I Read What?!

Kerlois: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Eragon! Last time, we saw the book Domia abr Wyrda, and Eragon and Brom talked a bit about scrying and what Galbatorix would supposedly do. For the reader post:

On part II of chapter 21, Alec notes that Brom might well have disabled Eragon by hitting him on the knee during their duel there. Sure, the danger is less than it could be, due to their blunted swords, but there is no good reason to risk it during training.

For the Good of the Cause: 35

Wolfgoddess notes that Brom could naturally not call Saphira out for threatening Eragon, since he is not privy to that conversation. He should still have asked Eragon just what happened there and why it got so violent, but of course he did not.

Abuse Count: 111

Then there is a fun thread on just how mentally blocking someone might work.

Chessy points out that swordfighting does involve hitting the swords together, namely in the form of parrying. (And, as I think Alec noted before, Brom does not seem to be teaching him all that much of that, which is quite a gap.)

On part I of chapter 22, Wolfgoddess notes that little would fall out of the saddlebags if they were properly closed, so…

Did Not Do the Research: 108 (-1)

She further notes that Eragon should not be able to immediately jump off Saphira after such a flight. I would indeed expect that he would be somewhat overwhelmed by the experience.

Chessy notes that Brom’s advice for riding Saphira sounds like bad horse riding advice, to which Wolfgoddess and Princesselwen confirm that “grip with your knees” is just that, as it is uncomfortable and makes giving feedback to the horse hard.

She further notes that the gouges might be caused by Saphira pushing off, which would temporarily push her feet into the ground. Thank you for that!

Did Not Do the Research: 107 (-1)

On part II of chapter 22, Alec gives us an explanation of possible Pern influences. Fumurti decided to dig in further, though, and found the scene that was allegedly plagiarised: Lessa experiencing Ramoth’s mating flight in part II of Dragonflight. She was not wholly convinced, and neither am I; Lessa does meld her mind with Ramoth’s, but in her case she is only aware of what Ramoth experiences, until the experience is over. In Eragon’s case, he stays aware of himself throughout the whole experience and is dragged out of his body. Given the amount of difference, and the fact that I did not find similar wording, unlike with the clear cases of plagiarism elsewhere, I say that I may count as a rip-off, but certainly not as plagiarism. (Things like these will only make me more wary of further claims, I must say.)

They further note that Eragon should rightly be washing out his finger with water, as it the Seithr oil would not stop burning unless he did. Since it does…

Did Not Do the Research: 108

(He could easily have washed the acid off in the Ninor, too.)

They then note that Seithr oil (the acidic kind, of course) can “only exist for vile purposes”. Indeed, as Fumurti noted, it would only be useful for maiming or to ensure the target dies during an assassination, and in the latter case, its only asset would be that it is more painful.

Wolfgoddess notes that Eragon’s reaction to flying with Saphira is quite subdued, which it indeed is.

She further marks Brom’s claim that no dragon would ever bear a Ra’zac as racist. While the claim itself is not, the attitude certainly is.

FYRP: 124

She also notes that it would be cool if the Seithr oil caused nerve damage, which might explain why Eragon’s whole hand hurts from a drop to his finger.

Chessy notes that the Seithr oil would not have to time-travel, since the people who made it would probably not know about fossils and the like. Fumurti suggests that it might check for cell structure instead, which might well work.

She then leaves a fic about what happens to Yazuac in the end.

On part IV of the previous chapter, Epistler reminds me that the Domia abr Wyrda is certainly influenced by a similar book from The Dragonbone Chair.

For reflections… I note that several people (including even Fumurti) confused the acidic Seithr oil with the ordinary oil. I think that naming both of them the same thing, even though the acid is not an oil at all, might be the main cause.

A Better Commando Name: 27

So I will name the acidic variant “Seithr acid” from now on. Further, I decided to take another look into the claims Paolini makes about Seithr oil and pearls, since, due to the previous misunderstanding, I got no further useful information. As Fumurti found out, and Epistler confirmed, oil is indeed bad for pearls. Some looking around shows me that that is because of the fatty acids in oil.

