I've always been unsatisfied by the way the Fall of the Riders was explained in the Cycle. First of all: why.
We've been told that Galbatorix went insane and started his big rebellion. We've been told that Morzan joined him. But...? How did he gained thirteen Riders and thirteen dragon to turn against the Order? How could elves and dragons be okay with it? Let's try to find out.
Random Old Order headcanons:
In Eldest, we've been told that Anurin, the Elf that preceded Vrael as the Leader of the Order, had decided to incorporate humans into the spell that would allow them to become Riders. We've also been told that this was an unpopular choice. Why? It has been somehow established how racists and condescending Paolini's elves act, and we've been told that they are a slow society. They live forever and because of this they take their decisions slowly and change even slower. Anurin's choice was a huge change for them, and how could a race like this react? Sticking to the past and acting like nothing has changed. It's an old headcanon of mine, I'll explain it later.
If you look at the Timeline of Event on Inheritance.Wikia, you can see that Oromis was born before this change and very likely Vrael as well. Why is this important? For the mindset. They are both from the “old generation”, the generation that was used to have the sole elven race worthy of being Riders. They both had some inherited racism towards the humans, I think. And they were both unfamiliar with them.
Now. We don't know when and how Vrael succeeded to Anurin as the Leader of the Order, but it's likely that he already was an old elf when he became the Leader. An old elf, trained by old elves and Riders in a new Order. Anurin brought the change. Vrael was supposed to deal with it. But how do you deal with such a situation? Elves were the perfect race. But now Anurin wanted them to deal with the inferior humans and to have them as their equals. How do you make imperfect humans and perfect elves equals? It's an uncomfortable situation for the elves and their slowly changing mentality. And I have this idea that it was Vrael the one who came up with the “solution”.
I know is a Gray Stu thing, but Paolini's “Human Riders become more similar to elves” could almost be interesting if seen under this light. It's my theory that this fact (the human changing into an elf thing) just “boosted” the elven racism toward humans. Why? Because it basically proved that only the elves were worthy of being Riders, and, if the humans wanted to be Riders as well, they had to become elves. Their dragons were changing them, making them elves, making them better. When human Riders started to change, The old elven Riders basically went “What do we do no—ohhh, they become elves! So nothing changes, thank the trees”. Basically, like I said before, they reacted sticking to the past and pretending that nothing has changed.
One more thing about this change-not-change: “Vrael's solution” or “stories about elves kidnapping human children and replacing them with changelings”.
I don't know if this has already been addressed here, but... that's basically what they were doing. They made ten years old children touch the eggs, and the split second the dragon hatched they separated the child from their race to train them! I've seen discussed, in old topics, what a stupid move was giving a ten years old child a dragon, who also matured way faster than them, but can we consider what a convenient move was it for the old Riders? A ten years old child can take care of themselves, but can still be indoctrinated as well. It erased almost entirely the problem of the clash of different cultures, and made it easier for the elves to see the human Riders as equal, since they were indoctrinated to be elves and with time their appearance changed as well cementing this idea. They kidnapped those children from their own race to make them grow up as elves, to make them elves. When they came back to the human race they acted like elves, and even looked like elves. They were humans no more, or just very, very little – kidnapped and replaced with changelings, it can almost be said.
An indoctrinated then years old doesn't complain, the elves were comfortable, Vrael was satisfied: they had managed to add human Riders without changing a thing of the old Order.
Let's go to Morzan the Forsworn now!
Headcanon: Oromis was not nearly as competent as a teacher as he pretended to be. Why? Remember when I said that Oromis was born before Anurin's choice to add humans to the pact with the dragons?
Still looking at the Timeline, we can see that Morzan was three years older than Brom. And we've been told that they were trained together. Now, you can suck as teacher as you want but I doubt that you would ever think it to be a good idea to train together two students with a gap of three years of experience between them. I've been thinking of it for a little while.
Let's think of Morzan as an exception. A young thief (his missing finger = a medieval punishment for theft) from an abusive home that was forced to steal to eat because is alcoholic father wuold not feed him. An angry, rebellious teenager that hated being told what to do and bossed around by adults who always mistreated him in his childhood. And he becomes a dragon Rider.
