Brisingr Spork, Chapter 35: Clanmeet

[pangolin20]

the_bishop8 wrote in antishurtugal, 2017-11-06 06:28:00

MOOD: relieved

Brisingr Spork, Chapter 35: Clanmeet

Hello! Sorry this took so long to get out, but here we are with Clanmeet, where the dwarven politics continue.

theepistler worked with me on this one just like last time, unlike last time, our comments have combined into a slightly odd hodgepodge.

With that in mind, here's the spork.
The chapter starts with Eragon meeting with Orik. Orik managed to capture three dwarves, who are all stacked on top of each other for some reason.

Eragon asks who the captured dwarves are. Orik says that the knives from the assassins led to the one who made them, which led to the armorer who had them, which led to the woman who bought them, which led to the merchant she gave them to, which led to the city the merchant went, which is a dead end. This doesn’t answer Eragon’s question, Orik just wanted to tell us all of this useless information for no reason. And apparently he managed to pull all this off in just a few hours, which is shall we say just a wee bit unbelievable.

“So, by means of a very, very clever spell, we retraced the path of the assassins back through the tunnels and caves, blah, blah, blah, to an abandoned storeroom where those three”— he gestured toward the bound dwarves—“ had been staying.”

In other words, Paolini couldn’t think of how Orik could get the evidence needed, so he used bullshit. It’s a good thing those guys decided to stay in the same place after the attack failed.

It was not easy, but we broke the minds of two of them— leaving the third for the other grimstborithn to interrogate at their pleasure—

Gee, good thing there are three of them. If there had only been one, things might have been inconvenient.

They’re apparently the ones behind the attack, and they took their orders directly from the leader of the Anhuin, because he wasn’t smart enough to use intermediaries.

“I have a plan. But we must tread carefully, for this is a situation of the utmost delicacy. Such a betrayal has not occurred in many long years. As an outsider, you cannot know how abhorrent we find it that one of our own should attack a guest.”

It’s a good thing Paolini established what attacking a guest means well beforehand, oh wait.

In case they have to war with the Anhuin, they need to convince the other clan chiefs that the Anhuin were behind the assassination attempt. To help convince them, they’ll need to read Eragon’s mind.

Eragon isn’t really comfortable with having his mind read; in other words, he’s a hypocrite. Sure, breaking into Sloan’s mind and violently forcing his thoughts into the guy’s head is okay, but having his own memories examined is just wrong. He says he’ll allow it, but if they go to a place in his mind they’re not supposed to go, he’ll have to burn away whatever they’ve seen. Which just reads like a needless veiled threat. Against an ally.

I am sure the clan chiefs will accept your conditions—for they all have secrets of their own they would not want bandied about—


Um, ok, if you’re sure, Orik. I personally wouldn't trust that the clan chiefs would accept those terms just because they empathize with keeping secrets.

They go to sleep, so now Eragon has to have a dream sequence. Joy.

He was standing in Horst’s workshop, the doors of which hung open, loose upon their hinges, like an idiot’s slackjaw grin.

Even his dreams have bad metaphors.

Eragon wants Horst to make him a Rider’s sword, but Horst is too busy making a pothook for Elain to use in battle. With that as a weapon, she’d become an even better fighter than Roran. Horst asks where Eragon’s mother and father are, and that’s when Morzan shows up. He has blue eyes, even though his eyes had different colors when Jeod described him before. Either this is a inaccurate dream, or more likely Paolini is having trouble with consistency again. Morzan copies Darth Vader and asks Eragon to join him so they can destroy the Varden, kill Galbatorix, and rule over Alagaesia. That’s when the dream ends.

I think Paolini forgot to add the part that made this dream not pointless. It doesn’t count as foreshadowing since he’s never actively tempted by the Dark Side, and it doesn’t count as character development since it doesn’t express any actual fears he has. It’s just kind of there. Being pointless. And plagiarised. And ironically enough Eragon joined the Dark Side a hundred pages or so ago when he committed cold-blooded murder and then pretended it was “necessary”. Villains always claim their acts of murder are a “necessary sacrifice”. Rationalising away shocking and cruel behaviour is half of what makes a villain so evil in the first place.

