I Read What?!

Prologue | Table of Contents | Chapter Two

Time to start the first real chapter of Eragon, with somewhat different counts. Last time, the Shade Durza made his move, and nearly grabbed Saphira’s egg, but not really. We were also introduced to Arya, and the elves as a whole. This chapter, Eragon finds Saphira’s egg and decides to take it home.

One last thing before I begin: I’ll keep track of the time in this story with a little calendar. I’ll say that the day the prologue takes place on in November 15, and the year is 2499. So the day this chapter takes place on will be November 15, 2499.

The chapter is called “Discovery”. A nice chapter title, and it fits the chapter well. You get one (1) cookie, Paolini.

It opens on Eragon (“dragon” with an “e”, iirc) kneeling in a bed of trampled reed grass and “scann[ing] the tracks with a practiced eye”. Eragon’s a few miles from his home village of Carvahall, for the record. And he’s also hunting deer. Might have been nice to mention, to set the scene, but whatever.

He can tell by the prints that the deer have been there only half an hour ago. He knows that they’ll bed down soon. I… guess that’s fair enough, because the prologue, which is supposed to be simultaneous with this chapter, seemed to take place in the middle of the night. And though I don’t know that much about deer, going to sleep in the middle of the night seems good enough. We’re told that Eragon’s target, “a small doe with a pronounced limp in her left forefoot”, is still with the herd. He’s amazed that she’s made it so far without being caught by a bear or a wolf.

I’ve got one major question, though: how do you plan to bring the doe back, Eragon? He’s completely on his own, and he has a long way to go to reach home: a long way through the mountain, half a mile down along a waterfall, through Carvahall, and ten miles to his home farm; a trip that takes several days, as we’ll soon see. He’d be very lucky to pull off something like that. I’d think that someone like Eragon should know how hard this is, and would instead try to trap smaller animals, like rabbits.

I’m quite certain that this is the result of Paolini putting in the element “protagonist hunts deer” without any consideration for the rest of the context, which I can kind of see from a beginning writer, but which still shouldn’t be in a professionally published book.

There’s a block of disjointed description of Eragon’s surroundings:

-The sky is clear and dark, and there’s a slight breeze.

-Eragon is in the mountains, and a silvery cloud drifts over them.

-The harvest moon is visible between two peaks, and it lights the cloud with ruddy light.

-Streams flow down the moutains from “stolid glaciers and glistening snowpacks”.

-A “brooding mist” lies on the valley’s floor-Streams flow down the moutains from, so thick that Eragon can barely see his feet.

The harvest moon does give me a reasonably timeframe for when in the year this chapter occurs, as it’s the full moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. The latest possible date for this is the 7^th of October, which puts my guess for the date on the night of 7-8 October.

And here’s where I do a count, petty though it may be: Shine Bright Like a Diamond. This goes for all the times there’s glittering, glistening, sparkling and the like going on, which occurs very often in conjunction with Saphira.

Shine Bright Like a Diamond: 1

Time for Eragon’s official introduction!

Eragon was fifteen, less than a year from manhood.

This is good. It’s nice to know his age, and it comes with the worldbuilding detail that sixteen is considered the age of adulthood. And, of course, it gives us something to look forward to.

Dark eyebrows rested above his intense brown eyes.

And this is all the physical description we get of him for now. I actually forgot this and pictured him with blue eyes instead, so it goes to show how memorable this is.

Seriously, describing his eyebrows and eyes is fine, but what about the rest of his body? What colour does his hair have? How tall is he? What does he even look like? Nope, no details except for brown eyes and presumably dark hair. Talk about underdescription.

His clothes were worn from work. A hunting knife with a bone handle was sheathed at his belt, and a buckskin tube protected his yew bow from the mist.

He carried a wood-frame pack.

And this is the rest of his description: a list of the things he carries with him, without any description of even his clothing. I can so picture him right now. I do love that some characters we meet later get paragraphs of description, but the description of the protagonist is two sentences.

We’re told the deer have led him into “the Spine, a range of untamed mountains that extended up and down the land of Alagaësia.” Sounds about right, although I’ve got some remarks:

-It would be nice to get some more elaboration on how the Spine is “untamed”. I know it’s probably called that because there’s little human settlements there, but going into specifics would certainly help with a later plot point.

-“The land of Alagaësia” sounds somewhat off to me. It’s not per se a bad term, as Alagaësia is a coherent region, but given the insistence of these books on viewing the Empire as something that doesn’t belong, it feels off, especially since the Empire covers half of Alagaësia.

-A nit-pick, but “extend up and down” suggests to me that the Spine is a central feature of Alagaësia, while it only stretches along the west coast.

