Thoughts on Brisingr [SPOILERS!!]

I’m not going to be retarded like I was in my Breaking Dawn post and make everything white to prevent spoilers.  I’ll take it to hope that people who see “SPOILERS!!” in the title will connect the dots and think “hm, well I shouldn’t read that post if I haven’t read Brisingr!”  Anyway, on to the juicy stuff.

I’m not a fan (ironically, since I work on Shurtugal), but I’m not an anti.  I’m floating around the neutral line on my opinions of the Inheritance trilogy.  Therefore, what I’ll write in this post will be my unbiased opinion.

All in all, I view Brisingr as an unneeded filler.  Unlike Eragon and Eldest, who both had a purpose for being books (Eragon: introducing the whole plot and showing the growth of Eragon/Saphira, Eldest: showing Eragon’s schooling and the fate of the Varden/Carvahall), it seemed that Brisingr was just a mesh of events that didn’t really connect with each other, not to mention not many of the events were pertinent to advancing the whole series’s plot.  Here are the basic important events:

-Defeating the Ra’zac
-Roran+Katrina’s marriage
-The election of the new Dwarf king
-Revealing Eragon’s true father (no, it is not Darth Vader, although I’m sure many people would be giddy if it was)
-Eldunari, aka the Deathly Hallows of Inheritance
-Oromis/Glaedr’s fate
-Eragon’s new sword

I believe that’s it, so that’s what, seven events of importance, all smushed around in a 750 page book.  The problem I had with Brisingr was that there was a lot more unneeded information.  Paolini’s lengthy descriptions took up at least half the book.  The beginning 500 pages or so went so slowly that I got bored very often while reading it.  There was very little action that happened, and most of the action that did happen ended in a handy dandy deus ex machina (ex: Eragon conveniently getting attacked and then Orik conveniently being able to track down his attackers which led to everyone agreeing to make Orik the king).  The Ra’zac’s defeat seemed too quick and easy for the length of the books that Eragon had pursued them.  Eragon managed to get back to Varden unharmed except for a quick skirmish with a group of soldiers.  The battle with Murtagh and Thorn was won so easily that I had to reread it twice to make sure I was actually reading what was written. And as for the rest, well, as I said, it was all just filler.

The last 200 pages or so also lacked the suspense the other books had.  There were no surprises in the “revelations” revealed.  Everyone guessed Brom was Eragon’s father and that something would happen with Oromis and Glaedr.  Katrina’s pregnancy was also long guessed (who else could it be, not to mention Roran’s “the man”).  The “God” was a rather big letdown (to me anyway).  The sword was no big surprise either, although I guess the one surprise was that Eragon named it “Fire.”  Angela should have whacked him in the head.  The Eldunari were something different, but it was so reminscent of Harry Potter that it didn’t surprise me very much.  Oromis and Glaedr’s death seemed all too fast, and the battle with the Shade at the end was also way too quick.

Overall I guess there was just a lack of climax.  True, there was the “big epic battle” at the end, but it wasn’t nearly as great and broad as the ones in Eragon or Eldest.  There was just nothing really to look forward to in this book since Paolini spoiled most of the events in his Shurtugal interview and stated that there would be no Rider.  I felt this book was unneeded, despite what information it did contain.

To point out on Paolini’s writing, I do believe overall his writing slightly improved.  He actually showed more depth to Eragon and Roran in this book (ex: their brotherly talk and comparing war scars) and made events seem more realistic (ex: Nasuada gaining trust by the Trial of Long Knives).  That Paolini made his characters seem more human in this book was something I liked.  The dialog, however, I thought could use some work.  Many times I felt like I was listening to Yoda talk because the sentence structure was a bit messed up.  The chapter from Saphira’s point of view also nearly made me wet my pants.  Honestly, I think Paolini’s hyphen key was stuck or something so he had to compensate for a way to write.  Really now, “sharp-pointy-trees”, “big-round-fire-in-the-sky?” …I appreciate Paolini’s attempt to be unique when writing from a Dragon’s perspective, but I think he could have been a little more creative than replacing nouns with rolled out hyphenated words.

