My brain of brains hurts.

[kippurbird]

Souls of Stone


Eragon's apparently finished his soup because he's pushing away his empty bow. Oromis asks if he'd like to see a fairth of his mother. If we remember, a fairth is a picture of someone made with magic that shows exactly how a person percieves whatever it is they're looking at. It's put on pieces of slate. Actually it's on a shingle of slate. A shingle being a piece of something -in this case slate- that is used to roof things. It is also slang in Australia, according to Dictionary.com, for being crazy. Now, I have to explanations for why the word shingle is used. One: Brom used an actual shingle to make the picture on, because it was what he had at hand. Two; Paolini used the word shingle because it's almost exactly what he wants to describe and he doesn't want to actually use an ordinary word to describe what it is. A piece of slate. It's more than that. It's a shingle of slate.

Here's what he sees.

With an effort, he turned the slate over and beheld an image - clear as a vision seen through a window- of a garden of red and white roses lit by the pale rays of dawn. A gravel path ran through the beds of roses. And in the middle of the path was a woman, kneeling, cupping a white rose between her hands and spelling the flower, her eyes closed and a faint smile upon her lips. She was very beautiful, Eragon thought. Her expression was soft and tender, yet she wore clothes of padded leather, with blackened bracers upon her forearms and greaves upon her shins and a sword and dagger hanging from her waist. In the shape of her face, Eragon could detect a hint of his own features, as well as a certain resemblance to Garrow, her brother.

Minor nitpick: How does he know if it's sunset or sunrise?
Second minor nitpick: Usually looking through windows - if there is glass- isn't so clear. Is there glass?

What? No long lengthy description of her hair? Or her eyes? The color of her skin? Exacting details of her clothes? The exact size of her boobs. How she's sitting? It's not even a fool paragraph of description! How disappointing. I bet if she were a man we would have gotten much more detail.

Then again, if she were a man, there'd be some very interesting things to wonder about. I bet it would explain a lot.

There's a an actual sort of tender moment when Eragon reaches out to touch the picture, wishing that he could reach into it and touch her arm.

The fairth is put away and Eragon asks, in a round about way, how come Murtagh is more powerful than him. Well, what he actually says, "The two times we have fought Murtagh and Thorn, Murtagh has been more powerful than any human ought to be"

What does that make Roran? Is killing two hundred soldiers something that normal humans can do? And what about learning all that stuff that Eragon did in the first book?

But basically this is him whining, "Why is Murtagh more powerful than me! Give me something to level up!!!"

It turns out that Murtagh and Galby have a serious power source. The hearts of dragons.

See a bunch of dragons have become liches. But without being able to reform their bodies.

Unlike with most creatures, he said,A dragon's consciousness does not reside solely within our skulls. There is in our chests a hard, gemlike object, similar in composition to our scales, called the Eldunari, which means "the heart of hearts". When a dragon hatches, their Eldunari is clear and lusterless. Usually it remains so all through a dragon's life and dissolves along with the dragon's corpse when they die. However, if we wish, we can transfer our consciousness into the Eldunari. Then it will acquire the same color as our scales and begin to glow like a coal. If a dragon has done this, the Eldunari will outlast the decay of their flesh, and a dragon's essence may live on indefinitely. Also, a dragon can disgorge their Eldunari while they are still alive. By this means, a dragon's body and a dragon's consciousness can exist separately and yet still be linked, which can be most useful in certain circumstances. But to do this exposes us to great danger, for whosoever hold our Eldunari holds our very soul in their hands. With it, they could force us to do their bidding, no matter how vile.

Now, I clearly have been watching too much Mythbusters while reading this, because the first thing that popped into my head was, "Today on Mythbusters! Is the mysterious Heart of Hearts really clear and lusterless before you impart your consciousness into it?" Adam revs up a chainsaw, "Let's find out!"

