreatment of the Eldunarí you captured. You have bent and broken them. . . ."
  
• "what about your Eldunarí? Surely they can help."
  
• "He's using the Eldunarí." / "All of them?"
  
• "as if either Galbatorix or the Eldunarí were growing tired"
  
• Here lie our hearts of hearts--the last free Eldunarí in the land
  
• Eggs and Eldunarí. Eragon could not seem to grasp the enormity of the revelation all at once.
  
• as well as a number of the Eldunarí
  
• all of the Eldunarí were placed in a trance
  
• it also provides the light needed for us Eldunarí to maintain our strength
  
• We were but a small portion of the Eldunarí on Vroengard
  
• OKAY AND 120 MORE INSTANCES

During the beginning-of-the-book recap:

The twins also abducted Murtagh and spirited him away to Galbatorix. But to Eragon and everyone in the Varden, it looked as if Murtagh had died

As I mentioned in a previous essay, everyone involved jumped to assume Murtagh was dead WAY too easily. They found no body. They found no evidence of a brutal fight. The understanding that he was dead was based solely on Arya's attempt to scry him, which yielded "Naught but the shadows of the abyss." Which pretty much means that scrying is good for nothing. If you can't tell the difference between finding out someone's dead and finding out that they've been abducted and brainwashed, what the hell good is it? This is a very corny way to tease out a "revelation," by the way. Murtagh still being alive at the end of Eldest was played as if it were a surprise. Dude, if a major character perishes in a battle and you're going to say he's dead, there WILL be a body and there WILL be a witness to the heroics and there WILL be a ridiculous funeral at which the protagonist will swear revenge or some such. It does not fool anyone when a major character "disappears" and everyone shrugs and assumes he's dead. I already attacked this absurdity in my Eldest essay, so why am I bringing it up again? Because it's still being glossed over in this unconvincing recitation in the beginning of Book 4. No one imagined Murtagh was just captured? Gee, you don't say.

BEHOLD, THE DEADLY, NOTORIOUS DRAGON-KILLING LANCE (that doesn't seem to be able to kill any dragons)

At one point Saphira gets injured with a magical lance and Eragon acts like a clown. First, he encounters unprecedented difficulty just figuring out what ancient language words to say when he's trying to stop her from getting speared in the first place, and the elves attack faster than he can even speak. And then when the spear actually hits his dragon, his first thought isn't on whether she's okay, but on kicking the shit out of the guy who attacked her. Only after the attacker is killed (by someone who again moved faster than him) does he worry about his dragon--and despite how conveniently linked they always seem to be mentally, Eragon is strangely unaware of whether she's in pain and even says he can't telepathically talk to her because the lance is magical and he might expose himself to enemies if he contacts her mentally. This is such b.s. Why isn't he already in contact with her LIKE THEY ALWAYS ARE AS A DEFAULT?

And why does Saphira have to be healed by ELF SINGING? Eragon's healings never involved singing before this. Is this just because he pretty much sucks at it, or is this another attempt to make the elves more, I dunno, elfy?

And if she was successfully pierced and wounded by an ancient mysterious spear DESIGNED to kill dragons, how is it that it did such a shitty job? I totally want to see how this story plays out if Saphira dies in Chapter 1.

BEHOLD, THE DEADLY, NOTORIOUS DEUS EX MACHINA

And I'm pissed that a credibility-straining event has basically landed a suitable weapon in Eragon's hands. This lance, which is conveniently so ancient that nobody alive understands how it was made or why it works, is a special type that happens to be able to kill a dragon. (Nobody bothered to mention it in previous books because even though the mysterious twelve lances that were made in history weren't ever all recovered, people just kinda assumed they were broken and wouldn't ever be found, much like nimrods in this story always seem to assume a monster is dead if it isn't moving or a person whose body was never found is probably actually dead.) So, translation: random weapon that was only just introduced into the story at this late stage can kill Galbatorix's dragon AND Eragon happens to get hold of it because a local spellcaster has poor judgment and tried to attack him with it. I really, really hate deus ex machinas. Especially . . . ESPECIALLY . . . when they are obviously going to be vital to the story at a point that the author thinks will be a revelation, yet it is clear from its introduction in CHAPTER ONE what is going to happen. WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO KILL THE DRAGON! GOOD THING THIS WEAPON LITERALLY STABBED US IN THE CHEST SO WE COULDN'T MISS IT!

Hi, I'm Eragon, and my strength fluctuates depending on what's convenient for the plot.

Eragon is regularly claimed to have strength and speed markedly beyond that of normal men. Despite that, he has to drop his sword (which he TOTALLY HATES DOING enough that a line of narration is devoted to how much he hates doing it) in order to use both arms to catch Roran when he falls over from a standing position. This isn't consistent. A dude who can take stairs five at a time and punch people so they land thirty feet away should not have difficulty just supporting a normal-sized man with one arm. He doesn't even have to carry him. (Note: Eragon doesn't actually punch someone to land thirty feet away. It is Arya who did that, in Brisingr. But considering Eragon is supposed to be as strong as or stronger than she is, I'm assuming he has this in his power as well. Later in the book Arya also lifts a young man onto her shoulder after she's just been tortured and currently has nerve damage, and the narration says she does this "without apparent effort" and carries the dude. C'mon Eragon--did you just drop your sword because it's dramatic?)

