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antishurtugal_rebornTo all the new members who have joined recently, we are nearly at the end of a huge collaborative chapter-by-chapter sporking /analysis of Eragon. I encourage you to check out the rest by clicking the tag “eragon group spork” at the bottom of this post.
Chapter 57: The Shadows Lengthen
The antepenultimate chapter (antepenultimate = prior to the second-last) opens not with Eragon waking up naturally, but with Saphira deliberately waking him up. Variety!
But of course, because she’s a bitch, Saphira doesn’t mentally shout at him, or nudge his shoulder, or anything nice and gentle like that: She wakes him up by literally striking him with her jaw, hard enough to cause a bruise. She deliberately hits and bruises him. Eragon and Saphira are in a co-abusive relationship.
There’s a dwarf just standing in the doorway wringing his hands, and once Eragon is awake he explains that Ajihad is calling for them urgently. The dwarf refuses the explain further, and we get another of Paolini’s absurd descriptions:
The dwarf only shook his head, beard wagging
This sentence and the image confused me so much that I just spent 10 minutes watching an interview with a world champion beard-haver. Beards don’t… wag.
“Go, you must!”
Wait, I thought Oromis was meant to be the Yoda ripoff.
Anyway, Orik escorts them to Ajihad’s “study”, where they learn about the approaching urgal army. Which is… meant to be a surprise?
I mean, going back a few chapters, the urgal army chased Eragon Saphira and Murtagh all the way to the secret entrance of the dwarf tunnels, where a large number of urgals were killed by dwarven and human archers. I would be more surprised if there wasn’t a follow-up army to get revenge and root out the hiding enemies of the King. This couldn’t be less of a surprise.
The only surprise here is that the urgals have been travelling underground in tunnels. Which is also one of the few differences between this scene and Helm’s Deep.
Eragon raised his voice in the din that followed. “Why didn’t the dwarves know about this sooner? How did the Urgals find the tunnels?”
Actually really good questions. Why DIDN’T the dwarves know about this sooner, give that the urgal army was very recently at their doorstep at the walls of Farthen Dur only a few days/chapters ago? At the very least they should have been anticipating a second follow-up force.
And also, how did the urgal army find the tunnels? Orik states that there are “many” abandoned tunnels through the mountains, most of them abandoned “since they day they were mined”, and that some of them must be exposed to the surface which is how the urgals found them. But just brings up more questions about the worldbuilding and dwarf culture. Why go to all the effort of mining out a stable tunnel strong and stable enough to last for generations without completely collapsing, just to abandon it suddenly and never return? From a worldbuilding perspective this doesn’t make much sense, and strikes me as a cheap way to have conveniently empty tunnels for the urgal army to find. Which is just more of Paolini being way too blatant with his puppet-mastering of his characters.
I mean, every author by necessity engineers situations and characters to tell a story, but the usual method to do this is for the plot to unfold as a logical consequence of the interaction of characters and their situations and environments. Cause and effect, with most of the causes and circumstances established before the effect takes place. But Paolini is just way too hamfisted about it, forcing characters to act in ways contrary to logic or their own established characterisation, and puling new information out of nowhere, just to serve the plot progression. Plot in the Inheritance Cycle happens without regard to, and often despite the characters and circumstances, not because of them or as a natural consequence of them. The few times Paolini tried to let the story unfold because of the characters’ decisions, we end up with vast swathes of purposeless meandering that doesn’t serve the plot in any way and ultimately gets abandoned, forgotten, or later contradicted. See: Almost all of Eldest, most of Brisingr, and a sizeable chunk of Inheritance.
So, the Plot has been set up: an urgal army in the tunnels, approaching Tronjheim. This is set up as a dramatic reveal, despite the fact that just a day or two ago the urgal army was at the base of Farthen Dur having chased Eragon, Saphira and Murtagh inside. Most of the urgals were then killed by a combination of dwarven and human archers, so any survivors who may have retreated could then tell their commander (obviously an agent of the Empire, and therefore Galbatorix), the location of not only the rogue Rider, but also the stronghold of the Varden rebels and the Dwarves. Why WOULDN’T they send a second larger army to attack?
Somehow, despite only just now learning about the urgal army’s advance, Ajihad can point on a map to the precise location where the urgals have been gathering in readiness for an attack, knows that they have been gathering there “all year”, and that the urgals who chased Eragon et al. to Farthen Dur were “supposed” to go there. Not only does he know all that, but he also knows what the urgals call the abandoned dwarf city, in their own language!
Paolini fails to distinguish information his characters would have access to from information that he has access to as the writer. There should be a count for this, but I think we have enough counters already.
