No. No, no, nonononononononono. NO. NO.
Why am I already enraged? Because it's the second sentence of the freaking book, and Paolini just ripped the words right out of Tolkien's mouth.
No, it's not an exact copy of Galadriel's speech, but how can the parallel be ignored? Galadriel's speech when faced with the One Ring is one of the most memorable scenes in the Fellowship of the Ring, and thanks to the Jackson film the speech is well known to the point
◊ of
◊ parody. How did this get past his editors? It's not as if this line is buried somewhere in the depths of the book, it's the second freaking sentence of the forward.
We are not off to a good start, and it's about to get worse.
What.
For those of you just tuning in, the debate over the existence of gods in Alagaesia has been one of the ongoing questions of the last two novels, Eldest and Brisingr. In Eldest, Eragon learned that the elves are atheists, and was completely swayed by their arguments. In Brisingr, a god-like entity appeared during the coronation of the new dwarven king. However, there was a good deal of ambiguity as to just what exactly Eragon had actually seen, and Eragon waxed philosophic for a while on the subject of gods. It wasn't exactly a plot point, but the ambiguity was played up heavily. Now we're flatly being told that a god created the dwarves. Am I supposed to take this as Word of God, or is this forward meant to be read as an excerpt from a history text, like the Dominance of Fate? If this is the latter, the flat statement that the dwarves were created by a god makes sense; the author is simply relating the dwarves' own account of their origin. If it's the former, and this is indeed Word of God, then a substantial chunk of Eragon Wangsting about whether or not gods exist (and if so, whose) could have been cut right out of the last book, and instead we could have seen Eragon trying to reconcile the fact that the elves were flat-out wrong about the existence of gods (Arya's tirade against the dwarf priest at the beginning of Eldest suddenly takes on a whole new light, for starters). Also, if this is Word of God, then holy crap, the elves were wrong. That'd be a first for this series.
And this isn't even getting into why on earth are the dwarves are all about living under mountains if they were created from rocks in the desert? And how many rocks are there out in the Hadarac, anyway? I seem to recall the Hadarac being a sandy desert, where any rocks would quickly be annihilated by wind erosion. Or am I remembering that wrong? Either way, it still doesn't answer the first question: why would creatures made from the desert live in - literally in - the mountains? Why not just make them formed from the mountains? I'm sure you could come up with a reason, but it just seems so pointless to create them from the desert they have nothing to do with rather than the mountains that influence most of their culture.
We're now past the third paragraph. I hope you took my advice about the pillows. Let's see that picture of a kitty in a tiara◊ again just for good measure.
Awesome.
It says that the two races, the dwarves and the dragons, warred much, and then the elves came, and they started fighting the dragons, too. The elves were tougher than the dwarves, and the elves and dragons would have wiped each other out - no mention of the dwarves anymore - until they realized this and made peace, creating the Dragon Riders to keep peace for the next thousand years, until humans, urgals, and the Ra'zac arrived in Alagaesia.
Wait. So the Riders "kept the peace" in Alagaesia for a thousand years before either of the token evil races showed up? And isn't a thousand year gap a little long for the elves to consider that the urgals followed them across the sea?
Anyway, the humans join the Rider pact, and then Galbatorix took over everything with the help of his enslaved dragon, his Forsworn, and a bunch of dragon hearts, and ruled for "two-and-eighty years" before Saphira's egg was stolen, and spent the next "five-and-twenty years" being carried around by Arya before it fell into the hands of Eragon.
Hang on. Twenty-five years? Didn't Eragon's mother die shortly after the egg was stolen?
Eragon, remember, is supposed to be fifteen. Or as the forward here puts it, "five-and-ten years." As in, ten years too young to have been conceived before Saphira's egg came into Arya's possession twenty-five years ago.
I'm torn between mocking Paolini's inability to maintain continuity and his inability to perform elementary arithmetic. I'll settle for watching that pony video again. Heehee! Oh Luna, you're cute when you're being seduced by the powers of darkness!
