Inheritance Spork: Chapter Thirty-Four: AND THE WALLS FELL...

[pangolin20]

Lulzy wrote in Antishurtugal, 2012-05-24 16:11:00

MOOD: bouncy

Inheritance Spork: Chapter Thirty-Four: AND THE WALLS FELL...

Here we are with chapter 34, also known as "And the Walls Fell..." ...Sure it sounds cool, but I would much prefer it if there had been actual walls falling in this chapter... and that ellipsis for DRAMAH... is bloody annoying!

Last time, the Varden was attacking Dras-Leona, and Eragon, Arya, Angela and Solembum (aka Kitty) were going to open the gate form the inside. Blödhgarm (aka Fabio) - disguised as Eragon - & Saphira were fighting Murtagh & Thorn.

Here we go, then. (Bolding is quotes. [...] is where I cut out unimportant parts of the quotes.)


The sound of crashing masonry caused Eragon to pause and look back.

There is something terribly wrong in the description of, well, everything in this series. It's always useless details like Nasuada's rags - er, far-too-expensive-sounding ballgowns - or this. Here we get a "sound of crashing masonry." What does that sound like? Was it loud? Quiet? Thunderous? Give me some clues, dammit. An onomatopoeia, even.

Saphira has destroyed teh EBIL cathedral. Eragon praises the dragons in general for spreading chaos and destruction. Some baby didn't get all the toys he wanted. =<

If that wasn't enough, there's more proof Eragon is a sociopath. He claims he never promised the novice dude to go any distance together, and has Arya drop the guy in an alleyway. "Oh, this UNCONSCIOUS PERSON can 'find his own way' when there are DRAGONS FIGHTING, because he's 'a fair distance' away from said fight! See how I justify my flaming pants?!"

Sociopathy is contagious, else Eragon was projecting that Arya was "relieved to be rid of [the novice's] weight". Yeah, you're looking real nice now, sweetheart.

They run, and there's those same leaning buildings mentioned in the first visit three books and ten gazillion words ago. I know nothing of architecture, but wouldn't they be dangerous? The Leaning Tower of Pizza Pisa is periodically reworked so it doesn't fall over and squish tourists - I doubt people in Paoland have the knowledge to do that.

A flicker of movement [...] caught Eragon's attention, but whatever caused it had vanished by the time he looked. Yes, the werecats are following him in a massive meowing kitty caboodle. No, they never do anything, so why Paolini even bothered to mention them is beyond me.

They find hundreds of soldiers at the gate. And... The golden thread stitched onto the soldiers' crimson tunics glittered as they rushed to and fro. That's some damn sparkly thread. But the question is... was it made from vampire cotton?

There's rubble in front of the gate. Eragon calls out to Saphira. Yeah, she can totally leave the fight right now and won't lead teh EBIL to them at all. Before he can say more, a soldier spots them.

"SUES! SUES IN OUR CITY!"

Eragon, as per the Hero Code, doesn't think about running headlong into a fight, and instead whips out his phallus symbol. He had no other choice. To retreat would be to abandon the Varden to the mercies of the Empire.

Oh, dumbbutt. Claiming to be citizens and ambushing the soldiers later is much smarter than revealing your position should a soldier escape. And they will. Hundreds, remember.

Besides, he could not leave Saphira to deal with both the wall and the soldiers by herself.

THEN YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE CALLED HER. She's bringing more trouble with her, right on top of the Varden to boot. Damn, I'll need hair transplants by the time I'm done with this.

Eragon and Arya charge ...and leave Angela and Kitty in their gold-crapping dust. Maybe they've run off because there's no mention of them now. Not for a while, and they don't talk in this chapter. Are they here for the scenery?

The two people Paolini cares about are fast, for the men were so bewildered, several did not seem to realize Eragon was their foe until he had stabbed them. This is what being a soldier mook will do, ladies n gents: make you unable to comprehend being attacked.

Then there's (phallic) stabbing. Even with elfy strength, stabbing is much more likely to get your sword stuck than, say, slashing, as most swords are meant to do. But it's for Eragon's meat complex, so it's in!

Eragon spins and slices the solders surrounding him with the phallus symbol. Then... *sporks out eyes* Oh my dear God... The phallus symbol is like a rainbow... a rainbow that slices through people like butter... blood comes out in ribbons not splatters and turns perfectly spherical, defying physics... it's like "coral," which is a pinkish-yellow color... were these guys diseased or what... the soldiers are trying to "hold closed" their guts... damn that grammar felt wrong...

Eragon notices flaws in a soldier's clothes. Not, y'know, the GORE. But- but flaws! His prolonged exsanguination doesn't matter! Eragon stops his slo-mo spin at last. He moves to kill the soldier... or is it gloat? Maybe ~JAZZ HANDS~? Not clear.

