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torylltales wrote in antishurtugal, 2017-03-23 22:53:00
Brisingr Spork, Chapter Twenty: I Need A Sword!
Oh goody, here we go. Eragon has been complaining about this for almost a third of the book so far. Sadly, after this chapter, he will just keep on complaining.
So, the chapter opens with Eragon going to the Varden’s armoury, containing many more types of weapons than are ever strategically employed by the Varden in any of their battles, skirmishes, sieges, or raids.
The description of the armoury is at once precise and useless, but at least it is mercifully short. Apparently the armoury area is a rush of motion as “a constant stream of men rushed in and out”.
I would believe this if this were soon after or before a battle, or if they were on the march. But a reader would be forgiven for thinking this is peace me. There hasn’t been any conflict for more than a hundred pages of feasting, quiet conversation, healing random people, meeting other random people, collecting gold from the soil, and giving said gold to his friends along with more quiet conversation. Nowhere in the previous 300-odd pages is there any sign of any kind of conflict that would necessitate “a constant stream of men rushing in and out” of the armoury. Especially since every man given a weapon would have been if this were any halfway decent military operation or even an operation made up of people who lived with and depended on personal weapons for their own protection, responsible for and experienced or at least trained in the routine maintenance and upkeep of their weapons and armour. Unless the army is far more disciplined than it appears and is written as, there shouldn’t really need to be an armoury at all, as each member of the rebel group should have and be responsible for their own weapons. Aside from blacksmiths, bowyers, and fletchers/arrowsmiths, and maybe a few carpenters or carvers for making handles, if this were a rebel group in a pseudo-medieval pseudo-European kingdom (as Paolini intended it to be) every fighter would be responsible for their own weapons.
Anyway. The armoury tent is being inundated with what are probably very minor concerns that people should be taking care of themselves, and enter Eragon followed by Hank McCoy. I like the X-Men so much more than this garbage, and Hank is easier to remember and type than Blödhgarm. They both have blue fur and are otherwise relegated to the background in favour of our Designated Favourite Characters upon whom the spotlight shines, so it fits. So Eragon, flanked by Hank (okay, that’s another reason I wanted to use that nickname), enter the armoury. And of course because they are just So Special, everybody stops instantly to look at them for a moment before continuing what they were doing. Everybody, regardless of where they were in the supposedly massive pavillion (that, Paolini took pains to point out, housed “a score or more” fletchers repairing “bales of arrows”, in addition to the heaped crates of armour and weapons, and the people rushing in and out and all over the place), regardless of where their attention was a moment ago or how immersed in their work they might have been.
I get that he was probably going for a variation on the "lone gunslinger enters the saloon" moment, but the sheer scale and number of people involved makes this a little more than ridiculous.
Fredric (which isn’t at all a mashup of ‘Fred’ and ‘Godric’), the Varden’s “weapons master” (but not its quartermaster or master-at-arms) sees Eragon and Hank, and rushes over to them.
Freddy and Eragon talk about the value of swords for a bit. “In the end, it always comes down to steel against steel. Just you watch, that’s how this fight with the empire will be resolved, with the point of a sword driven through Galbatorix’s accursed heart”
This part is noteworthy, because it is a rare instance of a ‘good’ character being wrong about something, without being either evil, stupid, jealous of Eragon, incompetent, hateful/bitter, or otherwise despicable in someway.
And here’s the bit we’ve all been waiting for.
Fredric: “I wondered if you’d be visiting me about that”
Mr. Ollivander (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone movie): “I wondered when I'd be seeing you, Mr. Potter.”
...
Just like Ollivander with wands, Fredric is able to recall minute and precise details about zar’roc based on a single training session, way back in book 1 before Eragon left for the elves, and possibly glimpsing it a few mes in the Burning Plains battles and such. Despite him handling and seeing hundreds of swords in the time between, and probably thousands in his lifetime.
“the weapon master grunted and began to pull swords off the rack and swinging them through the air, only to replace them with seeming dissatisfaction.”
Compared to the scene in Philosopher’s Stone, where Ollivander has Harry wave a collection of wands through the air, only to return them to their boxes in dissatisfaction.
“Finding the right sword for someone is an art unto itself.”
Just like wands in Harry Potter, Fredric thinks every sword is unique and his goal is to find each soldier’s perfect match.
Eragon states that he prefers to fight with sword and shield, but only once or twice in the series (during the attack on Tronjheim, and after the Burning Plains battle) does Eragon ever use a shield. He’s never been trained to fight with a shield, he’s never practiced with one. Not with Brom and certainly not with the elves... The shield Eragon uses in Eragon and Eldest disappears after Eldest, never to be seen again.
Zar’roc is (according to the Knopf republication, anyway, lol) 42 inches long overall, which means, especially with a teenager like Eragon, it would have been a two-handed weapon. According to Inheriwiki (I cannot remember the exact part, but probably during the forging scene in Inheritance when he is hashing out the details with Rhunon), Eragon actually says at one point that he would prefer Zar’roc’s hilt to be longer so he can use it more comfortably with two hands.
Unless you strap the shield to your shoulder, it’s really very difficult to use a two-handed sword and a shield together.
Then Paolini almost satirises himself when Fredric talks about ‘the curse of the named blade’.
“Every great warrior”, said Fredric, “wields a sword - it’s usually a sword - that has a name. Either he names it himself, or, once he’s proven his prowess with some extraordinary feat, the bards name it for him.”
Says you.
Plucking a sword from the rack, Fredric handed it to Eragon. Eragon tilted the tip of the sword up and down, then shook his head; the shape of the hilt was wrong for his hand. The weapon master did not seem disappointed. To the contrary, Eragon’s rejection seemed to invigorate him, as if he relished the challenge Eragon posed.
Harry took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once. [...] but the more wands Mr Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become. ‘Tricky customer, eh?’
[Caption: Gif of Ollivander saying 'Nope! No! Definitely not!']
Fred then scolds Eragon about not using his new non-magical sword edge-on-edge because it’s stupid, Eragon counters that he’ll use magic to protect the blade, and Fred responds that magic is finite and eventually the blade will shatter anyway.
Eragon, being the puffedâup prick he is, starts getting impatient:
“Must I wait all day to get a sword?”
Fred gave you two perfectly good swords just now, that you turned down because the shape of the hilt wasn’t just so, or the balance wasn’t quite right.
“I don’t have time for this. I don’t have the time to learn a completely different way of fighting.”
Don’t blame the Varden’s highly experienced WEAPONS MASTER for your idiotic dead mentor teaching you idiotic techniques that only work with a magic indestructible sword.
Fred then does exactly what I would have done, and offers Eragon a flanged mace. Because Eragon’s sword fighting style might as well be “me smash with metal club!”
“It’s a club”, Eragon protested. “A metal club.”
Fuck you, Eragon, and fuck you too, Paolini. Flanged maces are extremely valuable weapons, especially against armoured opponents who are protected against cuts and slices and stabs by, guess what, ARMOUR.
“I wouldn’t have been able to kill Durza by stabbing him through the heart if I had been carrying a mace instead of a sword”
I’m pretty sure caving his skull in and liquefying his brains may have slowed him down at least.
I mean, sure, according to canon a shade can’t be “killed” except by being stabbed through the heart, but Paolini also said that a shade killed by other means will merely become temporarily disembodied vapour (where have we heard that before?) until it can reform in a new body. Anyway, grievously injuring (but not killed) a shade should give him me to get to the side-dagger that he should also habitually wear, to stab it through the heart with while it’s recovering from the skull-shattering mace hit.
Anyway. After a bit more back-and-forth, Fred presents Eragon with an overdescribed falchion.
Before we get into that, it’s an interesting side note that Paolini has made the cross-cultural faux pas of applying Japanese differential hardening techniques (as seen in the katana etc.) to a German sword. I thought the elves were meant to be the Japanese import, not the dwarves. I thought the dwarves were supposed to be more germanic or nordic (hence axes and hammers and falchions). Paolini’s getting confused, they can’t ALL be pseudo-Japanese.
But moving on.
From the previous page:
“I don’t have me for this”, Eragon snapped, his impatience overflowing. “I don’t have the time to learn a completely different way of fighting.”
Paolini. Dude. Falchion and longsword are completely different styles of fighting. They are different weapons, weighted differently, they handle differently, require different attacking and defensive movements, and are basically completely different in every way.
This is a bastard sword, similar to the size and shape of zar’roc:
And this is a falchion (with a clipped point as described in this chapter, although not all falchions had that feature).
