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antishurtugal_rebornOkay, here we go, Hunting for Answers. This is a chapter I’ve actually been really excited about sporking. Because it contains one of Paolini’s best piece of plotting. I’m not joking, there’s something really subtle in this chapter that I think works really, really well. And I don't just mean for Paolini's standard like I general mean in these sporks. I mean actually good by a general standard. Now that’s not to say this is going to be a good chapter over all. I’m talking about a single line of narration here that works well. The rest could be utter trash, let’s jump in and see.
We start the chapter exactly where we lead off, with the Varden having our heroes at knife point and leading them deeper into the tunnel. It’s noted that their horses are lead off into a different tunnel. Farewell Tornac, farewell Snowfire, though you still live, this is the death scene you’re getting though not the one you deserve.
And yes, we get another confirmation here that Arya is indeed still tied to Saphira’s…back. Hold on, I thought she was tied to Saphira’s stomach. How the hell is Saphira flying with someone tied to her back. Someone managing to sit between her wings I can buy, but someone lying down lengthways with rope going around them, that’s an image I actually have to see in practise to not have some questions of. It’s of course possible, but it means several things about Saphira’s relative size and where her spikes are. While we’re at it how gosh damned big is this cave network and its hidden entrance if Saphira can comfortably fit inside?
Also yes, this means, inarguably, that Saphira dived into the lake with an unconscious Arya on her back. I’ve gone back to check. Paolini even uses the word submerged. There’s no way Arya should not be suffering from a casual drowning right now. We’re not even talking a dip in and out. She went deep enough and long enough for the urgals to jab their spears into the water trying to find her. Saphira (and Paolini’s wrigint) have accidently killed Arya right now. That would have been…quite a twist for the series. Eragon and co nearly kill themselves trying to save this elf by getting her to the Varden only to accidently kill her right on the Varden’s doorstep. Would certainly sour Eragon’s relationship with almost every faction there is.
Back to the plot at hand. The Varden aren’t giving Eragon and co a warm welcome. Nice to see Eragon not being paraded around as a hero by them for once. Although it’s one of the Twins who is in charge here and they’re evil so of course they don’t represent the Varden as a whole. It’s just these two ass holes being overly assholish, not a properly cautious reaction to a Rider suddenly showing up unannounced with an army of urgals at his back.
The Twin (who is just the Bald Man now as it seems only one of them is here) disarms Murtagh and Eragon and threatens to kill Muratgh if Eragon doesn’t submit to a bit of mind rape. He threatens to access Eragons mind by force and drive him mad if he doesn’t agree, just so you know this guy is evil and harbour no surprise when it turns out to be an empire spy. By the way the guy searching new recruits for empire spies is himself an empire spy. That is such a massive flaw in security. I’m sure stuff like that has happened in real life war time espionage, but here they have mind reading, and this is a pitiful rebellion in comparison to Galbatorix’s might. How did the Varden even last this long with the Twins in such a massive position of power? The only thing that should really be protecting the Varden right now is their location being unknown.
Eragon tried to argue against the mind rape by insisting Arya be treated first but the Twin is having none of it. It takes Orik to step up and point out that it’s Arya. For a second I thought the Twins actually did have names as Orik calls this one Egraz Carn, but upon searching it seems that’s Dwarfish for Bald One (even though Carn is a name in this universe, being the other unrelated mage Roran makes friends with in Brisinger). These guys literally have no names. How shady is that? Why Paolini, why not just give them names. You don’t even have to use them if you want to call them the twins, but at least not let them be high ranking spies in an enemy organisation that somehow manage to get there without revealing their names to anyone. It’s like suspicion is pouring out their ears. By the way, I imagine them as looking exactly like the Paradox brothers from Yu-gi-oh.
Tell me that’s not exactly the kind of cartoonishly evil character Paolini is presenting with these evil bald mages.
By the way, the Twin calls Orik by name in that painfully obvious way where you have a character do so purely to reveal a character’s name to the reader instead of it being part of their natural speech pattern.
