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antishurtugal_reborn2020-06-25 11:57 pm
gharial) wrote in antishurtugal_reborn2020-06-25 11:57 pm
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Eragon Spork Chapter Fifty-Six: Arya’s Test
The first bit of the chapter we get (after the mandatory Eragon walks up scene) is Eragon asking Orik about Nasuada. To which Orik replies that she’s very devoted to Ajihad (I would quote the entire line but the PDF I’m reading from doesn’t take to copying very well). To that I say…do we ever once see Nasuada interacting with Ajihad in this series? Hell do we once even have her mention or think about him?
After that exchange Eragon head to the training field to have his abilities tested. While talking to his personal trainer we get a rather amusing line from him saying “magic has no place in what we do here.” Cue the next book where it’s established battles involve entirely around taking out the enemy magic users to leave the soldiers under there protection vulnerable to your own mages. The Twins show up almost immediately after this and the trainer guy has previously forbidden them from even coming to the training yard, so that magic has no place thing seems pretty literal. They haven’t trained at all with the people who are actually important for their military strategy.
The Twins make Eragon move a rock about with magic while actively resisting him. Eragon’s practically pissed at this when I kind of feel he shouldn’t be. He himself admits that it’s an easy task, they’re testing his magical ability. Seeing the limits of what he can do is the entire point. If he was to just do easy tasks to no avail then nobody would learn anything. Yet Eragon reacts as if the Twins are intentionally sabotaging him. Eragon is only able to overcome the Twins’ resistance with the help of Saphira, which just show further that Eragon is really the accessory for her.
A good point is brought up as to why the Twins are even testing him when they’ve already seen what he’s capable from reading his mind. A point he doesn’t vocalize and search for an answer. He assumes its because they want to steal Eragon’s precious lexicon of the ancient language, but Ajihad has asked the Twins to do this himself. And the whole ‘they always want to steal me ancient words!’ thing is something that’s entirely fabricated in Eragon’s mind. We have no reason to believe Brom taught Eragon anything special for a novice. After this with Oromis we do have reason to believe Eragon has secret knowledge others shouldn’t know about, but for now Eragon has had minimal training and he’s refusing to show it off like some kind of preteen afraid someone’s going to plagiarize their unpublished novel. These guys are (nominally) your allies Eragon! If you have knowledge that can help them further the cause you’ve agree to fight for then you should share it with them.
After quite a lot of tests the Twins finally ask Eragon to withdraw the essence of silver from a ring. Rather than admitting he doesn’t know how to do that, Eragon is so stubborn and confrontational with these guys he tries to do it anyway even though it puts his life at risk. I know the Twins are the most basic cardboard cutout of evil vizers imaginable, but I feel actually sympathy for them here. They are doing the job they were asked to do. Maybe they’re being a bit sadistic in the sneers they show, but they’re actually doing their job while Eragon is being stubborn and resisting them every step of the way. Eragon is being a bad student. He’s in the wrong here. He’s not making any attempt to cooperate and is treating everything like it’s a personal attack instead of a test.
Anyway Arya shows up and stops Eragon from killing himself. She cracks a shit at the Twins blaming them for asking Eragon to invoke the essence of silver and lying to Ajihad about knowing Eragon’s abilities. To the former, Eragon has accomplished every task they’ve asked of him so far, maybe Brom has taught him how to do this, they don’t know, and Arya doesn’t know either. And as far as lying to Ajihad about knowing Eragon’s competency, how would that work? They read Eragon’s mind and Ajihad knows they read Eragon’s mind. The only way they could claim to not know his competency after reading his mind is to tell Ajihad that Eragon hid things from them. Which is exactly what he did! He censored all the words in the Ancient Language Brom taught him! They don’t know how much he knows or what he’s capable. That’s actually the truth. What kind of scenario are we meant to envision where they lie to Ajihad that doesn’t make someone involved look like a complete moran?
She then follows up her verbal attack by doing what they asked Eragon to do, you know to prove how badass she is. She’s so amazing the twins run away and everyone on the entire training field turns to watch her. Come on guys, I know this is her first proper introduction in the novel, but she’s lived in Trojenheim for years, right, she’s not that much of a wonder to see for these people.
