The Inheritance Cycle 3: Brisingr
Author: Christopher Paolini Genre: Fantasy Year of Publication: 2008 Pages: Too long. Kill me
Writing: 1/10 Plot: 1/10 Characters: 1/10 Creativity: 1/10
Overall: 1/10
How? How did it get worse? What happened?
I couldn’t do it. I COULD NOT finish this book. I gave up halfway through because I just couldn’t take it any longer. Literally (no exaggeration, no funny business) NOTHING HAPPENS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THIS BOOK! This book shouldn’t exist. The only important things we learn from this garbage are that Brom is actually Eragon’s dad, not Morzan (what a cowardly cop-out), Eragon makes a fancy blue sword, the Ra’zac are killed, and Oromis and Glaedr die. That’s it. This didn’t need to be seven-hundred forty-eight pages!! This didn’t even need to be a whole book! Why does this book even exist?
The writing just keeps getting worse and worse with each entry. Eragon is the best book in this series, hands-down. Paolini was only 15 when he wrote it and the writing in that book was godawful, but it’s pure gold compared to Eldest and Brisingr. His writing gets worse as he ages, which is… the opposite of what normally happens. I wholeheartedly believe that writing is an art form that gets better with age. Life experiences and education influence the quality of one’s writing. Don’t get me wrong, now. There are great young writers and there are dreadful old writers, but most of the time, as one ages their writing matures alongside them. Apparently, that’s not true for Paolini. What the hell happened? Why is it worse? Paolini fills his pages with worthless, unimportant crap instead of giving us character development. This boggles my mind. These books are big enough to be doorstoppers, but there is no substance between the covers. This entire book is just Eragon going around doing mini-quests that are not at all important to the plot. Why did we need to see Eragon pick the new dwarf king? We don’t need to see that! It’s not important! Why did we need two whole chapters dedicated to a fucking wedding? What does that have to do with the plot!? Why did we need a whole chapter dedicated to Eragon getting a new weapon when he was just going to replace it later with his fancy blue sword? Why even waste paper writing out that chapter? Why oh why did we need multiple chapters dedicated to Eragon crafting his fucking sword? I don’t care! I don’t want to read that shit! I want character development. Eragon getting a new sword could’ve been cool if I cared about Eragon and his journey, but Paolini has not once made me give a shit about his main lead! It’s like he’s not interested in fleshing out his wooden, blank characters! They’re the main driver of the story! They’re the most important part! Why are you not interested in making your characters actually complex and fascinating, Paolini?! WHY! Holy shit… Okay, the purple prose. AAAAAAHHHH the purple prose! The entire series is purple prose! Just a bunch of flowery nonsense that adds absolutely nothing to the plot. I started skipping sections (even whole chapters) because I was so sick and tired of reading pointless drivel. The cringy similies, bad metaphors, out-of-place thesaurus words, the pretentious tone of the entire thing, atrocious dialogue… oh my god the DIALOGUE! I am not kidding when I say that the characters are longwinded as fuck. They speak in doubles. They say a thing and then immediately repeat themselves with different words. It’s aggravating to read! There’s one moment that will haunt me forever. In the chapter “Bloodwolf,” the Nighthawks’ (Nasuada’s personal guard or whatever, i.d.g.a.f.) captain is complaining to Nasuada about how reckless she’s being. Instead of just saying “We are here to protect you. Let us protect you. Don’t go off and do things recklessly,” he goes on and on and on for a page and a half, repeating the same shit over and over again.
[Nasuada] said, “I am not without my own protection, Captain.”
Flicking his eyes toward Elva, Garven said, “We have suspected as much, Lady.”… “If you were actually safe, then I was wrong to accuse you of recklessness, and I apologize. Still, safety and the appearance of safety are two different things. For the Nighthawks to be effective we have to be the smartest, toughest, meanest warriors in the land, and people have to believe that we’re the smartest, the toughest, and the meanest. They have to believe that if they try to stab you or shoot you with a crossbow or use magic against you, that we will stop them. (He already said that people have to believe that they are formidable. He doesn’t need to qualify his qualifier with an example. We get it) If they believe they have about as much chance of killing you as a mouse does a dragon, then they may very well give up the idea as hopeless, (The smilie already illustrates a hopeless attempt. “They have about as much chance of killing you as a mouse does a dragon" That’s acutally a really good line that effectively demonstrates his point. You do not need him to explain his similie. Just remove the second part) and we will have averted an attack without ever having to lift a finger.
