Brisingr Spork Chapter 36: Insubordination (Part 1)

[pangolin20]

Jonathan Dean wrote in antishurtugal, 2017-11-09 19:49:00

LOCATION: A hidden lair
MOOD: happy

Brisingr Spork Chapter 36: Insubordination (Part 1)

Ah, "Insubordination", my least favourite chapter in Brisingr, a chapter which fails on strategic and tactical levels, as well as featuring new characters whose actions make no sense and a feat of arms so unbelievable that you wouldn't find anything close to it in any medieval saga, romance, song or chronicle. I've tended to ramble a lot on medieval warfare in this spork (part 1 is as long as Kris' entire analysis of the battle), so this is going to be a multi part spork. I'll try and get the next part out as soon as possible.

Let's dive into it!

The chapter opens with Roran eating dirt. Not, unfortunately, through any enemy feat of arms, but because that's actually a way for farmers to test the quality of the soil and was used in past periods. Some people are even trying to make it a thing again, though clearly Paolini has no clue what the farmers were tasting and didn't actually go ahead and taste any soil himself when researching this part of the book.

The soil tasted alive, full of hundreds of flavors, from pulverized mountains to beetles and punky wood and the tender tips of grass roots.

I'm sorry but, no, you're not going to taste hundreds of distinct flavours, and I doubt you're going to be tasting "pulverized mountains", "beetles" or "the tender tips of grass roots". Possibly you might be able to taste "punky wood", aka "soft or rotted wood", but I'm not sure how good that would actually make the soil if the flavour came across so strongly. Even in this short sentence we see evidence of two of Paolini's major failings: characters who know things that, as ignorant peasant farmers, they shouldn't ("pulverized mountains" forming the soil" and thesaurus abuse ("punky wood"). Maybe the latter is more common in America, but I had to go and look it up. I had no idea what Paolini meant there, and I doubt his target audience would know either.

As he thinks about how good the dirt tastes, Roran longs for Carvahal. I will say, Roran's desire to return home is his most consistent character trait. Here, though, it's undermined by his thinking that he shouldn't be "watering the ground with the sap of men's limbs". It's far too poetic a thought for someone who is a) illiterate and b) doesn't appear to come from a culture where people are commonly poetic or have a wide range of existing stories or poems with kennings he could crib from.

Captain Edric shows up, speaking in such pompous tones that he is automatically marked out as an antagonist, especially as he's not kissing Roran's arse. He seems particularly put out that Roran hasn't already taken his place in the line - which a couple of pages later turns out to be the front of the line, indicating that Roran was avoiding the responsibility of getting the men into marching order - and threatens to change his mind and leave Roran to stand guard with the archers. Who these archers are and what they're meant to be guarding is never explained, because we never see the archers guarding anything. It can't be the baggage, because the Varden cavalry forces never have pack animals or remounts. Just where they're supposed to get food or fodder in what is apparently untouched wilderness or how they're meant to catch a raiding force a good way in front of them without remounts is also not explained.

Roran doesn't like Edric because he enforces discipline to the letter of the law, and thinks that this reduces moral and creative thinking. kris_norge has given a soldier's perspective on this previously, as well as some historical examples of how strict discipline is good. I want to emphasise the Roman discipline in particular: the Romans either had your comrades kill you or beat you severely if you deviated from standard practice, depending on just what practice you deviated from, and they also had a hell of a lot of independence and tactical flexibility. The Romans won the Battle of Cynoscephalae, for instance, because a junior officer saw an opportunity and took it, outflanking the Macedonians and causing them to rout.

Now, I'm not saying that an abrasive commander who is petty in their enforcement of discipline wouldn't lower morale and reduce creativity, and this is ultimately how Edric is portrayed in the chapter, but I don't think such a commander could cut it in the Varden. Edric is described as being a competent commander, and I think he should have been a lot like Clearchus: a harsh disciplinarian who few men wanted to serve under in peace, but a skilled and experienced captain whom everyone wanted leading them in a battle.

Continuing, we now learn what's going on. Galbatorix has decided to take advantage of Orrin sending most of his men with the Varden and has slipped a raiding force in behind the Varden into Surda, where they're destroying Surda's economic base and morale. This is a good strategy, and can indeed be done with a small army. Perhaps slightly more than 700 men, but even a 700 man army could cause considerable damage to poorly defended lands. That is, if they're mounted. The army Galbatorix sent was virtually entirely foot, which greatly limits their ability to scout and perform hit and run attacks. 700 foot could do a lot of damage, but 700 horse would do a lot more.

There are two problems with the Varden's response. Firstly, they seem to think that there are only 300 soldiers. As Kris points out, this is very unlikely. Inexperienced spies are likely to over-exaggerate the numbers, while experienced spies are unlikely to be off by such a number, unless all they can see is a smaller force screening a larger force and preventing word from getting out about the true size of the army. If that were the case, though, a screening force of 300 men would likely indicate a main army somewhere between 1000 and 2000 men. Even then, word might still get out, or the vanishing of scouts and spies might tip the Varden off that there might be a larger force on the move.