Cut to the Clanmeet. Eragon watches as everyone files into the meeting chamber while he keeps a hand ready on his sword. This is because for the rest of the chapter, Eragon will be preparing for the Anhuin to attack him. I guess it makes sense for him to be cautious after the ambush...but Paolini doesn’t do anything with it. It doesn’t make sense for the Anhuin to attack here, and they don’t, so Eragon just looks like a paranoid idiot. He doesn't even stay paranoid; he completely abandons his guards at the end of the next dwarven politics chapter.

Eragon felt Orik’s boot nudge his own. Without looking away from Vermûnd, Eragon leaned over toward Orik and heard him whisper, “Remember, to the left and three doorways down,” referring to the place where Orik had stationed a hundred of his warriors without the other clan chiefs knowing.

That they were able to get that many soldiers so close to the meeting without anyone knowing seems like terrible security.

Orik asks Eragon to pray for luck, and he does so. Is he an atheist or not? He doesn’t even hesitate over it, or feel like a hypocrite. He just prays without so much as a second thought.

Everyone takes a seat, and we’re told again that Eragon is preparing for a fight. Because fighting and killing is all Eragon understands.

Orik starts telling everyone what happened...well, no, that’s not what happens next. We get 3 pages of pointless information, then Orik starts talking. During which Eragon prepares for a fight, again. Pointlessly.

So, Orik starts talking, except he’s talks about ancient history instead of the assassination attempt. Why? Good question. I don’t really have a solid idea. It seems to be partly for dramatic reasons, and some weak foreshadowing.

Orik talks about how the dragon riders formed, and criticises the dwarves for not joining in on it.

“And what was our response when we learned of their intentions?” demanded Orik, his voice ringing loud in the chamber. “Did we ask to be included in their pact? Did we aspire to share in the power that would be the Dragon Riders’? No! We clung to our old ways, our old hatreds, and we rejected the very thought of bonding with the dragons or allowing anyone outside our realm to police us.

Orik (Paolini) seems to be forgetting that the dragon riders were at first only intended to be messengers between the elves and dragons. It was only over a long period of time that their power and authority increased. He also seems to have forgotten that the dwarves have every reason to dislike the dragons, and on top of that he has the spine to imply that it’s bad for an independent culture and people to resent being told what to do by some outside authority purely because said authority has dragons.

Orik also thinks that Galbatorix wouldn’t have risen to power if there had been dwarven dragon riders. I’m not sure why he thinks this, and he doesn’t explain.

Even if I am wrong— and I mean not to belittle Eragon, who has proven himself a fine Rider— the dragon Saphira might have hatched for one of our race and not a human. And then what glory might have been ours?

Did the human race gain a lot of glory just because Saphira hatched for Eragon? Orik’s thoughts don’t make much sense to me. Also nice show of kissing Eragon’s ass there, Orik. How is he a “fine Rider”, again?

Orik then complains that the importance of dwarves in Alagaesia has faded ever since the riders formed, and that the dwarves should have joined the riders when the humans did, except they were too prideful to beg the elves to include them. I can understand not wanting to kowtow to the elves, except it sounds like the dwarves did nothing to make themselves more important or more powerful except to complain about it.

“We did not need to chain our fate to the dragons’ in order to save our race from destruction, as had the elves and humans. We ignored, of course, the battles we waged among ourselves. Those, we reasoned, were private affairs and of no concern to anyone else.”

Do you really have clan wars often enough that having dragon riders ruling over you would be worth it just to stop those from happening? I’m imagining someone remarking “you dwarves sure are a contentious people” only to have Orik yell “you just made an enemy for life!”

“While the Riders watched over Alagaësia, we enjoyed the greatest period of prosperity ever recorded in the annals of our realm. We flourished as never before, and yet we had no share in the cause of it: the Dragon Riders. When the Riders fell, our fortunes faltered, but again we had no share in the cause of it: the Riders. Neither state of affairs is, I deem, fitting for a race of our stature. We are not a country of vassals subject to the whims of foreign masters. Nor should those who are not the descendants of Odgar and Hlordis dictate our fate.”

