Murtagh Spork: Part 2 Chapter 10 - Softly Creeping...

[ultimate_cheetah]

 

Hello, everyone. This chapter is quite short.

The chapter starts with Murtagh lying awake at night. He uses his mind powers to check if everyone is asleep, and then creeps to a chest, using the word for quiet, Maela, in the ancient language to make sure the lid doesn’t creak. He then gets his sword and other things out of the chest. He leaves behind the guard uniform because he doesn’t feel comfortable wearing it, although he admits to himself that it could help him avoid attention. We don’t get any clue why he doesn’t want to wear the uniform, let alone why that reason is strong enough to make Murtagh do something to make the mission harder. 

He then sneaks out of the barracks. There’s a tense moment where he trips over a cot in the dark and a guard stirs, but he makes it to the archway leading to the tunnels without incident. 

He does not use an invisibility spell. Maybe he doesn’t know one. But he also doesn’t use Maela to muffle whatever noises he could make, which is something we know he can do.

 Murtagh goes down some stairs and gets to the tunnels, which he thinks are made by humans instead of elves, which is what a minor character had said earlier. He sees a secure door that’s guarded and realizes that’s where he has to go. He needs to get past the guard, though, and the guard is warded against magical attacks. He uses the Name to get past the guard’s defenses, and then puts him to sleep. He catches the guard, but the pike the guard was holding falls on the ground. 

Murtagh does not use the quiet spell at this moment either.

He pauses to see if the noise got attention, though no one comes. He watches a spider as he waits at one point, looking at it in disgust. Why he even notices a spider on the wall is a mystery to me. Anyway, no one from the barracks is coming. Given that Murtagh descended an entire set of stairs to get to the tunnels, I wouldn’t be too worried. I do wonder why there aren’t any more guards in these tunnels, though. If I was keeping werecat kittens in a creepy basement, I would definitely make sure the entrance was well-guarded.

Murtagh goes to the door, and it doesn’t open, because it is locked. Murtagh’s about to use magic, but decides to search the guard for keys instead, and, sure enough, the guard has one. I find it funny that he’s an untrained magician, but jumps to magic for mundane things. He opens the door and goes in. The chapter ends. 

I don’t really have anything else to say about this chapter. It should have been incorporated into the next one. I don’t really know why this had to be separated out. Also, if I were Murtagh, I would be using the quiet spell everywhere. I can excuse him not using the invisibility spell, since he may not actually know it, but after the first tripping incident, come on. 

The chapter also managed to be repetitive, even with this small number of pages. Twice, Murtagh accidentally makes a noise, and waits to see if guards come/anyone is awake. Twice, nothing happens. Makes him seem kinda clumsy, honestly. Also, that’s a moment that kind of needs to be used sparingly. Once was plenty. 

Also, there's an elipsis in the chapter title for some reason. It isn't necessary.

Anyway, next up is The Door of Stone with Snarkbotanya

Comments

[pangolin20]

Good to see this again!

Yes, it's the shortest chapter of the entire book.

We don’t get any clue why he doesn’t want to wear the uniform, let alone why that reason is strong enough to make Murtagh do something to make the mission harder.

I think it is because he doesn't like wearing the uniform of the guard he will be betraying soon. Whether that's worth leaving it behind... I don't know.

He does not use an invisibility spell. Maybe he doesn’t know one. But he also doesn’t use Maela to muffle whatever noises he could make, which is something we know he can do.

Yeah, he does know one, though I wonder if it would work very well here. Silencing himself would work very well, and he really should be doing it. I guess Paolini didn't have him use it because he thought it would make this scene tenser, but making Murtagh competent would do more for that.

He catches the guard, but the pike the guard was holding falls on the ground.

At least he took care not to hurt someone this time?

He watches a spider as he waits at one point, looking at it in disgust. Why he even notices a spider on the wall is a mystery to me.

Maybe he wants to make sure he knows where the spiders are? I can see him be on the lookout for them, at least.

Yeah, Paolini really liked to use sneaking scenes for this book, to the extent that he does get quite repetitive.

