Straw Men and Bandages
Chapter Eight: The Price of Power.
Hey, so remember Emo-Chicken? Apparently Paolini does because Nasuada is finally taking off the bandages for those cuts. She hasn't looked at the cuts since they were first bandaged because they were so horrid. Since winning the Trial of the Long Knives, she had refused to look at her wounds; they had appeared so horrendous when fresh, she could not bear to see them again until they were nearly healed.
So basically it's been at least a month since Emo-Chicken happened. Since that time she's kept her arms bandaged. Which isn't healthy. She should be letting them out in the air - or so my grandfather the doctor said - as soon as they weren't doing anything nasty and likely to get infected. Keeping them bandaged like that is likely going to make it take even longer to heal.
This is also a bit of ridiculous vanity on her part. But I'll get to that in a moment.
We get a nice long paragraph on what the scars look like, because, you know, it's so important to know this.
The scars were asymmetrical: six lay across the belly of her left forearm, three on her right. Each of the scars was three to four inches long and straight as could be, save the bottom one on the right, where her self-control had faltered and the knife had swerved, carving a jagged line nearly twice the length of the others. The skin around the scars was pink and puckered, while the scars themselves were only a little bit lighter than the rest of her body, for which she was grateful. She had feared that they might end up white and silvery, which would have made them far more noticeable. The scars rose above the surface of her arm about a quarter of an inch, forming hard ridges of flesh that looked exactly as if smooth steel rods had been inserted underneath her skin
I have a pair of scars on my left knee. When I was seven I was play Duck-duck-goose at a park during summer camp and knelt down on a bottle cap. Boy did that hurt. I got to go to the emergency room. The Doctor's name was August which I thought was funny because I was born in August. I got a box of orange juice from the vending machine by accident because I thought it was chocolate milk. They used local anesthetic. Whenever I need to remember which side is my left, I remember where the scars are. They're pretty faded now, but you can still see them.
Aren't you glad you know that?
In any case, while they're not big scars, I was rather proud of them. I got injured and now I had a memory of those injuries. Nasuda injured herself to keep the leadership of her people (admittedly in the most stupid way possible). She should be happy to show the scars to all of them so that they know what she did for them.
And yet she looks at the scars with "ambivalence" and And yet now here she was, still young and still beautiful, and already bearing these nine large scars upon her forearms. I really don't see how the scars are going to take away from her beauty. And if she is courting/being courted by a guy who is turned off by the scars then she's probably better off without them. This disgust at having scars goes back to the continuing theme in the Inheritance books about how "beauty = good" and "scars/ugly = evil" . By having scars she has tainted herself and give in to the Dark Side. She is now a little bit evil.
This could be an interesting bit of development in the first place. If it were used properly and if ugliness and scars were actually used in world -acknowledged by the characters - to indicate real evil as opposed to something that the author puts in accidentally. I say accidentally because I don't believe Paolini really intentionally believes that he is making it so that good = pretty and bad = ugly.
Also, there's an interestingly odd jab at well, I guess 'tribal cultures' here. She talks about how she was taught about the customs of her people but never really did anything with them. She only observed some religious things and that irregularly. She mentions two rituals beyond the Trial of the Long Knives. There's the "Calling of Names" which is arduous and the "Drum Dance". First of all the names are seriously lacking in originally. It's like Leonard of Quirm named them. Second of all it has a very quaint tribal feel. There's no sophistication or meaning to the names. It's just something dull and I don't know what the words are. Not interesting, I suppose. Heh.
She regrets that she can't heal the scars away because that would make the trial forfeit and she regrets that men won't look at her arms. While she regretted that her arms were no longer smooth and round and would no longer attract the admiring glances of men,. First off I think that the arm fetish isn't as popular as Nasuada thinks. Second of all, as stated before, if the guy is worried about the scars on your arms then they're not worth it. Third of all, you're looking pretty shallow dwelling on the scars on your arms in the middle of a war like this.