Being a ten years old or a thirteen years old can make a huge difference in a child. If we think about this, there is little surprise that Morzan quickly became Brom's idol (he was older, he could survive on his own, he probably had a lot of cool stories and other thing), as there is little surprise that Morzan was a bully to Brom because of how angry and frustrated he was. Oromis was of no help. He was a strict teacher that expected absolute obedience (and this is not an headcanon... it's there, in Eldest). He showed little concern for Eragon's pain, so I doubt he would have been more compassionate with Morzan's behavior. However, being strict and demanding absolute obedience hardly works with a problematic child like Morzan. Not only it creates no teacher-student bond but makes the child even more rebellious. Let's add to this the fact that a thirteen years old is way more difficult to indoctrinate that a ten years old. That a cynical, angry teenager has way more difficulties into accepting a different culture. That Morzan's mantra probably was “Fuck you, Oromis, and your elven shit”.
Oromis claims Morzan to his biggest failure, and he is right. But he failed probably because he had no idea of how to deal with a human. If Oromis had never trained a challenging kid before Morzan, if all his students were scared ten years old, easily indoctrinated, ripped from their family and looking for affection in the old elf, then it was easy for Oromis to dismiss Morzan as “wrong”. Morzan could not become an elf, so he was wrong. Morzan was hostile to him “for no reason” so he was wrong.
Galbatorix was in a different situation, but he still felt a similar rage. We know that Oromis was one of the Elders that refused him another dragon but... how do you even refuse a dragon? Galbatorix had merely asked the chance to touch the eggs one more time, no? If no dragon had hatched for him, and he kept insisting, then a strong “shut up” could have been acceptable. But if a dragon had hatched for him? It could have saved his life and his mind. There was no need to deny such a thing. I personally think that his ask was denied because of the fear of change of the elves: it's a thing that has never been asked before, so, in their mind, it's an abomination. And it comes from a human, so it's even more alien to their mind (strange human request = wrongwrongwrong). Vrael could have said “It's not how it works, you will not be able to replace you dragon. But... if it is really so important I guess we could let you touch the eggs one more time. Just be aware that there's no grant that another dragon will chose you”. If Galbatorix had been allowed a second chance, no dragon had hatched for him and he had still killed a young Rider and stole a dragon then he would have come up as mad and dangerous. But the way Paolini puts it down makes just the Riders look like assholes. They denied him even the chance of having another chance.
Morzan and Galbatorix were both wronged by the Order, even if not intentionally. They were wronged by it's inability to change, do deal with the different.
What if, instead a mad, unexplained rampage for the power, the Forsworn rebellion was their fight for their right to just be humans? To not be indoctrinated? To not be forced to become elves? To make the Order free from it's bindings to the past? And the elven Forsworn: elves and dragon that had seen how much their system hurt human Riders. Elven teachers that had more than once seen their human student feel out of place, unable to keep up, struggling to become something they are not. Elven teachers that maybe were assigned a human student that wanted to be among other humans and cried at night, begging them to let him go back home? Or also young elven Riders, trained with a human Rider, who spent years watching their friend feeling weaker, slower, more stupid, useless just because they were humans expecting to keep up with elves?
Honestly, for how it was described, the Old Order was fucked up. If becoming a Rider doesn't grant a human kid the same powers of an elven kid then it's just abuse to force them into the same training – a training decided by elves. Would it have been so strange for someone – humans, elves, dragons – to notice such a thing? To try and change it?
Maybe Galbatorix had noticed these injustices, for he was human himself, and founded a group of thirteen who wanted to challenge Vrael and bring a revolution. Now, it would be bullshit to think of the Forsworn as a group of justice warriors. Galbatorix wanted vendetta and to make Vrael pay. Morzan was basically on a “Fuck you all, I hate you all” mode. Maybe some elven Forsworn wanted to slap Vrael in the face and tell him “You are screwing up. Accept that things need to change”. Maybe other Forsworn had their own ideas. But they all wanted to change the Order. And how do you change such an old, immutable thing? With Vrael and the Elders resisting and claiming that you are a traitor? You destroy and reconstruct it. After all, those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.
Then the fight became a war.
Then they watched Galbatorix descend into madness, grow in power with the help of a Shade, so strong that they could have never been able to challenge him.
Then the Banishing of the Names came. They were forced to see their dragons, their friends, their partners and soulmates being coursed to the worst fate possible by the very same creatures – dragons of human Riders – that should have been able to understand their fight. But the elven indoctrination was just too strong, so they weren't. And the revolution became a war of vendetta.
