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Hey bucky! Quick word of warning from someone whos done a trashcan turkey (btw put some pork in it as well v good): you want to pre-burn the metal trashcan, inside and outside, to burn off all the anti-corrosive stuff and any other chemicals. You do not want this seeping in the meat while cooking!
oh good, more fire. just what we need! i’ll get johnny right on that.
Hey dont take this the wrong way but. you look and sound like someone who read through all of eragon and has multiple opinions on everything about it and i am A Curious Biche 👀👀👀
All right, I think I’m going to disappoint you here, but I actually read the first book (a few times), and I think I finished the second at some point, but my primary opinion is disappointment. It’s a really cool premise, I’m always a fucking sucker for dragons in everything and Saphira was easily my favorite character, but like. There was a lot more potential there than ever got used.
Here are some complaints:
Highly derivative plot and universe. I’m the first to talk about how, to a certain point, every story is derivative, because we tell stories informed by our own experience and engagement, but Eragon was...very derivative by anyone’s standards. Basically, here is the recipe: the universe is Middle Earth with dragons, Eragon is Luke Skywalker with a dragon rather than a light saber, and it’s been a long-ass time since I read Earthsea but I recall a lot of similarities there too. Arya is Arwen with Leia’s powers. Brom is Obi-Wan Kenobi. I keep accidentally typing Aragorn rather than Eragon and that’s not just a slip of the fingers. I didn’t get far enough to know if Galbatorix was Eragon’s father, but like...wouldn’t shock me? And, to be fair, I read Eragon before I was introduced to any of those other media, but the issue is that the originals seem to have a better handle on what they’re doing.
Oof, the tone of the books changed RADICALLY between the first and the second, and to be honest I just couldn’t stick it out. The first book is fundamentally an adventure novel, pretty stock fantasy coming-of-age and like, hey, I read plenty of stock fantasy, so I was into that. The second book...well, I’m not going to front here, I think my adjective of choice for the second book is unmemorable. I could not string what I remember together into a complete plot, but that being said, a lot of the book was Eragon recovering and then some weird...elf...shit? And there was a side plot that was a lot more independently engaging about Eragon’s brother(?) organizing a people’s rebellion and evacuating a city. Eragon’s old buddy turns evil, possibly? There was a little girl who had a blessing that Eragon fucked up, and I probably remember her more clearly than anything else about the series because I thought it was just so interesting, she was so original and unique and creative and I wanted a whole series about her, but of course she wasn’t the main character. But I have no idea what those plots had to do with each other, because the pacing problems with the first book were minor enough to overlook, but the second book dragged. I did not ever get the third book.
Someone, God, someone admit to young writers that you can have an overpowered main character. Because so many people build up this grand powerful MC and then nerf the shit out of them when they realize they’re ‘too strong’ and the cognitive dissonance is fucking aggravating. Like, okay, listen guys, you can either have an underdog or an OP character, but you have to pick. They can progress from the former to the latter but they absolutely cannot be both, because it’s fucking annoying. Like, all right, your dude is super powerful in magic because his dragon can boost his abilities? Once he figures it out, he’d better be a spectacle. Otherwise the moments when he’s powerful and the moments when he’s useless seem entirely arbitrary.
I didn’t care for the way Arya was handled by the narrative. She was so utterly competent and all I fucking wanted was for her to maybe get a couple moments in the spotlight for something other than hand-holding Eragon through his shit. This is actually a much broader statement--I think this story would have had a much tighter characterization if any of the side characters managed to successfully and routinely strike a balance between being a pushover and actually being kind of a dick (@Brom). Please observe the same rule with characters as one does with a bunch of drunk friends: the Competent Friend must ultimately emerge or your story will go down in a pile of flaming shots.