But we move on from the arms... well almost. She asks Orrin (the king dude) what she thinks of them. He finds them unpleasant and she should cover up her arms because they're not proper for polite society. That's a bit of a random thing, because she's wearing half sleeves and considering her position I would think that she wouldn't be wearing clothes that aren't proper for polite society.
Defiantly she says that she won't cover her arms.
Orrin does nothing.
That was a total non-point of pointless non-conflict.
She muses on how Orrin has gotten more stoic and tired because of the war. And he might try to wrest the Varden away from her. Moreover, the change had made him more dangerous as a rival; in his current mood, she could quite easily imagine him attempting to displace her as leader of the Varden.
Her solution, marrying him, apparently. Because marrying someone will stop them from trying to take over your organization.
Could I be happy if I married him? she wondered. Orrin was not unpleasant to look at. His nose was high and thin, but his jaw was strong and his mouth was finely carved and expressive. Years of martial training had given him a pleasing build. That he was intelligent was without doubt, and for the most part his personality was agreeable. However, if he had not been the king of Surda, and if he had not posed such a great threat to her position and to the Varden’s independence, she knew that she would never have considered a match with him. Would he make a good father?
Also, what's stopping him from getting her knocked up and busy with babies while he runs everything? I mean really.
With brains like this, how exactly is she running the Varden with any competence? I'm not saying that Orrin will run the Varden better than her - but she could be a lot more competent than she currently is.
Then something magical and amazing happens. Logic inserts itself into the story.
No. Really.
It does.
Seriously.
I swear.
On my honor as a parakeet, I swear logic is inserted into the story.
Orrin put his hands on the narrow stone sill and leaned against it. Without looking at her, he said, “You have to break your pact with the Urgals.”
His statement took her aback. “And why is that?”
“Because they are hurting us. Men who would otherwise join us now curse us for allying ourselves with monsters and refuse to lay down their weapons when we arrive at their homes. Galbatorix’s resistance seems just and reasonable to them because of our concord with the Urgals. The common man does not understand why we joined with them. He does not know that Galbatorix used the Urgals himself, nor that Galbatorix tricked them into attacking Tronjheim under the command of a Shade. These are subtleties that you cannot explain to a frightened farmer. All he can comprehend is that the creatures he has feared and hated his whole life are marching toward his home, led by a huge, snarling dragon and a Rider who appears more elf than human.”
I've been saying this all along, haven't I? Well, at least since they've been having problems with the urgals getting accepted. Also, I don't think that the common man even knows or cares where Tronjheim is. So, I don't think they care that the urgals were tricked into attacking. I don't even know if they know what a Shade is. Eragon certainly didn't and he's the hero. I would assume then that the ordinary folks wouldn't know/care either then.
They just know that Urgals = bad and therefor the Varden + Urgals = Bad. Varden + Urgals + Scary Ass Dragon Breathing Flaming Doom Upon Everyone = OH GOD KILL IT DEAD PROTECT THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN BEFORE IT DEVOURS US AND LAY WASTE TO OUR HOMES AND EVERYTHING WE HOLD DEAR!!!!
So, yeah, Orrin is completely correct in his reasons for why they're having problems with the urgals.
Nasuada's reason for keeping them on is because she believes it will save more lives in the long run. Also that they need to tame them.
Saying you need to "tame: the proud/ primitive/ warrior race that used to be evil really doesn't sound good. It makes you sound like - well to put it bluntly - you're better than they are. They're not your equals. She did this with the were-cats too. Now this treating of non-human races as something lesser could be considered a character flaw, and indeed it is one, the problem is with it is two fold. One, I don't believe that Paolini intended for it to be one, or for her to come off as sounding racist. Second we're supposed to be considering Nasuada as a good and wise leader who knows what she's doing. Nothing here indicates that she's saying this sarcastically. In fact she's annoyed that the subject of breaking the pact with the urgals is even being brought up.
