It’s been four months since the last time I talked about my favorite series and my love-hate relationship with it, so I figured it was time for another post. One thing that always bothered me about The Inheritance Cycle was its use of magic. In the series, magic is an unstable force that can have various unpredictable consequences. While this is not a problematic idea, the story doesn’t use it to its full capacity. The dragons, for instance, being magical creatures, don’t have control over their own abilities. Yet the story doesn’t use that to the characters’ detriment, so much as it turns them into deus ex machinae in order to fix problems.
However, because magic is unpredictable and therefore dangerous, a long time ago a now-supposed extinct people called the Grey Folk somehow managed to bind magic to a language. Essentially, they made it impossible to use magic without knowing the Ancient Language. Unfortunately, just like the dragons, the rules governing magic in The Inheritance Cycle tend to change depending on what the narrative needs them to be.
Lady Geek Girl and Friends 