They avenged their dragons. They destroyed the Order they wanted to change for the better. Thirst of vendetta, anger and pain for the fate of their dragons blinded them.
Galbatorix took this as his occasion to completely submit the thirteen. Shruikan, for corrupted he was, still had a name. Galbatorix was not maddened from pain and despair. He promised them to save their dragons, and tricked them, who were desperate and not lucid, to reveal their true names.
It took years for the Forsworn to realize.
Galbatorix was destroying everything. He had brought dragons to the extinction. Their dragons were cursed and everything was falling apart because Galbatorix was a monster and they made everything go this way.
There were just three remaining dragon eggs – and how do you reconstruct a race with three eggs?
Their dragons had no name anymore – and how do you reconstruct a soul?
The Order was extinct like the dragon – and how do you bring a revolution if there is nothing to change anymore?
Galbatorix was a monster and a puppet master – they were his marionettes, forever.
There was no way back, they realized. They had destroyed a world they wanted to change for the better.
Some Forsworn, like Morzan, transformed pain into rage and rage into hate and madness. They joined Galbatorix in the darkness. They had no way back: they went forward.
Some Forsworn killed their mad dragons and then themselves. They had no way back: They ended their road.
...And notice something, please. Eragon is trying to reconstruct the Old Order. He is listening to elves and Eldunarya of the Old Order. The Order that fell. The Order that had grown arrogant. The Order that screwed up.
Honestly, I have a clear idea of why Eragon is going to screw up as well, at least in my headcanon and fanfiction. Nothing can remain unchanged. If the Old Order was unable to keep up with humans, how can he keep up with humans, dwarfs and urgals, while listening to the Eldunarya of that same Old Order? Poor fool.
If you managed to read this whole thing, you are a hero – here a cookie.
I hope my English was not that cringeworthy. If it was and you still read my whole post you are two times a hero – here a cake.
However. This was a sort of huge headcanon/background/how-I-explain-the-Forsworn-thing. What do you think? Do you have other ideas? I hope I didn't villanize Vrael and the Order too much, as much as I hope I didn't romanticize the Forsworn too much. I was just trying to come up with and explanation for this whole mess since Paolini hadn't bothered to do so.
We've been told that Galbatorix went insane and started his big rebellion. We've been told that Morzan joined him. But...? How did he gained thirteen Riders and thirteen dragon to turn against the Order? How could elves and dragons be okay with it? Let's try to find out.
Random Old Order headcanons:
In Eldest, we've been told that Anurin, the Elf that preceded Vrael as the Leader of the Order, had decided to incorporate humans into the spell that would allow them to become Riders. We've also been told that this was an unpopular choice. Why? It has been somehow established how racists and condescending Paolini's elves act, and we've been told that they are a slow society. They live forever and because of this they take their decisions slowly and change even slower. Anurin's choice was a huge change for them, and how could a race like this react? Sticking to the past and acting like nothing has changed. It's an old headcanon of mine, I'll explain it later.
If you look at the Timeline of Event on Inheritance.Wikia, you can see that Oromis was born before this change and very likely Vrael as well. Why is this important? For the mindset. They are both from the “old generation”, the generation that was used to have the sole elven race worthy of being Riders. They both had some inherited racism towards the humans, I think. And they were both unfamiliar with them.
Now. We don't know when and how Vrael succeeded to Anurin as the Leader of the Order, but it's likely that he already was an old elf when he became the Leader. An old elf, trained by old elves and Riders in a new Order. Anurin brought the change. Vrael was supposed to deal with it. But how do you deal with such a situation? Elves were the perfect race. But now Anurin wanted them to deal with the inferior humans and to have them as their equals. How do you make imperfect humans and perfect elves equals? It's an uncomfortable situation for the elves and their slowly changing mentality. And I have this idea that it was Vrael the one who came up with the “solution”.
I know is a Gray Stu thing, but Paolini's “Human Riders become more similar to elves” could almost be interesting if seen under this light. It's my theory that this fact (the human changing into an elf thing) just “boosted” the elven racism toward humans. Why? Because it basically proved that only the elves were worthy of being Riders, and, if the humans wanted to be Riders as well, they had to become elves. Their dragons were changing them, making them elves, making them better. When human Riders started to change, The old elven Riders basically went “What do we do no—ohhh, they become elves! So nothing changes, thank the trees”. Basically, like I said before, they reacted sticking to the past and pretending that nothing has changed.
