Where the Heart of Anti-Shurtugal Rises Again.

 I was trolling Facebook as I usually do every now and then, and a post happened to pop up in my feed. This person talks about how they've "always enjoyed" having maps in the books so they can see where the characters are going, where they have been, and how big the world really is. Well, they also put that they've wondered how big Alagaesia is exactly (and no, I'm not doing the fancy characters on purpose because I don't feel like it, you can't make me) compared to another fantasy setting, like Narnia, Earth-Sea, Westeros, etc. In response to that, apparently Paolini said, in an interview somewhere, that "the eastern coastline on the continent where Alagaesia is would be farther from the continent's west coast than if it was the United States' opposite coastlines".

So he's suggesting, from what I can infer from that, is that the continent Alagaesia is located on is bigger than the continental United States. So does that mean the continent on which Alaglag sits is bigger than both Europe and Asia combined? Because if that's the case, Alagaesia takes up a very small portion of that land. Because I remember hearing somewhere that calculations were done and Alagaesia itself is about as big as Great Britain.

So I just thought that was interesting, and figured I'd share.

Especially because, if you think about it, if the continent is really that big, why aren't there more countries? Why isn't there trade? Why does Eragon only go three days away by boat to settle where he settles when he literally has an entire continent that's apparently bigger than Europe and Asia combined?

 ( Are You Coming to the Tree? )

 Following the trend of the rabbit hole, an article popped up and caught my attention. With all this recent hype about the Eragon tv series, I decided to give it a read to see if we could learn anything new. There was something new. Sort of.

Anyway, the article (http://www.shurtugal.com/2022/09/09/christopher-paolini-confirms-that-the-eragon-tv-show-will-be-live-action/) basically asks Paolini the question on if the series is going to be live-action or animated. This question was asked because he expressed concerns over the budget required for a live-action show versus an animated show's budget. Not enough money = reductions in magic effects and Saphira's screen time.

And I'm like... "Saphira's arguably the main character of the series. The story literally couldn't happen without her. She has to be on screen at least as much as Eragon will be."

Anyway, the article goes on to say that Paolini's confirmed that the Eragon tv series is definitely going to be live-action. For the moment, anyway. He's super concerned about his own involvement in the series, whether he's going to be able to have a say or not, if he's going to be able to make it "as good as possible" (does that mean as faithful as possible to the source material?) or not, and is it even possible to realize his vision on a tv budget.

Dude. It's Disney. If they want to throw millions of dollars at it, they're going to throw millions of dollars at it.

He goes on to talk then - and this is what really caught my attention more so than Saphira not being on screen because of money issues - about Saphira being a main character. This is coming from the guy who wrote the story. I literally went "wut, but Saphira is a main character! You made her a main character! How could she not be a main character now?" Then I thought about it and went, yeah, no. Saphira's not a main character. She's sidelined hard the moment she hatches, and becomes a periphery character at best until Eragon needs her to prop him up in some shape or form. Even at the end of the story, she's nothing but Eragon's fancy mode of transportation and she's relegated off-screen to do the dirty because... because. So, yeah, does she really need to be there? They could save money by literally not having her present except for maybe some cardboard cutout shadows and a whispery British voiceover and characters staring off into space where someone's holding a tennis ball on a fishing line.

Also, if you go look at the article, there's a fun picture of someone having taken a Game of Thrones dragon and colored it blue.