Brisingr Spork, Chapter 29 - A Forest of Stone
The chapter is quite long, so the sporking is divided into subsections to make it a bit easier to read.
1. Merry-making
A cheer went up from the crowd.
Eragon was sitting in the wooden stands...
When I read those lines for the first time, I panicked, thinking that the crowd was cheering for Eragon.Imagine my relief when I learned that was not the case - they were actually cheering for participants of some dwarf tournament that Eragon was watching.
However, before I learned that, I had to endure almost 700 words of:
Which is absurd for two reasons: one, if they put off the ceremony for just two days, Eragon would have attended it anyway, and two, why would Orik’s wedding (or even just knowing about Orik’s wedding) be a dangerous distraction for Eragon? The real reason Eragon couldn’t attend is of course because Paolini couldn’t and didn’t want to describe another wedding after Roran’s, but I really can’t see why Nasuada couldn’t tell him that Orik had sent a message for him.
Then Eragon asks a very odd question:
“If you don’t mind my curiosity, why did you and Orik choose to marry now?”
It’s just… weird. It may be my very subjective opinion, but I would never think of asking a newly-wed couple a question like that. It’s like an alien came to Earth and tried to imitate human conversation. Does he mean it’s not a good time to get married? Why? Because there’s supposedly a war going on? Because the dwarven federation is politically unstable? Eragon has just seen his cousin get married in much more unfavourable conditions (military camp, immediately after a battle). Or maybe he wants Hvedra to admit that she’s pregnant and that’s why they had to hurry with the wedding, like Roran and Katrina? Does Eragon have a pregnancy fetish? Is that it?
Anyway, they say that the marriage was supposed to take place months ago. If anyone has Eldest at hand, please tell me whether Orik mentioned Hvedra when he was lonely, unhappy and drunk in Ellesmera.
Orik also mentions that he was chosen the leader of the Durgrimst Ingeitum clan (what a surprise), and then we jump back - or forward - to the beginning of the chapter, i.e. the cheering crowd and Eragon sitting in the wooden stands.
That’s a chapter-opening strategy I can’t fully recommend. It’s like someone told Paolini that it’s a good thing to start a chapter in medias res, and not with an infodump or a character waking up and brushing his teeth, so he throws two in medias res sentences at us and then has an infodump/teeth-brushing anyway, and a very long one at that. If I recall correctly, something similar happened in the chapter about the Trial of the Long Knives, which began with angry Fadawar’s going “We’re your people”, followed by descriptions, flashbacks, infodumps and Nasuada’ musings about her guards.
So Eragon is sitting in the stands, honouring life by devouring mutton, and watching a dwarf tournament held traditionally by wealthy dwarven families as a part of the wedding reception. There are Feldunost-riding dwarves, trumpeters, a herald and all that you would expect from a medieval tournament.
I’ve already said it twice on this site: I have a strong belief that Paolini was inspired by Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, an unfinished collection of stories more or less based on Malory that was published with Paolini’s preface around the time he was writing Brisingr. Incidentally, the preface itself is not that bad, there are some things that I agree with, some other things I don’t agree with, but that’s beside the point.
Because the point is what Paolini apparently liked best about Steinbeck’s stories (and what I didn’t like, to be honest):
The setting is of an indeterminate historical period - a mélange of medieval and premedieval elements - and yet Steinbeck makes his world seem as real as ours. He furnishes us with precise details of the land’s agriculture, architecture, class structure, economics, gender roles, and religion…
The opening to this chapter - the detailed description of the hold, Eragon going to the baths and receiving robes and a circlet, the tournament, the discussion of dwarves’ gender roles (Hvedra is the hold’s grimstcarvlorss, i.e. the main administrator) - it’s all Steinbeck. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Paolini plagiarized him, but it’s clear to me that he tried to give depth to his world by following Steinbeck’s example. And it is quite nice to see an attempt to do some world-building and flesh out the dwarven culture. I’m rather fond of the Feldunost tournament, for example.
The problem is that all of it is completely unimportant because the entire dwarven subplot is unimportant. Dwarves are unimportant, and most of the things we learn about them in this chapter will never be mentioned again. Why didn’t Paolini include a charge of Feldunost-riding dwarves in one of the battles? Why wasn’t there an elite dwarf javelin squad? Why not have a dwarf woman be a quartermaster of the Varden, using the experience she gained as a grimstcarvlorss?
The entire dwarven culture is never an integral part of the books’ world. It’s an appendix that doesn’t mean anything in the long run (and if it gets clogged with too much detail, it may lead to appendicitis).
Orik and Hvedra get all lovey-dovey, rubbing their noses, and Eragon glances away, “feeling lonely and excluded”. Remember it for later. Then Orik asks Eragon if he’d like to see a forest of stone, the local must-see tourist attraction. Eragon is very wary about it, suspecting that Orik’s just making fun of him. He probably knows the forest will be crowded with tourists and greedy locals selling tacky souvenirs.
