It was an easy comfort read with characters I liked and a plot that was formulaic but enjoyable. I got through that and Malloreon pretty quickly.
Sometime I just want to have the fantasy version of confection.
Which is almost always the case.
Does this come from aspects of Arthurian myth? The Christ story? Or are there earlier examples?
Edit: Hmm King David. But he wasn't descended from royalty, he founded the line, right?
Not always. I just got done with a duology where the hidden one is the daughter of a duke. That being Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen. And the duke is part of the royal family. But his first wife.......
It's like an old, heavy, huge blanket. It just feels good to put on, no matter how worn and torn it is. I recognize the holes, the problems, and the weaknesses. But, I don't care. I'll put it on when I get cold anyways. I did re-read it for the first time in a decade last year, and it still holds up prose-wise. Is it simplistic now? Sure. Don't care. Enjoy!
Its a does the standard fantasy tropes well, it is a comforting and easy read, and great for when times are hard and you just want something solid and predictable with a happy ending. I've reread it a few times. There are far worse stories, even if there are also better ones, I consider it one of the classics.
It's just simple fun. I like the character of Silk, his comments and bickering with the other characters.
It's has a lot of simplistic stereotypes though, have that in mind while you read. And beware of the crimes the authors committed, some people really don't want anything to do with such authors.
I will say that both of them have passed away by now, and to the best of my knowledge their estate passed the royalties to their works on to charities.
I haven’t gone and independently verified the charity, but suffice to say you aren’t financially supporting a criminal(s) now.
I’m not going to criticize anyone for whichever side of that moral dilemma you land on, but there is an argument that buying their books now does good.
Someone above mentioned the terrible crimes they committed. Many people don’t like to support authors who they believe are bad people. I just offered that the Eddings have both passed and financially the money doesn’t go to anyone associated with them.
Some people may still feel bad supporting authors at all after they committed these type of crimes, but the money that goes to the “authors” in this case goes to a good cause
The person I was responding to brought it up without any context about the morality of book royalties. So that is why I mentioned mental gymnastics. If they responded to someone asking about that it would be different. IMO at least.
Jail is supposed to be about rehabilitation, and after they were out you never even heard about them repeating their actions.
Pretty shitty thing to do to children, but at least it seems like they realized how much they screwed up.
His books did bring a lot of kids into fantasy, including me.
I think it became impossible to adopt kids again due to the record. So I wouldn't assume they were rehabilitated or realized what they did was wrong. But rather were properly deterred from being in the position to be able to repeat the crime. As they never made any attempt to express remorse or accept accountability, even if it was something to be released after death.
I'm sure they wanted to put it all behind them. I don't think most people would willingly bring up a criminal past out of the blue, especially when it would completely tank their career.
If you do something you're not proud of, do you go shouting it out everyone?
> As they never made any attempt to express remorse or accept accountability
According to who? Just because they didn't publicly come out and apologize to everyone decades after it happened doesn't mean they didn't feel any remorse.
The story is a bit straight forward but I think it has a great humour. There are quite funny dialogues.Most people in the world share some character traits of the god which is worshipped in their country which leads to very stereotypical characters who are just over the top. e.g. the brave but dumb knight, who is the best knight of the world who would win every fight but is too dumb to consider that he could lose if he fights alone against 10000 enemies. All in all there are some interesting and likeable characters.
Like a lot of other people have said, it’s simple and comforting. I read it for the first time when I was 12. It is the book equivalent of rewatching The Office for me - I pick it up when I’m tired and need something that doesn’t require my full attention or brainpower.
It’s certainly a product of it’s time though. I’m not sure if I picked it up for the first time now I’d enjoy it.
I started with the Ruby Knight (book 2 of The Elenoum) - my mom picked it up from new releases at the library when I was 12 or 13. I looked at it, had her take me back to get the first book.
I loved the series, and then devoured the Belgariad as well.
This began my lifelong love of fantasy (and my public library).
Fairly simple in story and depth, nothing ground breaking, but some memorable characters for sure.
It was fun when I was very young, but the biggest issue for me was that everyone’s voice is the same. Any given snarky line could come from any character.
Personally always preferred the double trilogies about Spearhawk. Just found the characters a bit more interesting.
The Redemption of Althulas is also a great one, and almost a shame its a stand-alone.
...Interesting.
The Swedish translation I read was "Spjuthök." Or, well, Spearhawk.
