Narm/Literature: Difference between revisions

Cutting more unfitting examples that are huge reaches (pale redhaired villain invoking Ronald McDonald? Really?), invoking Ron the Death Eater (Eragon's supposed sociopathy), or otherwise products of TV Tropes' weird hateboner for the Inheritance Cycle. Also, the pox bit is a MASSIVE reach when smallpox is what readers are bound to think of first
(bot-edit: replaced potholed link to redirect with potholed link to destination page)
(Cutting more unfitting examples that are huge reaches (pale redhaired villain invoking Ronald McDonald? Really?), invoking Ron the Death Eater (Eragon's supposed sociopathy), or otherwise products of TV Tropes' weird hateboner for the Inheritance Cycle. Also, the pox bit is a MASSIVE reach when smallpox is what readers are bound to think of first)
 
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** This troper will cite the same defence against that argument that was used on the Harry Potter Companion website: "with them like a presence" is intended to mean "with them as if it were the Grim Reaper or a reasonable facsimile", which doesn't qualify as this trope.
** In-universe, Harry thinks pretty much any time the Dursleys show emotion is Narmy, mostly involving Petunia and Dudley. Whenever the Dursleys show affection for each other, expect Harry to "suppress the urge to laugh".
* AhDue to originally being conceived by a fifteen year old, ''[[The Inheritance Cycle]]''. Fliphas theits booksfair openshare toof any page. ChancesNarmy arescenes, you'll find yourselfespecially in theits middleearlier of a Narmy scenebooks.
** The 'baby on a spike' scene gained extra Narm thanks to an [[Eddie Izzard]] comedy routine on the subject.
{{quote|"When I grow up, I want to stick babies on spikes!"}}
** That scene is made even sillier by Eragon's musings when he sees them: "What does our existence mean when it can end like this?" Less than a paragraph later, he [[Hypocrite|kills a crow because it dared to peck at a corpse.]] It's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron.
** The first sentence of ''Eragon''--something like "wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world." And in ''Eldest'', Eragon {{spoiler|is transformed into a half-elf, half-human, calls himself a "princeling," and is}} "more beautiful than any man, more rugged than any elf". Clearly Paolini wanted his readers to be in awe, but...
** The scene in ''Brisingr'' in which Roran stands dramatically [[Atop a Mountain of Corpses|on top of a 20-foot-tall stack of the bodies of 193 men he had defeated]]. His only stated regret was that there were not enough foes for an even two hundred. While this may suggest [[Alternate Character Interpretation|evena worseworrying disturbingdarker sociopathyside thanto Eragon'shis personality]] while [[Character Derailment|not gelling with how he's been characterized before]], the scene imagined was so ludicrous that it was [[Hilarity Ensues|hilarious]].
** Most of the opening scene is very narmy, such as "the Urgals shrank back, motionless," (so how did they shrink back without moving) and Durza's ridiculous order to the Urgals: "Stop whoever is coming...or die." (Just so the audience knows this [[Sarcasm Mode|incredibly complex character]] is evil).
** The scene in ''Brisingr'' in which Roran stands dramatically [[Atop a Mountain of Corpses|on top of a 20-foot-tall stack of the bodies of 193 men he had defeated]]. His only stated regret was that there were not enough foes for an even two hundred. While this may suggest [[Alternate Character Interpretation|even worse disturbing sociopathy than Eragon's]] while [[Character Derailment|not gelling with how he's been characterized before]], the scene imagined was so ludicrous that it was [[Hilarity Ensues|hilarious]].
*** [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0439.html Only because he'll never be this cool.]
** In ''Eldest'', the scene where Arya meets some elves, and they form a ring and dance around her for a few minutes, singing. All fine and dandy, if, like Paolini you are not English. If you are, you can't help but be reminded of [[wikipedia:Morris dance|Morris dancing.]] Which is hilarious.
