Welcome to Round 2: Main characters! in which we´ll analyze the potential of all the characters that were quite important to the plot withouth enough protagonism or spotlight to qualify as main characters.
The greatest opportunities the characters had to be interesting or to improve story, the higher they´ll get. However, if the change come at the expense of a radical deviation from the plot before the ending, that will hurt their ranking since we wouldn´t be talking about the inheritance cycle anymore.
A little warning, though: One of the contestants is probably going to be controversial, simply because I don´t agree with the opinion of most antis about her. that being said, lets start right away:
8º BromOur favorite hateful Obi-wan clone. Despite knowing the entire backstory of this guy (Via retcon) most of the things he did were quite nonsensical given his supposed motivations, acting like a mayor jerk to his student and supposed son, and still trying to pose as a Wise Old Mentor
Brom could have had some interesting development if he had managed to steal two eggs, the green one and the blue one. Then the green dragon could have hatched for Eragon, and Saphira could hatch for him later in the book. But that story would not resemble the inheritance cycle, so I´m going to point out two things Paolini could have made him more interesting while keeping a similar role.
The simplest one would be to drop the Wise old Mentor image in Brisingr and admit that he was an asshole. That would explain a LOT of his behavior, would make him much more bearable since the characters would share our hate for him, and Eragon might still have some angst from his far from perfect parentage, not to mention start question the Varden’s motives…
But my personal favorite would have been making Brom not a dragon rider, but something like a dragon rider NERD who worked for the Varden spying one of the Forsworn, and in the first book was making anti-empire propaganda in Carvahall. That would not only subvert the cliché, in some aspects it would make more sense. He would know some things only after asking the Varden mage group, but he likes the Wise old Mentor image and doesn’t want to look ignorant in front of Eragon. That would explain why the Ra´zac managed to kill him (If they do), why he only explained some things after the fact, or why he doesn´t tell Eragon about the fact that he is the son of Morzan (Because he should be)… the list goes on. And our ranking should do the same.
(If you feel uncomfortable, please jump to the fifth paragraph, I won´t blame you)
Don´t get me wrong, I still know that Elva´s problems were all Eragon´s fault, is only when she got some control when I started having issues with her. She is NOT A CHILD, despite her age and looking like one. She thinks like an adult, she talks like an adult, she acts like an adult, and should be treated as such, like when she blatantly says that she is going to abuse her power. She is just like Renesmee Cullen, and I don´t know why people hater her and not Elva, except maybe because Renesmee didn´t go against Eragon. (Not that he doesn´t deserve the flak it gets, o get thrown into a black hole for that matter)
Yes, is cringeworthy that Eragon makes her back off in Inheritance, especially because how hypocrite he is about how angry, prideful and stubborn Elva is, and because it seems that is the only reason Paolini made her. (And because Eragon should have gotten her out of the whole mess in the first place, like carrying her to the elf city or something like that.)
But the thing is: Elva keeps living with the Varden, despite the current forces of the Varden consisting in warriors or workers who help the warriors and she does none of those things. She doesn´t owe them obedience in any case, but unless she had run to Surda with her grandma after Brisingr, (Something that I mentioned in the previous Round) she does owe them something.
That is why I found Eragon´s response in Inheritance understandable, despite being nothing but f***ing bashing of someone who doesn´t like him, like with Orrin or Sloan. No wonder real people turn against him.
Sorry about that humongous rant, but I really needed to get that off my chest. I can´t talk about this subject without bringing this up. Feel free to leave your opinion below.
To make a better use of the character, there were several options:
She could have tried to go to Surda with her grandma as it was suggested, which would make her undoubtedly a victim since she just wanted to be left alone, and maybe create some conflict if Nasuada, Eragon, Orrin or anybody tried to stop her to abuse her powers.