Was this plot element supposed to go somewhere and then it just got lost?

In the beginning of the book, Eragon refuses to telepathically connect to Saphira because he suspects the attack she sustained may put him at risk if he touches her mind. After she's healed--presumably without being overtaken by evil magic or something--Eragon still doesn't connect to her, even though when she was suffering he supposedly wanted more than anything to soothe her with his contact. AND YET, in order to communicate Roran's fate to Saphira, he "risks a brief moment of contact" to tell her Roran's alive. Now, wait. If he still thinks it's risky, why would he decide that only a little contact is okay? If he supposes the risk is over, why not connect back to her like he normally is if they're in range of each other? It can't be because Roran's status is that important to relay to the others, because Eragon easily could have mentally contacted any elf, or just waited until he'd brought Roran out of the underground, right? This concern over the risk of telepathic connection is thrown away without explanation when Eragon emerges from the showdown with the local lord. For no conceivable reason, Eragon feels safe mentally chatting with Saphira again, and there's no indication of why he might have thought it isn't risky anymore (since he still seemed to consider it risky shortly after she was healed).

Behold, my inconsistent magical abilities

Eragon has been shown to be talented enough with magic to be able to "reweave the fabric of reality into something more pleasing to him" or somesuch, when it really matters. He can boil gold out of the ground so he can pay for favors, and he is able to pull a hidden box from under the ground by magically making the ground cough it up, and he can scry other people. This is all established because he's done all these things before. Yet, when his cousin is under a mountain of stone, suddenly he does not have the ability to blow up a pile of rock or turn it into sand or manipulate it, does not seem to be able to scry his cousin to see if he or anyone else who got buried might have survived, and basically becomes completely useless so that a dramatic scene can be written in which Eragon goes on a chapter-long run to the foot of the rubble and witnesses his cousin staggering out of it. All I can say is too bad for you if you happened to be written as one of Paolini's Varden extras who died under those rocks. Your name doesn't even get mentioned so that somebody might tell your wife and kids that you died while playing a part in a crappy book.

Hello, I am a king. Can I be your pet?

During a bargaining scene, the king of the werecats makes a bunch of demands about armor and food, and then . . . for no apparent reason . . . he throws in a bit about how if the Varden wins the war, their king or ruler has to put a frigging cushion next to their throne so a werecat can sit there if it wants to. It just seems . . . extremely silly. The king werecat wants to demand that future monarchs keep werecat pets? It reads like Paolini just saw this somewhere and thought it was a cool idea. I don't think it's a cool idea. Considering it comes with absolutely no implication that any "honored" cushion-sitting werecat will have any say in the government or any real benefit for, uh, sitting there . . . why would this be in preliminary army negotiations? Jeez.

Let's invent a new rivalry, for funsies.

So Nasuada says the werecats that fight on the good guys' side have to agree to have their memories scanned by Varden spellcasters. The werecat representative agrees to this but stipulates that the spellcaster who examines them cannot be Angela. He and his people have already had an unexplained negative reaction to Angela, and now he's bringing it up again (you know, in case we didn't GET IT that something is going on there and these two have a history). What really bothers me here is Nasuada's reaction:

Nasuada hesitated, and Eragon could see that she wanted to ask why but restrained herself.

Well of course she hesitated and then didn't frigging ask. Even though she was completely in a position to ask. If the whole motivation behind this were revealed THIS early, a contrived revelation couldn't be uncovered at an incredibly opportune time later in the story! Characters must be manipulated for maximum plotting effectiveness! Urgh, manufactured reasoning for failure to disclose pertinent information like this just pisses me off, and Paolini does it ALL the time. Sadly, the revelation is in no way satisfying when it actually happens. The werecat representative hates Angela because she cast a spell on him once when he was playing with a bird and torturing it instead of killing it. Angela just didn't like him doing THAT THING THAT CATS ALWAYS DO, and was offended that he didn't stop when she asked, so she made something embarrassing happen to him through magic. Well! Obviously that deserves ETERNAL HATRED. Kind of like the feeling I have for these books about now. It's yet another example of the silly windy "plot" elements that do nothing for the story and attempt to artificially make the characters seem like they have history.

IT IS NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW. (Because then I'd have to figure out a way to make it make sense!)

