eldest part thirteen

[kippurbird]

chapter Queen Islanzadi, Out of the Past

Summary

Well, I'm a third of the way through the book, and I still don't know what's going on. Oh the events are clear enough, but I don't feel any tension. No one is in danger. There's no threat. Sure Galby is around... somewhere. But again, he's not being threatening. Things are just happening one after another for some reason, that reason being that they are steps on the Hero's Journey, but they don't really move the story forward.

In any case, Eragon is overawed by the fact that Ayra is a princess. And to hammer facts home even more, he remembers Angela's prophecy that he would love one of noble birth. So, not only can he not choose he would love or have many of them, but it's already destined. He's just stuck with this one choice. And that's not really fair to him. But I'm sure it's not supposed to be seen that way. Instead it's supposed to be a wonderful thing of True Love and happily ever after. Because you only need one person in your life to love and you don't need to discover them. It just happens.

Meanwhile Elf Queen and Elf Sue make up. The Queen is apparently very sorry about having done something. Ayra appears to be reluctant to make nice, but the queen gets what she wants.

Then the raven speaks, in doggerel. "And on the door was graven evermore, what now became the family lore, Let us never do but to adore!" (page 227) I have absolutely no idea what that's supposed to mean. It's just words strung together that look like they were horribly born from the raped body of Poe's the Raven. After all they all rhyme with "nevermore". But other than that, I've got nothing.

The queen the turns and pays attention to Eragon (least we forget that he's the main character of our story) she gets Eragon and Saphira's names. Eragon's name gets a lot of attention because it's such an uber rare name. Dwarf appears to be ignored completely. They don't even ask his name. Instead they ask for what happened to Eragon until he got there. He tells them. He shows them this scroll that Nasuada gave him to give to the Queen. Eragon then asks the Queen to reestablish relations with the Varden. Since the only reason why they stopped hanging around the Varden is because they thought Ayra was dead, and she's not, they agree. It seems rather shady to me. After all the main goal of the Varden and the Elves is to rid the world of Galby, because he's evil and they're good. So, despite the fact that they thought that Ayra was dead, the alliance should have still continued, because the greater good is more important, the cause is more important than one person. Even if the person is your daughter.

Eragon is then named an elf friend. Why? Because he helped Ayra and the Varden. Once. He's done one thing and all of a sudden he's an elf friend. Previous mentions of this have led me to believe that it's very difficult to become an elf friend. But Eragon is just that special that he becomes one with only one great deed to his name. Their standards must have gone down or maybe it's like what they give people who donate a certain amount of money to a campaign. First level is elf friend, second level is elf lover, third level is elf's trusted secret love slave and bondage partner.

When Eragon asks about his training, he's told because of the damage done to him by the Shade he's not allowed to be trained. As long as his infirmity persists he can't be trained and will only be a figure head. Paolini has written himself into a corner here. Eragon needs to be trained, but he can't be trained because he has that scar. He can't get rid of the scar because no one can see what's wrong with it. So... he's stuck unless he pulls something out of his magic hat.

After all this, Dwarf finally gets addressed. They don't even ask him his name. No one seems to be very interested in him. If I were dwarf, I'd be very insulted by all of this. After all, he's there as a representative of his people to a group that traditionally didn't get along with his, and they're ignoring him. This is another mark down in the black book of why dwarves dislike elves, at least according to me. But it's not looked at like that, because Dwarf is not Ayra the Sue or Eragon and therefor not important.

Ayra then tells her story of torture and imprisonment without any difficulty. She just tells it in a complete monotone. This woman has almost been raped numerous times. She was beaten and tortured. But she has no difficulty in retelling what happened to her. She shows no emotion at all. Now, there's repression, but Ayra, as far as we know, has told no one about what happened to her. She never even talked to Eragon about it. But she's able to tell people an intimate and horrifying experience in a completely calm manner without breaking. She shows all the emotional range her of a piece of cardboard. Here was a chance for Paolini to show how this tragic event effected his heroine and he totally blows it.

The elves then celebrate Ayra's return and Eragon's existence with a long dinner with no meat. The dinner drags on for pages. Eragon at one point gets annoyed that more people are paying attention to Saphira than to him. The meal goes on and the Raven speaks again.

Dragons, like wagons
have tongues.
Dragons, like flagons
have necks.
But while two hold beer,
the other eats deer.

