(no subject)
I thought I did this chapter. Apparently not.
Oh well.
Such is life.
Our chapter begins with Eragon and Saphira bonding by the fact that Saphira has lost a scale and this is HORRIBLE. Saphira, as usual, is being very vain about this and so it’s nothing new. But it seems odd that this is the first time she’s lost a scale, especially after all the combat she’s been in. Perhaps she’s molting? Anyway, while this scene in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad. It’s, in a way, character development (possibly) for Saphira and shows her and Eragon’s bond with each other, the problem is that I’m 210 pages into the book and nothing has happened. They’re sitting around doing nothing and we’re being shown they’re sitting around doing nothing.
Now, I have recently read the Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson and his book is much longer than this one. By this time in his book one of the characters has had a Major Upheaval in her life. Several big plot points and mysteries were introduced. Things had been kicked into action.
Ah, but you might say, We’ve had action on our end with Roran! Yes. But, none of it really moves the plot forward. It could have ALL been cut out and so far I don’t think anything would have changed.
But they discuss the “object of her consternation” and who actually talks like that for a while with Saphira worrying that the hole, smaller than a thumb but unusually deep at an inch? That’s an odd scale! will cause harm to her. Perhaps she’s channeling Smaug and his missing scale, but I don’t think it was something like this on her nose. Hitting a chest spot is a lot easier than hitting the nose.
To pacify her Eragon puts a spell on the spot so it won’t get hurt. I always felt that this was a waste of power from some sort of blathering nonsense that Eragon said about his magic in some previous book that I don’t care to look up. She’s happy with it beyond the fact that she’s still missing a scale. Whoopie.
The camp has half-feral dogs in it.
That seems like bad for business.
STORY TIME. When my mom was in college in the 1970s there was a good sized earthquake. It was a 6.6. The Northridge Quake was a 6.7 for comparison. She says that after the quake there were dogs that got loose from their owner’s yards and got into packs. They roamed the area attacking students for food and being a general danger. They had to be caught and put down. These, I think would qualify as half-feral dogs. I think therefore that it would be too dangerous for the army to have around.
But they’re only there for the paragraph. I doubt they’ll be shown again. They’re there to show that they’re not caught in the lethargy of the camp and have been having trouble with chasing werecats. Hah. Hah. But, you know, these are sort of important problems. At least something that shouldn’t be just off-handedly mentioned for description.
Never mind that a good war camp shouldn’t even have those sort of things.
This is sort of thing that you find in badly run war camps.
Which says things.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Nasuada goes to Elva and asks for her help. She wants Elva to go and some how overcome Murtagh or to sneak into the city - sorry - surreptitiously gain entrance to the city. Because she doesn’t have SPIES! or SCOUTS! to do such things for her? Why didn’t she use them to sneak into the city!? Why does she have to use a little girl!? A girl who has routinely told them to fuck off. A little girl who’s not even three years old!?
Probably because only named characters can do Things.
Fortunately she told them to fuck off.
Which has made them wait.
There’s some musing about how Nasuada is worried about supplies for her army. They’ve only been using food they’ve gotten from cities they’ve captured, at least I think, and from Sudra and they’re, naturally, running out of food. I say naturally because they are in a siege and have been for a while now. Relatively. And you know, that’s a problem that happens with sieges. You start to run out of food and supplies. They’re going to have to start eating those dogs or rationing food. Though that doesn’t seem to be one of the possibilities. Because only bad people eat dogs? I don’t know. It’s giving Nasuada bags under her eyes that look like sad smiles.
Okay then.
That is an interesting simile and I’m not sure it’s one you want to be drawing or even making as it makes the reader try and picture that and distract them from the text.
The fact that Roran managed to break the siege means that he’s braver than Eragon.
Okay then.
Eragon runs across some dwarves whom he knows aren’t part of the Durgrimst Ingeitum (whatever those were, I could look it up but I don’t care) because they have beads in their beards. And he’s never seen any of the Durgrimist wearing them. Because he’s seen every single Durgrimst ever.
He walks some more. Runs into Katerina and has lunch with her.
Hurrah.
And then he reads.
