I Read What?!

Chapter Twenty-Two (Part II) | Table of Contents | Chapter Twenty-Four

Fumurti: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Eragon! Last time, we learned about Seithr oil, and Brom and Eragon came up with a quite convoluted way to find the Ra’zac based on that.

For the reader post:

On part I of chapter 17, Alec points out that there should not be any dirt flying around if there are grasslands. That… sounds a bit more likely than Paolini forgetting that the ground should be bare.

It’s Like We’re Smart But We’re Not: 88 (since there would be no dirt in the air)

PPP: 861 (-1)

Both she and Chessy have also convinced me that Eragon thinking that Brom curses is actually reasonable, so…

Forgot the Narrator: 51 (-1)

Chessy also notes that Eragon doesn’t know who exactly killed Garrow. Indeed, he hasn’t put any thought so far as to how he will find the culprits; he just seems to assume that he’ll know when they get there. That tells me that he’s quite alright with killing an innocent, as long as he gets his revenge. And naturally, no one ever notes this. What a hero.

FYRP: 62 (Eragon wouldn’t think this way about humans yet, after all)

Morals for Thee But Not for Me: 24

Finally, she notes that the simile Eragon comes up with (about feeling like “a mouse under an eagle’s eye), is actually fine, so…

Like Coins Bounced Off a Drum: 4 (-1)

On part II of chapter 22, Epistler confirms that treating pearls with oil wouldn’t work at all.

I also noted that trying to use magic to track down the Ra’zac actually wouldn’t take more energy than they have.

With that, it’s time for CN to take over again. Until chapter 27!

Corneille Noire: Here I am again! Let us see what the next chapter holds, then.

Chapter Twenty-Three: A Song for the Road

Hmm, this “song” will not be very important, even in the context of this chapter… but I cannot think of anything else notable enough to be used as the chapter title. Maybe “To Teirm” would have been better (after all, Paolini will use something like it next book)?

We open the next day, with Eragon and Brom riding. That would be the 13^th of January, then. Eragon asks what the sea is like. Nice to see some curiosity from Eragon! Brom deflects, saying that Eragon must have heard before. Eragon persists, wanting to know what it is “really like”. So Brom’s eyes go hazy and he waxes poetic about the sea. He says it is “emotion incarnate”, and it “loves, hates, and weeps”. It defies every attempt to “capture it with words” and “rejects all shackles”. No matter what one says about it, there is always that which cannot be said.

So Brom’s description comes down to “the sea is emotion incarnate” and “the sea can never be accurately described”. I do not think this gives a very good idea of what the sea is “really like”. Let me try to do better:

“The sea defies all attempts to define it. At times it is calm, and it is wild at others, but it always does what it will, as many have found to their misfortune. Neither can it be fully predicted, or its expanse fathomed.”

It is still not very good, but a bit more coherent than what Brom says, I think.

Brom then asks Eragon if he remembers being told that the elves come from over the sea. This transition might be a bit smoother. Eragon says yes. Brom exposits that, though the elves live “far from the coast”, they keep a “great fascination and passion for the ocean”. They are deeply affected by the “sound of crashing waves” and “the smell of salt air” and it has inspired “many of their loveliest songs”. He says there is one that tells about “this love”, if Eragon wants to hear it.

It would be nice if we would see this love, but we never do, nor will we see any elves with an affinity for the ocean. This would be a nice bit of elven culture (though it would naturally be less total than Brom implies), but as it is, it is an Informed Attribute. Also, given how the elves will be treated, I am not exactly surprised that we first hear something about elven culture from Brom.

So, Eragon wants to hear this song (which is where the title comes from). Brom says he will try translating it from the ancient language as good as he can. It will not be perfect, but it might give Eragon “an idea of how the original sounds”. Why not do the original and then a translation? Then, Eragon can hear what the original sounds like and understand its meaning. Brom might even teach him some new words using the original, too. It would not be necessary to write out the original, either, since Brom mostly cares about how it sounds. But no, we will go with just the translation. (I do not mind having this poem here, though; it is a nice bit of culture, even if it does end up going nowhere.)

So Brom has Snowfire stop and closes his eyes. After a while, he begins to “chant[]” the poem, and here it is!

O liquid temptress ‘neath the azure sky,

Your gilded expanse calls me, calls me.