The second problem is that the Varden is responding, not Orrin. The defence of his kingdom is Orrin's sacred and, one could argue, most important duty. Even if Nasuada didn't want to loose several hundred trained heavy cavalry to deal with the invasion, Orrin would have insisted on sending some of his men under a trusted and high ranking nobleman as part of the raiding force. And, here, they would be useful as an ambush force. The Varden's light cavalry could act as scouts and bait for a trap, drawing the Empire's soldiers into a narrow space, where the the bulk of the Varden's men, dismounted, could act as a blocking force/loose arrows into the enemy and then have the Surdan heavy cavalry charge if/when the Empire's troops broke or became disordered enough for a charge to be successful. Alternatively, the Surdan heavy cavalry could have dismounted and acted as heavily armoured infantry in a good defensive place, while the Varden reinforced them/acted as archers to break up the enemy formation.

However it could have worked, by not sending any of his knights and by allowing a Varden commander to control the defence of his lands, Orrin is essentially abandoning his people. This is not good for the morale of his troops, whose homes are being burned and families slaughtered, and makes him appear weak and/or uncaring. The Varden would begin to lose Surdans to desertion, possibly en masse, while those who stay will probably begin to treat the Empire's population much the same as the Empire has been treating their families. Not to mention, the destruction of Surda's villages and towns means a disrupted supply line, which means less food, clothing, weapons, horses and, most importantly, money.

Sidenote: regarding telling how many men your enemy has is better determined from their camp than from their tracks, but it can apparently be determined from tracks. According to an anonymous Byzantine treatise on skirmishing, experienced scouts can roughly determine the number of men from the hoofprints and amount of grass trampled in a deserted area, and also at river crossings. If you can find an enemy camp, though, a better estimate can be made. Although the treatise doesn't explain how, presumably the amount of grass eaten by horses, the number of their droppings and the area of the place where the men slept would allow for a reasonable estimate of numbers for men and horses. If they had any supply carts of wagons, the number could be determined from where they were parked for the night, and an estimate made based on experience of typical enemy baggage practices.

Anywho, despite being outnumbered, the Varden have apparently decided that they have to attack the Empire the moment they catch up to them and Roran and Carn reflect on this. Roran wishes they outnumbered the Empire for once, while Carn observes with grim humour that the Varden are always outnumbered. Here's the thing: Edric's troop doesn't have to attack the Empire's soldiers head on and the moment they catch up.

The problem Paolini has - and it's one that most fantasy authors have - is that he only thinks of winning campaigns in terms of battles. William the Conqueror is famous for winning the Battle of Hastings, but most of his previous campaigns involved him shadowing a superior force, killing their foragers and forcing them to retreat from lack of supplies, or taking advantage of natural barriers between elements of an army (such as a tidal river) to wipe out any part of the enemy's army that was cut off from the main body and outnumbered by his own soldiers. This was very typical of medieval commanders, who might only fight two or three battles in their entire lives, but who fought small skirmishes constantly. The smaller army almost always tried to harass the enemy into leaving their lands.

There are, of course, examples of smaller armies deliberately seeking out larger forces and doing battle with them. The English, in particular, were famous for it. The key to their success, however, was a combination of choosing their ground, good discipline on their part, poor discipline on their enemy's part and some sort of tactical advantage. For the English it was the longbow. For the Swiss it was the pike and incredible aggressiveness. If Edric wanted to be aggressive and force a battle, then he should have been carefully choosing the ground for the battle. Or, alternatively, he might wait to see what the Empire's camp was like and try an night or dawn attack.

In deciding to attack immediately on catching up with the enemy, Edric is proving himself a supremely incompetent commander. I'm not sure whether this is just Paolini's ignorance of medieval warfare or if he just wanted to make Roran look good, but it's probably both.

The chapter now skips ahead six hours, and the Varden are waiting in ambush near a village. They've managed to get around and ahead of the Empire's army, because the Empire's raiding force is entirely mounted on foot. I've said it above, but I'll repeat it here: foot soldiers don't make good raiding parties. This is a job suited to men-at-arms, light cavalry and/or mounted archers or crossbowmen. Mounted soldiers would have had the village before the villagers could take or hide their most valuable possessions. It would also prevent villagers from getting away to warn the other villages in the area, leading to more lost valuables and also lost food. The last is pretty important: behind enemy lines, and even with some pack animals, the Empire's soldiers will be depending on ready food from the villages for survival, and grain, hay and straw for their horses. If the villages take the ready food and hide the rest, well, life is going to be more difficult for the raiders.

I'll leave you here with a late 12th/early 13th century description of a medieval army marching. It's very close to what the Empire's army should be doing.

The march begins. Out in front are the scouts and incendiaries. After them come the foragers whose job it is to collect the spoils and carry them in the great baggage train. Soon all is tumult… The incendiaries set the villages on fire and the foragers visit and sack them. The terrified inhabitants are either burned or led away with their hands tied behind their backs to be held for ransom. Everywhere bells ring the alarm; a surge of fear sweeps over the countryside. Wherever you look you can see helmets glinting in the sun, pennons waving in the breeze, the whole plain covered with horsemen. Money, cattle, mules and sheep are all seized. The smoke billows, flames crackle. Peasants and shepherds scatter in all directions.