Arya is taken away and Eragon’s mind probing begins. He instinctually tries to throw up barriers but Saphira warns him not to because it would put Muratgh’s life at risk. Huh, quite nice of you Saphira. I’d expect your in character reaction to be to try to eat the bald guy.
The Twin is a sadist, being disappointed Eragon isn’t resisting him. Just in case you needed more indication that he was an evil character. Saphira gets the completely inexplicable power to hide memories from the Twin, but only if they do it before he reaches them in his probe. This is…utterly bizzare. How is it even working? Is Saphira erasing Eragon’s mind and string his memories in her own? How could the Twin possibly not realize this is happening? And how does Saphira even know how to do this? And if this is a thing that exists and not something just suddenly invented by Saphira then it should be a known method of avoiding mind probes and hence should impact how they are done. Namely they should be done in complete isolation. Eragon even manages to hide the ancient words Brom thought him, which should make it glaringly obvious that he’s concealing information from the twins (other things he conceals are Angela’s fortune-telling and Murtagh’s Morzan revelation). Granted it does explain how the Twins might have been able to present themselves as trustworthy, by using this exact technique to pass themselves off as innocent, but that’s not the golden but of subtly I was referring to earlier, that’s just something that makes everyone involved more stupid. This is the beautiful piece of subtlety I was referring to before.
“The bald man wound through his experiences sluggishly, like a thorny vine pushing its way toward the sunlight. He paid keen attention to many things Eragon considered irrelevant, such as his mother, Selena, and seemed to linger on purpose so as to prolong the suffering. He spent a long time examining Eragon’s recollections of the Ra’zac, and then later the Shade. It was not until his adventures had been exhaustively analyzed that the bald man began to withdraw from Eragon’s mind.”
Can you see it? Maybe it’s more obvious with this previous paragraph.
“Eragon winced as the probe dug in farther, hunting for information, like a nail being driven through his skull. The bald man roughly seized his childhood memories and began sifting through them. He doesn’t need those—get him out of there! growled Eragon angrily.”
Now I’m dead serious here, this is some great writing. Not in terms of prose, but in terms of plotting. There’s actually a lot more going on here then it initially seems and Paolini manages to disguise it brilliantly by making the twin so cartoonishly evil. The Twin is focusing on Eargon’s childhood. Specifically his mother. We’re meant to think he’s invading Eragon’s childhood and moving through it slowly because he’s just torturing Eragon for lols, but in reality he is just now figuring out that Eragon and Murtagh are brothers. The Twins are Empire agents. They know who Selena is. They know who Murtagh is too, that’s why they capture him in the next book. The Twins, or rather this Twin, is the one who figure out the Murtagh-Eragon connection. And he later tells Murtagh. That’s how Murtagh knows come the end of Eldest. Galbatorix didn’t tell him, because Galbatorix has no way of knowing about Eragon. No one living knows Selena had two children. The Twin is looking at the dates here and figuring it out. I think Paolini might be dropping it a bit too much on the nose by actually mentioning Selena’s name, but the Twin focusing on Eragon’s childhood is a wonderful bit of foreshadowing and just generally an example of other characters in universe discovering things without the reader’s knowledge. This is something that would fly way over head of any first time reader. Even if you guess Murtagh and Eragon are brothers, it’s probably coming more from guessing what pulpy dramatic twists the author will use rather than any evidence. This is the evidence but the reader would not know it without future context. And yes, I really do think this is intentional. Murtagh says it outright in the next book. Which was probably a little bit unnecessary, as I think it’s better left as a piece of rereading interest. But still, it’s actually a great demonstration of how to hide something in plain sight. You set it up so characters (in this case the Twin) know things the reader and protagonist don’t, then you have those character a act upon that knowledge (focusing on Eragon’s childhood), but without the known context the scene still needs to make sense (the Twin is a sadistic asshole). First time readers won’t question the logic of the scene, but people rereading with context can appreciate that there’s some actual subtle development in the story at work here. This is the reason I like the first book so much. Not because it’s good writing, but because I can tell Paolini liked this first book. This was his baby, he had plans for it, nebulous plans for it I’m sure, but he worked on this book earnestly with passion and this is the kind of thing that can result when you’re swallowed in your own world and you know what the character want and our doing (that being said the Twins are utterly flat characters without any explanation for their loyalties, but just plain being evil is good enough for Paolini’s undeveloped psyche to be a fine explanation for what a character wants).
