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EPISTLE THE SECOND

Why Eragon – And Eldest Even More So – Should Be Considered Examples Of Bad Writing

As established in the first Epistle, other writers – and not just young writers, as a matter of fact – consider the Inheritance series unworthy of its popularity because it is poorly written. Writers should of course be expected to know what they are talking about – published or no. And it is not just other writers who think this. The famous (or imfamous, depending on your point of view) Ivy is a professional editor as well as a writer. And people working in publishing – agents, proofreaders, executives, etc. – have agreed with her sentiments. It is common knowledge amongst people in ‘the business’ that Inheritance is merely a sensationalist popular phenomena. Nobody with experience in writing and publishing thinks of it as ‘literature’. Instead the common view among them is that the Inheritance series – Eragon and Eldest both – are ‘airport novels’. Readable, easily accessible, and very little else. It is only fans of the books who believe they are innovative, that they are literature, that they will last for longer than a few months after the publication of Empire, the final book in the trilogy. Fans may be inclined to wonder how the Epistler and others like him can so confidently predict that the trilogy will be quickly forgotten once it has been completed and released. This is what Epistle the Second will attempt to answer.

The reason – there are others, but this is the most important – for these predictions is very simple. The Inheritance series will be quickly forgotten because it is an example of bad writing. Not once in the pages of Eragon or Eldest does the quality of the prose rise above mediocre, and much of the time during Eldest it is not just mediocre but terrible. Epistle the Second will explain, using sub-headings and examples, just how this is so.

Problem One: Clunky. And. Robotic. Emotionless. Writing.

Imagine a friend of yours has just read a good book. He’s got that special glow, that satisfied expression. Clearly, he really enjoyed that book. Here’s an experiment: ask him just why he enjoyed it so much. The odds are very good that he’ll say it was because he really cared about what happened in it. “I just really connected with the characters”, he might say. Or, “it was so exciting! My heart was pounding!”. Anything along these lines would imply that he was able to connect, emotionally, with the characters and the story. In other words, he found himself caring about what happened. Every good book makes its reader care about what happens, and the level of emotional involvement depends on how good the writing is. That’s it. A sufficiently skilled writer can make you care about anyone. George R R Martin, for example, is able to make the reader sympathise with a traitorous murderer who had an incestuous relationship with his own sister. This is because he is an uncommonly good writer. It is a matter of skill, and enough stress cannot be placed on this point.

However, Paolini is unable to do this. At no point during Eragon and Eldest does the reader really care about what becomes of any of the characters. In other words, there is no emotional investment. The reader keeps on reading in the vague hope of finding out what happens next, but if the main character were to die he or she would almost certainly be left unmoved. Even the most rabid and obsessive fans of the series rarely, if ever, express any concern about the ultimate fate of any of the characters. Some even admit to caring more about minor characters such as Angela the witch than about Eragon himself.

This cannot be argued with. It is a solid, immutable fact. Nobody is emotionally invested in what will take place in Empire. And the blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of Christopher Paolini. Love him or hate him, it is a flat fact that he has not the ability to put emotion into his writing. It is lack of skill on his part, not lack of intelligence on the part of his readers, that makes Eragon and Eldest so hollow and devoid of spirit.

And how, you may be wondering, does the Epistler know this? The answer is easy. Here is an extract from the ending of Eldest, when Eragon is thinking over the revelation that Morzan is his father.

“Eragon always assumed he would be glad to learn the identity of his father. Now that he had, the knowledge revolted him. When he was younger, he often entertained himself by imagining that his father was someone grand and important, though Eragon knew the opposite was far more likely. Still, it never occurred to him, even in his most extravagant daydreams, that he might be the son of a Rider, much less one of the Forsworn.
It turned a daydream into a nightmare. I was sired by a monster.... My father was the one who betrayed the Riders to Galbatorix. It left Eragon feeling sullied.”

Let us analyse this. Imagine for a moment that it is you who just found out your father was an evil man. Imagine you had just been told your father was a terrorist responsible for murdering innocent civilians. Imagine if your father was known the world over for having beheaded a helpless captive on camera, and shown no remorse for his actions. Imagine that. How would you feel? Unless you happened to agree that terrorist activities are just and noble, it can be assumed that you would be distraught, inconsolable. Most likely you would cry, be depressed, try endlessly to find reasons why it can’t be true. But Eragon does none of those things. All that happens – all the readers gets in the way of an emotional reaction – is the obligatory single tear, a paragraph of shouting, and finally this tiny section where Eragon thinks it over. This part should have been the most emotional of all, as it would logically be taking place when Eragon is able to think more calmly and begins trying to come to terms with the truth. But it isn’t. The writing tells you that Eragon is upset, rather than showing you that fact. And to make it worse, it does the telling in an entirely innappropriate manner, using formal language which makes it feel stiff and distant. Read aloud, this paragraph feels like someone making a formal statement in a court of law. Try reading it aloud, and the most fitting voice to read it in would be a flat monotone. It has no emotion in it. None. A robot could have written it. To cap it all, we then move onto the next paragraph and find that Eragon gets over it. That’s it. In the space of ten minutes he forgets how upset he is, and manages to rationalise the situation, and then everything is fine and dandy again. Observe:

“But no...As he healed a man’s broken spine, a new way of viewing the situation occurred to him, one that restored a measure of his self-confidence: Morzan may be my parent, but he is not my father. Garrow was my father. He raised me. He taught me how to live well and honorably, with integrity. I am who I am because of him. Even Brom and Oromis are more my father than Morzan. And Roran is my brother, not Murtagh.
Eragon nodded, determined to maintain that outlook. Until then, he had refused to completely accept Garrow as his father. And even though Garrow was dead, doing so relieved Eragon, gave him a sense of closure, and helped to ameliorate his distress over Morzan.”

This is not how a human being behaves. It simply isn’t. This is how a computer thinks. Cold, logical, utterly emotionless. No-one could possibly recover from such a painful blow so quickly, unless they were sociopathic. And, once again, this is written in the same formal, flat style. It even shows evidence of Thesaurus syndrome. No-one thinks the word ‘ameliorate’. Most likely you will have to look it up before you know what it means. It is a distraction. It does not add colour. Nor does it solve the problem that this passage is hollow and spiritless. How can the reader possibly hope to feel for Eragon’s sufferings if he himself cannot do it?

Here is an example of how a more skilled writer might portray this part of the story:

“Eragon wandered through the battlefield, surrounded by dead and dying men. He could hear the screams and moans of pain from those still alive, and thought grimly that for many of them this would be their only dirge and farewell. But somehow he could not feel for them. He could only feel rage at all that had happened, and guilt that he should be angry. What right did he have to rage against injustice? He was not the noble and righteous Rider he had thought he was. He was the son of a monster. The seed of a traitor and murderer lived inside him, and there was nothing he could do about it. It was irrational, he realised later, but he could not help but feel as if he had betrayed them all by his very existence. Eragon felt his heart shudder inside him, and tried his best not to cry. That would be weak. But he couldn’t help it. Hot tears poured down his cheeks, and he gave himself over to despair”

Not the best writing in the world, but still better than the extract you just read. How so? Because it actually goes inside Eragon’s head. It acknowledges the fact that he is feeling miserable, and shows his sense of duty, along with all else, being subsumed by his emotions. Human beings are emotional creatures, not automatons. And whether he likes it or not a writer is expected to know that and portray them accordingly. Paolini cannot or has not done this.

Problem Two: Purple Prose

Purple prose is a term for writing that is excessively ornate and flowery to the point that it distracts from the plot. It generally refers to description, and in Eldest especially purple prose appears again and again. Here is a prime example of purple prose, although there were many to choose from.

“Every day since leaving the outpost of Ceris was a hazy dream of warm afternoons spent
paddling up Eldor Lake and then the Gaena River. All around them, water gurgled through the tunnel of verdant pines that wound ever deeper into Du Weldenvarden.
Eragon found traveling with the elves delightful. Narí and Lifaen were perpetually smiling, laughing, and singing songs, especially when Saphira was around. They rarely looked elsewhere or spoke of another subject but her in her presence.
However, the elves were not human, no matter the similarity of appearance. They moved too quickly, too fluidly, for creatures born of simple flesh and blood. And when they spoke, they often used roundabout expressions and aphorisms that left Eragon more confused than when they began. In between their bursts of merriment, Lifaen and Narí would remain silent for hours, observing their surroundings with a glow of peaceful rapture on their faces. If Eragon or Orik attempted to talk with them during their contemplation, they would receive only a word or two in response.”

Reading this passage made the Epistler feel physically ill. Why? Because there is simply no reason to write so many words and say so little. A more formal expression for writing of this kind is simply ‘overwritten’. This is not beauty or eloquence. This is the author trying to sound beautiful and eloquent by imitating Tolkien. It does not conjure a vivid mental image, but instead bores and irritates.

Purple prose is not the only problem; verbosity is another, related one. Verbosity means wordiness, or an excessive use of words. Every good author knows that economy of language is important. It is a measure of a writer’s skill if he can say a lot using few words. Paolini does not do this. Everything he says is explained laboriously and almost nothing is described in less than a paragraph. He uses many words to say very little. What is worse is that much of the time the way things look is unimportant. For example, he spends a lot of time in this paragraph describing the two elves, even though after the party arrives at Ellesméra they disappear and are never seen again. Hence it was completely unnecessary to introduce them in such loving detail. Developing their actual characters would have been good, but this does not happen. In fact, Paolini draws so little distinction between them that he describes them together rather than individually. And this leads into the next problem.

