Sorry for the delay. I had a good friend from out of state over, so I paused to meet with him. Anyways, back to Brisingr.

Eragon looks around in the cells, and finds Sloan sans eyes. He then spends a page and a half moralizing over whether he should kill Sloan or not. In fairness, this wasn’t too bad of a scene. What was bad is this part.

“Lifting his hand, as if in benediction, Eragon whispered, “Slytha.” Sloan’s manacles rattled as he went limp, falling into a profound sleep.” (p. 56)

Now, this is confusing, because CP has used the death as sleep metaphor so many times before, that this could be mistakenly read as Eragon using a deathspell. So his merry plan is actually to lie to Katrina and Roran, while keeping Sloan alive. Fun times.

Of course, they find Katrina.

Never taking her eyes off Roran, Katrina stood and, with a shaking hand, touched his cheek.
“You came.”
“I came.”

Heheh.

CP ruins what could have been a good scene.

“Drawing back, Roran kissed her three times on the lips. Katrina wrinkled her nose and exclaimed, “You grew a beard!” Of all the things she could have said, that was so unexpected—and she sounded so shocked and surprised—that Eragon chuckled in response.”

Paolini just ruined this scene by doing what was the equivalent of explaining a joke. I was going to feel good about this scene, or laugh myself, kind of, except that he ruined it.

A man and a friend are playing golf one day at their local golf course. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course. He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer.
His friend says: “Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man.”
The man then replies: “Yeah, well we were married 35 years.”

It’s funny because the man isn’t attending his wife’s funeral, and because he hates her.

Aww, I sort of like Katrina. She is vulnerable, but doesn’t quite fall into the damsel in distress category. Besides the fact that she had to rescued by two buff men, but yeah.

Now, as a testament to how gullible Roran, Katrina, and Saphira are, Eragon tricks them. This is odd, because Saphira can read his thoughts. But he basically manages to get rid of them, so he can take care of get rid of Sloan, by saying he has to kill the last Ra’zac, and that there might be some secret plans in the cave. Saphira freaks out, as expected.

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Comment

  1. Travelin' Jack on 21 September 2008, 01:59 said:

    I was really disturbed by Eragon’s plans for Sloan. This is our hero? Then our villains must be really bad lol.

  2. SlyShy on 21 September 2008, 02:10 said:

    Well, our villains mounted babies on pikes, if I’m not mistaken. Although it could be argued that Galbatorix just has a really loose grasp on his troops, and they do irresponsible stuff. Of course, this is complete crap, because Galbatorix is Evil ®.

  3. PhantomPickles on 21 September 2008, 03:43 said:

    I don’t know why but I pictured the scene from The Emperor’s New Groove when Kronk is “sneaking out” of the palace to get rid of Cuzco. XD Weirdest crossover ever.

  4. Garrick on 21 September 2008, 08:16 said:

    Travelin’ Jack – the best heroes are flawed ones.

  5. SlyShy on 21 September 2008, 15:18 said:

    The important thing to consider is how many of the flaws were deliberate, and how many happened by accident.

  6. Christopher Paolini on 21 September 2008, 22:32 said:

    I think Paolini could have shown Eragon’s dual nature better by having hum $%#@ Sloan’s skull!

    I mean, come on. You can’t just have the main character do something shitty and suddenly he’s multi-dimensional.

  7. Garrick on 21 September 2008, 22:38 said:

    Hey, Eragon tanks up after a bad day (see Ch2), too. C’mon. LOL

  8. Apep on 20 October 2008, 19:56 said:

    “get rid of Sloan,…”

    Wow, Paolini might actually give Eragon more depth than the average parking lot puddle. Of course, knowing CP, this will almost certainly fail miserably.