Back to the story. The Twin finishes with Eragon and moves on to Murtagh, but Murtagh point blank refuses to consent to the mind probe. He maintains his conviction like a bamf and the Twin utterly fails to mind rape him. This isn’t an unprecedented ability for Murtagh what with how Eragon tried to read his mind earlier and utterly failed. I like the set up and it does make Murtagh look reasonably cool in the moment.
Orik and the Twin argue over what to do, revealing that the Varden had been watching throughout the previous chapter and that Orik wanted to let them in even though they were on the wrong side of the waterfall while the Twin didn’t (cause, you know you need to know even more that he’s an asshole). The Twin finally relents when Orik questions whether Murtagh can use magic which is actually a pretty poor line of reasoning. Just because Eragon never sees Murtagh using magic doesn’t mean he can’t. He could still be a dangerous enemy agent (of course the Twin himself is an enemy agent but that’s neither here nor there for this discussion).
The Varden leave Eragon, Saphira and Murtagh locked in a marble room for the night so they can figure what to do with the whole Murtagh fighting off mind rape thing and for the narrative so Eragon and Murtagh can have a breather to discuss everything that’s happened. They talk openly about Murtagh being Morzan’s son, which is a bit foolish. The Varden could be listening right now. Especially since it even notes that Eragon’s voice approaches a shout for some reason. Murtagh proceeds to tell his life story, filled with some questionable knowledge about Morzan’s motivations that depict him in the worst light possible. In reality Murtagh should have no clue about Morzan’s motivations given the guy died when he was three. There’s also a line about how he took Selena to his castle and put wards on it so no one could enter except some select few servants. Really question how Brom could gain employment there without his old friend Morzan recognizing him, but that’s a headscratcher for a later time.
Holy hell. When Murtagh was born five of the Foresworn were still alive. The Varden manage to wipe out over a third of the riders under Galbatorix’s command in just three years. That’s insane. I thought they were picked off one by one over the decades but apparently not. Three of them we’re alive when the search for Saphira’s egg was on. Recall that we later learn one died in the initial battles against the riders, so that means in eighty years they managed to kill seven riders yet in three years they managed to kill five. How the hell were the Varden that incompetent for decades yet this competent in a single three year stretch of time? It’s also mentioned that suicide was one way in which the foresworn died, which…I kind of want to hear that story. A super powerful dragon rider with a crazy dragon under the thumb of an even more powerful dragon rider going about committing atrocities, or trying to make the world a better place but failing, or succeeding but not being appreciated for it, slowly losing the will to live as the decades roll by and they cease to age. It sounds super melodramatic, but like such an interesting story. How does one handle immortality when you’ve been put in the position of tyrant and don’t even have your own freedom? And no, suicide here doesn’t just mean accidently killing themselves from using magic the wrong way as over use of magic is listed as a separate cause of death.
Huh, So Selena vanished right after Morzan went searching for Saphira’s egg, but then reappeared before word of Morzan’s death reached anyone. Does that timeline work out? I thought she vanished with Brom for a bit, but I suppose that disappearance was for Eragon to be born. Which means Eragon was conceived in Morzan’s own estate. Brom cuckholded Morzan in his own house. Ouch. Wonder if Brom told Morzan that before he died.