Paolini further claimed that the oil improves pearls’ “lustre and strength”. I see that the lustre is caused by the layers of nacre that make up most of the pearl, and the lustre is improved by having more layers… something that oil could not change, if only because it cannot go into the pearl. The only way to improve lustre in this setting would be with magic (and I would expect magic to be used widely for that, too). As for strength… I see that is related to a thicker nacre layer. There is also no way outside of magic to thicken that, and oil dissolves it, which makes the pearl weaker.

In conclusion, all of that claim is nonsense, and I am quite sure that Paolini just made it up. I would say that amounts to misinformation, and I am not happy with Paolini for that. I get that you wanted to set this plot up, but do not present utter nonsense as fact, if you please.

Did Not Do the Research: 110 (+2)

With that done, let me begin the next chapter!

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Witch and the Werecat

That is a more appropriate title than the previous one was, as this chapter will be mostly focused on these two. We also have confirmation that Angela is indeed a witch… not that Eragon has understood that yet.

We open on Eragon waking late in the morning of the 27^th of January.

HISC: This edition removes the mention of the servants having washed and dried his clothing and Eragon thinking about that. Given that there were originally multiple servants, the butler being a butler made some sense, but here not any more.

PPP: 976

Kerlois: So Eragon dresses and does his hair up while looking in a mirror, and then he notes something about his reflection: it has changed since he has ran from Carvahall “just a short while ago”. It has been a bit more than a month… but I think that works in this context. Well, due to “traveling, sparring, and training”, he has lost his “baby fat”, so the bones of his face stand out more prominently. I highly doubt he would have had any baby fat, due to Garrow’s way of raising him, not to mention that we were already told this (and I do wonder what this “training” is exactly supposed to be).

PPP: 977

He does notice something else, namely that there is a “slight cast to his eyes”; when he looks closely, it gives his face a “wild, alien appearance”. He holds the mirror away, and his face looks normal again, but it still does not quite look like his own. Eragon is a bit disturbed by all this. I do like this! It is not made explicit what is going on here, but we have already heard that Riders get slightly pointed ears, and we will seen that elves have “slanted eyes”, so presumably this is also part of the transformation the Riders undergo. Eragon has not been told about this part, of course, so I do like that he is unsettled. Further, especially since he did not knowingly become a Rider, I love that these changes are shown as disturbing; I do not like that the human Riders became more elflike, after all.

So Eragon puts on his bow and quiver, which does not seem necessary to me, and might just cause him trouble.

Ill Logic: 46

He leaves, and before he can walk out the hall, the butler appears and tells him that Brom and Jeod have left for the castle earlier. Brom said Eragon can do whatever he wants, as he will only return in the evening. (What would take him so long?) Eragon thanks the butler for the message, and then sets about “exploring Teirm”. He walks around for hours, going into every shop that he finds interesting and talking to various people. Eventually, he goes back to Jeod’s house due to his “empty stomach and lack of money”, not that the former will appear in the coming scene.

PPP: 978

I also note just how bland this is. Eragon is exploring Teirm and going into shops and meeting people, after all. Sure, we have had a “taste of Teirm” before, but this looks like the good stuff, and something I would love to see in a book that features Eragon discovering Alagaësia. Instead, it is skimmed over so we can go to meet Angela and the werecat, and I am a bit disappointed about that.

Well, he reaches the street of his destination and stops at the herbalist’s shop. He thinks about how it is in a strange place, since most of the shops are at the city wall, and tries to look in. He fails, since the windows are “covered with a thick layer of crawling plants”, so he goes inside, curious. It does sound interesting to me. We get a sentence about his eyes adjusting to the dark (which takes Paolini 26 words to convey), and then a description of the inside, which begins with this:

A colorful bird with wide tail feathers and a sharp, powerful beak looked at Eragon inquisitively from a cage near the window.