Unless your country becomes completely isolated, it’s going to be influenced at least somewhat by the successes and failures of neighboring countries. You would think that the main dwarf opposing Orik would use an argument like this, since they’re all for isolation.

“Consider now our present era,” said Orik. “Galbatorix is ascendant, and every race fights to remain free of his rule. He has grown so powerful, the only reason we are not already his slaves is that, so far, he has not chosen to fly out upon his black dragon and attack us directly. If he did, we would fall before him like saplings before an avalanche. Fortunately, he seems content to wait for us to slaughter our way to the gates of his citadel in Urû’baen.

How is it possible to use this as an argument to attack him instead of an argument to leave him alone? And why hasn’t Galbatorix attacked the dwarves if he’s so ridiculously powerful?

(...)Our only hope of defeating Galbatorix was that someday, somewhere, Saphira would hatch for her chosen Rider and that this unknown person would, perhaps, perchance, if we were luckier than every gambler who has ever won a toss of dice, be able to overthrow Galbatorix.

At least you have a good sense of your odds.

When Eragon first presented himself, many of us were dismayed by his appearance, myself included. ‘He is but a boy,’ we said. ‘It would have been better if he had been an elf,’ we said.

Dwarves are on the same level as humans when compared to elves, and earlier you said it would have been glorious if Saphira had hatched for a dwarf, but here you say an elf would have been best. Something about that seems contradictory.

“But lo, he has shown himself to be the embodiment of our every hope! He slew Durza, and so allowed us to save our most beloved city, Tronjheim. His dragon, Saphira, has promised to restore the Star Rose to its former glory. During the Battle of the Burning Plains, he drove off Murtagh and Thorn, and so allowed us to win the day. And look! He even now wears the semblance of an elf, and through their strange magics, he has acquired their speed and their strength.”

Promising to fix something you broke isn’t worthy of praise, it’s just common decency. Eragon wasn’t actually strong enough to drive off Murtagh, but Orik wouldn’t know that Eragon lied about that. Eragon didn’t do anything to earn his elven power up, for all Orik knows, that would have happened to any human Saphira might have hatched for. The only one of these you could argue that Eragon deserves praise for is that he killed Durza, but he did it not with skill, but because he caught Durza by surprise. Orik goes on to say that Eragon has embraced the dwarves as no Rider ever has, which is horseshit - Eragon doesn’t give a damn about the dwarves except as useful tools to win a war they have no part in, a fact which has been made blindingly obvious during these chapters, in which he’s done nothing but rage and sulk over the clanmeet’s refusal to pick a new leader who will act according to his personal convenience, and sneer at anyone who thinks it would be in their best interests to keep apart. To hell with dwarvish wellfare; if they’re not part of his personal army they can get bent.

Orik continues to ramble on and on for several huge paragraphs, and he sounds less like a fantasy character than a real-world politician, ie. boring and full of hot air.
He basically tells the other dwarves they should be ashamed of themselves for trying to kill the most important guy in the entire universe around whom the entire universe revolves, in other words Eragon. Yes, how dare any of them resent having this mindless jerk hanging around and interfering in their politics for the sake of his own agenda. They couldn’t possibly have any legitimate grievances. If you’re against the Sue, you’re just wrong wrongity McWrong.

He starts bickering with the head of the Anhuin clan, who tries to deny everything, but Orik lays out the evidence and soon has him dead to rights. Eragon prepares for a fight once, yes that nonsense is still going on. Perhaps the most hilarious bit is when he whips out a TV set and plays a video clip of one of the witnesses giving evidence. Well okay it’s a “magic mirror” but there really isn’t any difference when all is said and done. I hate it when “magic” is just used as a substitute for modern technology to the point where it might as well BE modern technology.

Finally Eragon testifies and has his memories examined by a couple of dwarf magicians. Predictably he’s pleased to find that they’re afraid of him. That’s our Eragon, never satisfied unless he’s in a position of power over everyone around him.

