Kippur Critiques

Small Rebellions

We’re still with Nasuada.

Make her go away.

She wants Murtagh to come back to free her from her agony…

Instead we get her jailer.

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The Wings of a Dragon

This chapter is Eragon, Saphira and Glaedr flying off to find the Vault of Souls.

Now the interesting thing here is that Glaedr is coming with them even though he can’t remember why they’re going to this place they’re going because of that spell. Glaedr did volunteer to go, but I’m just wondering why he’s not saying every so often “Where are we going?” Admittedly Glaedr has been quiet for a good part of the trip, but whatever.

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Departure


Well, in this chapter we learn that Eragon has good ideas and bad ideas.

He’s getting ready to secretly fly out to the mystical magical dragon city that no one remembers and so he needs to tell people that he’s going. Apparently he needs to tell a lot of people that he’s going because they’ll notice he’s gone. He tells the elves because they’ll need to create a fake Eragon and Saphira. He tells all his guards because … they won’t be guarding him. He tells the other leaders because they’re the other leaders. The way he supposedly gets around the people possibly talking about him not being there is by making all these people swear an oath of secrecy in the ancient language.

Which is all well and good except for one, small tiny itsy-bitsy problem: Other people have probably heard what Eragon has been saying. Common soldiers, washerwomen, pages, nameless NPCs that are all over the place. After all we know from previous chapters that the tent walls are very thin - Eragon did hear some soldiers talking about him without them realizing he heard them, so what would stop others from hearing him - especially when he said it loud enough that the entire group of his guards could hear it in front of his tent.

But this is clearly something that doesn’t matter to Eragon because they are just nameless NPCs doomed to existing in the background and thus not real people. He’s talked to all the real people that matter - the named PCs and NPCs - the Nighthawks count as named NPCs because they’re “the Nighthawks” even if individuals aren’t recognized by any sort of name. He doesn’t have to worry about these non-entity NPCs because they’re just painted figures in the matt background or computer generated canon fodder.

Other than that, this was a PERFECT plan.

Beyond, you know, telling a lot of people your secret plans…

Next chapter - Nausada!

Hurrah?

Fragments, half-seen and indistinct

I’ve decided I hate this chapter. It’s one of those Dues Ex Machina chapters where the characters miraculously get information without really needing to dig for it and there’s no good explained reason for it to have happened. The characters can’t explain it - just happens.

Also, for some stupid reason Solembum’s eyes change colors. I don’t care if I get an explanation later, I’m sure it’s going to be stupid. Though one thing I do enjoy about this chapter is Solembum’s continual insulting and threatening of Eragon. It’s always nice to see that happen. He threatens at one point to tear Eragon’s face off and feed his guts to the crows.

Happy thoughts.

If only it would happen.

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Conclave of Kings


In which injury and near death is made into nothing, kings are switching around their characterization for the sake of conflict and just because your leader vanishes automatically means disbanding is on the table even though said leader has been a leader of an organization for less than two years.

( Checking the Checklist )

By the Banks of Lake Leona

Yerah.

So, I started reading the next chapter, being a good little bird and keeping my momentum going… got about two pages in, got seriously pissed off, slammed the book shut and stalked off. But I have returned to the effort! And will get beyond two pages.

What, then, might you ask, had me so incensed?

Eragon’s treatment of Elva.

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The Tolling of the Bell & Black-Shrike-Thorn-Cave

… Wow. This chapter is so short… I mean, I haven’t seen a chapter this short in a while. It’s less a chapter and more of an afterthought. If I realized that I would have included it with the previous chapter, after all it’s mostly a clean up of the battle.

And that’s basically what happens. They go and search the area after killing everyone to recover their weapons which just happen to be laying around the chapel. As you do. Just like in a video game. They find his sword under a bunch of bodies, the ring Brom gave him under a pew and his necklace wrapped around the handles of the bier. Ayra’s sword is also found among the bodies, but the belt wasn’t there. When he tries casting a spell to find the belt he can’t find it. So basically, the bad guys took all of their shiny magical objects but hid only one of them. The others they just left lying around for no particular reason. Why didn’t they hide all the shiny magical objects?

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To Feed a God


The thing I really hate about this chapter is that it reinforces the whole beauty = goodness theme that’s been riding through the series. Because the one person who decides to help Eragon and Arya is one of the beautiful youths novitiates as opposed to the ugly and maimed ones. (Also those oiled slaves from book three show up again.)

Apparently Eragon passed out again. I don’t remember if I’ve been keeping track of these things yet. I guess he failed his jump check. He wakes and discovers he’s been strung up in chains. Also gagged. While this means he can’t talk this entire chapter, we’re stuck in his head. Not that much is going on there. He’s also been stripped to his leggings with all his weapons, armor, shiny magical objects have been taken away from him.

( just hanging around )

First off, for people wondering what happened to the Wikispace site. They decided to start charging for use of the free wikis. I've started moving things over to a wikia which can be found Here however it's very slow going because of having to transfer pages by hand. At least I don't have to type them up all again!

That being said here is our next chapter:

Decisions


In which we get too much unneeded background about a possible tunnel, Eragon says he’ll go and find the tunnel to try and open up the gates. People think it’s a bad idea. He’ll go anyway. Oh, and he’ll ask a small child to go into a potentially dangerous situation that people don’t want full grown adults who are combat capable to go into.