“We cannot fight all your enemies, Lady Nasuada. That would take an army. Even Eragon couldn’t save you if all who want you dead had the courage to act upon their hatred. (I hate how wordy these sentences are. Also, he does not need to explain that even Eragon couldn’t save Nasuada from all of her enemies because he already said “that would take an army.” You do not need him to qualify his qualifier) You might survive a hundred attempts on your life or a thousand, but eventually one would succeed. The only way to keep that from happening is to convince the majority of your enemies that they will never get past the Nighthawks. (WHY ARE YOU REPEATING YOURSELF!? You just said this in the previous paragraph!) Our reputation can protect you just as surely as our swords and our armor. It does us no good, then, for people to see you riding off without us. No doubt we looked a right bunch of fools back there, frantically trying to catch up. (He doesn’t need to say how bad they looked when she ran off when he already said it makes them look bad when she runs off) After all, if you do not respect us, Lady, why should anyone else?… We will gladly die for you if we must. All we ask in return is that you allow us to perform our duties. It is a small favor, considering. And the day may come when you are grateful we are here. Your other protection is human and therefore fallible, whatever her arcane powers may be. She has not sworn the same oaths in the ancient language that we of the Nighthawks have. Her sympathies could shift, and you would do well to ponder your fate if she turned against you. The Nighthawks, however, will never betray you. We are yours, Lady Nasuada, fully and completely. So please, let the Nighthawks do what they are supposed to do… Let us protect you.” (These last few sentences can be cut and shorten down. He’s a broken record.)
This guy is repeating himself, constantly qualifying his statements with the same statements! All the characters talk like this. This is something an editor catches during the drafting phases. I 100% believe that this book was not edited. If it was then the editor did a shit job.
The fight scenes are impressively bad. This guy cannot write a fight scene to save his life, I swear. Everyone knows the old adage “show, don’t tell,” right? Well, evidently, Paolini missed the memo because all of his fight scenes are all telling and no showing. The opening chapters where Eragon, Saphira, and Roran are off fighting the Ra’zac and the Lethrblaka have some of the worst fight scenes I’ve read in a while. It’s hard to explain without a visual aid, but I’ll try my best. In these chapters, we are not in the battle with the trio. We are away from it. Paolini writes each action in a reactive way. We’re not in the action as it is occurring. Instead of showing Saphira tearing the tail off one of the Lethrblaka, we are told that she did so in a paragraph separated from the actual fight. Instead of showing Eragon casting his litany of spells, we are told that he did so. Instead of showing Roran and the Ra’zac trading sword-blows, we are told that they did so. Paolini would also break the flow by interjecting these long wordy passages that add nothing to the plot. Like he would explain that Saphira has hard scales and sharp teeth, shit that we already know because she’s a damn dragon. You don’t need to tell us this! It’s just awful. I hate how the fight scenes are written.