Ajihad goes on to say “Neither Orrin nor the elves can help us at this late hour. Even so, I sent runners to both of them with news of our plight.”
We learn later in the series that the elves and the Varden can communicate by scrying-mirrors, even as far away as Tronjheim and Ellesmera, on the opposite ends of the map. Hell, we learn in the last chapter of this very book that someone who is “magic-crippled” and cannot perform any but the smallest of spells, can communicate directly with Eragon’s mind across that distance. If Oromis is unable to perform powerful magic, but IS able to communicate across the entire length of the country, what would a magic user who ISN’T “crippled” be able to do?
The absence of emergency scrying mirrors, when we learn later that pretty much every magic user in the series “probably” knows how to do so, and they are a relatively common (for magic) communication method used extensively by the elves, and Eragon, and Du Vrangr Gata, suggests to me that this particular magic skill didn’t exist until Brisingr, where it suddenly has existed all along.
Anyway, there’s some discussion of entry-level battle tactics such as collapsing tunnels to funnel the urgals into Farthern Dur while sealing Tronjheim from the inside to protect the city, and evacuating the women and children to “the surrounding valleys”.
Jörmundur struggled to hide his relief. “Sir, is Nasuada going as well?”
“She is not pleased, but yes.”
You know, exactly like how Eowyn wasn’t happy to be left behind while the Rohirrim went to Helm’s Deep to defend against the approaching uruk army. Or, in the movie version, how Eowyn wasn’t happy to be left in the Glittering Caves with the women and children instead of being allowed to fight on the walls.
Jokes aside, this is a rare moment of genuine emotion:
Eragon had fought and killed before, but the battle that awaited them sent stabs of fear into his chest. He had never had a chance to anticipate a fight. Now that he did, it filled him with dread. He was confident when facing only a few opponents—he knew he could easily defeat three or four Urgals with Zar’roc and magic—but in a large conflict, anything could happen.
The em dashes and the bit in between them ought to be removed, but I like the sentiment. This is emotionally realistic, and I can connect and empathise with it. I only wish it lasted beyond this paragraph.
Eragon and Saphira exit Tronjheim and land near a group of dwarves trying to collapse one of the tunnels. The dwarves, being master miners with approximately 8 millennia of time to hone their skills and techniques, need Eragon to help with digging a hole 4 yards downward. So Eragons casts the spell “thrysta deloi”, which according to Inheriwiki means “thrust or compress” and “earth”.
Thrust or compress? Those are two very different concepts.
Anyway, Eragon uses the spell that means either “thrust earth” or “compress earth”, to…
[send] tentacles of power into the soil. Almost immediately they encountered rock. He ignored it and reached farther down until he felt the hollow emptiness of the tunnel. Then he began searching for flaws in the rock. Every time he found one, he pushed on it, elongating and widening it.
Which is neither thrusting or compressing, but I guess Paolini would respond with his usual cop-out answer that with enough imagination a magic user can do anything with any word, which completely destroys the whole premise of having a true language of magic and having to learn it. And also contradicts Eragon’s “blessing” of Elva which became a curse due to a very minor grammatical slip-up. Either the specific word use matters, or it’s all about intention and visualisation are the words are mostly useless. You can’t have it both ways.
Also also: “rock” and “earth” are different. Eragon uses the word “deloi” for earth, meaning soil, and not “stenr” for stone or rock. But his spell is affecting stone, not soil. Which just further shows that the Ancient Language is actually unnecessary for magic spells.
But wait… if the Ancient Language words used are not a necessary portion of a spell, i.e. the effect can be whatever the user wants regardless of the AL words chosen, then logically Eragon could just use his own language, be it Alagaesian English, Common, or whatever equivalent the human languge is in this story, to focus his thoughts and direct his language. If that’s the case, the the whole myth of magic being bound to the AL is just an Elf Supremacy attempt at brainwashing the human Riders.
Conspiracy theories aside, Eragon is successful at collapsing the tunnel, using “no more [strength] than it would have been to split the stone by hand.” Then, “with Saphira’s help”, he does so more than 6 more times.
I’d like to see the 15-year-old who can spend hours splitting stones by hand to collapse more than 7 tunnels, where a team of adult dwarves who have spent their lives mining and tunnelling struggled.
The rule that the amount of magic required for an action is equal to the amount of energy required to do it normally is thus also broken, all within the first book. Let alone how it spirals out of all proportion and sense in the following books.
Later, after a brief mention of the exodus of women and children from the city, Paolini spends a few paragraphs describing the assembled forces of the dwarves and the Varden.
