Inheritance Cycle/Headscratchers


 * Just how big is Alagaesia? The maps in the books don't come with scales.
 * Travel times are given occasionally. You could likely get a rough estimate from that. Distances between towns are mention at least a few times as well. If i have some free time I'll try to run the numbers.


 * In the first book, it is stated that Arya . Later on, it is also said that outsiders (like Durza and his henchmen) cannot penetrate very deep into Du Weldenvarden. From this, it seems like Arya was taking the egg from the Elves to the Varden when she was attacked (she must have been quite far south of Osilon to be close enough to the forest's edge to be attacked). This bugs me. If she is taking the egg between the elves and the Varden, why does she need to go near Gil'ead - surely they could use the secure route Eragon uses in Eldest - up Az Ragni and the Edda River, via Hedarth and Tarnag, and a whole Hadarac Desert away from Galbatorix's flunkies?


 * Why is his dragon even listening to him?
 * He nurtured her from the moment she hatched, and you're surprised she thinks he's a pretty cool guy?
 * She doesn't. two or three chapters after she hatches she actually disagrees to the point of not talking to him and taking him out the the middle of the forest to avoid a fight. plus the time she pinned him down and told him to be more careful. plus, there not two completly seperate minds, they work together mentally to the point they practically fuse minds at points, so it not that she always listens, its that they almost always agree.


 * Why are there no female dragonriders?
 * Actually, Word of God states that a few of the Forsworn were female.
 * Keep in mind there were two dragons left in the world by the time of book one. It's not much of a stretch to imagine they both had male riders.
 * In the 4th book, Galbatorix' remaining egg hatches and chooses  as his rider, so the series now has at least one (living) female rider.
 * At the end, in a token gesture. I'm completely unsurprised that Paolini chooses another arena in which to ignore women.
 * Nonsense. Let's count the plot-influencing characters, shall we? Lead female characters: Saphira (as or almost as important as Eragon), Arya (lead character second only to Eragon/Saphira), Nasuada (leader of the entire good-guy army). Minor characters: Elva (considered the second most dangerous being in the world after Galbatorix), and Angela (just plain awesome). On the male side, we have lead characters Eragon (hero) and Roran (side hero). Minor characters: Murtagh (rarely seen compared to the others), Glaedr (doesn't even appear until the third book), Oromis and Brom (both are introduced and killed off in the same book). When you recall that this is basically a feudal middle-age society, it's pretty darn good. In the Varden and other human/dwarf/urgal armies women play a minor role, but in other areas such as magical and elven society, the sexes are fairly represented. And even if they're not, again, THIS IS A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE REGULARLY HACK ONE ANOTHER TO PIECES WITH HEAVY WEAPONS. Women are smaller and weaker than men. Except for the elves, they can't fight on the front lines and hold their own against men. But female characters still have a huge influence on the plot.


 * In Brisingr, Nasuada says that the Urgals "aren't pure evil like the Ra'zac, just overfond of war". It bugs me that she dismisses an entire race as being PURE EVIL. The Ra'zac are evolved to be humanity's ultimate predator, they're only acting according to their nature, just like the Urgals.
 * Haven't read through Brisingr yet, so I may be totally wrong, but maybe the Ra'zac were magically created, kind of like the orcs in The Lord of the Rings.
 * The Ra'zac feed on humans. Nasuada is a human. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why she finds them objectionable.
 * Except dragons have been known to eat humans too. And no one calls dragons "evil".
 * ...Dragons eating people were never mentioned. Besides, dragons are a sentient race too, and they're not fixated on eating humans like Ra'zac. Furthermore, the whole Ra'zac race IS evil, since the only members are with Galby. Sure, a few dragons probably ate a few humans, but considering many were Rider's dragons and the wild ones probably had some measure of empathy for humans, considering that elves, humans and dragons are all irrevocably magically bonded, so dragons who ate humans who were not provoking them were likely insane or humongous jerks.
 * Actually Saphira suggests eating humans on more then one occasion, and it is oddly not objected to by those who hear her. Also, the text would suggest that the Ra'zac are sentient, possibly even more cleaver then humans. They obviously saw the benefit to allying themselves with a former prey item. Furthermore, they aren't fixated on eating humans. If they were, why did they not kill and consume the soldiers under their command?
 * That's because there's a difference between occasionally indulging in a snack(dragons) and having humans be your primary diet(Ra'zac).
 * There are no recorded events of snakes eating people for food, yet many people are terrified of them to the point of mass slaughter without reguard to threat or size. In a more close example, a few sharks bite (mind you people are only very rarely actually consumed, most "attacks" are no more then a bite) a few people (roughly 20 for the millions who visit beaches in any given year. To put that into prospective you are more likely to be struck by lightning twice, and ten times more likely to be killed by a falling coconut), certainly not enough to be called more then the occasional snack as the spieces goes. Yet they are slaughter on mass for no other reason then fear.
 * Yeah, that would be an apt metaphor...except for the fact that the Ra'zacs' main form of diet comes from eating humans.
 * Humans are the main predators of cows. Does that make them evil?
 * I'm sure that if cows were at our level of sentience, they would think we are.
 * The key word there is "think." Just because one thinks something, does not make it truth.
 * In fairness, if cows were sentient and humans still chose to eat them, that would be pretty evil.
 * So a race of man-eating abominations that torture the Hero's father figure to death, torture his future sister-in-law, and raze his hometown to the ground aren't evil because THEY don't think that they're evil?
 * You are applying the actions of two to an entire race.
 * And entire race that's now extinct as a result of those FOUR'S(The Lethrblaka are Ra'zac, as well) actions. The same race whose last member requested that the world remember his race as fear, nothing more or less.
 * My point stands, you have no proof the rest of the race was like those we see. To turn back to an example seen in reality, some lions eat people. Some do it opertunistically, some make people a main dietary item. Most, however, never hurt a human during their entire lives.
 * But what we see of them, and what we hear of them, is none too flattering. And at this point, this is just looking like petty dissection for the sake of Complaining About Shows You Don't Like.
 * The same could be said of wolves, tigers, lions, sharks, and just about any other animals with the sharp and pointy teeth at any given time during history. Human's fear things that can kill them, or they find strange, and turn them into monsters. Werewolves get their very origin from this fear. It does not actually make the animals monsters.
 * But it definitely makes the Ra'zac, who are sadistic human-hunting abominations, monsters.
 * No one's even seen dragons for ages (apart from the rider's dragons, obviously). Why should they care if a few humans were eaten by dragons in the distant past?
 * Yeah, it's a bit like being mad at saber-toothed tigers because they probably ate some cavemen way back when...
 * Because they might do it again? Saphira has made some comments about how she would like to try eating people. Still, there does seem to be a kind of weird bias towards the various monster races in the book. Dragons have been known to eat people, steal gold and tear shit up, but they are on the "right" side so they are still good. Urgals roam around killing people and raiding villages, but they are only portrayed as evil while working for the Empire, and once they switch sides they are seen as good. But Ra'zac, who are shown to be intelligent and capable of negotiating with humans, and who don't seem to be much worse than the other two, are PURE EVIL. It's kind of overly convenient that only the monsters that didn't join the Varden were acceptable targets and could be wiped out without remorse.
 * Might do it again, vs. doing it every month to a dozen slaves is quite a big difference.
 * In real life, yes. Nothing is inherently evil. In average-quality fantasy books, enemies are usually evil, unless the writer is making a point. Dragons and Urgals are more Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Warlike, opposed to the Ra'zac. It's a pretty standard trope, and Tropes Are Not Bad
 * No dragon has eaten a human for generations. Ra'zac eat people all the time. There is a big difference. Urgals don't eat people at all. They just do what all the other races do (i.e. run around slaughtering people). From a human's point of view, creatures that live on a diet of one's own species are much worse than creatures that might have eaten a human every now and then over a century ago, or creatures that are fighting on one's own side. Paolini probably could have put some more effort (as with so many other things) into showing why the Ra'zac were irredeemable while other races are not. That said, Nasuada's point of view is still understandable.
 * It was ARYA who said that the Ra'zac were pure evil, not Nasuada.
 * Considering in Brisingr that the Ra'zac that was trying to bargain with Eragon said he wanted his race to be remembered as FEAR, they seem to be at least mildly evil, not to mention ther MANY sadistic tendencies.
 * Ra'zac are a species made of Nightmare Fuel who kill and consume humans in the most painful ways possible, as much for sport or pleasure. From the viewpoint of anything beneath a Ra'Zac on the "food chain", they are Pure Evil. They exist solely to maim, kill and terrorize humans.
 * Plus, there were only 4 Raz'ac left; it's not that hard for a species to be evil when there are only one small family of them left.
 * To weld this tangle of discussion into a cohesive answer: Arya calls the Ra'zac race evil because they are - the only 4 remaining members are evil sadists. Dragons on the other hand have never been mentioned to eat people. Saphira (presumably jokingly) wonders what the soldiers of the Empire taste like. Humans fear the likes of snakes though they don't eat people because they know the snake can harm them. If a snake could talk and you knew it was friendly, you wouldn't be afraid.
 * This does create a bit of a knotty problem with
 * Well Eragon was stuck between a rock and a hard place when he Does that mean what he did was right? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he could have taken a third option if he had a weapon or magic or a means of escape. But he didn't have those, so he chose survival over being eaten.
 * It's also possible the Ra'zac have some kind of species memory similar to dragons which would have affected any hatchlings regardless of location and upbringing.
 * I don't think their prejudice, justified as it might be, is presented in a necessarily good light. It's clear Eragon's holding grudges, though at least he's not actively trying to genocide them. So far, every single Ra'zac kill has been by-and-large justifiable, and the book leaves it at that.


 * How can a king rule an empire?
 * Cleared up in Brisingr; Oromis reveals that the Empire is constitutionally still called the Broddring Kingdom. It qualifies as an Empire because Galbatorix added territory to it, cutting off the Elves from the sea and driving the dwarfs underground.
 * Plus, the Kings of England, France, and Spain had quite the empires for a while.
 * Why does everyone say that the time of the Riders has gone? The King is a Rider, so that means the time never left in the first place.
 * Because the Riders in this instance refers to the (relatively) benevolent organization that acted as oversight to various rulers, not the single tyrant who is sole ruler and repressive.


 * Why doesn't Galby come and get Eragon himself?
 * For spoiler-y reasons, he's much more powerful in the capital city, to the point where he can enslave Eragon instead of just outright killing him, which has been his stated goal. Also, according to him, he's been busy with a huge amount of administrative issues, chief amongst which was perfecting anti-counterfeit spells. Which, again according to him, was insanely difficult.
 * He is also engaged with more important things than Eragon, like.
 * Overconfidence on his part is also a possibility.


 * Why do the people hate Galbatorix? Honestly, he doesn't seem to be doing anything particularly bad to anyone who is not actively seeking to overthrow and kill him.
 * He conquered most of his current empire through force and is fighting to enslave or eradicate the kingdom of Surda, as well as the elves and dwarves. It's also mentioned that he levies crippling taxes throughout the country to pay for the wars, and binds every soldier to his will as part of their enlistment. What part of this doesn't qualify him as evil, exactly?
 * Well he does have a tendency to hire psychopaths, Durza and Morzan for example, to lead his armies.
 * Galbatorix's reign came through usurpation and genocide. I personally would expect people to disapprove.
 * Two things. Firstly, dragon rider novices can't even do magic at first, and none of them survived Galbatorix's ascension. It would appear he killed off an entire generation of comparatively defenceless pupils. Secondly, the dragon riders had dragon eggs in their care, and only three of those survived his rise to power - to make matters worse, Galby didn't bother to leave enough dragon survivors to create a sustainable population. He seems to have doomed that 'race' or subset of the dragon population to extinction.
 * Not to mention reenstating slavery, and letting corrupt and/or insane city rulers run lose.
 * Oh, yeah, and he committed genocide against a race of benign, sentient creatures, then forced them to reside in their Eldunarya forever, broke their minds and souls and forced them to serve him. if that isn't evil I don't know what is.
 * How's no one mentioned that not only did he commit genocide (which is only demonstrated in the third book, arguably as an Author's Saving Throw), but he ?