Problem Three: Worldbuilding and Characterisation for Dummies

Creating an entire world is a hard thing to do. To make one that is realistic, interesting and believable can and does take years. Years. Even lifetimes. The world of Lord of the Rings took a lifetime to create, and even after the Silmarillion had been written and Tolkien was dead there was still a lot left to be uncovered. So creating a world is a slow and involved process. If Paolini had done it, he would still be working on Eragon. But that would have meant putting in a lot of effort for no immediate reward, and today’s modern mind isn’t interested in that. Besides which, if he had waited there would have been no chance to exploit his young age, because he would have been well into his forties by the time he was ready.

Paolini got around this easily enough: he didn’t create a world at all. Instead he took the one which Tolkien had already made, added a few bits and pieces of other, similar fantasy worlds, tweaked it in one or two places, and called it finished. That is why it took him so little time to have his first novel finished – he took shortcuts. Unfortuantely, he did the same thing with his characters. A real character, according to every true writer on the planet, is a person. They live, eat, sleep, think, dream, fight, cry, fall in love and do everything that real people do. The very best characters feel real and alive to the reader as well as the writer, and so endear themselves and make their story come to life as well.

The Inheritance series does not have characters like that. Instead of living, breathing people, the world of Alagaësia is populated by stereotypes, archetypes, entities and automatons.

For example, the villain. Galbatorix. To date he has not appeared in person at any point in the books, and thus we are given an idea of his character by other characters, who describe him, his past and his actions. And this is all we get. We hear almost nothing of him from people who are not his enemies, hence we only see one view – the one that says he is mad, evil, cruel and tyrannical. That’s it. That’s all we ever get. This being so, how can we truly feel angry toward him or care about his actions? Villains, just like heroes, need personalities and Galbatorix has had no opportunity to display one.

With Eragon, the hero, the opposite is true. Or is it? Unlike Galbatorix he remains central to the plot and is rarely not around. The bulk of the story is told through his eyes. This means plenty of opportunities to develop him as a character. This being so, what do we know about him? He’s brave, impulsive, somewhat naïve, hates Galbatorix with a passion and harbours unrequited love for Arya. But that’s all we know about him.

In spite of the fact that we know all this, Eragon still fails to be a fully fleshed out, three-dimensional character. The reason for this is fairly simple: he is never developed beyond what is absolutely necessary for the plot. He says, does and feels what the plot requires him to, and no more. The so-called ‘epic romance’ (Paolini’s own words, from Eragon) is limited to Eragon’s immature lust toward Arya the elvish woman. He rarely if ever makes a serious mistake, and when he does it is forgiven and forgotten almost immediately and never has any significant repercussions for him. For example, in Eldest it is revealed that he accidently put a curse on a small child he was supposed to be blessing. In a properly developed book with properly developed characters, there would be consequences for Eragon. For example, he may become unpopular among some people. His reputation might suffer. He could suddenly be deemed unfit to perform complex magic lest he make another mistake. He could suffer a period of self-doubt and need reassuring. But none of this happens. Instead Eragon feels embarrassed for an extremely short space of time, apologises to the child and offers to try and reverse the spell, and then all is well again.

This is not the only deficiency in Eragon’s personality. Many, many important things are never adressed. How does Eragon feel about being a Rider and having so much responsibility rest on his shoulders? Is he afraid he won’t be strong enough to do what he must? Does he miss his old, easier way of life? Does he ever wonder if war is the only answer and whether they could try negotiating with Galbatorix instead of resorting to violence? What does he think of himself? Is he humble? Narcissistic? Does he think he is good-looking or does he wish his nose was smaller? What kinds of food does he enjoy?

Questions like these may seem unimportant, but if they were answered they would go a long way toward developing Eragon and making him come alive. But they are either briefly skipped over or avoided altogether, and the result is, of course, a flat, cardboard cutout of a character. Even fans often claim they are more interested by side characters than by Eragon himself. And, unfortunately, these problems are present with every other character in the series. The ways in which they relate to each other are simple and clear-cut, with no ambiguities or subtleties present. Every character who dislikes Eragon is either on ‘the bad side’ or is unimportant. All the important characters on ‘the good side’ adore him, and he accepts this without question. This points to another problem – this being the fact that Eragon is a Mary-Sue (or Gary-Stu in this case). Mary-Sues tend to be ridiculously powerful – and given that Eragon is a Dragon-Rider, expert magician, elite swordsman and, by the end of Eldest, an elf/human hybrid with heightened senses, he fits that part to a tee. They also tend to be, yes, loved by every good character and hated by every bad character. There are other Mary-Sue characteristics which Eragon also fits, but these are the most important.

And so, with a world which is essentially Middle-Earth, a hero who is a Mary-Sue and a villain the reader has no chance to hate, it is safe to say that the Inheritance series has failed to provide a living, breathing story.

Problem Four: Intellectual Theft. Yes, Theft

The most common complaint from critics: the unnecessarily derivative and unoriginal world and plot of Inheritance. Many have even called it plagiarism. Fans are not happy about this. However, when challenged to name something from the books which is completely, 100% original, they have been unable to do so. This is yet another thing which cannot be disproved. Derivatives, the borrowing of ideas and similarities between books are by no means unknown. They are very common, in fact. The problem with Inheritance is not so much that it is derivitave but that it is nothing else. In other words, it is not unoriginality that is the problem, but lack of originality. Even the most imitative work in the world can be excused if it contains enough truly original material, but Inheritance does not have this. Absolutely nothing in it is special, nothing unique. Instead it is all borrowed material, linked together by more borrowed material. The list of derivatives is long and has been repeated many times, including elsewhere on this site, but a couple of less well-known ones are as follows.

The werecat: some have claimed – incorrectly – that the idea of a cat which sometimes changes into a human is original. It is not: a werecat appeared in Garth Nix’s book Sabriel.

The white raven: again, not original – white, talking ravens appear in the Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and there often serve as companions for human characters.

Even more damningly, the very few tweaks included in order to make the ‘borrowed’ ideas appear unique are either crude or laughably silly. The elves, for example, which are obvious transplants from Tolkien, down to the immortality, the mysterious origin in another land which they are now going to return to and so on, have been given a ‘unique’ philosophy and social system based on the idea that life is sacred. Not only is this poorly done; being frequently preachy and patently ridiculous (the idea that a people so ‘pure’ that won’t even kill animals for food has so few qualms about killing enemies in battle quite frankly beggars belief), but it makes the debt to Tolkien even more obvious – if the elves were the author’s own idea, he would not be making an effort to make them ‘special’ – however clumsily it has been done.

The tweaking – which also includes feeble attempts to respell names by shuffling a few letters here and there – is not just there to hide unoriginality. It is also there to cover the author’s back. Although the various thefts from other books are not sufficient to land the author in court, they are still obvious enough to be spotted, and they have been, numerous times. This near-plagiarism, although just barely legal, is frowned upon in the literary world. It also means that since, as Ivy puts it, the book brought nothing new to the table, there is little reason for it to be remembered. After all, there is nothing in it that can’t be found elsewhere, handled by more skilled writers into the bargain.

Problem Five: Preachy, preachy

A problem many young authors encounter at some point. After they have mastered – or think they have mastered – the basics of telling a story, beginning authors will start experimenting with the notion of inserting morals into what they write. This is a bad idea, and most authors eventually realise it, because moral lessons which have been deliberately inserted into stories inevitably appear forced and didactic. In Eldest Paolini betrays the fact that he has not yet learnt this, and he includes a few glaringly obvious anti-religious messages, as seen in the extracts below.

““I deny nothing, only ask what good might be accomplished if your wealth were spread among the needy, the starving, the homeless, or even to buy supplies for the Varden. Instead, you’ve piled it into a monument to your own wishful thinking.”
“Enough!” The dwarf clenched his fists, his face mottled. “Without us, the crops would wither in drought. Rivers and lakes would flood. Our flocks would give birth to one-eyed beasts. The very heavens would shatter under the gods’ rage!” Arya smiled. “Only our prayers and service prevent that from happening. If not for Helzvog, where—”
Eragon soon lost track of the argument. He did not understand Arya’s vague criticisms of Dûrgrimst Quan, but he gathered from Gannel’s responses that, in some indirect way, she had implied that the dwarf gods did not exist, questioned the mental capacity of every dwarf who entered a temple, and pointed out what she took to be flaws in their reasoning— all in a pleasant and polite voice.”

And yet, somehow, we are expected to agree and sympathise with her. This segment is particularly annoying because it assumes that the reader will automatically side with Arya… even though there is no reason given to do so. In fact this part is a collossal misjudgement on Paolini’s part, as it does nothing more than offend people with religious beliefs and also make Arya appear rude and self-righteous.

Later on, the subject comes up again when Eragon asks Oromis about what the elves believe in:

““And you don’t put stock in gods.”
“We give credence only to that which we can prove exists. Since we cannot find evidence that gods, miracles, and other supernatural things are real, we do not trouble ourselves about them. If that were to change, if Helzvog were to reveal himself to us, then we would accept the new information and revise our position.”
“It seems a cold world without something... more.”
“On the contrary,” said Oromis, “it is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our own actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment. I won’t tell you what to believe, Eragon. It is far better to be taught to think critically and then be allowed to make your own decisions than to have someone else’s notions thrust upon you. You asked after our religion, and I have answered you true. Make of it what you will.””

It could hardly be more clear which side Paolini is on here. The fact that he appears to be unaware that moralistic writing is unlikely to win him any admiration speaks volumes about his ignorance about writing for an audience. Whether you agree with him or not, it is hard to feel anything but irritation over having these morals forced down your throat. Again, this is something a more seasoned and talented writer would know better than to do.