The dwarf kingdom in the mountains was pretty fucking dope. That was pretty choice. It was Erebor, complete with a precious dwarven heritage jewel called the Arkenstone Star Sapphire, but like, still, I’m always up for a city built into a mountain. (I think they had a hidden door and possibly a Watcher in the Water, but like...it was Erebor, not Moria.) And also dwarves, I love dwarves. Would’ve been far more into it if Eragon had stayed in Not-Erebor to be healed because it would be so awesome if everyone could get off elvish dick for a bit. Like, I like elves as much as the next person, but if we could just get off that for a second.
I went off Eragon as a character somewhere in the opening of the third act of the first book, warmed up to him again during the final battle because he was finally not a pile of whimpering uselessness, and went off him pretty comprehensively over the course of the second book. A crucial problem with your reader going off your main character is that they’re probably going to stop reading the fucking books. I like characters who commit to stuff. They don’t have to be happy about it, but let’s see some commitment there. Eragon, from what I recall, struggles.
Like, there’s nothing glaringly wrong with these books, for all that my criticisms might indicate that I think otherwise. They’re just books written early in someone’s writing career. I wrote an entire novel when I was younger and it was basically Harry Potter but with daemons? Like, with animal companions? And it was fun and I enjoyed writing it and it was probably publishable after a couple rounds of editing, but it was very derivative and as I got older I took in more and more media and was able to create more and more inventive worlds. For example, I can spot some contributions of some of my favorite stories and ideas in Alleirat (eg: the magic is similar to the magic in Chalice or Sunshine, largely based on will and elements), but as a whole it feels much more original. I would never have wanted that early novel published, and certainly I would never have wanted to become a best-seller for it, because it would color everything I wrote afterward.
dont worry oni youll always be the villain in my heart
<3
We just made some canned geese meat that was gifted by some friends and just so you know, hunting geese is mostly hiding in wet areas in autumn with a 12 gauge shotgun with a wide spread shooting at a whole flock with a magazine of 6 shots with buckshots so really its easy as long as you get up before sunrise and hide in swampy lands. Geese may be the devils but canadians learned to tame the devil and eat it. We hunt moose in my family for fucks sake and i saw one go down
I’ve known big game hunters and moose hunters and one particular individual who hunted “food” off his porch with a shotgun (what the “food” was, he was not very clear on), and yet.
Hunting a goose with a bow and arrow is taking your life in your hands.
Hey im dropping by just to say quickly that if you can, watching a walkthrough or playing the campaign of the latest star wars battlefront 2 might not be such a bad idea! The story, without being a work of art, is still pretty enjoyable and the characters are fleshed out well enough! Nothing innovative in the story mind you, but it has some good humor and that distinctive good star wars feel ya know.
Oooh, I’ll look into that. And for any of my followers who, like me, have not paid attention to this game, here is a reccommendation for you.
i have not read the animorphs since the last ice age but you make me want to jump back into the goddamn pain again how dare you i dont want to see tobias lose himself in book 3 again dO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT HURT ME AS A LITTLE LOST 13 YEAR OLD???? DO YOU KNOW HOW BLURY MY EYES ARE JUST TYPING THIS???? i think im gonna get the books again
JOIN US IN HELL
Here are two more pitches for why people should read this series.
hi quick question what the fuck why would you put yourself through so much pain writing this and why did you think it was ok to make us see this with our own eyeballs
the no david au that is somehow still Terrible
1) i’ll honestly take ANY opportunity to talk about Jake and Rachel being monsters Because They Have To
2) honestly why wouldn’t i
i see your hufflepuff!!jake peralta and raise you with a ravenclaw!!captain holt
This also jives beautifully with the fact that Gina is undeniably a Ravenclaw, I’m sorry folks, I don’t make the rules, it’s the truth. Holt keeps having to go stomping up to the Tower door at 3 AM because he’s gotten a noise complaint about Gina having a shouting match with the door knocker.
(Kevin teaches Arithmancy, y/y, he thinks Holt’s excruciatingly Ravenclaw jokes are hysterical.)