During an introspective bit when Eragon is angsting over WHYWHYWHY Brom never told him Murtagh was related to him, Saphira reiterates that "Brom had his own reasons" for everything he did. Earlier in the book, Angela doing goofy things was also blamed on her always having her own reasons that she refuses to justify. What's really dumb is that whenever the revelations for "why" these characters behaved as they did actually comes out in the wash, they're never things that needed to be kept secret, though Paolini does his best to throw little distractions in to suggest that revealing these things earlier would have somehow had terrible consequences. The mystery is entirely fabricated in these cases. I hate to tell you this, Paolini, but plugging a plot hole with "nobody knows why so-and-so acted in this nonsensical way; he just did! He's mysterious!" does not an authentic mystery make. It'd be equally silly to fuel an entire series around a war trying to bring down an evil tyrant who's evil because, uh, he just is, because he's crazy. Wouldn't that be dumb?

. . . Oh wait.

Just kidding, humans have gods after all.

In the previous books, Paolini got some crap for his presentation of religion. First the elves, always ever so wise and moralizing, were vegetarian atheists, so of course that is what Eragon became. I think he got a little crap from readers because of how matter-of-factly he presented the "there are no gods" perspective coming from the elves, so in the third book he attempted to balance this by giving a couple nods of legitimacy to the dwarf gods--neither admitting nor denying their existence. And it probably occurred to a lot of people at that point--including me, when I ranted about it in my Brisingr essay--that there'd been no mention of traditional HUMAN religions yet. (There was a weird cult built around self-mutilation, and that seemed to involve humans, but other than that, Eragon seemed to be a blank slate under the beliefs of the elves and then the dwarves, and admitted outright that he'd never prayed before.) In this book, during some dumpy exposition, Nasuada reveals that the tribal human peoples she is descended from have gods. One of their religious rituals involves a "drum dance." Tribal people always gotta have them drums. Especially if they're black.

I'm so ashamed of my super hearing. I'd better not mention it. (I'll just sit here and keep listening.)

All that and more Eragon heard, but he hid his reactions and kept his peace, for he knew it would only make the villagers uncomfortable if they were aware of how sharp his hearing had become.

Uh, AND it would take away your ability to eavesdrop without them thinking it's possible. But I'm so sure your primary reasoning here, Eragon, is to avoid making the villagers uncomfortable with your senses.

Magic? To ease a risky, painful birth? Out of the question, you filthy elf!

While Arya is trying to help a woman give birth, there are complications, and yet she doesn't help the mother and child with magic because "magic scares them" and "they won't let me." Too bad there is no history of these people refusing magical help in urgent situations (or, for that matter, non-urgent situations). There have been a few mentions of possible prejudice against it, but Eragon--a magic user--is hailed as a hero and given star treatment. Yet an elf who could save a mother and child's life is asked NOT to intervene. This isn't how people act. Especially if they haven't displayed their prejudices to this degree until now. All of this prevents Eragon from going in the birthing tent, because the customs and fears of the irrational and silly women within don't want a dude in there--Arya insists that this would "turn many of the females from your village against" Eragon. Guess it's better if everyone dies.

And on the subject of the baby, Eragon is pushed into healing the child's facial abnormality because they won't trust Arya to do it for some reason. I guess there just isn't a single other healer on the planet who can help, huh? I don't know why they'd trust Eragon any more than Arya. They already treat him a bit like he might as well be an elf, considering his magic, Dragon Rider status, and altered appearance. It's odd that they'd allow healing to come from him but not somebody who's better at it. Considering the TERRIBLE MISTAKE that happened last time he was trusted to do magic on a kid (see ELVA), I certainly think I'd rather trust an elf. . . . (Funny, I wrote that down about Elva before she showed up a moment after this scene and silently "rebuked" him with her presence in the same way I just did.)

And now, a probability-stretching ruse designed to show off Roran's balls.

At one point Roran manages to trick a group of soldiers into not attacking their camp. The way he does so is ridiculous. He tricks them with an illusion cast by their spellcaster, Carn, and not only do the bad guys completely fall for it; Roran didn't even know if his spellcaster had managed to cast the illusion. But of course, at a time that would have meant certain doom for their side, the bad guys don't even try to ride on into the camp and kill things. The leader of the soldiers even drinks ale that Roran gives him for no apparent reason. Why would he do that? Wouldn't he assume it might be poisonous? It was just such a silly scene, written as if Roran had masterfully played a trump card. Hardly.

Has Paolini actually worked out how the ancient language works?

I'm confused about why Paolini keeps saying it's impossible to lie in the ancient language. In language-based magic, what I kind of figure is that if you say it, it BECOMES true. I figured that spells are basically using the ancient language to say that something is so when it wasn't, and that MAKES it become so. I'm not sure why it would be the other way around. He really should have figured out whether the language is forced to only describe what exists, or whether the language shapes existence. You can't have both! It seems like forcing someone to change sides on a battle or do something they'd otherwise never want to do constitutes using the ancient language to make things so that were not so before. Saying you can't speak things in the ancient language *unless* they are true doesn't really make sense. Not to mention that it's said many times that if you BELIEVE what you're saying is true, you can say it in the ancient language even if it is not true. For instance, Murtagh is able to say that Eragon's father is Morzan while speaking in the ancient language, because he believes it is true even though it is not. (Sadly, that does not MAKE his parentage change, unlike the ease with which Paolini can do such a thing.) Arya can promise her mother before a battle that she isn't gonna die by saying so in the ancient language, and for some reason people are really impressed. Ooh, she's willing to say she isn't going to die in the ancient language! But . . . it's not a protection against death. (Or else everyone would say it!) It just means she fully believes she won't die. And who would go into battle believing they WILL die? Grr. You know, her mom should have thought of saying it herself!