2. Sight-seeing
The next morning Eragon wakes up in a dwarf-sized room and his feelings of loneliness and exclusion get really EXTREME.
…out of habit, [he] reached with his mind toward Saphira. […] Eragon faltered and leaned forward gripping the rim of the basin, overcome by his sense of isolation. He remained in that position, unable to move or think, until his vision turned crimson and flashing spots floated in front of his eyes. With a gasp, he exhaled and refilled his lungs.
His reaction here is very dramatic and over-the-top, but it’s not bad per se. It even ties in logically with Eragon feeling lonely when he sees Orik and Hvedra together. However, it is completely incoherent with the rest of the book. After all, Eragon didn’t have breathing problems during his trip from Helgrind, did he? Oh, what is that you’re saying, Eragon?
I missed her during the trip from Helgrind, he thought, but at least I knew I was returning to her as fast as I could.
LIAR. He didn’t miss her at all. In fact, in at least one scene he was actually glad to be alone.
Moreover, Eragon’s extreme feeling of grief and longing won’t really influence his actions. It would be much, much better if he was so distressed due to Saphira’s absence that he would make some huge and very dangerous mistake. It would make the plot more interesting, present an opportunity for character development, and raise some questions about the dragon-rider relationship (how beneficial is it really, if neither party can function properly without the other?).
After his short bout of catatonia, Eragon goes out to the courtyard, where he meets Orik and twelve other dwarves that are going with them to where the great dwarf king election is taking place. Before departure, they are stopped with a useless scene of Hvedra going out to the courtyard and giving Orik a horn that used to belong to her father and I want you to have it now, blah blah blah. As far as I know, the horn will never serve any function other than being blown dramatically by Orik right now, as if they were riding to the last battle with the Great Evil™, and not to the seat of the dwarf government. Also, if Hvedra wanted to give Orik a gift and a loving goodbye (she whispers something to him that Eragon can’t hear), why didn’t she do it earlier? Why does it have to be this great ritual witnessed by everyone, especially if the horn is not important at all?
(Probably because it’s another motif lifted from Steinbeck).
They depart and Eragon is irritated (or even “frustrated”) because dwarves on ponies are much slower than our almighty protagonist. He shivers from cold. I’d advise him to use some of the energy he isn’t spending on running and make himself warmer, but instead I’ll just give you some weather-related nitpicking.
The sun had yet to appear over the Beor mountains, and a damp chill pervaded the valley, even though noon was only a few hours away.
How much is a few hours? Three? Six? I can’t really see anything unusual about a mountain valley being cold, dark and misty in the morning. When I went on holiday to the mountains last year, every morning there was a fog so dense that you couldn’t see anything farther away that fifty metres. It cleared around 10-11 a.m. And those weren’t even high mountains, unlike the Beor mountains Paolini is describing.
Anyway, they reach a plateau that is supermisty, and Orik announces that they have now arrived at Az Knurldrathn, the forest of stone. I won’t mock the dwarven words because my own language has words like “chrząszcz” and “ździebko”, so I’m really not one to talk. Orik uses some Swedish inversion by asking:
“What see you now?”
Eragon responds he doesn’t see any forests because it’s foggy. The weather then attacks him with purple prose:
The mist kissed Eragon’s face, cool and moist. […] Under the gentle encouragement of the newborn breeze, the fog thinned and and the disjointed patterns of shade resolved into the boles of large, ash-colored trees with bare and broken limbs.
There are three possibilities here:
1. Orik knew when the mist would clear, because it always clears at 9.15 a.m., which is why he brought Eragon to the stone forest at this particular moment.
2. The mist is made artificially in order to awe tourists with the dramatic reveal when it is cleared by hidden blowers.
3. Paolini wants us to suspend our disbelief for this scene which sacrifices plausibility for dramatism.
That aside, I actually like the idea of the forest of stone. It’s very creepy, and it further fleshes out the dwarven culture when Orik gives various explanations they have for its existence (it was either created by one of the gods, or was once a normal forest that got fossilized after some great disaster). He also tells Eragon a story of how he was once very naughty (or “rambunctious”, as he puts it), and Hrothgar sent him to excavate the stone trees as punishment. However, Orik ran away with Vrenshrrgn dwarves, got drunk and decided to hunt a boar. He succeeded, but he was injured himself, and later he reconciled with Hrothgar, and they lived happily ever after, the end.
Again, this fragment is not that bad. It expands on Orik’s backstory, gives some detail about the dwarven culture, and is quite close to a real conversation between two friends. I’m actually surprised at the amount of backstory we’re given about Orik. We know much more about his youth than about Roran’s, or Eragon’s, for that matter. Come to think of it, does Eragon ever share any stories about his past with his supposed friends?
I can’t think of any. He doesn’t really have any past, does he? He was teleported to the Spine at the beginning of the first book just like Saphira’s egg, with only a vague memory of naked Carvahall men transplanted into his brain.
