Murtagh Group Spork: Part II, Chapter 4, "Fish Tales"

[snarkbotanya]

 

Who wants to bet this whole arc, or at least the fact that it centers around a fish, came out of the pun that is this chapter’s title?

Our last chapter ended with Murtagh running away from the scene of his completely unnecessary grave-robbing. This is a much better way to end a chapter than Paolini’s favored method of Protagonist Unconsciousness. For best results, it should be followed up with a) a scene break to the character post-escape, or b) a continuation of the scene where they must now evade pursuers.

Paolini picks neither of these.

Murtagh ran until the burning in his lungs forced him to slow to a quick walk. Then he ran again, then walked, then ran. In like fashion, he hurried back to the hollow where Thorn was waiting.

It’s only three sentences, relatively small and unembellished for Paolini, and yet in those three sentences he has managed to kill all narrative momentum. This is nothing but an obvious and unnecessary literary tendon. Here’s how I would have done it.

By the time he staggered back into the hollow, Murtagh’s lungs were burning and his legs shook from exhaustion. At least, it seemed, he had not been followed.

THERE, I FIXED IT. This not only shortens the paragraph, but conveys a time skip and deescalation without completely sacrificing tension.

Zooming out from that particular needling annoyance, much of the first couple sections of this chapter could be neatly excised with no harm to the surrounding organism. In the first section, there’s some filler dialogue, Murtagh shows Glaedr’s scale to Thorn, and they reminisce a bit. In the second, they fly over Isenstar Lake (the name of which will never not irritate me) and fail to attract Muckmaw’s attention by dangling the scale into the water by the shore, so Murtagh rubs some dirt on his face to look like a peasant and heads back into the city to gather information.

One thing that keeps bugging me in this section is the level of description. It’s supposed to be nighttime with only a crescent moon, yet the descriptions are no less precise for it. I suppose Murtagh is likely keener of eye than the average human, what with being a Rider and all, but I don’t really have enough faith in Paolini to think he did that intentionally instead of just forgetting to adjust his level of detail to the time of night.

Also, while the prose is overall a bit less purple than the Cycle, we do get this description of Gil’ead’s city lights…

Murtagh glanced back toward Gil’ead. A scattered constellation of lanterns and torches lit the city, forming a warm welcome in the darkness. If he were a fisherman, he thought the sight would have been comforting indeed.

I like “scattered constellation of lanterns and torches”, but “forming a warm welcome in the darkness”? What does that even mean?

This is a great illustration of why Paolini’s purple prose annoys me, while Tolkien’s doesn’t. When Tolkien writes in purple prose, it feels natural, as if this way of speaking is simply the Professor’s particular idiom. He chooses these words because they are, in his eyes, the best ones to convey what he is trying to describe.

Paolini’s purple prose does not sound natural. When Paolini uses purple prose, it sounds forced and awkward, like he’s making a point of it to seem cultured and profound. It’s the literary equivalent of a child trying to seem bigger and tougher by wearing his dad’s huge jacket. Unfortunately, in both cases, it only serves to accentuate what the person is trying to hide. The coat hangs loosely from the child’s shoulders, much of its volume empty; the prose fills the page but draws only confused frowns from readers.

As if to accentuate this, when Murtagh gets ready to head back to Gil’ead, Thorn says “Clever fails more often than simple.” The sheer lack of self-awareness in Christopher Paolini, who struggles so mightily to sound clever, having a character say that is staggering. Hell, that line is even itself an attempt to sound clever! Alanis Morrissette, eat your heart out.

There’s really little else of interest here besides the very end of the second section and the aforementioned grime-smearing. Let’s start with the latter.

Squatting, Murtagh dug a handful of moist dirt out from under the grass and rubbed it into his hands and onto his face. He hated the feel of the grime, but it would help age him and make him look more like a commoner.

Yeah, I’m honestly at a loss for what to do with that.

I will say, though: why didn’t Murtagh think of this before? Hell, why did he not think of gathering information about the fish before? Murtagh isn’t the kind of person who just jumps right into a task blind. That’s Eragon.

As for the way this section ends… well, I think I’ll just illustrate by doing an edit.

And he set out at a steady trot, again heading toward Gil’ead.

Behind him, Thorn let out a concerned growl.

*clears throat*

Thorn’s concerned growl sent a pang through his heart as he set out once more for Gil’ead.

