The book hit the sweet spot of me being extremely miffed with it, and being invested enough in the world and its characters that I managed to write 20k words about how miffed I was. Glad you liked it, thanks for reading!
Excellent, very thorough review of the character and the book named after him. I tend to think that Murtagh's many personality transplants through the series were a reaction to fan reception. Murtagh was more popular than Eragon, so Paolini made him "evil". Evil Murtagh was still more popular that Eragon, so Paolini made him pathetic and mostly off-screen. And then after a decade of playing with unrelated sci-fi projects, Paolini forgot how to write Murtagh at all. At several points in the book Paolini clearly forgot that he wasn't writing about Eragon (for example, Murtagh's magic suddenly being blue rather than red).
Whether it was forgetfulness, incompetence, or a deliberate change, the result is that Murtagh's characterisation is very inconsistent across books, which makes for a not great reading experience.
Edit: I also really liked your point about motivation, and completely agree. Paolini has always been a plot-focused writer, his characters don't affect the plot so much as get dragged along by it.
I’d more so point the finger of blame regarding Murtagh’s personality flips in Eldest at the huge Empire Strikes Back influence rather than Chris being malicious; Murtagh revealing to Eragon that they’re brothers plucks the same emotional strings as Vader telling Luke he’s his father. Coming from someone who *was* the perfect target audience at the time I read it (9) ... I can completely understand how this ended up happening from a craft perspective.
There’s a school of thought that writers only really write one story over and over again, cobbled from one or more influences from childhood (another piece of media, the living environment, a life experience, etc.), and if that influence for Chris is Star Wars, then it’s unsurprising that he recreated ESB’s climactic fight on the Burning Plains beat-for-beat. That the final product so obviously relates to ESB is what happens when you have inexperienced writers making their own stuff for the first time — they can’t integrate the influences enough with their original material to “hide” them. And so: Eragon/Luke and Murtagh/Han rescuing Arya/Leia in the first book, and then evil Murtagh/Darth Vader beating the snot out of Eragon/Luke in the second book before telling him a devastating family secret. And the Burning Plains does work on an emotional level. I mean, hell, the scene stuck with me to the point I memorised the chapter and can *still* recite it beat-for-beat (and a chunk of the dialogue) almost 20 years later, and those emotions still influence my media tastes and my own writing. Fortunately for me, I’m not getting published at 19 and so preserving my mistakes for the rest of the world to pick to pieces lol
So again, I doubt Murtagh’s change of personality has anything to do with Chris being salty at fan reactions, but more so him not having the required experience/skill as a writer to pull off what he was going for, which has unfortunately persisted to this day; selling 40m books will do that to the ego.
I had a look back at the parts where Murtagh’s magic turns blue, and I read that as him putting so much energy into the fire that it achieves perfect combustion rather than Chris “forgetting” he’s not writing Eragon. If the guy likes one thing, it’s pop science, and the more books he writes, the more that loves creeps front and centre. The established magic rules are begging for death in the corner fr fr.
Heeey, you quoted me! I always thought that was the best chapter spork I ever did.
I absolutely hated this book, particularly in that it turned Murtagh into an incompetent moron who cries all the time. I can't help but feel this was deliberate character assassination, and I hated even more that Murtagh and Thorn get tortured and enslaved AGAIN. It's not just repetitive; it's really unfair and insensitive.
Oh wow! Hi! I found the original Epistles just after I finished Inheritance ... God, twelve years ago now? Damn. I think someone mentioned them on Shurtugal.com’s Inheritance Forums or linked them, I don’t remember exactly how I found them, but I did spend a great number of hours reading them and the Kippurbird sporks during class. Thanks for all of them, I had a lot of fun!
I don’t think what happened in this book was a deliberate character assassination of Murtagh on Paolini’s part, but more so Paolini either 1) forgetting how to write Murtagh after a decade of not writing him, 2) having a different Murtagh in his head than what appeared in the original books, or 3) not understanding what made him so popular, because there certainly are sections where I could reconcile the Murtagh that’s in my head with the one that was on page (e.g. “Most of all, Murtagh didn’t want to admit to the world that he or Thorn needed anyone else’s help. His stance was sheer stubborn pride, but he could not bring himself to show their weakness to the world. Weakness was dangerous; weakness allowed others to hurt and exploit you. Weakness was the first step on the path to death.”); my gut says it’s a mix of 1 and 3. I also don’t think it helped that, as I talked about in my essay, Paolini hasn’t developed the writing skills other authors who aren’t making squillions of dollars at a young age *and* right out of the gate to boot have, so he’s able to keep cruising along as is. Hence recycled plots in having Murtagh and Thorn tortured and enslaved again, hence the difficulties in keeping his characters internally consistent, and the same actions to move scenes along (tripping over, passing out), etc.
