Belgarath
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Belgarath is a fictional character in the David Eddings book series The Belgariad followed by The Malloreon. He is the father and ultimate grandfather, respectively, of Polgara and Belgarion. He is called "The Ancient and Beloved" in the Mrin Codex and the Eternal Man by various storytellers, and is generally regarded as the most powerful sorcerer in The Belgariad universe.
Belgarath began life as a young orphaned thief thousands of years ago, named Garath, who after visiting one of the lost tribes of man, found himself in the Vale of Aldur. Caught there in a snowstorm and dying, he was leaning back and feeling sorry for himself when invited inside of a tower. He went inside, planning to steal, and found himself given tasks to do for the owner. He eventually discovered the power of the "Will and the Word", also known as sorcery, and became a disciple of the tower's owner, one of the Seven Gods named Aldur, who renamed him Belgarath, the "bel" meaning "beloved".
He is sent on a number of missions throughout the world, dealing with issues that Aldur wishes a human representative to see to. He came across a young she-wolf in his travels, while travelling in the form of a wolf himself, and she followed him to his errand and back to his tower. After hundreds of years, she saw him turn into a man, and changed her form to an owl and flew away. She built a farmhouse in the Vale and Belgarath stumbled on her, finding out her name was Poledra. He apparently didn't realise who and what she was (he drops some hints that he did in Belgarath the Sorcerer) and married her, and they had twin girls. One of these girls was Polgara, and the other was Beldaran.
During his later travels, after the apparent death of his wife, he helped his sorceress daughter Polgara protect the last of the royal line of Riva, as well as opposing the evil, one-eyed god Torak. It is under this alias and under the guise of a storyteller that he is first introduced to the protagonist of "The Belgariad," a boy named Garion who is a descendant of Beldaran and the Rivan kings in Polgara's care. Also, his supposedly dead wife returns during The Malloreon.
Unlike most archetypical wizards of the genre (Gandalf, Obi-wan Kenobi,Dumbledore, etc.), who are portrayed as wise, calm and good men who never lose their tempers without reason, Belgarath is often grumpy and loses his temper with people. He has a number of bad habits (such as thieving), and clearly states in Belgarath the Sorcerer that he's no saint. Also unlike the typical archetypical wizard, who dresses in impressive robes, Belgarath is comfortable wearing an ordinary tunic and hose. In fact, in Belgarath the sorcerer commented that people have fantastic yet false images of what they call sorcerers, although he has often used the role of the mighty wizard in white flowing robes with a magic staff to his advantage in the past.
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