Eldest: OH GOOD GRIEF!!!!!

[meganbmoore]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, I made it through Eragon accidentally CURSING AN INFANT TO LEAD A HORRIBLE LIFE and not even warranting a slap on the wrist with it "oh, well that was bad of you...here, let me teach you to speak the language properly so you won't have further goofs" and then having it passed off as a good thing(sadly, before they changed it to a good thing, I was thinking that couldresult in a good story 16 or so years later...)

But now?

Well, I was going to try to post it word for word, but I started gagging.  Basically, Eragon's oh so convenient "destiny" that makes him capable at everything and the perfect hero has now made him  absurdly pretty, but still manly enough that he can't be called pretty.

*gags*

Behold Eragon, the ultimate Gary Stu.

Everyone be happy that I did not have internet access the first 400 pages.

Murtagh, please show up and break his nose...

Comments

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Murtagh, please show up and break his nose...

Murtagh is, IMHO, the only interesting character in those books.
If the books centred around him I'd find them much more interesting - but then again he would probably be the one with the crush on the blindingly pretty elf girl and who turns half elf himself. *sigh*

You near the end yet?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Murtagh is the only reason I am enduring this.

And nope, only a few pages past that...Eragon just declared that the change in appearance was him becoming what he was destined to be. Work forced me to stop to...well...work.

I shall likely finish tomorrow.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

I read and kept wishing Eragon would be cruelly tortured. Seriously - never has a YA book made me feel so evil, but I just kept wishing something bad would happen to him. Even not having dragon helped - and I'm willing to forgive quite a lot when there are dragons involved.

[kingcrankycat.livejournal.com]

I feel like I'm reading the logs of several masochists whenever I read the comments on your Eragon posts (including you, of course...)

[chomiji]

Awww, don't read that silly stuff! Read Martha Wells ... she's much better and sadly under-read.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

One of the crucial thing Paolini is missing is that the hero's journey is supposed to have more than physical conflict. Eragon has not had his honor or ability challenged, he has not been questioned, he has had to make no difficult decisions, he's had no real screwups. He has, literally, had everything handed to him, made better and forgiven, through virtually "hardship" he's faced.

Murtagh, OTOH, HAS faced all that and been the loser for it..he was already down when we met him, and everytime he tried to get up, everyone-including Eragon-kicked him back down.

And I know what you mean about dragons(do you read Naomi Novik?)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

the things we endure for a single character we like...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I added a couple of her books to my Amazon wish list(though specific book recs would be good...)

As kingcrankycat pointed out, we tend to be masochist's when it comes to Eragon.

[chomiji]

I'd try Death of the Necromancer first, and if you like that, then the "Fall of Ile Rien" trilogy, which is sort of a sequel (the protagonist is the daughter of Necromancer's protagonist).

Death of the Necromancer is essentially a gaslight fantasy, with some mystery and slight horror elements.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

DotN appears to be out of peint(though I shall look for it, as it sounds right up my alley)

[chomiji]

By all means consider a used books service, then (Abebooks, Alibris, or even Amazon). Note that the one complaint that some people have had is that the lead characters are hard to get into ... they are rather chilly, cerebral types. But that didn't bother either myself or the Young Lady.

Wheel of the Infinite is also pretty good, but it's not related to the other ones at all.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Don't worry. There's a used book sale later this month, and then I'll be hitting up the local used bookstores. Then I go to online sources(my backlog/authors I read could use some new blood)

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't read Novik - but she is somewhere in my huge and ever growing "To Read pile". All I know is that there are dragons and the Napoleonic wars. Are they good?

And since I read your other post I know you've finished now, and come to the, IMO, rather bad ending. Not only does that ending further exemplify what you have so rightly described as a lack of believability in Eragon's journey as a hero. But it also just makes him seem like a huge ass. So your brother was tortured and turned to evil against his will? And your big decision is to shrug and say: oh well, didn't really consider him a brother any way. *grrr*
Seldom have I been so mad at the end of a book.

And the worse part is that book three will probably have some Murtagh redemption - both since Paolini is the kind of author who thinks this would be necessary, and also since the plot is quite closely based on the Original Star Wars Trilogy.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Novik is very, very good.

Eragon himself is simply one of the least likable "heroes" ever...and honestly, he's not even very heroic.

The whole trilogy is the kind of book you send to a publisher and get sent back as rejected...by every publisher out there. Then you try again for a few year until something WORTHWHILE is sent off...then a few novel later, you come back to your original creation, take whatever is good in there, and then thank whatever you worship that the thing as a whole was rejected. Sadly, I guess the publisher wanted to capitalize on Paolini's age.