Different enough that Eragon’s previous argument about not learning a new fighting style applies to this just as much as to an arming sword that isn’t magically damage-proof.
I just want to leave this bit here.
Unlike a double-edged sword, the falchion was made to be held with the blade and crossguard perpendicular to the ground.
And later down the page:
Eragon understood. With the blade of the falchion at right angles to the ground, unless he deliberately tilted his wrist, any blows he caught on the sword would strike the flat of the blade, saving the edge for attacks of his own. Wielding the falchion would require only a small adjustment to his fighting style.
[Caption: Picture unavailable]
Has... Has Paolini ever seen a falchion, or even held a sword of any kind? If I hadn’t seen the video from which the below screenshot was taken, I might assume Paolini had only ever heard of swords by descriptions of them in books. He's obviously seen pictures of one, or he wouldn't have been able to describe it in such detail, but I'd put good money on Google Image Search being the extent of his 'research'.
Eragon takes the falchion and performs a few manoeuvres that remind me painfully of the infamous “do you want me to draw and brandish” moment.
[Caption: Picture of Paolini holding a sword with text 'Do you want me to draw and brandish?']
And equally painfully of a child describing the adventures of his action figures.
(although to be fair, this gif is of the original voice actors for Skeletor, playing with Skeletor action figures. It’s more awesome than Paolini could ever dream of being)
Eragon grumps that he “wish[es] it didn’t look so much like a big skinning knife”
Paolini demonstrates his ignorance yet again here, mistaking modern specialist knife for the medieval general-purpose knives that would have been used for skinning.
Again, this is a typical clipped-point falchion, as described in the chapter:
And this is an actual real medieval hunting knife from 15th-16thC Germany, that would have been used for skinning:
As anyone with two eyes and half a brain can see, the falchion does not in any way look like an oversized hunting knife. A modern bowie-type knife, maybe, with a cross guard and a fuller and a pommel and a wrapped handle (so, not much at all like a bowie knife), but not a medieval knife.
Fred and Eragon talk about proper sharpening methods, which is surprisingly accurate but devoid of anything truly interesting.
Fred says: “you can fight with rusty armour. You can fight with a dented helmet. But if you want to see the sun rise again, never fight with a dull sword”
I disagree.
I don’t know about you guys, but I have been whacked with the unsharpened edge - not just dull, but completely unsharpened to begin with - of a small sword. Even a light accidental whack can hurt like hell, let alone if he had been intending to hurt me.
A dull sword will still break bones. A dull sword will still break skin, and/or cause extensive bruising. A dull sword can still crack a skull, cause internal injuries to organs, and cause lethal damage to, say, the carotid, brachial, or femoral arteries. A dull sword can still cause damage to the spine and spinal cord. A dull sword with an intact point can still pierce unprotected weak tissue, like between the ribs, into the armpit, or the kidneys, or into the neck/throat. A DULL SWORD CAN STILL KILL OR DISABLE AN ENEMY.
Rusty armour, on the other hand, cannot be trusted to protect you adequately from, say, a mace or warhammer. A dented helmet is structurally compromised, and cannot be trusted to adequately protect your head from anti-armour weapons like, say, a flanged mace, warhammer, war-pick, or even just a heavy enough sword blow.
Moving on.
Fred advises Eragon to do something that we never once see him do in the series that I can recall:
“If you’ve just survived a battle and you’re red as a man who has climbed one of the Beor Mountains and your sword isn’t sharp as it is now, it doesn’t matter how you feel, you plunk yourself down the first chance you get and pull out your whetstone and strop.”
Basic equipment maintenance is very good advice, but Eragon is always above such things, or just absent-minded, or otherwise thinks other things take precedence over them.
“Just as you would see to your horse, or to Saphira, before you see to your own needs”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
[Caption: 'Now comes the part where we throw our heads back in laughter' gif]
“without [your sword], you’re no more than helpless prey for your enemies.”
A troop of Empire soldiers and a superhuman ultra-predator determines that to be false. Eragon can handle himself perfectly well without any weapons whatsoever.
Rather than be grateful for the valuable advice of a WEAPONS MASTER about basic care and maintenance of his weapon, Eragon admonished Saphira for “deliberately [leaving] me here to listen to Fredric go on and on about water stones, oil stones, and whether linseed oil is better than rendered fat for protecting metal from water”
Because knowing how not to destroy your weapon from negligence is soooo boring.
Eragon and Saphira go flying for a bit, look at the Varden camp from above, and Saphira becomes uncharacteristically poetic.
“We are the rulers of the sky [...] Here at the ceiling of the world.”
It's nice, but... for me, perhaps a bit too similar to Frodo's line in Return of the King, "I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things." I don't know if it was an intentional lift or "homage", but Paolini's stolen so much stuff that I can't help but feel suspicious.
There’s a moment of almost-believable pathos as Eragon reflects on growing up and how strange is feels for his cousin to be marrying. This is something I think most people can relate to, and it’s not overdone or written in a cliched or trite way. It’s a nice moment.
And then it’s ruined by Eragon’s overblown monologuing.
“Even we, who were boys but a short while ago, cannot escape the inexorable progress of me. So the generations pass, and soon it will be our turn to send our children out into the land to do the work that needs to be done”
Yeah, I’m no longer relating to Eragon. Now I just want him to shut up.
Rather than wrapping the chapter up at a natural-feeling end point, Paolini goes on for another page and a half about the two of them flying around and discussing flying and just chatting aimlessly.
And then something that could have been a major scene is reduced to not even a complete sentence:
Then Eragon returned to his tent and washed his face and clothes before going with Saphira to dine with King Orrin and his entourage, as promised. Later that night, when the feast was finally over, Eragon and Saphira walked back to his tent, gazing at the stars and talking about what had been and what might yet be. And they were happy.
Let’s get this straight. Orrin is at least as important as Nasuada, as the Varden’s army is mostly made up of Surdan citizens and Surdan soldiers, and is funded by Surda, and is based within the borders of Surda, but having dinner with the – last time we saw him, severely pissed-off - King of Surda, is reduced not even to a single sentence, but to two sub-clauses within different sentences.
King Orrin got a raw deal in this book.
44 comments
[1]
theepistler
March 23 2017, 23:31:00
Fred says: “you can fight with rusty armour. You can fight with a dented helmet. But if you want to see the sun rise again, never fight with a dull sword”
Fuck's sake, Paolini; longswords aren't supposed to be razor sharp anyway, and I learned that firsthand from an expert on medieval weaponry. You put a sharp edge on something the size of a Claymore, it's going to shatter the moment you hit anything with it. Something like that has an edge much more akin to an axe. And we all know blunt edges cause a lot more damage in the long run anyway. A cut is nasty, but a cut combined with vicious bruising and broken bones is worse. Fuck it, even the makers of Lilo and Stitch knew that! In the making of they talk about how they made Stitch's claws blunt to make him appear more threatening because "blunt claws hurt a lot more".
And wow is Eragon ever an entitled asshat in this chapter. "Whine whine not good enough for my Stu self! Whine whine I don't wanna learn about how to take care of my weapons like a responsible adult!" Shut the fuck up, you spoilt brat. I've mentioned this before in a private chat with TT, but both Eragon and Paolini seem unaware of how expensive swords are. Even today when we can make them with modern machinery they cost a bomb. I paid over $200 for mine. And Eragon expects to be handed one for free, no questions asked. What, he couldn't have offered Frederic one of his handy dandy goldentesticles balls nuggets?
And then he goes to ANOTHER feast. Do these morons have nothing better to do than feasting? Feasting is for celebrations, not commanders on the warpath. It's a huge waste of food, and it's so needlessly indulgent. And by now it's gotten so predictable and repetitive that Paolini can't even be bothered to devote more than a single sentence to it. He seems to be under the delusion that medieval types had no form of social occasion other than generic "feasting". What is this, a Redwall novel?
Does anyone remember that bit in one of the Song of Ice and Fire novels when Lady Catelyn Stark goes to meet up with Lord Renly Baratheon? The guy is also on the warpath, preparing to make a bid for the throne, but when she gets there he's holding a self-indulgent tourney and handing out prizes and meaningless titles, and then throws a big extravagant party with lots of food. It's painted as arrogant and foolish, and Cat is naturally exasperated with the guy's lackadaisical attitude, especially given that the rest of the country is in a state of chaos with open warfare, famine and slaughter ravaging all and sundry while he's stuffing his face with delicious juicy peaches. The Varden leaders are doing almost exactly the same thing, except without any justification for it since they're not supposed to be a bunch of overconfident morons who have no idea what they're getting themselves into because they've never seen real warfare before. They're supposed to be in the middle of a hard-fought, high-stakes war against a far superior foe to whom they've already lost plenty of their men, and also constantly short on supplies. Now is SO not the time for parties and feasts and cute little weddings with pretty dresses and rings and all the rest of it.
