Inheritance Spork, Chapter Forty-Eight: Burrow Grubs

[pangolin20]

jair_greycoat wrote in antishurtugal, 2012-09-23 16:48:00

MOOD: sad

Inheritance Spork, Chapter Forty-Eight: Burrow Grubs

This is the chapter in which Galbatorix officially stops trying to explain himself with reason and logic, instead preferring to torture his prisoner, Nasuada, because he enjoys watching her suffer. I guess this proves that he’s as mad as a hatter. At the very least, he’s a sadist, and his previous attempts to give reasons for his actions were all a big sham.

The chapter starts with Nasuada, who is trying to escape. It is told in the narrative through a flashback. She had killed three people--her jailer and two guards--but hadn’t gotten very far after that. She hadn’t expected to get any father, either, which leaves me wondering why she had tried in the first place. We’ll learn later that she did it out of spite. I will take that future knowledge and apply it to her thought process in the now.

Here is Nasuada’s thought process: she’s captured and imprisoned in Galbatorix’s fortress with seemingly no hope of escape. So, she decides to cause as much trouble for Galbatorix as is possible, by killing his men. According to her, this is ‘necessary’ and a justified way to spend the time. Her conscience is bothering her though, a little. She feels some guilt over killing the jailer. Why specifically him, when there is no mention of guilt over the other two soldiers? Were they not worthy of consideration?

I would have preferred something more like this: she’s captured and imprisoned in Galbatorix’s fortress. She has to escape, because if she doesn’t, eventually Galbatorix is going to come and mind-rape her. And then she’ll help Galbatorix for the rest of her life--maybe even happily, too, if he puts a spell on her to make her happy about it. So she tries to escape. She had to kill the jailer and two soldiers, but so be it--no way is she going to stay around for the mind-rape.

Note the difference? She still kills the jailer and soldiers, but at least I wouldn’t have had to read about her trying to--ugh--justify spite. She would certainly have been a little more relatable, because no one wants to be mentally enslaved via their true name, right?

Nasuada is recaptured, and she has to wait half an hour before Galbatorix storms in. He is, naturally, not happy that Nasuada killed some of his men, and he lectures her about it. He says she had no right to take their lives, which is correct, albeit hypocritical, and then he says she has no right to do anything at all without his permission, which sounds rather like a dictator, and has nothing more than brute force to back it up. Afterward the soldiers clean the jailer’s blood off the floor, cursing her all the while.

Once they had left and she was again alone, [Nasuada] allowed herself a sigh, and some of the tension in her limbs vanished.

I think that should have been cut. It adds nothing.

She wished she had had a chance to eat, for now that the excitement was over, she found she was hungry. Worse, she suspected she would have to wait hours before she could hope to have her next meal, assuming that Galbatorix did not decide to punish her by withholding food.

You--you--you call that . . . excitement??!!!******~~~ (Sigh.) Anyway, going hungry is usually what happens when one kills one’s jailer. The warden isn’t very well going to want to give you a new one, now is he?

Her musings about bread and roasts and tall glasses of wine were short-lived, as she again heard the sound of many boots in the passageway outside her cell.

I can’t believe she can think about eating a feast so soon after killing some people to spite Galbatorix. You are a cheap character, Nasuada.

Galbatorix again enters the room, this time with Murtagh. It seems Galbatorix has something special planned for Nasuada because he’s carrying a small wood box. It’s a box of special grubs. They’re fat, they’re white, they’re ugly. Murtagh’s expression behind his silver half-mask (Phantom of the Opera, I’m sure) doesn’t comfort Nasuada at all. I don’t know why it ever would, especially as Nasuada isn’t that far gone yet--she was just thinking about tall glasses of wine--how many days has she been prisoner? I haven’t been counting.

Galbatorix picks one of the grubs up and starts talking about it.

As the creature wiggled in a vain attempt to free itself from between Galbatorix’s fingers, the king said, “This is a burrow grub. It is not what it appears to be. Few things are, but in the case of burrow grubs, that is all the more true. They are found in only one place in Alagaësia and are far more difficult to capture than you might suppose. Take it, then, as a sign of my regard for you, Nasuada, daughter of Ajihad, that I deign to use one on you.”

Guess what Eragon is going to find when he lands on Vroengard? Also, how is being tortured with a burrow grub supposed to be an honor? This is more like rare and unusual punishment.

After that explanation about burrow grubs, the torture starts. Well, not quite. There’s several paragraphs of description of it crawling over Nasuada’s arm while making a skree-skra noise. Galbatorix has to tell the creature not to attack Nasuada’s head--can’t have her dying too quickly, apparently. Then, just before the torture really does start, we get one awful, awful piece of description.

