InsaneJournal

Is Eddings merely a misspelling of "eddies"?
My post.



1. ARGH! Oh yes, the first pages of DoF are lifted, almost word for word from TDT! It is one thing to cleverly reuse certain phrases to keep the mood of the series/book, but this particular case just smacks of laziness. Except for the addition of the first sentence in DoF, the first paragraph - which is what, 150 words? - of DoF and TDT are identical. No joke. I just pulled out my copies and compared them. Man, the translator must have had an easy job.

The only major difference is that Krager doesn't show up, and Kurik is named Khalad this time. And oh gosh yes - the description of Rendor and its ladies. I can bet you good money that Eddings wrote that particular bit of description once and went "Oooh, this is all pretty! Let's stick it in when I want to pad my wordcount! I am so clever!". It is a pretty bit of description - one I rather like, in fact - but it worked better in TDT, when Sparhawk was still washing the dust of that place from his skin.

2. You know, he never does explain it in E/T. Maybe it can be somehow explained by the presence of Bhelliom (we can go deeper into that when you've re-read the entire trilogy), but the repetition in E/T is basically tooting the Obvious Horn and carrying around a banner with the words Authorial Convenience written on it in big, blocky letters. Progression is, again, something that happens to other people. Thankfully, Tamuli does do a lot of politics later on, once they've gotten to Matherion, otherwise I might have made a book-shaped dent in my wall.

(Also, comparing B/M would be nice - I just need to reread B first; Malloreon is still fresh in my mind, though I skipped the fifth book this time 'round, but I haven read B in years. Still, the books are slim, and I remember going through them in two days tops, when I was eleven, so it shouldn't take too long.)

3. Ehlana is Ce'Nedra, without the benefit of the "Oh heavens, I'm leading these people to their deaths!" revelation and Polgara/Belgarath laying the occasional verbal smackdown on her. And, in Tamuli, Ehlana is how old? Eighteen when she's reawakened, and she's pregnant at the end of TSR, which takes a place a few months to a year later - let's say a year, for convenience's sake, so she's nineteen - and then she'll be closer to twenty when Danae is born - which means she's roughly twenty-six when Tamuli starts. Which means she's damned well old enough to know better.

(Mind you, Ce'Nedra was - sixteen plus eight equals twenty-four, plus the year spent chasing Geran/Zandramas in M - twenty five-ish when M ended, and she was at least as childish as Ehlana. Ce'Nedra's only redeeming quality is that at least Eddings' acknowledges her childishness repeatedly. Ehlana is bratty as all get out, but everyone just stands around oohing and aahing.)

Bevier is drop dead gorgeous, apparently, and Ehlana says there's a shadow of hope for Tynian, by which I assume she means he's not entirely hopeless where looks are concerned, because that's how Eddings works; Beril has every woman across the world weak-kneed (curious - why didn't this happen in E? He would've been just as pretty at eighteen as he is at twenty-six, yes?), Alean is repeatedly referred to as doe-eyed; Melidere is apparently so gorgeous that men's brains turn into mush; Stragen is referred to as "attractive"; Kalten is apparently handsome enough to charm every milkmaid in the world into his bed; Sarabian is mentioned to be handsome; Mirtai is pretty in a dangerous way; Sephrenia is beautiful; Vanion is called handsome at the end of Tamuli too, I think; all of Sarabian's wives aside from Gahenas are also gorgeous, etc., etc.

Only Ulath, Calaador and Khalad are left out of the pretty-fest - nothing's said about Ulath beyond him being tall and blond, Calaador is defined by his crazy accent, and Khalad is said to look creepily like Kurik, up to and including the bristly black beard, and nothing's ever said about Kurik looking good. Oh, and Sparhawk, of course - he's mean-looking and has a broken nose, which is mentioned at least five times in every book, in case we forgot it.

It gets dreary, after a while.