For I would sail ever on,

Were it not for the elven maid,

Who calls me, calls me.

She binds my heart with a lily-white tie,

Never to be broken, save by the sea,

Ever to be torn twixt the trees and the waves.

My first reaction is “eh”. It is not very bad, but it does not catch my imagination, either. I frankly think this would be better as prose, with some adjustments to make it fit better. I can hardly leave it at that, though, so let me have a closer look.

Qua form, it is not good. I cannot discern any metre, the lines have no consistent length, and I cannot see any rhythm either. I also note that the lines end with commas or periods, which, combined with the general look of it, makes it look quite like a piece of prose with line breaks inserted. Aside from the last point, though, I would not expect anything else from a hasty translation, so I will not complain about it.

Let me go through the content, then!

O liquid temptress ‘neath the azure sky,

Your gilded expanse calls me, calls me.

I get the feeling that Paolini thought poetic language made for a good poem, which is not how poems work. The result is that this is just overblown, and, given that the narrator calls the sea a “temptress”, it sounds somewhat like he is romantically interested in the sea, which I am quite certain Paolini did not intend. Also… “’neath” is notably only used here and in Inheritance, so it just feels out of place.

Thou Art Well Come: 4 (that one was a good time ago!)

For I would sail ever on,

Were it not for the elven maid,

Who calls me, calls me.

So this “elven maid” does not want to sail with him? That might be nice to hear about explicitly, rather than having it implied. Further, why does this begin with “for”? This does not serve as an explanation of the previous sentence, so this one flows smoother without it.

PPP: 862

Also, why does Brom use “elven maid”? It is already clear from the context that this “maid” is an elf, so this is just silly.

PPP: 863

Finally, I am a bit bothered by the “calls me, calls me” bits. I just do not see what they are supposed to be doing in this poem.

She binds my heart with a lily-white tie,

Never to be broken, save by the sea,

Ever to be torn twixt the trees and the waves.

This conveys considerably more than the rest of the poem, and it feels like it has a different style. That is a bit sloppy.

PPP: 864

For the content, what is this “lily-white tie”? Is it something physical, like an engagement symbol? Or is it a metaphor for his connection with the “maid”, and if so, why is this the metaphor chosen? If you show this poem, it would be nice if we could also understand what it refers to.

And then the final line has “twixt”, a word that will not appear in the main series again at all.

Thou Art Well Come: 5

Looking at the whole poem, I do understand what it tries to say (which is unfortunately more than I can say of some of Paolini’s other poems), so there is that. I suppose this bit is the beginning of the larger poem it is a part of? It does introduce what it is about somewhat decently, at least. All in all, I stand by what I said: it has quite some problems, but it does what it is supposed to do.

Back to the present… the poem “echoe[s] hauntingly” in Eragon’s head.

HISC: The self-published edition says that the way Brom has sung it “[makes] him feel an aching love for the sea”.

Corneille Noire: From a summary of a poem about someone torn between his love for the sea and an “elven maid”? I highly doubt it. So Brom explains that this was only one of the song’s verses and there is, naturally, much more to it. He also says the song is called “the ‘Du Silbena Datia’”. First, I am quite sure this poem is not known widely enough to be called the ‘Du Silbena Datia’.

PPP: 865

Then… the glossary calls this song “Du Silbena Datia” with double quotation marks. (clucks tongue) That could be more consistent.

PPP: 866

Either way, the gloss is: “The Sighing Mists” (a poem song). I guess these mists appear prominently in the song? It does sound like something that the sea could bring forth… Also, what is a “poem song”? I suppose it is a poem that is often sung, but I can barely find this specific phrasing, and something like “sung poem” would be clearer.

PPP: 867

Oh, I also see that “silbena” is glossed as “sigh” and “datia” as “mists”, never mind that, in the ancient language, adjectives go after the noun. We even have “gedwëy ignasia” as an example of that! This just feels quite inconsistent, and I suspect that “Du Silbena Datia” is an older name than “gedwëy ignasia”, and that Paolini came up with this rule partway through the revisions and did not bother to apply it everywhere. (Eventually, he will even use one of his own improperly constructed names to make a group look incompetent for using that. From another author, that might look self-deprecating, but with Paolini, it rather feels mean-spirited.)