Arya says she claims the right of trial by arms…what? Trial for what? What grievance does she have with Eragon? Literally nothing is said about this word choice other than she means to duel him. This was probably something Paolini copied from somewhere else. Or he just thought it sounded badass without thinking of the ramifications of it at all. Eragon loses this fight, or is at least outmatched by Arya. If this is a trial by arms then he should subsequently be convicted as guilty of something. Arya does the exact same thing as the Twins now by the way, toying with Eragon to see the extent of his abilities, only with the sword instead of magic. But when she does it it’s cool and elegant. Because protagonist centred morality.
Eragon loses the duel, because this is still the era where Eragon can be humbled in combat (that era officially ends when he kicks the ass of bully elf). He chases after Arya afterwards, on the way Saphira showing a bit of jealously for Arya. Describing Arya’s face as looking like a horse is a line that’s always stood out in my memory. Not sure why. Maybe it’s because I don’t know what to make of it. There’s also a strange line about them approaching Farthen Dur. Isn’t Farthen Dur the massive crater they’re in? If they were approaching it wouldn’t they by necessity have to be inside a cave? Yet they’re described as being on a grassy knoll. I think he meant Tronjheim here.
When they meet up Arya shows some appreciation to Eragon for saving her which prompts him to ask how she got captured in the first place. We get this line which I’ve painstakenly typed out instead of copy and pasting due to the previously noted pdf issues.
“She stared ahead icily, jaw clenched. “He tried for months without success. His methods were…harsh. When torture failed, he ordered his soldiers to use me as they would. Fortunately, I still had the strength to nudge their minds and make them incapable. At last Galbatorix ordered that I was to be brought to Uru’baen. Dread filled me when I learned this, as I was weary in both mind and body and had no strength to resis him. If it were not for you, I would have stood before Galbatoric in a week’s time.”
So this is something I’ve been stewing on ever since I first learned of this line’s existence. As a child this line flew right over my head. I’m sure it was Paolini’s intention for him writing this series for it to be aimed at mature older teens like the age he was himself, but the market this series found was very much younger teens and children. And here we are discussing rape. The word isn’t used but this is as direct as you can get without actually using the word. Rape is one of those things that needs to be handled really delicately in writing. It’s like shit (literal shit). Do not bring it up unless it is an absolute vital piece of your story. It can make for compelling content (well rape, I’m not sure shit really can) but people don’t want to read about it or think about it and if featured it must be treated with seriousness and awareness. Here it’s pretty much brushed aside entirely. Paolini directly address the inevitable possibility of rape as torture only to then side step the issue in the most haphazard way possible. She could nudge their minds to make them impotent but not enough to stop them torturing her. Hell even if they're impotent there are other ways you can rape someone. And is Durza entirely incapable (or unwilling) to do the deed himself? The explanation is absolutely shoddy. This line did not need to exist in this story. It addresses something unimportant to the story, unfit to the audience and in an extremely haphazard way.
Now, consequently imagine if, as I think it should have been, this line was cut. What situation do we have here? We have something left ambiguous. Readers can either assume Arya wasn’t raped because this simply isn’t the world where that kind of thing happens; it’s the world where tortures leave her face completely unblemished. That’s pretty consistent with the rest of the series. Or, the reader can assume that Arya’s horrific torture did include rape. And suddenly her character arc (if one can call it an arc) becomes a lot more interesting, with her coldness and rejection of Eragon coming from a place of real trauma that she learns to live with by the end of the story. You see how much better you can make something by simply not addressing it? It leave the work open to more interpretation. Instead we now know that Arya wasn’t raped, so any speculation on her character in that regard is axed and that this is a world where a prisoner in her situation absolutely would be raped if they didn’t have the advantage of character armour. So sucks for every other woman in that universe. If that is the setting he wants to convey then fair enough, gritty realism can work like that, but it’s not the setting we see. By addressing this issue he loses any potential character interpretation and loses any potential wold interpretation. This line doesn’t do anything to service the plot, world or characters. It’s just says “don’t worry guys, Arya wasn’t raped. I wouldn’t do something bad to one of my character” (even though the torture she went through probably was as bad as rape, not that I really want to quantify such things).
“It’s strange,” said Eragon after a moment, “but before I was captured at Gil’ead, I had visions of you in my dreams. It was like scrying---and I was able to scry you later---but it was always during my sleep.”
