Stop.
We know she's a dragon. Either because we've read the previous book, or the forward, or at the very least the cover jacket. Telling us so as the very first words of the book proper is jarring. It makes it seem like Paolini doesn't trust us to remember that Saphira is a dragon, when anyone reading this book should already be aware of that. It's like if in the opening scene of Return Of The Jedi aboard the new Death Star, the Emperor greeted Darth Vader as "Dark Jedi Darth Vader." We know Darth Vader is a dark jedi, and we know Saphira is a dragon. Telling us so in such a direct way is just a bit insulting of our memory spans.
I just spent a paragraph dissecting the first three words of the book. This is going to be a long chapter.
Eragon and Saphira are standing on a heap of rubble where a wall used to be, which immediately begs the question of why Saphira isn't in the air. Flying animals, as a general rule, are much less effective on the ground, and there's never really any indication anywhere in this chapter as to why she wouldn't be in the air other than because if she were, something bad couldn't happen to her later on. It also says that Saphira created the hole. ...how? Did she just smack the fortifications with her tail and they collapsed? No further explanation is offered.
Eragon and Saphira lead the charge through the wall breach, followed by the Varden, and Eragon twists his ankle when he jumps into the courtyard. This has absolutely no impact on his ability to move and fight from here on, so I'm guessing what Paolini meant was that Eragon just landed badly and stumbled, but by specifying that "Eragon's right ankle twisted as he landed,* " he makes it sound like Eragon has injured himself.
The courtyard is packed with Imperial soldiers "huddled" together, which makes me think that they're cowering in fear, though one tries to attack Eragon's exposed throat with his spear. Eragon is currently on his hands and knees after stumbling into the yard, which means his head is in between the soldier and his throat. That's not very exposed. He fails either way, of course, as Eragon parries his attack "faster than either a human or elf could follow, * " because he is, to borrow a phrase from Kippur Bird, Just That Speshul.
Saphira lets loose a "pennant" (I think I'm going to start a Thesaurus Abuse Counter. With "squalling" from the forward, this brings us to TAC: 2.) of flame as she jumps into the courtyard, and the impact of her landing shakes not only the ground, but the castle, to the point of shaking pieces of glass loose from a mosaic. Just how big is Saphira supposed to be at this point, anyway? According to the previous books, dragons have no upper limit on their size beside what resources are available. You know, like goldfish will grow bigger depending on the size of their tank. Either way, Saphira is a flying creature, which creates an expectation that she would be graceful. Having her drop heavily to the ground like she forgot she has wings (though having her forget she has wings would explain why she isn't flying) seems out of place. Perhaps she did it on purpose as some form of intimidation tactic? It's just there, it's never explained, which makes me think Paolini just said it because he thought it sounded good, not because she had a reason to drop heavily to the ground despite being a flying creature.
Arya, on the other hand, "alit" (TAC: 3) her way into the courtyard. She and Eragon take time to smile at each other, and Eragon considers her "the perfect shield mate,* " which would bother me less if I could recall ever seeing her actually using a shield. He also notes that Arya's face is "fierce and joyous," and that she is more open in battle than at any other time. She's also still wearing leather despite being a vegan elf. Was that one of the plotholes that got explained in Brisingr? I don't recall it being so. Either way, she also happens to be covered in gore. Eragon isn't covered in gore, and I'm under the impression that he's leading the charge of this battle. So why is Arya covered in blood, and he's not?
Their smiles are interrupted by Saphira breathing fire on the Imperial soldiers, who cower, but are left unscathed. Um, what? Saphira's fire is hot enough that Eragon has to raise his shield - since when does he actually use shields? - to protect himself, and arrows are bursting into ash above her head, but it's not hurting the soldiers. It does kill three soldiers, but the rest actually congregate in the center of the attack. I'm assuming these soldiers are warded against fire, but in that case, why are they cowering? They should be attacking while the dragon is busy wasting her time on not burning them! Or at least trying to get out of the fire because, A, it will preserve the anti-fire wards longer, and B, HOLY SHIT GUYS FIRE. I don't care if they're magically protected from fire, any living thing's natural reaction to being in the middle of a fire is to get out of it as fast as possible. You could argue that the soldiers have been trained not to retreat from fire, but then why haven't they been trained to attack while the enemy is wasting time impotently trying to burn them?
Archers on the castle's battlements are shooting arrows that are deflected by Eragon's wards, but why aren't there any archers on the wall that Eragon and co. came in through?