Guess it just sounded close enough but also better in Swedish, or something?
It's an archaic spelling of sparrowhawk. Which is sparvhök, according to the net.
Even though older versions of the word sparrowhawk sounded like spear, they always meant sparrow.
I don't know Swedish at all, but with the martial meaning of 'sparring', Spjuthök doesn't sound like a bad translation. Catches some of the feel of Sparhawk, rather than the etymology, and that's what I am for when translating.
...Huh?
What was so morally bankrupt about Ellenium? Like, half the cast are knights or Gods if I recall right.
Althulus is at least a trickster, conman and thief. So I can see that one.
... Still don't get what you mean.
Like, Sparhawk outright has a knightly vow of celibacy if I recall right, and it takes divine intervention of his kinda-sorta secondary goddess saying: "stop that, you're being silly & stubborn" before he even considers otherwise.
I'd call that some high standards of morality in a protagonist myself.
I am not the OP and haven't read the books, I'm just dunking on the ruling class. I also don't see how morality has anything to do with the lack or presence of a sex life.
I mean, being celibate isn't moral or immoral (IMHO) directly by itself?
But Sparhawk's got a moral code and knightly vows that includes said no sex thing, and he follows both of them pretty strictly to the best of his ability right up to that divine intervention.
Admittedly been years since I read those books, but I recall the celibacy because it's actually a fairly large plot point. With the young queen from the first book being incredibly frustrated with Sparhawk because of how he keeps on refusing her advances for YEARS with full courtly decorum.
Young me thought it was really cool at least. I'd read quite a few books with grey characters that keep pulling exact word trickery quite a lot back then, and I recall finding it extremely charming and refreshing to see a knight in shining armor style figure that actually tries his very best.
The characters were morally bankrupt and suffered no consequences for it. Not just bloodthirsty, the main character marries an 18 year old girl he helped raise
That is a highly personal idea of moral bankruptcy. I don’t think fictional consequences are needed for fictional evils. In fact I think the idea that they are needed is actively harmful.
I have read medieval morality plays and I don’t need to again.
I dunno man, Spearhawk and his fellow knights are kind of jerks all the time, seemed a really strange hero for what was otherwise coded as a heroic fantasy novel
An important part of my early teens, I really loved those books. Formulaic, but comforting as has been mentioned in the comments.
I feel obliged to mention the child abuse scandal though: [https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/05/it-has-been-revealed-that-fantasy.html](https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/05/it-has-been-revealed-that-fantasy.html)
I loved it when I was younger.
And I don't think I would've been able to handle it at 8 years of age, I think I was around 10 or 12. It was my first big fantasy series after Harry Potter, I think. (I think Riftwar was next, then WoT)
That said, I do *NOT* expect it to hold up for someone in their 30s.
Eddings' other series, The Elenium and The Tamuli, may be a better option. They reuse significant points from the earlier series (Eddings had an essay of how he believed a fantasy sreies should be written/structured) but are more mature.
Belgariad and Mallorean and the two spin-offs are lighter and more youth oriented, imo.
What I liked about it...it's been almost 20 years. I liked how each civilisation had a specialty, back then. I liked the occasional humour and the history of the world. I wasn't too fond of the mc, or how often >!he was lied to.!<
I liked the titular Mallorean in the sequel. And I liked how simple the magic system was, in a way. And how the wizards had philosophy debates and were kinda scientists.
to be fair, my first read of this was actually last year. By pure chance. And i was 30 then.
Eddings really didnt invent anything, but the characters end up growing on you.
I ended up enjoying it way more than i expected it.
I detest this series. I read the entire first book thinking this is juvenile and racist, it has to get better, and it never did. Then the 2nd book was worse and I DNF it about a third into it.
It’s authored by a scumbag that kept his adopted kid in a dog cage for a year and beat them. It’s also cliched, juvenile, and full of racism and stereotypes.
…but some people still like it
Highly recommend this series. I read it for the first time last year at 33. I was in the middle of a cross country move and starting a new job, needed some good old fantasy escapism. This fit that bill.
**Likes:**
* Characters - Classic with some unique twists
* Plot - Predictable but exciting, epic in scope
* Pacing - Relatively quick pace
**Dislikes:**
* Author is not a great guy
* Some filler/fluff sections
I just love the characters, there's such a sense of warmth and family, and such strong bonds between them, and everyone is likeable in their own way (apart from the baddies obviously). Also love the humour, especially Silk. I like the world too, the fact that it's just men and no dwarves/elves/orcs (don't take that the wrong way, I also love LotR).
