Brisingr Sporking Chapter 41: Words of Wisdom

[pangolin20]

torylltales wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-02-02 16:46:00

Brisingr Spork Chapter 41: Words of Wisdom

Bishop has apparently had to decline to spork this chapter, so he handed it off to Epistler, who gave it to me. Hurrah!
“Sorry,” said Eragon as he bumped the basin.
I am actually quite pleased that Paolini used ‘said’ and not ‘apologised’, ‘murmured’, or ‘sighed’. But this sentence makes it seem like he’s apologising to the basin for bumping it.
Why is Eragon acting like Mr Magoo now, bumping into things and then apologising to them? I thought he had super duper special Elf Eyes™


[Caption: Gif of Mister Magoo apologising to a bunch of broken furniture]


It turns out this is just a super‐awkward way to indirectly set the scene: Eragon is conversing with Nasuada by mirror‐phone, via a basin of water.
Nasuada praises Eragon for ‘ensuring Orik became king’, as though he did anything more than glower at the other candidates and daydream about drowning anybody who voted against Orik.
Apparently the dwarvish support for the Varden “could be the difference between victory and defeat”, as though the dwarves play any further role in the story outside of slaps ck and a few Benny‐Hill‐slash‐Scooby‐Doo style chase scenes in the final climactic battle.
Nasuada gets interrupted several times through the conversation.




“My apologies,” said Nasuada, her visage reappearing in the basin. “We are closing in on Feinster, and we are having to fight off marauding groups of soldiers Lady lorana sends from the city to harass us...”
That sounds infinitely more interesting and exciting than the previous few chapters of dwarf politics and history.
“Eragon, Saphira, we need you for this battle. If the people of Feinster see only men, dwarves, and urgals gathered outside their walls, they may believe they have a chance of holding the city […] They can’t hold Feinster, of course, but they have yet to realise that.”




According to Inheriwiki, the city of Feinster is surrounded by 80‐foot tall stone walls, and a solid gate guarded by magical wards. If they saw only men, dwarves, and urgals gathered in front of their 80‐foot stone walls, they’d have a right to feel pretty confident about holding out.

Does Paolini know how tall 80 feet is? It’s slightly taller than the giant green inflatable butt plug that outraged Parisians a few years ago.

[Caption: Picture of the butt plug situated on a square while someone in the foreground takes a picture of two people posing with it]
Imagine a solid stone wall that high, encircling a city. It’s not quite as tall as the tallest sections of the Great Wall of China (up to 85 feet), but made of solid stone instead of gravel and rammed earth. And the only way in for invaders is protected by magic and a huge solid gate.
As fortresses go, the Varden should NOT be half as confident that they can take it, unless they have the me to starve the people out in a siege (but then, isn’t it super urgent that they deal with Galby as soon as possible?)
I was going to go on a huge rant about how in terms of military tactics it is worse than useless to a attack, as Feinster isn’t even close to their main warpath, and can be very easily avoided en rely. The full strength of the Varden could have been taken direct to Uru’baen via Furnost (yes, as in Fornost, the abandoned city north of Bree in Tolkien’s Middle Earth) instead of dicking around a bunch of tactically insignificant villages and cities far away from their main goal.



But then I remembered that this story operates on Video Game Logic, where the ba les need to start relatively easy and get progressively harder until l you reach the End Boss. So the last thing I can men on about this conversation is, Nasuada saying that the people of Feinster cannot hold the city, completely ruins whatever tension we may have about it. It would be different if Nasuada had been shown to be an unreliable narrator who overestimates her abilities and is o en proven wrong, but so far Nasuada hasn’t been wrong about a single thing, especially not anything relating to the Varden’s plans and chances. So we no longer need to wonder whether or not the Varden win that par cular fight, because Nasuada’s already told us: even without Eragon and Saphira, they can win easily against a heavily fortified keep.
Sorry, that was the second‐last thing. Galby has ruled for 100 years over a united human kingdom wherein everyone is part of the same society, right? And the Riders ruled over a peaceful golden age of prosperity and limited crime for thousands of years before that.

