Eldest Spork Parts Thirty-Eight and Thirty-Nine

[epistler]

Chapter Thirty-Eight: In Which Eragon Is Farted On

The next chapter returns to Eragon, and opens with him being farted on. Or so I’m assuming since he gets woken up by “a blast of ravening wind”. As it turned out Saphira had stuck her butt in his face and let fly, as cats like to do.

Or maybe there’s a big ole storm going on. Did nobody see this coming? Don’t the elves have weather forecast spells, or a barometer, or at the very least a lookout? Especially so given that this thing sounds like a goddamn hurricane; it’s powerful enough to make the entire tree Ergs is in sway – you know, the tree so big it has a multi-room house in it large enough for an elephant-sized dragon to move around in. Also the sky is “black with thunderheads”.

Thunderheads are white, you moron.

We then get a big dramatic deal made out of Ergs trying to close a window, and Saphira lets him use her tail as a handrail. So apparently she’s a utility knife as well as a flying taxi. Naturally this being an elfy window, closing it instantly fixes everything and Ergs takes a moment to Sue praise the elves for making such cool stuff. Then he has to go and close the window in the study as well, whereupon his back randomly flares up again and he keels over. He wakes up some time later and finds out that Saphira has gotten stuck in the staircase trying to get to him. Eragon being Eragon he finds all this very amusing and laughs at her.

There’s a time and place for comic relief, and this isn’t it, but we get more of it anyway. Ergs manages to help Saphira wriggle out of the staircase, and sees she’s destroyed all the décor, which provokes her to say “oops”.

The big fearsome dragon just said “oops”.

*facepalm*

Ergs then makes an unfunny joke about how the elves love Saphira so much (WHY) that they’d “sing dwarf love ballads night and day if you asked them to”.
 

Then Saphira tells him to go to bed which he does, end chapter. Well that was pointless.

 

Chapter Thirty-Nine: How To Rationalise Your Slaughter

The chapter opens with – what else? – Ergy waking up. This time he’s woken up by the – sigh – elf alarm clock, which is randomly referred to as a “bauble”. He’s all stiff and sore, and for some reason he has a sore throat. Why? He hasn’t been doing any yelling that I’ve noticed. He mentally angsts about how he’s going to have another back spasm sooner or later, and then Saphira shows up and acts like his pet doggy, nuzzling and licking his face.
 

Pictured: Not a dragon.

Y’know, with the barbed tongue that can strip meat off the bone. Or am I the only one who remembers that?

While Ergy is in the shower he gets a mental phone call from Oromis telling him to bring his sword with him today. He and Saphira fly to the usual spot, and once the dragons have flown off together Oromis asks Ergy how he’s doing. On being told that The Back has been causing problems he more or less says that’s too bad and then moves on. Weren’t you guys supposed to be looking for a way to do something about that?

Instead Oromis goes and gets his sword and says they’re going to spar. Ergs has a moment of genuine-sounding courage as he’s nervous about sparring with Oromis but then tells himself that this is what it means to be a rider. Facing your fears? Well maybe it is. That is until it becomes about lording it over the plebs and amassing as much personal power as possible.

He and Oromis start going at it, and right away he knows the old guy is better than him, as much so as Arya and Durza. So… when Brom told the kid he was one of the three best swordsjerks alive that was a total lie? Oh, what am I saying – Brom lied about everything. Screw that guy.

We’re assured that Ergy is “an exemplary human swordsman” (sure he is), but Oromis is beyond perfect. Yet again we get a bunch of description comparing him to various animals, specifically a cat (no surprises there), a heron and a weasel. And apparently he’s “glorious in action”. Christ, just get down on one knee and propose to him already, why don’t you?

Eventually Oromis starts having one of his fits, and Ergy decides to be a douche and take advantage of it, but only ends up having one of his own little spasms and collapses. He wakes up lying in the mud, and the first thing he does on getting up is mentally whinge about how his new clothes are all dirty. Yeah, because the guy who grew up on a farm digging crops and such would totally have a problem with mud. Saphira frets about how he can’t carry on like this and Ergs snarls at her to get back to her lesson. He then gets up and spits out some blood.

