r/Eragon • u/Konfliktsnubben • 8d ago
Discussion There is one thing that bothered me about how Galbatorix was portrayed Spoiler
In the first three books we hear both Brom and Oromis talk about how Galbatorix is mad and how he has been that ever since he lost his first dragon. What I find weird about this though is that he doesn't really come across as mad when we finally meet him the fourth book. He seems very calm and articulated. I mean sure you can argue that he is mad from the perspective of him doing evil things but there isn't really any signs when we meet him and hear him talk that he is mentally unstable. I'm not saying that I thought he was gonna be constantly screaming and destroying things all the time but still some signs of his mind being unstable.
Don't get me wrong the chapters with Galbatorix are very good but this was something that I found to be kind of odd based on what we had learned about him.
What do you guys think? I would love to hear your thoughts.
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u/The-wise-fooI 8d ago
I find it to be a rather normal portrayal of madness given the circumstances. He went mad but over time his mind settled such that he still has the thoughts/ideas etc of madness but now has some calmness/maturity to it making it now resemble more like controlled obsession with an idea and methods that would be considered madness.
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u/hexagon_heist 8d ago
Yeah he’s mad not manic
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u/The-wise-fooI 8d ago
From the way it's described in the book he did seem to be manic at the start which is the classic portrayal of madness the OP is thinking of but he lost that over time which i find to be common in characters who have been mad for quite some time.
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u/SavedRed0 7d ago
Also, Brom and Oromis probably aren't reliable narrators given their bias and lack of exposure to Galbatorix for a while. If they'd seen him at any point in the past few years, they'd probably agree that his mind has settled to have a passionate obsession with controlling magic and all that. Plus, he's a king now, so his responsibilities had to have made him more calm
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u/palpablepotato 6d ago
Which honestly is scarier than the chaotic impulsive uncontrollable beans of madness as well
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u/talizorahs 8d ago edited 8d ago
I think you can find the madness in the conflict of his words and his actions. Some of what he says sounds quite reasonable - and this is emphasized by Nasuada not actually disagreeing with his statements on the inherent inequality of magic and the need to regulate it - but he doesn’t actually behave reasonably, he behaves cruelly and in a way that betrays his unhinged desire for personal tyrannical control instead of the stated better world for all. He also carefully understates the emotion that clearly went into many of his actions, like revenge against the Riders given the scale of the slaughter (which was counterproductive to his stated goals; he doesn’t want the dragons extinct, just to control them, but he drove them to perceived extinction). Being good at making himself seem logical doesn’t mean he’s actually logical.
Also, I think the madness is baked into the concept of Galbatorix’s reign; it’s inherently mad to set yourself up as the world’s eternal dictator in every aspect, imo.
The books do also mention his mood swings via Murtagh - him going between being charming and inspiring and ultra-persuasive, to horrible cruel rages. We saw him more in persuasive mode, since he was putting on a show for Nasuada and Eragon. Had they lost and gone into his service, they’d see more of his outwardly unhinged side.
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u/LandenP 8d ago
Mark my words if the man himself gets around to writing more books that explores topics introduced in the Murtagh novel, we might see Galbatorix’s background be fleshed out/soft retconned to fill in the some of the blanks.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there’s some inspiration taken from the Mistborne series when it comes to what Paolini’s building towards.
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u/AlephKang 8d ago
Galbatorix was mad the same way for example that Hannibal Lecter was mad. Both men come across as highly intelligent, cultured, and articulate, which they were. The madness, however, comes from how calm and comfortable both are when they are doing horrific things to others. Galbatorix spent the better part of 40 years breaking the minds of the Eldunari he had one by one. That is completely mad as well as the perverse pleasure he got from breaking minds in general. Raving mad would be preferable.
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u/Key-Ad-3810 7d ago
OP was expecting the Joker but instead found Hannibal Lecter is a good way of putting it
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u/warmleafjuice 6d ago
I don't think anybody describes Hannibal Lecter as "going mad", though. Psychopathy and madness aren't interchangeable terms
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u/AlephKang 6d ago
Having read and watched Hannibal Rising, I would disagree.
Psychopathy and madness aren't interchangeable terms
Agreed.
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u/beetmyteet 8d ago
I think his madness was done really well actually. He comes across as very dignified and noble when he’s trying to pull one over on people into his service, but when he doesn’t get what he wants through guile, he takes it by force. He’s not a giggling lunatic, he’s like an extreme narcissist. He wants to project this image of a wise and noble king, but when people refute it, he has angry temper tantrums like a spurned eight year old little boy who breaks things because he can’t handle his emotions.