This is quite clearly a parrot, which leads me to wonder where they have come from, as we will not be seeing any more of them and the places Alagaësia is inspired by do not have much parrots… My best guess is that Angela got this parrot from somewhere south of the Beor Mountains, which she could certainly have done, but that is as far as I can say. I doubt Paolini even put that much thought into that, which is quite unfortunate when it comes to the other issue: Angela keeping this parrot.

Keeping a parrot is not something to be undertaken lightly, after all; they need quite some attention and stimulation and just care in general, not to mention their long lifespan (which, to be fair, would not be a problem for Angela). Angela… does not seem to be providing much of that. In fact… let me note some things:

-We have not seen her in her shop so far, after all, and the one who is often there in her absence is the werecat, who does not seem like he would care much about the parrot.

-We do not see Angela interact with the parrot at all during the coming scene, which means that she probably ignores them most of the time.

-We also have not been told about any enrichment the parrot has, which they would need.

-I somehow doubt that that Angela lets them out of their cage often, though that… seems to be advisable.

-Further, I doubt whether Angela would be able to feed the parrot appropriately, given that she simply does not know all that well what they need to eat.

-Finally, keeping a parrot in the same space where the werecat often is would prove quite stressful for them.

So, even if Angela put in her best efforts, keeping a parrot as the only one in Alagaësia is guaranteed to turn out poorly, because no one can give her advice on how to care for them, and she did not have the familiarity with wild parrots to deduce something for herself. That would be bad enough, but Angela instead seems to keep this parrot mostly as decoration, which results in complete neglect. For how long this has been going on… I have little idea, though, according to some extra materials, it has probably been at least fifteen years. So…

IYES: 48 (+20)

Morals for Thee But Not for Me: 53 (+20)

The parrot will also not be mentioned any further during this scene, though I think that they probably should be doing so.

Did Not Do the Research: 111

Finally, when we see Angela at the end of this book, she has closed this shop, and we do not see the parrot any more. That indicates that she is no longer keeping them, which could lead to a variety of scenarios. Since people who bothered to spend time on the parrot would be a better option than the current one, and it is possible that she transferred care to such people, I will not be complaining about that.

I doubt that Paolini thought about any of this, which is, of course, what causes all this trouble to begin with; he is treating this parrot as a set piece when that is not how parrots work at all. The end result ends up making Angela look quite bad. If she were an “exotic pet owner”, she might have told herself that the parrot was actually doing well, but she had to know that she would be unable to care for them and then she did nothing to change that for years. To cut through some nuance, how would you feel about being neglected by a caretaker for years on end? …Oh yes, according to The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm, you have had a little of that experience, and you did not like it, so you have no excuse. Yes, I do hate Angela now.

That aside… we get some more description of the interior, which is not bad at gaining interest. The walls are covered in plants and the ceiling in vines (where only an “old chandelier” is visible), and on a counter, there stand some mortars and pestles, bowls, and a massive crystal ball. He walks over to the counter, avoiding “complex machines, crates of rocks, piles of scrolls, and other objects he [does] not recognize”. I do wonder what those “machines” would be for… as I wonder if she is planning to sell any of this, and who she would be selling it to. When he reaches the counter, he sees the wall behind is completely covered in drawers in all kinds of sizes, from big enough for a barrel to as large as Eragon’s “smallest finger” (did Paolini forget about “little finger”?). At the top, there is a “foot-wide gap”.

Just then, Eragon sees a “pair of red eyes”, and a “large, fierce cat” jumps on the counter, which Eragon has no reaction whatsoever to. We get a description of this cat: he has a “lean body with powerful shoulders and oversized paws”, a “shaggy mane”, “black tufts” on his ears and visible fangs. Eragon does not think he looks like “any cat [he] has ever seen” (I doubt that he has ever seen much cats, but whatever). The werecat looks at him with “shrewd eyes”, then gives him a flick of his tail.