But seriously this is a very interesting thing that is being stated. Dragons have either dissected each other or have some sort of magical who-si-what-sit to know what's going on in their bodies. They must have experimented on it some how. Saphira says she never mentioned it because it would be like mentioning she had a liver or a stomach. (Or because Paolini just made it up. =D ) So it's clearly something that had to be studied at some point. It's what sets humanity apart from other creatures. The desire to poke things with a stick and see what happens. How do we know what the heart does? We poked it with a stick. What parts of the brain does what? We're poking it with a stick.

Hamsters? They know they have cheek pouches. But what they look like? I doubt they know. Humans? Have poked it with a stick. Dragons also must have poked it with a stick because Gladaer says that wild dragons teach young dragons about the thingy in the wild. How did they learn so much about it?

Well, like I said, either they poked it with a stick or magically know about it. The problem here is that the intelligence level of wild dragons seems to be horribly inconsistent. At times they were wild animals with no language that waged warfare with the elves until Eragon (the first) bonded with a dragon. And other times they're clearly sophisticated enough to have poked their innards with a stick, even though their still called wild dragons.

Which makes me start to wonder, if the non-ridered dragons are "wild" what are the dragons with riders? Civilized? Captive? Enslaved? "Wild' is a very loaded word in this situation. Especially since not all dragons had riders. They willingly gave up their eggs to bond with the elves and humans. So that would make them captive? Or enslaved? Domesticated? Was a wild dragon's egg better than a domesticated dragon's egg?

Another interesting thing is that Saphira did not think that her thingy was anything of note, again like her stomach, until Glaedr mentioned it. So, how did the first dragons realize it was special until they poked it with a stick. Which likely means they must have either experimented on themselves or each other, as it is an organ unique to dragon-kind. They couldn't use rats or humans. Which makes me wonder how they got dragons to volunteer.

The reason why no one told Eragon about them is that they -the riders- keep it hidden from the younger riders and dragons so that the dragons don't foolishly give up their hearts to their riders to impress them or something.

The dragons, before they made their pact with the elves, used to keep their hearts in the center of the Hadarac desert, in the mountains there.

There are mountains there?

*checks map*

Yes. There are mountains. Tiny ones, that don't even get names.

Why would they take their hearts out of themselves and keep them in a cave before they had riders?

I'm just so confused as to the purpose of this organ.

What possible purpose would an organ have that when taken out leaves you completely vulnerable to any sort of evil that touches it? And why would you even ... disgorge it then. Especially if you don't think it's worth anything. Which is apparently as noteworthy as a stomach or an appendix.

A humming bird shows up and drinks the juice of a crushed berry on the table.

It then flies off.

This incident stops all conversation for a moment.

*twiddles thumbs*

They don't comment on it or anything. Eragon doesn't ponder how ... I have no idea... it's just there. And gone.

Oromis says that Galby went about collecting these hearts and bending them to his will. Lots of dragons and their riders would carry the hearts of other dragons becuase they get bored sitting around in a shelf all day for hundreds of years, so they would get to go on field trips.

Right, so again, what purpose does it serve?

Sometimes, apparently they do it by accident.

The ones who chose to do it were older than beyond measure and the problems of the flesh didn't bother them any more. Which happens when you get old and wise I guess. It seems like that happens to a lot of creatures when they get old they don't get bothered by the fleshy problems. Like aching joints, lack of teeth, weakness, being unable to see well, being unable to hear well. None of that bothers them. They just decide that they're going to become a gem and sit around unable to do anything. They can't see unless they're being touched by someone with eyes...etc. They can't do magic. They exist as advice dispensers.

And they're stuck like this forever. Unless some sort of inspiration to use magic to set themselves free over comes them, or they convince someone to break the heart of hearts for them. Which is why dragons are wary of putting themselves in it.

... but... I ...

Again why would you do it then?

What purpose does it even serve!?

I mean besides as Energizer batteries for Galby.

I don't know.

My head hurts.

Comments

[ceitfianna]

I just keep thinking about the movie Dragonheart where the hearts actually make some sort of sense. Not a lot but more than this.