Apparently the elves are mortified at such a verse and are afraid that Saphira will be offended. I'm not really sure what's there to be offended by. It's not like the Raven compared Saphira to a small rock lizard that got run over by a drunken wine merchant. It was just a bit of bad poetry. Saphira was not offended so it's all right.

Apparently the raven is very special. He once saved Ayra's father by pecking out the eyes of an urgal. No one knows why the bird did that. It just did. So to reward the bird it was given intelligence and long life. I'm not sure exactly how that's supposed to reward a bird. I mean it's a bird. It was probably a fluke that it decided to attack that urgal. The bird doesn't need a reward. It's non-sentient. In fact he had to make it sentient. Rewards are something that sentient creatures need, not random birds. A better reward would have been to declare that all ravens were holy or not to be hunted or special in someway, as opposed to rewarding the individual bird. In any case the magics made the bird even more special by making it white and to be able to predict certain events. Yes. The raven can foretell the future. Kinda like Odin's ravens. Hrmmm... I wonder where Paolini got that from.

There's also a werecat among the elves. You can call her Maud. She knows Serious Ass.. and that sounded wrong. I suppose she'll become important later on. Or she'll just be there for some random reason.

Elf Queen shows Eragon to his quarters. They're up in a tree. It's lovely and magical. Saphira and Eragon discuss what had happened for the day and come up with that they don't know anything. They go to sleep. The night is liquid.

They wake up. They eat. There are new clothes for Eragon and they're special, like nothing he's ever felt before and were specially made for him. Dwarf shows up and tells him that the elves want to see. Apparently they're being shady about something.

The Queen makes Eragon, Dwarf and Saphira promise in the ancient language that they'll never speak of what they're about to see to anyone without her permission. They promise, after some reluctance.

What the queen wanted to show them was a very large gold dragon.

But all the dragon riders were killed! OH NOES! HOW COULD THIS BE! Could this be Yoda?! I think so!

We'll have to wait though to learn more because next chapter is back to Roran.

Comments

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

"And on the door was graven evermore, what now became the family lore, Let us never do but to adore!" Well, clearly it means, um ... well, that is, the meaning is ... uh ... okay, I've got nothing. Whose family lore? The royal family's? And adore whom? These are the atheists, right? So it can't be their gods ... their people?

First level is elf friend, second level is elf lover, third level is elf's trusted secret love slave and bondage partner.

Heh, nice.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Don't quote me, but I think it boils down to "They love their family".

Only Paolini could mangle it so badly.

[berseker.livejournal.com]

Let us never do but to adore what now become the family lore, and that would be whatever is graven on the door. Or maybe the fact that it was graven.

Or something.

That´s the best I can come up with, and I don´t know how it fits in the context. He´ll have to explain that later.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, were you expecting sense out of this? XD

[wayoffbase.livejournal.com]

I have no words.

*is ded*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I wish I could say it gets better, but I have a feeling it's only going to get worse. I suggest you come back as a zombie and start eating brains.

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

third level is elf's trusted secret love slave and bondage partner.

Well Ayra's got the black leather bitch part down.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I can just see the scene now. Ayra with her whip and Eragon at her feet pleading to be punished.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

A white raven... that sounds familiar, I just wish I could remember what.

Even if it's not, it's kind of trite. "Hmmm, ravens are cool! But this one needs to be special... I know, I'll make it WHITE." Yeah, reversing the color is SUCH a big step... it's not like it's simply the most obvious change, is it? Red or blue would be interesting, but... white?

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

There were white ravens in the Edge Chronicles if it's any help. ^^

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

The white raven does sound familiar, but again I'm not sure from what, either. It feels like it should be from somewhere.

[spoofmaster]

We-ell, a white raven as a Slavic symbol amounts to much the same thing as a black sheep. You see white ravens popping up in Russian poetry and such. So actually...when I read "white raven," I think of how it's used to represent persons who are weird and lonely. Wonderful way to reward the bird, making it weird and lonely. Go Pao Pao.

[thelittlebudgie.livejournal.com]

"So... he's stuck unless he pulls something out of his magic hat."

If by magic hat, you mean ass, then yes.

Eragon's tree-house makes no sense. They build fires in it. And heat it. And do other things to it. And the damn thing still grows.