Huh. Now this doesn’t make sense. Murtagh says he escaped on his last birthday when he turned eighteen. And we know for a fact Eragon has passed his sixteenth birthday by now. This puts two years between them unless Murtagh is about to turn nineteen like tomorrow. Yet Morzan left to search for Saphira’s egg when Murtagh was already three years old and Eragon was not yet born. That seems to be an irrevocable continuity error. Eragon was born when Murtagh had already seen his third birthday yet right now Murtagh has not reached his nineteenth birthday and Eragon has reached his sixteenth. There is simultaneously less and more than three years difference in age between them. Only two possible explanations, either Garrow lied to Eragon about his age for some reason and he’s really only fifteen right now, or Murtagh’s misremembering and Morzan left when he was only two, which in that case raises serious questions about how Murtagh can even remember Morzan at all.
Murtagh goes on to tell about his dinner with Galbatorix where Galbatorix uses his sexy, sexy voice to convince Murtagh to work with him. Murtagh says he agreed even though he knew about the circumstances of Galbatorix and Morzan’s rise to power. So eh, how did Murtagh know about those circumstances? Or rather how did he know about it and have a negative opinion of it? The anti Galbatorix propaganda is so powerful even the people raised in the royal palace have a gut reaction against him. Galbatorix really needs to work on his own propaganda wing if he can’t even convince his own court his rebellion wasn’t justified.
Oh that’s interesting. Murtagh doesn’t want to join the Varden because they want to overthrow the empire and Murtagh actually thinks the imperial system is sound. He hates Galbatorix because, well everyone hates Galbatorix, but the whole empire is coacher in his opinion. I must say, knowing what I do about Galbatorix’s political system, that he’s really into local government, I must say I’m quite in agreement. Murtagh also rightly points out that overthrowing the government would lead to anarchy. This never happens in the last book even though it’s absolutely should. This is nice both for giving an alternate view point and for Murtagh’s “betrayal” not actually being all that out of left field.
The food arrives and the chapter ends. I’ll give you zero guesses as to how, because you already know. Eragon goes to sleep. By the way, at the start of their conversation Murtagh says it’s possible other members of the foresworn could potentially have children but says he doesn’t think so for reasons he’ll explain later. He never does explain those reasons. Like at all. Closest would be his statement about them all being dead but that’s hardly a way that they couldn’t have had children previously. I reckon there should be loads of Foresworn bastards knocking around.
Now to sum up this chapter. It’s biggest asset is no doubt that reread bonus I gushed about above. But that takes up a grand total of two lines of the chapter. So aside from that, the chapter does lean on the positive side. The Twin, known only as the Bald Man right now is ridiculously evil in nature, but them not getting a warm welcome by the Varden is logical and it serves as a decent introduction to Orik, as generic as he is, by having him be the good cop to bounce off old baldy’s bad cop. Murtagh and Eragon’s breather afterwards feels well-earned after how the previous chapters and Murtagh’s backstory does provide us with some nice information of stories that sound more interesting than this one even if some of the characters are depicted quite dubiously and there’s a legitimate plot hole in Eragon and Murtagh’s relative age. The only thing I really have to complain about here is how utterly cartoonish the Twin is depicted, even though that does work somewhat for the foreshadowing that I like. It’s still quite overboard and just makes for a rather shallow character. Though that’s less a problem with this chapter exclusively and more just an issue that will continue with that character and his brother for the remainder of the book.
Next chapter, Glory of Tronjehemeble by Midnight Witch and then Ajihad by Epistler.
We start the chapter exactly where we lead off, with the Varden having our heroes at knife point and leading them deeper into the tunnel. It’s noted that their horses are lead off into a different tunnel. Farewell Tornac, farewell Snowfire, though you still live, this is the death scene you’re getting though not the one you deserve.
And yes, we get another confirmation here that Arya is indeed still tied to Saphira’s…back. Hold on, I thought she was tied to Saphira’s stomach. How the hell is Saphira flying with someone tied to her back. Someone managing to sit between her wings I can buy, but someone lying down lengthways with rope going around them, that’s an image I actually have to see in practise to not have some questions of. It’s of course possible, but it means several things about Saphira’s relative size and where her spikes are. While we’re at it how gosh damned big is this cave network and its hidden entrance if Saphira can comfortably fit inside?
