Tournament of lost potential: Main Characters Semifinals

[atoraruka]

Sorry, it has been quite a while. I have had some domestic problems, but I managed to finish this. However, this round became so huge that I had to split it in two for the sake of making them shorter than the books

Comments

[zelaznamaska]

I love this series of yours, both for your own ideas and for summarizing and synthesizing those that have already appeared here :)

As for Firnen: yes, anything would be more interesting than what actually happened. After all that hype about the green egg, the obvious thing to do would be to make him hatch SOONER. I'd say the beginning of the last book at the latest. But Paolini basically relegated him to the epilogue. The importance of his hatching is somewhere between Dumbledore being declared gay and Samwise Gamgee becoming the mayor for the seventh time.

[atoraruka]

Thanks. I really appreciate the feedback (any type of feedback) and I'm glad you like it

And yes, Finren is the most exaggerated example of Paolini's laziness ruining a potential interesting plot point. It was a bigger anticlimax that Galby's battle

[galbyisourking]

Amen. Murtagh was one of the only good characters in the series. Of course, if Paolini had managed to give him some attention, I'm sure he would have turned out just as whiny and entitled as our 'hero'.

[ultramega10]

Not necessarily. Paolini's biggest problem is that he is convinced he knows it all and doesn't have to improve. If he'd had the emotional maturity to take a step back and figure out why everyone liked Murtagh better than his self-insert then he would have had the maturity to keep improving. Thus future works of his would have been better and shorter, and this community might not be the largest group of people still reading his books.

Ah, the road not taken.

[anonymous]

I have an idea for alt-Roran: He should not get overpowered. Instead, he should continue to be at the same power level as Eldest. His aim is to fight in the battles and keep convincing the people his village to do the same, so that the Varden don't think that they are a waste of resources. His interest is more on protecting his family and his people, than to defeat Galbatorix. He can be used to show the perspective of a normal person in the war (his losses, the uncertainty etc, since he is a family man). I don't think a 'normal person' perspective exists in this story.

-TTT

[thegharialguy]

Roran's problems kind of started at the end of Eldest. Remember he was the one who somehow managed to kill the Twins and some how turn the entire battle in the favor of the Vardan single handedly.

Bizzare side note, but I imagine the twins looking exactly like the Paradox Brothers from Yu-Gi-Oh. I also envision Glaedr as looking exactly like the Winged Dragon of Ra (minus a limb). Was actually sort of disappointed when he showed up on the cover of the third book and didn't have a beak.

[thegharialguy]

I think they're described as bald.