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i_read_whatFumurti: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Eragon! Last time, Eragon, Brom, and Jeod managed to get into the castle and copy the records concerning Seithr oil, due to very lax security. For the reader post:
On part III of chapter 25, there’s an old but interesting thread on Eragon and Saphira’s relationship, courtesy of Maegwin.
On part IV of that chapter, we came to an idea for a way that religious oppression under Galbatorix could make sense: humans have developed a religion around dragons under the Riders (which there is some canonical support for), which Galbatorix then decided to persecute under his rule.
On part I of chapter 26, Kerlois notes in conservation with Maegwin that Angela’s parrot could just as well have been taxidermied; that would show her to be quirky, too, without any animal cruelty.
On the first part of this chapter, Wolfgoddess argued that I should not complain about the plants not fitting with North America, as Alagaësia is not supposed to be such a close analogue. Though I am not convinced by that argument, I do note that Paolini does not put in nearly as much effort in making the flora line up with that of North America as he does with the fauna, so I can’t complain about something he makes no effort to do. Let me remove that point, then:
Did Not Do the Research: 120 (-1)
Some housekeeping for counts
And let me add some points to this count to correct it, as there have been several miscounts so far:
Did Not Do the Research: 125 (+5)
Come to that, let me correct all the stuff I have when it’s still somewhat manageable:
A Better Commando Name: 31
All the Isms: 18
For the Good of the Cause: 38
Forgot the Narrator: 59
FYRP: 75
History-Rewriting Narrator: 8
Ill Logic: 94
IYES: 49
No Touchy: 10
Olympic Finals in Conclusion Leaping: 19
Petty Ain’t the Word for You: 84
That busywork has been done, at least, and I will make sure to keep a bit better track of the counts from now on. Now that I am busy… let me remove Like Coins Bounced Off a Drum and Thou Art Well Come, as we barely use those, and let me also strip a lot of points that we would not be giving from PPP:
PPP: 599
With that out of the way, let me get back to the reader post. Wolfgoddess further notes that Eragon shouldn’t be able to see the sea from Jeod’s house because of the city wall (and no houses are visible above the wall, which further confirms this).
Space-Time Hairball: 16
She also notes that using wax seals to date the records could be unreliable, as such seals could be damaged and/or removed more easily than, for example, ink. I agree with that, though there are more problems with this element than that. For one, if each record is to have a seal, that would require more setup than using a pen, and the records are also bulkier than they would be if ink were used; while those things don’t matter that much on their own, they’d certainly be an inconvenience with the number of records we’ve seen.
For another, if the seals are all to have a distinct date, that would mean that there would be hundreds of them (if seals are allowed to repeat per year), or, if that is not allowed, that a new seal is made each day or that the seal for the current day has its year changed. At that point, it would be much easier to just write the date down; if seals have to be used, making separate seals for each character that can occur in dates, and then putting the requisite ones together (which is basically movable type) would work… and in that case, the movable type would probably suffice to show that these seals are official. All in all, this is much too inefficient to work as Paolini presents it.
Cardboard Worldbuilding: 17
As for myself, after reading a bit of The Belgariad, I think it is more likely that Paolini copied the name “Fundor” from that series (where it is the name of the first king of Sendaria) than that it has anything to do with the Bay of Fundy. I will keep the points for that, as I find a name being plagiarised a good reason to call it bad. (And I can’t help but note that I seem to be the first one to pick up on this…)
I further found out that “pants” ultimately derives from the name of the character Pantalone, which is a bit of a problem when Paolini has said that he aimed not to go for such names. Still, I’d be willing to let it go, as “pants” is the usual term in American English, except that Paolini also uses “trousers” (which does not have this problem) several times, so he could have used it everywhere. Because of that:
Forgot the Narrator: 64 (+5)
Also, I happened upon Eragon describing Brom’s history at the beginning of the book with the word “requiem”; while that doesn’t necessarily have a religious meaning, it’s derived from the opening words of a mass, and so Eragon shouldn’t know about it.
Forgot the Narrator: 65
Since I can’t come up with anything else to mention, let’s resume!
We left off with Eragon and co. having arrived back at Jeod’s house, where Eragon just said that they’ve done it. Brom says that they need to figure out whether looking at the records was worth it (given that you supposedly have no idea at all of where to search, I’d say it is), and Jeod gets a “map of Alagaësia”, which he unrolls on the desk. We then get a rather extensive description of the map, which reminds me that we haven’t actually discussed the map itself so far… So, let me show it to you again:
Given how often I’ve referenced it, it will probably be no surprise that I like it overall and think it’s good at being a map, but I do want to nitpick a bit at it. First, I’d like it if labels like “Du Weldenvarden” and “Beor Mountains” had a less extensive white background, as they tend to obscure parts of the map near them. Then, I do like that the map uses a simple dot for villages, a rhombus for cities, and a star with a “C” for capitals; it’s good at drawing more attention toward the more important places. I’d like to see the label for Alagaësia more in the centre, rather than in the northwestern corner, though, and a label for the Empire would also be nice (since Surda does get one). Finally, as a bit of a nitpick, I think a solid border would be better for Surda, as a dashed border is often used for disputed areas, which Paolini does not want to show Surda as.
The thing that interests me most about the map is the compass rose in the left upper corner:
It is clearly labelled with the in-universe runes, which could be a cool idea, if it were not placed on a map that uses nothing but the Latin alphabet otherwise. If it were to be included, I’d like to see a bit more runes on the map (in the form of a commentary or such, not for any of the labels), though it’s such a minor element that I wouldn’t miss it if it weren’t there. Looking a bit closer, I note that three of the runes are also found among the ones the set Tolkien devised for his works, while the one for the eastern point is a mirrored version of one. To be somewhat fair, the sound values do not match precisely (the characters would read “j”, “e”, “ng”, and “z”), though that’s quite undone by the fact that the rune for the northern point is, as far as I can tell, original to Tolkien. Given that, I’m quite willing to assume that Paolini copied all these runes from Tolkien, which once again amounts to plagiarism.
That aside, I find the compass rose looks bad in a way that the rest of the map does not: the southern point is notably longer than the rest for no clear reason, the letters have periods after them when compass roses generally do not have those, and the western point has two further periods, also for no clear reason. Overall, I don’t think this adds anything to the map, even without the plagiarism (which is especially gratuitous here, as this is just an ornament for the map).
PPP: 600
One other thing I find worth noting is the signature on the bottom of the map:
Given that Paolini created this version of the map in 2001, he would have had it on hand for the revision of the self-published edition, and so, he could certainly have fixed the geographical errors we have seen so far.
Then, I want to do one other thing with the map: talk about those names that are featured on it, but haven’t yet been used in any of Paolini’s books, as there is no guarantee that they’ll show up eventually, and I wouldn’t want them to go undiscussed. Going from west to east, they are:
- Melian, which is a village next to a forest somewhere in the south of the Empire. Given that it’s rather out of the way, and we never hear about it having importance, I don’t think it should have been included on the map. As for the name, it turns out to have been copied from a Tolkien character; I wouldn’t want to put my plagiarism on something as visible as the map if I were Paolini! (And I note that both this name and “Fundor” don’t have anything to do with the places they’re applied to, which does make me wonder why he bothered to use those at all… Maybe he liked them enough not to care about where he used them in his own work, but it’s still really silly that a random village is called “Melian”.)
A Better Commando Name: 32
PPP: 601
- Lithgow, a city in the eastern part of Surda; the name is a bit weird for an English one, but not enough for me to complain about it.
- Marna, a mountain to the east of Lake Isenstar; the name is quite fine, and I can see it be relevant to the book, given that we’ll be visiting Gil’ead later on (maybe it was in an earlier draft?).