So WHY does this fishing/trade port have such heavy fortifications? Who are they protecting against, if the Riders and later Galby had mostly‐peaceful rule with limited banditry or war? When were the fortifications built? Is the subtext here that the Riders lounged around in their island Olympus, munching on peeled grapes while the rest of the country had to deal with wars, bandits, and roving bands of urgals all by themselves? If a FISHING PORT required 80‐foot high walls and solid gates, (and a KEEP!), what were the Riders even doing?
But I digress.
Nasuada convinces Eragon to return to the Varden because he is just so special and important, and not to return to Ellesmera to complete his training.


“Every day we camp outside [Feinster] will cost us lives”
That’s… is that how a siege works? What do they expect, the city will send out sallies every morning at 10:00 to engage the camp in close‐quarters combat? The keep has (gods forbid) a trebuchet mounted on the roof to lob projectiles at the camp? (I honestly wouldn’t put it past Paolini to think this is a good idea, either).


[Caption:

Frame 1: Boromir thinking with text: "What about a catapult?"

Frame 2: Gandalf: "A catapult?"

Frame 3: Elrond giving this the side-eye.

Frame 4: Boromir enthusiastically saying: "Why not hurl the ring into Mordor?" "Over Sauron's defenses!"

Frame 5: Elrond resting his head in his hand.

Frame 6: Aragorn saying "That's retarded".

Frame 7: Boromir looking at Aragorn and saying "Well I don't see you coming up with anything."

Frame 8: Aragorn holding up his hand and saying "Calm down, Boromir."

Frame 9: Boromir replying "No! I don't need you ring or this stupid fellowship!"

Frame 10: Gandalf saying "Boromir! Shut up!"

Frame 11: Boromir between two others, saying "Fine." "I still think it's a good idea."

Frame 12: Aerial view of Minas Tirith.

Frame 13: Aragorn saying "I can't belive we're doing this."

Frame 14: Picture of the One Ring in Aragorn's hand with Boromir saying "Quiet, Ranger! Cough up the ring, short stuff."

Frame 15: Picture of a catapult with Boromir saying "Right. Ready...and... Fire!"

Frame 16: The Ring being catapulted away with sound effect "Woomch!"

Frame 17: The Mountains of Shadow with sound effect "*splud*" coming from most of the way up them.

Frame 18: Gandalf saying "Nice shooting faggot, you fired it into the fucking mountains."

Frame 19-20: Boromir saying "Dang." and "Frodo's going to have to go get it back."

Frame 21: Boromir and Frodo, with Frodo saying "YOU fired it, wonderboy, YOU go get it!"

Frame 22: Boromir looking back at Frodo and saying softly "Gaylord."

Frame 23-25: The Mountains of Shadow, with speech from Boromir slowly traveling upwards: "Stupid *nngh* ring...", "Fellowship my ass..." and "Ahh, there it is"

Frame 26: Boromir up on the mountain, holding up the ring, saying "Something this small is really hard to trajectorize."

Frame 27: Closer shot of him saying "It really needs some sort of guidance system..."

Frame 28: Frodo back in Minas Tirith saying "Please... you can't do this!"

Frame 29: Denethor saying "I'm the steward of Gondor you uptight little bastard, I can do anything I damn well please!"

Frame 30: Denethor saying "Now get on the fucking catapult!"

Frame 31: The Catapult with Gandalf before it. Frodo says "I'm really not sure about this..." Someone else says "Ready..."

Frame 32: Close shot of Frodo looking afraid as someone off-screen says "*Launch!*"

Frame 33: Frodo being launched with sound effect "Woomch!" while screaming.

Frame 34: Gandalf looking out toward Mordor while Frodo still screams.

Frame 35: Boromir shouting "Try to aim for the lava, Frodo!"