A Better Commando Name: 17

Brom further explains that the song “tells the sad tale of two lovers, Acallamh and Nuada, who were separated by longing for the sea.” The elves apparently find “great meaning” in it. Eragon’s only reaction is to call it “beautiful” and there the scene ends. I do love how Eragon has absolutely no follow-up questions and that we, consequently, get nothing to deepen this. His only reaction is that the song is “beautiful”, when he has only heard a single verse. (I also find it too shoddy to be “beautiful”, but that is just me.)

Further, despite Brom’s claim of the song holding “great meaning” for the elves, we will never hear of it again, even though we will spend quite some time among them. And even when Eragon dives into elven poetry in the next book, he will not bother seeking “Du Silbena Datia” out again. This whole scene might as well not exist for all the impact it will have!

PPP: 868

I do wonder how this tale goes on… How were Nuada and Acallamh exactly “separated” by Acallamh’s longing, for example? Did they simply fail to reconcile their interests, or did one of them die, for example? Come to think of it, in which time period is this set? I would like to hear much more about this poem!

That aside, I want to talk about the names of these lovers. As someone already pointed out, “Nuada” (who has the epithet “Airgetlám”) is a figure from Irish mythology, where he is the first king of the Tuatha Dé Dannan (a supernatural race). While Seraphania pointed to a connection with another character, here we have someone who has the exact same name as the Irish Nuada! Why did Paolini name this elf after him, anyway? I find it quite distracting.

A Better Commando Name: 18

While “Nuada” would be a plausible elven name, “Acallamh” most certainly is not, because of the “mh” cluster at the end. That is because… it is clearly derived from Acallam na Senórach, which is the longest surviving work of Middle Irish literature. I also see that the first word is given as “Acallamh” in some places, so that cements it. As for what that word means… it seems to mean something like “conversation” or “colloquy”. That means that we have a character who is approximately called “conversation”. You do realise that that is a deeply awful name, Paolini?

A Better Commando Name: 19

I am quite sure I am the first to publicly make this connection (I could not find discussions about it on any place I thought to look, at least), but if I am wrong, do correct me!

Either way, when they stop that evening, the Spine is “a faint outline on the horizon”. …As Fumurti calculated last time, they are 33,8 kilometres (21 miles) from the nearest mountains. We have had no indication that it is hazy or dusty, so by rights the Spine should be quite clear. Looking again, I get the idea that Paolini thinks the Spine is “faint” because of how far away they are, which would agree with Brom’s “we can see the Spine tomorrow” comment. That does not fit with my distance scale, which I derived from distances given in this very book, and with them seeing the Spine so much better in a single day, though.

So… when has this happened earlier? We have had the insistence that Yazuac lies east of Palancar Valley, two mess-ups before they reach Yazuac, Eragon, Brom and Saphira going at three miles a day, the “frigid seas” comment, the mess-up with the road branches, the Ninor apparently lying in a valley, and then this. Given that, and because I am quite interested to see how this develops, have this:

Space-Time Hairball: 8 (based on Timey-Wimey Hairball, coined by Crooked-Ear-Llama)

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We pick up with them arriving at “the Spine’s foothills”, where they turn south to follow the Spine. Let me see… Oh, here is the actual path they would follow:

Let me redo the calculations, then. Their path would now take 108,7 kilometres (67,5 miles), which is very close to the original value. The nearest part of the Spine would still be to the west after one day and roughly at the same distance, so I will not bother with that.

So, with this new path, let me see how far along they would be… The part of the route to the Spine would be 56,55 kilometres (35,14 miles), which is 52%, or 3,6 days. That means they reach the Spine around noon on the 16^th of January. (Yes, this is all rather uncertain, but I am quite sure of the day.)

Eragon is happy to be near the Spine again, because it “place[s] comforting boundaries on the world”. Good for him, I would say, even though we have hardly heard about him being uncomfortable with the plains for several chapters now. Three days later, they reach “a wide road rutted by wagon wheels”. Then it would be the 19^th of January, and this is the last day of the week Brom said it would take them to get near the pass. So they should be entering the very next day.

Brom says it is the “main road between the capital, Urû’baen, and Teirm”. (Yes, we are suddenly in a scene now.) That makes sense, given that they are close to the pass. I do think it is a somewhat strange choice to only introduce the Empire’s capital now. True, we have heard it earlier, in Brom’s propaganda story, but then he said it was a citadel, not the capital. I also think it is time to talk about its name now.

