Epistler's Solo Brisingr Spork - Chapter One: The Gates Of Death

[epistler]

 

And now into the book itself! I’m going to make a strong effort not to rehash stuff that’s been covered in previous sporks of this thing and instead focus on other things which might not have been given as much attention.

Such as the chapter title. Why is it called “the gates of death”? What gates? The city gates the worshippers are going to come out of? The entrance to the Razzle Dazzle lair doesn’t have any gates on it. Are these just metaphorical gates?

Anyway, we open with a Paolini staple: emotionless, overwritten description.

Eragon stared at the dark tower of stone wherein hid the monsters who had murdered his uncle, Garrow.

This is a mountain not a tower, so the description is mismatched and unhelpful. The comma did not need to be there either. Nor did he need to throw in the word “wherein”; it feels unnatural, not to mention pretentious. You can tell it was written by someone who was trying too hard and not relying on his natural vocabulary.

The other big issue here which harms the opening far more is that we do not get anything as to how Eragon feels right now. He’s about to face up against the only personal enemies he has. The scary monsters who killed Garrow and Brom. But is he shown to be feeling any fear? Nope. Anger? Nope. Nor do we move on to any descriptions of how he thinks or feels about all this.

Instead, the narrative moves on with a bunch of more flat and needlessly detailed description, and it’s basically a list. First we get what Eragon can see, then we get some crap about listening to Roran breathe and how he’s got SUPER HEARING now thanks to the Blood Ex Machina Ceremony. All of that takes precedence over actually depicting Eragon as a person who has feelings or even thoughts for that matter. He doesn’t react to any of this.

Nor does he or Paolini have his priorities in order, because only now does he pay any attention to what’s actually going on, which is that a bunch of people are headed toward Helgrind from the city. We get a huge paragraph of description of them as well, and somehow Eragon can make out a whole lot of details. Just how close is he that he can count how many slaves are holding up the High Priest and their ridiculous three foot high leather “crest”?

Still no thoughts or feelings about this. Eragon might as well just be a camera on a stick.

He finally speaks up to tell Roran those are the priests of Helgrind, though how he’s that familiar with them I’ve no idea because they haven’t exactly gotten to know each other.

Roran’s only reaction is to emotionlessly ask whether they can use magic, to which Eragon emotionlessly states that it’s possible and he doesn’t dare do that mental probing thing which was so goddamn important in the last book because if any of them can they’ll sense him. Or rather, “our presence will be revealed”.

Dude, you have a fucking dragon and more power than god. Last time you made mental contact with an enemy spellcaster you squashed him like a bug.

This is one of the problems you get when you make your protagonist way too powerful; it makes scenes like this nonsensical because with all his powers Eragon should be able to just ignore that lot while he goes and gets this done, because what the fuck could they possibly do to him and who cares if people find out here’s in the area? By the time Murtagh and Thorn show up, he’ll be long gone.

Instead we just get another big paragraph of obsessively detailed description of the worshippers, which is overwritten to the point of comical. Eragon’s only reaction is to wonder whether the local governor is in there somewhere.

As this goes nowhere I’m going to add my first count.

**~~essential story elements~~** : 1

Dude never even appears on the page.

Even more description as they reach a random boulder that hasn’t been mentioned before. The High Priest starts chanting, except for some damn reason they’re referred to as a “shaman”; a title which if I’m not mistaken will not be used ever again in connection to this cult and doesn’t fit at all.

Something else that doesn’t fit is their actual words; they’re using a mishmash of Ancient Language, dwarf, Urgal and human for no reason that is ever explained. I mean it’s not as if this cult has any dwarves or Urgals in it.

And don’t the Razzle Dazzles have their own language? Why don’t their cultists speak that instead?

Instead of wondering about that, Eragon entertains arrogant self-righteous thoughts about how this “sermon” is like TOTALLY EVIL and full of terrible things we’re not going to be actually given any details about, and how all this darkness and evil has been allowed to “flourish” since the Riders aren’t around any more.