Some m dashes for you to complain about Anya. This one in particular I find terrible because it leaves the end of the sentence being a contradiction, saying he always ever scryed her during his sleep even though he able to do it later too.
After Eragon parts ways with Arya he decides to go visit Murtagh. But not before getting something to eat! Oh that crazy Eragon, always thinking of his belly. There is literally no point for that diversion. Murtagh’s cell is pretty well furnished. Murtagh isn’t too bummed about being a prisoner since he’s antisocial anyway. Murtgah seems to already have coped that Arya’s royalty based on the hints (and he has one less than Eragon, the biggest one, the fact that doesn’t want anyone to know she shares a tattoo with Brom’s ring which was given to him by the queen). The word royalty isn’t said, but I do like this foreshadowing as it means we know Paolini planned ahead at least a little by making Arya a princess.
Murtagh says he likes being imprisoned as there’s no fear. I like this. Makes me sympathize with him. Your life must be rather shitty if you find comfort being consigned to four walls with no power to leave. He also talks about how Nasuada is which might be more foreshadowing to the final book (if so it needed more development now, like us actually seeing them interacting) or it just might be Paolini trying to make shipping a thing. Anyway the chapter ends rather unceremoniously with Eragon not falling asleep for once.
Toryll, Anya and Epistler are the trinity making up the last three chapters in that order (wow, three chapters left and he still wants to squeeze a battle in there with virtually no set up)
After that exchange Eragon head to the training field to have his abilities tested. While talking to his personal trainer we get a rather amusing line from him saying “magic has no place in what we do here.” Cue the next book where it’s established battles involve entirely around taking out the enemy magic users to leave the soldiers under there protection vulnerable to your own mages. The Twins show up almost immediately after this and the trainer guy has previously forbidden them from even coming to the training yard, so that magic has no place thing seems pretty literal. They haven’t trained at all with the people who are actually important for their military strategy.
The Twins make Eragon move a rock about with magic while actively resisting him. Eragon’s practically pissed at this when I kind of feel he shouldn’t be. He himself admits that it’s an easy task, they’re testing his magical ability. Seeing the limits of what he can do is the entire point. If he was to just do easy tasks to no avail then nobody would learn anything. Yet Eragon reacts as if the Twins are intentionally sabotaging him. Eragon is only able to overcome the Twins’ resistance with the help of Saphira, which just show further that Eragon is really the accessory for her.
A good point is brought up as to why the Twins are even testing him when they’ve already seen what he’s capable from reading his mind. A point he doesn’t vocalize and search for an answer. He assumes its because they want to steal Eragon’s precious lexicon of the ancient language, but Ajihad has asked the Twins to do this himself. And the whole ‘they always want to steal me ancient words!’ thing is something that’s entirely fabricated in Eragon’s mind. We have no reason to believe Brom taught Eragon anything special for a novice. After this with Oromis we do have reason to believe Eragon has secret knowledge others shouldn’t know about, but for now Eragon has had minimal training and he’s refusing to show it off like some kind of preteen afraid someone’s going to plagiarize their unpublished novel. These guys are (nominally) your allies Eragon! If you have knowledge that can help them further the cause you’ve agree to fight for then you should share it with them.
After quite a lot of tests the Twins finally ask Eragon to withdraw the essence of silver from a ring. Rather than admitting he doesn’t know how to do that, Eragon is so stubborn and confrontational with these guys he tries to do it anyway even though it puts his life at risk. I know the Twins are the most basic cardboard cutout of evil vizers imaginable, but I feel actually sympathy for them here. They are doing the job they were asked to do. Maybe they’re being a bit sadistic in the sneers they show, but they’re actually doing their job while Eragon is being stubborn and resisting them every step of the way. Eragon is being a bad student. He’s in the wrong here. He’s not making any attempt to cooperate and is treating everything like it’s a personal attack instead of a test.
Anyway Arya shows up and stops Eragon from killing himself. She cracks a shit at the Twins blaming them for asking Eragon to invoke the essence of silver and lying to Ajihad about knowing Eragon’s abilities. To the former, Eragon has accomplished every task they’ve asked of him so far, maybe Brom has taught him how to do this, they don’t know, and Arya doesn’t know either. And as far as lying to Ajihad about knowing Eragon’s competency, how would that work? They read Eragon’s mind and Ajihad knows they read Eragon’s mind. The only way they could claim to not know his competency after reading his mind is to tell Ajihad that Eragon hid things from them. Which is exactly what he did! He censored all the words in the Ancient Language Brom taught him! They don’t know how much he knows or what he’s capable. That’s actually the truth. What kind of scenario are we meant to envision where they lie to Ajihad that doesn’t make someone involved look like a complete moran?