2) We're never shown people "chafing" under the Empire's high taxes. We hear a few people complaining about paying their taxes, but people are doing that right now. Does that make Barack Obama evil? As for forced conscription, plenty of countries have a draft or have had one in the past. Does that make them all evil? Was the United States evil for drafting soldiers to fight WWII? 3) Galbatorix did not wipe out a town for not paying taxes. He wiped it out for harboring rebels. 4) Where do I get the idea that the elves attacked after Galby overthrew the Riders? From the book. It says Galby overthrew the Riders, usurped control of the human-controlled kingdoms (which might have counted as an evil act if we were given any impression that the previous government was any better than the Empire), and then the elves attacked him to try to force him out. That was when Galby went to war with the elves. And even if Galby had attacked the elves first, given their close association with the Riders he was arguably just continuing his anti-Rider campaign. The point I'm trying to make is if you want the audience to believe the villain is evil you have to actually show your villain personally doing evil things. If not, then you fall afoul of the Designated Villain trope. 2. Forced conscription that includes being completely and utterly broken to Galbatorix's will. But I guess you skipped that little detail while leather-pantsing Galby. Also, people aren't just complaining, they're outright rebelling over the issue, among other things, as the Empire's high taxes are one of the things that draws people to join the Varden. 3. Oh, so that just makes things SO MUCH BETTER, then. "Galbatorix's murder of his people was justified because they were harboring rebels." I'm guessing Tavington from The Patriot(fictional as it is, that's not the point) was completely justified in burning a church full of people who were harboring revolutionaries, then, by your logic. 4. This was after he'd destroyed the Riders, who were, by extension, heavily associated with the Riders, as most of the Riders were still Elves. So Galbatorix had already killed a whole lot of Elves in his rise to power to begin with. And, once again, how in the hell does this justify the fact that Galbatorix wiped out an entire order of guardians, including the trainees whom were children and the young dragons, and reduced an entire species down to just three eggs and his own dragon by the time the books began? And furthermore, you're decrying the Elves for trying to oust an omnicidal dictator who'd slain that Riders, including Elves and Humans, as well as went and forcibly usurped control of the Broddring Kingdom... And we DID get to see Galbatorix personally do some evil things in Brisingr. Y'know, the killing of Oromis and the slaying of Glaedr?
 * Why doesn't anyone take offense to the elves' arrogance?
 * They do. Also, the humans and dwarves are pretty arrogant themselves.
 * Because then they'd make the elves angry. You know, the guys who anger easily, have the strength of ten men and could crush your skull effortlessly?
 * I think it's a genetic defect.
 * They're nudists. People are too busy oogling them to argue.
 * Paolini's elves are Pratchett's in disguise... they're using glamour!
 * While we're on the topic of elves, why don't the arrogant buggers overthrow Galbatorix themselves? They're an entire SOCIETY of warriors who could kick Eragon's butt, even though he's speshul. What could Galbatorix possibly do if hundreds of them ganged up on him at once. Obviously the smug bastards aren't even trying, or am I missing something here?
 * Minor point: the elves technically can't beat Eragon anymore, and they actually never could, what with him having the advantage of a massive flying fire-breathing reptile hanging around with him. but as for the main point, Galby has the strength of 99% of ALL THE DRAGONS IN ALAGAESIA. Just magically stopping a dragon from killing you will drain an elf of all of his strength. Go figure. Finally, Galby can kill them with VERY little energy usage.
 * Well, the Elves DID try and overthrow Galbatorix when the Varden first rose to power. The Varden and the Elves tried to beat Galbatorix in a conventional battle, during which their asses were served to them on a polished silver platters with a sprig of basil and a side of mashed-potatoes with gravy, forcing the Elves to retreat to Du Weldenvarden and the Varden to undertake a guerrilla war. Remember, Galbatorix is a Rider, and a standard Rider is worth about one hundred standard spellcasters in Inheritance. Add to that the fact that Galbatorix ....
 * None of that explains why they couldn't use their amazing powers to provide more tangible support for the Varden. A single elven spellcaster per Varden unit would be a great asset, and that's not even getting into support with resources like food, armour and weapons and the like.
 * Yes, because there isn't a vast, y'know, EMPIRE between the Elves and the Varden or anything...
 * And Islanzadi cut all contact with the Varden after Arya was captured.
 * It seems like neither side is looking at the big picture. The elves should at least try to aid the Varden because they're both fighting for the same reason, right? At least, it seems like they are.
 * Arya was able to make it across that "vast empire". Several times in fact, if the second book is to be believed.
 * Big difference between a rider and some guards (which still got caught, by the way) and an entire army... the latter tends to attract more attention.
 * They didnt help because there was some tention over the last dragon egg, then they through a pissy fit over Arya getting captured. also, quite a few people dont like the elves much, but when your desprate enogh to let a race who had launched a huge attack on you only months before(even if they were under mind control) work with you, why piss off the strongest race that as the most mages in the known world?
 * There are probably a lot fewer elves than people seem to think. Otherwise, Galbatorix would have been beaten in the first battle before he had time to subjegate vast numbers of
 * I remember Eragon angsting about killing Imperial soldiers. Why, exactly? He says something about how they are being forced to fight by Galbatorix, but think about it. The Empire is at war with Surda (I think) and the Varden. Thus, he has a draft. It's not necessarily fair, but it can be considered their duty as citizens. It's your country, you defend it. Plus, none of them seem particularly against fighting the protagonists. Couple this with the fact that I did not, in my readings of this series, see Galby do anything really bad to his subjects (directly. Underlings like Durza and that town near Hellgrind are pretty messed up), and it seems like Eragon's Wangsting for nothing.
 * Murder of fellow man doesn't come easy to everyone. Even people who see its necessity can have trouble with it, especially if they're young and were raised in relative peace and happiness, as Eragon was. It's called character development: you would prefer he just cheerfully killed soldiers left and right, or was completely cold to the fact that they're fellow human beings? It's not like his angst stops him from doing what needs to be done.
 * He did not angest over the dozens (hundreds?) of soldiers he killed on the Burning Plains. He never even gave it a second thought.
 * He angsts HARD about it in Brisingr.
 * a better question is why is he so inconsistently angsty about it.
 * So Galby is, even not considering other factors and wholly based on what you just said, at best incapable of controlling evil underlings and must be stopped, and at worst evil.
 * Soldiers sometimes go rogue in war. Especially in a medieval setting with no mass communication for leaders to keep an eye on them. It happens. But just because it happens doesn't automatically make those leaders evil. If Paolini had somehow established that Galbatorix ordered Durza and his other minions to do all those villainous things that would be different.
 * well, he dosnt like it, but there attacking him so what choice does he have? and responding to the one above, the king also brought back slavery, and commited genocide against dragons, and attempted to against elves and dwarves but cant find them. thats somewhere around sauron/hitler levels of evil
 * I'll give you genocide against the dragons (though I still find it hard to believe he wiped out all the wild dragons in the world) but IIRC the elves and dwarves attacked him first to try to knock him out of power after he destroyed the Dragon Riders. As for slavery, that alone doesn't exactly establish Galby's evil-ness. Plenty of historical rulers have tolerated slavery. Are we therefore to conclude that every government of every country before the Abolitionist movement was irredeemably evil? Of course not. And again, all of these evil acts are second-hand info. It's hard to view Galbatorix as evil when we don't actually see him doing these evil things.
 * Yeah, no. Galbatorix attacked first, it's laid out in the first chapters of Eragon: After he was denied a second dragon by the Riders, he wound up going even more insane than he already was(as a result of him being stranded in the frozen tundras up North after the Urgals slew his friends and his dragon), he went into the Spine, learned black magic from a Shade(implied to be Durza), and then used that magic to enslave Shruikan after murdering his Rider.
 * I was referring to the elves and dwarves, not the Riders. When Galby overthrew the Riders and seized power the elves attacked him, he did not attack them. And again, the history of Galby overthrowing the Riders is entirely second-hand information. Whether you're willing to accept the information at face value or not, you have to admit it's not a very good way to set up a villain. In Star Wars we don't have to rely on second-hand exposition to believe Darth Vader is evil. Right from the start of the movie we see him performing evil acts. Chasing down and nearly destroying Princess Leia's ship, killing many of her men, personally choking the ship's captain to death, etc. So then, when we hear Obi-wan say Vader "betrayed and murdered" Luke's father we're automatically willing to believe this at face value (which is why it comes as such a shock when we find out that Vader actually is Luke's father). With Galbatorix, we don't see him doing anything evil (or anything at all), yet we're just supposed to accept that he's evil because people say he's done all this evil stuff. If we reached the very end of this story and found out Galbatorix was actually the good guy all along and the Varden were actually a group of neo-fascists trying to reinstate the corrupt and oppressive military dictatorship of the Dragon Riders, this would be one of the most epic book series in the world.
 * No, it would make even less sense than My Immortal
 * What? "We don't see Galbatorix do anything evil." So the massacre at Yazuac didn't happen? And before you go "well, it could've just been rogue Urgals", remember that at that time, most of the Urgal tribes were under control of Durza and Galbatorix, and there's no evidence whatsoever that Durza was legitimately planning to overthrow Galbatorix. Also remember the fact that the people were explicitly chafing under the Empire's high taxes and forced-conscription into the army, and Galbatorix had his men TORCH A WHOLE VILLAGE for not paying their taxes. Also, where in the hell did you get the logic that the elves only attacks Galbatorix AFTER he overthrew the Riders? Especially when, once Galbatorix overthrew the Riders, he went straight to Uru'baen and FORCIBLY USURPED the Broddring Kingdom and began conquering Elven lands? Seriously, what?
 * 1) Did you even read what I wrote? Once again, we don't see Galbatorix do anything evil. Galbatorix didn't wipe out Yazuac, Durza did. And we have not seen any hard evidence that Galby ordered Durza to do it. Eragon just kind of assumes that he did.
 * 1. Yes, I did. And so what if it was Durza? Durza was still Galbatorix's servant. It may "just be an assumption", but when the Big Bad's minion does something horrible, it's pretty easy to conclude that it was under the Big Bad's orders.
 * If I may chip in here about Galby's uber-evilness, though I begin to despair of it sinking in: For the last time, HE. COMMITTED. GENOCIDE. THEN. ENSLAVED. THE. ETERNAL. SOULS. OF. HIS. VICTIMS. SO. HE. COULD. RULE.
 * Just stop: you're arguing with Hate Dumb at this point, they're not going to listen to little things like reason and logic when they've already decided they don't like the books/author.


