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Post by pokerandice on Apr 27, 2007 23:18:06 GMT -5
After reading through Eragon and Eldest, one thing seemed always on my mind while everyone talked about how uber evil Galbatorix is and how mean he is to everyone and whatnot.
Is Galbatorix really evil?
I know CP was trying to make Gably evil, but to me it didn't turn out that way.
Think about it:
Galbatorix overthrew the riders - as we all know - but this is nothing different to how things were in medieval times. It wasn't considered evil, it was just a change in leadership. Other than that, Galbatoris managed to bring his Empire (while on the subject, Galbatorix is a King...who rules an Empire?) to an age of peace where there is relatively no war. So far, the most evil thing he has done is make his people pay taxes. OMG! NOT TAXES!
When looking at Galbatorix this way, looking at the Varden shows them only to be terrorists. They are just a group of people trying to disrupt the land and kill their ruler's armies. Considering that the Varden are terrorists, Roran, Eragon, Arya, Brom and all the rest of the "good guys" are criminals.
What will happen after they kill Galbatorix, having killed possibly millions of innocent people to get to that point? Some other bum will sit on the throne and nothing will change. Taxes will still be enforced, except now their might be a bunch of dragons flying around keeping law instead of Galbatorix's men.
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emoelf
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Post by emoelf on May 1, 2007 0:50:52 GMT -5
Well, think about what eragon saw in the town Yazuac. He saw piles of dead bodies including a baby's dead body at the top. Galbatorix sent Urgals to do this. He probably did many more things than this too. Plus, Galbatorix overthrew a peaceful order of riders even though Alagaesia was prospering and at peace. He also killed many civilians in the process too. In eldest Oromis asks eragon why he is fighting Galbatorix. After much debate Eragon says that if they dont defeat Galbatorix than people will continue to die. More people will die than if they hadn't fought the war and tried to defeat him.
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Post by pokerandice on May 1, 2007 2:00:42 GMT -5
Galbatorix was searching for a traitor and a potential threat to his throne. This is no less than any king would have done. If Eragon or Roran was king they would have done the exact same thing to keep their line's bums on that throne.
How would more people die if Eragon and the Varden stopped their terrorism? No doubt they could come to a treaty. The Varden could keep Surda, the elves could disappear into the west as was their plan. Eragon would probably remain alive as Galbatorix was trying to raise the dragons again and he would need Saphira. On that subject, Galbatorix was trying to rebuild the Dragon Riders. He would have done this perfectly well if the Varden and the elves hadn't stolen the egg in what they call a "noble cause".
How? If the Varden hadn't fought the war than there would be no need for Galbatorix to kill anyone. If the Varden weren't trying to overthrow Galbatorix than why would he kill them? This quote seems a very Eragon-ish thing to say.
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Demosthenes
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Post by Demosthenes on May 1, 2007 15:14:29 GMT -5
To me it seems that in that particular quote, emoelf is trying to say that more people will die than if they never fought the war because they are fighting the war which results in death (if that makes sense). But, that would go against the point emoelf is trying to prove. Maybe it was just an accident on her part. I'm not really that sure. Anyways, it think you have a point Poker. I'm not going to fully agree with you, though because I still believe Galbatorix is evil. OTherwise, he nevr would have sought power in the first place (And I'm not saying that everyone who seeks power is evil).
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emoelf
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Post by emoelf on May 1, 2007 18:19:08 GMT -5
Sorry I wasn't more clear. Ok, in the book eragon we discover that the town Yazuac has been entirely wiped out. Many innocent people including women and children, even babies have been killed by the urgals. Eragon later discovers that the urgals were sent by galbatorix to do this. This shows that Galbatorix enjoys making inocent people suffer. These people had nothing to do with the Varden and were killed.
Over a long period of time with Galbatorix on the throne more people would die than the people being killed fighting in the war. Galbatorix is an evil tyrant - period. He killed of a peaceful order of people who protected the weak and kept away evil. I just think that Galbatorix is pure evil. Maybe at one point he wasn't evil and something that happened to him made him want to get revenge, but galbatorix's actions are unexcusible.
By killing Galbatorix many soldiers would die of course. But in the end the varden would stop galbatorix from continuing to kill inocent people.
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Post by pokerandice on May 2, 2007 1:20:14 GMT -5
I still fail to see how you are saying that he is killing innocent people for no reason and would continue should the Varden be non-existant. He killed the people in Yazuac because he was searching for a potential threat to his throne. Like I said before. This is the same as any king would have done to protect his throne. Had he been informed that he was in Yazuac or would soon be, he (an any ruler) would send soldiers to find them and kill anyone they perceived to be lying.
You are still using that evil word which I find very subjective in this discussion. By accounts of what I am saying the Varden are the evil and Galbatorix is the one trying to keep them at bay from disrupting his Empire(?) which would be at peace without the threats to Galbatorix.
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ikerpenge
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Post by ikerpenge on May 2, 2007 19:34:19 GMT -5
My honest opinion is that Galbatorix is just a nut that needs to be sent to happy home or a funny farm.
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emoelf
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Post by emoelf on May 2, 2007 22:19:58 GMT -5
It's hard for me to explain i guess but I'm basically saying that Galbatorix killed all those villagers for no good reason. Those villagers lived in a remote area, and did not appear to have done anything wrong. There were dead mothers sheilding their children. I don't really know how else i can describe how evil Galbatorix is but with him gone there will be no more deaths. There will be no innocent people dying because of a tyrant king who enjoys the deaths of others.
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Post by pokerandice on May 3, 2007 2:50:41 GMT -5
It isn't said that he enjoys killing other's though. There would be no reason to destroy Yazuac just...because. If he always did things like that for no reason than by now he would be ruling nothing but a pile of corpses. Yazuac was a one off situation because Galbatorix was searching for that which was stolen from him and people who are a major threat to his throne. He believed that there was knowledge in that town and he raised it to the ground searching. Like has often happened in real life before. It all changes from the different perspective though.
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emoelf
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Post by emoelf on May 3, 2007 23:13:10 GMT -5
I don't think he was searching for the egg, because the ra'zac as said in the book are his personal dragon/dragon rider hunters who go wherever they hear rumors about anything related to dragons. And even if he did send the urgals to search for the egg, he wouldn't murder the whole village. He would leave a couple people alive to question. The only thing i can think of is that since the urgals enjoy killing, Galbatorix allowed them to go attack that city, which means that he has no care for his people.
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Post by pokerandice on May 4, 2007 1:08:31 GMT -5
It just doesn't make sense that he would rule a kingdom for a hundred (?) years and only suddenly begin killing random people when his dragon egg happened to disappear and when a new dragon rider was said to be hanging around the northern areas. Why now, if not something to do with Saphira? It would be a huge character hole for him to just randomly kill people now after so long.
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emoelf
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Post by emoelf on May 5, 2007 16:11:42 GMT -5
Ok, I'm not saying that he randomely started killing people. I think he has been continuously killing inocent people because he makes bad excuses to himself for killing people. ok, i'm really bad at explaining stuff.But i just think that no matter how you look at it galbatorix is an evil tyrant king. The land was at peace there was no reason to kill so many people just because he was pissed they wouldn't give him a new dragon egg. Let's put it this way if Galbatorix was never born people would still be at peace and happy up to the time of eragon. It would also continue to be like that until some other evil thing came along.
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