I’m sorry, what the fuck is this nonsense? (Wow, I made it all the way to page three before I started cussing). Since when were the Riders any sort of moral authority/religious/philosophical order? Since when did they have anything to do with making people behave well instead of turning evil? All we’ve been told before now is that they were the guardians of the land or some such nonsense, which… uh, yeah, I’m sure being peaceful guardians encouraging others to goodness would absolutely need razor sharp magic swords, super strength and a whole heap of death spells plus mindrape powers. If they weren’t an order of fighters with a big emphasis on martial prowess and killing, then why did they need all that shit? You don’t get people to peacefully co-exist and be nice with that much firepower on your side – literally. All you’re going to get with that is keeping people in line through fear and intimidation, and nobody ever sincerely behaves well because they’re under threat of punishment.

So yeah, this is just Eragon and Paolini pretending the Riders are or were perfect shining heroes because after all, if they weren’t, Eragon wouldn’t be a perfect shining morally immaculate hero and we can’t have that, now can we?

The other problem which continues to crop up here is Paolini’s deliberate vagueness. We’re told what the High Priest said was a “depraved oration” but we didn’t get to actually read a word of it so how the hell are we supposed to know it was depraved? Like you cannot just dance around this stuff if you want to properly evoke mood and have us see that yes, these people are horrible and scary. Oh, and he throws in a mention of “madness”, of course, because madness is eeevil.

With that done “two of the lesser priests” (how does Eragon know that’s what they are?) lift “their master – or mistress, as the case might be-” onto the altar.

Oh look, some possible enby representation. Figures it’d be in the form of an evil depraved monster who deliberately mutilated themselves. Yeah, that’s a real good look, isn’t it?

Cue some overdescribed bloodletting, and as usual Paolini has no idea how much blood you can actually afford to lose without dying (the answer is, a lot less than you might think. I nearly passed out from “just” a nosebleed once). You definitely cannot have a “rivulet” coming from each shoulder and making a pool big enough to fill “goblets” to the “rim”. We’re not told how many goblets, but it sounds like the High Priest/ess is losing at least two or three pints of blood in one go if there’s enough for everyone here to have a drink. And yes, it does specifically say that ALL the attendees get some, and by the sound of it there’s at least a hundred of them! What the fuck?

Fun fact, unlike Paolini I took the trouble of looking it up and a healthy adult can lose maybe three or four pints before it’s officially a medical emergency. And note “healthy”; this poor fool has had god knows how many bits cut off and apparently does this all the time. But nope, no ill effects at all.

Even more ridiculously, fast forward to over a decade later and Paolini still thought you could lose enough blood to “flood the inside” of your spacesuit and not go into cardiac arrest. All because he thinks he’s too good to do a five second google search. Or in my case DuckDuckGo search because I’ll have no truck with those goddamn AI overviews full of water-wasting misinformation.

Also, how the fuck is Eragon able to see all this detail? It sounds like he’s standing maybe a meter away! We’ve been given absolutely no indication as to where he and Roran are relative to where all this is happening, so this really isn’t helping.

Also also? Still no reaction from Eragon at all.

There’s one other thing that’s been going on in this scene, too, but I’ll mention it later.

Roran sort of reacts by spitting out an early example of the truly abysmal dialogue that is going to plague this book. We’ve been over it before enough times for it not to be necessary to go through in detail, but not only does it not sound like something a fantasy character would say, but it doesn’t sound like something a human being would say. Paolini was so determined to make him sound suitably Fantasy that he robbed the guy’s dialogue of any sense of human personality or emotion. Also, Roran comes off as angry and contemptuous, insulting the worshippers, instead of being upset or disturbed the way an actual person – and especially one as young and relatively experienced as he is – would and should be.

Nor does Eragon seem the least bit shocked. Instead he just flatly tells Roran “they do not partake of the meat”, which also doesn’t sound the least bit human and doesn’t match how he talked in previous books either. The guy is SO FLAT AND EMPTY. It’s mind-blowing. Like this isn’t even a character. He’s got no presence at all. No personality. And Roran is little better.