 * What the hell was with the Trial of Long Knives and how did it prove Nasuada to be a good leader when such a thing has no leaderly aspects to it?
 * The way This Troper remembers it (and it's been a few months so forgive her if she's way off here) is that it was a test of your willingness to sacrifice yourself for the good of your group. You can either hand over control to someone who you think will do a horrible job, or prove you will do whatever it takes to make sure who you believe is best for the job (in this case yourself) has it. A good leader is supposed to be able to weigh the good of the whole over the good of one... Even if that one is themself.
 * Yes, but one can easily go through the test if they have a high threshold for pain or the willpower to endure it, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're any good at leading. Take Nasuada's financial decisions, such as that issue with the construction worker, messing with Surda's economy, giving valuables that could be used for your people as dowry just because two kids wanted to get married now and not later.
 * One, the jewels and treasure Nasuada gave to Katrina were explicitly stated to NOT BE NEEDED because she had all the money she needed to fund the Varden. Two, she did not "mess with Surda's economy". All she did was screw over the cloth-makers to fund her floundering faction, which hardly "disrupted the economy".
 * So undermining an entire sector of the economy wouldn't cause a disruption? Should I point out what happens in reality when gas prices rise? When those cloth makers stop making money, they stop spending money. The people they buy their materials (wool, cotten, ect) from lose money. Those people then stop spending money, so no more buying grain for live stock or furtilizer for plants. They probably had to drop a few farm hands as well. You can see how this small decision can quickly disrupt an entire economy.
 * The Varden would still need to buy materials for their lace (they'd potentially buy even more since they produce lace at a faster rate). They additionally use the money to buy and forge metal, feed and outfit thousands of infantrymen, you name it. The disruption is relatively minimal, and in any case they were at war. War is always disruptive to the economy.
 * How were all those gold and jewels Nasuada gave to Katrina not needed? Nasuada is fighting a guerilla war against a vastly superior army. She would have constant, ever-mounting costs. And it wasn't that long ago that the Varden was in dire financial straits. How does she know the Varden won't have money troubles in the future? Even if Roran and Katrina insisted on getting married right away (that is, before Katrina's pregnancy started to show) they didn't need a dowry to start a home together until after the war was over.
 * How was the gold and jewels not needed? You mean BESIDES the fact that Nasuada explicitly said that she'd made more than enough money to fund the Varden's campaign by having her mages make cheap lace?
 * That she said that is clear evidence for Nasuada being a flaming idiot. Cheap lace can make you a fortune...briefly. After that the price of lace plummets because the market is glutted - that's how supply and demand works. As a source of cheap cash to get her out of a tough spot, it worked, though at the cost of undermining her ally's economic stability. As a long term investment, it's bloody useless, which means either than Nasuada will need another source of cash pretty soon (and good luck getting it from Surda, after you screw with their economy and make fun of their king for objecting) and thus can't afford to give it away like Hallowe'en candy, or she expects the war to be over in under six months. Given that Galbatorix has had over a century to build his power base, that latter explanation would make her at least as stupid as if she's just prioritising Roran and Katrina's wedding over maintaining her army.
 * As mentioned above, the hit to the Surdan economy is minimal, if any. Lace customers get what they want. Raw materials suppliers for lacemakers get what they want. The money she makes is utilized elsewhere in the economy. She's just driving lacemakers bankrupt -- she has set up an early version of Wal-Mart. Say what you will about Wal-Mart, but it has never failed to make enormous profits on its massive scale alone -- not even on stores built in poor third-world cities. -Aleksei
 * Even with magic, I don't think Nasuada's working on anything close to the scale of Wal-Mart. She has one product, selling in one pre-industrial sized country (maybe two), and what she's selling is traditionally an heirloom that can, with reasonable care, last for generations.
 * I'm pretty sure when a leader says that the money she made was enough to fund the whole campaign, and the issue hasn't come up since, then the Varden are well set for the future. Once again, the money she made was enough to maintain her army at least for the foreseeable future.
 * Easy enough to say, since Paolini gets to decide when they are and aren't having money trouble without doing any actual accounting, but economically unrealistic.
 * So, basically, you're taking an Acceptable Break From Reality, that being Writers Cant Do Math, and discarding the MST3K Mantra just so you can have something to complain about regarding Inheritance.
 * Examining the internal logic and realism of fantasy worlds is one of the things I enjoy about the genre. I'm not consumed with blind hatred for the Inheritcane Cycle, but I am going to notice its plot holes. Sorry if that irritates you.
 * You're going to find plot holes in a lot of decent literature. Inheritance is definitely not something that should be held up to the same level as, say, A Song of Ice and Fire. It's a decent series but definitely not the best.
 * In context, the Trial of the Long Knives proved two things: (1) The above stated idea that willpower is needed to successfully lead through something as important as a revolution. (2) That Nasuada is capable of branching out from her own ways to forge new alliances and new factions. The second is, I think, the most important thing 'proven' (YMMV) in the Trial. It shows that Nasuada, despite her own beliefs, is able to accept the differences from other cultures and, in times of need, thrive in them. She relished the challenge as a new way to prove herself, even if it was a way with which she was unaccustomed. In our contemporary society, tolerance is seen among the qualities that epitomize a great leader. This is not to say Nasuada does not have her faults, but there is a subtext with Nasuada that shows she can be tolerant, and therefore has the potential to be a great leader.
 * You have to write it off to more primative culture. Also, slight confusion, the trial of long knives was for the desert tribes, not the urgals. The urgals had a no-weapons fight to the death challenge which roran fought for leadership.


 * This may be utter nitpickery, but I was bothered in the first book when Saphira could fly the warhorses over the river, but she couldn't carry Murtagh, Eragon, and Arya all at once. I'm sorry, even the smallest a horse can be without actually counting as a pony is about 14 hands and 800-900 pounds. Paolini never specifically names breeds, but warhorses were on average about 15-17 hands and weighed about 1200-1500+, more if you're on the far end of the Sliding Scale of Andalusian versus Friesian. If Saphira struggles with three humanoids that weigh about a fourth or (at worst) less than half of one horse, how could she even get airborne with something that weighed more than Eragon and Co.!? The whole "We can't fly on Saphira together! What tension!" thing got a massive BS call from this troper.
 * Saphira was exhausted just lifting the horses across a river. Sure, she could fly a few miles with several people, but what use would that be if she then collapsed?
 * I think it's because its just a river, not more then a mile. She's just doing a short flight with the horses as light as possible. When eragon and Co. fled Gil'ead, it was them with all of their weapons, flying fast as possible, and she was getting wounded by arrows, which tore holes in her wings and hit the muscles themselves. All in all, its like you carrying three cinder blocks across the street vs one, sprinting a mile while being shot with a pellet gun.


 * How does a scar on your back that aches every so often cripple you?
 * Clearly, you've never had a severe enough injury to realize that that is probably one of the most refreshingly realistic things in the book. This troper knows from personal experience that a pinched nerve in the back is enough to cause crippling, constant pain (this troper lived with such a condition for nearly a month and it almost cost me my job and my degree because I was in so much pain I could hardly breathe, much less move), so it's not hard to imagine that an old injury that outright slashed the muscles primarily used for keeping upright and breathing (nevermind the weapon that did the damage being magical/cursed) would cause lingering pain, nerve damage, and severe spasms.
 * Umm, the scar wasn't just kind achey, it actually induced seizures in situations where Eragon was put under a lot of stress. HOW the scar induced violent seizures, I don't know, but it makes some good drama.
 * It's vaguely implied the Shade, with his last breath, cursed the wound. And the scar produced unbearable pain that was impossible to move through.
 * I find it strange that Murtagh never suffered any such pain, even though their scars were supposed to be similar.
 * Murtagh had years to recover, and the wound was non-magical.
 * Durza. Shade. Magic.
 * I meant before his Face Heel Turn.
 * I'm not sure what you mean by that. Murtagh's scar is mundane, and there was probably a curse or something on Durza's sword that caused Eragon's constant pain.
 * I would attribute it to the fact that Murtagh got his scar as a toddler(how it's still long enough to stretch from shoulder-to-hip, however, is unexplainable) and thus his body was able to grow and adjust to the scar much like how a circumcised male grows and adjusts to the circumcision. Eragon, however, got his scar after most of his growing had finished, at which point it constricted his movements where he couldn't overexert himself without risking a seizure.
 * Why his scar is still that long is easily explainable. Scars are badass. Plain and simple.
 * Also, A Wizard Did It.


 * How does one justify breaking a promise to cure a girl he stupidly cursed without even considering her feelings, just because it seems convenient? Elva's not even two and is facing things no one years older than her should face, but Eragon and Nasuada consider her want for a normal life to be selfish. Granted, it turned out differently, but Eragon was thinking similar thoughts even then.
 * Well, for a start, he didn't curse her on purpose. But seriously, I can kind of sympathise with this. If giving one person back their freedom would result in the deaths of hundreds of other people, wouldn't you be tempted to delay it? It's a matter of weighing one person's life against the lives of many.
 * What it probably meant was, sure he was trying to weigh the pros and cons of doing so, but he never looked for an alternative and was going to just go break his promise before she lectured both him and Nasuada. He cursed her by accident and they're reaping the benefits, but he could have used a variation of the spell on himself or someone else to achieve a similar effect and keep his promise to someone he screwed over.
 * Interesting, but this Troper has a theory: Eragon, certainly in the first book, was likely not powerful enough to give Elva her abilities. But something else happened: Saphira marked her. When Eragon removes the spell, Elva still senses pain, yet she doesn't need to stop it. What if it was Saphira's dragon magic making Elva grow fast and letting her sense pain? Eragon's spell says nothing about giving Elva powers. If not for Saphira, Elva would probably have only had to intervene if she actively saw pain, so Eragon couldn't replicate the spell. Finally, she was going to misuse her abilities for her own gain, possibly against the Varden. have an analogy: it's a bit like having a man with a gun who has been freed from the law. He intends to use it for personal gain. You have the power to bring him under control. Would you not do it?
 * Eragon and Nasuada aren't necessarily portrayed as being right in this issue, just pragmatic. Eragon later seems to consider her an adult, and deals with her as such. Her happiness is very much secondary to the Varden's objectives, and neither Eragon and Nasuada give it much thought while there's a war going on. Their justification is that its for the greater good, and they honestly don't care any further. Does it make them perfect exemplars of morality and righteousness? Nope. Does it make them desperately pragmatic in a bid to win a war? Yeah.


 * Should Nasuada be going out into battle during Eldest? She's a normal teenaged girl, unlike her hardened father who fought against Durza, a freakin' Shade, and he even he lost to a rabble of Urgals. At best she's had training in self-defense, but likely little more than that. It wasn't as bad during Eragon because she played archer support then, but going out to the front lines, when she's at best twice as good as your average Varden fodder, is a monumental risk, because unlike Eragon or Arya, she could die quite easily if enough Imperials ganged up on her, and then the Varden are shot for a leader again. Not to mention she made Eragon waste energy warding her in Eldest. Shouldn't commanders of military operations stay at the command center?
 * In Medieval style warfare, which is what I believe Paolini is going for, the leader always led their troops in battle, accompanied by bodyguards to relay orders and messages to their commanders in order to keep communication. It was a lot more prevalent in Japan, where a Daimyo would be expected to lead his troops in battle. It wasn't until Takeda Shingen near the end of the Sengoku era that this trend began to change.
 * Depends on what era of "Medieval style warfare" you're talking about. With the exception of your medieval Japan example, a leader almost never participated in the actual fighting. They hung back at a command post where they could survey the entire battlefield so as to better judge when to charge, when to retreat, when to send in cavalry, etc.
 * So Henry the Fifth and Richard the Third don't exist, now? There are plenty of examples of leadership taking to the battlefield in the middle ages.


 * Oromis states in Brisingr that once an Eldunari is released, it gathers energy for the next several years and has a very formidable store of power. Now, we're given no power ratio, but with that description, it seems like just 1 Eldunari would have completely owned Eragon, Saphira, and the 13 Elves. And we can infer that Murtagh had a lot of Eldunari with him, because Eragon senses "multitudes" of beings in Murtagh's mind. So how the hell did Eragon manage to win that one? It makes no sense whatsoever.
 * I was under the impression that it's just a source of energy, not that it actually amplifies your power. Meaning, with an Eldunari, you can hold a rock up in the air longer. Also, Eragon didn't win so much as not die, and he had an alternate source as well: he'd learned to sap life/energy from other living things around him.
 * Maybe forcing control of the dragons means you don't get the full extent of their power?
 * Doesn't magic require a person to be able to physically do something? What can a sphere do? All I see it as is a Mana Reserve, so it grants longer spellcasting endurance, but still can't do anything you couldn't previously do.
 * In the Eragon-verse all magic is essentially the Cast from Hit Points variety, in the sense that you use your own life force to power your spells. If you have a store of extra energy you can call on in addition to your own life force you can certainly do more than you could previously do.
 * Occam's Razor: the Eldunari are constantly fighting Murtagh, who is mentally weaker than Galbatorix, so when Eragon was fighting him mentally and magically, he was slowly losing control of the Eldunarya he possessed.
 * Murtagh's eldunari are later said to be from very young dragons. He's got a lot of them, but they don't do much. I'm not sure if this was mentioned above, but they're also insane, so they can't focus their efforts and help Murtagh in a concerted attack like Glaedr could. They do help in a mental battle, but only by creating numerous moderately powerful mental attacks, which Eragon could fend off individually. This is made clearer in the fourth book.


