YMMV / The Belgariad

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Zedar. How in control of/aware of his actions was he while under Torak's control, and therefore how accountable should he be held for them? Was he a tragic character whose only mistake was thinking he could take on Torak on his own, as Zedar himself claims, or was he a Dirty Coward who used the mind control as an excuse to avoid facing up to all the terrible things he did? If it's the latter, then his final, And I Must Scream fate is Laser-Guided Karma, but if it's the former, then it's both Disproportionate Retribution and cruel and unusual punishment on Belgarath's part. It certainly doesn't help that Belgarath, Polgara, and Beldin are all looking at him through an extremely personal and emotional point of view, and are therefore no way willing to look at him from any sort of charitable perspective, much less an objective one.
  • For that matter: His plan to be a double agent for Aldur by pretending to work for Torak (before Torak utterly crushed him). Was it an audacious plan made by a good guy who was a little too confident in his skills, or an utterly idiotic, arrogant plan that could never have worked, especially since he never told any of his brothers or Aldur what he was planning beforehand?
• Angst? What Angst?: Taiba escapes from a lifetime of slavery, after having had her children forcibly taken from her and horrifically murdered, and yet she never seems to be sad or angry after she's rescued. It's initially implied to be a kind of emotional numbness, caused by shock, going by her breakdown following news of Ctuchik's death (avenging her children by murdering was her only reason for living up to that point), but it's still a bit jarring.
• Anticlimax Boss:
  • After being a sinister looming presence during the first book and most of the second one, and in spite of his importance in the backstory as he's the one who killed Garion's parents, Asharak/Chamdar is dispatched rather easily when he tries to ambush the heroes who are trying to leave Tolnedra. He threatens Garion's life, Garion's powers are suddenly awakened and he burns him alive, Polgara suddenly reveals that he is the one who killed Garion's parents, which give him the will to continue the spell until Chamdar dies without being able to counter-attack. This is not entirely surprising, considering that Asharak/Chamdar is a Small Name, Big Ego character, whose main threat to Garion is because until that point, Garion has no way to defend himself and Asharak/Chamdar had the good sense to stay out of reach of either Polgara or Belgarath (the only time he got near either was when, respectively, he had hostages and when he had baby Garion to throw at the furious Belgarath).
  • Zedar is one of Torak's Co-Dragons and the one who kickstarted the entire plot by stealing the Orb. He also was one of Aldur's students and is meant to be as old and probably as powerful as Belgarath himself. When he's finally confronted, he's defeated in the span of a few pages off-screen and doesn't even get to cast one spell, as most of the battle we see is him and Belgarath fighting over a dagger to stab each other. (Although it's justified story-wise. When he and Belgarath finally meet face to face, Belgarath is so enraged and Zedar so panicked that they resort to a fistfight instead of a Wizard Duel - they do have a Wizard Duel or two in Belgarath's prequel, and Belgarath kicks the crap out of him fairly easily).
• Complete Monster:
  • Magician's Gambit: Ctuchik is High Priest of the Grolims, and chief disciple of Torak, ruling Cthol Murgos in Torak's stead after the god was left comatose. Completely uninterested in awakening Torak, Ctuchik nevertheless keeps Grolim rituals of Human Sacrifice going for five hundred years, sacrificing untold thousands of slaves to a god he does not even worship in order to cement his control over the priesthood. Pursuing his own agenda, Ctuchik aims to Take Over the World in order to satiate his lust for power, and maintains a private torture chamber for his own amusement.
  • The Malloreon:
    • Harakan, alias Lord Mengha, is one of Urvon's underlings, and the most treacherous Grolim in the whole of The Malloreon. Posing as the leader of the Bear-Cult, Harakan twice sent assassins to murder Queen Ce'Nedra; mind-controlled her into nearly murdering her own son; and after his plan to trigger a war between Garion and King Anheg failed, raised the Bear-Cult in revolt in Drasnia and Cherek alike. When this plan and a subsequent one to worsen the war between Cthol Murgos and Mallorea both resulted in disaster, Harakan made contact with the Demon Lord Nahaz and cut a deal with him, whereby Nahaz would drive Urvon mad, make Harakan ruler of the world and by seizing the Orb of Aldur and the Sardion destroy both the Light and Dark Prophecies and make the King of Hell the new Lord of the Universe in place of UL. He also resurrected demon-worship in Karanda; turned the Malloreon Civil War into a Mêlée à Trois; used Nahaz's demons to sack multiple cities and massacre their populations; and convinced young Karandese women to let Nahaz impregnate them, a process that would not only kill the girls, but would unleash demons that were not of this world and could not be banished. Never quite as clever or in control as he thought he was, Harakan was nevertheless fully aware of what he was doing when he unleashed Nahaz, and was prepared to risk the destruction of the multiverse for the sake of personal power.