Orik confronts Vermund with his Obvious Guilt, but Vermund counters by saying that because Eragon is an adoptive dwarf he doesn’t count as a guest, so trying to murder him is A-OK. Right, whatever. Several of the dwarves go off for a consultation with the “sayers of law”, and Eragon sits there like the muggins he is thinking “Surely they won’t let Vermûnd escape punishment just because of some verbal trickery!” What verbal trickery? A legal loophole maybe.
A few minutes later they come back, and declare that nope - Eragon is Special so it still counts. Thank goodness; the suspense was killing me.

Vermund makes a painfully long speech, the essence of which boils down to “if you try to prosecute my clan we’ll declare war”. He also smiles smugly, just to pound it into our heads that we’re not supposed to like him. Eragon wants to jump up on the table and “rail against Vermund until the dwarves agreed to hang him for his crimes.” Please, feel free to make a fool of yourself, Eragon.

Finally Orik “cleverly” declares that okay, fine - if they can’t attack the Anhuin clan, they’ll just give them the silent treatment until they get rid of Vermund and replace him with someone less obnoxious. Vermund is all “Oh no you d’in’t!” and Orik is like “YAH I totally did!” He asks the other clan chiefs what they think and they all agree to boot Vermund out of the meeting. He leaves, but not before making an angry speech ending with “The Dragon Riders killed all of our clan,
save Anhûin and her guards. You expect us to forget this? You expect us to forgive this? Bah! I spit on the graves of your ancestors. We at least have not lost our beards. We shall not cavort with this puppet of the elves while our dead family members still cry out for vengeance.”

Note that he doesn’t say Galbatorix wiped out the clan. No - he says the Riders did it.Does Eragon pick up on this? Of course not; he just gets pissy at the “insult”.
Prat. Vermund continues to rant and carry on, but everyone there acts as if he doesn’t exist and he finally gives up and leaves. Eragon cares so little about this whole state of affairs I’m surprised he doesn’t yell “don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya, loser!”.

Finally Orik says it’s time to get on and vote for the new ruler already. Of course the new ruler will be Orik, because he’s the only major character here who isn’t Eragon and he’s just displayed his, um, amazing political talent and skill at rhetoric.

Then they break for lunch. Orik tells Eragon in private that when the Clanmeet resumes they’ll finally get on and vote. But for now it’s time to - what else - throw a feast! Because that’s basically all anyone does in this book other than sit around talking. Eragon’s going to need to go on a serious diet with all the feasting he’s been doing. And should they really be wasting all this food on extravagant parties when they’re supposed to be in the middle of a friggin’ war?

Finally, Orik tells Eragon to go summon Saphira, because they’ll need her here for the coronation in three days. Eragon gets all excited and runs off to find a magic payphone, end chapter.

20 comments

[1]

snarkbotanya
November 7 2017, 05:23:55
Yay, the sporking continues! And with the temporary banishment of the Hacking Cough Clan, no less. I took great joy in turning that "resolution" against Pao-Pao in the spitefic. I mean, there's no way Az Sweldn rak Anhuin would accept dwarven Dragon Riders once they swapped out their Grimstborith and rejoined their society. (Spitefic Canon is that they basically swapped in a puppet; they've got a new Grimstborith on paper, but Vermund is still very much in charge.)

[2]

Anonymous
November 7 2017, 09:21:30
The dream about Morzan.

When I first read it, I only groaned "Why? Is it really necessary to include every cliché?",
because what I got from it was "I need to have a 'temptation by evil daddy' scene".
This was emphasized by the fact that the scene had zero impact on the story beyond a
bit of whiny angst on the same page.

At the ens of the book I was really annoyed.
Despite being cliché, this scene could have been the start of a struggle that Eragon needed
to go through prior to facing Galbatorix in which his special powers would not help him at all,
being a hindrance rather than an asset.
That would have been character development, but no we can't have that.
Paolini bailed him out in the cheapest way possible by changing the identity of the daddy.
Can't have ``perfect´´ Eragon have a blemish by having an evil daddy.

Anon - 4.
.

[3]

Anonymous
November 7 2017, 09:43:57
Eragon actually does care this time around; he reflects on how horrible it was to be banished by dwarves, as the person is just ignored by every body and not even considered a person/dwarf (wonder where Paolini ripped this specific form of banishment from?).