She doesn't want to break the pact - which is a good thing. But her language, the words she uses, aren't something from a leader that has been written to be looked up to. Everything she does is supposed to be good and wise. So what does that make this? I don't know.
*throws hands up*
Then she goes on about how, if the Elves and the Dragon Riders, who are so awesome and wise, decided that the urgals should live and not destroyed, could they mere mortals decided to destroy them? They knew it was wrong to kill all the urgals and so should Orrin. But I like how it's not "they shouldn't kill all the urgals because destroying another intelligent race is wrong" but instead "they shouldn't kill all the urgals because the Elves and dragon riders didn't do it and we should follow their example".
*bangs head against wall*
Orrin scorns this. Nasuada tries to figure out why he would hate the urgals so much. Her reason? Someone he knew personally got killed. Which is apparently true.
Someone Orrin was friends with and grew up with got killed by a random towns person who was screaming about how the urgals were evil and he'd never surrender. The NPC got killed by Orrin. But I suppose now since he was touched by the pain it becomes personal. Before hand it didn't matter what people thought about the urgals, I imagine. Or he just didn't care.
The subject is dropped once Orrin acknowledges the fact he was wrong about wanting to kill all the Urgals just because of one of his friends were killed. Which is true. However, Nasuada's reasons for not wanting to kill all the Urgals in the other hand... are pretty shaky.
She tries to take the moral high ground by saying that they may have killed her father but she still works with them. And that she'll do anything to help the Varden and flashes her arms.
Hah. There's a good your argument is invalid meme there.
They then change subjects to talking about how they didn't encounter any of the soldiers that feel no pain and Murtagh and Thorn. Then she asks how Orrin's experiment is going.
He went to bed instead of working on it.
What it is, I don't know.
I wonder if this is a red herring or a Chekhov's gun. Maybe it's a bit of character trait dropping. He has a hobby! Or something.
Then they come to another problem. That of what are they going to do with all the prisoners. See, they've got a lot of people that they can't exactly trust because they've had to swear service/loyalty to Galbatorix and thus can't be trusted. But they don't know who exactly are the ones who've been sworn by their true names to do this so they have to waste tons of resources keeping the people prisoners.
She's hoping the dwarf reinforcements will show up soon, she's annoyed that they had to go and elect a new king instead of appointing a regent during the war. Oh wait. They've been walking back to the Varden for two months. Which means it took them another two months to get there. And who knows how long to do the dwarf elect thing so Nasuda had those bandages on for at LEAST three months.
Seriously.
She's had those bandages on for over three months?
And she's just now taking them off?
Really?
And they didn't even have stitches.
I don't even...
GUH.
*sigh*
But I digress.
They're having problems with the people keeping because of that whole True Name Loyalty swear. And they keep on piling up with all the new people the capture. Orrin suggests by passing Dras-Leona because taking it will be a huge drain on their resources and points out another route. Nasuda dismisses it out of hand because Galbatorix will be able to send people after them and they'll have to fend off attacks from two sides.
Except that he'd have to march them there. You'd have warning and could set up defenses. You could lay traps. You could do hundreds of different things. He wouldn't send his entire troop after you from the city because some would need to stay to protect the city. There's a huge swath of land that you could take that would avoid it. Hell there's a huge swath of land you could have taken to avoid all of these cities. And yes I know I'm bringing logic into this.
So they're going to wait for the rest of their troops to finish a siege in another city and come up here.
I honestly have no idea if this is good or not.
Orrin says that they're counting on Galby's arrogance to keep him "in check" so they can attack him. Nasuada says that since they have the maguffin they'll have a chance and Orrin shouldn't worry.
I kind of like Orrin here. I'm sure I'll hate him later, but right now he's acting as a voice of reason, but is getting shot down. I think he's being played as the straw man. He's supposed to be giving the arguments and Nasuada is proving him wrong, thus letting us go on with the story, our - the reader's - concerns addressed. Unfortunately, for me at least, they have not been addressed. Instead I feel like Nasuda's acting like an idiot.