Saphira flies over. Thorn follows, "flames boiling [in his mouth]". The part of me that remembers the torture of high school Chemistry cringes.

The dragons go past the wall. Eragon hears a cheer, so the Varden must be close. He and Arya decide to use magic (which they should have done in the first place) even though they are exhausted. Eragon realizes rather belatedly that nothing is working. Then Murtagh's voice boomed out of the sky, like the voice of a cloud-scraping giant: "Those men are under my protection, Brother!"

WUT. If they had been smart and tried to check the soldiers for wards - say, with a small subtle spell or something - this would not have happened. They know that the soldiers might be protected. Eragon even wondered in chapter one if Murtagh was the one going around warding them. So stupid.

Soldiers come out of the woodwork. We see Angela and Kitty again, doing a marvelous job at doing diddly squat. Okay, I'll give Angela a bit of credit, she's throwing vials at them, releasing green stuff. Any soldiers caught in the miasma fell to the ground, clutching their throats and thrashing as little brown mushrooms sprang up on every inch of exposed skin.

Lovely. More thesaurus rape. It sounds cool, sure, but "fumes" is pretty cool too and doesn't make you sound obnoxious.

Kitty's clawing at faces, distracting them as they attempted to close with the herbalist. Um... Angela has her back against the same wall that Kitty's on, so unless all these dudes are wielding daggers, they can stand a great deal farther away, especially with the spears, to kill Angela and never get a scratch at all. So... Gum-Gum Fruit? I got nuttin.

Thorn swoops down, and Arya is sane. She wants to leave. But if they fled, the Varden would be no better off than before. [...] after another few days [...] the men would begin to desert. Once that happened, Eragon knew they would never again succeed in uniting all the races against Galbatorix.

Therefore, it is better to DIE. To DIE as the last "good" Dragon Rider, and with you will DIE all hope of ever defeating Galby at all. With you will DIE freedom.

Attempt to care about the plot aside, this is really, really dumb. I equate uniting the races to having a Magikarp on your Wi-Fi double battle team. In this case, the werecats are, collectively, the Magikarp. They might have the potential to be awesome, but realistically you'd have to stick around a loooooong time to get anything worthwhile. And by then you could have a CHARIZARD.

Back to bad fantasy. Arya's tugging on Eragon to get him to run. She should be knocking him out and dragging him out of there. Arya pulled harder, forcing Eragon to look down in order to stay on his feet. I'd dig my heels in, spit in her face. As he did, his eye fell on the third finger of his right hand, where he wore Aren. Makes me wonder if the jewelry ex machina could have involved flipping the soldiers off. That would be better than this.

Ring exposition. Thorn is still swooping. Eragon thinks the dragon is a monster, which implies that a small part (or maybe the rest of him too) thinks Saphira, his "mind-partner"... is a monster. Huh. Anyway, Eragon uses the ring. He lifts the pile of stuff blocking the gates, it hits Thorn (he's flung over the wall and far away), and it hovers over half the city. Then he waits until the ring juice is nearly gone to drop it in the lake. Stupid. Move the damn rock faster, and you'll have some juice left to zap Galby, dumbbutt.

The Varden gets in, but oh noes! Arya's being kidnapped! Eragon runs (in slo-mo of course), but loses\ his phallic symbol. He deliberates saving Arya or his manhood. Then the soldiers stab her with their own phallic symbols, and I guess he figures he should stop compensating for something because he starts slow-running again.

Eragon saves the girl, but not before a soldier with a pair of waxed mustachios stabbed at Eragon's chest. Wait. A "mustachio" means, simply, mustache. Does this guy have two mustaches? One on top of the other? Does he have two heads, each with it's own waxed mustachio?!

With this question, and others, swimming in the Inheirtance sewage in my mind, I read on, with many sporks in each hand, of which I have five.

Battle ends. Phallic symbol is still there - shame no one stole it - and Saphira and Fabio come over. Eragon [...] immediately decided that he disliked how his hair curled at the temples.

SEE!? I'M NOT PERFECT! I'M NOOOT-- Oh gods, quit whining.

Fabio's back to hott n goffic. He's sad about the dead dude. The amethyst spike one. Remember him? (It was long ago and far away/The world was younger than today...)

Oh look Thorn's back! Now he's whole and sound once more and balancing on a column of air high above.

Murtagh shouts some stuff. "I'll get you my pretty - er, Brother - and your little dragon too!" Then they fly away and I can finally get the brainbleach. Don't want to waste a drop, you know.
Are we not using tags anymore? /confuzzled

59 comments

[1]

mage_apprentice
May 25 2012, 00:53:03 UTC
Eragon [...] immediately decided that he disliked how his hair curled at the temples.
. . . Why was that relevant? Never mind, it's Paolini. That question gets asked all the time.