The soldiers are indeed warded, and Eragon wonders if they were created by Murtagh based on their strength, but Murtagh and Thorn aren't present at the battle. Since fire doesn't work, Eragon just starts cutting a swathe through the soldiers "with impunity.* " Yes, it actually says he's killing these men "with impunity," and they don't appear to be putting up much resistance at all. He might as well be slashing his way through an army of manikins, except that manikins don't erupt fountains of blood from a slash across the chest. Well, neither do humans, but one of the Imperial soldiers does. Thinking back, big blood sprays were a staple of battles in Brisingr as well. Someone needs to take away Paolini's samurai movies.
Arya, Saphira, and then Blodhgarm (who readers of Brisingr will recall as the Furry elf with the overclocked pheromones who did absolutely nothing in the course of the book to warrant his huge introduction) and the nameless rest of Eragon's elven bodyguard squad join Eragon in simply murdering the soldiers where they stand, which falls completely flat as an action scene. There is absolutely no tension here, and so no excitement. We don't even see the soldiers trying to fight back other than Eragon dodging a couple spears. I don't feel frightened for Eragon or his allies, I feel bad for these soldiers! They're being slaughtered by supernatural enemies that they, by the series' own in-story laws, don't have a hope in hell of beating. Eragon is an Invincible Hero and the elves Are Just Better than humans at everything according to the rules of the universe itself. Don't even ask about the dragon. The soldiers not only don't stand a chance, they're obviously too terrified of their enemies to even put up a fight as they're mowed down. This isn't heroic, this is sadistic.
And only now do the Varden troops show up. Remember, when this scene was set, it was just Eragon, Saphira, and the Varden troops on the slope outside the wall, and the Varden were coming in right behind him. Arya, Saphira, Blodhgarm, and the other elves weren't even mentioned, but all of them made it into the courtyard ahead of the Varden troops, rendering them useless.
No, seriously, having finally entered the courtyard the Varden troops proceed to stand on the sidelines and watch because it's too dangerous to get close to Saphira.
...
THEN WHY ARE THEY THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!
The Varden troops are contributing nothing to this battle that we've seen. They didn't even make the breach in the castle's outer wall with their siege weapons, which I seem to recall them having at the last battle in Brisingr. Saphira made the hole (and I still want to know how.), and she, Eragon, and the elves are doing all the fighting. The Varden are just glorified spectators for Eragon's epicness, because he's Just That Speshul. One particular soldier does put up a bit more fight, throwing his spear at Eragon, but it just bounces off his shield and Eragon shoulder-checks him to death.
I want some damn details about this shield. Shields come in a lot of different varieties of shape, dimension, and material, and I have no idea what any of them are here, which is making it very hard for me to visualize what Eragon's doing and how he's interacting with his shield. The thrown spear is supposed to have bruised Eragon's shoulder through his shield, for example. I have no idea whether this is because his shield is tall enough to cover his shoulder, or because he happened to be holding his shield high. My mental images of the action scene being played out here are being disrupted because I keep having to try and figure out how the shield fits into the picture.
The archers on the battlements are so desperate now that they're firing at Eragon without any concern for how many of their own troops they hit, because their only hope of winning is to kill Eragon. Because he's Just That Speshul. This make Eragon smile, though. I guess he likes the attention?
Eragon is satisfied with the knowledge that he's going to kill these men. He is satisfied by the thought of getting to kill people. There have been times in the past where I've doubted the Eragon as a sociopath theory, but the evidence is starting to rack up again. Remember, in Brisingr we learned that many, if not all, Imperial soldiers are sworn to the Empire and Galbatorix in the ancient language. Their oaths are literally unbreakable by the rules of the universe, they couldn't have left no matter how badly they might have wanted to, and it's pretty damn obvious that the soldiers in the courtyard at least didn't want to fight, because they didn't put one up even while Eragon slaughtered them all.
These are not the actions or thoughts of a hero. These are the actions and thoughts of a serial killer.
Eragon tries throwing a discarded spear at the archers 40 feet above him, but misses by throwing it too high, excused with the comment that spears are hard to throw accurately without lots and lots of practice. Once again, we are seeing the old double standard in play here: Eragon's shortcomings are excused and justified. The archers stop shooting to taunt him, and Arya hits two of them with one spear. Don't even think of asking me how that's physically possible, because I'm fairly certain the archers shooting down into the courtyard aren't standing behind one another. Arya then sets the spear on fire, and this somehow works on the archers. Are the archers not warded against fire? Because it seems to me that magical attacks would be these men's biggest concern. Either way, the rest of the archers flee the battlements after the first two catch fire, and Eragon complains that he can't cast fire spells anymore or his sword switches into lightsaber mode. Whatever happened to that whole "intent > meaning" aspect of the magic system, again?