Then you could also make her 100% child except for her course and maybe fast physical growth, so you would have a 6 year old acting like 6 year old except for the fact that she NEEDS to protect people, so she could be a desperate soul who doesn´t want to hurt anybody and just wants to be friends with someone who doesn´t consider her a freak. That might be a good chance for Arya to prove that she actually cares for children, and might try her best to ease Elva´s pain while grudging against Eragon for what he did…
And now I should stop, because most of the things about Elva are basically due to problems with Eragon, who will be analyzed in the final Round. Now with the contestants that are still competing…
One of my personal favorite reinterpretations of Oromis is that he could be a girl, and Galby´s former lover. (Sorry, someone already got the copyright for that ;)
Alternatively, both of them could have been the only ones that actually defended Galby before the other Riders (And that is the actual reason they were spared) and only stuck with the elves because they swore an oath of loyalty to them, and they´re regretful for that. They could have reasoned with Eragon that Galby´s regime wasn´t actually that bad, like they almost did in the actual books. (Then Eragon may start regretting his oaths of loyalty too)
They could also be horrified of how Eragon started to act like a smug entitled brat with his powers, believing that he is acting like the old Riders. They could have abandoned the forest to call him out on it, and possibly get killed after that, leaving Eragon with the guilt of being partially responsible for their deaths. Or they could get killed before that happens, leaving Eragon to rescue Glaedr´s eldurani while dealing with what happened.
Glaedr could also see the Vault of souls dragons as the personification of everything wrong with the Riders of old, and be the only elduraní in eragon´s side when fighting against them
Either way, being more than a dual Yoda-clone that only confirm over and over Eragon´s beliefs and act like stereotypical Paolini-elves who never ever make mistakes would be an improvement and would give us the chance to actually mourn their deaths instead of cheer or feel absolutely nothing at best. Moving on.
His role is minimal, that is why he didn´t get higher despite the fact that he is one of the WORST managed characters in the bricks. Here are a couple of ways Sloan could not have made Eragon AND PAOLINI look bad:
Sloan could be seeing treating Katrina like property with disregard of her opinions (Not letting her see her potentially dangerous boyfriend doesn´t count, and that was Paolini´s big mistake here) or even make him so crazy with grief that he tried to do what I said above.
Or he could be lying about how much he cares about Katrina, and care only about his own “honor” as father, and was more worried about getting revenge on Roran than keeping his daughter safe (More of that in a moment)
Or maybe the interactions with could remain the same in which case Sloan could have been forgiven by Eragon, since he´s surprised by Sloan’s lack of condescending tone in the actual text (Because he’s a moron) and only needed to see that getting tortured by the Ra´zac was enough punishment for what he actually did in the text.
Those changes might not change too much of the plot, but would have made Sloan fill his intended role without making any character we were supposed to root for look like an asshole.
It could have been revealed that her appearance is the result of magic, and that she is actually a half-dragon hybrid of which she and Tenga are the only members.
They were created by the riders of old in an attempt to know how far they could go with their magic, and while Tenga´s a failed attempt whose brain didn´t make it completely, she was success, and now holds the elves an the old Riders in contempt for smugly treat her like a monument of their own greatness and their God complexes.
So she is manipulating a very credulous farm boy in thinking that he can kill the only rider left, in order to force Galby into attacking again, and eliminate the elves once and for all. (Maybe it was with her help that Galby survived enough to destroy the order) Meanwhile she made a spear and a sword out of fragments of shattered eldurani, designing them to kill any dragon or rider that survived Galby regardless of magical power, including Galby himself now that he almost outlived his usefulness.
And now I think I have digressed long enough. Let´s see what have to offer the remaining contestants.
She could have been a main character. In fact, she could have replaced Roran.
The development in the Carvahall parts could have been the same, until the point the Ra´zac do their final attack. In this case, they capture Roran (the guy they were looking for in the first place) and leave with him and Sloan, who in this case just wanted to get revenge on the guy that dishonored him and start from scratch in another village, leaving everyone behind, including the daughter he claimed to love so much.
Katrina then could have done the Great Escape and help in the last battle of Eldest, rescued her boyfriend from the Ra’zac and even have something to do with a possible Fadawar-antagonist subplot, by pointing out that the knife he gave to Nasuada in the Trial was blunt or something like that.
Even if she became an Extra later, (By cutting the Roran chapters in Brisingr and Inheritance) that would have been more bearable than another “Rescue the damsel in distress” plot, and it would also have helped make the books over 30% less sexist.