[1A]

likelolwhat
May 25 2012, 01:10:02 UTC
Blod-whatsit was magically disguised as Eragon at the time, so I guess it was akin to that old writers trope of having a character pass a mirror and reflect (...heh) on their looks. So now we know that Eragon has a physical flaw. Or something. *shrug*

[1A1]

mage_apprentice
May 25 2012, 01:15:56 UTC
Still clashes with the mood. I mean, Eragon's in the middle of a battle and Paolini decides that right then is the time to make such observations about Eragon's looks?

[1A1A]

likelolwhat
May 25 2012, 01:20:06 UTC
Technically it was the aftermath. It's still an utterly useless detail though. I don't care how curly his locks are either.

[1A1B]

lady_licht
May 25 2012, 03:19:08 UTC Edited: May 25 2012, 03:19:47 UTC
If he was a better author one could argument that in extraordinary situations like this you sometimes pay attention to the most trival things. Making observations or statements like that in the middle of a stressful scene can be awesome - if you know what you're doing and don't just throw it in because you don't know any better. And that's the precise feeling I get quite often when reading something Paolini wrote. Maybe I'm doing him wrong. But that's how it is.

[1A1B1]

torylltales
May 25 2012, 12:59:00 UTC
I think it sits perfectly with the Eragon Is A Sociopath theory. Surrounded by dead bodies, the stench of carnage and the wailing of the survivors, and the most important thing in Eragon's mind is him fussing about his appearance? Textbook symptom of social dysfunction if nothing else.

[1A1B2]

Anonymous
May 28 2012, 16:23:12 UTC
I think I know what you're talking about, but could you cite an example? I'd like to take a closer look at how it's done.

[1A1B2A]

lady_licht
May 29 2012, 09:17:53 UTC Edited: May 29 2012, 09:19:41 UTC
I’d have to look it up. It’s been a while since I read something like that and I don’t exactly remember where. I’ll get back to you as soon as I come across another example.
One that isn’t exactly what I meant is one girl in “The Death of Kitty Genovese” being murdered in front of her own house. Inside her two children are sleeping. She’s being shot and her murderer is not only going to kill her, he’s about to rape her as well. After the first shots she sank down in front of him and a) bothers about sitting there awkwardly and b) really bothers about her ass getting cold, since she’s sitting in the snow. She then asks him to take her inside.
It’s a very intense scene (and a terrible book (in a good sense), I mentioned that earlier.)
As I only own the German version a quote probably wouldn't help you..

I’ve been thinking and maybe Eragons reaction is accidently absolutely right. Considering what he’s been through and in what kind of situation he’s currently in. There’s something called centralization (in fact, I have no idea if it’s called that in English as well). Basically it tightens a person’s focus of empathy, reduces things and people that are important, feelings and thoughts, things to care for and bother about to a minimum, for example during emotionally highly stressful situations such as war. A professor gave the example of a soldier being angry about losing his cigarettes while he tried to rescue a fallen comrade. He had to leave the comrade eventually, to save his own hide. He later tells someone about it, mentions as a side note how people he knew and fought alongside with died, how he had to give up on said comrade – and the only thing that matters is that he lost his cigarettes.

[1A2]

Anonymous
May 25 2012, 03:35:22 UTC
Oh mercy me, his hair *curls at the temples*! No doubt he looks like an incandescent pointy-eared sword-weilding cherub! One can only hope that his chiseled jaw has sufficient strength to counteract this unfortunate trait.

[2]

borgseawolf
May 25 2012, 08:35:50 UTC
I call your two mustachios and raise three.


[2A]

predak123
May 25 2012, 17:56:46 UTC
It's pictures like these that really make me wish I was capable of growing facial hair. *sigh*

[2B]

loth440
May 25 2012, 18:53:45 UTC
I use this pic for my Steam avatar, and the name "Sir Mushroom of Gravy".

[3]

Anonymous
May 25 2012, 09:34:24 UTC
"after another few days [...] the men would begin to desert. Once that happened, Eragon knew they would never again succeed in uniting all the races against Galbatorix."
I love how dedicaced the vardens are.Clearly each man is guided by an overwhelming thirst for justice and awareness of the empire's evil. "we just stick around as long as we are winning"

[3A]

lady_licht
May 25 2012, 11:32:24 UTC
They obviously are. Considering how moronic their leaders are... I would have deserted right away!

[3A1]

torylltales
May 25 2012, 13:00:31 UTC
I'd personally prefer to dessert, but that might be the sugar withdrawal talking.