Right. So Saphira's egg comes to and hatches for Eragon, who raises her until the Ra'zac show up and kill his uncle. They join forces with Brom who teaches Eragon about swordsmanship, magic, and... honor? When did he teach Eragon about honor? I don't remember that at all. All I recall was Brom beating Eragon with a stick and giving expositional rants (No points for guessing which activity I enjoyed more). Anyway, Brom is killed by the Ra'zac and Murtagh joins the party. Eragon is captured by Durza, but he frees himself and Arya. No mention is made of needing Muragh and Saphira to save him from Durza after breaking out of his cell, however. Instead, the party travels to the Varden, where Arya is healed and Eragon botches his blessing on Elva.
The urgals catch up to the Varden and attack, led by Durza. Eragon defeats Durza in battle, and, as with the escape from prison, Saphira and Arya's vital roles in his victory are not mentioned at all. Eragon is wounded and contacted by a mysterious voice, and then Ajihad is ambushed to death while Murtagh is kidnapped. Nasuada becomes leader of the Varden, and Eragon sets out for the elves' forest with Saphira, Arya, and "the dwarf Orik, nephew of the dwarf king, Hrothgar." Did he mention that they're dwarves? This forward is rife with bad sentence structure to an absolutely appalling degree. Check out this series of paragraphs from earlier on:
And this just keeps going. And I don't think I need to do any italics to make my point. And this supports the idea that this is meant to be taken as some kind of history text, because Paolini is clearly making a choice to use a distinctly different syntax for the forward, even compared to the syntax of the forwards from the previous books. However, if that were the case, I would expect the forward to end with some footnote about the source of the text, which there is not. This is just plain confusing. The best conclusion I can draw is that this is Word of God, it's just in a really funny syntax because Paolini's trying a superficial new trick to make his words seem more epic, but instead it's just leaving the prose stilted. If someone from my writers' peer review group read this, I'd compliment them for trying something new, but urge them to reconsider it. But in Paolini's case, he has editors who never should have let this go through. At least, I assume he has editors... yes, one Michelle Frey, according to the acknowledgements in the back of the book. Ms. Frey, with all due respect, what the hell are they paying you for?
Moving on. Eragon and Saphira meet Oromis and Glaedr, and then the elf queen. While they're busy training, Galbatorix sends the Ra'zac after Roran, who hides and would have evaded them if not for Sloan's hatred for him.
I seem to remember it slightly differently. In fact, I distinctly recall Roran participating in the front lines of several fights with the Ra'zac alongside Sloan before the butcher betrayed them.
Note the page numbers there. Roran revealed himself to the Ra'zac long before Sloan's betrayal, and in fact, Sloan and Roran fought together against the Ra'zac for quite some time. However, these facts are completely disregarded here, as is the fact that Sloan betrayed Roran to protect his daughter, not because of his hatred for Roran who, again, we just saw him fighting alongside, and against superior numbers at that. The nuances of Sloan's treachery aren't just skipped over, they're entirely rewritten to make him seem more despicable. Remember this.
Roran leads the villagers of Carvahall south while Eragon gets Deus ex Machina'd by the ghost dragon during the big elf party, then returns to the south himself, where the urgals "claimed" that Galbatorix had been controlling their minds up until the end of the last book. The use of the word "claimed" here implies that the urgals may be lying about being controlled by Galbatorix when there had been no indication of this in the text of either Eldest or Brisingr, and it was Durza who was controlling them, anyway. Galbatorix could be said to have been controlling them indirectly through Durza, but the wording here makes it sound like he was doing it himself, which would beg the question of why he isn't controlling them anymore if it were the case.
Continuity? Pshaw!
Eragon also meets Elva again, who has grown unnaturally quickly from a "squalling infant." A dictionary check reveals that, yes, "squalling" is actually a word for describing a baby's crying, but would you have known that without having to stop and look it up? I wouldn't have. I thought he'd made it up, and it threw me right out of the text (granted, this was not a particularly difficult feat given the shaky hold I have on it anyway due to the aforementioned atrocious syntax). Besides which, the only time we ever saw Elva as a baby, she was asleep. A ferociously crying child is not the right image to use when trying to conjure a memory of that peacefully sleeping babe.
