Eragon pt. twenty three

[kippurbird]

Chapters Du Sundavar Freohr, Fighting Shadows I have no idea what the first one means


Summary

So, I'm trying to figure out why Eragon keeps on fainting all the time. Or getting hit in the head, and I think it's because Paolini doesn't want to deal with Eragon failing at something. Instead of having to deal with the consequences of his actions, he faints or is hit in the head and it's no longer his fault. He wasn't awake to deal with the problems. How do you avoid Eragon losing a battle with a bunch of Urgals and thus being shown to be a shitty swordsman, have him get hit upside the head.

Speaking of getting hit upside the head Eragon wakes up in a cell and discovers that he's been drugged. Can't use his magic any more. His brain is sluggish and he can't think. Not that he did much before. He complains about the prison food, wishing he got something better than cabbage soup and stale bread. Yes. He's captured by the enemy, in prison and his biggest complaint is the food. Well that could be because of the drugs.

In any case, he hangs around in a stupor and then sees that there's action going on outside. What happens is that he sees the mysterious woman from his dreams. This woman, despite having been chained up and presumably tortured is still perfect. He even describes her as perfect. And I quote,

"Her sculpted face was as perfect as a painting. Her round chin, high cheekbones, and long eyelashes gave her an exotic look. The only mar to her beauty was a scrape along her jaw; nevertheless, she was the fairest woman he had ever seen." (295)

This woman has been locked up. She's been tortured. She was bleeding at one point. And yet she still looks good? Did they stop to give her a bath before they showed up? And the only thing wrong with her is a scrape? On the jaw. Which still doesn't disfigure her. Isn't that a classic Sue trait?

Eragon goes all creepy stalker obsessed about her. "Something awoke in him -something he had never felt before. It was like an obsession except stronger, almost a fevered madness." (295) That's either a very painful erection or something like how my creepy stalker villain would feel about my main character. My friend Jeremy says that it is, "a raging erection for a prepubescent boy?" Thank you Paolini for the mental imagery. I'm sure we're all going to be mentally scared from that one.

Eragon sees our Shade from all the way in the prologue and somehow knows that this man is a Shade. He's never seen a Shade before. He just knows. No explanation, like he knew what they looked like or heard them described. He just knows. He also wonders why no one has arrested the Shade. Or killed him. Could it be that they're in league? Gee.

The jail that he's in seems to be rather nice, he gets three meals a day. Though they are drugged, so he starts feeding them to the homeless people outside his cell. The Shade comes and visits Eragon in his cell. The Shade is a nitwit. He thinks that Eragon knows his true name. Why would Eragon know his true name when only the elves know their own for sure and Eragon is not an elf but a human? The Shade seems to think otherwise and isn't very subtle about it. He makes one up, "Du Sundavar Freohr" which means "death of the shadows." Death of Shades. Obviously he's going to end up killing this Shade. Why didn't the Shade just look into Eragon's head? He seems to be a powerful enough magic user. Can he not do this? One would assume that he must be able to do this if he ever wants to fight against another magic user. But instead he just asks. And then swallows Eragon's lie.

By night time he's able to use magic again, and is only weak because of his enforced fast, but that doesn't seem to stop him from doing magic. In fact he's even stronger now than he had been when he first used magic. He escapes his cell with no plan except for find the elf. He's rescued in the nick of time by Murtagh, but apparently he's doesn't need it because he's able to kill the guards using magic. They kill all the guards, but one.

This one remaining guard Eragon proceeds to threaten and then threatens to torture him. Remember now, Eragon is the good guy. And how does he threaten to torture the guy? By putting a grain of sand in his stomach that's burning hot. Now, if the sand is really that hot, it would eventually cause an ulcer, I think, or it would burn through the stomach's lining and create a hole for the stomach's acidic juices to seep out into the body cavity and cause lots of damage. You'd be dead pretty quickly and not last the twenty years that Eragon threatens it would take for the piece of sand to get out of you. Yay Paolini biology.

They rescue the elf who really likes standing in moonbeams. And she faints. Eragon catches her. She still smells pretty, of crushed pine needles. They must have given her a bath.