[4]

syntinen_laulu
May 25 2012, 11:03:52 UTC
It sounds truly terrible – incidentally, who was that novice dude who Eragon and Arya have promised to look after but just decide to ditch? But I think your horror has led you to be unfair to CP in several places.


Here we get a "sound of crashing masonry." What does that sound like? Was it loud? Quiet? Thunderous? Give me some clues, dammit. An onomatopoeia, even.

Didn’t the word ‘crashing’ give you a clue? (Personally I think I’d have written ‘The crash of falling masonry’, but IMHO anybody should be able to figure out that the "sound of crashing masonry" sounds like, well, a loud crash.


They run, and there's those same leaning buildings mentioned in the first visit three books and ten gazillion words ago. I know nothing of architecture, but wouldn't they be dangerous?

Nope. The centres of the ancient towns of Britain are full of medieval timber-framed buildings that lean out into the street at mad angles, and have been doing so quite securely for centuries; here are some. (I have put a space in each of the URLs which I hope will prevent LJ thinking this post is spam.)

http://www. flickr.com/photos/richardandgill/242557121/
http://www. flickr.com/photos/richardandgill/3707607010/
http://www .beenthere-donethat.org.uk/lavenham2.html

BTW, if anybody wants to know why they lean like that I can explain.


stabbing is much more likely to get your sword stuck than, say, slashing, as most swords are meant to do.

Actually some swords are meant only for slashing, some only for stabbing, some for both. ‘Point versus edge?’ is a very old debate (the British Army was arguing over it right up to the final redundance of the cavalry charge in WWI. Do we know what Eragon’s sword actually looks like?


A "mustachio" means, simply, mustache. Does this guy have two mustaches?

No, it doesn’t. It means “A growth of hair on either side of a man's upper lip, forming one half of a moustache. Thus, it is always used in the plural, as here, unless you really are talking only about one side of the moustache, e.g. you could say ‘one mustachio singed by a match’. Granted, the idea of waxed mustachios doesn’t really fit a sword-and-sorcery setting – it’s a 17th / 19th / early 20th century thing – but as a phrase it’s correct.

[4A]

lady_licht
May 25 2012, 11:36:19 UTC
Somebody wants to know. Please, do explain. :)

[4A1]

syntinen_laulu
May 25 2012, 13:52:21 UTC
Okay, here goes.

Houses like that were constructed with a timber frame infilled with wattle-and-daub, flint, brick, or whatever was available in your region. The timber of choice in Britain was oak.

Now: these days when builders use oak they use timber which has been well seasoned - left to lie and dry out after cutting for several years. This makes it stable in use; it will not warp or shrink. However, the longer it is seasoned the harder oak gets, till it’s almost impossible to cut at all. (This process continues for centuries. My brother was once given a baulk of oak excavated by archaeologists from the Roman waterfront of London, and wanted to make a dining table top out of it; it was so hard he eventually had to take it to a quarry to be cut and polished with stonecutting machinery – woodworking tools made no impression on it at all.)

So medieval builders used an opposite approach from the modern way. They selected timbers that were naturally the shape they needed – straight, curved, crooked - and used them as soon after felling as possible, so the wood was still full of sap and easy to cut. For opposing pairs of posts, beams and rafters they would if possible use two halves of the same tree split down the middle. The timbers were mostly slotted into each other with joints, and anywhere they had to be fastened together this was done not with iron nails but ‘treenails’ – oaken pegs.

The result of this was that as the timber dried out and shrank, instead of gaping apart the frame clenched itself more firmly together. If it warped, the twinned timber would all warp the same way, and the natural grain of the wood was able to flex, so that the whole thing could twist itself wildly out of true without any danger of the frame falling to bits or breaking apart. These houses look wonky but actually they are amazingly stable and organic structures.

Adding to the whole leaning-over-and-about-to-fall-on-your-head appearance was the custom of ‘jettying’. This was a way of adding to the space of your upper storey by making it project out over the ground floor. You can see some modest jetties in those pictures of Canterbury and Lavenham, but it was often much more pronounced. When the third storey was jettied as well, as medieval streets were often not that wide to begin with it wasn’t that rare for people living on either side of the street to be able to shake hands from their top floor windows.

[4A1A]

predak123
May 25 2012, 17:59:17 UTC
You're fascinating, you know that?

[4A1A1]

ephemeraldeep
May 25 2012, 18:01:02 UTC
Agreed! : D

[4A1A1A]

syntinen_laulu
May 27 2012, 18:00:12 UTC
Why, thank you all very much!

[4A1B]

lady_licht
May 27 2012, 03:50:27 UTC
Why do you know such things?