Now to the two final places, with characters who earned them with tooth and nail.
He tortured Arya for months, and she had the most reason to hate him and kill him. However, since Arya is even more objectified than Sapphira, even if it was in a more subtle way, this didn´t happen. And the hate he gains is because he hurt the “Hero’s Love Interest” (More of that in the final round, since this is mostly about Arya)
It is also hinted that he wasn´t completely loyal to Galby, and one would expect him to be a recurring enemy through the Cycle, only to be killed by Galby in order to show who is the bigger threat (Tv Tropes calls this “The Worf effect”)
And finally, and for me the most damning of it all. His entire backstory is dumped at the end of the book and we learn that he didn´t want to be evil and was decently sympathetic to boot.
He shouldn´t have died five seconds later. He should have been “rescued” from the spirits by Eragon, who should be sympathetic of him and try to help him atone. This could have caused conflict with Arya, who would want him dead, and would have disapproved of the idea of taking him with them to Elf City in order to investigate the effects that the spirits had on him. His interactions with Eragon could have been a relief from the rider’s training, which could have happened mostly off-screen… But that would have been a very radical change, and that is why he was ultimately defeated for the final position.
And now, the absolute champions of the secondary characters. Those who could have improved the stroy the greatest with the least effort, and might have given the fans a satisfying ending to boot.
I want to focus on the Ra´zac as VILLAINS. They were pretty decent at it by Paolini standards, they had damaged and hurt two protagonists personally, which is much worse than anything Galby did on-screen. Those two had buildup, and they were undoubtely evil, only caring for themselves (Lets ignore the paralelisms for a second)
An since they were the only bad guys that met both criteria, so Paolini could have pulled off something better than the anticlimax that we had at the beginning of Brisingr:
He could have made Galby a Red herring and revealed the Ra´zac as the TRUE Big Bads of the Cycle.
This is something I haven´t found yet on this site. But here’s the plan: The Ra´zac are fought in Brisingr, but they escape while setting a magic bomb in their lair in an attempt to take the protagonists down. Then, in Dras-Leona Eragon discovers a gargantuan empty nest and an arsenal of magic-disrupting amethysts that is capable of holding hundreds of times more that it currently has. And finally, in the capital is revealed that the magic-block was caused by those amethysts, and the Ra´zac have been only pretending to be loyal to Galby in order to make enough of those weapons to destroy him (Whether he is evil or not depends of the extent of the rewrite)
And now only the main characters can stop the Ra´zac, both of them now as Lethrblaka, from turning the entire human species into cattle for them and their new army of newborn Ra´zac. (The former lethrblaka could die at the start of Brisingr, so the main characters would be more than pests to them, they killed their parents)
This would only require rewriting four chapters at best before the final confrontation. And this would greatly improve things, having actual villains that did and were planning to do evil things, with a good motivation on both sides of the conflict. The only problem is that this might leave the antis with no-one to root for...and that is what Round 3 will be all about.
That´s all for round 2. Other honorable mentions like Orrin, Orik and Islanzadi will be talked about in the Epilogue, where their entire species- countries will be discussed. Ideas, suggestions and opinions on the format and the rankings are 1000% welcome.
(That includes death threats from the controversial subject)
See ya in round 3: Main characters! (Hopefully still alive)
The greatest opportunities the characters had to be interesting or to improve story, the higher they´ll get. However, if the change come at the expense of a radical deviation from the plot before the ending, that will hurt their ranking since we wouldn´t be talking about the inheritance cycle anymore.
A little warning, though: One of the contestants is probably going to be controversial, simply because I don´t agree with the opinion of most antis about her. that being said, lets start right away:
8º Brom
Brom could have had some interesting development if he had managed to steal two eggs, the green one and the blue one. Then the green dragon could have hatched for Eragon, and Saphira could hatch for him later in the book. But that story would not resemble the inheritance cycle, so I´m going to point out two things Paolini could have made him more interesting while keeping a similar role.
