Because I keep mentioning my liveblogging in chat and then getting into discussions, here's a thread. For those of you not familiar: Christopher Paolini's Inheritance series, Originally A Trilogy But Four Books Happened, usually just called Eragon after the first book which is itself named after the protagonist. It's a bit better than the "Star Wars, but with dragons" that most of its hatedom claims, but pretty much about the quality you'd expect of a fifteen-year-old boy's Wunderkind Novel. It's one of my Forever Problems as a fandom because god damn it I love bond creature dragons, and also some of the world building is actually interesting when you get down to the details, and also also Murtagh. ON AVERAGE, it seems that most of you guys gave up after the second book, so any spoilers beyond that please stuff under a cut. My liveblog's here if anyone wants to follow along, though note that that isn't spoiler free and generally works better as a review/with the assumption that you know the spoilers.
One of my only complaints is that the ending was a bit anticlimactic. We all sorta figured it would happen that way for the most part.
Yeah, pretty much. The extended "what happened to EVERYONE (except Murtagh and Thorn)" epilogue didn't do it any favors, either.
[gently revives this thread because guess who put fingers to keyboard on one of the fanfic ideas they've been kicking around for forever]
I am not actually writing a fic with ships at all because I am mad at all times about Christopher Paolini and heterosexuality. but if you're here for Murtagh/Arya friendship there's going to be a lot of that. It's a "this AU deviation causes a roleswap" AU.
good shipping choice, tbh. roleswaps are so much my jam that they're 2/3 of my current projects, including this one. also murtagh would have been infinitely more interesting as a protagonist, natch. #he's my son #his shitty parents are gone and now he is my son
Hoo boy, this series. I read up through Brisingr and I think just didn't notice when the fourth book came out because I was fairly apathetic to the whole thing. Seconding bond creatures being one of my favorite tropes though, agh. *follows blog*
I need to keep going like. I've been neglecting it again. For christmas I'm just going to cook, eat, and liveblog eragon YEAH SAME I got kind of offended the other day when I saw someone say that Roran's parts of Eldest were boring. Like no?? shut up. Operation Move a Village is the best part of Eldest sorry. Eragon is a teenage power fantasy so I can forgive him a lot but Paolini definitely has the Smeyer Effect going on (IE all the side characters are more interesting than the MC).
GOOD tbh I need people other than my friend Aer to yell about it with... who understand my trouble with Paolini's Obligate Straight Shipping...
Paolini's especially bad because there's not even really options, especially in male slash. Everyone has either horrible age/maturity gaps or is related. (Please consider the Death Gate Cycle for "this heterosexuality is CLEARLY pasted on.")
Thiiiiiiis. That is my favorite type of competence porn. "oh we need to create a functional settlement/defend this room with nothing but the stuff already in it/survive while on the run from menacing government agencies/movie an entire fucking village? well would you look at look at all these practical skills and specialized knowledge my allies and i possess and the roundabout and counterintuitive but genius methods i can use to achieve my goals~" (Tamora Pierce was really good for this. My favorite bit of the Protector of the Small series was Kel building, managing, and defending Haven. and the Trickster series was just. :DDD) (also i need to read/watch The Martian because the dude survives with his brain YESSSSSSS) But yes offtopic things aside I really need to reread that book just for the village-moving bits. So good.
Underneath the pasted on heteros is Baby Nai's First Queer Ship. The second book is a bit skippable but overall it's very good. [INITIATES LIVEBLOG IN THE BACKGROUND]
Also it's refreshing because Roran is more straightforward about the "I know this is morally wrong but I have to do it anyway" than Eragon is? Eragon tries to justify everything in order to still be The Big Good and it's so annoying. Roran is ruthless in pursuit of what he wants, though he'll take the Good option if he has any choice at all in the matter, and he's mature enough to know it and not hide from it. #ITP Nai CONSTANTLY wishes we had seen Murtagh and Roran interacting in canon #older brothers just rolling their eyes at Eragon #yeah sure buddy whatever you say