Frame 36-37: Close view of Mordor, with the Eye of Sauron in the foreground and Mount Doom in the background. Sauron says "Doo dee doo" and "hey, what IS that..."

Frame 38: Closer view of the Eye of Sauron. Sauron says "It's moving awfully f..."

Frame 39: Frodo slams into the Eye, screaming, while Sauron screams too.

Frame 40: The Eye with sound effect "Fatoooomch".

Frame 41-43: The Eye collapsing, while Sauron says "Aaagh my eye!", "Oh jesus I'm fucking blind!" and "Aiiieeeeeeeeee!"

Frame 44: Boromir, Gandalf and Aragorn looking at the destruction of Mordor.

Frame 45-46: Boromir celebrating and shouting "Owned! Fucking owned! Did you see that! Did you see it!" and "One shot two kills motherfucker! Wheeeeee-haaa!"

Frame 47: Boromir turning on the others and saying ""Stupid idea, Boromir! That's fucking retarded, Boromoir!""

Frame 48: Zoom in on him as he says "Stick THAT up your hairless, flaccid assholes"

Frame 49: Picture of the people he is speaking to as he says "and tell em Boromir Sent Ya!"

Frame 51: Aragorn softly says "It still say it's fucking retarded."
(this was the only readily available gif I could find that included a tower-mounted trebuchet. Worth watching though, it's funny.)

In a rare moment of honest self‐awareness, Eragon states that he does not have the knowledge or skill to defeat Galbatorix, and only the elves will be able to help him.
However, Eragon manages to talk Nasuada into letting him go for a couple of days, by seizing “several small towns in the area” before they move on Feinster.

As Anya predicted, there is far too much talking, and a severe shortage of wisdom, for a chapter en tled “words of wisdom”.
This entire chapter boils down to:

Nasuada: Congratulations on influencing the dwarven election
Eragon: I need to go to Ellesmera
Nasuada: But we need you here
Eragon: But Naaaaas
Nasuada: Okay, but only a few days
Eragon: I’ll need more than a few days
Nasuada: Okay.
And the next chapter up is… The Whipping Post, to be sporked by Hergrim. Oh boy.

15 comments

[1]

theepistler
February 2 2018, 17:01:22
Nasuada praises Eragon for ‘ensuring Orik became king’, as though he did anything more than glower at the other candidates and daydream about drowning anybody who voted against Orik.

Sue Alert: Orik did all the actual work, but Eragon, who did nothing, gets the credit.

giant green inflatable butt plug

*gigglesnort* This has to be the most perfectly hilarious comparison ever made.

So WHY does this fishing/trade port have such heavy fortifications?

Maybe they built them in a futile effort to keep the Riders OUT. But I have another question. If the place was being run by guys with dragons not all that long ago, why are none of the cities adapted for dragons? Where are the dragon roosts, nesting houses, tack sheds and so on? Why do none of the cities have any sort of protection from aerial attacks? Where are the protective iron domes, chains and magical nets? Where are the wards (FUCKING WARDS) protecting buildings from fire? Why is Arglebarg basically just Medieval Europe with no dragon or dragon Rider influence on the culture, architecture, religion or landscape? I've said it before, but it bears repeating: dragon-centric story my arse.

[1A]

torylltales
February 2 2018, 17:12:00
I literally just googled "things that are 80-feet tall" and that came up. I'd forgotten about it until now, but it was pretty funny when it happened in the distant past of 2014.

[1B]

ghostwyvern
February 3 2018, 03:26:44
If the walls are on the sea side, maybe it's to keep out those sea serpent things?

Otherwise, I'm not sure. Would there have been time to build this wall post-Riders? If so, that's a public work, and Galbatorix probably sponsored it. And furthermore, such a wall could only be built to protect the citizens of the city, so that's not an evil action at all.

