Brisingr
Posted by mike at 12:59 pm on November 16th, 2008
Though I truly enjoyed Eragon and Eldest immensely, I found Christopher Paolini’s third novel in the Inheritance Cycle to be simply boring. If you have read this book and you feel otherwise, just ask yourself what actually happened? See if you can come up with three things that were actually crucial to Eragon’s development as a character or in preparing him for confronting Galbatorix. Be warned: Spoilers ahead.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the novel wasn’t terrible and I did enjoy parts of it. The problem is that I just kept falling asleep while I was reading. I mean those endless meetings with Nasuada, the trip to Farthen-Dur, and Orik’s fight for leadership just took up so much of the book that could have been used for something more interesting.
But let’s start with the beginning. I really did like Eragon and Roran’s battle at Helgrind to rescue Katrina. Even though Eragon and Roran’s chat was very awkward, the battle was great, that is until Eragon found Sloan. Sloan then became a 50 page waste of time. What was the point of this? To prove to the reader that Eragon can show good judgment? Dumb. Sloan should have just been dead so we could move on with the real plot.
Shortly after Eragon finally returns to the Varden camp, Murtaugh attacks with an army of magically enhanced soldiers that can feel no pain. I thought the battle was good, but I found Eragon and Murtaugh’s battle to be useless. Eragon let him go when he should have destroyed him. If nothing else, they should have at least killed the dragon.
So next, Nasuada decides to send Eragon off to help Orik attain command of the Dwarves. Meanwhile, Roran has married Katrina and left for battle with the Varden. He proves his prowess in his first two missions, but the third battle was just stupid. I just cannot believe that Roran could kill 200 men. Nor can I believe that 200 men would be stupid enough to face him individually when they had the Varden completely outnumber and had superior weaponry. I wonder if the Empire even would have considered…umm…just not attacking Roran. Perhaps they could have finished off the other forces and just surrounded Roran’s small force. I found this completely unrealistic. Not to mention that Roran may have saved his men, but he secured the death of all the others. He deserved to be whipped. His actions were very selfish and I was not impressed.
There isn’t much to be said about Farthen Dur. The little skirmish was entertaining, but considering that even Eragon was bored, I found myself skimming these chapters just to get through them.
By the time Orik won the throne, I began to wonder, what is this novel building up to? It didn’t feel like there was any building suspense. And when Eragon decided to fly off to Ellesmera, I knew it meant that the novel would have no major climax, that we would not see Eragon face Murtaugh or Galbatorix and it became hard to finish the book.
Ellesmera wasn’t particularly exciting either. Eragon spent an entire chapter smelting a new sword. Cool sword, but I would have been happier if Paolini had just described the process with a brief paragraph. We also found out that Oromis and Glaedir intended to go into battle alongside the Elves. I wonder if anyone didn’t see his death coming shortly thereafter.
Despite how boring I found most of the book. There was at least some small entertainment at the end. The Varden were beseiging Feinster (still not sure what strategic value it held) and Eragon arrived just in time to help break in, capture the leader, and take down a Shade. During the battle, Eragon also learned of Oromis and Glaedir’s deaths, which was surprisingly sad.
I think the thing that I found most frustrating with this book was that it just didn’t accomplish enough. So many things like Orik’s ascension didn’t need elaborate descriptions or Eragon’s aide. I really wanted to see Eragon face Galbatorix or some other big villain in an intense and climatic battle. I guess that was probably too much to ask for in three consecutive books. Judge for yourself, but I think you could skip this book and finish the series without missing much.
January 1st, 2009 at 2:37 am
I thought about starting this reply by asking “Sir, how old are you?” - but I soon realized that would be rude. Nonetheless, I wanted to include it because I was surprised to see your rude reaction. No matter if you are forty, twenty, or ten; this review is ridiculous. (Might I say if you have nothing better to do than review this book, if you are forty or twenty, then you need a life). However, I will humor you as to things that helped Eragon’s development. The first thing I can remember is his conversation with Roran about killing people. That has been something that has always plagued him. On a lesser scale, his vegetarian life style also changed when he was forced to eat meat, although I am not vegetarian, hence I don’t understand the gravity of that. Sloan proved to show a lot of things about Eragon, things you’d have to be blind not to see, and things I don’t feel like listing. Inevitably, it gave Eragon a set of crossroads. Should he kill the man? Leave him there? Hurt him and then leave him there? The options were limitless. This also developed a stark contrast between his and Saphira’s personalities, something we had never seen before. In the book, this start contrasts becomes apparent, simply read twenty or so pages and you’ll see how different they are. Another point that is crucial to his development was the separation he and Saphira faced, both with Sloan and when he had to go see Orik. When he visited Orik, he learned to balance the delicate line between being a vassal and being Orik’s foster brother, which I could incredibly important. Not to mention finding out his father was Brom (the calm acceptance showed us another sign of Eragon I believed we’ve never seen before), and the hearts of dragons - which, I think anyway, was quite important. The death of their mentor, both the dragon and the elf I believe, will have an astounding effect on Eragon in the fourth book. Oh right, and I forgot one more thing. When he showed the warriors compassion, I thought that was a tremendously important thing about Eragon. It was one thing for him to think about it, but actually doing something in the face of battle, hell, that’s definitely an important part of his character.