Let’s get this straight. Orrin is at least as important as Nasuada, as the Varden’s army is mostly made up of Surdan citizens and Surdan soldiers, and is funded by Surda, and is based within the borders of Surda, but having dinner with the -- last time we saw him, severely pissed-off -- King of Surda, is reduced not even to a single sentence, but to two sub-clauses within different sentences.
Even Paolini doesn't seem to think Orrin is particularly important. He writes the poor sod like a spoiled child, when he bothers to include him at all. (When Eragon acts like a spoiled child, however, that's totally okay). At least we didn't have to sit through more "Orrin is a big mean pompous jerk for no reason!" nonsense. It was irritating enough last time. I suspect Paolini wanted to avoid having to write any of that annoying "conflict" stuff, either because he's allergic or because he had some sort of secret bet with his sister that he could write an entire 900 page book in which nothing interesting happens.
[1A]
torylltales
March 23 2017, 23:41:42
Actually Fredric specifically says not to put a razor sharp edge on a sword because it will chip and bend really easily, my disagreement with him was that the sword's sharpness, while important for things like draw cuts and push cuts, is not absolutely vital to being able to defend yourself or disable an enemy attacker. A dull sword will still do the job.
$200 for a sword is suspiciously cheap. A traditionally made sword that is cutting-test ready ("battle ready" in the old days) would run closer to a thousand or more.
[1A1]
theepistler
March 23 2017, 23:49:39 Edited: March 23 2017, 23:50:22
$200 for a sword is suspiciously cheap. A traditionally made sword that is cutting-test ready ("battle ready" in the old days) would run closer to a thousand or more.
I said it was MORE than $200. TBH I couldn't remember the actual amount off the top of my head since I bought it back in 2009 or thereabouts, so I kind of just made that number up. It's not sharpened, but it's not a "display" sword - it's properly balanced for combat and so forth and could easily be used for medieval swordplay recreations and such. But yes, if it was intended for real fighting and had been made by a specialist swordsmith from Ye Olden Days using Ye Olde Forging Techniques it would have been way more expensive.
[1A2]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 01:13:45
He also doesn't seem to know how the traditions of naming a sword work. Of course it isn't new to have named swords, he definitely lifted that from Tolkien and Beowulf, but he can't seem to appreciate that a named sword is supposed to have HISTORY.
Hrunting, for example, is a family weapon, passed down through generations of Unferth's family before it ends up in Beowulf's hands.
Glamdring has a name because it was made for and used by a king, whereas Sting was never important enough to have a name until Bilbo gave it one.
[1A2A]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 21:24:23
There should be any one way that weapons in fiction are named. In Alagland, if they're named on the spot by their creators or Bards as the weapons guy says, then that's how they're named.
- Anon 2
[1A2A1]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 21:24:53
Shouldn't be named, that should say
[1A3]
hergrim
March 24 2017, 06:02:24
Even better, with the right blade geometry, a blunt sword will still cut. Blade geometry is really why sharpness is important in some swords. The katana, for instance, needs to be very sharp and very polished to make up for the thick wedge shape of the edge and thickness of the blade.
A falchion, on the other hand, might be thick at the rear of the spine, but the broad blade allows for a good taper down to the edge, and even the spine tapers towards the tip. I'd think that a blunt falchion should cut as well as a blunt longsword.
[1A3A]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 11:26:53
That too. Point is, swords are dangerous regardless of how sharp their edges are.
[1B]
kris_norge
March 31 2017, 06:59:35
With medieval longswords, sometimes only the last foot or so was sharpened, the better for thrusting, because beating on plate armour with a sword is essentially useless. It's the point that wins the fight and having the blade not too sharp around the lower and middle blade allows for a couple of variations on swordfighting like half-swording (putting one hand halfway up the blade and using it like that - useful in a narrow spot, whatever the showrunners of Game of Thrones may say) or literally gripping the blade with both hands and wielding it like a club.
[2]
vehkandvehk
March 24 2017, 03:46:12
What video is that screenshot from? I need to watch this!
[2A]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 10:22:38
it's from a 2003 BBC series called "Imagine", but sadly I think the clip itself has been lost to time. I've sent BBC One a facebook comment asking about it, but it's not listed on the BBC One website.
One of the antis many years ago made an animated gif of it, but that too seems to be lost. :(
[2A1]
Anonymous
March 28 2017, 00:59:19
It wouldn't happen to be this series would it?
http://www.onwatchseries.ac/serie/imagine_uk
Even if it's not, I suggest you use that link to check out The Ecstacy of Wilko Johnson. Absolutely fantastic documentary.
[2A1A]
torylltales
March 28 2017, 08:25:15
yes!
If anybody is able to download this episode http://www.onwatchseries.ac/episode/imagine_uk_s3_e5.html (season 3, episode 5 - unsuitable for children) without a bunch of spam and popups and sketchy account signup forms, that would be wonderful
[3]
hergrim
March 24 2017, 06:53:39
While I strongly doubt that Paolini was aware, some Germanic blades did indeed have differential hardening. Whether this was deliberate or not I don't know, since it can happen spontaneously depending on the a geometry and metallurgy of the blade, although the pattern on the seax blade suggests it might have been.
As to the dwarves using it, I think it makes sense for them to be aware of the technique, but that it's more likely they would have used crucible steel because, while less hard, it's tougher overall.
[3A]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 11:30:01
Wouldn't that depend on the purity of the local iron ore deposits? As I understand it, crucible steel was developed in response to poor quality metals, much like the folding and pattern-welding techniques. If the dwarves have very good quality steel, they wouldn't need to do too much processing to remove and spread out the impurities.
[3A1]
hergrim
March 24 2017, 15:40:57
I've never seen anything to suggest that crucible steel was the result of poor quality metals. Alan Williams doesn't really say anything on the quality of the iron or iron and steel used in the process, but I do know that wootz steel was made using very high quality ore.
Even with good quality ores, though, crucible steel would be of a much high quality than any bloomery steel. The only thing that could match it for homogeneity would be steel folded and welded in the Japanese fashion, which has almost no slag inclusions at all.
[3A1A]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 16:00:07
Since posting that comment I read up a bit more on it. I stand corrected, I originally thought the whole point of crucible steel was to be able to skim off the slag etc. once it was melted.
[3A1A1]
hergrim
March 24 2017, 16:11:46
That's fair enough. I had to double check myself before I replied, just in case I was remembering wrong.
[4]
dinogrrl
March 24 2017, 10:05:42
I admit my knowledge of weapons isn't fantastic or anything, but seeing as a lot of my stories deal with wars and those fighting them, I've had to do a decent amount of research into arms and armor over the years. The only weapon I've ever actually somewhat sparred with is a quarterstaff, and I have done archery a bit, but beyond that, nothing.
And yet even MY brain is hurting from how wrong all those words are in this chapter. This isn't even the sort of crazy nitpicky knowledge you'd have to ask an expert for, either! You can literally pull up this information within the first few links on Google aaaaaaaaaaah *flails*
[5]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 14:36:55
Gee, it's not like there's a blacksmith who knows how to craft swords and could make a sword just for Eragon...OH WAIT!
Seriously, missed opportunity for Horst to shine here. I get (kind of) why this was the route taken: to show how big the world is and how many characters there are, etc. But SERIOUSLY. YOU HAVE A BLACKSMITH ERAGON ALREADY KNOWS. WHY DIDN'T ERAGON IN THE CHAPTER BEFORE THIS ASK HORST TO MAKE HIM A NEW SWORD?! It would have given both of them more connection than just two dudes from the same town.
I get it, the sword isn't supposed to be super special until we get the flaming sword of awesomeness from the elves, so we just have to have a filler sword, but come on, dude! Link has had other swords besides the Master Sword, and *gasp* some swords are better than the Master Sword as well. But that's probably because it's not the swords that are special, it's the person wielding it. (PLEASE NO BREATH OF THE WILD SPOILERS, I HAVEN'T PLAYED IT YET AND I WANT TO GO INTO IT AS BLIND AS POSSIBLE)
Also, the named weapon thing bugs me to no end. I get it, named weapons are cool. But Frederic is wrong in that it's the bards who named them; it's the hero/heroine/whoever made it. Do the bards have some kind of social network where they all get together and pick the names for weapons for great heroes? Yeah, no. If that were the case, the hero would have about fifty names for their weapons and all of them would be wrong, which would kind of be hilarious.
