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Murtagh Throb Test

There's a running joke among antis that Paolini has a bad habit of misusing – and over-using – the word 'throb' (and "crimson", "orb", and "thrust"). So I decided to search my ebook copy of Murtagh to see how he does.

13 throbs. Which is lower than Inheritance, if I recall, but higher than many other fantasy authors. And here's the list:

throbbing embers
A warning throb
a throbbing headache
the bone beneath the old cut throbbed '
His veins throbbed
His knee throbbed
his right elbow throbbed
His left knee throbbed
the throbbing in his left wrist
His eyeballs throbbed
his throbbing temple
The world throbbed
a throbbing rhythm

UPDATE: by request, I searched for the phrase "sense of", as that's another one Paolini overuses. Brace yourself, people. It's...

...

84.

EIGHTY FOUR uses of the phrase "sense of".

I'm going to need a coffee before we start this spork. Or a wine. Or several wines.

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Where I am now, Murtagh doesn't read as whiny yet. I mean, he is bitter, but it feels justified, especially considering that the assh- I mean, Eragon, has not bothered helping him, despite living a comfortable life where Murtagh keeps being plagued by injustice. Still a bit salty there's not the right amount of weight put on Eragon's bad treatment of Murtagh, but I'll take what I can.

What kinda weirds me out are some unnecessary additions that I am already seeing, like Galbatorix putting a pavilion on Shruikan's back?
I know it's supposed to mean something about Galbatorix, but my only reaction was:
"Good Lord, how did that crap even hold on?"
And:
"Ok, but when has Galbatorix even ridden Shruikan to need arrangements like this?"
Unless he used Shruikan as his personal tea room, of course.
It's unnecessary, physic-breaking, doesn't answer the question as to how such large dragons were ridden, because c'mon, I am refusing to think it implies that Vrael had a hut on Umaroth's back. And there are much more practical answers to that question anyway!

Still a bit salty there's not the right amount of weight put on Eragon's bad treatment of Murtagh, but I'll take what I can.

So far Eragon's mistreatment of Murtagh has NEVER been acknowledged. Or that of the rest of the "good guys" come to that.

What kinda weirds me out are some unnecessary additions that I am already seeing, like Galbatorix putting a pavilion on Shruikan's back?

It's like he's bent on answering all these questions nobody asked. The book is actually spending a lot of time fleshing out the world, but it's at the expense of actually telling a story. There's no plot except Murtagh wandering around doing increasingly stupid sidequests and periodically complaining about his Daddy Issues. And getting himself in trouble by acting like a complete dumbass.

Ok, tbh, how do you saddle/ride a dragon the size of Shruikan or, hell, even Glaedr is something I did ask. Not to him, sure, but I did want to know mostly because after a certain size it's seriously problematic.

But, I will go back to the book and see what else do we have there.

Mostly to see if there are news about the newly hatched egg yet, or are we gonna ignore this very secondary meaningless little thing for the second book in a row?

Mostly to see if there are news about the newly hatched egg yet, or are we gonna ignore this very secondary meaningless little thing for the second book in a row?

My guess would be probably not. Eragon doesn't appear in person (thank god) so that would imply we don't see his stupid Academy and the eggs within.

Nope, not a single word on the new egg.

I fuckin' knew it.

Lots of talks about genocide, though :3

*headdesks*

It's awful. Makes me want to write "Eragon gets eaten by a Lethrblaka".

And still no reason given why Murtagh would hate the Ra'zac, by the way.

Edited 2023-11-18 04:22 (UTC)

This book is kinda funny to me, because in my story Thorn is, like, squeaky-close with the Ra'zac and basically an adopted member of the family and by virtue of being this close he also loves caves.
So we have canon Thorn who is horribly claustrophobic and my fanon Thorn who is like "Ok, how did you manage to squeeze in there? Are you stuck?"

That is funny. I always thought the Lethrblaka and Shruikan would form a bond because, when Shruikan was hatched, he was around no other dragons. The Lethrblaka would have had to teach Shruikan how to fly well, and would have also been the ones with experience to take care of a hatchling.

(no subject)

oblakom - 2023-11-19 13:15 (UTC) - Expand

Morzan gets extremely cartoonishly evil, of course, in the flashbacks. Even if you were the in the bottom 10th percentile of fathers on the planet, wouldn't you at least react with shock if your kid was hit with a sword and bleeding out?

Because author forbid Morzan have any layers or dimensions or a single redeeming quality such as being a loving rather. Plenty of really evil people still cared about their kids. When serial killer Denis Nilsen finally got caught, one of his first concerns was whether his dog would be looked after. He even said he at one point contemplated suicide but then she came up to him with her tail wagging and he changed his mind because he genuinely loved her. (Depressingly, she was put down not long after his arrest).

Exactly. Imagine if, instead Murtagh had to reconcile what he knew of his father to how his father treated others. It's hard to get into the drama when one character is portrayed as an absolute evil. Especially when Selena is portrayed as good, when we all know that she was an actual assassin who killed a bunch of people easily on her first test.