In some ways this chapter plays out like the Council of Elrond. All the main characters gather around to discuss something of great importance and deal with it. There’s discussion of it’s history which includes some bloody wars and then the volunteering of people to go on the dangerous journey. However, it isn’t as long as the Council of Elrond, thankfully. For while the Council of Elrond does, admittedly drag on a bit, if Paolini were trying to do something of equal length and breadth people might die by my hand because I seriously doubt that he’d be able to make it readable.

The beginning of the chapter has Nasuada not being able to get what Jeod tells her about how this tunnel came to be. It involved a dwarf clan helping a king build fortifications in the place that would become Dras-Leona. It’s presented in such a way that it feels like Paolini is throwing in some world building for world building’s sake. The history of the tunnels isn’t really that relevant and Jeod is telling her the story about it and then later on brings out the map. It would work better if the map was out when he was telling her about it and not bringing it out a few pages into the chapter.

In any case they discuss who should go and it gets rather confusing. Eragon says that he could go and search for the tunnel - because they’re not exactly sure where it is. It takes Nasuada a moment to come up with a plan: Have some people sneak in through the tunnel and open the gates. Really, this takes her a while, Nasuada fell silent again, and everyone in the pavilion, including Eragon, waited to see what she would come up with. At last she stirred and said, “This: we send a small team of warriors to open the gates from the inside.. The fact that she’s sitting around quietly enough that she has to stir, indicates either she fell asleep or spaced out. Something that required her to be still for quite a long time. You don’t stir after a moment’s thought. You stir after sleeping. Once again, the thesaurus shows. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “after a moment’s thought she said…”

Orik wants to know how someone is supposed to manage that and Eragon says - once again - that he can do it. This time, instead of getting brushed off, his “words had an immediate, chilling effect on the conversation”. Why? I don’t know. There’s nothing really different in this situation than the one he spoke of a few minutes before. Where they said, no he shouldn’t do it because they needed him around in case Murtagh did shit. Nothing he says or does indicates it requires chilling of the conversation. It’s not like Eragon said, “I’m pregnant with Galbatorix’s baby.” Which would definitely bring all conversation to a dead stop. He was just repeating what he said before.

Oh, and as a side note, continuing my justification that the “Mercy Dragon Rider” chapter in Brisingr was just in there as a random encounter - Eragon says that he knows how to hide himself from people using his magic so he won’t be seen. Which apparently he didn’t have time to do, despite them being over a mile away, in the Mercy chapter.

This time Nasuada is okay with Eragon going into the tunnels -which is far more dangerous than just looking for the tunnel’s entrance - and does it without a fight. Everyone else protests, of course. But she says that no one would dare kill Eragon. I’m not exactly sure why. We’ve not seen that before. This goes back to the lack of continuity between chapter to chapter that is found so often in these books. Suddenly no one would dare kill Eragon - when earlier in the book everyone was more than happy to try.

Why? Because they need a good justification for Eragon to go. Even though this will turn out to not be true in a later chapter.

Arya also volunteers to go. Nasuada’s objection to her going? She’s afraid the queen of the elves won’t help the Varden any more if she dies. Because helping save the world from a Great Evil isn’t a good enough reason to continue to help the Varden. It really takes down the threat level of Galbatorix if the queen of the elves might not continue to help just because her daughter died.

After assuring Nasuada that her mother won’t remove her support, Arya is allowed to go. They will take a red shirt - I mean one of Blodhgarm’s spell casting elves and Angela. Angela wants to go because… reasons. Well, because she has a grudge against the priests of the Evil Mountain. She’s turning out to be a bigger Mary Sue than Eragon is. After all, she’s powerful, mysterious, she can go and do things other people can’t, has mysterious powers… is eccentric and annoying but no one really cares. They treat her with wisdom, etc. etc. etc.

The final thing Eragon suggests is to talk to Elva and see if she would accompany them. Maybe this time she’ll feel differently. Because her repeated nos and fucks off aren’t indication about how she feels. The fact that during conflicts she ends up curled up in a ball barely able to breath or move isn’t a good reason to leave her alone. The fact that she’s a child less than three years old, is a great reason to have her accompany them. Because putting her in danger that is risky for grown and powerful spell casters such as Eragon isn’t at all a bad idea. I’m not sure why they keep on trying to do these things to her, always asking her for help in ways that will end up giving her more pain. That’s not helping her, that’s harming her. Of course she wants nothing to do with them. Yet they can’t seem to understand this concept.

It’s this sort of thing that just makes me more and more disgusted with the so called heroes of this story. I’m still not even sure what her powers are and how they would be helpful, but the fact that they keep on trying to press her, especially when it’s so …. dangerous for her, is just cruel and despicable

A heart-to-heart


Oddly, for a chapter called “A heart-to-heart” very little of it is devoted to the conversation. And very little of the conversation could be considered heart-to-heart.

We begin where we left off last time: Glaedr making Eragon and Arya fight until they fall down from exhaustion and can’t fight any more. Literally. They end up lying on the ground heaving for air and only at that point does Glaedr agree that it would be “counterproductive” and possibly “harmful” if they were to continue fighting. Yeahup. There’s not really much you can say about that. He made them do this because he wanted to see who the better warrior was. Oh, and by this point Eragon is able to finally end the duels in a draw with Arya.

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