Also yes, this means, inarguably, that Saphira dived into the lake with an unconscious Arya on her back. I’ve gone back to check. Paolini even uses the word submerged. There’s no way Arya should not be suffering from a casual drowning right now. We’re not even talking a dip in and out. She went deep enough and long enough for the urgals to jab their spears into the water trying to find her. Saphira (and Paolini’s wrigint) have accidently killed Arya right now. That would have been…quite a twist for the series. Eragon and co nearly kill themselves trying to save this elf by getting her to the Varden only to accidently kill her right on the Varden’s doorstep. Would certainly sour Eragon’s relationship with almost every faction there is.
Back to the plot at hand. The Varden aren’t giving Eragon and co a warm welcome. Nice to see Eragon not being paraded around as a hero by them for once. Although it’s one of the Twins who is in charge here and they’re evil so of course they don’t represent the Varden as a whole. It’s just these two ass holes being overly assholish, not a properly cautious reaction to a Rider suddenly showing up unannounced with an army of urgals at his back.
The Twin (who is just the Bald Man now as it seems only one of them is here) disarms Murtagh and Eragon and threatens to kill Muratgh if Eragon doesn’t submit to a bit of mind rape. He threatens to access Eragons mind by force and drive him mad if he doesn’t agree, just so you know this guy is evil and harbour no surprise when it turns out to be an empire spy. By the way the guy searching new recruits for empire spies is himself an empire spy. That is such a massive flaw in security. I’m sure stuff like that has happened in real life war time espionage, but here they have mind reading, and this is a pitiful rebellion in comparison to Galbatorix’s might. How did the Varden even last this long with the Twins in such a massive position of power? The only thing that should really be protecting the Varden right now is their location being unknown.
Eragon tried to argue against the mind rape by insisting Arya be treated first but the Twin is having none of it. It takes Orik to step up and point out that it’s Arya. For a second I thought the Twins actually did have names as Orik calls this one Egraz Carn, but upon searching it seems that’s Dwarfish for Bald One (even though Carn is a name in this universe, being the other unrelated mage Roran makes friends with in Brisinger). These guys literally have no names. How shady is that? Why Paolini, why not just give them names. You don’t even have to use them if you want to call them the twins, but at least not let them be high ranking spies in an enemy organisation that somehow manage to get there without revealing their names to anyone. It’s like suspicion is pouring out their ears. By the way, I imagine them as looking exactly like the Paradox brothers from Yu-gi-oh.
Tell me that’s not exactly the kind of cartoonishly evil character Paolini is presenting with these evil bald mages.
By the way, the Twin calls Orik by name in that painfully obvious way where you have a character do so purely to reveal a character’s name to the reader instead of it being part of their natural speech pattern.
Arya is taken away and Eragon’s mind probing begins. He instinctually tries to throw up barriers but Saphira warns him not to because it would put Muratgh’s life at risk. Huh, quite nice of you Saphira. I’d expect your in character reaction to be to try to eat the bald guy.
The Twin is a sadist, being disappointed Eragon isn’t resisting him. Just in case you needed more indication that he was an evil character. Saphira gets the completely inexplicable power to hide memories from the Twin, but only if they do it before he reaches them in his probe. This is…utterly bizzare. How is it even working? Is Saphira erasing Eragon’s mind and string his memories in her own? How could the Twin possibly not realize this is happening? And how does Saphira even know how to do this? And if this is a thing that exists and not something just suddenly invented by Saphira then it should be a known method of avoiding mind probes and hence should impact how they are done. Namely they should be done in complete isolation. Eragon even manages to hide the ancient words Brom thought him, which should make it glaringly obvious that he’s concealing information from the twins (other things he conceals are Angela’s fortune-telling and Murtagh’s Morzan revelation). Granted it does explain how the Twins might have been able to present themselves as trustworthy, by using this exact technique to pass themselves off as innocent, but that’s not the golden but of subtly I was referring to earlier, that’s just something that makes everyone involved more stupid. This is the beautiful piece of subtlety I was referring to before.