Problem Six: Dullsville Arizona

The final and most sweeping problem of all is this: the Inheritance series is simply boring. What with the emotionless writing, shallow world and characters, and forced, obviously morality, the books simply collapse in on themselves and become tedious. If the reader does not care about Eragon or his struggle against the Empire, then there is no reason to read on. In reading Eragon and Eldest, all the reader can summon is, at best, vague curiosity. Capping this off are other problems – the slow pacing, the needlessly meandering plot, the black and white morality (evil is always ugly and black, good is always beautiful and shining white), and the forced and ridiculously archaic dialogue. All this put together does not make for a

EPISTLE THE FOURTH

In His Heart Lay Dragons… or Maybe Not

“I have visions of lizards. Not just little rock lizards, or even something as big as an alligator, no – I see gigantic, majestic flying dragons. I have visions of them all the time, whether in the shower, sitting on the couch or riding in the car. The problem with seeing dragons is that they tend to take over your mind. And once that happens, you can go a little crazy. Which is probably why I became a published author at eighteen”

~Christopher Paolini

Such a sweet note with which to begin the next Epistle. Any uninformed person, reading it, would be led to believe that it is Paolini’s love of dragons which led him to ‘become a published author at eighteen’ (such modesty! The Epistler can scarcely contain his admiration!). As we all know, the hero of the Inheritance series is Eragon, who is a dragon-rider. His partner and steed is Saphira, the wise and beautiful blue dragon. At various times, Paolini has claimed that the most important part of the story is the relationship between Eragon and Saphira, who are mentally and emotionally bonded and whose destinies are irrevocably entwined:

“The kernel of the story [in Eragon] is about a young boy finding a dragon egg. When Saphira hatched, I didn't know how intelligent I was going to make her. But when Eragon first saw Saphira – I saw her so clearly, she was so beautiful with sapphire-blue scales, that I felt like she had to be this incredible character.”

And:

“I knew Eragon was going to become closely linked with her (Saphira) because they share feelings and thoughts.”

There is only one problem with this. Very well, the Epistler lied; there are several problems with this. But the main one is that Saphira is not an ‘incredible’ character and that she and Eragon are not all that ‘closely linked’. In fact she and her relationship with Eragon are one of the most hollow and disappointing parts of the books. Their relationship, far from being a central part of the story, is extremely shallow and uninteresting. As Paolini famously (and idiotically) said; “characters are born out of necessity”. It is certainly true that his characters are born out of necessity, or at least that he treats them as if they are, and Saphira is probably the most striking example of this. She is, at bottom, a flying, talking plot device. And the other dragons in the story are equally unmemorable. Far from making dragons the focus of the story, Paolini handles them very uninterestingly – physically speaking they are identical to the most stereotyped, boring version of dragons which readers have seen a million times before, character-wise they are little different than the non-dragonish characters and, all in all, they have nothing striking or unique about them. And, of course, bear in mind that there is a total of exactly two dragon characters in the story – Saphira and Glaedr. And they serve exactly two purposes: to provide ‘wisdom’ (or at least a lame imitation of what Paolini thinks passes for wisdom) and to make their riders more powerful. That’s all. Although Saphira occasionally provides some painfully unfunny comic relief.

Epistle the Fourth shall examine the characters of Saphira and Glaedr in order to explore this point, and will also discuss the handling of dragons generally, and both you and he will find out whether Paolini’s claims about being obsessed with dragons are as lame and meaningless as they appear to be.

Saphira

Saphira hatches at the beginning of Eragon, as is well-known. Depressingly, given her excuse for a character arc following this event, her hatching contains a modicum of interest. At first, while she is still an infant, she has no dialogue. This adds an element of mystery to her – the reader does not know what she is thinking, but he does know that she’s intelligent. It makes her feel a little alien, and the reader is intrigued by her, as well as moved by her inherent cuteness – a newly-hatched dragon with big dewy eyes is automatically cute. It provides some welcome relief and interest in the story, since until this point the reader has been forced to spend all their time with Eragon – the thick-headed, whiny and singularly unlikeable ‘hero’ – and very little has happened so far that contains any interest (a word of warning to developing writers – boring opening chapters in which nothing happens are a very, very bad idea). Hereafter we see Saphira begin to grow and develop, and watch as Eragon tries to find a way to deal with her sudden entry into his life. This part of the book is actually moderately enjoyable, as we see Eragon start to become fond of Saphira, and she remains voiceless, expressing herself through expressions and actions instead. At this point she reminds the reader of a cat or dog – and as owners of either pet will know, cats and dogs have ways of communicating their feelings to their owners in a way that goes beyond mere words. So far, so good – Saphira is an animal and acts like one, and is also cute. Not exactly ‘majestic’, but still endearing.

The Epistler advises readers to treasure this part of the book, because not long afterwards the bottom begins to fall out of it. Saphira begins to speak.

This scene is easily mockeable; Eragon starts to hear her voice in his head (the dragons are telepathic, which will be dealt with later). At first all she says is his name over and over again (this becomes quite irritating), and when he crabbily asks her if that’s all she can say she says ‘yes’. ‘Now it has a sense of humour’, Eragon thinks. Sadly, yes, and the reader will be subjected to an agonisingly long string of examples over the course of the rest of the book and into the sequel.

Thereafter we are treated to a scene where Eragon names Saphira. This part would possibly be interesting, but for the fact that it was lifted almost word-for-word from a book called Jeremy Thatcher: Dragon Hatcher, which Paolini admits was his favourite book as a child (for some reason he seems to think it is all right to steal from books he particularly enjoyed. Still, if one must steal, why not steal from the best?). Shortly after this, Eragon starts sulking over the fact that his cousin Roran is planning to leave home and get married. Luckily, Saphira is there to comfort our self-centred brat of a hero:

“Saphira was a balm for Eragon’s frustration. He could talk freely with her; his emotions were completely open to her mind, and she understood him better than anyone else.”

The text then goes on to talk about how she goes through a ‘growth spurt’ during this time, and the Epistler is left to tear his hair out in frustration. What, exactly is wrong with this little segment? It reveals just how clueless Paolini is about character development. It’s a classic case of telling rather than showing. So Saphira understands Eragon better than anyone else. Any author – ANY author who knows anything about his art – would know how this ought to have been handled. The reader should not be TOLD that Saphira understands Eragon better than anyone else. It should be SHOWN. Instead of a few sentences, there should have been a scene to demonstrate that Saphira understands Eragon better than anyone else. Taking a shortcut like this is an extremely bad move. If Paolini actually cared about the relationship between Eragon and Saphira, he would had dwelt on this point. He would have shown, not told. The focus isn’t on their developing relationship at all; instead it is on Eragon’s endless complaining over Roran leaving. As if it weren’t bad enough that Saphira has been shoved into the background (where she remains until the plot requires her to do something), the reader is also given more reasons to dislike Eragon – his objections to Roran leaving make him look very childish indeed. Saphira’s growth into adulthood and thus into an adult character is skipped over in exactly the same careless way. Many have complained about this and said they would have liked to see more of her babyhood, but this is not provided.

Worse still is that the character she becomes is nowhere near as interesting as the one she started out as. As one reviewer on Amazon.com put it; ‘She’s like this talking, perfect Lassie’. After Saphira begins talking, she reveals that she doesn’t have to spend time learning anything thanks to the magic of racial memory (this is an actual and extremely loopy pseudo-scientific theory long since disproved). “I may be younger than you in years, but I am ancient in my thoughts”, as she puts it toward the end of the book.

This is nothing short of pathetic. Saphira is only a few months old; a baby, to all intents and purposes, but she speaks and acts as if she had lived for centuries. Paolini explains it away with the reliable old Deus ex Machina known as ‘magic’, but it is still ridiculous and unbelievable. It feels as if Saphira the adult – Eragon’s infodumping grandma, as one person called her – simply came out of nowhere, fully-formed and knowing more than Eragon. So there is already a problem with the oh-so-deep relationship between her and Eragon – it’s unequal. If they were truly partners and equals, they should have developed side-by-side, both learning about the world and slowly becoming stronger and wiser. But no. Instead Saphira becomes a female counterpart to Brom – another wise old mentor who has to steer the wayward young hero onto his Path of Destiny, etc and so forth. Their mental bond is a very shallow one – in essence it is limited to their being able to communicate telepathically and occasionally share images of things they have seen. That’s it. They don’t share their emotions or have any kind of deep understanding – most of the time Eragon is nagging at Saphira because she won’t do what he wants, or she is lecturing him for being stupid. Much of the time they feel more like mother and son than partners. They are very much like Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket – one is naïve and stupid (and also made out of wood), and the other is the worldly-wise character who must do all his thinking for him and generally teach him about life.

A way to make Eragon and Saphira equal would have been to have them both act as if they were young. If they were BOTH immature and inexperienced, the reader could have seen them grow and develop together, learning from each other and the world around them. Having Saphira magically not need to learn anything means that the focus is taken off her and is instead placed on Eragon, the eternally ignorant child. So their relationship is not an equal one and thus it does not feel as if they are truly linked on that deep, magical level.

