Normal: Me
Bold: theepistler
Italized: Brisingr quotes
Here we are with part 2, which only covers Eragon's fight with a bunch of assassins. It needed to be split because we have a lot to talk about here.
Before we get into it, I want to list everything the assassins have going for them.
The have elven speed
They are warded against magic
They have double protection against mind attacks
They have daggers that ignore wards and cause a disintegration effect
There are 7 of them, so they outnumber our protagonist and his guards
Why are there no other dwarves with these abilities? Surely they’d be incredibly useful in the war. But nope, these guys never appear again as far as I’m aware.
It’s because these assassins have a specific purpose; to create a challenging fight for Eragon without being too difficult.
In other words, they’re just like every other potentially cool and useful thing Paolini only ever uses in one scene before they’re forgotten forever.
Well, with that in mind, let’s get into it.
Eragon leaves the room, but soon hears a scuffing noise behind him. He looks back and sees seven dwarves with knives running towards him as fast as elves, their feet muffled with rags and their minds hidden by magic. Of all the magical advantages they gave themselves, why didn’t they just muffle themselves with magic? If they had, Eragon probably would have died.
Seven dwarves, eh? Are their names Doc, Dopey, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, Bashful and Sneezy?
He tries to warn the three guards behind him, but “three of the strange dwarves grabbed the hindmost of Eragon’s guards and lifted their glimmering daggers to stab him.”
Why the hell are three enhanced assassins wasting their time on one normal guard? Why are they grabbing him, and why didn’t they already have their daggers lifted up to stab him before they reached him? Why don’t they try using their elven speed to run past the guards to take out Eragon before the biggest threat has a chance to defend himself?
So we can have a random redshirt death thrown in to make them look like a credible threat to Our Hero.
Faster than speech or conscious thought, Eragon plunged his whole being into the flow of magic and, without relying upon the ancient language to structure his spell, rewove the fabric of the world into a pattern more pleasing to him. The three guards who stood between him and the attackers flew toward him, as if yanked by invisible strings, and landed upon their feet beside him, unharmed but disoriented.
This paragraph right here is a prime example of why Paolini’s action scenes are so utterly boring. Not only is it ridiculously over-written, but there’s FAR too much description. The sentences are long and wordy when they should be short and snappy to give a sense of pacing and tension. Did you notice how it says Eragon does this “faster than speech or conscious thought”? But it doesn’t read as if he did it fast at all. It took him about 70 words, in fact.
Using magic without the language is supposed to be dangerous, and Eragon was told only to do it in the most desperate situations. This was a spur of the moment decision, but that just makes it worse. He used it to save some people he barely knows; people who are supposed to protect HIM, and it just makes him quicker to use it next time. The more he gets used to using it on a whim, the more it develops as a bad habit, but Eragon is never told that it was a mistake. A different author would have Eragon’s friends and mentors telling him that just because he saved people and nothing went wrong, doesn’t mean he should get in the habit of using this dangerous technique. Eragon would stubbornly refuse to listen, eventually leading to him causing a terrible accident, and maybe killing someone close to him.
Or Paolini could just ignore all of that, and let his protagonist do whatever he wants.
And word it so awkwardly that it’s almost impossible to tell what the hell is even going on.
Rewove the fabric of the world into a pattern more pleasing to him.
This line is so unbearably pretentious, it hurts to read.
And needless to say, this random new ability will never be used again.
Two assassins rush Eragon. Eragon drew his sword at some point, and parries their attacks. One of his guards rushes forward to attack the assassins.
Before Eragon could grab the dwarf’s hauberk and yank him back to safety…
Who’s supposed to be protecting whom here?
The guard dies, and Eragon gets to see the disintegration effect in action. Eragon gets really pissed off that this guy he barely knew died. He stabs the assassin so quickly, he’s unable to dodge, and dies instantly. The assassins are supposed to be the same speed as Eragon, so it’s a little harder to believe, as is the fact that no assassin tries to attack Eragon while he was doing this.
With all his strength, Eragon shouted, “Stay behind me!” Thin cracks split the floors and walls, and flakes of stone fell from the ceiling as his voice reverberated through the corridor. The attacking dwarves faltered at the unbridled power of his voice, then resumed their offensive.
…
No, I don’t buy it.
*adds Fus Ro Dah to Eragon’s growing list of random introduced out of nowhere special abilities* Seriously, look me in the eye and tell me this wasn’t a baldfaced ripoff of Skyrim. He even used the phrase “power of [the] voice”.
I definitely saw the resemblance when I was going over this. This book was released a few years before Skyrim though, otherwise I would have no doubt. Paolini even tweeted once about how his character reached level 267.
Damn, I really thought I was onto something there. GASP, maybe Bethesda ripped HIM off! Quick, get you lawyer on the phone, Chris!