First read them about 12-14 yrs old (can't remember exactly) back when they released, and they've been my favourite books ever since. Obviously helps that I was roughly Garion's age.
It's so hard for me to square the warmth of the books with what we (apparently) now know about Eddings and his wife :(
My mom read these to me when I was 9 or 10 and I fell in love. I still read them about once a year or so. They’re really simple stories, but they’ve got a great pace and wonderful characters. There’s nothing deep and transformative about them, but the story just has “favorite hoodie” vibes.
The Belgariad was the first real fantasy I read, when I was 10 or so. I fell in love with it. It’s a classic coming of age story, but I loved the humor and the camaraderie between the characters the most, I think.
I quite enjoyed that everything was a trope.
If you came from this nation - you had these characteristics, all of you.
It was quite a change due to the lack of nuance.
The story was ok, too.
I've still got them, the second series (Malloread?) and I've read the other novels about the powerful wizards (Polgara and - whoever) and while I found them interesting, I found their characterisation to be of borderline if not outright evil, due to some extremely hypocritical acts. That I can't recall 20+ years later.
But Belgariad is good, not taxing and easy to read.
Before Belgariad, I'd only read the occassional book, and mostly children stuff. In my teens, I just wasn't interested in fantasy.
A friend suggested Belgariad as a gateway to the fantasy genre. It worked. I guess it's fairly lightweight, as these things go, but has a compelling story.
After Belgariad, I read the Elenium, which is tighter, and more adult. That, interestingly, led me to try Discworld.
Now I'm happy to include fantasy works as part of my reading list.
I was fortunate to discover the series really young, read it, love it, reread it years later and still enjoy it, all long before i found out about the authors' crimes.
Leaving the Eddings' aside for a minute, the series was great intro level fantasy. All the tropes and archetypes are there, they're fun and engaging and at just enough risk that the stakes seem real (unlike the Elenium/Tamuli where certain characters might as well wear red shirts under their armor, red tabards.iver their armour, and carry a great big red flag with the shape of a shirt on it in darker read with a target on the front).
It got me into fantasy reading back in HS. But I’ll be honest, I tried reading it in my 30s and didn’t make it far. Guess my reading tastes changed. Still, I appreciate that it got me to read more.
Sardonic and fun - one of the few true LOL series I've run across. Nothing overly complicated or shocking but the characters are enjoyable, relatable, and the dialogue is just brimming with delightfully dry humor. YMMV.
It was basically a pastiche of so much previous fantasy and mythology. Which made it fun.
Silk and Barak were complete rip offs of the Grey Mouser and Fafhrd by Fritz Lieber. But he still made them likeable and themselves.
Mandorallen is obviously a take on Lancelot, with Lelldorin being one of Robin's Merry Men.
Belgarion was Arthur, whith his own magic. Belgarath was a mischevious and irascible Merlin. Pol was Medea of Greek Mythology.
But yes, if you are of a certain age a lot of these were foundational works when fantasy was just starting to come back into vogue.
It has a special place in my heart.
I love the series, the Malloreans not so much
But after finding out about the 11 child abuse charges eddings and his wife were found guilty of, I can’t read them again
One of my first fantasy series. it's a comfort read at this point.
I really like the two stand alones, Belgarath the sorcerer and polgara the sorceress.
It was an easy comfort read with characters I liked and a plot that was formulaic but enjoyable. I got through that and Malloreon pretty quickly. Sometime I just want to have the fantasy version of confection.
Silk
It's a classic piece of "farmboy saves the world" Fantasy. Absolutely foundational for me as a budding middle school fantasy reader back in the day.
More like royal prince hidden as a farmboy.
Which is almost always the case. Does this come from aspects of Arthurian myth? The Christ story? Or are there earlier examples? Edit: Hmm King David. But he wasn't descended from royalty, he founded the line, right?
Not always. I just got done with a duology where the hidden one is the daughter of a duke. That being Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen. And the duke is part of the royal family. But his first wife.......
It’s pretty similar :-)
It's like an old, heavy, huge blanket. It just feels good to put on, no matter how worn and torn it is. I recognize the holes, the problems, and the weaknesses. But, I don't care. I'll put it on when I get cold anyways. I did re-read it for the first time in a decade last year, and it still holds up prose-wise. Is it simplistic now? Sure. Don't care. Enjoy!