So, now it is time for Eragon to be stupid! It is not like he is making very bad decisions all the time, after all, so we really need to know that he totally is very Stupid. I do not like this, especially given all the abuse he is subjected to, so…

Petty Ain’t the Word for You: 78

Yes, Eragon is the protagonist, but the sentiment is still there. Eragon touched the werecat’s mind “[o]n a whim” (and it would be nice to have a callback to Brom telling him to begin with cats here), and tries to tell him he is a friend. Someone (clearly the werecat) says he does not need to do that. Eragon gets alarmed, while the werecat ignores him and grooms a paw. Eragon… thinks it is Saphira, and asks where she is, which naturally does not give him an answer. Apparently Eragon cannot distinguish between Saphira’s voice and that of the werecats… though he could distinguish Brom’s voice. It might just be that their voices sound alike, but I get the feeling that Paolini is ignoring what he wrote to make Eragon look bad.

PPP: 979

He gets puzzled, so he leans against the counter and, for some reason, reaches for something looking like “a wood rod”. The werecat tells him that that would not be wise. Eragon tells Saphira to “[s]top playing games” and picks the rod up. …Given what Saphira did just the previous day, this is an eminently reasonable response, if it were indeed her he is talking to. A pity that is not actually the case. Once he picks it up, he gets a “shock of electricity” and falls writhing to the ground. The pain fades after a while, “leaving him gasping for air”. The werecat then jumps down and looks at Eragon.

My first response is: “how does Eragon know about electricity already?”.

Forgot the Narrator: 59

That aside… ouch; that is an awful experience, and it sucks quite a bit that this is Eragon’s second time (the first was with Saphira’s hatching, and it looked like this, at least). Further, while I could see Angela selling something like this, she ought to keep it somewhere out of reach, or, if that were impossible for some reason, make sure to show it is dangerous. Instead, she keeps the taser… near the counter, where customers often come. This is incredibly irresponsible, and I would be surprised if Eragon is the only one who ends up shocked. In fact, it almost seems like she wants people to be tased!

Morals for Thee But Not for Me: 54

Then the werecat says this:

You aren’t very smart for a Dragon Rider. I did warn you.

You did not explicitly warn him, though. Sure, you said it “would not be wise”, but Eragon had no reason to consider this rod dangerous, so you ought to have been more specific, and because you were not, he was shocked.

Morals for Thee But Not for Me: 55

So, werecat, you do not have any high ground here, nor any reason to call Eragon “stupid” for not realising something that is not obvious at all. Sure, you can victim-blame Eragon as much as you want, but it remains your and Angela’s responsibility to do something about this. The victim-blaming makes you look even worse, too.

Abuse Count: 112 (since the reminder of how “stupid” Eragon is looks a lot like what Brom and Saphira do)

Morals for Thee But Not for Me: 56

Eragon is shocked to hear that the werecat spoke to him just now. The werecat goes for a walk and asks “who else?”. Well, it might just be the dragon Eragon is bonded to, silly. Incidentally, I wonder how he found out that Eragon was a Rider… maybe it was the gedwëy ignasia, since he would need to have taken his gloves off to get tased? Either way, Eragon says that the werecat is “just a cat”, no matter that he just thought that he was obviously not a cat; we need to make him look as stupid as possible, after all.

PPP: 980

We get this:

The cat yowled and stalked back to him. It jumped on his chest and crouched there, looking down at him with gleaming eyes. Eragon tried to sit up, but it growled, showing its fangs. Do I look like other cats​?

No…

Then what makes you think I am one? Eragon started to say something, but the creature dug its claws into his chest.

Eragon only expressed amazement at the werecat speaking, I note. His wording was unfortunate, but it was not meant to insult the werecat. So, naturally, he thinks it is appropriate to jump on Eragon, get in his face and give him an angry lecture, and hurt Eragon when he dares to deviate from the response he wants. Let me have a closer look:

-First, I wonder just why the werecat is so offended to be called a common cat. We do not hear about that mistake being a common thing with werecats, or this being used against them, so he comes across as unreasonable.

-Then, he jumps on Eragon’s chest while he lies there, which, of course, puts him in a position of power over Eragon.

No Touchy: 11 (one for now, one for Saphira pinning him earlier)

And yes, this is the same thing Saphira did to Eragon, which Eragon is of course not allowed to recognise, though it could make for a good place to show the lingering effects of that abuse. (And I would love to see Eragon throw the werecat off and run for it, too.)