Meanwhile the High Priest/ess talks some more and is completely fine despite having just bled like a stuck pig. They blather on some more and we get some vague details at last, most of it either nonsensical because there’s no context, or pulled straight from the Religion Is EVUL playbook for lazy authors who know nothing about religion.

With that done the congregants all cut themselves and bleed on the altar as well. Just how long did that take?? Oh, it actually says in the next line. “Some minutes”.

It took just a few minutes for god knows how many people to queue up, cut themselves, bleed, then move aside? The logistics here are absolutely ridiculous.

Paolini’s still not done with pounding it into our heads that this religion is EVIL, because now someone volunteers to cut something off and everyone gets all excited. Paolini continues to insult them by describing them as jumping around and yelling “as if they had taken leave of their senses”. Oh sure, go ahead and tell us how evil religion is, because it’s not as if your “heroes” constantly engage in mindless groupthink and thought-terminating cliches (“all of Alagaësia will fall into darkness!!”). Or that they and you believe that the people you claim to represent don’t know what’s good for them without you telling them like the morally superior people you are.

Eragon gets a bit excited too despite himself, because it’s apparently woken “some primal and brutish part of him”. Yeah, that would be your bloodlust and violent tendencies which have been on full display for some time now. You’re still in no position to be pointing fingers and making moral judgements, you nasty little bastard.

Okay, time to get on with it. I’ve been typing for at least half an hour and this chapter is nowhere near finished.

The acolyte (again, how does Eragon know what his role is?) strips, so cue a description of his sweaty muscles. How’s that closet suiting you, Eragon? All comfy in there?

Eragon watches as the guy cuts his own hand off with an overdescribed knife that will never appear again.

**~~essential story elements~~** : 2

Somehow he’s able to do this with one blow, without resting his wrist on something first. Now Eragon finally has a reaction, which is to wince and look away while thinking about how wrong this is.

Roran, meanwhile, just cusses and it’s somehow “lost in his beard”. Where’s that super hearing now, pray tell? And you just know this was Paolini thinking he cleverly slipped in the fact that the guy has a beard now.

It’s mentioned that they stop the guy’s bleeding with magic (HOW DOES ERAGON KNOW THAT’S WHAT THEY DID?), which they did not do with the High Priest/ess. Then they chain up a couple of slaves to the altar (HOW DOES ERAGON KNOW THEY’RE SLAVES?) and lay down some packages which will never be seen again, or become relevant.

Finally they all leave and Eragon is somehow able to see the now one-handed guy has “a beatific smile”. I think it’s pretty obvious Paolini has forgotten to separate the character from the narrator, and not for the first time.

Eragon rather casually remarks that he’s never seen anyone do anything that strange, and Roran just as casually calls them as bad as the Razzles before instantly moving on to asking if Eragon can find out if Katrina’s in the mountain and none of this will ever be mentioned again. It sure as hell won’t ever become relevant to the plot.

**~~essential story elements~~** : 3

This count is going to get really high, isn’t it? I mean, the last time I had a religious order who performed human sacrifices, guess what? One of the protagonists was ultimately captured by them and chosen to be the next sacrificial victim. So, y’know. Peril and stakes and scary stuff that’s actually important. But what would I know? I’m not a zillionaire bestseller with 1,000 special editions.

Eragon just blithely starts his mind probe so that means – what else – MORE flat emotionless description! Am I blessed or what? Oh, and with bonus infodumping about the Razzle Dazzles and their parents and how OMG SCARY AND DANGEROUS they are!!!11 with the breath weapon they never use again. And we also suddenly learn that there are people/creatures called “mindbreakers” who can fight with telepathy alone, right the fuck out of nowhere. Also the term “psychic probe” is used in all seriousness.

After that comes an infodump about Katrina, with an hilariously melodramatic description of how OMG INTENSE Roran is, so much so his emotions could melt cocks I mean rocks and yes that was a genuine typo I kept for the lulz.