“The bald man wound through his experiences sluggishly, like a thorny vine pushing its way toward the sunlight. He paid keen attention to many things Eragon considered irrelevant, such as his mother, Selena, and seemed to linger on purpose so as to prolong the suffering. He spent a long time examining Eragon’s recollections of the Ra’zac, and then later the Shade. It was not until his adventures had been exhaustively analyzed that the bald man began to withdraw from Eragon’s mind.”
Can you see it? Maybe it’s more obvious with this previous paragraph.
“Eragon winced as the probe dug in farther, hunting for information, like a nail being driven through his skull. The bald man roughly seized his childhood memories and began sifting through them. He doesn’t need those—get him out of there! growled Eragon angrily.”
Now I’m dead serious here, this is some great writing. Not in terms of prose, but in terms of plotting. There’s actually a lot more going on here then it initially seems and Paolini manages to disguise it brilliantly by making the twin so cartoonishly evil. The Twin is focusing on Eargon’s childhood. Specifically his mother. We’re meant to think he’s invading Eragon’s childhood and moving through it slowly because he’s just torturing Eragon for lols, but in reality he is just now figuring out that Eragon and Murtagh are brothers. The Twins are Empire agents. They know who Selena is. They know who Murtagh is too, that’s why they capture him in the next book. The Twins, or rather this Twin, is the one who figure out the Murtagh-Eragon connection. And he later tells Murtagh. That’s how Murtagh knows come the end of Eldest. Galbatorix didn’t tell him, because Galbatorix has no way of knowing about Eragon. No one living knows Selena had two children. The Twin is looking at the dates here and figuring it out. I think Paolini might be dropping it a bit too much on the nose by actually mentioning Selena’s name, but the Twin focusing on Eragon’s childhood is a wonderful bit of foreshadowing and just generally an example of other characters in universe discovering things without the reader’s knowledge. This is something that would fly way over head of any first time reader. Even if you guess Murtagh and Eragon are brothers, it’s probably coming more from guessing what pulpy dramatic twists the author will use rather than any evidence. This is the evidence but the reader would not know it without future context. And yes, I really do think this is intentional. Murtagh says it outright in the next book. Which was probably a little bit unnecessary, as I think it’s better left as a piece of rereading interest. But still, it’s actually a great demonstration of how to hide something in plain sight. You set it up so characters (in this case the Twin) know things the reader and protagonist don’t, then you have those character a act upon that knowledge (focusing on Eragon’s childhood), but without the known context the scene still needs to make sense (the Twin is a sadistic asshole). First time readers won’t question the logic of the scene, but people rereading with context can appreciate that there’s some actual subtle development in the story at work here. This is the reason I like the first book so much. Not because it’s good writing, but because I can tell Paolini liked this first book. This was his baby, he had plans for it, nebulous plans for it I’m sure, but he worked on this book earnestly with passion and this is the kind of thing that can result when you’re swallowed in your own world and you know what the character want and our doing (that being said the Twins are utterly flat characters without any explanation for their loyalties, but just plain being evil is good enough for Paolini’s undeveloped psyche to be a fine explanation for what a character wants).
Back to the story. The Twin finishes with Eragon and moves on to Murtagh, but Murtagh point blank refuses to consent to the mind probe. He maintains his conviction like a bamf and the Twin utterly fails to mind rape him. This isn’t an unprecedented ability for Murtagh what with how Eragon tried to read his mind earlier and utterly failed. I like the set up and it does make Murtagh look reasonably cool in the moment.
