Eragon pt. twenty

[kippurbird]

Chapters Trail of Oil, Worshipers of Helgrind. I want an icon that says "I drink human blood. The mountain tells me to"

Summary

Something I forgot to mention last time. Eragon's now a master swordsman. We're barely half way through the first book in a three book series and he's a master swordsman. There's no where for him to now that he's at the top. There's no room for him to grow or to get better. He's already there. He's got two and a half books to go, and he's already perfect. Where is there for him to go now? He has no room to grow. It makes him uninteresting. We know he's not going to fail, because he's perfect. There's no risk. No risk, no suspense. No reason to read.

Now, onto the new chapters.

Brom and Eragon go out and search for someone who knows about the Seithr oil. Eragon goes around the city and talks to shopkeepers and workers. He seems to go about this randomly talking to any sort of people. Though luck is with him and he finds out which warehouse the oil is taken to. Now if I was going to do this intelligently, I would have started out at the warehouses. Now, all these people know that someone is looking for shipments of Seither oil and someone might tell the wrong person. The more people that you ask, the more chance you have to tell the wrong person, who will be telling the people you don't want to know about what you're doing.

However he and Brom do eventually learn where the Seithr oil is sent. Guess where the Evil Minions of the Evil King are located? They're located near the Evil Mountain. Yes. How unexpected. Where else would you look for the Evil Minions but at the Evil Mountain which is near the Evil City with the Evil Religion. If I get any more Evil I'm going to be a Dark Sith Lord. I mean it's so predictable that the Evil Minions live near the Evil Mountain. If I were an Evil minion trying to escape notice, I would live in a regular city, in a regular house and do charity work to throw people off the scent. And not only that, when the heroes try and stop me, I'll have the city on my side saying No, I'm not evil. I do good things. Hah! Much more intelligent.

Meanwhile, Brom also learned that Galby is leaving his castle to talk to the lord of the Evil City. Which gives them a dead line because they don't want to be in the city when Galby is there. Eragon also decides to choose to join the Varden, if he has to. Who here didn't see that coming?

We get another view on how this city is Evil. Eragon goes wandering around while Brom does some secret work to discover how the oil and supplies are delivered to the mountain, and guess what he discovers the Evil City dwellers doing? Buying slaves. Yes. Slavery is of course, Evil. Never mind the fact that has been legal in the empire since it's inception and Eragon has grown up in this Empire where slavery has been legal. There is no reason for him to think that slavery isn't Evil, but he does so because Slavery is Evil. And Eragon knows this because he is the Hero, despite that there isn't any reason for him to think otherwise. But of course, we already know that the Empire is Evil and so therefor anything that they endorse must be Evil. And we already knew that Slavery, in modern day life, is Evil, so it must be in Eragon land. Or at least for Eragon our Hero who is Good.

Then for some reason Eragon goes into the large cathedral and prays there. Or at least pays homage to the cathedral itself. Because... I'm not really sure why he does this. It's completely out of character for him to do so. He's never shown any inclination to do this anywhere else. He's not even thought about gods (though there isn't a god here, just the Evil mountain) we don't even know if they exist. But Eragon has never shown himself to be that sort of thoughtful, insightful or reflective person, yet he does this sort of thing. Very Out of Character.

However his moment of reflection allows him to be ambushed by the Ra'zac. How they knew he was there, I don't know. I guess it was some sort of freak coincidence. They chase him. He escapes. He tells Brom and they leave the city by the hair of their teeth. So, now the Ra'zac are going to be on their tail. How exciting.

Oh, and I apologize for abusing the capital letter "E" in this post.

Comments

[indescane.livejournal.com]

Yet another piece of proof that Brom = Galby; how does he know that Galby is going to be there? He just is. And he's going to be there at the same time as Brom and, therefore, Eragon. Brom is with Eragon. He will also mysteriously be there at the same time.

Yes, that made no sense, but I'm typing this at midnight after a lot of homework. Sue me.

Oh, and I apologize for abusing the capital letter "E" in this post. That needs to be iconed. Or something echoing its sentiment, anyway. Something like, "Your Shift key Will Never forgive You for What you Did to it."

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't make much sense, but I understand the sentiment.

*pets the letter "E"* I abused it so much.

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

"This post was brought to you by the letter 'E'"

My rubbish humor aside, I'm totally with you on this. Evil stereotypes are so boring and predictable (OMEHGOD, Boring and predictable= Eragon! Maybe he's actually evil!) unless done in an unboring, unpredictable way. Forgive me if I'm contradicting myself though. XP

Am I the only person who thinks it's a REALLY stupid idea for a freaking MOUNTAIN to have a cathedral?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It's so easy to tell who is evil and who isn't. The world isn't like that. At least the real world isn't. I don't know about Eragon-land.

It does get really boring when you can pick out the evil person so easily. There's no suspense. There's no wondering. It's just... boring.

And no, you're not the only person who thinks that it's dumb.

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

Never mind the fact that has been legal in the empire since it's inception and Eragon has grown up in this Empire where slavery has been legal. There is no reason for him to think that slavery isn't Evil

Nonsense. If growing up in a social environment meant that you implicitly accepted all of its codes and conduct, then slavery would still be legal and nobody but land-owning white men would have the franchise. People have the capacity to look at institutions they have lived within their entire lives and realise that, in one way or another, they are wrong. Such spontaneous generation of thought is a necessity for any species that wishes to advance beyond hitting things with sticks and using only what fire the lightning happens to start for you.

