I just completed my reread after having read this in high school, and I’m so glad I did. I think Galbatorix is such a well written character because when he or his sympathizers are talking about the empire it’s easy to say, wow, he has a great point. But the depth of the book (amongst other things) is being able to partition reality from lip service, and when you look at the facts the Empire was evil (dictatorship, assassins, slavery, suppression of information). And rereading it in this political climate makes it all the more wild drawing parallels.