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Brisingr stuff
Me and the Eragon Series (also known as Inheritance Tri-plus-one-o-logy) have a weird sort of relationship. I think the books are badly written, neither plot nor setting are original and certainly not well thought out. In short, I agree with every word ever written on [Anti-Shu’urtugal][anti]. And yet I find myself enjoying reading the books. Brisingr is no exception in any of these regards.
First of all, a warning: There be spoilers here. In my opinion, anything that I reveal is either something you should have seen coming anyway, or not of much consequence, but you might still want to avoid this if you haven’t read the book yet.
Cristopher Paolini made the decision to divide the final book into two volumes, Brisingr being the first of them. Was this justified? I’ll be damned if I know. Story-wise, nothing consequential happens. Quite a few of the developments have no real importance beyond their respective scenes, and in particular the dwarf politics just seem to be included for the sake of filling pages.
Still, it’s hard to verbally destroy the book for this. In Star Trek terms, this is a character-building episode, and a break like that is not necessarily a bad idea. The question is whether the characters profit from that.
In short: Characters who were weak stay weak, characters who were better stay that way as well. The big exception is Arya (or whatever she’s called). Paolini seems to have read Anti-Shurt’ugal as well, and now Anya finally acts as broken by the torture she received as she should have all the time, and stops being as aloof and untouchable. In short, she becomes less Mary-Sueish — which is directly balanced by her falling in love with Eragon (except in this book she doesn’t admit that yet, because we can’t have that before the grand finale). Also, her becoming more human is mirrored by her donning a human appearance, probably because good ole’ Chris thought we didn’t get the point otherwise. Why she needed this appearance as disguise, while Eragon (upgraded to vulcan himself) doesn’t, will probably remain one of life’s unsolved mysteries. Still, her new character is good, and the only issue I have is that it should have been like this from the beginning.
The other interesting character is Nasuada. I admit, I did describe the one scene as an Emo contest, but practically, it is a rather cool scene. She is both strong, but not invulnerable, and makes her own share of mistakes. Frankly, the book could have needed more of her. Since it didn’t, I’ll have to leave this paragraph rather short.
Roran, on the other hand, takes a turn for the worse. Killing hundreds of enemies, winning hand-to-hand fights against Urgals, yet still full of love for his oh-so-beautiful wife, never crying out during his public flogging, he is so much all-american hero that I can’t help but wonder whether this was intended as a parody. His wife remains a very shallow character. It is hinted at her being capable and determined, but all she is seen doing is being rescued from danger and worrying over her husband. Their marriage scene, as could be expected, is finally one of the worst in the book, with the marriage customs of Carnival Valley (or whatever it’s called) explained in the most minute detail. Finally, the two are responsible for one of the worst lines in the book, when he gives her a kiss that is literally described as “the sweetest”. I wish I was making this up. He gives her “the sweetest kiss”. If C.P. really intends this to be romantic, then I think he fully deserves the horror that was the movie adaption of the first book.
Writing style remains one of the bigger issues. The best example for this is the line “Your words are twisted as the roots of the fir tree. Speak not in riddles!” I mean, honestly. Does Paolini realize the irony packed in this statement? What about his editors? They all deserve getting fired alone for letting this single line get printed. If only he used this crap consistently, then I could have just thrown the book in the corner (or rather, handed it to my sister, since it’s her book), but many parts are written in normal english. Another gem is when he learns the True Name of That Guy With The Yucky Name. Eragon takes fragments from That Guy’s mind, memories and impressions, and adds to this his own memories of T.G. and Carnivore Valley in general, weaving a net that comes closer and closer to the person. Sounds nice in theory, except that the book says nearly exactly this what I just wrote. If the book were a documentary on finding true names, this might be acceptable. Barely. As part of a story however, the true name of this scene is “Epic Failure”.
The ancient language and magic in total feel kind of cheap. Where other books might have interesting reasons, character depth and determination, this book has just “Sorry, I oathed in oldspeak”. The energy management effect often sounds like “divert power from life support to the shields” and is used inconsequently. It all may have sounded good in theory, before the books were written, but in practice, it turns out that a strict rules system isn’t really helpful.
Strange oaths in the Ancient Language directly link us to Eragon’s new knife. First of all, the name is the most lame I could possibly imagine (both in english and anlang). Other characters in the book utter the same opinion, so I might be on to something here. The second issue are the new particle effects. They serve no purpose other than being cool and again bringing us closer to Star Wars. Now, I don’t mind if cool is placed over plot. James Bond movies, all comic book adaptions and of course the german TV show “Alarm für Cobra 11” prove that this can be quite enjoyable, but all things considered, flames coming out of the sword are just not cool enough.
Finally, Eragon himself. Damn it, I hate that guy. First of all, he’s so stupid that it physically hurts. Paolini apparently thinks that having the main character forget the gizmo that could have saved the day until after the big fight is a good way to bring suspense into a scene, but having a roman god appear and change everything would have actually been more entertaining. There might have been lightning, after all. The way it is, though, it just appears that Eragon is too stupid to be actually allowed anywhere near the Varden in the first place. That this happens at least five times in the book does not help at all. Mister P, if you read this, please research the effects of ion storms on transporters if you ever find yourself with the same problem again.
As before, Eragon also remains arrogant and ignorant concerning Ogres and the role of women in society. Maybe this is to be understood as a sign of lack of experience and wisdom, but damn it, that guy is a Jedi in the third part of his trilogy! He should know better by now. He drops being a vegetarian with a line of reasoning that would fit better to an alcoholic defending his addiction (and is never mentioned again), and turns from atheism to being an agnostic. The only way I will not see this as an answer to negative reaction to all the zealotry in the previous book is if the next book starts with Eragon in hospital for having eaten too much meat. And then dying, preferably, a job which fell to someone else in this book.
I was shocked when I learned that Paolini intended to kill of major characters here, because I learned this after I read the book, and no major characters actually die. Sure, there are deaths, and I’m pretty certain I know which one is meant, but this is neither a major character nor a major shock. Anyone who’s ever seen the original Star Wars Trilogy should have seen this one coming from 1.6 km (a mile) away
Speaking of Star Wars, it seems that Paolini has now turned to the Timothy Zahn novels, as Eragon’s mother turns out to be [Mara Jade][mj]. Together with the other revelations about E’s parents, Paolini again takes a flaw of the main character and, instead of making this an interesting character point, just plain and simple removes it. This shouldn’t come as a surprise after his back problems and his not being a vulcan have been miraculously cured in the previous book, but this does still not make it a good idea.
I haven’t spoken about that blue winged thingy yet, and that is because I don’t know what to say about her. With thought patterns that don’t go much beyond “[Fly Fly Hungry][dopefish]”, and otherwise leaving all the planning to Eragon, I kind of fail to see why I should consider this flylizard as a separate character. The scenes between her and her jockey seem rather forced and have no main message other than they sure like each other, although not in that way (as far as I know).
Let’s conclude this with a question: The guy in the tower looking for “the answer” to ill-specified questions — is this [a reference][42] or not? If you prefer, you can instead also try to get the worst quote out of this review supporting the book. Your quote can start anywhere, end anywhere, and have a single (arbitrarily long) omission. It should not be more than two lines long. The best one will receive glory beyond his wildest dreams or something. Go!
Geschrieben am 9. Oktober 2008 um 21:27