But what do I know?
Hey, so remember Emo-Chicken? Apparently Paolini does because Nasuada is finally taking off the bandages for those cuts. She hasn't looked at the cuts since they were first bandaged because they were so horrid. Since winning the Trial of the Long Knives, she had refused to look at her wounds; they had appeared so horrendous when fresh, she could not bear to see them again until they were nearly healed.
So basically it's been at least a month since Emo-Chicken happened. Since that time she's kept her arms bandaged. Which isn't healthy. She should be letting them out in the air - or so my grandfather the doctor said - as soon as they weren't doing anything nasty and likely to get infected. Keeping them bandaged like that is likely going to make it take even longer to heal.
This is also a bit of ridiculous vanity on her part. But I'll get to that in a moment.
We get a nice long paragraph on what the scars look like, because, you know, it's so important to know this.
The scars were asymmetrical: six lay across the belly of her left forearm, three on her right. Each of the scars was three to four inches long and straight as could be, save the bottom one on the right, where her self-control had faltered and the knife had swerved, carving a jagged line nearly twice the length of the others. The skin around the scars was pink and puckered, while the scars themselves were only a little bit lighter than the rest of her body, for which she was grateful. She had feared that they might end up white and silvery, which would have made them far more noticeable. The scars rose above the surface of her arm about a quarter of an inch, forming hard ridges of flesh that looked exactly as if smooth steel rods had been inserted underneath her skin
I have a pair of scars on my left knee. When I was seven I was play Duck-duck-goose at a park during summer camp and knelt down on a bottle cap. Boy did that hurt. I got to go to the emergency room. The Doctor's name was August which I thought was funny because I was born in August. I got a box of orange juice from the vending machine by accident because I thought it was chocolate milk. They used local anesthetic. Whenever I need to remember which side is my left, I remember where the scars are. They're pretty faded now, but you can still see them.
Aren't you glad you know that?
In any case, while they're not big scars, I was rather proud of them. I got injured and now I had a memory of those injuries. Nasuda injured herself to keep the leadership of her people (admittedly in the most stupid way possible). She should be happy to show the scars to all of them so that they know what she did for them.
And yet she looks at the scars with "ambivalence" and And yet now here she was, still young and still beautiful, and already bearing these nine large scars upon her forearms. I really don't see how the scars are going to take away from her beauty. And if she is courting/being courted by a guy who is turned off by the scars then she's probably better off without them. This disgust at having scars goes back to the continuing theme in the Inheritance books about how "beauty = good" and "scars/ugly = evil" . By having scars she has tainted herself and give in to the Dark Side. She is now a little bit evil.
This could be an interesting bit of development in the first place. If it were used properly and if ugliness and scars were actually used in world -acknowledged by the characters - to indicate real evil as opposed to something that the author puts in accidentally. I say accidentally because I don't believe Paolini really intentionally believes that he is making it so that good = pretty and bad = ugly.
Also, there's an interestingly odd jab at well, I guess 'tribal cultures' here. She talks about how she was taught about the customs of her people but never really did anything with them. She only observed some religious things and that irregularly. She mentions two rituals beyond the Trial of the Long Knives. There's the "Calling of Names" which is arduous and the "Drum Dance". First of all the names are seriously lacking in originally. It's like Leonard of Quirm named them. Second of all it has a very quaint tribal feel. There's no sophistication or meaning to the names. It's just something dull and I don't know what the words are. Not interesting, I suppose. Heh.
She regrets that she can't heal the scars away because that would make the trial forfeit and she regrets that men won't look at her arms. While she regretted that her arms were no longer smooth and round and would no longer attract the admiring glances of men,. First off I think that the arm fetish isn't as popular as Nasuada thinks. Second of all, as stated before, if the guy is worried about the scars on your arms then they're not worth it. Third of all, you're looking pretty shallow dwelling on the scars on your arms in the middle of a war like this.