- Kirtan, a city near Du Weldenvarden’s fringe north of the Hadarac Desert; I don’t have anything to note there.
- Buragh, a city in the north-central part of the Beor Mountains, about which I also don’t have anything to say.
- Ília Fëon, a city in the south-eastern part of Du Weldenvarden; according to the Ancient Language dictionary on Paolini’s website, the name means “flower palace”, which is nice to be able to find out (and I see this does have the noun-determiner order that we didn’t see with “Du Silbena Datia”; I guess Paolini didn’t have that sorted out by this point?).
- Galfni, a city in the far south-east of the Beor Mountains; this name is also fine. I do wonder if anyone lives there, considering that it’s in a corner of the Beors and has some especially high mountains around it…
That’s all I had to say on the map, so let’s have a look at Eragon’s description of it. He first notes the general features of the map: the ocean on the left side, which “extend[s] to the unknown west”; the Spine along the coast, which he calls “an immense length of mountains”; the Hadarac Desert in the middle; and the east end being blank. Why would the Hadarac Desert feature in the middle of the map when it’s mostly empty and when the eastern end is blank? I know it’s most probably because Paolini took the map he drew as basis for this one and just said the eastern end is blank, but when he does so, the focus of the map should shift to the west, and the Hadarac should be on the right side. As for the map being “blank” to the east, we’ll soon see that it apparently has a lot of empty space on the right, which is a rather silly thing to do here; simply having the map cut off after the Hadarac would convey the same information, after all, and so the map could either be smaller, or have a larger scale.
Ill Logic: 95 (we’ll be getting a lot of that with this map…)
For the rest of this description, I wouldn’t call the Spine “immense” in length myself, as the portion on the map is about 600 kilometres (370 miles) in length, which isn’t exactly long as far as mountain ranges go. Then again, they seem to be the longest range in Alagaësia, so I don’t mind Eragon saying this. I do wonder a bit about the region east of the Hadarac not being mapped; the Riders have certainly explored it, so I could expect it to have appeared on maps during their rule, in which case that information should be available for current maps. It could be that it wasn’t a popular enough subject to be shown on maps much, and so the information was lost, but I still doubt that.
Eragon now tells us that the Varden are hiding “[s]omewhere in that void” (to the east of the Hadarac). This is probably supposed to be a misdirection for the reader, as the Varden will turn out not to be there; it does make some kind of sense: if the Varden are beyond the Hadarac Desert, Galbatorix can’t easily get at them, so that’s why they’ve been able to attack the Empire for so long. The problem is that this would hinder the Varden just as much as Galbatorix; anyone wanting to get to the Empire from the Varden and vice versa would need to make a large detour around the Hadarac Desert, which would mean that the Varden couldn’t react as fast to new developments as the Empire. It’d also be comparatively easy to cut off their routes into the Empire; the northern route could be blocked in the land to the east of Lake Isenstar (though the Hadarac is far enough away that this would require a lot of troops or some physical barrier), and the southern route could be blocked at the first point where the Beor Mountains come near the Hadarac Desert (this seems to form a real bottleneck). Here’s a diagram explaining what I mean:
( 
The red arrows are the routes the Varden could take, and the green stripes the points where the Empire could block them.)
Beyond that, Du Weldenvarden and the Beor Mountains would also provide good hiding places for the Varden, while not forcing them to travel so far, so there’s no reason why they can’t be there instead. (And I note that there’s clearly a lot of Varden inside the Empire too, if they manage to be a consistent nuisance to the whole of it.) So this is a rather silly idea to have Eragon propose.
Even if I were to ignore those problems, this still wouldn’t work very well, as we’ve heard Brom and Jeod talk about what’s clearly the Varden a few chapters ago, and only Surda and the dwarves came up in that conversation. (And yes, the dwarves could be living beyond the Hadarac Desert, but that just raises the question of how Galbatorix could force them to go into hiding.) I think that Paolini put this in here because he though that was too obvious and he wanted to set up a Red Herring for where the Varden could be, but it’s just not believable, and he’d have done better to leave it alone.
Resuming with Eragon’s description of the map… he describes Surda, on the south end of the map, as a “small country that ha[s] seceded from the Empire after the Riders’ fall”. He says that he’s been told it “secretly support[s] the Varden”. That’s all accurate, though I’d really like to know who has told him that Surda supports the Varden; from the phrasing, it seems like he picked it up from locals or traders in Carvahall, in which case it’s really not much of a secret! Of course, I’d hardly expect it to be a secret; the Varden have to be supported by someone to be able to fight the Empire as consistently as they do, and since the elves and dwarves are supposed not to interact with anyone, and the Empire isn’t supporting them, it has to be Surda. They can certainly not admit that they support the Varden, but it would be clear that they are actually doing so.
Eragon goes on to describe a mountain range “labeled Beor Mountains”, which lies “[n]ear Surda’s eastern border”. Hmm, I’d like it if that label were distinguished from the usual text, with quotation marks or something.
HISC: The self-published edition uses italics for this label, which I find quite acceptable, and it is one use of italics that should not have been removed during editing.
PPP: 602
Fumurti: Eragon says that he has heard of the mountains in “many stories”, and they are supposed to be “ten times the height of the Spine”, which he “privately” believes to be exaggerated.
HISC: In the self-published edition, Eragon says they are supposed to be the highest mountains of Alagaësia, though it is “impossible to tell from the map” if that is true. I would expect that to be clear on a good map (and how it is so hard to tell, exactly? Are the Spine and the Beors drawn at the same size?), which this is supposed to be, and the map Paolini drew for this book does make clear that the Beors are much higher, so I suppose this was removed because it was no longer relevant. The replacement, incidentally, is a modified version of something that was in chapter two of the self-published edition, where Eragon informed us of the Beor Mountains. Back there, they were supposed to be “more than ten times the height of any other mountain”; do not mind the greater specificity. Overall, this is a quite good edit, and I like that Paolini remembered to move in a relevant line from another part of the book.
Fumurti: For my part, I wonder why Eragon “privately” believes the height of the Beors is exaggerated; he’s not exactly one to keep his opinions to himself, after all, and I don’t think he’d get much complaints about saying the height of the Beors is exaggerated (and even in the original context, it doesn’t fit well, as we see him arguing with the traders in the next chapter). By the way, I’m fairly certain that he’s right in thinking so, but we’ll see that when we can see the Beors for ourselves. Eragon now notes the map is empty east of the Beors (which confirms that there is apparently a blank strip on the right edge), and goes on to describe the islands he can see on the map.
He first notes a group of five islands “off the coast of Surda”: “Nía, Parlim, Uden, Illium, and Beirland”. The smallest of these, Nía, is nothing but “an outcropping of rock”, while the largest, Beirland, has a “small town”. Let’s see… Most of the names are quite fine, but “Illium” sounds much too Latin for my taste.
A Better Commando Name: 33
Then, if Nía really was just “an outcropping of rock”, I highly doubt it would be considered an island, or that it would be featured on a map like this (on one specifically of the island group, maybe, but not one of Alagaësia!). I further note that it has a clear outline on the map, which means that it needs to be at least several kilometres in size… so all of this really doesn’t support the idea that Nía is just some rocks.