~NA (I'm a New Anon, tagging myself thusly for clarity!)
[5A]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 16:31:48
Good point! Also, welcome, New Anon!
There's nothing in canon to suggest that Horst knows the first thing about sword-smithing, but I'm pretty sure he could make a decent axe, knife, dagger, hammer, mace, or morning star.
The story could have been really powerful if it was about Eragon protecting his humble village from outside assault, using only the crude peasant weapons he has at hand and that Horst could make for him.
[5A1]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 20:39:31
I always felt that the b-story in Eldest where Carvahall is besieged was the one good idea Paolini had, and he should have run with it. Different Anon, by the way.
[5A1A]
Anonymous
March 25 2017, 18:22:04
Most fans agree with you, and like Roran more tan Eragón because his subplot as more interesting
[5A1A1]
torylltales
March 25 2017, 20:31:57
Until Brisingr and Inheritance, where Roran jumps the shark into absurdity and becomes a remorseless evil bastard who would be a fine villain in a different story.
[6]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 16:21:40
I forgot to add, the next chapters up are
Unexpected Guests – Hergrim
Fire in the Sky – Hergrim
Man and Wife – Pipedream
[7]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 21:26:57
Unless the army is far more disciplined than it appears and is written as, there shouldn’t really need to be an armoury at all, as each member of the rebel group should have and be responsible for their own weapons
I can see this true for knights, specialist fighters and anyone else who has their own weapon. However, for the average soldiers, they'd be fighting with basic polearms and bows, so wouldn't they be more likely to have their weapons stored in an armoury?
Just like wands in Harry Potter, Fredric thinks every sword is unique and his goal is to find each soldier’s perfect match.
Imagine the poor guy when he realises the majority of soldiers fight with simple, mass produced weapons
forging scene in Inheritance when he is hashing out the details with Rhunon
Brisingr :)
Plucking a sword from the rack, Fredric handed it to Eragon,. Eragon tilted the tip of the sword up and down, then shook his head; the shape of the hilt was wrong for his hand. The weapon master did not seem disappointed. To the contrary, Eragon’s rejection seemed to invigorate him, as if he relished the challenge Eragon posed.
Even if individual weapons is the culture of the world, he is responsible for having a weapon. I don't see why Eragon didn't earlier just get a sword to use temporarily. He takes the falchion, but he should have done that much sooner, like before he went with Roran to rescue Katrina
Fuck you, Eragon, and fuck you too, Paolini. Flanged maces are extremely valuable weapons, especially against armoured opponents who are protected against cuts and slices and stabs by, guess what, ARMOUR.
I hardly ever get annoyed or angry at Eragon, becuase I just see him as a poorly written fictional character. But here, this really rubbed me the wrong way. How stuck up and arrogant can a guy, who just a few chapters ago was all humble about having a surprise party, be in turning his nose up at anything he's shown?
Eragon grumps that he “wish[es] it didn’t look so much like a big skinning knife”
Bet he insists on having his cosmetics ready outside his tent every morning
Rather than be grateful for the valuable advice of a WEAPONS MASTER about basic care and maintenance of his weapon, Eragon admonished Saphira for “deliberately [leaving] me here to listen to Fredric go on and on about water stones, oil stones, and whether linseed oil is better than rendered fat for protecting metal from water”
Wasted potential #whatever-it-is - Eragon's armour and sword rust because there never comes a time when... yeah, we've said it time and again. There just isn't close to enough consequences and setbacks.
It's nice, but... for me, perhaps a bit too similar to Frodo's line in Return of the King, "I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things." I don't know if it was an intentional lift or "homage", but Paolini's stolen so much stuff that I can't help but feel suspicious.
I feel it's a homage. Copying Star Wars and Lord of the Rings when he was younger doesn't mean he kept copying later on. You might say what about David Eddings, but then he's said how he heavily planned the series, so Galbatorix's death was more likely to have been thought of around the same time as Eragon and Eldest, than later.
Plus he's said a lot of all the fantasy series he's read, and there was that clunky homage to Doctor Who earlier
Rather than wrapping the chapter up at a natural-feeling end point, Paolini goes on for another page and a half about the two of them flying around and discussing flying and just chatting aimlessly.
Some of you guys say how Eragon and Saphira's relationship is nothing like the ultimate friendship that it's said to be, or even that they're friends at all. However don't scenes like this, regardless if they advance the plot or not, help show what they're like around each other and even that you could perceive them as friends?
- Anon 2
[7A]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 23:35:05
Yeah, something that bugs me from this site since I strumbled here is this little double standard from the book (That may or may not be caused from my lack of information)
On the one hand, peolpe say that the characters are undeveloped and bland, but when some "character building" moment happens, they say that it should be cut and does not advance the plot. Granted, thepislter guy said that more than one thing can be done at once, but they act like those passages are 100% useless.
And by the way, why do you guys keep acting like Paolini is avoiding things interesting on purpose?
It was funny the first few times, but it is getting really annoying really fast.
I understand that you were not expecting a Slice of Life kind of book, and some of the writing is just plain bad (Like Eragon getting upset at the mace thingy for the sake of a very-unfunny-comedy) but it makes me think you are doing it out of spite for the author.
[7A1]
theepistler
March 25 2017, 01:42:36 Edited: March 25 2017, 01:48:35
Hi there!
Actually I'm not a guy. I'm a woman. (Shocking, I know).
The reason why we keep bitching about these useless "character development" scenes is because real character development needs to stick, so to speak. In other words it should change the characters in some way. In this series, that doesn't happen. For instance Eragon or Roran will wail about how Killing Is Bad and how they feel terrible about it, but this never changes their behaviour in the slightest. Meanwhile Eragon has moments of acting like he's super close with either Roran or Saphira, then forgets about both of them for large stretches of the book. Nasuada promises King Orrin that she will treat him with more respect, and that never happens. And so on and so forth.
Attempts at character development in this series fall flat because all of it is token and forgotten within a paragraph or two. And that's why it's so utterly worthless and boring to read about.
And by the way, why do you guys keep acting like Paolini is avoiding things interesting on purpose?
...because potentially interesting things keep on being brought up and then dropped in favour of even more scenes in which the characters go to feasts, receive praise for being Awesome and interact with useless side-characters who will never appear again?
I honestly think Paolini does deliberately avoid writing about the potentially interesting stuff, either because he doesn't know how to go about it or because he was so bored with the series that he decided he simply couldn't be bothered to try.
It was funny the first few times, but it is getting really annoying really fast.
Well I'm sorry for not keeping you consistently entertained, Anon, but it was never meant to be funny. It's a genuine ongoing complaint we have with the series. If you're bored I can direct you to some pretty good comedy websites.
[7A2]
Anonymous
March 25 2017, 06:44:16
Addressed to the anon saying: "Yeah, something that bugs me from this site since I strumbled here is this little double standard from the book…"
Now this, fellow anon, is the tough bit. The site IS called Antishurtugal after all. Now I don't think every piece of criticism here is 100% valid (and I come here for critique of the books rather than of Paolini's life), but Paolini is a really really really bad writer, and this here is an entire site, with probably tens of thousands of words written on the subject, documenting that fact.
I will say that I always thought of this site as at least partially a comedy site, but that might be because Paolini is so easy to ridicule.
By the way, would you mind if I started using the word "strumble" in my daily life?
[7B]
kidwithrabbit
March 25 2017, 01:15:10
On the Saphira and Eragon thing: I've read all four books multiple times, and I never felt they were getting closer. Hell, it felt like they were drifting apart.
In the first book it showed that they were getting closer, while also furthering the plot. It was more than just implied via narration, but shown. After that, it slowly became nothing but empty, meaningless words as Saphira became little more than a talking tank. ...Fighter jet. Whatever. Like they weren't talking to each other, but at each other.
The books keep insisting how close they are, but it just doesn't feel genuine. Their relationship feels hollow. They feel hollow. And because these instances neither feel genuine nor further the plot, I (and I believe many others here) feel like my time is being wasted. And nobody likes when their time is wasted.
Does that make sense at all? Someone else can probably word it better than I can.