It did not move as it should, and its obscene little mouth reminded her of a child’s, and the sound it made, the horrible, horrible sound, elicited a primal loathing within her.

Sigh. I just . . . . First we had Hope’s tongue described as looking like a moist slug earlier in the book, and now we have Nasuada comparing a grub’s mouth with a child’s. Stop it, Paolini! Your comparisons are not appropriate, nor are they funny.

Then the burrow grub divides into a bunch of centipedes and they all start chewing on Nasuada’s insides. So . . . the torture has started. Galbatorix is laughing in the background. What a sadist. Paolini is obviously trying to make Galbatorix into an evil monster, and I guess he’s succeeding, but darn, the whole thing feels like cardboard with an “I’m evil” poster glued on. Is this really the arch-villain that we meet after waiting through three books?

Nasuada passes out, and wakes up after Murtagh and Galbatorix have gone. There is a bit of description of the damage the burrow grub(s) left.

She wondered if perhaps the burrow grubs were still inside of her, lying dormant while they digested their meal. Or perhaps they were metamorphosing, like maggots into flies, and they would turn into something even worse. Or, and this seemed the most terrible possibility, perhaps they were laying eggs within her, and more of them would hatch and begin to feast on her.

Please, no more description Paolini! I get it.

Her vision faded in and out, and she found herself weeping, which disgusted her, but she could not stop, no matter how hard she tried.

Nasuada is disgusted at her own weeping?

Something deep inside her seemed to have broken, and she was no longer confident that she could recover from her injuries.

Why would she have thought she could recover at any time before? People usually don’t ‘recover’ from torture! It’s often permanent. And if that first phrase was meant to say that something in her spirit was broken; well, she doesn’t act like it in the rest of the story! Remember, people: in Alagaësia, torture--both physical and mental--is just a passing thing that the characters can shrug off and then go back to being beautiful. It’s a world without major consequences for the good guys!

Murtagh comes into the room. He is worried a lot about Nasuada’s condition. She tries to smile at him, but it doesn’t come out right. Murtagh tries to heal her with magic, but can’t stop all the pain. I guess that’s realistic enough. Nasuada wonders why he can’t block all of it, and asks if his Eldunarí can help. He says no they can’t, they’re all too young and know too little about magic. He apologizes for not being able to do more.

Nasuada panics; maybe she thinks his apology meant that the burrow grub is still inside her? (Yuck) Murtagh says no, no they’re not; Galbatorix took them away. Nasuada tries not to sound accusing when she tells him his earlier spell didn’t stop the pain. Murtagh doesn’t know why that is, except that the burrow grub must not be part of the world’s normal pattern. Since when does Alagaësia have a normal pattern? Nasuada asks him if he knows where the grub is from. Murtagh says no, he only learned of it just today.

Nasuada wants to get up. Murtagh isn’t sure about that but she gets her way anyway. He gives her his cape, and she covers herself with it for modesty (good), for warmth (good), and also so that she doesn’t have to look at her disfigurement (sigh . . . this seems to be a theme in these books).

They both sit down at the edge of the room, and Nasuada begins to cry. No mention of being disgusted this time. Crying is perfectly reasonable for this situation, although I think it’s a little flat since she did just go on a spite rampage. Murtagh touches her shoulder and she jerks away. Then she relents and takes his hand. Then they hug, and she cries on his lap.

Um.

Eventually Murtagh says that he’s going to free Nasuada. It’s too late for him and Thorn, but as long as she doesn’t swear fealty to Galbatorix, there is a chance Murtagh can get her out of the city. Nasuada decides to believe him, and asks him how. Murtagh doesn’t have any idea. He tells her that she just has to hang on until he’s tried. Nasuada says that if Galbatorix brings in the burrow grub again she’ll give him whatever he wants. Murtagh tells her that Galbatorix doesn’t intend to use the burrow grub again. She asks then what he does intend.

Murtagh tells her that Galbatorix has decided to start manipulating what she sees, hears, feels and tastes. And then if she still resists he will attack her mind directly. And that if he does that, she’s lost. He’s sure he’ll be able to get her out of Urû’baen before that, though.