Also, there's an elipsis in the chapter title for some reason. It isn't necessary.

I think that one might be because Paolini thought it sounded tense (and it kind of does, but Murtagh is not going to have much trouble now).

[ultimate_cheetah]

Maybe he wants to make sure he knows where the spiders are? I can see him be on the lookout for them, at least.

He was looking for the guards at that exact moment, though, which is why it struck me as odd.

[pangolin20]

Yeah, I think that Paolini put a bit too much effort in Murtagh's arachnophobia.

[epistler]

I probably find it extra lame because I'm Australian and not the least bit afraid of spiders. They're all over the place here and most of them are completely harmless. The really big ones with the long legs you see in memes about how scary Australia is? Yeah, those are huntsman spiders. Big, yes, but their venom is not harmful to humans and they're actually huge wimps who will run away from you when cornered.
So seeing brave hero Morontagh here being all "ew spiders" just reads as incredibly pathetic and uncalled-for to me.

[pangolin20]

Not Australian myself, but I'm completely used to them, too, and not afraid either (I've even had a tarantula on my hand once!). That said... arachnophobia is certainly a legit thing, and I've got family who is afraid of spiders, and I don't find them "pathetic" or anything, so I can't say rightly the same thing about Murtagh.

Come to think of it, its "resolution" is indeed pathetic. Thorn at least "gets over" his claustrophobia, but in Murtagh's case, he goes on killing spiders, but without being disgusted by them? It's absolutely not an improvement!

[epistler]

This isn't arachnophobia anyway. Phobia implies fear. Morontagh isn't showing fear; he's just being a nasty, prissy little bitch sneering in contempt and disgust at a perfectly innocent small creature. And as you say, when he "has" to fight the giant spooders at the "climax" he isn't afraid then either; he just blithely hacks them to pieces.

Thorn at least "gets over" his claustrophobia

In the cheapest and most offensive way possible. Phobias don't just magically go away when it's convenient to you. Or rather, convenient to the stupid asshole who just led you into seven chapters of even more torture.

[pangolin20]

I could see him go into the cave... but the whole experience, and especially the collapse of the cave, would not help him at all, and probably worsen his claustrophobia (and this would not have been that hard to find out).

[epistler]

There was no reason for Thorn to have claustrophobia in the first place because there was no reason for Galby to keep him in that tiny cave in the first place! Just how long did the guy waste on pointless torture when he could have been getting them trained and ready to send after Eragon and Saphira? I mean think about it - Eragon's training with Oromis lasted for how long? A month or two? Certainly less than five. And we don't know how long it took the Twins to get Murtagh to Uru'Baen (and going on the flashback we got, they weren't exactly hurrying). Then when they got there Thorn hatched and then the torture started. Getting up to that point probably took a month or two of travelling since they weren't using boats and didn't have a dragon, so if my rough estimate is correct Eragon was already training while Murtagh was being flogged and chained up and whatnot. Then Galby wasted even more time by making Baby Thorn fight wolves for no reason. So when did he get around to teaching them how to fly together, how to fight from dragonback, how to use all that impressive-sounding magic Murtagh boasted about when he showed back up at the end of Eldest?
And yet somehow Murtagh is better trained than Eragon by this point.

Of course all of that torture wasn't just a complete waste of time. Galby is a master of breaking into people's minds! He should have just led with that! Instead he left Thorn with a crippling phobia and could easily have straight-up killed him. How does any of that contribute to making the two of them his useful servants? None of this makes any sense!

Anyway... as you say, the torture in THIS book, followed by the business with the cave, just retraumatises the two of them like crazy. Frankly by this point there shouldn't have been any coming back from it. There's only so much a person can take, however much "willpower" they might have. Morontagh should be fucking catatonic, not just having "a trying night" with some bad dreams.

On a lighter note, here's a joke I recently came across:

End claustrophobia! Santa can get married if he wants to!

Heh.

[pangolin20]

Hmmm, as I've said earlier, I'm reasonably sure that Eragon's training took longer than a few months. I don't have much evidence, admittedly, but Eldest does talk about "the afternoons and evenings lengthen[ing]" during his training, which suggests that it's later in the summer, around August to September. That's in the middle of his training, so I can safely put another month after that, which would put us around the end of September.