[3A]

the_bishop8
November 7 2017, 11:10:51
I was going to mention that, but not in the context you're suggesting. Vermund and Sloan have very similar punishments, but Eragon thinks that Sloan's punishment wasn't worse than death, while thinking that he'd rather die than face Vermund's punishment. This seems contradictory, especially if you think Sloan's punishment was the worse of the two, which it arguably was.

[3A1]

Anonymous
November 7 2017, 15:57:25
Well, it makes sense when you think about it. Vermund's punishment essentially consists of being ignored by everyone, and we all know Eragon would hate that kind of thing.

[3A1A]

thegharialguy
November 9 2017, 21:27:05
Ha, Nice.

[3B]

theepistler
November 7 2017, 15:46:51
I was actually intending to go back and add something about that - I planned to give the spork a final going-over before it was posted, but unfortunately bishop8 beat me to the punch.

[3C]

zorbulon
November 8 2017, 04:41:56
Two things sorta kinda come to mind:

Malloreon, where Polgara the Bitch curses an evul priest to live forever but no one will even notice he exists and he will effectively be an immaterial ghost;

Ancient Greek legendarium, where one of the bitchy gods curses Cassandra (sp?) so that while her predictions and prophecies are correct, no one will believe her anyway.

Then again Greeks of antiquity were fairly keen on the whole 'ostracizing' thing.

[3C1]

Anonymous
November 8 2017, 13:53:11
I think the god that did that was Apollo.

[4]

torylltales
November 7 2017, 13:26:18
The only thing that outdoes the silliness of Orik's "detective work" in this chapter is the sheer irrelevance of this chapter to the story. Is there anything that happens in this chapter that affects anything at all in future chapters? Changes the characters? Is ever referenced again in the rest of the book(s)?

[4A]

theepistler
November 7 2017, 15:45:58
Nope, nope and nope. If nothing else Paolini is very good at wasting everyone's time.

[4A1]

Anonymous
November 7 2017, 16:21:37
Provides good fodder for the spitefic.

-TTT

[4A1A]

snarkbotanya
November 7 2017, 19:23:25
OM NOM GIVE ME FIC FODDER!

[5]

bewdtamer19
November 7 2017, 16:15:10
Glad to see the sporking isn't over yet. I'm wondering, since this chapter is over, who is going to spork the next one?

[5A]

torylltales
November 7 2017, 16:41:03 Edited: November 7 2017, 16:41:24
Next three chapters coming up:

Insubordination - hergrim
Message in a Mirror – pipedream
Four Strokes upon the Drum – the_bishop8

[5A1]

bewdtamer19
November 7 2017, 16:51:29
Ooh, boy. I'm really going to hate the next chapter.

[5A2]

the_bishop8
November 7 2017, 17:57:15
I ended up giving theepistler Four Strokes upon the Drum and the last chapter I took, though I'm retaining Words of Wisdom.

[6]

hergrim
November 7 2017, 18:59:52
I do think that the Special(TM) classification for Eragon does make sense, and is the only thing in the chapter which does. His status as an ambassador should absolutely trump his status a dwarf, or else the whole concept of ambassadors and emissaries begins to break down.

[6A]

syntinen_laulu
November 8 2017, 03:47:15
Absolutely. And the concept of ambassadors and emissaries, and their sacredly inviolable status, is a constant in societies of every kind from the dawn of history.

[7]

Mikael Sturk
November 8 2017, 09:09:34
"When Eragon first presented himself, many of us were dismayed by his appearance, myself included. ‘He is but a boy,’ we said. ‘It would have been better if he had been an elf,’ we said.

Dwarves are on the same level as humans when compared to elves, and earlier you said it would have been glorious if Saphira had hatched for a dwarf, but here you say an elf would have been best. Something about that seems contradictory."

This is not contradictory. Orik seems to be all for Dwarf Riders, but seeing as they are not part of the pact they can't have a rider at all. What he means is that it would better have to have an elf rider than a human rider. His wish to have a Dwarf Rider does not factor into it, seeing as they currently do not have possibility to make a Dwarf Rider.