Wooo

[kippurbird]

Hey look! Inheritance Part one!


A taste of the pain to come:

This is from the summary, where we're starting.

In the beginning, there were dragons: proud, fierce, and independent. Their scales were like gems, and all who gazed upon them despaired, for their beauty was great and terrible.

And they lived alone in the land of Alagaësia for ages uncounted.

Okay. So. In the beginning of what? Were there dragons before there was land? Also beauty makes people despair? Is it a sort of "OH I WILL NEVER BE AS BEAUTIFUL AS THEM I MIGHT AS WELL GO AND BE DEPRESSED?!" And finally, if the dragons were alone, then WHO WAS GAZING UPON THEM AND DESPAIRING?! These few lines are pretty and sound good. I mean people fear dragons, they're so fierce and whatnot. But if the dragons are along, then who can gaze upon them and be afraid? And why does their beauty the cause of the despair from the non-existent people?

Comments

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

Heeeeeeee.

My life is over because I'm not nearly as pretty as the dragons. -weeps-

Um, do these dragons eat people? Just curious.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Now there's an interesting question. The dragons have killed people but I have yet to see, from what I can recall, any of them eating people. However the lead dragon, Saphira, has been threatened to kill/eat people for not giving her things like three barrels of beer. Because a dragon really needs three barrels of beer when such things should (but probably weren't) rationed in an army.

Saphira did kill the messenger from the enemy army in the first or second book. I don't remember the situation exactly, but it was near the end. Spitting rage.

Of course Saphira is the only dragon we've seen reguarly, so I can't speak of the other three (now two) remaining dragon's behaviors.

Wow, that's a really awful summary... even if it's only part of a summary

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

In the beginning, there were dragons: proud, fierce, and independent.

Independent is great if you have a reference to compare it to. I mean... independent from what? One another? If they're talking about independent of the other races, before those races ever showed up, then they could, I don't know, use a different word. Maybe self-governing or... eh. Besides, if all of them are independent that might just mean they're an asocial species. Which is fine but that'd be a better word maybe? Independent is really not that descriptive in this context. Nor is proud and fierce but I'll let those slide. They do make sense on their own and work well for intelligent beasties.


Their scales were like gems, and all who gazed upon them despaired, for their beauty was great and terrible.And they lived alone in the land of Alagaësia for ages uncounted.

First off, this is such a stupid sentence. They can't be alone when there are other dragons to keep them company! I know what was meant but it's still bad.

Actually, maybe the sentence is trying to suggest the dragons were without riders for ages uncounted? But then the first sentence seems really pointless. Maybe the sentence is trying to suggest they're cannibal dragons who can't go near one another... :P


In short, you're right. Pretty sentences that mean nothing and tell us nothing. Kind of sad when even the summary doesn't know what to say. I'm going to hope it was not written by the Paolini and instead written by someone who was paid to do it but decided not to bother reading the book in full and either skimmed it or went to the internet for some general information regarding the previous books and what was to be expected in this one.


Btw, sorry about disappearing for a long time and never accepting the egg I asked for (I assume you might have bred her for me, sorry about that.) I stopped doing most online sites because of 2011 being a really awful year for me overall. Then when I checked in December, thinking of coming back to it, all of my dragons had lost their names. I could try renaming them but some of their names (newer ones mostly) are on a dead laptop and even with the older ones, it's hard as hell to remember which one is which when they all look the same. So I renamed who I could and decided not to bother anymore with Dragon Cave. :\

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

Their scales were like gems, and all who gazed upon them despaired, for their beauty was great and terrible.

I knew it! They're emo dragons! Nothing but green with envy... *rim-shot*

Seriously though, I can accept the idea of people going "OMG I can never compare" if, as you mentioned Kippur, there was anyone not a dragon to be compared to. Okay it makes more sense with the dragons comparing to one another and less sense if looks-nothing-like-a-dragon is envious.

If they were less concerned with dragon beauty and more concerned with how amazingly they hunted or their ability to fly or their cunning, it's still kind of shallow but makes a little more sense? I mean, why would a humanoid compare themselves to a dragon and go "OMG I have no shining scales, I am so ugly" unless they were a humanoid race who valued scales for some reason. Maybe they have vestigial scales or scale envy, and decorated themselves in dragon hide leather? Were these only women who felt envy? Did their men have sex with dragons a lot? It makes very little objective or subjective sense without more explanation. People tend to covet and despair over that which they aspire to. If they're simply coveting beauty in the generic sense, that's really pointless.

Honestly, I think he just wanted to make a LotR reference here. He succeeded at that but the sentence itself failed at explaining anything.


Sorry I had this in my above comment originally but I screwed up the tags and it was removed apparently. :1

[alas-a-llama.livejournal.com]

Aha. Ahaha.

It would be tenuous for me to say that he's ripping off Tolkien there (specifically, Galadriel's speech about how she'll be be beautiful and terrible; how all will love her and despair), very tenuous indeed.

But given that Paolini rips people off (which all authors do, but with most authors the stuff they rip off then evolve into new ideas) all the time, especially Star Wars and Lord of the Rings - I side-eyed this summary a bit, let's say.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

General consensus seems to be that's what he was ripping off.

I'm not sure what it means when people seem to automatically assume that you're ripping something off instead of doing it accidentally.