The simplest one would be to drop the Wise old Mentor image in Brisingr and admit that he was an asshole. That would explain a LOT of his behavior, would make him much more bearable since the characters would share our hate for him, and Eragon might still have some angst from his far from perfect parentage, not to mention start question the Varden’s motives…
But my personal favorite would have been making Brom not a dragon rider, but something like a dragon rider NERD who worked for the Varden spying one of the Forsworn, and in the first book was making anti-empire propaganda in Carvahall. That would not only subvert the cliché, in some aspects it would make more sense. He would know some things only after asking the Varden mage group, but he likes the Wise old Mentor image and doesn’t want to look ignorant in front of Eragon. That would explain why the Ra´zac managed to kill him (If they do), why he only explained some things after the fact, or why he doesn´t tell Eragon about the fact that he is the son of Morzan (Because he should be)… the list goes on. And our ranking should do the same.
7º Elva:
This is the tricky subject I talked about, since I know a LOT of you will disagree: I don´t like Elva at all. (If you feel uncomfortable, please jump to the fifth paragraph, I won´t blame you)
Don´t get me wrong, I still know that Elva´s problems were all Eragon´s fault, is only when she got some control when I started having issues with her. She is NOT A CHILD, despite her age and looking like one. She thinks like an adult, she talks like an adult, she acts like an adult, and should be treated as such, like when she blatantly says that she is going to abuse her power. She is just like Renesmee Cullen, and I don´t know why people hater her and not Elva, except maybe because Renesmee didn´t go against Eragon. (Not that he doesn´t deserve the flak it gets, o get thrown into a black hole for that matter)
Yes, is cringeworthy that Eragon makes her back off in Inheritance, especially because how hypocrite he is about how angry, prideful and stubborn Elva is, and because it seems that is the only reason Paolini made her. (And because Eragon should have gotten her out of the whole mess in the first place, like carrying her to the elf city or something like that.)
But the thing is: Elva keeps living with the Varden, despite the current forces of the Varden consisting in warriors or workers who help the warriors and she does none of those things. She doesn´t owe them obedience in any case, but unless she had run to Surda with her grandma after Brisingr, (Something that I mentioned in the previous Round) she does owe them something.
That is why I found Eragon´s response in Inheritance understandable, despite being nothing but f***ing bashing of someone who doesn´t like him, like with Orrin or Sloan. No wonder real people turn against him.
Sorry about that humongous rant, but I really needed to get that off my chest. I can´t talk about this subject without bringing this up. Feel free to leave your opinion below.
To make a better use of the character, there were several options:
She could have tried to go to Surda with her grandma as it was suggested, which would make her undoubtedly a victim since she just wanted to be left alone, and maybe create some conflict if Nasuada, Eragon, Orrin or anybody tried to stop her to abuse her powers.
Then you could also make her 100% child except for her course and maybe fast physical growth, so you would have a 6 year old acting like 6 year old except for the fact that she NEEDS to protect people, so she could be a desperate soul who doesn´t want to hurt anybody and just wants to be friends with someone who doesn´t consider her a freak. That might be a good chance for Arya to prove that she actually cares for children, and might try her best to ease Elva´s pain while grudging against Eragon for what he did…
And now I should stop, because most of the things about Elva are basically due to problems with Eragon, who will be analyzed in the final Round. Now with the contestants that are still competing…
6º Oromis and Glaedr
I really wanted to do each one of those two by themselves, but they are barely seen apart and what little characterization Glaedr has withouth Oromis is just like that of Oromis or somehow falls back into Oromis.One of my personal favorite reinterpretations of Oromis is that he could be a girl, and Galby´s former lover. (Sorry, someone already got the copyright for that ;)
Alternatively, both of them could have been the only ones that actually defended Galby before the other Riders (And that is the actual reason they were spared) and only stuck with the elves because they swore an oath of loyalty to them, and they´re regretful for that. They could have reasoned with Eragon that Galby´s regime wasn´t actually that bad, like they almost did in the actual books. (Then Eragon may start regretting his oaths of loyalty too)
They could also be horrified of how Eragon started to act like a smug entitled brat with his powers, believing that he is acting like the old Riders. They could have abandoned the forest to call him out on it, and possibly get killed after that, leaving Eragon with the guilt of being partially responsible for their deaths. Or they could get killed before that happens, leaving Eragon to rescue Glaedr´s eldurani while dealing with what happened.