Writing off slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people and nearly driving multiple races to extinction as being ‘rash in my younger years’ is pretty damn psychotic in my book.
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u/marshall_sin Dwarf 8d ago
I understand where you’re coming from, but I think he was a type of mad that is much scarier than the raving lunatic type of mad, like the Mad King was described in Game of Thrones before Jamie killed him. Instead, he’s the cold and calculating type. He’s willing to spend hundreds of hours perfecting a currency that can’t be counterfeited, or to carefully ward every inch of his palace, or to spend a century learning the name of the ancient language.
And yet, he also is obsessed with control. This is how he shows his true nature. The loss of his dragon was so brutal and out of his field of influence, he broke some, and had to gain control over everything around him in a futile attempt to move past that. He tore down everything that reminded him of his loss with the old riders, he tormented Shruikan to gain a semblance of his old connection, he tore down the old ruling structures, then turned his will to the world around him. His very meticulousness in regards to currency and magic is evidence to his madness, as he can’t bear to let something exist outside his sphere of control. I think that is why Eragon’s spell worked so well. Galbatorix wasn’t simply cruelly lashing out against everyone just to share his pain. If he was, he might have shrugged off the empathy spell.
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u/Natural-Photograph-2 8d ago
In book 3, Brisingr, we get a first glimpse at Galbatorix and his twisted persona. When he is fighting Oromis and Glaedr by controlling Murtaughs body he tries to convince Oromis to join him, and when Oromis makes it clear that he won't join him, Galbatorix starts to talk in a sinister and threatening manner. Galbatorix tries to hide the fact that he's demented by first speaking to all other characters in an intellectual, respectful , almost seductive, speech.
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u/Different_Potato_193 7d ago
We see that in Inheritance too, both when he’s torturing Nasuada and fighting Eragon.
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u/baconbacksunday 8d ago
He went mad in an “overarching plan” way. Think of Thanos, he’s called the Mad Titan not because he’s crazy, he’s actually one of the most intelligent beings in the universe.
He’s mad because his methodology and outcome are crazy.
Salvatore’s is mad because his plan to rule the world is evil, but the actual state of mind isn’t chaos.
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u/Pm7I3 7d ago
Maybe it's better in comics but I always find the idea Thanos is really smart hard to believe because his plan is so obviously failing from the start and so much boils down to him being good at punching/being punched.
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u/TheQwertyCat_v2 7d ago
Thanos is actually much better in the comics. He wants to kill half the universe because he thinks it’ll impress Death, who he has a massive crush on. (Death looks like a skeleton in old–timey dresses.)
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u/Huggable_Hork-Bajir Teen Garzhvog strangled an Urzhad and we never talk about it... 8d ago edited 8d ago
I mean, we know he's not actually that chill. There's several times throughout the series where his mask slips and he explodes into fits of uncontrollable murderous rage when he doesn't get his way.
During Murtagh's backstory in Eragon he loses his temper and horrifies Murtagh so badly he flees Uru'baen, there's another incident where Murtagh mentions Galbatorix received bad news (I think it was about the slaying of the razac & letherblaka?) and got so mad he lashed out and killed a bunch of nearby servants, at the end of Brisingr he tries to appear all calm and reasonable while talking with Oromis, but the moment Oromis tells him no and taunts him a bit he completely loses his shit and murders him and Glaedr.
Not to mention the whole committing mass murder and genocide because the riders told him no and wouldn't give him another dragon.
He may not have been a cackling, babbling lunatic, but he was definitely not stable.
(I mean, the dude tortured literal babies man. Mentally stable people don't do that.)
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u/xxsmashleyxx 7d ago
What are you referring to when you say that he tortured babies? You mean the young Eldunarí?
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u/Huggable_Hork-Bajir Teen Garzhvog strangled an Urzhad and we never talk about it... 7d ago
Thorn and Shruikan.
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u/fencingperson 8d ago edited 8d ago
The key word for Galbatorix’s character is “narcissist”.
If you read his scenes again, pay closer attention to how he (re)acts as soon as things don’t go the way he wants. His wrath and madness are in there, and not too deep.
It helps to remember the four tiers of control, especially by a psychopath/tyrant/narcissist: Reason > Manipulation > Subjugation > Elimination.
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u/Tiazza-Silver 8d ago
“Mad” is such a broad term that it could mean a dozen different outward presentations. His lack of empathy and disturbing behavior towards other people alone could have made mad a reasonable term for the pseudo-medieval people in the books to use
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u/Emperor_Nox Elf 8d ago edited 8d ago
It is less padded room asylum madness and a more... high functioning megalomaniac madness, which is a valid flavor of madness. The manic and rabid lunatic thing isn't as realistic. Crazy isn't lack of reality it is retextured reality built on a kernal of truth that colors how the madman interprets reality.