[4A1B1]

syntinen_laulu
May 27 2012, 17:58:25 UTC
I did a degree in British medieval archaeology. Also, I've visited and stayed in many houses like that. I once visited a 15th-century farmhouse that had become so dilapidated that it had needed to be stripped down to its timber frame in order to be restored. The original structure had been treated over the centuries with amazing insouciance. Gaps had been knocked through the walls to provide entrances to new wings without any supporting lintels being put in; beams had been chopped three-quarters through in the process - and then had their loading added to by extra storeys and brick chimney stacks. And the structure had coped with it all. I'm full of admiration for those builders, how well they understood and utilised the natural properties of wood. I mentioned that piece of oak my brother got from the Roman waterfront of London. The Romans really knew brick and stone best, and their wharf was built of hundreds of the most massive timbers, all squared off beautifully and used just as you would use blocks of stone. Insanely prodigal of wood. The medieval wharf, which also survived as it had been built in front of it, used unsquared timbers of about a quarter the diameter, if so much. The medieval builders knew what the flexible strength of wood-grain was, and knew how to exploit it.

[4A1B1A]

lady_licht
May 29 2012, 09:30:25 UTC
That explains a lot!

Would you mind if I put you on my "people to ask about..."- list?

[4A1B1A1]

syntinen_laulu
May 29 2012, 21:50:08 UTC
Feel free!

[4A1B1A1A]

Anonymous
August 23 2012, 22:03:08 UTC
More like CP saw houses like that in FABLE II, and decided to copy it.

- Blackmanga.

[4A1B1A1A1]

syntinen_laulu
August 24 2012, 08:50:40 UTC
Yes, or just picked up the phrase from someone else's book and thought 'that sounds cool and threatening'. I' m not suggesting that he actually knows anything about European medieval town buildings!

My point really was that we often slag off Paolini for phrases and things that are actually perfectly genuine, simply because we instinctively know that he himself doesn't really understand them and that they aren't a natural part of his language. I don't believe that Kayla would object if Tolkien, for example, had used the phrase 'leaning buildings' (of Bree, for example, which I for one have always envisaged with jettied English medieval houses). Or the words 'cabochon' and rutabaga', both of which ahve been objected to here in this comm. That's because when we read Tolkien we are (rightly) convinced that he either knows or has coherently imagined the things he's telling us about, and is using his own natural vocabulary to describe them

[4B]

mage_apprentice
May 25 2012, 12:52:42 UTC
Actually some swords are meant only for slashing, some only for stabbing, some for both. ‘Point versus edge?’ is a very old debate (the British Army was arguing over it right up to the final redundance of the cavalry charge in WWI. Do we know what Eragon’s sword actually looks like?

Eragon's sword is a longsword (despite the fact that Paolini featured it being forged via katana-forging techniques). I took a look and it seems like whether the longsword is used for slicing/cutting/slashing or thrusting really depends on the technique style Eragon learned and what kind of armor his opponent is wearing. For example, if Eragon's enemy is wearing full-plated armor, slices are ineffective and could damage the sword (if he was using a normal sword) and thrusts would be preferable.

[4B1]

torylltales
May 25 2012, 13:14:18 UTC
On the other hand, there is no sword design (except perhaps for some of the more radically-curved designs in the shamshir/talwar/pulwar family) that forbid one or the other attack. Straight swords can be used for slashing or slicing, and curved swords can be used for stabbing. It's a matter of style and circumstance.

And slashing can get your sword just as stuck as stabbing, if you bury it in the muscle. Certain theories say that the fuller ('blood groove') was designed to make it easier to pull a stuck sword out (something about vacuum and suction); some Chinese swords are pierced with rings along the unsharpened back edge, potentially for pulling the blade out with the other hand (as well as many other proposed purposes, from making a scary sound to blunting the enemy's blade).

[4B1A]

predak123
May 25 2012, 18:01:12 UTC
I thought it was pretty certain that fullers were to help lighten and strengthen the sword?

[4B1A1]

mage_apprentice
May 25 2012, 18:30:42 UTC
Multiple purposes, I suppose.

[4B2]

venusrain
May 25 2012, 22:41:19 UTC
See, I can forgive the forging technique used to make Eragon's sword, because folding came about as a way to make decent weaponry out of really, really, really crappy steel. The issue is more in other details of the blade's construction, most of which I can't really talk about because I don't remember it well.

[4B2A]

torylltales
May 26 2012, 00:48:35 UTC
Except that they were using pure space-metal, and I would assume swordsmith-elf wouldn't deign to use crappy steel for a Rider's Sword. So the folding doesn't really add anything

Besides, for a two-edged sword, weaving or twisting is a much more appropriate technique, as the Japanese folding technique pretty much forces a curved shape due to the lopsided warping of the metal grain. The Celtic style of braiding would produce a straighter, balanced blade capable of supporting two edges.