But we move on from the arms... well almost. She asks Orrin (the king dude) what she thinks of them. He finds them unpleasant and she should cover up her arms because they're not proper for polite society. That's a bit of a random thing, because she's wearing half sleeves and considering her position I would think that she wouldn't be wearing clothes that aren't proper for polite society.
Defiantly she says that she won't cover her arms.
Orrin does nothing.
That was a total non-point of pointless non-conflict.
She muses on how Orrin has gotten more stoic and tired because of the war. And he might try to wrest the Varden away from her. Moreover, the change had made him more dangerous as a rival; in his current mood, she could quite easily imagine him attempting to displace her as leader of the Varden.
Her solution, marrying him, apparently. Because marrying someone will stop them from trying to take over your organization.
Could I be happy if I married him? she wondered. Orrin was not unpleasant to look at. His nose was high and thin, but his jaw was strong and his mouth was finely carved and expressive. Years of martial training had given him a pleasing build. That he was intelligent was without doubt, and for the most part his personality was agreeable. However, if he had not been the king of Surda, and if he had not posed such a great threat to her position and to the Varden’s independence, she knew that she would never have considered a match with him. Would he make a good father?
Also, what's stopping him from getting her knocked up and busy with babies while he runs everything? I mean really.
With brains like this, how exactly is she running the Varden with any competence? I'm not saying that Orrin will run the Varden better than her - but she could be a lot more competent than she currently is.
Then something magical and amazing happens. Logic inserts itself into the story.
No. Really.
It does.
Seriously.
I swear.
On my honor as a parakeet, I swear logic is inserted into the story.
Orrin put his hands on the narrow stone sill and leaned against it. Without looking at her, he said, “You have to break your pact with the Urgals.”
His statement took her aback. “And why is that?”
“Because they are hurting us. Men who would otherwise join us now curse us for allying ourselves with monsters and refuse to lay down their weapons when we arrive at their homes. Galbatorix’s resistance seems just and reasonable to them because of our concord with the Urgals. The common man does not understand why we joined with them. He does not know that Galbatorix used the Urgals himself, nor that Galbatorix tricked them into attacking Tronjheim under the command of a Shade. These are subtleties that you cannot explain to a frightened farmer. All he can comprehend is that the creatures he has feared and hated his whole life are marching toward his home, led by a huge, snarling dragon and a Rider who appears more elf than human.”
I've been saying this all along, haven't I? Well, at least since they've been having problems with the urgals getting accepted. Also, I don't think that the common man even knows or cares where Tronjheim is. So, I don't think they care that the urgals were tricked into attacking. I don't even know if they know what a Shade is. Eragon certainly didn't and he's the hero. I would assume then that the ordinary folks wouldn't know/care either then.
They just know that Urgals = bad and therefor the Varden + Urgals = Bad. Varden + Urgals + Scary Ass Dragon Breathing Flaming Doom Upon Everyone = OH GOD KILL IT DEAD PROTECT THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN BEFORE IT DEVOURS US AND LAY WASTE TO OUR HOMES AND EVERYTHING WE HOLD DEAR!!!!
So, yeah, Orrin is completely correct in his reasons for why they're having problems with the urgals.
Nasuada's reason for keeping them on is because she believes it will save more lives in the long run. Also that they need to tame them.
Saying you need to "tame: the proud/ primitive/ warrior race that used to be evil really doesn't sound good. It makes you sound like - well to put it bluntly - you're better than they are. They're not your equals. She did this with the were-cats too. Now this treating of non-human races as something lesser could be considered a character flaw, and indeed it is one, the problem is with it is two fold. One, I don't believe that Paolini intended for it to be one, or for her to come off as sounding racist. Second we're supposed to be considering Nasuada as a good and wise leader who knows what she's doing. Nothing here indicates that she's saying this sarcastically. In fact she's annoyed that the subject of breaking the pact with the urgals is even being brought up.