-Then he goes beyond Saphira by threatening Eragon when he wants to escape. It is probably an idle threat, though given what we see of him later, he could certainly hurt Eragon very much if he wanted to. Still, the threat is in reaction to Eragon not wanting to get abuse directed at him for wording his reaction wrong. I dare the werecat to find a good defence for that.

-For what he says… Eragon does not need to account for his reasons for making this mistake, werecat, and if I am not mistaken, this is also an abuse tactic.

-Then, Eragon goes to say something in response to the question the werecat just posed, and the werecat gets angry! How is he supposed to know how to please you, then?

-Finally, the werecat also hurts Eragon to stop him from answering, which is just like what Saphira did. In this case, it is especially unhelpful, since Eragon was already trying to meet his demands.

In short, this sucks very much, and the werecat comes across as quite hateful. Let me look…

Abuse Count: 118 (+6)

Morals for Thee But Not for Me: 59 (+3) (jumping on Eragon, threatening him, and putting his nails in his chest)

For further thoughts… the similarities with Saphira threatening to abduct him are quite striking, and that should have some impact on Eragon! That it does not seems like that abuse gets completely shoved under the rug, which I do not like at all.

History-Rewriting Narrator: 6

Also, with Saphira I can be reasonably sure that she does not want to harm Eragon too much, which does keep her abuse in check. With the werecat, we have no indication of that, and we see he takes offence more readily than Saphira. Given that, I could see him go to kill Eragon, something that I could not see Saphira knowingly do, and that makes this scene all the worse.

Well, the werecat says that Eragon’s “education has been neglected” (yes, it has? Why must Eragon suffer for that?), and, “to correct [his] mistake”, he is indeed a werecat. …So you know that Eragon did not do this on purpose, but you still hurt him just now, you do not get off his chest, nor do you apologise. I mean, he does not hurt or threaten Eragon any more, but if he realises he was wrong, he should stop doing this. He ends by saying that there “aren’t many [werecats] left”, but he thinks that even a farmboy should have heard of them. Yes, he should, but Paolini wants to make him look bad.

I do wonder why there are supposedly so few werecats left. There are indeed few werecats at the present time, as we will see in later books, but I do not see what they would be dying of, especially since they are too secretive to be persecuted much. It is probably supposed to be because of a negative side-effect of Galbatorix’s reign, but I am just not seeing what would cause that to happen. This werecat is also not the best judge of werecat activity, either, since he has stayed just in Teirm for the last fifteen years, at least. So… I think that Paolini put this in as in indicator of how bad the present times are, and I just do not believe it.

Cardboard Worldbuilding: 11

Eragon says he did not know they were real. He gets “fascinated”, and thinks about how he is “indeed fortunate”, and then gives us some exposition. …This is a quite awkward time for that, but go ahead. Werecats always appear around the edges of stories, “keeping to themselves and occasionally giving advice”. If the legends about them are true, they have magical powers, “live[] longer than humans”, and usually keep secrets. That is serviceable, though quite generic. I also get the feeling that Paolini only thought of the werecats just now, and that is why we only hear about them now.

So the werecat tells him that “[k]nowing is independent of being”. For example, he did not know of Eragon’s existence before he “bumbled in here and ruined [the werecat’s nap]”, but that doesn’t mean that Eragon wasn’t real. Eragon did not imply that you were fake because he thought you were, though. Do you actually believe Eragon made a mistake or do you think he did it on purpose, then? Given that his description of how Eragon came in does not fit what we just saw (since Eragon was careful), I lean toward the latter. Eragon, who still firmly needs to be Stupid, cannot even follow this simple argument and instead apologises for having disturbed the werecat (since he will do anything to get him to back off, I suppose). The werecat says he was “getting up anyway”. So you phrased what you just said the way you did to make Eragon feel bad, then.