Nasuada asks how she can resist if Galbatorix is going to manipulate her senses. Murtagh tells her that there is a sense Galbatorix can’t deceive--mind touch. Okay. He says he won’t try to read her thoughts; but he wants her to know what his mind feels like so that she can recognize him in the future. Nasuada isn’t sure about this for two whole paragraphs, but then she decides she’ll take his offer. Then she starts reciting a bit of poetry, in order to keep Murtagh out of her mind. Even though it was previously established that a person’s mental barriers have to be down (not up) in order for one to detect another person’s psyche, and hence their identity.

In El-harím, there lived a man, a man with yellow eyes.

To me, he said, “Beware the whispers, for they whisper lies.

Do not wrestle with the demons of the dark,

Else upon your mind they’ll place a mark;

Do not listen to the shadows of the deep,

Else they haunt you even when you sleep.”

It really should have ended after the first two lines. The rest are all out of tune. No, I am not going to ask for an encore.

To Nasuada, Murtagh’s personality apparently feels quite similar to somebody she won’t mention. Eragon, obviously. Why is she pretending ignorance? But the even bigger question I have is, how does she manage to tell any of this at all, when she’s busy trying to concentrate on the verse to keep Murtagh out?

Murtagh stops showing Nasuada his psyche (which she couldn’t possibly have been paying any attention to), and asks her if she’ll be able to recognize him again. She says yes. Murtagh says he’ll try to warn her before Galbatorix starts trying to deceive her senses, and he’ll tell her when he stops. Nasuada thanks him.

Then we get a little info-dump of current events in the world. The Varden are three days away and the elves are coming from the north. Galbatorix has gone to discuss strategy (really? After letting an army through his borders?) with a certain lord whose name Paolini put less effort into than I have put into this sentence.

Then Murtagh asks Nasuada what her reason was for killing those men.

She sniffed, then looked him square in the eyes. “I couldn’t just lie there and let him do whatever he wanted to me. I had to fight back; I had to show him that he hadn’t broken me, and I wanted to hurt him however I could.”

In other words, it was entirely pointless. Also, spite does not justify murder. Is this really Paolini’s idea of a sympathetic character?

They talk a little more, and then Nasuada asks Murtagh to help her kill herself if escape proves impossible.

I really don’t know what to make of this. Suicide (assisted or otherwise) is nothing more than a fancy word for murder of the self. On the other hand, I am also aware of mercy-killing. An example I remember is a scene from a movie I saw several years ago--I don’t remember its name or most of the details--in which a man is being tortured by several tribal warriors. There is no hope of rescue for this man, so one of his comrades who had escaped takes his rifle and shoots him through the heart; effectively ending the torture.

I guess I just wish Paolini had handled it more . . . tactfully. Because it comes pretty much right after a spite rampage from this character, it leaves me wondering what Paolini was thinking.

Murtagh and Nasuada talk some more, and then Murtagh has to leave or else they’ll risk getting caught, and Galbatorix will figure out what Murtagh is doing. As he is leaving, Nasuada asks him something. One word: “Why?”

[Murtagh] stared at her for the longest while, and then, in a low, hard voice, he said, “You know why.”

Murtagh is in a bad situation. Very bad. But he’s trying to do the best he can; he is trying to change his true name, and gain freedom from slavery. He cares about Nasuada; his actions confirm it. Yet when Galbatorix finally is defeated and Murtagh gains his freedom, Paolini drops the frayed ends of these threads and never picks them up for the rest of the book.

Paolini, why?

10 comments

[1]

rossman613
September 24 2012, 00:04:31 UTC
I'm mystified as to why Paolini has his characters tell about potentially exciting scenes and doesn't just show us them. Here we have a potentially exciting scene--Nasuada's trying to escape! She's even killing people!--that we only hear about through flat narration. I would've preferred if this chapter was about that instead of the torture and yet more Murtagh/Nasuada dialogue.
(Another example of this telling-not-showing is earlier in the book, where Roran tells Nasuada via Facemirror about what happened when he got into the palace/castle/mansion/whatever [see? that section was so boring that i didn't care what it was!] and met Tharos, whose sister he killed. From the snippets of dialogue we got, it seemed like that scene could've been an interesting and intense confrontation. So why are we only told about it?!)

BTW, I like how you noticed how Nasuada acted out of spite--I didn't notice that. You'd think that she'd act like that just because she wants to escape.

[2]

mage_apprentice
September 24 2012, 04:38:51 UTC
Also, how is being tortured with a burrow grub supposed to be an honor? This is more like rare and unusual punishment.
It's more sarcastic honor than actual honor since he's wasting a rare resource on Nasuada. I'm not sure if Paolini gets it considering his track record yet he's more than old enough to understand why it's an "honor."