Can you see what I see?

So Glaedr, the dragon whose mortal body is dead and whose consciousness rests in a weird golden stone, has decided to help train Eragon. After a couple chapters involving Glaedr's tutelage on swordplay and spellcasting, they're talking about another kind of training and Eragon "catches" himself answering Glaedr's question with a nod because "he remembered the golden dragon could not see him." He answers verbally so the dragon can know he's saying yes.

Yyyyyyeah.

Apparently Glaedr is able to follow his swordplay--how, it's not said, but he's able to do so and able to "observe" more than well enough to advise. How, then, is it that he can't tell if Eragon is NODDING? That makes no sense. Later in the story this bit about how Glaedr can't see Eragon nodding is invoked again, even though just before that Glaedr was said to be "using Eragon's eyes" to look at stuff. How is he this aware of what's going on in the world and this in touch with Eragon but yet he's not expected to be able to understand a nod?

Super easy. Or nigh-impossible. Whichever.

And everyone again acts and talks as though figuring out an object's or person's true name is immensely difficult and very unlikely. Is Paolini seriously expecting readers to forget how simple it was for Eragon to stumble upon Sloan's true name when he wasn't even trying to? It's one of two things, man: Either it's possible to guess such things without any precedent or special knowledge or really anything but luck, or it's VERY VERY UNLIKELY and Eragon achieved something MIND-BLOWING when he did it by accident. Nobody seems to act as if either of these is the case. They just kind of act like it didn't happen. Eragon does a risky and pointless experiment to try to summon the image of an object by using the true name, and he's warned that IF HE GETS IT WRONG IT MIGHT KILL HIM. Why are there so many random rules that contradict each other in this book?

Murtagh can count!

While forming a scouting party, Eragon and Arya suggest taking two spellcasters. Nasuada denies this request and says they can only have ONE. Why? "Murtagh is familiar with the number of elves who have been protecting Eragon. If he notices that two or more are missing, he may suspect a trap of some sort."

Yeah, okay. If he knows exactly how many elves are supposed to be there, surely he won't suspect a trap if ONE is missing. But TWO missing will tip him off! What kind of freaky logic is that?

AND NOW I WILL LEAVE YOU TO YOUR CERTAIN DOOM, which isn't certain at all. MWAHAHAHA! Prepare to be presumed dead!

Eragon and Arya get captured and tied up in the usual "villainous plot" scenario. So. First the person who's responsible--a limbless priest Eragon has no real personal battle with and is therefore a Minor Boss from a video game--shows up to taunt them. The priest reveals stuff that wouldn't be revealed to someone who was going to live--of course--and then they're left with a "foolproof" time bomb of sorts: a creature that's going to hatch from an egg and devour them. But of course, despite being from a religion that delights in witnessing gore, neither the lead priest nor a SINGLE underling stays behind to watch them get eaten. They just lock Eragon and Arya in the room with the slowly hatching monster.

This is so failtastic that a bumbling traitor to the bad guys' side is able to just mosey on into the room and try to free them on the condition that he'll get to escape with them because he hates his life. But he's unsuccessful and they have to be saved by Angela (who was already named as dead, which we of course didn't believe). Why do villains ALWAYS do this? Everyone knows you don't leave the hero for dead. You watch him get eaten, or dipped in hot lava, or drowned in the impenetrable tank, or smashed on the rocks at the bottom of the cavern. Much like the monsters, you can NEVER assume heroes are dead just because you left them to die. How simple is this? More and more I'm insulted by this kind of nonsense. Especially when you can clearly see that we still have more than half the book to go and characters like Eragon and Arya don't die getting eaten by monsters anyway.

And how the heck did the bad guys get so lucky as to have two monster eggs that happened to be hatching just in time to be scary while our heroes raced against time to escape their bonds before getting eaten alive? Actually, it's NOT so lucky, eh? If the monsters had been born, oh, the day before, they could have just released them into the room and let them eat them post haste.

Hadouken!

With her free hand, Arya grabbed the woman by the front of her leather robes and threw her screaming thirty feet over the pews.

Yet another display of unnecessary force by Arya . . . I know they're trying to kill people, but . . . THIRTY FEET? Oddly, this is the exact distance she punched a soldier in Brisingr. Is this her signature move?

