An Archive of Sporkages Past

So it seems like a good idea for anyone who might come here to know what's in this blog. Here follows a list with reviews:

(Note: If there are issues, let me know and I will see what I can do.)

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gharial posting in antishurtugal_reborn, 2018-10-21 19:46

Brisinger Spork: Part 57: Shadows of Doom

Lucky me. I get to spork both the most important chapter in the novel (the introduction of the Eldunari plot point) and the climax. Let’s delve right in (title sucks, but I'm not going to harp on that point).

The story opens with Eragon acting like a massive dick to some elves. And that’s not our antishirt bias, Arya even calls him out on it, but Eragon doesn’t have time to justify himself or argue because suddenly we’re switching to Glaedr’s pov as he flies of Gil’Ead. There doesn’t seem to be any express reason Glaedr is sharing his pov with Eragon. He makes no direct reference to Eragon in his mind, but he must be doing it consciously because Arya is just as close to his Eldunari and she’s not experiencing these flashes. It’s not like Eragon has any intrinsic link to Glaedr either like he does Saphira, he’s just the guy that happens to have Glaedr’s Eldunari nearby.
And because we’re once again looking through the eyes of a dragon, we of course get the tilde~dragon~language. We’ve complained about this at length before. It just doesn’t work stylishly, consistently or even linguistically. All it serves to do is make the dragons look less intelligent. There will be so many examples of it not working in this chapter, I won’t even bother naming them. Just assume every Glaedr scene comes with cringe.

( Read more... )And that’s it for the climax of the book. I suppose it could have been worse. The stuff with Galbatorix is decent, the shade stuff was completely unnecessary, though I guess it didn’t blatantly contradict anything that had been previously established…which is a win as far as the series goes sometimes. I guess its good the book had some sort of climax rather than just ending abruptly. Only the last wrap up chapter left, I believe Torylltales has it written already, which means we can finally finish this spork and move on to Eragon. Ah the good old days when it seemed like Paolini gave a crap.

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Pixen wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-08-25 23:31:00

Brisingr Spork: Chapter 55?: Flight

I'm baaaaaaack! My sporking style has possibly chaaaaanged! Hopefully for the better... My deliberate focus from here on in is to challenge myself not just to recap the chapter's events and snark about it (although snarking is admittedly a lot of fun) but to properly highlight what doesn't work and why, regarding plot, character motivations and prose. That's the plan, anyhow.

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minionnumber2 wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-08-22 01:50:00

Brisingr Spork Chapter 53: Greaves and Bracers

Oops, almost forgot it was my turn again.

This entire chapter is about two pages long and continues the trend of offering no insight into anything or really offering anything at all. Most of it is dedicated to trying to make putting on armor an intimate affair followed up by a cliche pre-war conversation. I wouldn’t hold it against anyone to just skip over this, because this is a chapter that should have been cut. It doesn’t advance the plot or any subplots and it doesn’t offer any character or world development.

I’m going to try and limit this to what we know about in-universe because I don’t think my ~5 hours of research on historic armor is going to be much better than Christopher "Meticulous Research" Paolini in the credibility department. A quick shoutout to Hergrim and ggSauron for resources and advice though!

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cmdrnemo wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-08-18 15:22:00

Brisingr Sporking 51 Mind over Metal

I am not prepared. A demon hunter tells me this with a certain regularity. The Boy Scout in me bristles at the idea. In this instance it is completely true. I am attempting to spork the chapter Mind over Metal in Paolini’s Brisingr. I have never read this book. I have no intention of reading anything outside my self-assigned chapter here. This will be a disaster. Are you prepared?

“Where did you find that?” demanded Rhunön as Eragon staggered into the atrium of her house and dropped the lump of brightsteel ore onto the ground by her feet.

By Grabthar’s hammer what have I gotten myself into here. Brightsteel? Really. Was mithril not nerdy enough for you? Had to go for lower hanging fruit?

I love what this sentence says about Eragon’s personality. Just barges into someone’s house and drops the rock like a mic at a rap battle, all ‘yo, deal with it.’ No handing the ore over to the master ore worker person like it is precious or valuable, like a polite person would. Just, drop it like it’s hot the first chance you get. Cool. Dick.

I promise I’ll cut down on the quotes and the line by line soon.

"In as few words as possible, Eragon explained about Solembum and the Menoa tree."

So, dramatic entrance with a mic drop... followed by off screen exposition. Wow. Worst use of a dramatic entrance ever. Are we sure these books aren’t parodies of the usual over the top fantasy fare? Because that went from 100 to 0 so fast my airbag went off.

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theepistler wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-08-03 11:25:00

LOCATION: United States, Seattle
MOOD: awake

Brisingr Spork: Chapter 49 - The Hands of a Warrior( Read more... )

snarkbotanya wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-07-31 04:46:00

Brisingr Spork Chapter 47: Inheritance

Hello, everyone, Anya here, and—HOLY SHIT DUCK AND COVER!


[Caption: Gif of an anvil falling into a room and two people just ducking away.]

*dusts off* Goddamn, that was a close one.
( To the holodeck! I mean dragon! )
Until next time!
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torylltales wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-07-15 15:50:00

Brisingr Spork, Chapter 45 - Genealogy

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torylltales wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-02-02 16:46:00

Brisingr Spork Chapter 41: Words of Wisdom