Brisingr Chapters 27 & 28

You did it again, Chris. You’ve broken your own story a couple of times now but you just did it again. Did you see it, when it happened? Let’s rewind a chapter, shall we? Remember that part where Eragon made himself invisible? Good, you don’t suffer from retrograde amnesia. At least not in a mild form. However I think you’ve taken one too many blows to the head from crazed hookers fighting for their tip money, Chris. Because I think you forgot you already did that trick.

I remember when Eragon cast invisible on himself while hiding from an Imperial among the bushes. At that point I was thinking ‘So he can bend light now eh? Sure it’s stupid but at least he has to stay still. Otherwise the tension of wandering around in enemy territory would be completely nullified and even Chris wouldn’t be that thick.’

But now we see Eragon can keep up the illusion while walking around. Just why in the hell did he and Arya walk around exposed then? Why invite trouble unless you’re secretly out looking for it. That also means the sole reason those soldiers had to die was because Eragon values life just under the effort to make himself invisible.

See, that would have been a rare moment to truly demonstrate the hero’s sense of morals. Even though it’s easier to kill a couple of soldiers than it is to stay invisible, it would demonstrate a commitment to protecting life. One, singular act like that would convey far more than an entire series of books of side characters telling us how selfless and charitable they really are. Of course maybe Chris meant to demonstrate that Eragon is a selfish prick who’d rather kill a few people than expend a bit more energy.

These chapters are called ‘over hill and mountain’ and ‘for my love’.

With a chapter name like ‘over hill and mountain’ I don’t suppose we’re in for much of a surprise. Unless Eragon takes that wrong turn at Albuquerque and ends up in a Bacta tank orbiting the Ringworld then him and the Urgal are going to traverse some hills and mountains. They’ll do lots of boring things, probably talk about their feelings and then something will almost happen before the next chapter rolls over. Now let’s see if those email correspondent courses in prescience are helping any.

Oh look, Eragon and Garzhvog are running but they stop to drink and relieve themselves. Really Chris? I figured the Urgals just held it in until they turned into urine bombs. After all, I’m sure stopping to take a leak is considered a sign of weakness by the honorable warrior Klingon clones.

They decide that they need to grab some grub but there’s no gas station anywhere in sight. Being idiots, they stare to death looking for a wild corndog bush. A few years later, Bear Grylls stumbles upon their corpses while traversing fictional lands, long ago having conquered reality.

Eragon wonders how they’ll cook their food and Garzhvog offers the stomach of a bear he killed to boil it in. Eragon asks him ‘gee, was it a big bear Wally?’ It was bigger than him and then he asks ‘how’d it die, Wally?’

“I choked him to death with my hands. No weapons are allowed when you come of age and must prove your courage.” Garzhvog paused for a moment, his knife buried to the hilt in the carcass. “Most do not try to kill a cave bear. Most hunt wolves or mountain goats. That is why I became war chief and others did not.”

They cook the food, they hang out after and Eragon asks Garzhvog questions. ‘Tell me a story, tell me about your village, why’s the sky so bright, why do you have fourteen toes, why are you pointing that sharpened stick at me?’

Let’s see, they have totem poles, love to fight and make rugs. No, really. Apparently when they first mate they make rugs with their spouse and it takes at least five years. What they hell takes them so damned long? Are they weaving these things from spider silk? Do they have to weave it from the leg hairs of the titans?

Then the two go to sleep and then fall into the routine of running along and camping. It’s at this point the author almost becomes self aware. Like maybe he realizes that we’re going to be a tad bored because even his focus was starting to drift.

The long days and longer nights slipped by with both excruciating slowness and surprising speed, for every hour was identical to the last, which made Eragon feel not only as if their ordeal would never end but also as if large portions of it had never taken place.