    • Zandramas, the Big Bad of The Malloreon, is a former Grolim priestess who liked to cut out people's hearts and bathe in their blood while nude. Her crimes include cruelty to animals; betraying everyone who helps her; kidnapping Garion's son Geran; having successfully started a civil war in the east and attempting to start one in the west; brainwashing Ce'Nedra, regularly trying to break the rules of Prophecy; and cannibalism. She uses ships to travel undetected, but once at her location, she kills the other sailors, often either by burning the ships or feeding the sailors to wild animals. Even Torak leaves a note to Garion asking him to stop Zandramas.
• Gateway Series: Many fantasy readers have stated that reading The Belgariad as a child or teen was what got them into the genre. The drug metaphor is doubly apt as its own author described it as "the literary equivalent of peddling dope."
• Harsher in Hindsight: After the revelations that the authors were convicted child abusers, some of the older characters treatment of the teenage characters makes for uncomfortable reading in light of this - Polgara in particular can come off as downright emotionally abusive to Garion in some passages.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Queen of Sorcery:
  "What happened to your leg?" Wolf asked [Reldegen].
  "An arrow in the knee." The count shrugged.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Ce'Nedra in The Malloreon. While she's still as bossy and demanding as in The Belgariad, if having mellowed somewhat, it's hard not to feel at least a little pity towards her when she loses her father during the first book, goes through a lot of angst about fearing that she's not able to conceive, or after her son is kidnapped by Zandramas, especially since Zandramas seems to love yanking her chain.
  • Zedar, and whether you consider him more 'jerkass' or more 'woobie' likely depends on how in control of himself you believe he is. The prequels show he wasn't a stranger to Kick the Dog even before serving Torak, but his utterly horrible fate of being imprisoned alive in stone forever will likely draw some sympathy from readers.
• Karmic Overkill: While Zedar was no hero, being trapped in stone for the rest of time is an extreme punishment no matter who you are, even before taking more charitable interpretations of his character into account. It's worth noting that Belgarath regrets doing it - though he also notes that if he ever confirms one of his suspicions about Zedar's possible involvement in Belmakor's depression and suicide, then he'll go back and put Zedar "somewhere much less comfortable."
• Magnificent Bastard: Sadi is the Chief Eunuch at Salmissra’s court, and the worst person the Prophecy ever drafts into assisting Garion and his companions. A Master Poisoner and drug kingpin who had previously played both sides of the war in The Belgariad, Sadi is recruited during The Malloreon to act as Garion’s personal option of last resort. Smuggling the group into first Cthol Murgos, and then Mallorea, Sadi adeptly navigates the halls of power in both Angarak nations, and within a few weeks of their arrival in Mal Zeth, becomes the most powerful crime lord in the capital, capable of summoning several hundred highwaymen when Garion decides he needs a distraction. With a case full of drugs that can warp people into doing what he wants, and the ability to poison a single person at a banquet with a thousand guests, Sadi never reforms, but makes himself absolutely indispensable in matters of intrigue, murder, and ultimately, saving the world.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Zedar is portrayed as having passed this when he kills Durnik. He said it was the one thing above all else that he didn't want to do, and it pushed Belgarath's Berserk Button something fierce (which might have been why he didn't want to do it, if the Angarak prophecies mentioned anything on that subject). Considering all the other things he's done, the act itself doesn't really stand out, and it was probably more the last straw.
  • Ctuchik crosses it the second he opens his mouth, confirming all the horrible things we've heard about him up to this point.
  • Zandramas crosses it when they find the bones of the men whose legs she broke so that she could leave them for the lions. As is noted, she doesn't just kill them, she does it as horribly as possible.
• No Yay: The paedophilic undertones to Garion and Chamdar's relationship may or may not have been intentional, but they were effective.
• Once Original, Now Overdone: Eddings liked to brag about how revolutionary Ce'Nedra was as a female character in the High Fantasy genre. Nowadays, she seems like more of a cliché.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The series has unfortunately become this in recent years. Very few mentions of it on the internet don't devolve into discussions about the authors' conviction for child abuse.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Polgara and Beldaran are twin sisters, but in Polgara the Sorceress, Pol's descriptions of her love for Beldaran imply something much more Twincestuous.