The battle ends after a few more minutes when the remaining soldiers flee or surrender. Wait, what about the plot point of Imperial soldiers being sworn to the Empire in the ancient language from Brisingr? Wouldn't that prevent them from doing either of those things? Or can they get around it if they believe that they are best serving the Empire by surviving the battle? Or did Paolini just forget about it? Without any acknowledgement or explanation of this inconsistency, it certainly looks like the latter.
Some of the Varden are carrying a battering ram up the street while more are lining up to storm the castle, the second group being under Roran's command. Saphira roars, because she's a dragon and dragons roar when they win things, I guess. But then the castle doors open on their own, letting out a thick cloud of smoke from the torches inside. Note that this chapter is taking place a few hours after daybreak, so it's light out, and that this castle must have horrible ventilation if a few torches built up enough smoke for a cloud to form before the doors were opened, but it sounds really dramatic, especially once an armored rider comes out of the smoke.
The rider wields a magic lance. Eragon can tell it's magic because the tip glows. The rider sets his sights on Saphira and charges, and Saphira, rather than take to the air like a freaking dragon, gets up on her back legs and gets ready to swat the rider with her paws. Eragon gets a tingle in his Main Character Sense that Saphira is in danger, but he can't rach her in time to help her, nor can he just tell her through their psychic bond to avoid the rider because they're blocking each other out to protect themselves from enemy magicians, which smacks of plot contrivance because they have never done this before. In fact, I seem to recall their mental bond affording them better defenses against enemy spellcasters in the past. Their mental link seems to have been cut off in this battle just so this next sequence can occur, and it's highlighted something about Saphira. Until Eragon actually notes that he and Saphira aren't communicating telepathically today, I hadn't even noticed that they hadn't said anything to each other. That's not a good thing. It diminishes Saphira as a character, because nothing she's done so far in this chapter has indicated that she is anything more than a fairly intelligent animal. She hasn't even interacted with Eragon at all. Arya smiled at Eragon when she entered the battle, but Saphira has done nothing but kill soldiers like a glorified attack dog and roar. Anyone reading this book without the benefit of the previous books is going to be in for a surprise when she starts talking later on.
Anyway, Eragon can't get into the enemy horseman's mind because it's too focused on attacking Saphira, so instead he selects six magic words, carefully composes them, and reviews them. The text says he does this quickly, but composition and review don't sound like very quick processes. Especially when he could just yell, "Saphira! Fly!" But that wouldn't be so dramatic.
As "quickly" as Eragon composes his spell, his elven bodyguards are faster, and the open the earth beneath the horse's legs to stop it. Sure, they could have just broken the horse's legs directly or killed it outright instead of dropping it in a pit, but then we wouldn't have the bit about the mosaic from before melting. It doesn't stop the rider, though, who throws his lance at Saphira, embedding it a yard deep in her chest.
How big is Saphira, again? This seems like pertinent information which, again, we are not being provided. Paolini knows, and I guess he forgot that the rest of us don't. I'd also like to take a moment to point out that lances were not made for throwing
, so I still consider linking that other sentence to sword-throwing valid. Lances are also weapons made specifically to be used while mounted. Remember that for later.
Eragon's enrage procs and he goes for the macro that pops all his cooldowns at once in order to completely obliterate the enemy rider for hurting his Dragon Rider credentials, but then he forgets about it when Blodhgarm gets there first. The furry elf then bites out the soldier's throat, and part of the castle explodes, raining stones and death down on the Varden lined up outside the entrance. Eragon, Arya, and all the elves completely ignore this to look at Saphira, who is hurt but alive, and this is when Eragon actually reveals that he and Saphira have had their mental bond cut off this entire time. Wyrden, the first of the elves to get a name besides Blodhgarm, assures Eragon that Saphira will be alright because the lance only pierced muscle. I seem to recall "wyrd" being the ancient language word for "fate," which makes this guy's name "Fate-en," which in turn makes me think he's a Red Shirt. Or maybe a scientologist. Either way, the elves start singing a spell to heal Saphira while a trickle of blood seeps out of the wound. Remember the blood fountain from that human soldier earlier? Paolini doesn't.