Orik and the Twin argue over what to do, revealing that the Varden had been watching throughout the previous chapter and that Orik wanted to let them in even though they were on the wrong side of the waterfall while the Twin didn’t (cause, you know you need to know even more that he’s an asshole). The Twin finally relents when Orik questions whether Murtagh can use magic which is actually a pretty poor line of reasoning. Just because Eragon never sees Murtagh using magic doesn’t mean he can’t. He could still be a dangerous enemy agent (of course the Twin himself is an enemy agent but that’s neither here nor there for this discussion).
The Varden leave Eragon, Saphira and Murtagh locked in a marble room for the night so they can figure what to do with the whole Murtagh fighting off mind rape thing and for the narrative so Eragon and Murtagh can have a breather to discuss everything that’s happened. They talk openly about Murtagh being Morzan’s son, which is a bit foolish. The Varden could be listening right now. Especially since it even notes that Eragon’s voice approaches a shout for some reason. Murtagh proceeds to tell his life story, filled with some questionable knowledge about Morzan’s motivations that depict him in the worst light possible. In reality Murtagh should have no clue about Morzan’s motivations given the guy died when he was three. There’s also a line about how he took Selena to his castle and put wards on it so no one could enter except some select few servants. Really question how Brom could gain employment there without his old friend Morzan recognizing him, but that’s a headscratcher for a later time.
Holy hell. When Murtagh was born five of the Foresworn were still alive. The Varden manage to wipe out over a third of the riders under Galbatorix’s command in just three years. That’s insane. I thought they were picked off one by one over the decades but apparently not. Three of them we’re alive when the search for Saphira’s egg was on. Recall that we later learn one died in the initial battles against the riders, so that means in eighty years they managed to kill seven riders yet in three years they managed to kill five. How the hell were the Varden that incompetent for decades yet this competent in a single three year stretch of time? It’s also mentioned that suicide was one way in which the foresworn died, which…I kind of want to hear that story. A super powerful dragon rider with a crazy dragon under the thumb of an even more powerful dragon rider going about committing atrocities, or trying to make the world a better place but failing, or succeeding but not being appreciated for it, slowly losing the will to live as the decades roll by and they cease to age. It sounds super melodramatic, but like such an interesting story. How does one handle immortality when you’ve been put in the position of tyrant and don’t even have your own freedom? And no, suicide here doesn’t just mean accidently killing themselves from using magic the wrong way as over use of magic is listed as a separate cause of death.
Huh, So Selena vanished right after Morzan went searching for Saphira’s egg, but then reappeared before word of Morzan’s death reached anyone. Does that timeline work out? I thought she vanished with Brom for a bit, but I suppose that disappearance was for Eragon to be born. Which means Eragon was conceived in Morzan’s own estate. Brom cuckholded Morzan in his own house. Ouch. Wonder if Brom told Morzan that before he died.
Huh. Now this doesn’t make sense. Murtagh says he escaped on his last birthday when he turned eighteen. And we know for a fact Eragon has passed his sixteenth birthday by now. This puts two years between them unless Murtagh is about to turn nineteen like tomorrow. Yet Morzan left to search for Saphira’s egg when Murtagh was already three years old and Eragon was not yet born. That seems to be an irrevocable continuity error. Eragon was born when Murtagh had already seen his third birthday yet right now Murtagh has not reached his nineteenth birthday and Eragon has reached his sixteenth. There is simultaneously less and more than three years difference in age between them. Only two possible explanations, either Garrow lied to Eragon about his age for some reason and he’s really only fifteen right now, or Murtagh’s misremembering and Morzan left when he was only two, which in that case raises serious questions about how Murtagh can even remember Morzan at all.
Murtagh goes on to tell about his dinner with Galbatorix where Galbatorix uses his sexy, sexy voice to convince Murtagh to work with him. Murtagh says he agreed even though he knew about the circumstances of Galbatorix and Morzan’s rise to power. So eh, how did Murtagh know about those circumstances? Or rather how did he know about it and have a negative opinion of it? The anti Galbatorix propaganda is so powerful even the people raised in the royal palace have a gut reaction against him. Galbatorix really needs to work on his own propaganda wing if he can’t even convince his own court his rebellion wasn’t justified.