So Orik’s story is actually bearable, if you only disregard for a moment the fact that dwarves are completely irrelevant as a whole.
3. The burden of global politics
Eragon somehow deduces from the story that Orik misses Hrothgar. The conversation stops feeling natural, as Orik replies a bit inconsequentially that the dwarves are on a brink of a civil war that can destroy their entire civilization because some clans don’t want to help the Varden.
I’m not really sure about the civil war. I’d think that the dwarves who don’t want to go on a war against Galbatorix would just stay at home and ignore those who did otherwise.
Eragon says that dwarves must help the Varden because Galbatorix’s Urgals have already attacked Tronjheim. To which Orik responds:
Those who are opposed to the Varden have blinded themselves to Galbatorix’s threat. They say that if we had refused shelter to the Varden, if we had not accepted you and Saphira into fair Tronjheim, then Galbatorix would have had no reason to make war on us. They say that if we just keep to ourselves and remain hidden in our caves and tunnels, we shall have nothing to fear from Galbatorix. They do not realize that Galbatorix’s hunger for power is insatiable and that he will not rest until all of Alagaesia lies at his feet.
The only problem with the anti-Varden argumentation? It’s actually rational, sound and correct. Galbatorix wouldn’t have attacked Tronjheim if Eragon hadn’t been there. And during his 100-year long reign, he didn’t do much to conquer the dwarves. He didn’t even conquer Surda, which doesn’t have the benefit of natural defences like high mountains and underground tunnels. Again, the image of Galbatorix as the absolute evil and power-hungry villain just isn’t confirmed by what we see.
Anyway, Orik says he wants to run for the dwarf king election and, if he wins, help the Varden. He asks for Eragon’s support.
The conversation that follows shows just how stupid Nasuada was when she sent Eragon with a mission that’s basically political and diplomatic.
It begins quite reasonably. Eragon observes that his support might turn some dwarves against Orik: “you will be asking them to accept a Dragon Rider as one of their own”. It’s a reasonable doubt. After all, there’s no reason why a dragon rider should have any authority with other peoples. However, Orik insists: “it may also gain me the votes of others. Let me be the judge of that.”
But Eragon wants to be the judge himself:
“If… if it is not likely you can win the crown, and there is another clan chief who could, and who is not unsympathetic to the Varden […] and my support might ensure that such a clan chief won the throne, for the good of your people and for the good of the rest of Alagaesia, shouldn’t I back the dwarf who has the best chance of succeeding?”
Orik gets really pissed and reminds Eragon of his duties as a honorary member of Durgrimst Ingeitum:
[…] you will prove to your detractors that we cannot trust a Dragon Rider. Clan members do not betray each other to other clans, Eragon. It is not done, not unless you wish to wake up one night with a dagger buried in your heart.
Eragon tries to escalate the conflict with an ominous “are you threatening me”, and then breaks down into a whiny “Nasuada gave me those orders, what am I to do, woe is me.”
Let’s stop here for a moment and discuss why Eragon is very stupid (and, by extension, so is Nasuada).
First, Eragon knows next to nothing about the dwarves’ politics. Nasuada gave him some information, but I somehow doubt it was much. He doesn’t know any of the clan chiefs except for Orik. He doesn’t know much about relations between clans, their history, their ideologies, position, strenghts and weaknesses. He has no idea if there is another clan chief sympathetic to the Varden with greater chance for election than Orik.
On the other hand, Orik is (supposedly) his close friend and sort-of adopted relative. He’s also someone that Eragon knows well, and who has shown himself as a trustworthy and loyal person, very devoted to fulfilling his duties and obligations. If he says he wants to fight against Galbatorix along the Varden, he most probably will. He is personally attached to Eragon. He also managed to become the clan chief and gain the support of three other clans already, so he isn’t a total nobody. In short, Orik is a perfect ally, and Eragon should do all he can to put him on the throne.
Second, even if there was a better option than Orik, the way Eragon talks to him in this scene couldn’t be less tactful and diplomatic. He tells him, “You are concerned about the good of your people, and rightly so. But my concerns are broader […]” - it’s as if he told Orik “you’re just a petty king of a backwater country and you have no idea about the great politics I have to cope with.” Talking about his intentions so openly and so bluntly just isn’t something a politician would do. A politician would say “Of course I’ll back you, Orik”, even if he were still considering the option of giving his support to a better candidate. A less Machiavellan politician would say “Of course I’ll back you, Orik, if my support is beneficial to the interests of the dwarven kingdom and the entire Alagaesia.” But Eragon does nothing but antagonize Orik who, I remind you, is actually the only sure ally Eragon has among the dwarves. Losing Orik - as Orik himself says - could mean losing the entire Durgrimst Ingeitum.
To conclude, Nasuada sent someone who has no idea about the dwarven politics AND politics in general on a mission that requires diplomatic skills. I don’t know about you, but I’d give her a Nobel peace prize for that.