First, I see that Fumurti did not show the glossary entry for “Ristvak’baen”, which is “Place of Sorrow”, as Brom said. It has this note attached: “(baen—used here and in Urû’baen, the capital of the Empire—is always pronounced bane and is an expression of great sadness/grief)”.

Since this note is so bulky, what would be the problem with making this its own glossary entry? Also, I do not think “always” needs to be there.

PPP: 870 (+2) (seriously, the glossary needs some love, too)

So, let me hop over to Paolini’s webpage on the ancient language… and let me note some relevant things first. For “gedwëy ignasia”, he notes that some people drop the diaeresis, but because of “the epic nature of Eragon’s saga”, he has kept it. Good to know. I also see there is an apostrophe in “Shur’tugal” because it, if said properly, “makes you spend an extra half-second on Shur’tugal, emphasizing the Riders’ elevated status”. That sounds just like something the Riders would do and I am quite happy not to say it properly.

More relevantly, we are told that “baen” is written with an apostrophe because it “represents such a powerful and complex form of grief”. Alright… And then, there is a note about Urû’baen:

A side note on Urû’baen: The name is a bastardization coined by Galbatorix. Urû is a dwarf word—obvious since the ancient language uses no circumflexes—that means elders or sages. Urû’baen then translates as the elders’ grief/sorrow, the elders’ folly, or even the elders’ downfall. Galbatorix knew that most humans wouldn’t understand the deeper meaning, but for the elves and dwarves, the capital’s name is an open insult.

That actually is a smart name! I would think that indirectly naming the capital “the Riders’ downfall” would be quite heartening for the people of the Empire, too. Why would Galbatorix not rename the city to celebrate their overthrow? I think that has more to do with the renaming than a desire to spite the dwarves and elves, who are not even present in the Empire, and who, in the case of the dwarves, probably would not care all that much.

Back to the present… So, we have reached the main road between Teirm and Urû’baen. Brom says it is “widely used” and a “favorite route for merchants”, since it is the only practical land route between the coast and the rest of the Empire, I presume. Consequently, they need to be “more cautious” (as if they are not already). It may not be the “busiest time of year”, but there will be some people on the road. …That still is a very small threat compared to going to Teirm.

And that is the scene, as we immediately cut ahead to this: “Days passed quickly as they continued to trek along the Spine, searching for the mountain pass.” Why are they “searching for the mountain pass”? And how can they keep going along the Spine?? As I calculated above, a week has passed by now, and Brom said it should take a week to reach the pass. (Notably, my calculations fit quite well with the figure of three days along the Spine; they would have covered 6.6 days out of 7 by then.) More convincingly, they just reached the road between Teirm and Urû’baen! Here is how that road would likely go:

I do not see why the road should bend north at the Spine. The river that lies there does not bend that way, and I doubt the road would bend without any good reason for it. Given that, they should already be at the mountain pass and this “trekking for days” is just untrue. Paolini could have caught this by just paying a little attention to what he wrote, but apparently not.

Space-Time Hairball: 9

Now we get some description of what happens during this time. Why are we getting that description now, actually? This is just an awkward gap in what Eragon did, so I will just assume that it actually belongs to the week they spent travelling to the pass.

PPP: 871

We are told that Eragon “[cannot] complain of boredom”. If only the same went for us… When he does not learn “the elven language”—and why is the ancient language not called that more often?—he either learns how to “care for Saphira” or practices magic. Ah, there is our very first reference to Saphira this chapter! I do wonder what Eragon exactly learns, since I do not think we will ever see Eragon care for Saphira using these techniques, and Saphira seems perfectly capable of caring for herself.

PPP: 872 (make this useful somewhere)

Eragon further learns “how to kill game with magic”, which saves time hunting. He will hold a “small rock” on his hand and magically shoot it at his prey, and it is apparently “impossible to miss”. Their prey then “roast[s] over the fire” each night. So they are still only eating other animals? It probably would not be long enough to develop scurvy, but they are taking risks for no good reason. The hunting method is quite smart, though! Because it does not require a specific weapon or munition, it is also broadly useful. I only wish we saw it more beyond this book…

After dinner, they also keep at their sword training, and they occasionally fight with “fists”. Oh, did they?