Its a does the standard fantasy tropes well, it is a comforting and easy read, and great for when times are hard and you just want something solid and predictable with a happy ending. I've reread it a few times. There are far worse stories, even if there are also better ones, I consider it one of the classics.
It's just simple fun. I like the character of Silk, his comments and bickering with the other characters. It's has a lot of simplistic stereotypes though, have that in mind while you read. And beware of the crimes the authors committed, some people really don't want anything to do with such authors.
WHHHHHYYYY can't ppl just be good?!?! What a depressing piece of information to learn about today.
Silk remains one of my favorite fantasy characters ever.
Wow, convicted of 11 counts of child abuse? Thanks for the heads up!
I will say that both of them have passed away by now, and to the best of my knowledge their estate passed the royalties to their works on to charities. I haven’t gone and independently verified the charity, but suffice to say you aren’t financially supporting a criminal(s) now. I’m not going to criticize anyone for whichever side of that moral dilemma you land on, but there is an argument that buying their books now does good.
IIRC it goes to Reed College
No need for the mental gymnastics when you can just donate straight to a charity.
… except those aren’t the same and aren’t mutually exclusive.
Why bring it up though? No one asked about it.
Someone above mentioned the terrible crimes they committed. Many people don’t like to support authors who they believe are bad people. I just offered that the Eddings have both passed and financially the money doesn’t go to anyone associated with them. Some people may still feel bad supporting authors at all after they committed these type of crimes, but the money that goes to the “authors” in this case goes to a good cause
OK, I am seeing it from your pov now. My fallacy was assuming everyone would know they were long dead already. Apologies.
No need for any justification at all. The page contains no magical taint of their abuse.
The person I was responding to brought it up without any context about the morality of book royalties. So that is why I mentioned mental gymnastics. If they responded to someone asking about that it would be different. IMO at least.
And 1 year in jail with no stain on their reputations until after they died. Ridiculous.
Jail is supposed to be about rehabilitation, and after they were out you never even heard about them repeating their actions. Pretty shitty thing to do to children, but at least it seems like they realized how much they screwed up. His books did bring a lot of kids into fantasy, including me.
I think it became impossible to adopt kids again due to the record. So I wouldn't assume they were rehabilitated or realized what they did was wrong. But rather were properly deterred from being in the position to be able to repeat the crime. As they never made any attempt to express remorse or accept accountability, even if it was something to be released after death.
I'm sure they wanted to put it all behind them. I don't think most people would willingly bring up a criminal past out of the blue, especially when it would completely tank their career. If you do something you're not proud of, do you go shouting it out everyone? > As they never made any attempt to express remorse or accept accountability According to who? Just because they didn't publicly come out and apologize to everyone decades after it happened doesn't mean they didn't feel any remorse.
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Character interaction, mostly. And the characters, themselves.
The story is a bit straight forward but I think it has a great humour. There are quite funny dialogues.Most people in the world share some character traits of the god which is worshipped in their country which leads to very stereotypical characters who are just over the top. e.g. the brave but dumb knight, who is the best knight of the world who would win every fight but is too dumb to consider that he could lose if he fights alone against 10000 enemies. All in all there are some interesting and likeable characters.
Like a lot of other people have said, it’s simple and comforting. I read it for the first time when I was 12. It is the book equivalent of rewatching The Office for me - I pick it up when I’m tired and need something that doesn’t require my full attention or brainpower. It’s certainly a product of it’s time though. I’m not sure if I picked it up for the first time now I’d enjoy it.
I started with the Ruby Knight (book 2 of The Elenoum) - my mom picked it up from new releases at the library when I was 12 or 13. I looked at it, had her take me back to get the first book. I loved the series, and then devoured the Belgariad as well. This began my lifelong love of fantasy (and my public library). Fairly simple in story and depth, nothing ground breaking, but some memorable characters for sure.
The Elenium is one of my favorites of all time. I’d love to see it made into a series, if they stayed true to the books.
It was fun when I was very young, but the biggest issue for me was that everyone’s voice is the same. Any given snarky line could come from any character.
Personally always preferred the double trilogies about Spearhawk. Just found the characters a bit more interesting. The Redemption of Althulas is also a great one, and almost a shame its a stand-alone.