Ill Logic: 96 (because this doesn’t add up)
PPP: 603 (for contradicting the map)
Further, these islands really don’t lie “off the coast of Surda”. Let me illustrate with an image:
The vertical green line here represents what could be a dividing line between the coastal waters of the Empire and those of Surda (for which I’ve simply extended the border from the estuary of the Jiet); this clearly shows that all five of the islands are in the Empire’s coastal waters. Further, which I haven’t bothered to indicate here because of how obvious it is, the closest coast for each of the islands is the Empire’s, not Surda’s, so I’d say it’s quite clear that they indeed lie off the coast of the Empire, not of Surda. Finally, just to illustrate how ridiculous this claim is, the area under the horizontal yellow line shows the farthest water that I could possibly say lies “off the coast of Surda” (that is, the furthest north you can get by sailing straight from Surda’s coast without hitting the Empire). Even using that area, most of Beirland and all of Nía fall outside of it!
I suppose Paolini could have planned these islands off Surda’s coast in the self-published edition, but once he’d drawn the map, he should have followed its lead, and he certainly should have had the map on hand when revising this scene, but apparently he didn’t think of that.
Space-Time Hairball: 17
Finally, why does Eragon bother to describe these islands in such detail? Yes, they’re on the map, and I could see him be curious enough to have a look, so I don’t mind a description… but they’re not in the least relevant to their current quest (or in general), so I’m not seeing why we should care.
Eragon now notes a “jagged island” called Sharktooth, which lies near Teirm. Looking at the map, it does look like a shark’s tooth, so the name is appropriate. As with the southern islands, I do have to wonder why it’s being noted, especially since this island will never come up again at all… I suppose it’s to set up the next island in the row, about which he’ll have more to say, or to let Eragon look around the map in a fluent way, not that that’s necessary in any way.
So then we get to the final island, which lies “high to the north”, and is “immense and shaped like a knobby hand”. Checking with the map, it does look like that, and it’s indeed near the north edge of the map (though not that far, as its southern parts are at the same latitude as Carvahall), but I’m not sure if I’d call it “immense”? Let’s see… Drawing a circle with roughly the same size and counting rounding up, as the circle is a bit too small, gives me a figure of about 14,000 km2 (5400 mi2); that would put it at 61st place qua area on Earth, I see, and it would be about as large as Flores, for comparison. That’s quite a bit larger than I’d thought it would be, and it’s clearly the largest island in Alagaësia (which means the Riders would have had quite some space at their disposal there), so I do think the description is appropriate.
This island, which Eragon knows the name of without having to look, is of course “Vroengard”, the “ancestral home of the Riders”. He tells us that it was once “a place of glory”, but now it is a “looted shell haunted by strange beasts”, and in the centre of the island lies the “abandoned city” Doru Araeba (which once again has its spelling fixed here).
Hmm, this doesn’t really do it for me, mostly because we barely know anything about Vroengard beyond that it was the home of the Riders and was apparently a “place of glory”. I suppose it’s sad that Doru Araeba is abandoned and that Vroengard has been looted and is now just a “shell” of what it was, but given that I don’t know what it was like before the Riders were destroyed, it’s rather hard for me to care much about this. I can see why Eragon would care—this was the home of the Riders, who has has been taught were very good, after all—but even then, I wouldn’t expect him to care so much about Vroengard specifically. Because of that, such descriptions as “a looted shell” also don’t do much for me, and I just find Eragon saying he knows Vroengard’s name without looking silly rather than dramatic; he only needs to have remembered where Vroengard lies to know that, after all (and I’m sure he could do that with such places as Carvahall or even the Ninor River, so Vroengard isn’t that special in this regard).
Looking at this further… how does Eragon know that Vroengard’s been looted and that it’s now “haunted by strange beasts”? Brom must have told him, and I can see Brom pick up the former from people who were there after the final battle, but people must have gone to Vroengard relatively recently to know about those “strange beasts”, which seems somewhat unlikely to me. Yes, Vroengard can be reached from the mainland by boat, but I just don’t think many people would bother going there when it’s been abandoned for quite some while (and when, as it will turn out, going there is actively dangerous). I guess that some people have gone there and that they told their stories enough when they got back (even though their most likely return point is Narda, which is quite small and out of the way) that Brom eventually heard of it, and remembered it long enough to tell to Eragon… but I can’t help but feel that this is Paolini giving Eragon his own knowledge, given that it is rather unlikely that Brom would know.
Forgot the Narrator: 66
I have much the same reservation about Vroengard supposedly having been looted; dragons can’t can’t carry a lot of loot, so any large-scale looting would have to be done using boats. That’s certainly possible, but it seems rather unlikely to me that inhabitants of Narda (or the coast around it) would have bothered with that, or that Galbatorix and/or the Forsworn would have set up an operation to loot Vroengard (especially since capturing Ilirea already gave him some of the Riders’ resources). It’s not impossible by any means, but it’s just very implausible, and so I’m inclined not to believe it.
For something else, Vroengard actually isn’t the “ancestral home” of the Riders: in Brom’s story at the beginning of the book, he mentioned that they “eventually took Vroengard for their home”, and the following books will make very clear that the Riders only set up on Vroengard more than a millennium after they came into existence.
Continuity Contradictions: 3 (I hadn’t thought to spot something this blatant in the very first book!)
Well, Eragon’s next thing to note on the map is Carvahall, which is visible as a “small dot” at the “top of Palancar Valley”. Given that the traders pass through there, I suppose it could be relevant for a map, especially if it’s focussed on trade, so I’ll let this pass, however unlikely it seems to me. That aside, I note that Eragon doesn’t have any reaction to seeing his home village again, which I’d really expect to see, especially when he’s sought it out on the map. It would be a good moment for some homesickness, but apparently Paolini didn’t feel like giving Eragon that? I do find it a bit of a pity.
Eragon then goes on to describe Du Weldenvarden, which lies “[l]evel with Carvahall, but across the plains”. Hmm, looking at the map, that’s not exactly true:
Yes, Carvahall does lie at the same latitude as Du Weldenvarden, but going directly east (as the yellow horizontal line indicates) toward from Carvahall would bring you across a spur of the Spine, the southernmost part of the Bay of Fundor, and then a strip of land we don’t know anything about, but which I think wouldn’t be part of the plains, given its different environment. So this claim isn’t true, which Eragon should know since he went south to reach the plains, and which Paolini should know because he had the map to refer to.
Space-Time Hairball: 18
Well, Eragon describes the forest as “sprawling”, and notes that its eastern end is “unmapped”, as with the Beors. Parts of its “western edge” have apparently been settled, but its heart “[lies] mysterious and unexplored”. Du Weldenvarden is wilder than the Spine, he says, as “the few who brave[] its depths often [come] back raving mad, or not at all”. I think I’ll have a bit to say about this, too! Let me first note that this is the third time Paolini’s noted that the east of the map is empty, which I find more than a little redundant.
PPP: 604
Then, we have humans supposedly settling parts of the western edge of Du Weldenvarden, which I think the elves would do their best to discourage, and which also seems unlikely for the humans to do, as I don’t see what they’d get out of living there (maybe getting wood, but that wouldn’t require them to live in the forest). Paolini rightly ignores this in the later books, so I won’t complain too much, but I’ll still give a point:
Cardboard Worldbuilding: 18
Finally, we have people disappearing and going mad if they go too deep into Du Weldenvarden. I’m unsurprised by the former: part of it could be the elves keeping people from leaving again (either by killing them or keeping them captive), because they wouldn’t want their hiding place to become common knowledge in the Empire, and another part is probably people getting lost in a huge forest without known landmarks and eventually dying.
I am rather surprised by the latter, though; given that we don’t learn about anything in Du Weldenvarden that could drive people mad like this, that means that the elves must have been driving explorers mad and letting them go again. I really can’t see what they’d be getting out of this; the best I can think of is revenge on those people for daring to intrude on Du Weldenvarden, but that wouldn’t explain why the elves would let them go, as people outside of Du Weldenvarden clearly don’t understand that it is revenge, which would make it rather pointless. I can see why Paolini put this in, as it does make Du Weldenvarden sound wilder than the Spine, but it doesn’t make sense unless there’s something actively hostile to humans in there, which the elves don’t seem to be at this point. Because of that, I also can’t really see why Paolini thought this was a good idea; surely he must have known by this point that this would make the elves look rather bloodthirsty?