One more thing about this change-not-change: “Vrael's solution” or “stories about elves kidnapping human children and replacing them with changelings”.
I don't know if this has already been addressed here, but... that's basically what they were doing. They made ten years old children touch the eggs, and the split second the dragon hatched they separated the child from their race to train them! I've seen discussed, in old topics, what a stupid move was giving a ten years old child a dragon, who also matured way faster than them, but can we consider what a convenient move was it for the old Riders? A ten years old child can take care of themselves, but can still be indoctrinated as well. It erased almost entirely the problem of the clash of different cultures, and made it easier for the elves to see the human Riders as equal, since they were indoctrinated to be elves and with time their appearance changed as well cementing this idea. They kidnapped those children from their own race to make them grow up as elves, to make them elves. When they came back to the human race they acted like elves, and even looked like elves. They were humans no more, or just very, very little – kidnapped and replaced with changelings, it can almost be said.
An indoctrinated then years old doesn't complain, the elves were comfortable, Vrael was satisfied: they had managed to add human Riders without changing a thing of the old Order.
Let's go to Morzan the Forsworn now!
Headcanon: Oromis was not nearly as competent as a teacher as he pretended to be. Why? Remember when I said that Oromis was born before Anurin's choice to add humans to the pact with the dragons?
Still looking at the Timeline, we can see that Morzan was three years older than Brom. And we've been told that they were trained together. Now, you can suck as teacher as you want but I doubt that you would ever think it to be a good idea to train together two students with a gap of three years of experience between them. I've been thinking of it for a little while.
Let's think of Morzan as an exception. A young thief (his missing finger = a medieval punishment for theft) from an abusive home that was forced to steal to eat because is alcoholic father wuold not feed him. An angry, rebellious teenager that hated being told what to do and bossed around by adults who always mistreated him in his childhood. And he becomes a dragon Rider.
Being a ten years old or a thirteen years old can make a huge difference in a child. If we think about this, there is little surprise that Morzan quickly became Brom's idol (he was older, he could survive on his own, he probably had a lot of cool stories and other thing), as there is little surprise that Morzan was a bully to Brom because of how angry and frustrated he was. Oromis was of no help. He was a strict teacher that expected absolute obedience (and this is not an headcanon... it's there, in Eldest). He showed little concern for Eragon's pain, so I doubt he would have been more compassionate with Morzan's behavior. However, being strict and demanding absolute obedience hardly works with a problematic child like Morzan. Not only it creates no teacher-student bond but makes the child even more rebellious. Let's add to this the fact that a thirteen years old is way more difficult to indoctrinate that a ten years old. That a cynical, angry teenager has way more difficulties into accepting a different culture. That Morzan's mantra probably was “Fuck you, Oromis, and your elven shit”.
Oromis claims Morzan to his biggest failure, and he is right. But he failed probably because he had no idea of how to deal with a human. If Oromis had never trained a challenging kid before Morzan, if all his students were scared ten years old, easily indoctrinated, ripped from their family and looking for affection in the old elf, then it was easy for Oromis to dismiss Morzan as “wrong”. Morzan could not become an elf, so he was wrong. Morzan was hostile to him “for no reason” so he was wrong.
Galbatorix was in a different situation, but he still felt a similar rage. We know that Oromis was one of the Elders that refused him another dragon but... how do you even refuse a dragon? Galbatorix had merely asked the chance to touch the eggs one more time, no? If no dragon had hatched for him, and he kept insisting, then a strong “shut up” could have been acceptable. But if a dragon had hatched for him? It could have saved his life and his mind. There was no need to deny such a thing. I personally think that his ask was denied because of the fear of change of the elves: it's a thing that has never been asked before, so, in their mind, it's an abomination. And it comes from a human, so it's even more alien to their mind (strange human request = wrongwrongwrong). Vrael could have said “It's not how it works, you will not be able to replace you dragon. But... if it is really so important I guess we could let you touch the eggs one more time. Just be aware that there's no grant that another dragon will chose you”. If Galbatorix had been allowed a second chance, no dragon had hatched for him and he had still killed a young Rider and stole a dragon then he would have come up as mad and dangerous. But the way Paolini puts it down makes just the Riders look like assholes. They denied him even the chance of having another chance.
