Eragon pt. twenty three
Feb. 9th, 2007 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kippurbirdChapters 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 thesue'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?
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
Now Eragon has his mystery woman. Who he's obsessed with. I wonder if they'll share some meat together?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-11 01:57 am (UTC)"See? When she gets locked up and tortured for days, she comes out smelling like blood and urine rather than pine needles! She is SO not a Sue!"
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Date: 2007-02-11 02:09 am (UTC)... I may have a tendancy to beat her up and be mean to her. All in the attempt to make her realistic.
# only through her arm, but still.
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Date: 2007-02-11 02:19 am (UTC)And PTSD?
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Date: 2007-02-11 02:22 am (UTC)PTSD = Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
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Date: 2007-02-11 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-11 02:45 am (UTC)The scars are another thing that can make me go 'nngh.' Scars are um, usually not *pretty.* And whip scars will often make people go "O_O JESUS FUCK WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU."
... *climbs off soapbox*
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Date: 2007-02-11 02:59 am (UTC)I love that. I try to slip in as many of those moments as I can. Like when one of the bad guys asks my Hero to join him and she tries to spit in his outstretched hand, but finds that she doesn't really know how to aim. Or when she she saves the main antagonist's life because she's Just That Good and, instead of it being an unmitigated ego boost, she has to wonder whether all of the terrible things that person goes on to do after that are partially her fault.
And yes, those are both pet peeves of mine as well. As someone who writes a lot of darkfic, I find it almost insulting.
And I WOULD talk about scars, but there's a good chance that my Biggest Fan (also my only one) will see this, and I don't want to spoil any more than I already have.
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Date: 2007-02-11 03:06 am (UTC)I think I love you. My one character kicked a bad guy in the gonads, and instead of him falling over, he just winced and let her go. And then kinda laughed. Which made her go "D: D: D:" a lot. And the 'save a bad guy, but bad guy stays bad' is something I love. It they're That Evil, it's likely they're not gonna change overnight, if at all.
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Date: 2007-02-11 03:15 am (UTC)They both pulled together. Emma, who had never had much in the way of upper body strength, felt as though the muscles in her arms and chest were being dissolved in acid. Katherine, who was already tired from holding on for so long, thought for a few frightening movements that she might faint from the exhertion. Then she managed to get a foot up on the hilt of her knife and, standing up straight, grab hold of the edge of the cliff. With one last heave from both of them, she was back on solid ground, lying on her stomach and breathing heavily.
“Well,” Emma said, trying to catch her breath. “Well.” She tried to think of something substantial to say and failed miserably. Shaking a bit, she rose to her feet.
As her blood rushed to her head, she was caught by a dizzy spell. Her eyes clouded over and her sense of direction abandoned her. Scared and unsteady, she cried out and reached for something to cling to. In doing so, she inadvertently leaned out over the cliff. Her center of gravity seemed to shift suddenly, probably aided by her heavy bag sliding around on her back. Realizing that she was about to fall, she threw her arms out to steady herself and tried to straighten up. With her backpack weighing her down, it was a lost cause. For one terrible moment she teetered helplessly on the edge, blind and terrified. Then her legs gave way.
“Careful, there.”
Emma felt a tug at the straps on her backpack and found herself being pulled back up into a vertical position. She was still dizzy, but something held her up and kept her from falling again. When her vision cleared, she spun around to see Katherine standing behind her. “You? You saved me?”
“Don’t move so quickly!” The woman grabbed Emma’s wrists to make sure she was steady. “That’s what happened to me, too. Better?”
“Yeah.” Emma blinked. The logical part of her mind was having severe difficulties accepting the input it was recieving from her eyes and ears. “I can’t believe you just caught me!”
“Really, Miss Wunder, do you think that after all that I’d let some random accident kill you?”
The girl relaxed a bit. It makes sense, she told herself. She’s probably not used to anyone being kind to her. It must have shocked her into acting decently for once. I only wonder if the change will last.
Then she felt Katherine’s hands tighten around her wrists. She was suddenly pulled forward until she was so close that she was looking directly up at the woman, who looked down on her with an unsettling smile and a predatorial gleam in her eyes. “After all,” Katherine said, her voice dropping to just above a whisper, “that’s my job.”
Emma’s blood ran cold. “You can’t,” she said, a pleading note rising up into her voice despite her best efforts to suppress it. “You can’t. I just saved your life.” She struggled to break free, but Katherine was far too strong for her and held her tight no matter how she kicked and flailed.
“Moral obligation. I love it!” Katherine grinned. “Only someone who thinks along those lines would ever consider what you just did to be a good idea.” She leaned in until Emma could feel her breath on her forehead. “Here’s something for you to think about as you fall, Miss Wunder: you’re only the first. There’s no telling how many people will die because you decided to let me live.”
With that, Katherine flung the girl over the edge and watched as she fell through the clouds of swirling snow and out of sight. Emma’s scream continued to fill the air even after she herself had vanished. It grew gradually fainter and, after a moment, cut off abruptly, so that all that was left was a ringing in Katherine’s ears.
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