“Strange tales and men often came from those mountains, usually boding ill.”

Yes, so often that we never hear anything about this. We literally never hear strange tales about the Spine (or any tales at all, for that matter), and no one ever (except for Eragon) ever comes from the Spine. This feels like another point that Paolini dropped in because generic fantasy.

And here comes the second count: Continuity Fluidity. This goes for all the times the text has internal contradictions, which is much more often than it should.

Continuity Fluidity: 1

Despite those ominous signs, Eragon isn’t afraid of the Spine. He’s apparently the only hunter near Carvahall who dares hunt there. I think Paolini was going for “courageous and undaunted” here, but it just makes Eragon look foolish for going to the mountains that everyone fears and hates. And, as the people from Carvahall don’t go there, he also doesn’t have the benefit of knowing which places are safe and what the best routes are. I think this is another fantasy trope that’s been dropped in without consideration for whether it makes sense.

We’re told that it’s the third night of the hunt (so Eragon left on the 4^th of October) and his food is half gone. If he doesn’t kill the doe, he’ll have to return empty-handed. (Well, you’ll likely return empty-handed anyway, because the doe is much too large for you.) “His family needed the meat for the rapidly approaching winter and could not afford to buy it in Carvahall.”

Okay, I’ve got some issues with that last sentence. First off, I don’t think a single doe could support his family (himself, his older brother Roran, and his uncle Garrow) through an entire winter, so I do hope he planned to do more hunting trips. Second, why would the people in Carvahall use money? It’s a tiny farming village, with at most 300 people, so they could easily get by without. And I don’t think that the rest of the village would let his family starve to death: they need each other to survive, and Carvahall is later portrayed as quite tight-knit, so I don’t think this would be a problem.

Given that Eragon really seems to think this is necessary, and he never questions this, I have to wonder what Garrow has told him. Sending Eragon off into a dangerous area, while he could easily hunt elsewhere, and then pushing an unrealistic goal on him is certainly irresponsible. Not that Paolini seems to realise the implications.

Look Away: 4

And, as we’ll find out later, Garrow could easily have bought meat, so none of this was necessary.

Back to the story, Eragon stands with “quiet assurance”, and then goes into the forest to a glen where he’s sure the deer will rest. That’s sure convenient, but I could see it if he’s been hunting here for a long time. The trees block the sky from view, but Eragon can apparently see well enough. He knows the way to the glen.

Skip to the glen: “At the glen, he strung his bow with a sure touch, then drew three arrows and nocked one, holding the others in his left hand.”

1) “Sure touch”: we get that Eragon is special, Paolini. This seems worth keeping track of… So here’s the count Special for Sure. Lessee… five points for Eragon being the only hunter who hunts in the Spine, two points for “quiet assurance” and being able to see so well in the dark, and one point for this comment.

Special for Sure: 8

2) Why do you only bother to string your bow now? Surely you could have done this once you saw the tracks the first time and knew there were deer around? This just seems like it would make it easy to miss the deer.

3) Why does Eragon hold two arrows while trying to shoot??? I don’t know much about archery, but it seems like a terrible idea. He’s canonically right-handed, so his left hand would be the hand he holds the bow with, which means he can’t hold the bow very tightly, so he’d be quite lucky to shoot any target. If he’s such a skilled hunter, he should know not to do this!

Continuity Fluidity: 2 (this does not confirm to how Eragon’s been built up)

And another count: That’s Not How Any of This Works. Ten points for the very contrived ambush in the prologue, and one point for this.

That’s Not How Any of This Works: 11

Eragon can see “twenty or so motionless lumps where the deer lay in the grass.” Clumsy wording aside, I don’t think deer do this? They’d be alert even while lying down, and they certainly wouldn’t be “motionless lumps”. They should have freaked out when Eragon strung his bow so close to them, which is another reason why that was a bad idea.

I could accept it if they were fancy Alagaësian fantasy deer, who barely experience predation and have very sharp teeth, but that sadly doesn’t seem to be the case.

That’s Not How Any of This Works: 12

It just makes it quite hard for me to get immersed in the story to any degree, which I still actually want to be.

Anyway. Eragon spots the doe at the edge of the herd, and he creeps closer, holding his bow ready. We’re told that “all his work of the past three days ha[s] led to this moment.”, which seems just a bit overdramatic. And then: “He took a last steadying breath and—an explosion shattered the night.”

An explosion that only merited an em-dash, apparently. That’s just not how you use em-dashes, Paolini.

PPP (proper proofreading please): 1

Something like this would be much better:

“He took a last steadying breath and—

An explosion shattered the night.”

