Eragon Ten

Chapter Therinsford
Shiny Magical Objects in Eragon's Possession Zar'roc of DOOOM. Lots of Meat. >> Cadoc, a horse.
== Summary ==
Brom and Eragon leave their little nest of thorns. Here we get a lesson in Dragon Biology. Brom knows a lot about dragon biology. Far more than an ordinary person should know. Eragon doesn't question that. This is, also another bit of Info dumping. And I'm not really certain how necessary it is that we know about dragons life cycles. This is what Brom says about dragons and their life cycles.
"You see," he said, "When a dragon lays an egg, the infant inside is ready to hatch. But it waits, sometimes for years, for the right circumstances. When dragons lived in the wild, those circumstances were usually dictated by the availability of food. However, once they formed an alliance with the elves, a certain number of their eggs, usually no more than one or two , were given to the riders each year. These eggs, or rather the infants inside wouldn't hatch until the person destined to be its Rider came into their presence - though how they sensed that isn't known..." (112)
Now, let us look at this. It looks very clever on the surface, but there are some problems with it. First of all, an egg is supposed to be something that protects the baby until it's full grown and ready to hatch. There's food in the yolk sack and once it's gone, the infant is ready to hatch. This is one of the reasons why the infant hatches, because there isn't any food. If the dragon is ready to hatch, then it's not going to be able to survive in the egg all by itself with no food. Basically that dragon is starving to death inside the egg as it waits for the right time. Now, for the fact that the dragon is waiting for the right time to hatch, like food or something like that. These dragons are supposedly intelligent creatures, surely they would know not to lay eggs when there isn't enough food around. And usually, animals won't go into mating cycles when there isn't enough food around for their children to eat. Then there's the point of how did the dragons' biology change so that they went from hatching when there's enough food around to hatching when the right person is there for them? In the Pern Series, the dragon hatchlings were genetically modified to search the room of candidates and find the right person to bond with. It was a modification of the fire lizards ability to impress onto anyone who offered them food. There's no explanation for why these dragons would suddenly change their habits like that.
Another question I'd like answered is how many eggs are laid per clutch. This seems to be an important part of dragon biology. But it's not answered.
In any case, Brom goes on to talk about dragonic eating habits like how they don't need to eat for months at a time when they're sedentary and full grown. Brom knows an awful lot about dragon biology. Which, again, should be a specialized field. But Eragon, as I said, doesn't question this.
We then get the standard training scene. It's really very standard. There's nothing interesting in it that happens at all. Eragon gets beaten by Brom. Whoo. Actually, that's the best thing about it. Eragon gets beaten. I like Brom for that.
On their way into Therisnford they're stopped by a greasy looking man who demands a toll to cross the bridge. This man is bad. We know that he's because he's a greasy looking man and everyone knows that greasy looking men are not good. If the toll man had been an honest looking man, Brom probably wouldn't have stolen his money on the way over the bridge. But since he's greasy looking, it's perfectly okay to assume that he's not supposed to be collecting a toll and take his money.
And yet stealing is bad.
Brom and Eragon then buy horses. Brom gets a white stallion named Snowfire. Putting aside the fact that the name is just idiotic, I mean, snow fire... melted snow... water, and that seems to be trying to rip off the name Shadowfax, stallions are generally not the best sort of animal you want to have with you while traveling. They're rather temperamental. But stallions are cool. And Gandalf rode a stallion. Eragon, meanwhile, learns that he can talk to the animals! How useful. Apparently it's unusual for someone so young to have that ability. But Eragon is just special that way.
You would think, that while they were in Therinsford they would stop to buy supplies that they needed. Since all they had was meat. But no. Instead Brom has Eragon wait for him outside of the village and he goes and finds the Ra'zac's tracks. The man that Brom talks to described them with many shudders. So obviously they were something not nice to deal with and you would want to give them the information they wanted, but still, Sloan is evil for doing that. (There should be an icon that says, "Sloan's not evil, just missunderstod")
Paolini then throws in a "homage" to Weathertop. Brom and Eragon go by a outpost of the Riders where the last rider fell and Galby killed him. In a lovely display of missorder of information, Paolini names Utgard first before telling us what exactly Utgard is. He mentions the name several times and the reader is left wondering what is Utgard? Then he tells us it's the name of the rider's outpost.
Eragon then names his horse after his grandfather. Who must be important, if we're following the naming rules that Paolini has set down, because he's named Cadoc.
Category:Eragon
Category:Inheritance Cycle