[7B1]
torylltales
March 25 2017, 01:31:07 Edited: March 25 2017, 01:34:31
Well said. Because Paolini seems to be unable or unwilling to combine character development and plot progression in any single scene, it is also inconsistent: the plot progression scenes do not contain characterisation of this relationship, so the rare times when it does crop up it does not ring true.
I think there's also an issue of ratios and exposure. If the plot were moving along at a steady pace, scenes like the one in question would be a welcome relief. But since this is yet more quiet conversation and meaningless descriptions and the airborne equivalent of a leisurely evening stroll, among almost 300 pages worth of quiet conversations and meaningless descriptions and leisurely strolls, we feel over-exposed and impatient.
Plus, because this type of scene is over-represented, the impact it might have had is diluted pretty much beyond the molar limit.
We just want the story to get on with it.
[7B1A]
Anonymous
March 25 2017, 17:26:31
Okay, so it's partly over exposure. Thanks for replying.
- Anon 2
[7B2]
minionnumber2
March 25 2017, 19:23:28
This. Most of the scenes we see between these two are kind of hollow and feel wasted. Not every scene needs to feel like it's advancing the plot, but here it doesn't even feel like we're getting to know these characters more so much as seeing them regurgitate information to one another, more often than not with Eragon being the focus. The scene in this chapter was a great example of that, because we saw Eragon's thoughts on the marriage but not Saphira's. Is it a silly ritual to her? Does the idea of these two in love hurt because she's pretty much the last female of her kind and she recently got rejected? Is she happy for the couple? Even though she was the one who brought up the marriage, we never hear any of her opinions on it.
[7C]
hergrim
March 25 2017, 15:16:34
I can see this true for knights, specialist fighters and anyone else who has their own weapon. However, for the average soldiers, they'd be fighting with basic polearms and bows, so wouldn't they be more likely to have their weapons stored in an armoury?
Nope. Those who brought their own weapons would own them outright, and those who were issued them would need to keep them on them for efficiency's sake. Nothing says "we've got problems" like trying to arm ten thousand men during a surprise attack.
Now, there probably would be a basic armoury with spare spears (or maybe just mostly shafts), bows and arrows, and maybe some swords, but it would be fairly limited.
[7C1]
torylltales
March 25 2017, 16:23:28
Exactly. There may be a central armoury, but once all the otherwise unarmed soldiers had received their kit, they would have been expected to keep and maintain their own weapons and armour independent of the supply chain or master-at-arms.
If I recall correctly, even in the Spanish Empire the majority of soldiers, including paid mercenaries, had to supply their own weapons and armour, at their own expense. Just the management of wages and food for soldiers and camp followers is enough to bankrupt a small nation, without pillaging from surrounding villages and the surrounding farmlands.
[7C1A]
Anonymous
March 25 2017, 23:27:47
Plus, a European-style wooden bow (not sure about the laminated horn Asian style) will, over use, adapt itself to the draw - the speed, the distance, the angle- its owner uses. It's a foul fault to pick up someone else's bow and draw it just out of curiosity, because the unaccustomed stress might snap it. So archers would never store their bows in an armoury where they might get picked up randomly in a hurry by someone else; they would go to bed with them, pretty much. Only reserve (unused) bows and supplies of arrows would be kept in any centralised store.
[7C2]
Anonymous
March 25 2017, 17:29:01
This makes so much more sense. I guess i was thinking of fiction where the good guys break into the armoury, so assumed an army camped would have need of one.
- Anon 2
[7C2A]
torylltales
March 25 2017, 17:44:04 Edited: March 25 2017, 20:32:24
Remembering that the Varden is essentially a rag-tag rebel force made up of Empire refugees and Surdans and dwarves and urgals and nomads and a couple of elves. Paolini should have set them up as a mixed bag of tactics and equipment, but the existence of a central armoury suggests that everyone is using the same basic tools and wearing the same basic armour, except for Named Characters who get to stand out from the crowd with unique and interesting weapons and shiny armour.
[7C2A1]
Anonymous
March 28 2017, 13:46:03
What's with this constant stream of men coming in and out of the armory? Is there a battle we need to get to that's taking place off-screen? And why does there have to be a "keeper" of the armory? I would assume it's an open door policy, take what you need and leave kind of thing. But there should be a weapon shortage, so they need to raid Empire-held armories to get supplies and better weaponry. Fredrick should be just like "I've got this," and drops a battle axe in front of Eragon. And that's literally it. The other swords were picked clean long ago. Eragon shouldn't have a choice in the matter.
A weapon shortage would be interesting, because how do you determine who fights and who gets weapons? Are there even weapon distribution for every 10 people or so? What weapons can you make in a hurry and train people on? (My first thought is spears, just boring wooden spears)
Wow...I just stumbled on another cool concept idea that never got explored at all.
[8]
zelaznamaska
March 25 2017, 05:12:56
And what exactly is Blodhgarm doing during this whole scene? Picking his nose? Playing 2048 on his phone?
[8A]
torylltales
March 25 2017, 10:14:26
Standing silently in the background. Fred addresses him at one point to confirm the difference between elfish and human sword designs. I assume he wanders off soon after that, although it isn't mentioned.
[9]
w3rew0lfgirl_99
March 25 2017, 15:01:44
Bad flying Jokes for Dragons:
"What's up?"
"The sky. *Looks up* Ouch the ceiling!"
[10]
syntinen_laulu
March 29 2017, 06:02:35 Edited: March 29 2017, 06:02:54
Fredric (which isn’t at all a mashup of ‘Fred’ and ‘Godric’)
Actually, as a Victorian spelling variant of Frederick it comes straight out of the Pirates of Penzance. I kept finding myself humming:
Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry,
Fill, oh fill the pirate glass!
And, to make us more than merry,
Let the pirate bumper pass!
Here’s good luck to Fred'ric’s ventures!
Fred'ric’s out of his indentures.
[11]
kris_norge
March 31 2017, 07:11:59
Honestly, the way I feel about this chapter is pretty fairly summed up in a quote from historical novel "The Long Sword" by Christian Cameron :
"I'm sure you will say that a sword is a sword, a tool for killing. This is true, and I can use any of them. But listen, gentles. There are many beautiful women in the world. Yes? Consider every charm, every allure. Consider the endless attractions: ankles, shoulders, the curve of a wrist, the top of a breast, the tilt of the eyes, the corners of mouths. Consider also the subtlety that is the interplay - the conversation, the soul of the lady, so that some are dull and others sparkle like a fine jewel in any company.
So ... every man has his taste, and perhaps every woman also. So many details that we cannot track them all, or even remember what we like, and yet, at least with a sword, I have to no more than wrap my hand around a hilt and raise the blade from the floor and I know . Some blades demand to be swung up and over my head. Some hilts fit my hand as if they were some sort of inverse glove. And some do not. Perhaps they have warm conversations with other swordsmen, but not with me.
The perfect sword ... it is a very intimate thing."
I lengthy quote and I strongly suspect this is what Paolini was going for but note the "This is true, and I can use any of them" against "I don’t have the time to learn a completely different way of fighting."
Rather than making Eragon look like a professional warrior feeling for his perfect weapon, he made him an arrogant and obnoxious fool who only knows how to fight with weapons that don't experience wear and tear.
[1]
theepistler
March 23 2017, 23:31:00
Fred says: “you can fight with rusty armour. You can fight with a dented helmet. But if you want to see the sun rise again, never fight with a dull sword”
Fuck's sake, Paolini; longswords aren't supposed to be razor sharp anyway, and I learned that firsthand from an expert on medieval weaponry. You put a sharp edge on something the size of a Claymore, it's going to shatter the moment you hit anything with it. Something like that has an edge much more akin to an axe. And we all know blunt edges cause a lot more damage in the long run anyway. A cut is nasty, but a cut combined with vicious bruising and broken bones is worse. Fuck it, even the makers of Lilo and Stitch knew that! In the making of they talk about how they made Stitch's claws blunt to make him appear more threatening because "blunt claws hurt a lot more".