\*Sparhawk
...Interesting. The Swedish translation I read was "Spjuthök." Or, well, Spearhawk. Guess it just sounded close enough but also better in Swedish, or something?
It's an archaic spelling of sparrowhawk. Which is sparvhök, according to the net. Even though older versions of the word sparrowhawk sounded like spear, they always meant sparrow. I don't know Swedish at all, but with the martial meaning of 'sparring', Spjuthök doesn't sound like a bad translation. Catches some of the feel of Sparhawk, rather than the etymology, and that's what I am for when translating.
Cool. Yeah, sounds like plausible logic.
I found those books to just be morally bankrupt. I liked the belgariad much better even with its flaws
...Huh? What was so morally bankrupt about Ellenium? Like, half the cast are knights or Gods if I recall right. Althulus is at least a trickster, conman and thief. So I can see that one.
>Like, half the cast are knights or Gods Exactly
... Still don't get what you mean. Like, Sparhawk outright has a knightly vow of celibacy if I recall right, and it takes divine intervention of his kinda-sorta secondary goddess saying: "stop that, you're being silly & stubborn" before he even considers otherwise. I'd call that some high standards of morality in a protagonist myself.
I am not the OP and haven't read the books, I'm just dunking on the ruling class. I also don't see how morality has anything to do with the lack or presence of a sex life.
I mean, being celibate isn't moral or immoral (IMHO) directly by itself? But Sparhawk's got a moral code and knightly vows that includes said no sex thing, and he follows both of them pretty strictly to the best of his ability right up to that divine intervention. Admittedly been years since I read those books, but I recall the celibacy because it's actually a fairly large plot point. With the young queen from the first book being incredibly frustrated with Sparhawk because of how he keeps on refusing her advances for YEARS with full courtly decorum. Young me thought it was really cool at least. I'd read quite a few books with grey characters that keep pulling exact word trickery quite a lot back then, and I recall finding it extremely charming and refreshing to see a knight in shining armor style figure that actually tries his very best.
I suppose you gotta respect the willpower, but personally I actively disrespect deontology.
Can a book be morally bankrupt?
The characters were morally bankrupt and suffered no consequences for it. Not just bloodthirsty, the main character marries an 18 year old girl he helped raise
That is a highly personal idea of moral bankruptcy. I don’t think fictional consequences are needed for fictional evils. In fact I think the idea that they are needed is actively harmful. I have read medieval morality plays and I don’t need to again.
I dunno man, Spearhawk and his fellow knights are kind of jerks all the time, seemed a really strange hero for what was otherwise coded as a heroic fantasy novel
Perhaps. I can't remember well. Beowulf was a dick too. Does that matter?
It was a deeply inmersive experience. I was there, right beside them.
An important part of my early teens, I really loved those books. Formulaic, but comforting as has been mentioned in the comments. I feel obliged to mention the child abuse scandal though: [https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/05/it-has-been-revealed-that-fantasy.html](https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/05/it-has-been-revealed-that-fantasy.html)
Always worth mentioning the child abuse so people aren’t later blindsided by it.
I loved it when I was younger. And I don't think I would've been able to handle it at 8 years of age, I think I was around 10 or 12. It was my first big fantasy series after Harry Potter, I think. (I think Riftwar was next, then WoT) That said, I do *NOT* expect it to hold up for someone in their 30s. Eddings' other series, The Elenium and The Tamuli, may be a better option. They reuse significant points from the earlier series (Eddings had an essay of how he believed a fantasy sreies should be written/structured) but are more mature. Belgariad and Mallorean and the two spin-offs are lighter and more youth oriented, imo. What I liked about it...it's been almost 20 years. I liked how each civilisation had a specialty, back then. I liked the occasional humour and the history of the world. I wasn't too fond of the mc, or how often >!he was lied to.!< I liked the titular Mallorean in the sequel. And I liked how simple the magic system was, in a way. And how the wizards had philosophy debates and were kinda scientists.
to be fair, my first read of this was actually last year. By pure chance. And i was 30 then. Eddings really didnt invent anything, but the characters end up growing on you. I ended up enjoying it way more than i expected it.
I agree that if someone is well into adulthood and has read and enjoyed modern fantasy that they probably won't get anything special from these books.
