A review by cody_crumley
Eldest by Christopher Paolini

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

“No one thinks of himself as a villain, and few make decisions that they think are wrong. A person may dislike his choice, but he will stand by it, because even in the worst of circumstances, he belives that it was the best option available to him at the time. On its own, being a decent person is no guarantee that you will act well."

The resounding thought I had when finishing the second book in the Inheritance Cycle is why should I care about the major plot points that get revealed at the end of the majority of the journey to get there is disappointing. So far, after crossing the halfway point of Paolini’s fantasy tetralogy, I feel just like Eragon, it is getting crushed by expectations that we’re being set by everyone else.

My major complaint with Eldest comes from the fact that a lot of the interesting and exciting aspects are from an extreme zoomed out perspective. The details about the Empire, Gavatorx, Murzahn, how the Elves, Dwarfs, Humans, and Urgles interact with each other, the history of dragons and their riders, etc. All of the lore that Paolini spent probably huge amounts of time crafting and building is all fascinating. 

The problem then lies with when it zooms in on the finer details, like either Eragon and his decision making, his relationship with Sapheria, his “romance” with Arya, the actual training he goes through to learn his abilities. Eragon suffers from what I consider the “Harry Potter” curse, were the named character of the series is the least interesting/exciting/developed character.

This thought gets doubled down on when improvements and well crafted story beats happen with the other POVs like Rowan and Neshwada. Rowan does a complete 180 from probably the most unnecessary character perspective to easily the most interesting. His growth and change makes complete narrative sense and actually feels like Paolini planned and mapped it out really well. Neshwada also shows growth, but more politically than how Rowan does. She is shown to be able to outsmart the council of elders that control the Varden, while making levelheaded gestures and decisions that show how nature of a leader she is.

Another disappointment is the doubling down on being “Fantasy Star Wars”. We had started to slowly move away from that but man it went back to that well again with some Lord of the Rings sprinkled on top 

I keep getting told that this series is amazing, so maybe my expectations have just been too high, but I hope from this point forward the story beats/plot start to gain its own footing instead of continuing the “Inheritance Cycle” of poor narrative decisions.