'Tis so sneaky of me to keep the fans guessing!

At one point, just before they kill the minor video game boss evil priest, Angela strikes fear into the priest's heart by revealing who she is:

"You ought to know my name, tongueless one. If you had, you never would have dared oppose us. Here, let me tell it to you...."
Her voice dropped even lower then, too low for Eragon to hear, but as she spoke, the High Priest blanched, and its puckered mouth opened, forming a round black oval, and an unearthly howl emanated from its throat, and the whole of the cathedral rang with the creature's baying.
"Oh, be quiet!" exclaimed the herbalist, and she buried her sunset-colored dagger in the center of the High Priest's chest.

'Kay. The chapter ends there and nobody asks Angela what the hell she said that made the priest freak out so much. But if Paolini was trying to drive me crazy with curiosity, he pretty much failed here. Angela is full of contrived quirks, from claiming she once ate the moon to randomly being revered by the elves, as if everyone's in on some inside info that Eragon is not partial to. I just don't care. Maybe she's descended from the "grey folk" that were mentioned as being instrumental in strapping down the magic language but somehow aren't mentioned anywhere in the opening history. If she's not, and she's the Alagaësian Q, or a freaking Time Lord, I don't care. She's probably the most interesting character we have here, but "teasing" the audience by just randomly not telling us things and then burying them while chortling isn't intriguing. It's silly. And it doesn't work.

Paolini does quite a lot of this, I guess attempting to throw in a "mysteries unsolved" feeling at this late stage. He invents random ghostly robed figures marching through Vroengard, and Eragon not only doesn't figure out who they are but doesn't touch on it again. Brom handed Saphira seven words for use in a trying time, but it was never revealed what they were, or what they were for, nor were they (to the reader's knowledge) used. An assassin keeps claiming he's Roran's friend even though he repeatedly tries to kill him, and his identity is never revealed. Angela invents an "epic romance" prophecy for Eragon at the same time as she invents a "you will leave Alagaësia forever" prophecy, and yet his motivation for "leaving and never returning" seems to be this prophecy even though he has yet to consider the "epic romance" pressing. Eragon promised a dude a ride on his dragon and never delivered. Et cetera. And though Inheritance fanboys may be losing sleep over this, I just can't express how thoroughly I just didn't care about any of these things enough to chew any nails about it. If he's trying to make attractive little mysteries dangle into the plot so we can have a sense of unfinished business, I think he made a poor choice.

I'll get you next time, Gadget! NEXT TIIIIIIME!

During a battle, Eragon deals a hefty blow to his foe: he magically bashes the hell out of the enemy dragon, shreds his wing, and tosses him halfway across the city or something. A battle happens with some soldiers, and the rebels are winning like they're supposed to. But then Murtagh heals the dragon and comes back to threaten Eragon. Murtagh is more powerful than Eragon because he has extra dragon heart energy thingies. He's in an excellent position to beat the crap out of Eragon and perhaps take him prisoner, even if he's been ordered not to kill him. What does he do?

He threatens him and says cartoon villain stuff, then flies away and says they'll meet on the battlefield again someday, where he will have his revenge.

What.

Any reason that can't be now? When Eragon's tired, has depleted his energy stores, has an exhausted dragon, and has had no time to plan? Now would be a great time, Murtagh. So why wait?

Because of . . . reasons.

Like, because the plot says so.

Why are supposedly formidable enemies so frequently PUSHOVERS in practice?

Food for apple trees. Or preserved unchanging in diamonds. Whichever.

Eragon had thought it was the nicest burial he had ever attended. He much preferred it to the dwarves' practice of entombing their dead in hard, cold stone deep below the ground, and he liked the idea of one's body providing food for a tree that might live for hundreds of years more. If he had to die, he decided that he would want an apple tree planted over him, so that his friends and family could eat the fruit born of his body.

So Eragon, if that's the case, why'd you encase Brom in freaking diamonds when you buried him? 'Kay. (And he had a chance to "plant" Brom again later, and he didn't. Just left him still entombed in diamonds on a hill, with a slightly altered inscription.)

My swords have names. My people have half a dozen names each. My asscheeks probably have a name. But no, I never name languages!

Paolini continued through this volume to not name the common language the characters speak. Obviously it's not supposed to be English--not without an England. So he tiptoes around naming it, and has Arya talking about translation difficulties by saying stuff like "there's no equivalent in this language." (Even though the ancient language has a name and the dwarves and wandering tribes have their own. Even if he just called it "the common language" or "the human language" I'd be happy, man.)

Talk or I'll beat you up. And by the way, I can't be a bully, 'cause I'm the hero.