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

That was my second thought.
My first one was this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0j0Bjy6hFc
Because It's just so much...better...than Eragon.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

That does make more sense.

And it's cute too!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I wonder if that's where he got it from.

[ravenswept.livejournal.com]

What do you mean you don't know? Isn't it simply obvious? This "heart of hearts" is the Eragon equaliviant of the fire flower in Mario! It has no function, expect to power up those who grab it! Logic, you have repeated told me, has no place in these wild words. Power, and power ups, however, make total sense, don't you see?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

You're right!

Stupid.

[ravenswept.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Now i'm imagining Eragon and Roran jumping and bouncing through a two-dimensional landscape, hitting little boxes with their heads and growing six feet whenever they eat a mushroom. Does that make Arya Princess Peach?

[ravenswept.livejournal.com]

Hmm... maybe, she is emotionally always in another castle.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It does, doesn't it...

[easol.livejournal.com]

You mean like pre-Raphaelite?

And maybe I'm a little weird, but I thought that "I wearz bada$s black leather... but am carrying a rose" was kind of... contradictory in theme.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It shows that his mom was complex. *srs nod*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

"My mother had a harem!?"

[chocolatemithra.livejournal.com]

I'm about as far as one can get from Stephen Jay Gould, but I'll take a crack at these. At least what Paolini might say, or what he might have been thinking but would never actually say.

Telepathy: Adaptation from the little half-dragon wyverns with whom Saphira/Eragon have a random encounter in Eldest, which used a telepathic attack on their prey. This would suggest to me that they did evolve from the little wyverns, or at least a common ancestor.

Sparkles vis-a-vis hunter behavior: Paolini's dragons are depicted as having SUCH a steep natural advantage in speed and strength over their prey that stealth might not make much difference. It doesn't matter if my 86 nissan pickup sees that F-18 coming; in the end it's going to get me.

Soul-hocking: Hurm... Tougher. Could have something to do with the racial memory that the dragons seemingly have when Paolini remembers they're supposed to have it. A sort of heightened instinct if you will. I could see the survival value of being able to communicate with and benefit from the wisdom of one's ancestors.

Also: rule of cool, liberally applied.

[alas-a-llama.livejournal.com]

I was pondering this while reading the comments here, and the only reason I can think for the sparkly scales is essentially for attracting mates. Compare and contrast: A peacock's plumage.

Thing is, though, in Inheritance, both male and female dragons have the sparkly scales, whereas in nature generally only males have the pretty colours and big, overblown displays. Although theoretically, I suppose it's possible that, following on from nature's whole deal with colourful plumage, sparkly rainbow dragons made more attractive potential mates and thus bred more, introducing the sparklytimes gene to the general populace.

I could probably formulate a theory on telepathy, but I think soul-coal may be beyond me.

[chocolatemithra.livejournal.com]

Scales as mating ritual is probably right. Saphira croons about how lovely the gold dragon's scales are in the second book.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

*click. Save*

[chocolatemithra.livejournal.com]

Without knowing more about birds of prey (coloration and behavior) I'd have to guess this is mostly defined by rule of cool in Paolini's work. I doubt he put much thought into predatory adaptation, to the work's detriment, as you've mentioned. It reads like he just thought, well humans have cosmetic non-useful genetic variance, why not dragons?

As to the dragons' agility in the sky, clearly it's magic.

/ducks the incoming slap

[torylltales.livejournal.com]

To attract a mate? Although that doesn't explain why both genders have them, unless dragons evolved as gender-equal on the mating field. Unlikely, but whatever.

[kevias.livejournal.com]

I do like this "made by gods" theory. It's like they're trying top each other toying with elves beliefs. "Okay, let's see them try to explain this with evolution!"

[easol.livejournal.com]

"Let's see if we can make their little elf brains explode."

[easol.livejournal.com]

Same here. I mean, you can only explain these creatures two ways -- either a god made them, and chose to give them the soulgems and sparkly scales and all the rest of it; or they evolved and would have the normal natural non-Suey characteristics you'd expect.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

You're right, it's clearly unintelligent design.