We’re told Eragon understands, and we get ANOTHER big infodump about how the Razzle Dazzles took Katrina and then Roran “convinced” the entire village to leave with him and there were “many and terrible” hardships along the way. Yeah, right, sure there were. That’s why they wouldn’t quit whining about not getting comfy bunks on board a ship and bitching about food when they were supposedly on the run for their lives. That’s how people in massive peril behave, right?

Anyway, so we’re also told that Roran only succeeded because of the “strength of his passion” which drives him to “extremes that others feared” blah blah blah. If by that you mean he makes incredibly stupid decisions because he thinks he knows best, then yeah, I buy that. The only reason none of it got him killed or captured is because the author said so.

Now we’re told that Eragon has the same “fervor” which is patently not true. Nor is this next part true:

He would leap into harm’s way without the slightest regard for his own safety if someone he cared for was in danger.

Pardon me while I laugh myself stupid. This is the guy who stood there and did nothing when his friend Murtagh was abducted and instead made excuses before sending someone else. The guy who whined and insisted on staying in the mountains all night when Garrow was in danger just because his legs were injured. And later on when Saphira gets hurt he just ignores it and lets other people heal her for him.

Further blather ensues about how much Eragon loves Roran and now considers Katrina to be family since she’s engaged to the guy and how it’s extra important because he and Roran are the Last Of Their Line.

Um, what line? You two idiots are peasants. You’re not nobles, let alone royalty. If your line dies out, so fucking what? There’ll be a few less sociopaths in the country, big deal. On top of that Eragon also informs us that he’s disowned Murtagh as a brother. Because, you know, he really cares about his friends and family and Murtagh totally deserved that because… um…

Yeah, I got nothin’. Paolini just wants us to hate him now, I guess.

After that loveliness, the narrator tediously informs us that their other goal that “obsessed them” is revenge!, italics and exclamation mark not added. Because that’s just so heroic and noble, you guys. Seriously. There’s no mention of wanting to protect people from them – nope, they just want petty revenge, and not even for Brom and Garrow. Nope, just Garrow. Brom doesn’t even warrant a mention.

Finally (and I do mean finally), the two of them start talking again.

And now it’s time to bring up that thing I mentioned earlier that had been going on this entire scene.

The two of them.

In other words, where the fuck is Saphira? She’s supposed to be in Eragon’s mind so much they’re “more one mind than two” blah blah blah but not only is she not physically present but he hasn’t spoken to her, felt her in his mind, or even fucking thought about her. It’s like she just doesn’t exist. She’s not important. Just an accessory to be left back at camp.

This series is dragon-centric, right? I mean they are the main draw for fans, right?

So where the hell are they?

Eragon tells Roran he sensed Katrina in there and she’s not in any pain because author forbid one of the favoured characters actually get hurt (seriously, though, why has she not been tortured the way Sloan was?). He also sensed one other person – Sloan, obviously – who he doesn’t mention, but it troubles him greatly, apparently. Yeah, you can totally tell by his behaviour and mode of speech, can’t you?

Roran declares that they can’t fight them at night when they’re strongest, so better wait until dawn. Ah, yes, whereupon you will fight them in their own lair where it’s pitch dark. So, y’know, they still have the advantage. You’re a moron, Roran.

Even more distastefully, they’re going to use those poor slaves as their way of knowing if the Razzle Dazzles are around. If they’ve been eaten by morning the Razzle Dazzles are around so yay let’s go kill them. If not, then they’ll set them free and rescue Katrina while cursing “our bad luck that they escaped us”.

I want to make note of that. Look at Roran’s priorities here. His first priority isn’t rescuing the woman he supposedly loves. Nope, his first priority is killing the Razzle Dazzles, to the point that he’s happy to just leave her there for another night and abandon two innocent people to die horribly. All so he can have his petty revenge.

I’m not going to add a “THESE ARE THE HEROES?” count because it’d be redundant. We already know these horrible, small-minded people aren’t objectively heroic at all.