Eragon retreated several yards to give himself room to maneuver free of the corpses...
Hey, corpses hindering movement is actually a thing for once! This is probably because they need the bodies after the fight, so they’re not allowed to disappear when they die. Seriously though, I have no idea why this came up out of nowhere. I guess I’ll just enjoy it while it lasts.
Because the Cycle is actually an RPG pretending to be a novel, corpses normally fade away after a few seconds. Or you can just walk straight through them.
The hallway is eight feet wide, so three assassins try to attack Eragon at once.
Afraid to duel with the dwarves as he would have if they wielded normal blades...
Something seems wrong with this sentence. Also, why doesn’t he just do what he always does, and trust his wards to protect him? The answer is because his wards won’t protect him in this case, Paolini just couldn’t bothered to give an explanation for why Eragon would dodge them without knowing that.
Eragon drove his legs against the floor and jumped up and forward.
Driving your legs against the floor causes you to jump? Wow! First the winking and now this! Paolini teaches you something new every day.
Did I mention this scene was hopelessly overwritten? Because it is. Also Paolini apparently thinks we’re all hopelessly stupid.
He spun halfway around and struck the ceiling feet-first. He pushed off, spun halfway around again, and landed on his hands and feet a yard behind the three dwarves.
I completely forgot that Eragon has spent his whole life training as a gymnast. That detail sure slipped my mind. He didn’t twist around though, so I’m pretty sure he should land facing away from them.
GAH! You can’t just do this sort of thing with no practise or training even if you DO have enhanced speed and reflexes! Also someone’s clearly been watching The Matrix. Will Eragon do a cartwheel while picking up a sword next?
Even as they whirled toward him, he stepped forward and beheaded the lot of them with a single backhand blow.
These assassins sure don’t act like people who are supposed to be as fast as Eragon. The other assassins behind him don’t even attack while his back is turned.
I should have mentioned this when the first assassin died, but why don’t these guys have wards? Oh, we learn later that they have wards against magic, but they don’t have wards against physical attack. The Ra’zac had the same problem, and the reason is presumably the same: Paolini couldn’t figure out how Eragon could beat these guys if they had wards against physical attack, so he wrote them without it and hoped that nobody would notice.
I noticed. You know, this plot hole (which shows up again in book four with the evil cultists) could have been fixed so easily. All he’d have to do is insert a line of exposition which states that wards are limited in that you can only protect against either magic or physical damage, but not both. At least then the things would have limits, period, instead of being a catch-all fix for damn near everything which might be dangerous to the heroes.
So, Eragon leaps over the bodies, actually twisting while doing so this time, and lands where he started. Now some ofthe other assassins attack, except their attacks miss (by centimeters) for some reason, only conveniently letting Eragon know that his wards aren’t working.
Eragon slips on some blood, and his head hits the floor. The assassins will get him now, right?
His three remaining guards sprang over him and swung their axes in unison, clearing the air above Eragon and saving him from the bite of the flashing daggers.
The story doesn’t tell you this, but Eragon was actually unconscious for a few minutes after he hit his head. His guards swung their axes over him the whole time, making it completely impossible for the assassins to get to him.
Apparently the super speed, super weapons and other super whoozits randomly stopped working so Eragon wouldn’t do us all a favour and die horribly.
Eragon recovers, and suddenly remembers that he can use magic. He tries it against the assassins, but again, they have wards against magic. It’s the opposite problem of the physical wards: without magic wards, the fight would be too easy.
Eragon tries attacking with his mind...for some reason. He hasn’t been able to sense them, so he tries using his mind to attack where they should be. For some stupid reason, this works.
If Eragon was fighting a ghost, this would be like having his hand pass through the ghost, but having his fist hit it. It makes no goddamn sense.
The spear skated off mental armor of a sort Eragon had not encountered before: smooth and seamless, seemingly unbroken by the concerns natural to mortal creatures engaged in a struggle to the death. Someone else is protecting them, Eragon realized. There are more behind this attack than just these seven.
Or the assassins know a magic that can protect their minds like that. Or they’re just that good at defending their minds. But Eragon’s conclusion is the correct one, because Paolini doesn’t realize that people can come to the wrong conclusions. This isn’t the type of thing Eragon should be figuring out in the middle of a fight either.
The assassins have just been standing around, politely waiting for Eragon to try all of this, by the way. So Eragon starts the fight back up again, and hits one assassin in the knee. Once again, the assassin doesn’t try to dodge, block, or parry his attacks, and neither do the other assassins try to attack Eragon while he does this.
Apparently this RPG has turn-based combat.
Eragon’s three guards move forward to take on the one Eragon injured. One of the assassins raises his shield in anticipation, because apparently they’re not keeping them raised at all times for some reason. Eragon decides he’s just going to cut through the shield and the arm at the same time, because apparently that’s something he does all the time.