Most of the activity, however, was at the base of Tronjheim, where the Varden and dwarves were assembling their army, which was divided into three battalions. Each section bore the Varden’s standard: a white dragon holding a rose above a sword pointing downward on a purple field. The men were silent, ironfisted. Their hair flowed loosely from under their helmets.
Many warriors had only a sword and a shield, but there were several ranks of spear- and pikemen. In the rear of the battalions, archers tested their bowstrings. The dwarves were garbed in heavy battle gear. Burnished steel hauberks hung to their knees, and thick roundshields, stamped with the crests of their clan, rested on their left arms. Short swords were sheathed at their waists, while in their right hands they carried mattocks or war axes. Their legs were covered with extra-fine mail. They wore iron caps and brass-studded boots.
As far as descriptions go, Paolini’s written far worse. At least this isn’t a panorama of hyperrealism.
But let’s break things down. Infantry armed with swords and shields, ranks of pikes and spears, archers in the rear. All sounds fairly standard so far. The Dwarves have mail shirts, small shields, swords, mattocks, and axes. Fairly standar-- wait, what? “mattocks”? MATTOCKS?
I would understand if they were a rag-tag group of farming peasants caught unawares and using whatever tools they had at hand, but this is a trained army, with enough time for tunnel collapsing, evacuations, and assembling an army. Garden tools are not military weapons.
They are not designed for combat use. The range is terrible compared even to a similarly-sized sword, the functional striking area is tiny and awkward, and the weight and balance is terrible. In short, they are everything a weapon should not be, because they are not designed to be used as weapons.
Granted many armies have included mattocks as part of their standard gear (the above is a Bulgarian military standard-issue mattock from world war 1 or 2), but as camp-clearing, trench and hole digging, and general purpose tools for extended marches, NOT as combat weapons.
Given dwarven culture and living arrangements, I could imagine them using weaponised (i.e. specifically designed or adapted for combat use) close-combat versions of mining or smithing equipment, such as war-picks, hammers, spades, and so on but mattocks? Paolini doesn’t even describe them as war-mattocks, which would imply that they have been refined and balanced specifically for combat purposes, he just says they had mattocks.
*deep breath* moving on.
Orik leaves his position among the dwarven ranks to tell Eragon that he is wanted with the army, and then presents him with a gift of steel dragon armour as a gift from Hrothgar.
Armour that is an inch thick in places, and covered with intricate engravings and “gold filigree”. So it’s ceremonial armour meant for display, special events such as parades, and most definitely for nobles and royalty, not for front-line warriors expecting to regularly engage in combat and potentially get their armour scratched or damaged.
Another thing: armour like that was usually custom-fitted to the individual, you can’t just get it off-the-rack. The chance that Saphira will properly fit this custom-made dragon armour that was made to fit a specific random dragon in the distant past is slim.
A third thing: the dragon riders were all killed off over a hundred years ago, right? S this armour has been sitting around for at least that long, but doesn’t have any rust or dust or age on it anywhere? It’s still gleaming and shiny like it’s brand new? What, did the dwarves have someone on rotation cleaning, waxing, and polishing everything in the “piles of useless metal things” room as a punishment? For at least a hundred years? In the vain hope that maybe a dragon might just happen to come along who can fit into it?
The dwarves need a visit from Marie Kondo.
After “a good deal of struggling” and probably a phone call to the IKEA help desk, they manage to fit all the pieces on to Saphira. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has paused to give them time to sort it all out. The urgal army just decided to rest for a while, that’s it.
Saphira’s entire neck—except for the spikes along its ridge—was covered with triangular
scales of overlapping armor. Her belly and chest were protected by the heaviest plates, while the lightest ones were on her tail. Her legs and back were completely encased. Her wings were left bare. A single molded plate lay on top of her head, leaving her lower jaw free to bite and snap.
And of course it all fits her perfectly. Because the story demands it.
Eragon gets his own armour, of course, all in his size.
Over Eragon’s head went a stiff shirt of leather-backed mail that fell to his knees like a skirt. It rested heavily on his shoulders and clinked when he moved. He belted Zar’roc over it, which helped keep the mail from swinging. On his head went a leather cap, then a mail coif, and finally a gold-and-silver helm. Bracers were strapped to his forearms, and greaves to his lower legs. For his hands there were mail-backed gloves. Last, Orik handed him a broad shield emblazoned with an oak tree.
a) The belt is not to stop the mail from “swinging”, but to act as a weight-bearing support to distribute the load off the shoulders.
b) “leather-backed mail”, meaning ring-mail, which, um, wasn’t a thing. If Paolini is going for historical accuracy of medieval and renaissance European arms and armour, he should have looked at Wikipedia: “No actual examples of this type of armour are known from collections or archaeological excavations in Europe.”
