Inheritance Chapter 2

 So I don’t know if Chris figured this out but he’s just killed the entire book and series in chapter one. There’s no reason for me to continue on but I will because I’m persistent. Allow me to explain my reasoning.

See, right off the bad guys, for no apparent reason, throw a magic spear at Saphira. This is a dragonslaying weapon that’s made to carve through them like a hot knife through plastic wrap. That in itself isn’t a problem and you’d expect that from a race that have magic and are fighting dragons. It only makes sense that there’d be a very specific weapon made to fight them. Hell, even a non-magic human would probably figure out a couple of weaknesses to use against them. It’s having this legendary weapon of which the dragons have no defense against that ruins things and it does this so badly that I’ll have to break it down in a list.

One, it ruins the training chapters. In Eldest, Eragon goes off to train in Elfland with a large muppet named Oromis who makes Eragon study elvish language, techniques and history. You’d think these Dauthdaerts would get a mention in the books. Arya says they were used against the dragons and they worked. Presumably the elves stopped once they made their stupid pact. Eragon not learning about it would be like a history book neglecting to mention atomic weapons during World War II.

Two, it’s pulled out of nowhere. No one has ever mentioned this thing up until now and the way it’s presented says the author made it up at the last minute. Arya doesn’t seem to think much of it when she’s looking at it. And when she tells Eragon about it, she seems to be reading a third grade report rather than relating information about something so legendary and powerful. The words she says indicates that this weapon should command a lot of respect and disgust for what it was. But being as it didn’t exist until Paopao wrote this, neither she nor anyone else reacts appropriately.

Third, there’s no reason for Eragon to be the hero now. If you have a weapon that can wipe out dragons and that’s Gabby’s source of power, then why not use it against him? Why didn’t the elves go looking for this a long time ago and kill Shruikan? Shouldn’t the dragon riders of old had at least one of these kept in a vault in case one of them went bad? Either way, you no longer need a dragon rider just a lucky bastard with a Dauthdaert.

Fourth, everything that’s happened to Eragon is pointless. Remember when Eragon underwent that transformation? Of course you do, we all do. We were all forced to sit still while Chris gave him a makeover and made him better than us and even his beloved elves. All of that and the training and everything he’s done so far won’t come into play. Instead of having to use ingenuity and quick thinking to defeat Gabby, he’ll just throw the magic spear, kill the black dragon and pound Gabby’s face in. No skill required, nothing he’s learned along his journey coming into play, just raw brute force

Fifth, Gabby knows about them too. Gabby should have been collecting these from the get go. He’s supposed to be cunning and he did keep eggs around to try and rebuild the dragon riders as he saw fit. One of those Dauthdaerts would come in handy if you found a rider willing to serve you and they tried to turn on you.

Anyway, last time we saw Eragon, he watched Roran attempting to fake his own death. Eragon throws a temper tantrum so mawkish that I don’t believe the author bought it. Wah wah, Roran could be dead, wah. He’s not and we know it but that doesn’t stop Chris from babbling on about it. Eragon thinks about ways to get Roran out and comes up with a solution that he doesn’t tell us about.

So he jumps up onto the pile of rubble and runs inside the castle. He runs around and comes face to face with a couple of soldiers. Again, I know they’re supposed to be Imperial soldiers but using such a generic term makes it hard to differentiate. Though I’m going to imagine they’re Varden soldiers because it’s amusing. He punches them unconscious, rather than just killing them like he’s been doing since the second book, and runs down some stairs.

Eragon ends up in a throne room where an old guy tells the soldiers to kill him and they’ll have a third of his treasure. Eragon pulls out his sword and lights it on fire and then tells the bad guys to go away. They do and Eragon runs into the courtyard to the portcullis and starts smacking it with his sword. ‘Rar! Me Eragon! Me fix things with sword! Not working? Hit harder!’

Eragon beats and opening and runs through and into some passages. Using his homing abilities, Eragon manages to pick only the right ones and stumbles upon a medieval rave. The trippy blue lights and drumbeats lure him in and their enchanted candy seals the deal. Eragon disappears into a sixteen year haze of drugs and cheap elven women from which he emerges to fight Gabby once again under the strict agreement that the elves will then supply him with a lifetime supply of elvish ecstasy. Or he finds his cousin fighting some other random guy.

A directionless blue light illuminated the space. And there before him, covered in dirt, blood, ash, and sweat, with his teeth bared in a fearsome snarl, appeared Roran, grappling with a soldier over the corpses of two others.

Look, I’ve never had a castle wall come down on me but I’m pretty sure that most people wouldn’t be up for fighting.  I doubt Roran would have taken a few rocks to the head and just bounced up, ready to kill. The same goes for the nameless imperial that’s there. I have a feeling they’d both be laying down and asking the little dwarves in their head to please stop trying to dig for gold.

The soldier winced at the sudden brightness, and Roran took advantage of the man’s distraction to twist and push him to his knees, whereupon he grabbed the soldier’s dagger from his belt and drove it up under the corner of his jaw.

Oh, right. That’s a good tactic. Except that Roran would also be blinded, right? Especially as the narrator said that it was a directionless light, as in light that comes from everywhere and nowhere. Unless Roran was coordinating with his cousin and that would require they either worked it out beforehand or they communicating telepathically. Or maybe Roran had a pair of special sunglasses that allowed him to keep from being blinded by Eragon’s magic. Roran then greets Eragon before passing out.

“About time you—” he said, and then his eyes rolled back into his head as he fainted.

Oh, so the wall falling on him was something Roran could shrug off but the effort of stabbing a guy was too much? That seems perfectly plausible. Or did I mean stupid? I get so confused when reading this.