And then he runs into Orik… Dwarf. And we get to the mudball. Ah. The delicious and wonderful mudball. The mudball is a method of meditation for the dwarves. It’s also an act of faith. “The act of making a stone out of earth is a sacred one. By it, we reaffirm our faith in Helzvog’s power and offer tribute to him” Which is interesting!
I will admit it’s an interesting idea.
It really is.
An exercise of meditation that helps confirm faith. It’s rather like prayer. And when you’re done you’re left with something beautiful that reminds you of your faith and the effort you’ve put into it.
And yet…
And yet…
It’s all about the timing.
Why is Orik making the mudball at this particular moment in time? Because he’s got nothing else to do with his life. If he wasn’t do this this he’d be sitting alone in his tent and watching his beard grow. Why would he be doing this? His men are ready for battle and there’s nothing for them to fight.
Because that’s the only thing he needs to do as King?
He doesn’t have to do … I don’t know … king stuff?
We get a little bit of this when he talks about how difficult it was to get the clans together to come out to the siege but apparently that doesn’t require any more work once they got there?
As Orik says, “It’s like trying to herd a flock of geese… They’re always trying to go off on their own, they make an obnoxious noise, and they’ll bite your hand first chance they get.”
But apparently these problems aren’t problems any more because he has nothing to do.
He doesn’t have to deal with trade issues, or read up on stuff that the old king had to deal with or do any sort of rulings for problems happening now… nope.
Doesn’t appear to be.
It’s an interesting contrast too, when you look at the fact that Nasuada was having trouble sleeping and worrying about all sorts of things earlier in the chapter but Orik just sits around twiddling his thumbs because he’s got nothing to do. In any other book I would say it’s because his advisors are keeping everything from him and are making all the decisions without him knowing about it. But that would be if this was a better written book.
Which it’s not.
It seems like the entire section was to show some Orik character growth and allow for some Foster Brother Bonding between him and Eragon as well as a moment of angst about how Brother’s are supposed to look out for each other but Murtagh doesn’t! Which isn’t a bad thing.
It would work better if most of the before stuff was cut out and the bit about how Orik was making his mudball because he was bored was changed to he was making his mudball to get away from all the Ruling Stuff. That way the same impact and weight would be given to the scene and yet Orik wouldn’t look like a bad King.
Oh well.
Such is life.
Our chapter begins with Eragon and Saphira bonding by the fact that Saphira has lost a scale and this is HORRIBLE. Saphira, as usual, is being very vain about this and so it’s nothing new. But it seems odd that this is the first time she’s lost a scale, especially after all the combat she’s been in. Perhaps she’s molting? Anyway, while this scene in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad. It’s, in a way, character development (possibly) for Saphira and shows her and Eragon’s bond with each other, the problem is that I’m 210 pages into the book and nothing has happened. They’re sitting around doing nothing and we’re being shown they’re sitting around doing nothing.
Now, I have recently read the Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson and his book is much longer than this one. By this time in his book one of the characters has had a Major Upheaval in her life. Several big plot points and mysteries were introduced. Things had been kicked into action.
Ah, but you might say, We’ve had action on our end with Roran! Yes. But, none of it really moves the plot forward. It could have ALL been cut out and so far I don’t think anything would have changed.
But they discuss the “object of her consternation” and who actually talks like that for a while with Saphira worrying that the hole, smaller than a thumb but unusually deep at an inch? That’s an odd scale! will cause harm to her. Perhaps she’s channeling Smaug and his missing scale, but I don’t think it was something like this on her nose. Hitting a chest spot is a lot easier than hitting the nose.
To pacify her Eragon puts a spell on the spot so it won’t get hurt. I always felt that this was a waste of power from some sort of blathering nonsense that Eragon said about his magic in some previous book that I don’t care to look up. She’s happy with it beyond the fact that she’s still missing a scale. Whoopie.
The camp has half-feral dogs in it.
That seems like bad for business.
STORY TIME. When my mom was in college in the 1970s there was a good sized earthquake. It was a 6.6. The Northridge Quake was a 6.7 for comparison. She says that after the quake there were dogs that got loose from their owner’s yards and got into packs. They roamed the area attacking students for food and being a general danger. They had to be caught and put down. These, I think would qualify as half-feral dogs. I think therefore that it would be too dangerous for the army to have around.