So I seriously doubt this book fell short due to malicious intent, but rather just a mundane case of Stunted Writer Syndrome. Which is such a shame because Murtagh and Thorn are extremely precious characters to me and so many others.
Thank you so much for reading my essay, I’m thrilled you enjoyed it!
Good old Kippurbird - she's a friend of mine! We even got to hang out in real life once! She has a collection of rubber duckies. XD
We tend to think Paolini hates Murtagh for being more popular than his horrible self-insert but then again I do have a saying which might well apply here: never put down to malice what you can explain with plain incompetence. As you'll have noticed, Paolini only really knows how to write one kind of protagonist, that being a whiny asshole with a tedious doom and gloom attitude. At least he didn't also turn Murtagh into a bloodthirsty psychopath until right at the end when he starts enjoying killing just like all his predecessors, sigh.
You're dead right about the stunted writer syndrome thing. Dude never had to spend *any* time honing his craft and has clearly received little to no honest feedback, and it ended up exactly as anyone with half a brain would expect. Being insulated from criticism and becoming famous, particularly at an early impressionable age, is incredibly bad for you.
I'm pretty sure that after this we're going to get "Arya", "Nasuada" and "Roran", and if god truly hates us, "Angela" - shudder. D:
(I have no idea why Murtagh and Nasuada like each other either. Just looking at the guy should be a huge emotional trigger for her, plus the way their relationship was depicted in book four made it look like she was just heartlessly manipulating him and didn't actually care about him at all).
EXACTLYYYYYYYYY to all this!!! waited so long to read this book and what a let down and you put all my frustrations with it into words!!!
The book hit the sweet spot of me being extremely miffed with it, and being invested enough in the world and its characters that I managed to write 20k words about how miffed I was. Glad you liked it, thanks for reading!
Excellent, very thorough review of the character and the book named after him. I tend to think that Murtagh's many personality transplants through the series were a reaction to fan reception. Murtagh was more popular than Eragon, so Paolini made him "evil". Evil Murtagh was still more popular that Eragon, so Paolini made him pathetic and mostly off-screen. And then after a decade of playing with unrelated sci-fi projects, Paolini forgot how to write Murtagh at all. At several points in the book Paolini clearly forgot that he wasn't writing about Eragon (for example, Murtagh's magic suddenly being blue rather than red).
Whether it was forgetfulness, incompetence, or a deliberate change, the result is that Murtagh's characterisation is very inconsistent across books, which makes for a not great reading experience.
Edit: I also really liked your point about motivation, and completely agree. Paolini has always been a plot-focused writer, his characters don't affect the plot so much as get dragged along by it.
Thank you so much!
I’d more so point the finger of blame regarding Murtagh’s personality flips in Eldest at the huge Empire Strikes Back influence rather than Chris being malicious; Murtagh revealing to Eragon that they’re brothers plucks the same emotional strings as Vader telling Luke he’s his father. Coming from someone who *was* the perfect target audience at the time I read it (9) ... I can completely understand how this ended up happening from a craft perspective.
There’s a school of thought that writers only really write one story over and over again, cobbled from one or more influences from childhood (another piece of media, the living environment, a life experience, etc.), and if that influence for Chris is Star Wars, then it’s unsurprising that he recreated ESB’s climactic fight on the Burning Plains beat-for-beat. That the final product so obviously relates to ESB is what happens when you have inexperienced writers making their own stuff for the first time — they can’t integrate the influences enough with their original material to “hide” them. And so: Eragon/Luke and Murtagh/Han rescuing Arya/Leia in the first book, and then evil Murtagh/Darth Vader beating the snot out of Eragon/Luke in the second book before telling him a devastating family secret. And the Burning Plains does work on an emotional level. I mean, hell, the scene stuck with me to the point I memorised the chapter and can *still* recite it beat-for-beat (and a chunk of the dialogue) almost 20 years later, and those emotions still influence my media tastes and my own writing. Fortunately for me, I’m not getting published at 19 and so preserving my mistakes for the rest of the world to pick to pieces lol
So again, I doubt Murtagh’s change of personality has anything to do with Chris being salty at fan reactions, but more so him not having the required experience/skill as a writer to pull off what he was going for, which has unfortunately persisted to this day; selling 40m books will do that to the ego.