And wow is Eragon ever an entitled asshat in this chapter. "Whine whine not good enough for my Stu self! Whine whine I don't wanna learn about how to take care of my weapons like a responsible adult!" Shut the fuck up, you spoilt brat. I've mentioned this before in a private chat with TT, but both Eragon and Paolini seem unaware of how expensive swords are. Even today when we can make them with modern machinery they cost a bomb. I paid over $200 for mine. And Eragon expects to be handed one for free, no questions asked. What, he couldn't have offered Frederic one of his handy dandy golden
And then he goes to ANOTHER feast. Do these morons have nothing better to do than feasting? Feasting is for celebrations, not commanders on the warpath. It's a huge waste of food, and it's so needlessly indulgent. And by now it's gotten so predictable and repetitive that Paolini can't even be bothered to devote more than a single sentence to it. He seems to be under the delusion that medieval types had no form of social occasion other than generic "feasting". What is this, a Redwall novel?
Does anyone remember that bit in one of the Song of Ice and Fire novels when Lady Catelyn Stark goes to meet up with Lord Renly Baratheon? The guy is also on the warpath, preparing to make a bid for the throne, but when she gets there he's holding a self-indulgent tourney and handing out prizes and meaningless titles, and then throws a big extravagant party with lots of food. It's painted as arrogant and foolish, and Cat is naturally exasperated with the guy's lackadaisical attitude, especially given that the rest of the country is in a state of chaos with open warfare, famine and slaughter ravaging all and sundry while he's stuffing his face with delicious juicy peaches. The Varden leaders are doing almost exactly the same thing, except without any justification for it since they're not supposed to be a bunch of overconfident morons who have no idea what they're getting themselves into because they've never seen real warfare before. They're supposed to be in the middle of a hard-fought, high-stakes war against a far superior foe to whom they've already lost plenty of their men, and also constantly short on supplies. Now is SO not the time for parties and feasts and cute little weddings with pretty dresses and rings and all the rest of it.
Let’s get this straight. Orrin is at least as important as Nasuada, as the Varden’s army is mostly made up of Surdan citizens and Surdan soldiers, and is funded by Surda, and is based within the borders of Surda, but having dinner with the -- last time we saw him, severely pissed-off -- King of Surda, is reduced not even to a single sentence, but to two sub-clauses within different sentences.
Even Paolini doesn't seem to think Orrin is particularly important. He writes the poor sod like a spoiled child, when he bothers to include him at all. (When Eragon acts like a spoiled child, however, that's totally okay). At least we didn't have to sit through more "Orrin is a big mean pompous jerk for no reason!" nonsense. It was irritating enough last time. I suspect Paolini wanted to avoid having to write any of that annoying "conflict" stuff, either because he's allergic or because he had some sort of secret bet with his sister that he could write an entire 900 page book in which nothing interesting happens.
[1A]
torylltales
March 23 2017, 23:41:42
Actually Fredric specifically says not to put a razor sharp edge on a sword because it will chip and bend really easily, my disagreement with him was that the sword's sharpness, while important for things like draw cuts and push cuts, is not absolutely vital to being able to defend yourself or disable an enemy attacker. A dull sword will still do the job.
$200 for a sword is suspiciously cheap. A traditionally made sword that is cutting-test ready ("battle ready" in the old days) would run closer to a thousand or more.
[1A1]
theepistler
March 23 2017, 23:49:39 Edited: March 23 2017, 23:50:22
$200 for a sword is suspiciously cheap. A traditionally made sword that is cutting-test ready ("battle ready" in the old days) would run closer to a thousand or more.
I said it was MORE than $200. TBH I couldn't remember the actual amount off the top of my head since I bought it back in 2009 or thereabouts, so I kind of just made that number up. It's not sharpened, but it's not a "display" sword - it's properly balanced for combat and so forth and could easily be used for medieval swordplay recreations and such. But yes, if it was intended for real fighting and had been made by a specialist swordsmith from Ye Olden Days using Ye Olde Forging Techniques it would have been way more expensive.
[1A2]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 01:13:45
He also doesn't seem to know how the traditions of naming a sword work. Of course it isn't new to have named swords, he definitely lifted that from Tolkien and Beowulf, but he can't seem to appreciate that a named sword is supposed to have HISTORY.
Hrunting, for example, is a family weapon, passed down through generations of Unferth's family before it ends up in Beowulf's hands.
Glamdring has a name because it was made for and used by a king, whereas Sting was never important enough to have a name until Bilbo gave it one.
[1A2A]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 21:24:23
There should be any one way that weapons in fiction are named. In Alagland, if they're named on the spot by their creators or Bards as the weapons guy says, then that's how they're named.
- Anon 2
[1A2A1]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 21:24:53
Shouldn't be named, that should say
[1A3]
hergrim
March 24 2017, 06:02:24
Even better, with the right blade geometry, a blunt sword will still cut. Blade geometry is really why sharpness is important in some swords. The katana, for instance, needs to be very sharp and very polished to make up for the thick wedge shape of the edge and thickness of the blade.
A falchion, on the other hand, might be thick at the rear of the spine, but the broad blade allows for a good taper down to the edge, and even the spine tapers towards the tip. I'd think that a blunt falchion should cut as well as a blunt longsword.
[1A3A]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 11:26:53
That too. Point is, swords are dangerous regardless of how sharp their edges are.
[1B]
kris_norge
March 31 2017, 06:59:35
With medieval longswords, sometimes only the last foot or so was sharpened, the better for thrusting, because beating on plate armour with a sword is essentially useless. It's the point that wins the fight and having the blade not too sharp around the lower and middle blade allows for a couple of variations on swordfighting like half-swording (putting one hand halfway up the blade and using it like that - useful in a narrow spot, whatever the showrunners of Game of Thrones may say) or literally gripping the blade with both hands and wielding it like a club.
[2]
vehkandvehk
March 24 2017, 03:46:12
What video is that screenshot from? I need to watch this!
[2A]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 10:22:38
it's from a 2003 BBC series called "Imagine", but sadly I think the clip itself has been lost to time. I've sent BBC One a facebook comment asking about it, but it's not listed on the BBC One website.
One of the antis many years ago made an animated gif of it, but that too seems to be lost. :(
[2A1]
Anonymous
March 28 2017, 00:59:19
It wouldn't happen to be this series would it?
http://www.onwatchseries.ac/serie/imagine_uk
Even if it's not, I suggest you use that link to check out The Ecstacy of Wilko Johnson. Absolutely fantastic documentary.
[2A1A]
torylltales
March 28 2017, 08:25:15
yes!
If anybody is able to download this episode http://www.onwatchseries.ac/episode/imagine_uk_s3_e5.html (season 3, episode 5 - unsuitable for children) without a bunch of spam and popups and sketchy account signup forms, that would be wonderful
[3]
hergrim
March 24 2017, 06:53:39
While I strongly doubt that Paolini was aware, some Germanic blades did indeed have differential hardening. Whether this was deliberate or not I don't know, since it can happen spontaneously depending on the a geometry and metallurgy of the blade, although the pattern on the seax blade suggests it might have been.
As to the dwarves using it, I think it makes sense for them to be aware of the technique, but that it's more likely they would have used crucible steel because, while less hard, it's tougher overall.
[3A]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 11:30:01
Wouldn't that depend on the purity of the local iron ore deposits? As I understand it, crucible steel was developed in response to poor quality metals, much like the folding and pattern-welding techniques. If the dwarves have very good quality steel, they wouldn't need to do too much processing to remove and spread out the impurities.
[3A1]
hergrim
March 24 2017, 15:40:57
I've never seen anything to suggest that crucible steel was the result of poor quality metals. Alan Williams doesn't really say anything on the quality of the iron or iron and steel used in the process, but I do know that wootz steel was made using very high quality ore.
Even with good quality ores, though, crucible steel would be of a much high quality than any bloomery steel. The only thing that could match it for homogeneity would be steel folded and welded in the Japanese fashion, which has almost no slag inclusions at all.
[3A1A]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 16:00:07
Since posting that comment I read up a bit more on it. I stand corrected, I originally thought the whole point of crucible steel was to be able to skim off the slag etc. once it was melted.
[3A1A1]
hergrim
March 24 2017, 16:11:46
That's fair enough. I had to double check myself before I replied, just in case I was remembering wrong.
[4]
dinogrrl
March 24 2017, 10:05:42
I admit my knowledge of weapons isn't fantastic or anything, but seeing as a lot of my stories deal with wars and those fighting them, I've had to do a decent amount of research into arms and armor over the years. The only weapon I've ever actually somewhat sparred with is a quarterstaff, and I have done archery a bit, but beyond that, nothing.
And yet even MY brain is hurting from how wrong all those words are in this chapter. This isn't even the sort of crazy nitpicky knowledge you'd have to ask an expert for, either! You can literally pull up this information within the first few links on Google aaaaaaaaaaah *flails*
[5]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 14:36:55
Gee, it's not like there's a blacksmith who knows how to craft swords and could make a sword just for Eragon...OH WAIT!