 * You know what bugs me? The fact that Arya won't eat meat but has nothing against wearing leather. Um...what?
 * In addition to all the points below, it could just be a cultural thing. There are Hindu who don't eat beef (cows are sacred animals) but wear leather as long as the animal died of natural causes.
 * Maybe its like Izlandi's feather coat - Arya only collected leather from those animal skins that fall off of natural causes? :P
 * It could be like in Video Game/Mabinogi. Humans (and Elves and Giants) are not supposed to kill animals for Leather (the regular enemies are demons, which don't leave corpses to harvest aside from certain tokens that disappear if you don't pick them up), so high quality Leather is extremely rare. Most Leather that humans have access to is explained as having been either taken off an animal that died of natural causes, but it's perfectly fine to use Leather that you stole off of goblins (since it's already been taken off the animal, and you have no proof that the animal didn't die of natural causes). Aria just uses leather clothing that the filthy, hedonistic, murderous humans made, and can rationalize it as "It wasn't killed for me even if I did commission the clothing, and I have no proof that it was even killed in the first place, so it's perfectly fine for me to wear this nice, comfortable, warm outfit instead of that linen garment that's always letting the wind through".
 * And how about that part in Eldest where she shoots a bird with a broken wing to end its suffering? If elves are willing to kill animals that are unable to survive, what makes them any different than any predatory animal or hunter(ex. Eragon hunting down a doe with a hurt leg in the first book)? If they can use that as an excuse, why not just eat the animals? And furthermore, Arya has a massive amount of magic at her disposal but she claims it was too injured for her to heal. Um, what? It was only a broken limb. So...if Eragon were to break his leg, would that be an excuse to kill him too?
 * You'd likely be hesitant to eat anything whose thoughts you've shared. Besides, as far as I know, there isn't a rule saying you have to eat your Mercy Kill.
 * You Fail Biology Forever. Broken legs =/= broken wings, and furthermore a human's broken leg =/= an animal's broken leg. With the right care, a human's leg can be healed even without magic fairly well. Even with the best of modern science, if say a horse breaks their leg they only have a ~50/50 chance of surviving, let alone recovering enough to stand up ever again: the bones, muscles, weight and movement involved are all completely different. Now, maybe that distinction can be handwaved by "magic," but Paolini decided not to by establishing that a broken wing is beyond Arya's healing skills. For you to say "that doesn't make sense" is ignoring the entire point of suspension of disbelief: all the rules of magic in books are invented by the author, and we believe what they say because they're the ones writing the story. Unless there's a blatant contradiction, like a person healing a bird's wing at one point and then LATER saying they can't heal another bird's wing, and even then all they have to say is they can't heal THIS wound and it would avoid contradiction. Why would they kill Eragon if he broke his leg? If a bird breaks their wing, they cannot fly again, and in the wild that means they are in for a slow and painful death. A human leg can be healed, and even if it can't they can still use crutches or take up writing or teach. Completely false comparison in every way.
 * A broken bird wing also =/= a horse's leg. For one, they're built very differently. Like a human, horses tend to have very large muscles in their legs and are built to handle much more weight and stress. One of the side effects of that is it also makes recovery much harder, since more bone mass has to be fixed in comparison to a bird and the muscles aren't just lying still, they're moving, dealing more stress and damage. A bird, on the other hand, has a much lighter (but still very tough, due to the honeycombing structure) skeleton, since their bones aren't solid. One of the benefits of that is that recovery is much faster. However, bird bones also tend to shatter, which can make full recovery impossible. A clean break, however, is mostly fixable and, if you look, there are a lot of guides online about setting bird wings, which does indicate that recovery is a bit better than you might think. So, frankly, it's not as earth shatteringly bad as a broken leg to a horse might be. Your example was also a a pretty bad comparison.
 * The way healing was set up earlier in the story was basically that you needed 1) sufficient energy to replace the natural healing process, and 2) sufficient knowledge of the anatomy in question to replace what was broken (you need to direct the magic to do exactly what you want it to). Lacking the latter was the reason Eragon was unable to heal stab wound in Eragon (which meant he still bled out internally), but Oromis taught him human anatomy in order to improve his healing skills. if elves know human anatomy, wouldn't it stand to reason they'd know bird anatomy as well? if they do, it's simply a matter of setting the wing's bones in place, or even regrowing new ones (matter transformation is extremely energy-intensive, but given the very low density of bird bones it would be well within Arya's abilities). -Aleksei
 * Most simple answer? The wing was really horrendously damaged, i.e. completely shattered bones, infected open fractures, chips of bone missing, etc.
 * Actually...Orik puts in his own two cents in response to that. He says something like, “Wow, wouldn’t want to ever ask an elf for help, because they might just decide you’re better off dead.”
 * Magic can heal broken wings. In Brisingr (I believe; if it was a different book, please correct me), Thorn's wing is completely wrecked in a fight with Saphira, and Murtagh heals it easily with one of the Eldunari. That damage was absolutely horrific, and it's highly unlikely that the bird would have been that badly injured, not even taking into account how much larger and heavier dragon bones would be.
 * When you have a complete crapton of Eldunari, the rules can certainly be bent due to sheer strength - that should be obvious from what happened to Galbatorix, or even to Eragon in Ellesmera.


 * How in the name of Gûntera did Roran kill almost two hundred well-trained imperial soldiers? Especially considering he's little more than a farm boy (this is not medieval Star Wars, this is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT) with no formal training in the arts of war, and yet he's apparently the deadliest mortal warrior in the land. How is this possible? I'm assuming Paolini is going to Ass Pull something about his destiny or lineage or something in book four, but 200 people, single-handedly?!
 * Presumably, all of Roran's friends clustered behind and next to him with spears and other long weapons to guard against the enemy attacks and maybe help disarm them, while the narrow corridor funneled cannon fodder towards Roran, who just went berserk for twenty minutes straight. And his friends kept count. And to be fair, he's got Taught By Experience working for him with the hammer. Keep in mind the fact that he's very physically strong, quite possibly the strongest normal human in the series, and he might just be fast enough with a hammer to keep up with swordsmen. His favorite tactic does seem to be "hit 'em in the wrist before they can blink, really hard."
 * He's not the only Badass Normal hero with CharlesAtlasSuperpowers in fiction. Some are written by more acclaimed authors than he is. And, he goaded them into Taking him on one at a time, where he's been proven to be able to overpower them simply with his expertise in Hitting them with his hammer. He's also gained more field experience in smashing things with that hammer than formal training ever will.
 * Hammers are usually not considered intelligent weapons to use on the battlefield what with the lack of an edge, the poor reach and the weight. Yes it is true that some kinds of hammers were specifically designed for war but it makes no sense for a blacksmith to own that kind of hammer. Ignoring that, there is no way he had the physical strength to actually fight nearly two hundred opponents. That's poor writing when other authors do it and it's poor writing when Paolini does it.
 * When all of one's opponents are funneled into a single, narrow space where they can, at most, come at you three-at-a-time, with enough stamina and drive one CAN conceivably killed 200-odd soldiers, especially when they're using a blunt weapon that makes plate armour null and void.
 * Small point, but how do we know the soldiers who attacked the village were "well-trained"? Couldn't they have just as easily been cannon fodder and/or conscripts?
 * Because anyone with half a mind would know that Galbatorix, even if he is rather inactive, wouldn't dispatch an army of untrained conscripts to capture a high-profile target?
 * true enough. Of course, raiding random villages in Surda because it wasn't well defended enough is not a 'high profile target'.
 * Why not? Why couldn't he bum-rush the village with a mob of cannon fodder while his Elite Mooks (the Ra'zac) try capture Roran in the confusion? Not a foolproof plan I admit, but it seems decent enough. Particularly when you're dealing with a very small village full of civilians with absolutely no combat experience. I'm not saying the soldiers were UNtrained, just that I don't remember it being stated that they were WELL trained.


 * You know how the guys with magic can absorb energy from other people? Why don't they fight battles like that? All you have to do is mass absorb the energy from the poor suckers on the other side, and store it in a ring or something. How come no one does that?
 * The enemy are warded against magic; mages are assigned to protect certain groups of pepole. When said mage is killed, one can drain their group's energy.
 * I believe that that was an option, yet the guys on the other side have magicians too who shielded their guys energy. During the second book when they took out a magician Eragon did just as you suggested, took their energy and stored it. Or he may have just mass killed them.
 * He just mass-killed them. Draining their life energy would have been too much for his sensibilities (and possibly for the sensibilities of anyone who isn't a clinical sociopath), given that doing so involves penetrating their minds and feeling the deaths of each and every one of them as his own.
 * Because (I think) the ability to sense (and thus be able to drain life) was a closely guarded secret of the riders because they didn't want every Tom, Dick and Harry who could use magic be able to wipe out an entire city without batting an eye. From what I gathered magic fights are usually whoever circumvents the others wards first, because, let's face it, you can't plan for EVERYTHING that magic is capable of.
 * If Eragon does it, then he leaves himself open to magical counter-attack, which is what all enemy wizards are (cautiously) looking for a chance to do.
 * the entire idea of draining life still bugs me on the grounds that 'life' energy is really just ATP and sugar and such. So logically, you should be able to power a spell using the frosting off a cake.
 * You'd need to digest it first. There's no reason to assume that a fictional universe with magic has the exact same laws of physics - the nature of energy may be different.
 * Perhaps magic energy is some how different from regular energy. Not ATP, but an entirely different substance, that the body produces. Paolini doesn't address the subject though.
 * You're entirely right. The problem is that magic is the ability to convert your body's reserves of energy (as you said, glucose and ATP and suchlike) into a form of energy which can change things outside your body. So, to use frosting as energy, you'd have to perform some process to get energy out of it (like your body does) such as burning it. The next problem is that, like Oromis said, nobody can devise a spell to get energy from anything but organisms. So if you could power a spell through frosting, you could also use, say, solar power, or gravitational potential energy, and squish Galby instantly.
 * Exactly. This would theoretically be possible, but hasn't been successfully done yet (although you overestimate the amount of energy from, for example, sunlight on a person).
 * I was talking about doing something like setting up a gem enchanted to collect all the solar energy that falls in a certain radius around it, then twiddling your thumbs for a few days until your super-efficient solar panel has enough energy to set Galbatorix's underwear on fire from the other side of Alagaesia.
 * Ever heard of this thing called "magic"? And a soul?


 * Early on in Brisingr Eragon keeps moaning over the fact that and that he could do a lot better if he had one. But didn't he just leave an army behind? Wasn't said army just victorious on the field of battle? What exactly was stopping him from   there?
 * It's explained fairly well actually: that sword was magically sharp and strong, able to withstand countless clashes of super-human strength. Regular swords need to be resharpened and eventually replaced even from normal wear and tear, let alone the massive beating they endure against Shade or Urgal or Rider's strength. When he finally gets another sword, it's dented and warped beyond repair in his first major battle with it. What he needs is another elven sword, especially if he's going to go back up against Zar'roc.
 * What really bugs me is that he just picks up a falchion and can immediately go back to being the best swordsman ever despite the fact that he's trained in fighting with a longsword. Srsly, Paolini, different types of swords are not interchangeable. Fighting with a falchion and fighting with a longsword require completely different techniques.
 * Actually Zar'roc appears to be an arming sword. Murtagh's old sword was a longsword (specifically an estoc, whereas Brisingr was another arming sword (except two-handed).
 * He's not the greatest swordsman. He's sufficiently Unskilled but Strong. He can go to fighting with a falchion as effectively as with a longsword because he's strong and fast enough to swing it around like a whiffle bat.
 * Yeah, no, this Unskilled but Strong stuff doesn't really fly with me. Just because you're strong and fast doesn't mean you're good at handling any old sword. Particularly when it's a type of sword you've never been trained to use. A falchion is a single-edge curved sword. A longsword is a double-edged straight sword. You simply can't fight with a falchion in the same manner using the same moves and techniques as with a longsword, or vice-versa. Each one is built around a vastly different fighting style. Saying "he's strong and fast enough to kill people by swinging it like a Louisville slugger" only adds to the annoying Mary Sue-ness of Eragon's character.
 * I think you're making the whole thing needlessly complicated. Swords pretty much operate on one basic premise: stick em with the pointy end. Some are better than others at stabbing or slashing, but that's the basic idea of all of them. Eragon has super strength and speed: he's not using the falchion to its intended purpose or style of fighting, sure, but that doesn't mean he literally can't pick it up and swing it and kill people with it.
 * First of all, I think you're vastly oversimplifying the concept of swordplay. It's not all about "stick em with the pointy end". Many swords are designed so you would never try stabbing with it. Sure you could do it, but it wouldn't be anywhere near as effective and you'd be at a severe disadvantage if you tried to stab with a sword designed for slashing during a fight. Second, whether he could pick it up and swing it around is not the issue. The issue is that Eragon picks up a sword he has never been trained with and (as far as we know) has never even handled before in his life and it doesn't hamper his fighting ability at all. This is quite impossible. He wouldn't know how to properly block, parry, or attack with it because he's never been trained with single-edge curved swords, and he wouldn't be used to the weight, balance, length, and width of this totally different sword which would be very disorienting. It's like the difference a car and a motorcycle. Sure the basic premise of both is "hit gas, go forward, turn left and right" but if you tried to jump from a car to a motorcycle when you're only trained to drive a car, you'd have a problem. In fact this isn't even the first time this has happened. In the first book Eragon goes from fighting unarmored with a longsword alone to fighting with a sword and shield while wearing armor. And again, he doesn't have to take any extra training nor does he experience any difficulty adapting. It actually would have been interesting to see Eragon try to fight with a different type of sword and do badly because he doesn't know how to use it properly. It would have humanized him a bit by showing he is not the invincible God On Earth that Paolini portrays him as, and it could have served as a catalyst for character development when he realizes how narrow his experience with swordplay really is.
 * Wait, wait: Since when have the differences between a longsword and a Falchion amounted to the differences between a car and a motorcycle? Motorcycles require an ENTIRELY different style of driving, including leaning into your turns more than actually turning the handlebars. A falchion, specifically an English falchion which(judging by the descriptions in the books and the setting) is probably the falchion that Eragon picked up, would really only require a slight tweaking of your fighting style in order to be effective with it: Use less thrusts or lunges and more slices or slashes to make efficient use of the single edge. That's really all there is to it, and this is coming from a troper at least seven years experienced in the use of various arms.
 * Um, since always? Again, two completely different swords here. One is a double-edged straight sword, the other a single-edge curved sword. Longsword training is vastly different from the training Eragon would have received had he started with a falchion or any other single-edge curved sword. They have a different weight, different length, different balance, and have to be handled in completely different ways. It's not a simple "tweaking" it's a completely different fighting style. Even if you did try to "tweak" your fighting style you'd be fighting your own instincts and muscle memory every step of the way. Which means it's exactly like going from driving a car to driving a motorcycle. Could you do it? Sure. Probably. But you wouldn't be an instant expert at it, which is the whole point of contention. Eragon picks up a sword he has never handled before and requires techniques vastly different than what he's trained with, and he doesn't experience even one hint of difficulty with it. I'm not saying he should have lost every fight he used it in, I'm just saying it would've been nice to see him struggle with it and act a bit clumsy with a sword he has never trained with and has no idea how to use properly.
 * An English Falchion(which is what matches the description in the book as well as what would fit with the setting) is NOT a curved sword. It's simply a longsword with a single edge. Seriously. Look at it and name more than two differences between that sword and a longsword. It's a bit broader at the head, which is easily compensated for by Eragon's enhanced strengths, and it has a single edge. That's all!
 * Not only that, but the smith actually did know what Eragon was used to fighting with. he specifically didn't give Eragon another longsword because Eragon was used to blocking with hte edge (which would render a normal longsword useless), whereas a falchion would allow him to block with the blunt side with only a slight tweak to his technique -- which the smith did in fact warn him was necessary.