Having already criticized Eragon from the pragmatic point of view, let’s look at it from the (admittedly more subjective) moral perspective.
I really don’t like Eragon’s conduct in this scene for two reasons.
First, just because I’m a family-oriented type of person who thinks that personal relations are more important than business relations, I think that Eragon doesn’t treat Orik the way one treats a friend and an adopted relative. He’s arrogant and disloyal.
Second, I just don’t like the entire set-up of Eragon influencing dwarven elections. It’s colonialism, pure and simple: the squabbling, barbaric natives are allegedly unable to solve their political problems on their own, and they need an external mediator to tell them who they should choose for their leader and what they should do. The fact that the said mediator is a complete ignorant just makes everything worse.
I don’t expect Eragon to be diplomatic and loyal at the same time (although it’s possible to have both). But he should be at least smart OR moral, and he’s neither.
Now, there is a way to make this scene less terrible and Eragon less unbearable: attribute his bluntness, impetousness and lack of common sense to being separated from Saphira. Make him so distressed about his dragon’s absence that he can’t think clearly and can’t value any relationships other than his rider bond.
But that would actually give some meaning and consequence to his separation from Saphira, and admit that Eragon is flawed. And we can’t have any of that, can we.
Given his complete ignorance of dwarven politics, the logical thing would be to trust Orik’s guidance on that matter. And that is what Orik proposes: “Trust me to do the right thing, Eragon Shadeslayer. […] If I cannot be king, trust me not to be so blinded by the prospect of power that I cannot recognize when my bid has failed. […] then I will, of my own volition, lend my support to one of the other candidates […].”
But Eragon the Pigheaded still hesitates.
Trust. Of all the things Orik could have asked of him, that was the most difficult to grant. Eragon liked Orik, but to subordinate himself to the dwarf’s authority when so much was at stake would be to relinquish even more of his freedom, a prospect he loathed. And along with his freedom, he would also be relinquishing part of his responsibility for the fate of Alagaesia.
1. Eragon mistrusts Orik, even though Orik has never given him any reason to doubt his loyalty and judgment. That’s not how a friend thinks.
2. I’ll repeat it again and again: Eragon doesn’t know anything about the dwarven politics. Trusting Orik is the only sensible thing to do, as Orik is the only dwarf Eragon can trust. He really shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think that he can influence dwarven elections on his own.
3. Eragon should also stop think of himself as some Messiah who is solely responsible for the fate of the world.
4. “Relinquishing his freedom” is a really pompous expression for “leaving the matter in the hands of someone who knows more than him…”
5. “…and who is actually concerned by the election as a native, and not a colonial master who wants to install a puppet government sympathetic to his own cause”.
6. The dwarven election isn’t really all that important. It will have no impact on the overall plot.
Apparently Eragon is afraid that Orik will try to boss him around and make him his “mindless slave”, so he declares he will only defer to him in dwarf-related matters. I’d think it was self-evident, especially since nothing Orik said would suggest otherwise. Maybe Eragon knows he has become a power-hungry, arrogant and unpredictable villain, and fears that Orik is the same. Maybe he’s becoming paranoid. Maybe there’s an interesting plot looming in the distance!
Maybe I’m deluding myself again.
After much deliberation, Eragon finally agrees. There’s some bad joke about long beards to show that Eragon and Orik are BFFS XD, no conflict, no hard feelings at all. They leave the forest of stone and ride together towards the end of the chapter through a narrow tunnel. Eragon wishes he were flying on Saphira. Sadly, he doesn’t have a claustrophobic panic attack.
4. Conclusion
All in all, unlike some other chapters, this one wasn’t a complete waste of space. There were some things I actually liked: the forest of stone, the dwarven tournament, Orik being surprisingly likeable and mostly reasonable, Eragon actually feeling lonely for more than one paragraph (if you count the way he feels when Orik and Hvedra are snogging with their noses). However, the good things are spoilt by Eragon being a jerk with a colonial mindset and no idea about politics, as well as the simple sad fact that dwarves will be completely irrelevant in the long run.
To cheer us up, I suggest a simple contest:
When they were ready to depart, Hvedra descended the broad stone steps from the entrance to the main hall of Bregan Hold, her dress trailing behind her, and presented to Orik an ivory horn clad with gold filigree around the mouth and bell. She said, “This was mine father’s when he rode with Grimstborith Aldhrim. I give it to you so you may remember me in the days to come.” She said more in Dwarvish, so softly Eragon cound not heat, and then she and Orik touched foreheads.
What did Hvedra whisper to Orik? My guess is either “Try leaving the dragon rider blindfolded at the edge of some precipice”, or “You’ve forgotten to zip your pants.”
1. Merry-making
A cheer went up from the crowd.
Eragon was sitting in the wooden stands...
When I read those lines for the first time, I panicked, thinking that the crowd was cheering for Eragon.Imagine my relief when I learned that was not the case - they were actually cheering for participants of some dwarf tournament that Eragon was watching.
