Eldest eighteen

[kippurbird]

Chapters Elva, Resurgence


Summary

This is a fun chapter where we get to meet an uber speshul character.

We begin with Nasuada getting a visit from Jormundur, her second in command. Apparently he wants her to visit the baby that Eragon blessed. Apparently there are special things happening around her. People have been saying things about her. Amazing stories and things. Great things are in store for her. But Nasuada believes it won't happen until she's older and after the war with Galbatorix is over. But Jormundur says the were-cat told him to take her to the baby. And not doing what a were-cat says can be dangerous or foolish. So she goes to see the baby.

When she gets to the baby's door there are lots of gifts. They knock and announce themselves. The person on the other side of the door asks, "Be you true of heart and steadfast resolve?" To which she responds, "My heart is pure and my resolve is as iron." And she's allowed in.

It's very new age fortune teller inside the room. Lots of layers of dark fabric, the room is cool despite it being exceptionally hot outside, there lots of multiple colored lanterns and things. Angela, Solomnbum, an old woman and a girl who looks to be three or four years old. Nasuada wants to know where the baby is.

The girl says that she is. She has violet eyes. And speaks with the experience and cynicism of an adult. Apparently there is a character in Dune just like this. But has blue eyes. Since she has violet eyes and not blue, she's obviously not the same character. She learned how to talk a week before. She just knows things about people. She knows exactly what to say to a person to make their fears go away. She made herself bigger because as a baby she couldn't do nothing. See, apparently she has to protect people from pain no matter what, and so being a baby she couldn't do that, so she made herself bigger. I'm not really sure how she did this. Magic, she says. Magic can make a baby realize that she needs to get bigger to help people. I don't think that babies have that sort of awareness, but Elva is just that speshul that she knows this.

She tells Nasuada that she'll fight for the Varden because she says if the war doesn't end it'll drive her insane to have to deal with the agonies of war.

So, she can see into the hearts of men, has violet eyes, she can see into the future three or four hours ahead and has some unidentified magical abilities. Her fortune, according to Angela is a hopeless quagmire. And nothing like this has ever happened like this in the history of magic. She is, without a doubt, a bone fide Mary Sue. She is a very Suey Mary Sue too. After she wasn't special enough as a baby touched by a dragon. She had be made even more special. And I'm not sure what purpose she's going to serves. She just feels like something put in there because Paolini felt that she was neat. She feels artificial and placed. There's no reason for her to exist except because Paolini wanted her there.

Nasuada tells Angela to watch Elva and then leaves.


We then go back to Eragon. It's a very short chapter. Three pages. The long shot of it is that Eragon faints again. So that's three fainting spells. That was the only point of this chapter. To have Eragon faint again. It's windy. Eragon closes his window. Goes down stairs to close the other window. Faints. Wakes up and goes back to sleep. That's the entire chapter. There's a bit where Saphira gets stuck in the stairwell... but really that's secondary to Eragon fainting. It's a completely pointless chapter. There's no reason for it to be there. It doesn't move the plot forward in anyway. It's just there. I could go on about this, but there's nothing really to say. Because it's just there. And that's it.

Comments

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she resembles Alia Atreides, alright. But, Alia had a normal physical development. And the only reason she has an adult mind was that her mother was hopped up on Spice while pregnant with her, and it activated all of her ancestral memories. So, Alia was fully sentient, BUT, and this is the important part, without a single dominating personality! She still had to develop a personality of her own from a sort of consensus among the gene-memories of her ancestors.

And it gradually drove her insane.

She wasn't an uber-perfect magical advice-dispensing super-popular, soap-opera-rate-growing girl. She was a wreck, feared and hated by those around her, considered an Abomination.

So, actually, maybe she isn't an Alia ripoff after all. There're other creepy adult-like children out there.

But for everyone to just LOVE her? Blargh. They'd probably call her a freak, possessed by demons. Either that, or the priests would snatch her up and use her for their own purposes.

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

Well, they're probably attributing her strangeness to Eragon. So I guess they see it as a blessing at the moment. And uh... every character in these books is clearly stupid. *nods sagely*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Blessing or curse, they don't know which yet.

[indescane.livejournal.com]

I loved Alia. She was one of the best characters in those books. :( Paul had nothin' on her!

And I bet if she ever found out about Elva, she'd rise and come kick some serious ass.

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

Bah, Alia. It was all about the ghola Idaho and the dreaded demi-Kwisatz Haderach, Count Fenring.

[dryaunda.livejournal.com]

There're other creepy adult-like children out there.

Oo! Tell me about them!