Meanwhile Oromis… just sits there and watches. Seriously?! The Last Hope of Algaelab is lying there having an epileptic fit, possibly in danger of choking on his own vomit, and he just hangs around doing nothing? Literally all he does is blandly ask Ergy if he “require[s] healing”. Eragon nonsensically says no when the answer is clearly yes, and then Oromis blithely sends him off to meditate some more. This guy is the worst teacher ever.

Ergs meditates anyway, and entertains self-pitying “noble” thoughts about how he’d better just get used to having random back spasms because it’s not going to change anytime soon. This would make him look stoic if anybody had made the slightest effort to fix it, himself included, but nobody has. Ergy himself decided the only solution was whining and sulking pretty much the moment it started happening. So this just comes off as so much cheap fishing for sympathy.

He watches the ants for a while, then tries to watch everything at once as he’s been told but finds it too overwhelming. Clearly Paolini discovered mindfulness or something like it around the time he was writing this. For those who aren’t in the know, mindfulness is a mental health exercise which involves bringing your thoughts into the present moment and exercising awareness of first yourself and then your surroundings. Done properly it can be a really good technique for dealing with stress, anxiety and depression, which is why I provided links for anyone who might benefit from it. Here, I’m not sure what the point is. Other than showing off that Paolini is fascinated with ants and desperately trying to look “deep”.

Ergs psychically witnesses an Epic Ant Battle against a spider, and eventually returns to Oromis, who asks him what he’s learned and then says it’s not enough and Ergy needs to try harder. He also makes the preposterous claim that Eragon is “intelligent and persistent” when we all know he’s dumber than a box of hammers and his favourite hobby is giving up and throwing a tantrum. Oromis adds that Ergs has “the potential to be a great Rider” as long as he finds peace within himself, etc. If being “a great Rider” constitutes being a merciless tyrant, yeah, he’s definitely going to get there. Otherwise, no.

Ergs claims that he’s doing his best, and Oromis says no he isn’t and he could really use another student to compete with. Then he randomly gets out a loaf of bread and some “hazelnut butter”, which instantly had me thinking of Nutella.
 

It's literally just sugary chocolate paste, but they tried their damnedest to convince my generation that it was "healthy". That must be why kids and the recently dumped took to eating it by the spoonful.

He also serves up some vegetable stew, which causes Ergy to mentally bitch yet again about not getting any meat or fish.

To his slight credit he keeps it to himself and instead asks why he’s being told to meditate, and Oromis says it’s because his students – and especially the lame pathetic stoopid hoomins – always need to be taught to use their brains instead of just their muscles, and that he has to understand the “full implications” of using magic.

Ergy asks what he means by that, so Oromis asks him to imagine that he’s Galby. Empathy? From Eragon? Not going to happen. He asks what Ergy would do if he was in Galby’s place. Crush his enemies, see them driven before him and hear the lamentations of their women would be my guess. Ergy says he’d train a group of magicians and get them to infiltrate the Varden and act as assassins and saboteaurs. Sensible enough. Oromis asks him why Galby hasn’t done that (how do you know he hasn’t?) and Ergs says because Surda wasn’t of interest to him until lately. Now the Varden is there, maybe he will go ahead with it. Oromis agrees and then explains how it’s possible to kill another magic user without taking control of their mind if you know how. But you have to be able to identify them first. Hence he’s trying to teach Ergy to sense every mind around him at once, so he’ll identify potential magical assassins before they strike. Sensible enough, except that it never comes up again after this book.

Eragon points out that reading people’s minds is a pretty immoral thing to do, and that Brom told him not to do it, adding that he’s not comfortable with prying into people’s secret thoughts. Oromis more or less says yeah, it’s an invasion of privacy but that’s okay because it’s “for your own good”. Ah yes, the old “for your own good” argument parents and health professionals are so fond of. He also says that doing it will teach him how to understand other people and will encourage him to have empathy and compassion.

HAHAHAHAHAH!

