Galbatorix and the Forsworn: So You Think You Can Evil?

I’ve harped on Inheritance Cycle quite a lot, and that’s mostly because, despite it being my favorite series, it could have done so much better. Most of its flaws could have actually been strengths had the author been aware of them. For example, had Paolini been aware that he made Eragon a sociopath, the books would certainly have been more interesting.

The Varden would have needed to recognize having Eragon around as a necessary evil with which to overthrow a bigger evil. Eragon wouldn’t have been a beloved hero, but a terrifying anti-hero on whom people were forced to rely. Additionally, had the books been self-conscious about both the Varden’s and Eragon’s unethical practices and ideals, the Varden would have had to work harder at justifying their actions. Instead, the books assume that we’ll automatically agree with Eragon and the Varden, while simultaneously hating Galbatorix and the Empire.

That right there is a sure sign of terrible writing, especially because our main villain, Galbatorix, and his followers, the Forsworn, don’t seem anywhere as evil as the books make them out to be.

In Brightest Day: Eragon (Again)

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about Eragon’s disability during the events of the second book, Eldest, in the Inheritance Cycle series. Originally, I had been torn between writing about that, or writing about whether or not Eragon is a sociopath or a psychopath. While I do believe that Eragon displays many sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies, at the same time, he was also written to be a hero, and so his character becomes confused due to the fact that Paolini tends to tell one thing and show the opposite. As such, Eragon is left with many conflicting personality quirks that make it hard to understand his character.

For example, Eragon seems to have no trouble killing other human beings, to the extent that he rarely has any kind of emotional response to the people’s he’s killed, but as of Eldest, he becomes a vegetarian, because killing animals for food is wrong.

So while Eragon comes across as a horrible murderer sometimes, other times he can come across as a relatively decent guy. Relatively.

Fanfiction Fridays: Shackled By Blood by purplehairedwonder

I cannot get enough of this fandom, and considering that this is Inheritance Cycle, it comes as no surprise that we’d get a fic that is by far much better than the original source material. Of course, that could be said for anything. There will always be Harry Potter fanfiction written by people more skilled than Rowling, and there will always be LotR fanfiction better written than LotR. It happens. There’s always someone better. But these kinds of stories tend to be few and far between, and so I am happy to share this one with you guys.

An Inherent Disaster: The Inheritance Trilogy—I mean, Cycle

Yeah, I’ve recently come to conclusion that Inheritance Cycle sucks about as much as the title of this post. So quite a lot.

The last book of the series recently came out this month—and about time too, as we’ve only been waiting three years for the damn thing—and I have been planning to do a review of the series for a while now. So now that it’s out, I might as well get started.

Spoilers and a trigger warning for rape after the jump.