[4B2A1]

predak123
May 26 2012, 03:25:50 UTC
Are you talking about pattern welding? Pattern welding is gorgeous stuff! <3

[4B2A2]

venusrain
May 26 2012, 07:21:57 UTC
...But. But. The only thing you can definitively say about the composition of iron meteorites is "yep that sure is mostly iron". Yeah, that's good for a civilization that doesn't have access to the tech for making not-terrible iron alloys themselves, but from what i remember the tech level in Inheritance would allow for making steel that wasn't terrible on their own. You can't have "pure space-metal", because space-metal doesn't exist except as a descriptor! It's just iron with trace amounts of other minerals! And where did he find a big enough chunk of the right kind of space rock to forge into a sword? At most, only 5% of all meteorites are the sort you could use for blade-metal, and that number is probably too high! So how has that blacksmith been finding all the space rocks he needs (since I'm assuming, being an adult elf with enough experience is making pointy things that Eragon was thrown at him, that he's been making swords for Riders for a while)? dfghdjfjhdfk *foam*

tl;dr venus fixates on the most inane topics and should probably be ignored until the space train stops.

[4B2A2A]

mage_apprentice
May 26 2012, 18:31:35 UTC
Reminds me Sokka calling his sword Space Sword because it was made from the metal found inside a giant meteorite.

And I thought the elf who forged Brisingr was a female.

[4B2A2A1]

venusrain
May 26 2012, 21:43:58 UTC Edited: May 26 2012, 21:46:55 UTC
Sokka. :D I should watch that show again.

Confession: I stopped reading at Eldest, so everything else is hearsay for me.

edit: argh i didn't want to hit submit yet augh

[5]

Anonymous
May 25 2012, 18:48:51 UTC
C'mon, you only need to raise a Magikarp to level 20 to get a Gyarados, which is way more useful than a Charizard.

[5A]

mage_apprentice
May 25 2012, 22:40:19 UTC
I don't know . . . That X4 weakness to electricity is a bit of a downer. At least Charizard can fight back against the Magnemite family.

. . . I am such a pokenerd.

[5A1]

pipedreamno20
May 26 2012, 08:22:56 UTC
Charizard didn't have the same benefits against the Magnemite fam back in the original Red and Blue :P

[5A1A]

mage_apprentice
May 26 2012, 15:29:02 UTC
Yet Charizard could still stand up to the magnemite fam better that Gyrados. X2 is still better than X4 damage (and STAB damage from Flamethrower still wasn't something to snuff at).

[5A1A1]

Anonymous
May 26 2012, 23:35:06 UTC
Don't forget Stealth Rock... that knocks Charizard down to half health right off the bat... and he's not the bulkiest 'mon out there.

[5A1A1A]

mage_apprentice
May 26 2012, 23:45:43 UTC
I thought we were talking about Gen I mechanics, but since we're not, I still say that STAB Flamethrower against a Steel-type like the magnemite fam still decides the battle.

I do realize that Charizard isn't the best 'mon out there, but we're making comparisons between Gyarados and Charizard while trying to decide of Gyarados is a lot better or not and--Why are we arguing about pokemon in an Inheritance Cycle post?

[5A1A1A1]

lady_licht
May 27 2012, 10:16:52 UTC
Because this is an awesome community?
Plus, did you notice many people in the Shurtugal forums use pokemon avatars?

[5A1A1A1A]

mage_apprentice
May 27 2012, 10:26:24 UTC Edited: May 27 2012, 11:26:33 UTC
Never noticed, actually. I should add a PokeSup avatar to my list and join the sub-group, anyway. One that's all smiles and laughter.

. . . Or maybe a creepy, horror-filled one like with Norman standing over Ruby, giving his own son that "I'm gonna beat the shit out of someone" look.
no i will never stop being horrified by norman in fact i should replace my happy mask salesman angry face for a norman angry face

. . . Oh, wait, no. I never noticed that people on the Shur'tugal forums use Pokemon avatars because I've never really been on those forums. I mistook Shur'tugal for Anti-Shur'tugal . . .

[5A1A1A1A1]

lady_licht
May 27 2012, 13:05:12 UTC
Don't worry. I typed Antishurtugal instead of Shurtugal.

[5A1A2]

venusrain
May 27 2012, 07:30:14 UTC Edited: May 27 2012, 07:32:49 UTC
Earthquake+sky-high base attack is a pretty potent combo, especially when you consider that Charizard's Special wasn't that great compared to its Attack (which didn't affect its STAB moves until Gen 4). Then again, I don't remember if Charizard could learn Earthquake; I haven't gotten to that point in Yellow for a while, and my Nuzlocke run is still in the "grind blindly to beat Misty" phase.