  • Polgara seems to have an increasingly uncomfortable interest in the sex life of both her father and her ultimate nephew, going as far as to describe exactly what Belgarath was up to during his self-exile in Maragor as well as determining, on her own, exactly when Garion was able to impregnate Ce'Nedra. However, in the former case, the Marags were famous for their liberated sexuality and she was disposed to assume the worst of Belgarath at the time, and in latter case, that was more because there were magically determined circumstances - and she'd spent the last 14 centuries ensuring the continued succession of the Rivan line. It wouldn't be surprising (but still very squicky) to know that she was in the room making sure he 'did it right'.
• Salvaged Story: Polgara's rejoicing at Chamdar's death, that Garion finds so horrifying, becomes incredibly understandable when when her prequel explains how Chamdar killed Garion's parents and paternal grandparents (we knew he'd burned the former alive, but we find out he also staged a rock fall that killed Garion's grandfather, made his grandmother literally mad with grief, until she was so confused and depressed she went looking for her dead husband in the middle of winter, fell off a cliff, and died. And that last was done specifically to get Polgara out of the way so he could murder the Godslayer's parents. Belgarath planned to see that Chamdar took two weeks to die if he caught him.)
• Too Dumb to Live: Ctuchik when he tries to unmake the Orb of Aldur (which was very near Garion) in a moment of panic, the conduit for one of the Purposes of the Universe. The Universe rebounds Ctuchik's attempt back on him, deleting him from existence. In fairness, he knew exactly who Garion was, so he had reason to panic.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: In The Malloreon, the Big Guy Band from the first series (Barak, Hettar, Relg, Mandorallen, and Lelldorin) spends a significant portion of the story having mainly irrelevant adventures as they try to catch up with the heroes despite Cyradis' warning that it would be fatal to the prophecy. Of course, Fate was having a fun time with them, as situations seemed to conspire to keep them as far away from the heroes as possible until just after it was all over, at which point they were reunited exactly at the moment the heroes needed access to a ship to get home (also planned by Fate).
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Zedar, to some. He's portrayed as an evil sorcerer who betrayed his master and brothers to serve Torak, and has committed countless horrors since. When he finally appears, he defends himself with the claim that those atrocities were because Torak's will has completely subsumed his own, and his ultimate fate is completely horrifying. At the same time, he did first approach Torak of his own free will, must have known what could potentially happen, and his claims of not being in control are in-universe shot down by Polgara as excuses. Readers who believe he had little to no free will of his own will likely consider him this trope, while those who believe he actually had some degree of choice in the bad things he did will likely only sympathize with his end. And let's not even get into a debate of how accountable a person should be held for the actions he or she did while under mind control...
  • When Garion kills Asharak, he's incredibly upset, but Polgara and the Prophecy just congratulate him on starting to use the Will and the Word. He, and the reader, are more horrified about the fact that he just burned a man to death.
• The Un-Twist: Garion being the Rivan King. It's blatantly obvious to everyone except him, intentionally. It's where a lot of the humour in series comes from.
• Wangst: Happens all the time to Garion in the first series, complete with his Catchphrase, which becomes a Running Gag: "Why me?" It's intentional, though — he's a teenager, and there's a lot of questions he has that Belgarath and Polgara simply won't answer. The other characters frequently tell him he needs to get over himself. In the latter past of the first series, he has, more or less, and finally does so completely in the sequel series, which takes place ten years later. He even explains it to Zakath, when he starts in with the same questions, on being told that he'll join the group or die before the end of the year.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?:
  • An in-universe example: Belgarath, in the guise of a wandering storyteller, tells a ghost story about a group of greedy miners sneaking into Maragor and eaten by the ghosts therein. Everyone looks horrified until Faldor laughs and handwaves the story as a sermon against greed and fear. This ends up becoming Harsher in Hindsight when the protagonists actually travel to Maragor, which really is filled with the ghosts of the Marags, slaughtered by the Tolnedrans ages ago for the massive gold deposits there, though the excuse was the ritualized cannibalism they performed thanks to misreading a sacred text.
  • Given that the series was written in The '80s, much of the themes such as two equal but conflicting prophecies, prophecies using proxies instead of direct conflict, and a rift between West and East draw parallels to the Cold War.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The series is sometimes put in the children's section of bookstores, and it raises some questions: "So what exactly makes the Belgariad suitable for children? The graphic descriptions of human sacrifices to Torak? The slave in Nyissa who dies from being eaten by leeches? Zedar's fate? The torture chamber in the second book? Just about all of Rak Cthol?"
• The Woobie: Vordai's purpose in the books is to be a sympathetic character who manages to break through Belgarath's Jerkass façade (this is literally her purpose, according to Belgarath, as part of Garion's education). The Arendish serf Lammer serves a similar purpose with respect to making Ce'Nedra (and indirectly, via Garion, Lelldorin) appreciate the plight of the serfs. And then there's the brain-damaged boy with the flute.

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