HISC: If he did not when first writing this, he would have by the end of the book, so he could have fixed it when revising for the newer edition.
Fumurti: Indeed… and so I’m not feeling charitable toward this.
Cardboard Worldbuilding: 19
Now that Du Weldenvarden has been described, Eragon looks at Urû’baen “in the center of the Empire”. It does lie centrally qua latitude, but qua longitude, there’s clearly more of the Empire to the west of Urû’baen than to the east (and Gil’ead is the only city farther to the east on the map), so I wouldn’t say it lies in the centre of the Empire. A place like Dras-Leona would be a considerably better fit for that.
Space-Time Hairball: 19
Anyway, Eragon shivers at the sight, and tells us that Galbatorix rules from there “with his black dragon, Shruikan, by his side”. Yes, Galbatorix is the greatest threat to Eragon, but I do find it a bit silly that he shivers at simply seeing the capital on a map, as Galbatorix (and Shruikan, for that matter) really isn’t that scary. In any case, the scene of Eragon looking at the map ends here.
So what did I find of this scene? I would have liked not to see glaring errors in the description of the map (because Paolini apparently didn’t bother to cross-check with the map he drew!), and I’d especially like seeing Eragon react more to what he sees on the map. As it is, he only has any reaction to the Beor Mountains, Vroengard, and Urû’baen, and though he tells us about Surda and Du Weldenvarden, he doesn’t think anything about those places, which is a lost opportunity; this is his first time looking at such a map, after all, so I’d quite like to see his thoughts on all the new stuff he discovers!
That aside, I can see why Paolini might put a scene like this in; readers can’t be expected to check out the map thoroughly, and so guiding them through the map (and giving information about certain places) can help them remember places that will become relevant later. The problem is that, while places like the Surda and Du Weldenvarden are useful to know about, Paolini also spends quite a bit of time on the islands of Alagaësia, most of which will never be relevant, while the others will only be relevant in later books. Because of this, this isn’t nearly as effective at guiding people through the map as it could be, and the part about the islands is quite unnecessary.
Beyond the problems with the scene itself, I don’t like its placement. Eragon and co. have just managed to get the information about the Seithr oil that they’ve been after for quite a while and have put a lot of effort in getting to, and they can finally deduce where the Ra’zac are stationed… and then we spend 315 words describing a map that we could look at for ourselves anyway. Given how long we’ve built up to this moment, I really don’t want to wait any longer for it than necessary, and given that this scene could easily have taken place in the previous chapters, it should have been put there, not here.
PPP: 605
In any case, let me do what I wished for and actually go on with the following scene! It begins with Eragon putting his finger on Urû’baen and noting that the Ra’zac are sure to have a “hiding place” there. Brom says that he should hope it isn’t “their only sanctuary”, because Eragon will “never get near them” if that’s the case, after which we get a mention of Brom smoothing the map out. That would be the case if they stayed in Urû’baen from now on, but I don’t see why Galbatorix wouldn’t send them out on missions again; Eragon and co. don’t pose that big of a threat to them if they’re smart about what they’re doing (and they can call on the Lethrblakya for backup), and there’s probably plenty for them to do. Because of that, Eragon and co. should be able to intercept the Ra’zac on a mission, though it would take some work to find out where they are going and to stay unnoticed by the Ra’zac. So the situation wouldn’t be as hopeless as Brom is making it out to be if Urû’baen really was their only base (and if it was, that’s something to deal with, instead of hoping that it isn’t really true, Brom).
Beyond that, I’m bothered by Urû’baen being referred to as a “hiding place” and “sanctuary” for the Ra’zac. Why would they need such protection when they’re agents of Galbatorix, and when they seemingly manage their missions quite well without any need for protection? I guess the idea is that they’re hated enough to need special protection from Galbatorix? Whatever the reason, it’s silly, and it’s also more of this:
History-Rewriting Narrator: 9
Jeod now takes out the parchment he wrote the shipments of Seithr oil on, and says that, from what he remembers seeing in the records, Seithr oil has been shipped to “every major city in the Empire” in the past five years. As far as he knows, each shipment could have been sent to a “wealthy jeweler[]”, so he isn’t sure how they can narrow the list down “without more information”. I don’t know how you could do that either, but it helps that you have a map, along with the actual entries you wrote down; you can also split these entries out by the city they were destined for, and then make a timeline of when Seithr oil was shipped to each city in the past five years. In that way, you can see patterns in the delivery of Seithr oil to each city, and pick out cities that receive more oil than expected, or unusual delivery schedules and such, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find some promising candidates.
(By the way, Seithr oil not working as supposed makes it unlikely that all (or even most) of these requests could be from jewellers; after a while, they’d notice that their pearls are actually dissolving and stop ordering the oil.)
HISC: In the self-published edition, Brom now takes the parchment and comes up with your suggestion, which Jeod then writes out on “a piece of vellum” (which would be rather expensive, so why is Jeod writing on it so casually?). He says that two cases of Seithr oil have been sent to Gil’ead in the past five years, that it has been the same for Ceunon, except that the shipments “were every ten months”, and that there have been three shipments to Urû’baen. I am not fully sure how often Ceunon has received Seithr oil; I can read it as meaning that the two shipments were ten months apart, or that Ceunon has had six shipments in the last five years.
Fumurti: Whatever the exact number is, Ceunon’s rather isolated (as it is the northernmost city of the Empire), so it wouldn’t make for a good base for the Ra’zac. Gil’ead and Urû’baen would be better bases, but two and three shipments in five years seems somewhat little for the Ra’zac, so I also doubt they actually use those cities. So just from this amount of information, we can already rule out the cities in the north and east of the Empire!
HISC: Yes, that is indeed somewhat impressive. Jeod now says that it will do them little good if the Ra’zac are in Urû’baen (which is still not a reason to ignore the possibility), and Eragon asks about what if the oil is sent there anyway. He says that the oil might be shipped there, converted to its flesh-eating form, and then sent to the Ra’zac’s base… or the Ra’zac might only be given it in Urû’baen. Brom says it makes no sense for the Empire to do this, because it would cost twice as much as it would otherwise (not that I think that would be too much of a problem), and it would apparently be too “obvious”.
This bit has rightly been removed; while it is nice to see some examples of how much shipments have gone to which cities, Eragon asking about Urû’baen serves no purpose at all, and it breaks the flow of the scene while not giving us much information to justify that.
Fumurti: One negative effect of this change, though, is that Jeod doesn’t end up writing down the shipments per city, and that no one even suggests it, even though it’s a quite obvious and helpful course of action… which doesn’t make them look especially competent.
Ill Logic: 97
PPP: 606 (you do need to be aware of just what you’re cutting out, Paolini)
Brom now says that they can probably “eliminate some cities”, as the Ra’zac need to travel wherever Galbatorix sends them, and he’s sure he “keeps them busy”. So if they’re expected to “go anywhere at anytime”, the only place they can be expected to stay is a “crossroads” from where they can easily reach all of the Empire. Brom now gets excited and paces around the room. He goes on to say that the crossroads needs to be large enough to make the Ra’zac “inconspicuous”, and it needs to have enough trade to ensure unusual requests, like “special food for their mounts”, will go unnoticed.