In one of my works in progress, a teenage girl has a loving father who adores her in return, and she refuses point-blank to believe any of the really horrible accusations that are being made against him. When she finds his private journal and discovers the terrible truth that yes, he really is what people are claiming he is, it shatters her world forever.

I got the idea from the BTK Killer, who when not torturing and killing his victims was a loving husband and father whose own daughter never suspected a thing.

That sounds cool! I remember reading that once the daughter found out, she examined her own life and her father's life for clues or reasons, and that she hasn't had contact with BTK in years

There's a picture of him helping her decorate the Christmas tree when she was a little girl, and god it's chilling how ordinary, harmless and trustworthy he looks. If a guy who looked like that knocked on your door with a big friendly smile and pretended to be the plumbing inspector, you wouldn't suspect anything at all. Paolini and his like do us a disservice by childishly pretending that an evil person always looks ugly and crazy and goes around cackling and kicking puppies all day.

True evil can look like anyone. Including your dead old dad with his dorky glasses and Ned Flanders moustache who helped you decorate the Christmas tree.

Paolini and his like do us a disservice by childishly pretending that an evil person always looks ugly and crazy and goes around cackling and kicking puppies all day.

It's a scary truth for a lot of people that bad things can come from people who look and act like you. If your "in group" isn't safe, what is? It takes maturity to realize and acknowledge this. In Paolini's novels, everyone evil is outwardly mean, or looks creepy. Just look at Sarros. Dude literally had sharp teeth for God's sake.

True evil can look like anyone. Including your dead old dad with his dorky glasses and Ned Flanders moustache who helped you decorate the Christmas tree.

Yep. Just look at Lucy Letby.

#NotMyMorzan

Edited 2023-11-18 04:39 (UTC)

CharacterizationForMorzan

This also takes away from the Forsworn alleged madness, doesn't it?
Unless, of course: madness = evil enough to throw a sword at your own child.
I keep my point that it would have been better to have Morzan "unintentionally" (flashback, panic attack, hallucination, case of being linked to a mad dragon) maim Murtagh. And it doesn't need to be spelled out for us. Let Murtagh remember that while he was crying (can a child even remember things of situations this shocking?) and people rushed to him, others rushed to Morzan who was howling in the background or something. Something to indicate that, ok, this man is not ok.

Fun fact: the VAST majority of serial killers are found legally sane. The broad definition of legal insanity is, did they know what they were doing and did they know it was wrong? If the answer to both is yes, they are legally sane and therefore must be held responsible for what they did. Most people who do such hideous things aren't mad, but bad.

Or to put it another way, the mentally ill are very rarely a danger to anyone other than themselves and indeed are statistically far more likely to be the victims of violent crime.

So to paint "insanity" as a reason for someone being evil is completely wrong and a major disservice to the mentally ill.

Morzan was either mad, or bad. Pick a side because you can't have it both ways.

I mean - I guess you can, or at least I try to. The only problem is that people are nuanced, and IRL other people tend to react to what they see.
My Morzan is a pretty nasty combination of insanity (in the most literal sense, as he is severely damaged by his dragon's nulled name and Morzan's own refusal to ever let go of that broken mind) and nastiness (is pretty aggressive, violent, alcohol-depended, explosive and most importantly in complete refusal to accept anyone's help, which in return causes him to damage more and more people).
But I also try to make him a man with his own multifaceted personality. He is not nasty 24/7 for the sake of it because we need a bad guy.
Referring to Murtagh, it's not that he wanted to harm him. It was a bad moment due to his nameless dragon. Only after the fact came into play Morzan's deeply flawed personality, as he was angry that now Galbatorix was gonna be up his ass about what happened and so it's not that he didn't care about Murtagh. It's more than his problems with his dragon eat everything away, and the mess that in my fanon is the relationship between the Forsworn and Galbatorix comes close second after it and- fuck it, the child is alive and he wouldn't know what to do with him now anyway.
And, yeah. He is I guess insane and he is surely an asshole, but he is not an asshole because he is insane. At least, he could choose not to be.

Or to put it another way, the mentally ill are very rarely a danger to anyone other than themselves and indeed are statistically far more likely to be the victims of violent crime.

People take advantage of the vulnerable, and that sadly includes the mentally ill and intellectually disabled.

So to paint "insanity" as a reason for someone being evil is completely wrong and a major disservice to the mentally ill.

It really sucks. It makes people more likely to distrust or hurt someone mentally ill. Someone who is legally insane can't be evil because they don't have the mindset, or mens rea, to deliberately do an evil thing.

Someone who is legally insane can't be evil because they don't have the mindset, or mens rea, to deliberately do an evil thing.

A good example of this would be poor Austin Harrouff, who savagely murdered two complete strangers and severely injured a third while in a state of such severe psychosis that not only was he found not guilty by reason of insanity but he apparently doesn't even remember any of it. He's now in a secure medical facility, and probably destined to remain there for the rest of his life. Being found not guilty by reason of insanity does not mean they just let you go.

(https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/crime/martin-county/2022/11/28/austin-harrouff-insane-when-he-killed-couple-judge-rules/10757444002/)

Being found not guilty by reason of insanity does not mean they just let you go.

I wonder who actually believes that myth, and where it came from.