HISC: This line is exclusive to the Knopf edition, and I presume it was inserted both because Paolini forgot about the sword training and to compensate for the deletion of a later fist-fighting scene.

Corneille Noire: Interesting! So, the “long days and strenuous work” (like what?) remove the “excess fat” from Eragon. We have never heard about him having any “fat” to be removed! Also, why is this only happening now and not in the weeks before this chapter?

PPP: 873

His arms turn “corded” and his skin becomes “tanned” and “ripple[s] with lean muscles”. He thinks “dryly” that everything about him is “turning hard”. That is not what is happening with Eragon, and I have little idea how he is “turning hard” in other ways. Maybe he means his mindset? I also doubt that his body would change so much in what has to be a week.

It’s Like We’re Smart But We’re Not: 89

PPP: 874

When they finally reach the pass, on what I presume to be the next day (the 20^th of January), Eragon sees that a river comes out of it and “cut[s] across the road”. Um, the road was presumably built with the river in mind, so it should bend here to follow the river upstream. This just makes it sound like the river broke straight through the road, which… would not be the case. Further, this implies that the road to Urû’baen does bend to the north, which I still refuse to believe.

PPP: 875

Space-Time Hairball: 10

Brom says the river is the “Toark” and they will follow it toward the sea. Eragon rightly asks how they can when the Toark flows to the east. It will only end in the ocean if it makes a hairpin turn, after all. He also laughs at this, which I say serves Brom right. After a note about Brom twisting Aren on his finger, he says that the “Woadark Lake” lies in the middle of the Spine. From either end a river flows, and both are called “the Toark”. This is the eastward one, which bends south and “winds through the brush” until it flows into “Leona Lake”. The westward one flows to the sea.

Let me first show the map:

It matches Brom’s description quite well, except that the eastward Toark flows south-west, not south.

Space-Time Hairball: 11

For the content, I first note that Brom just explained wrong. The eastward Toark simply stops existing at Woadark Lake, and they will follow the westward Toark from the lake. “We will be following two rivers with the same name to the ocean” is not the same as “we will be following a single river to the ocean”, after all. But Brom naturally does not want to admit that he said something wrong.

Then… we have both rivers being called the “Toark”. I could understand if they did not have different base names, but given that the area has been inhabited for thousands of years, there should at least have developed names like “Western Toark” and “Eastern Toark”. This is truly not so hard, Paolini!

A Better Commando Name: 20

I further note we see none of this “brush” when Eragon and Brom go along it, so…

PPP: 876

Finally, we have “Lion Lake”, which is still out of place.

A Better Commando Name: 21

And that was that, as we cut to two days later (the 22^nd of January)! They reach a “rock ledge” which lets them look out of the Spine clearly. So we wholly skipped over Woadark Lake, it seems, and it will never be mentioned again. Good plotting! Either way, Eragon notices “how the land flatten[s] in the distance” and groans at “the leagues they still [have] to traverse”. An educated guess gives me a distance of 51,9 kilometres (32,26 miles) or 10,75 leagues, which is not very little, but not that much, either. I will let this one go, though, since this is Eragon’s subjective reaction.

Brom points and says Teirm lies down and “to the north”. (points up) It lies to the north-west from where you are; if it lay to the north, it would be inside the Spine.

Space-Time Hairball: 12

Brom explains that it is “an old city”, and “some say” that that is where the elves first reached Alagaësia. (That would be Domia Abr Wyrda, at least.) Given that it lies in a bay with a river flowing into it, that does not seem unreasonable. He further says its citadel has “never fallen”, nor have its warriors “ever been defeated”. Um, next chapter he will say that Teirm was “nearly burned down in a pirate raid” and that is why the city was rebuilt. That does not fit well with “the warriors have never been defeated”.

PPP: 877

Then Brom spurs Snowfire off the ledge.

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So, by “noon the next day” (the 23^rd of January) they have managed to clear the foothills and “arrive at the other side of the Spine”, where the “forested land” quickly flattens. Since she cannot use the mountains for cover any more, Saphira flies “close to the ground”, hiding in “every hollow and dip in the land”. That seems like a good idea, though I wonder how Saphira hid during the first days after their departure from the Ninor… Also, there we have Saphira again, for the first time this chapter!