At one point in a previous book, a werecat named Solembum gave Eragon a couple prophecies. One of them was helpful and came true, and the other hasn't been addressed yet when Eragon's worried about battling Big Baddie King Galbatorix. So he calls Solembum in and demands information about how the hell he got that prophecy and what it means. Solembum conveniently has no idea why he--and all the werecats, apparently--have been told to give this information to a Rider. The prophecy is mysterious and none of them know its source or its meaning. They just know they're supposed to pass it on, and that the information is trustworthy because werecats are awesome and can't be fooled like other creatures so their mysterious inklings have to be accurate, even if they can't explain them enough to do anyone much good. (Makes for cool questing and riddle-solving, after all!)

Now what's notable here is that Eragon threatens Solembum. He verbally abuses him, and also physically assaults him (mildly), and demands to know the answer. He says "I don't know" four times before saying "For the last time, I do not know," and he says he doesn't know/can't say five more times AFTER that, too. And yet, after all this badgering, the werecat suddenly switches into a trance and tells Eragon what page of a certain book to look on for the answer, and then snaps back to himself with no idea that he's spoken important information. And of course Eragon finds the answer to the riddle in the recommended book. Moral of the story: Mysterious information will only be revealed a bit at a time to make for good storytelling, and threatening other people is an appropriate way to get what you want.

And about that prophecy. . . .

So Eragon is out of answers for how he's going to lead the Varden to victory. This is always a good time to invoke a prophecy.

Not kidding. Yeah.

The Vault of Souls is mysteriously referred to as a place Eragon should go if all seems lost or whatever. He's not sure what's there--hey, it's part of the D&D adventure!--but isn't it convenient that when he's purposeless and directionless, he's not saved by his own cunning or training or planning, but by . . . a prophecy handed to him in a ready-made quest? I actually liked that Eragon was so full of doubt over his own abilities. Kind of sucks that he got saved from without, just like every other time he's been up against something insurmountable. When he was injured fighting the Shade, he dealt with his injury for a very short time before some dancing elf ceremony healed him (and made him stronger and more elfy). He had no weapon to fight against the bad dragons, but then an ancient weapon that was presumed lost fell into his lap (well, stuck out of Saphira's chest). And then when nothing was left for him to do to ensure victory, a werecat prophecy gave him clear direction to exactly what he needed? (And no one knows who planted the prophecy, except that the werecats trust it?) I'd really like to see a protagonist with some agency. Too bad this one has all the clues for solving the mystery ungracefully chucked at him in the right order. It's so structured and contrived and written. When people ask me to give this story a break "because it's FANTASY," I say, "I read fantasy for the setting and the ideas and the innovation and the escapism. I don't read it to see authors pulling puppet strings on people I completely can't believe in and can't see as real."

And now for a forced side quest, during which our heroes will experience irrelevant personal revelations.

At one point on their quest, Eragon and Saphira are faced with a choice: take the long, safe way around, or FLY THROUGH A STORM to take a shortcut. What do you think they're gonna do?

Fly through the storm, of course. With the fate of an empire resting on their shoulders, it makes perfect sense to knowingly take the risky route, against the advice of the wise old dragon, right?

Truthfully, it's totally understandable. Because by this point, Eragon has figured out he is the hero in a hokey fantasy story and thus cannot die. Any contrived hurdle for him will serve as a page-filler, a writing exercise, a terrible attempt at shoehorning danger/anticipation into the plot, or yet another example of the plucky young hero teaching the older generation a thing or two. This is just padding. It's not going to teach Eragon or Saphira anything; it's not going to actually make the audience bite their nails; it's not going to lead to anything plot-relevant or character-building; and it's basically not going to do anything but sit there taking up the word count and showing off Paolini's "I just wanted to write this scene" disease (which editors are USUALLY good at curing crappy writers of). Toward the end of the chapter, which involved a few pages of Eragon gasping at the beauty of the stars and the sight of the clouds and whatnot, it started to sound like Paolini had recently been on a plane during a night ride through a storm and wanted to convey those specific images. And considering they spend nearly a whole day sleeping off the exhaustion they built up flying through the storm, I don't see how this was a wise decision.

Well, now we know where Eragon's values are. . . .

Though the valley still looked cold and wet and unwelcoming, the light gave it a newfound majesty. For the first time, Eragon understood why the Riders had chosen to settle on the island.

Well, of course. I mean, besides its size, natural resources, and location, why else would a famed group of heroes choose a place to live? Because IN CERTAIN TYPES OF LIGHT IT LOOKS MAJESTIC, of course. For the FIRST TIME, Eragon can see why it's so hospitable! IT'S ALL ABOUT THE LIGHT! What. You can tell this is Paolini-values speaking here, where the utility and practicality of EVERYTHING is of secondary importance next to how things look.

And now we come to the part of the book that made the great swankivy cry.

All throughout the books, lucky Mary-Sue-ish things have happened to Eragon. Nonsensical crap falls in his favor. He randomly gets dreams saying he should go rescue Arya. He gets healed of a devastating wound through a poorly understood mystical experience. Prophecies are chucked at him that always save his life or give him the next clue for his D&D quest. And now . . . A TIDY LITTLE "EXPLANATION" FOR IT ALL IS OFFERED, here, three quarters of the way through the last book in the series.

