The whole Wizards Live Longer thing never made any sense- until one reads the page and another troper's explanation. "Magic" in that world is based directly on will, AND HUMANS HAVE WILL TO LIVE- a basic instinct that nobody has to think about.
That would work, but the canon explanation is that they just forgot to die. When Belgarath realizes he's been alive for several centuries and asks Aldur how that could be, Aldur brushes it off as 'is that something mortals are suppose to do? Go back to your studies and forgot that nonsense.'
After a while, you suddenly realize that the Planet of Hats arrangements serve a vital purpose — most of the characters who are walking stereotypes of their cultures need to be those stereotypes to fulfill their roles in the prophecy, for either side. Mimbrates aren't heavily into armored knights just because they think jousting is awesome — they were deliberately kept in that state for thousands of years just so Mandorallen would come out the other end. The same is true of Algarian horsemanship, Drasnian guile, Cherek barbarism, Asturian archery, Ulgo religiosity and so on.
Ce'Nedra being the most vulnerable to mental manipulation makes sense when you consider she's part-Dryad; Dryads, like the rest of the "monsters" were driven mad by the cracking of the world. Though The Prophecy likely interfered so as to assure that Ce'Nedra will be born, they likely are still "fragile" in a way because of that.
Relg and Taiba are an odd couple to put together, an ascetic religious fundamentalist concerned with bodily purity and the last survivor of a race famed for open sexual mores who is destined to repopulate her people. But Relg is a case of Doth Protest Too Much: the asceticism and purity are the result of Relg deliberately misunderstanding UL's will to fit his own preconceived notions of his purpose in the grand scheme. In truth, Relg's concern about sin is hiding his lusty and passionate nature. UL picked the perfect man to fit Taiba. Relg just had to be shocked to his core before he could discard his preconceived notions and become the person UL intended.
When Cyradis is faced with the CHOICE, one of the things she laments during her breakdown is that she can't see their faces, and her blindfold's removal helps her make the CHOICE. Both those seem odd, but remember the Grolim Zandramas sent to Kell? He was beaming and drunk on the joy of seeing the face of the new God of the Angaraks. Since the Seers of Kell are the ones who struck him with that vision, that would suggest they know what the new, benevolent God will look like. But since Cyradis is wearing her blindfold, she doesn't know whether Eriond or Geran has the right face!
Furthermore, when her blindfold is removed, she still takes a few moments to look between them. Since Geran is a toddler, she was probably deliberating whether his features would mature into those of the correct God.
In her prequel, the first time Polgara shares her form with her mother, she's struck by the things she never knew about her, including that Poledra, as a wolf, had littermates, and therefore she (Polgara) had wolf aunts and uncles and cousins she's never known about. It's entirely possible that the orphaned wolf pup they acquire in The Mallorean is literal, rather than adoptive, family.
Beldin is implied in Belgarath the Sorcerer to be very close to both Belsambar and Belmakor—he explicitly tells the former that he loves him, and he had centuries of academic debates with the latter. Their deaths explain a lot of his nastiness in the main series (though, admittedly, he's always been pretty rough around the edges).
Belgarath's having a tree fall on him towards the end of Book 2 seems a bit weird, since his broken arm doesn't really affect very much, if at all. However, that tree could have easily killed him—no doubt it was the Dark Prophecy, trying to cheat! Becomes extra Brilliance and Horror when you realize that every Contrived Coincidence, every bit of helpful or harmful weather is one or the other of the Prophecies either assisting the heroes or trying to get in their way.
Sorcerers are implied to subconsciously choose their appearance, which is why Belgarath looks like a wise old man, and Polgara an attractive young woman. So what does that say about Ctuchik, who looks like the very archetype of the Evil Sorcerer? Likely that he's fully aware of how evil he is, and either doesn't care, or is proud of it.
You know how Merel goes from being stuck in a loveless marriage with a husband who thinks he is entitled to sex regardless of her feelings, to being happily married to her rapist as soon as their son is born? Consider that if Torak had won Polgara would have been brainwashed into loving him, although she believes that there would always be a part of her that knows what happened and would be screaming in horror for the rest of her life. Now consider that the Purpose of the Universe outright tells Garion that the reason all his friends find themselves married with Babies Ever After is because it took steps to arrange that as a reward for their service. Exactly what steps did it take on Barak's behalf?