She doesn't want to break the pact - which is a good thing. But her language, the words she uses, aren't something from a leader that has been written to be looked up to. Everything she does is supposed to be good and wise. So what does that make this? I don't know.
*throws hands up*
Then she goes on about how, if the Elves and the Dragon Riders, who are so awesome and wise, decided that the urgals should live and not destroyed, could they mere mortals decided to destroy them? They knew it was wrong to kill all the urgals and so should Orrin. But I like how it's not "they shouldn't kill all the urgals because destroying another intelligent race is wrong" but instead "they shouldn't kill all the urgals because the Elves and dragon riders didn't do it and we should follow their example".
*bangs head against wall*
Orrin scorns this. Nasuada tries to figure out why he would hate the urgals so much. Her reason? Someone he knew personally got killed. Which is apparently true.
Someone Orrin was friends with and grew up with got killed by a random towns person who was screaming about how the urgals were evil and he'd never surrender. The NPC got killed by Orrin. But I suppose now since he was touched by the pain it becomes personal. Before hand it didn't matter what people thought about the urgals, I imagine. Or he just didn't care.
The subject is dropped once Orrin acknowledges the fact he was wrong about wanting to kill all the Urgals just because of one of his friends were killed. Which is true. However, Nasuada's reasons for not wanting to kill all the Urgals in the other hand... are pretty shaky.
She tries to take the moral high ground by saying that they may have killed her father but she still works with them. And that she'll do anything to help the Varden and flashes her arms.
Hah. There's a good your argument is invalid meme there.
They then change subjects to talking about how they didn't encounter any of the soldiers that feel no pain and Murtagh and Thorn. Then she asks how Orrin's experiment is going.
He went to bed instead of working on it.
What it is, I don't know.
I wonder if this is a red herring or a Chekhov's gun. Maybe it's a bit of character trait dropping. He has a hobby! Or something.
Then they come to another problem. That of what are they going to do with all the prisoners. See, they've got a lot of people that they can't exactly trust because they've had to swear service/loyalty to Galbatorix and thus can't be trusted. But they don't know who exactly are the ones who've been sworn by their true names to do this so they have to waste tons of resources keeping the people prisoners.
She's hoping the dwarf reinforcements will show up soon, she's annoyed that they had to go and elect a new king instead of appointing a regent during the war. Oh wait. They've been walking back to the Varden for two months. Which means it took them another two months to get there. And who knows how long to do the dwarf elect thing so Nasuda had those bandages on for at LEAST three months.
Seriously.
She's had those bandages on for over three months?
And she's just now taking them off?
Really?
And they didn't even have stitches.
I don't even...
GUH.
*sigh*
But I digress.
They're having problems with the people keeping because of that whole True Name Loyalty swear. And they keep on piling up with all the new people the capture. Orrin suggests by passing Dras-Leona because taking it will be a huge drain on their resources and points out another route. Nasuda dismisses it out of hand because Galbatorix will be able to send people after them and they'll have to fend off attacks from two sides.
Except that he'd have to march them there. You'd have warning and could set up defenses. You could lay traps. You could do hundreds of different things. He wouldn't send his entire troop after you from the city because some would need to stay to protect the city. There's a huge swath of land that you could take that would avoid it. Hell there's a huge swath of land you could have taken to avoid all of these cities. And yes I know I'm bringing logic into this.
So they're going to wait for the rest of their troops to finish a siege in another city and come up here.
I honestly have no idea if this is good or not.
Orrin says that they're counting on Galby's arrogance to keep him "in check" so they can attack him. Nasuada says that since they have the maguffin they'll have a chance and Orrin shouldn't worry.
I kind of like Orrin here. I'm sure I'll hate him later, but right now he's acting as a voice of reason, but is getting shot down. I think he's being played as the straw man. He's supposed to be giving the arguments and Nasuada is proving him wrong, thus letting us go on with the story, our - the reader's - concerns addressed. Unfortunately, for me at least, they have not been addressed. Instead I feel like Nasuda's acting like an idiot.
But what do I know?