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theepistler wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-08-19 18:22:00
LOCATION: United States, Virginia, Manassas
MOOD:
hungryMUSIC: Nightwish - End of an Era
Brisingr Spork: Chapter 52 - A Rider In Full
Well, here we are. Right at the end of the book, and Eragon finally gets the special perfect unique magical sword he’s entitled to by virtue of being the protagonist. Might I add, this is one of maybe five plot points in the whole book, the entire relevant contents of which can be summarised as:
1. Dwarf election (unnecessary, dragged-out, could easily have happened off-screen as Orik’s crowning was a foregone conclusion).
2. The Ra’zac die and Katrina is rescued (over in a couple of chapters, far too easily)
3. Eragon finds out Brom is his father (changes nothing in the story and provides no character development for anybody, plus it makes Brom look like an even bigger asshole).
4. Eragon gets a new sword (…which will play no role in the plot)
5. Nasuada is challenged for the leadership of the Varden (…by a group of people who will never be seen or mentioned again).
Note that all of these “plot points” have one thing in common: all of them are subplots. None of them do anything to advance the main storyline in the slightest. That’s what this book is: it’s literally an entire dictionary-sized volume wasted on tying up subplots.
The thing about subplots is that they’re, well, subplots. They’re supposed to be relegated to the background while the main plot happens. The moment you make them the primary focus, the story stops going anywhere. (Apparently Robert Jordan had this problem too).
And that’s how you end up with an entire book of filler substituted for plot. Oh, pardon me – “essential story elements”. If Paolini wants to improve as a writer, he needs to learn the difference and adapt accordingly instead of making lame excuses.
Anyway, so the chapter opens with Saphira waking Eragon up. She’s still addressing him as “little one”, because Paolini still thinks that’s cute instead of patronising. I don’t know how you’re supposed to wake someone who’s already awake, either, because lest we forget, Eragon is too superior to actually sleep any more. He just goes into a trance thingy with “waking dreams”. I’m really not seeing a lot of difference, quite frankly. Or indeed, any difference. He’s still lying on a bed not moving while having dreams, and he still needs to be woken up. Thus rendering the whole thing – you guessed it...
[Caption: Picture of the Nostalgia Critic saying 'Entirely Pointless']
The description of Eragon getting up is needlessly detailed, and the sentence structure is painfully choppy and lacking in any sort of flow:
“Eragon bolted upright, throwing off his blankets [snip] . His arms and shoulders were sore from his exertions of the previous day. He pulled on his boots…”
When I say it lacks flow, what I mean is that each sentence has nothing to do with the one that came before it. It’s all just kind of clumped together as if the author wrote it out of obligation rather than because it added anything to the scene. If you want a description like this to flow, you’d be better off with something like this:
“Eragon bolted upright, and then winced as he felt the soreness in his arms and shoulders. He got up and stiffly reached for his boots…”
See? Now the description is woven in with the action rather than being dropped in at random and then immediately forgotten. Even after three huge books Paolini has still failed to master this technique, and it’s a major reason why his prose is so dull to read. He does it with his storytelling, worldbuilding and characterisation as well – everything is just dropped in and immediately forgotten rather than woven together into a cohesive whole. Which is why the plotting is so schizophrenic and why all the characters act as if they have no long-term memory.
Basically, a good book should be the equivalent of a piece of cloth – everything fitted together into a single creation which is more than the sum of its parts. This is the literary equivalent of a pile of loose thread. The fact that they’re touching each other is purely coincidental and doesn’t add up to anything, and it falls apart if you poke it too hard.
Wow, I’m being all educational this morning, aren’t I? You’re welcome. (Unless you’re sitting there mentally urging me to get on with already, in which case I better had).
Eragon “trots” over to Rhunon and Saphira at the forge. When I read Inheritance I noticed an awful lot of trotting going on, also striding. I don’t know why, but it just sticks out awkwardly to me. Can we just stick with “walked” or “hurried”? Overuse of adjectives does this to your prose. (And we all know how much Paolini loves them adjectives, almost as much as he loves meat and describing other dudes’ rippling pecs for no very good reason).