To sum things up, I feel Brisingr was unneeded, as it revealed little information no one could have already guessed.  Whether released for money or truly because the next book would have been too long I don’t know, but despite what the reason was Brisingr still feels like a filler to try and quench our parched throats.  The writing has very slightly improved, which is a plus for Paolini, but that gets buried under the mounds of description and idle narration which bored me to no end.  I am not impressed or satisfied with Brisingr, but I guess for now it will have to do.

Oh yea, one more thing: Roran killing 193 men with a hammer and not suffering any major injuries.  Wtf?  If that scene doesn’t make Roran look like a Gary Stu, then I don’t know what will.

Too Early in the Morning for Comprehendable Thoughts

It’s freaking 6:11 AM.  I got up at five.  I don’t know why – it’s a Saturday but eff it.  I have so much homework over the weekend.  I have to write a narrative for English and I still have a painstakingly huge writer’s block that’s lasted about four years now.  I have a plot somewhat planned out but I just can’t write it.  God darn it.

So I’ve noticed that my blog has some visitors every day – which is strange because even I never visit it that often.  To all you random blog lurkers out there, you get a +1.

I can’t think very clearly at 6:13.  I got three hours of sleep for three consecutive days this week, six or seven on the two other days, and now five today.  No wonder I feel so tired at nine every night.  I can’t even stay awake for more than twenty minutes when I do go to bed – I used to be able to stay up for two hours listening to podcasts.

Seventh Element started again.  Maybe I’ll actually stay alive there.  Who knows.

I’m so tired.  I should just go back to bed but I don’t feel like it.  Oh yea, I’ve written a random Runescape fic/one-timer/thing.  I may post it if I finish editing it.  It was just something out of the blue that I decided to write to try and rejuvenate some lost writing juices.

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EDIT: Hahaha it’s nearly nine and I just reread this.  I spelled “lasted” wrong …wow pretty sad.

First Week of School

The first week of school’s gone by and the only thing I can say is: I hope I make it out alive.

Honors English – at first I didn’t really like English.  I wasn’t too fond of the historical literature stuff that we’re learning about currently.  After reading the first few pieces though and realizing how much my literature analyzing skills sucked, I gradually began to like it.  It’s interesting learning about how history affects different pieces of writing.  I guess I was just too used to the creative style type of English class that I had last year, and now all this analytical type of English class is a little new.

AP Chem – save me.  We have about four labs per week or something.  Seriously.  In the past four days I’ve already handed in one full lab report, plus I have another one due Monday and another due Wednesday.  Oh and did I mention a chapter test on Monday as well?  The labs wouldn’t be too bad if we didn’t have to do lab reports for all of them.  I hope I did okay on my first one – I spent three hours on it and NOT at three in the morning.  If I make it through the year without melting in agony I will be very surprised.

Gym – I actually like gym even though we do so much stuff in it.  My teacher (who’s a new gym teacher at Pburg) tends to let us do different types of warmups instead of just running the track.  Today we did a quick game of team handball, which was a much nicer way of running around and getting active than the track.  She’s a much better teacher than my gym teacher last year who was lazy as hell and hated kids (or so it seemed).  We’re doing softball which is nice since I haven’t played softball in gym since I was a freshman.

AP Calc AB – this class is surprisingly easy so far.  It feels like an Honors class instead of an AP class, but I’m sure I’ll regret those words as time goes on.  We have a test on Tuesday on basic pre-calc stuff (mostly determining equations of/graphing functions) which is pretty easy.  I won’t be too worried until we get into limits because I sucked at those last year (although derivatives were easy for me, which is strange).

I only have about four hours each night designated for homework, and each night I nearly use up all that time.  I could probably get more time if I didn’t play piano every freaking day for two hours, but oh well (oh the things my parents make me do to look better on a college application).  Most of the homework is chem though; calc takes about half an hour and English about an hour.

All in all I’m looking forward to a hell of a year, in good and bad ways, although I’ve already marked the vacation day we have.  I should have studied for the [P]SAT’s more in summer, seeing as I have no idea how I’ll fit it in now.