[chocolatemithra.livejournal.com]

If there were a list of words to be expunged from the fantasy genre, the top of my list would read this way:

1) evil
2) good
3) beautiful
4) soul
5) a particular use of the word 'very.' As in: "holds our very soul in their hands."

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming you mean in certain contexts.

[chocolatemithra.livejournal.com]

Oh sure. There are exceptions. I'll grant that pet peeves are highly subjective and my list may differ from the norm. Evil and good are substitutes for actual motivations. 'Beautiful' is a useless word, a value judgment that doesn't actually tell you anything of what something looks like. The last two just make me cringe for reasons I can't quite explain.

[torylltales.livejournal.com]

It's obvious, isn't it? Galbatorix is collecting all the Dragon Balls, because once he has all of them in his posession, he can summon the great Wish Dragon and bring his old dragon back to life!


The young Emperor never did learn to share.

Of course, actually questioning the purpose of Dragon Balls is pointless. They only exist so that Paolini could give his avatar something more to aspire to. The Eldunari will be to Eragon as the Deathly Hallows were to Harry. What's the betting at?

[(Anonymous)]

Damn it, man, I'm the one who always mentions the Dragon Balls. You stole my gig! Dx

But, seriously, I'm waiting for Eragon to go Super Saiyan on us.

[torylltales.livejournal.com]

Hey, you snooze, you lose.



I would say that Eragon has already gone partially super-sayin, with the elf transformation thingy, but I think I would truly enjoy a Paolini description of Eragon's thick, pulsating... energy glow. :P It would be epic.

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

... I love you. <3

[herr-feldwebel.livejournal.com]

At this point of the book (from around when Eragon returns to the elves), things just started coming from out all over the place, and I was like...what.

I'm also interested in the mechanics of the soul-gem. How does it work exactly and what is the point of having one (other than as a highly convenient plot point)? I also want to know how exactly you barf up your own organ.

Paolini is one of those authors that could have highly benefited from some basic outlining. He doesn't have to chart out the entire story, but this particular half of the book just seems like he's just pulling stuff out of his butthole. There's no foreshadowing. There's no building up to it. Stuff just literally comes out of nowhere. It's like he wrote himself into a corner so he just makes up all this haphazard lore to explain things.

"Oh gee, how can I explain how Galby is so powerful? Aw dang I didn't think of this... OH I KNOW!! The dragons will have this mystical soul-gem that they can transfer their souls into and then disengorge from their bodies! Then Galby can just randomly collect them and build his arsenal. It explains everything! YEAH THERE'S THE MASTER PLAN!"

[easol.livejournal.com]

And how does a species EVOLVE a soul-gem?!

[ravenswept.livejournal.com]

Eat so much sugar that it hardens into an internal Ring-Pop?

[herr-feldwebel.livejournal.com]

I really...don't understand. I don't even know why you would ever even need to do this (separate your soul).

I would have rather have had it so maybe the dragons figured out a way to make their own phylactery out of an (outside) object like a lich does. It still doesn't make much sense since dragons apparently can't control their own magic or something, but maybe separating your soul uses some kind of other mechanism. o_O

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

AH! But don't you remember, he did outline. It was twelve pages so clearly it was too big for one book and so he needed to make them two. *eyeroll*

It is really all an asspull.

Eragon: How did he do this?

Oromis: By this reason.

Eragon: Oh. Thank you.

[herr-feldwebel.livejournal.com]

I don't know who his editor is (if its his parents or something), but he really needs someone hard who can critique him and make him revise and cut his work. This is shameful! If this came to me in my slush pile, it would go straight into the trash!

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

My theory is this:

Because he initially self-published the book, when it got picked up by a proper publisher, they didn't really have any grounds to make him rethink and rewrite it.

So what we're seeing is a snowball effect. Because their hands were tied on the first book, they can't stop it from getting worse.

Or they don't care because they figure the target audience, kids, would lap it up no matter how crappy it actually was.

