March 13, 2004

DAVID EDDINGS

Every now and then, I miss my books and reread them for the plain joy of recalling and – dare I say, reliving? – the life and times of the people I grew to know and like, and even admire.

One of my favorite fantasy authors is David Eddings. I started on Sparhawk’s story then went on to Garion’s story and completed all his books, except for High Hunt. And I really don’t know what that book is about nor have I seen it around. Anyway, Sparhawk and his story (the Elenium and Tamuli) definitely has a soft spot in my heart and Garion’s story cemented David Eddings a spot in my heart and bookshelf.

Lately, though, I have been noticing similarities between the Sparhawk’s story and Garion’s (Belgarion, to some). Well, maybe ‘lately’ isn’t the right word to use since I’ve noticed it maybe the last two or three times that I’ve reread all his books. But I’m only had a chance to write them all down now.

The two leads are definitely different. Garion is a Kind and the bearer and sole purpose of a destiny or Necessity or whatever you wanna call it. Sparhawk, on the other hand, is anakha – one without a destiny. They both carry blue gemstones of great power. Garion, the Orb of Aldur of the west or Cthrag Yaska or the east, and Sparhawk carrying Bhelliom or Blue-Rose. The Orb is just that, a blue orb that glows whenever Garion’s around. The differences between the two is that the Orb is an instrument of good, having it’s own will and happily – for it is sometimes almost like a child – doing anything that Garion wants to do and sets his mind to do. Bhelliom, on the other hand, always fights Sparhawk whenever Sparhawk tries to use it. As Sephrenia (David Eddings readers will know who and what I’m talking about) explained, Bhelliom has no concept of good or evil and just basically does whatever his master forces him to do. It is only later, in the Tamuli trilogy that we learn that Bhelliom does in fact have an awareness and a sense of what’s right and wrong. In that aspect, Bhelliom and the Orb are similar.

As for the characters, Garion’s personality is quite far from Sparhawk. When Garion first learned about everything, his initial reaction has always been, “Why me?” Sparhawk, on the other hand, put it upon himself to right the wrongs because of his upstanding morality. Still, nobody wants to irritate them, definitely. If I were to compare the characters of them both… there are definite similarities, a mixture of the traits of one character with another. Sparhawk, for example, seems to be a combination of Garion and Belgarath. (I’ll use Sparhawk as the basis of comparison since I got to know him before I got to know Garion). Those three do more damage when people irritate them rather than when they’re angry or righting the wrongs. They’re all compassionate people, though, who do what they do because they know they have to do it. Even if it makes them sound ruthless or cold-blooded. In that aspect, Belgarath’s actually personality with his towering reputation comes to mind.

As for their companions… Talen seems to be a younger version of Silk, although Silk is definitely a better spy and businessman. Margrave Liselle, aka Velvet, seems a lot like Baroness Melidre who’s a close friend of Ehlana. Velvet uses her dimples to distract men while Melidere uses everything else. Now Queen Ehlana is kind of like Ce’Nedra with Sephrenia and Mirtai resembling Polgara. Although there are no warrior women in Garion’s world, Polgara seems to be the closest to one.

King Rhodar of Drasnia also closely resembles King Wargun of Thalesia. Both were military geniuses and both died because of over-eating and over-drinking, respectively.

Their quests also show some parallelism. Azash could stand for Torak and Zalasta could stand for Zedar, maybe, although not as convoluted as the latter. Or maybe Zalasta could also be the male counterpart of Zandramas, except that Zalasta did everything he did because of his obsessive love while Zandramas did it because she kind of had no choice in the matter. Or maybe it was just power. The Tamuli emperor, Sarabian, is similar to Zakath (notice the deletion of the apostrophe which stands for ‘Kal’). The stories in both are also similar. Was not Cthrag Sarius, or Sardion, the exact opposite of Cthrag Yaska, or the Orb of Aldur in the same way that Klæl is the opposite of Bhelliom? Also, the good gemstones or spirits are blue while the evil ones are red.

Maybe some critics would, er, critic David Edding’s style and say that he didn’t really come up with anything new nor did he deviate much from his original ideas. But how much varied deviation can you create? There are only so much stories about good versus evil that one can write. And at least David Eddings makes his characters funny and very down-to-earth. He has a nice sense of consistency that keeps me comfortable with his characters. Also, he makes them all likeable, which is more than I can say for some others.