But they’re only there for the paragraph. I doubt they’ll be shown again. They’re there to show that they’re not caught in the lethargy of the camp and have been having trouble with chasing werecats. Hah. Hah. But, you know, these are sort of important problems. At least something that shouldn’t be just off-handedly mentioned for description.
Never mind that a good war camp shouldn’t even have those sort of things.
This is sort of thing that you find in badly run war camps.
Which says things.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Nasuada goes to Elva and asks for her help. She wants Elva to go and some how overcome Murtagh or to sneak into the city - sorry - surreptitiously gain entrance to the city. Because she doesn’t have SPIES! or SCOUTS! to do such things for her? Why didn’t she use them to sneak into the city!? Why does she have to use a little girl!? A girl who has routinely told them to fuck off. A little girl who’s not even three years old!?
Probably because only named characters can do Things.
Fortunately she told them to fuck off.
Which has made them wait.
There’s some musing about how Nasuada is worried about supplies for her army. They’ve only been using food they’ve gotten from cities they’ve captured, at least I think, and from Sudra and they’re, naturally, running out of food. I say naturally because they are in a siege and have been for a while now. Relatively. And you know, that’s a problem that happens with sieges. You start to run out of food and supplies. They’re going to have to start eating those dogs or rationing food. Though that doesn’t seem to be one of the possibilities. Because only bad people eat dogs? I don’t know. It’s giving Nasuada bags under her eyes that look like sad smiles.
Okay then.
That is an interesting simile and I’m not sure it’s one you want to be drawing or even making as it makes the reader try and picture that and distract them from the text.
The fact that Roran managed to break the siege means that he’s braver than Eragon.
Okay then.
Eragon runs across some dwarves whom he knows aren’t part of the Durgrimst Ingeitum (whatever those were, I could look it up but I don’t care) because they have beads in their beards. And he’s never seen any of the Durgrimist wearing them. Because he’s seen every single Durgrimst ever.
He walks some more. Runs into Katerina and has lunch with her.
Hurrah.
And then he reads.
And then he runs into Orik… Dwarf. And we get to the mudball. Ah. The delicious and wonderful mudball. The mudball is a method of meditation for the dwarves. It’s also an act of faith. “The act of making a stone out of earth is a sacred one. By it, we reaffirm our faith in Helzvog’s power and offer tribute to him” Which is interesting!
I will admit it’s an interesting idea.
It really is.
An exercise of meditation that helps confirm faith. It’s rather like prayer. And when you’re done you’re left with something beautiful that reminds you of your faith and the effort you’ve put into it.
And yet…
And yet…
It’s all about the timing.
Why is Orik making the mudball at this particular moment in time? Because he’s got nothing else to do with his life. If he wasn’t do this this he’d be sitting alone in his tent and watching his beard grow. Why would he be doing this? His men are ready for battle and there’s nothing for them to fight.
Because that’s the only thing he needs to do as King?
He doesn’t have to do … I don’t know … king stuff?
We get a little bit of this when he talks about how difficult it was to get the clans together to come out to the siege but apparently that doesn’t require any more work once they got there?
As Orik says, “It’s like trying to herd a flock of geese… They’re always trying to go off on their own, they make an obnoxious noise, and they’ll bite your hand first chance they get.”
But apparently these problems aren’t problems any more because he has nothing to do.
He doesn’t have to deal with trade issues, or read up on stuff that the old king had to deal with or do any sort of rulings for problems happening now… nope.
Doesn’t appear to be.
It’s an interesting contrast too, when you look at the fact that Nasuada was having trouble sleeping and worrying about all sorts of things earlier in the chapter but Orik just sits around twiddling his thumbs because he’s got nothing to do. In any other book I would say it’s because his advisors are keeping everything from him and are making all the decisions without him knowing about it. But that would be if this was a better written book.
Which it’s not.
It seems like the entire section was to show some Orik character growth and allow for some Foster Brother Bonding between him and Eragon as well as a moment of angst about how Brother’s are supposed to look out for each other but Murtagh doesn’t! Which isn’t a bad thing.
It would work better if most of the before stuff was cut out and the bit about how Orik was making his mudball because he was bored was changed to he was making his mudball to get away from all the Ruling Stuff. That way the same impact and weight would be given to the scene and yet Orik wouldn’t look like a bad King.