 * What really bugs me is that when Eragon enter's Arya's mind when she is drugged, she says: "Apart from MY PEOPLE, the only others that possess the cure are the Varden and Galbatorix." Or something like that. Point is, why does he not go into that great big forest, just a quarter of the distance to the Beors but to the North, where he was going to go, and just scream until an elf heard him? Or is Paolini saying the Elves do not know when somebody enters their sacred Forest Home?
 * By the Time he decides to try entering her mind, he is already at the south end of the desert, way too far from the Forest.
 * Eragon doesn't want to meet the elves at this point anyway, he wants to join the Varden and fight Galbatorix. If his options to get the cure are between finding elves and finding the Varden, it makes sense to go find the Varden and kill two birds with one stone.


 * The "zombie" soldiers. They do not have the ability to feel pain, so they turn into cackling suicidals. Er, what?
 * Galby likely either picked soldiers people who were already somewhat crazy, or deliberately broke their minds to make them so. Why? because a soldier who suddenly had all his sense of pain removed would still be naturally afraid of death and wounding, so they could still freakout after being disemboweled and stop fighting to try pull their organs back into themselves.
 * The effect seems to replicate the "high" of Crack Cocain to an even greater degree. Insanity is just a side effect.
 * More odd about that scene is that Paolini seems to equate "not feeling pain" with resilience. For instance, one of the soldiers is turned into a pincushion by arrows, but Orrin still has to come and cut his head off. In reality, the massive internal and external trauma caused by being shot multiple times with arrows would kill a person very quickly, pain or no pain. Similarly, not feeling pain will not make it possible to move a limb with its tendons severed, or with broken bones. Of course, Galby could have given them a resilience spell as well, but one is not mentioned. You Fail Biology Forever seems apt.
 * He'd die within a few hours, yes, but you SERIOUSLY underestimate the human body's short term resilience. There are documented cases of people losing limbs in accidents and only noticing when they actually see it missing, so You Fail Biology Forever. On a more practical note, they are seen being completely incapacitated in various ways due to massive injury, but not quite dead (for example, the first one directly encountered in the book - he's not dead yet, but on the way, and largely incapacitated from multiple injuries). Also, placing wards on a small group of elites makes sense, especially when they lack pain.
 * That isn't how it is described. King Orrin: "When you see an enemy coming at you with bone sticking out of his calf, a javelin through his belly and half his face sheared away, and he laughs at you, it's a rare man who can stand his ground" Having a bone sticking out your leg would immobilize you. Even if you couldn't feel pain, the leg wouldn't take your weight and you'd collapse. The man Orrin beheads takes 3 volleys of arrows. This would cut major arteries in multiple places, it isn't that unlikely to say that some might just have hit the man's heart, lungs, head or neck. An arrow to the heart would kill in minutes. An arrow clean through the brain would kill instantly. Lung damage would result in suffocation, which would be very rapid if the man had three volleys' worth of arrows through his lungs, leading to crippling brain damage from lack of oxygen and death in minutes. It isn't losing limbs and walking through gut wounds I don't get, it is the way they survive wounds that would kill in a very short time.
 * 'Short time'; not 'instantly'. I've never come across an Instant Death Arrow believer in fantasy before. Yes, his leg being wrecked means he couldn't run at them and didn't, and when he takes multiple arrows to the neck/chest, yes, he's going to die, even in minutes, but that's irrelevant in he timeframe for that scene.
 * An arrow to the neck would cause a traumatic aortic rupture, which causes death immediately afterwards 75% of the time. When O.J Simpson's ex was murdered by a stab wound to the neck, it took her 1-2 minutes to die (which was a long time, given the circumstances). That's the timeframe just for the neck. Couple that to the (very very) probably rupture of other arteries and major veins caused by the arrow volleys, and you're looking at a timeframe of tens of seconds. For massive heart trauma (i.e, a foreign object like an arrow going completely through the heart) the timeframe is seconds. Also, an arrow through the neck might well damage the central nervous system too. Then there is ischemia damage. My point is, even if the wounds wouldn't kill instantly, they would incapacitate, regardless of pain, instantly, and to such a degree there would be no way for the man to fight (or even move). Don't think me some hater trying to find any reason to detest the books - I'm not, but this scene just made me do a double take.


 * What bothers me is that people automatically write Arya off as the new Rider. I personally am quite positive it's Nasuada. It's 'logically inevitable,' foreshadowed, and the majority of the books aside from Eragon is centered around Nasuada.
 * Same here, although I think it's so obvious it's Roran it hurts. I really hope it turns out to be Katrina, just because the foreshadowing more obvious than a fist in the face (to me. I have a weird talent for guessing plot points with very little evidence... and here there was more than enough of that. Hope I haven't offended anyone without my amazing fist-spotting skillage.)
 * Sorry, what? I see no indication it would be any of them. Roran gets focus as being a determined, Badass Normal Foil to Eragon's Designated Hero Super Loser Chosen One. Nasuada's getting the focus because she's the leader of La Résistance, and has actually been characterized as wanting to reign in the power of the Dragon Riders.
 * Too bad Roran's shown no ability to use magic whatsoever and it's explicitly stated that Dragon Riders can show signs of talent in magic even before they're bonded with their dragon. Arya, meanwhile, is a talented magic user, able to hold her own as a magician quite well. Furthermore, the last unhatched egg is of a green dragon, and Arya's magic has always been green in color. Nine times out of ten, the Rider's magic and the dragon's color are identical already, or the Rider's magic color with change to match the dragon.
 * Uh, no. Nowhere is it "explicitly stated that Dragon Riders can show signs of talent in magic even before they're bonded with their dragon." Riders do not necessarily have magic before they bond. Eragon did not. Neither did Brom (according to Oromis's description) or Murtagh.
 * Maybe not explicitly stated, but it's implied that a dragon rider has signs of the talent before he gains his dragon.
 * Where?
 * This is ridiculous. Not only is it not explicitly stated, nor implied, Brom states the exact opposite in Eragon -- namely that a rider's magical powers come from his bond with his dragon (going so far as to correct the common misconception that Galby's powers are derived from his being a sorcerer or wizard -- Galbatorix is magical simply because he is a Rider). -Aleksei
 * You're thinking about the film, where the only wizards in the whole thing are either Shades or Riders. In the books, anyone with sufficient talent in magic can become a proficient spellcaster, like Trianna or Angela. Riders are merely the most powerful of all spellcasters. But there are implications in the beginning chapters of Eragon that Eragon has at least some innate talent in magic, like his lack of superstitious fear of the Spine, or how he felt Saphira's egg being transported before it appeared while he was hunting, but couldn't quite pin down what he was feeling.
 * Adaptation Decay. The film was FULL of mistakes, including omitted main characters. Also, Riders are not 'the most powerful' - they would seem to vary much like any others, although being stronger than humans, yes, but that's in part thanks to greater knowledge and the presence of their dragon.
 * It's implied that over time (5ish years maybe), a human Rider develops an elf's strength. This would have taken too long to happen naturally to Eragon, so the Aghaeti Blohdren sped things up. For example, Brom was amazingly strong for a 100+ year old, even though the loss of his dragon cost him his immortality and presumably most of his strength ( also, Brom had not had his dragon for very long.)
 * It's implied that over time (5ish years maybe), a human Rider develops an elf's strength. This would have taken too long to happen naturally to Eragon, so the Aghaeti Blohdren sped things up. For example, Brom was amazingly strong for a 100+ year old, even though the loss of his dragon cost him his immortality and presumably most of his strength ( also, Brom had not had his dragon for very long.)


 * Why is  treated like such a terrible villain? He is being magically coerced into serving Galbatorix, and the first time he fights Eragon,   I honestly don't understand why Eragon hates him so much after that, when he should be pitying him.
 * Murtagh is on the villains side. Only evil people are on the villains side. Otherwise, killing people who are on the villains side would be wrong. Therefor, Murtagh is evil, and so it's okay for Eragon to kill him. All those things that indicate Murtagh isn't evil? They will be retconned revealed to be lies.
 * ...Really? If you'd read anything of Brisingr, there are a few moments where Eragon DOES comment on the pity he feels for Murtagh, who was a good friend and ally before being forced into servitude. Eragon ALSO knows that while he's capable of mercy, hesitating against an opponent who is going to kill you, compelled to do so or not, is grounds for dooming the last resistance to Galbatorix's rule.
 * Yea, hes not treated that bad, Eragon even wants to help him escape, and tells him that its possible to change his name to get away. if they were to treat him as a villan like durza, he would have just cursed him, ect.


