Book Review 2

Book Read: Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

A Different Childhood

When I compare my childhood with that of Eragon’s, I feel that my life has been very boring compared to Eragon’s. Eragon’s life (until this book) was full of adventure. When he was still quite young (in the first book), he found a dragon’s egg. This egg hatched into a dragon he named Saphira. Together with Saphira and several other people, Eragon embarks on countless adventures to fight the evil Galbatorix and his minions. He encounters many difficulties and challenges, but every time he never fails to succeed (except one or two times). Even if he fails, he will not give up and will still go on and try to defeat Galbatorix. My life, on the other hand, has been very dull. I follow the same routine almost every day; nothing interesting ever happens to me. The closest I got to adventure is going to a theme park. I wish I could go on many exciting adventures like Eragon and meet more people.

Differences and Similarities Galbatorix and Eragon

Eragon and Galbatorix are both different and similar in several ways. Eragon and Galbatorix are both good at using magic and are also one of the very few dragon riders left. However they use their powers differently. They have far more differences than similarities between them. Galbatorix is a cruel and power-hungry dictator. He killed off all the remaining dragon riders after he realized that they were a threat to his power. He kept the heart of hearts of the dragons whose riders he had slayed to make himself more powerful. He also does not care about the lives of the people who serve him. One example is in Brisingr, when he had several hundred of his soldiers made immune to pain so that they could fight more people before dying. This shows that he was ruthless and only cared about killing his enemies, no matter how many of his own servants die doing this. Eragon, however, is the opposite. He is concerned about the lives of innocent civilians and even tries to refrain from killing his enemies. He feels bad when he is forced to kill people, even if they are trying to kill him. He is also kind. When he had a chance to kill Sloan, a person who had betrayed him, he chose not to, instead sending him to the elves kingdom to spend his life there.

Battling Varaug from Eragon’s Point of View

My thoughts crashed against a mental wall that was Varaug’s mind. His mind was so complicated, so incoherent; I feared I would go mad if I spent too much time battling him.

Suddenly, I felt that I had lost control. Varaug seized the chance, pushing past the barriers in my mind. I felt an excruciating pain surge throughout my body, and I could not do anything about it. I struggled as much as I could, but my efforts were to no avail; I could only stare at Varaug’s physical form, unable to do anything else.

“Yes!” Varaug cried with glee. “You are full of light! You will be able to feed us for a long time!” At that moment, Arya grabbed his wrist and broke it into three. She fell to the ground and rolled away before he could heal himself. I saw her gasp for air as she reached for her sword. The shade growled and pounced on Arya, wrestling for control of her weapon. Arya screamed and struck Varaug’s right temple with the pommel of her sword.

The shade looked as if it had fallen unconscious and Arya made full use of that time by scrambling back to her feet and backing away. I felt him lose control over my mind and I continued my attack on his consciousness, trying to restrain him for a few moments.

Varaug rose to his right knee, face contorted with loathing.

“You can’t kill me!” he said with anger in his voice. “I’m a Shade!” I doubled my efforts to restrain his mind and the Shade faltered for an instant.

“Get him now!” I shouted to Arya. She lunged forward, sword pointing downwards towards Varaug; sweat glistening in her dark hair.

And she stabbed him through the heart.

The Shade extricated himself from Arya’s sword looking shaken and took a few steps backwards. His skin started to fade and I could see the countless mass of evil spirits contained in him.

“NO!” he screamed in rage. “You cannot kill me!” As he said those words, the dark mass of spirits tripled in size and started seeping through his form.

“ARGH!” he screamed once more and he crumpled to the floor before his form exploded in a blinding flash of light. I had to cover my eyes to protect them from the strength of the light. When it was over, I saw what was left of the spirits fly in all directions, passing through the stone walls of the tower as if it were non-existent.

Why this Title is a Good One

I feel that this title is a good one as it contains an important part of the book. It is also very creative as it will attract a reader’s attention because they will not know what it means. This will add some mystery to the story. Brisingr actually means ‘fire’ in the Ancient Language, but people who have not read the book will not know. One part of the storyline is Eragon’s search for a new sword after Murtagh takes his original one after a fight in the previous book. When Eragon finally gets a sword worthy of a dragon rider, he names it ‘Brisingr’ which is the sword’s true name. Every time he says ‘Brisingr’, the blade of the sword will burst into flames, which hints that the sword is responding to its true name. The writer of the story, Christopher Paolini, probably wanted to highlight the importance of the sword in this book, thus he named the book Brisingr, which is quite creative.