Anyway, the Battle of the Burning Plains commences, and Roran and the dwarves catch up and join in before Murtagh shows up atop his own dragon, and proceeds to kick Eragon's butt with the help of some dragon hearts that I am certain were retconned into his possession at the Burning Plains some time in Brisingr, because of course Eragon can't lose to someone without some kind of advantage over him. Murtagh takes Eragon's sword and leaves.
Eragon, Roran, and Saphira go to Helgrind, which is described as a "dark tower of stone." Did you just picture a literal tower of stone? Because, if you recall, Helgrind is a mountain, but it is never referred to as such here.
This forward is a synopsis. Synopsizes serve two purposes. First, to remind returning readers about what happened in the previous installments, and secondly, to catch new readers up what they didn't read about. By only referring to Helgrind by this completely unnecessary tower metaphor, Paolini is creating the wrong image for new readers if this book returns to Helgrind, which the ending of Brinsingr included in the list of places to be visited on the Varden's way to challenge Galbatorix.
Ms. Frey, what the hell are they paying you for?!
The party slays the Ra'zac and rescues Katrina, and then Sloan reenters the picture. Whatever your individual stance on the matter of Eragon's judgement of Sloan is, I think we can all agree that there's a lot going on in Eragon's judgement of the butcher from a moralistic standpoint, and at the very least, Eragon's treatment of Sloan could be considered immoral.
Remember how Sloan's treachery was not only boiled down to one sentence, but rewritten to make him seem more vile? The piece of this forward covering Eragon's judgement of Sloan is one of the most detailed in the forward, explaining, justifying, and rationalizing Eragon's choices and actions more minutely than any other single event. There is a very obvious double standard going on in this forward, and it absolutely exists in the main text of the series, too. Eragon's shortcomings are excused, his poor judgement is justified, and any help he gets from others is downplayed for his own glory. On the other hand, others' mistakes are twisted and portrayed falsely, and Eragon's assistance in anyone else's battle is played up; Roran was barely mentioned in the recounting of Katrina's rescue.
Eragon returns to the Vardenand meets his elf bodyguards, then attempts to remove his accidental curse from Elva. Here he is said to have "removed as much as he could," but in Brisingr it was quite clear that he could have done more, but he goofed up and Elva wouldn't let him try again. Anyway, Roran marries Katrina, and then Murtagh attacks.
Except it was the other way around in Brisingr.
Continuity?What's that taste like?
Eragon travels to the dwarves to observe and influence their king elections while Roran proves himself a leader and rises in rank in the Varden, with no mention of that time Nasuada had him publicly whipped for insubordination. Seven dwarves attempt to assassinate Eragon. Apparently it's important for us to know the exact number of dwarf ninjas Eragon fought off right now. The dwarf clan that I will always refer to as the Deep Downer Clan because I'm not about to type their ridiculously convoluted name myself is revealed to have been the culprits, and then... they go right to choosing Orik as king. The Deep Downer Clan's fate isn't referenced here at all.
Saphira shows up and fixes the dwarves' giant gem, and then she and Eragon wing it off to the elf forest (whose actual name I am also loathe to bother typing, though at least I can actually remember it), where he learns that his real father was Brom, and about dragon hearts, then gets his new lightsaber sword lightsaber. Glaedr throws in his special heart for good measure, and both dragon/rider teams head off to their respective battles. At the Varden's battle, Arya defeats a shade with Eragon's help, displaying the double standard when it comes to Eragon in even sharper relief: Arya wasn't mentioned in Eragon's defeat of Durza, but not only does Arya need Eragon's help to kill the new shade, Eragon gets top billing.
Even though his contribution to the fight was mostly being paralyzed in both body and mind.
While this is going on, Galbatorix uses Murtagh to kill Oromis and Glaedr. Eragon mourns, but presses on toward the final goal: Uru'baen and Galbatorix.
And that, my friends, was the forward synopsis.
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