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is why they have to sing to the trees to keep them growing so often. Because the elves have poor resource management skills. ;P

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. But I was trying to be nice.

[indescane.livejournal.com]

First level is elf friend, second level is elf lover, third level is elf's trusted secret love slave and bondage partner.
I'm sure Eragon will reach the third level sometime during his training and the Hairless Groin scene.

I never figured out how they managed to hide a freakin' huge dragon for so long. I mean, the dragon has to go out and hunt its food, because it's carnivorous. And gold isn't the best colour for camouflage in a forest, not to mention the fact that this large dragon would be knocking over trees and whatnot if it was hunting. If those things the Ra'zac were flying on just happened to see a BLOODY HUGE GOLD DRAGON, surely Galby would know about it. And it's a dragon. It has to go out to eat. They've lived there for a century...

Maybe that's why Glaedr is missing a leg and still hidden. He ate his own leg in order to stay unobtrusive.

But how the hell, when Galby captured Oromis, did he not manage to kill Glaedr after killing just about everyone else?!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

The fact that the elf cities are still hidden are a puzzle to me. All you need to do is fly over the forest and look to see where the lights are. Bingo, elf city.

As for the gold dragon, let us not forget that Saphira the brilliant blue dragon was able to hide while flying low to the ground. People aren't really observant in Eragon's world. They keep on failing their spot checks.

[berseker.livejournal.com]

First level is elf friend, second level is elf lover, third level is elf's trusted secret love slave and bondage partner. This made me happy ^_^ I´m a better person now.


I´m thinking. Is it possible that Paolini actually meant for Arya to be this serious? Because lets face it, he is going out of his way to make her look like a sociopath. Even in the first book she seems to calm and collected and emotionless all the time. And here, what do we have? She killed a bird, she doesn´t dance or sing (maybe it´s because she´s not stoned yet, but still) and she doesn´t react to her own torture. The way I see, there are only two options: a) she is meant to be like that and this actually is some interesting character development or b) Paolini is an IDIOT worthy of the CAPS OF DOOM!


(Anyway, what is a liquid night? And the Raven sounds like he´s on crack. Qas anyone keeping track of things Paolini fails at? Because we have to add poetry. )

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

We do need to add poetry. Incidentally, I'm thinking that Paolini is trying to make Arya like Spock. Or maybe he truly thinks near-rape and torture will make someone act that way. -_-;

[karma-kalisutah.livejournal.com]

Here was a chance for Paolini to show how this tragic event effected his heroine and he totally blows it.

I'm surprised that he didn't have her keep it a Deep Dark Secret and wangst about it endlessly. I can't decide whether or not that would have been preferrable.

Because you only need one person in your life to love and you don't need to discover them. It just happens.

Of all of the lies we tell our children, this is one of the cruelest and most damaging. Shame on you, Paolini.

Also, if that Raven is supposed to be sensible I'd hate to hear what he sounded like before the spell. Wagons have tongues?

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Paolini honestly believes in that lie. He is very sheltered and I can't imagine him dating often. ;P

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

Sure Galby is around... somewhere.

I honestly consider this to be one of Paolini's biggest faults; the fact that Galby never really seems to show up. Yes, he's an evil king and he has minions... but come on. We'd FORGET he existed if not for people mentioning him. That is not the way you handle a major villain. Either we don't know for certain who the major villain is until sometime towards the middle or end, but they still do things through-out the story, or they are prominent characters, regardless of who's PoV it is in the scenes that they appear.

In any case, Eragon is overawed by the fact that Ayra is a princess.

Of course. She's a Sue. And he's a Sue. Sues are elitist. ;P

Eragon's name gets a lot of attention because it's such an uber rare name.

It's a rare name because it's really stupid looking. :D

So, despite the fact that they thought that Ayra was dead, the alliance should have still continued, because the greater good is more important, the cause is more important than one person.

You would think that, not wanting to be offensive to the Varden, they would have at least paid lip-service to them and helped a bit. Plus, well, YEAH. The rest of the world is really freaking important, supposedly. Just another reason to hate the elves here. ;P

First level is elf friend, second level is elf lover, third level is elf's trusted secret love slave and bondage partner.

This line seriously made me snicker. Thank you.

Eragon needs to be trained, but he can't be trained because he has that scar.