Roran thinks that they should have warned the villagers, reassured them that the Varden were there to protect them and then asked the men to fight. He seems convinced that the men would want to fight with them rather than run away with their families from certain death and that they would even be useful in the first place. Ten or twenty poorly armed, badly equipped farmers with little to no combat experience are not going to be the difference between victory or defeat at almost 3:1 odds. Even ten or twenty professional archers or plate armoured men-at-arms would not make much difference. This viewpoint would be fine if Roran was being set up as a hot headed idiot with political connections and a small amount of luck, but Paolini obviously intended for him to come across as an inspired and completely correct military leader.

As suggested earlier, the Varden's plan is to mount a charge against a superior force of heavy infantry with light cavalry lacking lances the moment they come in contact. I assume the plan is to wait for the Empire's soldiers to start looting the village and get distracted by it, but twenty houses do not require 700 men to loot. Even if twenty men looted each house, there would still be 300 men to keep watch, give warning when the Varden appear and mount a defence against them. Keeping the Varden's horsemen in a stand of beech trees some distance from the village isn't foolish because they'd need time to reorganise themselves on leaving the stand, it's foolish because they haven't chosen to wait for the Empire to start sacking a really big village or small town before performing the charge.

Another side note: Edric doesn't have "officers", he has "familiars". While not as bad as "cronies" Paolini is doing his level best to denigrate the professionalism and competence of Edric, and has at least subconsciously cast him as an antagonist for Roran and, in Paolini land, antagonists have no redeeming qualities.

While they wait for the charge to begin, Roran asks Carn if he can detect the presence of any of the Laughing Dead. At least the Varden are remembering that the Laughing Dead exist now, but we have more of the same Paolini bullshit about magicians being instantly able to tell when another magician works and Carn not being able to break their mind before they can warn of his probe (not that your magician suddenly falling down dead wouldn't be a warning all of its own). Honestly, unless the Empire's magician had wards out to detect an enemy mage probing the army, I don't see how they could detect Carn's probe. Roran and Carn's old joke about no one being able to watch their back as well as the other is a nice touch, though.

The Empire's soldiers begin to search the village and find an old man, a young woman and a boy. One soldier also kills a dog by the rather odd method of throwing his spear and risking missing the dog rather than using a thrust or a crossbowman putting a bolt into it. Despite the distance (the action at least a couple of hundred yards away) and potential visual obstacles (the action is happening in a ring of houses and there are 700 soldiers in the middle of the town), Roran is able to make out all the details clearly, right down to the torn blouse of the young woman. Why they didn't run is never explained, but they're presumably there to show us how evil the Empire is (they kill the old man and the torn blouse is probably meant to suggest rape, even if it never happened) and fill our heroes with righteous anger.

The show with the three villagers is apparently entertaining enough that every soldier in the village goes to watch it, all of them moving around so that their backs are to the Varden, and no pickets have been set or scouts sent to patrol the area. It's all set up perfectly for the Varden to charge, neatly doing away with Roran's concern over the soldiers having extra time to defend themselves. It's also entirely unbelievable. These are meant to be professional soldiers, not amateurs, and with so many of them, there would absolutely be a good number on the other side of the village watching this and, consequently, facing the Varden.

Edric gives the command to charge, and the Varden begin an all out charge, Edric heading for the center, Sand looping round to take the right flank and Roran doing the same on the left. This would cover a lot of ground very quickly, but it will exhaust their horses and destroy any semblance of order. General military practice throughout the ages has been to trot to 200 yards or so, and then gradually increase the speed until only a short distance before enemy and only then charging at a full gallop. To paraphrase Captain Louis Nolan, every horse has a different turn of speed, and this is most obvious at high speed. The best horses will surge to the front, and the worst horses will lag behind. The result is that the cavalry doesn't hit all in a single line, which greatly reduces their effectiveness against their target, whether horse or man. Tiring the horses with a long gallop also risks them flagging before arrival, reducing the impact of their charge, and limiting the amount of extra use you can get out of them. An exhausted horse can't be used to charge a second time or pursue a broken enemy. If the majority were in a "bunch not thirty feet behind" Roran after they exited the beech trees, they wouldn't be staying there for long.

Despite being several hundred yards away from the village and not yet being fully around on its flank, Roran is somehow unable to see Edric get wrecked by the massed crossbows of the Empire. He rightly concludes that something must have gone wrong, and is faced with the choice between changing the plan to suit the tactical circumstances or being charged with insubordination. There are some armies where the choice would be to die in honour fighting the enemy or die without honour for fleeing the battle, and these have been some very effective armies, but the Varden isn't any of these armies. It's a loose collection of rebels and sovereign nations, barely held together and without much in the way of formal training or regulations. Even a stickler like Edric should be able to agree that committing suicide would be a tactical error and that changing the plan would be a sound idea.