As for Saphira… what exactly does she do in Eragon? The Epistler decided to make a list:

1. She hatches and bonds with Eragon, thus turning him into a magical super-warrior

2. She drags him away from his uncle’s farm, thus dooming this poor abused minor character to a melodramatic death

3. She accompanies Eragon on his subsequent journey, remaining off-screen for much of the time, and provides a string of amusing or pseudo-philosophical remarks

4. She helps rescue him from Gil’ead

5. She distracts Durza so that Eragon can kill him

…and that’s about it. Bear in mind that the book Eragon is hundreds of pages in length. Saphira’s role in the plot is quite a small one. She does less than Brom, less than Murtagh, and far less than Eragon. She barely even counts as a sidekick for our hero. Although Eragon’s character development is minimal (something of a Paolini trademark), hers is even less. Much of the book’s very dull plot consists of monotonous travelling – pages and pages of it. Eragon and Brom ride along on horses together (not much actual dragon-riding is done by Our Hero), and Brom teaches Eragon about swordplay and magic and other boring things. Meanwhile Saphira… flies overhead. Staying high so no-one sees her. They stay in Teirm for a while, where Eragon meets an old friend of Brom, has his fortune told in the marketplace, throws a tantrum over the evil slave trade (which he forgets about awfully quickly), and nearly gets caught by guards. As for Saphira, she hangs around outside the city while all this is going on and does, well, nothing. Aside from acting as a convenient mental telephone to help Eragon and Brom stay in touch, anyway. Truly, there never was a dragon more magnificent.

But, the reader may protest, what about Eldest? Saphira does much more than just hide and be Eragon’s conscience there!

Very well. Here is another list of what Saphira does within the pages of the Red Book:

1. Stops Eragon dating a sorceress (matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, indeed)

2. Accompanies him on the long, long, very long trip to Ellesméra

3. Undergoes some sort of training with Glaedr, most of which we don’t see and could care less about

4. Tries to get it on with her senile teacher, much to the reader’s disgust (however, she’s still happy to tell Eragon to stop hitting on Arya. Hypocrisy much?)

5. Fights alongside Eragon on the Burning Plain

Now, in Eldest, since our heroes are with the Varden, it’s no longer necessary for Saphira to stay in hiding all the time. Therefore, we should in theory be seeing more of her. But we don’t. Or, at least, she’s around but doesn’t do anything. Her character becomes even worse than it was in Eragon, where she at least asserted herself occasionally. But in Eldest she stops lecturing Eragon all the time and becomes… nothing. This is where we see her finally become what Paolini really intended her to be from the beginning – an accessory for Eragon. She’s no longer a real character; all she does is stay by Eragon and agree with him all the time, and carry him around like an overgrown horse with wings. We could almost imagine Eragon keeping her in his trophy cabinet next to his archery prize. Other characters adore Eragon because he’s a Rider (oh, and he killed Durza), and he’s only a Rider because he has Saphira. Without her he’d be just another idiot with a shiny sword (which he more or less is anyway, but let it pass). This is Saphira’s function; she makes Eragon cooler and more powerful. When he attends councils and gets involved in some boring political struggles, she does absolutely nothing. Many people, even in official publications (eg. the Entertainment Weekly article which named Eldest the worst book of 2005) have referred to Saphira as ‘the hero’s pet dragon’. The Epistler has a strong suspicion that Paolini is annoyed by this, but the truth is that Saphira, along with all the other dragons, more or less IS just a pet. A talking pet, maybe, but still a pet. The Epistler is reminded of occasions where someone is walking their dog and other people come up to pat the dog and compliment the owner on having a nice pet. In the Inheritance trilogy, people more or less come up to Eragon and tell him what a nice shiny dragon he has.

We do not get any insight into Saphira’s mind in either book, which we logically should have given that she and Eragon supposedly ‘share thoughts’. Eragon confides in Saphira very frequently, turning to her when he needs advice and sharing his feelings with her, but Saphira does not reciprocate. She never tells Eragon how SHE feels, never asks him for advice, never treats him as a true friend. When they talk, the focus is always on him. Eragon never asks her about herself, and all in all he takes her for granted, always assuming that she will be there when he needs her and never stopping to consider whether she might need him. And Saphira appears to be completely unbothered by this. Again, they are neither equals nor true partners. A true partnership – even a close friendship – requires that both give and take from each other. But this does not happen between Eragon and Saphira. Eragon does not act as if he truly cares about Saphira’s feelings. All he does is take and take and take from her, as if she were some sort of eternal wellspring. In a realistic world with properly developed characters, Saphira would probably be nursing a grudge against him and he would eventually be forced to confront his own selfishness, but it is a fair bet that this will not happen, as both characters are being handled by an author who would not recognise a real character if it stole the glasses off his nose. Instead Saphira, like every other ‘good’ character, behaves as if her life revolves around Eragon. Their conversations are all about him, him and only him, as if he were some kind of metaphorical sun around which even a wise, mighty dragon must orbit. It is the same for every other character. Everyone and everything in Alagaësia revolves around Eragon, and that includes Saphira.

In terms of Star Wars, which as most people know is where Paolini got his plot from, Saphira’s obvious equivalent character is in fact two characters – the droids R2-D2 and C3PO. This may seem absurd at first, but on examination it is quite plausible. Like the droids, Saphira is the catalyst for the hero’s adventure and the reason why the rebels accept him, and she also tags along on the adventure where she does nothing much except provide comic relief and exposition and once or twice help the hero out at some crucial moment. If during Empire she begins saying ‘oh my!’ or bleeping at frequent intervals, the Epistler will not be the slightest bit surprised.

What is most aggravating about all this is that it didn’t have to be this way. Saphira did not have to be the nothing character that she is. She had the potential to be every bit as incredible as Paolini felt she should have been. If only he had handled her properly.

If the Epistler had had the chance to provide a little advice during the writing of Eldest, he would have suggested that instead of making Roran and Nasuada new ‘viewpoint’ characters, Saphira should have been allowed to come to the fore. If parts of the story were told from her point of view, it would have been an excellent way to develop her character and show the reader everything that he wanted to know about her. Readers constantly talk about how much Saphira interests them, and if she had been a viewpoint character and there had been various subplots told through her eyes in place of Roran or Nasuada’s subplots, both of which were pointless and uninteresting, it could have been a great improvement.

Saphira and Eragon’s relationship could have been a deeply moving and affecting thing which had both a positive and negative side, which helped develop them both as characters and which gave the reader an emotional connection with the story. A story told about characters like this, with a truly well-developed and involving link, could have been great no matter how generic the plotline was. If Eragon and Saphira’s relationship had truly been the ‘kernel’ of the story, it could have gone a very long way toward redeeming Paolini’s ripoffs and endless list of clichés.

But the point is that it wasn’t and it didn’t. Paolini failed miserably – failed both his readers and his characters. And no amount of boasting or exaggeration on his part will ever change that.

Glaedr

If Saphira is a nothing character, then Glaedr is even less than nothing. He is the partner of Oromis, Paolini’s Yoda clone, and like Oromis he fills the mentor role vacated by the late Brom. When the Epistler says that he is less than a nothing character, he means it literally. The Epistler simply cannot think of a way to describe Glaedr’s personality, for the simple reason that he does not have one. He is simply words on a page; a vehicle for some tedious lessons on morality and philosophy which the Epistler does not remember nor care to remember, in spite of having read them several times. He is supposed to be Oromis’ counterpart, who teaches Saphira while Oromis teaches Eragon. He fulfils his plot device role, and otherwise does absolutely nothing and has no character development whatsoever. The Epistler honestly cannot think of anything more to say about him.

Thorn

Not a character at all. Thorn has a total of zero lines during his one appearance in Eldest and never does anything character-defining. Murtagh may as well have shown up at the Burning Plains on a donkey.

Shruikan

Has not appeared at any point in the series (although for some reason everyone already seems to know that he has red eyes). Being the steed of the oh-so-evil Galbatorix, Shruikan is black (if you find this surprising, please refrain from breeding). Apparently he was forced to serve Galbatorix by means of evil magic, which at first suggests he may be set free. But then we remember that Shruikan is black. Forget setting him free: he’s evil and must die.

And these are all the dragon characters to be found in the Inheritance trilogy so far – ‘characters’ being a relative term. They have physical descriptions and two have dialogue, so the Epistler is forced to concede that they must be characters, though he cannot help but feel as if he is insulting the thousands of REAL characters that exist in the realm of literature. They are simply uninteresting, and they are certainly not the focus of the story. The focus of the story is all on Eragon and Arya and other semi-humanoid characters. The dragons barely get a mention, and when they do it is never alone. Everything they do is defined by who their riders are – plenty of ancient elven warriors are named and talked about, but not a single dragon is mentioned that does not have a rider. And when it comes to heroic deeds, it is always the rider who does them, not the dragon. This being so, how can it possibly be said that riders are equal to their dragons? We are constantly TOLD that they are equals, but we are never once SHOWN it. All we actually do see confirms the idea that the rider is the important one, and that every rider has a nice sharp sword, fancy titles, magic powers and a dragon to ride. The dragon is simply a tool, and that is exactly how they are portrayed. And we never see Saphira complain about how Eragon orders her around all the time, either. She does not act like a proud, ferocious warrior of the sky, or even like a character that isn’t human. One reader remarked that they got some way through Eldest (not having read Eragon first) before realising that Saphira wasn’t human. And if a non-human character acts so much like a human that they actually become indistinguishable from one, why bother?

Oh, the reader protests, come now, Epistler, how can you be so stupid? You forgot all the things Saphira and the other dragons do that makes them special! They can fly and breathe fire and everything! Well, setting aside the fact that special abilities do not a convincing character make, let us examine these special dragon abilities.

Dragon Abilities

So what can dragons do in Paolini-land? They can breathe fire and fly. How very, very distinctive. And they are telepathic. Just like the ones in the Dragonriders of Pern novels. Who would have thought it – Paolini didn’t come up with telepathic dragons on his own, after all! But in all seriousness, what does it matter that Saphira is telepathic? Her dialogue with Eragon is no different than ordinary spoken dialogue – she may as well have been given a voice just like any other character. The impact that this has on the plot is limited to the fact that they can communicate over longer distances than most people, and that Eragon has to serve as her mouthpiece when she wants to talk to someone else. Like many other things in the Inheritance books, it seems to have been thrown in simply because Paolini thought it was cool, since it has absolutely zero effect on the plot or the characters. One thing that the Epistler finds most frustrating about Paolini is his lack of imagination – he puts things into his books ‘just because’, rather than because they actually mean something. Saphira’s telepathy is a prime example.