Seriously, missed opportunity for Horst to shine here. I get (kind of) why this was the route taken: to show how big the world is and how many characters there are, etc. But SERIOUSLY. YOU HAVE A BLACKSMITH ERAGON ALREADY KNOWS. WHY DIDN'T ERAGON IN THE CHAPTER BEFORE THIS ASK HORST TO MAKE HIM A NEW SWORD?! It would have given both of them more connection than just two dudes from the same town.
I get it, the sword isn't supposed to be super special until we get the flaming sword of awesomeness from the elves, so we just have to have a filler sword, but come on, dude! Link has had other swords besides the Master Sword, and *gasp* some swords are better than the Master Sword as well. But that's probably because it's not the swords that are special, it's the person wielding it. (PLEASE NO BREATH OF THE WILD SPOILERS, I HAVEN'T PLAYED IT YET AND I WANT TO GO INTO IT AS BLIND AS POSSIBLE)
Also, the named weapon thing bugs me to no end. I get it, named weapons are cool. But Frederic is wrong in that it's the bards who named them; it's the hero/heroine/whoever made it. Do the bards have some kind of social network where they all get together and pick the names for weapons for great heroes? Yeah, no. If that were the case, the hero would have about fifty names for their weapons and all of them would be wrong, which would kind of be hilarious.
~NA (I'm a New Anon, tagging myself thusly for clarity!)
[5A]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 16:31:48
Good point! Also, welcome, New Anon!
There's nothing in canon to suggest that Horst knows the first thing about sword-smithing, but I'm pretty sure he could make a decent axe, knife, dagger, hammer, mace, or morning star.
The story could have been really powerful if it was about Eragon protecting his humble village from outside assault, using only the crude peasant weapons he has at hand and that Horst could make for him.
[5A1]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 20:39:31
I always felt that the b-story in Eldest where Carvahall is besieged was the one good idea Paolini had, and he should have run with it. Different Anon, by the way.
[5A1A]
Anonymous
March 25 2017, 18:22:04
Most fans agree with you, and like Roran more tan Eragón because his subplot as more interesting
[5A1A1]
torylltales
March 25 2017, 20:31:57
Until Brisingr and Inheritance, where Roran jumps the shark into absurdity and becomes a remorseless evil bastard who would be a fine villain in a different story.
[6]
torylltales
March 24 2017, 16:21:40
I forgot to add, the next chapters up are
Unexpected Guests – Hergrim
Fire in the Sky – Hergrim
Man and Wife – Pipedream
[7]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 21:26:57
Unless the army is far more disciplined than it appears and is written as, there shouldn’t really need to be an armoury at all, as each member of the rebel group should have and be responsible for their own weapons
I can see this true for knights, specialist fighters and anyone else who has their own weapon. However, for the average soldiers, they'd be fighting with basic polearms and bows, so wouldn't they be more likely to have their weapons stored in an armoury?
Just like wands in Harry Potter, Fredric thinks every sword is unique and his goal is to find each soldier’s perfect match.
Imagine the poor guy when he realises the majority of soldiers fight with simple, mass produced weapons
forging scene in Inheritance when he is hashing out the details with Rhunon
Brisingr :)
Plucking a sword from the rack, Fredric handed it to Eragon,. Eragon tilted the tip of the sword up and down, then shook his head; the shape of the hilt was wrong for his hand. The weapon master did not seem disappointed. To the contrary, Eragon’s rejection seemed to invigorate him, as if he relished the challenge Eragon posed.
Even if individual weapons is the culture of the world, he is responsible for having a weapon. I don't see why Eragon didn't earlier just get a sword to use temporarily. He takes the falchion, but he should have done that much sooner, like before he went with Roran to rescue Katrina
Fuck you, Eragon, and fuck you too, Paolini. Flanged maces are extremely valuable weapons, especially against armoured opponents who are protected against cuts and slices and stabs by, guess what, ARMOUR.
I hardly ever get annoyed or angry at Eragon, becuase I just see him as a poorly written fictional character. But here, this really rubbed me the wrong way. How stuck up and arrogant can a guy, who just a few chapters ago was all humble about having a surprise party, be in turning his nose up at anything he's shown?
Eragon grumps that he “wish[es] it didn’t look so much like a big skinning knife”
Bet he insists on having his cosmetics ready outside his tent every morning
Rather than be grateful for the valuable advice of a WEAPONS MASTER about basic care and maintenance of his weapon, Eragon admonished Saphira for “deliberately [leaving] me here to listen to Fredric go on and on about water stones, oil stones, and whether linseed oil is better than rendered fat for protecting metal from water”
Wasted potential #whatever-it-is - Eragon's armour and sword rust because there never comes a time when... yeah, we've said it time and again. There just isn't close to enough consequences and setbacks.
It's nice, but... for me, perhaps a bit too similar to Frodo's line in Return of the King, "I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things." I don't know if it was an intentional lift or "homage", but Paolini's stolen so much stuff that I can't help but feel suspicious.
I feel it's a homage. Copying Star Wars and Lord of the Rings when he was younger doesn't mean he kept copying later on. You might say what about David Eddings, but then he's said how he heavily planned the series, so Galbatorix's death was more likely to have been thought of around the same time as Eragon and Eldest, than later.
Plus he's said a lot of all the fantasy series he's read, and there was that clunky homage to Doctor Who earlier
Rather than wrapping the chapter up at a natural-feeling end point, Paolini goes on for another page and a half about the two of them flying around and discussing flying and just chatting aimlessly.
Some of you guys say how Eragon and Saphira's relationship is nothing like the ultimate friendship that it's said to be, or even that they're friends at all. However don't scenes like this, regardless if they advance the plot or not, help show what they're like around each other and even that you could perceive them as friends?
- Anon 2
[7A]
Anonymous
March 24 2017, 23:35:05
Yeah, something that bugs me from this site since I strumbled here is this little double standard from the book (That may or may not be caused from my lack of information)
On the one hand, peolpe say that the characters are undeveloped and bland, but when some "character building" moment happens, they say that it should be cut and does not advance the plot. Granted, thepislter guy said that more than one thing can be done at once, but they act like those passages are 100% useless.
And by the way, why do you guys keep acting like Paolini is avoiding things interesting on purpose?
It was funny the first few times, but it is getting really annoying really fast.
I understand that you were not expecting a Slice of Life kind of book, and some of the writing is just plain bad (Like Eragon getting upset at the mace thingy for the sake of a very-unfunny-comedy) but it makes me think you are doing it out of spite for the author.
[7A1]
theepistler
March 25 2017, 01:42:36 Edited: March 25 2017, 01:48:35
Hi there!
Actually I'm not a guy. I'm a woman. (Shocking, I know).
The reason why we keep bitching about these useless "character development" scenes is because real character development needs to stick, so to speak. In other words it should change the characters in some way. In this series, that doesn't happen. For instance Eragon or Roran will wail about how Killing Is Bad and how they feel terrible about it, but this never changes their behaviour in the slightest. Meanwhile Eragon has moments of acting like he's super close with either Roran or Saphira, then forgets about both of them for large stretches of the book. Nasuada promises King Orrin that she will treat him with more respect, and that never happens. And so on and so forth.
Attempts at character development in this series fall flat because all of it is token and forgotten within a paragraph or two. And that's why it's so utterly worthless and boring to read about.
And by the way, why do you guys keep acting like Paolini is avoiding things interesting on purpose?
...because potentially interesting things keep on being brought up and then dropped in favour of even more scenes in which the characters go to feasts, receive praise for being Awesome and interact with useless side-characters who will never appear again?
I honestly think Paolini does deliberately avoid writing about the potentially interesting stuff, either because he doesn't know how to go about it or because he was so bored with the series that he decided he simply couldn't be bothered to try.
It was funny the first few times, but it is getting really annoying really fast.
Well I'm sorry for not keeping you consistently entertained, Anon, but it was never meant to be funny. It's a genuine ongoing complaint we have with the series. If you're bored I can direct you to some pretty good comedy websites.
[7A2]
Anonymous
March 25 2017, 06:44:16
Addressed to the anon saying: "Yeah, something that bugs me from this site since I strumbled here is this little double standard from the book…"
Now this, fellow anon, is the tough bit. The site IS called Antishurtugal after all. Now I don't think every piece of criticism here is 100% valid (and I come here for critique of the books rather than of Paolini's life), but Paolini is a really really really bad writer, and this here is an entire site, with probably tens of thousands of words written on the subject, documenting that fact.