EDIT: And we're arguing pogles in an Inheritance post because Pokemon is better than Inheritance, obviously. :v

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mage_apprentice
May 27 2012, 07:51:20 UTC
Indeed, Pokemon is a LOT better than Inheritance. Great manga (pkmn special, that is), great games (albeit simple), and inspires more emotion than Inheritance ever did (minus the rage). For example, in my Sapphire Nuzlocke run, I just lost Sammy the Tailow. Loved the booger. Lost him to my rival's Grovoyle and couldn't switch out due to Pursuit (which was being spammed). I should've sent Becky the Dustox out instead of Sammy. RIP Sammy (lvl5-18) T.T

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venusrain
May 27 2012, 09:26:19 UTC
i've never read Special (I've already got a huge backlog of Things To Play/Watch/Read/Write, sadly), but I've heard it's quite good. And the games are deceptively simple; they're easy enough for a child to grasp the basics (which is all you really need to beat the game), while complicated enough beneath the surface for a massive competivive scene to spring up around them. And when you add in the fact that the first games were basically held together with hope and bubble gum, it's a huge testament to how great the games really are that they became so popular.

I absolutely dread doing Lt. Surge's and Sabrina's gyms in my Yellow run; I raised Jormungand the Gyarados from a level five Magikarp (I've had a huge soft spot for Gyarados ever since I first used one in Pearl; she was my physical sweeper and a destroyer of worlds. Disk1nuke saved my skin so, so many times in that run) and she's currently the strongest 'mon on my team, so between her 4x weakness and Psychics being utterly broken in Gen 1, I'm going to have a really rough time with those gyms (no, I wasn't willing to savescum to get an Abra :| ). At least I can cheese Surge with a Dugtrio and a bit of luck; Sabrina will take long hours of grinding if I want the slightest hope of winning, and there aren't many good grinding areas around that time. /Gen 1 blathering

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mage_apprentice
May 27 2012, 10:01:33 UTC
Special is really good (don't know why it's no longer available in the US). I love the protagonists, though it does have a weak spot concerning villains. The manga tries to make them sympathetic but it just doesn't work. Most just make me shake my head. Though, so far as I've read, the best villains come from Team Rocket (haven't read through the separate series by the same writer/artist team for Black/White). Giovanni actually becomes sympathetic and a dynamic character (dynamic in Yellow and sympathetic perhaps in Yellow but definitely in FireRed/LeafGreen), so that definitely makes up for Masked Man (who was, while a very threatening villain, not successful in becoming sympathetic).

I'd recommend a ghost type against Sabrina, but that poison sub-type will get you killed. Your best bet would be bug in that gen, but I'm pretty sure any Butterfree you had is long gone (and Beedrill wouldn't live long enough with that poison sub-type). *sigh* I dread going up against Norman, so I understand how you feel. Slaking has higher attack than most legendary pkmn and I usually got swept by his team. I mean, just go find any video of chuggaaconroy's Emerald LP with his Slaking and
how he goes on about the high attack. He even taught his Slaking Hyper Beam i pity every pkmn that ever went up against it. Just scary . . .

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venusrain
May 27 2012, 10:56:47 UTC
It's probably not available anymore because it's relatively dark compared to the games. I imagine that there were a lot of complaints from parents about the content (although it's honestly on them if they just assumed that Pokemon=superkiddy given that even the first games and whitewashed anime had some pretty grim moments). Or maybe it just wasn't making enough of a profit so they stopped bringing it over; I know that there are a lot of really good but very text-heavy games that don't get brought over because the cost makes it impractical.

Even having Ghost-type moves doesn't help, because the only one that isn't fixed-damage is extremely weak and not worth using. I do have a Butterfree, though! I remember having to retire my Butterfree at Sabrina on my normal playthroughs simply because Butterfree is so comparitively weak as a species, though. Compoundeyes really helped Butterfree's usability as a mon by allowing it to be an excellent annoyer, but without it Sleep Powder is just too unreliable to keep around, so I may have to put her aside for Sabrina. I've heard that a Jolteon with a bug-type move is a viable choice, but that was years ago and i've never tried it... Maybe I should try for a Wrap/Thunder Wave Dratini when I get to Fuschia. At least I know that's broken enough to sweep Sabrina (and the rest of the game).

Slaking is hilariously broken, especially when you throw in Skill Swap Shenanigans. Attack every turn with brutal efficency? Don't mind if I do!