Riders Generally

The Epistler feels that he has already made his point about how dragon riders in the Inheritance series treat their dragons like pets. But he found his daily dose of nutritious irony within the pages of Eragon itself:

“They (the dragons) were no more animals than we are. For some reason people praise everything the Riders did, yet ignore the dragons, assuming that they were nothing more than an exotic means to get from one town to another. They weren’t. The Riders’ great deeds were only possible because of the dragons. How many men would draw their swords if they knew a giant fire-breathing lizard – one with more natural cunning and wisdom than even a king could hope for – would soon be there to stop the violence?”

~Brom

Oh Paolini, how you mock yourself. Brom could very well have been channelling the Epistler himself when he said this. The Epistler hates to break it to you, Paolini, but Brom was absolutely right – and he was talking about you.

EPISTLE THE SIXTH

Black, White, Shades of Grey, and Hot Guys With Scars

The Epistler extends his greetings to his readers. Sadly, his suicide attempt was thwarted after some helpful voodoo priest cast a spell of resurrection over his grave and caused him to rise once more, replenished and ready to once again take up his spectral pen. It has recently reached the Epistler’s ear that some do not like the anonyminity implicit in his writings. The Epistler’s response to this is that his identity is unimportant and, were it known, it would prove far less interesting than his readers may have been led to expect. Some also dislike the Epistler’s habit of referring to himself in the third person. The Epistler’s response to this is: according to the Surgeon General, the Epistler’s stylistic choices will not cause any lasting damage to his readers. He apologises to those who dislike it, but he cannot please everyone.

And now, let Epistle the Sixth begin. Sit ye down and prepare thyself, mortal.

Character Arcs, X-Treme Edition

“SECTUMSEMPRA!” bellowed Harry from the floor, waving his wand wildly.

Blood spurted from Malfoy’s face and chest as though he had been slashed with an invisible sword. He staggered backward and collapsed onto the waterlogged floor with a great splash, his wand falling from his limp right hand.

-Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Pg 489, Bloomsbury Edition, © J.K.Rowling, 2005

And with this simple paragraph, we see J.K.Rowling demonstrate her remarkable skill as a writer in a dramatic but deceptively simple way. Harry Potter, the beloved hero, has just demonstrated that he is a real human being – he has done something morally questionable.
The Epistler sincerely doubts that there is a single human being on the planet who has not yet read Half-Blood Prince yet cares about plot spoilers, so he has no qualms about discussing this scene and its ramifications. Harry suspects that his nemesis, Draco Malfoy, has some nefarious scheme. So far in the book he has spent a great deal of time trying to discover just what it is, only to be frustrated. At this point in the story he comes across Malfoy crying in a bathroom; the poor boy is being forced to work for Voldemort, under threat of death for himself and his family, and now, for the first time in the series, he shows an inner vulnerability. Harry is shocked to see him, but, on being seen spying, he ends up in a fight with Malfoy which ends when he uses a spell on him which he has never tried before – a spell which proves more descructive than he expected.
Now, although Malfoy is indeed a villain, and a highly unpleasant person into the bargain, what Harry does to him is both shocking and cruel. And afterwards he is forced to confront that fact. Harry is the hero of the story – we like him and we don’t like Malfoy – and yet he has just shown that he, like Voldemort, is perfectly capable of attacking other people, and not just humiliating them, but hurting them. His hatred for Malfoy got the better of him, and this is the bloody result.
So what does this mean? Does Harry’s behaviour mean that he is no longer the hero? Do we cease to care about him because he has done something unsympathetic? No.

What this scene really achieves is twofold – firstly it demonstrates that good is not all good, and that even the ‘pure of heart’ (as Dumbledore has previously described Harry) are not just able to do bad things, but are sometimes willing to do it, too. And secondly, it is an important character-defining moment for Harry. Previously, with the knowledge that it is his destiny to be the one to kill Voldemort, it seemed hard to believe that our protagonist could possibly do it – after all, he has never killed or really fought anyone in his life. He is still an innocent, and innocents do not kill.
But now it is plain that Harry is no longer an innocent. He has stepped over the line and become a fighter, and fighting has a dark side – at bottom, it involves hurting and, ultimately, killing other people.

It is both moving and, in a way, saddening. For Harry to become a true hero – to finally triumph over the forces of evil – he has no option but to become like them. As he observes to himself during Order of the Phoenix, he must end his life as either murderer or victim.

In war, innocence dies first.

Whether Harry dies at the end of the last book or not, his role will still be a sacrificial one – he must lose his purity in order to be the saviour of all he holds dear. Even if he triumphs over Voldemort in the end, he will never be the same again. Such is the price of victory.

So what is the point of all this, and what does it have to do with Eragon? Yes, the Epistler must finally return to the subject of his least favourite book, much as he would have enjoyed writing about Harry Potter instead.

Well, let us compare and contrast Harry’s character arc with that of our beloved Eragon. To date, in both series, Harry has killed zero people and Eragon has killed hundreds.
Did anyone really notice? Not really. Since Eragon is a sociopath (see Epistle the Fifth) he is able to become a mass murderer without suffering any lasting psychological effects.
The difference between Eragon and Harry – aside from the fact that one is a cardboard cutout with a mental disorder and the other is a well-rounded, three-dimensional character – is that Harry has a dark side, and Eragon does not. And in this day and age, when reality has made cynics and realists of us all, a hero who is a shining beacon of purity cannot help but feel somewhat farcical.

Black and White and Shades of Grey, Help Us Keep the Fools at Bay
The morality in Eragon and Eldest is extremely simplistic, and that’s putting it lightly.
Here is the formula:

White + Beautiful + Sparkly = Good
Black + Ugly + Smelly = Evil

That strange, incense-scented breeze you just felt was the Epistler’s depressed sigh.
And here is the second formula:

Good Character Does Something = Automatically Virtuous
Bad Character Does Something = Automatically Heinous

That rumbling in the earth was the Epistler bashing his head against his desk.

Out of all the characters in the story, the only one who does not quite fit the mould of either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is Murtagh. And coincidently he is widely acknowledged to be the favourite character of many, many readers.
…Let it be now acknowledged that the word ‘coincidently’ did not in fact need to be in the previous sentence. It is not a coincidence at all that Murtagh is the most beloved of all Paolini’s characters.

Why is this so? It is because Murtagh, unlike Eragon, is an anti-hero. He is neither on the side of evil or the side of good – he acts according to what he wants, not according to what someone else wants. Typically his characterisation is as thin and shaky as it is with everyone else’s, but it is possible to read a pattern into his behaviour by applying previous experience with characters in other books and movies. So, completing his ill-defined personality by fitting in parts of other, similar characters, as the DNA of the dinosaurs in Jurrassic Park was completed by splicing it with the genetic materials of frogs, we are able to get a picture of what Murtagh is like (let us pause to remember that we should not have been required to do this in the first place, and we all know who is to blame for it).

So. Murtagh is tough and independent-minded – a rogue not dissimilar from Han Solo of Star Wars fame (is anyone surprised? Of course not). He does not trust anyone (not even – gasp! – Eragon) and is self-reliant. He is also not above doing morally questionable things for his own benefit – for example, in Eragon he kills a slave trader who attempted to capture himself and Eragon when he was disarmed and helpless. Eragon, much to our complete lack of surprise, proceeds to throw a tantrum and accuse Murtagh of murder. Murtagh, however, is unmoved; pointing out that killing the slaver was in their own best interests, since they cannot afford to have anyone know where they are. Eragon, needless to say, is too abysmally stupid and self-righteous to understand, but Murtagh immediately gains the reader’s sympathy because he has, in the space of a few pages, shown more common sense than Eragon has displayed throughout the entire book so far.
Murtagh is also one of the few characters who remains more or less unimpressed by Eragon’s status as a rider. He, unlike even the Kings and Queens whom Eragon later encounters, has the spine to argue with him. He also, much to the reader’s glee, is able to defeat him in combat – and this is before he becomes a rider.

Murtagh garners even more sympathy after he and Eragon finally reach the Varden, since he is immediately treated with suspicion and locked up for the crime of being Morzan’s son (apparently the Varden believes that Evil is hereditary). Eragon, meanwhile, is greeted with a ticker-tape parade and people wearing t-shirts with his face on them. Which is only just, since he has… uh… done… absolutely nothing beyond becoming a rider and blundering his way into their hiding-place. Which is, uh, highly impressive, to be sure. And no, the Epistler does not ever waste an opportunity to say unpleasant things about Eragon. He thanks you kindly for asking.

In the end, Murtagh is simply a more interesting character than Eragon is. He is morally ambiguous and rough around the edges, and his backstory – since there is a fair amount that we simply don’t know about him – is intriguingly mysterious.
When Eldest was released, many of those who read it did so eager to discover what became of Murtagh – the only character who ever had a hope of being even slightly interesting. But Paolini blew it.
Murtagh ‘dies’ during the first chapter and is absent from the rest of the book right up until the end, where he appears just when we most expect it, at the height of the ‘climactic’ final battle, now riding a dragon of his very own. He then proceeds to make Eragon look like the weak, whiny pansy he is for the second time, steals his sword and makes another abrupt exit from the text.
In doing what he did with Murtagh, Paolini may as well have tattooed the words “I Am Clueless” on his forehead. He took the most popular character he created and, instead of enlarging his role in the story, reduced it to a virtual cameo – and a highly disappointing and predictable one at that. So Murtagh ended up working for the enemy. Who would have thought it?