Abuse Count: 119

He finally jumps off Eragon and onto the counter, having left a very unpleasant first impression. (I do find he only gets better from now on, but this is someone I would not want to meet again.) He then warns Eragon not to keep hold of the rod much longer, since it will tase him again in a few seconds. See, this is how you warn. Eragon presumably gets up and puts the rod “back where he [has] found it”. I know he is not mainly responsible for this, but it is still bad form not to do anything about the danger.

Morals for Thee But Not for Me: 60

Eragon asks what it is, and the werecat says it is a “common and boring artifact, unlike [him]self”. It seems like someone is full of himself (and I doubt that these taser rods are “common”). Eragon wants to know what it is for, to which the werecat asks if he did not find out. He is right, but it is still part of making Eragon look bad, so I do not like it much. The werecat goes back up to the place he came from, and seemingly makes to sleep, while purring (which is a detail I like to see included). Eragon then wants to know the werecat’s name, presumably so we can get to know it.

The werecat deflects by saying he has “many names”, and if Eragon is “looking for [his] proper one”, he will need to look elsewhere. You know that Eragon does not mean that, so stop playing around. Eragon gives up (which I understand very well) and turns to leave, which prompts the werecat to say that Eragon can call him “Solembum”. That name is quite clearly derived from “Solemn Bum”, which is a substitution for “Serious Ass”. There are some problems with this:

1) This kind of wordplay just does not fit with the rest of the story, which is a symptom of the way that he and especially Angela seem to come from a wholly different story.

2) “Solemn” and “Serious” are not synonyms and have different usages and connotations, so the sense that Paolini is trying to convey with this name is a bit distorted.

3) He is not a “Serious Ass” at all! He spent this scene first upset at something quite irrelevant and then arguing semantics, and he will not change that much later on. Sure, he was not humorous, but I can hardly call this “serious”, either.

A Better Commando Name: 28

(Incidentally, this name confirms, along with a bit from Brisingr, that the “common language” of Alagaësia is English, which I will be keeping in mind.)

Eragon thanks Solembum “seriously”, at which Solembum purrs even louder. It does not sit well with me to see Eragon thanking Solembum so seriously, nor do I like that Solembum is so clearly pleased at getting thanks from Eragon; given how he just behaved, I get the feeling he is happy to see Eragon do as he wants.

Well, now it is time for Angela, thankfully! She comes in immediately after this, carrying a “cloth bag full of plants”. She makes contact with Solembum (accompanied by looking at him) and is startled to hear that he talked to Eragon. Eragon, who is still made to look naïve, asks if Angela can talk to Solembum. Angela says that she naturally can, “but that doesn’t mean he’ll say anything back”. I do find that funny, so credit for that. She puts the plants on the counter, then walks around it to face Eragon. She says Solembum likes him, and that is unusual, since he does not often show himself around customers (most of them are not Dragon Riders, either). I did not get the impression that Solembum liked Eragon, but I suppose Angela knows better.

According to her, Solembum further says that Eragon “show[s] some promise, given a few years of work”. Eragon says “thanks”, and Angela says it is a “compliment, coming from him”.

HISC: That worked better when we knew that Eragon said that “sardonically”, instead of us having to guess how he says it.

PPP: 981

Kerlois: Either way, this is hardly a compliment! If this is how Solembum compliments someone he is supposed to like, I doubt I want to know what he generally would be like, or what his insults are. More specifically, I am sure that Eragon could “show promise” considerably sooner than “a few years”, if he had an actually good mentor. He does pick skills up very fast and is curious, after all. Even if it would take longer, or his “promise” would not develop very far, that would not have to be bad, either, nor would it be Eragon’s fault. Solembum… does not seem to think that, as his “compliment” reads quite like an insult. I suppose that he just had to have the last word on Eragon, and that Paolini just had to tell us that Eragon sucks, actually.

Abuse Count: 120

Angela says that Eragon is “only the third person to come in here” who was able to speak to Solembum. The first one was a woman, “many years ago”, the second a “blind beggar”, and now Eragon. Since Solembum knows Eragon is a Rider, it is no surprise in his case, though I get the feeling Paolini wants it to be. I am also interested in the others, especially the “blind beggar” (generic though he may be).