Glaedr could also see the Vault of souls dragons as the personification of everything wrong with the Riders of old, and be the only elduraní in eragon´s side when fighting against them
Either way, being more than a dual Yoda-clone that only confirm over and over Eragon´s beliefs and act like stereotypical Paolini-elves who never ever make mistakes would be an improvement and would give us the chance to actually mourn their deaths instead of cheer or feel absolutely nothing at best. Moving on.
5º Sloan
This is one of the characters that gets the worst end of the stick of the “show, don´t tell” rule. We are constantly told that his relationship with his daughter is sick and we never see it, so we rightfully act like it isn´t there. The result is that this guy became absolutely infamous due to the “punishment” that Eragon put him through in Brisingr, which could have been fair only if Sloan tried to assault Katrina because he thought she was his wife or something like that. (I have seen fans that think that actually happened offscreen or that Eragon knew he would try something like that after founding his true name. I´m not kidding).His role is minimal, that is why he didn´t get higher despite the fact that he is one of the WORST managed characters in the bricks. Here are a couple of ways Sloan could not have made Eragon AND PAOLINI look bad:
Sloan could be seeing treating Katrina like property with disregard of her opinions (Not letting her see her potentially dangerous boyfriend doesn´t count, and that was Paolini´s big mistake here) or even make him so crazy with grief that he tried to do what I said above.
Or he could be lying about how much he cares about Katrina, and care only about his own “honor” as father, and was more worried about getting revenge on Roran than keeping his daughter safe (More of that in a moment)
Or maybe the interactions with could remain the same in which case Sloan could have been forgiven by Eragon, since he´s surprised by Sloan’s lack of condescending tone in the actual text (Because he’s a moron) and only needed to see that getting tortured by the Ra´zac was enough punishment for what he actually did in the text.
Those changes might not change too much of the plot, but would have made Sloan fill his intended role without making any character we were supposed to root for look like an asshole.
4º Angela
This character was designed to be a bunch of m a mysteries, with each one acting like a hook pulling the readers into the story. I think we can all agree that it wasn´t very efficient, and by the end of the series the end of the series there were so may hooks pulling in different directions that the reader is torn apart. And that is why she isn’t higher on those rankings, she can´t compete with “well focused” potential. Other than she is one of the Grey folk, I´ll only post one theory that could have created all the mystery he wanted and would made sense with some other foreshadowing.It could have been revealed that her appearance is the result of magic, and that she is actually a half-dragon hybrid of which she and Tenga are the only members.
They were created by the riders of old in an attempt to know how far they could go with their magic, and while Tenga´s a failed attempt whose brain didn´t make it completely, she was success, and now holds the elves an the old Riders in contempt for smugly treat her like a monument of their own greatness and their God complexes.
So she is manipulating a very credulous farm boy in thinking that he can kill the only rider left, in order to force Galby into attacking again, and eliminate the elves once and for all. (Maybe it was with her help that Galby survived enough to destroy the order) Meanwhile she made a spear and a sword out of fragments of shattered eldurani, designing them to kill any dragon or rider that survived Galby regardless of magical power, including Galby himself now that he almost outlived his usefulness.
And now I think I have digressed long enough. Let´s see what have to offer the remaining contestants.
3º Katrina
Yes, she is here, she that was supposed to be a strong woman and gets turned in a damsel in distress first and a passive housewife later, existing only as a satellite to Roran. If you are wonder why she managed to get so high here beating her own father and two former riders on that, it´s because a simple fact that basically spelled out for us in the books themselves:She could have been a main character. In fact, she could have replaced Roran.
The development in the Carvahall parts could have been the same, until the point the Ra´zac do their final attack. In this case, they capture Roran (the guy they were looking for in the first place) and leave with him and Sloan, who in this case just wanted to get revenge on the guy that dishonored him and start from scratch in another village, leaving everyone behind, including the daughter he claimed to love so much.