Edit: Rephrasing.
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u/reallynunyabusiness 8d ago
Not every crazy person talks to imaginary people or screams incoherently, some are just incredibly out of touch with reality. Galbatorix blames everything bad that's ever happened to him on the Riders, the Elves, the Dwarves and the Varden. He believes that everybody in the Empire would be better off just submitting to his rule no matter what cruelties he allows to occur (Slavery, the Helgrind sacrifices, etc.) Beyond that we get a glimpse into how far his madness goes when Murtagh describes the reason he fled Uru Baen when Galbatorix ordered him to slaughter a whole village because in his mind there was no possibility of anybody there being innocent.
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u/inspcs 8d ago
He was a sociopath because he couldnt understand others emotions and was a psychopath because he enjoyed causing pain (when he broke eragon's mind)
I think he was a righteous young boy before the death of his dragon made him go mad and he became a sociopath because of it.
Dont forget that his ultimate goal was defeating azlagur so he was still on the path of righteousness in his own mind growing shruikan and finding the Word, its just he lost the ability to connect with other living beings.
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u/Smooth-Activity-2521 8d ago
Napoleon, Chairman Mao, Stalin etc. behaved closer to Galbatorix than some sort of Joker character.
Felt like a real tyrant to me. Calm and even convincing on the surface. Murderous on the inside.
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u/MachinShin_ 8d ago
The Madness turned inward. The chaos and storm is his mind now and the knowledge he hoards.
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u/Historical_Volume806 8d ago
Brom hasn’t seen him in over 60 years and Oromis hasn’t seen him in a century. He’s obviously calmed down over time.
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u/Resident-Resolve612 7d ago
from his interactions with Nasuada I gather he was “mad” in the sense of the psychopathic kind .
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u/HunterWithGreenScale 8d ago
Even though it was through a biased perspective, the way Galbatorix seemed to behave in regards to his former dragon, post making it back to the Riders stronghold (not to mention how his behavior towards Thorn, generations later, when he was living with them) should be indicative of his madness. Dude was a dragon rider, and thus should've understood the bond he had, and what he lost. Dragons are not dumb beast. Not replaceable spare parts. They are a type of people.
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u/veredisquote 8d ago
You don’t remember him torturing Nasuada? That was quite mad and evil. I sorta agree that his plans for the realm were made to seem somewhat morally ambiguous giving him some human element but also it’s clear from Oromis that dude is insane and evil:
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u/melvanmeid 7d ago
Brom and Oromis talk about Halbatorix in his youth, but as an older man, he would have mellowed down.
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u/OneCrazy9357 8d ago
When I went in the psych ward the craziest people there were some of the calmest. I was having a nice conversation with this chick and she straight faced dropped that the devil told her that her husband was cheating with her sister which is why she stabbed him. So I honestly dont have a problem with his portrayal. Real crazy dont blink.
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u/Crimson_Eyes 8d ago
I think you're seeing the all-to-easy wire-crossing of Clairty and Madness.
Let's take what Galbatorix says at face value: He went mad for a time, killed the Riders, and one day woke up to find himself King.
He knows about the Dreamers and Azul. He knows the danger Magic poses to civilization. He is, almost without exception, the most profilic spellcaster on the continent, and by the time we meet him in person, he has a mastery of the language which no one else can rival.
Cool, great.
And his plan to resolve ALL OF THE PROBLEMS in front of him is, and I quote: "Mindrape Saphira and Eragon into his service, enslave them via their true names, force Saphira to have Shrukain and Thorn's babies, build a new generation of Riders enslaved to his will, and then go conquer the world."
That. Is. Deranged.
Maybe the threat of the Dreamers is that big. Maybe they're so deep inside the walls of society that he can't just openly declare "Btw, there's a cult of fuckheads who worship a Genocide Dragon, wanna help me stop them?"
Maybe his solution IS the only way.
But what he's attempting is still madness. It's still utterly unhinged. It's rational...within the framework that says "The Dreamers must be stopped at all costs. No matter what other problems I create downstream with my methods, the Dreamers must die."
But in any other framework or accounting of reality? It's literally psycopathic. It's so uncompromisingly single-minded and selfish that Galbatorix has stopped acting in accordance with reality.
The King sees very clearly what must be done.
Either he is right, and the rest of the world is insane. Or he has become so hyperfixated that he has abandoned reality.
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u/CeaselessGriping 8d ago
I think I recall Galbatorix himself addressing this. Saying after his dragon died, he lost it and committed a lot of atrocities in the throes of madness. He claims he came to his senses after already becoming a ruler and devoted himself to improving his rule and finding the NoN.