Zandramas' transformation into stars was an interesting twist that I think Eddings could have spent more time on, because it was something I've never seen done before.

And oh deary me, the singing. Alean has a prettiful voice, Stragen is not only a master thief, spy, fencer and politician, he is also wonderful with a lute and an awesome singer, and Melidere could sing the birds from the trees. One fantastic singer I could handle. All three of them turning up out of the blue? It's almost as bad as Ce'Nedra sounding exactly like a flute in Tol Honeth in M.

The only one whose singing voice actually serves a plot-purpose beyond "Har, we're prettiful!" is Alean, and that's only once, very late in the trilogy.

5. Eddings' characters are actors. They aren't people who live in his imaginary worlds, they're just characters who act out the script he gives them, and the worlds are a stage set which gets bundled away every night to make sure no one trips over it. In E/T, for example, we get to know nothing about what Bevier and Tynian and Ulath and Kalten were doing during that six year gap - there's some hints about brewing unrest in Rendor, but that's it; just hints, nothing more. There's political unrest in Thalesia, but Eddings says "Thalesian Vikings Knights don't care, so it's not a problem, even though political unrest should throw the entire society into some sort of turmoil." and that's that. Rendor has apparently changed kings in the meantime (Ogyrin in Tamuli; he was named something else in E, so I assume it's a different person), and when Arasham dies, there's no splinterings of schisms in the Rendor heretics' ranks, but everyone just unites under Ulesim, because that's what Eddings needs them to do.

Everything bows down to the unstoppable juggernaut plot of Get The Glowing Blue McGuffin And Save The World From Crazy Evil Gods, because Eddings is lazy, and can't imagine that we'd be interested in anything else. All the while, I'm wailing "Backstory! For the love of socks, backstory! Politics! Character motivations! Worlds that extend beyond the tips of our noses!".

6. .... The Original Purpose of the Universe+the assorted gods+Ul. Aphrael+Troll gods+Aphrael's cousins+Cyrgon. Dweia+Daeva+Deiwos. The Elder Gods, which I haven't read. I think you're right, here. If not for the power of divine intervention (which is actually the most obvious in The Redemption of Althalus - Ghend, who is the servant of Daeva, sets the plot really rolling, even though Dweia has been Althalus' personal luck goddess for years (because having him steal the book purely out of greed would mean poor Althie was a flawed character, and we can't have that), and the Knife, which is really the book of Dweia, chooses all our heroes, and they spend most of their time in the House, which belongs to Deiwos originally, and it's all because Daeva thinks the world shouldn't move beyond mountain-crushing glaciers because Change Is Bad. That book. It makes my head hurt) none of the plot would ever have happened. In E/T, the gods are helped by Bhelliom and Klael, too who are über-gods.

7. The telling, and the lack of showing, and the thousands of missed opportunity for character development - oh, it grates on me so badly. Stragen/Melidere could have been a wonderful side-plot during the political stab-fest in Tamuli, but noooo, Eddings has to make it all "And then she told him she's the worst criminal evar, and when she got cut down by a fop, he went Neanderthal" which is about the silliest thing seen in that part of the book, and since it's contending with a lot of silly things, that's saying a lot. We're told all these things about the characters, like "Stragen is oh so witty!" but we never get to see it, which defeats the point.


... I don't remember much about how Toth died, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a remarkable similarity, because that's just how Eddings-verses work. At least he had the guts to kill someone in B/M and E/T and not bring them back - in The Redemption of Althalus, Eliar is this close to dying, but divine intervention saves him, because having him die would mean the good guys couldn't win.

... You know what I think Eddings ought to try? Fantasy without the Quest for the McGuffin, And Also, Evil Gods! Make it something less divine-intervention-y, like church politics. Wouldn't you just love to see a Rendor/Eosian Church conflict explored in detail, without the aid of Bhelliom? Religious schisms are fun, and Eddings wouldn't even have to contrive stupid reasons for conflict, because the reasons are already there!