The characters are all planks of wood. Three books in and I still cannot tell you what Eragon’s personality is! He’s a blank slate! He’s just a self-insert, wish-fulfillment character! Now, he’s fucking overpowered. He doesn’t even have agency. Eragon just does whatever is told of him. He doesn’t really make his own decisions most of the time. When he does, he’s fucking torturing people. Like when he sent Sloan off to wander the woods of the Elf Kingdom for… no good reason. Why couldn’t he just arrest him? Like, why was that out of the question? He doesn’t have an actual discernible personality! Saphira is even worse! She hasn’t grown at all since her introduction. We don’t learn shit about Saphira. Paolini is way more interested in giving us two whole chapters dedicated to two completely worthless characters getting married than developing Saphira’s personality or her relationship with Eragon. Speaking of, I straight hate Roran and Katrina. Katrina is not even a person! She’s just “woman” and nothing else. Why is she here? She adds nothing to the story. Roran is so damn boring. I can’t tell you what his personality is because HE DOESN’T HAVE ONE! He loves Katrina. That’s it. That’s all he has. Nasuada got worse which is a shame. She’s selfish now and I don’t like her anymore. Plus, what was even the point of the whole “cutting arm” challenge thing? Another member of her tribe shows up and challenges her for her spot in the Rebellion. They do this “arm cutting” challenge where they cut themselves until one of them passes out. Whoever passes out is the loser. There were no stakes in this because I already knew that Nasuada was going to win, but the guy who challenged her never shows up again so why was he even here? Everything around Elva is just awful. I still like Elva the most because she’s the most interesting, but I don’t understand the purpose of her character anymore. Elva is a child Eragon accidentally cursed. Her curse drives her to throw herself into harm’s way in order to protect others. It also made her grow exponentially. She has the body of a two-year-old but speaks like a woman in her thirties, which is freaky and I like it ngl. She resents her curse (obviously), but Nasuada sees her as a huge asset because Elva can predict when someone is going to be hurt. Eragon promises to remove her curse and he kind of does. She can still feel the pain of others, but now she is no longer compelled to throw herself into danger, something she is really happy about. When she says that she is indifferent about the affairs of the Rebels and wants to go her own path, Eragon and Nasuada view her as this huge threat that will hinder them… somehow. This bothered the fuck out of me. Elva has never shown an ounce of deception since she was introduced. She’s a bit jaded and cynical but not malicious so why the fuck do Eragon and Nasuada think she’s going to betray them? What even is the point of her character at this point? Why is she here anymore?? Now that she’s no longer suffering her curse, she serves no purpose to the plot, so why write her in the first place if she’s just going to disappear? Can we talk about the cop-out that is Brom being Eragon’s dad? I hate this. This is some cowardly shit. Oh no, can’t have our awesome good hero be sired by a Morzan, this evil man! He was actually the son of Brom, the good guy! Fuck off! This is so cowardly! I guess Paolini got sick and tired of people comparing his dogshit story to Star Wars, so he pulled some bullshit out of his ass. Ugh… No one else is worth mentioning. I do find Blodhgarm to be hilarious because he’s literally just a “sexy furry.” I can’t take him seriously. Cringe.
The worldbuilding is some of the worse I’ve ever seen. I will never understand why people like the worldbuilding so much in this series. It’s not interesting! It’s not unique! It’s literally just shittier Tolkien with an extra dash of pretentiousness. Warrior Cats has more intricate and interesting lore than this shit. Everything Paolini has done, I’ve seen in other properties. It feels small, it’s derivative, it’s dull and it’s empty. I feel no substance within this world. There is nothing here to keep me attached. There is nothing here that makes the world stand out. The dragons could have made this world truly unique but Paolini is not interested in telling us anything about the dragons. There’s the whole dragon soul-orb shit, but like… it’s not cool. I don’t give a fuck! Then there’s the fucking magic… ugh god. I hate it so much. It’s literally “say the magic words and magic happens.” Eragon could terraform the planet if he wanted to. There are barely any limitations to what magic users can do. It’s just too simple. I’m not a fan. When Eragon started fucking flying, I was done. This is stupid…
There is no reason for this series to be this damn long. This plot is too simplistic. It doesn’t warrant a story this fucking long. I wouldn’t mind if the worldbuilding and characters were good, but they’re not! This shit is terrible! This book shouldn’t even exist! NOTHING HAPPENS!
0/10. I can’t believe I’m saying this but The Dragon War Trilogy is better than this! I despise that series, but at least it has a plot. At least the concept is neat. At least there’s an attempt at making fleshed-out characters. AT LEAST IT’S SHORT! None of that shit is in The Inheritance Cycle. This is a completely worthless series. I honestly went into this wanting to give this series a fair shot. I honestly did. I was excited when I got these books. I’ve heard great things about them, but they’re fucking awful! They keep surprising me at every turn with how awful they are. Why is this so popular? This is atrocious.
You know what? To each their own. If you like this series, good for you. I’ll never understand how or why, but whatever. Fuck this series. I will attempt to read the last one (I already bought these back-breakers. I don’t like leaving unread books on my shelf), but it’ll be a long while before I torture myself with that garbage.
Recommendation: No one. Don’t read this. There are way better fantasy books out there. This is one of the absolute worse.