He also says he doubts the Razzle Dazzles will leave Katrina unguarded for long since Galby wants her alive to use against Roran. Which makes no sense because if she’d been taken for Galby to use rather than by the Razzle Dazzles just making their own decision, she’d be in Uru’Baen, not here miles out of Galby’s reach. Methinks the Razzles are actually keeping out of Galby’s way since they bungled the “kidnap Roran” job so spectacularly it might as well have been deliberate weaponised incompetence.

Eragon, typically, has no problem at all with leaving the slaves to die because oh if people see Saphira fighting the Lethrblaka in the open air Galby will get them! Because it’s not as if travel times and invisibility spells are a thing, after all. And guess what, Saphira fights one of them in the open air anyway, in broad daylight.

So in other words they’re letting these guys die for no reason other than their own personal convenience. Don’t you just want to, I don’t know, name your kids after these two?

And with that the slaves are forgotten forever as they return to camp with more overwritten description and the chapter ends.

This is, and I really can’t stress this enough, a terrible way to open any book. It’s something like 80% boring poorly written description, 15% infodumping and 5% horribly written stilted dialogue. There’s no action, no emotion, no characterisation, and nothing happens other than some over-the-top unnecessary gore that really shouldn’t be in a novel marketed to kids as young as nine.

It’s all style over substance, and the style ain’t good anyway.

And guess what? It gets even worse in the next chapter.

At least this one is over so I can go do something less painful and more fun, like stabbing myself in the lungs with a spork.

Comments

[epistler]

They just, as in your example, had actual reasons they did it (and if you're dealing with a setting where the gods are a very real and active presence, "your god(s) want it" can be a perfectly workable reason!

This reminds me of the time I asked a Jewish friend hey, is there an explanation as to why you're not allowed to eat pork? The answer was nope. It's just "Because god says so" and that's the only reason needed.

Paolini has shown little understanding of religion in general, and certainly doesn't seem to have put much thought into this one.

He really doesn't seem to understand why people feel the need for it in their lives, other than shallow lip service about being reunited with dead loved ones. I myself haven't ever really felt the need for religious faith in my own life, but if I did I know what I'd be hoping to get from it, and that's the sense that there's more to this existence of ours than just surviving day after day and eventually dying.

I've seen it said that it's much harder for a cis person to understand what it's like to be trans than it is for, say, a straight person to understand what it's like to be gay, and I'd be inclined to tentatively agree

I'd say you're likely right on the money there. As a cis person I haven't the faintest idea what it feels like to know you aren't what the body you were born into makes you appear to be. I've had to draw on accounts from trans people when I've written trans characters myself (it seems it worked; I showed one of my works that had a trans lady in it to a real trans lady, who immediately connected with the character above all the rest. We all know Paolini wouldn't even do the showing part because he always thinks he's automatically right).

the Fractalverse itself has so far been one of the least interesting SF settings I think I've ever encountered.

Ugh, tell me about it. It's so flat and boring and empty! I mean ye gods! When I wrote those spitefics I had to make up a bunch of stuff more or less from scratch because there was nothing in canon worth revisiting!

it was such a rare skill that even if you grab Joe Average Peasant off his farm and give him a crash course in reading and writing, you've still given him access to sources of knowledge that 90% or more of people in his society won't have, and that's going to fundamentally change his perspective!

Oh yeah, absolutely, plus books were super slow and expensive to make back then, of course (I'm also making this comment for the benefit of anyone who might be reading this exchange; you probably already know this stuff!). What was one thing that completely changed the old social order in the UK? People becoming literate and going to university. If you keep the people ignorant, then you control what is and is not true and making them do your bidding - or at least, not argue with you because they don't know any better - is super easy.

Controlling education and literacy is FAR more dangerous a tool than a lot of people realise. I note that Eragon is only "allowed" to read books that are specifically given to him, and before that he wasn't allowed to read period. Even though Brom could have taught him if Garrow wouldn't, and had plenty of books just lying around (what the hell even happened to those? Surely someone looted the guy's house in the end; those books would've been enough to make the person selling them rich).