Only thing we can know for sure is it probably wasn't built before humans became Riders, and if Riders were keeping the peace, then one can only assume that war wasn't all that common. 80 foot walls seem more than a little overkill.

[1B1]

thegharialguy
February 3 2018, 08:00:22
Since the Varden isn't(?) stupid enough to siege a city from the ocean that only has sea walls, I can only assume they cover the city's land side. Galbatorix having the wall built seems like the most likely explanation. Probably expressly because of people like the Varden.

[1B2]

torylltales
February 3 2018, 09:25:35
The walls are described as encircling the whole city.

[1C]

syntinen_laulu
February 3 2018, 20:11:53
Why do none of the cities have any sort of protection from aerial attacks? Where are the protective iron domes, chains and magical nets?

But if the Riders built them, one thing they would definitely not want to give the citizens would be any anti-dragon protection, surely!

[1C1]

theepistler
February 3 2018, 21:06:29
Yeah, but didn't they fight each other? Even if the Galbatorix thing happened later and was unexpected, surely they would have wanted to be prepared just in case someone turned rebel. And then there's the lethrblaka and possible rogue wild dragons as well.

[2]

torylltales
February 2 2018, 17:09:25
Also I kept envisioning Fester whenever I wrote that stupid town's stupid name.


[Caption: Gif of Fester saying 'What?']

[3]

thegharialguy
February 3 2018, 01:41:29
To Eragon's credit, he did stand around and get attacked which made for a major turning point in the election. Coming to think about it, giving how easy the investigation was, that could have been a wonderful false flag operation. If only they didn't have witnesses on hand to mind rape.

[3A]

theepistler
February 3 2018, 10:38:09
Now that would have been a way more interesting plot development: Eragon and Orik stage a fake assassination attempt in order to discredit the one dwarf clan that doesn't like them (am I the only one who finds it painfully unrealistic that it's just this one obviously evil clan that hates Eragon? He should be way more unpopular). It would have made them both look pretty evil, but it's not as if Eragon has any likeability left to lose.

[3A1]

torylltales
February 3 2018, 13:30:53
Even better, the council votes for someone other than Orik, Eragon immediately assassinates that person via magic (or sword), then calmly says "vote again."

[3A1A]

theepistler
February 3 2018, 14:30:03
The really sad part is that I can absolutely picture him doing something like that. It wouldn't be the least bit out of character.

[4]

thegharialguy
February 3 2018, 14:02:53
What, Eragon? Have some agency in the story and control over how events transpire? Are you mad! Orik would do it by himself without consulting Eragon at all. And when he finds out, Eragon's would only praise his "cunning".

[4A]

theepistler
February 3 2018, 14:25:04
Okay, good point. :-p

[5]

syntinen_laulu
February 3 2018, 20:09:25
“Every day we camp outside [Feinster] will cost us lives”

That’s… is that how a siege works?

Well, actually sort of yes. The point about sieges in the ancient and medieval world is that - provided the besieged town/castle had good fortifications, enough men to man the walls and adequate water and provisions - the besiegers routinely suffered much more than the besieged. Inside the town/castle, life could go on almost as normal. Meanwhile the besieging force is tied down for months, unable to do anything else useful, getting hungrier and hungrier as their foragers would have stripped the land round about of anything edible for men and horses pretty quickly, and dying of epidemics brought on by inadequately designed and policed sanitary facilities. (Does anyone here imagine Nas having the sense to realise that the first and most important thing she needs to do as soon as they reach Feinster is to get everyone digging latrine trenches a long way from the camp, and make it a serious disciplinary offence to crap or pee anywhere else?)

That's why sieges were very rarely continued to the bitter end, and whenever a castle or city was actually taken by storm it was not merely permissible but absolutely the rule to sack it with extreme brutality. Not only because the besiegers were thoroughly p*ssed off by all those months of hardship, but because the odds were stacked so heavily in favour of the defenders that no city would ever consider surrendering unless they knew that if they did hold out and were taken, the outcome would be hideous.