antishurtugal_reborn | 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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

The families of Austin's victims certainly seem to think he "got away with it". Secure mental health facilities aren't any more pleasant to be in than prison going on what I've heard.

See: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, where a criminal pleads insanity and ends up in an asylum. A fantastic classic film, but not a great advertisement for "secure mental health facilities".

There was also that journalist who got herself committed for an investigation, and was scarred for life by what they put her through.

Edited 2023-11-20 03:04 (UTC)

I only know of one case where they let the guy go, and that was Graham Young, who fatally poisoned his own mother as a teenager. They committed him for a while before declaring him "cured" and letting him out, whereupon he murdered half his coworkers.

They're more restrictive, apparently. And while I can see that the families may not be in the most objective state of mind on this matter, I still do think it's ridiculous to think that they got away from it. Someone very very close to me was the victim of a violent crime (not murder or anything with a weapon, admittedly), and if the perpetrator have been mentally ill than what he actually was, a sick, sadistic bastard with the emotional regulation of a toddler, I would not have been mad if, in that scenario, he got treatment. At least in that scenario, you don't have to grapple with the fact that someone felt enough malice to do something bad to someone you care about.

Edited 2023-11-20 03:38 (UTC)

Someone very very close to me was the victim of a violent crime

Awful. :( Are they okay now?

Much much better. Thanks for asking.

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