However, before I learned that, I had to endure almost 700 words of:
- description of Bregan Hold’s location, architecture, building materials, a big glass lantern called Az Sindriznarrvel (which means The Navel Gem of Sindri), and accompanying outbuildings, including a “church” of Morgothal, despite it being a word used practically only for Christian places of worship;
- flashback to Orik greeting Eragon, taking him to the baths and giving him “a robe of deep purple” and „a gold circlet for his brow”;
- flashback to Orik introducing Eragon to Hvedra, his wife he’d married behind the scenes two days earlier. It turns out Orik wanted to invite Eragon to the wedding, but Nasuada refused to pass on the invitation „for fear it might distract [Eragon] from the task at hand.”
Which is absurd for two reasons: one, if they put off the ceremony for just two days, Eragon would have attended it anyway, and two, why would Orik’s wedding (or even just knowing about Orik’s wedding) be a dangerous distraction for Eragon? The real reason Eragon couldn’t attend is of course because Paolini couldn’t and didn’t want to describe another wedding after Roran’s, but I really can’t see why Nasuada couldn’t tell him that Orik had sent a message for him.
Then Eragon asks a very odd question:
“If you don’t mind my curiosity, why did you and Orik choose to marry now?”
It’s just… weird. It may be my very subjective opinion, but I would never think of asking a newly-wed couple a question like that. It’s like an alien came to Earth and tried to imitate human conversation. Does he mean it’s not a good time to get married? Why? Because there’s supposedly a war going on? Because the dwarven federation is politically unstable? Eragon has just seen his cousin get married in much more unfavourable conditions (military camp, immediately after a battle). Or maybe he wants Hvedra to admit that she’s pregnant and that’s why they had to hurry with the wedding, like Roran and Katrina? Does Eragon have a pregnancy fetish? Is that it?
Anyway, they say that the marriage was supposed to take place months ago. If anyone has Eldest at hand, please tell me whether Orik mentioned Hvedra when he was lonely, unhappy and drunk in Ellesmera.
Orik also mentions that he was chosen the leader of the Durgrimst Ingeitum clan (what a surprise), and then we jump back - or forward - to the beginning of the chapter, i.e. the cheering crowd and Eragon sitting in the wooden stands.
That’s a chapter-opening strategy I can’t fully recommend. It’s like someone told Paolini that it’s a good thing to start a chapter in medias res, and not with an infodump or a character waking up and brushing his teeth, so he throws two in medias res sentences at us and then has an infodump/teeth-brushing anyway, and a very long one at that. If I recall correctly, something similar happened in the chapter about the Trial of the Long Knives, which began with angry Fadawar’s going “We’re your people”, followed by descriptions, flashbacks, infodumps and Nasuada’ musings about her guards.
So Eragon is sitting in the stands, honouring life by devouring mutton, and watching a dwarf tournament held traditionally by wealthy dwarven families as a part of the wedding reception. There are Feldunost-riding dwarves, trumpeters, a herald and all that you would expect from a medieval tournament.
I’ve already said it twice on this site: I have a strong belief that Paolini was inspired by Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, an unfinished collection of stories more or less based on Malory that was published with Paolini’s preface around the time he was writing Brisingr. Incidentally, the preface itself is not that bad, there are some things that I agree with, some other things I don’t agree with, but that’s beside the point.
Because the point is what Paolini apparently liked best about Steinbeck’s stories (and what I didn’t like, to be honest):
The setting is of an indeterminate historical period - a mélange of medieval and premedieval elements - and yet Steinbeck makes his world seem as real as ours. He furnishes us with precise details of the land’s agriculture, architecture, class structure, economics, gender roles, and religion…
The opening to this chapter - the detailed description of the hold, Eragon going to the baths and receiving robes and a circlet, the tournament, the discussion of dwarves’ gender roles (Hvedra is the hold’s grimstcarvlorss, i.e. the main administrator) - it’s all Steinbeck. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Paolini plagiarized him, but it’s clear to me that he tried to give depth to his world by following Steinbeck’s example. And it is quite nice to see an attempt to do some world-building and flesh out the dwarven culture. I’m rather fond of the Feldunost tournament, for example.
The problem is that all of it is completely unimportant because the entire dwarven subplot is unimportant. Dwarves are unimportant, and most of the things we learn about them in this chapter will never be mentioned again. Why didn’t Paolini include a charge of Feldunost-riding dwarves in one of the battles? Why wasn’t there an elite dwarf javelin squad? Why not have a dwarf woman be a quartermaster of the Varden, using the experience she gained as a grimstcarvlorss?
The entire dwarven culture is never an integral part of the books’ world. It’s an appendix that doesn’t mean anything in the long run (and if it gets clogged with too much detail, it may lead to appendicitis).
