Eragon Four

Chapter Dragon Tales and Fate's Gift
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Characters Eragon, Garrow, Roran, Brom, Nameless Traders of sorts.
Special shiny magical objects in Eragon's possesion One Stone and then one dragon.
Summary
So now we get a bit of background information on Eragon's family. Apparently his mother left the small village of Carvahall and then came back, pregnant. She gave birth and then left the baby in her brother, Garrow's care. Garrow and his wife were apparently of the creepy sort because they let Eragon think that they were his parents until an unspecified point. We get a bit of Eragon Angst when he thinks that he wasn't good enough for his mother to stay (probably the third arm). His father is also nameless. Here we have the basic hero set up. Apparent orphan trope, his mother missing under mysterious circumstances and an unknown father. A father that must have been rich, because his mother came back very well and expensively dressed. Perhaps she had an affair with a rich noble, became pregnant and well that would be bad. We don't know. Still, his mother and father are presumed to be alive to reappear at a later date. Perhaps at a suitably dramatic moment. We shall have to see.
In the mean time we learn that they are waiting for the traders to come through. Now, these are the most amazing sort of traders I've ever seen. They go out trading during the winter. In the Snow. Where any sensible sort would be holed up somewhere warm. After all the roads during the winter would be dangerous, what with maybe getting snowed in some where or freeze to death or something like that. The people who traveled to the West on the Oregon Trail always made sure to leave so that they wouldn't be caught in the winter storms where they wouldn't be able to move or find food for their animals. Especially in the mountain passes where they could get trapped. I don't know where these Traders go, but it sounds like they go all over they continent. It would make sense that the would go somewhere warm for the winter months and back up northernly in the summer months. But that's just logic.
Eragon and Garrow go to a trader who specializes in jewelry where we learn several interesting things about the stone: it's hollow (this is an important point), it's harder than any rock, including diamond, and it was probably shaped by magic. Do we have these points? Remember them, they're important.
In a tavern, Eragon shows how special he is because he brings up a Very Good Point against some traders where he asks them to prove that they aren't lying in regards to talk of "Urkle" momvement and troop movements. Now there's no way to prove that they are lying or that they're not. The village is in a very isolated place and would get their information from traders, they have no reason to believe what they say isn't true or not. Not only that but they're rather against the Empire. Why is this odd? It's just that the Empire has very little impact on their daily lives. They aren't pressed for troops or taxes. The emperor could have changed six times and their daily lives wouldn't have changed a whit, but still they are against the emperor... because he is supposedly evil. But from what we have been exposed to he hasn't done anything evil at all. We are just told that he is evil, but haven't been given any evidence to support this (except for the fact that he has tax collectors and doesn't help them when the years have been harsh, but then again they are a small village out in the middle of nowhere with no strategic importance). He seems to be interested in keep the Urkles down, which is supposed to be a good thing, yet he is also considered evil. I don't get it. If I were these villagers I wouldn't care one way or the other unless it had a direct effect on my daily life, which it doesn't appear to have.
Now I shall prove that Brom is Galbatorix (or Galby as I'll call him). Brom tells the origin story of Galby, which deals with the defeat of the dragonriders. Through out the story, Brom gives information as if it were first hand knowledge. He says things like, "Though his friends and their dragons were butchered and he suffered great wounds, Galbatorix slew his attackers. Tragically during the fight a stray arrow pierced his dragon's heart" (page 32) Notice Brom doesn't say, "They say that..." but instead he speaks as if he knew it were the truth. Now three people were at the event, only one survived: Galby. The rest of the story goes on like this. He knows that Galby was found by a farmer and that he slept for four days, exactly. He knows about all sorts of things that only Galby or the person who was there would have known. Now he tells us that dragonriders are immortal unless blade or poison took them, and that this story happened many, many, many, generations ago so there is no way that Brom could have researched this by himself unless he was immortal. And Galby is immortal because he has a dragon. (He's had two). Not only that Galby goes on and slays most of the other dragonriders. It makes me think that these dragonriders were pretty wimpy if the group of them were unable to destroy thirteen of their own. I mean really. So, Brom knows vital information that only Galby or a dragonrider would know. All the other dragonriders are dead. Therefor Galby is Brom.
Now we move into Fate's Gift where the Stone proves to be an egg. Several times more the idea that the egg is hollow is reinforced. It makes interesting ringing noises. Eragon has an interesting idea of what hollow means. He thinks that, "Merlock said that the stone was hollow; there could be something of value inside" (page 35). Dictionary.com defines Hollow as: "having a space or cavity inside; not solid; empty: a hollow sphere." So, if it's empty inside, how can there be something inside of it that's valuable? This would indicate that it's not hollow. And it certainly wouldn't be giving off those nice ringing notes.
Nonetheless, the hollow stone hatches. Where the dragon comes from? I don't know, it must have teleported inside. Which then begs the question, how did the dragon get out? After all the egg is made of stronger stuff than diamonds and can't be scratched. I don't think the stone suddenly got any less tougher. Yet somehow the baby dragon was able to break out of it. That's some very strong baby dragon there.
One final point. Eragon hides his knife under his mattress. What sort of moron hides his knife under the mattress. You're supposed hide your money under the mattress and your knife under your pillow.
Category:Eragon
Category:Inheritance Cycle