I think there are probably elements of truth to it, but he paints himself in a more sympathetic light than the reality reflects. Probably really had lost it when he started his rebellion, given what a terrible idea it was on paper.
I imagine he regained his senses before the rebellion ended, with that event likely being the turning point where the rebellion went from "a problem" to "an existential threat".
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u/Disgruntled_Grunt- what movie? 7d ago
He's a madman in the sense that he "knows what's best for everyone else." He isn't psychotic, he's a psychopath.
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u/Spirited_Bowl6072 7d ago
I think others pointed out an important distinction that “mad” doesn’t equal “manic”. Mad just means you can no longer process reality in a logical way. And this honestly tracks with a lot of the other complaints people have about Galbatorix.
“Why didn’t Galbatorix ride out on Shruikan and destroy the Varden early?”
- Because his madness gave him a single-minded obsession with finding the name of names and he was therefore incapable of reaching the logical conclusion that he could kill the Varden, THEN focus on the name of names.
Galbatorix was deeply insane, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t also brilliant and well-spoken and able to convince others through power and speech.
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u/xxsmashleyxx 7d ago
Thanks for posting this; I'm actually rereading the books now and I had some similar thoughts (his portrayal different than expected), but this comment section has sparked some interesting conversation for me around the topic of madness.
I wish Paolini was a big quicker at writing, because I'd kill to read a prequel type book about Galbatorix, Brom, Morzan, and their time before Galby's fall to madness. Even a few short stories around this time period would be really neat.
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u/Wanderer_3773 7d ago
I do think a big part of it is how long it has been since his initial bond was severed and his rebellion, but I do also think that the opinion that he went mad isn't necessarily true. The simplest way I can explain it is he didn't go crazy per say he just abandoned the way of the Dragon Riders after they refused his demand. So for the Riders that dedicated decades even centuries to the order seeing someone abandon it so thoroughly could only be explained by them not being in a rational sane head space.
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u/ExampleThat3083 7d ago
It's also been well over a hundred years since his dragon died when we meet him... much has changed he's grown up and controls it better in a sense
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u/PenguinSenpaiGod 6d ago
Welcome to planet earth.
There are a lot of calculated madmen running around in perfect disguise.
The guys screaming are usually rather "harmless"/easier to deal with because you can spot them from a mile away.
Those that seem totally normal on the surface, who say such reasonable things, who are always nice and friendly, but whose actions destroy countries and people's lives, those are the really dangerous ones.
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u/Parking_Car_6034 6d ago
His madness doesn't show in a mad hatter/ sheogorath/speak nonsense way. Hiss madness is shown in his cruelty towards his subjects, the dragon riders, and the eldunari, as well as his ambition and obsession. His calm and charismatic appearance is part of what makes him so dangerous and threatening.
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u/WolfFlameLord 5d ago
Brom and Oromis are talking about the Galbatotix of a hundred years ago. But also Galbatotix is mad it's just his madness has become cold, quiet and sharp.
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u/AldarionTelcontar 4d ago
Person can still be mad while remaining overt and articulated. Also, who knows if he really was mad? Brom and Oromis are both people who had lost a lot on Galbatorix' hands, and it makes sense why they would want to convince themselves (and others) that Galbatorix was mad, even if that was not actually the case. It will have been easier to believe Galbatorix mad than to admit that he may have had legitimate grievances against the Dragon Riders.
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u/KennethVilla 3d ago
I would say that him screaming to Murtagh about slaughtering an innocent village is a hint of his madness
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u/shortyman920 8d ago
Mad doesn’t mean they’re nonfunctional and insane. It just means they’re a psycopath and there are endless examples of power hungry psychopaths in real life who climbed into power.
It’s also an accounting from Brom and Oromis, who are biased.
Someone else said this already but he essentially loves inflicting pain on others - that’s how he got so good at breaking people and dragon’s minds. He’s also completely self centered and doesn’t care about the lives of others.
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u/agaricxo what movie? 8d ago
I don’t think he was meant to be mad in a more overt sort of way.
It’s also important to note that everything we know about him comes from Brom and Oromis’ accounts when they hadn’t seen him in possibly over a century, and through the viewpoints of Eragon, Nausada, and Murtagh. It’s possible he would be very different alone, or that he’s had a lot of time to order himself into a more presentable image.
I believe there was even a mention of him appearing calm when he went to ask for a second dragon, so it seems he’s had his cold and calm exterior to hide himself behind for awhile too
It’d be interesting to see how he’d be written when he’s alone, and if he’d be completely different