Inheritance

When it comes to books, bigger isn’t always better.

The longer a story is, it doesn’t always mean that the longer you get to prolong the feeling of enjoyment reading it.

And somebody desperately needs to remind Christopher Paolini that.

Inheritance, the long awaited ending to the Inheritance Cycle was heralded with much fanfare, with sales soaring through the roof (it is currently ranked atop the New York Times Bestseller List for 2011) as fans eagerly snapped up the books to finally discover the answers to the hundreds of questions that have been debated and discussed in fan forums: Will Eragon finally defeat Galbatorix? What of the mysterious green dragon, and who will be its new rider? Will Eragon really leave Alagaesia?

Paolini answers those questions and many more-albeit in a ridiculously long-winded and drawn-out fashion.

Now don’t get me wrong; I was one of those fans rushing to get their hands on Inheritance the very minute it hit bookstores so I’m certainly no anti-Shurtugal taking a swipe at Inheritance; I’m just a big fan that had quite a severe let-down.

I wasn’t a fan of Eragon, but Eldest was a big improvement and I really quite enjoyed Brisingr. Nonetheless, Inheritance is, to me; the weakest of the cycle.

The book opens with a battle scene (as do countless other chapters later on); possibly set a few days after that devastating loss at Gil’ead where Murtagh (or more accurately, Galbatorix through Murtagh) had slain Eragon’s mentor; Oromis and his dragon, Glaedr. We see Eragon, Saphira and the Varden preparing to storm the city of Feinster; the first of many other sieges as they continue their long march to Urubaen to confront the wicked, iron-fisted antagonist of the series, Galbatorix. The opening part of the book starts out promisingly enough; the discovery of the Dauthdaert; a long-forgotten dragon-killer weapon that Galbatorix possibly doesn’t know about; an interesting thought of Nasuada’s as she ponders marriage to Orrin as a way of resolving the mounting conflict between herself and the Surdan king among others; all of them pointed towards an exciting build-up towards the final showdown between Eragon and Galbatorix.

Filled with renewed courage and a hope of victory, we march with the Varden as they continue their journey across the Empire to Galbatorix’s lair. But eventually the plot begins to lose its shape and structure; melting instead into a never-ending description of battle after siege after capture. There were some interesting moments; such as the battle with the crazy Helgrind priests and Eragon’s narrow escape from becoming Ra’zac fodder but most of it sinks into unmemorable oblivion. One gets the feeling that Paolini could have spared his readers much of the painstaking detail, and instead focussed on what was necessary.

For me, a few good twists were the discovery of the secret stash of Eldunari and dragon eggs in the Vault of Souls within the Rock of Kuthian as well as Galbatorix having seemingly unstoppable control of the ancient language, having guessed its true name; however surprises such as these were few and far between. Many plot sequences felt clichéd and whisper it, generic. It was easy to guess that Eragon and Saphira would somehow manage to discover their true names in order to open the Vault of Souls; that somehow a spell that required “no language” would be the one to finally break Galbatorix (think non-verbal spells from Harry Potter) and that when push came to shove; Eragon would somehow defeat Galbatorix because Paolini has already said this will be the last book. Oh and Arya being the new Rider was another sadly, widely-guessed cliché.

IMHO, there were so many interesting subplots that could have been explored further; a good example being Angela. After relatively muted cameos in the first 3 books, Angela is given a much meatier role in Book 4 and she does not disappoint; proving to be full of tricks up her sleeve and more than a match for most foes, despite her being a mere “herbalist”. One of the more interesting characters in the series, she lends an air of intrigue and mystique that leaves the reader wanting to delve more into her surely interesting and storied past; but although Paolini leaves tantalising hints that he will answer those queries somewhere later in the book, he never does. The romantic in me was also vastly disappointed at the lack of relationship development in the book, despite all the potential that had been promised throughout the first 3 books. It is a great shame that Eragon and Arya’s love was not realized; as theirs had the making of an epic romance and the tantalizing feeling had always been that Arya would reciprocate Eragon’s feelings after the war with Galbatorix was over. The build-up to it had been promising, with Arya hinting in earlier chapters that she had begun to feel something more for the Rider but when the time came to say goodbye; it almost felt flat. Many readers were enraged that not even a kiss was written into the ending!