Oh, right. I'd be MORE concerned with the fact he FAINTS a lot! That is why I wouldn't train him. He'd be a serious liability. And the fact he hasn't injured himself more from fainting in the middle of random scenes that could have had dead bodies and weapons strewn across the ground astounds me.

After all, he's there as a representative of his people to a group that traditionally didn't get along with his, and they're ignoring him. This is another mark down in the black book of why dwarves dislike elves, at least according to me.

Not to mention, he was adopted by a KING. He may not be an heir to the guy but really! You'd want to keep the Dwarf King's adopted son happy. I hate Paolini more than I do the elves for this. The elves might still ignore the dwarf but the fact that Paolini refuses to make an issue of it is what really gets to me. You were right for just continuing to call this poor guy 'dwarf' instead of by his name. Apparently even Paolini and his other characters don't care. Why should we?

There's also a werecat among the elves.

... I hope she's vegetarian.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I honestly consider this to be one of Paolini's biggest faults; the fact that Galby never really seems to show up. Yes, he's an evil king and he has minions... but come on. We'd FORGET he existed if not for people mentioning him. That is not the way you handle a major villain. Either we don't know for certain who the major villain is until sometime towards the middle or end, but they still do things through-out the story, or they are prominent characters, regardless of who's PoV it is in the scenes that they appear.

I honestly don't feel that Galby is a threat. He doesn't even leave his castle apparently. Which means that Eragon can go la-didi-dah where ever he wants without fear of being found out. Which means that there's no danger. Which kills the tension. If you're going to have a dark lord make sure, as you say, their presence is felt.

Not to mention, he was adopted by a KING. He may not be an heir to the guy but really! You'd want to keep the Dwarf King's adopted son happy. I hate Paolini more than I do the elves for this. The elves might still ignore the dwarf but the fact that Paolini refuses to make an issue of it is what really gets to me. You were right for just continuing to call this poor guy 'dwarf' instead of by his name. Apparently even Paolini and his other characters don't care. Why should we?

He is apparently the heir. But yes. Dwarf is a non-entity. He supposed to be there representing dwarf kind, but he doesn't do anything. He has no personality. He could be completely written out of the scenes that he's in and not lose anything. If you're going to go to the trouble of putting a character in, you damn well better use him.

[anolinde.livejournal.com]

Wait, is her name Arya or Ayra? I kind of went through the entire book thinking it was Arya, which just goes to show how bad Paolini's names are if I can't remember the simplest one. =)

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Hah. Now that one is totally my bad. I can't ever remember how her name is spelled.

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

"And on the door was graven evermore, what now became the family lore, Let us never do but to adore!"

The raven is clearly giving the queen and Ayra a verbal spanking over them being pissy at each other. Pretty brave there, bird; the queen may be a vegan animal-pacifists, but Ayra shoots your species without a second thought. I'd watch the health of my wings if I were you.

Dwarf appears to be ignored completely.

Y'know, the half-assed anti-dwarf racism of Paolini and the elves is pretty bad, but it's especially galling considering I'm going through Thud! for the third or fourth time. To have to go from the reasonable and sensible generations-old grudges of the dwarfs and the trolls, built as they are logical physical realities, to this random, 'oh, elves and dwarves never get along, so they won't here' nonsense is just brutal. If he was going to steal so much, couldn't he have lifted an idea or two from Pratchett?

No one knows why the bird did that. It just did. So to reward the bird it was given intelligence and long life.

I'm sure that both Gaspode and the Death of Rats' raven friend would take serious issue with this being seen as a reward. Not the Librarian, of course, but he approached it from the other end.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Thud! was beautiful and wonderful in its portrayal of interspecies racism. As opposed to Paolini which is just.. dumb.

Yes, they would. But you see, Pratchett looks at things from an intelligent and logical perspective unlike Paolini who just pulls shit out of his ass.

[bee-in-a-garden.livejournal.com]

"The elves then celebrate Ayra's return and Eragon's existence with a long dinner with no meat."

Ah, I think now we've discovered why the elves are not fecund - a complete lack of meat.

[jessaj.livejournal.com]

Well, birds are very smart, but they are pretty much just like anything else in the world.
They want food and mates and not to get killed.
So the elves should have set up a series of raven feeders and declared ravens safe from harm.