Fixed it. That explosion is our plot making its entrance, by the way. It’s the egg stone from the prologue. This is the point of no return, folks. If you want to back out, do it now.

Let’s see how everyone reacts to this explosion. The herd immediately bolts, and apparently none of them is too wounded by the explosion to run away. What does Eragon do? Does he drop his bow? Does he lose track of the doe in the confusion? Does he try to evade the site of the explosion? Does he bother to have any reaction to this? Nope.

Instead, we get this:

“Eragon lunged forward, racing through the grass as a fiery wind surged past his cheek. He slid to a stop and loosed an arrow at the bounding doe. It missed by a finger’s breadth and hissed into darkness. He cursed and spun around, instinctively nocking another arrow.”

-He runs after the herd, instead of bothering to look for the source of the explosion or anything.

-He runs straight at the place where the explosion took place! He doesn’t even try to run around it.

-He apparently manages to pick out the doe from the herd while they are bounding away, and while it’s in the middle of night.

-Despite this, and despite him holding his bow very awkwardly, he almost succeeds in hitting the doe.

-He then takes the time to curse before finally reacting to the massive explosion.

This isn’t the reaction of, well, a person, and it’s jarring. I don’t see how anyone would be able to just not notice an explosion and continue doing what they did before. I say “not notice” because Eragon doesn’t just ignore it: he doesn’t mention anything about it during this paragraph, except for the “fiery wind”. He doesn’t even seem to be that focussed on the hunt, as he was perfectly capable of noticing other things just before. This is just plain bad writing, and it’s nearly surreal in how disconnected it is from what would be expected.

Still, underreacting is a constant problem with these books, so here’s yet another count: Reaction, Please. Eragon showing no reaction at all to this explosion gets 5 points.

Reaction, Please: 5

The last bit, where Eragon spins around and nocks another arrow, does fit, which makes this stand out all the more.

He looks at the spot “where the deer had been”, where “a large circle of grass and trees smolder[s].” So yes, he did run past the spot of the explosion, and didn’t notice. I also have to wonder how far away he must have been, as he didn’t get burned in any way. Maybe he ran along the blast site? I dunno, the blocking is awful.

There’s a block of description:

-Many of the pines are stripped of needles.

-The grass outside of the charred area is flattened.

-There’s a wisp of smoke in the air, which carries a “burnt smell.”

-“In the center of the blast radius [lies] a polished blue stone.”

-Mist swirls dramatically across the “stone”.

That’s two dead herrings (we know it’s an egg).

Dead Herrings: 5

And the phrase “blast radius” doesn’t seem like something that Eragon the farmboy would know about, and it doesn’t fit the setting either. Count? Count. Here comes Forgot the Narrator, which is what it says on the tin.

Forgot the Narrator: 1 (Eragon wouldn’t know that phrase)

More plot-relevantly, this is where the egg from the prologue went. Arya’s teleported it into the Spine and now Eragon’s ~accidentally~ found it. I don’t know why the egg caused such a large explosion on arrival, though. Maybe Arya didn’t have enough time to cast the neat version of the spell? That seems likely.

Sensibly, Eragon waits several minutes in case the stone is dangerous (the contrast with just before couldn’t be greater), but there’s only the moving mist. He “releases the tension from his bow” and walks closer. As he stops before the egg stone,

Dead Herrings: 6

he’s dramatically cast in shadow by the moonlight. He nudges it with an arrow, and then jumps back. Good to see he’s at least a tiny bit cautious about the mysterious stone. Nothing happens, so he “warily pick[s] it up.” Great thinking, Eragon! It might contain an explosive that won’t go off unless a certain pressure is applied to it. It might be coated in a poison. It might be cursed. But one nudge with an arrow is enough to determine that it’s safe to pick up! What are you thinking, Eragon???

Of course, none of the things I said above is true, Eragon won’t be harmed at all, and we get to see the not-at-all-an-egg.

Nature had never polished a stone as smooth as this one.

Dead Herrings: 7 (because it’s absolutely a stone)

I think we’re supposed to think there’s magic involved in the making of the “stone”, but it’s a bit understated, and I can’t judge because we aren’t told just how smooth it is. Microscopically smooth? And even then, stones can be worn very smooth by natural processes, so I don’t see it as unnatural per se.

Besides, because it’s an egg, it’s natural per definition.

Its flawless surface was dark blue, except for thin veins of white that spiderwebbed across it.

It’s dark blue, just like the dragon on the cover! What a coincidence! It’s frankly insulting that we’re supposed to play along and think it’s still a stone.