 * Regarding the problem of Galbatorix. Isn't it kind of easy to kill him? It has been established that the only reason you don't use one of those instant death spells on other magic users is because they can kill you too. Isn't the sacrifice of a single relatively weak magician worth killing the Big bad? Surely somebody would volunteer for the job.
 * Not if they have wards... you know, the reason any random moderately-skilled spellcaster doesn't wipe out an entire opposing army in 2 seconds flat.
 * It has twice been stated (by Oromis and by Memory-Brom) that Galbatorix has spent the last 100 years surrounding himself with protection against every conceivable magic attack. Brom says that Eragon's best chance is to remember that Galbatorix is basically insane, and that insane people have gaps in their logic that a smart person can exploit (in this case, by coming up with an attack that Galbatorix never even considered). Also, in the fight against the Ra'Zac, Eragon immediately opens up the fight with seven of his instant-death spells, but they don't work because Galbatorix has warded them against those spells.
 * Not to mention, in order to pull off the plan you just outlined (assuming you could, since Galby is supposed to be quite powerful) you'd have to have a magician who was willing to make that sacrifice. And aside from dramatic license or extreme religious fervor, people like that don't come along every day.
 * I was never really a fan of the series, but I was completely turned off it by the Eldunari. They just dropped in at the end of eldest, with very little foreshadowing. As far as I remember, the books had never been overtly concerned with souls and where magic really stems from, and now those have dropped in so damn abruptly, which are apparently so incredibly powerful that words struggle to describe them... And I don't like the implications of them either. When a dragon goes soul-in-a-jar, they are barred from the afterlife, or something, by having their souls trapped in glowing orbs of gold. And according to the books, that's a good thing and lots of dragons did it. Sorry, but what. Why on earth would any dragon want to do that? Sure they might stay back to console their rider and stuff, but that wouldn't last very long, because the rider would die, and then they'd be alone. That, I think, would be hell for a dragon, all of whom seem to be very concerned with bonds. They feel strong connections to their own kind, their mates, their riders... Going Soul Jar would probably be hell for them, especially since they know that their riders and the wild dragons have all gone to the afterlife. Seems to me that the interpretation of Saphira being just an assessory/weapon/object is true,and that's awful.
 * There was plenty of foreshadowing, you just need to be moderately intelligent to notice it.
 * And on the subject of foreshadowing, might I add that it would be so easy to add it in at some point. Especially where Galbatorix was concerned. He probably wouldn't have been driven half as mad had his dragon left it's soul behind, or he may have got his first spurt of power from his dead pals soul, and it could have been hinted at subtly, no problem. It wasn't. That just cements my view that the eldunari are a cheap plot gimmick designed to make Galbatorix seem more corrupt and give Eragon a chance in hell of winning. Not happy about this. Not at all.
 * Okay, Time out. You guys are applying human concepts and thinking to DRAGONS, whom are frequently shown to be far wiser than any human and wiser than most elves, as well. Dragons think on an entirely different level than human beings sans a few exceptions, usually dealing with their Riders. Plus, the dragons within the Eldunari are NOT representative of the majority of dragons. The Eldunari represent a specific set of dragons who wanted to remain alive so that they could essentially navel gaze for all eternity.
 * You'll excuse me if I don't find "wisdom" written by a 23 year old terribly compelling. Not to mention if dragons are so amazingly wise by nature, why does she basically cling to Eragon like a puppy? If she likes Glaedr, why does she act like a cat in heat? If she had a much simpler and more animalistic mind (like Tiamat from Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher) this kind of behavior wouldn't be so strange. But for a being supposedly wiser than almost any being in Alegaesia, stuff like this sticks out like a sore thumb. If she's wiser than Eragon, why doesn't their relationship develop like a relationship between two people would instead of a relationship between a boy and his dog? If dragons are so wise, why can't Saphira just tell Glaedr she wants to mate with him? Even try to court him? That actually sounds pretty entertaining, dragons courting each other and sending each other telepathic love notes and stuff.
 * Because of a bond that mere humans can not understand... and because she's the last female of her ENTIRE race (at least in Alagaesia). If you want a series with 'animal' rather than sentient dragons, GO AND READ ONE. Stop being a Mad Editor.
 * Saphira may be a wise dragon, but she's still, y'know, only a couple of years old. Sure, she possesses an intellect and knowledge far beyond that of a human or most elves, but she still falls prey to basic animal instincts, much as we all do. I mean, after all, Einstein was one of the smartest men to ever live, and he was something of a Kavorka Man-style Casanova...
 * Sorry but I still think that's a contradiction in terms. Saphira can't be simultaneously young and naive and yet incredibly intelligent, knowledgeable, and wise. As for "basic animal instincts" I believe it was pointed out at least twice in the first book that dragons aren't simply wild beasts but are thinking sentient beings. But then she goes and starts acting like a horny cat at the first sight of Glaedr. To be honest, the kind of social awkwardness you describe would have been more realistic. I would have liked to see Saphira act more like a lovestruck teenage girl rather than a cat in heat. It would make Saphira seem more like the intelligent being she is supposed to be rather than a mere talking animal.
 * Saphira is a dragon, but a young one. Older dragons are wise. Just because Saphira is a dragon and dragons are wise does NOT imply automatically that Saphira is wise.
 * She is still quite wise for her age.
 * "But then she goes and starts acting like a horny cat at the first sight of Glaedr." And? If you believed that you were the absolute last of your species, sans another unhatched egg, and you finally found a male(or female) of your species that you could repopulate with(I'm assuming dragons are capable of inbreeding across generations, like most wild animals. Otherwise, the dragons would be doomed even with the unhatched egg and Thorn), you wouldn't possibly be excited over the prospect that you're NOT apart of a doomed species? Also, once again, even intelligent, sentient beings have their needs and their baser instincts. Dragons may be highly intelligent, but they're still animals and thus they're still capable of having basic needs that need to be fulfilled.
 * There is nothing about them being barred from an afterlife. I think at one point the book says there is no afterlife, and that trying to go there kills you. (Hence you're never supposed to bring anyone back from the dead. I can't imagine anyone would actually want to live as eldunari spending enternity contemplating philosophy or something.
 * thats mentioned in the books, some of them would even go with other riders and dragons because they want adventure, and many dragons don't even become eldunari at all, other wise thered be tons of them every where.


 * What bugs me is Roran's whipping. From the description in the book, it sounds like they are using a bull whip. That kind of whip can rip flesh from bone and cause major internal trauma. Fifty lashes from that should have killed him outright. Think about it, those whips can break the sound barrier. Totally aside from the fact that such a level of punishment would turn Roran’s back into hamburger and cause massive blood loss, that amount of force can rupture organs, ruin nerves, and heaven only knows what it would do to his spine.
 * It demonstrates Roran is a Badass Normal who's Made of Iron and Heroic Resolve. Nothing that doesn't show up on even worse injuries in other books
 * Perhaps, but none of that changes the point, and I would call out those books on it too. An arguement could be made for Eragon surviveing because he has magic and a dragon, but Roran is human and there is a limit to what the human body can take.
 * A simple case of Did Not Do the Research on Paolini's part. But I think we can excuse him for that though since a lot of authors put characters through ordeals that they should not be physically capable of surviving. Batman for example canonically has to be stitched back together and have broken bones set by Alfred almost every night he goes out on patrol (one comic I read implied that Alfred once had to retrieve some bone chips from Bruce's spleen). That level of injury should have left Bruce Wayne a cripple, yet he's been fighting crime non-stop for 5-10 years depending on how you calculate Comic Book Time.
 * A lot depends on the type of whip used and the individual flogged - an individual with a soft, fatty back could be crippled by even twenty lashes from a cat-o-nine-tails. Someone with a tough back like Roran could probably manage fifty (some British soldiers in the Regency era survived two thousand tickles, although this was usually done in batches).


 * Why didn't Brom have pointy ears if he had a dragon for much of his life?
 * Because he didn't?
 * For most Riders who didn't have the Deus Ex Machina that Eragon did, the whole "elf look" thing happened really gradually--the Riders were basically immortal, so they had plenty of time to change--and we don't really know how long Brom's dragon lived, so it may have been only a short time. Brom's ears may have been pointier than normal, but not enough that it's remarked upon.
 * IIRC, Saphira was quite young before she was slain by Morzan.
 * In Eragon, Eragon notices slight elvish changes after less than a year. Judging by what is said, Brom probably had Saphira I for at least a few years, so I'm not really convinced. Or maybe his hair just grew over his ears.
 * Well, Brom's hair WAS long. Plus, those slight changes Eragon had were just that: slight. They weren't really noticed until he examined himself intently in a mirror. Plus, they only started AFTER Brom had died.
 * Remember that he could use magic? It's not a stretch to think that he changed his ears so he wouldn't raise suspicion.
 * Maybe his ears went back to normal after his dragon died?
 * Anyone with magic can change there apperance. arya even makes herself look human when her and eragon are in the empire. It makes sense that Brom, who knows hes gonna be hiding in plain sight in a little rural village, would think "hmm, better blend it" and do that.

◦Im not sure, but there much stronger and faster then humans, live forever, and are way in touch with nature, and atheists. so they see humans as weaker, short lived, destructive, and superstitious(despite evidence to the contray on religion if nothing else) so partially its culture shock.
 * Why do the elves have no respect for humanity-- while the elves were using their innate magical ability to avoid any sort of actual work, humanity was building massive cities, seige engines, crossbows, armor, you name it. And worse yet, the elves still call the technologically superior humans primitive.
 * Being technologically advanced merely means you're not technologically primitive, but has no bearing on whether you are socially, morally, economically, or culturally primitive.
 * And plus, they're Elves. Brom and Orik are both rather scathing of their arrogance toward the other races.
 * ^^While that's true, the elves also have the benefit of an immortal lifespan and an innate talent for magic (Brom says they instinctively know their own True Names), giving them a much deeper outlook on life than any non-rider human could possibly achieve. The elves know this, and yet they still criticize humanity for not being like them, as if the humans were being lazy and selfish on purpose.
 * Well, remember: It was a human rider that's landed them in their current position. The Elves suffered massive casualties when they tried to overthrow Galbatorix without the backup of the Riders, and they were forced to take refuge in their forest that was truly never secure against Galbatorix because if he REALLY wanted to finish them off, then he would without a second thought. So maybe it's merely resentment toward a human rider dealing a blow to their pride or the fact that their allowing of the Humans into the Riders basically came back to bite them in the ass.
 * True, but that kinda plays into my point. If the elves were really as socially, intellectually, and culturally superior to humans as they claim then I would expect them to understand a concept as basic as NOT judging an entire race by the actions of a small minority. I would expect them to be wise enough NOT to succumb to feelings as petty as resentment and pride. And I would expect them to NOT buy into such an illogical and frankly racist argument as "One human Rider was responsible for destroying the Dragon Riders in the past, therefore any and all future human Riders are immediately suspect". To be honest, I could almost excuse (or at least understand) this anti-human attitude if the elves were unclear on what exactly caused Galbatorix to betray the Riders. Ignorance is often a real-life cause behind racism after all. But in fact the exact opposite is true. Far from not knowing the truth behind Galbatorix's betrayal, the elves are one of the few people in Alegaesia who know exactly how it all went down. Essentially, Galbatorix went mad when his first dragon died. (Since this is undoubtedly something that happened to many other Riders before Galby the elves can't claim some inherent weakness in the human race was responsible for that.) Not that it justifies all the treason and murder Galby gets up to, but it shows that he wasn't totally responsible for his actions AND it shows that his behavior can't be projected onto the whole human race. The elves know all of this. Hell, they have the actual physical records detailing everything that happened. Not to mention a still-living elven Rider who witnessed it all first-hand. So why the persistent anti-human racism? Are the elves just too lazy to read their own libraries or ask Oromis what really happened?
 * Perhaps they did but are still bitter. Oromis, Islanzadi, and many of the older elves, like Rhunon, don't harbor any ill will toward Eragon or the humans. It's only the very young elves, like that one Arrogant Kung Fu Guy(I cannot, for the life of me, remember his name) that kicks Eragon's ass a few times, that display outright hostility toward the fact that the fate of their race all rides on a human. And who can blame them? They're being brought up in secrecy and forced to cower in their forest as a result of the actions of a human, after all. While that IS rather irrational and bigoted of them, like you said, that's how racism is bred between races. Also remember that not just Galbatorix destroyed the Riders; he was still assisted by thirteen OTHER traitors(the Foresworn. I'm pretty sure they were human, but I don't think there's any Word of God regarding the subject) that hunted the Riders and Dragons to near-extinction. And considering how many of the elves wound up losing loved ones to Galby and the Foresworn, and remember that Galbatorix has been ruling for the past few centuries so any elven children are being brought up with the knowledge that a human rider went insane, murdered the Riders, and forced the elves into their current situation.
 * There was a Word of God about the Forsworn. According to CP, at least one of them, Kialandi, was an elf. So the Forsworn weren't all human.
 * But their leader and only surviving member is a human.
 * But that's just it. It was A human Rider that went nuts, rounded up a posse, and overthrew the Dragon Riders (which probably doesn't speak well of the Riders as an organization if they can be toppled by such a small group, but whatever). Are we to believe that Galby and the Forsworn were the only human Riders who ever existed? Because if not, then that's a Hell of a leap for the elves to decide that because a small minority of human riders betrayed them that all humans are bad. The "young elves are the only racists" argument doesn't really fly with me. In order for them to acquire those racist beliefs they would either have to have developed them through negative personal experiences with humans (which can't be the case since it's stated that the elves don't interact with humans anymore except the Varden) or they'd have to be swallowing anti-human propaganda from older elves. And since as you pointed out none of the older elves we see seem especially hostile to humans, there doesn't seem to be anything that would cause the younger ones to develop this anti-human attitude. Besides, even the youngest elves are a hundred or more years old. It's a bit implausible to imagine them holding onto such racist views after such a long time. And don't say "they live so long so they obviously don't think the same way humans do". If that were true then they should act more like Vorlons, but we always see them communicating at the human/dwarven level.
 * I think you're being over-generous towards both the Elves and racists. Racism doesn't have to be a result of overwhelming negative experience or propaganda. Racism can also serve as a kind of self-empowerment. Nationalism is a prime example, where one group demonises another often based on little more than ridiculously overblown stereotypes and even outright lies (note how nationalists fighting for their lives in brutal civil wars, and nationalists in stable, prosperous democracies, often use the same rhetoric, despite one situation being real and the other essentially fictional. This demonstrates the radical disconnect with reality that racism can create). Elves tend to think they're better than Dwarves and Urgals, why is it a surprise when they think they're better than humans too? It probably makes them feel better about growing up in a forest in the middle of nowhere after the glory days are over, where a single human man is so powerful they apparently can't touch him.
 * I'm not denying any of that (though I don't see much of a difference between nationalism as you describe it and ignorance/propaganda based racism, but that's neither here nor there). My problem is Paolini's elves are supposed to be the wisest and most culturally, socially, and intellectually advanced race in Alegaesia. And yet they're consumed with irrational anti-human racism (and it seems to be specifically anti-human racism; we never see them dumping on the dwarves for being inferior, which is odd). I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem with this if someone at some point decided to call the elves out on their racism and give them the dressing down they deserve, but it's been three books already and it hasn't happened yet.
 * And the elves ARE called out on their arrogance, several times, by Brom(who tells Eragon that they may be allies, but trusting them implicitly is folly) and Orik(a dwarf whose dealt with Elves often). And not to mention the fact that, once again, it's the YOUNGEST of the Elves who harbor hatred against the humans(who were the ones who put them into their position), while the OLDEST ones, like Rhunon, Oromis, and Islanzadi, hold no ill will toward Eragon.
 * It's not human-specific. Everyone hates the Urgals. The Elves sneer at the Dwarves for their religion. It's also worth noting that Humans and Elves (sans the Varden) are virtually at war, whereas Elves and Dwarves are not. And for the record, I made the point about (a type of) nationalism because you seem to think the young Elves were not exposed to overwhelming negative experience or propaganda, therefore they would not be racist towards humans. I was trying to point out that racism can be a choice. Sudanese might describe ethnic tensions in Sudan as brutal civil war, because it actually is (or was until recently). A New Zealander might describe current ethnic tensions in New Zealand as brutal civil war, but the statement is obviously false. Such NZ folk do not claim they're in a civil war purely due to propaganda or ignorance, because any human being who is not mentally ill or disabled knows the statement is false. It is a choice, for whatever reason, to dramatise the conflict in excess. Young Elves may choose to be racist because when you've been stuck in a forest your whole life because of a group of expansionist humans, you might let your emotions run away with you and demonise humans not because of propaganda, but because at the moment they're a pain in the arse. Young Elves certainly have 'reasons' to be racist towards humans (in causal rather than moral terms).
 * While the elves may be advanced, that does not mean they are perfect. It's said in either the first or second book (can't recall which, it's been a while) that the elves had hoped Saphira would hatch for an elf, because they feared a human rider may end up becoming another Galby. And then later in the series it's said that elves may be smart and wise but that doesn't mean they're always right. Sure it doesn't really excuse the attitude, but it does establish that even elves have their flaws.