She then follows up her verbal attack by doing what they asked Eragon to do, you know to prove how badass she is. She’s so amazing the twins run away and everyone on the entire training field turns to watch her. Come on guys, I know this is her first proper introduction in the novel, but she’s lived in Trojenheim for years, right, she’s not that much of a wonder to see for these people.
Arya says she claims the right of trial by arms…what? Trial for what? What grievance does she have with Eragon? Literally nothing is said about this word choice other than she means to duel him. This was probably something Paolini copied from somewhere else. Or he just thought it sounded badass without thinking of the ramifications of it at all. Eragon loses this fight, or is at least outmatched by Arya. If this is a trial by arms then he should subsequently be convicted as guilty of something. Arya does the exact same thing as the Twins now by the way, toying with Eragon to see the extent of his abilities, only with the sword instead of magic. But when she does it it’s cool and elegant. Because protagonist centred morality.
Eragon loses the duel, because this is still the era where Eragon can be humbled in combat (that era officially ends when he kicks the ass of bully elf). He chases after Arya afterwards, on the way Saphira showing a bit of jealously for Arya. Describing Arya’s face as looking like a horse is a line that’s always stood out in my memory. Not sure why. Maybe it’s because I don’t know what to make of it. There’s also a strange line about them approaching Farthen Dur. Isn’t Farthen Dur the massive crater they’re in? If they were approaching it wouldn’t they by necessity have to be inside a cave? Yet they’re described as being on a grassy knoll. I think he meant Tronjheim here.
When they meet up Arya shows some appreciation to Eragon for saving her which prompts him to ask how she got captured in the first place. We get this line which I’ve painstakenly typed out instead of copy and pasting due to the previously noted pdf issues.
“She stared ahead icily, jaw clenched. “He tried for months without success. His methods were…harsh. When torture failed, he ordered his soldiers to use me as they would. Fortunately, I still had the strength to nudge their minds and make them incapable. At last Galbatorix ordered that I was to be brought to Uru’baen. Dread filled me when I learned this, as I was weary in both mind and body and had no strength to resis him. If it were not for you, I would have stood before Galbatoric in a week’s time.”
So this is something I’ve been stewing on ever since I first learned of this line’s existence. As a child this line flew right over my head. I’m sure it was Paolini’s intention for him writing this series for it to be aimed at mature older teens like the age he was himself, but the market this series found was very much younger teens and children. And here we are discussing rape. The word isn’t used but this is as direct as you can get without actually using the word. Rape is one of those things that needs to be handled really delicately in writing. It’s like shit (literal shit). Do not bring it up unless it is an absolute vital piece of your story. It can make for compelling content (well rape, I’m not sure shit really can) but people don’t want to read about it or think about it and if featured it must be treated with seriousness and awareness. Here it’s pretty much brushed aside entirely. Paolini directly address the inevitable possibility of rape as torture only to then side step the issue in the most haphazard way possible. She could nudge their minds to make them impotent but not enough to stop them torturing her. Hell even if they're impotent there are other ways you can rape someone. And is Durza entirely incapable (or unwilling) to do the deed himself? The explanation is absolutely shoddy. This line did not need to exist in this story. It addresses something unimportant to the story, unfit to the audience and in an extremely haphazard way.
Now, consequently imagine if, as I think it should have been, this line was cut. What situation do we have here? We have something left ambiguous. Readers can either assume Arya wasn’t raped because this simply isn’t the world where that kind of thing happens; it’s the world where tortures leave her face completely unblemished. That’s pretty consistent with the rest of the series. Or, the reader can assume that Arya’s horrific torture did include rape. And suddenly her character arc (if one can call it an arc) becomes a lot more interesting, with her coldness and rejection of Eragon coming from a place of real trauma that she learns to live with by the end of the story. You see how much better you can make something by simply not addressing it? It leave the work open to more interpretation. Instead we now know that Arya wasn’t raped, so any speculation on her character in that regard is axed and that this is a world where a prisoner in her situation absolutely would be raped if they didn’t have the advantage of character armour. So sucks for every other woman in that universe. If that is the setting he wants to convey then fair enough, gritty realism can work like that, but it’s not the setting we see. By addressing this issue he loses any potential character interpretation and loses any potential wold interpretation. This line doesn’t do anything to service the plot, world or characters. It’s just says “don’t worry guys, Arya wasn’t raped. I wouldn’t do something bad to one of my character” (even though the torture she went through probably was as bad as rape, not that I really want to quantify such things).