Rhunon is looking haggard because unlike our entitled protagonist she didn’t get to go off for beddie-byes when she got tired. I’ve noticed repeatedly in this book that Eragon’s personal comfort is always priority number one, no matter what the circumstances. World-changing war going on? People dying? Whole country depending on you? Nope, he’s still getting his 7-8 hours a night, no matter what. And gods forbid he miss any meals or have to put up with grubby clothes or a less than perfect weapon. The actual privations of war are for the human NPCs we’re not supposed to care about.
We’re still supposed to see him as a hardened and courageous warrior, by the way. Ahahahah, it is to laugh.
The sword we’ve wasted 402 pages and counting to get to is under “a length of white cloth” for absolutely no reason. Seriously, there is no reason for it to be under a cloth. For what characterisation she’s had, Rhunon has very much been written as a stolid and practical sort who has no patience for dramatics. The fact that she’s now covered the sword up for no reason other than a dramatic reveal is wildly out of character. It’s also about the ten thousandth example of Paolini throwing something in for dramatics and the Cool Factor rather than because it makes any sense in context, even if it causes plot holes the size of the Mary Celeste.
This is why you should write a book because you want to tell a story, rather than because you want to indulge in a heap of childish wish fulfillment. Which is what this book has been reduced to. Even Eldest had more tension and drama. Mind you, my bowl of instant noodles has more tension and drama than this book. Will the Epistler be able to snag that last piece of ham out of the bottom of the bowl without using her fingers? Will the high sodium content result in a eventual stroke in her later years? Thrill to the action as the Epistler drinks the soup off the top and burns her tongue!
Rhunon continues to act wildly out of character by making a melodramatic speech about how awesome the sword is. In fact she claims that it’s – say it with me – “the finest sword I have ever forged”, because of course it is. This despite the fact that she made it in a hurry using someone else’s body, which I think we can safely assume is not something she’s ever done before. I can’t even play Chopsticks on someone else’s piano.
Because as always, reality warps to suit the needs of the self-insert Mary Sue.
Rhunon dramatically pulls the cloth off, and we get a big description of the sword:
“…the sword Eragon saw on the bench was as magnificent as Zar’roc, Naegling, and Támerlein and, in his opinion, more beautiful than any of them […because it’s a more effective killing device if it looks pretty?]. Covering the blade was a glossy scabbard of the same dark blue as the scales on Saphira’s back. The color displayed a slight variegation, like the mottled light at the bottom of a clear forest pond. A piece of blued brightsteel carved in the shape of a leaf capped the end of the scabbard while a collar decorated with stylized vines encircled the mouth. The curved crossguard was also made of blued brightsteel, as were the four ribs that held in place the large sapphire that formed the pommel. The hand-and-a-half hilt was made of hard black wood.”
Yes, very attractive. I love how owning this thing is supposed to make Eragon more badass. Because it doesn’t. Badassery is not about how things look– it’s in the actions of the character using them. Here’s a counter-example for you: I once wrote a short story in which the protagonist, a hardened fighter and criminal, is taken prisoner. He has no weapons, and the only thing in the cell he can pick up is the cistern cover on the toilet.
So he picks up the big clunky piece of porcelain and uses it to bash a guard’s brains in, then grabs a broken piece to use as a crude knife and makes his escape.
The character is a badass because he doesn’t need a fancy weapon. He can literally kill you with a toilet. Eragon, meanwhile, gets an unbreakable magical starmetal bastard sword forged like a katana by an ancient elf using fucking dragonfire… and does nothing with it. It just ends up becoming another obligatory special Sue accessory. He doesn’t kill Shurikan or Galbatorix with it. He doesn’t kill the upcoming Random Encounter Shade with it.
Nope, all he’s going to do with it is slaughter even more helpless mind-enslaved soldiers. Which we already know he can do without needing a weapon.
Thus rendering this entire subplot – you guessed it – entirely pointless.
[Caption: Picture of the Nostalgia Critic saying 'Entirely Pointless']
Eragon picks up the ridiculous thing and admires it for “several minutes”, because lest we forget, Eragon has reverse ADHD and is apparently part magpie given his bizarre fixation with staring at shinies for extended periods. If only his enemies knew about it – they could probably defeat him by showing him a disco ball and then stabbing him in the spleen while he stares at it and drools.
He unsheathes the sword and we get even more description, this time of the blade. Basically, it’s blue. It just takes Paolini about 500 words to get that across. Oh yeah, work those adjectives, baby. Work them hard!
Our Zero starts swinging the sword around and to nobody’s surprise it fits perfectly in his hands and handles just right, etcetera. Eragon makes a lunge at an imaginary enemy, and “was confident they would have died from the attack”. Because again, Eragon’s first and only priority is killing things. Hey, remember that bit at the beginning where he and Roran had a long self-righteous conversation about how Killing is Bad and when you kill someone you kill a part of yourself, look at us being all morally superior? Because Eragon seems to have forgotten aaaallll about it.
And indeed, it will never come up again for the rest of the series. Remember what I was saying earlier about how this story has no flow and the characters have no long-term memory? Quite frankly it’s starting to feel as if the author has no long-term memory.
Rhunon gives him some “iron rods” to practise on, and in a scene right out of a cheesy anime Eragon goes “HWAAAA!” and slices through all three of them in one go, which causes the blade to make “a single pure note that slowly faded into silence”. In other words, this thing is apparently also a tuning fork. Also I may have made up the “hwaa” part (the book just says he shouted), but it would be entirely fitting with the sheer level of cheese in this scene. Plus we all know Chris is clearly a huge anime fanboy going on the obsession with all things stereotypically Japanese and the ridiculous fight choreography he keeps using.
[Caption: Gif of man drawing his sword and slashing through an opponent.]
Rhunon asks him if he’s pleased with the sword, and for once Eragon shows some gratitude, saying he doesn’t know how he can thank her “for such a gift”. Note once again his blithe assumption that he never has to pay for anything anyone gives him – how do you think he’d have reacted if Rhunon had handed him a bill for $2000 to $7500 USD? (The standard price range for a custom sword forged from scratch according to some quick googling I just did, and that’s not even including the enormous sapphire in the pommel). He didn’t even ask if it was going to cost him anything before they got started. No, instead he just went in acting on the assumption that he always gets what he wants for free, without even needing to say “please”. He was the same with the dwarves, showing up on their doorstep with zero luggage, probably reeking of sweat, and assuming they’d just give him human-sized clothes – again, for free.
This is the mark of somebody who’s never lived in the real world a day in his life.
Might I add, Eragon supposedly grew up in poverty. Poverty my ass – from day one he’s acted like a spoilt little rich boy accustomed to being handed everything on a silver platter (remember how he bitched about the prison food in book one, even though it was literally just standard issue peasant fare? Bread and cabbage soup? Heaven forfend our hero have to eat that slop! Where’s the steak and oysters?!). And it’s only gotten worse. He should be embarrassed by all the incredibly expensive free stuff that keeps being handed to him, but nope. He just accepts it as his due.
Go fuck yourself, Eragon. You’re the Paris Hilton of fantasy heroes. But without any of the wit or charm.
Rhunon then breaks character again by saying he can repay her by killing Galbatorix. Ahem – didn’t you swear an oath to stop making swords because you didn’t want to “launch another soul-reaver upon the world”, Rhunon? In other words, didn’t you swear an unbreakable magic oath because you were unhappy that your swords had been used to kill people? …And now you’ve made another sword and are openly urging the owner to go kill someone with it.
Wonderful. Paolini was so hellbent on giving his self-insert the perfect sword that he turned one of the few actually honest characters in the entire series into a flaming hypocrite.
The two of them start dramatically proclaiming that Eragon is now “truly a Dragon Rider”. Why? Doesn’t having a – y’know – fucking DRAGON make you a Dragon Rider? Are you seriously suggesting that having the right sword is more important than having a DRAGON when it comes to being a DRAGON RIDER? What the hell does having a fancy sword have to do with anything? Are they badges of office now? Status symbols? What? Why is everyone making such a big screaming deal out of owning a weapon that’s objectively useless on dragonback and is no more efficient at killing people than magic and super strength? Why does Eragon even need a sword? Other than because all fantasy protagonists apparently have to use one? In the first book he was an archer, which made sense and would have worked okay while riding a flying mount. But now he’s ditched that entirely for a sword, and it’s never been explained why. (Seriously. That fancy bow he got from the Elf Queen? Will never be seen again).
Call me crazy, but if you’re going to centre a huge chunk of a very large book around the protagonist getting a sword, you should probably sit down and explain why it’s so vital to the story and the character.
Which we all know it isn’t. As I said before, having read the rest of the series from this point forward I already know the sword will never be used for anything of importance.
Which is why we’re wasting an entire chapter admiring the thing, after wasting an entire chapter watching it being made. *facepalm* Couldn’t Paolini have just written Eragon finding Brom’s old sword and been done with it? It would’ve made thematic sense and potentially been way more interesting to read about. Hell, he could have found out the Truth About Brom while questing for his sword, then found the memory recording thingy along with it.
But nope. Can’t have that. That would require our supposed hero to actually have some agency, and we all know that’s never going to happen.
Once the obnoxious back-patting is over and done with (…for now), Rhunon declares that Eragon has to name the sword so she can mark it “with the appropriate glyph”. They have single glyphs to represent entire words in the AL now? That sounds like a highly inefficient writing system to me, but then I’m not a linguist.
Also, why is it necessary to name the stupid thing anyway? Pointless fantasy melodrama fluff ahoy…
Eragon asks Saphira what she thinks. Aw, that’s cute – he’s pretending he cares about her opinions.
Saphira the “wise” dragon suggests calling it “Blue-gem-tooth” or “Blue-claw-red”, neither of which makes the slightest bit of sense, and Eragon answers quite rudely that “that would sound ridiculous to humans”. Seriously, she’s using her own stupid made-up dragon speech thingy, and he calls it ridiculous. And yes, it is ridiculous as hell, but he’s still being incredibly rude. But when have these two “soul-bonded more than friends” ever not been rude to each other? Maybe he’s just repaying her for the way she treated him in book one. Either way I’m not buying it in the slightest that these two even like each other.
Then Saphira rattles off a list of other names, and all of them are beyond absurd and stupid:
Reaver, Gutripper, Battleclaw, Glitter-thorn [wasn’t that a character on My Little Pony?], Limbhacker, Terror, Pain, Armbiter […of justice?], Eversharp, Ripplescale, Tongue of Death [SERIOUSLY, dude?], Elfsteel and Starmetal.
If you said this to anyone else the reaction would be gales of laughter, but Eragon being the dimbulb that he is, the reaction we get is “You have a talent for this.”
For what, spouting off the most generically corny fantasy sword names ever conceived?
Then Eragon suggests calling it Kingkiller.
[Caption: Covers of The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear next to each other.]
No, not that Kingkiller. Though from what I understand the protagonist of that series wastes even more time screwing around than Eragon does. Saphira answers with “And what if we actually kill Galbatorix? [snip] Will you do nothing else of worth with your sword?”
Nope. And as I said, he won’t be killing Galby with it anyway. Because Eragon is such a blitheringly incompetent excuse for a hero that even having The Best Sword Evah won’t lead to him killing sweet ol’ Galbs with it. Nope, he’ll still have to rely on a right out of nowhere Deus Ex Machina to do the job. Which the author plagiarised wholesale from someone else’s book. Nice job, idiot.
Eragon suggests naming it after Saphira, and she gets pissy and snaps back with “I am not a thing for you to wave about and make fun of.” Really? ‘Cause he was making fun of your language just a few paragraphs ago. Did I mention that Saphira is a prissy self-important bitch? Because she is. Also I hate her.
Then Eragon suggests naming the sword “Hope” in the AL. (According to some quick googling, that’d be “Vána”, which sounds nice. This leads me to ask a nasty question along the lines of how in the blue hell “Zar’roc” remotely fits with any of the other AL words we’ve encountered. And I think I just answered my own question). Eragon calls this “an amusing pun” because he’s an easily entertained twit who pisses himself laughing at his own terrible jokes.
When Saphira turns this suggestion down as well, Eragon is “stymied”. I’m having flashbacks to book one again, where the word “stymied” popped up with tooth-grinding regularity. Not to mention that “stymied” doesn’t even really make sense in this context. It means “hindered” or “thwarted”. “Frustrated” would have been a far better word choice. Still put the thesaurus down, Paolini.
Eragon has a bit of a think. To quote the novelisation of Red Dwarf: “Watching [Eragon] think had always reminded him of watching a huge, rusty old tractor trying to plough furrows in a concrete field.”
He thinks about the first time he used magic in Yazuac, and how he used it again when he fought Durza, and decides to name the sword in honour of those truly memorable moments from a book I hated slightly less than this one.
Cue more goofy melodrama:
“…he lifted the weapon to shoulder level and said, ‘I am decided. Sword, I name thee Brisingr!’”
Uh, why is he talking to his sword? It’s not sentient, Eragon. Couldn’t he have just nodded and said “let’s call it Brisingr!”. And why is he using this fancy archaic wording all of a sudden?
Look dude – if you want melodrama then you have to earn melodrama. You can’t just shove it in as and when it suits you. It’s like everything this guy does have to be treated like a big ceremonial occasion with dramatic proclamations and lightning in the background and ominous rumblings of the earth and such. Put him in a world populated by sensible people and he’d become very used to hearing “dude, tone it down”, and also being laughed at.
Stick a sock in it, Eragon. I’m just embarrassed for you now.
In a shocking twist, it now turns out that the sword is actually a giant letter opener. Well, how else would you explain the fact that when Eragon says its name, an envelope appears?
[Caption: 'What a twist' gif]
“…an envelope of sapphire-blue flames writhing around the razor-sharp steel.”
Cool, a flaming envelope! Finally Paolini did something creative.
…or this is just more terrible word choice. And by the way, for all his “research” Paolini still needs to have it explained to him that medieval longswords were not “razor sharp”. Sharp does not automatically mean “more effective”. In fact in the case of a longsword it actually means “more likely to snap like a twig the moment you hit anything solid with it”. An actual longsword had an edge more akin to an axe and was not intended for stabbing (something else Paolini seems unaware of, since Eragon stabs people all the damn time with this thing). And guess what? A blunt edge does more damage. That’s why surgeons use insanely sharp scalpels – so they can cut you open while doing as little damage as possible. Now, you could point out that this sword is enchanted to be unbreakable, but it’d still be more effective at dealing damage if it wasn’t “razor-sharp”. Even the makers of fucking Lilo and Stitch knew that! (Seriously. In the Making Of one of them explains that they gave Stitch blunt claws “to make him look more threatening, because blunt claws hurt more”).
Remind me again how this book and series was “meticulously researched”?
Paolini continues with the chronic overwriting, as he actually feels the need to explain that Eragon drops the sword because he’s “afraid of being burned”. No shit, really? I thought he dropped it because he’s afraid of cutting himself. I really wish Paolini would stop pointing out the stupidly obvious just to pad his wordcount.
Eragon realises he’s providing the energy for the fire, so he stops and it goes out. Rhunon snatches it off him and starts bitching about how he could’ve “scratched the guard” by dropping it like that.
It’s a sword, you fucking moron. He’s going to be taking it into battle on a regular basis. I really don’t think you can afford to get all uptight about whether it’s going to get scratched or damaged. Except it won’t be, because apparently she’s put some fucking wards on it to protect it from damage. Then why are you whining about it, Rhunon? I can’t believe I used to semi-like this character. She used to be kind of a jerk, but honest and sensible. Now she’s a jerk, dishonest, a hypocrite, and an idiot.
She bitches some more and tells him never to drop it again. What if he’s disarmed in combat, jackhole? (Maybe this is why he’s “reluctant” to drop it in order to catch Roran at the beginning of the next book. Just how easily led is this idiot?).
With that stupidity over with, we now move on to a slightly different type of stupidity. Rhunon asks if he set the sword on fire deliberately, and he says no and can’t explain what happened. She tells him to say its name again, which he does, with the same result. And also the fire is “smokeless”. Don’t ask me what the point of that is.
Eragon whines about this, because of course he does, and Saphira crows about how great it is that he has a flaming sword.
Yeah, about that.
Thanks to the introduction I know that Paolini literally just put this in here because his dad (you know, the guy who stalked, blackmailed and doxxed a bunch of teenage girls back in 2006 and no I am not going to let that go) thought it would be cool. I think this serves to highlight something, which is that we now have conclusive proof that Paolini really does just put stuff in just because he (or in this case daddy) thinks it would be cool. And that he does so whether it serves the story or not. Which in this case it doesn’t, because the fact that Eragon’s sword bursts into flame is going to have absolutely no impact on the plot at all. He doesn’t use it to do anything. Well, unless you count using it to cut through a gate later in this book. In fact in the next book he actively avoids setting it on fire when he goes into battle.
Which renders the whole thing – you guessed it…
[Caption: Picture of the Nostalgia Critic saying 'Entirely Pointless']
Anyway, so the three idiots put their collective three braincells together and try to figure out why the sword does this. Oh wait, make that two idiots – as usual Saphira contributes nothing to this scene. Rhunon says it’s either because Eragon has “imbued the blade with a portion of your personality” (so that’s why it “shimmers in delight” later on while being used to disembowel people), or because he’s discovered its True Name.
Which doesn’t make any sense, because “brisingr” is the True Name of fire. How can it be the True Name of two different things, simultaneously? In a language which is Literally True, always?
[Caption: Futurama 'That just raises further questions!' gif.]
They all nod and smile over how it’s the best name ever, and Rhunon uses “an inaudible spell” to put the Elvish “glyph for fire” on the blade and scabbard. And that was entirely necessary, of course. I mean without the special elven glyph on it, the sword wouldn’t even work properly.
By the way, did I mention there’s supposed to be a war going on right now? But please feel free to keep wasting time, Durragon.
Finally Eragon leaves, “cradling Brisingr in his arms as he would a newborn child.”
Well that’s not creepy at all.
And with that the chapter ends. Time to limp on to the anticlimax, and then we can all get on with our lives at last.
28 comments
[1]
torylltales
August 19 2018, 19:59:43
(Unless you’re sitting there mentally urging me to get on with already, in which case I better had).
The sword we’ve wasted 402 pages and counting to get to is under “a length of white cloth” for absolutely no reason. Seriously, there is no reason for it to be under a cloth. For what characterisation she’s had, Rhunon has very much been written as a stolid and practical sort who has no patience for dramatics. The fact that she’s now covered the sword up for no reason other than a dramatic reveal is wildly out of character.
I would have expected something corny like Flametongue, because at least then Paolini would be referencing a classic fantasy RPG.
[1A]
theepistler
August 19 2018, 21:05:31
"Dunderheaded warrior - go."
[1B]
vorpal_tongue
August 19 2018, 23:23:38
I would have expected something corny like Flametongue
Except the Urgals have called Saphira "Flametongue" at least once in the past.
"What about... Flametongue?"
Are you seriously considering naming it after what the Urgals call me?
"...No?"
Good answer.
[1B1]
torylltales
August 19 2018, 23:29:09
"Fine, how about Vorpal Tongue?"
what... what does that mean?
"No idea, I just like the sound of it."
[1B1A]
vorpal_tongue
August 20 2018, 18:26:39
"I mean, it just rolls off the tongue doesn't it?" Eragon said before he began to giggle.
Eragon, are you sure those mushrooms you found were safe to eat?
"The ones in Rhunon-elda's cupboard?"
Yes.
[2]
snarkbotanya
August 19 2018, 20:19:03
“…the sword Eragon saw on the bench was as magnificent as Zar’roc, Naegling, and Támerlein and, in his opinion, more beautiful than any of them […because it’s a more effective killing device if it looks pretty?]. Covering the blade was a glossy scabbard of the same dark blue as the scales on Saphira’s back. The color displayed a slight variegation, like the mottled light at the bottom of a clear forest pond. A piece of blued brightsteel carved in the shape of a leaf capped the end of the scabbard while a collar decorated with stylized vines encircled the mouth. The curved crossguard was also made of blued brightsteel, as were the four ribs that held in place the large sapphire that formed the pommel. The hand-and-a-half hilt was made of hard black wood.”
...well then.
I said in the spork of Chapter 50 that Murtagh taking Zar'roc makes no sense because he favors a hand-and-a-half, while Zar'roc is something between a traditional longsword and an arming sword. Here, we have the reverse: Eragon learned to fight using Zar'roc, a one-handed weapon, and yet his Sooper Speshul Sue-Sword is a hand-and-a-half.
Which means that Murtagh and Eragon would each be far more effective as warriors if they swapped weapons.
Really, I think that's a pretty nice blow to Paolini's little "inheritance" theme. He tries to make all the characters a complete Generation Xerox of their parents, down to having Murtagh claim Zar'roc as rightfully his and everyone else agreeing that it's fitting for Morzan's son to wield his sword... yet, the details of the blades and the characters' fighting styles serve to separate them from their parents. It undermines the "heritable personality and role" thing that Paolini has going. I think I'm going to have to make note of this for Consequence, because picking up this unintentional deconstructive symbolism and running with it could work quite well...
[2A]
torylltales
August 19 2018, 20:48:53
...well then.
It is only fitting that the man who is "more handsome than any man, yet more rugged than any elf" should have the best and most beautiful sword in existence.
[2A1]
snarkbotanya
August 20 2018, 04:37:06
This series is almost as shallow as Twilight.
[2B]
Anonymous
August 21 2018, 09:34:35
Which means that Murtagh and Eragon would each be far more effective as warriors if they swapped weapons.
I think it would have been an interesting twist of the inheritance theme in this series if Eragon and Murtugh didn’t swap swords at the end of the Burning Plains battle, and we later learn that Murtagh has been using Brom’s sword.
[3]
cmdrnemo
August 20 2018, 09:45:21
This book is like watching an hour long Bronze League Starcraft match. It's slow, no one knows what they're doing, things that have been used to great effect are wasted, and by the end everyone should have lost a dozen times over. Galbatorix is just playing a 10 minute no rush to produce one thor. Eragon has been supply blocked the whole time. Now he's researching charge-lots so his one zealot on the hold position command could run faster, he'll never move, he'd die first. But, if he did move it would be fast.
[3A]
pipedreamno20
August 22 2018, 13:37:18
Bwahahaha starcraft comparisons for the win!
[3A1]
cmdrnemo
August 22 2018, 17:05:53
I don't know why I didn't do that starting with book one. The only strategy any army uses in the entire 'cycle' is "a move to victory."
[4]
Anonymous
August 20 2018, 15:01:58
It bothers me to no end that Eragon gets his own sword instead of getting Brom’s. The theme of this series is supposedly inheritance, so why doesn’t the main character inherit something physical and important from his father? Also, the whole sword creation thing would’ve had more impact if we were given some more backstory about them, rather than just “swords are cool, so the Riders had them, so Eragon has to get an Uber-special one”.
[4A]
theepistler
August 20 2018, 17:17:05
Plus Paolini doesn't even come up with a good reason as to why Eragon can't just use his dad's sword. It's literally just handwaved with "oh, nobody knows where it is". Which in a better book would prompt the protagonist to - y'know - go and look for it.
And I agree. There's absolutely NO justification given as to why it's so goddamn important to have a sword.
[4B]
ultramega10
August 21 2018, 23:41:52
Because Eragon doesn't really have a father. He doesn't have a place in the universe. What parentage he supposedly have was created wholesale solely to appeal to his ego.
Morzan, for better or worse, is a source of great development on the part of Murtagh. His whole existence is driven by his parentage and his desire to escape from it. Thus it is fitting that something should be handed down to him.
In sharp contrast, Eragon doesn't really care about anything but himself and while he uses his supposed parentage with Morzan to have a self-pity party, he is safely rescued from it by a convenient parentage with someone is already dead and thus has no hold over him.
What happened to Brom's sword anyway?
[4B1]
theepistler
August 22 2018, 09:26:20 Edited: August 22 2018, 09:28:04
That's an extremely good point. I think it's very telling that Eragon never thinks about his father in terms of having an actual relationship with him. Most kids who grow up with an absent parent harbour a lot of anger and resentment toward the parent for never being there for them, but are also often desperate just to meet them. There are people who spend half their lives searching for that missing parent in the hopes of forming a relationship, or at the very least getting closure.
Eragon doesn't have that. He's not angry with Brom, and nor does he regret not having had a parent/child relationship with him. Indeed the whole reveal is, as you say, centered around making Eragon look good. In the video message thingy Brom is far more interested in spoonfeeding him exposition while telling him what an awesome guy he is.
Basically "Brom is your father" translates to another cool Hero Accessory (i.e. a suitably mysterious and heroic father).
What happened to Brom's sword anyway?
No idea. It's handwaved in one sentence. Ergs asks if he can use it, and the reply is oh, well, no-one knows where it is. Because I'm sure Brom just lost it down the side of the couch. As one does. I mean it's not like it's an extremely important personal possession you'd want to keep track of or anything. And wouldn't he have needed it for killing all those dragons? Undbitr is literally just a sword-shaped plot hole.
[5]
thegharialguy
August 21 2018, 01:06:13
Oh hey, Sword of the Stranger, love that movie. Also we seem to have two Chapter 51s.
[5A]
theepistler
August 21 2018, 07:56:57
Oops. Fixed.
[6]
Anonymous
August 21 2018, 08:41:20
Rhunon going full drama queen over the sword would have worked if the narrative mentioned it at all. It would have been a nice quirk for her character. All down to earth and practical in her day to day life, but full of the same elvish pride when it comes to showing off her work. In fact, a fun way to play with that would be to have everyone who has a Rider sword say that their sword is the finest Rhunon ever crafted. Eragon could hear this constantly, maybe roll his eyes around the third time and ask her about it when she says the same thing about Brisingr.
You know something that would be better than forging a brand new sword? How about Rhunon has the pieces of Brom's old sword laying around. It could even be built up the same way, with the unbreakable oath preventing her from making a new sword -dramatic pause- but there's nothing stopping her from repairing an old one! It would be another Tolkien rip off, but at least it would better fit the inheritance theme.
[6A]
theepistler
August 21 2018, 20:38:15
Yeah, it's really cute when you have a character who appears reserved or socially awkward, but who shamelessly geeks out over their interests. It's a nice way of demonstrating that people are so much more than what they appear to be on the surface.
Unless you're Paolini. Then it's surface and nothing but.
[7]
Anonymous
August 21 2018, 09:39:05
What you mention of sharp weapons being worse than blunt ones, at least to slash (I guess for thrusting (piercing attacks, I mean (arrows)) it would however be adequate), which I did not know worked so is a gaffe that probably comes from D&D and similar games, where magical weapons that has have twice the possibility of a critical hit. being stated there that bludgeoning weapons cannot have that.
Oh, well, more "research"...
[7A]
syntinen_laulu
August 22 2018, 18:58:42
It was a regular practice in the Napoleonic Wars, and therefore probably in earlier and later wars too, for cavalry armed with sabres - which of course are useless for thrusting and can only be used for slashing - to have them 'rough-sharpened' before a battle, in order to inflict raggeder and therefore more damaging wounds.
[7A1]
theepistler
August 22 2018, 19:19:03
Hah, vindication.
[7A2]
Anonymous
1 week ago
[8]
anontu
August 21 2018, 22:57:23
Will the Epistler be able to snag that last piece of ham out of the bottom of the bowl without using her fingers? Will the high sodium content result in a eventual stroke in her later years? Thrill to the action as the Epistler drinks the soup off the top and burns her tongue!
Be still my beating heart! The hype is too much!
[8A]
theepistler
August 22 2018, 08:43:42
SHOCKING PLOT TWIST: The Epistler decided to have a second helping. But when she opened the pantry's creaking door, a horrifying discovery awaited!
...she was all out of noodles!
[Caption: Gif of lightning]
Join us next time for the thrilling and dramatic tale of... THE EPISTLER'S TRIP TO THE SUPERMARKET!
[8A1]
cmdrnemo
August 22 2018, 09:30:22
After reading a couple of chapters of Brisingr your story contains so has such a high plot/suspense to word count ratio that I can't handle the epicosity. Please tone it down a little.
[8A1A]
theepistler
August 22 2018, 18:42:01
>CONTRARINESS MODE ACTIVATED<
The Epistler walked toward the checkout, clutching the precious noodles under her arm. The cash register was getting closer. But then, out of nowhere - an old co-worker appeared and wanted to make conversation! What was our heroine going to do now? Would she be able to end the idle chit-chat about former workplace supervisors she would rather forget? She had to make it to her next appointment in just a few minutes!
Could she still make it in time to buy those noodles?!