A big group of dead dragons were his guardian angels.

I am not kidding.

Not all metaphors are bad.

With a pennant of blue and yellow flame streaming from her maw

I kinda like "pennant" here. Sadly, he then proceeds to make me hate it by using it like half a dozen more times throughout the book even when he's NOT talking about actual pennants.

As he drew near their tent, he saw Katrina standing over a tub of hot, soapy water, scrubbing a bloodstained bandage against a washboard. Her sleeves were rolled up past her elbows, her hair tied in a messy bun, and her cheeks flushed from her work, but she had never looked so beautiful to him. She was his comfort--his comfort and his refuge--and just seeing her helped ease the sense of numb dislocation that gripped him.

This is slightly cliché, I guess, because everyone knows the trope of "military dude comes home and all he wants is to see his love," but Paolini at least kinda did it right here. It's nice to see a little emotion--to actually see that a human relationship puts some life back in Roran after the horrors of war--and to see that his wife can be all gross from washing clothes but still be appealing to him because of what she represents. He also does a pretty good job with how torn Roran is when he has to confess to Katrina that a part of him was glad to "give up" when he thought he was going to die. That's a refreshingly realistic reaction--both to feel it in the first place, and to be ashamed of it later.

You will ride fast as you can to Feinster, then from Feinster to Aroughs. Fresh horses will be waiting for you every ten miles between here and Feinster.

*gasp* He figured out that horses can't run at top speed for a billion miles without getting tired! (This is a mistake that was made in Eragon. The horses seemed to run ridiculous distances without issue.)

"A Flour Made of Flame" was actually a pretty good chapter as far as action goes. There were a few inappropriate dumps of description and a few too many flowery similes (including several of the dreaded geological ones, most notably comparing clouds of flour to "ivory" in color--totally not necessary!). But otherwise, the action was well paced and easy to read and mostly easy to visualize. It was one of the few places in the book where I was interested in what was going to happen. This almost always happens with Roran rather than with Eragon.

Imagine that--practice makes perfect!

At one point Eragon asks Arya why the hell she keeps beating him at swordplay, and she replies, "I've had over a hundred years of practice. It would be odd if I weren't better than you, now wouldn't it? You should be proud that you've managed to mark me at all. Few can." Well, Paolini, very nice of you to acknowledge that practice is likely to give an elf a huge advantage over a dude who just learned swordfighting techniques within the last year of his life. I'm very pleased that this is being brought up. I'm also annoyed that Paolini doesn't appear to apply this logic anywhere else. After all, when Eragon mended a baby's cleft lip/palate, Arya had the opposite reaction: she praised him and said none of their spellcasters could have ever done such a great job. So what is it? THEY haven't had over a hundred years' worth of practice in THEIR art? Or is Eragon just that much more amazing at magic than he is at swordfighting? Bah. It annoys me that even when I'm talking about the stuff Paolini got right, it turns into a rant about how rare this is.

::gasp:: Some people who hate the protagonists AREN'T EVIL!

Roran comes to take over command from a Captain Brigman, who basically dislikes Roran because he's all YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME (even though you are). At one point Roran even has to reprimand him for insubordination and sends him to his room (okay, his tent), but he lets him come on the next mission. At that point he totally saves Roran's ass after the big battle, takes care of business, and comes through like a true soldier. When Roran has to pick someone to leave in charge, he picks Brigman, much to the surprise of HIS superior. He admits then and there that he and Brigman don't like each other but acknowledges that Brigman is good for the job and worthy of command. This is unusual in a Paolini story: someone who dislikes one of the heroes is actually redeemed without having to be dreadfully shamed and punished first, with a huge repentance scene. (The time-out in his tent wasn't a huge deal; it was offscreen.) I'll give Paolini props for actually not making absolutely everyone who dislikes the heroes get treated like a villain by the narration.

Self-doubt? Eragon? Naw!

I like that Eragon actually feels insecure about becoming the temporary leader of the Varden in Nasuada's absence, and I like that it's not just a fleeting "oh shit" in the back of his head. He actually spends some time dreading leadership, panicking, acting overwhelmed, worrying, and trying to avoid letting everyone know how much he doubts himself. This is one of the most realistic character bits Paolini has written, even though some parts of it are a bit too decorated and end up sounding emo.

Psychology of torture

The "Small Rebellions" chapter wasn't too bad as far as character development went. The development didn't really go anywhere, but the chapter was unusually free of silly similes, and had some dialogue in it that didn't make me wince. There were bits of it where I felt like I was listening to two people talk rather than feeling like I was watching a puppet show where all the voices are being done by the dude you can see pulling the strings. I can't honestly say it was GOOD, because sometimes it was preachy and a little disconnected, but it wasn't bad either.

Eragon's not perfect. Both the narration and Eragon himself POINT IT OUT.