And... Eldest says, in the chapter "To Aberon", that it "felt more like summer than spring". That is by the time they come back from his training. From my own calculations, his training begins at the beginning of June, and spring ends, at latest, at 21 June. Unless his training took a few weeks (which it really can't have been), there's no way this can take place in the same year. If he comes back next year, that gives him all the time to train and all the time for Murtagh to train!

(Blegh, Paolini's as inconsistent as MZB when it comes to timelines, and it's a pain to even try to keep track of.)

Of course all of that torture wasn't just a complete waste of time. Galby is a master of breaking into people's minds! He should have just led with that! Instead he left Thorn with a crippling phobia and could easily have straight-up killed him. How does any of that contribute to making the two of them his useful servants? None of this makes any sense!

I actually think he should have led with the illusions he used against Nasuada! If he played it right (show the Twins being punished for their rough treatment of Murtagh, for example), he might well win him to his service without having to resort to breaking Murtagh's mind. Thorn would be even easier to do this with, if he did it from his hatching. That would give them less reason for resentment, and work muuch better than all this (supposed) torture! I guess that wouldn't be Stupid Evil enough, though.

[epistler]

The timeline is basically impossible to keep track of. For one thing it just seems to be spring for the entire thing until after the war, when winter FINALLY bothers to show up. Plus we've got Elain's pregnancy which is wildly out of whack but does at least indicate that less than a year has passed between book one and the early chapters of book four. "Overlong pregnancy" really doesn't tell us anything meaningful.

I mean I tend to get timeline issues too but at least I go back and fix it later! And when I had a pregnant character she gave birth at the end of one of the sequels after being impregnated early in the first book so now we have it confirmed as to how much time has passed. Then time is further marked based upon how old her child currently is.

I actually think he should have led with the illusions he used against Nasuada!

The really sad part is that in many ways torture via illusions and nightmares is WAY more fucked up and if used properly can fuck up the victim ten times more effectively than boring generic whips and hot pokers. And it's a better option if you don't want to accidentally kill the victim, too, because if you do it properly you can convince them they're in agonising pain while leaving their actual body untouched. The worst thing one of my characters went through wasn't being starved and beaten in a dungeon; it was descending into trauma induced psychosis after the fact.

[pangolin20]

Exactly! Given how easy it is to keep track of the timeline is some places, I think the larger time skips could have been covered well, too.

And yes, that'd be much more safe and effective. The part I was thinking of was especially the gaslighting; using it on someone like Thorn from hatching would have meant he had a quite hard time getting out of Galbatorix's control.

[ultimate_cheetah]

That's a good point! I was literally thinking that. From a purely pragmatic point of view, Thorn is worth much less as a fighter if he has a phobia. What if he needs to go into a building and it's too tight for him? What if he freaks out and kills people or destroys things? I know Galbatorix is supposed to be mad, but, at least from his appearance in Inheritance, he had enough sense to keep the kingdom running, and to make a plan to subjugate magic users. Murtagh already has enough trauma; why throw in more?

[epistler]

What if he needs to go into a building and it's too tight for him?

Saphira buries him in rubble under a collapsed building in book four yet this has no effect other than making him angry? Really? He's also fine with being in the Tunnel O' Traps later on in that same book, making it even more obvious that his supposed phobia is just another retcon that did not exist until this stupid book.

What if he freaks out and kills people or destroys things?

Which he does in this book. Not that there are any consequences.

I know Galbatorix is supposed to be mad, but, at least from his appearance in Inheritance, he had enough sense to keep the kingdom running, and to make a plan to subjugate magic users.

He was absolutely in no way mentally ill in any way that was ever shown on the page. He didn't even have the paranoia that most absolute monarchs tend to develop. And other than the pointless Nausea torture the dude was very practical and pragmatic.

Murtagh already has enough trauma; why throw in more?