Orik and Hvedra get all lovey-dovey, rubbing their noses, and Eragon glances away, “feeling lonely and excluded”. Remember it for later. Then Orik asks Eragon if he’d like to see a forest of stone, the local must-see tourist attraction. Eragon is very wary about it, suspecting that Orik’s just making fun of him. He probably knows the forest will be crowded with tourists and greedy locals selling tacky souvenirs.
2. Sight-seeing
The next morning Eragon wakes up in a dwarf-sized room and his feelings of loneliness and exclusion get really EXTREME.
…out of habit, [he] reached with his mind toward Saphira. […] Eragon faltered and leaned forward gripping the rim of the basin, overcome by his sense of isolation. He remained in that position, unable to move or think, until his vision turned crimson and flashing spots floated in front of his eyes. With a gasp, he exhaled and refilled his lungs.
His reaction here is very dramatic and over-the-top, but it’s not bad per se. It even ties in logically with Eragon feeling lonely when he sees Orik and Hvedra together. However, it is completely incoherent with the rest of the book. After all, Eragon didn’t have breathing problems during his trip from Helgrind, did he? Oh, what is that you’re saying, Eragon?
I missed her during the trip from Helgrind, he thought, but at least I knew I was returning to her as fast as I could.
LIAR. He didn’t miss her at all. In fact, in at least one scene he was actually glad to be alone.
Moreover, Eragon’s extreme feeling of grief and longing won’t really influence his actions. It would be much, much better if he was so distressed due to Saphira’s absence that he would make some huge and very dangerous mistake. It would make the plot more interesting, present an opportunity for character development, and raise some questions about the dragon-rider relationship (how beneficial is it really, if neither party can function properly without the other?).
After his short bout of catatonia, Eragon goes out to the courtyard, where he meets Orik and twelve other dwarves that are going with them to where the great dwarf king election is taking place. Before departure, they are stopped with a useless scene of Hvedra going out to the courtyard and giving Orik a horn that used to belong to her father and I want you to have it now, blah blah blah. As far as I know, the horn will never serve any function other than being blown dramatically by Orik right now, as if they were riding to the last battle with the Great Evil™, and not to the seat of the dwarf government. Also, if Hvedra wanted to give Orik a gift and a loving goodbye (she whispers something to him that Eragon can’t hear), why didn’t she do it earlier? Why does it have to be this great ritual witnessed by everyone, especially if the horn is not important at all?
(Probably because it’s another motif lifted from Steinbeck).
They depart and Eragon is irritated (or even “frustrated”) because dwarves on ponies are much slower than our almighty protagonist. He shivers from cold. I’d advise him to use some of the energy he isn’t spending on running and make himself warmer, but instead I’ll just give you some weather-related nitpicking.
The sun had yet to appear over the Beor mountains, and a damp chill pervaded the valley, even though noon was only a few hours away.
How much is a few hours? Three? Six? I can’t really see anything unusual about a mountain valley being cold, dark and misty in the morning. When I went on holiday to the mountains last year, every morning there was a fog so dense that you couldn’t see anything farther away that fifty metres. It cleared around 10-11 a.m. And those weren’t even high mountains, unlike the Beor mountains Paolini is describing.
Anyway, they reach a plateau that is supermisty, and Orik announces that they have now arrived at Az Knurldrathn, the forest of stone. I won’t mock the dwarven words because my own language has words like “chrząszcz” and “ździebko”, so I’m really not one to talk. Orik uses some Swedish inversion by asking:
“What see you now?”
Eragon responds he doesn’t see any forests because it’s foggy. The weather then attacks him with purple prose:
The mist kissed Eragon’s face, cool and moist. […] Under the gentle encouragement of the newborn breeze, the fog thinned and and the disjointed patterns of shade resolved into the boles of large, ash-colored trees with bare and broken limbs.
There are three possibilities here:
1. Orik knew when the mist would clear, because it always clears at 9.15 a.m., which is why he brought Eragon to the stone forest at this particular moment.
2. The mist is made artificially in order to awe tourists with the dramatic reveal when it is cleared by hidden blowers.
3. Paolini wants us to suspend our disbelief for this scene which sacrifices plausibility for dramatism.
That aside, I actually like the idea of the forest of stone. It’s very creepy, and it further fleshes out the dwarven culture when Orik gives various explanations they have for its existence (it was either created by one of the gods, or was once a normal forest that got fossilized after some great disaster). He also tells Eragon a story of how he was once very naughty (or “rambunctious”, as he puts it), and Hrothgar sent him to excavate the stone trees as punishment. However, Orik ran away with Vrenshrrgn dwarves, got drunk and decided to hunt a boar. He succeeded, but he was injured himself, and later he reconciled with Hrothgar, and they lived happily ever after, the end.
Again, this fragment is not that bad. It expands on Orik’s backstory, gives some detail about the dwarven culture, and is quite close to a real conversation between two friends. I’m actually surprised at the amount of backstory we’re given about Orik. We know much more about his youth than about Roran’s, or Eragon’s, for that matter. Come to think of it, does Eragon ever share any stories about his past with his supposed friends?