HISC: The self-published edition states that she sometimes lands and catches up with them later.

Corneille Noire: That is sensible. When they leave the forest—

HISC: On the same day, according to the self-published edition.

Corneille Noire: Thank you. When they leave the forest, they note a “change” in the landscape. The countryside is covered in “soft turf and heather” that “their feet [sink] into”. Um, I can see their feet sinking into the turf (though it has to be quite wet for that)… but you can hardly sink your feet into heather. Here is a picture:

Sure, you can step into it, but the ground beneath can be quite solid, so it is very different from sinking into turf! I almost get the idea Paolini envisioned it as some kind of soil.

It’s Like We’re Smart But We’re Not: 90 (heather and turf do not react nearly the same when stepped on)

Also, why are they going into the countryside? Is there any reason for that, or did Eragon just dismount and test the sides of the road for fun? Give us some explanations, Paolini!

Well, “every stone and branch” has moss on it, and it also lines the “streams that lace[] the ground”. There are also mud pools on the road where horses have “trampled the dirt”. Soon, both Eragon and Brom are “splattered with grime”. I guess there was heavy rain in the previous days?

Eragon asks why everything is green and if they do not “have winter here”. Why is he only surprised now? We have seen no sign of winter ever since they left Palancar Valley (a month ago, by now), as the trees around the Ninor still had leaves and we even had dust devils. The only reason “everything” was not green there was because of how dry the plains are. This just makes no sense.

PPP: 878

Brom explains that they do have winter, but it is mild. “Mist and fog” come from the sea and “keep everything alive”. Some like it, he says, but he finds it “dreary and depressing”. You do you, I say. I do have more to say on his explanation of the season.

Yes, the “mist and fog” presumably help with keeping the plants “alive”, though the rain would be the main factor. Also, even in Palancar Valley, plants stay alive during winter. Where else would new plants come from come spring? These problems aside, this explains why the plains are not so green, but it has little to do with why this area stays green in winter. After all, if the temperature is low, the “fog and mist” will just form snow, which will not protect the plants from the cold. This is simply not how this works, Brom.

It’s Like We’re Smart But We’re Not: 93 (+3)

HISC: Now we come to the fist-fighting scene. Are you ready for this?

Corneille Noire: Oh, I certainly am.

HISC: So, they set up camp and have dinner. Eragon pulls out Zar’roc in preparation for sparring. Brom shakes his head at this and tells him to put it away, as they will fight with their fists this time. Eragon puts Zar’roc away and readies himself. He says he has had experience with “fisticuffs in Carvahall”, but he is not sure how this will develop. Brom walks toward him, and Eragon watches carefully. He knows that he has faster reflexes than Brom, but Brom has more experience.

Corneille Noire: So far, so good.

HISC: Brom then punches Eragon in the stomach and Eragon doubles over. Before he can recover, Brom sweeps him off his feet so that he “slam[s] into the ground”. Brom leans over him, “grinning”. He asks if Eragon is all right. Eragon gives a “strangled curse” and gets up, coughing.

This is the same thing as the swordfighting: Brom lays into him without giving him any instructions and seems to use it mostly as an excuse to beat Eragon up. He is even grinning! This time, though, he lets Eragon recover, which is marginally better.

Eragon really wants to prove himself, so he raises his fists again. Brom stops him and explains the proper stance. Eragon is right-handed, so he needs put his left foot forward and keep his weight on it. He should also keep his left hand in front of his face, higher then his right, and keep his hands “unclenched” so he can both punch and grab. He also has Eragon execute those stances. Then why did he not do this with the sword training?! That would have been so much better!

Brom then also shows him to “dance around and confuse the enemy”. Again, where was this earlier? Eragon quickly learns not to leave the stance through “a painful series of blows”, which I am quite sure is purely to hurt Eragon. Eragon sees an opening to strike and hits Brom on the chin, which knocks him over. It hurts Eragon’s hand terribly.

Brom gets up and asks if Eragon learned something, in what I imagine to be a smug tone. Eragon gripes, and Brom says that you should avoid hitting bones, because then you might break you knuckles, and chins are “almost as hard as rock”. Eragon also should not believe stories about “two people pound[ing] on each other” for more than a few minutes, because it is too painful to go on longer. …I cannot quite remember such a fight scene from Paolini’s books, so there is that.