They run up the stairs. They get Eragon and the sue's elf's weapons back. And then the Shade shows up again. The Shade starts to beat Eragon handily. Apparently Eragon isn't such a great swordsman. But he gets saved when Murtagh hits him with some arrows and the Shade turns to mist. We then learn that only two heroes have ever survived slaying a Shade. Kind of reminds me of a Balrog. And then they're rescued by Saphira who takes them off into the night.

Now Eragon has his mystery woman. Who he's obsessed with. I wonder if they'll share some meat together?

Comments

[lccorp2.livejournal.com]

Actually, there are pretty much numerous hints throughout the story that have led Anti-Shurtugals to speculate with evidence that Arya is simply Paolini's wet dream inserted into the story. I'm sure you'll pick up the hints too as you go through the blue and maybe red bricks, what with being an English major and all. Please tell me you're sporking the red brink after this-if you didn't like the blue brick, the red...

-"Eragon goes all creepy stalker obsessed about her." This persists for a very, very long time so much that it's not funny. Paonini pretty much has no idea what "epic romance" is.

-"This one remaining guard Eragon proceeds to threaten and then threatens to torture him."

And this is just the first of so many f***ing instances of blatant hypocrisy that Eragon has. They grow in number and intensity so much that I hurled the book at the wall a good number of times during the blue and red bricks, and it's not funny.

Had Eragon been intended to be a complex character who deals with his hypocrisy and has it pointed out to him, as well as it causing consequences, it might have been good. But this isn't the case. We're supposed to LIKE Eragons, Paonini makes sure of that and it's things like this that make me hate the character more.

-" But he gets saved when Murtagh hits him with some arrows and the Shade turns to mist. "

Deus ex machina, anyone?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I haven't decided if I'm going to go through Eldest yet. If I do, I'm going to wait at least a month to give my brain some time to recover.

I've noticed the creepy stalker vibe thruoghout the book. It is very creepy and stalker like. As I mentioned, this is how my villain behaves around the hero of my novels. It is not how the Hero is supposed to behave or feel around the Epic Romance. (And so far, I haven't seen anything romanitic, just Eragon getting a hard on.)

Well, in regards to the hypocrisy, if the Hero does it, it must be okay. At least that's what Paolini seems to be telling us. Which I don't believe at all. It's like he has no set morals or values. He just does whatever he wants to depending on how the wind is blowing at the time.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Wait until you get a couple of chapters further in.

[karma-kalisutah.livejournal.com]

I could not for the life of me figure out what Blue Brick and Red Brick were until I saw kippurbird's reply. But that's awesome. Did you come up with it yourself?

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

The fainting, head bashing thing? I reckon Paolini, master wunderkind of literature that he is, hasn't the faintest clue how to move from one scene to the next. So he has Eragon unconscious to allow him to change things around backstage.

I'm waiting for Eragon to decide to go to sleep rather than face the horde of rampaging Urgals... "Nothing ever gets done while I'm awake.... Let me know how it turns out, ok?"

As for the sand thing, I could swear I've seen that in another book, but I have no idea where....

Oh, and Eragon's obsession gets just a leeeeeettle creepier as it goes...

[(Anonymous)]

"La Divina Commedia" by Dante Alighieri.

At the end of lots of chapters - especially in Inferno - he just faints, so that he can wake up in a different place and doesn't have to waste time in describing aaaaall the walking.

The difference is that Dante was a good writer, Paolini no. >_>

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I hope that's not yet another thing he stole...

"Hey, this looks like a good idea!"

[spoofmaster]

Virgil: Damnit, Dante, I had to carry you again! Stop fainting!
Dante: Whurr? *faints*

But yes, at least Dante's fainting/intermittently falling asleep actually serves a purpose, and isn't there to keep him from being responsible for massive, massive failures.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Either that or he had no idea how to get Eragon into jail conscious. And it's much more dramatic if he gets hit on the head. I"m surprised Eragon hasn't gotten any brain damage from the amount of times he's gotten hit on the head/fainted.

So I've been told.

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

I"m surprised Eragon hasn't gotten any brain damage from the amount of times he's gotten hit on the head/fainted.

What, you mean there wasn't any already?

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

He doesn't seem to have any idea of how to get Eragon anywhere conscious.