Because Paolini thinks torture is "OMG SO DRAMATIC" and doesn't believe in trauma. After all, in that interview he did with the stupid hat he laughingly dismissed trauma as "an over-used word", then continued to laugh uproariously while boasting about all the horrors he put Morontagh and Thorn through just because he could. The seven fucking chapters of torture added NOTHING to the story and sure as hell did not need to be even a third as long as it was.

[epistler]

Yeah, he does know one, though I wonder if it would work very well here. Silencing himself would work very well, and he really should be doing it. I guess Paolini didn't have him use it because he thought it would make this scene tenser, but making Murtagh competent would do more for that.

God I'm tempted to post the chapter I wrote in which my own character who has magical abilities infiltrates a place. That character even canonically has ADHD, and he's ten times more competent than Morontagh despite his impulse control problems because he's, y'know, smart and resourceful. The tension comes from the fact that there are magical traps and hostile magic-users around he has to get past. He sure as hell doesn't trip over his own feet and waste time staring at random spiders.

I think that one might be because Paolini thought it sounded tense (and it kind of does, but Murtagh is not going to have much trouble now).

Paolini definitely thinks breaking things up with ellipses makes it more tense.
Guess what. It doesn't.

[pangolin20]

I probably shouldn't be complaining much about ellipses myself, but I think I might just be better at using them than Paolini.

Yeah, that sounds considerably better than this, and where I'd want the tension to come from!

[epistler]

Tension comes from actual stakes, peril, etc, not stupid crutches like ellipses. Morontagh is acting like he's in danger right now but the truth of it is... he really isn't. He's far too powerful for this to be a dangerous thing for him to do. So fucking what if he gets caught? He can kill you five times before you hit the floor and probably knows a bunch of killing spells Galby taught him. On top of that he has the authority inherent to being a Rider. There is NO reason why he couldn't have just barged up with Thorn at his side and said "hand over the werecat or else". It's not as if Queen Nausea has the power to dish out any sort of punishment if he does this. She couldn't control Eragon, after all. When he decided he was done with taking orders from her he just left and there was nothing she could do about it.

[pangolin20]

Indeed! I'd think that having Murtagh easily defeat all of this, and then troubling him more with the return of the guard (being unwilling to fight them, but having to) would have worked better. It'd certainly be a bit more interesting than Murtagh being found out after heavy emphasis on how that could certainly happen (and if he's supposed to look overconfident, this is also a prime opportunity).

[epistler]

And if Morontagh does get caught, so fucking what? Just tell them you're the Rider Murtagh and show 'em your silver palm and they'll be freaking out and apologising and calling you "sir" and asking what they can do for you! Who in their right mind is going to try and mess with a freaking DRAGON RIDER? And one whose powers they saw on full display about a year ago? The guy who took down a fellow Rider and a dragon ten times bigger than his? Even if they don't like him they'd still have the sense not to mess with him, let alone risk pissing off Thorn. It's like I said in a previous spork: Morontagh is having "adventures" and "peril" that simply do not belong to a character in his position, with his level of power and status. I could see Roran doing something like this, but Murtagh? The guy who repeatedly kicked Eragon's ass? Absolutely not.

As it happens I'm currently writing about a character who is more powerful than most of the people around him, and he also has special status due to his parentage. How did I handle that? Certainly not like this.

The external conflict for this character: there are others like him out there who are up to no good, and it's up to him to stop them. If he ends up having to fight one there is no guarantee he will win. He also has to do this in secret because he has so far been living anonymously, not wanting others to find out who and what he really is because a lot of them would instantly hate and fear him (he also had an evil father, as it happens).

The internal conflict, though, was at least to my mind way more interesting: because he's so powerful and has some even more powerful friends, this character's problem is that he's had it too easy his entire life. He's been constantly protected from the consequences of his actions and other than doing what he has to do in order to make a living he's been free to do whatever the hell he likes. Which means that despite being very much an adult in years, he never really grew up. He acts like an irresponsible, self-indulgent teenager who regularly gives in to his impulses. Of course this means he ultimately screws up big time, so along with the further external conflict of trying to undo his mistake comes the internal progression of realising what a stupid jerk he's been and finally getting past that stage to become a mature adult.