Well, pretty much everyone who has seen Star Wars, actually.

Paolini is an idiot. He took all the potential Murtagh had, used it to clean his lavatory and then threw it into the gutter to rot.

And what will happen to Murtagh in the third and (thankfully) final book in the series? The Epistler will now use his psychic powers to find out.
Let the door of knowledge open unto him…

Murtagh will sacrifice himself to save Eragon and thus redeem himself before dying a tragic but honourable death, thereby proving Eragon’s moral superiority once and for all.
It is unavoidable. Paolini has already locked himself into the Evil Path of Cliché, and is now lost forever. Fare thee well, thou poor soul.

Anti-Heroes FTW
Once upon a time, every story told was a fairy story. Myth, legend… old stories.
These stories were, by and large, fairly simplistic. Today, as the art of storytelling has become more sophisticated, stories have become more complex. And fasions come and go. Once upon a time, it was commonplace for heroic characters to be shining beacons of purity – incorruptible, unconflicted… pure of heart.
In this modern age, however, this has changed. The trend is now toward darker, grittier, more psychologically and morally complex heroes. The readers of today are far too cynical and jaded to be easily impressed by a hero who can do no wrong and never does – today, when we have been forced to admit to ourselves that bad things do indeed happen to good people, when greed and corruption beget descruction and genocide which we seem powerless to stop, we find it far easier to relate to an anti-heroic character.
Once we had John McClane and Luke Skywalker. Now we have Captain Malcom Reynolds, Beatrix Kiddo and Captain Jack Sparrow.
Once we had heroes in children’s literature like Sarah Crewe (incidently, she is one of the most blatant examples of a Mary Sue in original fiction that the Epistler has ever come across) and Matilda Wormwood. Now we have Harry Potter, who slashed his enemy’s face open in a fit of rage, and Will Parry, who committed murder at the age of twelve.
Paolini is writing from a very childish and naïve perspective – which is only to be expected, given his obviously sheltered upbringing. Having been homeschooled and brought up in isolation, he was incredibly inexperienced when he began writing Eragon – it would appear that more or less the only other humans he ever interacted with on a regular basis were his parents and his sister. It is unlikely that he had any wider experience, and to this day, at the age of twenty-two when he is more than old and wealthy enough to move out on his own, he is still living at home and, the Epistler suspects, allowing his parents to screen all his fanmail (it is certainly true that his father is claimed to have been spotted persecuting critics on the internet, along with someone who may or may not be his sister Angela).
Much of this remains moot, but it would certainly explain the simplistic world-view presented in the Inheritance trilogy so far – along with the apparent inability to create realistic characters (human interaction is an absolute requirement to writing good characters).
If Paolini has never experienced real suffering and loss, or spoken to someone who has, how can he be expected to portray that in his writing? He does not and cannot. He is a man who writes like a child, and hence he is completely oblivious to the reasons why it should have been Murtagh, and not Eragon, who was the protagonist of his books.

EPISTLE THE EIGHTH

The Epistler Shreds Eldest: Deluxe Edition



The Epistler extends his apologies to his readers for the delay. He was unable to obtain a copy of the Deluxe Edition of Eldest until very recently, when he was able to obtain the services of a good medium and pay a visit to the land of the living, where he was finally able to view a copy of the dreaded tome and take some notes on which to base this next Epistle, which he wrote mostly because his readers were calling for him to do so.

The Epistler was impressed by the cover of the Deluxe Edition, which was fairly similar to the standard cover of the Red Brick, but decorated with some rather nice gold leaf. Of course, even dog droppings on toast can look nice if properly garnished. Inside was the same inane, overlong, atrociously written book the Epistler read some time ago, but now accompanied by the following titbits:

-A drawing of a very bored-looking Glaedr, drawn by the legendary (and inexcusably wasted) John Jude Palencar

-A drawing of Brom’s ring, done by the Author, Christopher Paolini, Himself. The Epistler will say, however, with perfect sincerity, that the drawing was very good. It would seem that Paolini is a much better artist than he is a writer

-A complete list of characters, which the Epistler did not read, but which would probably be very useful, considering how overburdened with useless characters the book is

-An extract from the upcoming Green Brick

-An “extract” from a history book of Alagaësia called The Dominance of Fate



The Epistler read the extracts closely, not wanting to miss anything which might be useful material for this Epistle, only to have his eyeballs burn out of their sockets. He successfully regrew them on his return to the plane of the dead, and is fortunately now able to report on his observations. As you will see, they are not good.



The Dominance of Fate : In Which A Monk Without A Faith Writes About The History Of A World Without Any Common Sense

The first thing the Epistler noticed about the “history book” extract was the name of its author; “Heslant the Monk”.

…of what faith, exactly? As far as he can recall, there have been no mentions of any monasteries in Alagaësia, and the only identified human religion is the Three Peaks cult in Dras-Leona, which, though it has a Cathedral (strange that a fantasy world would have such a patently Catholic structure in it, but what would the Epistler know?). The cult seems unlikely to be the sort of religion that would have monks or monasteries, considering its main tenants involve self-mutilation, human sacrifice and the drinking of blood. So if Heslant did not belong to the Three Peaks cult, what faith did he belong to? A monk is a religious brother. According to the trilogy, Heslant the Monk was later “burned as a heretic by the Empire”. This was the first instance, but certainly not the last, of the Epistler responding with: “WHY?”.

If the Empire does not have an official state religion, why would it be burning someone as a heretic? As far as we know, King Galbatorix does not have a priesthood working for him which would take charge of this sort of thing. Considering that the extract is full of blatant anti-Imperial propaganda, it would make sense for it to be banned and for its author to be executed or banished, but what, exactly, did he do to be named a heretic? Did the evil King frame him in order to get rid of him? And if so, why? It looks as if the King’s power is more or less absolute, so why would he need an excuse to remove someone who had displeased him?

So the extract did not exactly do much to endear itself to the Epistler, and that was before he’d read beyond the name of the author. Not a particularly good start.

Matters did not improve. The writing style used in the extract leapt out at the Epistler almost instantly; it was overwritten, verbose and pretentious, more or less exactly like the prose used in the rest of the book. It would seem that, in Alagaësia, even ancient tomes of historical record use purple prose. When the Epistler realised that, his first thought was “figures”.

It was nowhere close to sounding at all academic. For one thing, the style frequently takes on an informal tone, as if the author is directly addressing the reader. This is a big no-no in the world of academic writing, along with the use of the word “I”. In academic writing, there is no such thing as “I”. The reader takes it for granted that any unsubstantiated statements are the author’s opinion, and therefore there is no need for said author to refer to himself at any point. Yet another clue to the fact that the person who really wrote it (ie, Paolini) has never been to university, or even a reputable school. No, “graduating” at 15 from a school you never went to does not make you smart. In this case it clearly makes you poorly-educated and naïve.

The actual content was little better. The extract went for approximately four pages, and, just like the map of Alagaësia just inside the cover, it was by turns illogical, nonsensical, shallow and poorly thought-out. Every single page contained things that made the Epistler snigger, groan, or blink in bewilderment, and it seemed that every question answered only raised more questions, and not in a good way.

So. To start with, it claims that Galbatorix burned a pair of old libraries, after he had plundered them to stock up his personal collection. According to Heslant, the destruction of the libraries (there were only two? In the entire country?) resulted in the loss of hundreds of volumes of science and other knowledge, which more or less set the human race back by hundreds of years. He goes on to lament this loss, and to claim that it was Galbatorix’s worst crime. Yes, the deaths of thousands is fine, but won’t someone please think of the books?

This was the second thing which made the Epistler say “WHY??”.

Why would Galbatorix burn libraries? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Yes, tyrants of the past have been responsible for censoring and destroying books (eg the Nazis burning copies of the Bible, and fundamentalists burning Harry Potter). The difference is that these tyrants were almost always acting out of some sort of religious or idealistic conviction, and as far as we know, Galbatorix has neither. He is not a religious despot; he conquered the country for… well, we don’t really know why he did it, other than that he was “insane”. But why would he want to destroy books? There isn’t even an unconvincing motivation; there is no motivation at all. And no, Paolini, “he was mad” does not constitute proper character motivation. But then again, let us remember that more or less every “evil” deed the King has been responsible for happened “because he’s mad”. The Epistler cannot help but shake his head miserably at this thought.

Next, Heslant talks about how Galbatorix destroyed the dragons. According to him, when he first started killing them (again, why? Wasn’t he fighting the riders?), the entire race of dragons rushed to attack him.

So why in the gods’ names didn’t they kill him? The Epistler has heard of overpowered characters, but this is just plain ludicrous. The suggestion here is that either Galbatorix is so powerful that he can wipe out a race of giant, fire-breathing, super-intelligent, immortal, magical super-lizards, or that the dragons were so ridiculously weak that they could be slaughtered by a handful of rebels. Each possibility is equally stupid. And if Galbatorix is really that powerful, even Eragon, the super-powerful-demigodling-Gary Stu, wouldn’t be able to kill him. Especially considering that he has supposedly been growing steadily more powerful every year for a century. Give the Epistler a break. What will he do when he faces Eragon directly in battle – beat him to death with a mountain?

The sheer logicality of this claim – which is briefly made and then moved on from without any form of proper explanation – more or less destroys “Heslant”’s credibility right there and then.

