Eragon Spork Chapter Forty-Six: A Path Revealed

[epistler]

Confession time: I am a slob who never cleans anything if she can possibly avoid it. Normally it takes me days to psych myself up enough to break out the bucket and scrubbing brush. And yet today I washed and darned my bedroom curtains, wiped the windows, cleared out an old cabinet I’d been meaning to get rid of, did the vacuuming, cleaned some cobwebs off the ceiling, and tidied up the study. I mentioned this totorylltales, remarking on how unusually productive I’d been and how my place was looking cleaner than it had in years.

He said, and I quote: “Wow, you must be really bored. Or avoiding something unpleasant.”

After a pause he added “…you’ve got the next Eragon chapter, don’t you?”

Eragon: the book so dull it made me wash windows and dust the shelves to put off having to pick it up again.

But I guess I’m out of delaying tactics now. 

To begin with an interesting fact – in the self-published edition, this is chapter 48. Unfortunately I didn’t notice any more noteworthy new material, which is a shame because yesterday I heard a rumour that there’s a deleted scene featuring Durza and Galbatorix. (If only. I searched for it in vain).

Anyway, so our bumbling band have reached the implausibly huge mountains at last. And I’m depressed to note just how much better of a character Eragon used to be. He actually has emotions here, and acts like he has a personality. Where did that go? Sigh…

Everyone pats themselves on the back for making it through the desert in one short pointless chapter, and Eragon thinks about how great it is that they managed to ride “sixty leagues in five days”, which he claims is impressive even for someone who gets to change horses along the way.

He then moves on to thinking about how he’s finally outside the Empire for the first time in his life, and now he won’t have to keep avoiding towns and dodging soldiers and such. Yeah, because the journey so far has been fraught every step of the way and not just 80% peril-free padding…

However he refuses to forget all the very nebulous evil shit Galbatorix has done, namely: slaughtering the Riders (which did not personally involve you), driving the elves away (you’re human – why would you care?), “condoned atrocities like Yazuac” (how do you know the urgals who did it hadn’t just gone rogue? And what other atrocities were there?), and wreaked havoc on Ergy’s life. He declares that he hates the King. “Hated him!”, exclamation mark and all, and decides he can’t just turn his back on all the eeevil stuff he’s done.

Unfortunately, the way this is written makes it feel less like a brave hero coming into his own and more like a childish temper tantrum. I’m not quite sure how to put my finger on it, but it’s just how it feels. There’s just something petulant about it.

He also thinks about how there’s “more to it than that: he wanted an answer”. Namely, he wants to know why all this has “befallen me”. I have no idea how these two things are in any way related, but that I do have an answer for.

It’s because you’re the self-insert Mary Sue.

There is absolutely nothing special, admirable, unique or impressive about Eragon. He’s not particularly brave, he’s not intelligent or cunning, he’s not kind or compassionate, and perhaps most importantly of all, he lacks empathy. A true hero, even a budding one, puts others before himself and thinks of their needs before his own. What makes Eragon come across as far more of a villain in the making is that one of his most noteworthy traits is selfishness. Again and again and again we’ve seen him only think about himself and his own wants, while disregarding the wants and needs of other people – including Saphira and even Roran, the first of whom is supposed to be his soul-bonded best friend and the second of whom he supposedly grew up with as a brother. When Saphira first hatches – a tiny vulnerable baby animal, all alone in the world – how does Eragon react? By thinking that if he raises her he can become famous and important. He has not one single moment of genuine sympathy or kindness towards her. Later on when she’s older and clearly terrified, how does Eragon react? By getting all pissy that she’s not doing what he wants, and then taunting her and calling her “craven” (in this context, it’s perhaps not surprising she grows up to be a rude unfeeling bitch).

And when Roran wants to leave home and get married, how does Eragon react to that? By getting angry. He has not a word of good wishes or congratulations or anything like that. Instead he throws a baby fit and then sulks for a week. All because Roran isn’t putting his very important ass first.

And when Garrow died – what did Eragon do then? Mope around full of self-pity, with not one single thought spared for Roran, who is now an orphan. He didn’t even consider going to see him in Therinsford while they were passing through, or leaving a sympathetic message.

I could easily go on, but I think I’ve made my point. Eragon is a selfish little asshole with no regard for other people’s feelings, and that other than his utter lack of patience is his only particular defining feature. …Oh, and then there's also his third notable trait: overweening arrogance. Which I think we can all agree did not need this sort of encouragement. Therefore I feel quite safe in saying that he’s not a hero by anybody’s definition, and even though the real atrocities he’s going to commit have yet to come, he is and remains an objectively bad person.

So unless dragons are regularly in the habit of hatching for complete douchebags and for no other reason than that, the only explanation as to why this idiot got one is Because The Author Sayed So.

Christ, I’m not even one page into this chapter. Are there any more windows that need scrubbing? Maybe I can go get my tyres rotated? Visit the tax accountant and get my return filed?

Aaaarrrrgh.

Anyway, Ergy then checks out the life-sized elf doll he’s been lugging around, so of course cue descriptions of her pretty cheekbones. He thinks about how he’s poked around in the minds of animals and people but – irony alert – “He always remembered Brom’s admonishments to not violate someone’s mind unless absolutely necessary, and had refrained from doing so, save for the one time he had tried and failed to probe Murtagh’s consciousness.”