At one point, while trying to discover his true name, Eragon had to look at his flaws as recited by others. His listed faults included arrogance, petulance, selfishness, anger, and something about the feelings he has for men he's killed (though the narration isn't specific). It's absolutely true that he has all these faults, and it's . . . I can't quite say GOOD, but REALISTIC for others to be able to point them out to Eragon. Problem is, none of these character elements end up being integral enough to his character to actually make it into his true name, so I guess they're being billed as not very important. I would have liked to actually see that conversation, truthfully . . . there are enough unnecessary conversations and descriptions that Eragon having to look at his shortcomings would have actually been a welcome one, but of course it was glossed over because it didn't lead to the plot-relevant piece of information. I wish Paolini would generally take a cue from this scene and proceed straight to the point more regularly, but in this case the whole scene has massive capability to lead to character development (though that's probably not what you're quite going for anymore when you're three quarters of the way through the fourth book in your series). I'm willing to take Eragon being realistically reluctant to acknowledge his faults as a point in Paolini's favor, but yeah, I wish it had been fully explored. Probably because I could name at least a dozen other character flaws he has, and I'd love for Eragon's creator to have acknowledged that he actually sports them.

Eragon has guardian dragons. But Roran is a true badass.

Eragon finds out at one point that a bunch of dead dragons are responsible for pretty much every time he's gotten lucky. He asks if they've been helping his cousin Roran too. The lead dragon, Umaroth, replies that actually Roran hasn't needed help from them at all. I find it kinda hilarious--and cool--that there's a character who apparently does NOT need supernatural assistance and is still a badass. In general, actually, Roran getting lucky like he does would have been BETTER explained if he also had Guardian Dragon Angels like Eragon does, but I was happy that "oh, uh, those dragons I never mentioned before were hiding and helping you in secret" wasn't the force behind everything that happened.

No reunion. Yay!

At the end of the book, Eragon visits Brom's diamond tomb and realizes that maybe, because he was preserved, it might be possible to bring him back to life. Umaroth the Eldunarí talks him out of it. I actually think the reasons he uses are kind of ridiculous--that it might not be possible and might not succeed in bringing his mind back like it should be--because if, after all, they have the ability to rewrite the laws of magic, they should theoretically be able to make anything possible if they really want to. But I do like that instead of serving what Eragon selfishly wants out of life, the story lets a fallen hero stay dead. (I don't really think Eragon wanting to have a relationship with his father is selfish, though. It just would have been incredibly cliché for Eragon to bring his damn father back from the dead to much rejoicing. I'm glad he decided against doing this.)

Also, no nookie. Yay!

It's also a good thing that Eragon and Arya didn't end up becoming lovers, though the way it was written suggests that this was only because of circumstances they'd both sworn themselves to rather than because they didn't feel for each other. I like that even though there were a few examples of "love saves the day" in this book, neither character decided to ditch responsibility out of silly love for the other. Though of course I argued above why what they DID do is probably a lot more intimate than "doin' it" would have been.

I like that Eragon recognizes that absolute power could corrupt him, and that he doesn't think himself above such a thing.

The thing I liked best about Inheritance (the final book, not the series):

Emotion. There were some touching parts, mostly the parts that made me sad, and the parts that made it seem like characters were not indeed completely one-dimensional. More layered feelings, with some complexity, were introduced. Ordinarily I'd just kind of expect that from an author, but I'm kinda proud of Paolini for kinda getting this. I would say that he's still only maybe a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10 when it comes to ability to convey emotion and character complexity--and he only ever gets up to 4 sometimes, and never goes higher--but there actually were a few times I felt for the characters and forgot I was reading a crappy book. Usually what jerked me out of it was some over-dramatic simile or a point-of-view perspective that sounded too much like plain old narration.

Also, I think some of it was an accident. No, I'm happy to give credit where credit is due, but I think I'm talking about the same thing that makes fanboys squeal over dragons no matter how poorly they're written. Sometimes the idea of something gives birth to the emotions all by itself. And some of the themes in this book--risking life, limb, and family during war; having to cross a threshold from which there is no return; acknowledging lack of compatibility; understanding that the places and circumstances of one's childhood are gone; death of a relative--are very dear to me, because I've personally been through them. If I read about them, regardless of how hollow the writing might be, I add my own emotion and remember how I felt, and that infuses the story with authenticity that isn't actually put there by the author. I recognized when I was doing this for myself and when his words were actually doing it.

Eragon's philosophizing moments and contradictory feelings were sometimes organic and they worked. It mostly just made me sad that this happened so rarely in the book. This kinda made it seem like he has the capability to . . . maybe . . . evoke emotion in his writing, even though he almost never hits the bullseye. The thing he really needs to learn is how and when to back off. Emotional evocation is easy. Humans do it eagerly when they read. Just get out of the way, Paolini. Get out of the way of yourself.

Also good: NO SINGLE TEARS. Huzzah!

May your sporks stay sharp.