The Empire have stationed three ranks of crossbowman in front of Roran, between two houses, though they are hiding their crossbows for some unknown reason. Roran sees them, and is somehow able to get his men into cover behind some buildings. As Kris pointed out, the maneuver proposed by Paolini is an impossibility. It's also unlikely that the maneuver would have worked even if Roran could have made the horses perform it. Although Paolini has the Empire soldiers standing around in the middle of the village, it would make more sense for them to be stationed directly between the houses, so their arc of fire would have covered Roran in pretty much whichever direction he went. Also, there should have been a couple of ranks of spearmen in front of the crossbowmen, or else the crossbowmen should have been placed one between two spearmen, just in case not every rider was hit or bolted away.

Having evaded the Empire's attack, Roran is given several minutes to collect his men, formulate a plan and then put some of his men on the roofs of the nearby houses. The Empire is essentially static and doesn't take advantage of Roran's troop's initial disorder. Their spearmen should have rushed Roran's scattered troops, killing those they didn't drive off. Instead, Roran is given every advantage and is able to put his plan into action. He intends to use his archers on the roofs to cover a charge through the Empire's soldiers to try and rescue Captain Edric. I'll cover this in the next part of the spork but, before I forget, I want to point out that the bows carried by the Varden shouldn't be particularly powerful or effective against heavy infantry. The bows carried by the Varden are almost all purely for hunting. You don't need a particularly heavy bow for hunting. Even a 50lb longbow will kill a bear, and for a mobile, mostly non-archer force, shortbows make the most sense. These, even if they drew 50lbs, would be less powerful than a longbow.

A draw weight nearer 80lbs would be needed to deal with mail, but the Empire's foot are armoured with brigandines, mail and gambesons, which means that a much heavier draw weight bow would be needed. Only professional archers would have trained their muscles up to that level. In short, the Varden's bows should be much less dangerous to the Empire's soldiers and the solders' crossbows are to the Varden. This will be important in the next part.

43 comments

[1]

foaming_beast
November 10 2017, 01:45:33
Sorry your post ended up in the mod queue. I added your name to the automatic list of "pre-approved users" to prevent that from happening again.

[1A]

hergrim
November 10 2017, 21:04:26
No problem. Thanks for adding me to the list!

[2]

kris_norge
November 10 2017, 04:17:01
Looking forward to how the rest of this goes.
You are spot on in pointing out that many campaigns are not won through battles but most fantasy authors think only in terms of battles. In a fine example of a campaign won by battle being avoided, during the reign of Charles V of France where his subtle leadership and the excellent field command of Bertrand du Guesclin and the king's three very capable brothers (especially the dukes of Anjou and Bourgogne), England was rapidly losing all its possessions in France it had won under Crecy and Poitiers. On top of it, all the old veterans of the English army were dying out. Edward III was too old to campaign, the Black Prince was too ill, and John Chandos died in an unfortunate skirmish. So to tip the scales, the English sent an army similar to those of Crecy and Poitiers under the Black Prince's brother : John of Gaunt.
They began a major raid through France, hoping to provoke a response and goad the French into another reckless battle, defeat them again, take new ransoms and make new treaties. But Charles V was not his father and Bertrand du Guesclin was the best general France had yet had. He went to meet the English army with only 4000 men. Then they split up into two groups and one stuck to either side of the English army. Riders went ahead to clear people and resources from the English marching path and the contingents to either side prevented the English from foraging in either direction. But despite repeated challenges, du Guesclin never met them in the field, and all the towns and cities were closed to them and they could never settle for a siege because they were too closely followed. Du Guesclin and his soldiers shadowed them from Calais to Bordeaux, and the only ones to lose men were the English : to starvation, illness, and exposure. THAT is a masterfully conducted operation won without fighting a battle.

One thing to point out though, why the enemy soldiers are hiding their crossbows. It might be specifically to draw enemies over. In my own work, my MC, when he becomes general of an imperial army, he leads an army of chiefly infantry and is met by a force of many horse archers. He organises his men into a square with the outer ranks of it held by his pavisiers, men bearing huge pavises. They are to remain stationary as long as possible and sustain the feathering from the enemy horse archers until these riders get bold enough and start riding up dangerously close to loose more accurately. But he has a bunch of crossbowmen interspersed with his pavisiers and as the horse archers come practically within the length of a pike, at a signal, the shields open and the crossbowmen and archers loose at anything that moves. But big pavises conceal better than cloaks. How the Empire soldiers were concealing large crossbows under cloaks I have no clue.

[2A]

Anonymous
November 10 2017, 06:41:23
The only scenarios I can think of in which the battles themselves have the most impact on a campaign are all ancient.

Case in point, the battle of Salamis. Its outcome forced the withdrawal of the Persian fleet, which in turned forced the withdrawal of most of the Persian army and lost it all the ground it gained.

Likewise the battles of the Peloponnesian War, most strikingly at Sphacteria and then during the Sicilian Expedition were protracted battles with significant strategic ramifications.

[2A1]

ultramega10
November 10 2017, 07:31:11
You give Salamis too much credit. It was by no means the deciding battle of the war. The Persians still held a force in Greece and there were several more battles afterward. If the Persians had fought better in those, they might have held Greece. And they still maintained control of some the lands they conquered even after their defeat.