After a few minutes, Eragon has mostly recovered. Brom says that that is enough for now, and they will try again tomorrow. (Not that I know.) He gives more advice: if you fight someone, you should get “him” on the ground as quickly as possible, because they will have leverage and that “puts him at your mercy”. If there are multiple enemies, there will be no time to “tackle them individually”, so then survival depends on being able to hurt someone without taking them down or fleeing.

Eragon deduces that he also needs to judge “how much damage” he wants to inflict. For example, does he only want to “break his nose” or “crush his throat and kill him”. Brom agrees and says it takes “split-second judgment” to be able to estimate a threat and “how violent your response should be”. There the scene ends.

If we were to have this scene, we should have had it much earlier. These are things Eragon should have been thinking about before he began, and the attention to stances should have been there from the beginning, too. I would also remove the abuse, because that is certainly there. Given its current position, this was quite rightly cut.

Corneille Noire: I fully agree. In the Knopf edition, we are told that they “set up camp in the driest spot they [can] find”. During dinner, Brom goes over how they should approach Teirm. He notably says nothing about Saphira, even though she is the one who needs to hide the most carefully. I guess it once again goes to show how little Saphira is in this book…

Either way, Brom says Eragon should ride Cadoc until Teirm. They will be likely to meet “other travelers” (oh no!) since they have left the Spine, and because an “old man traveling alone” will “raise suspicion”, it would be better if Eragon went along with him. Why would “an old man travelling alone” be suspicious? I do not see it. And, even if it is suspicious, how many of these travellers will act on it, and how likely would it be that it would reach the Empire? I do not think it would it is worth planning for.

He further says that he also does not want Eragon to show up at Teirm and have “someone who saw [him] on the trail wondering where [Eragon] suddenly came from”. While that would be suspicious, I still do not think it is such a great danger compared to Teirm. That aside… I see that Brom references the idea of Eragon not being with him on the trail on joining him at Teirm. Would Eragon stay with Saphira in the meantime, then? And why would Eragon, the person who has not been around the Empire for a hundred years, be the one to hide like this? Also, no one has expressed this idea, so I suspect Brom is reacting to something deleted in a revision.

PPP: 879

Eragon wants to know if they will use their own names.

HISC: The self-published edition naturally has Eragon reference Daret, since they did not do so there.

Corneille Noire: And, consequently, Eragon asking this does not fit well.

PPP: 880

Either way, I would say no. It is a small precaution to take, and it might just keep them out of trouble, so it would be best not to use their names. Brom thinks about it. He says they will be capable of deceiving Jeod, since Jeod already knows his name, and he thinks he “trust[s] him with [Eragon’s]”. You should ask Eragon if he wants you to give his name to Jeod, Brom!

Well, to everyone else, he will be “Neal” and Eragon will be “[his] nephew Evan”.

HISC: That is Eragon’s name from Daret. I do note that this edition specifically notes that Eragon will also play Brom’s nephew here, which is a nice fix.

Corneille Noire: Brom does not think it will “make a difference” if they accidentally use their real names, but he still does not want them in someone’s head, because people “have an annoying habit of remembering things they shouldn’t”. Oh no, people remember things you do not want. How horrible of them. Still, he is right that they should not take that risk if they can help it. And with that, the chapter ends.

I think the ending counts as this:

Mid-Scene Break: 3

It is also this:

Single-Purpose Chapter: 6

After all, the main purpose of this chapter is to get us from the Ninor to Teirm (or near it, in any case). It does so quite badly. To start with, the descriptions of the travel do not match up with each other or with the map, which could easily have been fixed. Further, there is the scene the chapter is named after, which gives us some worldbuilding, but vanishes into the ether afterward. We also have the complete absence of Saphira during this chapter.

The worst thing about it, though, is that it barely tells a story. Outside of the first and last scenes, the chapter mainly has summarised travel interspersed with short bits of exposition. And it just does not cohere. Paolini randomly skips between subjects, there is no smooth transition between summary and scene, and it spends too little time on what all this travel is like. I find it hard to care for the end result, and that should not be the case.

Well, I will see you next time, as we will reach Teirm. Until then!