I can’t think of any. He doesn’t really have any past, does he? He was teleported to the Spine at the beginning of the first book just like Saphira’s egg, with only a vague memory of naked Carvahall men transplanted into his brain.
So Orik’s story is actually bearable, if you only disregard for a moment the fact that dwarves are completely irrelevant as a whole.
3. The burden of global politics
Eragon somehow deduces from the story that Orik misses Hrothgar. The conversation stops feeling natural, as Orik replies a bit inconsequentially that the dwarves are on a brink of a civil war that can destroy their entire civilization because some clans don’t want to help the Varden.
I’m not really sure about the civil war. I’d think that the dwarves who don’t want to go on a war against Galbatorix would just stay at home and ignore those who did otherwise.
Eragon says that dwarves must help the Varden because Galbatorix’s Urgals have already attacked Tronjheim. To which Orik responds:
Those who are opposed to the Varden have blinded themselves to Galbatorix’s threat. They say that if we had refused shelter to the Varden, if we had not accepted you and Saphira into fair Tronjheim, then Galbatorix would have had no reason to make war on us. They say that if we just keep to ourselves and remain hidden in our caves and tunnels, we shall have nothing to fear from Galbatorix. They do not realize that Galbatorix’s hunger for power is insatiable and that he will not rest until all of Alagaesia lies at his feet.
The only problem with the anti-Varden argumentation? It’s actually rational, sound and correct. Galbatorix wouldn’t have attacked Tronjheim if Eragon hadn’t been there. And during his 100-year long reign, he didn’t do much to conquer the dwarves. He didn’t even conquer Surda, which doesn’t have the benefit of natural defences like high mountains and underground tunnels. Again, the image of Galbatorix as the absolute evil and power-hungry villain just isn’t confirmed by what we see.
Anyway, Orik says he wants to run for the dwarf king election and, if he wins, help the Varden. He asks for Eragon’s support.
The conversation that follows shows just how stupid Nasuada was when she sent Eragon with a mission that’s basically political and diplomatic.
It begins quite reasonably. Eragon observes that his support might turn some dwarves against Orik: “you will be asking them to accept a Dragon Rider as one of their own”. It’s a reasonable doubt. After all, there’s no reason why a dragon rider should have any authority with other peoples. However, Orik insists: “it may also gain me the votes of others. Let me be the judge of that.”
But Eragon wants to be the judge himself:
“If… if it is not likely you can win the crown, and there is another clan chief who could, and who is not unsympathetic to the Varden […] and my support might ensure that such a clan chief won the throne, for the good of your people and for the good of the rest of Alagaesia, shouldn’t I back the dwarf who has the best chance of succeeding?”
Orik gets really pissed and reminds Eragon of his duties as a honorary member of Durgrimst Ingeitum:
[…] you will prove to your detractors that we cannot trust a Dragon Rider. Clan members do not betray each other to other clans, Eragon. It is not done, not unless you wish to wake up one night with a dagger buried in your heart.
Eragon tries to escalate the conflict with an ominous “are you threatening me”, and then breaks down into a whiny “Nasuada gave me those orders, what am I to do, woe is me.”
Let’s stop here for a moment and discuss why Eragon is very stupid (and, by extension, so is Nasuada).
First, Eragon knows next to nothing about the dwarves’ politics. Nasuada gave him some information, but I somehow doubt it was much. He doesn’t know any of the clan chiefs except for Orik. He doesn’t know much about relations between clans, their history, their ideologies, position, strenghts and weaknesses. He has no idea if there is another clan chief sympathetic to the Varden with greater chance for election than Orik.
On the other hand, Orik is (supposedly) his close friend and sort-of adopted relative. He’s also someone that Eragon knows well, and who has shown himself as a trustworthy and loyal person, very devoted to fulfilling his duties and obligations. If he says he wants to fight against Galbatorix along the Varden, he most probably will. He is personally attached to Eragon. He also managed to become the clan chief and gain the support of three other clans already, so he isn’t a total nobody. In short, Orik is a perfect ally, and Eragon should do all he can to put him on the throne.
Second, even if there was a better option than Orik, the way Eragon talks to him in this scene couldn’t be less tactful and diplomatic. He tells him, “You are concerned about the good of your people, and rightly so. But my concerns are broader […]” - it’s as if he told Orik “you’re just a petty king of a backwater country and you have no idea about the great politics I have to cope with.” Talking about his intentions so openly and so bluntly just isn’t something a politician would do. A politician would say “Of course I’ll back you, Orik”, even if he were still considering the option of giving his support to a better candidate. A less Machiavellan politician would say “Of course I’ll back you, Orik, if my support is beneficial to the interests of the dwarven kingdom and the entire Alagaesia.” But Eragon does nothing but antagonize Orik who, I remind you, is actually the only sure ally Eragon has among the dwarves. Losing Orik - as Orik himself says - could mean losing the entire Durgrimst Ingeitum.