Oh that’s interesting. Murtagh doesn’t want to join the Varden because they want to overthrow the empire and Murtagh actually thinks the imperial system is sound. He hates Galbatorix because, well everyone hates Galbatorix, but the whole empire is coacher in his opinion. I must say, knowing what I do about Galbatorix’s political system, that he’s really into local government, I must say I’m quite in agreement. Murtagh also rightly points out that overthrowing the government would lead to anarchy. This never happens in the last book even though it’s absolutely should. This is nice both for giving an alternate view point and for Murtagh’s “betrayal” not actually being all that out of left field.
The food arrives and the chapter ends. I’ll give you zero guesses as to how, because you already know. Eragon goes to sleep. By the way, at the start of their conversation Murtagh says it’s possible other members of the foresworn could potentially have children but says he doesn’t think so for reasons he’ll explain later. He never does explain those reasons. Like at all. Closest would be his statement about them all being dead but that’s hardly a way that they couldn’t have had children previously. I reckon there should be loads of Foresworn bastards knocking around.
Now to sum up this chapter. It’s biggest asset is no doubt that reread bonus I gushed about above. But that takes up a grand total of two lines of the chapter. So aside from that, the chapter does lean on the positive side. The Twin, known only as the Bald Man right now is ridiculously evil in nature, but them not getting a warm welcome by the Varden is logical and it serves as a decent introduction to Orik, as generic as he is, by having him be the good cop to bounce off old baldy’s bad cop. Murtagh and Eragon’s breather afterwards feels well-earned after how the previous chapters and Murtagh’s backstory does provide us with some nice information of stories that sound more interesting than this one even if some of the characters are depicted quite dubiously and there’s a legitimate plot hole in Eragon and Murtagh’s relative age. The only thing I really have to complain about here is how utterly cartoonish the Twin is depicted, even though that does work somewhat for the foreshadowing that I like. It’s still quite overboard and just makes for a rather shallow character. Though that’s less a problem with this chapter exclusively and more just an issue that will continue with that character and his brother for the remainder of the book.
Next chapter, Glory of Tronjehemeble by Midnight Witch and then Ajihad by Epistler.
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Date: 2020-05-05 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 09:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 09:08 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2020-05-05 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-06 01:17 am (UTC)-UltimateCheetah
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Date: 2020-05-06 07:56 am (UTC)The Twins are yet another lost opportunity to add to the pile. They're presented as nasty and cruel but necessary due to their raw skill in battle magic, yet they are absolutely worthless in the one battle we see them in. The only time they ever have even the slightest hint of a threat is when they're with Galby, at which point they get taken out by Roran.
If they were actively shown to be helpful in this book, then their betrayal would have more weight than a couple of obviously evil guys living up to their cliche. We could see just how they're dangerous and see what was actually lost when the Varden lost them. Hell, if mind-scanning was such a big deal it could have even lead to a few betrayals as a natural consequence for their disappearance and justify it in the first book.
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Date: 2020-05-06 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-06 02:44 pm (UTC)Paolini knows that Eragon even with his blue disco-ball doesn't stand a chance against them in combat or in the battle of the minds so he'll often have his author avatar rescued by someone else that's stronger than him. Or at least that's how it seems to be written.
Was the last time Eragon used the bow when he blew up all the orc rip offs in the village? There seems to be a few times where a bow would've been more effective than using a sword in certain parts of this story.
The same thing is probably going to happen in the Space-brick where anything consequence is going to be smoothed over in another chapter after the MC is momentarily inconvenienced.
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Date: 2020-05-07 03:24 am (UTC)Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have occurred to Paolini that his protagonist spending the whole series after book one plowing his way through an endless series of enemies who stand no chance against him makes him look like a needlessly violent, bullying jerk who doesn't give a damn about fighting fair. And doesn't have the wits to consider alternative options.