[2A1A]

kris_norge
November 10 2017, 08:06:10
The simple fact is that when you campaign too far and over-extend your lines of communication and supply, all it takes is a single defeat or even just a stalemate to end your campaign momentum and make you lose all the ground you covered. It happened to the Saracens at Poitiers in 732, to the Persians at Salamis and Plataea, and several other instances of long-ranging campaigns.

[2B]

hergrim
November 10 2017, 21:12:42
It's really interesting comparing English and French scholarship. I haven't read Sumption, but what little English scholarship I've seen minimises the role of Du Guesclin and doesn't mention him clearing the way ahead. Instead, it focuses on the weather, the winter and the destruction. I guess this is why being multi-lingual would be a good thing.

I'll concede that the point of hiding the crossbows might have been to draw the Varden in, but that could just have easily been done by stationing a couple of ranks of spearmen in front and then getting them to kneel at the last moment. I guess Paolini was trying for drama or the Empire having a new trick, but it just feels off to me.

[2B1]

kris_norge
November 10 2017, 22:09:37
Funny thing about that. After the death of King John of France, his son Charles V came to power and he was much more subtle than his father and far more patient and he made Du Guesclin constable for merit rather than birth and his three brothers raised and led armies but followed the constable's plans and advice. I guess all four of the royal French brothers were salted young at Poitiers and learned that their high birth won't help them win battles. They started evening things out with the English by being smart. But then when Edward III got too old to campaign, the Spanish campaign ruined the Black Prince's health and finances, and John Chandos died in a small skirmish, the English were losing all their big guns (Robert Knowles being the only veteran worthwhile captain they had left) and together with his brothers and Du Guesclin, Charles V started taking France back. I've been told this is a phase of the Hundred Years War English writers conveniently skip.

[2B1A]

hergrim
November 11 2017, 06:10:57
Jonathan Sumption dedicates a whole book to this period but, otherwise, the general attitude definitely seems to be "nothing significant happens here".

Then again the French are pretty keen to make Agincourt seem like a far more even fight than it was, so it's all pretty even :P.

[2B1A1]

therealdave
November 11 2017, 08:00:34
Ironically, one of the most balanced looks at the Hundred Years that I've read, and medieval British military history for that matter, was Peter Reid's "Medieval Warfare." I always found it rather ironic that the battles of Crecy, Agincourt and Poitiers were touted as these huge nationalistic triumphs by the common man over the bid bad aristocracy. Never mind that men-at-arms and longbowmen were generally from the equivalent social/tax bracket. Hell, by the time of those battles, "knights" as such, were a minority among the heavy cavalry.

Your comment about battles vs sieges is something that I wish we could see more of in fantasy. I get that people think a battle looks all sweeping and epic and all that other horseshit. But a siege, especially of a city. can be just as gritty and has just as much potential for generating tension. Actually, I think it might have more, because the defender may very well have everything to lose.

[2B1A1A]

hergrim
November 11 2017, 09:31:03
I'll have to check it out.


I will disagree with you on archers being from the same economic bracket as men-at-arms. I believe the majority weren't the younger brothers/cousins/second sons etc of men-at-arms, but were instead poorer burghers or landowners who could only afford an archer's kit. The arms, armour and horse of even an ill-equipped man-at-arms would have been somewhere in excess of the arms, armour and horse of a mounted archer.

I'd definitely love to see more sieges in fantasy. The desperation of the garrison, the constant, draining warfare, the boredom, the lack of food and sleep, the sallies, the surprise attacks by the enemy, etc. That would make for a fantastic story.

[2B1A1A1]

spylobster
November 12 2017, 11:37:19
Pretty much the entire plot of the first Redwall book revolves around an abbey under siege.

[2B1A1A1A]

hergrim
November 12 2017, 20:53:31
Thanks for the recommendation!

[3]

theepistler
November 10 2017, 11:57:58
In that deleted chapter I sporked, Saphira actually says you don't have to kill every soldier to win a war; you just have to stop them from completing their objective. Which is true. Unfortunately, nobody actually follows this line of thinking in the actual war; instead warfare is treated like an RPG where you have to kill all the enemy spawns to advance. It really strikes me how Paolini never treats the Imperial soldiers as if they're human beings. Instead they're just faceless, mindless sword fodder with no self-preservation instincts.

Not being a military (wo)man, the thing that stuck me about this chapter was how Roran is suddenly able to do all this fancy stunt riding despite almost certainly never having done much riding, period, and to cap it off he does it with a horse that has zero training in this sort of thing. Snowfire is a damn farm horse Brom bought off some villager in the middle of nowhere - why is he suddenly okay with being ridden into combat and doing fancy jumps and things? It's so stupid.

[3A]

hergrim
November 10 2017, 21:25:40
That's a really good analogy. The Inheritance Cycle is a lot like a hack and slash RPG, where characters become increasingly powerful and slaughter increasingly large number of opponents. And his opponents are definitely on the dumber end of the AI scale. Rather than aggressive pursuit, flanking, etc (eg: the first F.E.A.R. game), they have boxes that they have to stay in and occasionally their pathfinding goes all wonky.