To conclude, Nasuada sent someone who has no idea about the dwarven politics AND politics in general on a mission that requires diplomatic skills. I don’t know about you, but I’d give her a Nobel peace prize for that.
Having already criticized Eragon from the pragmatic point of view, let’s look at it from the (admittedly more subjective) moral perspective.
I really don’t like Eragon’s conduct in this scene for two reasons.
First, just because I’m a family-oriented type of person who thinks that personal relations are more important than business relations, I think that Eragon doesn’t treat Orik the way one treats a friend and an adopted relative. He’s arrogant and disloyal.
Second, I just don’t like the entire set-up of Eragon influencing dwarven elections. It’s colonialism, pure and simple: the squabbling, barbaric natives are allegedly unable to solve their political problems on their own, and they need an external mediator to tell them who they should choose for their leader and what they should do. The fact that the said mediator is a complete ignorant just makes everything worse.
I don’t expect Eragon to be diplomatic and loyal at the same time (although it’s possible to have both). But he should be at least smart OR moral, and he’s neither.
Now, there is a way to make this scene less terrible and Eragon less unbearable: attribute his bluntness, impetousness and lack of common sense to being separated from Saphira. Make him so distressed about his dragon’s absence that he can’t think clearly and can’t value any relationships other than his rider bond.
But that would actually give some meaning and consequence to his separation from Saphira, and admit that Eragon is flawed. And we can’t have any of that, can we.
Given his complete ignorance of dwarven politics, the logical thing would be to trust Orik’s guidance on that matter. And that is what Orik proposes: “Trust me to do the right thing, Eragon Shadeslayer. […] If I cannot be king, trust me not to be so blinded by the prospect of power that I cannot recognize when my bid has failed. […] then I will, of my own volition, lend my support to one of the other candidates […].”
But Eragon the Pigheaded still hesitates.
Trust. Of all the things Orik could have asked of him, that was the most difficult to grant. Eragon liked Orik, but to subordinate himself to the dwarf’s authority when so much was at stake would be to relinquish even more of his freedom, a prospect he loathed. And along with his freedom, he would also be relinquishing part of his responsibility for the fate of Alagaesia.
1. Eragon mistrusts Orik, even though Orik has never given him any reason to doubt his loyalty and judgment. That’s not how a friend thinks.
2. I’ll repeat it again and again: Eragon doesn’t know anything about the dwarven politics. Trusting Orik is the only sensible thing to do, as Orik is the only dwarf Eragon can trust. He really shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think that he can influence dwarven elections on his own.
3. Eragon should also stop think of himself as some Messiah who is solely responsible for the fate of the world.
4. “Relinquishing his freedom” is a really pompous expression for “leaving the matter in the hands of someone who knows more than him…”
5. “…and who is actually concerned by the election as a native, and not a colonial master who wants to install a puppet government sympathetic to his own cause”.
6. The dwarven election isn’t really all that important. It will have no impact on the overall plot.
Apparently Eragon is afraid that Orik will try to boss him around and make him his “mindless slave”, so he declares he will only defer to him in dwarf-related matters. I’d think it was self-evident, especially since nothing Orik said would suggest otherwise. Maybe Eragon knows he has become a power-hungry, arrogant and unpredictable villain, and fears that Orik is the same. Maybe he’s becoming paranoid. Maybe there’s an interesting plot looming in the distance!
Maybe I’m deluding myself again.
After much deliberation, Eragon finally agrees. There’s some bad joke about long beards to show that Eragon and Orik are BFFS XD, no conflict, no hard feelings at all. They leave the forest of stone and ride together towards the end of the chapter through a narrow tunnel. Eragon wishes he were flying on Saphira. Sadly, he doesn’t have a claustrophobic panic attack.
4. Conclusion
All in all, unlike some other chapters, this one wasn’t a complete waste of space. There were some things I actually liked: the forest of stone, the dwarven tournament, Orik being surprisingly likeable and mostly reasonable, Eragon actually feeling lonely for more than one paragraph (if you count the way he feels when Orik and Hvedra are snogging with their noses). However, the good things are spoilt by Eragon being a jerk with a colonial mindset and no idea about politics, as well as the simple sad fact that dwarves will be completely irrelevant in the long run.
To cheer us up, I suggest a simple contest:
When they were ready to depart, Hvedra descended the broad stone steps from the entrance to the main hall of Bregan Hold, her dress trailing behind her, and presented to Orik an ivory horn clad with gold filigree around the mouth and bell. She said, “This was mine father’s when he rode with Grimstborith Aldhrim. I give it to you so you may remember me in the days to come.” She said more in Dwarvish, so softly Eragon cound not heat, and then she and Orik touched foreheads.
What did Hvedra whisper to Orik? My guess is either “Try leaving the dragon rider blindfolded at the edge of some precipice”, or “You’ve forgotten to zip your pants.”