"Teut" <teut@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:XTqHf.278213$vl2.144317@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>> I could go on and on if I had a chance to read the series over and pull
>> some hard facts for you. Errand=Aphrael in some ways.
>
> Errand is completely different to Aphrael. He doesn't display god powers
> until the Mal (except in one instance when it could arguably have been
the
> LP) when he is a teenager. He is, despite his eventual power, a
background
> player in both series. Aph is very much to the forefront of both series,
> even as Flute early in the Elenium. She is a meddler, she drives the
plot
> forward and plays with people's lives. Her closest analogue in the
Bel/Mal
> series is probably the Light Prophecy.
Errand was a background player in the first book, but he was hardly a
background player in the second. He even had his own POV's. That makes
him
a main character right away. Secondly, even if he didn't, he's constantly
coming up with things that are necessary to Belgarion's quest. He is
visited first by Zamandras and the Seer. It's his knowledge of Garion's
letter that sent Polgara to Riva, without which, the story really wouldn't
have gone very far because Geran wouldn't have been born. In fact, if it
wasn't for Errand, Belgarath would have still been hunting down trying to
find out if the Sardinus and Zamandras were two different people. There's
loads of facts to point out that he had unusual abilities that others
didn't.
If you want to label them as jobs vs. characters, whatever makes you sleep
better. To me it's the same thing. Are they different? Yes, but they
serve the same basic functions, and are very much alike. If there was one
or two characters like this I might say you had an arguement, but there's
a
LOT of them.
And basically if you want to argue job vs. character, that's irrelevant.
Either way it's enough to prove my original point, that DE is writing to
formula, as Aik put it, which basically makes his stories all very much
the
same. They all move in the same direction, with the same characters, or
character jobs as you label them, and they have very much the same
results.
The Bel series was new to us, so we had nothing to compare to. The Mal
series was specifically noted to be a repeat of events from the Bel
series.
Belgarath points this out. The meeting between the Child of the Dark and
Child of Light has been going on and on and on. There is a repeat of
events. The Sparhawk series' are very much the same.
A group of characters uses a magical stone, to enhance the main characters
power, and defeat a God, with aid from a few Sorcerors and a Godling. The
same general description could be used for any one of these series, except
maybe the Godling part when applied to the Bel series.
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