THERE, I FIXED IT. Though really, the best fix for all of this would be to completely rewrite this entire part of the book.

Anyway, on to section three, which comprises the majority of the chapter and has the most reason to exist out of all of them. Not that that’s saying much in this interminably unnecessary Part II of this interminably unnecessary book.

Murtagh gets into Gil’ead by climbing up onto a dock and sneaking past a watchman who’s too busy smoking. I’m side-eyeing the description of how he does this, but it’s not really important. What’s important is that Murtagh is looking for that staple of fantasy settings, the standard gathering place for information and party members alike: a tavern. Of course, because Paolini likes to pad things out, all the ones he finds are closed for the night, and there aren’t even any drunk patrons stumbling about in the streets.

Instead, we get another encounter with the street urchins from back in “Hostile Territory”. It’s not explicitly stated that they recognize Murtagh despite the grime, but I get the impression that they do, and Murtagh doesn’t exactly help matters by making it very clear that he recognizes them.

Murtagh asks them what they’re doing this late at night, and the kids say they’re trying to get food for their mother. Murtagh thinks they’re trouble, but pulls out a couple “coppers” and hands them over in exchange for being pointed to the nearest open tavern. This isn’t quite an interaction my Murtagh would have when it comes to the fine details, but there are shades of it, a similar sort of instinctive placing of himself in a protective role even when he senses something amiss. I don’t entirely hate it.

The nearest tavern is apparently called the Rusty Anchor. It’s farther away than Murtagh thought, a detail which feels tacked in just to pad the word count. Murtagh checks his dagger out of habit, but of course it’s gone, and he has a bit of a moment where he thinks about how dangerous it is to go into this sort of establishment unarmed. Which leads to… this.

Of course, now he was the sort of person that others needed to be afraid of. He couldn’t lie to himself: the thought wasn’t entirely unpleasant. After the past few years, Murtagh would settle for inspiring fear if it would keep him and Thorn safe.

This is not my Murtagh. I don’t think I even need to explain why.

Hell, it doesn’t even really make sense for his Murtagh! Why is he only now the kind of person others need to be afraid of? Murtagh was a capable fighter from well before the moment he was introduced!

Anyway, Murtagh enters the tavern, and it is a shitty place that smells like shit. I think I may have used Dennis the Peasant a bit too early. The barkeep is asleep, with an annoying parenthetical about how Murtagh knows his snoring is loud enough to wake a dragon, but he perks up the second Murtagh puts money on the counter because of course he does. This leads to perhaps one of the most cliched exchanges I’ve seen in a Paolini book, and that’s saying something.

“Beer,” said Murtagh. “Cheapest you’ve got.”

“Cheap is all we ‘ave got,” said the barkeep, slowly getting to his feet. He had a pregnant paunch that stretched his apron as tight as a drum. He made the coppers disappear in his pudgy hands and gave Murtagh half a copper in return. Then he grabbed a mug that looked none too clean and filled it from the cask.

Generic drink order? Check. Barkeep has a transcribed lower-class accent? Check. Barkeep is described as fat and slovenly? Check. Money handling described as sketchily as possible? Check. Shitty unwashed mugs? Check. Pouring from a cask? Check, check, check. I think I’ve won Fantasy Dive Bar Bingo.

Also, a pregnant paunch? Ewwwww. Yes, I know this is supposed to be gross, but that is well over the threshold of gross. Maybe I’m biased because of my tokophobia, but come on. Has Paolini been reading Bukowski?

The beer is flat, because of course it is. Murtagh carries it over to a table by the nearly-dead fire, and some mercenary patrons strike up a conversation with him by asking if he came in with a caravan, and he goes along with it, dropping in some proper Sue-praise as he does:

“The road is fine. Dusty, that’s for sure. We made do without anyone waylaying us, so I reckon the queen’s men are doing a good job of keeping order.”

Don’t think I missed that, Paolini.

Really, though, bringing up politics even in such a tangential way seems like a risky move. Murtagh knows nothing about these sellswords and their political opinions. He also isn’t up to date on how this area’s been faring; for all he knows, there’s been a rash of bandit raids lately and saying he didn’t get waylaid will only make him sound suspicious.

The mercenaries even give each other a look that seems “somewhat conspiratorial” when Murtagh says this. Which my Murtagh wouldn’t, because he’s smarter than that.