Rather than continue to be worried about Saphira while she still has a lance buried a yard inside her chest, Eragon asks Blodhgarm what the explosion was, and he answers that he managed to get into the soldier's mind, and through him, into the magician that was buffing him. The explosion was caused when Blodhgarm made the magician commit suicide, which he normally wouldn't do, but dragons are Just That Speshul that he just really needed to go that extra mile. This means that Blodhgarm is directly responsible for the shower of masonry that decimated the Varden troops earlier, killing or severely injuring an unknown number of them. Eragon doesn't make this connection, though, and instead turns his attention to the lance that was just pulled out of Saphira.
The lance turns out to be a lost weapon called a Dauthdaert from the ancient war between the elves and the dragons, one of only twelve such special weapons forged with techniques that the nigh-immortal elves have managed to forget in the interim years. What makes this weapon so special, though? Why, it was made especially for killing dragons, of course! Besides being made of forgotten materials with forgotten enchantments, it cannot be broken by conventional means, is immune to fire, is virtually impervious to magic, and can slice through magic wards like a dragon through castle walls (How the hell did she do that?!). And it's name... is Deus ex Machina! Seriously though, these things were named after flowers, and this one was called Niernan.
There is so much wrong with this thing. Let's count:
- Its existence was completely unforeshadowed.
- Its history is contrived. Forgotten materials and forgotten enchantments from an immortal race? Right.
- If this were an video game, this would be the Game-Breaker. This thing is so overpowered it's a wonder Eragon can't just throw it from here to Uru'baen and kill Galby off right now.
- It's named after a flower. Didn't the elves only start giving a crap about flowers and nature after they bonded with the dragons?
- Lances, as you'll recall, are designed specifically for use by mounted troops. The elves obviously weren't riding dragons then, so what were they riding? They don't seem to have any particular fondness for riding horses that I recall unless they need to travel long-distance.
- This weapon makes Eragon's sword and the entirely subplot of the last book about getting it seem completely pointless now. Of course the final battle with Galbatorix will probably still come down to a sword fight, but seriously, Eragon just went through an entire book with a subplot about finding the Bigger Stick, only to have an even bigger big stick fall into his lap right away.
- This continues a theme from the sword subplot of Brisingr, that the weapon is just as if not more important than the wielder, which is an attitude I find deplorable. With this attitude it doesn't matter how hard someone works to achieve their goal, it all comes down to who happens to have the right equipment.
- And it really does just drop straight into his lap. Why would some human lord have this lost relic of the elves when all the others were destroyed, and why/how would it have remained a secret for this long? If nothing else, it would have made a gift of unbelievable value to either Galbatorix or the Varden, elevating the giver to an unbelievably high status in return. But apparently it has simply remained sealed in this human lord's vault for who knows how long just so it could be handed over to Eragon now. He didn't even know it existed, let alone did he do any work to acquire it. This is like unlocking the BFG by clearing the first level on normal difficulty.
And to top all of this off, it's obvious this weapon was created just to get Paolini out of the corner he'd written himself into over the course of the last three books where he had turned Galbatorix into a virtual god. Even now Blodhgarm assures Eragon that Galbatorix could just come by and crush them all into dust, Eragon included, if he whimmed it. Paolini has built Galbatorix up so huge that he had to create this Deus ex Machina just to give Eragon a snowball's chance in hell of logically winning against Galbatorix, but he overdid it as he usually does. Now Eragon is the overpowered one with the unbeatable ace up his sleeve.
The exposition about the lance goes on for a long time, and a few other things happen outside the conversation. Eragon sends half of his elves off to rest because they're too tired to be of anymore use here. Notice that he still hasn't even thought about the injured and/or dying Varden troops, even as he marvels at the grace of the leaving elves as they traverse the corpses and rubble. Elves are more important than humans, after all. The Varden, on the other hand, are lined up and waiting for Eragon to start leading them again. The entire assault on the castle has ground to a halt because Eragon is busy examining this lance, and he is still talking with the elves about the lance when the castle suddenly starts collapsing from the portion that Blodhgarm blew out. A crack from the explosion suddenly shoots all the way down the wall in an instant, which makes me seriously question Paolini's knowledge of masonry and architecture. The castle then collapses on top of Roran.
So help me Paolini, if you pulled the same stupid plot point from the beginning of Eldest....
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