However, as this is a fantasy novel I can allow the suspension of disbelief in this case. Sure, the dwarves made ringmail as well as regular mail because why not. However:
c) stiff leather does not typically “swing”.
d) “Bracers”? He means vambraces, right? Eragon isn't being kitted out as an archer.
Why does Paolini go into such detail about the armour if he’s going to throw around such generic terms as “bracers” and “helm”? What kind of helm? Is it closed or open faced? I’m just going to go ahead and assume Paolini meant something like a spangenhelm or nasal helm, and not a bascinet or barbute.
And of course Eragon has to look the part with a shield that has a large tree on it.
(If that’s not clear, it’s a screenshot from the Lord of the Rings movies of Gondor soldiers bearing shields decorated with the White Tree of Gondor).
The army gathers around the few tunnels that are still open, assuming the urgals are going to know in advance exactly which tunnels have been collapsed, and which are still open. (What did I say earlier about Paolini separating character knowledge from his knowledge?)
Cauldrons of hot pitch are set up on top of the tunnel entrances, which actually makes sense in this environment. Pitch is a byproduct of burning wood, and there are also naturally occurring deposits of bitumen or asphalt in quite a few subterranean locations (some of which seem up to the surface, e.g. at the Le Brea tar pits). Dwarves, (a) being miners who live underground, and (b) burning lots of wood for torches, lanterns, and fires would naturally have access to large quantities of pitch.
I remember a similar worldbuilding detail in one of my favourite fantasy series, in which the subterranean goblin people base their trade economy on various oils and oil-based products which they refine from deep underground natural oil deposits that they have access to via their tunnel networks. It’s a good detail, and a believable element of subterranean civilisation.
On one of my fun worldbuilding tangents, I would have liked to see oil and coal be more prominent in dwarven society, to contrast the pseudomedieval human technology with dwarven oil and coal-based technologies. They don’t have to be cliched steampunk Dwemer ripoffs, there’s lots you can do with oil that isn’t Victoriana. They could have skipped over steam power entirely and gone straight to refining plastics and synthetic cloths like nylon and polyester. Or something else entirely, like refining crude oil into a fantasy equivalent of Greek Fire, and using that as their main battle strategy. The humans and urgals (and possibly even the elves) wouldn’t dare wage war against a race who can burn literally anything with a fire that can’t be put out with water. Or using their oil deposits to make fertilisers, so the few valleys in the Beors that are low enough in altitude to actually support plant life are seemingly impossibly lush farmland paradises the like of which the elves in their temperate forest can only dream.
But anyway. What we got was cliched Tolkienian dwarves with very little creativity given to the worldbuilding of their society.
In another rare moment of humanity, Eragon is disgusted about the use of burning pitch: “Eragon looked away, fighting back revulsion. It was a terrible way to kill anyone, even an Urgal.”
This is great, but then almost immediately forgotten, especially in later books when Eragon commits far worse actions and kills with far less pleasant methods.
There’s a summary list of other preparations being made for the assault, such as sharpened poles, trenches, and a barricade to shield the archers. The barricade is interesting, because while it seems like a good idea, archers are a long range unit, and Ajihad has placed them behind the infantry and pikemen: By the time any urgals get close enough to the archers for a barricade to be necessary, they are already too close for a makeshift barricade to be all that helpful, especially given that kull are twice as strong and tall as a human, and can probably just either jump over or smash through any barricade that the varden could fashion at the last minute.
To Eragon’s surprise, Ajihad has released Murtagh and equiped him with a sword and shield, as a way for Murtagh to prove his loyalties. Orik objects but Eragon welcomes him which a rare moment of Eragon not being correct in his judgement, and also of a consistent character trait following through from previous chapters.
Ajihad then asks Eragon to telepathically link with the Twins to relay information about the battle. Naturally Eragon is repulsed by the thought of linking minds with them, because the Twins are eeeviiilll but somehow only Eragon can see it.
Eragon then decides to fight on the ground instead of flying with Saphira, which I guess makes a kind of sense seeing as Saphira is still quite small and cannot make dragon fire yet. But Eragon's main reason is that on Saphira he would be too high up to hit them with his sword.
“Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!”
Eragon gets all paternal when he sees Arya among the fighters.
Though he knew it was unreasonable, he had hoped [Arya] might accompany the other women out of Farthen Dûr. Concerned, he hastened to her.
“You will fight?”
“I do what I must,” Arya said calmly.
“But it’s too dangerous!”