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

Can we count Anita from Darkstalkers/Vampire Saviour? She kicks ass.

[reverie-shadow.livejournal.com]

Would "Children of the Damned" count as well? Guh. Those kids gave me the creeps.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Mmm ... there's the Annointed from the second season of Buffy.

In a less creepy form, Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes was rather mature for his age.

Hmm ... I'm sure there's others but I can't think of any at the moment.

Of course, from Christian tradition, Jesus himself was rather prematurely adult-like (thought not so much creepily so) ... in the canonical gospels, Jesus at 12 impresses the temple elders with his understanding and learning. And in some of the apocryphal infancy gospels, Jesus does rather grown-up things even younger than that. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (http://www.gospels.net/translations/infancyjamestranslation.html) even attributes a miracle to the NEWBORN Jesus And Salome went to the child and lifted him up, saying, "I worship him because he has been born a king to Israel." (11) And at once Salome was healed and left the cave justified.

[(Anonymous)]

Heh. Jesus is such a Mary Sue!

No offense meant to any Christians reading this, honest!

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* That would make for a good icon, but how ...

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

She wasn't an uber-perfect magical advice-dispensing super-popular, soap-opera-rate-growing girl. She was a wreck, feared and hated by those around her, considered an Abomination.

So, actually, maybe she isn't an Alia ripoff after all. There're other creepy adult-like children out there.


She's a rip off filtered through Paolini sensibilities as far as I can tell.

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

You know what is starting to disturb me the most and I'm not certain why? The pure and utter filler. I honestly am having trouble believing that three-page chapter even existed.

Not to mention... windows? Is he in a tree-house still or is he somewhere without those? Oh, hell. I don't even care at this point. I can handle him writing a really poorly crafted plot. But the fact that he clearly had no idea how to write his middle book annoys me greatly. There's not even a plot here, really. Other than 'And his cousin will be king.' But we're not supposed to know that yet. Or whatever. ^_^;

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It is very disturbing. Someone should have told him to cut these chapters out.

The tree house is open and it has these curtain like things that you can close to keep the weather out.

I claim that there is still no plot for this book.

[sonic-sues.livejournal.com]

There's a bit where Saphira gets stuck in the stairwell...

Saphira was in the house? I thought she was WAY to big to be in a house.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It's a special house made for dragons.

[berseker.livejournal.com]

Elva coud have been interesting, with the empathy thing. And without the purple eyes. And if Paoline actually showed her spechulness instead of telling us. Because when the characters explain, I still count as telling u.u

But why make her grow up? Let the girl developr normally, it would be far more interesting that way. Of course, then he would have to work a little more on his plot: Eragon bless a baby X magical girl old enough to talk/fight/do cool stuff? You can´t have both. Choices, choices.

And I´m starting to get a little annoyed at Nasuada. She´s boring.



(we need to go back to Rouran. I´ve been thinking about the woman he wants to kill and I´m not closer to understand that than I wasa week ago!)

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

The problem with Paolini is that he could be interesting but then he fails in his execution by making everything cliche.

[berseker.livejournal.com]

He does. And not even good cliches.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Or, heck, even make it take longer for Eragon to gain his powers, so that a few years have passed between this "blessing" and her return.

[berseker.livejournal.com]

It´s seems that Paolini wants to have everyhing NOW. Eragon has to bless a baby, Elva has to be big, Eragon has to train - everything in, like, two months. So he sacrifices his plot.

Wait, what is his plot?

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

I just love how Saphira can shrink and grow at random. Paolini needs to keep a note of how big his dragon is getting because I thought she was too big to fit in a building anymore.

Is it too much to hope that Elva is going to die painfully as a lesson to Eragon about not casting blessings?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

She's in a special dragon building.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

But Pao-Pao Gary Stu Eragon is too PERFECT to have to worry about negative consequences of his actions!

[reverie-shadow.livejournal.com]

It's sad because you can almost always tell when Paolini has just made an important character. The name Elva, being a speshul name, gives that one away. O yes, and she has SPESHUL PURPLE COLORED EYES. Are they purple because of the curse, or just because? Because far as I can see there aren't that many purple-eyed people wandering about the world.

And...I would have to agree about Nasuada being boring (not to mention having an extremely stupid name). I think her part of the story is uninteresting and unnecessary. In fact, if the books had been edited properly, I'm positive that the editors would've told Paolini to scrap her character completely.

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

Is it just me, or is there really no difference between the settings of Surda and Dwarf...ville? I mean, obviously we're told of things that are different, but they feel exactly the same in every respect.