I had a look back at the parts where Murtagh’s magic turns blue, and I read that as him putting so much energy into the fire that it achieves perfect combustion rather than Chris “forgetting” he’s not writing Eragon. If the guy likes one thing, it’s pop science, and the more books he writes, the more that loves creeps front and centre. The established magic rules are begging for death in the corner fr fr.
Thanks again for reading!
Heeey, you quoted me! I always thought that was the best chapter spork I ever did.
I absolutely hated this book, particularly in that it turned Murtagh into an incompetent moron who cries all the time. I can't help but feel this was deliberate character assassination, and I hated even more that Murtagh and Thorn get tortured and enslaved AGAIN. It's not just repetitive; it's really unfair and insensitive.
Great essay!
~The Epistler
Oh wow! Hi! I found the original Epistles just after I finished Inheritance ... God, twelve years ago now? Damn. I think someone mentioned them on Shurtugal.com’s Inheritance Forums or linked them, I don’t remember exactly how I found them, but I did spend a great number of hours reading them and the Kippurbird sporks during class. Thanks for all of them, I had a lot of fun!
I don’t think what happened in this book was a deliberate character assassination of Murtagh on Paolini’s part, but more so Paolini either 1) forgetting how to write Murtagh after a decade of not writing him, 2) having a different Murtagh in his head than what appeared in the original books, or 3) not understanding what made him so popular, because there certainly are sections where I could reconcile the Murtagh that’s in my head with the one that was on page (e.g. “Most of all, Murtagh didn’t want to admit to the world that he or Thorn needed anyone else’s help. His stance was sheer stubborn pride, but he could not bring himself to show their weakness to the world. Weakness was dangerous; weakness allowed others to hurt and exploit you. Weakness was the first step on the path to death.”); my gut says it’s a mix of 1 and 3. I also don’t think it helped that, as I talked about in my essay, Paolini hasn’t developed the writing skills other authors who aren’t making squillions of dollars at a young age *and* right out of the gate to boot have, so he’s able to keep cruising along as is. Hence recycled plots in having Murtagh and Thorn tortured and enslaved again, hence the difficulties in keeping his characters internally consistent, and the same actions to move scenes along (tripping over, passing out), etc.
So I seriously doubt this book fell short due to malicious intent, but rather just a mundane case of Stunted Writer Syndrome. Which is such a shame because Murtagh and Thorn are extremely precious characters to me and so many others.
Thank you so much for reading my essay, I’m thrilled you enjoyed it!
Good old Kippurbird - she's a friend of mine! We even got to hang out in real life once! She has a collection of rubber duckies. XD
We tend to think Paolini hates Murtagh for being more popular than his horrible self-insert but then again I do have a saying which might well apply here: never put down to malice what you can explain with plain incompetence. As you'll have noticed, Paolini only really knows how to write one kind of protagonist, that being a whiny asshole with a tedious doom and gloom attitude. At least he didn't also turn Murtagh into a bloodthirsty psychopath until right at the end when he starts enjoying killing just like all his predecessors, sigh.
You're dead right about the stunted writer syndrome thing. Dude never had to spend *any* time honing his craft and has clearly received little to no honest feedback, and it ended up exactly as anyone with half a brain would expect. Being insulated from criticism and becoming famous, particularly at an early impressionable age, is incredibly bad for you.
I'm pretty sure that after this we're going to get "Arya", "Nasuada" and "Roran", and if god truly hates us, "Angela" - shudder. D:
(I have no idea why Murtagh and Nasuada like each other either. Just looking at the guy should be a huge emotional trigger for her, plus the way their relationship was depicted in book four made it look like she was just heartlessly manipulating him and didn't actually care about him at all).