Another intriguing subplot was the hinted romantic feelings that Murtagh held for Nasuada. A popular pairing in Inheritance fandom, I was nonetheless surprised to see it used as an actual plot element, and that it actually ended up being Murtagh’s saving grace. Much was left unsaid of the pair, and the ending gives no further mention as to whether Murtagh eventually returns from his wanderings with Thorn and whether he returns to Nasuada. Another interesting character that was woefully underdeveloped.

As hinted above, insufficient character development has been one of my main gripes with the series; the protagonist Eragon himself is guilty of feeling at times, one-dimensional. He has an almost Gary-Stu feel to him; I was never really able to connect with him the way I did with Harry Potter, Darren Shan and all the rest of those great fantasy protagonists. His struggles are believable enough, but Paolini does not reveal a darker, more human side to him; Eragon’s goals and mindset have always been unwaveringly clear, his thoughts and intentions always noble and immune to temptation and personally, therein lies the problem-we can’t empathize with him because he doesn’t feel real enough. Sure he grows up much during the series; from the shy farmer’s boy who found a dragon’s egg to a fearsome warrior and proficient magician, but he lacks mental depth. One of my favourite parts of the Harry Potter series was the character developments of both Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore; where JK Rowling gradually explored both the good and the flawed aspects of their personality, being and background; leading us to understand and accept why they made the decisions they did, we could draw parallels with them and real people making real decisions.

Many parts of the book were also irrelevant and bordering on self-indulgent as they added little or nothing to the plot: Did we really need a whole chapter on Orik making a stone, or Saphira flying through a storm? The constant battle descriptions were also distracting and broke the flow of the story for the reader. Many a time I was tempted to skip yet another lengthy description of how Roran bashed yet another soldier but I read through them all, afraid of missing something important.

While the final confrontation with Galbatorix was decently contrived, the ending has left fans divided, with many expressing dismay that the series has effectively been “killed” off as Eragon can never return to Alagaesia. Personally, that conclusion was inevitable given Angela’s earlier prediction and after reading the remaining few chapters after the Varden’s victory, it also seems the most practical. Nonetheless, the ending felt rushed and unsatisfactory; as many loose ends remain untied and the reader is left with the half-hungry feeling in his stomach of insufficient satisfaction after too little to eat. What were the seven words Brom last spoke, what is Eragon’s true name, how was it that Galbatorix was able to have knowledge of every single one of the Varden’s activities, and who or what were his spies? What of the remaining Ra’zac eggs? Is the missing belt of Beloth the Wise ever found again? It has been suggested that an epilogue of all the main characters would have served the purpose better, but one could also argue that for a change, it is nice not to have the book end immediately after the villain has been killed; showing that there are still troubles and things to sort out even after the main course has been served and it is nice to learn a bit more about Eragon’s plans for the future. Of course, it could also be that Paolini has deliberately left these questions unanswered as he prepares to write a further book on Alagaesia, as hinted when he said that he might “revisit Alagaesia once again”, but one could also argue that he created too many plot holes than he could tie-up in the normal course of story-telling.

After visiting some major fan forums, an interesting yet unusual reason that has also been cited as an issue was the failure to kill off a major character (I had half-expected Murtagh to sacrifice himself to save Eragon, cliché as that might have been); just to add plot interest. Throughout the book, Roran seemed the most likely to die, Paolini having written in so many false alarms! As a sucker for happy endings, I’m not sorry that no major character deaths occurred; but one cannot deny that it would have made for a more interesting ending to see how Eragon might deal with the grief and possibly guilt that the victory had come at such a high cost.

Overall, for a book that had been hyped so much but ultimately failed to deliver on most counts, I would award Inheritance 2.5 stars out of 5, but the entire series deserves a 3.5 at least. Paolini has created a stunningly detailed world and for the most part, a spellbinding adventure despite its numerous flaws. The writing can often sink into dull recital mode but the wonderful imagery should be more than enough to counter that, and it is not half a bad series to spend a Sunday afternoon curled up with.

Guilty Hehe...

..because I just realised that the blog has been abandoned for more than half a year. Heh.

The blogging trend seems to have gotten washed away by the current wave of Facebook status updates and tweets, people just don't seem to have the patience to type more than a 100 word update at a time. Granted, trends like these are often fleeting and Facebook and Twitter, with their variety of apps and huge commercial potential appear to have much more staying power than blogs do. I do feel a bit sad/guilty sometimes though, seeing as how I used to blog religiously; consequently there is quite a complete chronicle of my college life here but virtually nothing about my uni life. I guess turning automatically to FB has become second-nature to me. But I am sort of free this week (it's only Week 1) so maybe I can make up for it tonight..if I don't get lost in the swamp of ironing waiting for me.