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mage_apprentice
May 27 2012, 11:13:50 UTC
It's most likely because of a loss in profits, because I remember owning at least one volume (I distinctly remember Red's Poli being chunked off the SS Anne by Lt Surge and a Zombie Psyduck and Koga's Arbok getting cut in half, all that from my childhood). I don't think it was too well-known over here.

Jolteon CAN learn Pinmissle, a Gen I bug-type move, though Butterfree may be your best bet. If you wanna see a Butterfree (with Compound Eyes, granted) kick ass, take a look at Petty's LeafGreen nuzlocke run. Lulu will kickass and take names

Oh god, chuggaa had someone use Skill Swap on his Slaking and it was just death from there on out.

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venusrain
May 27 2012, 11:43:47 UTC
Yeah, I probably would have seen it as a tiny pokenerdling had it been well-known, given that Pokemon was a Big Deal on the playground when I was a kid. I did see a different Pokemon manga, though; I believe it was The Electric Tale of Pikachu. I don't remember it being terribly great.

Ah, so that was the move! Then yeah, I probably won't go that route; Jolteon's Attack isn't too great, and Pinmissle isn't terribly powerful. Still something to keep in mind if my other options get KOed before then. Butterfree's time to shine really came around in Gen 3; in both of my FireRed playthroughs, I used Butterfree well into the post-game. Their biggest problems were taken care of with the balancing done in Gen 2, but Compound Eyes and an expanded movepool made them endgame-viable for the average player in Gen 3. It's mostly that there really isn't anything to balance out Psychics in RGBY, making it hard to use non-optimal teams for Sabrina without a lot of grinding. Also, Petty's Nuzlocke comics are great. :D

Just goes to show that the only thing keeping Slaking remotely balanced is Truant. :v

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mage_apprentice
May 27 2012, 12:23:21 UTC
I didn't see The Electric Tale of Pikachu. I do know that Linkara did a review over it (the kind reserved for shitty comics) so it probably wasn't too great.
. . . And Norman keeps popping into my head. He really was scary in Pokemon Special. One of the first times we see him is when he crushes a phone receiver after hearing about Ruby running away and his wife just continues on as if that were normal. Just look at my icon! That's when he lures Ruby into a reclusive area so he could beat the shit out of the kid! and that's not the glare i wanted to use as an icon in the first place god he scares me

No, Flareon is the Attack one while Jolteon was Speed (Vaporeon was Defense). As for Butterfree, I could get Brock's lvl 10 Onix down with just two Confusions in Gen I. Then it got nerf'd (for the better, I keep telling myself) in Gen III.

*sigh* And Norman has two of them.

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venusrain
May 27 2012, 15:44:46 UTC
I mostly remember it nowadays because 1. I was eight and OMG POKEMON COMIC, and 2. Ono is creepy. Also holy hell, Norman. THAT IS NOT HOW YOU GET THE DAD OF THE YEAR AWARD.

It's the Special split that did it, most likely, assuming that Brock's Pokemon didn't get a stat boost between gens. I know I basically used Butterfree to solo Brock. :v

Yep. At least it's not a double battle and Slaking doesn't learn Skill Swap?

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mage_apprentice
May 27 2012, 18:28:05 UTC
Saw the Linkara review. He said it's not a bad comic (even with the flaws). So many MISSINGNO jokes. X3
IKR?! I mean, at the end, you end up cheering for Norman and going D'awww at any father-son interaction between Ruby and his father, but the beginning is really messed up! The writer doesn't seem aware that punching your 10-year-old kid and then sic'ing something like a Slaking (yes, Norman really did sic a Slaking on Ruby, though Ruby can easily defend himself) on the kid is not normal or approvable.

Yeah, it has to be the Special split. Ninetails was supposedly pretty bamf back then too (but I still love Ninetails) before the split.

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loth440
May 25 2012, 19:00:06 UTC Edited: May 25 2012, 19:00:40 UTC
So, let me get this straight...he named the chapter "And the walls fell...", but no walls actually fell?

Please tell me, so I can start planning an epic facepalm appropriate for this.

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lady_licht
May 27 2012, 10:22:01 UTC
Maybe it's a metaphor for even the most devoted fan finally realizing the series isn't really that good...? Yet, I don't think the chapter is worse enough for that.

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aikaterini
May 26 2012, 14:22:13 UTC
/Eragon thinks the dragon is a monster, which implies that a small part (or maybe the rest of him too) thinks Saphira, his "mind-partner"... is a monster./

No, it's probably because Thorn is Murtagh's dragon and Murtagh is (inexplicably) EVIL, so naturally his dragon must also be EVIL. Saphira isn't a monster because she is Eragon's dragon and Eragon is GOOD.