Possible explanation of Paolini's meat

[(Anonymous)]

I'm told that Saphira's name comes from the Bible, although I haven't confirmed that. This naturally - or as naturally as my brain works - led to the following:

In Numbers and Deuteronomy, which I've been reading the last few weeks, food is almost invariably referred to as meat. You have meat that comes from animals, yes, but also meat that grows in the fields and meat made from flour and meat from heaven.

Possibly Paolini decided the Hebrews were cool people and, since at a surface reading the only food they seem to mention at that point is meat, he figured mentioning only meat was cool too. So he did it. To extremes, as usual.

Re: Possible explanation of Paolini's meat

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Paolini claims that it's meant as an obvious play on 'sapphire', because she's blue. With this kid, who knows?

That's... interesting... most people peg him as atheist now, but he was raised at least for a time as very religious, so I understand... might be how he picked that up...

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

Okay, okay, so.

The elf has been tortured. From my knowledge of torture (aah, research because you want something right) you don't look pretty after it, unless it's maybe psychological. And then that's only if your mind is intact.

... has Paolini ever put his brain to use? Does he have one?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

The Mary Sue never gets dirty. It's a rule. If she does happen to have an injury it does nothing to detract from her beauty. She is always perfect, no matter what happens to her.

And no, I don't believe he has one.

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

Y'know, by and large a jail feeding its prisoners is a relatively new concept; back in the day you were either fed by friends and family on the outside, you used what you had to buy your own food, or you starved. Eragon getting three squares a day, even cabbage soup and stale bread (which, really, people might have killed for if environmental and economic conditions were less than ideal) is a fair-sized anacrhonism.

Poor guards. They're just doing their jobs, probably low-paying and certainly low-status jobs, and what happens? Some SI ponce wanders around and kills the lot of them, save one whom he threatens to torture in possibly the stupidest way I've ever seen magic used. It's enough to make you want to hang up your helmet and truncheon and go see about planting rutabagas.

And, does Saphira have any offensive capabailities? She seems pretty thoroughly useless so far, save for fetching yet more of the omnipresent meat.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

She was somewhat effective against the roof of the building.

Saphira, scourge of roofs everywhere!

Roofs? Rooves? Eh....

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I really do feel sorry for that one particular guard Eragon threatened. I mean, here he is, trying to do his job for the Empire and this deranged bully is threatening to put an ever burning grain of sand in his stomach! He was just doing his job. And it's not like Eragon had been mistreated in anyway while inprisioned. He wasn't even beaten. At least Eragon didn't kill him. But I think if I were him, I'd be backing the Empire more than the Varden right then.

Supposedly Saphira can breathe fire. Her scales are apparently fairly weak as they can be pierced by an arrow or a sword (which is really sucky when it comes to dragons, I think). She hasn't done anything but breathe smoke and get meat though.

[the7bells.livejournal.com]

Lots of meat.

You mean he actually thought that a burning grain wouldn't burn through your stomach?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Yes. He actually thought that the burning grain of sand would stay in the stomach as opposed to burn through the stomach and the lining and go into the main body cavity and proceed to do more damage that way.

But we already knew that Eragon is an idot.

[gundamkiwi.livejournal.com]

Oh! I get it! Paolini has one-upped his readers, and inserted a Mary-Sue before they could bother! She is only there to distract Eragon from the true canon romance between himself and Murtagh, which is how the story clearly ought to go.

Now, the real question is, was this foresight on Paolini's part brilliance, or really stupid, lucky coincidence?

I'd say the latter, myself.

Oh, well, that's what fanfiction is for, right? To correct the stupid mistakes made by moron authors who obviously don't know the first thing about making up proper stories. =P

This is fun. Let's do this some more. :D

[karma-kalisutah.livejournal.com]

The Shade questioned Eragon? Please tell me he had the decency to torture him graphically. You know, on behalf of all of us who won't likely ever get the chance.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

No. I'm afraid not. It went something like this:

Shade: What's your name?

Eragon: Eragon.

Shade: No, not that name, the name that you don't use often.

Eragon:*makes up some bullshit impressive name*

Shade:*Is scared. Gloats some and leaves*

[thelittlebudgie.livejournal.com]

And the only thing wrong with her is a scrape? On the jaw.

... Why did that make me think she was shaving? *goes off to root for tranny!elf*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

*giggles*