[chocolatemithra.livejournal.com]

I'd have liked it more if he hadn't explained at all how Galby was so powerful, if Oromis had said "I got no clue, kiddo. Good luck." He's scarier if we don't know, I think. (He's also scarier if he actually DID anything in the story, but well, we can't have everything...)

Mainly because I can't think of a single reason that Oromis wouldn't have told Eragon about the Eldunari before. It just doesn't make sense. "You weren't ready?" Are you freaking kidding? How does telling him about this earlier impact him negatively at all? As Kips points out, obvious asspull and a half.

[herr-feldwebel.livejournal.com]

Yes! Me too! After reading these last few chapters, I would've just rather have had him not explain it at all. I mean Galby is so "mysterious" enough at is is; maybe he's just exceptionally powerful. Paolini doesn't want to develop Galby in the slightest (or even show the character in the story), so why even bother to explain this one random tidbit as to why he's so powerful? "He just is" would've been good enough for me at this point.

And I don't get what was the point of keeping everything from Eragon either. Oromis is acting like they have all day with this "war". You're trying to defeat some huge seemingly terrible empire, trying to train a rider for battle, so you're playing stupid keep-away games, saying he's not ready to learn about what's going on? What ever happened to knowing your enemy? And I don't really understand why not knowing about Brom/the Eldunari/his family was "for the better", either, seeing a lot of the stuff either had A) nothing to do with the issue (like Eragon knowing who his family was), or B) seemed tactical (Galbatorix/the gem). Maybe Oromis is a sadist and likes seeing people suffer.

[easol.livejournal.com]

It also means he's forgotten that, at the start of the first book, he claimed that Galby taught Morzan "secrets and forbidden magic that should never have been revealed." Which, y'know, was presumably enough in itself.

[easol.livejournal.com]

"Hamsters? They know they have cheek pouches."

I like to say that hammies understand the concept of infinite space, because they assume it exists in their little cheek pouches.

I assume Paolini was getting close to his deadline and was just flinging stuff around at random by this point. I'll give him credit for trying to explain away the powers of the baddies, but it's such a BAD explanation. And honestly, remaining as a senseless magical-advice dispenser for eternity seems a lot worse than death to me. It sounds like hell, actually.

You also have some great points on the whole wild vs nonwild dragon thing. Paolini can't seem to make up his mind about whether they were intelligent or not -- I could buy that the dragonriders/elves sold everybody the line that the dragons needed them to become intelligent (sort of like in the Temeraire series). But that would mean they lied, and thus were anything other than perfect.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Hee. I have great memories of my little hamsters trying to fit things into their pouches and not quite fitting. They never seemed to get that idea. Somewhere we have a photo of one of our hamsters with a carrot sticking out of his cheek pouch because it couldn't fit in all the way.

The whole wild dragon/non wild dragon keeps on bothering me. Saphira keeps on rambling about how dragons are the freest creatures ever and yet... well, you know.

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

*stares* o_o

Dragons are Pokemon. -_-;

I mean, I'm not even suggesting some weird parallel with Pokeballs/Soul Coal or the fact you have to carry an egg around until it hatches into the Pokemon (all Pokemon come from eggs and they have a certain number of steps the player character must take before they will hatch.)

But the whole wild thing... I mean, yeah.

Because there are wild Pokemon and caught Pokemon. Theoretically, considering in the games it is true, caught Pokemon are always more powerful than wild Pokemon, which is possibly one of the reasons wild Pokemon don't necessarily mind being caught. They are intelligent and have feelings, although none of the games, anime, or manga give a definite answer as to how intelligent (it varies too much per media, even within the same media.) The anime would suggest that many wild Pokemon are jealous of caught Pokemon, hence why they will randomly attack in the wild. (In the games however, Diamond/Pearl has suggested that all wild Pokemon came to a decision to approach humans they see in the wild and see if the humans needed them for anything, including capture I guess.)

I guess my real point is, Paolini is vague and didn't consider it in enough depth because video games can get away with it. XD