#NotMyMurtagh quickly ropes the fishermen present into the discussion by saying a fellow caravan-guard wouldn’t shut up about the good fishing in the lake and how dangerous dropping a line would be thanks to Muckmaw. They’re not particularly forthcoming, so he has to buy everyone a round to loosen lips. He also makes a point of introducing himself by a new name.

“Oreth son of Brock,” said Murtagh. He figured it wise to start using a name other than Tornac around Gil’ead.

Readers are not morons, Paolini. Cut that last sentence. We can figure it out.

I should note that in this lead-up to the tale, one of the fishermen addresses his two friends by names, but those names will not be used for the rest of the chapter, nor will he himself get one. Instead, he is “cardus-chewer,” and the one of his friends who gets more than one line definitely attributed to him is “scarred fisherman.” Note that I said “definitely attributed”. This is because there are a few lines that are ambiguously attributed, one to “his [cardus-chewer’s] friend” and one to “the fisherman.” From context, the former is likely to be from “scarred fisherman” and the latter is almost certainly “cardus-chewer”, but given that they’re all fisherman who appear to be drinking buddies, these tags are a bit ambiguous. This is sloppy writing.

With that mentioned, though, let’s get into the actual dialogue.

Even with the round bought, there’s a whole diatribe about how the best person to ask would be a certain septuagenarian fisherman who’s probably long since asleep. Thankfully, we do eventually get past this padding and on to the actual tale that lends the chapter its title.

Muckmaw, according to “cardus-chewer”, is a sturgeon or sturgeon-like thing almost as long as a boat. Or, to use his words, “ten paces from tip to butt and about three paces across the beam.” Yes, I have taken the liberty of excising yet another transcribed accent.

“Paces” are a rather imprecise unit of measurement, but sources around the Internet tell me they can be as small as three quarters of a meter or as long as one and a half meters. So by “cardus-chewer”s reckoning, Muckmaw is 7.5 to 15 meters long and 2.25 to 4.5 meters wide. The largest sturgeon ever recorded in real life was a female beluga sturgeon measuring in at 7.2 meters. And most don’t get even half that big.

I see Paolini’s tendency to attempt to make things feel legendary merely by making them large is rearing its ugly head again.

Apparently Muckmaw gets its name from the mud and silt that’s always falling off its mouth when it comes near the surface, and it’s done all sorts of things from cutting nets and ramming boats to… scooping up herons? I thought you just said he was a bottom-feeder, Paolini.

As the fishermen make fun of one of their acquaintances who was nearly killed by Muckmaw, the street urchins from earlier slip into the tavern and Murtagh notices that they look like one of the sellswords. Anyone keeping track of this little side plot probably has an inkling where this is going, but trust me, you are not prepared for exactly how Paolini does it. We'll get there when we get there, though, we need to get the backstory on our fishy foe.

“Cardus-chewer” tells another story about how about sixty years ago, when this old fisherman was a kid, he and a couple of other boys who’d been fishing decided to see how long it would take for their haul to suffocate on land. As they were waiting, watching the fish gasp for water, a red-haired man with pointy teeth walked out of the forest. Murtagh immediately realizes this is Durza, though obviously he doesn’t say as much, instead taking a moment to give some recap for any new readers. Durza joined the boys in watching the fish suffocate until there was only one left. Then he picked up that one, put it back in the lake, and told the boys it would torment them from then on for being such little shits.

Because of course the fucking fish has to have Le Epic Backstory that ties it to already-established characters.

Anyway, whatever spells Durza cast on this fish have apparently made it too smart to trap and immune to hooks, spears, and arrows. Du Vrangr Gata, whose name the random scarred fisherman with a transcribed bumpkin accent surprisingly knows and can pronounce, haven’t done anything about it because, as we’ve always said, the Varden don’t actually care about the concerns of the common people. The local “hedge-witch”, meanwhile, is a healer who wouldn’t be able to do much about a giant, murderous fish full of Shade-spells. So the only way it’ll get done is if “an elf or a Rider” does it.

“An’ they’re all busy elsewhere,” said cardus-chewer sadly.

“Be glad of it,” replied his friend. “Their kind only cause rack and ruin.”

I have to agree with Fisherman #2 here. To the vast majority of Alagaësia, all elves and Riders seem to do is fuck shit up.