SLUMP!

Chelsea 0 Bottom-of-table Wolves 1

Chelsea 1 Bolton 0

Chelsea 3 Aston Villa 3

Chelsea 1 Arsenal 3

Chelsea 1 Spurs 1

Chelsea 1 Everton 1

Chelsea 1 Newcastle 1

Chelsea 0 Birmingham 1

Chelsea 1 Sunderland 3

Chelsea 0 Liverpool 2

Even looking at these results gives me the shivers. The worst slump we've EVER been in for donkey years. No disrespect but when table-proppers start beating us, you know that something is seriously, seriously wrong.

Manchester Utd P20 44

Manchester City P21 42

Arsenal P21 40

Tottenham P21 36

......................................

Chelsea P21 35

Sunderland P22 33

Game over for this year.

Memories

Lesson #1: Never ever look at your photo albums late at night. Warning: Severe tugging of heartstrings may be experienced.

BPL: Chelsea v Man Utd Sunday 11pm

Dark Days

Ohhh these are dark days indeed. The CLAW exam was a NIGHTMARE. I'll be lucky to escape with a credit. My mum was right, open book Law exams are absolute b*tches. Part 1 was the stuff of nightmares.

Choose two out of the following four questions:-

1. Explain the role of the courts in interpreting broad statutory provisions such as s. 52 (misleading and deceptive). (A/N: *blank*)

2. If you had to suggest three constitutional amendments to the PM, what would they be and why? (A/N: Err Bill of Rights maybe?)

3. How does the common law balance certainty and flexibility? (A/N: Okay I think I know this, sounds like the doctrine of stare decisis)

4. To what extent does the law represent justice? (A/N: Err I think the textbook has a little bit on this :s)

AAAHHHH FAIL! FOR SURE!

Part 2: Contracts (A/N: Okay I hope. I know exclusion clauses were involved)

Part 3: Negligence (A/N: ZOMG horrible. Sometimes when the question is too simple you go brain dead because you only prepare for the exceptions to the rule!!!)

Part 4: As expected, IP and unconscionable conduct came out. Q1: To what extent are ideas protected under the intellectual property regime? and Q2: Can unconscionability laws coexist with the doctrine of freedom of contract? Hopefully I got something right there seeing as I sort of prepared for these questions. Old man, you are so so so mean! If I get a Pass, it's going to pull my average down from a HD to a D!

ACCT 1B which seemed pretty horrible at the time (The Cash Flow was killer! I didn't know that Bad Debts would come back to haunt me!!!) now seems like a piece of cake next to this horror. Econ was do-able, just that there was a lot of writing involved. Andy and I actually prepared one of the written question from the textbook the night before so hopefully it's all good there.

One more paper to go, ECMT! Got the project marks back today, 13/15. It's a HD so not much complaints. I'm reasonably happy; just that it wasn't very nice to see my friend next to me get 14.6 hmph.

But worst of all...

Chelsea 0 SUNDERLAND 3

Omg I know we had like half our first team squad missing but I don't remember the last time we got thrashed at the Bridge. This is humiliating. *cries* Lampard come back, we need you aaahhh.

FINALS

Err okay so I was supposed to update my blog like after the last Macro exam which seemed to be ages ago..guess I forgot whoops. I'll probably do a recap of this sem after I go home and have nothing to do but rot my brains out during the hols. Anyway, finals are starting in two days time so as you can imagine, everyone's in a super sombre/*short-fuse* kind of mood. I've been trying to escape the tension in the house by hoofing it off to Fisher, where I must admit the growth in my y (output/capita) has been exponential, compared to me sitting in my room and trying to bully my brain into submission. There's no denying the tension/stress as you walk down the aisles on the 8th floor, but at least you don't have to face anybody since we each have individual cubicles. This sem's STUVAC seems to be even more intense the last one: tennis at 7am, library by 9-10 am and round the clock studying until 10pm. I've pretty much put in the same or slightly more effort this semester, but the material just seems to be much more difficult this sem. Throw in a killer Commercial Law subject and you have a recipe for ultimate disaster lol. Again, I have revised my expectations downwards (from the ultimate goal of 4 HDs to 3 HDs and 1D) because I probably didn't put in enough work/didn't do as well as the first semester. But I guess that's normal. No one comes to uni and gets a string of HDs all the way to third year since it only gets harder and harder each sem.