“It’s strange,” said Eragon after a moment, “but before I was captured at Gil’ead, I had visions of you in my dreams. It was like scrying---and I was able to scry you later---but it was always during my sleep.”
Some m dashes for you to complain about Anya. This one in particular I find terrible because it leaves the end of the sentence being a contradiction, saying he always ever scryed her during his sleep even though he able to do it later too.
After Eragon parts ways with Arya he decides to go visit Murtagh. But not before getting something to eat! Oh that crazy Eragon, always thinking of his belly. There is literally no point for that diversion. Murtagh’s cell is pretty well furnished. Murtagh isn’t too bummed about being a prisoner since he’s antisocial anyway. Murtgah seems to already have coped that Arya’s royalty based on the hints (and he has one less than Eragon, the biggest one, the fact that doesn’t want anyone to know she shares a tattoo with Brom’s ring which was given to him by the queen). The word royalty isn’t said, but I do like this foreshadowing as it means we know Paolini planned ahead at least a little by making Arya a princess.
Murtagh says he likes being imprisoned as there’s no fear. I like this. Makes me sympathize with him. Your life must be rather shitty if you find comfort being consigned to four walls with no power to leave. He also talks about how Nasuada is which might be more foreshadowing to the final book (if so it needed more development now, like us actually seeing them interacting) or it just might be Paolini trying to make shipping a thing. Anyway the chapter ends rather unceremoniously with Eragon not falling asleep for once.
Toryll, Anya and Epistler are the trinity making up the last three chapters in that order (wow, three chapters left and he still wants to squeeze a battle in there with virtually no set up)
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Watching Eragon psycho out after being raped gets boring after a book and a half so some character development needs to occur. Someone loving (so not Arya) needs to enter the picture to help Eragon see what he has become and help him heal. He needs to see what he has become through the eyes of a loving human and realize he needs to change. This loving human then helps him realize he needs to change and teaches him to regulate his emotions (something his mother obviously never did and that is true for Paolini as well) and to trust another (human) person. He needs to learn that while what happened to him was horrible he can not let it define him as a person and to realize the mental effects are only permanent as long as he does not grow as a person. By maturing he can midigate the effects of the rape of his psyche and he can overcome and control his fear which will disarm his anger. He can become an adult who his not dominated by his base emotions something the canon Eragon never managed.
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(Anonymous) 2020-06-26 04:05 pm (UTC)(link)-UltimateCheetah
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Not that I remember. I think they may have been onscreen at the same time once or twice, but I don't think we ever got to see them interact before Eldest came along and Ajihad bit the dust.
While talking to his personal trainer we get a rather amusing line from him saying “magic has no place in what we do here.” Cue the next book where it’s established battles involve entirely around taking out the enemy magic users to leave the soldiers under there protection vulnerable to your own mages.
I think this may constitute evidence for FUCKING WARDS being something Paolini didn't really think of until Eldest.
This was probably something Paolini copied from somewhere else. Or he just thought it sounded badass without thinking of the ramifications of it at all.
This is almost certainly what happened. Paolini tends to get so absorbed with sounding epic that he forgets to also make sense.
If that is the setting he wants to convey then fair enough, gritty realism can work like that, but it’s not the setting we see.
This is a symptom of one of the Cycle's larger issues: tone inconsistency. It often seems to be trying for two vastly different tones: the whimsical, more child-friendly fantasylayd, and the gritty, realistic dark fantasy. Neither of those tones are inherently good or bad, but they are quite incompatible with each other.
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Most likely that was a result of his having plagiarised various source materials that don't match up style or tone wise. In one scene he's trying to be David Eddings, and then in the very next chapter he ditches that and starts trying to be George R R Martin.
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(Anonymous) 2020-08-04 03:37 am (UTC)(link)