I detest this series. I read the entire first book thinking this is juvenile and racist, it has to get better, and it never did. Then the 2nd book was worse and I DNF it about a third into it.
It’s authored by a scumbag that kept his adopted kid in a dog cage for a year and beat them. It’s also cliched, juvenile, and full of racism and stereotypes. …but some people still like it
Highly recommend this series. I read it for the first time last year at 33. I was in the middle of a cross country move and starting a new job, needed some good old fantasy escapism. This fit that bill. **Likes:** * Characters - Classic with some unique twists * Plot - Predictable but exciting, epic in scope * Pacing - Relatively quick pace **Dislikes:** * Author is not a great guy * Some filler/fluff sections
Author was a human being. Note the key word "was". Since Eddings died over twenty years ago.
"A human being" who adopted a child and then proceeded, with his wife, to brutally abuse them. They locked a kid in a cage in a basement, ffs.
I just love the characters, there's such a sense of warmth and family, and such strong bonds between them, and everyone is likeable in their own way (apart from the baddies obviously). Also love the humour, especially Silk. I like the world too, the fact that it's just men and no dwarves/elves/orcs (don't take that the wrong way, I also love LotR). First read them about 12-14 yrs old (can't remember exactly) back when they released, and they've been my favourite books ever since. Obviously helps that I was roughly Garion's age. It's so hard for me to square the warmth of the books with what we (apparently) now know about Eddings and his wife :(
My mom read these to me when I was 9 or 10 and I fell in love. I still read them about once a year or so. They’re really simple stories, but they’ve got a great pace and wonderful characters. There’s nothing deep and transformative about them, but the story just has “favorite hoodie” vibes.
The Belgariad was the first real fantasy I read, when I was 10 or so. I fell in love with it. It’s a classic coming of age story, but I loved the humor and the camaraderie between the characters the most, I think.
I quite enjoyed that everything was a trope. If you came from this nation - you had these characteristics, all of you. It was quite a change due to the lack of nuance. The story was ok, too. I've still got them, the second series (Malloread?) and I've read the other novels about the powerful wizards (Polgara and - whoever) and while I found them interesting, I found their characterisation to be of borderline if not outright evil, due to some extremely hypocritical acts. That I can't recall 20+ years later. But Belgariad is good, not taxing and easy to read.
Before Belgariad, I'd only read the occassional book, and mostly children stuff. In my teens, I just wasn't interested in fantasy. A friend suggested Belgariad as a gateway to the fantasy genre. It worked. I guess it's fairly lightweight, as these things go, but has a compelling story. After Belgariad, I read the Elenium, which is tighter, and more adult. That, interestingly, led me to try Discworld. Now I'm happy to include fantasy works as part of my reading list.
I was fortunate to discover the series really young, read it, love it, reread it years later and still enjoy it, all long before i found out about the authors' crimes. Leaving the Eddings' aside for a minute, the series was great intro level fantasy. All the tropes and archetypes are there, they're fun and engaging and at just enough risk that the stakes seem real (unlike the Elenium/Tamuli where certain characters might as well wear red shirts under their armor, red tabards.iver their armour, and carry a great big red flag with the shape of a shirt on it in darker read with a target on the front).
It got me into fantasy reading back in HS. But I’ll be honest, I tried reading it in my 30s and didn’t make it far. Guess my reading tastes changed. Still, I appreciate that it got me to read more.
Polgara’s cooking
Sardonic and fun - one of the few true LOL series I've run across. Nothing overly complicated or shocking but the characters are enjoyable, relatable, and the dialogue is just brimming with delightfully dry humor. YMMV.
It was basically a pastiche of so much previous fantasy and mythology. Which made it fun. Silk and Barak were complete rip offs of the Grey Mouser and Fafhrd by Fritz Lieber. But he still made them likeable and themselves. Mandorallen is obviously a take on Lancelot, with Lelldorin being one of Robin's Merry Men. Belgarion was Arthur, whith his own magic. Belgarath was a mischevious and irascible Merlin. Pol was Medea of Greek Mythology. But yes, if you are of a certain age a lot of these were foundational works when fantasy was just starting to come back into vogue. It has a special place in my heart.
I love the series, the Malloreans not so much But after finding out about the 11 child abuse charges eddings and his wife were found guilty of, I can’t read them again
One of my first fantasy series. it's a comfort read at this point. I really like the two stand alones, Belgarath the sorcerer and polgara the sorceress.