On the Dragon Riders

[mara_dienne459]

So Mara and I got to talking about how in Eldest, Eragon is fully ordained as a Rider after he gets finished doing the whole mind-meld thing with the forest, and completes the "know all and see one" task that Oromis gave him to do. And while Eragon's human, he can't do this activity at all. He's completely inept at it, because for whatever reason he can't see the forest for the trees, if you'll forgive the saying. Yet, in Eldest, pretty much immediately after Eragon becomes all elfified, he's able to instantly become one with the forest and its inhabitants on the first try. There's no lead up, no building of suspense, no failure over and over again until something finally clicks and he gets it - no, he goes in full tilt and just succeeds.

I said, "This is no way to ordain someone as a full-fledged member of an all-powerful order. They just spy on the world, and boom, they're full-fledged Riders? There's no further evaluation, no further testing of skills? They don't learn anything from this exercise. All they learn is that they have an extremely useful power that lets them spy on everyone they meet, and they don't understand the responsibility of what they've just been given. All they learn from this is that they're gods. That they're above the mere mortals."

So Mara said, "This isn't right, no. This shows a capacity of skill, maybe, but not what they can actually do." and then he paused and stared at me for a minute, then continued, "Also, I just had a thought. If being elfified is all that it took for Eragon to do this... does that mean any elf could do it? And for that matter, would elven Riders even have training?"

It was about a minute or so of us just staring at each other.

"It really does make you wonder, doesn't it?" I said. "And the answer, as far as I can tell, is no. Arya never got trained. She could do all this. She simply says that she raised Firnen on the crags and lived in Oromis's old house, but she never got any proper "Rider" training because, as far as I can remember, no Eldunari went to the forest with her when she returned. She only brought the egg."

And that started a whole new discussion of exactly how much of this "training" is actually Rider training? Sure, Eragon gets taught the sword and magic, and how to ride a dragon, and how to fight on dragonback and with a dragon, and whatever, but that at best is only about 5% of the Rider training. There rest is doing elf yoga, learning how to speak the elf language, learning how to write the elf language, reading the histories written by elves, psychic eavesdropping...

Marak laughed and said, "So, yeah, learning to be a Rider, if you're human, is basically... learning to be an elf."

"Yeah. Basically. Which... completely destroys any legitimacy that the Riders had/have as a "separate" entity, meant to protect the land and all the people who live in said land, and be impartial, and not support any one race above another."

"Right. And humans even turn into elves." Mara pointed out.

"Right." I said. "So the idea that the Riders were completely separated from the elves feels more like a story the elves came up with so that the humans would never question the status quo. It's a lot easier to control the masses when the masses don't realize they're being controlled. Throw a little help their way when they request it - probably with a price tag attached - and the humans would totally be in the pocket of the elves. Because... thinking about it, aside from having dragons to get them from point A to point B in half the time as the crow flies, what can the Riders do that elves couldn't? Sure, elves couldn't outrun a dragon and get to point B first, but... the fancy mode of transportation is all the Riders ever seem to have going for them."

"Right," said Mara, "I mean, the thing with dragons enhancing their magic is nice, but elves apparently would never need it."

"No, they wouldn't, considering their whole race seems to have benefited from the "bond" with the dragons, while the humans didn't." I replied. "And really, the dragon enhancing magic is basically the dragon giving of their strength to their Rider. It isn't like being connected with a dragon makes their magic pool deeper than it was before. If you have no magic before you bond with a dragon, bam!, you get magic. But you're still limited by the strength of your own body, according to Paolini's rules, so if you were going to do a spell beyond your limit, your dragon could give you a boost, so to speak. But elves don't seem to have that issue."

So the conclusion we came to was that all Riders had over regular elves was a fancy flying lizard that breathes fire. Elves and Riders could do exactly the same things, with roughly exactly the same speed, strength, physical power, and magical power. It really makes you wonder what the point of the Riders were, then. If that the Riders were created just to subjugate the dragons and their myth and legend only came about when humans showed up.

Comments

[ultimate_cheetah]

That's a really good theory. Did you notice that everybody who doesn't knowtow to the elves is gotten rid of, or dies? The dwarves trade with the elves, and don't fight with them. They also have accomidations for Riders, so the elves probably have a lot of influence. However, Urgals fought with the elves, so their territory gets run over, and a lot of them get killed. The Ra'zac actually are killed en mass. I think that the Ra'zac wouldn't fall for the elves' trickery and controlling nature, so the elves got rid of him. Galby overthrew the riders and pushed back the elves, so they created a sociopathic puppet, and put a weak tyrant on the throne. This can't be a coincidece.

[epistler]

Huh, I never thought of that before. But you're right - how the hell are the Riders supposed to be unique from the elves? I mean no wonder Arya didn't need any training; she already knew all the sword techniques and telepathy and AL crap simply by virtue of being an elf. I can't say I like this notion of "you must become an elf in order to be a qualified rider". Why should people be expected to give up their cultural identities and even their bodily autonomy like that? I can't see an Urgal or a dwarf taking at all kindly to it, that's for sure.

[(Anonymous)]

And the elves knowing humans don't have much of a culture make it that much easier to indoctrinate a farm boy whose mind had already been scrambled by ancient crystal dragons.

The dragon crystals would've made for a great true antagonist in the series, too bad all the potential was frittered away on shiny things and stolen plot points.

[torylltales]

Adding to this, it becomes increasingly obvious (really from the first book onwards) that magic is not actually tied to the Elf Language, so I don't think it's too much of a stretch for anti-fan-canon to imply that the myth that Riders must speak fluent Elf in order to be effective magic-users is nothing more than Elf Supremacy propaganda, fed to young impressionable Riders from the time their dragon hatches.

I expend on that a little in the next chapter spork, which will hopefully be up later today.