In this particular instance, though, you're right that Eragon lacks the intellectual and philosophical-moral grounding to take a look at slavery, from a distance, for the first time, and pronounce it Evil. He's a farmboy from a tiny village hidden away from the wider world, he wouldn't know the first thing about the morality of slavery because he quite simply has never interacted with the institution. And given the generally harsh realities of the feudal era, the doubtless violence visitted on the slaves during the auction would not seem out of place, not in world where, say, a public execution was considered family entertainment and a chance to catch up with the neighbours.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

What really irked me about the entire set up was that we only see the slaves in the market place being sold. There weren't any other sighting of them. Not in the Inn that Eragon was staying at or anywhere else. There was no indication of there being slavery. The scene was put in there with an OHMIGAWD EVIL!! motif to show how EVIL these people are. But we don't know how they treat their slaves. Or anything like that. There is no indication of slavery in the city except for Paolini telling us there are slaves.

It just allows Eragon to say "Because of this only I would fight against the Empire". But there's no context. We don't know how these slaves are treated elsewhere or anything like that.

It's just there. Like a lot of things.

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

Like the transporting dragon infant and the dream of his Twu Wuv, the slaughtered village, the brain-stretching demands of becoming literate, the 'great hunter' status... Yes, we're building up quite an impressive store of things that are 'just there', aren't we?

As for Eragon not knowing how the slaves are treated and still deciding that it's Evil, does he know that the other kingdom doesn't practice slavery?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I know. It's like almost every chapter or event. There's something that is just there. And as much as I poke and prod it, I can't seem to discover why it is just there. I guess because it is, just there.

I believe this is the only real mention of slavery in the book. I think Brom mentioned it once before, but other than that, this is the only time we see it. And then it's never seen again. So why was it there? To give Eragon another reason to hate the Empire. Other than that, the scene served no purpose and could have been cut from the book with no loss.

Of course the other kingdom doesn't practice slavery. They're good. Duh.

[behyper.livejournal.com]

Eragon's whole Slavery is Teh Evol wangstrant just threw me off. Okay seriously. For a very, very long time, people didn't consider slavery evil, because it was so engrained in society, you just didn't think about it. Some people were naturally disturbed by it. But it's very, very rare that someone would randomly see something from their own society and suddenly start wangsting about Teh Evol. You'd have to see a few more things, think a little longer, etc., etc.

*makes an Eragon/Paolini voodoo doll*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Yes. Well Eragon, of course, is a paragon of Morals. At least Morals from our Time and Place, which may not necessarily fit into his time in place. And we all know, now, at least, that Slavery is Bad. This may not be true there though. I mean, if they really thought that it was bad would they do it?

Well, I think in this case, they might because they are the Evil People living in the Evil city next to the Evil mountain where the Evil minions live.

Gack

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if Eragon had watched for an hour, seen slave after slave sold, abused, mistreated, got a good look at their living conditions... THEN I would buy at least some kind of rant. "What sort of system can be good if it allows such horror?" sort of thing.... but the way he does it is just totally off the wall.

[the7bells.livejournal.com]

This kid is driving me MAD. He's a master swordsman? Already?! *bored with him* Sorry, the only universe where kids can be masters is Avatar. Not in this horrible Eragon land. He wasn't content to be master Hunter? *bleghghehgh* *shoots him*

[spoofmaster]

Avatar! *grin* I did think of Avatar when the topic of a character being awesome at everything came up, but then I remembered that the characters on Avatar actually have realistic motivations and don't always have the moral highground.

[the7bells.livejournal.com]

Yeah. They still struggle and have a few character flaws. It's not *fwoosh* Perfect. They all have human emotions, which I'm beginning to suspect this Eragon...thing does not.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Yup. He's a master swordsman, with his off and regular hand. He's just that special.

[the7bells.livejournal.com]

*plots his slow demise*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

*helps*

[hungryblackmage.livejournal.com]

I weep for the fantasy genre. This is getting to be too much. ;_;

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

You would weep more to know there is a 'Guide to Eragon' sort of book with a chapter that gives advice on writing this crap.

[karma-kalisutah.livejournal.com]

No.

Religions can be cracky. They can be stupid. They can be, at their worst, downright dangerous and evil. But they always fill some emotional need for their followers.

Killing people because a mountain says so? That doesn't sound like a religion. That sounds like a mass hallucination brought on by moldy bread.

[karma-kalisutah.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I'd call Eragon's NAME abuse of the capital letter E.

[flameraven.livejournal.com]

He seems to go about this randomly talking to any sort of people. Though luck is with him and he finds out which warehouse the oil is taken to.

I think this is using the logic of video game RPGs, in which you go around talking to all the NPCs in town and eventually they'll give you enough clues about the STRANGE, MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE that will tell you where to go next.

It kind of works in video games because it's a somewhat-accepted convention that NPCs just stand around repeating the same phrase or two over and over. In a fantasy story? No. Just no.

(Here from metaquotes, by the way; I've been reading these all morning. They're hilarious!)