I will say that I always thought of this site as at least partially a comedy site, but that might be because Paolini is so easy to ridicule.
By the way, would you mind if I started using the word "strumble" in my daily life?
[7B]
kidwithrabbit
March 25 2017, 01:15:10
On the Saphira and Eragon thing: I've read all four books multiple times, and I never felt they were getting closer. Hell, it felt like they were drifting apart.
In the first book it showed that they were getting closer, while also furthering the plot. It was more than just implied via narration, but shown. After that, it slowly became nothing but empty, meaningless words as Saphira became little more than a talking tank. ...Fighter jet. Whatever. Like they weren't talking to each other, but at each other.
The books keep insisting how close they are, but it just doesn't feel genuine. Their relationship feels hollow. They feel hollow. And because these instances neither feel genuine nor further the plot, I (and I believe many others here) feel like my time is being wasted. And nobody likes when their time is wasted.
Does that make sense at all? Someone else can probably word it better than I can.
[7B1]
torylltales
March 25 2017, 01:31:07 Edited: March 25 2017, 01:34:31
Well said. Because Paolini seems to be unable or unwilling to combine character development and plot progression in any single scene, it is also inconsistent: the plot progression scenes do not contain characterisation of this relationship, so the rare times when it does crop up it does not ring true.
I think there's also an issue of ratios and exposure. If the plot were moving along at a steady pace, scenes like the one in question would be a welcome relief. But since this is yet more quiet conversation and meaningless descriptions and the airborne equivalent of a leisurely evening stroll, among almost 300 pages worth of quiet conversations and meaningless descriptions and leisurely strolls, we feel over-exposed and impatient.
Plus, because this type of scene is over-represented, the impact it might have had is diluted pretty much beyond the molar limit.
We just want the story to get on with it.
[7B1A]
Anonymous
March 25 2017, 17:26:31
Okay, so it's partly over exposure. Thanks for replying.
- Anon 2
[7B2]
minionnumber2
March 25 2017, 19:23:28
This. Most of the scenes we see between these two are kind of hollow and feel wasted. Not every scene needs to feel like it's advancing the plot, but here it doesn't even feel like we're getting to know these characters more so much as seeing them regurgitate information to one another, more often than not with Eragon being the focus. The scene in this chapter was a great example of that, because we saw Eragon's thoughts on the marriage but not Saphira's. Is it a silly ritual to her? Does the idea of these two in love hurt because she's pretty much the last female of her kind and she recently got rejected? Is she happy for the couple? Even though she was the one who brought up the marriage, we never hear any of her opinions on it.
[7C]
hergrim
March 25 2017, 15:16:34
I can see this true for knights, specialist fighters and anyone else who has their own weapon. However, for the average soldiers, they'd be fighting with basic polearms and bows, so wouldn't they be more likely to have their weapons stored in an armoury?
Nope. Those who brought their own weapons would own them outright, and those who were issued them would need to keep them on them for efficiency's sake. Nothing says "we've got problems" like trying to arm ten thousand men during a surprise attack.
Now, there probably would be a basic armoury with spare spears (or maybe just mostly shafts), bows and arrows, and maybe some swords, but it would be fairly limited.
[7C1]
torylltales
March 25 2017, 16:23:28
Exactly. There may be a central armoury, but once all the otherwise unarmed soldiers had received their kit, they would have been expected to keep and maintain their own weapons and armour independent of the supply chain or master-at-arms.
If I recall correctly, even in the Spanish Empire the majority of soldiers, including paid mercenaries, had to supply their own weapons and armour, at their own expense. Just the management of wages and food for soldiers and camp followers is enough to bankrupt a small nation, without pillaging from surrounding villages and the surrounding farmlands.
[7C1A]
Anonymous
March 25 2017, 23:27:47
Plus, a European-style wooden bow (not sure about the laminated horn Asian style) will, over use, adapt itself to the draw - the speed, the distance, the angle- its owner uses. It's a foul fault to pick up someone else's bow and draw it just out of curiosity, because the unaccustomed stress might snap it. So archers would never store their bows in an armoury where they might get picked up randomly in a hurry by someone else; they would go to bed with them, pretty much. Only reserve (unused) bows and supplies of arrows would be kept in any centralised store.
[7C2]
Anonymous
March 25 2017, 17:29:01
This makes so much more sense. I guess i was thinking of fiction where the good guys break into the armoury, so assumed an army camped would have need of one.
- Anon 2
[7C2A]
torylltales
March 25 2017, 17:44:04 Edited: March 25 2017, 20:32:24
Remembering that the Varden is essentially a rag-tag rebel force made up of Empire refugees and Surdans and dwarves and urgals and nomads and a couple of elves. Paolini should have set them up as a mixed bag of tactics and equipment, but the existence of a central armoury suggests that everyone is using the same basic tools and wearing the same basic armour, except for Named Characters who get to stand out from the crowd with unique and interesting weapons and shiny armour.
[7C2A1]
Anonymous
March 28 2017, 13:46:03
What's with this constant stream of men coming in and out of the armory? Is there a battle we need to get to that's taking place off-screen? And why does there have to be a "keeper" of the armory? I would assume it's an open door policy, take what you need and leave kind of thing. But there should be a weapon shortage, so they need to raid Empire-held armories to get supplies and better weaponry. Fredrick should be just like "I've got this," and drops a battle axe in front of Eragon. And that's literally it. The other swords were picked clean long ago. Eragon shouldn't have a choice in the matter.
A weapon shortage would be interesting, because how do you determine who fights and who gets weapons? Are there even weapon distribution for every 10 people or so? What weapons can you make in a hurry and train people on? (My first thought is spears, just boring wooden spears)
Wow...I just stumbled on another cool concept idea that never got explored at all.
[8]
zelaznamaska
March 25 2017, 05:12:56
And what exactly is Blodhgarm doing during this whole scene? Picking his nose? Playing 2048 on his phone?
[8A]
torylltales
March 25 2017, 10:14:26
Standing silently in the background. Fred addresses him at one point to confirm the difference between elfish and human sword designs. I assume he wanders off soon after that, although it isn't mentioned.
[9]
w3rew0lfgirl_99
March 25 2017, 15:01:44
Bad flying Jokes for Dragons:
"What's up?"
"The sky. *Looks up* Ouch the ceiling!"
[10]
syntinen_laulu
March 29 2017, 06:02:35 Edited: March 29 2017, 06:02:54
Fredric (which isn’t at all a mashup of ‘Fred’ and ‘Godric’)
Actually, as a Victorian spelling variant of Frederick it comes straight out of the Pirates of Penzance. I kept finding myself humming:
Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry,
Fill, oh fill the pirate glass!
And, to make us more than merry,
Let the pirate bumper pass!
Here’s good luck to Fred'ric’s ventures!
Fred'ric’s out of his indentures.
[11]
kris_norge
March 31 2017, 07:11:59
Honestly, the way I feel about this chapter is pretty fairly summed up in a quote from historical novel "The Long Sword" by Christian Cameron :
"I'm sure you will say that a sword is a sword, a tool for killing. This is true, and I can use any of them. But listen, gentles. There are many beautiful women in the world. Yes? Consider every charm, every allure. Consider the endless attractions: ankles, shoulders, the curve of a wrist, the top of a breast, the tilt of the eyes, the corners of mouths. Consider also the subtlety that is the interplay - the conversation, the soul of the lady, so that some are dull and others sparkle like a fine jewel in any company.
So ... every man has his taste, and perhaps every woman also. So many details that we cannot track them all, or even remember what we like, and yet, at least with a sword, I have to no more than wrap my hand around a hilt and raise the blade from the floor and I know . Some blades demand to be swung up and over my head. Some hilts fit my hand as if they were some sort of inverse glove. And some do not. Perhaps they have warm conversations with other swordsmen, but not with me.
The perfect sword ... it is a very intimate thing."
I lengthy quote and I strongly suspect this is what Paolini was going for but note the "This is true, and I can use any of them" against "I don’t have the time to learn a completely different way of fighting."
Rather than making Eragon look like a professional warrior feeling for his perfect weapon, he made him an arrogant and obnoxious fool who only knows how to fight with weapons that don't experience wear and tear.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-17 07:28 pm (UTC)People playing with action figures: https://pangolin20.dreamwidth.org/file/72735.gif