PPP: 607 (“at anytime” should be “at any time”)
I fully agree with the first part of Brom’s deduction (though I do wonder just how busy Galbatorix keeps the Ra’zac, given how long they took to get back from Carvahall), and the second part makes sense if you accept that the Ra’zac need to hide… which I don’t, so that’s definitely a problem for this scene. In fact, since Kerlois already said a bit about that earlier on, let me give a full explanation of why this doesn’t make sense. As a note, since the reasoning for why the Ra’zac have to hide isn’t stated outright, I’ll discuss the best arguments I could come up with myself.
The first argument, and the one that Eragon and co. would most likely use, is that Galbatorix tries to keep the Ra’zac secret because the people of the Empire would be unhappy to hear he uses them. That makes some sense, as the Ra’zac clearly don’t mind using brutal methods to get what they want, and, since they’re Galbatorix’s “personal dragon hunters”, he probably wouldn’t place any restrictions on what they’re allowed to do, so they are probably worse than his other agents in that regard. Still, why would Galbatorix care about people being unhappy about how he uses them? He is a king, after all, so he doesn’t have to justify how he uses the Ra’zac, and if enough people are unhappy with this to cause trouble, he can just suppress it, which we’re supposed to believe he’s willing and able to do. That’s a problem with all these cases of “the Empire needs to hide what they’re doing”, in fact; that would fit with a more modern authoritarian state that’s at least pretending to be democratic… but Galbatorix is an Evil King, so why would he bother keeping his “secret police” secret? It’s a mindset that doesn’t fit the setting at all.
Anyway, let me go to a second argument: people might decided to take matters in their own hands and try to kill the Ra’zac (like Eragon does), so it’s too dangerous to let the Ra’zac operate in the open. This one falls apart pretty quickly; as Brom pointed out, they’re under Galbatorix’s protection, so most people would hesitate to do this for fear of the consequences, and they’re far from helpless themselves. According to Brom, they’ve got superhuman powers, after all (and we’ll see those in action later on, too), and they can paralyse people with their breath, so I doubt most people would stand a chance against them, let alone be able to endanger them.
Then I have a final argument: by keeping the Ra’zac secret, their targets will have a harder time knowing that they’re being sought, which will help them in their work. I think that could work, though the effect would wear off after a time, as the Varden, for one, could update each other about this new threat.
This leads me to two further problems with keeping the Ra’zac secret. The first is that they don’t make any effort to keep secret themselves; on their mission to capture Eragon, they drew quite a bit of unnecessary attention by blowing up the farm, and by the way they got horses in Therinsford (and maybe also by the way they passed Yazuac and Daret), and in the next book, we will see much more blatant examples of this. The second is that they don’t seem to be very known (as Brom implied earlier, and we won’t see common people be familiar with them at any point) even though they don’t make any effort to hide; because of that, efforts to keep them secret would be pointless, as they are already secret!
History-Rewriting Narrator: 10 (there’s no reason at all that the Ra’zac need to hide)
Even if I did accept that they needed to hide, though, I can see holes in Brom’s reasoning. The main one is that hiding the base of the Ra’zac won’t accomplish much in itself; if the base is secure enough (which it should be), people wouldn’t be able to get in or see much of what they’re doing, which would remove most of the threat to them. Yes, people might be able to see which way they’re going when they leave (which would give them a slight disadvantage at surprising their targets), but the Ra’zac should be quite able to foil such attempts.
Then… even if they kept their requests inconspicuous simply by hiding them among many others, they could still be found in the records, as Eragon and co. have just done, and someone trying to find the Ra’zac could still find the people who worked with the delivery (and if it’s unusual, they’d probably remember it well, too). A solution to that would be to have an Empire agent deliver all the necessary items, so no one else is involved, but as we will see, that is not what is happening.
Finally, while the Ra’zac can keep inconspicuous in a big city, the Lethrblakya are quite noticeable given their size, and they’d presumably fly to and from the base relatively often. Even if they were hidden from view with magic or only went out at night, there would still be evidence pointing to them (like the claw marks that Eragon and co. saw). This would be more noticeable the larger the city they’ve chosen as base is, which would make a smaller base more convenient!
Ill Logic: 98
Setting all of my gripes aside, I do agree with Brom’s conclusion. Being around a large city makes it easier for the Ra’zac to get their supplies and their assignments, it is easier to get around without the Lethrblakya, it’s easier to find information that could help with their assignment. Given that they don’t have a good reason not to do this, that’s indeed where I’d expect their base to be.
Returning to the book… Jeod agrees with Brom and says that they can ignore “most of the cities in the north” because of these conditions. The only large cities are Teirm, Gil’ead, and Ceunon. He “know[s] they’re not in Teirm”, and he doubts the oil has been “shipped farther up the coast” to Narda, as it is too small. Ceunon is further too isolated, so Gil’ead is the only likely base.
Hmm, given that neither Brom’s initial considerations nor what Jeod is doing now require any actual data, Eragon and co. could have done this at any point after they lost the Ra’zac’s trail (as I showed back when that happened). Of course, they would have no way of verifying their answer, and just travelling to the city they think it is and hoping that the Ra’zac are there would be quite foolish, so even if they had done so back then, a diversion to check if they’re really right would have been necessary. Still, that could have been more compact than what we have here; I would go with my earlier suggestion of them meeting up with traders (which they could do on the road from Teirm to Urû’baen) and then trying to gain information about the Ra’zac, to which I’d add that they should try finding someone who knows more about where the Seithr oil goes. That should allow them to find out where the Ra’zac are pretty quickly and with a good amount of confidence. The only real downside to it is that Teirm would be cut in this occasion… but I don’t find that much of a loss, not in the least because that wouldn’t interrupt the storyline of travelling and learning that surrounds it as much.
Returning to the text, let me first pick some nits here: the Seithr oil comes from islands to the north, so wouldn’t it make more sense for it to be shipped directly to Narda, instead of to Teirm and then back to Narda? That would be more inconspicuous, after all, which Brom just stressed. Also, the wording doesn’t make much sense; if the coast is viewed from the point the shipping starts, Narda is down the coast from the islands where the Seithr plant grows, and if the coast is viewed from Teirm… from which point is the oil shipped north to Teirm? This would be better phrased as “shipped up the coast”, I think.
Ill Logic: 99
PPP: 608
For something else, how does Jeod know the Ra’zac are not in Teirm? The answer is most probably that he hasn’t heard anything about them yet; given that Teirm seems to exist exclusively inside its wall, and that it’s quite a busy city, the Ra’zac wouldn’t have much of a place to hide, and their presence in Teirm would have become common knowledge by now. (Teirm also wouldn’t be a good place for the Ra’zac’s base, because it lies quite out of the way inside the Empire.)
Setting all of that aside, I do like how Jeod goes about this, and that he considers all the cities in the north instead of focussing on a likely candidate. I further fully agree with his conclusions (and I’d also choose Gil’ead because it doesn’t require the Ra’zac to cross the Spine for most of their missions and is easy to reach from Urû’baen), and nearly entirely with his arguments, which is rare enough in this book. Though I was initially a bit confused about why it’s brought up, I now especially like that Jeod bothers to eliminate Narda as a base; if the Ra’zac did have their base there, the Seithr oil would probably be delivered directly there, as I noted above, and so it wouldn’t show up in the records. That means that it needs to be considered as a base, even if it isn’t a large city, which Jeod actually does! It’s nice to see the characters be competent.
Brom now says that the Ra’zac might be in Gil’ead, and that it would have a “certain irony”, which Jeod softly acknowledges. Given that that was where Brom killed the last of the Forsworn, I suppose it would indeed be ironic if it were to become a base for Galbatorix’s servants again. By the way, I’m not sure why Brom has no trouble referring to his history like this in front of Eragon; even though it doesn’t tell Eragon much, it’s bound to raise questions, which he doesn’t want.