Fast forward to book three…

Even now he takes a few moments to consider whether it would be okay to try and mind probe Arya and whether she’d forgive him for it, before going ahead. What follows is pretty annoying and confusing as well, because first he finds some powerful mental defenses, and then has to throw up “his own barriers” as Arya mentally attacks him in return. It’s confusing and annoying because Paolini never bothered to establish just how the hell any of that works. How does one throw up a mental barrier and when did Ergy learn how to do this? When did Brom teach him? What are the rules of “mind fights”?

We will never find out, and it doesn’t help that Paolini keeps describing it using weird metaphors and inappropriate imagery involving crystal and icy daggers and whatnot.

The short version is that Arya is a million times stronger than him, and quickly wins the fight. Ergy yells “I am a Rider and a friend” in the AL (when did he learn how to say that?) , and Arya makes careful mental contact. Predictably her mind is all vast and ancient and powerful and full of beautiful singing, because of course it is. Too bad in practice she mostly just acts like a cold-hearted snot. Eragon thinks about how it’s no wonder elves are so alien and inhuman and such, which is pretty amusing because when we actually do get to meet some they just act like really pretentious humans with egos a mile wide.

They have a mental conversation, and even though it’s stated that Ergy only knows a few “scattered words” of the AL he’s somehow able to say shit like “You’ve not stirred or said a word in all that time. I don’t know what to do to help you” and then understand Arya’s detailed explanation of the nonsensical torture she apparently suffered, which was to be poisoned every day and then given an antidote. What the hell was the point of that? Sounds like a perfect way to accidentally kill your prisoner under interrogation to me, and especially when you have magic and mind-rape powers. Come on.

Either way she’s still poisoned and has put herself under to slow it down. The poison gets a name, naturally (and just as naturally will never be mentioned again). She says the antidote is very (and I mean VERY) conveniently with the elves and also with the Varden, but they have to hurry and go on dragonback. Ergy claims that he’s got a friend with him he won’t abandon. That is until next week, when he abandons the shit out of him and then pretends he didn’t.

Arya offers to tell him how to find the Varden, as long as he swears an AL oath not to harm the elves, the dwarves, the Varden or the dragons. Which he does.

First up, I note one group is conspicuously absent from this promise. A little race known as – oh, I don’t know – humans? So apparently Arya doesn’t give a shit if he hurts other human beings unless they’re in the Varden, but not so for the elves or the dwarves. Which will be contradicted later anyway when Eragon helps to kill a dragon and also harms and kills multiple dwarves without suffering any consequences.

Arya gives him the info and then retreats, and Ergy comes to and finds out he’s been sitting there for “fifteen minutes” (what the hell was the point of specifying the number and how did Murtagh calculate it anyway?). Saphira makes a “dry” comment about how he was grimacing in pain the whole time and wants to know what was going on. What, so she’s mentally bonded to him and couldn’t sense any of this?? I have to say this much-vaunted human/dragon bonding thing is awfully convenient when it comes to when it does and doesn’t work. “More one mind than two” my ass.

Ergy tells her and Murtagh what happened and that they have to go to the Varden, but it’s even further away than Gil-Galad and they only have three or four days to do it. Murtagh immediately gets angry and points out that this is ridiculously impractical and the horses are already exhausted and will die if they keep pushing it. Ergy suggests he fly ahead with Arya and Murtagh can catch up later, but Murtagh just gets even more pissy and whines that Ergy is treating him like a servant, and after Murtagh saved his life no less. Eragon whines back at him, and then Murtagh sneers that “you’re so totally helpless you force everyone to take care of you!”

Wow, it’s as if Paolini suddenly became self-aware for a few moments and realised how utterly incompetent and useless his self-insert is. No wonder everyone liked Murtagh better. (And no wonder he was hastily gotten rid of in the next book).

Murtagh insults him some more. So Eragon punches him in the stomach. Real mature.

They end up getting into a fistfight, which unlike a lot of Paolini’s other fight scenes is actually pretty realistically undignified and messy. They keep going at it like a couple of kids on the playground until Saphira breaks it up and pins them both down, and then tells them to talk it out. So now we’re playing Couples Therapy, apparently. No wonder some people shipped those two back in the day. (Mind you, some people will try and turn anything into slash. It gets old pretty fast).

Murtagh repeats that he doesn’t want to go to the Varden, but now elaborates that the reason why is because he’s expecting them to instantly hate him. He keeps acting evasive, which pisses Eragon off, but finally starts to say “My father” before Saphira interrupts saying she can see something. The two humans look and Murtagh for some reason yells “demons above and below!”. Even though there are no “demons” in this setting.

And these are just urgals anyway, as it turns out – a whole army of them led by some chieftain or other who Murtagh talks up as being vicious and also mentally unbalanced. Lovely. And pointless, as we’ll never actually meet the guy and he will not be playing any role in the plot.

The two of them make a quick compromise: Murtagh will come with them as far as the entrance to the Varden, and then they’ll part ways. Saphira flies off with Arya and Ergy and Murtagh mount up and start riding again. On their exhausted horses who at this point should be in dire need of food and rest. But then of course as we all know Paolini has no idea how horses actually work.

I have no idea where the urgals are relative to where our hero… protagonist… characters we’re following are, by the way. Paolini really seems to have a problem with visualising things in that regard. But in any case that’s no longer my problem, because the chapter ends there.

Next up is gharialguy, who gets the pleasure of sporking one of the most tooth-rottingly melodramatic and cheesy scenes in the entire book. Have fun with that, scales.

Comments

[epistler]

Talking himself up again, as usual. Pissant.

[(Anonymous)]

Eragon may be really good at wringing a chicken's neck for their 100% accurate peasant meals. He just ran into trouble when they're 160-180lbs of muscle and can fight back.