This could have been easily fixed, however. Just have Durza refer to it as an egg in the prologue, as he knows what it is. Then the mentions of the stone would be just because we’re in Eragon’s POV, and we can spend the next few chapters waiting for him to find out it is, in fact, an egg. It isn’t that hard! And this reminds me…

Continuity Fluidity: 5 (Durza should know it’s an egg)

The stone was cool and frictionless under his fingers, like hardened silk.

Dead Herrings: 8 (prepare to hear this another forty times)

I don’t think “frictionless” is what you’re going for, Paolini. If the stone is literally frictionless, that means it will slide over any kind of surface, which makes it next to impossible to hold it like this. “Smooth” will do perfectly fine.

PPP: 2

And why does Eragon compare the stone to hardened silk? He’s spent his whole life in Carvahall, and though there are merchants, I think silk would be a bit too expensive for a village like this.

Forgot the Narrator: 2

Oval and about a foot long, it weighed several pounds, though it felt lighter than it should have.

Yep, the stone is oval, i.e. egg-shaped. It’s an egg. Just say it already, Paolini, instead of dragging this out over several chapters! And no shit is it “lighter than it should have.” It’s hollow, because it’s an egg! This is insulting my intelligence as a reader, Paolini!

Let’s do the next two paragraphs line-by-line.

Eragon found the stone both beautiful and frightening.

Dead Herrings: 9

At least he doesn’t take the egg’s existence for granted.

Where did it come from? Does it have a purpose? Then a more disturbing thought came to him: Was it sent here by accident, or am I meant to have it?

Got to love these leading questions, like you can’t trust the reader to come up with questions of their own. It would have been nicer to put in some speculation on Eragon’s part. That would allow for characterisation on his end and it would be a nice jumping-off point for further speculation on the readers’ part. I’ll still answer the questions, though.

“Where did it come from?”: Well, Eragon, if two dragons love each other very much… But to keep it simple, it came from Du Weldenvarden, and sent here by Arya.

“Does it have a purpose?”: Yes, it has. It’s purpose is to protect the unhatched young within and provide it with nutrients while it grows.

“Was it sent here by accident, or am I meant to have it?”: A bit of both, actually. Let me explain: Arya meant to send the egg to Brom, erstwhile leader of the Varden, and actually Eragon’s father. So from that perspective, it’s an accident that it landed before Eragon.

On the other hand, there’s Umaroth. For context, he’s a white dragon who was bonded to the Rider Vrael, who was the leader of the Riders from 800 to 100 years before the present of the story. At the present of the story, he doesn’t have an actual body anymore; instead, he lives in his Eldunarí (plural: Eldunarya), a kind of gem that grows in the bodies of the dragons from Inheritance. He’s spent the last hundred years in a vault on the island of Vroengard, the old home of the Riders, and he’s used that time to mess around with people all over Alagaësia in an attempt to orchestrate Galbatorix’s downfall. And this is another thing he’s had a hand in. (What an heroic figure, don’t you think?)

In this specific case, he modified Arya’s spell, so that the egg would appear in front of Eragon instead of Brom. According to him, this was because he thought the egg would have a better chance to hatch for Eragon.

So yeah, Eragon is in part meant to have it, and the thought should certainly be disturbing him. Better not trust the undead dragon, after all.

On face value, these questions are bad, though. While “Where did it come from?” is a good enough question, “Does it have a purpose?” is a little weird. From Eragon’s perspective, it’s just a stone. He suspects it has to do with magic, but that doesn’t mean it has to have a purpose per se. It might as well be something like a jewel in elven culture, for all he knows. And the last question: “am I meant to have it?” Why does he immediately think of that?? Does he really think he’s that special??

Special for Sure: 9

If he had learned anything from the old stories, it was to treat magic, and those who used it, with great caution.