Ill Logic: 100 (this is from just four chapters!)
Eragon now asks Jeod about the southern cities. Jeod says there is “obviously” Urû’baen, but calls it an “unlikely destination”; if someone were assassinated using Seithr oil at court, it would be much to easy for “an earl or some other lord” to find out that the Empire “[has] been buying large amounts of it”. And that clearly wouldn’t do, because the Empire needs to hide what it’s doing from everyone!
History-Rewriting Narrator: 11
HISC: I note this is much the same as in the self-published edition, except that there Brom is the one to say it; giving it to Jeod gives him a more substantial contribution in the conversation, so I like that Paolini did so.
Fumurti: Let me have a good look at this argument, then. To begin with, I’m not sure the hypothetical earl would know about the connection between the harmless Seithr oil the Empire buys and the acid that the assassination was carried out with. If he didn’t know, he’d probably go looking for purchases of various acids, and he wouldn’t find much cases of the Empire doing that, so the supposed danger to the Empire would be neutralised. If he did know, I suppose he could find out that the Empire has bought much of it, though he wouldn’t necessarily deduce that the Empire ordered the assassination; ordinary assassins can also get their hands on it, after all, so it’s far from conclusive proof.
Then, if he did think the Empire was behind it, what would he do about it? Trying to talk to Galbatorix about it would probably not get him a response, and if it did, I imagine it would be along the lines of “the Ra’zac are under my authority, so this is none of your business” or “giving the Ra’zac Seithr oil helps them with interrogation, which is necessary for the safety of the Empire”. If the earl wants to keep going, he could gather like-minded people and try to put pressure on Galbatorix, of course… but at that point, Galbatorix would probably Evilly suppress it (or that’s what we’re supposed to assume, at least). Given that it’s rather unlikely that it would ever come to that point, and that it wouldn’t be too hard to deal with the consequences if it did, I’m not seeing why it’s so important to keep people at court from noticing that the Empire uses Seithr oil.
I also can’t help but note that such an earl could figure this out without any assassinations in Urû’baen: the Ra’zac openly carry and use their Seithr oil, after all, and a little research into their operations would reveal that. I suppose that Galbatorix could have them hide their use of Seithr oil (which would be hard to do), but then they would have no incentive to use it over other methods of torture; the main reason why they use it at all seems to be to intimidate people, which is supported by Eragon’s reaction to Garrow’s torture, and by Brom’s somewhat exaggerated description of how dangerous it is.
So, to summarise, trying to keep the use of Seithr oil secret is useless in the case Jeod mentions, and would be pointless if Galbatorix were to do it generally!
Ill Logic: 101
Now that I’ve dealt with this argument, let me have a look at Jeod’s presentation of it, which doesn’t hold up well, either. First, I don’t see why Galbatorix would use the Ra’zac for an assassination at court; they’re his “dragon hunters”, after all, and I doubt a Rider could manage to get into court, not to mention that Galbatorix would probably have people more suited to the task than the Ra’zac (as they don’t seem like they’d know much about court to me). Secondly, if Galbatorix does want to use the Ra’zac there for some reason, it wouldn’t be hard to have them not use Seithr oil, which would also solve this problem all by itself.
Finally, I note that Seithr oil being sent to Urû’baen only means that the Ra’zac can pick it up there (and it implies that they have a base there), not that it will be used there, which means that Jeod’s argument is quite irrelevant for whether Seithr oil is sent to Urû’baen!
Ill Logic: 102
I do agree with his conclusion, though; Urû’baen lies on the eastern edge of the Empire, which makes it less than ideal for the Ra’zac, and given that several more central cities are just as suitable, it would make sense for them to use one of those as their main base.
Back to the story again, Jeod says that eliminating Urû’baen leaves many other cities, “any one of which could be the one [they] want”. Then it helps that you know how to narrow the list down to likely candidates, as you just showed… but which you’ve apparently forgotten how to do in the meantime. I get that Paolini wanted to give Eragon his part in finding out where the Ra’zac are, but he could have done it more elegantly than having Jeod give up for no reason; Jeod saying that he doesn’t know where to start would already be fine.
PPP: 609
So, Eragon acknowledges Jeod, but notes that the oil was not sent to all of these cities; “[t]he parchment” only lists Kuasta, Dras-Leona, Aroughs, and Belatona, after all. …What parchment is that supposed to be?
HISC: The self-published edition is not clear about this, either, as both the parchment that Jeod wrote the raw data on and the vellum that he wrote the results per city on could be meant, and Eragon could get this observation from either. After some consideration, I think that the former is meant, since Eragon says that it “lists” these cities, which I do not think he would say about something Jeod wrote just now.
Fumurti: That makes sense, and it’d be something that Jeod could plausibly miss (though he still shouldn’t give up just like that). I’d like to have an indication that Eragon’s looking at the parchment, though; at present, it rather looks like he read the no-longer-existing vellum and memorised the results.
PPP: 610
Eragon now goes through the cities that have had the Seithr oil, beginning with Kuasta, which he discounts because “it’s on the coast and surrounded by mountains”. I quite agree with that, as being on the coast means it’s not central in the Empire, and the mountains would be an inconvenience to the Lethrblakya that most other sites don’t have. Eragon then considers Aroughs, and discounts it because it is “isolated like Ceunon” (very true!), though it is “a center of trade”. …How does Eragon know that? I guess he could have picked it up from Brom, who could know this, but I can’t see when it would have come up; it sounds more like something Brom himself or especially Jeod would know.
PPP: 611
That aside, this does make sense, since Aroughs is the first city in the Empire that sea traffic from Surda encounters (and conversely the city closest to Surda in the Empire), so I would expect it to see much of the trade between the two countries.
At this point, only Belatona and Dras-Leona are left, which Eragon says are “rather close together” (about seventy kilometres across Lake Leona, I see); he thinks Dras-Leona is more likely, since it’s “larger and better situated”. Once again, I have to ask how Eragon can know that Dras-Leona is larger than Belatona, as it’s seems unlikely to have come up with Brom; in this case, I suppose he could know that Dras-Leona is one of the largest cities of the Empire, so Belatona would be less populous… but he still shouldn’t know for sure here.
PPP: 612
All the same, it’s a good argument in favour of Dras-Leona, and I also agree that it’s better situated, since it lies more centrally in the Empire and presumably lies on several trade routes due to its position. And so we have our candidate for the southern cities, which Eragon has come to via logical and sound arguments, and quite quickly, too. Despite my complaints, I do like this quite a bit!
HISC: Given the things that Eragon should not know, I wonder if this part was originally given to Brom or Jeod, which would also explain why Eragon sounds somewhat off here. Now, Paolini is not very good at keeping characters’ voices consistent, but I do not think that “rather close together”, for example, fits well with Eragon’s voice. More substantially, Eragon uses “though” after a comma (as in “X, though Y”) four times in this book, while other people use it a total of thirty-four times (and Brom and Jeod nine times), which I think that this is not how he usually talks. Because of that, I think this is fair:
Forgot the Narrator Speaker: 67
Fumurti: That would make sense, as Eragon wouldn’t have had anything to do here otherwise… though it would have been nice if he’d adjusted the content accordingly. Back to the story, Jeod adds that Dras-Leona is where “nearly all the goods of the Empire”, including Teirm’s, pass through at some point, which makes it a good place “for the Ra’zac to hide” (because they absolutely need to stay hidden, people!). I rather doubt that Dras-Leona is as important a trading hub as Jeod suggests; it might be for the north of the Empire, and it is the most natural way to get Teirm’s goods to the rest of the Empire… but there is also trade along the coast, and cities like Aroughs and Belatona probably receive most of the good from Surda (which don’t necessarily have to go farther north).