** Oromis's [[Ho Yay|hairless groin.]]
** The high priest of Helgrind resembles a certain [[Monty Python and the Holy Grail|Black Knight]]. It's a miracle that he didn't shout, "It's just a flesh wound!"
*** Durza was also described as having bright red hair and pale white skin. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120315102701/http://irritatedtulsan.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/ronald_mcdonald_jumping1.jpg Remind you of a certain fast-food mascot?]
** On the one hand, ''Brisingr'' is less of a ripoff of other works and more original on Paolini's part. On the other hand, some of his original ideas are a little bizarre, such as that Furry elf who's irresistible to women....
** Long, untranslated pieces of either the Ancient Language or that noise the Dwarfs make.
** And then there's the scene in ''Eldest'' in which Eragon reads his poem to the elves. Judging by the praise they heap on him, we're meant to be awe-inspired. Unfortunately, the poem is not the lyrical opus the elves praise it as, but an atrociously written, borderline [[Emo Teen]]'s love poem. There is neither rhyme nor meter, and it refers to eyes as 'enigmatic pools'.
*** Lord Dathedr then says "you have a rare talent Shadeslayer," which makes this troper think he is a secret [[Deadpan Snarker]].
*** This goes for almost any of the verse Paolini includes in the Cycle - he confines himself to Blank verse with almost no metre or indeed poetic attributes of any kind.
** In ''Brisingr'', Eragon involuntarily kills two birds and a snake to replenish his magic reserves, and "dies three times". We're clearly meant to be touched by his sensitivity. This falls somewhat flat if you realise that this comes ''after'' he's slaughtered hundreds of the [[Designated Villain|Designated Villain's]] soldiers without so much as batting an eyelid.
*** It's even worse is you're familiar with [[The Modest Orgasm|a certain French euphemism]].
** There is also a scene in which the sight of a bee saves Eragon from the brink of death.
** Either [[Christopher Paolini]] [[Critical Research Failure|doesn't know what "the pox" actually means to a mediaeval person]], or he was [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]] (at a really bad time) when Orik says his parents died of the pox. Historically (and certainly in the High Mediaeval era that Inheritance is allegedly set in), "the pox" meant syphilis. Yes, ''that'' [[wikipedia:Syphilis|Syphilis]]. Paolini put a reference to sexually transmitted disease in the middle of what was supposed to be a sad and moving scene. Something you aren't telling us about [[All Women Are Lustful|mum]] and [[All Men Are Perverts|dad]], Orik?
** Oh, ''Inheritance'' is almost unreadable, there's so much Narm. This series just takes itself far more seriously than it often deserves.
*** Such as the moment at the end of "The City of Sorrows" when Roran mentally tells Eragon to "hurry, or I swear I'll haunt you from the grave." While this is not a serious threat on Roan's part, it's clearly meant to be a serious moment showing us the dire situation they find themselves in…but it's such a useless, laughable threat that Roran looks like a wimp. "Just in case feeling overwhelming amounts of anguish/guilt for failing to keep the world from falling to the permanent rule of a horrible, inhuman dictator, letting your liegelord be tortured almost to death, losing the schoolboy-crush-esque love of your life, aren't enough…your cousin is also going to return from the dead as a spook in wherever you live in the ensuing dystopia."
* The amount of [[Narm]] in ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' depends on your political background (if you're a liberal, his ''dedication page'' in [http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=10558&st=80&p=387035&#entry387035 one book] is a narm). The one thing everyone can agree on is that the evil chicken that cackled was hilarious. The collection of Narms can be found [http://sandstormreviews.blogspot.com/2006/08/goodkind-parodies.html http://sandstormreviews.blogspot.com/2006/08/goodkind-parodies.html here].
** Most of those make a '''lot''' [[It Makes Sense in Context|more sense in context,]] and a few are either false or worded to be deliberately misleading. But the "chicken that is not a chicken," the stupidly long speeches, and the flip-flopping about whether he can eat meat are indisputably Narm.