Murtagh thanks them for the story and asks where not to go fishing if he doesn’t want to get Muckmaw’d. The fishermen tell him the whole lake is dangerous, but there’s a particular marshy stretch along the shore, “nearwise where th’ elves cleared out th’ last of Galbatorix’s soldiers” and for fuck’s sake now he’s gonna rip off the Dead Marshes, isn’t he? Fucking hell.

In one of the ambiguously-attributed lines, one of the fishermen (probably “cardus-chewer”) seems to guess at Murtagh’s intentions, because he tells Murtagh that he wouldn’t want to see him killed by Muckmaw. This is kind of a nice moment, because it’s not that common to see genuine sparks of human sympathy in Paolini characters.

It’s a nice note on which to end a section.

We gloss over the rest of Murtagh’s time at the tavern. He stays to finish his beer because just up and leaving once the story was done would be weird, and notices that the sellswords exchange some suspiciously hushed conversation and leave surreptitiously. The street urchins, meanwhile, are playing jacks and pretend to ignore Murtagh when he heads toward their place by the fire. The barkeep is asleep at the bar again, so Murtagh sneaks a piece of firewood and heads out.

Sure enough, the two sellswords try to jump him. Murtagh trounces them easily, and then…

His teeth drew back in a snarl, his blood molten in his veins. He strode back to bird-chest and kicked him in the side. And again. And again. A shout of rage and frustration burst forth from him as he swung his leg.

One or more ribs cracked against his shin.

He knelt and grabbed the man by the hair. Bird-chest’s eyes rolled, and red bubbles popped at the corners of his mouth. His lips moved in a mute attempt to plead for mercy.

“Be a better father,” Murtagh growled. “Or next time, I’ll beat you worse than this, you worthless sack of filth.”

That… is NOT my Murtagh.

I get what Paolini was going for with this. He was going for Murtagh raging against terrible parents because, as a son of a terrible father, their failings hit too close to home. What he got, though, was a wildly disproportionate beating that does not fit with Murtagh’s character and what we’ve seen of this man. Sure, this guy has been sketchy, but when exactly did we see him mistreat his children?

Unless this was supposed to come across as inappropriate, in which case I call character assassination.

#NotMyMurtagh takes the guy’s purse and dagger just as his kids come out of the tavern. They are, understandably, shocked and angry.

“Get away from him!” the smaller one shouted, and threw a handful of pebbles. Several bounced off Murtagh’s shoulders.

#NotMyMurtagh tells the kids their dad needs help and runs off to the docks, where the adrenaline wears off and he has a bit of a, uh… moment.

He almost wished he’d killed the man. The children might have been better off because of it. Or maybe not. It was impossible to know. All he could be certain of was that he hated the man and his brutish stupidity.

I honestly can’t even with this. One of those kids threw pebbles at you for beating up their dad. That’s not the act of a child who’s scared of his father, but one who loves his father. Is the father a bad influence on them by roping them into his mugging schemes? Absolutely, that’s a bad thing and he should indeed be a better father and a more honest person in general. But he doesn’t seem to be trying to hurt them, and if he died they may well have no one but each other. Maybe the narcoleptic barkeep would keep them around to clean the tavern or something, but that’s no guarantee they’ll have a comfortable life, or that they won’t continue to need to beg or steal. Especially if that “sick mother” story they told has any grain of truth to it.

Moving on. We’ve only got about a half a page left.

#NotMyMurtagh reports everything to Thorn, who makes a snarky remark about him getting in fights. The initial exchange is decent, I guess, but coming off the previous bit of bullshit even giving praise that faint feels almost wrong.

They lay out their next course of action a little, which is just redundant considering we all know what the side quest objectives are. Unfortunately, Thorn gets a little overly excited, and before #NotMyMurtagh can tell him to wait, he’s taking off. Oh shit, Thorn’s loud wingbeats might get them discovered!

Yeah, all the tension that chapter end might have managed to build is about to get absolutely pissed away. But we’ll hear about that in the next chapter spork, which will be written by the inimitable Epistler.

The more I read of this section of the book, the more unnecessary it feels. Knowing what lies beyond it, though, I can’t help but wonder whether I’ve been dragging my feet on these sporks because there’s worse to come. But with a new year coming in and a new book apparently in the works, it’s high time to ramp this up.

Until next time, my friends.