I...honestly didn't expect the plot section to be so short. I thought that was covering just the first third of the book when it suddenly ended. So, basically, nothing happens. He meets a witch and escapes a witch. Does she even die? He training Galby honestly doesn't sound like a terrible plot point. That Galby managed to take out the entirety of the order with only a handful of traitors was an iffy plot point to begin with and he needs all the help he can get, but turning it into a "Ah, but he was working for me all along!" retcon is just very, very poor form. Sorely unnecessary discarding of previous villains to hype up newer villains.
"-In Inheritance Queen Nausea stripped the Evil Nobles of their titles and “ill gotten wealth” but didn’t execute them. Except never mind actually she executed a whole bunch of them and the surviving sons and allies are in hiding"
Oh wow, seriously. He straight up gave Nasuada a purge moment...is that treated like a good thing?
"newly introduced Forsworn Saerlith who was a weak ineffectual loser and had a pink dragon"
I think even saying his dragon is pink actually contradicts the previous books about the banishing of names or whatever the plot point is called that meant Paolini didn't need to give names to the forsworn's dragons. I'm pretty sure Glaedr or Saphira or someone says that the dragons couldn't even be described by the colour of their scales because even that would count as a name.
"A lot of people who read the first four books praised the fact that if nothing else Murtagh and Thorn had an actual relationship and were a good example of what a Rider and dragon are supposed to be like together going on how they’re presented in the text."
Eh? Did we? That feels more like giving praise just to dump on Eragon, because from what I can remember we get basically nothing about Thorn in the previous books. Murtagh just refers to the two of them collectively when describing their backstory and at one points speaks to him without Eragon overhearing and then that's it. Thorn is never given any individuality or desires other than freedom...which...I guess is a perfect representation of how dragons are meant to be in this series (see above where Paolini literally invented a plot point for the sole purpose of not making dragons characters even in the backstory).
"Other than that Thorn basically turns into Saphira 2.0 with red scales and male pronouns. He’s vain and arrogant to the point of god complex narcissism, likes the idea of killing and terrorising people, and openly enjoys destroying an entire village and presumably slaughtering everyone in it at the “climax”."
If I were tasked to characterize Thorn, I think the very, very, very obvious characterization for him would be to make him look outwardly ferocious, but actually be a really meek and self conscious individual. After all, this dragon was born into servitude. His growth was forcibly accelerated to make him into a weapon of war from the moment of his birth and he never had any say in any major choice in his life. He shouldn't think himself a god, he should be afraid of even being allowed to make decisions of his own because he's been so traumatized his entire life. Murtagh at least grew up in some relative luxury of peace time with a teacher he loved and a few months of free wandering. Thorn was literally born as a child slave soldier. That is not going to result in a confident and self assured person.
"I got the nasty feeling that she just wants to control the pair of them the way she’s done with every other human magic user in the Empire."
Even though that's perfectly in character for what we see of Nasuada, I don't have the confidence that Paolini could actually pull the trigger and depict one of his good guy characters as an actual nefarious threat and obstacle in the narrative. On that note, I get that the ending takes place in the capital (Uru Bean or something, though the heroes probably renamed it to the old "good" elvish name that Galby also used for some reason), but does the rest of the book take place on the same map of Alagaseia (not looking up the spelling) or does it take place outside the map in the unknown frontiers?
no subject
"-In Inheritance Queen Nausea stripped the Evil Nobles of their titles and “ill gotten wealth” but didn’t execute them. Except never mind actually she executed a whole bunch of them and the surviving sons and allies are in hiding"
Oh wow, seriously. He straight up gave Nasuada a purge moment...is that treated like a good thing?
"newly introduced Forsworn Saerlith who was a weak ineffectual loser and had a pink dragon"
I think even saying his dragon is pink actually contradicts the previous books about the banishing of names or whatever the plot point is called that meant Paolini didn't need to give names to the forsworn's dragons. I'm pretty sure Glaedr or Saphira or someone says that the dragons couldn't even be described by the colour of their scales because even that would count as a name.
"A lot of people who read the first four books praised the fact that if nothing else Murtagh and Thorn had an actual relationship and were a good example of what a Rider and dragon are supposed to be like together going on how they’re presented in the text."
Eh? Did we? That feels more like giving praise just to dump on Eragon, because from what I can remember we get basically nothing about Thorn in the previous books. Murtagh just refers to the two of them collectively when describing their backstory and at one points speaks to him without Eragon overhearing and then that's it. Thorn is never given any individuality or desires other than freedom...which...I guess is a perfect representation of how dragons are meant to be in this series (see above where Paolini literally invented a plot point for the sole purpose of not making dragons characters even in the backstory).
"Other than that Thorn basically turns into Saphira 2.0 with red scales and male pronouns. He’s vain and arrogant to the point of god complex narcissism, likes the idea of killing and terrorising people, and openly enjoys destroying an entire village and presumably slaughtering everyone in it at the “climax”."
If I were tasked to characterize Thorn, I think the very, very, very obvious characterization for him would be to make him look outwardly ferocious, but actually be a really meek and self conscious individual. After all, this dragon was born into servitude. His growth was forcibly accelerated to make him into a weapon of war from the moment of his birth and he never had any say in any major choice in his life. He shouldn't think himself a god, he should be afraid of even being allowed to make decisions of his own because he's been so traumatized his entire life. Murtagh at least grew up in some relative luxury of peace time with a teacher he loved and a few months of free wandering. Thorn was literally born as a child slave soldier. That is not going to result in a confident and self assured person.
"I got the nasty feeling that she just wants to control the pair of them the way she’s done with every other human magic user in the Empire."
Even though that's perfectly in character for what we see of Nasuada, I don't have the confidence that Paolini could actually pull the trigger and depict one of his good guy characters as an actual nefarious threat and obstacle in the narrative. On that note, I get that the ending takes place in the capital (Uru Bean or something, though the heroes probably renamed it to the old "good" elvish name that Galby also used for some reason), but does the rest of the book take place on the same map of Alagaseia (not looking up the spelling) or does it take place outside the map in the unknown frontiers?