 * Minor nitpick here. How exactly are the six-to nine-foot tall warlike ox/goatmen who can apperantly outrun nearly every other sentient being in the verse be so easy to dispatch? We hear time and again about their miraculous stature, strenght and stamina, yet when it comes to down to the battles, we never see it in action! They're just cut down like every other Mook. Worf Had the Flu, and apperantly the 'flu' is some sort of muscular dystrophy.
 * I'm guessing you're referring to the Kull. The only ones who are explicitly taking them down without a sweat are guys like Eragon, Arya, and Brom, all three of which are magic users. Odds are, the average human soldier has to gain up in groups on them...Kull aren't exactly common.
 * Also, humans in numbers possess the advantage of skill and speed. It's a bit like a small and relatively weak man who is an excellent martial artist fighting a larger but untrained man; curbstomp.
 * Also keep in mind that the urgals are outcasts in Alagaesia who effectively live in one of the wildeest and least appealing places there is to live, the Spine. They would not be nearly as well funded or supplied as a human, dwarven, or elven army. Furthermore, the Kull ARE very dangerous and powerful--Murtagh said it would take five men to kill one Kull--but the majority of urgals are not Kull, and the majority of Kull never leave their caves except for war.


 * Could someone please explain to me where the idea of the Dragon Riders being a military junta comes from? I heard this mentioned by the hatedom a lot. I obviously get the 'military' party, but how are they a junta?
 * Because the Riders were an unelected military group who ruled under their own authority without the approval of the common people.
 * ^Yes. They are pretty much the literal definition of a military dictatorship. Brom claims they were at least a benevolent dictatorship, but we really only have his and the elves' word to substantiate that.
 * From what I pick up, they were pretty much like the U.N. with force behind it, and less input from countries. No one elects them, but they managed to have good ideals, and unlike the U.N., managed to do most of them(e.g., eliminating slavery).
 * Wait, how do you know they didn't have the approval of the common people? Anyway, a junta is generally defined as a military dictatorship imposed after a swift revolution or coup d'etat. As far as I'm aware, there is nothing to suggest this happened at all. If you mean military dictatorship, then don't use the word junta, they aren't the same thing.
 * Basically, the Riders were a bit like the elite army - in fact, they are rather like the Jedi - elite peacekeepers under the government's control. However, do not meddle in the affairs of Hate Dumb, for you use logic and must therefore die.


 * Okay, Galbatorix hunted down and killed all the Dragon Riders. Fair enough. But what about all the wild dragons that were supposed to be hanging around? You know, the ones who would willingly give up about 1-2 eggs per year to make more Riders? I find it highly implausible that the few eggs in Galby's possession are the last dragon eggs in existence.
 * Galbatorix probably killed most of them. He couldn't risk that elves or people like Varden would try to rebulid dragonriders with help of wild dragons. These, who survived moved away fo their own safety.
 * it is said he hunted down the wild ones too. if theyre are any surving eggs, theyre way lost and no one could find them, and any surviving dragons are damn good at hiding, and deffinatally arnt going to show themselves unless they know there safe
 * I find it hard to believe that he wiped out all the wild dragons, considering dragons are intelligent and could have packed up and flown away instead of waiting to be exterminated. And if the last of the wild dragons did run away to escape Galby, why all the angst about dragons being wiped out?
 * Well, believe it. Oromis and Brom, the only other Riders left over from the Old Order, said so. Also, there's the fact that no one had seen the dragons in the centuries that Galbatorix ruled the Empire, as well as the fact that the wild dragons often kept their eggs AND Eldunari safe with the Riders in Vroengard(the Riders' stronghold), which were then either destroyed(most of the eggs) or seized(in the case of the Eldunari) by Galbatorix and the Forsworn when they took the stronghold. It's also implied that many of the wild dragons died when they wrought the spell that eradicated the Forsworns' dragons' identities from existence(described in Brisingr), which Oromis said took an INSANE amount of power to do.
 * "These two guys said so" is not enough evidence for me. And I find it hard to imagine the dragons and the Dragon Riders would be so stupid as to keep all their dragon eggs in one place. We're talking about a species of wild animal who probably nested in multiple places all over the continent if not the world, and the only place they kept their unhatched eggs was in one Rider stronghold? Moreover, it's explicitly stated in the first book that the dragons only gave the Riders 1-2 eggs per year, implying that they laid many more eggs that the Riders never got their hands on. I don't remember seeing it said in Brisingr that many/most of the wild dragons died erasing the True Names of the Forsworns' dragons, but even if they did I have a hard time believing that all the wild dragons died this way. If they did, then I'd say they deserved to be wiped out. If they were stupid enough to inflict this "punishment" on the dragons of the Forsworn despite the fact that the Forsworn forced their dragons to do their bidding, then I'd say they deserved to be wiped out and Galbatorix should be congratulated for being indirectly responsible for removing such an idiotic species from the world.
 * they were 14 dragons that were closely bonded to there riders, so they would have agreed with them. and they may well be surviving dragons, but if most of you species gets wiped out by this guy, there not gonna be where anyone could easily find them, chances are fleeing south or west off the map, to scared to return.
 * Uh, it's EXPLICITLY STATED that the Forsworn AND their dragons joined Galbatorix willingly. It's literally laid-out in the exact same chapter Oromis explains what the wild dragons did to the Forsworn's dragons who joined Galbatorix in hunting both the Riders AND the wild dragons to extinction. Only Shruikan, Galbatorix's dragon, was forced into servitude and thus he was spared the Wild Dragons' wrath. It's in the bloody book! Also, those "two guys" whose word you're discounting are the two guys who were there and witnessed the Riders' downfall and the dragons' extinction. Unless, of course, firsthand accounts don't matter anymore...
 * In literature, it's not a first-hand account unless it's witnessed by the main character. If the main character and thus the audience doesn't personally see it happen, it's second-hand information. The audience isn't going to trust that second-hand information about the main villain unless they actually see the villain doing something that makes us believe he's capable. When we're told about the villainous things that Darth Vader did off-screen we believe them because we saw him do other villainous things on-screen. So no, "first-hand accounts" by secondary characters don't matter. And considering we've seen Eragon call Murtagh evil even though he's a name-slave of Galbatorix I think it's fair to question anything the characters say about "betrayal". Besides, the "taking away their true names" makes no sense in the context of the magic system of Paolini's books. If everything has a True Name then erasing someone's True Name should either erase them from existence or change their True Name to something reflects what's been done to them. The way it's described in the text makes it seem like what actually happened was the True Names of the Forsworn's dragons can't be spoken, read, or remembered by someone who knew them before. But all that means is that the True Names of the Forsworn's dragons are just unknown. Eragon doesn't know his own True Name, and Arya speculated that Galbatorix has created a spell that kills anyone who speaks his True Name. So why haven't they been rendered mindless like the Forsworn's dragons?
 * And Eragon has PLENTY of firsthand knowledge of Galbatorix's evil: Remember that town that was razed for not paying taxes? And no, the Forsworn's dragons didn't just have their True Names erased from existence, their NAMES were erased from existence. In other words, their identities were completely and utterly erased for their betrayal. Once again, the Forsworn, including Morzan, joined Galbatorix willingly and aided in the massacre of the entire Rider order, including the children and newborn dragons. Also, once again, Oromis and Brom witnessed Galbatorix's evil firsthand. Hell, Oromis, who was once one of the more powerful Old Riders, had his ability to do magic almost completely purged from him BY THE FORSWORN! Y'know, those guys who joined Galbatorix and were undoubtedly acting under his orders?
 * Again, the town was razed for harboring rebels, not for refusing to pay taxes. If it was just the Forsworn's dragons' names that were erased from existence why on earth would that have the slightest effect on their minds? If I forced you to burn your birth certificate and all your personal identity documents would that wipe your mind? Of course not. So it had to be their True Names that were erased. And if so, why didn't they just get new True Names? If True Names can change then they should have just gotten new ones to reflect what had been done to them. So what if Galby and the other Forsworn brought down the Riders? We have no evidence the Riders were any better at keeping the peace than Galby is now aside from the word of Brom and some other characters, none of whom are impartial. Why should we just blindly accept their word?
 * So once again you're saying that the razing of a town is a good thing because they were harboring rebels. Also, it wasn't just the NAMES that were erased from history, their ENTIRE IDENTITIES were. Oromis explains, in GREAT detail, how that happened and why it affected them so deeply.
 * This is just more Hatedumb back from the dead: do you even listen to yourself? "Why should we just blindly accept their word?" Why shouldn't we? This isn't real life, where someone tells you something and you withhold judgement until further evidence. Did you hear Gandalf talk about the evils of Mordor and think "Well that's just one man's opinion." Tell me, what "impartial" person informed you that Sauron was evil? It's not like you saw him doing anything bad, that was all his Ringwraiths (Ra'zac).Did you watch Star Wars and think "Maybe the emperor's actually a cool guy, who am I to judge? Just because some old hermit and a princess are against his Empire? Maybe that planet deserved blowing up: it's not like she's impartial if she's a rebel!" There's kind of a convention in fiction of believing the heroes of the story when they tell us something unless there's contradictory evidence or they establish that they're untrustworthy. Brom, and the others he fights with, from all we know of them, are good guys. There is absolutely no reason not to believe them other than to try to justify your dislike of the story or author: this double standard the Hatedumb has toward this series is something special.
 * As for how Galby killed the wild dragons/destroyed eggs, it would be laughably simple. The only reason every bog-standard spellcaster doesn't cast those instant-death, low-energy spells Oromis teaches Eragon and eradicate entire armies is that they have wards containing a certain amount of energy to stop those spells. One can only overcome them by a) finding a loophole or b) hitting the ward with more energy than it contains, destroying it. Since wild dragons don't have wards, all Galby has to do is reach into his Eldunari horde and say in the ancient language, "begin to kill, with the low-energy kill spells, all the wild dragons. Simple. Before you ask, it didn't kill Glaedr because a) he was not wild and b) is protected by Du Weldenvarden.
 * As far as everyone in the series knows, the only dragons left in Alagesia are Saphira, Thorn, the 3rd egg, Glaedr, and Galby's black dragon. But Alagesia is not the entire scope of the world. When Eragon, Saphira, and Glaedr get blown insanely high by a storm on the way to Vroenguard, they get a clue that Alagesia is just one country in a bigger planet. Alagesia, Du Weldenvarden, the Hadarac desert, and the dwarves' lands only make up the entirety of the known world. And in all the known world, the dragons have been nearly wiped out. At one point, Eragon even wonders if they might find living dragons if they traveled beyond Alagesia. It's kind of like how people in Europe had almost no clue the Americas existed before Columbas' famous voyages: people know rumors of a 'land beyond the sea' that the elves came from long ago, but they don't have any idea what lives there. I think it would be better to say that Galby wiped out all the dragons in the known world of Alagesia, but that doesn't mean dragons don't exist in unexplored parts of the world. Plus, there's also
 * This is a little off-topic, but I think it'll provide some contrast. For the purposes of this question, let's leave out the supernatural crimes. Is Galbatorix's empire more evil than the British Empire in its hey-day?
 * The whole colonial metaphor doesn't really apply in this context, but even when things were bad overseas in terms of the empire, it was still the most advanced and prosperous nation in the world. Deliberately leaving out the fantasy elements in a fantasy series including Eldritch Abominations running around eating people and doing his bidding, or his forcing people to swear undying loyalty in the Ancient Language is a bit like trying to defend a murderer by going 'ok, well, apart from killing people, what ELSE did he do?'.