Katrina then could have done the Great Escape and help in the last battle of Eldest, rescued her boyfriend from the Ra’zac and even have something to do with a possible Fadawar-antagonist subplot, by pointing out that the knife he gave to Nasuada in the Trial was blunt or something like that.
Even if she became an Extra later, (By cutting the Roran chapters in Brisingr and Inheritance) that would have been more bearable than another “Rescue the damsel in distress” plot, and it would also have helped make the books over 30% less sexist.
Now to the two final places, with characters who earned them with tooth and nail.
2º Durza
This guy is probably one of the biggest victims of Paolini´s lack of buildup, or in this case, misguided buildup. He was targeted in at least three directions and he picked none of them.He tortured Arya for months, and she had the most reason to hate him and kill him. However, since Arya is even more objectified than Sapphira, even if it was in a more subtle way, this didn´t happen. And the hate he gains is because he hurt the “Hero’s Love Interest” (More of that in the final round, since this is mostly about Arya)
It is also hinted that he wasn´t completely loyal to Galby, and one would expect him to be a recurring enemy through the Cycle, only to be killed by Galby in order to show who is the bigger threat (Tv Tropes calls this “The Worf effect”)
And finally, and for me the most damning of it all. His entire backstory is dumped at the end of the book and we learn that he didn´t want to be evil and was decently sympathetic to boot.
He shouldn´t have died five seconds later. He should have been “rescued” from the spirits by Eragon, who should be sympathetic of him and try to help him atone. This could have caused conflict with Arya, who would want him dead, and would have disapproved of the idea of taking him with them to Elf City in order to investigate the effects that the spirits had on him. His interactions with Eragon could have been a relief from the rider’s training, which could have happened mostly off-screen… But that would have been a very radical change, and that is why he was ultimately defeated for the final position.
And now, the absolute champions of the secondary characters. Those who could have improved the stroy the greatest with the least effort, and might have given the fans a satisfying ending to boot.
1º THE RA´ZAC
I´m not talking of the Ra´zac species (More of that in the Epilogue). I´m talking about the Dynamic duo that are the personal enemies of Roran and Eragon. And I have a lot to say.I want to focus on the Ra´zac as VILLAINS. They were pretty decent at it by Paolini standards, they had damaged and hurt two protagonists personally, which is much worse than anything Galby did on-screen. Those two had buildup, and they were undoubtely evil, only caring for themselves (Lets ignore the paralelisms for a second)
An since they were the only bad guys that met both criteria, so Paolini could have pulled off something better than the anticlimax that we had at the beginning of Brisingr:
He could have made Galby a Red herring and revealed the Ra´zac as the TRUE Big Bads of the Cycle.
This is something I haven´t found yet on this site. But here’s the plan: The Ra´zac are fought in Brisingr, but they escape while setting a magic bomb in their lair in an attempt to take the protagonists down. Then, in Dras-Leona Eragon discovers a gargantuan empty nest and an arsenal of magic-disrupting amethysts that is capable of holding hundreds of times more that it currently has. And finally, in the capital is revealed that the magic-block was caused by those amethysts, and the Ra´zac have been only pretending to be loyal to Galby in order to make enough of those weapons to destroy him (Whether he is evil or not depends of the extent of the rewrite)
And now only the main characters can stop the Ra´zac, both of them now as Lethrblaka, from turning the entire human species into cattle for them and their new army of newborn Ra´zac. (The former lethrblaka could die at the start of Brisingr, so the main characters would be more than pests to them, they killed their parents)
This would only require rewriting four chapters at best before the final confrontation. And this would greatly improve things, having actual villains that did and were planning to do evil things, with a good motivation on both sides of the conflict. The only problem is that this might leave the antis with no-one to root for...and that is what Round 3 will be all about.
That´s all for round 2. Other honorable mentions like Orrin, Orik and Islanzadi will be talked about in the Epilogue, where their entire species- countries will be discussed. Ideas, suggestions and opinions on the format and the rankings are 1000% welcome.
(That includes death threats from the controversial subject)
See ya in round 3: Main characters! (Hopefully still alive)