To which Arya responds with one of the very few lines the fans use to justify her as a badass:
“Do not pamper me, human. Elves train both their men and women to fight. I am not one of your helpless females to run away whenever there is danger. I was given the task of protecting Saphira’s egg . . . which I failed. My breoal is dishonored and would be further shamed if I did not guard you and Saphira on this field. You forget that I am stronger with magic than any here, including you. If the Shade comes, who can defeat him but me? And who else has the right?”
That is quite a speech. I would have broken it up with some action or description to add emotional depth beyond just “her face darkened”, which doesn’t mean much.
It really is a shame that she gets damsel-in-distressed so often, and then reduced to a potential love interest for Eragon to pursue.
After that there’s a few paragraphs of everyone just sort of milling around and waiting, then Eragon goes to sleep, has nonsense dreams, and then wakes up as the chapter ends.
Over to Anya for the penultimate chapter!
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Date: 2020-07-07 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 02:52 am (UTC)The swords kind of make sense though, don't they? When you're on the dragon, they'll be doing most of the fighting, and when you're not, you have a bunch of wards protecting you so there's no point staying in the back, so you'll want to use a close range weapon. The problem in this series only occurs when Murtagh and Oromis start sword fighting on the backs of their dragons.
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Date: 2020-07-07 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-08 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 09:38 am (UTC)Actually, that's just his natural vocabulary. No thesaurus involved.
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Date: 2020-07-07 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 03:09 am (UTC)It really is a missed opportunity that Eragon killed Durza instead of Arya. Eragon could've distracted Durza, allowing Arya to stab him in the heart, but has gotten the scar as a result. In the next book, he could wonder if it was worth it, and Arya could feel guilty because of how much pain he's in.
Also, I don't like how Arya refers to human females as "helpless". First of all, that's anti-human, and second of all, that's sexist. There is no reason for a fantasyland to not let women fight. It would actually be good for a fantasy novel to show women fighting and leading without objection. Furthermore, Nasuada later hides with the archers, and that is a missed opportunity. Imagine, with each battle, she fights with the archers instead of hiding in a tent. Or, if she's too valuable, she could feel angry or guilty that she can't fight, which would be a good road for character development. However, that would be interesting, and we can't have that.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 03:17 am (UTC)And who else has the right?
On the other hand, Arya could resent Eragon for taking "her" kill. Either way there should have been more interpersonal tension between the two than there was.
Stupid dragon armour
Date: 2020-07-07 03:29 am (UTC)It is an incredible coincidence that the armour fit Saphira.
Re: Stupid dragon armour
Date: 2020-07-07 07:03 am (UTC)Re: Stupid dragon armour
Date: 2020-07-07 09:39 am (UTC)Re: Stupid dragon armour
Date: 2020-07-07 12:57 pm (UTC)Re: Stupid dragon armour
Date: 2020-07-07 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 11:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-07 09:50 am (UTC)Those "runners" must be better than history's greatest marathon champions considering they'd have to run halfway across the damn country if not further to get to Surda or Elftown. What, they don't even get horses?
Looks like a ripoff of The Hobbit to me. When the dwarf army shows up toward the end of the book it's mentioned that "in battle they wielded heavy two-handed mattocks, and their faces were grim."
Neither are tiny blacksmith hammers with a reach so non-existent they'd be more useful for cracking nuts, and yet Roran exists. Somehow.
And despite never having been trained how to fight in armour. Or with a shield.
Yeah, remember when he kills those guys in Dras-Leona by carving their guts out in slow motion graphic detail? It was so completely unnecessary and a horrible way to kill someone, but hell if he cares.
"But I WILL be overpowered and captured at least once per book so you can heroically rescue me!"
The fuck is a breoal?
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Date: 2020-07-07 10:48 am (UTC)“Breoal” = family/house
Which I guess makes sense in a strange way, if we’re using the “house” meaning, because the elves refer to their Houses (capital H) all the time. Like they mean something to anyone who’s not an elf.
Which also brings up an argument I have with the AL. If it’s supposed to be a single word in the AL equals a single object, thing, animal, plant, whatever, how can there be multiple words for a single thing? Like “fire” can either be “brisingr” or “istalri”, which doesn’t make a lick of sense with the AL rules. It also brings up the argument that the ancient language, therefore, cannot ALSO be a language of a particular race.
It’s all so confusing.
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Date: 2020-07-07 11:00 am (UTC)Which we'll later learn is nonsense because Arya isn't even doing this for family. Her "family" is literally just her mother, who disowned her the moment she took the job. Nor do the elves seem to be a particularly family oriented people.
The AL has never really made sense - let's face it. This is what happens when you steal something without understanding it.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-24 04:38 pm (UTC)Marie Kondo picture: