Eragon pt. seven

[kippurbird]

Chapter Flight of Destiny. ooooh
Characters Eragon, Saphira
Shiny Magical Objects in Eragon's possession well... he's got the dragon between his legs. >>

Summary

In our previous chapter Eragon was sent running home because of the mysterious strangers. He has to tell Garrow about them and the fact that they want the egg/stone/thingie. He decides, perhaps rightly, that he needs to tell Garrow about Saphira. He sees Garrow and then decides that he needs Saphira to prove what he is saying is true. Now, if Eragon, back when Saphria hatched, had told Garrow about her, then he wouldn't have this problem. And Garrow would see the need to protect her, after all he would have had a vested emotional interest in her. But now, he'll just see her has a potentially dangerous creature that's a threat to his family. Putting that aside, instead of taking Garrow to meet Saphria by saying something like, "I need to show you something." He goes and gets Saphira first. Which allows for the dragon to panic.

Now we get a look at the dragon's special abilities. Somehow Saphira knows that these two people who are just described as dressed in black with humps, nothing too identifying, really, are "Enemies, murderers, egg destroyers". How does she know this? Do dragons have some sort of hive memory? Does every dragon know what other dragons know? If so, how come she had to learn how to talk? And then wouldn't she be known by Galby's dragon and be in contact with him? If they don't have a hive memory how does she know this? She hasn't been in contact with any dragons her entire life. There is no way for her to know this. And there is no explanation given. We're just supposed to accept the fact that she does know this and is panicking about it.

Her panic drives her to up and fly off with Eragon on a high speed flight. Somehow, without a saddle or straps, Eragon doesn't fall off nor, despite the height that Saphira flies, does he freeze to death. To use a relative example, we look at the Dragonrider's of Pern. The only mentioned time of a flight unassisted by riding straps is the first dragon flight and he almost fell off on their short flight. It was, perhaps, a ten minute flight at most. It was a very leisurely flight and not at all that fast. Eragon and Saphira were flying for hours and he stays on in freezing cold buffeting winds. He should have fallen off and died horribly and messily after a while. Alas, we are not treated to that.

Instead we're treated to this delightful bit of dragonic wisdom, "Death is a poison." Which is what Saphira uses as an explanation for why she flew off. I'm sure it's supposed to be deep and meaningful, but, like Garrow's advice, it's trite, kinda stupid, and obvious.

Comments

[prototypical]

So dragons are Borg now, knowing bad things instantly? And how fast is she growing if Eragon can already ride her? Gods, it hurts my brain!

Just how many chapters are in this thing anyway?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Apparently. The dragon has been growing rather fast. A bit too fast to believable. The amount of food she would need to consume to grow this fast, I think would be exponential. She'd have to be eating constantly.

Seventy one chapters, but some are only a couple of pages long.

[sonic-sues.livejournal.com]

She is growing too fast. If an animal grows to fast, its nervous system, which grows slowly, won't be able to keep pace with the rest of its body, and then the animal will be all stupid and clumsy.

That's why teenage boys are often clumsy. Their body grows faster than their nervous system for a spell, leading to poor muscle coordination.

[-youngblood-.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it's supposed to be deep and meaningful, but, like Garrow's advice, it's trite, kinda stupid, and obvious.

This is another theme that will resound throughout the series. In the sequel, somebody says (and I believe this is verbatim), "Strife causes naught but sorrow." No kidding? Strife causes sorrow? There are lots of these sage nuggets to be had with Paolini.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

So does that mean we'll get things like Kittens are cute and fluffy, Happiness is found with good things and If you move your arm like this and it hurts stop doing it?

[indescane.livejournal.com]

At this rate, I'm willing to put my money on the fact that an Important Character (le gasp) will tell you later on that if you read Eragon, blood will gush from your ravaged eye-sockets.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

If only someone had told me SOONER!

[karma-kalisutah.livejournal.com]

"Death is a poison."

Did I really just read that?

"Oy, Saphira! Why'd you just run away from those people trying to kill you?"
"Because dying is not fun."
"Woah! You just blew my mind!"

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Yes. You did just read that. And yes, that was Eragon's reaction.

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

We have already established, from your comments and the actions taken in the story itself, that Eragon is stupid. So I'm not surprised that he was impressed by that. :D

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

He gets stupider. Watch.

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

Versus that one episode of Gargoyles with Anubis wherein he said (basically) "All around the world there's birth but no death. The planet can't sustain all that life. The ballence would be fucked up so let me KILL PEOPLE!"

I love Anubis^^

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

That was a great episode. I love Gargoyles.

[thelittlebudgie.livejournal.com]

"Death is a poison."

Ehehehe... Yep. It'll kill you dead.

Hive memory is cool. I remember a series--first book was Daughter of the Empire--with a race called the cho-ja whose queens (they were like ants or bees in that sense) had a communal memory. Very... interesting.

I still think it's stupid that Eragon didn't just tell Garrow what was going on.

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

But then there wouldn't be any SUSPENSE in this chapter! ... Oh, wait. There isn't any here, with or without that. Nevermind. ;)

You know, I think it would have been so funny if Eragon had just gone up to his uncle, with a straight face, and sworn Saphira had followed him home. Preferably the baby version, as that would make the most sense, though the larger version would make that joke even more amusing, regardless of how cliched it is. See, why did he avoid the FUNNY cliches? If he's going to use cliches, then he can use ones that aren't strictly fantasy as well.

I think the real reason Paolini avoided having Eragon show the baby version to Garrow is because that was the most obvious conclusion and he wanted to try and be different! And also because he clearly doesn't want UBER cute baby dragons, so he can't have scenes where the very scenario itself is cute either. Hence his first thought being "OMG it's so cuu--er dangerous! That's right. This widdle itty bitty bebe is DANGEROUS. Look-it the size of them teeth! Gaw! Thems is deadleh."

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

That would have been funny... and slightly more plausible than anything else that has happened in this book so far.

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

Instead we're treated to this delightful bit of dragonic wisdom, "Death is a poison." Which is what Saphira uses as an explanation for why she flew off. I'm sure it's supposed to be deep and meaningful, but, like Garrow's advice, it's trite, kinda stupid, and obvious.

It's kind of nonsensical, too. I mean, cancer is a poison, sure, and pneumonia is a poison. I'd even accept stuff like being stabbed in the heart is a poison; it's a stretch, but I can manage. But death isn't a poison, death is the result of being poisoned. Death is what comes after poison.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Death doesn't kill you, life does. ^_^