Morzan and Galbatorix were both wronged by the Order, even if not intentionally. They were wronged by it's inability to change, do deal with the different.
What if, instead a mad, unexplained rampage for the power, the Forsworn rebellion was their fight for their right to just be humans? To not be indoctrinated? To not be forced to become elves? To make the Order free from it's bindings to the past? And the elven Forsworn: elves and dragon that had seen how much their system hurt human Riders. Elven teachers that had more than once seen their human student feel out of place, unable to keep up, struggling to become something they are not. Elven teachers that maybe were assigned a human student that wanted to be among other humans and cried at night, begging them to let him go back home? Or also young elven Riders, trained with a human Rider, who spent years watching their friend feeling weaker, slower, more stupid, useless just because they were humans expecting to keep up with elves?
Honestly, for how it was described, the Old Order was fucked up. If becoming a Rider doesn't grant a human kid the same powers of an elven kid then it's just abuse to force them into the same training – a training decided by elves. Would it have been so strange for someone – humans, elves, dragons – to notice such a thing? To try and change it?
Maybe Galbatorix had noticed these injustices, for he was human himself, and founded a group of thirteen who wanted to challenge Vrael and bring a revolution. Now, it would be bullshit to think of the Forsworn as a group of justice warriors. Galbatorix wanted vendetta and to make Vrael pay. Morzan was basically on a “Fuck you all, I hate you all” mode. Maybe some elven Forsworn wanted to slap Vrael in the face and tell him “You are screwing up. Accept that things need to change”. Maybe other Forsworn had their own ideas. But they all wanted to change the Order. And how do you change such an old, immutable thing? With Vrael and the Elders resisting and claiming that you are a traitor? You destroy and reconstruct it. After all, those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.
Then the fight became a war.
Then they watched Galbatorix descend into madness, grow in power with the help of a Shade, so strong that they could have never been able to challenge him.
Then the Banishing of the Names came. They were forced to see their dragons, their friends, their partners and soulmates being coursed to the worst fate possible by the very same creatures – dragons of human Riders – that should have been able to understand their fight. But the elven indoctrination was just too strong, so they weren't. And the revolution became a war of vendetta.
They avenged their dragons. They destroyed the Order they wanted to change for the better. Thirst of vendetta, anger and pain for the fate of their dragons blinded them.
Galbatorix took this as his occasion to completely submit the thirteen. Shruikan, for corrupted he was, still had a name. Galbatorix was not maddened from pain and despair. He promised them to save their dragons, and tricked them, who were desperate and not lucid, to reveal their true names.
It took years for the Forsworn to realize.
Galbatorix was destroying everything. He had brought dragons to the extinction. Their dragons were cursed and everything was falling apart because Galbatorix was a monster and they made everything go this way.
There were just three remaining dragon eggs – and how do you reconstruct a race with three eggs?
Their dragons had no name anymore – and how do you reconstruct a soul?
The Order was extinct like the dragon – and how do you bring a revolution if there is nothing to change anymore?
Galbatorix was a monster and a puppet master – they were his marionettes, forever.
There was no way back, they realized. They had destroyed a world they wanted to change for the better.
Some Forsworn, like Morzan, transformed pain into rage and rage into hate and madness. They joined Galbatorix in the darkness. They had no way back: they went forward.
Some Forsworn killed their mad dragons and then themselves. They had no way back: They ended their road.
...And notice something, please. Eragon is trying to reconstruct the Old Order. He is listening to elves and Eldunarya of the Old Order. The Order that fell. The Order that had grown arrogant. The Order that screwed up.
Honestly, I have a clear idea of why Eragon is going to screw up as well, at least in my headcanon and fanfiction. Nothing can remain unchanged. If the Old Order was unable to keep up with humans, how can he keep up with humans, dwarfs and urgals, while listening to the Eldunarya of that same Old Order? Poor fool.
If you managed to read this whole thing, you are a hero – here a cookie.
I hope my English was not that cringeworthy. If it was and you still read my whole post you are two times a hero – here a cake.
However. This was a sort of huge headcanon/background/how-I-explain-the-Forsworn-thing. What do you think? Do you have other ideas? I hope I didn't villanize Vrael and the Order too much, as much as I hope I didn't romanticize the Forsworn too much. I was just trying to come up with and explanation for this whole mess since Paolini hadn't bothered to do so.