The Epistler can’t help but wonder, again, just who the hell this Heslant is supposed to be. Most of the extract reads like the pompous ramblings of some idiot with delusions of scholastic brilliance, and yet it is filled with inappropriate words and allusions which don’t fit with the overall tone and the fact that it is supposed to have been written by an inhabitant of a faux-medieval fantasy land. For example, the word “millennia” appears – which, even if it does indeed date back to medieval times, feels decidedly out of place. And instead of “AD” or “BC” we have “AC” – “after Creation”. By which gods? It doesn’t say.

And it only gets better. The extract describes how the dwarves and the dragons were the first races to inhabit Alagaësia. Apparently the dwarves occupied a large plain in the middle of the continent, but were forced to leave it after a sudden “climate change”.

Uh… to start with, why did the climate suddenly change? Were the dwarves emitting greenhouse gases? Generally speaking, considering that climate change takes thousands of years, the Epistler sincerely doubts that any civilisation would last long enough to notice it happening.

And secondly, how in the hell does Heslant even know what climate change is? Alagaësia isn’t 20 th century USA. Its inhabitants haven’t even discovered gunpowder yet, and yet they know what a climate is? Wouldn’t it make more sense (especially considering that he’s a monk) for Heslant to say something like “the gods drew the water from the plains and made them a desert”? Sorry, Paolini, but you just failed at verisimilitude. And not for the first time, either. Or the last, come to that.

Either way, it would seem that the dragons “converged” on the desert after the dwarves left it, finding the climate to their liking. Uh… dragons… moving into a desert? Where’s there’s no food and probably not much to drink? Yes, that makes perfect sense. Also, Heslant here suddenly refers to them as “fire worms”. Is he talking about dragons here, or is some new screwball species which has just been dropped into the text without warning? The Epistler really wasn’t all that sure, but he would like to add that “fire worms” has got to be about the most stupid alternative name for dragons ever, including “skulblaka”.

The dragons, supposedly not very intelligent, but able to communicate with each other through the mind (how? Don’t animals usually rely on body language to communicate? Oh, that’s right – it’s magic), supposedly “delighted” in “persecuting” the dwarves. Again, why? If they were only animals at this point, why would they have any concept of persecuting anyone? Persecution is a human concept. It would make sense if the dragons simply enjoyed the taste of dwarf, but, again, the dwarves live underground, so how would the dragons even get at them?

And now for the entry of the Epistler’s least favourite Alagaësian race, the elves. Supposedly they came to Alagaësia from “over the sea” (gee whiz, Mister Peabody, why does that sound so familiar?). Heslant says that no-one knows why they left their homeland, but that it was called “Alalëa” – a name which, in elvish, apparently means “melancholy place of great beauty”, or some such thing. The elves certainly have a very efficient language.

The elves, still being evil meat-eaters at the time, made the “terrible mistake” of killing a dragon “for sport”, whereupon the dragons immediately attacked the elves en masse. Again, if the dragons were just animals at this point, would they have any concept of revenge? Generally speaking, large carnivores aren’t noted for being sociable. In fact many of them (eg tigers, bears and leopards) are noted for being solitary and frequently kill each other in territorial disputes. And for good reason, too – an overpopulation of giant meat-eating animals is not something anyone would want. Perhaps Paolini should have spent a little more time watching the Discovery Channel.

This section does, however, answer a question some people had asked – if the elves are vegetarians, why would they kill a dragon in the first place? The answer – they weren’t vegetarians at the time, and apparently became so only after having bonded themselves with the dragons. In other words, forming a special magical whoozit with a race of giant, ferocious predators somehow made the elves become vegetarian. But of course that only logically follows.

The terrible war between the elves and the dragons ended, as we already know, when an elf called Eragon found a dragon egg, raised the dragon hatchling and became an ambassador suing for peace to both sides. Hooray. The difference, this time around, is that “Eragon” has suddenly obtained an umlaut from somewhere and become “Eragön”. The Epistler knew there was something missing from that name. And, as we all know, one can never have too many umlauts. At least, not in Alagaësia, Land of Meaningless Accents, all of which were apparently inspired by the author’s serendipitous discovery of the “insert symbol” function in Microsoft Word. Thankyou, Bill Gates, for this thy blessing upon us.

After this, the riders were formed. A sorry waste of a magnificent species – the dragons gave the elves their magic and agreed to carry them around like giant winged horses, and basically became accessories for a race of overpowered übermenschen, even though the elves started the damned war in the first place. This is why the Epistler has always hated the concept of dragon-riders. How exactly does a dragon benefit by becoming the pet of some human or elf? Saphira didn’t get any special powers by bonding herself with Eragon, and she barely gets any attention from him either. See Epistle the Fourth for a longer and more in-depth list of complaints about this.

Hot on the heels of the elves came the urgals, who apparently followed them from over the sea for no reason. It would seem (the text actually says this) they had the sophistication to build boats good enough to travel a very long way over the sea at the time, but mysteriously regressed into being uncultured brutes when they settled in Alagaësia. All the Stupid Gas in the air must have affected them. It certainly worked very well on everyone else.

The riders were then kind enough to persecute the urgals and basically boot them out of their new homes because they were “unable” to live peacefully with their neighbours and kept getting into fights with them. And, of course, humans never squabble amongst themselves or fight wars over silly things. No, they all get on perfectly. Ah, racism. Where would we be without it? After Galbatorix destroyed the riders, however, the urgals were able to come back to their old homes instead of living on the fringes of civilisation (for example, in the Spine with the dragons, who probably preyed on them), which Heslant implies is a Bad Thing, even though he then goes on to preach to the reader about how the urgals are not monsters and deserve respect, blah blah blah. He describes how they are sophisticated enough to weave fancy “straps” with tribal emblems on them (wow!), and includes a slightly unsettling account of how he saw a mother urgal with her young, and challenges the reader to find a human mother who is as tender with her offspring as “that bullnecked matron” (the Epistler shuddered involuntarily when he read this, which is odd considering he lost his nervous system when he died). Heslant then states that the urgals don’t deserve to be condemned as monsters just because they’re ugly.

The Epistler loves the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. This bit of preaching about how looks aren’t everything is, to say the least, somewhat dubious coming from an author who placed so much emphasis on how incredibly hot his love interest character is that he was perfectly content to make her an insufferable b***h but still have his (also incredibly good-looking) hero follow her around like a lovesick puppy. (Hmm. The Epistler feels another Epistle brewing here…).



The extract next makes mention of a book called “Eddison’s Dialogues”. Again, WHAT?? “Eddison”? Was Paolini reading up on his scientific history when he wrote that, or was he just trying to be clever? As a matter of fact, the name of Eddison does not sound too out of place in a quasi-medieval fantasy land, but it still should not have been there. Because it is so instantly recognisable, it jerks the reader right out of the text.



After the urgals, it would seem, humans came to Alagaësia. They had also supposedly left their homeland for implausibly mysterious reasons; Heslant claims that nobody knows why. In spite of the fact that said humans had reached the level of sophistication required to have ships, the ability to navigate, and a governing system with a King, they didn’t have any such thing as written records, or even legends.

For the umpteenth time, WHY?? Needless to say, Heslant, scholar extraordinaire, makes no attempt to explain it.



The newly-arrived humans settled in a valley which they named Palencar Valley after their King, and King Palencar then proceeded to antagonise the riders for no apparent reason. Surprise surprise, the riders kicked his a** and his people hastily surrendered to them. This time, Heslant does answer the inevitable “why” – why did Palencar think he had the devil’s chance of beating the almighty riders? Why, because he was mad, of course. The Epistler was quite honestly knocked on his ethereal behind by the sheer logic of this.



And, while we are on the topic, has anyone ever challenged the riders and not been a complete lunatic?



Hilariously, Heslant goes on to assert that Palencar’s “dementia” was a family trait, and this is when we know that his bloodline supposedly lingers on somewhere in Palencar valley. When the Epistler learnt that little detail in Eldest, he instantly made the connection between that and Roran’s sudden acquisition of 1337 leadership skills (in fantasy-land, all leadership ability is inherited from Mysterious Ancestors. Commonors just don’t have it). There is absolutely no doubt in the Epistler’s mind that, yes, Roran is a descendent of King Palencar, and so, by association, is Eragon. At last we know where Eragon’s mental defects came from. Who said Paolini didn’t think things through?



After Palencar had been scraped off the riders’ boots, humans were allowed to join the dragon riders’ club, which the elves were very angry about. As we can see, they did not in fact become prejudiced against humans after one of them killed all the riders – they were racist asshats from the beginning. But no, the leader of the riders insisted that since the riders ruled every race in Alagaësia, every race should have a say in what they did. Except for the dwarves. And the urgals. And the dragons don’t really count because they’re just big flying horses. Bah, the Epistler gives up.



Unfortunately – or, as the Epistler maintains, fortunately – one human who became a rider proceeded to “go insane” (how convenient) and kill all the other riders for no reason. Here we learn that Galbatorix’s dragon died when he was nineteen. And here, once again, the word “WHY??” pops up. It is already known that Galbatorix became a rider at the age of ten, and that his dragon died almost immediately after he had finished his training – and conveniently before he found out about the locations of Ellesméra and Farthen Dûr (oh, come on).

…So his training took nine years? And he’s supposed to have been extraordinarily talented? Then why did Eragon, who, let’s face it, is a complete idiot even by Paolini’s own admission, manage to do the same in an estimated fourteen months? The Epistler has heard of how Mary Sues learn ridiculously fast, but this is pushing it a little.