Cardboard Worldbuilding: 20
That aside, I suppose Dras-Leona would make for a good hiding place because the volume of trade would make the Ra’zac unnoticeable, but at the same time, being around a large trade hub means there are more people around to notice them, so that advantage is largely neutralised. Being around a trade hub still makes life easier for them, though, so I don’t disagree.
Brom provisionally accepts Dras-Leona as a target (while lighting his pipe, because it’s certainly relevant to now about that).
HISC: In the self-published edition, Jeod now says that the Ra’zac could actually be elsewhere if their “basic assumptions” are wrong, to which Eragon says he does not see why that would be the case. Brom says it is impossible to know if they are right, so they need to think about it for a while longer. They do just that, and Eragon looks at the map a while longer, looking for other “hiding places”. Finally, Jeod says that Dras-Leona is the best choice, since no other city has its advantages, and he would never have suspected that the Ra’zac would be there.
If their basic assumptions are wrong, simply thinking it over again (without even trying to reason through the problem in another way) will not achieve very much, I note… as I note that they could easily learn if they are wrong by looking at the parchment and seeing whether Dras-Leona has received enough Seithr oil for the Ra’zac to plausibly be there. This should not be hard to think of, either, so it is rather silly that Brom manages to talk them into completely ignoring their progress for a while.
Fumurti: Yeah, “we don’t know if we’re on the right track, so let’s throw out all our progress” isn’t a good way to go about this, and thankfully, Paolini removed it when revising. Instead of that, Brom sensibly asks what the records show for Dras-Leona; it is about time they had a look at the actual data, after all. Jeod looks at the “parchment” and sees that “three shipments” of Seithr oil were sent there “[a]t the beginning of the year”. These were only two weeks apart, and were all transported by “the same merchant”; this also happened the past year and the year before that.
(Now that we’ve had both Eragon and Jeod easily reading things from the parchment, I rather doubt if it’s meant to be the one with the raw data; Eragon doesn’t seem like he’d have any previous experience in that, after all. So I think that Paolini just forgot which parchment was which when revising.)
PPP: 613
From this, it’s quite clear that Dras-Leona is the base of the Ra’zac. Yes, the Seithr oil could have been bought by three (groups of) jewellers, but it’s rather unlikely that they’d have started buying it at specifically two-week intervals, and even more unlikely that they’d manage to stay completely synchronised for three years. It is much more likely that this represents yearly supplies to another organisation or group which reliably needs large amounts of it, which can only be the Ra’zac (and the same merchant delivering all the shipments also points in that direction; jewellers might get it from multiple merchants, but the Ra’zac have no reason to). So all of this makes sense, which I am quite happy with!
I’m not really sure what the two-week intervals between shipments are for, though; maybe it’s to make sure some of the shipment will arrive in case something goes wrong with the caravan carrying it (which would be a smart thing to do)? Let me also check if the timeline works: if I say that the first shipment is sent on the 1st of January, the second will be on the 15th of January, and the third on the 29th of January, which would be six days ago. That’s long enough for that shipment to have been registered, so this works quite fine.
Jeod comes to the same conclusion as I did, on the basis that the amount of oil would be too expensive for any jeweller, or even a group of them, to buy. That certainly makes sense, even if it isn’t the most compelling argument. Brom now asks after Gil’ead while “raising an eyebrow”. I suppose he’s sceptical of Dras-Leona being the Ra’zac’s base, though I’m not sure why, as the data is quite hard to explain otherwise. All the same, Gil’ead is still a candidate city, so it does need to be considered before the definitive choice is made.
Well, Jeod now says that Gil’ead doesn’t have the same “access” to the Empire as Dras-Leona (since it’s quite far to the north in the Empire and there’s less cities close by), and it’s only received Seithr oil twice in the dataset. Though we don’t know how large such a shipment is, that seems like it would be too little for the Ra’zac, given that the Seithr oil is hard to get (and I’d expect to see a shipment sent very recently to replace the flask they dropped). So I agree with Jeod that Gil’ead is a quite unlikely base for them, which means that Dras-Leona is the only option left.
After some consideration, Jeod brings up something they have forgotten about: “Helgrind”, which Brom translates as “[t]he Dark Gates”. He fully agrees with Jeod, after confirming that he’d forgotten, as Helgrind would make Dras-Leona “perfect” for the Ra’zac. He supposes it’s decided, and says they’ll be going to Dras-Leona.
Before I react to that news, let me first have a look at this final argument. I first note that we haven’t been told what Helgrind is. Yes, a reader could check the map and find out that Helgrind is a mountain near Dras-Leona, but I don’t think it’s fair to expect readers to do so, and it’ll become clear that Paolini wants Helgrind to stay a mystery for a bit. Because of this, the readers (and Eragon) can’t follow this argument like we could for all the other ones until now, which I find rather disappointing. For all my complaints, I do like seeing Eragon and co. reason their way toward the correct conclusion, and it would be nice for the readers to put themselves in this scene and/or try to figure it out for themselves… and then the argument that finally persuades Brom is something that has never come up and that isn’t explained! It’s quite unsatisfying and I also feel it’s unfair to the readers.
Moving on, I can see Brom and Jeod both knowing what Helgrind is and thus not needing to discuss it… though Brom says that it’s been years since he thought of it, so shouldn’t he need a bit of help from Jeod or more time to realise how important Helgrind is?
PPP: 614 (I don’t think this entirely works)
For the argument itself, Helgrind is indeed a good place for the Ra’zac to have their headquarters in, especially since that means Galbatorix could provide them with an already-existing structure to live in. More relevantly, Helgrind would provide them with a decent hiding place which is still close enough to Dras-Leona to be convenient for getting supplies and such (given that Dras-Leona is a large city, though, some of the activity around it should be close enough for people to see the Lethrblakya… and if no one is allowed around Helgrind, that would make clear that something’s going on there by itself). Still, while it adds nicely to the arguments we already have, I don’t see why it would be this convincing to Brom; Galbatorix could certainly have built a secret base for the Ra’zac at Gil’ead if he’d wanted to, after all. I suppose it could be more trouble than giving them a base in Helgrind… but doing so would have involved enlarging, smoothing, and maybe creating already-present caves in it, so I don’t think that works. That aside, it could be that Helgrind is supposed to be creepy and scary, which I could see influence Brom, but hardly to the extent that it would lead him to abandon all his doubts. Overall, I do think the first argument is supposed to convince Brom, but I just can’t see that happen when all the other evidence didn’t do it for him.
Now I’ve covered that argument, let me have a look at the name; I see the glossary translates “Helgrind” as “The Gates of Death”, which is notably different from “the Dark Gates”! Given that the former translation appears in the other glossaries, and is used for a chapter title, I think it’s the newer one, and Paolini forgot to edit Brom’s translation. However that may be, this is quite sloppy.
PPP: 615
HISC: I see this situation was already there in the self-published edition, so Paolini had a prime opportunity to fix it.
Fumurti: For the names we get. “The Dark Gates” is accurate to the extent that Helgrind is indeed dark, but since it’s a mountain and doesn’t have any kind of gate in it, it’s a quite ill-fitting name for Helgrind. “The Gates of Death” is a perfectly fine name in itself, but there is never any indication that anyone actually thinks of Helgrind as the “gates of death”, so it doesn’t fit, either. Given that, I think it’s fair to give the following:
A Better Commando Name: 34
For the name “Helgrind” itself, I note that, according to the grammar notes on the website, “Helgrind” should properly be “Helgrindar”, since it is multiple gates. I already gave a point for the translation, but if I hadn’t, I would have done it for this.