Sloan will contribute in the future. If not, then we can at the very least say that it helped us learn some more knowledge of Eragon’s character. Can you honestly say it was dumb? I thought it was unique, and innovative. I was wondering what Eragon’s choice would have been, there were so many different one, and whether or not the readers made the right choice, Sloan’s fate is sealed in stone. Also, it showed us the power of true names, which the readers had never been introduced to before, and that real names can change. Now, I don’t know about you, but considering the book….I think the last bit is fairly important.
If you think Eragon would have destroyed Thorn, then you are crazy indeed. Have you not read the books at all? Eragon isn’t the sort to do such a thing and by doing so, the author has allowed a climatic battle to ensue between them, or some sort of climax. He knows what will happen to the two of them?
Roran’s actions weren’t selfish either. They were heroic and valiant. While I’m not getting into detail about him killing the two hundred people (it might or might not be illogical, but are not dragons too? Isn’t this entire book fictional? Plus, he’s supposed to symbolize the common hero, doing things lesser men could not to. And things were also to his advantage….but moving on…), from what I can remember, they were on a hill of some sort and the archers were elsewhere. They had wagons and dead bodies stopping the forces from moving. Very clever on his part. I’m not sure what you think he’s supposed to do, however. I’ll concede and say that his actions were selfish, but did he not have reason to be so? A wife….and a child on the way. If I was him, I wouldn’t rush straight off into battle because my commander told me when there was a better plan in sight, one that was obvious and would work, especially when my captain was having his forces diminished doing the stupid, mundane thing.
The books symbolize a war accurately - I was surprised to have enjoyed this book, but I find myself as someone who likes the journey to the climax, how the characters grow and what not. Eragon can’t simply rush into battle. If the book went the way you would have wanted it to go, he would have probably died. If not then, it would have made for a boring book, one with many questions, like how he suddenly grew stronger to defeat everyone. Also, if you took care in the books, you would know the author made this four books. Do not blame him for your laziness. As for Oromis and Glaedir, it was expected, but did you expect it to be so soon, and at such a time where Eragon had his hands full? I didn’t until it became obvious to everyone.
Feinster - one more city to take over. In a war, you have to keep opposition from attacking right? I congratulate the author for making this an accurate war book. Where as other authors would have marched straight to the capital city, he made it realistic. As it is usually never the case, it’s not that easy. There are cities in the way…people who could hurt your army if overlooked….it’s all strategy, my boy.
January 1st, 2009 at 12:36 pm
First, let me say thank you for reading my post. I’m glad that it gave you time to think about all of the reasons that you enjoyed Brisingr and it offered me some perspectives that I had not considered.
However, I still don’t think that Paolini accomplished enough with this book in the number of pages he wrote. I don’t have that much time to read these days and I like to see something happen in the 30 - 45 minutes that I have. The first novel was considerably shorter and way more action-packed. The plot of these novels isn’t original enough for this series to be more than a light read in my mind. For me, these novels are supposed to be fun, light-hearted reads. I mean the first novel practically mirrored Star Wars: A New Hope exactly.
But that’s beside the point. I don’t mind that Orik attained the throne and that the Varden captured Feinster, I just don’t think they needed to be the focal points of the book. And if you look at Feinster’s location on the map and consider the fact that its leader and citizens wanted nothing to do with the Empire, it just seemed like an illogical choice, but I’m no military expert.
I also didn’t like that Brom was Eragon’s father. That made things too easy. With Morzan as his father, we were always left thinking, “could Eragon go bad?” But now his father is Brom “the white knight” and it feels like a cop out.
I apologize that my review was so rude. I guess it was because I enjoyed the two novels so much and had high expectations for the third. It didn’t meet those expectations and I was disappointed and frustrated.
And lastly, I don’t appreciate that someone writes the longest comment ever and tells me I’m wasting my time writing the review in the first place.