Either way, after losing his dragon Galbatorix returned to his fellow riders and asked for another one. How does this work? In both Eragon and Eldest, Paolini made a big deal about how a rider and his dragon are destined for each other and so on and so forth. So how is a rider supposed to get another dragon? Somehow, the idea that more than one dragon would hatch for any one person seems slightly unreasonable, and also devalues the dragon. Also, does that mean a dragon who has lost his or her rider can get another one? And even if it is possible, why did the rider elders say no? According to Brom’s account in Eragon, it’s because they saw how mad Galbatorix was when he made the request. If so, did it not occur to them that saying no would only make him worse? At the very least, they could have taken him in and done something to care for him, but it seems that they instead turned him down and either banished him or let him run off. This treatment comes off as callous at best, and unbelievably cruel at worst. If Galbatorix was one of their own, why did they treat him so poorly? The Epistler’s own theory is that it was because he was human, and the elders, all either elves or humans who had become indistinguishable from elves, didn’t care enough for a mere human to show him any kindness. Quite frankly, they brought it on themselves.



So Galbatorix ran away and remained in hiding somewhere in the wilderness for seven years (the gods alone know what he did during that time. Most likely it included reading a copy of Destroying Despots for Dummies). A fellow rider, Morzan, found him and decided to join him for no reason (honestly, if the riders were as wonderful as everyone in canon made out, why would anyone even consider betraying them? The Epistler will accept that Galbatorix is probably quite a charasmatic guy, but he would have needed something to persuade Morzan to join him, and if so, what was it? And wouldn’t Morzan and Galbatorix both have taken oaths of loyalty in the Ancient Language – you know, the ones nobody can break? The vagueness here is maddening), and the two of them found other followers and then wiped out the other riders for no reason. Galbatorix somehow managed to win the war in virtually no time at all, killed Vrael, and then made himself King for no reason. The Epistler fails to see how he managed to go from “get revenge on those a*****e riders” to “make myself King of the world” just like that. But, of course, the fact that he’s “insane” makes any course of action plausible. Yes, Paolini. Just keep telling yourself that and it might become true someday.



The extract finishes with Heslant’s statement that Galbatorix is still King today, and that if he is to be overthrown one day then people will have to learn from history, ie his book. And, quite frankly, if Heslant was stupid enough to publish a book which said things like that about his ruling monarch, he was asking to be burnt at the stake. That’s one less idiot in the world, anyway.



Overall, the Epistler was deeply unimpressed by The Dominance of Fate. Even the title is idiotic and nonsensical (and, translated into the “ancient language”, it becomes even worse), and the amount of information given in it is severely lacking. Much like the rest of Paolini’s writing, it looks impressive on the surface. It uses long words, overly convoluted phrasing, endless lists of dates and proper names and dozens of unnecessarily detailed and pointless digressions in order to give an appearance of sophistication and intelligence which, beneath all this decoration, is completely absent. A bad writer will often make his prose sound impressive in order to conceal the fact that what it says is in some way inadequate, and in this case it is certainly true. The whole thing – again, just like everything else he has written – appears to be an attempt to convince the reader of how intelligent and cultured the author is, and at first glance it succeeds. But once the reader looks beyond the cosmetic appeal of words like “dementia” and “converged”, the illusion begins to fall apart. At bottom the history is in fact shallow and unrealistic – it is missing all sorts of details which have no reason to be absent, it states that things happened without explaining why or giving more than a hint of proper context, and it sounds nothing like an authentic historical record. The way it ends is very abrupt as well; it merely recaps the unnecessarily vague account given in Eragon of how Galbatorix killed the riders – again, it does not give the why or how of it, which many people have been asking for but been denied – and then suddenly cuts off. The Epistler actually read it in the hopes of finding out more about the fall of the riders, but he was disappointed.

In the end, the extract gives the reader the impression that Heslant has no more than a passing knowledge of his own country’s history, and is not particularly interested in it either. Which is strange, considering he supposedly wrote the definitive text on it. Final score: half a mark out of ten. Pathetic.



A Taste of Terror: The Book 3 Extract

And now on to the thing the Epistler was most interested to read; the extract from the Green Brick, which will most likely be unleashed upon the world sometime next year.

The Epistler read it carefully several times, not wishing to miss anything.

The extract is surprisingly short; shorter, in fact, than the one from the Dominance of Fate. Those who read it before the Epistler did stated that it read like fanfiction, and the Epistler agrees. He has seen approximately nine thousand “theoretical Book Three” fanfictions, and nearly all of them opened with what this extract does – Eragon and Roran going to rescue Katrina, aka Damsel In Distress #8097, who has been kidnapped by the Ra’zac for no reason, in one of the most annoying parts in Eldest. There, having come specifically to capture Roran, they devastate half of his village, eat one of its occupants, and then, having finally cornered him, they bite him in the shoulder and run off with his girlfriend. Then, having been joined by two super-intelligent flying beasts, they leave the village. Somehow, the Epistler failed to see how this made any sense whatsoever. They finally catch the man they have spent half the book hunting, and then they take his girlfriend and leave? Do they have bad eyesight, or are they just plain stupid? Or was Paolini unable to resist trotting out the old “I must rescue my twu wuv” scenario for the umpteenth time? Either way, the Epistler detects a distinct lack of original thought here.



In any case, that scenario is exactly what plays out in the extract. Eragon and Roran ride Saphira to Helgrind, the mountain where the Ra’zac live. They find the entrance to their rather stupidly big cave hidden behind an illusion apparently set up by the King himself (how does Eragon know that? It could just as easily have been someone else). They enter said cave (stupidly – again – they do so loudly and obviously), and Eragon somehow fails to detect the presence of the “lethrblaka” – the giant flying things the Ra’zac ride on – one of which smacks into Saphira, knocking him down. Eragon is apparently knocked unconscious (for what feels like the millionth time – didn’t Paolini realise this got old halfway through the first book?), and that is where the extract ends. OE NOES! Will our heroes survive? The suspense, it burns! No, wait, it doesn’t. The Epistler hopes the pair of them get eaten alive. They deserve it for such gross incompetence.



So, the big question – is it an improvement from the crime against literature that was Eldest? On the whole, no. It remains as slow-paced and boring, there are approximately nineteen words that are out of place, there is purple prose and things that don’t make sense, and Eragon remains as much of an idiot as before, as does his insufferable cousin. The tone is also shifting and inconsistent – it goes from casual to pompous to overly formal at the drop of a hat, mostly because Paolini will suddenly use a word which doesn’t fit with the tone he was using before, and the prose ends up abruptly changing gears as a result. For example, in describing the floor of the cave, he puts in the word “thereon” out of the blue. And let us not forget the much-derided “with a surge of [Saphira’s] mighty thews”. The Epistler had to look up the word “thews”, and according to dictionary.com it means “muscle or sinews”. Couldn’t he just have called them muscles in the first place? How many people are going to know what thews are? Here’s betting he hadn’t heard the word either until he found it in the thesaurus. And since when do muscles “surge”?

As if this weren’t bad enough, there is a whole list of things in the extract – which, remember, is very short – that are just plain silly. To begin with, we have Roran, on Saphira’s back, waving his fabled war-hammer around. Shouldn’t he be holding on, especially if he’s never really flown before? Wherefore (the Epistler loves that word) wouldst thou need thy mighty warhammer, O Roran? Are you expecting to have to fight someone in midair? The Epistler suspects it was merely a flimsy pretext to remind the reader that Roran now fights with a hammer (which he got from a blacksmith’s wall. Apparently it was intended to be used for cracking glaze, so it probably isn’t very big. Not the most useful thing to use in a mighty battle against unspeakable evil, but whatever). Please, Paolini. You’re better than that. Really.



And later on, something even more hilarious happens. When Saphira enters the cave, Paolini mentions how her scales “cast thousands of shifting blue specks across the rock”. What is she, a giant disco ball? (The Epistler nearly died again when he read someone else’s response to this – as he recalls, it was “Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive!” Brilliant). Paolini, please. For the love of gods, how is this even slightly believable? Saphira isn’t an ornament, she’s a living animal. How is being covered in uber-shiny sparkly bright blue scales going to be at all useful? What is she supposed to do, blind people with them? Dragons are predators. That means they have to catch other animals for food. That means being able to ambush them. That means some form of camouflage would be, well, kind of a requirement. How in the gods’ names is Saphira supposed to remain inconspicuous when she’s not only bright blue but apparently made out of glass as well?

There are other idiotic things in this extract. For example, the particularly appalling sentence “…the courage, nay, the desire…”, which is completely out of place and just sounds silly. So the narrator is suddenly an elderly and rather pompous lecturer? The Epistler would not like to meet whoever is telling the story, as he evidently has a bad case of schizophrenia (oh, wait, that would be Paolini).

As usual, the text is full of wrong-sounding words. Spectrum, emanating, translucent, thews, enlivened… the list goes on. They simply don’t fit in the setting or the context, and to the Epistler, who takes delight in the beauty of language, they are painful to read.



And this is what we find. All the usual mistakes have shown themselves in virtually no time at all, thus confirming that after all Paolini has not paid any attention to the valid criticisms directed at him and has failed to show any improvement whatsoever. If this is a taste of things to come, then the Epistler has a very, very bad feeling.



And that is the sum total of what is to be found in the Extended Edition of Eldest. On the whole, the Epistler would not advise people to purchase it. So-called “deluxe editions” of books are nothing more than a transparent attempt by greedy publishers to squeeze a little more cash out of a public they’ve already duped with a pathetic age gimmick. The Epistler did his best to describe everything that was to be found included with it, and he hopes that this will preclude the need for any of his readers to put more ill-gotten cash in Paolini’s pockets. The upcoming Epistles about the Green Brick are going to be intense, to say the least…