It's not so much that the song lacks a narrative, it's that it's trying to imitate the feel of an epic poem like Beowulf or the Odyssey, but gets bogged down by obscure references and repeating itself unnecessarily. It doesn't actually progress a story, it just repeats the same scene. Like an animated gif in place of a movie. And you're right that the theme and tone are not consistent , or even defined.
Removing the "poetic" metaphors and bizarre kenning, the poem reads as so:
Down a fast flowing river full of water we ride in a boat for family and duty under the (sky?),
Through the (????) we ride the boat in search of riches. Give me my (hammer?) and axe! And my (groin protector???), I'm leaving home Into the world outside.
Looking at it like this, you can see it's just too repetitive. Stanza 1: [Location. Description of the boat. Vague motivation for being on the boat.] Stanza 2: [Location. Different description of the boat. A slightly different vague motivation for being on the boat. Expression of desire to hold weapons. Vaguely xenophobic explanation of what the concept of "travel" entails.]
There's no narrative progression either within the individual stanzas, or across both stanzas. The second stanza does not add any new information except maybe the clarification at the end that they are indeed travelling away from their starting location. The 'story" doesn't progress, and themes, metaphors etc. aren't expanded upon or explored.
Not to toot my own horn, but back in 2009 I composed this (intentionally) ridiculously over-the-top passage as a direct reaction-slash-parody to Paolini's try-hard smugness:
Often he from rushing rivers stole Red snapping-fish with gaping sharp-toothed jaws; which rivers flowed from distant mountain peaks - those watchful guards, those solemn priests - and went, by wending hermit's way, heedlessly and eagerly To sea.
If we remove the poetic elements in the same way as above, we get:
Often he caught red fish from the rapid river That came from the mountains Looming in the distance And then flowed towards the ocean.
The difference, I feel, is that I don't repeat myself, or explain anything that doesn't need to be explained, and there is a progression in the narrative -- we actually go somewhere with it, even if it is tangent to what you might expect the focus to be. It's not just describing the same thing in slightly different ways, but building up a picture of the scene by progressive detail adding, and giving a sense of narrative by "following" the river from source to ocean. And giving a hint about the narrator's worldview in the way the mountains are described and the river is personified. Without just throwing in random proper nouns like that's supposed to be meaningful for the actual real-world audience reading it.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2019-03-01 12:25 pm (UTC)Removing the "poetic" metaphors and bizarre kenning, the poem reads as so:
Down a fast flowing river
full of water
we ride in a boat
for family and duty
under the (sky?),
Through the (????)
we ride the boat
in search of riches.
Give me my (hammer?) and axe!
And my (groin protector???),
I'm leaving home
Into the world outside.
Looking at it like this, you can see it's just too repetitive. Stanza 1: [Location. Description of the boat. Vague motivation for being on the boat.] Stanza 2: [Location. Different description of the boat. A slightly different vague motivation for being on the boat. Expression of desire to hold weapons. Vaguely xenophobic explanation of what the concept of "travel" entails.]
There's no narrative progression either within the individual stanzas, or across both stanzas. The second stanza does not add any new information except maybe the clarification at the end that they are indeed travelling away from their starting location. The 'story" doesn't progress, and themes, metaphors etc. aren't expanded upon or explored.
Not to toot my own horn, but back in 2009 I composed this (intentionally) ridiculously over-the-top passage as a direct reaction-slash-parody to Paolini's try-hard smugness:
Often he from rushing rivers stole
Red snapping-fish with gaping sharp-toothed jaws;
which rivers flowed from distant mountain peaks -
those watchful guards, those solemn priests - and went,
by wending hermit's way, heedlessly and eagerly
To sea.
If we remove the poetic elements in the same way as above, we get:
Often he caught red fish from the rapid river
That came from the mountains
Looming in the distance
And then flowed towards the ocean.
The difference, I feel, is that I don't repeat myself, or explain anything that doesn't need to be explained, and there is a progression in the narrative -- we actually go somewhere with it, even if it is tangent to what you might expect the focus to be. It's not just describing the same thing in slightly different ways, but building up a picture of the scene by progressive detail adding, and giving a sense of narrative by "following" the river from source to ocean. And giving a hint about the narrator's worldview in the way the mountains are described and the river is personified. Without just throwing in random proper nouns like that's supposed to be meaningful for the actual real-world audience reading it.