It almost certainly isn't as malevolent as that. Consider: Barak is openly ashamed of his behavior, sets about improving relationships with Merel, and shows himself to be kinder and affectionate around her afterwards. Most likely, any steps the Purpose took were making suggestions to Barak that he should improve himself. The marriage was explicitly stated as being miserable for both of them, so turning into an actual 'reward' required fixing the behaviors that made it so miserable in the first place—after all, the Prophecy of the Light is about change and growth, whereas the Prophecy of the Dark doesn't care about any of that.
We know that the Grolim sacrificed one person every hour, every day, every year, for 7000 years. Based on my calculations, that means 61 billion people were sacrificed, and that's just for each temple. Due to the fact the world isn't even slightly depopulated, and almost certainly couldn't have had that many people alive over that amount of time (only around 107 billion people have ever lived), where are all those people coming from?
It's made very clear that there were large areas of the Angarak world where the Grolims never really bothered to sacrifice people, and it was only really maintained consistently in places where the likes of Ctuchik and Urvon held absolute power (or among the Thulls). It's also noted a few times that the Angaraks underwent some major societal disruptions, meaning that there wasn't really the social framework to do such a thing - and that's not even getting into the de facto civil war between the Angarak military and priesthood in Mallorea in the backstory. As a result, the numbers were probably rather lower.
The Orb might be the cause of the accident that divided the universe. The source of the accident is a star dying (exploding) in the wrong place and causing a chain reaction in a galaxy of stars. The orb starts to take Belgarion's example that it has the power to spell his name out in the stars as a suggestion, something that requires the stars involved move in the past due to speed-of-light issues. Within a few months of Belgarion's comment (and almost immediate command to the orb to stop) the final CHOICE is made...in the light of the accident that has finally reached his world after traveling all the distance to get there.
One-Gender Race: The nonhuman Dryads. They kidnap human men and force them to father children. This goes one of two ways: a girl will always be a Dryad, and a boy will be human with Dryad genes lying dormant. These Dryad genes can then be passed on to the children of that male — and they are, resulting in Ce'Nedra, who, thanks to dilution, is half Dryad. Pure dryads don't have male children. In "Belgarath the Sorcerer", Belgarath notes that crossbreeding dryads with the House of Borune did some odd things, since a pure dryad "would never give birth to a male child".
Got it? A full-blooded Dyrad will never have a male child. Easy enough. The first Dryads to marry a Borune were all full-blooded. So where did the first male Dryad-Borune come from?
From the union of the first full-blood Dryad's half-blood daughter and a human male.
The Prophecy Did It. Simple as that.
For that matter, how are any of the Dryads "full-blooded"? They catch human males to procreate, as stated in Queen of Sorcery — so the forest Dryads aren't any more full-blooded than the Borune ones. While the original created Dryads were full-blooded, they weren't immortal; by now, all Dryads are at least half-human. Polgara and Belgarath make a big deal about full vs. half, but the illogic of this apparently doesn't occur to any of the characters.
The Borune ones are an exception, thanks to the Prophecy. The rest are basically born full-blooded Dryads and are pretty much invariably girls. Ce'Nedra herself is noted to be essentially a full-blooded Dryad, with Garion pointing out that she will have the associated lifespan.
Why do none of the characters talk to the young wolf in books 4-5 of the Malloreon? Because he would make a certain reveal about his ostensible mother, presumably.
Probably because he's too young to talk - though it's implied as he gets older that there's something a little odd about him.
Also possible that Poledra gave him some strict instructions about what to say and what not to say if anyone did, too. She may even have been training him for a future role as Geran's guardian, the way she trained her own children for their roles.
Why aren't there thousands (if not millions) of immortal Grolims out there? Discovering the Will and the Word renders you immortal, even if you're not very good at using it, as demonstrated by Senji. We also know that Grolims aren't an exception, as demonstrated by Ashrak \ Chamdar. We're told that MANY Grolim have at least *some* talent for sorcery, but the obvious implication is never drawn.
Part of it is that some probably accidentally erased themselves by telling something to vanish. Others might've been grabbed and sacrificed, or killed in battle (Will and the Word doesn't do much good if someone stabs you/hits you over the head). Also, as noted above, you need to have the will to live in order to be immortal. Is it all that surprising that a lot of Grolims don't want to live in their terrible society forever?
It's also implied that the Grolim priesthood is subject to Klingon Promotion.
Is "Be Not" ANYONE'S first (or second, or tenth) most likely thing to say regarding something they want destroyed? Somewhat more reasonable when Belgarath speculates that "go away" and "get lost" would also result in the sorcerer imploding out of existence, but in-universe we only see the highly unnatural "be not".
Telling something to "vanish" or "disappear" would also probably fit it—and those commands are a lot more likely.