The only good thing to have come out of STUVAC is..STUVAC SUPPERS! It was apple pie on Monday, TimTams on Tuesdays, Shin Ram Yun/Indo Mie on Wednesday, Krispy Kremes on Thursday and Indian food/Diwali celebration on Friday (which I missed). Tonight's the one everyone's been looking forward to, Pizza! :) I swear IH is contributing to our misery, by making us fat on top of being stressed and miserable haha. I can't believe that first year will be over in two weeks time, its been one heck of an interesting year and it's really sad to think that I'll only have 2/3 more years of the student experience to go.

As much as I'd love to go on reflecting/waffling, I guess it's time to get back to Econ.

Monday 8/11 ACCT 1002 (55%-need > 47.2% for HD)

Thursday 11/11 ECON 1002 (50%-need > 38.75% for HD)

Saturday 13/11 CLAW 1001 (60%-need > 51.75% for HD)

Thursday 18/11 ECMT 1010 (40%-marks not released yet)

Macro Exam

GDP. Inflation. CPI. Unemployment. Okun's Law. Recession. Output gap. Keynesian Theory. Planned Aggregate Expenditure. Velocity. Interest Rates. Taylor Rule.

Go away...please? :(

PS Just realised the last post was a month ago. Have so much to catch up on after Thursday's exam!

Shocking?

Catching up on football news..

1. Martin O'Neill has shockingly jumped the Villa ship after 4 years in charge. The timing could hardly be worse with the new PL season kicking off this Saturday

2. James Milner has finally put to rest the rumours that have been dogging him all summer, completing a 24 million pound switch to Moneybags FC.

3. Chelsea lost 3-1 to Man Utd in the Community Shield on Sunday. This marks their 4th straight pre-season loss to-date, alarm bells ringing for Carlo?

4. Paul Robinson has decided to call time on international football after being snubbed by Fabio Capello for the friendly against Hungary. Poor Robbo, he never really did recover after that debacle against Croatia.

5. Barcelona have managed to capture Mesut Oezil as Man Utd and Chelsea were too slow. However, Chelsea have managed to capture promising young midfielder Ramires as a replacement for Ballack.

Oh and I did manage to get a place at the Math workshop hehe. Maybe I'll go watch Chelsea's opening match against WBA this Saturday.

The End of a Bad Week

Reasons why Week 2 was horrible:-

1. I AM SICK AGAIN. Seriously. It's like my body has no defense against Australian germs. And I missed the Welcome to the Jungle party lol.

2. ZOMG my CLAW tutor is sooo scary. He's bound to be critical and harsh when marking our presentations. I was literally quaking in my boots during that extremely frightening hour.

3. Have to start forming groups for ACCT1002 group project aargh. Don't really like the look of the peeps in my tute. Please please don't give me sh*tty group members again, I will absolutely DIE.

4. Did not manage to get a place in the stupid Maths workshop after all. Looks like I have to study it on my own and hope that my memory can recall something.

Reasons why Week 2 was slightly less horrible than it should have been:-

1. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise that I finished reading Chapters 4 and 5 for CLAW last week, it was actually meant for THIS week; which means I have no CLAW readings for this week because I've already read all that stuff about ratio decidendi, obiter dicta etc. Yay!

2. SUMS is doing Faure's Requiem in D Minor this semester, and I am totally hooked to the 'Introit et Kyrie' and 'Libera Me' movements. The music truly haunts you and tugs at your heartstrings. Have yet to hear Vivaldi's Gloria yet though.

3. Amazing what a good day's rest can do. I'm feeling much better than this morning :) Eventhough I have "welcomed" the return of my horrible cough :(

4. Surprisingly, there's no music coming from the Wool Room so looks like I can get some sleep tonight :)

Have run out of lame excuses so am going to sleep now. I promise (for the umpteenth time) to elaborate more when I have a spare moment.

Back to Work

Oh God it's only the SECOND day of the FIRST week and already I haven't read my Macro notes for tomorrow's lecture. And horror of horrors, I have to sign up for a Math workshop for my ECMT1010 because it's been nigh 3 years since I last did Add Maths and about a year since I did C4 so I can safely say that I no longer remember things like permutations and combinations, natural logarithms, exponential functions, geometric and arithmetic progressions etc. This is actually quite embarrassing, I did get an A1 and A after all but I suppose time ravages the brain.

More on Sem 2 later, must get back to reading.