That aside, I’m not sure which translation is correct. “grind” means “gate”, as we’ll have confirmed later on, but I can’t find a translation of “hel” in either the glossaries or on Paolini’s website. I do know that “death” is “dauth” in the Ancient Language, so “Gates of Death” would be “Dauthgrindar”, and given that I can’t find any Ancient Language word for “dark” on the online dictionary, I think that Paolini meant for “hel” to mean “dark”, which would mean that Helgrind does translate to “Dark Gates”… Neither name fits the mountain very well, but I wish that Paolini had stuck with “the Dark Gates”; it would have been a very easy change, and it wouldn’t be edgy the way “the Gates of Death” is.
Edgy Equals Mature, Right?: 11 (because Helgrind doesn’t have much to do with death)
And with this, we’re finally done with the discussion of where to go, and Eragon and co. have picked a quite sensible option, so the ostensible plot can move forward again and we can leave Teirm! As tedious as it was for us to get through, it is also nice for them that all their work has actually paid off, and that they now have the information they came to Teirm for. Eragon is less enthusiastic about this than I am, as he now sits down, “too drained of emotion” to ask about Helgrind. I don’t see how not having much emotion would have an effect on his curiosity (and I’d expect him to ask about it in any case, since this is the single thing that hasn’t been explained during this discussion); him being tired would be a better way to justify this, if we are to have the mystery about Helgrind at all.
In any case, Eragon thinks that he thought he’d be happy to “resume the hunt” for the Ra’zac, but instead, he feels like “an abyss has opened up before [him]”, since Dras-Leona is very far away. Somewhat clumsy and overblown prose aside, I can absolutely see why he feels this way; this is the first time since Carvahall that he’s had the chance to settle down, and going after the Ra’zac means that he won’t get another chance for quite a while. I’d suggest staying in Teirm for a while longer (since they can go after the Ra’zac whenever they want now, and because trying to kill them is rather reckless), but Eragon does want to go after the Ra’zac and staying in Teirm would be difficult, so I suppose going is the best course of action. I find I do feel for Eragon here; even if Paolini’s not good at conveying it, I can imagine that he’d want some calm and stability in his life after his recent experiences, and it sucks that he needs to give that up to do what he really wants.
That’s all we get of Eragon’s reactions, unfortunately, as Paolini now focusses on Brom and Jeod. So, Jeod rolls the map up (which we learn is also made from parchment) and gives it to Brom, saying that he’ll need it, since his “expeditions” often take him to “obscure regions”. Brom takes the map, after which Jeod claps him on the shoulder and says it doesn’t feel right to see Brom leave on his own; he does want to go along, but he also remembers his “age and responsibilities”. Brom then says that Jeod has a life in Teirm, and it’s time for “the next generation to take up the standard”; Jeod has done his part, so he can be happy.
This does work better for me, even though (or perhaps because) it’s rather standard stuff, and it’s good to see that Jeod has the sense to stay in Teirm, which is unfortunately more than can be said of Eragon and Saphira. For the scene itself, I’d like to see Helen explicitly named among Jeod’s responsibilities; while she probably is meant by both that and Brom talking about Jeod’s “life in Teirm”, I just want some more acknowledgment of her after how badly she’s been treated. I’m also amused to see Brom openly refer to his past in front of Eragon, when he’s taken pains to avoid mentioning it so far. To be fair, Jeod did bring it up first, but that seems like something Brom should have told him not to mention in the meantime.
Ill Logic: 103
Jeod then asks if the “road [will] ever end” for Brom, to which Brom laughs hollowly and says he does see the end coming, but not for a while yet. Given that he’s nearly died twice so far (when trying to ambush the Ra’zac and in Yazuac) through his own bad decisions, I think he’s being a bit too optimistic; then again, I might just be biased, so we’ll see how this works out. And with this, the conversation ends, as Brom and Eragon are now exhausted and go to their rooms. That was rather abrupt, though I guess that they really didn’t have more to talk about?
In any case, before he falls asleep, Eragon contacts Saphira to tell her about “the night’s adventures”. I suppose Saphira stayed awake until Eragon needed help or told her about how it had gone? That would be sensible of her, and it’s nice that Eragon updates her right after they’re done (and when he’s about to go to sleep). And with that, the chapter ends, with Eragon falling asleep.
Protagonist Unconsciousness: 11
So, what did I think of this chapter? Overall, I actually like it; we finally get the climax of the Teirm plotline, and Paolini fully delivers on what he’s promised us. The castle sequence is the lesser part of the chapter, given how contrived it is (trying to be let in when the castle’s closed, which relies on the guard being very unprofessional), and given how many errors Eragon and co. make (like taking a torch from the corridor instead of using magic for lighting). It is somewhat tense, but since the tension is mostly caused by their bad decisions, and since Solembum comes to bail them out, it doesn’t do it for me. It doesn’t help that there are several less dangerous ways of doing it, either: if they’d have gone through the records by day, for instance; if they’d come up with a spell to scry the scrolls without having to go to the castle; if they’d come up with a way that didn’t require Eragon to learn how to read (like the above two options might); or even if they’d asked around for people who’ve traded Seithr oil in Teirm, they wouldn’t have risked getting caught! The best I can say about it is that it’s fun if you don’t think too much about it, which I don’t exactly consider a compliment.
The same fortunately can’t be said about the other part, the figuring out where the Ra’zac live. Though it does have its share of bad logic and relies on the unfounded assumption that the Ra’zac must be hiding, we are allowed to join the characters in the process and figure it out alongside them (or slightly before they actually get it). I especially like that we can check the map and come to our own conclusions, something that I’ve actually come to appreciate, since it’ll probably stick in the readers’ minds better than just the map at the beginning of the book. That aside, Eragon and co. go about finding out the hiding place in a logical way, and they finally get what they’re searching for… so it’s one of my favourite sequences in the book so far!
That also means that the Teirm plot has finally ended, which, as I’m sure you could guess, I’m quite happy about. Reflecting on it another time, I think it could work better if we either only focussed on Eragon and co. accessing the records, or explicitly tied the visit to Teirm into it. As it is, the worldbuilding we get for Teirm, Angela, and even Jeod and Helen, end up as distractions to the storyline, which does make the Teirm chapters frustrating. If I were to do this better, I think I’d go for having Eragon and co. search out people in Teirm who know where the Seithr oil’s going, as I noted above; it’s something Jeod would be quite helpful with, it would justify them staying in Teirm for a while, and it would just be more fun than what Paolini gives us here.
And that’s that for this chapter, at last! Next time, Eragon, Brom, and Saphira leave Teirm behind them to finally go after the Ra’zac again; I’ll be back again in chapter 33. Until then!
A Better Commando Name | 34 |
A Murder In Your Future | 2 |
Abuse Count | 122 |
All the Isms | 18 |
Cardboard Worldbuilding | 20 |
Continuity Contradictions | 3 |
Did Not Do The Research | 125 |
Edgy Equals Mature, Right? | 11 |
For the Good of the Cause | 38 |
Forgot the Narrator | 67 |
FYRP | 75 |
Give Me a Piece of Your Mind | 4 |
History-Rewriting Narrator | 11 |
Ill Logic | 103 |
IYES | 49 |
Morals for Thee But Not for Me | 76 |
No-Wave Feminism | 70 |
No Touchy | 10 |
Olympic Finals in Conclusion Leaping | 19 |
Petty Ain’t the Word for You | 84 |
PPP | 615 |
Space-Time Hairball | 19 |
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Cliffhanger Chop | 2 |
Mid-Scene Break | 6 |
Other Ending | 9 |
Protagonist Unconsciousness | 11 |
Single-Purpose Chapter | 7 |