And, yeah, Roran and Snowfire's equestrian skills are pretty bullshit. You can tell that Paolini doesn't know much about horses, either. Snowfire should have shuffled forward or side stepped or made some other movement that Roran needed to curb when he stood up in his stirrups in anticipation of the charge, and all the horses should be restless at having to stand still with riders on their backs.

Actually, that reminds me: all the Varden should have dismounted their horses while they were waiting and only mounted just before the charge. No sense in wearing your horse down any more than you have to.

[3A1]

theepistler
November 10 2017, 21:35:03 Edited: November 10 2017, 21:35:18
And on top of that, in this book Paolini introduces the Eldunarya, which are literally just power-up tokens for topping up your Mana meter so you can cast the Master level spells. It’s so cheesy.

You can tell that Paolini doesn’t know much about horses, either.

He doesn't seem to know much about animals period, really.

[3A2]

kris_norge
November 11 2017, 06:36:47
In my own analysis I emphasized how the evil side behaves like in a video game. Absence of any strategy, no self-preservation, coming in small bunches, no apparent command.

One thing you probably already know but must absolutely mention though in future sporking of this battle : No man, no matter how strong or fit, can keep up constant fighting for more than a few minutes!
Roran stands all day!

[3A2A]

therealdave
November 11 2017, 08:06:09
A good real life example is the Battle of Worringen in 1288. As I recall it went back and forth for quite a while because Jean I of Brabant's, and his rival the Archbishop Conrad's, heavy cavalry were utterly exhausted.

Speaking as someone who's done his share of live fire training and a stress shoot (a fancy way of saying get the fucking dogshit smoked out of you and then go shoot targets), doing physically demanding stuff, even with only the bare minimum of your gear, takes everything you've got. And the younger me was stronger and in better shape back then.

[3A2A1]

kris_norge
November 11 2017, 08:50:46
Were you a soldier too?

[3A2A1A]

therealdave
November 11 2017, 08:52:56 Edited: November 11 2017, 08:55:21
Still am, I take it you are/were too?

[3A2A1A1]

kris_norge
November 11 2017, 08:58:02
I was. They dismissed me after two years on account of a hearing problem I was born with that they hadn't noticed when they recruited me. Now I work a boring 9-to-5 job but only until I finish my Master's degree in Criminology. And I do historical re-enactment as a hobby.

[3A2A1A1A]

therealdave
November 11 2017, 09:06:06
Aw man, that's shitty :( What country/branch/MOS were you? (If you don't mind me asking that is). Myself, I went through Basic shortly after Freshman year of college and got done just in time to start sophomore year. I did it because the promised me tuition assistance (then it got cut right after I joined) and I was a Mortarman for a bit and then I finished college and branched Armor and I'm still doing that/working a boring 9-to-5 as well (reservist).

I always wanted to get into reenactment, but right now I'm saving up money and all that.

[3A2A1A1A1]

kris_norge
November 11 2017, 09:25:45
I was in the French Gendarmerie. Most of their work is police work (the Gendarmerie does the countryside and small towns and the police jurisdiction is the big cities) but we're technically an army corps and we're military-trained. I loved the military side of it and was looking forward to going overseas as an MP but got dismissed before that could happen. I worked as a reservist for two more years after that.
I got in because I had started criminology studies and had been told the Gendarmerie is more receptive to the science of "profiling" than the police (France is somewhat behind the US when it comes to criminal investigation). But ultimately going to boot camp revived the desire I had had to be a soldier since I was 15 and watched my oldest brother become a paratrooper (that desire had been dimmed somewhat by my parents and teachers telling me I'm an intellect and not a warrior) Now, I'm working to finish my Master's degree in Criminology, specializing in antiterrorism, and hope to work in military Intelligence.

[3A2B]

hergrim
November 11 2017, 09:41:54
Not to worry, this will definitely be addressed!

[3B]

therealdave
November 11 2017, 08:18:05
As someone who used to play polo and grew up in a rural area, it takes time and training for both horse and rider. Now that's for a riding horse. You want one that'll be a good cutting horse (herding cattle), that takes time and training. A polo horse (a good one) takes more time and training, and that's just for a sport. I won't lie, I'm far from an expert on horses and at my best, I could keep up with the game and stay in my saddle. That was about the limits of my equestrian abilities :D

Something like a warhorse, that takes years. Most war horses were also a bit older than what's standard age for a modern working horse and they'd been trained for that sort of thing from a very young age. That was part of why a knight/man-at-arms took so long to train. Horse and rider had to train together, get to know each other and operate as single organism. Even after the knight/man-at-arms was replaced by/evolved into the cuirassier, the horses still had to be desensitized to the loud noises, blood, sudden movement and gunfire.

Horses are also weird critters, my roommate had one that would prank him by stealing his hat off his head when he wasn't paying attention. The one I rode for polo didn't mind loud noises, things swinging past his head, or the controlled chaos that's a polo match. Something about a car's headlights, however would freak him the fuck out. And those are animals that are trained and desensitized to certain things. A riding horse that only knows to carry its rider from A. to B. probably wouldn't react well to a battle. It might be a passable riding animal, but something as violent as combat, it would probably default to its instincts and try to get the fuck out of there. And who blame the poor beast? It's nothing the animal's been trained for.