What old stories? We never hear about them! And why would he need to rely on old stories, anyway? There are still lots of magicians in the Empire! It would make sense if those stories were about the days of the Riders, but then that should be made clearer. By the way, just keep an eye on how long this attitude stays.

~~~

But what should I do with the stone?

Dead Herrings: 10

Just leave it here? You would be much better off in the long run.

It would be tiresome to carry, and there was a chance it was dangerous. It might be better to leave it behind.

As I said. It’s weird that he even has to think so much about leaving it behind.

A flicker of indecision ran through him, and he almost dropped it, but something stayed his hand. At the very least, it might pay for some food, he decided with a shrug, tucking the stone into his pack.

Dead Herrings: 11

And then he decides to take it along, on the basis that it might pay for food. Because the plot calls for Eragon to take the egg to home, and have it hatch there, no matter how little sense it makes.

And it does make very little sense. Again, why would Eragon need to pay for food?? And why does he think that the people from Carvahall would accept a stone for payment? Why wouldn’t they think it’s cursed, too?

That’s not How Any of This Works: 14

Frankly, this whole sequence feels off. First, Eragon approaches the egg with caution and remembers old stories about how dangerous magic is. He recognises that it would be a pain to carry, and that it could be dangerous. He even considers leaving it behind. But then, he suddenly can’t decide what to do, and immediately decides to take it along, while rationalising it with a bizarre argument.

This doesn’t even work if Paolini just wanted Eragon get the egg back to home. In that case, it would have made more sense to have Eragon be quite impulsive (which he actually is), and have him take the egg without second thoughts. But the way it’s phrase here almost seems like Eragon is influenced by someone into taking the egg. And we might as well assume it’s that, because we’ll never get answers as to why he changed his mind so sudden.

The thing I just described is another recurring thing in the series. Multiple times, Paolini just drops in things that seem to hint at goings-on outside of the story we see, or the characters act strangely for no discernible reason, like here. It’s like unrealised foreshadowing for a story that Paolini didn’t even realise could be thought of, and it weirdly feels like the story kind of… goes its own way. Those parts of the story aren’t canon, but, like in this case, they make enough sense in-universe that I’ll still see them as “what actually happened” and I will also give them points accordingly. And there’s a count for this, too.

The Story Behind the Story: 1

In this specific case, I can even point to someone who would want to do this: Umaroth. And he can do this, too:

At first only in small ways: a nudge here, a whispered suggestion there, a sense of alarm to one about to be ambushed.

We did not always succeed, but we were able to help those who still fought Galbatorix, and as

time progressed, we grew more adept and more confident with our tampering. On a few rare

occasions, our presence was noticed, but no one was ever able to determine who or what we were. ~Inheritance, Chapter 56, “Lacuna, Part the Second”

And this:

We altered the flow of magic so that you and Saphira would meet. We thought there was a chance—a small one, but a chance nevertheless—that you might prove a fit match for her. We were right. ~Inheritance, Chapter 56, “Lacuna, Part the Second”

Umaroth wanted to give Saphira a chance to hatch for Eragon, which would be quite difficult if he left the egg in the mountains. Combined with the strange shift in Eragon’s attitude regarding the egg, it seems reasonable to presume that Umaroth has slightly nudged Eragon’s thoughts to make him take the egg along, especially since “something stayed his hand” is very suspicious. The thought about selling the egg for food could then be his attempt to find a rationale for this thought.

True, Umaroth never says anything to this extent, but given some of his other actions, there’s no reason why he should tell Eragon and Saphira. It would make them easier to manipulate, for one.

Needless to say, this is very much not okay. Not only because messing with Eragon’s mind to make him take the egg is a violation of his autonomy, but also because it pushes him towards a role that he can’t possibly fathom the consequences of.

Look Away: 5

Not that Eragon taking along the egg is enough to make him a Rider, though. Saphira must first like him before she hatches. Whether that’s how it happens… well, you’ll see.

Back to the story, Eragon decides the glen is too exposed to camp safely, so he goes back in the forest and makes camp under the roots of a fallen tree. You can be sensible, Eragon, if you want to. Eragon takes a “dinner of bread and cheese”, which makes me wonder why he even has to hunt. His home situation doesn’t look the better for it. He now wraps himself in his blankets and falls asleep, “pondering what ha[s] occurred.” End chapter.

And this begins a pattern of chapter endings, where the protagonist either falls asleep or becomes unconscious. This isn’t bad in and of itself, of course, but when around half of the chapters in the book end this way, it becomes very repetitive.

For the chapter-end tallies (which I will be keeping) there is:

Protagonist Unconsciousness: 1 (because Eragon fell asleep here)

Other Ending: 1 (I can’t really put the ending of the prologue in a specific category)

Overall, this chapter was serviceable enough for the purpose of introducing Eragon and the egg, but it’s still not very substantive, and could better have been merged with the next chapter.

Next time, we’ll get an introduction to Carvahall, some of the villagers and Eragon’s home life. We’ll also see Eragon try (and fail) to sell the egg, and we’re introduced to one of the characters that Paolini hates most. See you then!

The counts:

Continuity Fluidity: 5

Dead Herrings: 11

Forgot the Narrator: 2

Look Away: 5

PPP: 2

Reaction, Please: 5

Shine Bright Like a Diamond: 1

Special for Sure: 9

That’s Not How Any of This Works: 14

The Story Behind the Story: 1

Other Ending: 1

Protagonist Unconsciousness: 1