 * I have to wonder why Glaedr did not want to breed with Saphire. Yeah, he may not love her, or visa versa, but the only other male dragon on the planet as far as we know, is Thorn, and he isn't really an option. Sure there is the last egg, but it has 50% chance of being female as well, and that doesn't help anything either. Sure, one could argue that the time wasn't right, but 1) they may not have another chance, and 2) the elves would be happy to look after the eggs.
 * It's entirely possible that he was just incapable of breeding. He was, after all, a very old dragon and he lacked a leg. It could just be that he didn't feel comfortable with it, either.
 * Seems unlikely. First, dragons are immortal so says the text, so age is irrelevent. And three legged dogs can work out how to breed, surely something as smart as a dragon can work out the machanics as well. And when the contiuation of your speices and possibly the fate of the world depends on you, there is a good case for setting personal feelings aside.
 * It wasn't JUST the leg I was talking about, my friend. Remember the fact that his Rider's mind was destroyed by the Forsworn, to the point where he couldn't cast anything more than basic magic. So maybe that had an adverse effect on Glaedr, as well, considering their Bond. Also, dragons aren't immortal. They're incredibly long-lived, but Brisingr does mention that dragons can and will die of old age(around the point we learn about the Eldunari).
 * You are assuming something that the text does not support. And Brom's dragon lessons in Eragon actually included the word "immortal." Poalini may be trying to retcon himself on this.
 * Except he isn't, and they do not die of old age, but are not immortal - various things can kill them, same as Riders and elves.
 * And what's wrong with Paolini retconning and improving his series?
 * Nothing when done well. The Eldunari, and everything around them, however, are not done well.
 * Actually, that lesson only said that Rider-Bonded Dragons were immortal, and even then only as long as their Riders were not killed. Unbonded Dragons are very long lived, to the point where compared to everyone else Pre-Treaty, they might as well be immortal, but can still die of natural causes.
 * This Troper disagrees with you as The Word of God states the Treaty actually MADE Elves immortal in the first place (sharing the Dragons' immortality), and only Raider-Bonded Humans as they joined in the party much later. However you might want to look at Immortality trope as the Dragons were not Type I immortal but rather Type II-VI probably not immune to some Dragons-only diseases. Therefore a Dragon could live indefinitely long time but not forever, making a some Dragons willing to survive as Eldunari "nearing the end of their lives" - be it fatally wounded, poisoned or ill. More on oryginal topic This Troper thinks it's plain stupid Glaedr refused breeding with Saphira - creating more eggs and possible Dragon Raiders and training them for say next 100 years in hiding would be much better idea than "Choosen One" fighting the Big Bad alone.
 * Not quite. Elves were shorter-lived and mortal before bonding with the dragons, but it wasn't an instant transformation. Eventually, the same will likely happen to humans, as it is even said that with the races linked to the dragons, humans have regressed somewhat since the Fall compared to their previous state (presumably, the elves were not as affected thanks to having been part of it for far longer). It wa known that Galabatorix was seeking something far more powerful then he at the time had, and indeed, he eventually managed to - with that, given enough preparation, he could have invaded and destroyed the elves and dwarves. Remember that Saphira's egg was in the possession of the Varden and elves for decades before hatching, and that was not for an elf or one of the Varden.
 * Eragon and Saphira were there for training. They were going to leave soon to take part in combat. The series never says anything about how long it takes dragon eggs to develop to the point they're ready to be laid. If she mated with Glaedr, there's a good chance that battle stress or injuries would hurt or kill the eggs before they could be laid. Or maybe she wouldn't be able to fight at all until she laid her eggs. Either way, it's possible that she couldn't afford to waste the time on eggs.


 * How much time has actually passed in this story? Saphira has to be over 6 months old when she meets Glaedr, since that is when Brom said the dragon reached maturity. On the other hand, Horst's wife has been visably pregnant since we met her, and that doesn't happen until the second trimester...
 * Saphira's well over a year old by the time she meets Glaedr. She was around six months old when Eragon turned 16, and he spends a good little while traveling through the Beors before he winds up setting off for Carvahall. Elain doesn't wind up pregnant until around the start of Roran's chapters in Eldest.
 * No way she over a year, she was born in the winter, and there is no indication winter has come around again. Even if it is warmer in the south, it is still going to get cold. Plus, for Ellan to be visably pregnant during Roran's story, she would have had to be pregnant when Eragon left town.
 * Eragon's on the road a good, long while before we wind up shifting to Roran's POV and see Elain's pregnant, seeing as he spent at least a few months on the road with Brom, around a month or so in Teirm, and at least another couple of months traveling to Dras'Leona hunting the Ra'zac, getting captured, and breaking out. The story only really starts going faster around the point Brom dies, in which Eragon and Murtagh basically race against time(though it STILL takes a good month or so) to get to the Varden to heal Arya. So there's PLENTY of time between Eragon leaving Carvahall and Roran coming back to Carvahall that Elain could have gotten pregnant.
 * Roran was still greiving over his father's death when we see him after Eargon leaves. He hasn't returned to work, begun rebuilding his house, planted his fields, or in any way shown to be getting on with his life. What you are suggesting is that he sat around for months, sponging off his neighbors, and basically having a Blue Screen of Death. And according to the text, Eragon and Murtagh got to the Varden in 5 days.
 * Roran basically didn't arrive in Carvahall until VERY RECENTLY when we join him, having just recently received the word of Garrow's death. It's only THEN that we find out about Elain being pregnant to begin with. It still took several months between Eragon leaving Carvahall and us joining Murtagh in Carvahall.
 * He was in the next town over, one Eragon and Brom passed through with int a day or two of leaving. How long could it possibly have taken to recieve the message and return home. Note, they probably sent word of the attack the day Garrow was brought into town, in hopes of him getting home in time to say his good byes.
 * Yes, but the chapters with Roran run concurrently with Eragon, and Roran's tale begins in the middle of Eldest. I do remember reading, though, that Roran had to wrap some things up in Daret(which is MUCH farther from Carvahall than you're giving credit) before he could return to Carvahall, as well.
 * This troper would like to point out that by the time Elain actually gives birth (start of Inheritance), the villagers actually chatter about how long her pregnancy's been, so we can safely assume that this means that she has been pregnant for more than nine months by this time, giving the story more time to take place in.


 * Why is Rhunon portrayed as old (with wrinkles, deep voice)? Aren't elves immortal, or are they likely to Age Without Youth after a certain moment?
 * Elves look as they wish to thanks to magic. Oromis is also old-looking, while Islanzadi, for example, isn't, despite being at least several hundred.
 * It's entirely possible that elves are simply incredibly long-lived. Rhunon's by far the oldest of the elves, having been around since the formation of the Riders, and Oromis is the last of the old Riders sans Galbatorix and Brom. Oromis was barely old-looking, though. He had more of a middle-aged appearance.


 * I know this is probably irrelevant, but the fact that Murtagh's scar extends from his right shoulder to his left hip bothers me. He said that he received the scar when he was only three. Now scars don't grow along with your body, so unless his build when he was three is exactly the same as he is now, his scar should be much smaller than that.
 * Don't scars stretch as your skin does? I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that a scar that's a long line across your back would grow as your body does, maybe even breaking into a "segmented" line that still reaches from shoulder to hip, but has uneven patches of good flesh between them.


 * What exactly did the Menoa tree take from Eragon? Apparently it involved a "twinge in his lower belly"; am I just dense or is the narration implying what I think it is and more importantly WHY would the tree do that?
 * It's left hanging. Sequel Hook? Some people have theorised it was causing the ending to happen, but Angela already predicted that.
 * I chalked it up to a Secret Test of Character, seeing if he'd REALLY go thru with a deal with a tree, no matter how absurd it is to even say it. Supported in that


 * One thing that bothered me in the last book was
 * That would need a better understanding of physics than even the elves/Riders have. When they did was impressive enough, not to mention the reference to vroengard clearly being irradiated without mentioning it by name
 * This whole scene is A Wizard Did It. Which, given the context, is totally fine, but applying 21st century nuclear physics to a fictional, ancient/mediaeval setting is silly.
 * If that doesn't do it for you, somehow convince yourself that the spell only converts the most minuscule bit of him imaginable into actual energy, since human bodies shouldn't actually support sustained nuclear reactions.
 * Considering that transforming a thimbleful of dirt into water nearly killed Eragon in the first book, I'd say rs all but explicitly stated that you only transform a little bit of yourself into energy when you cast the nuclear bomb spell.


 * How did Angela kill the soldiers beneath Dras-Leona? The "flicker of movement" makes it sound like she did a magical Flash Step, but then she starts talking about time, motion, heat, and energy. If she had only said time, I'd guess she just used Haste, but now I've got nothing.
 * That's kind of the point; she moved at a faster rate compared to others, perhaps slowing time for them.
 * Right, but how does heat come into the equation? I suppose she could have accelerated the molecules in her body to move more quickly. Since thermal energy is (I think) the kinetic energy of subatomic particles, she would technically be heating herself up, but could she survive doing that?
 * IIRC, she was talking about how physics work in general with that context (may be wrong here since I read the whole book on release day and haven't since been able to bring myself to read it again, Downer Ending and all)
 * I don't think that she slowed down time. Her physics jabbering linked time to motion, motion to heat, and heat to energy. Afterwards, she seemed weakened and said that she wouldn't be able to do it again today. Magic is Cast from Hit Points, specifically physical stamina and energy. Simply speaking, she compressed and expended a great deal of her energy in order to move much faster for a short period of time. She wasn't freezing time, it just looked that way because she was using temporary Super Speed that is much greater than what even elves and riders normally operate on.
 * Angela likely speed up the speed that the molecules in her body moved.


 * When  to remove Galbatorix's wards, why didn't Eragon just say one of the death-words there on the spot?
 * Plot. Eragon might have been injured and tired, but he could have drawn on the power of his Eldunari (as he did several minutes later, AFTER casting 'the greatest work of magic in history') to pierce through Galbatorix's remaining wards. I mean, his sword practically ignored the wards, so an Eldunari fueled death spell should have done the trick.
 * I assumed that whole thing was going on and thus he couldn't?


 * So...., would it have been enhanced?


 * Some pretty heavily spoilery stuff for the denouement of Inheritance ahead. Be ye warned.
 * It wasn't definite, just a 'for the foreseeable future' thing - Eragon wanted to avoid Alagaesia being caught up in a political mess if people sought to influence the dragons and new Riders for their own ends, as well as to avoid being nominated as a leader himself. I can't honestly remember if any eldunari did remain, but it would seem likely to me.
 * He wasn't intending to leave forever, but Angela's prediction way back in Book I seemed to imply he would never come back - basically, he thinks he'll somehow die or become housebound or something while out there, so as to fulfil Angela's prophecy, so he warns everyone he loves not to expect him back. There remains the question of why he decided to leave at all in that case, but it's probable that he figured he couldn't trust anyone else to look after the dragon eggs and stuff. Or he's a believer in predestination.


 * Why is Galbatorix the name for a man? The ending brings to mind the Latin suffix -trix, which makes a masculine noun feminine, or the English suffix -rix, which does the same thing. I mean, it's really insignificant, but it strikes me as off.
 * The names are based off Germanic languages, not Latin. Even if they were based on Latin, -orix is in fact part of some Latin names.


 * This troper cannot help but wonder how the hell Aroughs was so unguarded that