Wow, that almost echoes how I feel right now. Anywho, something does, as previously predicted, almost happen when a giant wolf appears outside of their camp one night. This lone wolf is as big as a horse and, just as Garzhvog gets ready to fight it, Eragon tells it that they’re willing to share dinner with it if it would please leave their backsides free from bite marks. Unsurprisingly the wolf is okay with this and the moment’s tension passes like an unformed kidney stone.

They go through some woods, get to the mountains and hear some fighting. There’s a cave bear, like the one Garzhvog killed, fighting a bunch of boars. Both are huge, the bear being as big as a house supposedly, but never turn their attention to the smaller critter tiptoeing their way around. They get to a dwarf village and Garzhvog parts because he figures the dwarves won’t like him, unlike the elves who immediately embrace people with differences. Eragon grabs a nearby child and kidnaps her as he wanders towards the dwarves.

We switch back to Roran now who’s busy staring at a rock and telling it to move it’s lazy self. Look Chris, we get it. Roran might have magical powers which you’ll manifest later to try and shock us. But unless you hint at it by, say, having the rock twitch a little, then you’ll be pulling it out of your nethers.

It makes no sense. Why does Roran keep trying to make the rock move? Personally, I figure a newlywed man with a kid on the way who was going on a mission in hostile territory would have bigger things on his mind that whether or not he might be able to turn a rock into a Mexican jumping bean by speaking in tongues.

Roran is currently under the command of Martland, a watered down version of Lee Emery who couldn’t threaten you if he were a John Carpenter creation. They’re busy marching into enemy territory. Why? Uh, I guess there some Plotanium to find. The story really can get moving without it.

Let’s see, Martland escaped an Imperial attack once, why Gabs attacked him author only knows. There’s a thin magician who isn’t a strong spellcaster but he’s very clever. They go to sleep and we transition to Roran killing some guy. They’re apparently attacking a convoy of Gabby’s.

Wait, why is there a convoy? A convoy is usually set up to protect a larger shipment of supplies and or goods from attack. The Varden are attacking a convoy found at the edge of the empire. Where is this convoy going? What is it carrying? Do the edges of the empire provide that much resources that they warrant a convoy? Or is it coming from the capital towards an Imperial force? If so then shouldn’t the Varden be a little more cautious considering Gabby’s forces are far larger? Stop putting in things that don’t make sense, Chris!

Roran kills a few guy but then someone dares run away. And we all know how none of Chris’s characters can ever let a victim escape. I can easily see the two cousins jointly chasing a woman down a long hallway. Roran carrying an axe held close to a blood stained tshirt while Eragon twirls a knife around and circles around to meet her at the door. Roran fights this fleeing soldier and wins in the weakest way possible.

Having no other recourse, Roran resorted to the unexpected: he stuck his head and neck out and shouted, “Bah!” just as he would if he were trying to scare someone in a dark hallway. The soldier flinched, and as he flinched, Roran leaned over and brought his hammer down on the man’s left knee. The man’s face went white with pain. Before he could recover, Roran struck him in the small of his back, and then as the soldier screamed and arched his spine, Roran ended his misery with a quick blow to the head.

Bah? That’s a sound of dismissal. It’s what you say to someone to scoff at their observations when they don’t line up with your own. It’s what the editor should have said when presented with this manuscript. It’s not what you say to scare someone. I mean, unless Scrooge was the bogeyman of your childhood. ‘Go to bed Chris!’ ‘No, there might be an old man who doesn’t celebrate Christmas hiding under my bed!’ ‘I’ve told you a dozen times Chris, secular humanists only exist in fiction!’ ‘But dad! I saw one on CNN and he had a beard and everything!’

The Imperials circle the wagons and Roran attacks them. The fight ends in less time than it takes to boil a pot of tea and Roran has a little wound on his foot. The magician fixes him up mostly good and Roran wonders how he got injured. Apparently Eragon still has wards over Roran which should have made him invincible but they didn’t work.

Gee, maybe your cousin is the most inept and incompetent dragon rider to ever exist? Maybe he’s an utter failure who couldn’t save a penny? Or maybe Chris will have some retarded explanation which he’ll get to later.