For the first and only time in the whole fight, Eragon is caught off guard by the assassins speed, because the assassin tilts his shield slightly. This causes Eragon’s sword to be deflected into the wall, which breaks it.
Eragon drops his sword and grabs the assassin’s shield, trying to keep it between him and the knife. This makes the assassin completely unable to stab him, apparently.
Releasing the buckler with his right hand but still holding on with his left, Eragon drew back his arm and struck the shield as hard as he could, punching through the tempered steel as easily as if it were made of rotten wood. Because of the calluses on his knuckles, he felt no pain from the impact. The force of the blow threw the dwarf against the opposite wall. His head lolling upon a boneless neck, the dwarf dropped to the ground, like a puppet whose strings had been severed. Eragon pulled his hand back through the jagged hole in the shield, scratching himself on the torn metal, and drew his hunting knife.
...what? This chain of events confuses me. If he’s punching hard enough to go through steel, wouldn’t his fist go through the assassin just as easily? Why is steel the first thing to yield? Wouldn’t the assassin be pushed back first? Or wouldn’t his hand break? The last time he hit something super hard, he mangled his hands, so he put calluses on his knuckles to stop that from happening. Except I don’t get why that would stop his hand from breaking; why it allows Eragon to punch through steel with no problems.
It shouldn’t. Calluses aren’t “wards”, and as torylltales has explained in detail, they actually make your hands inflexible and make punching anything incredibly painful.
So Eragon gets into a knife fight with the last assassin, who was just patiently waiting for Eragon to finish fighting the last guy. Eragon stumbles on a body again, so he starts rolling on the ground to avoid the assassin, but luckily for him, the assassin accidentally hits one of the lanterns, which causes it to explode.
The explosion throws Eragon twenty feet away.
The blast had blackened a ten-foot length of the hallway with soot. Soft flakes of ash tumbled through the air, which was as hot as the air from a heated forge.
As usual Paolini shows us that he has no sense of proportion and seems to think using exact numbers for everything is interesting to read rather than dry and boring.
It leaves an explosion like that? How do the dwarves use these things regularly without fear? Why don’t they use these as weapons in the war?
Can’t have the dwarves upstage the perfect sparkly elves, I guess. Seriously, do the dwarves ever contribute anything particularly useful or unique to the war effort?
They only exist to add more cannon fodder to the sieges against cities. Even the werecats were able to act as spies at least.
The dwarf who hit the lantern dies from the burns. Eragon was just as close to the blast, but he was facing away from it, which means he’s mostly fine. He heals the burns he got on his back...actually, why doesn’t Eragon have wards against fire and explosions?
Good point. You’d think that would be his first priority given that he pals around with a fucking dragon.
After Eragon and his guards talk for a bit, Eragon asks them if they can identify the assassins. They find bracelets on them, which all have an amethyst that implies the Anhuin ordered the attack. We didn’t need the bracelets to guess that the Anhuin are the prime suspects, and they aren’t worth anything as evidence, so I’m not sure what the point of them is.
Also wearing an easily identifiable token which instantly links them to their clan while attempting to murder the most important guy in the entire country has to be the most idiotic thing you could possibly do.
With the side of his boot, he nudged one of the prismatic daggers the assassins had wielded. “The spells on these weapons and on the … on the men”— he motioned with his chin—“ men, dwarves, be as it may, they must have required an incredible amount of energy, and I cannot even imagine how complex their wording was. Casting them would have been hard and dangerous.…”
Eragon isn’t interested at all in learning the spells that the assassins used, even though they would be incredibly useful. Their only purpose was to create a fight that would challenge Eragon without making things too difficult.
That’s because despite all the claims to the contrary, Eragon is far too lazy and apathetic to seek out useful knowledge on his own initiative. The only way he’d actually learn those spells would be if someone came up to him and said “let me teach you those spells for free!” Actually even then he might well have responded with “no! There’s no time for that!!” There’s time for endless feasting, ogling Arya and torturing cripples, but there’s no time for learning new and useful skills or gaining important new information! Eragon has some very strange priorities.
Eragon swears revenge against the clan that ordered the attack, then starts thinking about his sword, which he broke despite the protections he put on it. He’s going to use it as an excuse to say that he needs a Rider’s sword, and the chapter finally ends.
Or maybe he could have used magic to make the falchion unbreakable. Or maybe he should stop fighting like an idiot. And once again Paolini tries to make him look noble by having him swear to avenge the death of a random dwarf bodyguard he barely knew. Nice try, pal - we all know he’s really just itching for an excuse to slaughter the Anhoozit clan wholesale for inconveniencing him.
And that’s another completely pointless chapter in the can.
Next up we have A Matter of Perspective, by Pipedream. Then we have Kiss Me Sweet by Predak.