[3B1]


hergrim
November 11 2017, 09:40:13
Based on 19th century practices, I do have to wonder if the length of time required to train a competent warhorse has been exaggerated. I could believe a good or excellent warhorse might take a year or two to properly train, and then the horse and rider would need time together to get a feel from each other, but it seems to me that an adequate warhorse could be trained in just a few months.

Then again, I have almost no practical experience with horses and almost everything I know is theory.

[4]

cmdrnemo
November 10 2017, 17:02:55
This chapter shows a fantastic example of how to spot a bad storyteller. A good author is, I think, both a good writer and a good storyteller. A good storyteller makes his antagonists strong and capable to show the strength and abilities of his protagonists. A bad storyteller makes his antagonists weak and incompetent to make his protagonists look stronger by comparison. If your target audience is old enough to read. This latter plan fails for very many reasons. Not the least of which is the obviously lack of effort.

[4A]

hergrim
November 10 2017, 21:30:21
That's a good point. In making a protagonist competent or powerful by rendering the antagonists incompetent or impotent, you essentially take away all of the protagonists strength and/or brilliance. It's a bit like boasting about beating up a class of kindergartners or outsmarting them. You'd be the pathetic one in that case, just as badly written protagonists are pretty pathetic when it comes down to it, massacring hundreds or thousands who pose no threat to them.

[4B]

theepistler
November 10 2017, 22:52:02 Edited: November 10 2017, 22:54:23
You're damn right. Bad storytellers always make the antagonists ridiculously stupid and incompetent in order to make the protagonists look brilliant by comparison. A good example is the bad adaptations of Sherlock Holmes in which Watson is changed from a tough and intelligent doctor and former soldier to a bumbling idiot just so Sherlock will look smart by comparison. Apparently it didn't occur to some people that it's far more impressive to show Sherlock outwitting highly intelligent qualified people than to have him show up a lot of drooling buffoons who can barely tie their shoes.

As one person very aptly put it "it's easier to make a character powerful than to make them intelligent". Paolini never has any of his characters succeed through actual intelligence. Either they win by brute force, or they win by moronic tactics that only work because the enemy is forced to be even dumber and more incompetent than they are. Is Roran a brilliant commander? Fuck no. He manages to show up a blithering idiot and defeat a bunch of enemy spawns with AI right out of a bad 90s RPG. Call me crazy, but I'm not exactly impressed by his "talent".

[4B1]

cmdrnemo
November 11 2017, 05:10:58
For anyone who comes here looking for writing advice more than merely to bash Paolini's work. This chapter shows some great stuff.
A good story well told is an amazing thing. Paolini was not a good storyteller. His story therefor was not well told. The reader then looks into the underpinnings of the story. The words, the setting, all the mechanics that make the story work.
Paolini was not a good researcher. The details of his setting are therefor lacking. What he did not know left his world to be made of lesser quality.
He lacked practice in logic, engineering, and general common sense. The materials that bind an imaginary world together. Without those he couldn't fill the gaps research left behind. He promised us a stone castle. All he built was a house of cards. Like a house of cards in a hurricane it does not stand up.

Without practice and skill at storytelling a large portion of the audience will not suspend disbelief. Without that you can hold interest with other skills that make a good author. Without those... you get the Inheritance Cycle.

I find the debate between the idea and the story that created the Codex Alera books is the debate between authors who are not good storytellers and those that are. Good storytellers don't really care. Less skilled storytellers need to get everything else right to keep an audience.

[4B1A]

theepistler
November 11 2017, 11:50:05
The series only works if you do what the fans do and just accept everything the narrator claims as gospel without looking any further than that. For instance the narrator keeps trying to convince us that Eragon and Saphira have this beautiful friendship/soul bond, and some people believe it just because it's reiterated so often. But if you're like us and realise the narrator is a liar, you can easily see that in fact they act like they barely tolerate each

other. Paolini is an awful storyteller. He only knows how to mindlessly imitate and has no clue how to show what he wants to get across, instead settling for telling us it's so when it really isn't. And when we have ridiculous leaps in logic such as Roran magically becoming an invincible super soldier/stunt rider/military commander, we're just not supposed to think about it in favour of just buying into what Paolini wants us to buy into. Which is why we get so irritated with him - nobody likes being told what to think, and nobody likes being treated like an idiot, and he subjects his readers to both. Constantly.

[5]

snarkbotanya
November 11 2017, 15:19:46
Regarding "punky" would, I'm pretty sure that's not an Americanism, because the image that comes to mind when an American hears the word "punky" is a sneering teenager with a brightly-colored mohawk, studded wristcuffs, and lots of piercings. It's just thesaurus abuse, not to mention poor word choice, because suddenly getting that mental image in the middle of a fantasy novel made me giggle, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who did.

There are, of course, examples of smaller armies deliberately seeking out larger forces and doing battle with them. The English, in particular, were famous for it. The key to their success, however, was a combination of choosing their ground, good discipline on their part, poor discipline on their enemy's part and some sort of tactical advantage. For the English it was the longbow.