*takes a deep breath*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

God this is ironic. Because as we all know, after this whole elven training thing is over and done with Ergs is going to become an unfeeling monster who doesn’t give a shit about who he hurts and has no problem mind-raping Sloan. Not to mention all those soldiers he’s going to mind-rape and kill at the climactic battle at this end of this book without so much as a flicker of remorse. “Compassion and empathy” my butt.

Anyway, moving on, Oromis asks him what the most important “mental tool” is. Ergs says “determination”, and Oromis says yeah nah, because determination alone doesn’t stop you from being an idiot. Try again.

Ergy then proceeds to overthink the question by looking at it as if it’s a riddle, and we learn in passing that Carp Hat has an “annual riddle contest”. My what exciting lives those peasants must lead. He also thinks about how he’s not good at riddles because he tends to think too “literally”, which is a result of “Garrow’s practical upbringing”.

If Ergy had a “practical upbringing”, why is he so impractical and why does he act like hard work is something for other people to worry about? Not buying it.

He eventually guesses “wisdom”, and is told yeah nah again – it’s “logic. Or, to put it another way, the ability to reason analytically”. What the hell is this pretentious Vulcan blather doing in a fantasy novel? It just gets worse and more out of place as Ergy starts arguing about ethics, and yes he actually uses that word. Oromis then proceeds to go on about how history is full of people who did awful things because they were convinced they were right, and… shitting hell, they’re literally talking about Future Eragon. Get a load of this: 

“History provides us with numerous examples of people who were convinced that they were doing the right thing and committed terrible crimes because of it.” ~ Exhibit A: Eragon and the Varden, who commit every wartime atrocity under the sun but that’s okay because they’re the Good Guys.

“Keep in mind, Eragon, that no one thinks of himself as a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong.” ~Exhibit A: Eragon and the Varden, who always assume they chose right, never consider that they might be on the wrong side, and never extend this consideration to the so-called bad guys.

“Logic will never fail you, unless you’re unaware of—or deliberately ignore—the consequences of your deeds.” ~Exhibit A: Eragon and what he did to Sloan after reasoning it out “logically”, thus condemning the guy to a fate worse than death.

 

Anyway, so then Oromis starts training Ergs in logic by way of debate. The question he picks is “why do you fight the Empire?”

Eragon, still sounding like a completely different character, claims that he’s fighting to help “those who suffer from Galbatorix’s rule”. And who are they, exactly? Who is Galby harming who isn’t actively on the Varden’s side? Well? Hello? I’m waiting, I can wait all day if necessary.

But of course we aren’t given any actual examples.

His other motive, naturally, is “personal vengeance”, but Oromis ignores this and asks him if he fights for “humanitarian reasons”.

Oh for fuck’s sake! You know what, I found the dialogue in Lord of the Rings annoying because it just read as too self-consciously “ye oldemedieval speak” to me, but at least it fit the setting! Can you imagine if those characters talked like this instead?

 

‘You see, Mr Frodo, we are required to do this for humanitarian reasons, and for a lesser extent for personal vengeance,’ declared Sam.

‘We must approach this using the most important mental tool, which is logic,’ reasoned Aragorn. ‘Alas!’

‘Define normal,’ snarked Smaug.

(Yes, I know Smaug isn’t in LoTR; I couldn’t think of any named dragons after The Hobbit).

Oromis then points out that the war to get rid of Galby will cause more suffering than it will prevent and that most people in the Empire are perfectly happy, so how can he justify invading them and killing their friends and family? This causes Eragon to fly off the handle, as he mentally tantrums about how “Galbatorix was evil” and then gets pissy at Oromis for making him think. What are you, six?

Oromis just tells him to go off and have a think about it, and come back with a convincing answer. Needless to say, said answer won’t involve finding ways to just kill Galby without hurting anyone else along the way. Because, you know, then we could wrap the whole series up in two books because it’s not as if all this training and getting a new sword and overseeing the dwarf election and becoming a half elf and all the rest of it is going to make a blind bit of difference when the final confrontation eventually limps into the picture.

End chapter. I’m annoyed.