And in this context that last point is rather pertinent, because like Eragon, Morontagh has not become a mature adult because neither he nor his author has realised that he acts like a stupid, petulant teenager who doesn't think ahead, makes stupid impulsive decisions, and cannot deal with frustration and otherwise not getting his way. It's so fucking insufferable.

[torylltales]

Morontagh is having "adventures" and "peril" that simply do not belong to a character in his position, with his level of power and status.

That is so painfully true. This story should star some random unknown citizen, struggling with the aftermath of their city having been razed by the Varden, who gets caught up in problems far above their station, skills, and experience.

Yaknow, like in Consequence.

[epistler]

Hell, we're even in the right location for Paolini to cash in on yet another abandoned plot point: the whereabouts of Oromis' sword. What if this new character is the one who finds it? It's got insane amounts of magical energy stored in it. Do they use it for their own personal gain or try to hide it until the Magic Gestapo comes knocking and now they've got no choice? Having done so, they're now in a position to become leader of the resistance alongside other magic users who want their freedom. I mean this thing is already writing itself.

[pangolin20]

(Can you tell that I wasn't really thinking very well about this? You probably can.)

Well, thanks for sharing your thoughts and your own novel's situation! For Murtagh, the only way I can see it is if Murtagh didn't want to use his status or his power, which I could see happen, but Paolini hasn't established that.

[epistler]

Instead, Morontagh just seems to think he HAS no status. Instead oh woe is me I am a traitor outcast. Like... who declared him an outcast? He wasn't cast out. He just decided to leave and is now insisting that he can't go back because... uh...

[pangolin20]

...because everyone hates him, because everyone apparently swallowed Nasuada's propaganda? It's an impressive case of an author being blinded to what they actually wrote by what they think they did.

[epistler]

It'd have to be propaganda, because it makes no sense that the people in general would hate the guy considering he was the one there to PROTECT them when the Varden came sweeping in and started destroying the place and killing people willy-nilly. Even then most people would logically see this propaganda and be like "wow screw that bitch who just took over the country; that's a pack of lies!"

[pangolin20]

Yeah, the people of Dras-Leona and Urû'baen (the two largest cities in Alagaësia, from what we see!) would have some tales to tell about that! And I think most wouldn't care that he's a "traitor"; his willingness to protect them would matter more! I think he should be able to gather a sizeable following just be revealing where he is.

[epistler]

It's right about now that the people would be looking for a leader, and Morontagh would be exactly the right candidate. He's a Rider, and he already fought for them before, unlike Eragon and the Varden. The possibility of him taking such a position even gets raised in this book, albeit with the add-on that he would do it in expectation of becoming King afterwards.

[torylltales]

Of course this means he ultimately screws up big time, so along with the further external conflict of trying to undo his mistake comes the internal progression of realising what a stupid jerk he's been and finally getting past that stage to become a mature adult.

In one version of my yet to be properly storyboarded novel, the young protagonist is given a choice by the old mentor: seek revenge against the tribe that raided his village and perpetuate a generations-long cycle of violence, or stay and help the survivors rebuild. The protagonist chooses the first option, because he's preoccupied with proving himself to be a strong and brave Man. Ironically failing his first test of manhood.

[epistler]

Oh, you storyboard your books? Like with drawings?

Your story reminds me of one I wrote about a boy whose father keeps telling him he's weak and not manly enough. One day he gets into a fight when he defends his sister against some bullies, and gets beaten up pretty badly. He assumes he's in HUGE trouble now, but to his amazement his father reacts by saying "I'm very proud of you. Standing up for someone like that is how a man should act". His father taught him a whole lot of really toxic things about what constitutes manliness, but "protect others" wasn't one of them.

[torylltales]

I suppose that's not quote the right word to use. It's ore like, I write a one-sentence description of each of the main plot points or turning points, and lay them out in a line.

Now that you mention it though, perhaps I should do proper storyboarding, that would be fun. I'd have to learn how to draw first, though.

[epistler]

It sounds like fun to me! And who cares if it's all stick figures?