Crusader Kings 2 did a really good job with that. If you're playing an English ruler, you can build longbow ranges in your holdings, which give you some seriously OP archers who can just destroy half your enemy's morale before you even get to the melee phase.

The Empire's soldiers begin to search the village and find an old man, a young woman and a boy. One soldier also kills a dog... they kill the old man and the torn blouse is probably meant to suggest rape, even if it never happened.

Wow, that's a threefer on the Go-To "They're Evil" Indicators for Hacks: kicking the dog, killing the weak/elderly, and of course the tasteless implication of rape for no other reason than to show how eeeeevil the rapist is.

The Empire is essentially static and doesn't take advantage of Roran's troop's initial disorder.

This is not just because Paolini knows nothing of tactics, but also because he only remembers that his bad guys are there and should be doing things when it's convenient for his plot.

[5A]

torylltales
November 11 2017, 20:25:38
Regarding "punky" [wood], I'm pretty sure that's not an Americanism, because the image that comes to mind when an American hears the word "punky" is a sneering teenager with a brightly-colored mohawk, studded wristcuffs, and lots of piercings.

At one point in the past "punk" referred to the younger man in a homosexual May/December romance. So... talking about a punk's wood is not a good image in either context.

[5A1]

snarkbotanya
November 11 2017, 20:27:52
I had just caught the typo and was going to edit it... now it's stuck there because I can't edit a post that's been replied to. --_--

As for that particular meaning of "punk"... wow. Does this mean "Roran is in the closet" can become a new headcanon?

[5A1A]

torylltales
November 11 2017, 20:34:02
Roran is so deep in the closet he's plagiarising from Narnia.

[5A1A1]

theepistler
November 11 2017, 21:21:33
ROFL!

Eragon's definitely a lot more open. I wonder if he even cares that everyone has surely noticed him constantly ogling other men's hips and groins and bulging muscles. Hey, maybe that's why Arya keeps treating his advances like a joke; she figured out he's batting for the other team even if he hasn't twigged yet. Hey, I'm not judging; I dated three different guys before I figured out my own sexuality (or lack thereof).

[5A1A1A]

snarkbotanya
November 12 2017, 05:16:38
Eragon: "Arya Svit-kona, I would do anything to win your hand..."
Arya: "Dude, I'm not gonna be your beard."

[5A1A1A1]

theepistler
November 12 2017, 11:07:56
Hehe. I normally get annoyed by people who insist on twisting canon to make their favourite character gay or bi or whatever (OMGs you guys, Snape is totally trans! The clues are all there!), but with Inheritance you really don't need to tie yourself in knots looking for "clues" because Eragon's interest in Arya always comes across as so incredibly forced and asexual. Why is he obsessed with her? He just is. Author says so. Have you ever noticed the complete lack of "male gaze" in the series? Women are never described in a sexual manner; instead every female Eragon meets comes off as a substitute mum or possibly a sister he's not close with. Meanwhile our uber masculine hero ogles every attractive guy he meets. He's as queer as a three-dollar bill.

Hey, why not do something with that in the spitefic?

[5A1A1A1A]

snarkbotanya
November 12 2017, 13:03:27
I don't know, I'm not exactly eager to delve into the fucked-up depths of Eragon's sexuality. Joking about it in Cards Against Humanity is all well and good, but actually exploring it seems... hazardous.

[5A1A1A1A1]

theepistler
November 12 2017, 13:05:42
Good point. I'm not sure I'd be prepared to go there either, and especially given that I'm firmly convinced he has necrophiliac tendencies as well.

[5B]

syntinen_laulu
November 12 2017, 00:49:49
Regarding "punky" would, I'm pretty sure that's not an Americanism

Actually, it is. "Punk", meaning "crumbly decayed wood used as tinder for firelighting" is an old English word (quite unrelated to the more familiar sense of punk, which originally meant "prostitute") brought to North America in the 7th century by English-speaking colonists. Punk and punky in the rotten wood sense have pretty much died out in the UK, but field researchers for the Dictionary of American Regional English found them alive and kicking in many rural areas of the USA. To be fair to Paolini, I think it's quite possible that they are current in his part of rural Montana, and that, as with rutabaga, he just hasn't mixed with a wide enough range of people to realise that to most English-speakers they convey something quite different.

Wow, that's a threefer on the Go-To "They're Evil" Indicators for Hacks: kicking the dog, killing the weak/elderly, and of course the tasteless implication of rape for no other reason than to show how eeeeevil the rapist is.

Plus, proof that Paolini doesn't realise that women before the late 19th century didn't wear "blouses".

[5B1]

snarkbotanya
November 12 2017, 05:21:58
Hmm, so it's specifically a rural Americanism? Damn... using Americanisms is one thing, but a specific dialect-ism that even most Americans (e.g. myself) won't get is quite another. (I live in a major city, so I suppose it's no surprise that I wouldn't recognize a rural Americanism as an Americanism.)

[6]

torylltales
November 11 2017, 19:14:01
The Empire and the Varden seem to be playing catch with the Idiot Ball. And each of the Main Characters have permanent possession of their own.