“I couldn’t just lie there and let him do whatever he wanted to me. I had to fight back; I had to show him that he hadn’t broken me, and I wanted to hurt him however I could.”
This might've carried more weight if we had SEEN it rather than TOLD IT THROUGH NARRATION!

I guess I just wish Paolini had handled it more . . . tactfully. Because it comes pretty much right after a spite rampage from this character, it leaves me wondering what Paolini was thinking.
Then there's Galbatorix's death, which isn't the least bit tactful. In fact, I wanted to slap the guy when I found out about this use of suicide.

[3]

jaeten
September 24 2012, 13:20:58 UTC
On the other hand, I am also aware of mercy-killing. An example I remember is a scene from a movie I saw several years ago--I don’t remember its name or most of the details--in which a man is being tortured by several tribal warriors. There is no hope of rescue for this man, so one of his comrades who had escaped takes his rifle and shoots him through the heart; effectively ending the torture.


I believe this movie is Last of the Mohicans (released 20 years ago tomorrow, so great timing)! Hawkeye shoots Duncan as the latter is being burned at the stake. It's a good example of a mercy killing whose motivations could be understood by most viewers, even if they still found it morally unacceptable.

[4]

borgseawolf
September 24 2012, 13:40:08 UTC
Because, kids, maniacal laughter is always more evil than sinister smirking!

[5]

randombattlecry
September 24 2012, 15:22:09 UTC
I'm reading all these torture chapters with Tom Servo going "TORCHAAAAAA!" in my head the whole time. It helps. It helps a lot.

At the point where Murtagh tells her that Galby's going to try to deceive her mind and perceptions, I was rooting for that whole comforting conversation to turn out to be exactly that: trickery. And more TORCHAAAAA. But then Galbatorix would have to be aware of what was going on, and not mysteriously dumb as a stump.

[6]

Anonymous
September 24 2012, 19:09:15 UTC
This chapter exemplifies why I'm always so critical of torture scenes in fiction. Done well, they can be chilling, but the majority of them are just sort of awkward and ridiculous. And any time the villain starts laughing like an idiot because they're just sooo eevil and sadistic omg is usually the time I stop taking them seriously.

[7]

aikaterini
September 25 2012, 02:10:04 UTC
/So, she decides to cause as much trouble for Galbatorix as is possible, by killing his men. According to her, this is ‘necessary’ and a justified way to spend the time./

So, she killed three men who were only doing their jobs just because she was bored. And because she wanted to spite their boss. Our Heroine, ladies and gentlemen.

/Murtagh’s expression behind his silver half-mask (Phantom of the Opera, I’m sure)/

Yeah...why is he wearing a half-mask? What purpose does that serve?

/In other words, it was entirely pointless. Also, spite does not justify murder. Is this really Paolini’s idea of a sympathetic character?/

So, in order to “hurt” Galbatorix...she killed three people who had nothing to do with what Galbatorix did to her. And this childish, selfish, and petty person is supposed to be the leader of the heroic rebellion?

/Murtagh has to leave or else they’ll risk getting caught, and Galbatorix will figure out what Murtagh is doing./

How many times has Murtagh met with Nasuada now? You’d think that Galbatorix would start to get at least a little suspicious by now.

/“You know why.”/

Murtagh: Because our author decided to pointlessly throw us together for a little bit to appease the fans.

[7A]

Anonymous
September 25 2012, 08:36:37 UTC
Heeheehee--Murtagh singing angsty lines from *Phantom of the Opera.*

"Down once more to the dungeon of my black despair; down we plunge toward the prison of my miiiiiiind! I mean Galbatorix's miiiiiiiiiind!"

And "you know why" reminds me of Eowyn's "Do you not know?"

[8]

torylltales
September 25 2012, 12:07:06 UTC
Next chapters:

Chapter Forty Nine: Amid the Ruins - barrington42
Chapter Fifty: Snalglí for Two - dibbed by watersheerie
Chapter Fifty One: The Rock of Kuthian - dibbed by ana0119

I'm a bit sore that I missed Nasuada's little ditty in the Paoetry Sporks trilogy, but on the balance I'd rather have saved my brain.

[9]

ana0119
September 25 2012, 16:02:59 UTC
......I have nothing to add, really, expect that I still feel this whole subplot is pointless and stupid. I wish this was over. I wish it had never started.

It doesn't help that I like my medieval fantasy escapist rather than gritty and realistic. That's why I don't enjoy Song of Ice and Fire. That also means I prefer my torture off screen. It's not like this is even good mindrape.