HISC: This edition, to its credit, removes Angela talking about the woman’s hair and how she looked like Eragon, so we can have some surprise from the revelation.

Kerlois: She then says that she does not run a store “just so [she] can prattle on”, and asks if Eragon wants something or only came in to have a look. (Here I note that she indeed completely ignored the parrot when coming in.) Eragon says it was the latter, and that he does not need to have any herbs. Angela grins and says that is not all she does, as the “rich fool lords” pay her for love potions and such. She never claims they work, but they keep coming back “for some reason”. She does not think Eragon needs those “chicaneries”, though, and asks if he wants to have his fortune told. She does that for “all the rich fool ladies”. Eragon laughs at this.

Since I do not know the unique pleasure of scamming people, I will be the killjoy here and unravel this. To begin with… does she want to admit she scams people or not? Yes, she admits that the love potions and such are “chicaneries” and she will soon say that the fortune telling she usually does is fake… but she does not admit it outright, and she does actually offer it to Eragon. I am not quite sure what Paolini exactly meant to do, but let me look closer and see if I can find an answer.

So, she sells what she says are love potions, but which are clearly placebos, given that the “lords” think it has effect. The way she phrases it, she seems to imply that she does make love potions, though she could not be expected to… but when she says they are “chicaneries”, it sounds like a defence instead, to shift the blame on the “lords” for believing her. The problem with that is that she is a witch, and can be expected to actually make love potions and tell the future. Say that I ran a pharmacy, for instance, and I swapped out all the medicines I sold with placebos, and market them as those medicines, but I do not claim they work. I would still be running a scam, since I deceive the customers about what they are being, and since Angela does that, she is still running a scam. (That is not to mention that “this product works” is usually implicit in selling it.)

She admits that she is deceiving these “lords”, presumably expecting Eragon to agree with it, and even find it funny. Then she brings up telling people’s fortune, for which she uses the same phrasing as she did for the love potions, which means she implicitly admits to scamming the “ladies”, too. She brings this up while offering to do that for Eragon. Given his reaction, I think she means for him to see through the offer of a scam, which Eragon does. Then he laughs, which I think is in part because he saw her scam for what it was and feels better than these “rich fool” people, and in part because she is scamming rich people, and he thinks that is funny in and of itself (which I can somewhat get behind).

It might work if stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but she does not mention doing anything with the money she gets, and she does not seem to need it herself, so she apparently scams these “lords and ladies” because she finds it funny to see rich people get tricked. Yes, the victims may be rich, so they can bear it, but it is still scamming, and so I find it wrong.

Morals for Thee But Not for Me: 65 (+5)

I further note that Angela calls these people “fools”, which plays into the way that victims often feel after being scammed. It is smart of her; if the victims feel ashamed, they will be less likely to speak out, after all… but it only furthers my dislike of her. For that reason, I hate that Eragon laughs at Angela’s suggestion, too. As I said, it seems like he does so because he thinks he is better than the “foolish” rich people for seeing through Angela’s scam. Yes, he did see through, but she let him see through; if she had not, he might well not have done so, so there is no good reason to feel better than these who do fall for it, and laughing at their misfortune is just awful. Some hero we have.

That aside… I wonder who these “lords and ladies” are supposed to be. A look tells me these terms are not used very consistently, but it seems that they are indeed nobles. That means that Angela is not exactly wise in her scams; these nobles do have authority, after all, and they could certainly let Risthart or other people go after her. They would not be able to catch her, sure, but I do not doubt that they could make her abandon her shop, which I doubt she wants.

Ill Logic: 47

She probably thinks that she will not be caught now if she has not been caught before, but it remains risky. That aside… Eragon says he thinks his fortune is “pretty much unreadable” (would that not make it more appealing?) and he has no money. Angela considers, looking at Solembum, then saying that the large crystal ball is “only for show anyway” (so there is the admission that that is a scam). After a bit more thought, she decides to get something else, and goes into a “room at the back of the shop”.

And that is where I want to stop for the time being, as I have said more than enough for one entry. Until next time, when Eragon gets his fortune told!